Secrets of your trade.

I never used niche, my force used CIS then latterly, Crimefile. Athena is a whole other level of pain, especially case.

@claremcnam That'll be one of hers, she was one of those people that just could not be told she was wrong, even though there was clear evidence in front of her!

I have a question for police officers.

I was once falsely accused of something and removed from the scene in a police van.

They put me in the back of a small van that had no proper seats and no seatbelts. Just bench type seating .

How is this allowed ( no seat belts) ?

They put hand cuffs on me but I was easily able to just slip my hands out. ( I don’t have tiny hands) . What’s that about ?

There was a male and a female officer and they were both really kind to me.

sausage I have tried on one of those garments! It was a dress that fitted perfectly everywhere but had strangely narrow and tight upper arms. I still remember being bemused by the cut.

Targets seem to be the plague of every industry. We had an initiative to reduce pedestrian road deaths. A spread sheet was issued of deaths the previous year and given a target for the current year.

We did wonder, if we underachieved our target, whether we should appoint one of the team to speed through the borough in order to achieve it. One area had ‘Deaths in previous year NIL’ target. For current year 1.

In the fashion industry you use one or more "fit models" make sure a certain size fits correctly on that person (who meets your size criteria) & then scale up &/or down to make patterns for the other sizes.

Obviously, one "size 12" woman can be vastly different to another "size 12" woman, despite their waist, hip & bust measurements being the same. Equally dresses that fit perfectly in the morning may fit very differently after a big lunch.

Badly fitting designs can often be a case of a rubbish Garment Tech not taking note of the 2 litres of water the fit model is drinking throughout the day/her shoulder width/leg length/arm measurements etc.

Also, I once worked with a garment tech from M&S who believed that when you scaled up and down, all size measurements scale in the same way. I.e. of you take 2 inches off the waist circumference to go from a size 12 to a 10, you can also take 2 inches off the upper arm circumference, despite me trying to tell her otherwise.

Some of those design "blocks" today are still used as a basis for new styles & I can tell if this woman was the garment tech of the original design by the way the sleeves fit.

Snuggle, depressingly, in my (quite long) working life I don't think I've come across a good one. Although I'm not saying they don't exist! Mine 'restructured' my job away on the most dubious of rationales. And one of the team complained that in the Equality Act there are eight protected characteristics and 'we can't champion them all'

@DarlingNikita sorry you had to deal with shit HR people. They’re out there and they make me angry. I’ve dealt with one this week who quoted “law” at me and it was wrong. She’s useless and thankfully doesn’t work for me.

what are the worst and most common things you have to deal with staff in trouble? I think HR sounds fascinating!

@ASauvignonADay I actually love my job and I fulfilled my DM’s wishes that I find a job that I enjoy and pays the bills. It does that and more. I’ve worked really hard it and love making a difference.

Worse things - dealing with death in service and all that comes with it. No matter what CIPD qualification or training you’ve had, nothing prepares you for sitting with a next of kin (or family members) and discussing money.

Most common - as PP said, depending on your discipline in HR will depend on your day to day dealings. I’ve had heavy recruitment and Employee Relations (ER) roles and I’ve had managers blatantly lie about things to my face about procedures they’ve broken (fraud, money missing in retail branches, theft of stock) and then get caught out.

Most common for me these days are 1) mental health issues and 2) conflict resolution:

Mental health issues are on the increase because of the awareness and it feels sometimes as though everyone has a mental health issue. I take it with a pinch of salt when I see a sick note with “depression” or “stress” on. If you have even an ounce of acting ability, you can get a sick note with that on.

The ones with the real mental health issues are the ones that don’t realise it. Those are the people I help the most and get great satisfaction from when in 3 months time they’re a brand new person and back at work nailing it. Those who claim depression and anxiety but can’t clearly explain the symptoms they’re suffering or have done nothing to review their current lifestyle that might make a huge difference to how they’re feeling (eg sleep, food, alcohol & exercise), I have little time for. If you’re going to eat takeaways and do zero exercise, you’re going to feel shit. That doesn’t automatically mean you’re depressed. May be harsh but experience shows me in most cases a slight tweak in lifestyle makes so much difference to your mental health.

