Bits and bobs

Bank Holiday Monday at the movies:  Our Kind of Traitor  

Pic from www.radiotimes.com

- from a novel by John Le Carre

John Le Carré is the master of spy fiction who has produced in the last few decades countless tense, must-read spy novels who then converted into even more must-see movies.

In this adaptation of Our Kind of Traitor, Le Carré 22nd novel, the two main characters are Perry Makepiece and Gail Perkins, an innocent couple dragged into the world of crime and the security services. 

Directed by Susanna White, Our Kind of Traitor, like the novel, deals with the themes of loyalty, trust, and allegiance. In many ways Our Kind of Traitor feels like the sort of movie that simply doesn’t get made anymore
Perry is a conscience-ridden leftist, who teaches English at Oxford; Gail, his wife, is a rising young barrister. As the plot begins to unfold, they find themselves caught between the Russian mafia and the British Secret Service, unable to figure out which of these organizations is looking out for them, and which is out to get them.

Espionage movies that look this good have become increasingly difficult to come by in recent years. In this move tension is generated by mystery in favour of straightforward, super action scenes. You can never fully get comfortable.

I will not go into much details in case you have not read the book; Our Kind of Traitor is not the best of Le Carré' s novels, in my opinion, and neither one of my favourites and but I feel the movie  improves upon it.

One to see.

Bits and bobs

Happy May Bank Holiday   

Just a quick note to wish you all a great Bank Holiday Monday

I hope you can spend an happy and peaceful day with your family, friends or loved ones.  

xxx

People stuff

The Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 

Pic from www.thesun.co.uk

New legislation comes into effect from 26 May (today) which prohibits the production, distribution, sale and supply of all psychoactive substances with the exception with those in use everyday such as medicines, alcohol, cigarettes and caffeine.

Legal highs imitate the effects of illegal drugs and contain synthetic compounds; the new law contains new substances which were not controlled by the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. Legal highs cannot be sold for human consumption. To get round this, they are often sold as plant food, incense, or salts

This specific piece of legislation means that drug and alcohol abuse policies will have to extend to cover/include legal highs .
There is a very helpful guide, produced by ACAS, which encourages employers to stick to the acronym CARR:

• Consider - Include legal highs when writing a drug/alcohol policy
• Act - Be clear about what will happen if employees consume them
• Remind - Tell employees if legal highs are not permitted at work
• Read - Put policies in place sooner rather than later

People stuff

Am I liable for my staff misdemeanours? 

Pic from cmpresolutions.co.uk

Until now, it was possible to hold employers liable for the acts (or omissions) of their employees if they happened during the course of their employment.
A recent ruling by the Supreme Court takes this to a different level, extending this liability now to criminal acts carried out by employees that have little or nothing to do with their actual job.

The case in questions was against Morrisons' supermarket chain, specifically :

• An employee working for the supermarket at one of its petrol stations attacked a customer and shouted racist language at him after the customer asked if he could print some images stored in a USB stick. After the customer went back to his car, he was punched and kicked repeatedly by the Morrison employee
• The customer brought a claim against Morrisons on the basis of vicarious liability. 
• County court dismissed the case in its first hearing
• The Court of Appeal upheld this decision
• The Supreme Court has now overturned the decision on the basis that the employee did not 'metaphorically take off his uniform" when he chased the customer and attacked him, specifically after ordering the customer to stay away from the premises, he was "acting on behalf of the employer".

This extends the law on vicarious liability in that now courts may be able to argue that employees' actions are connected to their employment, even if the employer has not condoned them.

Potentially customers could now sue an employer if a member of their staff commits an unlawful act that affects them.

Pic from www.i-l-m.com

What can you do about it?

Ensure that your employees are trained about what is acceptable behaviour in the workplace and what  is absolutely not under any circumstances. 

If I were you , I would make this a priority.

People stuff

Commission and holiday pay  

Pic from rebeccamurthagh.com

If your reward strategy includes commission and makes use of overtime payments than it is time that you review your policies and contracts of employment in line with recent courts decisions.

In the long saga of Lock v British Gas Ltd. the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has upheld the employment tribunal’s decision in the case of Lock v British Gas.

This is the well publicised case regarding holiday pay and commission, in which the employment tribunal ruled after the case had been referred back to it from the European Court of Justice .

The case involves Mr Lock (salesperson at British Gas) whose remuneration package included a basic salary plus commission, based on the number and type of contracts to which customers agreed. When he took annual leave, he would only receive basic pay, which was considerably less than his usual salary. Lock lodged a claim with an employment tribunal, which referred the case to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to clarify the relationship between holiday pay and commission for workers where commission was a regular part of their pay. 

In a similar case, Bear Scotland v Fulton, the EAT ruled that UK law must be interpreted in a conforming way to EU law by requiring employers to take into account non-guaranteed overtime payments when calculating holiday pay and this approach should also apply to commission.

The decision means that employees with regular working hours whose remuneration includes commission or similar payments will fall to have a week's pay, for annual leave purposes, calculated at the average rate over the previous 12 weeks, and this will include commission, not only basic salary.This decision applies only to the four-week European Directive related annual leave and not the full 5.6 weeks granted by the Working Time Regulations (WTR).

