As the war on talent continues companies that can attract and retain the best talent all have one thing in common, psychological safety, but what is it and why is it so important? Dr Amy Edmonson of the Harvard Business Review who originally coined the phrase ‘psychological safety’ shares that psychological safety is the belief that you won't be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes. In the workplace, it gives employees the confidence to speak their mind without the fear that their teammates will embarrass or reject them, and it creates an environment which fosters creativity. Psychological safety has a huge impact on how employees feel on Sunday night before returning to work on Monday morning. Organisations which lack psychological safety will find employees less likely to share ideas or voice concerns for fear of embarrassment or rejection and it can lead to increased turnover and lower employee engagement. Whereas those companies who create a safe space for employees to share ideas and bring their authentic selves to work will be rewarded with increased employee engagement, better team collaboration and a more creative workforce. ** So now we know why it is important, what can we do to create psychological safety in the workplace? ** It all starts with transparency. If you are a business leader or manager you need to be utterly clear and transparent with your team in order to build trust. Employees want to know the vision of the company, any challenges the business is facing and have a clear understanding of the company goals. Ask for feedback and reassure team members that their opinions and ideas are important and will be listened to. Be proactive and ask people for their opinions, then be respectful when they speak up. Be mindful that everyone processes information differently and while the extroverts in the team may be quick to volunteer their thoughts and ideas, the introverts may need more time to think about the question or process the information, so give people options of ways they can communicate. Encourage people to take calculated risks and reassure them it ok if they don’t succeed or make mistakes. Own up to any mistakes you have made as a leader and share what you have learnt from that. Then ask your team to share anything they have tried which hasn’t worked out as expected, and what they have learnt from it. Show value and appreciation of ideas. Establish an environment where all ideas are welcome by respecting the voice and opinions of others. Thank people for sharing their thoughts, you don’t have to act on all ideas put forward, but the more you acknowledge people for sharing their thoughts the more likely others will be to contribute. Get to know your employees, ask if they are ok. Show you care about them as people, and you will build trust which will give people the confidence to contribute. Follow through on your commitments and be precise with your expectations and information. To build trust your team need to know they can rely on you so set clear expectations and adhere to your commitments. Explain reasons for change and allow people time to process the change. Where possible, include your team in decision making. This will make them feel valued and you will get less resistance to change. Champion your team. People thrive with regular positive praise and recognition, instead of criticising things that have gone wrong, praise the things which have gone ri ght.
Part 1 | The business perspective ๏ปฟ The UK employment market has faced a lot of turbulence over recent years. From mass layoffs to mass hires, ‘the great resignation’ to an economic crash. Businesses owners and leaders have had so much to contend with over the past 3 years and the everchanging demands of managing a workforce has been a huge part of that. The initial reaction to receiving a resignation you weren’t expecting from a valued employee can often be “what can I do to retain you”. In fact, more than 50% of employees who resign are presented with a counteroffer (which is also why it’s SO important to put your best foot forward when making employment offers to new employees. The days of negotiating and ‘seeing what you can get them for’ are over!). But there is a staggering pattern between employees who accept a counteroffer and those who go on to leave within a short timeframe thereafter, usually within 6-12 months! Does that mean you shouldn’t counteroffer as a business? Not necessarily. The key if you decide to present a counteroffer to an employee is to listen, truly listen, and react. A counteroffer shouldn’t just be throwing more money at your employee or giving them a flash new title. Those elements can be important, but you need to establish why it’s necessary in the first place and react to those factors. Let’s take a deeper look… โ Promoting an employee because they feel their career has stagnated, but not backfilled their original role, in fact meaning the person now has a higher workload โ๏ธ Work on a collaborative plan to enhance an employee's role and potentially those around them at the same time to open up new challenges for your entire team, increasing engagement along the way โ Giving an employee a pay rise because they feel overworked for the money they are on โ๏ธ Understand how the employee has got to the point they feel overworked. What can you do to ease the pressure and/or offer more support โ Increase their holiday allowance because they want more flexibility or time โ๏ธ Look into how the business can better work towards integrating with employees home-lives and offer a genuine level of flexibility which goes beyond needing to introduce new benefits or incentives These are just some top-level examples of the dos and don’ts surrounding how to make a counteroffer work for your business. If your initial reaction is to panic and offer more money to employees who resign, you perhaps already recognise there’s more work that needs to be done surrounding employee engagement and wellbeing in your workforce. That doesn’t mean you have a bad business, with how much the last few years have thrown at us all it is so incredibly challenging to keep up with demands and new market trends! What’s important is that you take the time to listen and react in a proactive manner, which could prevent the need for any counteroffers at all! Get in touch for consultative support on navigating the world of employee retention and engagement.
