Blog: Employee engagement needs commitment from both sides

Recognise This! – The ROI of employee engagement is significant and shouldn’t be left on the table out of pride. In my post today on Compensation Café, I shared lessons I learned on yesterday’s excellent HR.com-sponsored webinar, “7 Hidden Reasons Employees Disengage and Leave.” Led by Leigh Branham, author of The Seven Hidden Reasons People […]

How to effectively set goals

It’s that time of year again, when people will be in the process of setting goals for 2012 against a background of uncertain conditions and changing contexts. Motivation and setting goals Goal setting has always been promoted as an optional tool to help harness motivation, rather than an out and out requirement. However, as soon […]

HRZone Interview: Andrew Kakabadse, Cranfield University School of Management

 HR directors have a unique position in the boardroom as the only members of the senior team who need to think and act like a chief executive or chairman. HR alone needs that broad understanding of issues that cross departmental boundaries, believes Andrew Kakabadse, Professor of international management development at Cranfield University’s School of Management. […]

Book Review: ‘Savvy: Dealing with People, Power and Politics at Work’

The term “savvy” is used frequently in the workplace to describe people and their behaviour; “savvy” seems to be a desirable trait to have, with lots of employers looking for this in potential recruits. Maybe you’ve been told that you need to be more “savvy”. But what is “savvy” and how to we get it?  […]

In a nutshell: core values communication

Monica Walls is vice president of HR a Nexenta Systems, a Californian storage software firm with a worldwide presence.    Here she describes the steps she takes to ensure that the company’s core competencies are communicated worldwide using its performance management system.   1. Core values  It was essential to identify the core values and […]

Talent spot: Lorraine Makepeace, head of amazing at The Chemistry Group

 ‘Head of amazing’ is a job title you’re unlikely to come across very often, but The Chemistry Group is not interested in following the crowd.  This unusual job title was created especially for Lorraine Makepeace to reflect her skills of dealing with people and communicate the simple idea that “Amazing people do amazing things.”    […]

Woman crack the boardroom, but not the pay gap

More women have made it onto the board but the gender pay gap has widened, a report by Hay Group reveals.   European boardrooms were still dominated by men, the global management consultancy found, with women securing only 17% of director roles. In addition, barely 2% of non-executive chairs in Europe were female.    There […]

Snow joke as workers lie about being trapped by the weather

Were you at work last week or were you ‘snowed in’? It seems a quarter of UK workers lied about being snowed-in to enjoy a sneaky day off from the office.   It seems it wasn’t just school children who made the most of the blanket of snow that covered much of the UK over the […]

Blog: why meaningful work is as important as compensation

Recognise this! – Though research indicates this more for GenY, all of us across generations need to know why what we do every day has greater value and meaning. Are employee engagement and retention of concern for you and your organisation? If so, are you equally concerned about how you’re conveying the importance and meaning […]

Q&A: another view on holidays and TUPE

Q&A: Can staff claim extra holiday under a TUPE transfer?   Question: A group of people transferred to our business under TUPE last month.   During the consultation period, we confirmed that we would honour their pre-booked annual leave for the rest of last year, which we have done.    But one of the staff has come […]

News: Happy people, happy workforce, happy times.

You might think we’re all miserable right now, but apparently workers are happier and more committed to their jobs, despite the rocky economy, according to a new survey – sponsored by the government. Or rather workers were happier back in 2011, which is the year covered by the latest Workplace Employment Relations Study (WERS).   […]

Blog: What Celebrity Bake Off demonstrates about disability

In aid of Comic Relief last week the BBC aired Celebrity Bake Off where each day four celebrities showed off their baking skills with one celebrity being judged the winner.   It has been a highly entertaining programme watching the celebrities struggling with the requirements of delivering signature bakes, a technical challenge and show stopper […]

HRZone interview – Linda Holbeche, director The Holbeche Partnership

A chance meeting at a conference between Linda Holbeche, director of HR consultancy The Holbeche Partnership and Geoff Matthews, vice president for HR at Merck KGaA, led to a collaboration on a book that has become shortlisted for the CMI management book of the year. The idea behind the book, Engaged, unleashing your organisation’s potential […]

Final pensions RIP for the private sector?

Final salary pensions in the private sector have closed their doors to new staff at the fastest rate on record, with just 13% of final salary pensions were open to new joiners in 2012. According to a study by the National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) out today, that represents a drop of a third from […]

Technology: the shocking truth about HCM Cloud chief Lars Dalgaard

 "What we’re seeing is a shocking uptake, extremely fast!" So declares the never knowingly under-enthusiastic Lars Dalgaard, former CEO and founder of Cloud HCM firm SuccessFactors and now Cloud chief at SAP. Dalgaard stepped up to his current role last year after the German giant bought out SuccessFactors as part of its own push into […]

Ask the Expert: Can staff claim extra holiday under a TUPE transfer?

Question: Can staff claim extra holiday under a TUPE transfer?   A group of people transferred to our business under TUPE last month. During the consultation period, we confirmed that we would honour their pre-booked annual leave for the rest of last year, which we have done.  But one of the staff has come back to […]

News: ACAS benefits as workplace disputes boom

More businesses are turning to Acas for expert advice on employment disputes, according to a survey of British workplaces.   The 2011 Workplace Employment Relations Study (WERs), released this week, revealed a 29% rise in managers seeking advice from Acas since the 2004 survey.   This increase was also reflected in online use. Traffic to […]

News: Unilever volunteers staff for volunteering

Unilever is offering staff paid time off to volunteer as part of a scheme designed to build relations with local communities and increase staff engagement.   If staff decide to use their holiday entitlement to volunteer, Unilever will now match their time off with paid leave, as well as giving them an extra day’s pay […]

Unemployment falls again

Unemployment levels have fallen to an 18-month low while the number of people in work has reached a record high, in spite of a jittery economy.   There were 2.49 million people unemployed between September and November 2012, a fall of 37,000 over the previous quarter, according to the Office of National Statistics (ONS). Meanwhile, […]

HR Summit highlights talent war

Talent optimisation was one of the key themes to emerge from the 11th HR Directors Business Summit held in Birmingham this week. This conference and networking opportunity drew together a large audience of HR professionals keen to learn about and discuss some of the burning people management issues of the day. These issues included attracting […]