This loss of momentum represents a lost opportunity for organisations and one which few can afford to accept given the challenging business climate. So what can we do to fix this end of season slump?

I’d say that we can start by thinking about the way we plan our reward and incentives as well as how we manage people at this time of year. If the staff Christmas event and our reward communications seems to mark the start of the party season and the end of serious work, then we need to rethink how we do things to make sure we keep motivation in the business which will give us momentum into the New Year. Here are some ideas:

1)      Split your investment in reward and recognition:  many organisations put nearly all their investment into the Christmas reward. Change your approach and consider how you can do this through the year so your investment goes further.

2)      Use end of year reward to keep momentum: the tradition of pre-Christmas reward means employee recognition is delivered before the year is out. Change this and place an emphasis on performance right to the end of the year, rewarding your employees in January when it won’t be lost in the Christmas noise and will have a bigger impact.

3)      It’s tough but….think about the Christmas party: Every organisation needs a celebration but if you work in a competitive environment where Christmas sales count, this can just be a big distraction you don’t need. Be bold, think of a summer barbecue or a party at a time when employees will value it just as much.

4)      Think what you want to get out of the people working up to the wire: For those left in organisations in the week before Christmas and the time between New Year, motivation can ebb away. Talk to managers to set targets for productive activities which can be dealt with in this time. Incentivise your employees, introduce competition and make it fun. You don’t accept that you lose ten good working days for the Christmas holidays.

5)      If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em: One of the trends which has emerged in the last ten years is a European style Christmas shut-down for many businesses. If you are in a sector where your customer are away but your offices still stay open, it may be time to decide that the best way of incentivising your employees in December is to introduce a Christmas shutdown of your own.

Getting the most out of your employees at the end of the year isn’t about being an Ebenezer Scrooge character. It’s about being clear about the performance and outcomes you need from your business at this time and ensuring you put in place the right reward and incentives to help your employees achieve that. Getting it right is in everyone’s interest.

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The content of the webinars is based on feedback from working parents about the key parenting issues on which they would like to have more advice and support.

They are held live at lunchtimes to allow parents to have access to advice on parenting issues during the working day and then hosted on the site afterwards so that all users of Parent Hub can take advantage of the subject matter.

The first issue to be tackled in the webinars is sleep which topped a wish list of subjects to cover submitted by over 400 working parents.

Andy Philpott, sales and marketing director for Edenred, said:

“Parent Hub has a very clear objective: to give working parents better access to advice on parenting issues.

By delivering a free online advice channel as part of our childcare voucher service, employees are able to get that support from a trusted source at work or at home.

For employers, at a time when working parents are face increasing pressures in work-life balance, the access to advice on Parent Hub can help reduce the impact of parenting issues which may impact on their performance at work.Our first webinar on sleep – by far the most popular subject for working parents – was well received with the audience rating it 4.8 out of five for relevance. We’ll be building on this with a full webinar programme in the New Year.”

Parent Hub was launched by Edenred as an addition to its childcare voucher service in September 2012.

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You may not have asked yourself the question but reflecting on ten days of media interest, it’s one that I think smart employers should be thinking about as it looks like being a debate which won’t go away.

For a start there is the issue of the impending loss of child benefit for most upper rate tax payers. If there are two things we can learn from the acres of coverage this is now getting in the mainstream media it is that firstly, employees, however smart and whatever their tax band, don’t get what the impact will be. Secondly, there is a lot that we can still do with salary sacrifice and education to help mitigate or help a substantial number preserve this important contribution to their household budgets.

Then there is the issue of childcare costs which, if this week’s report on Newsnight is to be believed, looks set to come back into the headlines in January with new rules for child minders allowing them to care for more children in order to help shrink the crippling costs of childcare in the UK for parents. The numbers in this report remind us – not that we should need reminding – of why it is so important we all help with the challenge of childcare: the costs to parents amount to some 27% of take home pay while the cost to employers is an estimated one million women lost from the workforce.

