The Freelance culture-putting up with a lot

The recent report on the BBC – the Respect at Work review says freelancers are “excluded from various HR policies”.

We have been helping organisations manage their freelancers, and we know that many HR structures leave non-employees outside the normal remedies for bullying and harassment.

The law doesn’t.  The Equality Act applies to workers, not just employees – so drafting policies that apply only to employees leaves a big gap in your compliance system.

Freelance workers are the backbone of many creative organisations, and it is vital that they are properly contracted and managed.    The BBC is not alone in having more freelancers than employees.  But regardless of numbers, we all need to set up freelance structures in an appropriate way.

There are various individuals campaigning about bullying and harassment in the Arts.  The combination of short term funding, fragile tenure, and a ‘who knows who culture’ is fertile hunting ground for egotistical individuals to exploit young and attractive newcomers.  Temperamental management and tantrums are put down to ‘artistic temperament’, and this sets an example for junior supervisors.

It is chilling to see the report reveal criticism of HR on the grounds they are  “feeding the culture of fear about reporting” – (if true)  But it’s peculiar to see HR criticised by staff as ‘working for the management’ since HR is part of management!  Part of HR’s job would normally be to set up appropriate structures and arrangements for freelance workers and try to protect them from sexual harassment.    HR is not the employees’ voice on the board, nor their representative.

HR needs to make it plain that they are working for the management ― and to make sure they are doing so effectively.

The suggestion that some people accused of sexual harassmentwere protected and promoted is one we have come across in our own work.  Sometimes it is because the allegation (rightly or wrongly) is not believed, and there is no reason not to promote that individual.    We have also seen organisations who feel deeply in the power of their high producers – the million dollar salesperson, or the star.  Even though the organisation may know what is going on, it may feel too difficult to take the financial consequences of removing the individual.

HR should be working for the management and doing their job – creatingcontractual arrangements and structures that mean their organisation is not dependent on individuals in a disproportionate way (succession and contingency planning).

In many organisations HR is already doing this vital work, but in others HR is simply ‘not fit for purpose’ and is relying on a narrow interpretation of ‘best practice’ as a substitute for tackling the real issues in an organisation.

Many organisations are ‘mini-BBCs’ ― and it is truly troubling that some HR people made redundant from these outfits are taking this mindset into a new client base and promoting these policies and ways of working as normal or appropriate for growing entrepreneurial businesses to adopt.

We are working hard to improve the standards for freelance workers ― because that has positive spin-offs across the whole organisation.  We run regular free teleseminars on how to manage freelance workers.  Join the conversation and let’s hear your voice.

Annabel Kaye is Managing Director of Irenicon Ltd, a specialist employment law consultancy.
Tel: 08452 303050
Fax: 08452 303060
www.irenicon.co.uk
www.koffeeklatch.co.uk
www.balancingthebump.com
You can follow Annabel on Twitter

Do you work weekends? « Balancing the Bump

See on Scoop.it – Balancing the Bump

Annabel Kaye‘s insight:

Work is the process of exchanging time for money – how do you decide what to do?

See on balancingthebump.com

TwitterLaw

Twitter and social media started out being seen as some kind of ‘no laws ‘place where anything can happen.

Actually, that never was true, and if you are still thinking that is how it works you are working from the wrong understanding.

 

Twitter is a fabulous place to promote your business or express yourself.  Like any other place (real or cyber) there are laws that can tangle you up (or protect you). Lately we have seen Lord McAlpine sue Twitter users for libel , celebrities get into trouble for promoting brands without declaring they are being paid to do so , never mind the HMW Twitter redundancy stream.

Here are some key things any tweeter ought to know:

