Treasury Minister rules out full income tax and NIC merger
The Treasury Minister has ruled out undertaking a full merger of income tax and National Insurance Contributions as part of a bid to simplify the personal tax system. Only weeks ahead of the Chancellor’s autumn statement on 29 of November and the publication of draft Finance Bill clauses on 6 December, David Gauke promised to […]
CIPD Conference: Developing business savvy
Because HR’s fundamental role is to support sustainable organisational performance, being able to demonstrate business, contextual and organisational savvy is vital – and becoming more so as companies become increasingly complex. This is the key finding of a panel discussion entitled ‘Giving HR the Business Edge: how HR can drive impact and influence’, which took […]
Jobs market to suffer “slow, painful contraction”, warns CIPD
Private sector hiring plans are being overshadowed by public sector job losses and will lead to the employment market continuing to suffer a “slow, painful” contraction. This was the key message to come out of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development’s quarterly survey of 1,000 employers, which found that the extent of public sector […]
Legal Insight: How to tackle bullying in the workplace
Former England Rugby Union international, Ben Cohen, has called for people to make a stand against bullying in general and homphobia in particular. To this end, his Foundation is calling for the creation of an annual ‘Standup Day’ to take place on 14 November each year. Although the aim of the Day is to encourage […]
Ask the Expert: What is the legal situation around medicals?
The question How useful, in practice, are medicals undertaken as part of the recruitment process? If it is standard to make a job offer subject to a satisfactory medical, how do you decide what an unsatisfactory one is? And when would a medical condition be considered a disability? If the medical reveals a […]
Security certification introduced to help public sector hire right skills
The British Computer Society has introduced a pilot certification scheme for government information assurance professionals in order to help public sector employers choose the right specialist with the right skills and expertise for the job. The full Information Assurance Specialist Certification scheme, developed for the Communications Electronics Security Group, GCHQ‘s information assurance agency, will be […]
CIPD Conference: ‘No one-size-fits-all for leadership practices’
Despite the abundance of formulas to identify what makes a good leader, the problem is that each one has different competencies and, therefore, leads in quite different ways. This means, said Marcus Buckingham in his keynote speech at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development’s annual conference in Manchester this week, that trying to transfer […]
Employee resilience – whose responsibility is it anyway?
The concept of ‘developing resilience’ in employees is becoming increasingly popular as redundancies and talk of fresh economic downturns start to hit the headlines. But although it is intuitively understood that the term is linked to stress management, definitions of what it means in exact terms are often vague. Advocates tend to fall into […]
CIPD Conference: Creating a culture of innovation
Innovation does not simply happen of its own accord. It is instead born out of a corporate culture that allows individuals to challenge what is possible, but also to make mistakes without being afraid of the possible repercussions. These were the key findings of a keynote panel discussion entitled ‘Creating a Culture of Innovation […]
CIPD Conference Blog: Social media and knowing what not to fear
I and many others attended Neil Morrison‘s social media session at #cipd11. Loads of good stuff being shared and a healthy dash of British toilet humour thrown in for good measure. Here’s a summary of what I heard and learned: Numbers: Neil started showing us some huge numbers, in the hour to follow 5,000 blogs would be written, […]
Regional Growth Fund to create 4,000 SME jobs
The Regional Growth Fund, which has been heavily criticised for only benefiting big companies, is to provide £500m in funding to small-to-medium enterprises, creating an estimated 4,000 jobs in the process. The Coalition Government’s flagship recession-busting scheme will allocate £95m to firms, while RBS, NatWest and HSBC banks will top up the rest of the […]
CIPD Conference Blog: Eight steps to enhance resilience at work
Recent reports that Lloyds Banking Group’s Chief Executive has been signed off with stress and ‘extreme fatigue’ re-enforce the need for a resilient workforce to face the challenges in the changing economic climate. At the CIPD Annual Conference and Exhibition this week resilience was a hot topic and two of our experts, Dan Hughes and […]
CIPD Conference Blog: O2 on linking engagement and customer service
I’ve been guest blogging at the CIPD conference this week, here’s a write up of a great story about connecting the employee and customer experience. Hope you like it. When Nicky Brimmer of O2 first took to the stage to talk about ‘Turning customers into fans: linking employee engagement to customer service’, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s […]
CIPD Conference Blog: Sir Terry Leahy on how Tesco pulled ahead of the pack
The other morning at the CIPD 2011 conference I listened to the speech given by Sir Terry Leahy, former CEO of Tesco. Tesco’s dominance concerns me, and when he showed us the 2010 market capitalisation comparison between Tesco (about 6 times bigger than both), Sainsbury’s and M&S I winced a little. Terry spoke sincerely and […]
The future of work: what the world will look like in 2025
Even with three decades of research into work under my belt, I still find the future of work incredibly difficult to predict. That’s why I created a research consortium designed to tap into ideas and knowledge from across the world. Each year, my research team and I begin by identifying the five forces that will […]
CIPD Conference: People management key to Tesco’s success, says Leahy
Tesco’s success has been based on good people management and the simple act of giving workers what they want, believes Sir Terry Leahy, former chief executive of the supermarket chain. In his keynote speech at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development in Manchester this week, he said that employees fundamentally desired four key things: […]
Shortage of truck driver trainers could lead to UK transport crisis
If UK employers do not insist that their truck drivers undertake Driver Certificate of Professional Competence Training in the near future, the country will face a potential freight and transportation crisis when new European Union legislation comes into force. According to provider 24-7 Training, a shortage of trainers exists already, which means that, unless they start […]
Case Study: Lancaster Landmark Hotels focuses on attitude to boost retention
The Lancaster Landmark Hotel Group has boosted both staff retention and customer service levels by focusing on recruiting and developing personnel who it believes have the right attitude and behaviour. The organisation operates three high-end London hotels, each of which is managed independently and caters to different types of customers, which made it difficult to […]
Talent Spot: David Smith, HR director at LV=
When David Smith, HR and communications director at LV=, first joined the UK’s largest friendly society he was faced with the ultimate challenge: a blank sheet of paper. At that point, in 2008, the company had outsourced its entire HR function. Smith’s first job was to bring HR back in-house. It was a time of […]
Blog: Five measures for creating an environmental impact
According to a report from Lancaster University’s management school, today the HR director forms part of the “golden triangle” in the boardroom, along with the CEO and the finance director. For the finance department, every move made will reflect the present state of the company, from releasing funds to hire more staff when business is […]