How to deal with a hostage situation
“Get down on the ground or I’ll shoot.” Just imagine: one minute you’re making a cup of coffee in the office, the next you’re being gagged and bound and forced to the floor. Being held hostage is one of the most terrifying experiences that anyone could be faced with. Of course, most people think […]
Living Leader Learnings: How can I make all of my team equally motivated?
The challenge: The manager of operations and logistics for a national vehicle leasing company asks: “I have always believed that I am a pretty good motivator, but the performance levels across my team differ significantly. A number of people always exceed expectations, but the rest of the team are just not stepping up in […]
Give & Gain Day: Lloyds’ talent director Richard Buxton on volunteering
Thousands of employees from across the UK – and throughout the world – are donating time to the communities in which they live or work today by taking part in the world’s only national day for employee volunteering – Give & Gain Day 2012. Now in its fifth year, Give & Gain Day is run […]
News: Some apprenticeships of “no real benefit” to anyone, rule MPs
Some apprenticeships are so short as to be “of no real benefit” to anyone, while the amount and quality of training provided by others is questionable, a parliamentary committee has warned. The Public Accounts Committee pointed out that, of the schemes that it had evaluated, about 20% lasted for only six months or less – […]
News: Unions ballot bus drivers for strike over Olympics bonus
Unions are balloting bus drivers on whether to take strike action over demands for a £500 bonus payment for working during the Olympics because of an expected hike in passenger numbers. Unite has sent out ballot papers to its 20,000 members, after off-duty drivers protested yesterday outside Transport for London’s head office. The union […]
Blog: Lessons from JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon – Admit your mistakes
“We know we were sloppy. We know we were stupid. We know there was bad judgment. We don’t know if any of that is true yet. “Of course regulators should look at something like this, that’s their jobs. So we are totally open to regulators and they will come to their own conclusions. But we intend […]
Blog: 10 learning tips for National Learning at Work Day
Today, Thursday 17 May is National Learning at Work day, with events promoting learning at work happening across the UK. To support the day, we’ve created these Top Ten Tips for Learning to help and encourage business to make learning fun and relevant in order to motivate and engage employees: 1. Make learning social – […]
The HR Headmistress: How to select candidates for redundancy pools
In a redundancy situation, it is really important to implement a fair process in order to avoid unfair dismissal claims. Part of this activity involves identifying an appropriate redundancy pool and ensuring that the selection criteria used are not tainted by discrimination. 1. Defining a redundancy pool There are no set rules about […]
TV Review: The Apprentice Week 9 – Focus and a consistent brand message are key
And so another Wednesday came around and I was licking my lips with anticipation at what our remaining hopefuls would be asked to do by Sir Alan and his gang, especially now we are in the ‘business end’ (no pun intended!) of the show. This week the candidates had to come up with marketing campaigns […]
News: 120 public servants sacked after snooping for personal data
At least 120 public servants have reportedly been fired over the last couple of years for illegally accessing personal data held in a confidential Department for Work and Pensions‘ database while at work. This is the claim made by an IT news site that says the staff were sacked for “abusing their access rights to […]
News: Two out of five civil servants to home-work during Olympics
Up to 40% of Whitehall staff will be asked to work from home to help ease congestion on London’s transport network during the seven weeks of the Olympic and Paralympic Games this summer. According to the Telegraph, other employees may also be asked to change their working times or take annual leave from 21 July […]
News: Employment situation ‘at worst for two decades’, warns CIPD
A small drop in joblessness driven by a rise in underemployed part-time workers combined with stagnant pay growth, means that the underlying employment situation is ‘worse than at any point in at least the past two decades”. According to figures from the Office for National Statistics, UK unemployment fell by 45,000 to 2.63 million in […]
News: CIPD’s new CEO appointed to further its global ambitions
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development has appointed Peter Cheese as its new chief executive in a bid to further its global ambitions. Cheese, who is currently chairman of the Institute of Leadership and Management, will take up the new position on Monday, 2 July. He is taking over from Sue Upton, who […]
Blog: Dealing with the leadership ‘reality gap’
When someone gets ideas above their station and too big for their boots, it generally pays dividends to bring them back down to earth in the most diplomatic way possible. It’s not always easy, but when it’s a close friend or family member you can afford to be frank. At work it tends to […]
In a Nutshell: Five tips for a smooth office move
Moving house is considered to be one of the most stressful things that we can put ourselves through. Although moving office (hopefully) is not likely to be quite as fraught, it does require not only a huge amount of organisation, but also sensitivity in the way that the change is explained to employees. The […]
What does it take to be an HR director?
Securing an HR director job is tough. If you apply for an HRD role, you’ll be faced with strong competition from both inside and outside the organisation. There are some common factors that employers look for when hiring. Ideally, you’ll be someone who is currently a senior HR business partner or a head of HR, […]
Blog: What impact does office politics have on people’s work lives?
Ask most people in businesses today if they think that manipulation and office politics affect their working lives and they’ll say yes. But ask them to quantify the impact on the business and that’s a much more difficult question to answer. In 2011, Revelation Consulting Ltd set out to answer that question, and we […]
Talent Spot: Fiona Lawlor, HR director at Jack Morton Worldwide
During Fiona Lawlor’s time at Jack Morton Worldwide, she has seen the HR function develop from being a lowly back-room admin operation to become a strategic partner of the business. Today, Lawlor is HR director and a senior vice president of the brand experience agency, but when she joined 18 years ago, it had no […]
News: Work days lost to sickness fall again as presenteeism rises
Only days after the Foreign Secretary told Britons that they should work harder, official figures revealed that more employees were going to work when sick due to growing concerns over job security. In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, William Hague warned the coalition government’s business critics that there was “only one growth strategy: work […]
News: Female Network Rail staff to fight for equal pay
Network Rail bosses were accused today of treating women like “second class citizens” after research revealed that they were being paid on average £4,500 per year less than their male colleagues. The findings of the survey of more than 2,000 workers will result in some 34 female middle managers launching an initial claim for […]