Overtime to count when calculating holiday pay
People working overtime could be able to claim for additional holiday pay, following a ground-breaking Employment Appeal Tribunal. Only basic pay currently counts when calculating holiday pay. Workers will be able to make backdated claims, but only for a limited period. According to Vanessa James, Head of Employment at SA Law, employees could potentially claim […]
Stakeholder engagement is key to successful change
Many have been led to believe that project management, change management and related fields, are simply a matter of organisation – working the right processes and tasks, writing the correct documents and having good governance mechanisms in place and so on. People just distract and get in the way. Some tend to concentrate on these […]
Interview: Jonathan Ferrar, VP, IBM Smarter Workforce
1. Can you explore how organisations and employees will need to work together to maximise the value to be gained from big data analytics? The availability of data is critical to the success of HR analytics, and some of the data HR wants for analytics might be considered personal by employees. It is therefore critical […]
Small change: is your reward structure stopping innovation?
It is widely acknowledged that HR leaders have a crucial role to play in shaping and driving business strategy. Less frequently discussed, however, is their vital role in creating successful innovation within an organisation. ?What If!’s recent research,‘Eyes Wide Shut: Leading for innovation in post-recession Britain’ found that almost all HR leaders (96%) at the […]
Round-up: HR Tech Europe 2014 Amsterdam
HR has always been a reactive function. And yet you wouldn't think that if you'd been at HR Tech Europe in Amsterdam, on October 23rd and 24th 2014. The HR Tech Europe crowd seem to understand what technology advocates know innately – if you’re studying the present you’re already behind. The fate of HR is […]
Can you manage the dynamics of organisational change?
Organisations seeking a blueprint to address the increasing pressures and demands of the rapidly changing corporate landscape are often confronted with change models that are too academic, too static or overly simplistic for their needs. A structured yet flexible model is essential and to work effectively requires outstanding leadership behaviours at all times, to proactively […]
Are HR business partners a dying breed?
Learning and development programmes continue to grow in importance as businesses gear up to take advantage of the economic upturn. But one area appears to be lagging behind. Is there now a shortage of high-quality HR Business Partners? Almost every client I’ve been involved with in the last 12 months has a similar problem – […]
Book review: The Team Formula by Mandy Flint & Elisabet Vinberg Hearn
Title: The Team Formula: A Leadership Tale of a Team Who Found Their WayAuthors: Mandy Flint & Elisabet Vinberg Hearn ISBN: 978-1780923475 This book was reviewed by David Evans of Burn Bridge Associates. This is a ‘leadership tale of a team who found their way’, to quote the sub-title of this very readable book. Following in the footsteps of a […]
Mental health stigma silences employees – 79% wouldn’t speak out
“The costs of mental illness to the economy are astounding… I urge commissioners and decision-makers to treat mental health more like physical health.” – Chief Medical Officer & Professor, Dame Sally Davies According to the annual report by the Chief Medical Officer, mental illness led to the loss of 70 million working days within the UK during 2013, making […]
The Science Museum has chosen a brilliant name for their staff members
I went to the well-known Science Museum in the “museum quarter” in London in late September and was very impressed with the staff there. They’re called Explainers. It’s a brilliant job title. From that one word we learn: Employee purpose: The fundamental aim of their job is to increase public understanding of science Organisational values: The Science […]
The ins and outs of effective panel interviews
Panel interviews are a good way of screening job seekers and finding great talent. It's no wonder then that they're becoming increasingly popular among companies competing in a healthy jobs market to land themselves the next shining star. A panel interview is basically what it says on the tin. One interviewee facing a panel of […]
Why unlimited holiday policies are just hype
When people hear the word "unlimited" they tend to get excited. Unlimited refills, unlimited downloads, unlimited miles, all awesome. But unlimited holiday leave? That has to take the cake, as we Americans say. Most recently Richard Branson of The Virgin Group announced that his employees could take unlimited holidays, sparking excitement across the international blogosphere. However […]
What happens when corporate leaders and managers ‘derail?’
People dictate what organisational culture is, not location, sector or size. Research by Schneider (1987) asserted that ‘the people make the place’; that people are attracted to and recruited into organisations where they think they will fit. Over time, in ways that are outside of individual awareness, organisations maintain the characteristics of the high-status people […]
Share your views in the Global Human Capital Trends 2015 survey
Last year we were involved with promoting Deloitte's annual Global Human Capital Trends survey and we carried an exclusive on the UK results which tackled a variety of topics including current global priorities for HR directors, why we need to re-skill HR professionals and what companies are doing in terms of HR analytics and talent […]
Understanding the differences in types of temporary labour
With an estimated £24bn per year being spent by businesses on temporary workers, it is clear that these contingent – or ‘as needed’ – workers are a key component of a complex UK workforce. Many people still, however, do not understand the full spectrum of temporary labour that exists, nor its significance to the UK […]
Are we forcing women to delay childbirth?
Women make up 57% of the US workforce in professional and related occupations, but only 26% of professionals in the computer and information field. Male domination in the education fields of engineering and computer science, coupled with a masculine business culture has compounded the challenge: tech firms wish to do a better job of appealing […]
How to design and conduct an effective assessment day
Assessment centres allow you to interview several candidates in one day and see considerably more behaviours and characteristics than you would in conducting a one hour interview. The assessment centre process must be a positive experience for the candidates involved as they will be assessing you as a company too. First impressions count on both […]
Rethinking your workforce management solution – what the data says
The Sierra-Cedar 2014-2015 HR Systems Survey White Paper, 17th Annual Edition, took a close look this year at how organisations are leveraging one of the most overlooked areas of HR Technology: the workforce management solutions set. These HR applications are used to allocate the actual work of employees and a growing number of contingent workers, […]
HR and health: The hard work starts here
Wellbeing and work. For HR at least the two ideas are synonymous but it’s only relatively recently that some of our biggest businesses and CEOs have settled down to consider this new world view. Perhaps they’ve been distracted by the huge numbers flying around: absenteeism costs £29bn a year, presenteeism £15bn and mental ill health […]
What’s new in neuroscience? Reporting from the NeuroLeadership Summit 2014
I'm just back from the NeuroLeadership Summit. Before I went Jamie [HRZone editor] asked me to write an article on what's new in neuroscience that’s relevant to HR. Judging by last year, I thought I would have loads of new science from the summit, but to be honest the approach to the agenda this year […]
