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Apparently, the practice of blocking sites like Facebook and Twitter is on the increase with nearly a third of UK companies doing so. It may be sensible to block social networking sites to prevent IT security breaches, especially as these sites don’t seem to make security a priority.

It seems though, over time, organisations eventually tend to move their practice to keep pace with social and tech trends – witness the growth of computer and email then mobile telephone access during the late 20th Century.

As people can access social networks through smart phones, driving up efficiency seems pretty unlikely. In any case, surely updating your “social status” is no more time consuming than sending SMS messages or chatting outside the kitchen!

Do you think it’s worth trying to block access to social media?

Photo: Siddhu 2020, Flickr

The well-respected Flip Chart Fairy Tales website has recently covered some important themes relating to the challenge of improving efficiency and productivity in the public sector. Rick points out the differences between manufacturing and service sectors and the lessons of systems thinking. The track record of UK industry in productivity improvement has, indeed, been gradual rather than dramatic and public services have to move far faster.

It seems, though, examples of public sector inefficiency are not hard to identify. In September 2010, an anonymously penned article in the the Guardian echoed the feedback from public servants working across the UK, describing a number of examples of waste in public services -

• poor recruitment and appointment decisions,
• poor management handling of lazy and inept staff,
• poor specification, deployment and use of contractors,
• waste, bad design and poor delivery of major IT projects,
• poor economy in travel and expense practice.

While, perhaps, indicative of a culture that values neither productivity nor efficiency, addressing all these issues would be insufficient to tackle the level of savings envisaged by the Coalition Government’s austerity measures.

In other respects however, the observer focuses on a far more important issue -

“… teams tend to blindly follow out-of-date procedures while others create new measures and protocols for the sake of it – and no one stops to question the need for so many reinventions of the wheel. Much of my present role has come about because of the need to redo work that was never completed to a remotely adequate standard.

The same thing happens whenever “efficiency savings” are called for: another big review gets under way, the same problems are discussed, committees are created … and then everyone carries on as before. Instead of waiting like martyrs for the axe to fall, the civil service could act. It could forget about further costly top-down examinations of recurring problems and instead ask everyone to take it upon themselves to do something about wastage.”

While this diagnosis may seem over-simple, it reveals an important truth. It is often within the outdated and ineffective working practices – which have accumulated over many years – that most of the inefficiencies remain deeply locked. To make effective change here, far more radical solutions are required and, in some places, shared services are seen as the answer. However, this response to inefficiency can be worse than the original problem. Read the rest of this entry →

Photo: Darrren Hester, Flickr

An article in Consulting Magazine recently suggested benchmarking was a practice which was destructive because it distracts attention from the need to build upon core competences.

Paul Leinwand and Cesare Mainardi, co-authors of the recent Harvard Business Review article “The Coherence Premium,” suggest companies should be paying attention to their own distinct capabilities.

Organisation become profitable through maximising the benefit they derive from those competences them by matching them to market opportunities.

The authors produce an interesting analysis of the coherence with which organisations decide how to bring together the capabilities they need to “face the market” with the needs of their customers. They say -

“The engine of value creation is a system of three to six capabilities that together allow a company to compete in a differentiated way.”

Booz & Company have, apparently obtained further thoughts from the authors (who don’t refer at all to benchmarking in the report) and summarised their views that benchmarking is often evidence of the absence of strategy, distorts the true nature of competitive advantage, discourages differentiation and ties up valuable resources. That’s pretty damning!

So is benchmarking “destructive”? Read the rest of this entry →

In 2009, sickness absence levels in the UK declined to the lowest level since 1987, according to the CBI. The Absence and Workplace Health Survey, conducted with Pfizer, showed a strong reduction in public sector absence levels though still some gap between public and private sector organisations.

Many commentators have speculated on the link to increasing job insecurity and resulting  pressure not to take time off sick. Looking at absence trends at a time which coincides with high levels of insecurity among public sector workers it is very easy to conclude there is a link.

There is, however, quite a time lag between the period reflected in the report’s absence figures and when its publication and reporting as “news”. Job insecurity is a key concern in 2010, but was somewhat less prominent in the public sector a year ago … the time these figures relate to.

It is also important to remember absence management and staff wellness initiatives have been a key issue of focus for public sector managers. Attractor works with the NHS and, following Agenda for Change, there has been a degree of stability (now coming to an end) which enabled organisation to develop new proactive approaches to absence management – the successes were recognised in the Boorman Report which made recommendations for improving attendance.

But what lies ahead? Read the rest of this entry →

Central Manchester University Hospitals Trust recently announced it’s plans to withhold incremental pay increases for employees who have taken more than 18 days off sick or had four separate sick absences. This move forms part of it’s plans to save £120m by 2014 while protecting services.