Lastly, and more positively, there is the ‘Duchess of Cambridge affect’. It is hard to believe that it is only a week since the news of the imminent Royal baby broke with endless dissection of morning sickness and the impact on the Royal duties. We can expect more of the same for the next year and as we live through the Royal pregnancy and the birth, we can expect parenting to become as much of the national conversation in 2013 as the performance of our Olympians did in 2012.

It’s my experience that even the organisations who go out of their way to look after working parents can benefit from reviewing, reinvigorating and re-explaining to parents the support they can get to maximise take-up of benefits and ensure that employees are taking advantage of the HR policies in place to support them.

Given the agenda for the year ahead I think now would be the time to put this at the top of your to do list for January.

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The keynote speaker was Elizabeth Truss MP who outlined the Government’s Early Years priorities and offered an interesting comparison between the UK and other European countries. Some interesting statistics were shared.  For example, the UK puts £6 billion a year into childcare, which is twice the OECD average, and yet only 66% of mothers work, compared to 83% in Denmark. Half of those not working would like to but are prevented due the lack of affordable, convenient, high quality childcare.

Childcare vouchers go a long way in enabling many parents to work, but such statistics demonstrate how much more could be done, such as extending the availability of the vouchers, or increasing the tax free limits.

The keynote address was followed by short presentations from, Helen Penn (Professor of Early Childhood), Lucy Lee (Head of Education at Policy Exchange) and Iain McMath from the CVPA.  Helen pointed out that the UK is nearly alone in Europe in supporting a business model for childcare, rather than providing greater state subsidies. Lucy identified two convincing arguments why the Government should be involved in the provision of childcare, firstly because of the effect on child development, particularly for disadvantaged children and secondly, because of the effect on maternal employment. She concluded that all systems should be simplified and readily accessible and suggested that tax credits should be administered through the closed loop system of childcare vouchers.

Iain McMath suggested that childcare vouchers should be extended to the self-employed and for employed parents there should be the right to request access to the scheme. The chief Executive of the Daycare Trust picked up this point and suggested that it go further, and employers should be obliged to offer the scheme.

The afternoon’s sessions covered an evaluation of the revised EYFS framework, engaging parents in the community and the extension of 3-4 year old free places to disadvantaged two year olds.

All in all a compelling and illuminating day and I look forward to next year!

Of all the talk about the importance of leadership, communication and listening, the one thing which stuck out for me was the critical role of the manager as the people who unlock performance in our organisations.

They are the coaches, the day-to-day leaders and the people who, in nearly every organisation, matter most to the employees out on the line.

Yet somehow I think we seem to have lost sight of this.

In many organisations you’ll find that the support functions we work in – and I am not just talking about HR here – serve the needs of the leadership team before any other. On any new strategic or tactical whim they say jump and we say how high.

People talk a good talk about importance of customers and the people who serve them on the front line, but we forget about doing a great job in supporting our managers, the people who we have to trust to make that happen.

This is a mistake. At a time when we are looking to get more from our people we need to be making sure we are supporting our managers in the right way to deliver great performance.

For many of us that will involve a change of mind set. Of course we need to deliver on strategy and what the leadership in organisations need but we need to be talking to managers about how we can help them do that. We then need to ensure that they have the tools to manage, reward and improve our people.

No-one should kid themselves amid the talk of flat organisations, disappearing hierarchies and customer-centric businesses that they can get away without thinking about the role of the manager. They are critical to business success. If we remember to support and engage with them, performance will follow.

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With the backing of big names from across business and academia this is no lightweight campaign. For the launch, the well-respected Tanith Dodge, HR Director of Marks and Spencer, and the University of Bath School of Management put their names behind a paper which claims to nail the evidence that an engagement deficit is responsible for, and predicts, poor performance in organisations.

At a point in the year when many of us are deep in planning for 2013 and thinking about how we can maintain or improve performance – most likely with smaller budgets or smaller teams than before –the arrival of Engage for Success couldn’t come at a better time.

