The Bradford Factor - An Urban Myth

Back in the middle 80's the HR department was called Personnel a much more caring name as far as I am concerned, to me Human Resources always sounds like Alien Slave Labour but that's just me and my SciFi leanings.  Also back then a new Myth was born supposedly it came from Bradford University School of Management however they have denied any record of it, it was referred to allegedly in the Study of 365 published in July 1986. And yet I have been unable found anything published regarding its academic origins.  Which means it is has not been peer reviewed so has zero basis in scientific fact hence it is an Urban Myth used by many Companies globally. A truly modern irony!

What do I speak of, well it is an unfair method of measuring Employee short term sickness.

The formula is simple which is why HR software companies and HR departments love it so.

Number of spells of absence multiplied by itself then multiplied by the total days off in a 12 month period - (SxSxD)

For example to show how unfair it is:

• Jack has five days off twice in a 12 month period which gives him a total of:  40 - (10 days off)
• Jill has two days five times in a 12 month period which give her a total of: 250 - (10 days off)
• Bob has one day ten times in a 12 month period which gives him a total of: 1000 - (10 days off)

The "formula" is weighted against the Employee and it makes some extremely basic assumptions which have never been true ever:

• All sickness is the same
• All people are the same
• All businesses are the same

It is also linked to disciplinary procedures, apparently a score of over 600 is considered is a sacking offense.  How many Bob's have been fired I wonder.

Companies that use this will say it is a fair measure because it applied to all Employees but that is like saying Racial Cleansing is fair because you apply it to everyone using the measure of a particular race. Unfair measures stay unfair no matter how many people you apply it to.

I have read number of forums whereby people are complaining about the use of this formula and from what I can tell they have legitimate issues.  Some people would say they have an ax to grind but not from what I have read so far.  One lady was caught because her medical procedure was cancelled at the last minute and she had re-book another day's sick leave although I personally would have just booked a day's holiday.  If I have a sick day it is because I am ill but that's just me.

What I also find extremely curious is that since this formula has been in use for last thirty odd years nobody in Academia has written a paper supporting its use or building upon the original work probably because they cannot find it.  They have not debunked it either though I suspect Conspiracy Theorists would point at that and say our Universities are bought and paid for by Big Business.

Another curiosity is the lack of legal cases that mentions it, I found only one see link below from 2012.

https://www.gov.im/media/1354081/mr-noel-patrick-redmond-v-dlp-limited.pdf

You would of thought there would be more perhaps Ron Tocknell's comments below have been heeded or perhaps companies have enough common sense to use other methods of firing their staff.

Ron Tocknell a health professional has highlighted the Dark Side of the Formula used within the Bradford Factor, He said “Where the Bradford Factor Can be counter-productive”, “We shouldn't attend work if we have a viral infection, if we have had a bout of diarrhoea..... The company has recently implemented the Bradford factor.... Absenteeism has noticeably dropped. However, sickness among those we are supposed to be protecting has increased and, although absenteeism has reduced, it would appear that staff sickness has actually increased as so many staff members are constantly complaining about feeling ill. Staff feel pressured into coming into work when they really should be at home”

This is clearly an example of the formula being mis-used. To tell staff that they will be penalised for many short term absences in an environment where they are required to miss work under circumstances that may have the rest of us ‘grinning and bearing it’, is irresponsible management. “Employees are as unique as the organisations they work for. If the Bradford Factor is used to its full potential, as a disciplinary tool that will automatically trigger a warning, a final warning and ultimately dismissal then it is flawed, unethical and, in the opinion of this commentator, an employment tribunal waiting to happen.”

