Social media screening – is it ethical?
Social media is one of the most popular forms of communication in the 21st century, with over 1.6 billion monthly users. Anyone can connect with anyone else, or find out information about them that may not otherwise be available. Social media and recruitment With this in mind, it was only a matter of time before […]
Special Air Service – what can HR learn from the elite British Army regiment?
This article was written by Joff Sharpe, who spent time as an officer in the SAS. He has also been Group HRD of the Trinity Mirror Group and HRD for PepsiCo. After Piers Morgan hired me as HR Director, he found out that I had been in the SAS, and he thought it was pretty […]
Risk appetite – to hire exceptional candidates, we must tolerate uncertainty
You’re down to the final two candidates, Steady and Star, for a high-stakes job. By now they’ve been through a number of exercises which reflect a thought-through person specification. Choose Steady and there’s good evidence existing performance will be sustained but dramatic improvement is unlikely. Choose Star and the organisation could improve radically, but it […]
The cost of procrastination
In some ways, as a supplier, I still consider myself a relative newbie to the HR and L&D circuit. With that said, I’ve been a client and internal key stakeholder for many years so can, I believe, offer a beneficial perspective on a widespread malaise common in dealing with HR Professionals – PROCRASTINATION – with […]
France moves to ban out-of-hours working
Dan Pink says that mastery and autonomy are key to employee productivity, so will banning work emails after 6pm – in an effort to improve work-life balance – actually harm engagement and success? France has just introduced rules to protect roughly a million people in the digital and consultancy sectors from receiving work email outside […]
Competent individuals – at risk from social undermining?
Complexity is everywhere in the business world today. Businesses struggle with issues such as global interconnectedness, sustainability, hyper-competition and pervasive organisational change. And naturally, we all believe that the more skilled and competent our workforce, the more able we are to manage these issues successfully. We never focus on competence As HR professionals and managers, […]
Are line managers doing performance management or forms management?
How’s this for a performance management scenario: It’s mid-February and a manager in your organisation bursts into an employee’s office. “HR’s getting really annoyed. I was supposed to submit everyone’s performance plan no later than the end of January. Here’s your plan from last year. The work hasn’t really changed and you’re doing a great […]
The Neuroscience of Interviewing – Part 2
This article is the second of a two-part series. View the first article: The Neuroscience of Interviewing – Part 1 Welcome back. I am so glad to see you again and that you have chosen to continue our dialogue. You will remember from our last meeting that we explored the topics of growth and fixed […]
Interview: Gerry Wyatt, Operations Director, graduate-jobs.com
1. What are today’s graduates looking for from modern employers? To be honest, I don’t think the fundamentals of what the majority of graduates are looking for have changed all that much over the years. They’re eager to start their career and discover the working world, and the typical graduate is looking to do so […]
Corporate psychopaths and mental health
This article was written by Clive Boddy and Derek Miles. Clive and Derek are, respectively, Professors in Leadership and Human Resource Development at Middlesex University Business School. You can email them at c.boddy@mdx.ac.uk or d.miles@mdx.ac.uk. In relation to a previous article in HR Zone on how corporate psychopaths influenced the workplace, one commentator on the […]
Lean meetings – bringing agility to your business meetings
We’ve all participated in a “bad” meeting – they’re all too common in the corporate world today. But, why do good meetings go bad? Often, it’s due to the way a meeting is structured: too many agenda items, or a vague agenda. Maybe you joined because the boss called the meeting, and you felt compelled […]
Do CEOs do HR’s job?
These are loaded statements, but do any of them sound familiar? “CEOs do the job of HR."“HR has become all about processes and not people.”“HR has lost the plot.” On the face of it these words seem rather harsh, after all HR work extremely hard often under difficult conditions, but this was the consensus of […]
The Neuroscience of Interviewing – Part 1
This article is the first of a two-part series. View the second article: The Neuroscience of Interviewing – Part 2 If you are involved in the interview process for your company and you don’t know the answers to these questions then you might want to read on…. "Tell me about your approach to hiring – do you […]
Can businesses help solve the food waste crisis?
Here are some shocking stats. Just the bread and cereal products thrown away in UK households could lift 30 million of the world’s hungriest people out of malnourishment All the world's nearly one billion hungry people could be lifted out of malnourishment on less than a quarter of the food that is wasted in the […]
Interview: Thomas Otter, VP Product Management, SuccessFactors
Learn more about what industry analysts are saying on the talent management landscape and how SuccessFactors can help companies address their capability gaps with the latest in HR technology. Who is Thomas Otter? Before joining SuccessFactors, Thomas Otter was an analyst with Gartner and had over 21 years experience in the IT industry. He spent five years […]
Round-up: HR Tech Europe 2014 Spring Warm-up
This was the second year that HRN Europe, which organises the sizeable HR Tech Europe event in Amsterdam in October, put on their smaller, shorter event in London – a ‘warm-up’ designed to explore content topics and ask questions to build up enthusiasm and excitement for the main event. Why HR managers never become CEOs […]
Why do we not talk about behaviour change in L&D?
“You know, you’re just like my grandmother”. As statements go, it wasn’t inherently controversial. But the fact that I was saying it to a 12 year-old boy certainly got everyone’s attention. Especially the boy’s. It was a technique I’d learnt as a psychotherapist. Say something to wrong-foot the client, to grab their attention and make […]
50 top tweets from HR Tech Europe Spring Warm-up 2014
HR Tech Europe Spring Warm-up came to London on Thursday March 27th 2014. The one-day event is the precursor to the two-day HR Tech Europe event held annually in October in Amsterdam. There were around 500 people in attendance, who came to hear from key speakers, including Adrian Furnham, Professor of Organisational Psychology at […]
Case study: diversity and dignity at Airbus
Airbus manufactures commercial aeroplanes and operates from sites across Europe; aircraft wings are manufactured in the UK. The organisation is complex, incorporating transnational reporting lines. The company is two years into an ongoing initiative with UK HR and employment law firm Vista to deliver a Dignity at Work and Diversity programme that is proving successful […]
LIVE COVERAGE: HR Tech Europe Spring Warmup 2014
We’re reporting LIVE from HR Tech Europe in London today. HR Tech Europe is one of the leading events in the calendar dedicated to HR technology and its place in the modern HR function. The main event takes place in Amsterdam on October 24th and 25th, but today the event is coming to you live from […]
