Stangulation by regulation
Professor Len Shackleton, of Westminster University, shocked me with his disclosure that there are now 80 laws governing employment contracts. He adds that 100,000 employment tribunals are held each year. The increasingly complex web of obligations, all of blamelessly kindly intent, have created conditions that make it ever more difficult for buyers to bargain with sellers.
Shackleton detects another way to measure the excess volume of regulation. In 1979, when Callaghan’s Labour government lost out to Mrs Thatcher, there were 12,000 personnel managers. Now there are 120,000 such folk. I think this is a vivid piece of evidence that we are quietly strangulating employment, except for those in HR of course.
From an article in The Business by John Blundell, director-general of the Institute of Economic Affairs.
Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in General
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This is so so true.
The regulators and the law makers will tell you ad nauseam about how fantastic all their works are, and point at all the brilliant things they've done.
In reality, they almost universally achieve nothing other than masses of pointless paperwork and initiatives, or trivia like complaining about the colour of the walls or the tiles on the floor (both personal experiences). But in terms of actually making things better : OFSTED improving education, CSCI improving care and so on they probably make things worse, because of (i) the stress on people their cackhanded approaches cause and (ii) the time wasted on their bureaucracy takes away from 'doing stuff'.
The one exception to this, IME anyway, is the Environmental Health lot. I don't know if I'm lucky, but they've always been rational, helpful and balanced round here.
Employment law is the absolute worst. To listen to the media you'd think employees have a bad time ; the reality is that it's very difficult to sack anyone for anything ; any errors in procedure are invariably fatal, and even if you get it right they can claim to whistleblow. I'm amazed anyone employs anyone these days & I wouldn't do it myself again.
Everything is literalistic and measurable. We used to, years ago, pay some people who were off sick and not others. Everyone in any organisation knows who the people are who come in unless they're on the point of death, and those who think a hangover is a reason for a week off. But now, you either pay it to everyone for everything, or no-one under any circumstances, because it's supposedly "not fair". What happens of course, is (unless it is public money) no-one gets it, because of the people who will abuse it with hangovers and play any "Doc's note after 3 days" scheme by continually having 3 days off then coming back. (Rather like in your book with the 'one on the hook one in the book' (sic?) scam).
Same thing with pay rises and appointments. You can no longer use your opinion ; everything has to be measurable. The problem with this is that people play the system to hit the measurables, like Government targets writ .... small.
Posted by: Paul at May 17, 2006 10:12 AM
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This is so so true.
The regulators and the law makers will tell you ad nauseam about how fantastic all their works are, and point at all the brilliant things they've done.
In reality, they almost universally achieve nothing other than masses of pointless paperwork and initiatives, or trivia like complaining about the colour of the walls or the tiles on the floor (both personal experiences). But in terms of actually making things better : OFSTED improving education, CSCI improving care and so on they probably make things worse, because of (i) the stress on people their cackhanded approaches cause and (ii) the time wasted on their bureaucracy takes away from 'doing stuff'.
The one exception to this, IME anyway, is the Environmental Health lot. I don't know if I'm lucky, but they've always been rational, helpful and balanced round here.
Employment law is the absolute worst. To listen to the media you'd think employees have a bad time ; the reality is that it's very difficult to sack anyone for anything ; any errors in procedure are invariably fatal, and even if you get it right they can claim to whistleblow. I'm amazed anyone employs anyone these days & I wouldn't do it myself again.
Everything is literalistic and measurable. We used to, years ago, pay some people who were off sick and not others. Everyone in any organisation knows who the people are who come in unless they're on the point of death, and those who think a hangover is a reason for a week off. But now, you either pay it to everyone for everything, or no-one under any circumstances, because it's supposedly "not fair". What happens of course, is (unless it is public money) no-one gets it, because of the people who will abuse it with hangovers and play any "Doc's note after 3 days" scheme by continually having 3 days off then coming back. (Rather like in your book with the 'one on the hook one in the book' (sic?) scam).
Same thing with pay rises and appointments. You can no longer use your opinion ; everything has to be measurable. The problem with this is that people play the system to hit the measurables, like Government targets writ .... small.
Posted by: Paul at May 17, 2006 10:12 AM