The only thing the Bradford Factor truly creates is Stress in the Employees and Stress is a vicious circle.  It makes people unpredictable, they break diets, drink more and/or smoke more basically do things which can increase the possibility of getting ill.  Employees are forced to come into the work because they do not want to increase their Bradford score which Stresses them out further.  According to the links below:

• Work related stress has climbed to its highest rate in 16 years, according the latest batch of statistics published by the HSE.
• 526,000 workers suffering from work-related stress, depression or anxiety (new or long-standing) in 2016/17
• 12.5 million working days lost due to work-related stress, depression or anxiety in 2016/17

Whilst I cannot blame this mythical beast of a formula on all the Stress in the workplace it is definitely a factor!

The article below is a little bit more in depth than my brief posting above but that was two years ago and nobody has shone a light on the blatant abuse of Employee rights since then.

http://tonymusings.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/where-bradford-factor-goes-bad.html

If anyone finds evidence of scientific, mathematical and/or statistical analysis of this formula please leave a link in the comments.  I would be very interested to read it.

Route 101 – Thunder Part 9 of 9

Flotsam

And that's the Road's history from beginning to end okay I so I left out the numerous attempts to travel the one mile of Road by various different thrill seekers and extreme sports nuts but that's a given really this sort of phenomenon always attracts the crazies.  There is of course one small fact that I have left out about the Road and that is no one has succeeded in traversing the full one mile they didn't just fail they all died.  My heart is pumping fast and I am beginning to think I've bitten off more than I can chew.  In the middle distance the dance of the lightening bolts lights up a circular patch near the school bus and I see just for a brief second the headless body of Robert Jones, the hair on the back of my neck and arms stands up straight.  If I make it I'd be famous otherwise I will be very dead indeed might even end up like Robert Jones.  This is it either I turn around now or I go hell for leather, I give my old hunker some gas it doesn't move and that would be because the hand brake is still on.

My mood shifts from sheer terror to a fit of the giggles which takes me awhile to get under control, once I've stopped laughing the Road is still there waiting for me its next victim.  The terror is gone now it has been replaced with never ending determination, I realise that I still got my foot on the gas so I drop the hand brake and my old hunker leaps away like a startled bull frog towards the chaos of the Road.

I drop the shielding into place across the windshield making it quite difficult to see out but I'm glad  to be wearing sunglasses I think would have been blinded as soon as I entered the storm zone.  I hear a number of loud thumps and I am pretty sure I can smell something burning, no point in looking in my rear view mirror there's nothing to see the cab is pretty much closed in with shielding plus I'm wearing the cloak as well which is quite warm.  Nothing truly bad has happened yet that I can see although I'm hardly into the heart of storm yet.  As I get closer to the half way mark I have to slow down there are far more wrecks in the way not many vehicles made it past this point and I having great difficulty navigating round them.  There is an awful lot of metal on metal sounds although I can barely hear that through the sound of the storm itself which like having a twenty pound artillery gun going off next to your ear every few seconds.  I'm now down to a complete crawl, I open the glove compartment to find something to stick in my ears, I don't really hear it more sort of feel it.  There's an explosion at the back on the nearside pretty sure that was the back wheel punctured I'm probably driving on at least one rim at the moment.  I see gap in the Road between the wrecks and I scrap slowly through, with cotton wadding stuffed in my ears the storm's voice is a little easier to take.

I'm past the half way point and Road is almost clear and I can see further down to the shadow of the over turned bus, I know I could scrap past the front of the bus at a reasonable speed which should give me enough momentum to make it out of the storm, there is another muffled explosion to right. The back of the hunker skews to right I do my best to turn into skid and just when I think I lost control my old hunker rights itself and I gear down to get some speed up.  I'm nearly up to fifty miles per hour when by the light of three simultaneous lightening bolts that hit close to the school bus whilst all around goes dark I see Robert Jones's headless body directly ahead I am mere yards from him, despite the fact he is most certainly dead I cannot bring myself to drive through him and I yank the steering wheel in attempt to swerve round him.  I must have missed him by mere inches however my swerve didn't end there as my hunker spun into a skid I heard the sickening crunch of the front axle tearing loose under the sudden collision with the bus but the bus did not stop the motion of my hunker but caused it to spin and then slide down off the side of the Road into the ditch.  The hunker starts to roll and I am tumbling over and over fortunately I have had the sense to wear my seat belt.

