News: Performance Management
Train line managers to relieve 'overloaded' HR depts
26 November 2008
If line managers do not receive training during the economic downturn, human resources (HR) departments will be "overloaded" and unable to ease the burden for staff, it is claimed.
According to Penny de Valk, chief executive of the Institute of Leadership and Management, many HR professionals are already struggling with expanding workloads in a bid to "get more from less" in their department.
The issue surges in importance amid increases in the number of employment tribunal claims recorded by the Confederation of British Industry, notes Personnel Today.
"A line manager needs to understand what they've had an involvement in, because often something's gone wrong fundamentally - either a process or an error in judgement," HR director Helen Chamberlain points out to the publication.
Ms Chamberlain, from telecommunications giant Orange Business Services, maintains training will better-equip line managers in the face of recession-induced redundancies.
Leaders in charge of performance management in their organisations have previously been urged to view employment law and discrimination training as tools to help ward off the risk of "time-consuming and complex" tribunal issues.
Iain Patterson, an employment partner at UK-wide law firm Browne Jacobson, also alluded to rises in tribunal numbers during recent years.
