Book Review: How to shine – Insights into unlocking your potential from proven winners

Review 1 The title of this book makes it seem very attractive – we would all like to know how to shine, or maybe shine brighter. The work itself is premised on research that the author carried out in order to understand what makes people great. The author, Simon Hartley, refutes the notion that individuals […]

Ask the Expert: How can we best handle a complex restructure?

The challenge Our company is restructuring several departments in order to create a combined service to boost efficiency and customer focus.   The restructure will create vacancies, so there will be a position for everyone involved.   Essentially, there are five teams. Two of the teams are staying as they are (A&B). A further two […]

News: Employers exploit apprenticeships for cheap labour, claims business owner

All too many employers are simply exploiting short-term apprenticeship schemes in order to get hold of cheap labour, a business owner in the North East of England has claimed. Mike Heslop, who owns supply chain maintenance firm, Centrex Services, said that he was stunned on talking to a good number of young hopefuls that so […]

News: Redundancies likely early next year if economy fails to improve, warns CIPD

Rising unit labour costs and falling productivity will only put more pressure on employers to either restrict pay rises and cut working hours or start making redundancies, the CIPD has warned. Figures published today by the Office for National Statistics revealed that the productivity of UK workers fell by 0.9% in the second quarter of […]

Christina’s Counsel: How do I get into HR?

Hello and welcome to this month’s dilemma: The challenge   A reader wrote to me recently asking for advice about to switch his career from business administration to HR. Just recently having been made redundant, he wondered if now was a good time to make the move into an entirely new field.     HR appealed […]

Blog: The reservist issue – Why employers are not “despicable”

Last year’s Defence Review makes clear that by 2018, the trained strength of our Reserve Forces must grow by 50 per cent, meaning numbers in the Territorial Army will have to rise to 30,000, and that of the Royal Navy and Royal Marine Reserves to 3,100 and the Royal Auxiliary Air Force, to 1,800. The […]

Engaging for success: Motivating line managers to motivate others

The most successful organisations recognise the crucial role that HR has to play in developing managers to ensure that they are effective at engaging others.  But in order to be good engagers, managers need to master five fundamental roles and be able to recognise when each one is required and appropriate.   These roles are […]

News: A third of UK workers endure bullying

A huge three out of five UK workers claim to have been bullied at some point by their boss, while 30% say they are experiencing such behaviour right now. According to a poll among 400 employees undertaken by online jobs board, CareerBuilder.co.uk, the two most common bullying techniques are to blame people for mistakes that […]

News: Fear of causing offence damaging inclusion efforts, warns research

Fear of causing offence to colleagues by saying something politically incorrect can damage working relationships and actually hamper attempts at inclusion, research has found. The study undertaken by the Employers Network for Equality & Inclusion on behalf of BT revealed that both managers and employees were often anxious about having conversations with others if they […]

Blog: HR, it’s time to show bullies the exit

“As I opened the door, I saw her with her back turned and shoulders slumped. When she turned around, I could see that she had been crying. I felt bad but it made me realize that I am not the only one who gets verbally abused. The kicker was that she was a senior level […]

In a Nutshell: Five considerations when taking on an apprentice

Jason Holt, who set up Holts Academy, which pioneered formal qualifications and an approved apprenticeship scheme for the jewellery industry, recently published the results of his government-commissioned review into ‘Making Apprenticeships more Accessible to SMEs’.  Based on his experiences, Holt offers advice to HRZone’s community on how employers can ensure that they get the best […]

Legal Insight: Employment tribunal proposals – Beware the silent killers

The government recently announced proposals to streamline employment law and the employment tribunal system, which could roughly be split into three categories: flag waving, old wine in new bottles and silent killers. The proposals themselves stem from the view that there has been significant growth in the number of complex employment tribunal claims, which are […]

News: Viral resignation email proves ‘money isn’t enough for disgruntled staff’

“Throwing money” at disgruntled employees rarely works into the long-term as Kieran Allen’s very public resignation email, which went viral after being posted on Twitter, has proved, according to a marketing recruiter. Allen, a senior account manager at UK media planning and buying agency, MEC Global, which is part of the WPP Group, sent the […]

News: ‘Forget offshoring. Onshore work to prison inmates instead’

Rather than offshore work to staff overseas, employers should consider onshoring it to inmates within the prison system, an offender rehabilitation expert has suggested. A report entitled ‘Made in Prison’ published by Working Links called on the government to work with organisations such as the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and the CBI to […]

Blog: Ten top tips to appear more confident

If you’re keen to come across more confidently, here are 10 tips to do just that: 1. Know what you look like   Find out how people perceive you…if you look as though you lack confidence, then people will treat you as though you do. In other words, you’re already on the back foot and […]

Talent Spot: Simon Linares, group HR director at Telefonica Digital

When Telefónica Digital launched last year, group HR director Simon Linares had the daunting but exciting prospect of helping to create a very different organisational culture from that of its parent company. Its parent, Telefónica, is the Spanish owner of mobile operator O2, of which Linares was formerly group HR director too.   But his […]

Blog: HenryTalk – Any answers for all your questions Part 1

HRZone’s Any Answers has been busy lately and we’ve been going through the recent posts to pick out a few highlights. All of these questions are still live so, if you want to add anything, just follow the links and get in touch. First is a tricky situation for bigharry, who is moving out of management […]

Talking Point: Does HR have a role in CSR programmes?

The role of HR in corporate social responsibility programmes is not dissimilar to that in any other company initiative. But given widespread confusion as to what CSR actually comprises, HR personnel could be forgiven for wondering exactly how they fit into the broader picture.   A common definition of CSR is a corporate programme that […]

News: Former TA chief: UK employers’ discrimination in hiring “despicable”

 The former head of the Territorial Army has called for financial incentives and the tightening of UK legislation in a bid to prevent employers from routinely discriminating against reservists during the recruitment process. In an interview with the Telegraph, the Duke of Westminister, one of the country’s richest men and a two-star major general who […]

News: Staff at Dept for Culture, Media and Sport face post-Olympics cull

Despite successfully helping to stage the Olympic Games and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations, civil servants at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport have all been put at risk of redundancy. The department has been tasked with cutting its administration costs by 50%.   As a result, its aim is to cut its workforce […]