The hunker finally stops rolling and lands mostly upright, I can still hear the sounds of the storm outside but I cannot tell if I was far enough off the Road to attempt getting out of my hunker and walking the last two hundred yards or so. Still alive despite considerable bruising to my ribs, just as I was contemplating getting out the driver's airbag went off a little late and the sudden crunch in my nose leads to me suspect I now have a broken nose but compared to the pain in my ribs I barely notice it.  I pull a hunting knife from my boot and deflate the airbag, the driver's side door is completely buckled inwards no chance of leaving that way and it is closest to the storm so probably best to try leaving via the passengers side.

This door isn't bust however feels like something is blocking it so I roll down the window,  then lie on the bench seat and start kicking at the shielding I had attached to my hunker.  The fact that it survived the roll down the side of the Road is testament to my hardware skills but at the moment I want it to break very soon indeed.  It takes about five or six smacks of my heavy boots to knock the shielding loose at which point the light of the storm explodes into the cabin and not even my sunglasses are doing much good.  I squeeze my eyes shut as tightly as possible and pull the hood of the cloak close over my head, okay as clever ideas go not so good but it is still my only option of getting out alive.

I figure my best hope is to go feet first and head away from the storm which despite my cotton wadding is very loud indeed.  Fortunately I'm not an unfit guy, quite slim in fact and going through the cab window is fine then I land awkwardly on my left foot, I feel my ankle twist so I purposefully lean to right and promptly fall over but at least I out and no bolts have hit me yet.  I use my hunker as a base to work from and on all fours I ease myself slowly out onto the plain.  I risk a brief look back, the light from the storm is very bright indeed but it is probably a safe enough distance to stand up and run like hell.  Whilst running I trip over what I assume is a big ass boulder which sends me flying, I put out my hand and there is definite crack as I hit the ground along with the sudden increased pounding of the storm's voice although the pain in my ribs still getting most of my attention.  My breathing is very difficult, there is a very sharp stinging feeling in both of my hands and to cap it all off my left foot feels far to big for my boot.  The boot is probably the only thing that is keeping me walking well it is more of a limp now.

And then as if by magic the noise ceases and it is completely quiet, I change my course and head south back towards those who sent me into this damned Road in the first place.  I see their lights, they obviously can see me because they are pointing in my direction and gesticulating but I hear nothing. I get within perhaps a hundred yards and then the lights go out.

Jetsam

Opening my eyes I see I am in a hospital room both my hands are bandaged, I can barely breath due to the wrapping around my ribs and the breathing is still quite painful.  Pretty sure my head and neck are in something of a neck brace, I fumbled around until I find the button to call the nurse and give good ten second push.  For a hospital it is damn quiet almost deathly in its stillness, I would click my fingers if they weren't so bandaged up, my mouth won't open but I don't remember any injuries to my face during my stupid adventure down that Road, holy hell what was I thinking.  The door opens in walks a nurse and doctor they seemed to be speaking but nothing is coming out out of their mouths, is this death did I die? Definite feeling of panic trying to get up out of this nightmare what happened back on the Road have I become trapped like Robert Jones.  Two nurses in the room now gently pushing me down, the doctor has pulled out a notebook and is writing on it.  He turns the notebook round and shows it to my face.  It takes a while for me focus on it but when I do I stopped fighting and lie back on the bed, although I don't think the doctor's professional bedside manner really let me down easy with those three words he wrote on the notepad.