1. The law of libel and slander applies on Twitter.  You are ‘publishing’ something for everyone to read.  Do not tweet or retweet anything negative about a person unless you can prove it is true.  The fact everyone else is doing it does not get you off the hook.   Is it  good for your business to  complain a lot on Twitter anyway – even if it is fair comment – we all unfollow people who do nothing but complain about individuals – it doesn’t make for interesting tweets.
2.  You will see Twitter accounts set up with profiles that say “views are my own…” these are accounts trying to make it clear that the tweeter is just talking for themselves, not for their organisations.  This is because employers can be liable for what their employees tweet in the organisation’s name – even if they didn’t know it was being tweeted!
3.  If you are receiving money or benefits for promoting a brand  or mentioning it, then you need to make this clear.  If this is the purpose of your Twitter account you might set up the profile to say –“ sponsored  by xxxx to tweet about”….If it is just one tweet then” sponsored by xxx”  has to be in there.  Paid content is advertising however you look at it and is covered by the ASA code.  Re-Tweeting other people’s ads is fine as long as you are not getting paid/benefits in which case the same rules apply.
4.  Copyright law   While anything put up as a tweet is an invitation to retweet it (and your Twitter contract says it will be and there is no grounds for complaint if it is) you need to be careful about what your own original tweets contain.    Most newspapers have share buttons that include Twitter and simply tweeting an article you found on line using the site providers share is not going to cause problems (the terms of service on the sites usually permit this)  but if you are compiling the copy and reselling it via Twitter or some other form that is different.  There is a real different between a tweet out of what you saw in your morning newspaper, and paid content based on that being tweeted out so you can sell it.   There are lots of myths about copyright.   Make sure you are not working on a misunderstanding about what you are entitled to do.
5. Trademark law   If you are tweeting as a brand, you need to make sure it is not someone else’s brand before you starting building a following and talking to the world.  You can do a free search to see if the trademark is already registered (google it too).
6. Cyberbullying ,harassment and trolls.  You can block (and report) any user who sends you any tweet you don’t care to read.  You do not have to suffer abuse or insult on your Twitter account.  Twitter have a great page on what to do.   If you put up any material that is against the law, it is possible to get a court order and find out your account details.  The police can deal with harassment when it comes within the law so all the really nasty things that would get you into trouble in real life can have the same effect on Twitter.
7. You agreed a contract with Twitter when you set up your account.  You can read it here   It is one of the clearest of all the social media providers.   Some key things to be aware of:
   • If you don’t abide by the rules they can shut your account
   • They won’t pay you any compensation
   • You are liable for any breaches of copyright, libel  etc
8. If you have staff or sub contractors or external agencies tweeting for your brand then they can do as much harm as good.  In theory a professional should know what they are doing but then again recently an experienced IT specialist representing her brand at a conference put more than a foot wrong   If that is your employee tweeting your account you may be liable for what they do.
9. Some professions need to back up their tweets since their regulator requires it.  If you are an IFA, solicitor or professional giving advice make sure you are familiar with your own professional rules before you start.   It is not difficult to comply with the rules but it is important that you do so.
10. Make sure you have up to date passwords for all your Twitter accounts and that you can change then rapidly if something goes wrong.  If you are doing everything you can to put things right you are going to be in a much better legal position than if you let someone use your account for weeks to hack it, libel people or breach other people’s copyright.

These are not things that should stop you being on Twitter or using it to promote your brand – any more than you should refuse to advertise your brand because advertising is regulated by the ASA.  They are things you need to think about, get to understand and take care of.

We do short courses on social media and the law – the next one is in Croydon on 6th of June.  We also have a great social media policy that you can work through and issue to staff and anyone who is tweeting for you.   The combination of understanding and setting rules will really help to keep you safe and productive in the cyberworld.

For more information on our training or social media policy or resources around social media and legal issues check out our bitly bundle.  We update it as we work so it grows over time.

Annabel Kaye is a Director of Irenicon – specialist employment law and HR consultancy she founded in 1980. She is a keen tweeter http://twitter.com/annabelkaye  She has developed a range of social media policies for organisations such as the Public Relations Consultants Association, and is committed to helping entrepreneurs profitably manage the people side of their business.

No sex in the cupboard

@sastimos

I once worked for an advertising agency who were well known for their parties.

Over indulgence of very kind ruled and occasionally some unfortunate incidents resulted.  Before ‘compliance’ changed office parties the spirit of the age was entirely different to today.  Many people have a happy lack of memory of those times.

At a particularly enthusiastic party, a bright young account executive was caught in a coat cupboard with the wife of the MD of a very large account (people were not people to the Madmen – they were accounts).   Red faces ensued and an upset ‘Account’ removed a large amount of revenue.  Smart phones did not exist – so no photos were circulated of the entangled pair.

