Blog: The power of the personal relationship
"Six years ago, Fred had a friendship with a rep for a small brand. "The brand’s contribution to our sales was insignificant, so going to a dinner with him during a shoe show, when there were hundreds of other brands there, didn’t make a lot of sense. But it was still something Fred prioritized, based […]
Blog: Six rules to govern company car etiquette
Providing employees with a new company car, new truck, or van is not just a practical move. It can go a long way towards helping employees feel nurtured and respected. It’s also often essential for business operations, especially when a company is sales-based. However, when you put keys into an employee’s hands, you’re not […]
TV Review: The Apprentice Week 8 – Confidence and enthusiasm go a long way
This week was all about the battle of the street arts where team members had their arty skills put to the test. The challenge: to find two of the ‘streetest’ urban artists and organize the sale of their art in two of the most cutting-edge galleries in London. Gabrielle put herself forward for Sterling’s […]
Legal Insight: Positive discrimination – A trap for the well intentioned?
Recent publicity on the use of positive action in recruitment or promotion in tiebreak situations has left HR directors with a dilemma. Should positive action be used to improve diversity either in the organisation generally or to help women and members of ethnic minorities break through “glass ceilings” into management? Section 159 of the […]
News: Expert verdicts on the Queen’s Speech Bill by Bill
Below are the key Bills to affect HR that were presented in the Queen's Speech to Parliament today, along with the verdicts of those in the know: Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill This Bill covers HR-related subjects such as employment disputes and director’s pay. Reforms to the employment tribunal system are intended to […]
News: Up to 33,000 City jobs axed already this year
Economic experts are estimating that up to 33,000 more City jobs have already been lost this year than was expected six months ago, while also predicting that UK unemployment will continue to rise until 2016. The Centre for Economics and Business Research has revised its estimate of the average number of extant City posts sharply […]
Blog: CEO confessions – What it takes to create a successful company culture
Recognise This! – No company will build the same culture, but every organisation should focus intentional effort on building the right culture for them. I’ve been traveling a good deal again lately, which means I’ve had time to dig into my “organisation culture and leadership” pile of books. A short flight recently gave me […]
Blog: M&A success – It’s a people thing
“I knew enough to allow them to handle their own culture, headquarters and management,” said Paul Murry, CEO of Calvin Klein, a PVH Corp. company. In 2003, PVH bought Calvin Klein when sales were $2.8 billion. Last year, the numbers ended with sales at $7.6 billion. That statement alone tells why M&A must have a people […]
Talent Spot: Kevin Fisher, HR director at Blemain Group
One of the six key tasks that Kevin Fisher was set when he joined specialist lender Blemain Group as an interim was to find a permanent HR director. And he found the perfect candidate: himself. From Blemain’s perspective, having Fisher on board as an interim HRD first of all enabled senior managers to ‘try before […]
How to beat a counter job offer
Against a backdrop of continued economic uncertainty, top talent at all levels is becoming increasingly hard to find and land. Competition for candidates is increasing as companies start to ramp up their hiring efforts after the downturn. This has given rise to more challenging candidate management and the infamous counter offer. Recent research by […]
Book Review: Leadership team coaching – Developing collective transformational leaders by Peter Hawkins
A key benefit of this book is its comprehensiveness on the topic of team coaching. It provides a lot of tools and tables to aid practitioners in setting such a relationship up and in enhancing in-house delivery capabilities. The people who are likely to benefit most from this book are HR directors, organisation design […]
In a Nutshell: Five steps for managing workplace conflict
Workplace conflict can be caused by anything from differences in individuals’ personalities and style to disagreements over the direction of given ideas and activities. It can even be the result of an office romance. But unresolved conflict can lead to a loss of productivity, increased employee stress levels, less effective collaboration and team-problem solving as […]
News: Informal training as effective as traditional methods – study
The majority of employers that turned to informal training methods as a means of cutting learning and development costs have found that they are just as, if not more, effective than more traditional approaches. According to a study by by XpertHR, two-thirds of the organisations that it questioned have taken steps to prune training expenditure […]
News: HMRC worker sacked after being found guilty of sharing tax credit details
A tax office worker has been sacked after using work computer systems to disclose confidential information to her landlord. Natalie Brennan, 41, could go to prison after pleading guilty to wrongful disclosure at Preston Crown Court. Her crime was to divulge information about a tax credits claim made by Mary Houghton, a former partner […]
The HRZone Interview: CIPD’s Stephanie Bird on the evolution of HR
About a quarter of HR directors these days come into the function from other areas, while the most successful act as “boundary-less leaders”, borrowing and reapplying ideas and techniques from other disciplines. According to Stephanie Bird, director of HR capability at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, an increasing number of HRDs have “zigzag […]
Blog: HR – Where has all the passion gone?
This is one of my favourite quotes from one of my favourite movies – Serendipity – I know, I know, but what can I say? I’m a sucker for a love story 😉 The quote is from the scene when Dean reads out a make believe Obituary: “The Greeks didn’t write obituaries. They only asked one question after […]
Blog: Abandon principles – Your friend is after a job
Does the HR department actually make a contribution? Is it a burden we could do without? I only ask because this Telegraph article, by Dan Hodges, the former director of communications for Transport for London, suggests that HR has no role to play. The writer describes how he landed his job with no qualifications, […]
The senior HR interim recruitment market: An insight
What’s the current global interim market like? From a UK financial services perspective it’s very competitive, with more candidates than opportunities. The current market consists of career interims, ex-consultants happy to be interims, and those available immediately who are ideally seeking perm but will take a contract in the meanwhile. With the candidate market being […]
Three ways for HR leaders to thrive in today’s changing business landscape
In recent years – and even more so in recent months – the business landscape has changed dramatically. It has become more global, more complex, faster-paced and less predictable. The competing and conflicting challenges that leaders face today have morphed from the ‘tame’, if complicated, issues that could be tackled successfully using tried and […]
Book and Film Review: Moneyball by Michael Lewis
The plot Moneyball, which first appeared as a book in 2003, was re-published following the release of a recent film, which starred Brad Pitt and earned him an Oscar nomination. I decided to review it because, as I read the book and watched the film, I found myself thinking about the broader business implications […]