Why its More Aw Shucks thank Big Bucks for Starbucks this week

This week Starbucks is in the news but for all the wrong reasons. Defeats in Tribunals never make good news for employers particularly when delicate issues relating to disability discrimination are at stake.
HR commonly refer to employment issues as “internal matters” but they can go “external” very quickly.

The Starbucks case was just one of many queuing up to be heard in a London employment tribunal last year. This week, even before a decision had been taken on compensation levels, the case was all over social media and even made it to the BBC’s 9 O'clock News last night.

The complainant said Starbucks treated her like she was a fraud because of how she handled the paperwork and that she considered taking her own life as a result of her treatment. Generally, employment tribunals don't deliver huge awards -certainly not in comparison to the United States where even labour law judges are known to adjourn with a bag of noughts to calculate appropriate levels of compensation.

Starbucks may be worried a sizeable award is on its way now that the case has hit the headlines but the real damage has been done to its reputation which its PR arm will no doubt be working hard to  correct over the coming months.

They could start by letting it be known that each and every one of its staff is now doing equality and diversity training. This sort of training is something  it should have been doing for a long time already.  

In the old days of employment training (now called Learning and Development) for an employer to train all of its staff on a single issue was often nothing short of a logistical nightmare. This was particularly the case where an employer, like Starbucks,  had employees dispersed over a multitude of sites or with many workers on assignments in other parts of the country or even abroad. Nowadays, with the advent of online learning such training can be done very easily. Starbucks I’m sure, could provide each outlet (if they haven’t already done so) with a PC, laptop or tablet on which all staff could periodically complete online training – perhaps during a quiet period of the day in the corner of the café no doubt with a fine latte in-hand.

But this welcome development in online learning has proved to be something of a double edged sword for employers. For Tribunals now know that such training is easy to do and therefore they expect to see evidence that it has been done. In pre-Internet days Tribunals were given to being far more flexible on the matter.

Of course, every employer should be doing equality and diversity training. Not just to keep themselves legally tight but because it should lead to a fairer workplace for all.

E-Learning Child Protection and Equality and Diversity

It's all happening at Legal-Island at the moment. We've spent the last few weeks furiously planning the year to come and finally as we enter February we're ready to put it all into action.

Early this year we'll be launching our new Hub which will completely change the way we deliver our information. We're also developing our e-learning services too.Over 1,000 organisations have now used our e-learning benefiting more than 27,000 employees. Not bad considering we launched our first e-learning module less than 2 years ago.

Our e-learning modules for Child Protection and Equality and Diversity have been getting rave reviews.

Legal-Island let's go! It's all to play for!

Of Being on Top of the World

We did our annual pilgrimage up Slieve Donard on Wednesday of this week to see the place where Papa proposed to Mama on the top of a mountain almost three years ago in a howling gale and in the dead of night.
It was a beautiful autumnal day. The flowers and fauna on the walk up to the summit added even more colour to a day exploding with beauty and vitality.
Alicia was wonderful. She seemed to enjoy her transport to the top on a rucksack strapped to Papa's back. She never cried once but burst into song on a good number of occasions and happily popped into her mouth the wild blackberries that Papa passed up to her en route.
On days like this its easy to feel on top of the world in a life that is difficult to top too..

Legal-Island Full Out Flat Out

It’s all about everything at the moment at Legal-Island. We’re just flat out wherever you look. Our portal people are furiously at it. Our email service team have barely time to look away from their screens and our events team well it’s their busiest time of the year; “The silly season” as it is sometime referred to when we attempt to do five of our biggest events in as many weeks when hundreds of our customers come through the conference doors for what we think is the best HR show in town.

Our E-learning team is chomping at the bit too. We were much cheered this morning by surveying findings that indicate compliance training online is up this year and by a considerable percentage too. This should not come as a surprise for there are many advantages to e-learning over conventional classroom based training. These include ease of administration, cost and user convenience to name but a few.