As a great presentation on the campaign website points out, incentivising and rewarding performance is one component which delivers and improves performance. This is the bit that many organisations have got used to grappling with and delivering.

But what this campaign does so powerfully is to remind us that the bit that is missing is a laser-like focus on supporting performance by engaging managers, reinforcing the behaviours that help the organisation succeed, listening to employees and providing them with direction and meaning.

This issue is the focus of our latest whitepaper. It provides practical guidance for those of us concerned with performance, engagement and reward around what they can do to support our managers who, ultimately, drive the success of our organisations.

At a time when we are looking to do more with less, focussing on what we can deliver by attending to our people and our managers rather than launching new tactical initiatives is an idea that is worth our attention.

You can download the whitepaper here.

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Already, the battle lines are drawn with predictable names on either side. From one corner, employer groups complain that it is just another burden on business. In the other, there are those who believe parental leave will provide a substantial boost to mothers who want to return to work.

Personally, I am always slightly dismayed that, whenever someone floats a new idea around employment regulations, the debate quickly polarises into this anti-red tape v pro-worker rhetoric. The reason for this is that we often lose sight of the issues that matter through this type of debate.

For this issue of parental leave a good way of approaching the debate is to ask ourselves what won’t happen if nothing changes. From our knowledge of working parents gathered recently through our Parent Hub information portal and in the longer term through the provision of childcare vouchers to UK employers of all sizes, we can be certain of a number of things.

1) We will continue to lock out female talent at all levels in the workforce and businesses – particularly smaller ones – will miss out on the skills they need to grow.

2) Balancing childcare and careers will remain too difficult for many parents to manage with their careers in the early years and talent will depart rather than work.

3) The onus will continue to fall to male workers to be the main earner regardless of whether this is the best decision for the family from a financial or career perspective.

4) There will be no stimulus for employers to come up with imaginative ideas to support working parents who already find the task of juggling work and home life a tough one.
Of course, as we have written before, forward-looking organisations are already thinking about how a blend of benefits, flexible working hours, home working and education/coaching can support working mothers. These will be the organisations who remain ahead of the curve and think about how shared parental leave can be put into practice for their benefit.

For the others, it is a good opportunity to look through the red tape v up-the-workers debate and think about the opportunity which such change will bring.

After all, as the saying goes, opportunity often comes disguised as hard work.

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Rising above the usual brow-beating about how HR can remain relevant to organisations, one of the big headlines came from a CIPD survey which found that for many employees, “the values of the organisations aren’t worth the paper they are written on”.

According to the research, too few organisations pull up managers and employees who run against these internal rules of behaviour – and even promote them – while awareness of what the values actually are is patchy at best with just 29% aware of them.

For many outside of HR, this survey will be of little surprise. When employees join a business, most just want to do a good job, to get paid and then go home. But for those within HR, the survey shows what a poor job many organisations are doing of engaging and inspiring employees to align themselves to what the business wants to achieve.

So what’s the problem?

Of course, as the survey suggests, if there are people who don’t live the company values who can succeed, then there will be little incentive for others to value the values.

But ensuring there are consequences for those who fail, as the CIPD chief executive Peter Cheese suggests, is only part of the solution.

The real answer lies in finding better ways to communicate and reinforce the importance of the values and their link to business success. This means translating values into real life actions for every employee in every role and setting clear targets for the behaviours and outcomes that need to happen.

This, of course, is hard work. It needs close collaboration with managers, coaching them to get the most from their teams and ensuring that targets are met.

My feeling then is that if values are failing in business it is not just because we are failing to reprimand the people who go against the grain. It is more that organisations are simply not working hard enough to take the words off the page, make them relevant in the day-to-day business and reward those who take them to heart in their work.

At this time of year when we start to think about end of year recognition for employees, now is a good time to think about how we can use reward to ensure that the people who live the values and behaviours which best support the business.  Doing this is a great way of bringing alive the importance of the values in a business and should pave the way for a rethink about how in 2013 reward can be used to deliver the behaviours which make a real difference to business performance.

