29% of respondents confirmed the number of grievances lodged in 2009 had increased from the previous year and a further 23% expected that the number of grievances lodged will rise further in 2010. In 2009 the highest volume of grievances related to relations with senior and line managers, bullying and harassment, work practices (and their allocation), pay, conditions and stress. In contrast, in 2010, respondents expect the proportion of grievances lodged concerning relations with senior and line managers, bullying and harassment to fall but the proportion of grievances in respect of work practices (and their allocation), pay, conditions and stress to rise significantly. 

Following an intense period of work force reductions or other changes to working hours the remaining employees may come under considerable pressure as the recession wanes and employers push to grow and recover. Employees may be required to alter their working practices and undertake additional duties. Changes of this nature can obviously lead to stress and also to grievances and other internal conflict. Accordingly, HR professionals may wish to consider taking steps to address this.

Further, after a period of salary freezes and bonus cuts, as the economy returns to limited growth. employees may be expecting to receive rewards for enduring the recession and putting up with limited (or no) income growth. However, although some sectors have returned to limited growth, this does not necessarily mean that employers will have generated significant incomes in order to reward employees. The impression from the survey report is that HR does not expect reality to line up to the expectation of employees in this regard and the discontent is likely to cause grievances. Employers may as a result wish to give consideration to what additional Benefits can be provided as an alternative to salary increase.

There has been a significant move away from the use of compulsory redundancies in order to reduce work force costs. Instead, many employers have turned to flexible or part-time working practices in order to retain employees while at the same time reducing costs. 37% of respondents expect further flexible working arrangements to be introduced in 2010. 

Of those respondents who made employees redundant over the last year, 64% engaged in collective consultation, compared with only 42% the previous year. The criteria for selecting individuals for redundancy has varied widely. 36% relied upon absence records, 42% used disciplinary records, 22% used length of service, 46% used general performance assessments while 54% used performance assessments undertaken specifically for the purpose of selection for redundancy.

Absence records and length of service, in particular, need to be used with some degree of care. Both are good solid objective criteria but both have their potential risks. 

In the case of absence records, care needs to be taken to exclude maternity related absence from the assessment. In addition, employers should exclude absence relating to any disability or any illness that could conceivably be a disability under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. That may require some investigation of the causes of absence. Further, and more practically, employers may want to give some thought as to why this is a relevant criterion. In a given department, sickness absence may, in fact, not be an issue of any concern and so it may not be a relevant criterion. Further, even where it is relevant, employers might want to say that they are perfectly content with one or two days’ absence per year and therefore only absence over that level will be scored negatively. The approach that is taken will, as ever, depend upon the circumstances of the employer. 

Length of service also needs to be used with some care. It is manifestly indirectly discriminatory against younger people. Its use for length of service up to five years ought to be safe, but beyond that, employers would need to justify the use by demonstrating that there is a benefit to the organisation in having employees with longer service. Case law suggests that this may not be an overly difficult burden to discharge. 

Although some employers have preferred to use compulsory redundancies to generate costs savings, the survey confirms use of compulsory redundancies generally has a negative impact on levels of employee engagement among those employees who remain. 

A major Challenge in 2010 for HR will be driving employee engagement, partly at least to make up for the damage caused by the last couple of years. 91% of respondents who intend to focus on engagement stated that they will do so by improving effective leadership of management of staff while 79% aimed to develop better employee relations with line managers. 

A further 77% aimed to improve learning and development opportunities for employees and 57% stated that they would use enhanced career development opportunities to drive employee engagement. 

Respondents also aim to give employees empowerment and to demonstrate fairness in the workplace. 66% aim to provide greater employee participation in decision making, 49% will try to give greater fairness in organisational procedures and 43% will try to develop more equitable reward systems.

Whatever measures are undertaken it's important that employers take steps to measure the success of the approach they adopt. Interestingly, only 55% of respondents were actually measuring engagement although 88% stated that they were trying to improve it. 

A third of respondents stated that they expect staff turnover to rise in 2010. At the same time 44% respondents expect there to be some increase in workforce size over the coming year and 19% of respondents also expected to see some increase in graduate recruitment. HR professionals need to be equipped to deal with an increase in recruitment to develop workforce retention strategies. Developing employee engagement ought to play a major part in this and employers may also wish to give consideration to what additional Benefits can be provided to employees or what changes can be made to the current working environment to encourage employees to stay.

Despite the high levels of unemployment and the high volumes of redundancies in previous years, 22% of respondents stated that they are still experiencing skills shortages across a variety of sectors. 

These skill shortages may be further exasperated in the coming months as the Government is considering implementing measures to limit Tiers 1 and 2 of the Points-Based System to further restrict economic migration to the UK. Those employers who are currently experiencing a shortage of skills should review their recruitment practices to ensure that they are effectively targeting the right candidate. Further, if the skills are not on offer in the UK and/or the EU, if the skill shortage is significant employers may wish to give consideration to making recommendations to the Migration Advisory Committee to have the skill shortage recognised as a shortage occupation under Tier 2 of the Points-Based System.

In addition, employers might think about the provision of training and development to meet shortages internally, an approach that itself may help drive engagement.

The full survey report can be downloaded at www.thestateofhr.com