Understanding how your holiday pay and entitlement works as a temporary employee can be confusing! Your agency should have a process in place to easily be able to provide you information on how much you have accrued to date and we have pulled this guide together to provide some insights: In line with Working Time Regulations (1998), all PAYE temporary agency workers are entitled to paid annual leave. Here’s a basic guide to understand how it works: 28 days annual leave (or 5.6 weeks as sometimes referred to) per year to include the 8 statutory bank holidays Holiday accrual is calculated as 12.07% of your hourly rate, for each hour that you work The 12.07% relates to the statutory annual leave you’re entitled to. If you divided 5.6 weeks’ holiday by 46.4 weeks (both combined equalling the 52 weeks in a year) you get 12.07% As per most permanent employment contracts: Annual accrued whilst working on a temporary basis is to be used within the holiday year and cannot be carried over to the following holiday year Your holiday year will be specified when you receive a booking confirmation from our team You will only be able to claim holiday pay if you have accrued enough within your holiday year to cover the time off you have requested. For example if you have requested 5 days annual leave but have only, to date, accrued 3 days annual leave, you will be paid for 3 days and will take the other 2 days unpaid If you’re temporary assignment ends and you still have some holiday entitlement accrued, this will be paid out to you when we issue your P45 at the end of your employment with us FAQs How do I take holiday pay? As with any employment, your annual leave needs to be approved by your line manager, at which point you must also inform us as your employer to ensure we are able to process the correct pay for you. What happens to my timesheet whilst I’m off? You do not need to input anything on your timesheet for the days you are on annual leave. As long as you have followed process and informed us in advance, we manage this for you and ensure you receive the correct pay. What happens if my contract ends and I haven’t used my accrued holiday? Any outstanding accrued holiday you have remaining at the end of your contract will be processed to you at the end of your employment when we issue your P45 If I don’t want to take annual leave, can I request my holiday pay? Unfortunately not. You can only request your holiday pay for periods of annual leave, or at the end of your employment contract. If permanent colleagues in my team are entitled to more annual leave than is statutory, will I receive the same? Yes, once you have hit your AWR qualifying period (from week 13 of your employment), you will be entitled to the same perks and benefits as someone in the same job as you in the business, which will include holiday entitlement. We keep on top of this process for you and request the necessary information from whichever business you are working within and will adjust your annual leave entitlement accordingly as well as inform you of any changes. Hopefully this article helps clear up a few mysteries around holiday pay and entitlement for temporary workers! If you have any further questions please don’t hesitate to contact your consultant, refer to your booking confirmation or call us on 01132337760
Sustainable growth starts with your leadership team. This is a phrase we hone in on to emphasis the importance of having the right people in the right roles, especially as you get further up the chain of command. Attrition at any level causes issues and develops strain within a team / business environment, but when your leadership team or board of directors begin to move on, it can often cause a ripple effect in the business as well as drastically increase the workload for you and your most valued employees. So wouldn’t you agree it’s important to focus on retention right from the outset through enhancing recruitment processes? Our Executive Search division are passionate about delivering against our retention model that so many agencies overpromise on. What does this mean for you? Upfront consultancy to ensure the role on offer is attractive with the best chance of securing top talent 6 – 12 month rebate periods with retained campaigns Support on developing interview and assessment techniques 3 monthly employee reviews for the first 12 months with placed employees We’re committed to delivering on our partner promise and work to remove as many obsticles as possible in the recruitment process. Want us to go that step further? Our team of experts can support with or fully facilitate employee engagement workshops centered around feedback and benefits benchmarking in your business. Contact our Executive Search Director, Davina Cooke, for more information on our retention model.
