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Did I know someone who could help? When I am asked this question it is not always clear whether the questioner wants a contact, just a name, email address and telephone number, is angling for some advice or is hoping to get me interested enough to get involved.

I am surprised so few managers ask for help because in my experience such a request is rarely refused outright. Maybe the recipient is flattered or curious but they are nearly always willing to hear more. But just as some managers are reluctant to ask for help those who do often seem hesitant about following it up.  Why would it take four weeks to respond to an email saying yes I can help? Is it because they didn’t really want the advice? Perhaps the suggestion came from their boss and was seen as an implied criticism. May be they were hoping the boss would give them the additional resources they needed not the name of someone from outside who would borrow their watch to tell them the time. Maybe they were put off by the awkward questions the request prompted questions that could be interpreted as criticism as in have you done this, have you tried that, if not why not? Or maybe the biggest obstacle was the boss and how could they say that to the bosses mate? It could simply be in the current harsh financial climate they weren’t sure how much this help was going to cost and whether they could afford it. And there is always the suspicion that they believe their situation, their circumstances and their organisation are so different that what worked somewhere else is never going to work here.

Blair McPherson author of Equipping managers for an uncertain future published by www.russellhouse.co.uk

I had my flu jab this weekend and it was free but for how much longer?

I went to see the film Contagion at the weekend all about a global outbreak of a deadly virus. The film was given an added poignancy by the fact that I had received my annual flu jab that morning. Like a lot of other people I get it free on the NHS because I am in a high risk group. This seem a good example of a health service rather than a sick service that is keeping people well rather than only treating them when they are ill.

I first started having flu jabs when I worked for social services in a childrens home. The manager was keen to reduce the risk of lots of staff going off sick with the resulting implication for covering shifts to say nothing of the cost in overtime! As staff we agreed to this not so much for flu prevention but because we knew that as live in staff if you did go off sick and had received the flu jab you would be sympathetically treated and the opposite was also true.

As a senior manager in social services I encouraged staff working in residential homes or as home helps to have the flu jab. At the time we were happy to pay for it because we recognised we were supporting large numbers of very vulnerable people who would not be able to survive at home with out there three or four visits a day to provide meals, help dress and toilet , get into and out of bed and supervise the taking of medication.

These days residential care and home help services have largely been past to the private sector. Instead of the local authority social service department providing a home help service it now has contracts with dozens of small and medium size business to provide home help. The same is true of residential care my local authority now directly runs only a handful of Homes but has contacts with over 500 in the private sector. Do these employers pay for their staff to have a flue jab? As a senior manager I considered making it part of our contacts but the homes rightly pointed out they couldn’t make staff have the jabs. The thing is with the private sector they are only going to do something if it helps the bottom line.In other words will they save more money in reduced sickness than it costs to provide the jabs? Which of course depends on whether they pay sick pay and over time. Staff on casual contacts or self employed don’t get sick pay and some companies don’t pay over time.

 We know what the consequences are for vulnerable and dependant people if their home help doesn’t come but what are the consequences for the provider who admitts visits are being missed due to staff sickness? Do they lose the contract? What if there is no one else able or willing to take over the contract? What happens in the mean time to the frail elderly people or those suffering from dementia who missed their visit today and will miss out again tomorrow?

Which brings me back to free flu jabs and the NHS promoting health rather than just dealing with sickness. If we continue to model health care on the private sector as we have for social care then it won’t be long before I am paying for my flu jab.

Blair McPherson is a commentator and writer on equality and management development in the public sector. His latest book Equipping managers for an uncertain future is published by www.russellhouse.co.uk

If you have lead responsibility for developing and delivering equality and diversity in your organisation here are some tips you may find helpful.

I have been heavily involved in developing and delivering Equality and Diversity strategies in a number of organisations and have a few tips on what increases the chances of success and makes life easier for the person with lead responsibility.

Get the senior management team to show their commitment to the rest of the staff. They can do this by taking it in turns to open and close the training sessions, make frequent references to the strategy and training in their staff news letters or blogs. This is a lot easier if they have been on the training themselves. Also if the senior management team receive regular updates on the strategy and the work of the Equality working/ steering group they have something to comment on. All this helps raise the profile and convince staff that this is something senior managers treat seriously not just you. It will also encourage the Equality group.

The Equality working group can be very effective champions. This is more likely to happen if they have been involved in reviewing the strategy and training even better if they have attended the training and made suggestions for improvements.