Route 101 – Thunder Part 6 of 9

Flotsam

The next D-Shift to set up shop was at the south end literally just a couple of yards from the side of the Road, it was initially stationary like the 'Sweeper'.  Remember Billy the bus driver well he wasn't always a bus driver when he was younger he was an up and coming actor.  Set on the gravy train for life until he was caught with the  director's wife of the film he was in, in a very public incident with a recently printed giant banana.  It basically put his career in the toilet, so he chose anonymity as a school bus driver and became well known in the local bars as 'Only-if' a man of many regrets apparently the incident with the director's wife was just the tip of iceberg when he got drunk which was pretty every night he would bang on saying over and over again only if he done it differently he would be so rich not stuck out here in the sticks.  Billy did however have one redeeming feature he took care of his Mum and the locals knew this so they always made sure someone drove him home if he was too drunk to drive.

It was on one of these nights that Howard James one of Billy's friends was driving him home, they had literally just turned onto the Road when Billy said he needed to take a leak.  Howard stopped the truck and let Billy out who wandered in a less than straight line off the edge of the Road.  Ten minutes later Howard was still waiting for Billy to return, he grabbed a torch and walked off in the general direction Billy went in.  I've met Howard and he said to me it was pitch black out that night even with his flashlight he couldn't see a lot.  He spent about half an hour looking for Billy until he tripped over Billy's body lying face up, he was alive but with an odd calmness about him that Howard had never seen in Billy's eyes before.  He couldn't work out what Billy was looking at until he looked up and for a moment he couldn't drag his eyes away from the spectacle above him.  Unlike Billy Howard was not a man many regrets so he was not drawn into what he saw above him, he knew it must be another D-Shift probably something to do with time he supposed.  He dragged Billy's body back to Road and back into the truck, fifteen minutes went by before Billy blinked his eyes and asked if he had beer in the truck and that he just had a really odd dream.  Howard gave him a light beer then drove Billy home and didn't mention anything to Billy about what he saw.  In hindsight Howard regretted that particularly decision although he never went back to what became known as the Oracle of Madness.

Unlike other D-Shifts known at the time this particularly one was spherical in nature hovering some twenty feet above the ground and was approximately twenty feet in diameter.  To get a proper look at you really needed to lie under it although that wasn't always easy because it tended to wander across the land, at first it was thought that its route was random but when it was plotted it always took the same route across the plain and always ended up where it begun.  It did however make stops during its journey across the plain and took exactly nine hours from beginning to end.  The land that it traveled across was owned by a local entrepreneur called Jake 'River' Hook who instantly saw the D-Shift's money making potential and despite many attempts by the government boys was unable to stop him from raking in a fair bit of cash on the tourist ride he called River Futures.  The government boys did managed to force some health and safety regulations into Hook's operation but it didn't stop several people losing their minds to the Oracle including Only-if Billy before the government boys shutdown Hook down permanently.  Hook himself disappeared shortly after the shutdown he was found lying face up on the Oracle's route chained to ground, dead from exposure.  It was written off as a revenge killing however not enough evidence was ever found to point the finger at a viable suspect.

What you saw when you looked into the Oracle according those big scientists from the City was all your possible futures based upon your past decisions made differently.  The only problem is that you are effectively staring into an infinite number of realities all at once though according the scientists it appeared to affect people differently.  Not everyone looking into it went mad which according to the government boys was why it took so long to shut Hook down.  With Hook gone with no heir apparent the government took over and installed forty foot high fences around the Oracle's route and a daily security patrol.  The same D.S. Agent that visited the 'Sweeper' on a monthly basis also monitored the Oracle.

Route 101 – Thunder Part 5 of 9

Flotsam

The D-Shifts had just arrived around the time of the ozone hole but many of them were appearing over water except for the pigeon incident and there was a big one in Rome was well (an Escher type I think).  It was the early days of the D-Shifts and government boys hadn't even begun to categorised them.  The Road itself runs due south although when it was still open to the public it was a two lane highway so I suppose you could travel north too but back when it was used it had already acquired a bad name and most people drove around it.  However it was on the local school bus route and gas prices back then were still quite steep so the local high school home of the 'Thunder Rams' I might add, spent a little cash on UV shielding to avoid the larger spend of going the long way round.
Whoever came up with the name Thunder Rams must have had considerable foresight.  If it hadn't been for the somewhat cheap nature of the high school it is possible that the D-Shifts that appeared around the Road would never have been reported.