Next day our MD came to me and asked me to amend the company handbook so that it included a rule forbidding staff to have sex in coat cupboards with clients wives.  It took me some while to persuade him that this rule was too narrowly drawn – since it permitted sex in other locations, with other people who arrived with clients, and would give a rather odd impression to new recruits.

Since then I have reviewed countless contracts and staff handbooks and they often contain the strangest rules forbidding things that most of us would not think of doing at work.  Some of the strangest include “Do not set fire to your bible in the toilet”  and  “All emails must be copied to the MD”.

Policies and handbooks get longer as more things are forbidden.   Following some would even prevent work of any kind being done.  I once worked for a retail organisation who forbad staff to remain on the premises unaccompanied.  This worked fine when they owned only large stores but ran into a wall when they bought a chain of small stores, since having one member of staff off sick meant the store had to be closed to comply with the rule!.

This is typical ‘black hat’ thinking It’s no wonder that more than 60% of Which? readers said they had never read their contract.

“I never read mine I just threw it in a drawer”

“You only read them when things go wrong”.

Many new clients tell us they have issued contracts they don’t understand (or even don’t agree with) as they felt they had no control over what their contract said.

If all this sounds like a colossal waste of time and trees to you – you are right.

I heard a colleague talking to a client recently about drafting documents that documented success and not failure.  It set me thinking about how we are under using a fabulous tool in the employment relationship.

I recently attended a meeting of the Professional Speaking Association (PSA)  in London  and heard a wonderful talk by Richard Tyler Lake.  He talked about being a possibility architect.  The phrase really struck home with me.

What if we could make the ‘compliance’ side of contracts part of the structure for creating possibilities at work – instead of part of the structure of banning things?

We could have:

• tent poles and tents for the organisations constantly on the go to wrap their canvas over when they need to hunker down.
• prefabricated and customisable modern structures for people who are on a budget
• individually designed open spaces with great views and flow for those who want to build change into the heart of their organisation

With that inspiring through in mind and a whole load of new tent poles and prefabs to make (and a few unique masterpieces to  finalise) I am dancing my way towards a new generation of paperwork that is not just a waste of perfectly good trees or something to prop the office door open with.

For tentpoles and canvas for freelancers click here

For prefabs and modern structures for employees click here

For individual designs or a free evaluation of your existing contract talk to us on 08452 303050

Feedback or bullying – can we criticise our way to success?

I am not a sensitive soul or an introvert.  Most of my life I have walked right up to people and told them where I thought they were going wrong.  Not a lot of those people are still speaking to me.  

I was taught to speak truth to power.

Somehow in that process I forgot that people don’t always have a strong sense of personal power, and there are times and places when this loud truth of mine is best left unsaid.   Those who loved me learned to duck, and everyone else walked away.

I am an extrovert, and I learn about things through talking about things.  The world of the introvert –who needs to walk away and think in private – was a closed book to me for most of my adult life.  They couldn’t get a word in edgeways, while I thought if it was important they would say something, interrupt me.

I still take up a lot of the oxygen in the room, but over time some patient souls have gentled me into looking beyond my intention (always good, of course) and into the havoc I occasionally create with my unsolicited and trenchant views.

I host a forum on LinkedIn, on bullying, harassment and discrimination in the UK looking at ways to prevent it, detect it and remedy it.   I have come to realise the connection between bullying and our managerial idea of performance feedback and communication.

This week I’ve been on the sidelines of several groups where conflict has broken out around public feedback and criticism.   Those who were giving the feedback and criticism were all acting from a standpoint of helpfulness and a desire to improve the outcome of a process.   All resulted in the criticism being received in an agitated or hostile way.

If criticism is well intentioned why would the person respond in such a hostile way?

1)    The intention behind the criticism does not affect whether performance itself improves as a result.  I used to think if I meant well, I did well – and the other person was to blame if it all went wrong (they had too much ego, couldn’t handle it, etc.).  It just doesn’t work.

2)    Unsolicited criticism rarely results in any change in performance – the most likely outcome is an argument or hurt feelings (amygdala hijack).   This method may stop someone doing something but is not likely to improve how they do it.  Walk up to the next ten people you meet and tell them how they could look better, eat better, earn more money, and see how many answers you get that don’t include   “…..off”!

3)    Public criticism is usually viewed by people who receive it as abusive and counter productive.  The public naming and shaming of people is normally regarded as a punishment and not a motivational or feedback tool.