A lot of training comes to nothing because when staff return to their team/place of work they often find colleagues who haven’t been on the course are cynical or dismissive. This is less likely to happen if the manager has been on the course so getting mangers on the course or to a workshop about discussing equality issues in their teams is a priority.

Awareness training is just the start the next step is to look at helping managers manage a diverse work force and how to make this part of the organisations management development programme. .

There is a detailed case study which I am sure you would find helpful in Equipping managers for an uncertain future and there are lots of innovative good practise ideas and training material in An Elephant in the Room- an equality and diversity training manual both published by www.russellhouse.co.uk .

An individual copy for each member of your Equality working group would be a small investment.

Blair McPherson commentator and writer on equality and management development in the public sector.

One of the biggest confidence tricks of recent times has been to convince people that change is good. It clearly flies in the face of experience to claim change is always for the better. Yet whist the claim is not made people are still expected to behave as if it was self evident. If you are not in favour of change you are dismissed as old fashioned, you are anti progress and you are not a realist.

Change in the Public Sector has come to be presented as improvement. So if you are against change you are against improving services or making them more efficient. This is of course nonsense since most of the opposition to change in the Public Sector is because people believe far from improving services it will result in deterioration in services. What are so often presented as efficiencies are in fact budget savings and cuts in services.

Change is often the pretext for giving the impression of dramatic action whilst in fact achieving very little difference but causing a lot of disruption, distraction and distress. I am thinking of all those management restructurings and service reorganisations that promise so much, take forever to implement yet achieved so little they have to be done all over again every 2 or 3 years.

Whatever happened to “if it an’t broken don’t fix it”? The problem was increased demand, the problem was a cash limited budget, the problem was not the NHS or Social Service doesn’t work.

The most convincing lies are always the biggest and they don’t come much bigger than change is good.

Blair McPherson author of Equipping managers for an uncertain future and People management in a harsh financial climate both published by www.russellhouse.co.uk

Nothing personal but let’s get rid of the chief executive. Not a particular chief executive but all the chief executives in local government. What do they do anyway? There is support from some in Government who think chief executives have been taking the piss over pay and the use of corporate credit cards. The Daily Mail that barometer of middle England believes no one in the public sector should be paid more than the Prime Minister. You don’t need a leader of the council and a chief executive. In fact in most authorities one of them is in charge and the other provides the support. If both think they are running the place then it usually ends in tears. Now of course there is an extra dimension the elected Mayor. This idea has not been popular with local councillors who see it as a reduction in their powers but both Labour and the Conservatives have promoted the idea of one person in charge      who the public directly elect and can hold accountable. They point to the success of big cities like New York and London. You can’t have three people all thinking they are in charge.

I have some experience of working in a local authority where the chief executive left and they decided to divide the responsibilities, increasing the power of the leader of the council and creating a post of head of paid services. The problem was that most of the staff didn’t appreciate the difference between a chief executive and a head of paid services and just treated it as a name change, other agencies viewed it as a down grading of the post and keep saying whose really in charge and the large Departments like Education, Social Services and Environment took it to mean they were free of central control. The experiment didn’t last. Following a number of critical reports about the lack of a corporate approach the post was re-established with a new chief executive and a mantra of “one organisation”.

 Recently there have been a number of examples where the relationship between the leader of the council and senior officers has been strained due to the enthusiasm of members to outsource services and enter into commercial contracts with some big boys. Their motivation was to save money without having to lose popularity with the voters which would result if the alternative was to close libraries, day centres and hostels or take home helps away from frail elderly people. Members don’t like being told what they can and can’t do by unelected officers especially if they suspect that they are simply trying to protect personal empires. Yet far more local authorities than will admit it have ended up in multi million pound long term contracts which have been oversold and under delivered. Contracts which tie local authorities into services they no longer need or want and where short term financial gains have been bought at the cost of loss of control. It is the chief executive who is expected to mediate between the political objectives and the business reality. It is the chief executive who is required to ensure that central government policies are followed even when these are not the policies of the local ruling party. It is the chief executive who is expected to ensure that all the elected members not just those from the ruling party are kept informed but without breaking any confidences or losing the trust of any of the parties.

Seems like there might be a role after all.

Blair McPherson is a former local authority Director and author of Equipping managers for an uncertain future and People management in a harsh financial climate both published by www.russellhouse.co.uk

People are very quick to judge others often with very little information. Someone is obviously “taking advantage”, “abusing the system or “trying to pull a fast one”. The popular press feed these pious attitudes with their stories of benefit cheats, foreigners accessing free NHS treatment and immigrants working illegally. You would expect better of the professionals who work in Health, Housing, Social Services or the Benefits Office. You would expect that they would seek to establish the facts, gather all the relevant information and examine the circumstances before coming to a fair decision base on the complete picture.

