System selection: creating the right process
Learn how to create an effective HR system selection process that avoids common pitfalls and leads to the right choice. This guide outlines key steps from requirements analysis through vendor evaluation, helping HR professionals navigate a complex decision that typically occurs only once.
Is there a limit to creativity?
Creativity drives organizational growth and innovation, but whether everyone can be creative depends less on individual traits and more on organizational culture. Research shows creative people exhibit stronger divergent thinking, while cultural factors like collectivism and power distance significantly influence creative output in workplace environments.
HR challenges for 2017 – and beyond
HR faces mounting pressure to support digital transformation and talent acquisition while operating with reduced budgets and headcount. The Hackett Group’s 2017 report reveals that 80% of HR executives expect digital technology adoption by 2020, yet only half have a defined strategy and fewer believe they have the resources to execute it.
Unconscious bias in action: four of the most common bias-related issues in people decisions
Unconscious bias significantly influences workplace decisions despite its invisibility. This article explores four common biases—descriptive stereotypes, framing effects, and others—that appear repeatedly in recruitment, promotion, and compensation decisions, with real examples from decision-making meetings.
HR technology: Is early adoption the key to success?
Employers face a key decision on HR technology adoption: while early adopters gain competitive advantages, they risk operational and reputational costs. Current trends like SaaS, people analytics, data aggregation, and HR apps offer significant potential for improved efficiencies and employee engagement when deployed correctly.
Three fascinating studies on diversity you won’t have heard of
Three fascinating studies reveal important truths about workplace diversity: minority leaders face career backlash for championing diversity initiatives, female representation in top management boosts financial performance only when innovation is the firm’s focus, and racially diverse teams significantly outperform homogeneous groups on complex problem-solving tasks.
We need to talk about race: why are we making so little progress on ethnic diversity?
Ethnic minorities hold just 6% of top management positions despite making up 12% of the UK population. Lack of leadership commitment and silence around race remain key barriers to BAME diversity in the workplace, with only 21% of companies publicly reporting diversity data.
Employee perspectives: “I’m quietly hoping for a revolution.”
An NHS nurse and trade union representative shares concerns about inadequate organizational support, staffing shortages, and low pay in the healthcare sector, calling for greater investment in employee wellbeing and education.
Data-scraping social media for personality assessment: will this benefit HR?
Researchers are developing personality assessment tools that analyze social media data to predict character traits with increasing accuracy. These automated systems could streamline HR recruitment by pre-screening candidates against job profiles, though they raise questions about effectiveness and ethical implications for organizations.
How leaders are silencing their people
Most leaders underestimate how difficult it is for employees to speak up, causing organizations to miss critical intelligence about problems, inefficiency, and misconduct. Research shows that power dynamics prevent workers from sharing vital information, even when facing serious organizational risks like scandals or unethical practices.
Speaking truth to power: the empowering culture
Ashridge Executive Education research reveals how organizational cultures shaped by leaders’ dialogue practices influence whether employees feel safe speaking truth to power. The study identifies four culture types—directive, adjudicated, empowering, and dialogic—each with distinct challenges for fostering honest communication and employee voice.
Speaking truth to power: the adjudicated culture
Research from Ashridge Executive Education identifies four organizational cultures, including the “adjudicated” or “owl” culture where leaders act as wise judges weighing competing viewpoints. In this model, leaders must balance encouraging healthy debate with preventing destructive competition while managing the “losing side” after decisions are made.
Speaking truth to power: the directive culture
A directive organizational culture revolves around one all-powerful leader with a single vision of truth. While this command-and-control approach can work during crises, it risks silencing critical feedback and suppressing ideas that could improve competitiveness and organizational survival.
Speaking truth to power: the dialogic culture
Ashridge Executive Education research identifies four organizational cultures that influence whether employees speak truth to power, with the dialogic or “starlings” culture characterized by limited hierarchy, collaborative decision-making, and open dialogue—though leaders must prevent it from becoming an ineffective talking shop.
Book review: Riding the Leadership Rollercoaster
Riding the Leadership Rollercoaster presents thirty parables examining common leadership flaws through psychological analysis. Reviewed as 4 out of 5 stars, Kets de Vries’s book combines anecdotes with self-help questions to help leaders recognize personal weaknesses and organizational challenges.
If you want to be a great leader, it pays not to be too smart
Research shows that leaders with IQs too far above their followers’ intelligence levels may be perceived as less effective. An optimal intelligence gap of about 18 IQ points maximizes perceived leadership effectiveness, as larger gaps create comprehension barriers and reduce follower identification with their leader.
Inclusion is the glue: 5 ways to create a holistic diverse and inclusive company
Recruiting diverse talent is just the first step. True organizational success requires inclusion—the “glue” that transforms diversity into innovation, creativity, and competitive advantage by fostering psychological safety and trust among team members.
Be yourself! Individualism in the workplace
Employees perform better when organizations recognize and leverage their unique skills and talents. Research shows that workers who feel their individual strengths are valued report higher engagement, while those whose abilities go unrecognized are more likely to seek jobs elsewhere. HR leaders can improve retention by avoiding rigid job classifications and encouraging cross-department growth opportunities.
“Make diversity and inclusion a business topic, not just an HR topic.”
AXA’s Group Head of Engagement discusses why diversity and inclusion must be integrated into business strategy, not isolated in HR. The company prioritizes gender parity, inclusive culture, and diverse marketplace practices through initiatives like its Sponsorship Tandem programme for developing female leaders.
Employ disabled people: it makes sound business sense
Hiring disabled people strengthens businesses while tapping into a £80 billion consumer market and an employment pool of over 1 million willing workers. Despite illegal discrimination and proven benefits of workplace diversity, disabled employment remains significantly below non-disabled rates due to employer misconceptions about costs and capability.