If you regularly pay commission or bonuses intrinsically linked to job related functions and who don’t factor that in to certain holiday pay calculations need to be conscious that continuing such a practice is against the decisions being made by the tribunal and EAT in this area. However, it is a complicated area and if there is a further appeal, the legal position may be regarded as still uncertain, so please do seek advice she reviewing your policies or drafting contracts of employment/terms and conditions.

People stuff

What is an appropriate benchmark for employee turnover?  

Pic from text100.com

It is common practice to benchmark businesses against other businesses in the same sector, with further comparison on company size and location.
Employee turnover, or attrition, rates are a metric that almost any company can get its hands on.
Focusing on some magic number, we think that we can understand what is going on under the surface, even though every organisation is different. And that is the issue.

The reasons for high or low turnover can be varied and contradictory so, for me, a good employer benchmarks firstly with itself. Staff may not leave because there is a very happy working place or maybe because they are complacent,overpaid and unemployable anywhere else.
Or they might leave for reasons totally unrelated to your company.

Pic from linkedin.com

You should know the state of play much better than a spreadsheet and should know instinctively whether your turnover percentage is manifestation of a good work environment or of a underlying issue.

If your people practices are in order, you will find the level of attrition that is right for your company and the people who leave will be the ones you are comfortable to replace.

People stuff

Emotional intelligence - how to develop some

Emotionally intelligent behaviour is recognised as an important factor in career success.
Emotional intelligence skills can be summarise in 4 areas: self awareness, awareness of others, self-management, influencing ability.

Self-awareness is the foundation of any emotionally intelligent behaviour without which you will not be aware of the impact your actions have on yourself and others.
On can work on it and improve it by:

• practice self-reflection
• understand your emotions without judgement, they are not good or bad but productive or unproductive
• learn to recognise the effect of your emotions on you physically so that you can identify strong emotions before it takes over
• listen and learn - ask for feedback on the impact your behaviour has on people and understand from the point of view of the "receiver"

People stuff

Achieving gender balance at work   

Gender balance is something that happens over the long term and the real challenge, especially for SMEs, is the practicalities, how do you achieve?

These are good starting points:

1. Start with what you have and then improve
2. Offer flexible working - it is not only women who needs. There is stigma attached to men taking time off work to look after their children. Flexibility is a critical career enabler to retain talent.
3. Ask your employees what they value and listen - these can provide a platform to build an appropriate reward strategy and targeted benefits, so you get the most value out of your investment
4. Lead by example - the senior team needs to show flexible working/flexibility in practice so that employees can relate, showing being "human", taking holidays etc.

Keep it simple but visible: whatever you decide to offer, ensure that it is available to everyone and is communicated fully to the whole business.

If you need, The People Alchemist is here to help .

La Festa della Mamma

Today is Mother's day in Italy.
Italian mothers are the focus of family traditions; it's a big occasion, a day when families traditionally come together from wherever they are to celebrate and look after their mothers.

Like most feast-days in Italy, it can be traced back to ancient Roman culture when a whole weekend of celebrations were held in May to celebrate the goddess Juno.

With the passing of time and the coming of Christianity, this tradition evolved into a religious festival when the 'mother' referred to 'mother church', the giver of spiritual life.  

Although Italian mothers have always been a crucial part of not only the family but equally the community, their formal recognition with a public holiday did not happen until 1957.

It is also Mother's Day in the US. 

I think you can never celebrate mothers enough so Happy Mother's Day to all mums,  whichever country you are in, you are doing a great job, thank you.

And for mine: Tanti Auguri Mamma, Bacioni xxx

Bits and bobs

Friday night at the movies: Bastille Day  

If you are looking for something to do this evening , then you could try the cinema and see the latest movie from/starring Idris Elba, "Bastille Day".

US operative Sean Briar (Idris Elba) is transferred from the battlefields of Iraq and Syria to the CIA station in Paris. This misfit real-world warrior now finds himself struggling to adjust to a desk bound role in the fight against cyber-terrorism. 

The eve of Bastille Day,  Zoe Naville (Charlotte Le Bon) heads out across Paris to plant a bomb. 

Meaning to kill no one, but instead, make a huge political statement, Zoe has a change of heart at the last minute, as she decides to abandon her plans. 

Subsequently, her bag is stolen by an American pickpocket, Michael Mason (Richard Madden). Not realising the nature of what lies within, he hurriedly takes anything of use, before chucking the bag and the rest of its contents into a bin beside a popular Paris Métro station. 

The bomb goes off and he becomes the prime suspect in this terrorist bomb attack. 

Briar is determined to track him down before the French authorities can. 

He soon becomes convinced that Mason is not responsible, but may be the only link to the real perpetrator. 

I will not tell you the ins and out of the story or twists and turns as that takes away from the actual experience of watching the movie.

I saw Bastille Day this Bank Holiday weekend and 2 things stood out for me:

1. I felt uncomfortable at the start as it is a mere few months after the tragic events of last November in Paris and I must admit I couldn't stop a few tears; for me it felt too raw and real rather than watching a movie. 
2. I am definitely on the "Idris Elba for next Bond" waggon now and this movie was like a 90 minutes personal audition. The chase across Paris rooftops at the beginning looked very much like the starting scene of Skyfall where Bond chases the baddie on top of a running train. Elba is cool, fit, we know he can definitely act, he has swagger, he is a Brit, and follows on the more "rough and ready but cool" Bond started with Daniel Craig. Oh and Elba is hot.

Overall a good action movie.