So would you be surprised to find Housing officers prepared to dismiss a request for re housing on the briefest of information? Would you expect a social worker to refuse to offer help without having undertaken an assessment of the individual’s needs and circumstances? Is it fair to reject a benefit claim based on assumptions of income or family circumstances?

My concerns about how quickly professionals jump to conclusions based on minimum information have arisen out of a Housing blog in which housing officers seek advice. It is the responses from their colleagues that have caused me such concern. Perhaps it is because those posting replies do not do so using their real name that makes them so willing to be dogmatic, cynical and judgmental.

The concern is that this is how they truly think, this is what they really base their decisions on and this is the type of conversation they have in the staffroom and canteen. Of course this behaviour is hidden from the /customer/tenant/ client who is presented with a decision they are assured was reached by an impartial application of the rules. This is the very opposite of being professional.

Grateful for any advice. I have been handed a transfer request which has been made on the basis that the current accommodation is overcrowded. Basically, the household consists of an elderly man, his wife and their teenage son, who all currently reside in a bedsit. My issue is that the wife and son  were formally  residing in a  two bed private sector  property and  gave  this  up deliberately to move into the bedsit  thereby causing the overcrowding. The family is now putting pressure on us as a landlord to move them to larger accommodation. When asked why they did this, the response has been that the husband wanted to maintain the support he receives from the community and because he receives treatment in the area. My view is that it would have been reasonable for the husband to join his wife in the two bed property she was occupying (both properties are in London). Furthermore, any treatment he is currently receiving can be provided by any GP or Hospital in London. My view is that this was a deliberate act that caused the overcrowding and the family would not therefore be eligible for a transfer. I’m struggling however to find anything in Housing Legislation to back this up.

Several responses were immediately posted all of which agreed that the family were not entitled to be re housed because they had clearly engineered this situation. 

No one asked the obvious questions. Why were the family living apart, husband in bedsit wife and son in two bedroom property? Was there a split and now reconciliation? Are we to understand the family want to live together as a family? That would seem reasonable. Three people in a bedsit is overcrowded. It is reasonable to establish why the husband did not simply move into the two bed accommodation with his wife and son. We can’t judge whether his reasons have any validity without knowing what community support he receives and why he needs it? Does he just mean he likes the area or is the treatment he is receiving such that he relies on members of his local church/ faith group/volunteers for support? I can imagine someone with mental health problems would be very vulnerable if they moved and lost this support. Likewise it does not follow that treatment will be available where ever the husband moves to with in London. Different Primary Care Trusts provide different levels of access to treatment. This is what is meant by the NHS post code lottery. Social Services also operate different eligibility criteria from one local authority to the next so if someone was receiving good support and treatment they would be understandably reluctant to move unless the same support and treatment could be guaranteed.

Only if you have the full picture can you come to a fair decision.

Blair McPherson author of Equipping managers for an uncertain future published by Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.

Culture eats strategy for breakfast, well that’s my experience as a senior manager with lead responsibility for equality and diversity.

So we shifted the focus away from policy, procedures and targets and the implied criticism of managers’ performance. We set out to help managers deal with the day to day issues in managing a diverse workforce.

 The young woman who finds herself managing staff much older than her who have been in the job much longer than her. The member of staff who complaints to their manager that they are the butt of jokes about their sexuality. The only black member of the team says she feels isolated and excluded as other members of the team don’t include her in their out of work activities or conversations.  A manager who tackles a member of their team about frequent absences only to be accused of failing to take proper account of her disability. The manager who picks up on grumbles in the team about a colleague’s frequent requests for time off during religious festivals. The frustration of being part of a management team where every meeting starts with a chat about the weekends football results. The command and control traditional management style where decision are made without real debate, questioning is discouraged even considered disloyal. 

These may be viewed as personality conflicts rather than equality and diversity issues however how these issues are dealt with says much about the management culture in the organisation and the likely success of an equality and diversity strategy. The aim is to provide support to managers, increase their confidence in dealing with people issues and in so doing create a “safe” work environment in which the equality and diversity strategy could be successfully delivered.

Peer group support is provided through management learning sets which help managers appreciate that all managers face people management issues. Practical support, confidence building and skills development is provided through executive coaching, management surgeries and mentoring. Ownership of strategies is achieved through regular meetings between senior managers and the wider management group to talk things through.  It’s not a quick fix but stops culture eating strategy.        

