I listened to a very interesting slot on the ‘Today Programme’ this morning. It was designed to cut through the significant polarisation occurring between proponents of the ‘Plan A’ ‘Plan B’ economic argument raging at the moment.

You can listen to it here (Link)

Apart from the early assertion that expansionary contraction is never likely to produce growth (no matter how hard the Government try to make us believe it will), the main point that hit home for me was that the answer is all about risk appetite.

News that the board of RBS approving a bonus for CEO Stephen Hester has caused much consternation.

The political and media pressure has resulted in Mr Hester waiving the bonus. There is much discussion at the moment between whether the bonus was a contractual clause or a matter of discretion for the board.

In the end Mr Hester has taken a course deemed by many to be the correct, propriety rather than payment.

However, is it right?

For many people 2011 was a year to forget, rather than dwell on the past I thought we’d focus on the future. So no end of year “you’ve all done very well” nor even a “whoopee! It’s New Year!” blog post.  I thought I’d focus on the themes of back to business, building on our strengths, focusing on the future.

For anyone who does need an end of year reflection, this was done in part before the fireworks went up at Midnight on 31^st December, we were invited to contribute in the Summer to the XpertHR series on “My year in HR so far” (link) the blog focused on the impact of the significant rate of change in the Public Sector since the comprehensive spending review and it has to be said, the year continued from the Summer onward in the same vein,  fast, deep organisational change which was demonstrably having an impact on engagement, attitudes and behaviours as the year progressed. I am still of the view that this extensive organisational change will continue long into 2012.

Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house

Nothing was stirring, not even a mouse.

Lo! What’s that noise, someone quietly sobbing?

An interloper sat beside Santa’s fire

while he’s gone a-jobbing.

Stop this silly iambic pentameter; kids don’t go for that anymore you say!

“What’s wrong dear lady, why the tears?”

Fat, hot blobs run down her cheeks (and a fair bit of snot too, but we’re too polite to say).

All of us at Signal would like to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and prosperous and healthy 2012.

Below is our office opening times over the holiday period.

We will close at 1800 Hrs on Friday 23rd December and re-open at 0800 Hrs on Wednesday 28th December.

We will close again at 1800 Hrs on Friday 30th December and re-open at 0800 Hrs on Tuesday 3rd January 2012.

If you’ve seen the Chris Rock film ‘Head of State’ you’ll know that the ‘small man’ on the presidential campaign trail has a light bulb moment where he stops trotting out the prepared corporate line and to the outrageous injustices staring him in the face, shouts loud and clear “that aint right!” Of course with the magic of Hollywood a triumphant election campaign ensues, you can guess the rest.

We’re having our own “that aint right” moment. Trawling back through the wellbeing section on our website we have written about stress, toxic behaviour, messy management and a plethora of factors that contribute to ill health, lost productivity, excessive costs and damaged performance on numerous occasions.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne has today delivered the ‘Autumn statement’

A copy of the full statement can be viewed here: (Click Link)

Signal was pleased to attend the first NoOffence! Criminal justice conference yesterday. This relatively new group has, in a short space of time, brought together an impressive cross section of professionals all interested in criminal justice reform.

We at Signal are currently working with NoOffence! on a working group to improve employment support for ex-offenders and potential employers.

Today we feature a post by Suzy Dale, on the subject of ‘Workplace stress.’

Suzy is a highly effective Business Psychologist, and Owner of a new business psychology consultancy, Dale & Associates.  For more than 15 years Suzy worked as an Occupational Psychologist for Civil Service departments.  During this time she supported leaders by devising and implementing coaching and mentoring schemes, and providing evidence-based advice relating to employee engagement, stress and absenteeism and cultural change management. 

You can follow Suzy on Twitter. 

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There’s been a plethora of commentary about workplace stress recently, mainly as a result of the CIPD and Simplyhealth survey which showed that stress is now the top cause of sickness absence in theUK.  This has been on the horizon for some time, and now with the compounding influence of rising living costs, wage freezes and fears over job security, it’s hit the number one spot. 

The ideal of course for organisations is that staff are happy, healthy and here (ie in the workplace!),

The financial cost to the nation as a result of stress-related sickness absence runs into billions of pounds a year according to HSE.  However, I believe that behind this figure lies three hidden truths.

I watched the recent story about Executive Pay levels with interest. It’s always a slightly inflammatory story, but the current economic context  of public sector cuts, pay freezes, redundancies and a more general story of economic doom, make stories of anyone doing well seem incendiary.

The rights and wrongs of the report and the use of Mean and Median analysis have been much discussed. This story felt to me like an opportunity for a media feeling aggrieved on the part of the general population to target someone to blame. When everyone is struggling, not sure whether to blame government, bankers, economists or whomever, it is a popular message to sell that it doesn’t seem right when individually we feel that we didn’t contribute to economic difficulties that we should have to pay. When Government is promoting a message of shared pain, that there should be any group of people doing economically well seems wrong.