News: 60% of workers plan to watch Olympics – with or without consent

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More than half of employers plan to enable their staff to work more flexibly during the Olympics – which is just as well as nearly three out of five employees intend to watch Games, with or without consent. According to the initial findings of a joint survey undertaken by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and […]

News: Latest raft of employer-backed technical colleges unveiled

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The number of employer-backed technical colleges is set to nearly double to 34 in a bid to provide young people with better quality vocational training. Each state-run University Technical College will be backed by a university and local employers and pupils will be given the chance to transfer from the age of 14 in order […]

Blog: The disciplinary power of slapping someone’s legs with a wet fish

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Disciplinary stages: 1 – verbal warning. 2 – written warning. 3 – a slap round the back of the legs with a wet fish. 4 – final written warning.  Well, not really, but I’m sure I’m not the only one to have fantasised about having an additional, more impactful sanction somewhere along the line!   […]

Investing in your career with an MBA

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Why invest in an MBA? Samantha Bown, programme director of executive education, London Business School: “Investing in your HR career through a training program, as Lynda Gratton, professor of management, states, will strengthen your ability to leverage culture, create integration and boost morale and allow you to make powerful representations to senior stakeholders.”Dr Lydia Price, […]

A typical HRD: Part 3 – Small-to-medium enterprises

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Is there such a thing as a typical career path for someone wanting to become an HR director in a small-to-medium enterprise – or even a typical HR director profile in this space? HR professionals generally seem to fall into three categories: those who spend their careers in corporate, blue chip environments; those who prefer […]

News: Olympus whistleblower hearing gets under way

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Former Olympus chief executive Michael Woodford is expected to seek up to $60 million in compensation this week  from his former employer, after he blew the cover on a $1.7bn accounting scandal. The five-day hearing gets underway today at an employment tribunal in east London and will shed light on why Woodford was sacked after […]

News: HMRC proposes to tighten IR35 contractor rules

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HM Revenue & Customs has issued a consultation paper setting out proposals to tighten IR35 compliance by requiring organisations engaging “controlling persons” through personal services companies to deduct income tax and national insurance from fees paid to their companies. The consultation document fleshes out an oblique mention of the measure in the Budget 2012 document (para […]

News: Male boards ‘appoint candidates in their own image’

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The appointment of women to senior management positions is being held back by male-dominated boards who hire executives that are similar to themselves, a report has warned. According to research conducted by Cranfield University on behalf of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, potential candidates for board-level posts among FTSE 350 companies are generally hired […]

News: Food employers join campaign to tackle youth unemployment

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Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Marks & Spencer are among 23 organisations in the food and grocery industry to have signed up to a campaign intended to provide pre-employment skills training to unemployed young people. Thinktank IGD has launched a nationwide initiative entitled “Feeding Britain’s Future – Skills for Work Week” and is calling on other employers […]

Blog: How Malmaison’s employee incentive scheme ‘Wow’-ed customers

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I’ve long been a fan of the Malmaison brand having had the pleasure of spending considerable time at a number of their facilities during my travels.  I’ve always found the employees to be great brand ambassadors and that this positive and empowered behavioural culture worked well with the physical brand trappings.   I featured Malmaison […]

Blog: Seven tips for navigating murky M&A waters

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News last week that Mike Lynch is to leave Hewlett-Packard, just a year after the technology giant bought Autonomy, the data company that Lynch built from scratch, has sparked much speculation about a ‘clash of cultures’ between the two companies. This highlights the importance of a robust HR strategy to guide companies through the managerial […]

Legal Insight: Homeworking during the Olympics

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So your company has decided that over the course of the Olympics period, it will allow staff to work from home. Great news – the business carries on as normal and employees don’t have to suffer the hassle of commuting.   But it’s not just a simple case of plugging in a laptop. There are […]

Analysis: A Rypple effect – Spotify goes social

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Music subscription service, Spotify, has gone social in a bid to ensure that its workforce around the world can collaborate more effectively. To this end, the firm has rolled out Rypple, Salesforce.com’s HR system, which it acquired late last year as a first step into the human capital management applications space.   Johan Persson, Spotify’s […]

News: Three police forces adopt shared HR services for first time

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The three police forces of Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire are set to become the first in the UK to share HR services under a collaborative agreement with outsourcing provider, Capita. The shared system called Origin will be provided by Capita’s secure resource solutions business under a contract worth £2.3 million over five years and, over […]

News: Unions call for urgent talks with HP to save UK jobs

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Unions have called for urgent talks with high tech supplier HP in a bid to try and safeguard up to 1,600 jobs under threat at its UK operations. HP has confirmed plans to cut 8%, or the equivalent of 27,000 jobs, across the globe by the end of 2014.   But Unite, which has about […]

Analysis: SAP outlines its cloud-based HCM apps strategy

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HR has been a core component of SAP’s Business Suite for some time. But, while David Ludlow, its group vice president of HCM solutions, is the first to admit that the functionality has been under-marketed in the past, it seems that is all about to change.   At an event held with the firm’s SuccessFactors’ […]

Blog: You may call yourself an HR business partner, but are you – really?

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“So, what does the new title mean?” She had walked out on Friday as a generalist and returned on Monday with a new title of Business Partner.   “It means I am now assigned to a business unit, I am their personal HR representative. “ And with that, a new title took hold, but within the […]

Blog: Would you win top prize at the Chelsea Flower Show?

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For the 2nd year running Cleve West is celebrating winning best in show at the RHS Chelsea flower show for his garden celebrating the 250th anniversary of Brewin Dolphin. As I watched the video of his thank you speech I was brought to tears. I wondered why that might be and concluded it was a mixture of […]