Blair McPherson author of An Elephant in the Room –an equality and diversity training manual and Equipping managers for an uncertain future both published by www.russellhouse.co.uk

We changed the policy .We introduced new procedures. We set targets and introduced monitoring arrangements. We developed a training programme. We provided senior management with regular progress reports. We held conferences, ran workshops and we blogged. We encouraged staff to say what they were really thinking, we challenged the myths, ignorance and stereotypes. We didn’t shirk from the awkward questions. We promoted best practise. Yet nothing changed.

We were enthusiastic and energetic champions of the strategy. It was a good strategy. So why did people tell us nothing had really changed? We had underestimated how difficult it was to change the way things are done round here. People said the right things, reluctantly followed the new procedures and attended the conferences, workshops and training courses with varying degrees of enthusiasm. No one actually disagreed with the policy, at least not publically. Some complained that the procedures were long, time consuming and unnecessary. Others said they couldn’t afford the time to go on the training courses. The targets were described as over ambitious, the monitoring arrangements too time consuming and some argued it was counterproductive to report such and lack of progress to senior management.

We were enthusiastic and energetic champions of the strategy. It was a good strategy. We had just underestimated how long it would take to change things.

We were enthusiastic and energetic champions of the strategy. It was a good strategy. Things had changed it was just that they had not changed as fast or as much as people expected.

We were enthusiastic and energetic champions of the strategy. It was a good strategy. We just need more active support from senior management

We were enthusiastic and energetic champions of the strategy. It was a good strategy. We just needed to stay positive and not allow the cynics to undermine our efforts/kill the enthusiasm.

We were enthusiastic and energetic champions of the strategy. It was a good strategy. There were just too many square pegs in round holes we needed a management restructuring to get more of the right people in the right posts.

We were enthusiastic and energetic champions of the strategy. It was a good strategy. We were just over taken by events, a new administration, a new chief executive and a new set of priorities.

It was a good strategy.

Blair McPherson author of Equipping managers for an uncertain future and People management in a harsh financial climate both published by www.russellhouse.co.uk

There have always been those who get things out of proportion and don’t know when to let go. In the age of the internet Mr Angry has a new means of airing his grievances he can post them on line. Unlike the letter to the editor there is no selection process, no external attempt at balance and often no censoring other than swear words. The result is described as “direct” which means opinionated, abrasive and often unreasonable. I have been surprised at how personal the attacks often are. In the professional journal these often take the form of sarcastic comments. Some staff clearly see this as an opportunity to make general criticisms of incompetent, insensitive and exploitative management under the cover of a codename. There are frequent references to managements’ adherence to political correctness at the expense of commonsense and of course the view that all decisions are to save money whatever might be said to the contrary. The most vicious comments have come across are in a national housing journal and they are from tenants.

I really shouldn’t be surprised. As a Director it was not uncommon to received letters of complaint that made extensive use of coloured pens, underlining and bold. I have in the past received six page handwritten letters in which nearly every sentence has words underlined, in capitals or in a different colour!

When I read those letters and when I read some of posting on the web site I think do these people realise how they come across?

I do agree with giving people the opportunity to have their say but I also have a lot of sympathy for those at the receiving end of unreasonable rants and vexatious complaints. 

Blair McPherson author of Equipping managers for an uncertain future published by www.russellhouse.co.uk

Did you know you make better decisions when your bladder is full? Mirjam Tuk and her colleagues from the faculty of behavioural science at the University of Twenty in Holland have just been awarded the Ig Nobel prize for their research into the effects of bladder control on decision making. The Ig Nobels are awarded for research that “first makes people laugh and them makes them think”.

This made me think about a manager I worked for who always left it till the last possible moment before going to the toilet. It was an open plan office and she sat opposite me I know she routinely left it to the last possible moment because she would tell me.” I need to go. I needed to go before I took that phonecall. I thought it was just going to be a simple query. I really need to go now”. Not that she needed to tell me for the last ten minutes she had been standing up, talking on the phone and contorting her lower body. I assumed this behaviour was the result of a combination of a small bladder, too much coffee and an inability to terminate a conversation. Now I think about it she was a well regarded manager who went on to get a top job in the Department of Health. I had always assumed her success was down to ambition, enthusiasm, experience and a lot of management skill. Clearly she had secret weapon! 

Just another thought you know when you go for an interview and they place a glass of water on the table in front of you, rather than take a few small sips may be you should down it in one. Makes you think.

Is that why teachers don’t let you go to the toilet in lesson time?

Blair McPherson author of Equipping managers for an uncertain future published by www.russellhouse.co.uk