As you’d expect, we read about tribunal cases all the time.

And occasionally, as last week, I feel I have no choice but to share with you the idiocy of the employer involved, in the hope that you won’t make the same mistakes.

This week is no different, and this time it’s the NHS in the firing line.

As this case went all the way to a tribunal, we know exactly what was said.

A job applicant had been refused a job because they would, “Not fit with the team”.

Plus, they were told by the manager, Dr Lee, that he, “Would feel uncomfortable asking you to do things given you have an 11-year-old child”.

Dr Lee also said that the applicant, “Had so much more to give compared to other applicants”, but that it was “better to employ someone at an earlier stage of their career as they would then progress to develop their career over a longer period elsewhere in the NHS”.

Wow! So effectively, Dr Lee was saying, “You’re great but we are going to hire someone younger”!

[Read more…]

It’s an accepted “fact” of business life – women are more expensive to employ than men.

But is it true?

Few people like to go on the record about it – largely through fear of getting a knock on the door from politically correct vigilantes.

Employers and employment bodies have traditionally been shy of undertaking any kind of meaningful study into the costs of women in the workplace.

Despite this, there appears to be a real fear that employing women can cost a business dearly.

A survey of HR professionals by Croner Consulting suggests that some four fifths of employers instinctively think twice about employing women of ‘childbearing age’ – which is basically all women nowadays, as the current UK oldest new mother is 66!

That means the assumption that women are more expensive to employ could be affecting 10.9 million women throughout the UK.

Even removing the subjective from the discussion, leaving out the whys and the wherefores, answering the simple question ‘are women more expensive to employ than men?’ takes diplomacy to entirely new levels.

So how does the expense theory stand up to scrutiny?  Here are some of the most common assumptions (and the truth behind them)”   [Read more…]

I bought myself a new Fitbit for Christmas.

I kind of had to, because I lost my old one at the end of last year, and while health is actually the point of exercise, turning it into a competition makes me far more likely to engage with it!

I didn’t want one of the big watch ones.

In fact I didn’t want a watch at all, I wanted something to clip onto my belt.

You see, I haven’t been able to wear anything on my wrists for any length of time for years; since the children were born.

I used to love watches, that was my reward when things went well at work: buy a new watch.

But as soon as Frances and Christopher came along, all of a sudden I couldn’t wear a leather strap, nor metal or plastic, without developing an incurably itchy wrist.

Gold bracelet? Nope.

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You might think that once you’ve got a box of Christmas decorations, you’re done – the same collection can come out and go on the tree each and every year.

But that’s not how I operate – despite developing a reputation for Grinchiness, I do rather love the festive season, which is why I’ve been busy this week, buying more decorations.

And not just any decorations – some beautiful pieces from Taitu; an Italian company and my favourite craft company.

They’ve “discovered” email marketing this year, which means I’ve been getting missives from them several times a week with new products.

One of those emails featured a truly beautiful heart shaped decoration that I just had to have, so – after managing to navigate the website with only a cursory knowledge of Italian, I put the item in my basket and headed to the checkout.

And that’s when my first roadblock presented itself – it turned out that to get free P&P in the EU I needed to spend €40.

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As you’ll know, from the many, many (many) emails sent out by retailers, last week was Black Friday – the one time of the year when my cynicism gives way to be desire for a bargain.

I’ve wanted a robot vacuum cleaner for ages, and the discount day gave me the perfect excuse to splurge.

Not that I needed much of an excuse – with two teenagers and a small dog in the house, there is A LOT of dirt brought in every day.

And when you add in the fact that I’m usually barefoot at home thanks to our underfloor heating (which I really wouldn’t be without), it’s fair to say that we need our ground floor vacuumed pretty much every day.

Thing is: life’s too short to be doing this, which means that for a long time I’ve just been putting up with a floor that really fails the ‘clean enough to eat off’ test.

[Read more…]