Our own modules cover child protection or safeguarding for Northern Ireland and equality and diversity in the work place. We’ve modules for other disciplines due out soon.

Of One Extraordinary day in the life of a retired Ironman

 An occasion rarely comes that big that the day before you just know you’ll always remember it. Into my bank of memories along with births, weddings, landmark birthdays, graduations and funerals I’ve had to add my first (and last) Ironman.

Ironman day started for me at 4.30a.m. for I had to eat at least two hours before the start of the race which was a good hour’s drive from where we were staying in France.

The race didn’t start well for me. I found myself just where I didn’t want to be for the swim : at the front and in the middle. I spent the first 30 minutes or so avoiding slaps, kicks and generally trying not to drown. But the swim achieved its objective which was to beat the disqualification time and make it to the bike. This was waiting for me in transition meticulously prepped to get me around the next 112 miles. It had to carry me and enough gear for me to eat and drink over the next 7 hours and cope with any Plan Bs I might need to activate in the event of something going wrong.

But nothing did go wrong. There were no crashes, no punctures just an awful lot of pedaling and sweat in the midday heat that hit and stayed at 35 degrees for far too long.

The 26.2 miles run was tough. But I knew it would be. What was uppermost in my mind was just how much risk I should take. I felt good in the run but I was passing people who were collapsing and getting carted off to hospital. My wife and 1 year old daughter were waiting nervously at the finish line for me. Why take unnecessary risk by running further than you have to when you don’t know exactly how much you have left in the tank? In the event I ran a bit and walked a bit and approached the finish at about 10.30p.m.

An Ironman finish is an extraordinary thing. You enter the purpose build stadium which belongs to you and no-one else. There you see hundreds of people all cheering for you, trying to high five you or just enjoying making you feel special.

As I crossed the finish the finish the commentator said “Congratulations! Barry Phillips you are an Ironman!

I thought to myself “Thanks I’m a retired one to” and went to collect my medal and a long cool drink.

Of Ironman Vichy Frnace 2015

Yey! I did it! In 15 and a half hours I got myself from start to finish. I've fully recovered but the wife and mother still have some way to go!

More to follow soon.

Of Strategy, Strategy, Strategy

I think an adviser to Tony Blair once said "It aint strategy until its written down" I've been going through my race strategy for tomorrow. So here it is written down for all to see.

SWIM

Keep well away from the serious contenders. Start off at the back and avoid congestion spots. What I don't want is to end up in a medley of elbows, knees and feet and risk getting my head bashed. When half way and feeling comfortable start to gather some speed. In training I did the full distance a full 30 minutes inside the disqualification time so I should be okay here.

I need to keep reminding myself to swim intelligently. I need to glide through the water as much as power my way through. I will time my watch to sound every thirty minutes so I'll know roughly whether I'm where I should be a regular intervals.

Transition to bike - gargle and drink lots of water to get rid of the sea salt in my mouth and throat. Load up with energy gels and drinks and head off at a steady pace

CYCLE

Drink before I feel thirsty and take in energy gels - at least 3 each hour. Keep pace steady and conserve as much energy as possible for the run. During the last hour on the bike I need to eat as much as a can before the run. I've realised I can't hold down any food to speak of whilst running so all my eating for the run needs to be done on the bike.

With two miles to go I drop my gears to have my legs rotating around as much as possible to get them ready for walking/running again.

Transition to run -walk  really slowly as the legs get used to forward motion rather than just turning around and around.

RUN

This is when the whole event starts getting really serious. I'm expecting that at this point whether or not I conquer the race is down to what's in my head. I've been practicing the mind over matter bit extensively. See here 

My plan is to go for the fist 13 miles by running them without stopping. If I can take out half the marathon running I should be able to do the rest on foot.

I'm just hoping the weather is not too hot because  Mr. BP has never functioned well in heat. Ask any of my friends who have had to put up with an irritable Barry Phillips when the thermometer has hit more than 25 degrees.

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