News: Firms turn to tech for employee health engagement

Employers have an appetite for new technologies to promote health engagement and positive behavioural change in the workplace, according to new research. “Emerging Technology in Health Engagement,” released by Buck Consultants and WorldatWork, examined current use and future potential of gamification, mobile apps and social media. Gamification was the most prevalent solution (62 percent) and […]

Building an effective onboarding process

This article was written by David Richter, Marketing Manager at Octopus HR. Onboarding is about more than running an orientation day for new starters at your company. It’s a longer term, holistic approach that assimilates an employee into your organisation’s culture, reduces turnover and maximises an employee’s impact in their new role. The onboarding process […]

Book Review: Modern Life Skills by Liggy Webb

Title: Modern Life Skills: how to deal with the demands and challenges of everyday lifeAuthors: Liggy WebbISBN: 978-1781485514 Reviewed by Robert Evans I was expecting quite a lot from an author who is profiled by the book as an international consultant for the United Nations and a widely respected and leading expert in the field of modern life […]

Five steps to success in difficult conversations

Difficult conversations crop up often, particularly as organisations grow. Some managers shy away from difficult conversations, preferring to use email. Others, apprehensive about making the issue worse, fail to be direct and become frustrated when employees do not take appropriate action. This creates ill-feeling on both sides and can lead to disengagement and productivity losses. […]

News: Interview technique & identifying skills key challenges for young jobseekers

Two of the biggest hurdles to employment for young job seekers are identifying their skills and poor interview technique, according to new research from job site Fish4jobs. Two in five (42 percent) of the 16 – 24-year-olds surveyed said that poor interview technique let them down, while close to a quarter (23 percent) said they […]

News: Renewed optimism in the workplace?

Employees are feeling more empowered to do their jobs than at any other time during 2012, according to new research. Well over half (58.6 percent) of UK workers are proud to work for their current organisation, up on the 41.7 percent reported in summer 2012. Over three quarters (76.1 percent) believe their manager gives them […]

What stops intentional change from succeeding?

Intentional change is hard to implement, measure and quantify. It’s one of the most difficult challenges facing HR. Yet change is inevitable. If businesses are to respond quickly enough to the future business landscape, they must become comfortable with change management. The first step is understanding what drives intentional change and where these align with […]

Talent Management in practice: WDS seeks global alignment for talent

WDS is part of the wider Xerox Company and positions itself as a provider of customer experience management expertise to the wireless industry, helping both service providers and end-users get the most from their wireless products and services. Its approach is to focus attention away from ‘managing’ customer experience problems and towards resolving the cause […]

Talent Management: The market landscape

It’s talent that’s the challenge, never more so than in the middle of the worst set of economic conditions since the 1920s. And that challenge is only going to get tougher with pay rises that are flat – or non-existent – taking away one of the most obvious motivational incentives. According to the  Deloitte 2013 […]

Talent Management: vendor selection – analyst perspective

The Talent Management sector is rapidly consolidating as the leading HCM software vendors jostle for position in the wider market. The rise of newcomers such as Workday have put the old guard of SAP and Oracle et al on an unaccustomed back foot and racing to shore up their positions in the market. All vendors […]

Supporting senior leaders with mental health issues

This article was written by Mandy Rutter, Senior Clinical Business Manager at Validium. From the end of April, employers will no longer be able to legally remove company directors who have mental health problems. The success of the Mental Health Discrimination Bill is part of an important shift in attitudes towards mental illness: that people […]

News: Internships in London ‘out of reach’ of young people

Unpaid internships are often the only option for young people desperate for a job and struggling to find employment. But research published recently Trades Union Congress found that close to four in five (78 percent) of 18-34 year olds could not afford to take up an unpaid internship in London. The research, undertaken for Unions21 […]

Interview: Sarah Banner, HR Manager at The Cavendish Hotel

Sarah Banner is HR Manager at The Cavendish Hotel in London, the only hotel to be featured in The Sunday Times’ Best Companies to Work For List 2013. 1. What is the number one mistake HR managers make when trying to build an engaged workforce? A lot of HR departments think employee engagement is about […]

HR lessons from the Commonwealth Charter

The Commonwealth – the intergovernmental institution of 54 independent states loosely formed from the British Empire – recently released its updated charter [PDF, 200KB], which reasserts its commitment to “a common set of beliefs.” It’s quite a challenge to unite many different countries, with very different cultural backgrounds, under one set of values. Codifying these […]

How PAYE changes (RTI) will affect HR professionals

Real Time Information (RTI) is coming into play from next month and will change the way employers report PAYE information. Naturally, this will have large implications on the day-to-day role of HR professionals in both small and large organisations. Olivia Hill, Head of HR at AAT (Association of Accounting Technicians) discusses how to prepare for […]

An introduction to mobile learning environments

David Marshall, Founder and CEO of e-learning specialists Marshall ACM, looks to the next phase of e-learning and the use of apps in learning and development. Mobile learning has been a trend in the L&D industry for some time, but it is only recently that the combination of workforce demographics, mobile device capabilities and organisational […]

Elephants and crocodiles: the real challenge of corporate teamwork

This article was written by Clive Hyland, CEO of Think Feel Know. Few people who have worked in business would doubt the importance of effective teamwork, especially the leadership team, but all too often top teams serve mainly as a compromise of personal agendas and the notion of real team commitment disappears into the ether […]

How do we get senior leaders engaged with development training?

This article was written by Emma Littmoden, a partner at leadership programme provider The Living Leader. "We have an excellent programme of development training for all our managers throughout the company. Generally attendance is widespread and the feedback is really positive, but we are having a real struggle to get any of our senior managers involved […]

News: senior leaders must engage with social media to foster open culture

Organisations are being held back from building cultures of openness, collaboration and innovation due to a resistance to change and a lack of social media knowledge among senior leaders. This is according to new research from the CIPD on the landscape of social media and employee voice, launched today at the annual Voice and Value […]

News: Firms predict pay increases of 2.5 percent

Private sector employers are expecting minimal pay increases in the near future, according to new research from XpertHR. The survey questioned 127 private employers, employing 86,164 people, about their pay intentions for the 12 months to the end of February 2014. The median pay increase prediction for the next year was found to be 2.5 […]