Fathers and the workplace

"Did CIPD help her employer (or its large and well-staffed HR department and team) understand the regulations four years ago without either of us noticing?"

CIPD cannot force employers to read stuff and act reasonably.

No Steve, but it should be ensuring that CIPD members are practising within the regulations and (thus) that they act, at the very least, as the "pebble in the pond" and radiate their understanding and knowledge to others around them. The decision that came back was clearly flawed (which I pointed out, and why) yet had come from a department stuffed with CIPD members!

This was an important change to legislation yet in the four years since it changed it seems that the employer.... (are HR departments not part of the employer....?) had not adopted acceptable procedures and none of those members in place had (seemingly) pointed out the issues I did, just as none had pointed out the disparity in pay at the BBC, etc. etc. etc.

CIPD (I assume you mean its board) can't make employers....... But its members, who ARE really CIPD, most certainly CAN.

...And could do so even better, with proactive support when needed.

I have been "making employers...." do things for the last thirty years, by pointing out what will happen if they don't, because I have bothered to do so. Like thousands of our colleagues up and down this country. So CIPD (we) most certainly CAN "make employers....".

My "dig" at CIPD only now debating the issues was in fun, but the reality remains that lone-practitioners should not have to struggle to "make employers...." read the legislation, or anything else ALONE or with the limited resources we can offer here.

So whose responsibility is it to change that? Mine? Yours? Or the CIPD Board's?

Because someone needs to.

Don't they?

Now shall we leave it there?

P

So whose responsibility is it to change that? Mine? Yours? Or the CIPD Board's?

A collective responsibility... and progress is being made, isn't it? 

I'm still confused in that you appear to be suggesting (you can correct me if otherwise) that CIPD should proactively interfere in how employers apply flexible working regs even when a CIPD member within an HR dept may not have 'flagged' anything themselves[?]

Yes, absolutely it is a collective responsibility, but with far clearer determination and support needed from the "top down".

To use a different example, the discussions regarding the GDPRs have included a number of developing guidelines and indicators from CIPD, encouraging and responding to feedback from members, with the result that there is a (still developing but already fairly sound) clear and practical "position" that members can relate to and use as authority for their practice: We are, from top-down to the newest and most junior appointee, all both informed and able to point to the "collective" CIPD position and if necessary use that as a "big stick" to persuade other mangers and SMTs that they need to take notice of the new regulation and (by implication) the member as its "in house" advocate.

So the individual, lone, HR professional becomes the "pebble in the pond" spreading the message, with CIPD's "headline" authority to support them.

In the reverse direction, if someone decides to sing from a different sheet, that will be highlighted and obvious and (with very little effort) indicated as poor practice.

I think you are fundamentally misunderstanding my point (albeit not one I set out to make here in the first place) that CIPD is not a group of people in Wimbledon: It is every active member, in every workplace, and in retirement or college also! On that basis we should be communicating common professional messages and facilitating common good-practices, being led and supported in doing so by the Board of "our" organisation; not left to our own devices to fight our battles (metaphorical or practical) alone with only our own resources....and the unofficial support of this Community.... to rely upon.

Therefore: No I am very definitely NOT saying that the Board should be interfering in every issue or every workplace (I'm not yet senile and I hope have never been (entirely) stupid), but if a member, however junior, says to their MD that having a policy of automatic rejection of FW applications, or of granting them to mothers only, is unlawful and cannot stand, they should be speaking with the authority of that Board, and if they are not listened to, that Board should be facilitating whatever direct support or assistance is needed to get that message across.... Because that member is practising professionally; they are protecting the employing organisation's interest (even if its SMT don't realise that), and they are (thus) fulfilling both their contract and the requirements of OUR Code of Conduct.

So: Yes, CIPD should have a considered position on every major aspect of practice, (just as the Community does here) and for the same reason and largely by the same mechanisms; communication, consensus and mutual support of good practice, or condemnation of poor, and yes, those should be monitored and where necessary enforced.

Just as does every other professional body.

Or should we admit that gas-fitters do it better? :-)

(Please note: that last was a humorous remark, I am not suggesting CIPD should produce a load of hot air).

...and I seriously DO look forward to the outcome of the deliberations over FW. Whenever they arrive.

P

Just wanted to add my experience here of taking SPL, as unfortunately it sums up nicely one of the reasons a lot of men are reluctant. I requested 8 weeks leave not that long after the birth, for financial reasons as I would get full pay for 4 of those weeks and half pay for the rest; my wife would be down to statutory pay only by this point and was ok about returning to work for this time (although in the end regretted it and found it really hard).

Working in HR I thought I was leading by example and I was the first person in the firm to take up SPL. The head of HR (female) didn't seem overly enamoured when I told her I wanted this time off, but didn't seem too bothered either and it was all agreed. A replacement was hired to cover me for a total period of 3 months, and I was a bit annoyed that she was being paid about 50% more than me in full time terms (she was brought in on a 4 day a week contract but FTE equated to about 50% more than I was on). Still, I was pleased to be getting the paid SPL and had other priorities to worry about.

So then a week into the leave, Head of HR phones me out of the blue and says she wants to discuss a settlement with me. She alleged that after I left she had 'several complaints' from key stakeholders about me, and one of the others in the team had resigned and said part of the reason was that she didn't like me. She also saw my role developing in a direction she didn't feel I had the capacity to succeed in. Basically the option was to return to work at the agreed time and be performance managed, potentially be made redundant because the role was going to be re-structured to something I didn't have the capability for, or take the offer.

I had never had any feedback that there were major concerns prior to going and I was not given any details of who complained or what about (I suspect this was made up). To me the whole thing stank and felt like I was being got rid of because I had chosen to take SPL, of course the Head of HR was far too smart to actually say this. But would she have contacted a female 1 week into her maternity leave to have this conversation?

Anyway long story short, I got a solicitor involved and he agreed I had a strong case for discrimination. The settlement offer gradually grew and grew as the firm's legal side was unable to argue much of a case and I held out long enough for the offer to reach a level I could not refuse, just days before I was due to return to work. They were clearly terrified of going to Tribunal and the reputational damage that would do. Bear in mind while all this had been going on, I was still being paid my salary at the agreed rates and accruing annual leave. They also agreed to pay my legal costs. In all I recieved the equivalent of around 8 months net pay on top of the SPL time I'd been paid for. I had only worked at the company 2 and a half years! So yes that was good, but it was a very stressful couple of months at a time when I should have been at home enjoying being a new dad and instead was worrying about all this. Even with a strong case you still worry that you might go to court and lose, ending up with nothing. But I refused to take paltry offers and let them get away with it - especially given I work in HR and my boss really should have known better. She was unable to produce anything relating to the alleged restructure of the role so that looked like an empty threat, and of course was paying my female replacement a lot more money to do the same job. I'd had a positive appraisal and even a pay rise within the past year to reflect strong performance, so she was pretty much screwed and I think had chanced it, perhaps under estimating my ability to fight back!

I'm sure she covered her backside with the directors and blamed me, my solicitor, anyone but herself for the poor handling of it. But really her head should have rolled for this.

The point is while I managed to secure a good settlement many men would not have known where to begin and it is that worry of how they will be viewed if they take time off that stops them doing it. If an HR professional can be treated this way, what hope does anyone else have?!