When a group comes together for a common purpose, it is easy to assume that the same purpose is shared . . . and that our own method of achieving that purpose is naturally the right one.    That is rarely the case.

Inside an organisation, public criticism of an individual’s work can amount to bullying – with all the emotional and legal complications arising from that.  Work on the principle of public praise, private criticism (and you will have more colleagues who like you too).

When we go online, we are in public.  The fact you can post to forums sitting on your sofa in your pyjamas can give a false sense of intimacy and privacy.  Try doing your social media more formally dressed to see if it changes your tone.

Criticism of all kinds abound on the online and offline world:

1)    Tactful – I wonder if you are trying to achieve….is that working?
2)    Direct – That needs improving
3)    Abrasive – That was a load of rubbish
4)    Abusive – You are an incompetent person
5)    Criminal – amounting to harassment and abuse that needs reporting

It is extremely rare anyone asks the question – What was the purpose of your action?  What was the thinking behind it?    I wouldn’t walk up to you at a party and tell you I hated your outfit – not if I wanted you to talk to me.

You remember that guy at the party/networking event/meeting  you hated – the one who walked across the room and without even being asked told you what was wrong with the country today? (then kept at it for hours).  Remember how he changed your political views?  Your career choice?  The only thing he changed was your mood!

Online presence is not an invitation to be insulted – any more than going to a party is!   The wisdom of crowds does not come from shouting so loudly no one can think, but in sampling opinions and asking questions.   Reserve to yourself by all means the ‘right’ to be critical online but if  want the person to change how they are doing things – you should know – it is not likely to work.

We all need to raise the bar when it comes to our performance as bosses, managers, colleagues, friends, members of communities.   We can’t complain our way to paradise or criticise our way to success.

Our KoffeeKlatch intervention service around performance management is designed to get you moving, and to sort out where your business or your people are getting stuck.

Annabel Kaye is Managing Director of Irenicon Ltd, a specialist employment law consultancy.
Tel: 08452 303050                  Fax: 08452 303060
www.irenicon.co.uk
www.koffeeklatch.co.uk
www.balancingthebump.com
You can follow Annabel on Twitter

Can we do redundancy with respect?

We all dread redundancy

I have a confession to make.  I have been making people redundant and helping employers to plan and implement redundancies for over 30 years.   But I am not as good looking as George Clooney

There are two other differences from the film clip – I don’t have a great script writer or the opportunity to re-run scenes when they go wrong, and I don’t believe that someone other than the boss should dismiss.

I have seen so many types of redundancy being implemented.  I’ve always done what I could to make the process as fair as possible, and the communication as clear and compassionate as possible.    I am not saying I have always succeeded.  Anyone in an advisory role can only achieve so much.  The truth is that the law requires certain processes at certain stages, but it does not require the human touch.

For many organisations, the human touch is simply not part of the management systems.  Between finance and metrics, goals, targets and measurements, the custodian of the ‘human touch’ is often not the manager – who has individual relations with each of their direct reports – but Human Resources.

I work with a number of HR specialists who display an admirable understanding of the people side of redundancy, and advocate open, clear and compassionate ways of communicating.    Other HR practitioners are much more focussed on compliance.

We have always known that some redundancy (and other) dismissals were coldly, even brutally carried out.   Over 2.7million people have been made redundant in the UK in the last few years, and the number is still rising.  If we’ve had a ‘failure rate’ of 10%, that’s an awful lot of people being treated very roughly.  The real numbers may be far higher.

When I started working with the Redundancy Crusader, I felt reasonably proud of the work I had done – all the planning, communicating, working through how to deal with difficult feelings.  Then I began to hear from individual people who had been made redundant.  Some had been subject to really brutal moments of rejection, but others had gone through what I would have regarded as a fairly standard procedure.

After a while it dawned on me that there is a long way to go even the best organised redundancy exercise before we really have got a process that would justify the title “Redundancy with Respect”.    A lot of the processes which I had taken for granted as self-evidently needed were causing trauma to individuals who were not given any kind of understanding about what was going on and why.  When we talked, they understood the thinking behind the decisions, but asked “Why wasn’t I told that was happening to everyone?”  “Why wasn’t I told that would happen?”   “Why did I have to find out that way?”