Employment fraud is increasingly on the rise and it’s important you know how to spot the signs! What is employment fraud? Employment fraud is when scammers and fraudsters contact you posing to be a recruitment agent or agency and offer you the chance of employment. More and more, fraudsters are stealing the identify of established recruitment agencies and using their brands in their outreach, making it appear legitimate and harder to detect fraudulent activity. Employment fraud comes in many different shapes and sizes, but here are some examples of how it could occur: • Being asked to pay for DBS checks or other employment checks. • Being asked to pay upfront for travel / accommodation / relocation costs. • Being asked for personal details that aren’t relevant to the job seeking process. The gov.uk website released come guidance on how to spot signs of job scams and employment fraud: • Poorly written job adverts • Suspicious contact details • Unrealistic salary • A job offer without an interview • Being asked for money before starting a job • Illegitimate companies or email addresses • UK domains Certainly in the UK employment market, it’s incredibly unlikely that any recruitment agency, especially those accredited by The Recruitment Employment Confederation (REC), would offer you a potential job with no phone calls, no interviews or virtual-video screening. Our practises At Jo Holdsworth Recruitment we only make contact with you through means where consent has been provided. For example, if you have contacted us directly, applied for an active vacancy or are actively registered on a job board we partner with and you have given consent to the job board for your details to be visible to recruitment agencies. Under no circumstances would we make initial contact via WhatsApp. At no point during your journey with us would you be asked to part with your own funds. Our support and services to job seekers are completely free and we cover the costs associated with securing new employment for you. Our website and LinkedIn profile are kept up to date with our current employees for reference. If you have received any suspicious communication we would strongly encourage you not to engage or respond, not to provide any personal data and not to part with any of your money. Please call or email our team for clarification on any attempts of contact if you’re unsure, we’d be happy to help. How to report If you believe you have fallen victim to an employment scam or any other cyber crime, you can report it to: www.actionfraud.police.uk
Under the new Labour Government, we’re expecting to see big changes that will impact multiple aspects of UK employment Law, some could be introduced as early as October 2024 while others are expected to take up to 18 months to come into effect in the workplace. More details on this are expected to be released in Octobers Employment Rights Bill. Here’s what you need to know: Day one employment rights – Perhaps one of the biggest expected changes to current employment law is employment rights from day one of employment, including but not limited to, the removal of parental leave qualifying periods and an employees length of service being connected to unfair dismissal cases. In addition, it’s expected that there will be changes to the code of conduct permitted within an employees probationary period. Harassment in the workplace – Strengthened legislation is expected to be introduced ensuring employers have a duty to take ‘all’ reasonable steps to prevent harassment in the workplace, and additional protection for whistleblowers. SSP – The removal of the current 3-day waiting period for statutory sick pay is expected to be introduced, with a new banding applicable to those earning below the lower earnings limit. Right to switch off – New legislation is expected to give workers ‘the right to switch off’ to prevent the benefit of working from home becoming the burden of homes turning into 24/7 offices. Similar models have already been successfully introduced in neighbouring countries and are said to be constructive in setting boundaries for employers. Dismissal and re-engage – Also known as fire and re-hire. This subject had a new code of practice legally introduced in July 2024 whereby the principal of making a worker redundant and re-hiring them on lesser terms, was formally made unlawful. It’s expected the new government will be introducing a strengthened code of practice. In addition to the above, it’s likely changes and new legislation will be introduced around maternity protection, 0 hour contracts, increased time limits for employment claims, collective employee grievances, menopause action plans for large firms (250 headcount+) , the removal of age bandings in relation to minimum wage and national living wages and more. For further information, guidance or policy support, contact our team for further d etails.
Why Choose Jo Holdsworth if You’re Looking for a Leeds Recruitment Agency
What to Look for in a CV
How to Write Job Descriptions That Attract the Right Candidates
How to Onboard Well in a Hybrid Environment
Interviewing for Team Alignment: A More Inclusive Approach to Culture Fit
A Practical Guide for Growing Businesses and SMEs