The Trust was keen to point out that the new policy, being introduced from 1 October 2010, would be discretionary and would be applied in a manner that would not be discriminatory for people with long-term illnesses or those with disabilities.

NHS organisations are clearly looking for ways to save money but potential savings from implementing this policy would probably be “vanishingly small”.

UNISON officials reflected there was nothing in existing contracts providing that staff could be denied increments on the basis of absence and expressed the view NHS Trusts acting in this way would be in breach of the existing employment contracts and confirmed it would take legal action on behalf of affected staff.

In an article in Personnel Today, a legal adviser from Beachcrofts said the legality of the scheme would depend on what the staff contracts of employment say and how flexible the Trust is in applying the policy. He suggested it was unlikely the employment contracts were so prescriptive as to set out a mechanism for deciding upon pay rises and considered employers would normally have flexibility to consider a variety of factors when looking at pay rises.

So what is the position and how will the organisation fare if it proceeds without a local negotiated agreement? Read the rest of this entry →

More adverse comment has arisen about failings in public sector management as well as suggestions that public servants are lazy and inefficient.

Comments made by Tony McGuirk, the Chief Fire Officer of Merseyside at a Reform thinktank event in June were circulated at the recent TUC conference.

His words have been roundly condemned by some, called “a withering attack” by unions and used by others to support predictable criticismof public sevices, suggesting they are “crammed to the rafters” with lazy employees who can’t be sacked.

Supporting the view it was possible to overhaul public services, improving performance while saving money, Mr McGuirk explained managers should develop or ultimately sack people showing  poor performance – some of whom he said were “bone idle” – and raised concerns that managers often lacked sufficient “muscle”. In fact, he has recently apologised for using “inappropriate language” when talking about the need to confront poor performance and an epidemic of sickness absence.

Is the public sector prone to idleness? Read the rest of this entry →

Photo: Material Boy, Flickr

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has recommended wider use of performance-related pay in the public sector while Personnel Today’s “Austerity Panel” has rejected this as a technique for improving productivity.

Yet when the government has used performance-related pay and bonuses as an incentive for public sector workers, it has faced criticism. Writers at the Tax Payers Alliance appear to consider public sector workers unworthy of reward for performance!

Personnel Today quoted Graham White, HR Director of Westminster Council and Roger Seifert, Professor of Industrial Relations and HR management at Wolverhampton Business School as contradicting the CIPD’s suggestions – highlighting the difficulties and distorting impact of performance pay.

So what evidence is there on successful use of performance pay in the public sector? Read the rest of this entry →

According to research from Knox D’Arcy, public sector organisations are falling behind the private sector because of less effective management. The research suggests local authorities are around 27% less effective in their staff utilisation than the average private sector business.

With these findings published, there has been predictable reaction from many quarters – with the some unsurprising “public sector bashing”… simply making people work more effectively will solve the financial crisis facing public services … though some voices offier stout defence of public sector institutions against private sector bias.

This has been balanced out by a range of “messenger shooting” incidents. Public sector union UNISON has said the study is “misleading, unrepresentative and unhelpful”.

While it’s difficult to come to certain conclusions from what has been published, the findings are certainly worth some exploration. Read the rest of this entry →

Photo: bixentro, Flickr

The article Are Poor Managers the Weak Link? looked at impact of poor manager performance on organisational productivity and questioned the effect on the public sector’s capability to deliver the transformation required over the next few years.

Recent research by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) has added some interesting facts which give new context to the concerns raised earlier. Commentators have suggested the research show managers are guilty of self delusion.

Undertaking research covering more than 2000 managers in the UK, the CMI research revealed that 63% of managers had no management training before taking up a senior post and only 20%  of managers hold any type of formal management qualification.

As well as the lack of training and qualifications, CMI believes the problem reflects the fact that people have become managers “by accident”, having had no desire to become a manager when they embarked on their careers.

Promotion to higher level of authority and responsibility without training or qualifications was leading to real difficulties. Read the rest of this entry →

When the coalition government came to power it was given credit for the protection it offered to health services by ringfencing NHS budgets. The Coalition Government has come under pressure to reverse its pledge to ring-fence health spending in order to protect other services but as yet has not backed down.

It was also assumed, from the Conservative Party manifesto, the NHS would experience a period of stability. Even with known financial pressures, it was anticipated the same level of difficult choices facing other public services would not be required in healthcare organisations.

The publication of the NHS White Paper turned all this on it’s head.  With many national health agencies and the regional infrastructure being dismantled, plus the commissioning arrangements being fundamaentally re-drawn, the NHS is now anticipating the most turbulent period in living memory.

It should come as no surprise the NHS is under pressure to be more productive – after more than a decade of significant investment in both facilities and staff.

But delivering this improvement will be hard at a time when the NHS is being asked to plan savings totalling £20bn to be able to live within its means, the entire structure of the health service is being shuffled.

So what progress is being made? Read the rest of this entry →