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Coming in the wake of last week’s research from the KPMG which showed one in five employees said their income wasn’t enough to live on, it is another reminder of the challenges which many workers face in ensuring that what they earn is enough to pay for the necessary bills each week.  Unsurprisingly, not everyone – from Government to employers – is happy with the idea of increasing the costs of employment for fear of its impact on jobs.

But while the extent to which it will curtail job creation may be up for debate, one thing where there seems to be less disagreement is that creating the conditions where employees are less worried about money is good for performance within organisations.  Looking at the figures from The Living Wage Foundation, employers can expect less absenteeism and better quality work from these employees.

In short, looking after your employees financial wellbeing pays dividends for the individual and the organisations.  Although wages are an important area to address – and for many employees the most meaningful area of compensation – if employers are really interested in supporting employees while delivering improved performance than I think focusing on take home pay is really just a starting point, and that is where benefits come in to play.  Here I think there are three areas that every employer should focus on.

1)      Asking about the things which drain the finances of employees.  Chances are this will be childcare, the weekly shop, fuel and the regular energy and household bills which seem to almost instantly empty bank accounts quickly after pay day.  By building a picture of where employees feel most stretched, HR can think about the areas where benefits can come into play to help out.

2)      Thinking again about what benefits you provide.  Choice and access to benefits has dramatically improved – particularly for smaller and medium size organisations – in the past few years.  This means that many organisations are able to meet a wider set of needs for employees through a combination of voluntary benefits, salary sacrifice schemes or employer funded benefits.  For many employees, the aggregate savings achieved through childcare vouchers, workplace savings schemes which offer money off at major retailers and health cash plans make a big difference to how far their pay packet goes.  Thinking again about how your organisation can really support employees through benefits should be a key task for HR.

3)      Communicate what you are doing.  Even if your benefits do not change that often, employees’ lives change frequently along with where they spend their money. Employers should work with their managers in their organisations to ensure that employees are aware of the benefits they can get as their circumstances change.  Unlike the Living Wage, investment in benefits is less about the money you spend and more about the money you can save employees.  It doesn’t make it a substitute for paying enough for employees to live on but any smart employer who is interested in both wellbeing and performance should think about it as an important part of the total reward on they offer.

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The changes announced in the Budget in April will mean child benefit will now be withdrawn gradually from higher rate taxpayers earning between £50,000 and £60,000. The benefit will be reduced by one per cent for every £100 earned over £50,000 and completely removed for those earning over £60,000.

Under the Chancellor’s Budget, around 1.2 million families will now have their child benefit payments reduced. Around 840,000 of those households will lose all of the benefit. The other 360,000 will lose a portion of the benefit through the new tapering rule.

However, Edenred is advising working parents to use salary sacrifice for benefits such as childcare vouchers in order to reduce their taxable income to below the threshold.

Childcare vouchers are usually offered by employers via a salary sacrifice scheme which means they are taken from a parent’s pre tax salary and, depending on the rate of tax payer, are free from tax and National Insurance up to £243 a month. Both parents can claim these vouchers if their employer offers the scheme. The benefit for the company is also a lower National Insurance bill.

They can then be used for children up to 15 years, or 16 years if disabled, and can be spent on a wide range of activities such as afterschool clubs, holiday clubs, breakfast clubs, as well as nurseries, childminders and nannies. The age range covered by the vouchers means that parents of older children can also benefit.

With the Chancellor’s recent cuts to child benefit, many will be looking at ways to address this loss. The provision of childcare vouchers via a salary sacrifice scheme has multiple benefits – it serves to

save a working parent tax and NI and could also help reduce their taxable income below the threshold that will be affected by the changes to child benefit.

Any type and size of business can implement a childcare voucher scheme and it’s worthwhile for companies of all sizes, even if they have just one qualifying parent within the organisation. Parents should investigate if their place of work offers childcare vouchers.