First came the 'Sweeper' due east of the Road, it appeared two hundred yards away from the crash barriers roughly in the center, it must have been an amazing sight for the school kids as they drove past it.  According the then driver of the bus one William Paker, Billy to his Mum although most of his friends called him 'Only-if' one moment there was nothing and the next a blue shimmering tornado spinning eastwards away from the Road.  Billy stopped the bus, he said he wasn't sure whether it would be safe or not.  When he and some of the older kids got out they discovered there was no wind whatsoever.  This tornado was also acting very weird according Billy, it was pretty much stationary apart from the fact it was spinning clockwise, was about eighteen to twenty feet across and there were blue sparks appearing all through it.  Billy could see that there was debris within it but upon closer inspection by the science team it was discovered that most of the debris was very small indeed.  A leaf is probably the largest object a 'Sweeper' will allow inside.  Billy waited about half an hour before he decided it was safe to drive past but he did as fast as he could.

The Road was closed temporarily whilst government boys investigated this new phenomenon when the Road was reopened the locals found the 'Sweeper' still there except with heavy duty razor wire round it with signs stating that the phenomenon was not dangerous had been categorised as a 'Sweeper' D-Shift but is under government jurisdiction and is a federal crime to attempt entry without permission.  A D.S. Agent will visit the site on a monthly basis to confirm that all is in order.

I met that same agent several years later when I first came to this neck of the woods but I'll tell you about that later.  There are quite a few 'Sweeper' D-Shifts around the world nowadays quite excellent for storing dead leaves although there has a been few lazy gardeners out there that have died when a 'Sweeper' departs for sunnier climes.  The field of energy that spins a 'Sweeper' doesn't slowly dissipates over time it just vanishes all at once leaving the debris it has collected explode outwards normally taking several innocent people in its wake.  When the first 'Sweeper' dropped its load so to speak the razor wire around the Road's 'Sweeper' was upgraded to heavy metal fencing and several outer fences to stop even the most determined tourist to get too close.

Route 101 – Thunder Part 3 of 9

Flostam

Even before the D-Shifts started up, this Road has seen its far share of history, originally it ran up to the take-off fields of the Space Patrol of course they didn't last long what with the war between Dwells what a nutty bunch of aliens they were.  They blew the Space Patrol right out of its socks and then surrenders for absolutely no reason known to man.  There's still a big crater at the end of the Road some big scientists say it created a negative pole of instability at that end of the Road whatever that means.  The Dwells didn't stay long but they did give us star-drive capability not that it helped us to travel to other stars of course, theoretically we could as long as we were at least four light years away from the Earth.

Then came the Greys, aliens with zero dress sense and I do mean zero.  They landed at the end of the Road I'm currently sitting stationary at in my hunker about three miles northeast in fact.  Turns out the Greys tended to follow the Dwells everywhere not to patch up their messes like my old Dad no such luck not that I believe in luck of course.  Apparently the Dwells are drawn to highly radioactive materials and the Space Patrol had one of the old G-Reactors that belched the stuff on a regular basis of course back then the bulk of the Space Patrol was completely automated using those daft IA series robots. I mean come on, difference engines make terrible cops.  We sold the Greys plans for the G-Reactors a completely unstable technology for a yet more unstable technology to help with the star-drive the Dwells had supplied us with.  The government was apparently on their game that day because they asked for a demonstration so the Greys put a man in a shuttle craft east of the Road and used the tech to travel to the west side of the Road without apparently moving.  Then they left quite quickly not to be seen again I might add and so did the government boys although we seen them all the time.

