Points of Interest

In his report of March 2007 ‘A Review of Employment Dispute Resolution in Great Britain’, Michael Gibbons recommends that ACAS should play an enhanced role in dispute resolution. The Government have reduced the budget of ACAS by some £3.2 million and we hear to-day that they are reducing their staff again – up to 20% reduction in recent times at a cost of around £12 million. How can they do more with less?

In addition Gibbons recommends replacing the 2004 dispute resolution regulations by a simpler more flexible process. We wait fore the white smoke!

I have spent some time over the years working on sickness absence schemes and helping clients reduce sickness – particularly short term unpredictable sickness. I know it is a problem for many employers.

I recently spotted an article in Personnel To-day entitled “GPs fear workers will create their own sicknotes under plans for an automated certification system”.
The government is looking to trial the computer-based scheme to overcome the long-running problem of doctors' handwriting. The electronic system could also encourage GPs to make better use of the 'remarks' section of the sicknote to help employers understand a workers' illness or injury.
But a BMA spokesman said: "Electronic sicknotes are not practical. It is only a matter of time before someone finds a way to hack into a computer and make bogus sicknotes."
The kind doctor added that he would discourage doctors from spending extra time on the remarks section of sicknotes as it was not their job to help employers. By comparison the Royal College of General Practitioners said it had been encouraging doctors to use the forms to tell bosses what patients could still do at work. Comments they could include are 'fit for part-time work' or 'is likely to wait three months for a scan’.
The Department of Work and Pensions said there were plans for a trial of electronic sicknotes in South Wales. A spokesman said: "We are in the process of procuring the necessary software changes to be able to test the use of electronic sicknotes."
If this scheme is introduced who will it help – probably not employers trying to deal with high sickness levels.
Finally, I featured comments about dyslexia in a recent blog entry. For readers concerned about this issue, a new code of practice to help employers support dyslexic staff is to be launched by the British Dyslexia Association (BDA) in September.

The code will give employers advice on supporting workers with dyslexia as well as guidance on policies and procedures relating to the Disability Discrimination Act.

For more information, visit www.bdadyslexia.org.uk

LIFO and Netreps

Just a couple of employment up-dates you may find interesting.

We have been saying the LIFO, last-in-first out, is good law and has been since redundancy was introduced. However, since the introduction of age discrimination it is now thought to be discriminatory against younger people who tend to have less service. Let me know if you want advice on safe selection methods.

Web sites like MySpace and Facebook leave an old sod like me way behind - I am only just getting to grips with this blog.

It seems that people are getting into the habit of checking potential recruits on this web sites that can contain more personal detail than applicants may have declared to you in interview, their CV's or application forms.It is called 'cyber-vetting', 'netreps' by the way are internet reputations.

If you are an employer there is no reason why you shouldn't use this form of check but beware. Avoid printing out these details - you may be providing a paper trail for a discrimination claim. You cannot be sure who put the details on the web-site. Do not use the information in any other way than to ask questions at interview and also seek to support or otherwise by references, etc.

If you are applying for a job make sure that your entries on these sites are suitable - clean them up. Don't brag about the amount of ale you consume or demonstrate any negative feelings - you don't know who is looking!

What do you think?