News: Female solicitor warned off having relationship or babies, tribunal hears
A female solicitor has accused a former “bullying” boss of sacking her unfairly due to her gender after she began a relationship against his wishes. Kate Baker, who qualified as a solicitor in 2004 and had been earning £45,000 per year, attested that she had been warned both against having a relationship or having babies. […]
News: Wanted – One wolf boy/girl, with circus skills and all their own hair
Wanted: One “wolf boy/girl”, with “strong circus skills” and all of their own hair. This is the essence of a job advert posted on Directgov’s Universal Jobmatch web page by Circus of Horrors, which were finalists in the ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ TV programme a couple of years ago. The group is looking for candidates […]
Blog: Why are annual performance appraisals so stressful?
Recognise This! – The 5 top drivers of stress in the annual performance appraisal process are easily overcome through crowdsourcing with social recognition. Why does the traditional annual performance review continue to fail as both a performance measurement and management device? There are a litany of reasons but by far the greatest, most overriding […]
Talent Spot: Julia Warren, HR director at Serco UK and Europe
When Julia Warren joined the graduate programme at the John Lewis Partnership in 1982, she had every intention of becoming a general manager as she loved customer service and retail. Two years in, however, her “crazy managing director” asked her whether she would like to run staff management. She was only 23, had no […]
Talking Point: Lembit Opik – Do you know how to manage a maverick?
I suppose you could say that I was a ‘maverick.’ Of course, it all depends on the definition. Personally, I’d define a maverick as someone who follows their conscience and imagination rather than following the ‘norm’. But other people might define such people in a different way: for example, as an unpredictable, uncontrollable […]
News: Law firm’s ‘be in the office by 9.15am or else’ email causes storm
An email from a British manager at a global law firm which demanded that lawyers in his Shanghai office stop coming into work late has caused a storm after going viral. In a lengthy memo circulated to all associates and staff that was subsequently leaked to a legal blog, Andrew McGinty, a managing partner at […]
News: Top 10 professions most likely to be caught speeding unveiled
Chief executives, surgeons and barristers are among the top 10 professions most likely to be caught speeding, with an apparently direct correlation existing between having a high-powered job and the likelihood of committing an offence. According to an analysis of 14 million car insurance quotes given last year and analysed by MoneySupermarket.com, it emerged that […]
Blog: Four simple ways to improve how senior leaders communicate
Happy New Year to you all! Some of the great blogs and articles I’ve read on HRZone across 2012 were about HR’s role in supporting leaders. They led me to think back to a number of recent conversations I’ve had with our Strategic Communication Research Forum members about the overall issue of leadership comms across […]
Blog: How to live long and prosper
After the indulgences of the festive period, it is worth considering the findings from a 60 year study into what makes us happy and healthy or sick and sad. It shows that we have a lot more influence over our long term health and well-being than previously thought…Your life and happiness are in your hands. […]
HRD Insight: GGHT’s Gary Cookson on hiring the long-term unemployed
As a housing provider with a social mission, we recruit lots of staff who are long-term unemployed. This means that many of our employees – particularly our plasterers, joiners, electricians, plumbers and housing management officers – have often had little experience of the workplace. A large proportion of our workers are also our tenants, […]
Four easy steps to plan for career change
Of course skills, qualifications and abilities are vital, but when I am coaching people who want to change career, it often transpires that they have not stopped to consider what they really want. It’s natural to some extent to want to just move on quickly, but this research and reflection time will be time very […]
News: Deloitte’s Bersin buy signals HR’s growing strategic importance
In recognition of the HR function’s growing strategic importance, Deloitte Consulting has acquired analyst company, Bersin & Associates, in a bid to access a new customer base. The aim is to keep the existing Bersin team intact and run it as a business unit under the moniker of ‘Bersin by Deloitte’, with the aim of […]
News: Low income NHS staff “not paid properly” since transfer to outsourcer
Low income, non-medical staff at a hospital in Brighton have not been paid properly since they were transferred to a private outsourcing company, according to a union. The GMB told the BBC that the workers who include cleaners, porters and caterers at the Royal Sussex County Hospital have experienced payment problems since being taken on […]
Blog: Dealing with the thorny legal issue of vicarious liability
Employers should not turn a blind eye to allegations of harassment. They should be investigated fully as quickly as possible and dealt with appropriately and fairly. In cases of sexual or racial harassment that are taken to an employment tribunal, an employer may have to defend an allegation of vicarious liability. […]
Blog: What to do when 2012 anxieties becomes 2013 stress
2013 is now well and truly underway. The Christmas trees are down, New Year’s resolutions have already been broken, and employees are back at work. But, after the hype of the festive season, and when faced with hundreds of emails to sift through, it can be difficult for employees to settle back in – particularly […]
Three key trends in the world of work (and how to deal with them)
At a time when the pressure is on to do more with less and to keep staff motivated through potentially destabilising change, new and innovative ways of working often become necessary. In the world of HR, we often talk about innovating in terms of products and services, production processes, new strategies, new forms of partnerships […]
News: Christians cannot refuse to work on Sundays, rules judge
Individual Christians do not have any protection in law against being fired if they refuse to work on Sundays, a High Court judge has ruled. The judgement by Mr Justice Langstaff, president of the Employment Appeal Tribunal, upholds an earlier decision by a London tribunal that taking Sunday as a day of rest was not […]
News: Child benefit cuts will ‘incentivise parents to work less’
The introduction of child benefit cuts on Monday could incentivise individuals to either work fewer hours or contribute more into private pensions to try and avoid punitive tax rates, a think tank has warned. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, households in which one person earns more than £50,000 per annum will face higher […]
Blog: How not to have to make a New Year’s resolution ever again
Don’t get me wrong there are some fantastic articles out there about New Year resolutions and I’ve shared many of them with my social media connections. I just don’t subscribe to the whole phenomena about making resolutions in the New Year. It’s not because they don’t work, sometimes they do. It’s just that […]
Book Review: From complexity to simplicity – Unleash your organisation’s potential!
Okay: so let’s be clear from the start – the authors, Simon Collinson and Melvin Jay, have a consultancy to promote. Their company, cunningly called The Simplicity Partnership, provides business consulting to a range of impressive clients. All of which is fine since their approach is something that I’ve been interested in for a […]