News and analysis Leader
Editor’s letter
A mention of the HR
Excellence Awards in The
Telegraph should have been cause
for pride and celebration.
Except it wasn’t. The piece
centred around ‘the astonishment of
many women employees at the
BBC entering itself in the “leading
transformation” category’ (and
presumably our diversity and
inclusion category where the
organisation is also shortlisted,
which the article – slightly
bafflingly – fails to mention).
Also keeping me busy: emails and
online comments regarding
Amnesty International’s HRD
featuring on our judging panel,
and Dorchester Collection’s
sponsorship of the awards and
inclusion on our shortlist for
two awards.
None of these decisions are taken
lightly. But even so it’s always tricky
to respond as a magazine to public
criticism. I would always be wary
of mounting defences of our
decision-making that came across
as, well, defensive.
But I think it’s worth unpacking
some of the detail (or as much as we
have room for here) in each of these
decisions. While I’m in favour of
scrutiny – particularly of
organisations with a public mandate
– care must be taken to get the facts
straight rather than defaulting to
simplistic click-garnering reactions.
Otherwise attention is diverted
from those employers genuinely
meriting condemnation, and
our sense of what constitutes
good working conditions
dangerously diminished.
Let’s start with the BBC. In May
the National Audit Office (NAO)
published a full audit into pay at the
organisation. The first sentence of
its press release reads: ‘The BBC has
taken significant steps to improve
the consistency, transparency and
fairness of its staff pay and working
practices, and is well ahead of other
organisations on pay transparency
and the gender pay gap.’
Those italics are mine. Yes the
BBC is a huge employer and so has
an important responsibility to lead
the way. But that – as far as I can tell
– is exactly what it is doing.
The review by Will Hutton on
transparency earlier this year
concluded that the BBC was
among the UK leaders in pay
transparency.On gender pay, the
NAO reported that the BBC’s gap is
‘lower than the national average and
most other media organisations’.
This is not an organisation
resting on its laurels – as anyone
who has met its brilliant group
reward director Gillian Taylor and
heard about the back-to-back 17-
hour days her team has regularly
put in can attest.
Onto Amnesty International.
Suicides in any workplace are
hugely tragic, and reports of ‘toxic’
working environments worrying.
But this is an organisation with
seven million employees, volunteers
and members spread across more
than 150 countries.
As last year with Oxfam, it’s
important to realise how far from
immune such huge entities –
despite their public remit – are to
pockets of bad behaviour. And the
point is whether the issues were
quashed (the central problem at
Oxfam) or investigated. Amnesty in
fact commissioned the independent
inquiry into the worker’s death,
and has pledged to implement the
report’s recommendations.
Finally Dorchester Collection,
whose LGBT+ employees, I’m told,
have been outed without their
consent and doorstepped by
journalists. Is this reaction really in
the interests of championing
LGBT+ rights?
A few points worth highlighting:
all profits from the hotels are reinvested
invested back and don’t go to the
Brunei Investment Agency (BIA).
So any boycott doesn’t affect BIA
but the employees relying on the
company for their livelihoods.
Dorchester Collection has a
highly impressive track record on
D&I, doing much great work to
enhance the lives of those working
there. When the same issue surfaced
in 2014 Stonewall did not support
the boycott, with chief executive
Ruth Hunt writing that it was
ineffective and “most rewarding to
the individuals taking part”.
Many in HR will be aware that
the HR director at Dorchester
Collection, Eugenio Pirri, is gay.
Which brings me to a crucial point
to make here, on how important it is
for HRDs not to shy away from
controversy. But rather – where
appropriate and where they’ve
genuinely squared the conflict in
their minds – enact positive change
from the inside.
A former HRD recently told me
about a job interview she once went
to where they pointed to her
previous role at a local council and
asked ‘why would we want someone
who’d worked for such a terrible
borough?’ She turned them down.
Because a lot of the very best
work in HR is the most challenging:
the turnaround situations, the
speaking truth to power… So I
would urge you all to take a
moment to appreciate the often
nuanced picture behind the
headlines. And to join us, at our
awards on 2 July, in celebrating and
showing solidarity with those HR
professionals daring to make a
real difference. HR
Jenny Roper
Editor
HR magazine
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4 HR June 2019 hrmagazine.co.uk
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