The seven pillars of building a successful company culture
Building an organisational culture is like making a house of cards. It’s both simple and complex. If you have all the elements in place and you reinforce them, nurturing culture is easy. If you don’t, the house collapses into its many parts. So business leaders, ask yourselves: how sturdy is your company’s cultural foundation? I use […]
It’s time to get rid of reverse mentoring
In a culture where continuous, on-the-job learning for all ages is encouraged, the term ‘reverse mentoring’ is archaic and potentially damaging. But why exactly is this the case? A term that was coined by Jack Welch, CEO of General Electric, almost 20 years ago, ‘reverse mentoring’ is still being used in various industries. The concept […]
Engaging employees in the age of social media
Social media is blurring boundaries between the personal and the professional, so how can HR teams manage employee communications in this period of transition? When it comes to communication in today’s world, more is definitely more, with the average UK user scrolling through an impressive 5.149 miles of content every year. In our personal lives, […]
How to use Scientific People Analytics to improve people processes
In the third article of this four-part series, Dr Max Blumberg explores how Scientific People Analytics (SPA) can be used to support human capital decisions made by organisational managers. In Part 2 of this series I showed how the Human Capital Value Profiler can be used to identify a people process requiring improvement in order […]
Why businesses need to rebrand middle management
Here’s the middle management challenge affecting many of today’s organisations: as flatter structures have become more the norm, the all-important middle has become increasingly neglected. Indeed, 38% of UK directors say their organisation is ‘paralysed’ by ineffective middle management and 40% identify it as the single greatest barrier to achieving company objectives. So now is the time to change this. […]
What are the top dos and don’ts when it comes to implementing change in a business?
Change is really hard. There’s no need to make it harder. Find out the top dos and don’ts for implementing change in business effectively. Change usually needs a moment of catastrophe, realisation or inspiration. Avoiding catastrophe, and deliberately creating that moment of realisation or inspiration requires something that goes beyond rational good sense to something […]
How to become an HR trendsetter
If you’re looking to get ahead of the curve in the HR industry, you need to look beyond what’s happening in the HR space itself. If you could forecast an early trend, you could capitalise on it because you’d be one step ahead of everyone else. This isn’t just true for investors in the stock […]
Writing a business case for HR and payroll software investment
Convincing management to invest in new HR and payroll software doesn’t have to be an onerous process. Get your proposal right, and the need will be clear. Once you’ve decided that it’s time for an HR and payroll system upgrade, your next job is to convince your business directors to invest in what they might […]
Maternity discrimination: five ways line managers make maternity returners want to leave
Hiring and training new staff is a costly business, so it makes financial sense to try and retain as many existing experienced employees as possible. Sadly, too many organisations are losing talent due to a negative approach to maternity returners. Did you know that there is a direct correlation between the relationship of a maternity […]
Remote working: why virtual teams fail and how you can avoid it
Recruiting and managing a virtual team requires a whole different approach to office-based staff and there’s plenty that can go wrong if leaders don’t take this into account. Research shows that a worrying two out of every three experienced managers fail in their first attempt at running a virtual team. This matters greatly now because […]
Gender pay gap: no time for short cuts
Ignore the gender pay gap at your peril – organisations that aren’t addressing this are falling behind. It’s time for HR to stop paying lip service and start creating true, systemic change. This April, more than ten thousand large firms provided details of their gender pay gap. Three quarters of them, it turns out, pay […]
Employee wellbeing: do you foster a culture of self-care in the workplace?
Employee wellbeing should be a priority for all businesses, as neglecting self-care could cost your organisation more in the long-run. The long standing ethos of market economics, ‘more, bigger, faster’ is based on a misguided assumption that our personal resources are infinite. Indeed, our personal resources are far from infinite (as we all know), and if we […]
Digital transformation: three ways HR can use AI more effectively
AI and analytics tools are only as good as the data they can access, so in order to make the best use of these, HR teams need to ensure that they have the right data integration strategy in place. Data is changing the world, but today’s enterprises remain inundated with an ever-rising tide of data […]
What role do employees play in a brand’s customer experience?
While companies like to think they are in charge of their customer experience, its front-line employees who live and breathe it every day – and they’re the ones your customers are seeing. The brutal truth for any brand to face up to is that they all have a customer experience, whether they like it or […]
Modern leadership: why a responsive management style is the future
In today’s ever-changing business environment, there isn’t one management style or technique that works all the time – what’s required is a responsive approach to stay ahead. The world has changed. As new demands from both the market and employees come to the fore, traditional management styles are being overtaken by a new leadership mindset. […]
HR Tech Masterclass: get results from your technology projects
Early bird tickets are available now for our CPD-accredited HR Tech Masterclass, taking place in London (September) and Manchester (November). Book your place today. Our one-day CPD-accredited masterclass will guide HR leaders and teams through each step of the full HR tech lifecycle to help them deliver results from their technology projects. Purchase your early bird ticket for £249 + VAT TODAY. […]
The true value of financial wellbeing
When it comes to employee wellbeing, financial wellbeing is key. When talking about good ‘financial wellbeing’ we mean a state someone is in when they have control over their financial lives. As such, financial wellbeing is intrinsically linked to financial resilience and the ability to comfortably manage one’s finances. More specifically, being able to manage […]
Employee engagement: sometimes it is the small things that make a difference
Employee engagement – there are lots of great resources out there on how to improve employee engagement across the organisation. But for most of us, it’s not so much the big interventions that make a difference to how we feel about work, it’s the small things – the day-to-day ‘stuff’. Small things can make a […]
Time to reflect – why does it matter in the workplace?
Reflection can be a very empowering process. It can help you to make sense of your day, to come to decisions, to set a course of action, to step away from your habitual way of doing and thinking to discover new freedoms and opportunities. Consider just how many of us go about our days on autopilot, […]
The eight core capabilities that future leaders need
It’s difficult to plan for future leadership roles when we don’t know what the future holds. Jenny Straumers from Cirrus offers some advice. The future is uncertain and unpredictable. Organisations everywhere face the challenge of planning for future leadership roles, even though we’re not actually sure what many of those roles will look like. Digital […]