Can we assign a credible value to talent?
Organisational leaders routinely tell us that talent is a firm’s most important resource. This may very well be true, but there is no universally agreed-upon method to place a valuation on talent. Over many decades there have been numerous approaches designed to value human capital – each approach may be reasonable, depending on what assumptions […]
Diversity in the science workforce – successes and failures
Science careers face diversity challenge Recent research conducted by Westminster Business School for the Royal Society’s Leading the way programme – aimed at increasing the diversity of the science, technology, engineering, maths and medical workforce (STEMM) to increase opportunities for women, minority ethnic and disabled people – finds that science is less diverse than other […]
Vaping in the work place – developing policy guidance
Key facts There are over two million regular electronic cigarette users in England. Electronic cigarettes DO NOT contain cancer causing tobacco, but do contain nicotine which is addictive. There is growing evidence that they can help smokers quit. The long-term health effects are not known. However there are no circumstances when using an e-cigarette is […]
James Purvis, CERN, on creating amazing teams to discover amazing particles
How does recruitment work at the world’s most famous particle physics laboratory? 1) Does the recruitment and talent identification process change when you are recruiting for extremely high-profile projects e.g. the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)? James Purvis in 15 seconds James Purvis is Head of Talent Acquisition at CERN. He is fully responsible for all […]
HRZone user survey – the results are in
In August this year we ran a user survey on HRZone that asked our users what their browsing habits were and how they used the website. The survey ran for three and a half weeks and received 104 responses. From the survey results we are able to better understand the needs from you, our users. […]
Interview: Crispin Manners, Chairman, Onva Consulting
Crispin is a judge at the inaugural Employee Engagement Awards which will recognise the very best in engagement programmes publicly. 1) What does employee engagement mean to you? I believe that many companies fail to recognise that the solutions to many of their problems, and the sources of innovation that could be transformational, can come from their employees. […]
Interview: Astrid Erlandsson, employee engagement expert, Effectory International
Earlier this year you moved to Amsterdam to join Effectory International from Stockholm, where you were working for TNS-Sifo. Can you tell us what attracted you to your new role? It was a great opportunity for me to develop professionally, and I was immediately drawn to the culture of the organisation. Effectory International is an […]
Don’t be too smart when you’re trying to learn
How quickly do you learn? Are you one of those people who picks things up with ease? Feel slightly smugly in training courses? Don’t need anything explaining twice? Well here’s a way of thinking about learning that might give you pause for thought. One way of categorising different types of learning is to distinguish between […]
Interview: Laura Temple, Head of Leadership Engagement, SABMiller
Laura is a judge at the inaugural Employee Engagement Awards which will recognise the very best in engagement programmes publicly. Who is Laura Temple? Laura Temple heads up leadership engagement at the world’s second largest brewer SABMiller, famous for beers such as Peroni, Grolsh and Pilsner Urquell. Laura is a strategic communication and engagement specialist and […]
When did bribery stop being an HR issue?
When did HR absolve themselves of responsibility for people issues? Prior to the commencement of the Bribery Act in 2010, when I was being instructed on an investigation into employee misbehaviour, such instructions would usually come via the HR team. But since the Bribery Act, everything seems to have changed. Now I'm sure that HR […]
The untapped end of the talent pipeline
A majority of organisations in the UK are now concerned about their ability to fill critical leadership roles, with only 14% confident about their available talent pipelines. It is now time for employers to explore new talent pools and to make the most of what the country has to offer. Hidden talent pool What is […]
The professionalisation challenge of the fashion and luxury industry
The fashion and luxury sector is facing rapid business change and people are at the heart of this revolution. It is widely accepted that companies with well-organised management structures and talent management practices are gaining the competitive advantage. Yet, within this sector, there is still a significant challenge in finding the right people with the […]
The secret to saving half your training budget
In the last few months we have been working with clients on training core skills. What do I mean by this? Well, a short story might explain. Late last year, a client was telling me his goal was to get his account managers to become better people managers. In particular he wanted them to coach […]
Why HR professionals can’t practise what they preach
I thought it would be prudent to immediately diffuse any negative thoughts or perceptions from the HR professionals (HRPs) among you. So firstly, let me boldly state how commonplace it is for professionals of all types to engage in some periodic indulgence of ‘I can’t practise what I preach’. Here are some interesting examples to […]
How HR can prolong that post-holiday feeling
Picture the scene – staff are returning to the office at the end of the summer holiday season. They’re feeling relaxed, recharged and revitalised. The potential for greater productivity and creativity should be at its highest but, in most cases, it will remain largely untapped as normality quickly kicks in with energy and motivation sapped […]
The six stages of the leadership journey
Steering an organisation on its unique journey towards its chosen destination is one of the biggest personal challenges facing all leaders. Why? Because internal and external issues will constantly change the landscape in which the organisation operates. Navigating the landscape is widely recognised as the new core requirement of the 21st century leader. The benefits […]
Why you need to treat your people as mini organisations
People as mini organisations Achieving business success can never be described as a chance occurrence. Organisations have to work hard to succeed. They exist and, importantly, thrive when they have identified their unique selling points (USPs) and, as a general rule, invested in making those USPs outstanding by maximising their potential. It is that USP […]
TED talk: “Your body language shapes who you are,” by Amy Cuddy
Amy Cuddy is Associate Professor of Business Administration in the Negotiation, Organizations & Markets Unit at Harvard Business School. As a social psychologist she is known for work on stereotyping, discrimination, emotions, power dynamics, nonverbal communication, and the effects of social stimuli on hormone levels. This article is based on her TEDx talk at TEDGlobal 2012 […]
Book Review: The Leader’s Guide to Managing People by Mike Brent & Fiona Dent
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, […]
Women at the top: How to excel in the boardroom
On 26 June, a new era for the boardroom was supposedly heralded. The appointment of Patrice Merrin at commodity trading and mining company Glencore Xstrata meant that there is now at least one woman on the board at each of the FTSE 100 companies. This announcement was trumpeted by the government with much fanfare but, as […]
