Your Credibility is Fragile

The spectre of a major employer saying one thing and doing another rises again as Shell prepares to cut 3,200 jobs.

In the past Shell have explicitly recognised how important their employees are to the continued success of the enterprise. In May 1997 Cor Herkstroter, President of the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company, delivered a speech highlighting the need to “safeguard the interests of shareholders, our staff and others who work with us around the world”.

He went on to declare “our most important asset is our people.”

One wonders why a company would consciously and deliberately choose to dispose of such a key resource.

Any professional stands or falls, not by their technical proficiency, but by their credibility. If the President of a company states publicly and unequivocally that, “we are linked by our shared values - integrity, honesty and respect for people - and our belief in the importance of trust, team working, professionalism and pride in what we do,” then all stakeholders, including the employees, are being invited to accept it as a fact.

It serves nobody, least of all the business community in general, to have those values cynically cast aside in pursuit of ephemeral profits.

Important assets and core values persist over time. Cor Herkstroter recognised that too: “I believe that one of the Group's greatest strengths has been our ability to take the long view - even when this has been unfashionable.”

May 1997 was over ten years ago. Things do move on. But these were not passing sentiments of the moment for Shell. The Shell Report 2001, a detailed and glossy exercise in CSR, affirmed: “our achievements depend on the efforts of Shell people all around the world. Their expectations drive our commitments.”

The section boldly headed ‘Business Principles’ continued the theme with the assertion that “It is recognised that commercial success depends on the full commitment of all employees.”

Credibility is hard to accrue and easily damaged. Not having credibility is tough, but professionals can earn it, painstakingly, over a period of time. However, having once had it and then lost it puts the professional in a much worse position. The loss tends to be permanent as staff, suppliers and customers adopt the understandable habit of taking everything you say with an appropriate amount of salt. As Alfred Adler recognised: “Life happens at the level of events, not of words,” or, as the Chinese have it: ‘Talk doesn't cook rice’.

One can point to the performance of Shell over the years and argue whether it represents success or failure and whether that gives them commercial credibility. That is not the point. Shell have shed staff before this latest proposed trance, yet there is no way of knowing what the outcome would have been had they refrained from offloading people. However, if one accepts their own evaluation of the basis of their success, their staff are clearly and plainly a crucial ingredient. Therefore it follows – as night follows day – that sacrificing any of this valuable resource has to be detrimental to their outcomes.

Shifting those staff to outsource partners does not secure for Shell the same benefits it once had. The staff in question will be expected to identify with the interests of their new employer, not Shell. There will no longer be that “full commitment” to Shell that it once published and promulgated as a determinant of commercial success. Sorry boys, you really cannot have your cake and eat it.

While I believe that people are an indispensable part of any organisation’s success – simply because without people there is no functioning organisation – it is not necessary for you to share that view. What is essential is to survey your past declarations, examine your own values, assess what will deliver success and act in accordance with those tenets at all times. As a professional your principles are not expensive, they’re priceless.

“If your work speaks for itself, don't interrupt.” ~Henry J. Kaiser

Healthy Workforce Campaign is Misjudged

The Government are about to launch a campaign. It will be aimed at employers and it will try to get them to promote a healthier lifestyle among their workers. The emphasis will to be on physical exercise such as jogging, cycling to work, or going to the gym. The Government’s aim is not entirely altruistic since it wants to lower the cost of the welfare state and increase GDP at the same time. However, they seem to be tackling the issue from the wrong end.

It is said that Alan Johnson, the Secretary of State for Health, finds it "incredible" that 175 million working days a year are lost to sickness absence. Quite why he finds it so hard to believe is not explained. Sickness is a widely recognised and well documented occurrence. His own government routinely report such statistics.

Perhaps the figures have escaped his notice until now because he has been so busy being Secretary of State for Education and Skills (since May 2006 until Gordon Brown).

Or was it his time as Secretary of State for the Department for Trade and Industry that distracted him?

Before that, his time as Minister of State for Employment Relations and Regions and, before that, as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Competitiveness may have also diverted his attention.

I suppose that 175 million working days a year could easily have slipped below his radar while he was representing employees as part of the Communication Workers Union since 1976, where he served as General Secretary in 1992 and Joint General Secretary from 1995 to1997.

And perhaps he was preoccupied with other mundane matters as a member of the General Council of the TUC from 1994 to 1995.

What he should be reminded of (note to Health Department civil servants – pass it on) is the European Social Partner agreement ‘Tackling work-related stress’ that the DTI signed on 13 July 2005 during his tenure as Secretary of State (5 May 2005 to 5 May 2006). As it was made clear in that agreement, each year in this country there are over half a million instances where people are absent from work through job-related stress. The cost to UK employers is an estimated £3.7 billion. On average, each stress related absence involves 9 working days lost, a total of 13.4 million days a year.

Work-related stress is now the biggest cause of working days lost through occupational injury and ill health according to a HSE guide. As the TUC pointed out on hearing of this new campaign - lunchtime yoga classes are no substitute for reducing stress at work.

Alan Johnson’s previous initiate, which seems to have slipped his mind, deals with stress. It has yet to deliver any discernable benefit because no substantial effort has been put behind it. This is no time for yet another piece of Government window-dressing. Mr Johnson should concentrate on those areas most able to deliver the benefits he seeks in the shortest possible time. Dealing with stress in the workplace will have the biggest impact on reducing the number of days lost to sickness absence.

A report from The American Institute of Stress highlighted that:

* 40% of job turnover is due to job stress
* 60% to 80% of on-the-job accidents are stress-related
* 75% to 90% of all visits to primary care physicians are for stress-related complaints or conditions
* Health care expenditures are nearly 50% greater for workers who report high stress levels

According to a 2005 Mind report "Stress and Mental Health in the Workplace" nearly 10% of the gross national product of the UK is lost due to work-related stress, through sickness absence, high labour turnover, lost productivity value, increased recruitment and selection costs, and medical costs.

A Gallop Poll in 2001 found:

* 80% of workers feel stress on-the-job
* Nearly half say they need help in learning how to manage stress
* 14% felt like striking a co-worker in the past year but didn't


And the Health Canada Website states that employees under sustained stress are more likely to suffer:
* 3 x more heart problems, back problems
* 5 x more of certain cancers
* 2-3 x more conflicts, mental health problems, infections, injuries
* 2 x more substance abuse

Of course, I have a vested interest. I'm a business coach and coaching is a proven method of tackling stress. The payback is quick, easy and painless. Employers could help themselves and their employees more effectively by using coaching in the workplace than by preaching health and fitness to an already overburdened workforce. Physical exercise has its place, but where people are already suffering high levels of stress it is likely to be seen as an unattainable luxury. If Government, and employers, would first tackle this primary cause, the rest is likely to follow.