What are the characteristics of high-performing team meetings?

This article was written by Brian Bacon, Chairman and Founder of Oxford Leadership Academy. “If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be ‘meetings’” – Dave Barry The importance of behaviour Until they find the right formula […]
Infographic: The use of innovation to attract talent

This infographic was put together from a global study from Futurestep, a Korn/Ferry company, which surveyed over 800 HR professionals and 4,000 employees worldwide. Other findings from the study include: 69 percent of HR professionals in the UK think that demonstrating innovation in recruitment and talent management is crucial to achieving growth targets 65 percent […]
Five ways to boost your recruitment referral programmes

Ziv Eliraz is the Founder and CEO of Zao, a social employee referral management platform. Employee referral programs are common in many organisations. These programs encourage members of your internal and external network to seek out great candidates. In fact, a recent whitepaper by Oracle indicated that referrals perform three to 15 percent better than […]
Is leadership development actually meeting the challenges faced by today’s leaders?

The Issue The nature and scale of the challenges currently facing leaders is captured in a recent survey, The Management Agenda 2013 by Roffey Park Management Institute, based on responses from 1460 managers. This shows that 20 percent rate the leadership in their organisation as poor, while 25 percent also report that culture change initiatives […]
Social media – a direction not destination for social recruitment

This article was written by Steve Hewitt, Head of HR at talent and performance management solutions provider Lumesse. The rise of social media recruitment Social media is becoming an essential part of how businesses engage with their customers in this digital age. Two-way conversations across these channels are now becoming the norm, with many organisations […]
Breaking from traditional leadership – how to move to a self-managed team

This article was written by Kate Russell, MD of Russell HR Consulting. How are you today? Busy I expect? Mondays are always busy for us and there are never enough hours in the day. (What do you lot get up to over the weekend that creates the Monday morning deluge?!) Heigh ho, enough of this merry […]
The key role of line managers in talent management and succession planning

This editorial was written by Murray Furlong, head of UK learning solutions at learning and development firm Hemsley Fraser. Are you managing talent effectively in your organisation? You may have processes in place to identify and nurture talented people; you may have created clusters of high potential people and you may even run a dedicated […]
Employment law: the need for appropriate collective consultation mechanisms

This article was written by Nikki Duncan, partner at Michelmores LLP. In a very important recent decision (Kelly v Hesley Group Limited) the Employment Appeal Tribunal has restated that the statutory collective redundancy consultation rules must be followed strictly. The rules cover more than just normal redundancy consultation, since "redundancy" is very widely defined. For […]
Five scientific discoveries that will save your change programme from failure

What factors influence the success of change? Every client I talk to is struggling with a major change project and most have pretty low expectations of what they can achieve. This is not surprising given around 70 percent of change initiatives fail or only partially succeed. People issues contributed to nearly 60 percent of the […]
Action stations: road risk management in the spotlight

The business cost of road traffic accidents involving at-work drivers can be considerable. TomTom Business Solutions Director UK & Ireland, Giles Margerison, considers how HR practitioners can best manage the risks and meet their legal obligations. The risks of road use for business Managing the occupational health and safety risks facing employees on the road […]
Infographic: State of the global recruitment market

Key take-aways: 1.3 percent global decrease in job applications0.8 percent decrease in average global salaries9.4 percent increase in permanent vacancies across the globe17.7 percent increase in temporary vacancies across the globe
Cyber crime – employees have become one of the biggest risks to a business

This article was written by Bill Walker, Technical Director at QA. Nothing is infallible – but when it comes to cyber security, it is fast becoming people, not computers, that are the weakest link. There are plenty of horror stories circulating the internet about identity thefts, nations waging cyber warfare against each other, malicious coercion […]
Instinctive leadership – using intuitive intelligence to guide decision-making

This article was written by Brian Bacon, Chairman and Founder of Oxford Leadership Academy. "The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift." – Albert Einstein Do you trust your gut when it comes to […]
The role of big data in employee performance development

This article was written by Stuart Hearn. Co-Founder and Director of HR specialists PlusHR. Data is increasingly becoming an important issue for many of today’s forward-thinking organisations. Not only is the scale and speed at which data is being generated rapidly rising, so is the variety of data points. Companies are clearly facing an avalanche of […]
What makes a successful management team?

This piece was written by Alison McSparron-Edwards, founder and managing director of Consultrix. Leaders come in all shapes and sizes. It is important for business owners to recognise this. Although many people have different management and leadership skills, there are qualities that must be identified in order to culminate in a successful management team and therefore […]
Employment law: The risks of offering unpaid internships

This article was written by Joanna Cowie, Senior Associate at SA Law LLP. What can organisations do if they want to offer short-term unpaid work experience placements to graduates without facing the risk of attracting unwelcome attention from HMRC? Once again the controversial issue of unpaid internships has hit the headlines this week with the […]
Five social phenomena that HR should be aware of

This article explores five social phenomena and gives examples of how they may occur in a business setting. If you're interested in this area, you may wish to read the following articles: Twenty emotions and feelings that drive motivation Twenty ways your brain helps you make terrible decisions Decision-bias in HR – are you making […]
Creating a financial rewards package to retain talent

John Styring, MD of Igloo Books, discusses how to create a viable financial incentive package for SMEs that reaps rewards for staff and employers alike. There’s no denying it – money is a key motivator. So it should come as no surprise that, although by no means the only way of keeping a company motivated […]
Decision-bias in HR – are you really making fair decisions?

Read Jan's other articles: What should HR professionals know about neuroscience? How understanding neuroscience can increase the ROI on your training investment What is decision bias? Decision bias is a combination of economics and psychology. Behavioural economics looks at understanding how humans make decisions in reality rather than, as traditional economic theory would assume, completely […]
When does management humour stop being funny?

This article was written by Dr Oliver Mallett, Lecturer in Management at Durham University Business School. The content here is based on research conducted with Dr Robert Wapshott, with funding from the UK's Economics and Social Research Council and will be published in the British Journal of Management. Humour has an important role to play at […]