Blog: The diversity issue – Is being people-friendly the next eco-friendly?
What does diversity mean to you and your business? Or inclusivity and cohesion? A few zzzz lines in the company report, a policy destined for tumbleweed, an unreachable recruitment target, something largely negative under the umbrella of ‘compliance’ that must be reluctantly ticked? What would true diversity and total inclusivity look, feel, and sound […]
Ask the Expert: Are dads on paternity leave entitled to bank holidays?
The question One of our employees became a father on 22 December, 2011. He requested and took his two weeks of paternity leave, starting on the day that the baby was born and ending on 5 January, 2012. However, during those two weeks, there were three bank holidays. Has he lost these now […]
Do you take visa? How to deal with the new immigration guidelines
There are now a myriad of documents that enable workers to take up different posts in the UK. But even though the UK Borders Agency published new guidelines in relation to its five-tier visa system earlier this month, employers still face a huge amount of risk when dealing with items that all too common such […]
Public sector employers not liable for asbestos claims, rules Supreme Court
Public sector employers no longer risk having to shell out hundreds of thousands of pounds for asbestos-related claims after the Supreme Court finally settled a long-running dispute between insurers over liability. The ruling in the landmark case centred on the question of who was responsible for paying compensation for claims relating to invariably fatal asbestos-induced […]
Jive adds gamification to social intranet apps to boost staff engagement
In a bid to boost employee engagement, Jive Software has included a gamification module in its newly unveiled social intranet applications. Based on the vendor’s Social Business platform, the offering can adapt to user needs by analysing social graph data and can also be integrated with third party systems, the firm claimed. The gamification […]
Saba’s social HR software includes controversial ‘People Quotient’ rankings
Social networking software that links people-centric HR processes with the collaboration tools that those very people require – that’s the claim made by Saba about its so-called People Cloud. The Software as a Service-based bundle of applications brings learning, talent and social collaboration functionality together into one place with voice, video and web conferencing, it […]
Balfour Beatty warns its 12,000 staff of possible redundancies
Just as Balfour Beatty warned all of its 12,000 UK construction services staff of possible redundancies today, the OECD forecast that the UK had moved back into recession. With new infrastructure projects expected to fall sharply after the Olympic Games in London this summer, the building giant, which employ 50,000 people worldwide, said it was […]
Blog: Four steps to take on finishing your staff engagement survey
Recognise This! — Strategic recognition is a powerful tool to align employees with your goals and take appropriate action after your engagement survey is done. Like 80% of the people on our “My Engagement Survey Is Done, Now What?” webinar yesterday (recasts available here), do you conduct an employee engagement survey? Though we didn’t […]
TV Review: The Apprentice Week 2 – The art of listening
After the initial excitement of getting to know the candidates in week 1, I was looking forward to seeing how they all shaped up and settled in this week. Would the boys continue to be the perfect dream team working in peace and harmony? Would the girls continue to scare unsuspecting children and shop […]
Footballing lessons: Is anyone bigger than the company they work for?
Debate-worthy issues between bosses and their employees don’t often turn up in the world of sport, but just recently there have been some fascinating headlines about the behaviour of football players and how the people they work for have dealt with it. For example, there was the case of John Terry, who was stripped of […]
TrainingZoneLive: Booking now open
Excitement is mounting for TrainingZone Live, the live event hosted by our sister site TrainingZone, which sashays into its third year of existence on 15 May at Dexter House. The learning and development market is awash with events that cater for the every need and whim of increasingly diverse set of training professionals. As a […]
Case Study: Pernod Ricard standardises global talent management
Pernod Ricard is in the process of standardising its talent management processes across the world in a bid to support business growth more effectively. The multinational supplier of wines and spirits plans to consolidate a fragmented assortment of talent management procedures and applications into a single Software-as-a-Service-based system from Taleo that will operate across its […]
Blog: Using transparency as a tool to rebuild employee trust
"I am sorry, but we have already identified someone for that role.” The next question was, “how could that be, the job was just posted on the Internet?” What my friend had just found out is a little dirty secret in some organizations. Sometimes when jobs are posted, and even when they are not, […]
Infographic: The 2012 HR applications landscape
The human capital management applications market has seen some turbulent upheavals in recent months with takeovers of the likes of SuccessFactors and Taleo. With that in mind, this is an interesting infographic from research firm Forrester, which has just carried out a 69-criteria evaluation of human resource management system vendors. Source: The Forrester Wave : […]
Social media ‘shoulder surfing’ during interviews could lead to lawsuits
UK employers should be wary of adopting a legally risky US trend that is seeing bosses ask interviewees for social media passwords in order to scrutinise their personal profiles. Although not illegal in the US, the practice is already causing so much concern that two senators have asked the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the […]
Blog: Are you wasting 35% of your payroll costs on disengaged staff?
Recognise This! – Lack of employee engagement costs you 35% of your payroll, or up to $17.5 Million annually in a 1,000 person organisation. Like organisation culture, employee engagement is a frequent topic of mine. Indeed, creating a culture of recognition is a foundational element to creating an environment in which employees choose to engage. […]
Talent Spot, Andrew Mayo, professor of HCM at Middlesex University
Andrew Mayo does not consider himself an academic – despite his title as professor of human capital management at Middlesex University. Instead for him, HR has to have a business focus. So rather than simply explore abstract theory, his teaching is very much geared towards explaining to masters students the real-life applications of HR, […]
Employers and unions spat over extent of public-private sector pay gap
Employers and unions were at odds today over official government figures showing that public sector workers are paid on average 8% more than their private sector colleagues. The spat came about after the Office of National Statistics published its latest snapshot details of UK Plc’s employment profile. Apart from telling us that the number […]
2,100 Game-rs lose their jobs following closure of half UK stores
Game is to close nearly half of it 609 UK stores today, leaving 2,104 people without a job in the biggest collapse since Woolworths four years ago. Mike Jervis and Stuart Maddison from PricewaterhouseCoopers were appointed joint administrators of the gaming retailer, after failing to reach a rescue deal or negotiate a ‘pre-pack’ over the […]
How to avoid penalties as income tax deadlines loom
It is that time of year again when businesses have to start preparing their Employer Annual Returns which are due to HM Revenue & Customs by 19 May. This task can never be looked upon lightly as failure to adhere to the rules could result in hefty penalties. Of course, there is a lot […]
