HR, up your impact: what happens when reality bites?
“Plans are nothing; planning is everything” said Dwight D. Eisenhower. It’s one thing to come up with some goals and to have ways of measuring performance. What is vital is that we adapt when there are inevitable deviations from the plan – there may be opportunities to capitalise on and challenges to address. In this third article of this series, […]
Transaction cycles: a simpler future for an effective HR function?
In large organisations, HR can be an unknown world for employees. In their view it should be quite simplistic. It pays them, hires new employees for them and helps develop them. These apparently straight forward requests, however, come with complex and lengthy processes spread across multiple, unseen and sometimes seemingly unconnected teams. Isn’t it time we […]
Four ways for HR to become a force for innovation
HR is increasingly being challenged to help with generating greater innovation. Our responses typically have been to tackle the usual suspects. We invest in innovation training. We include “the ability to innovate” in our leadership promotion criteria. We adapt our psychometric assessments to try and spot the innovators. Unfortunately, these interventions rarely create truly innovative […]
Book review: Will it make the boat go faster?
HRZone has a range of books available for review. If you would like to receive one of our business books, free of charge, please contact the editor on editor at hrzone dot com and we can send you a list of what’s available. In return, we ask for a 400-700 word review of the book, […]
British resilience demands… resilient Britons
How resilient are you? A friend of mine was asked this question in an interview recently. It is a difficult one to answer and – put on the spot – we would all answer that resilience is, of course, one of our biggest assets. But is it? For all of us? Right now, it needs […]
A new wave of AI and what it means for recruitment
As many recruiters will tell you, finding the right person for a job can feel like looking for a needle in a haystack; it’s not uncommon for employers to receive hundreds of applications for an opening, only to find that most of the resumes don’t lead to a potential hire. The statistics are quite dismal: […]
Greatest extension of workers’ rights or a great big headache for SMEs?
Theresa May’s announcement today is being heralded in some quarters as the great expansion of workers’ rights. So does this mean it is unfriendly to SME businesses? We don’t think so – the one thing businesses do not like is uncertainty and we now know that the EU-based employment laws that we currently have are […]
Reflections from the 2017 CIPD L&D Show: attention spans and a marketing approach to talent
Most of us paid attention when in 2016 we learned that the average adult attention span had decreased to just eight seconds and was now shorter than that of a goldfish. I am fascinated for HR, for Talent and Learning professionals and for learning tech providers as to the implications at work. Bear with me […]
“Planning has become vital for me so I mix my week up so I don’t go stir crazy disappearing into my laptop.”
We’re always curious to hear how our members and contributors tackle the challenges that the ever-changing world of HR throws at them. We’ve got a wealth of experience and knowledge across the site, and what better way to showcase the diversity of our community than to get them to walk us through an average day? Want to […]
The sharing block: how restricting employees from sharing ideas is holding back business
Communication and collaboration have become much-used terms in the business world, highlighting the importance of interaction between colleagues and those outside of the business, including customers, partners and suppliers. But new research strongly suggests that employee collaboration and engagement with the rest of the business is severely lacking. Although technology has created numerous ways to […]
How to conserve mental energy during the day
We all have good days and bad days at work: days when perhaps we are writing a document and the words are flowing, clear, concise and convincing. But, equally we all have days when we feel overwhelmed and frazzled and can’t think straight; and we have those days where we have deadlines, but nothing too […]
The case for and against: L&D Accreditation
There are plenty of contentious issues in HR and the workplace, and we think it’s important to get a balanced discussion going on some of the bigger questions out there. In this series, we’ll be asking HR experts and practitioners to give us opposing viewpoints on a key issue, and we welcome your input too! If […]
Is your dress code fit for 2017?
Recently the media has been full of reports about MPs calling for tougher laws on dress code discrimination. Gary Cattermole, Director of award-winning employee engagement and employee research provider, The Survey Initiative, discusses why the issue is so vital and provides advice on how to create an inclusive dress code in your organisation. I think […]
How to build an award-winning company culture
How do you create a fantastic working environment and a happy workforce? It’s the million dollar question that we believe we’ve found some answers to. Simply Business has been named the Best Company to Work For two years in a row, topping the Sunday Times list in both 2015 and 2016. The rankings are based […]
The energised employee we all want to hire
The Plainspeak Analyst is Katherine Jones, Partner and Director of Talent Research at Mercer, the world’s largest human resources consulting firm. Her job is to design and deliver insight research and services to Mercer’s global clients. She was previously VP, Human Capital Management Technology Research at Bersin by Deloitte. She has a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction from Cornell […]
Social media screening: what information can you use?
Social media has revolutionised the way we engage with each other and exchange information. The figures speak for themselves. According to We Are Social, there are 38 million active social media users in the UK – that’s over half the total population – while 84% of UK millennials take part in social media activities every […]
Leadership development isn’t working. Why?
Blaire Palmer has been in the leadership development field for nearly two decades. And in that time she’s experienced plenty of fads. But rarely has she come across leadership development that really works. In this two-part series Blaire busts some myths about leadership development and offers some alternatives that might actually create more leadership. You […]
What should modern leadership development look like?
Blaire Palmer has been in the leadership development field for nearly 2 decades. And in that time she’s experienced plenty of fads. But rarely has she come across leadership development that really works. In this two-part series Blaire busts some myths about leadership development and offers some alternatives that might actually create more leadership. If […]
Artificial intelligence equals artificial jobs…?
What do you think when someone says ‘artificial intelligence’? Robots? Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey? Siri? Artificial intelligence (AI) has come a long way from concept to reality in a short space of time and, despite being a buzzword for the last couple of years, is now mainstream enough that all the main tech […]
Great Place to Work announces best workplaces of 2017
Every year, the Great Workplaces Special Report profiles the UK’s top workplaces for employee engagement and gives insight into how best-performing organisations are pushing the boundaries in terms of connecting with their workplaces and driving performance through innovative engagement and people management. This year’s report points to large discrepancies between companies appearing on the Best Workplaces list and […]