Accountant jailed for stealing cash due to share disappointment
A company accountant has been jailed for theft after admitting that he stole tens of thousands of pounds from his employer when the shares he bought from the company did not provide the returns expected. According to the Norfolk Eastern Daily Press, Mark Hewitt, an accountant earning more than £65,000 per year, stole £80,000 in […]
Olympus sues 19 current and former execs for £30m in compensation
Olympus is suing 19 former and current executives for £30 million (Y3.61bn) in compensation as it struggles to recover from a long-running £1.1 billion accounting scandal. The Japanese camera manufacturer filed legal papers on 8 January with the Tokyo district court and confirmed today that all board members subject to the lawsuit, including president Shuichi […]
Blog: 7 guidelines for employee engagement – lessons from Stryker
Recognise This! – A desire to increase employee engagement is useless without commitment and follow-through. Gallup issued a brilliant case study of Stryker, a global medical devices company. Focussing on just one unit in New Jersey, the case study highlights several key tenets of success for an employee engagement or strategic employee recognition programme. 1. […]
Book Review: The Hedgehog Effect by Manfred Kets de Vries
Manfred Kets de Vries has been writing about organisational psychodynamics and consulting internationally for 30 years. He is rated as one of the world’s leading leadership theoreticians, is programme director at international graduate business school, INSEAD, and holds a number of professorial posts internationally. He has also written and published many books and articles. […]
Eradicating human trafficking from the recruitment supply chain
There are more than 27 million victims of human trafficking identified every year – an astonishing figure that’s hard to comprehend at any time in history, let alone in 2012. But the sad fact is that modern day slavery is very much alive and well. Human trafficking is the second largest illegal industry on […]
70,000 charity jobs lost last year due to Government spending cuts
Government spending cuts are to blame for a "deeply troubling" 70,000 drop in the number of people working in the charity sector over the last year, a study has revealed. Employment in the area has fallen by 8.7% over the previous 12 months, marking this the third consecutive quarter of decline, according to the latest […]
Trends 2012: Employment tribunals
After being “positively outraged” at the way in which the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust behaved, an employment tribunal awarded compensation of £4.5 million in December to Polish-born consultant, Dr Eva Michalak. The record-breaking award was ordered after Dr Michalak was found to be the victim of prolonged sex and race discrimination at the hands […]
Blog: Question for 2102 – why would someone work for you?
As we enter the doors of 2012, the prognosticators have all given their respective thoughts on what is coming into focus for the year. These are all great readings, but if you have survived these past few years of economic turmoil (and the aftermath), you know that, really, who knows? All organizations have basically […]
PM U-turns on plans to scrap 50p tax rate – till 2015 at least
At the same time as the Prime Minister is to drop plans to scrap the 50p rate of income tax, he has also promised to give company shareholders a binding vote on executive pay. According to the Daily Telegraph, David Cameron has come to the conclusion with Chancellor George Osborne that abolishing the tax for […]
20,000 financial services jobs to be axed by end of quarter
The speed at which the UK’s financial services sector is shedding jobs will accelerate over the next quarter due to growing concerns about the escalating Eurozone crisis and the state of the global economy. According to a survey undertaken by employers lobby group the CBI and auditors PricewaterhouseCoopers, UK banks, insurance firms and asset management […]
Ask the Expert: Can we sack someone for performing badly?
The question An operations manager recently contacted me and requested that we terminate the employment contract of a member of his team for poor performance. The employee has 13 months service with the firm. I advised him that we should manage the employee’s performance through the company performance management procedures, but he insists […]
Salesforce to Rypple gamification and social media out into HCM space
Just before Christmas, Salesforce.com made a move that was either very surprising or totally predictable, depending on your interpretation of events. The move in question was the decision to acquire Toronto-based HR system provider, Rypple. This was a surprise to the extent that Salesforce.com’s chief executive Marc Benioff had previously been resolute in his intent […]
Blog: Should banks cut executive pay?
Earlier this month, one of the UK’s most influential shareholder groups, the Association of British Insurers, sent a terse letter to each of the country’s five biggest banks: Barclays, HSBC, RBS, Lloyds and Standard Chartered. In the letter, the ABI warns the chairman of each company that it wants to see the end of the […]
PM’s “war” on health and safety branded “appalling and unhelpful”
Prime Ministerial pledges to kill the “health and safety monster” have been branded as “appalling and unhelpful” by an industry expert. David Cameron courted controversy yesterday in a speech to small business leaders in Maidenhead, when he declared “war” on what he described as the “excessive health and safety culture that has become an albatross […]
Former CEO turned whistleblower to sue Olympus for unfair dismissal
The former chief executive of Olympus, who was ousted after blowing the whistle on a $1.7 billion accounting scandal, plans to sue his former employer for unfair dismissal. Michael Woodford, who was the first non-Japanese person to hold the posts of president and CEO at the 92-year-old electronics and medical devices manufacturer, said that he […]
Start-up NI holiday created only 1,000 jobs, admits PM
The Prime Minister has confessed that the Coalition Government’s scheme to exempt start-ups from paying National Insurance contributions had been disappointing in terms of job creation. Introduced last September, the initiative was intended to encourage new companies to employ more people by allowing entrepreneurs in certain areas of the UK not to pay NICs when taking […]
UK’s largest employer bodies endorse ‘Youth Contract’
The UK’s four largest employer organisations have formally endorsed the Coalition Government’s flagship Youth Contract scheme and are urging their members to back the initiative. At a roundtable discussion today, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg welcomed support from The Confederation of British Industry, British Chambers of Commerce, British Retail Consortium and Federation of Small Businesses […]
Trends 2012: Health and wellbeing
Coming up with wellbeing trends for 2012 during a period of such uncertainty seems like something of a poisoned chalice. But a number of themes that started to emerge during 2011 are likely to gather momentum over the coming year and, therefore, are worthy of mention. Not only were such topics talked about by […]
Blog: Tackling organisational career management
Organisational career management is a tricky area for HR. Many managers worry that asking about career intentions may unsettle staff or even make them leave. But, in reality, the evidence shows that when managers take an interest in and show support for career issues it makes employees more committed to the organisation and also more […]
Analysis: Did the public sector pensions battle really need to be fought?
The Treasury is attempting to play down suggestions that proposed changes to public sector pensions, which led to the biggest walkout in a generation six weeks ago, are a poor deal for taxpayers. According to pensions consultant John Ralfe, the fight to get public servants to accept a later retirement age was at the very […]