Blog: How to hold on to good employees – Part 1
If you want to attract and retain good employees, you need to (1) understand why employees leave a company, and (2) implement employee retention strategies to get them to stay. This article examines the reasons why employees leave their companies. In my next article, I will set out five strategies for keeping hold of your […]
Blog: How to help staff get in better financial shape
Saving more money is the one piece of advice personal financial experts are putting a lot of stock into, especially these days as the economy remains shaky. Likely there are many employees dutifully putting in their hours who are struggling to make ends meet as the cost of living continually rises. For this reason, it […]
Cultivating emotional intelligence: Lessons from two public resignations
There was a time when the manner and timing of your arrival was the coup de grace moment. But, if two recent articles that are getting considerable attention in online circles are anything to go by, the golden moment might now actually be the method of your departure. It all began when Greg Smith […]
CSC staff protest about proposed NHS Lorenzo deal redundancies
Unite members working for CSC are on the streets today to protest against the company’s plans to make compulsory redundancies among those working on its troubled Lorenzo patient records system with the NHS. Unite members from CSC’s Chesterfield, Chorley, Leeds and Solihull offices took part in a lunch-time walkout. After several weeks of consultation over a reduction […]
Employers must now provide PAYE reference number for liability records
Employers’ tax reference numbers for PAYE will have to be supplied to a national Employers’ Liability Database as a result of an administrative rule change on 1 April 2012. Since last year, ELD has been collecting details of employers’ cover from brokers and insurers to make it easier for those making claims to […]
Blog: What economic impact is ‘gross national happiness’ likely to have?
Happiness is a tangible outcome! Because of my commitment to great people management and engagement, I was heartened to discover that the UN conference on happiness and wellbeing which began in New York City on 2nd April came to the conclusion that good performance on GNP (Gross National Product) didn’t automatically mean that GNH (Gross National […]
TV Review: The Apprentice Week 5 – The value in being a team player
So what delights does The Apprentice – Week 5 bring us? The madness began as the teams were whisked away to York Hall, (in London not Yorkshire), and were tasked with making another quick buck to design and brand a new fitness programme. They were given two days in which to do this. Refreshingly, it […]
Blog: Succession planning – Winning the talent war
I was watching Oprah’s Lifeclass the other day, and one of the things that resonated with me was that statement that one of her friends said about Oprah and why she was successful. Who is next in your pipeline? Who do you have your other hand extended to? Succession or replacement? You choose. I read […]
Case Study: Nokia attempts to ‘Bridge’ the gap with employee outplacement scheme
Nokia is attempting to take the sting out of its redundancy programme by introducing an ambitious employee outplacement scheme. Changes to the mobile phone company’s strategy led it to announce the closure of some UK sites during Easter 2011. The move meant that hundreds of people across all sections of the business from product […]
Legal Insight: Health matters part 1 – Managing sickness absence
Doom-and-gloom tales about the state of the ailing economy are prevalent at the moment and companies large and small are reportedly taking drastic steps to save money. But if panic has not yet set into your organisation and there are no full-scale redundancy programmes in the offing, consider taking alternative action by reducing costs from […]
In a Nutshell: Seven tips for managing stress-related illness
Cardiff and Vale University Health Board is one of the largest NHS organisations in the UK, providing health services for those living in Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan. The Board employs around 14,500 staff and manages nine hospitals and 17 health centres among other responsibilities. Its aim is to take a preventative approach […]
Blog: Most employers spend more on office cleaning than staff motivation
Does having a clean office improve your profits and where am I going with this? Most HR professionals recognise that happy employees are more effective, hence our performance equation mantra, happy employees = happy customers = happy profits. Motivated employees are by default happier and many studies prove that employers with highly motivated workforces outperform […]
Blog: Would you consider crowdsourcing staff performance feedback?
Recognise This! — You can’t have a meaningful discussion about performance, goals, and successes in an environment of fear, dread and anxiety. How do you feel about performance reviews? Personally, I think the annual performance review (as most commonly implemented) is broken. It’s too infrequent, too fraught with anxiety and fear (for the manager […]
News Analysis: Could Ceridian give SAP and Oracle a run for their HCM money?
A lot of attention has been focused recently on SAP’s SucessFactors takeover, Oracle’s Taleo purchase and Workday’s presumed-to-be imminent initial public offering. But these are not the only moves to be taking place in the Software-as-a-Service human capital management applications space. Cloud-based HR and payroll provider, Ceridian, for example, recently closed its acquisition of Dayforce, […]
Talent Spot: Rebekah Wallis, HR director at Ricoh
Back-to-back company and employee integration programmes have kept Rebekah Wallis, HR director at printing and IT services firm Ricoh, pretty busy over the last four years or so. This is because HR has been considered core to the success of such integration work by ensuring that staff are supported and helped to make the necessary […]
Book Review: Beyond performance management by Jeremy Hope and Steve Player
‘Beyond Performance Management’ is a book that has been needed for a number of years. Jeremy Hope and Steve Player point out that many ‘must-have’ management tools have in the past proved unsatisfactory and that only about 30% of change programmes built using them have succeeded: they also back up their views with independent research. […]
MP lobbies to permit maternity leave for mums with surrogate babies
An MP is lobbying to close a “legal loophole” that denies mothers of children born through surrogacy the same entitlement to maternity leave as others. John Healey, local MP for Wentworth and Dearne, took up the case after one of his constituents, Jane Kassim, was told by her employer, Rotherham Council, that she was entitled […]
EC campaign unveiled to promote funded international work placements
The European Commission is to unveil its ‘We Mean Business’ campaign tomorrow in a bid to encourage employers to offer fully-funded international work placements to young people. The aim of the move is to boost young people’s skills and employability at a time of high youth unemployment across Europe. To this end, the EC […]
Blog: Career development part one – Why employers are investing in it
What does career development mean to you and to your company? Why is it important? How to do it? This is the first of two posts on the subject of career development practices in companies. First, I want to discuss the reasons why companies are interested in career development. In the next post I […]
Blog: 10 tips for minimising unfair dismissal claims
With 218,000 tribunal claims in 2010-11 and almost 25 percent of those for unfair dismissal, it was likely that the government was going to take steps to reduce the number of claims made. The decision was made that the amount of time an employee has to work for an organisation before being able to make […]