Five years later came the first of the D-Shifts and no one even noticed it for another year, it was right in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle so who is going to notice something strange there.  Of course when an ocean liner that has been wrapped in a complete circle appears drifting off the coast tends say something was up, it was a bloody miracle no one was hurt.  The incident in Paris however really made an impression particularly I assume on the French since it was their tower that had the make over in pigeon, I'm sure you've seen the video feed that one moment a very small pigeon in the middle distance flying above the tower and the next a twenty ton pigeon failing to fly and falling on top of it.  Speared quite spectacularly by the tower itself not that the tower managed to support the extra weight for very long, which then bent down before snapping completely in two, only two hundred and seven people killed.  One of the worst disasters the city had faced since the last war, I mean to have survived five wars and then to be destroyed by a twenty ton pigeon.

Route 101 – Thunder Part 2 of 9

Flotsam

Here I am hung over looking down a Road which is effectively a deathtrap to all those unwary enough to travel down it and stubborn folk like me who doesn't like to back down from a bet once made.  I can just make out the blonde lass a mile in the distance they got a bunch lights all set up, I'm not sure a piece of tail is really worth risking my life over.  Its not like the bet is for much in the way of credits either.  I know what you are thinking and it isn't pride either,  its more to the wipe the smug smile off that old boy's face.  Still that mile just seems to be getting longer the more I look at it, fortunately or not depends on how you look at it there's only me here at this end.  They've probably thought I've bottled it, not me I maybe a little slow sometimes but I'm not stupid got me a secret weapon.

Okay so as secret weapons go it isn't too secret just a sheet of second hand syntho-shield which I managed to bend over the more weaker points of the hunker and then I also I've got a cloak of the stuff.  Didn't come cheap either the guy that sold it to me says its just like the shields the government uses for rescuing people from unexpected D-Shifts.  Thing is the shields don't last long and government always throws them away after one use so there is quite a trade in them.

The real problem is that The Storm itself isn't a D-Shift, more sort of the waste product of one so I'm not actually sure how good the syntho-shield is going to be against The Storm's effects and there are many.  You see I accepted the bet before I read up on the history of the Road, okay I admit that was stupid.  Though I suspect the whole thing was a frame up, I mean they all know about the new protected zone being built right next to my property.  They were just jealous and this is how they've managed to get back at me.  Its not my fault that I'm risking my life not one bit of it.  I bought that piece of land from one of the local widows two summers back apparently been in the family for centuries dating back to before the war of independence.  Of course the locals didn't like a limey like me buying their land, its good farming land not sure why its never been turned.  The soil is thick and black, had one of them big scientists from the city to test it before I bought it though just in case.  They said it was high grade you could grow anything from it, I think that is why the government blokes decided to build near it so they could use me to farm for them but the locals say the land is protected and its bad luck to farm there.  I don't believe in luck what happens happens, of course the locals tried to stop me from doing any work on the land straight off.

First it was none of the local farm-boys would hire out to me despite the high rate I was offering, then I had the cops down on a tip that my trailer contained government controlled plants and then the local hardware store refused my credits.  I've had bring everything in from hundred miles away at considerable cost I might add, for the amount of credits I've spent so far on this shindig I could of bought myself a nice little flat in a protected zone.  Of course that isn't me, I'm a farmer through and through don't like the indoors too much.

Its the government's fault again I had good farm back in Blighty, saw me a government sign about big money to be had in the land of the yanks.  Lots of spare land since the population drop after the D-Shifts started.  Apparently it effects your manhood not that I've ever had any trouble myself in that direction but since the D-Shifts the birthrate has dropped off quite bit.  Blighty seems fine for that sort of thing but the government says it because there's more D-Shifts in the US,  I'm not so sure on that front.  Still that's why I here looking down that stretch of road cause the locals obviously want me dead and away from their land.

Route 101 – Thunder Part 1 of 9

I am currently a bit fed up with politics so I have decided to post up a short story I wrote in 2014/15 based upon another story I wrote whilst in school.  I have split it up into nine parts and epilogue, Enjoy.