News: MPs call for action over recruiters’ worker expenses schemes
A group of MPs stepped up pressure on the government today to crack down on the travel and subsistence expense schemes being imposed on temporary workers by some recruitment agencies in order to cut their tax bill. To this end, the five, who were led by Labour MP Michael Connarty, introduced an Early Day Motion […]
News: Public/private sector pay gap widens, gender pay gap eases
Public sector workers now earn on average £86 per week more than their private sector colleagues, with the pay gap continuing to widen. According to research by the Office for National Statistics, a typical full-time public servant is now paid £565 per week, while their private sector counterparts earn only £479, making the differential about […]
Blog: Making recruitment pinteresting
With the rise of social media, a 2-page formulaic CV is quickly becoming an old fashioned way of understanding what personality and talents a candidate has. Today, it’s all about their Twitter feeds, LinkedIn profile, Facebook, and increasingly, Pinterest. In June this year, Pinterest recorded a staggering 10.4 million users, and 400% month-on-month growth, […]
Book Review: Effective time management in easy steps
The author’s credentials for sharing his insights into effective time management are good. John Carroll was a project management consultant who looked after initiatives for a wide range of clients in sectors ranging from government, finance and manufacturing to pharmaceutical, software development and the emergency services. He also has experience of training other project […]
Legal Insight: Have you renewed your foreign worker sponsorship licence?
A major retailer was fined £115,000 earlier this month for employing foreign students who were breaking the conditions of their visas. At the present time, it is unclear whether the supermarket chain’s sponsorship licence is likely to be revoked or suspended too, however. You may also remember the press coverage at the end of […]
News: HR pros among most impatient when job-seeking
HR professionals are an impatient bunch when going for a job, expecting employers to make a hiring decision after two job interviews and for the whole process to take no more than a month. According to a survey undertaken by recruitment consultancy, Robert Walters, some 72% of HR practitioners anticipate that the entire job application […]
Quiz: How people-centred is your organisation?
Adopting a people-oriented approach to your organisational culture can help to transform it by making it more efficient and, ultimately, more successful. Helen Sanderson, who has co-authored a book entitled “Creating person-centred organisations” with Stephen Stirk, believes that going down this route gives staff more control over their lives as it means that they are […]
Blog: The HR Headmistress – Adrian Smith and the social media issue
The number of problems that arise from the use of social media has, in recent years, increased dramatically. Facebook now has over 1 billion users, more than 500 million people are said to be tweeting and over 100 million professionals are connecting with each other on LinkedIn. Every day more and more users of […]
In a Nutshell: Five ways to ensure that HR works effectively with the business
Susie Robinson is well used to dealing with a large and complex workforce in her role as senior vice president of HR for DHL Supply Chain in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. As head of HR for EMEA at the world’s largest logistics company, she offers her advice on how the function can best […]
All you need to know about hiring a former drug or alcohol user
I’ve spent much of the last 17 years working with current and former drug users, homeless people and ex-offenders in London and Sheffield. Much of that time has been taken up helping them to access services, which include housing, treatment and mental health support, so that people have the necessary assistance to try and turn […]
News: Tech City employers launch apprenticeships for 500 young Londoners
High-profile employers such as Google and Facebook have unveiled a Tech City-based apprenticeship scheme for 500 unemployed young Londoners. An additional apprenticeship training centre in the Olympic Park broadcasting centre will also provide up to 350 young people each week with suitable skills training to work in Europe’s fastest growing technology cluster. The […]
Blog: Five ways to ‘master the moment’
In an instant, you can change your mind. You change the impression you had of someone, or you decide something is not a good idea after all. Politics is full of these moments. General David Patraeus had to resign after being caught in an extra-marital affair. In a moment, questions arose about his military judgment. If […]
Blog: What we can learn from Hitler’s dark charisma
It has been a tough week in the media for charisma. Last Monday night historical writer and documentary maker Laurence Rees’ new 3 part series The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler started on BBC 2. This series, about an awkward, dysfunctional man who developed “a level of charismatic attraction almost without parallel in history”, is unlikely to […]
Talent Spot: Carol Carson, HR director at Autoglass
After nearly three decades of working in the health and beauty sector, Carol Carson took the plunge two years ago and moved to Autoglass as its HR director. Windscreen repair/replacement and cosmetics may sound like industries that are chalk and cheese, but Carson has found a surprising amount of commonality between the two. “On […]
Talking Point: Do you know how to turn ‘big data’ into big insights?
Employers can now record pretty much everything that we do at work. These days, they can even find out about what we get up to when we’re not at work too. This is because HR has ‘big data’ – otherwise known as large, complex data sets that require very fast databases to process them. […]
News: 2013/14 to see surge in executive pay battles, warns report
Shareholder opposition to executive pay proposals is expected to hit a peak during 2013 and 2014 as a growing number of long-term incentive plans come up for renewal. According to a report by KPMG, the so-called 2012 “shareholder spring” was, in fact “something of an illusion”, even though 10 “serious” revolts over the renumeration packages […]
News: Govt offers employers £150m skills development pot
The government’s move to allow employers to bid for a share of a £150 million pot of public money in order to help fund their training schemes has met with an enthusiastic reception, despite concerns over the complexity of the bidding process. The funding is the second round of the Employer Ownership Pilot, which was […]
Blog: The HR lessons to be learned from the BBC crisis
After the recent scandals at the BBC, director-general George Entwistle was forced to resign last week, after only 54 days in the role. As a result, trustees of The BBC’s governing body met on Saturday to finalise plans to appoint a new director-general. Not only does this highlight the importance of having a succession […]
Blog: Why a JJB Sports’ director lost his unfair dismissal claim
The case A Manchester employment tribunal’s decision to reject a claim of unfair dismissal in a case involving a former company secretary at JJB Sports Plc has been upheld. Jonathan Ashby maintained that he’d been made redundant without warning or consultation. But an appeal tribunal sitting in London at the end of last […]
How to work effectively with the CEO
HR directors are in a unique position to provide credible, strategic advice to the chief executive and have a direct influence over the effectiveness of decision-making and direction-setting. As the organisation’s ‘people experts’, HR directors bring a perspective and expertise that are critical to ensure executive teams do justice to the direction that is set […]
