Josh Bersin: “HR must stop being order takers.”
Josh Bersin is one of the most recognisable faces in the HR industry and is currently Principal & Founder of Bersin by Deloitte, who provide consultancy on people strategies based on research. We conducted this interview with Josh at HR Tech World Congress, which took place in Paris in October 2015. You’ve got nine specific focuses for […]
What can HR learn from the banking sector?
No-one can be in any doubt that the banking sector is no longer a destination employer. Quite the opposite. With scandal after scandal hitting the industry, consumers and employees have lost faith and the banks have been trying to rebuild reputations ever since. Attention is firmly focused on the leaders tasked with repairing the damage and bringing […]
What can be learned from being a mutual company?
While there are more than 10,000 mutual societies in the UK including building societies, co-operatives and community benefit societies, credit unions, friendly societies and registered societies, MyCSP is the first Government mutual joint venture – a former public sector department, ‘spun out’ into a private organisation, but importantly one with a mutual structure and I […]
Risky business: how historical views of risk management limit ambidexterity
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 […]
How care home staff wellbeing affects care quality
Care home staff provide invaluable support to sick, elderly and vulnerable people, but the rewards in this industry are often in kind. A challenging and often underappreciated profession, those who enter this sector do so because they feel compelled to pursue something purposeful and giving. Care staff work in hard, emotionally demanding roles with no […]
Interview: John Timpson, Chairman, Timpson
This is an interview with John Timpson, Chairman of the Timpson high street chain. How do you see your role at Timpson now? My son James is the Chief Executive and so he deals with all the detail. My role is to support him really: I don't get involved in day to day stuff but […]
Engagement myth #3: it’s solely about the individual’s link with the company
Do you work in the voluntary sector? In conjunction with LVSC and Business Unusual, I’ll be running a free surgery where we look at engagement in the five spheres specifically in terms of dealing with internal change and engaging the private sector. Register here for this event on 27th November. The term “employee engagement” is […]
What are the requirements to qualify for shared parental leave?
Adding a new dimension of flexibility to the work environment, shared parental leave (SPL) was introduced to allow parents to share their parental responsibilities in a way convenient for them during the first year of their child’s life. A mother can share her leave with one of the following: the baby’s father, her husband, her civil partner […]
Defining the role of a ‘worker’ in an Uber world
There is often a fine dividing line in determining whether, on the one hand, an individual is an employee or worker; or whether they are a genuine self-employed contractor on the other. Emerging trends in the workplace – particularly that of “agile working” – are making this determination increasingly more complex and have somewhat muddied […]
Meeting core time and absence goals in financial services
Employers within the financial services industry have unique time and absence needs. While other industries, such as manufacturing, may be saddled with union rules and the need to track multifactor labour distribution transactions, financial services has its own share of challenges. In order to explore these issues further we recently held a roundtable discussion with […]
Are you dreaming of a compliant Christmas party?
Christmas parties are a great way to let off some steam at the end of a busy year. But if you’re not careful, hidden tax costs can make for a much more expensive celebration than you first expect. We all look forward to Christmas party season. But company parties can be tricky – and not […]
Get comfortable with changing the world of work – now’s the time to act
The world of work needs to change and in a series of articles over the last few weeks, I’ve explained why and how. Change is always a challenge to introduce and implement, and the transformational change that I advocate, which really alters outcome for organisations and their stakeholders, can be a major undertaking. Why […]
How to reduce staff turnover in IT and telecommunications
IT and telecommunications, and particularly call centres, have long been known for higher-than-average employee turnover rates. Especially when an emphasis on 24/7 customer service is core to an organisation’s success, it can be difficult for HR to authentically facilitate a culture that supports employee work-life balance without compromising efficiency and productivity. Add duty of care […]
What you can learn about effectiveness from the world’s best poker players
Whether you are an established business leader, manager, or apprentice, we all have at least one thing in common: we all want to make good decisions and deliver good results. To do that we need the right environment, support, knowledge, skills and mental attitude. And we need those things over the course of our careers […]
Mindfulness: the new science of performance
I can remember when culture was a weird concept that many felt would never catch on and certainly most CEOs thought it was some soft thing that had no relevance to their job. Yes this may date me but it also reminds me of how business people are thinking about mindfulness meditation today. There are […]
Engagement causes high performance, or vice versa?
This is an interview with Alex Edmans, Professor of Finance at London Business School. Alex will be speaking at Engage or Bust! on November 24th, a one-day event run by government taskforce Engage for Success. The event will look at ways organisations can improve engagement and features senior HR directors alongside academics giving you practical […]
Utilising disruptive talent to expand the possible
The term ‘disruptive talent’ refers to individuals who see everyday things differently from the majority. They are capable of finding new and significantly more productive ways of doing things whilst rejecting the ‘tried and true’ solutions. In some cases these individuals generate ideas that lead to the next big thing – Virgin Atlantic, iPad and Uber […]
Are you creating purpose for your employees?
How do 28% of the 150 million-strong US workforce primarily define the role of work in their lives? The answer: a source of personal fulfilment and a way to help others. These are purpose-oriented workers. You may not have heard of them. Yet new research from Imperative and New York University suggests these workers are […]
Our journey towards Living Wage accreditation
The first week of November is Living Wage Week, a UK-wide celebration of the Living Wage and the employers that are committed to it. It’s also an opportunity to raise awareness; it’s a subject that’s featured prominently in the papers over the last few months, but only 1,700 business out of the UK’s 4.9 million […]
How can you defuse workplace conflicts? Part 2
In Part 1 of our series on how to manage workplace conflict, we looked at how to open the conversation, as well as two core workplace mediation skills: listening and playing back the issues. In part 2, we explore how to use conflict resolution skills to highlight choices, support decision-making and handle potential roadblocks. Highlighting […]