Employees don’t always get on and it becomes a management issue when they’re sniping at each other or arguing and generally not doing getting their job done. I honestly think sometimes supervising a playground of 7 year olds is easier, when I hear complaints like “he asked me to do something and I didn’t like the way he asked me” or “she’s had my stapler off my desk and not put it back” 🙄

when employees say they’ve got a solicitor, I know that you’ve been talking to your mates brothers’ wife, whose likely told you, you’re in the wrong

Not me. When my work treated me shoddily and I asked to be paid to leave, I really did have a solicitor. I assume the shit HR people at my old employers realised that, because they paid up with no arguments.

I'm guessing your force isn't one of the ones who have signed up to the Athena computer system, my force is and it's... challenging!

Ok call me thick, but what is the ref to Athena?

And thanks smother 💐

*not

Animum2 why are donuts 'doughnuts' any more?

I used to work in a donut factory, let's just say there was no wastage, if a donut fell to the floor it would simply be picked up brushed off and used for sale

@hellenback @confused... any experience of Athena?

So think a suit... probably a cheap polyester one, but still an attempt to look respectable. But paired with gold trainers. Or a track suit and snakeskin brothel creepers. Scantily clad women with no luggage, travelling with an older man also get the spidey senses going - is she really having a weekend in London with her Dad or is she being trafficked into prostitution? Someone who looks more nervous and sweaty than usual, coming for a three month “holiday” to stay with a distant relative who runs a restaurant.

@ASauvignonADay first time I’ve ever heard anyone say HR sounds fascinating so I’m jumping on the bandwagon (obviously I like it enough to do it for a living!)

A few things from me.

There are swathes of HR that don’t deal directly/daily with employment law, policy and pay. Like D&I, Talent, Leadership etc. Many people working in these areas may be familiar, D&I people will know the laws and policies relating to discrimination. But a lot of them like working in their area and specialise in it, they aren’t HR generalists (just like Employee Relations specialists won’t deal with the ins and outs of Talent etc). So basically, if someone works in HR don’t assume they are an expert in all things employment law or pay! A number of people will specialise in a particular HR discipline, or spend their time between two or three.

Like others have said above, don’t assume everything is legally required. Especially in large and/or good companies, many company policies tend to go a bit beyond the law. So you might not be happy, but it might not be a legal issue. Often the company’s own grievance process is your main route for resolution. Often, in my sector anyway, you grieve against the process (eg you think selection for a role was not managed properly) rather than the outcome (eg but I didn’t get the job and I think I deserved it).

When a grievance is upheld, not much may change. It depends on the nature of the grievance. If it is that a bit of process hasn’t been followed but ultimately the outcome would have been the same (eg perhaps there is a rule about interview notes that wasn’t followed precisely), it might just be that it’s acknowledged as upheld and you get an apology, if a training need is identified then that gets acted on etc. We get a lot of grievances like this, where ultimately there isn’t much material difference to the employee - some people appreciate the apology, but some people think there might be some great outcome (like a compensation payment or a new job) and there just isn’t.

You can’t just claim discrimination. There is law that defines discrimination. If you get dismissed for gross misconduct (ie you did something really bad!) you can’t just say “It’s discrimination!” and expect to win at an employment tribunal (we see way more of this than we should...).

Managers are really important. They really need to follow our policies. On the flip side of the above, we lose more employment tribunals than we should because of managers not following our policies (and like PPs said above, it’s better to tell HR upfront and not let it come out through various means; at the very least we can then offer a settlement and try to avoid tribunal). We’ve had employees act very much in breach of policy (eg gross misconduct, serious issues), but because the manager that dismissed them hasn’t followed the correct procedures we’ve had to then settle with the employee... the employee we were perfectly entitled to dismiss...

Because shoes are often the more expensive and more personal part of an outfit? I’d stick on my mate’s T-shirt to sneak in somewhere or present a different appearance but I’d be happier in my own shoes or you can get a cheap shirt anywhere but might not want to sacrifice your nice shoes.

I guess sometimes they are overdressed, maybe with interesting shoes that don’t go with the rest of the outfit/profile. It’s an expression- one IO wrote a book called Refusal Shoes.

I still don’t get that! Why would they deliberately wear shoes that don’t go with their outfit?!

@SnuggleSnuggleBlanket and @Purplecatshopaholic what are the worst and most common things you have to deal with staff in trouble? I think HR sounds fascinating!

How interesting!!!

You can usually pick people out of the queue who are going to be refused entry. I guess sometimes they are overdressed, maybe with interesting shoes that don’t go with the rest of the outfit/profile. It’s an expression- one IO wrote a book called Refusal Shoes.