I say bless the BBC and Sky for rejecting the DEC (Disasters Emergency Committee) advert for the Gaza Appeal.  Now – before you throw your hands up in disgust at my opinion, let me tell you why.

After working with charities such as UNICEF in my role as Corporate Citizenship Leader for GE Money in the UK, I have some understanding how difficult it is to get attention, advertising and media mentions for emergency appeals.

By the BBC rejecting the advert for the appeal it created a media and public storm of protest – how many more media mentions did that create? How many more people were made aware of the Appeal than just one advert on the BBC or Sky News? How many more donations were made to the DEC Appeal?

I also agree with the stance on impartial news coverage so is everyone a winner here?

Employers will be forced to publicise skilled job vacancies on the Jobcentre Plus network before advertising them abroad. Home secretary Jacqui Smith said British people will have the “first crack of the whip” of jobs classified under Tier 2, which includes primary school teachers, construction jobs, some nursing categories and hotel managers.

“When it comes to immigration, in difficult economic times I believe we need a tough system that offers British workers the first crack of the whip for British jobs,” said Smith.

“That’s why I’ll be using the flexibility that the points-based system allows to force employers to offer British jobs through Job Centre Plus before recruiting foreign workers,” she added. Currently, employers must advertise a job nationally for two weeks before looking for workers from overseas. The time limit drops to one week where a salary of more than £40,000 is on offer.

Source: Personnel Today

In my 15 year + experience, I have only advertised via the job centres once or twice, and those experiences have not been ideal - would this requirement only aggreivate and extend a recruitment process that has already been stretched to the max by the fact that by normal/usual channels have not been able to source in the UK already?

A question has been raised in my mind by a colleague of mine who specialises in Diversity.  During her explanation (a very good one) of Diversity, she explained how the mirroring effect (hiring people who are similar to the recruiter - even down to looks and body language) can prevent an organisation exploring and embracing diversity.  Large corporates encourage this by listing the values they would like their people to have.  Without thought or training managers can easily revert to subjective selection based on what they preceive as “having the same values as us”.

The question I would like to raise would be in searching for the same values are we missing out on a diverse workforce by hiring the same people?  Is this where focusing on the behaviour, the evidence of performance is more key?

The TUC figures show an increase in unpaid overtime, if all employees did their unpaid overtime at the beginning of the year the first day they would get paid would be 27th February.  Last year the TUC quoted the date of 22nd February - this is an increase of 5 days.

Looking at the 2007 figures in comparison to 2008, Yorkshire employees are not as badly off as their East Midlands colleagues.  In Yorkshire and Humber, employees have only worked an average of 6 minutes more per week.  In  East Midlands the increase is 36 minutes per week.  There is no change in London figures - still topping the league for unpaid overtime at 7 hours and 54 minutes per week!

Yes, the ecomonic climate is contributing to the increase in some ways, but I believe it’s management and employees, in the majority, working together to ensure that businesses continue to survive and be successful, taking the longer term view for continued employment.

There are cases of excessive unpaid overtime, this is a mistake on management’s part and the employee’s.  Long hours create stress, poor productivity, absences from work and higher labour turnover in the long term.  Employees should raise concerns regarding overwork and management should understand that they could face claims from employees who have had enough.

Higher productivity is achieved by staffing to the right levels, training staff properly and giving them the proper tools to do the job.  Also by monitoring performance and watching for problems, fixing them quickly and to the best of management’s ability.