We are doing more harm than we know, and far more harm than we need to.  No-one likes to make anyone redundant, but that is no excuse for doing it as badly as generally we are.  If we can’t wake up to the human cost on a simple humanitarian basis and change what we do, then consider this:

All those hurt people (and their friends and family) are on social media.  Signing a compromise agreement may stop them complaining, but it won’t stop their friends and family feeling very negative about the precious brand you took years to develop.

We know that people use social media and the internet to choose fairtrade suppliers, and to monitor working conditions of workers in China.  Ask yourself what would happen if their view of your brand were to be influenced by how they saw your values as an employer?

Genuine “employee engagement” is not much helped by bolting on some bells and whistles, or special events.  It’s about the “brilliant basics” of the human touch on a day-to-day basis, and that’s never more important than when you are having a hard conversation about someone losing their job through no fault of their own.  We can, and we must, do better.

No ambushes
No surprises
No refusing to look at the person.

We are working hard to spread that word that Redundancy can be done with Respect.

If you are a boss or an HR person thinking of making someone redundant, click here to join us for this free teleseminar on Redundancy with Respect on 26 March at 12 noon or claim some free advice to get you started.

March 11th

Click here to here our appearance on Croydon Radio on 11^th March  

If you have time for a longer video, watch us on TV (video is just under an hour long)

Annabel Kaye is Managing Director of Irenicon Ltd, a specialist employment law consultancy.
Tel: 08452 303050                  Fax: 08452 303060
www.irenicon.co.uk
www.koffeeklatch.co.uk
www.balancingthebump.com
You can follow Annabel on Twitter

A tale of two TUPEs

“It’s a far better thing I do now than I have ever done before…”

Today I am going to tell you a story. Listen and pay attention, children, because there will be a test at the end.

Once upon a time a group of people in Europe thought it wasn’t fair that staff got fired when a business was sold. They also thought staff ought to be told in advance what was happening and what it would mean for them.

This resulted in the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 1981 (TUPE). This was a GOOD THING because lots of people didn’t get sacked. This was a BAD THING because the new boss couldn’t  just cut everybody’s pay.

It can be hard to tell a GOOD THING from a BAD THING, so you are going to have to pay attention.

It turned out that the Dutch have ways of doing business, like renting a business, that don’t really exist in the UK. The Germans had their own way of doing things, and so it went on.

Workers complained to the judges, saying they should keep their jobs when the business hadn’t been sold but their employer had changed. The judges said that even one part time cleaner could keep their job when their employer changed if they were an ‘organised grouping’.

Even the Germans, who are very good at being organised, were surprised. Everyone had to scratch their head about TUPE. This was a GOOD THING because it was fairer that all these business transfers were covered in the same way. This was a BAD THING because it meant it was hard for the boss to come up with a way of getting out of it all.

Bosses in the UK wanted certainty and ‘a level playing field’, although nobody had any as they had already been sold off years ago. The Government made new TUPE Regulations in 2006 which made it clear that the judges had been right.

All sorts of service industries from facilities management to PR were covered by the ‘service provision changes’ (SPC). This was a GOOD THING because people could stay in their old jobs without being sacked or having pay cuts. This was a BAD THING because the new boss couldn’t cut everybody’s pay.

A new Government arrived. They said it would be a GOOD THING for the bosses to be able to fire people more easily or cut their pay. Sacking people would reduce unemployment, and cutting their pay would encourage them to spend more money in the shops. Reducing unemployment and improving the economy are a GOOD THING.

The Government is asking for comments on making TUPE apply to some transfers and not others. This might be a GOOD THING because some bosses would make more money and might be a BAD THING because it would increase uncertainty.

Some service providers will find they are left with liabilities when their contracts end, since the ending of ‘gold plating’ (which was a BAD THING) means they will have to pay off workers they otherwise would have passed on to the new contractors.

This is a ……… THING – well work it out for yourself. Another round of TUPE changes is always a GOOD THING for employment lawyers (who wear wigs and not tupes at all).

Now here comes the test I promised. You need to make up your own mind and respond to the consultation documents by 11 April 2013. This is really important for anyone who is contracting out services, taking them back in house, providing services under a contract on an ongoing basis.

Click here to join the conversation on TUPE and the service sector and join our free teleseminar.

Follow Annabel Kaye on Twitter