Resilience isn’t just a nice-to-have. Here’s why.
The workplace throws up a steady stream of obstacles and challenges e.g. colleague relationships, organisational ways of working, workloads etc., and it’s our resilience or the ability to cope with the obstacles that come our way, to bounce back, learn from mistakes, to make amends when necessary, and most important of all, begin again without […]
Men ‘twice as likely’ to have flexible work hours requests knocked back
Stat attack gives you the facts, figures, numbers and survey results you need to keep on top of developments and changes in sentiment in the HR and L&D industries, all in an easy to digest format. It’s your regular dose of facts and figures, parcelled up for easy reading. Context: These statistics are from an […]
Unpicking Angela Merkel’s ‘connected’ leadership style
For many years, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has had a reputation for being cautious. But her response to the refugee crisis has shown her to be a bold and very connected leader. What attributes have placed her at the centre of the world stage? Angela Merkel has led Germany for ten years and has long […]
The Positive Organization: Time for HR to leave the ‘bandage business’
In this three-part series, Professor Robert Quinn looks at how HR can stop being in the ‘bandage business,’ and how they can harness the findings of his research on Positive Organizations to emerge as a strong strategic business partner. This is part one. Read part two and part three too. In July, the Harvard Business Review […]
The Positive Organization: Two hospitals, two cultures – but why?
In this three-part series, Professor Robert Quinn looks at how HR can stop being in the ‘bandage business,’ and how they can harness the findings of his research on Positive Organizations to emerge as a strong strategic business partner. This is part two. Read part one and part three too. Here’s a story about a […]
The Positive Organization: Doing the impossible – Amy’s courageous story
In this three-part series, Professor Robert Quinn looks at how HR can stop being in the ‘bandage business,’ and how they can harness the findings of his research on Positive Organizations to emerge as a strong strategic business partner. This is part three. Read part one and part two too. In the first of these three […]
Time to say goodbye to the open plan era?
During the blitz, on 10 May 1941 the House of Commons Chamber was bombed. Arriving at the scene, the fire service was forced to choose between battling the blaze or fighting a second fire raging in medieval Westminster Hall. They chose the latter. By the following morning only a smoking shell remained and a new […]
Why you must pay attention to pay transparency
I wrote a blog earlier last year on pay transparency from an equal pay perspective and why being able to show employees that how you pay not only ensures that you are more likely to pay fairly (and avoid equal pay issues) but also how being open about pay has been shown to increase employee engagement. […]
What could personal resilience training look like?
Mental health issues received unprecedented levels of media, political and health service attention during 2015, and will continue to do so, not only into 2016, but for the foreseeable future. The Health and Social Care Act 2012, secured explicit recognition from the Secretary of State for Health, to work towards ensuring ‘parity of esteem’ between physical […]
Do I have to agree to a flexible working request?
Originally, the right to request flexible working was a family-related right. In order to qualify to make a request, it was a criterion that the employee had to be a parent of a child under a particular age or have caring responsibilities and the reason for the request had to be in relation to providing […]
Can you immediately dismiss an employee for gross misconduct?
A summary dismissal should only be used in a situation so severe that it can bypasses the usual disciplinary procedures every organisation should have in place. These disciplinary procedures usually provide that employees will not be dismissed for a first misconduct offence and will instead receive warnings increasing in severity up to dismissal. However, an […]
The ever-transforming role of the HR leader
It’s become a truism that the world and work, and even the very nature of work itself, is changing. However, what this really means – including what issues it will throw up for HR leaders of today (and more importantly tomorrow) – is still largely up for debate. In the whitepaper Four Powerful Strategies to Empower […]
Five ways SMEs are supporting older workers
There’s so much rich insight coming out of the academic sector that HR professionals need to know. At Academics’ Corner we feature the best HR researchers that tell you what they’ve found and what you need to do differently on the back of the research. Get connected to the academic sector through Academics’ Corner and […]
Do I need to have a redundancy procedure in place?
Making an employee redundant is a difficult situation to face and while it is not a legal requirement to have a redundancy procedure as part of employment documentation, employers often feel it provides clarity to employees in what can be a very difficult time. Terminating employment because of a redundancy is still considered to be […]
Work violence: does different treatment make dismissal unfair?
If an employee has two years’ service, then when considering a dismissal relating to conduct, an employer needs to act reasonably in the investigation, the process, the conclusions and the sanction imposed. One of the things that an employer also needs to consider is consistency of treatment. Inconsistency in punishments for misconduct may give rise […]
How to understand the profile of an interim executive
New research based on a survey of 144 interim executives across the UK suggests that interim executives may display stronger inclinations to lead than non-interims and present colleagues with a vision of what can be done rather than managing to orders. The survey results were compared to a sample of 1500 non-interim executives so that comparisons could […]
“The biggest challenge is how we actually make wellbeing part of our everyday conversation.”
This is an interview with internationally-recognised wellbeing expert Professor Sir Cary Cooper, currently 50th Anniversary Professor of Organizational Psychology and Health at Alliance Manchester Business School. Sir Cary has just been appointed President of the CIPD: we caught up with him to find out his plans for the first year of his tenure, and his feelings on […]
EU ‘snooping’ ruling: it’s about trust, not rights
News of Europe’s top court ruling that an employee whose boss read his messages had not had his rights violated this week has sparked much discussion. I believe that looking past the headlines, this is more an issue of organisations developing a trust culture than instilling one of fear through ‘big brother’ style surveillance. For me, […]
EU ‘snooping’ ruling: the neuroscience of snooping on staff private messages
Neuroscience is now providing a source of insight into understanding human behaviour, with its methods of generating images of how our brains are functioning. These methods and images are invaluable tools with which to understand ourselves, including how we interact at work and how we respond to the rules and norms of work place policy. […]
EU ‘snooping’ ruling: is it even morally ok to snoop on staff?
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) recently ruled that an employer was within its rights to read the Yahoo Messenger chats of one of its employees, as the employee had broken company rules. It’s been legal for quite some time now for employers to read their employees communications – within reason. UK law says […]