Hunt the Robin is back!
This festive season you can win cinema tickets when you find the Christmas robin hiding on HRzone.co.uk . The prize: A pair of cinema tickets, redeemable at any of 230 cinemas nationwide, courtesy of Filmology. Filmology is the UK’s first dedicated movie marketing and promotions company and leading supplier of cinema vouchers as staff rewards […]
David Fairhurst’s decade in HR: How HR earned its place at the top table
David Fairhurst gives his opinion on how the last 10 years have changed HR and where we will go in the future. The last 10 years have been some of the most formative for HR in recent history. The so-called noughties have seen our profession go from strength to strength, from an also-ran in […]
Mediation: an essential skill for today’s leaders
HR professionals and line managers who have been trained in mediation skills report a greater understanding and self-awareness of their own conflict management styles, as well as a significant increase in their confidence and skill levels which enable them to address conflict. Importantly, HR and line managers also report that after undertaking mediation skills training, […]
Employment law takeaways for December
Employment law takeaways: our bitesize legal updates for busy HR professionals, provided by Suzanne Horne of Morrison and Foerster. This month: agency workers, re-employment and pension payouts. 1. Tilson v Alstrom Transport – Fully integrated agency worker was not employee of end user2. Hinsley v Chief Constable of West Mercia Constabulary – It was a […]
Happy workers have a sense of shared purpose
Business strategy must be based on a shared sense of purpose between employers and workers in order to boost staff engagement, job satisfaction and organisational performance. According to a survey undertaken among more than 2,000 employees by YouGov on behalf of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), 84% of those working in organisations […]
Charity and retail workers ‘not party animals’
While recruitment and marketing staff enjoy a good Christmas party more than any other group of workers, back office personnel in the retail sector are the most likely to make their excuses and not turn up at all. According to a survey among 2,500 UK office staff across eight industries undertaken by serviced office provider […]
More than half don’t measure training impact
Just over half of organisations fail to measure the business impact of their training programmes due to both a lack of resources and personnel qualified to do so. According to a study among 412 learning and development decision-makers across the world, other key reasons for failing to gauge outcomes included confusion about what actually should […]
Depressed police officer should have been re-employed
In a case that raises questions over the extent of employers’ duties under disability discrimination legislation, an appeal tribunal has ruled that a police force acted unlawfully by refusing to reemploy an officer following her resignation. Sarah Jane Hinsley was suffering from undiagnosed depression when she quit West Mercia Police in January 2007, saying that […]
Ask the expert: Provision of services to temporary contractors overseas
This time the experts, Esther Smith and Martin Brewer give their advice on setting up service contracts overseas. The question: Provision of services to temporary contractors overseas If a company set up a service contract with an in-country service company to supply accommodation, transport to/from the airport etc. and other support overseas, is this blurring […]
Santa is coming to town – the HR nightmare before Christmas
Annabel Kaye provides this tongue-in-cheek memo for employees from an employer brave enough to risk a Christmas party. Dear employees: We are organising the annual Christmas party, and a Mr Klaus has agreed to be our entertainer. After last year’s party (by the way, congratulations on the baby, Miss Smith) we thought it would […]
Social media may aid unofficial industrial action
The ability for workers to communicate more rapidly using tools such as social media could lead to increased levels of difficult-to-manage unofficial industrial action, the conciliation service Acas has warned. Such technology is changing the way that staff are able to organise and means that demonstrations and flash mobs can be arranged at the push […]
Sainsbury’s cares for carers
Sainsbury’s claims to be the first UK retailer to work with carers’ organisations in order to develop flexible working policies targeted at staff with caring responsibilities. The supermarket chain has joined the Leadership Group of membership body Employers for Carers, which is chaired by BT and supported with expertise from charity Carers UK. Sainsbury’s intends […]
We met the biggest Cloud in the world at the Business Cloud Summit
The Business Cloud Summit gave another insight into the biggest cloud in the world – 4Success at Siemens. Tom Fisher, VP, cloud computing at SuccessFactors and Jurgen Strahwald, Vice President Corporate Information Technology Governance took to the stage to tell Stuart Lauchlan how they went about creating this massive cloud. At the Business Cloud Summit, […]
Pay gap publishing will not be compulsory
The coalition government has abandoned plans to make it compulsory for employers to measure and disclose the pay gap between male and female workers in favour of a voluntary publishing scheme. The move, which was criticised by equalities campaigners and unions alike, will result in the relevant clause in the Equality Act 2010 simply not […]
It’s snow joke for employers and the economy
This week’s snow has seen staff absence levels leap four-fold rise compared to last year, with the cost to the economy expected to hit as much as £1.2 billion per day in lost business. According to FirstCare, which provides absence management services, employers in Scotland and the North of England have been most affected as […]
Dealing with strikes: Manager advice on video
This is a sneak peek at a new learning resource from Video Arts, highlighting issues relating to behaviour, communication, support, consultation and disciplinary action. "Any manager who is caught in the middle of a strike will find the experience incredibly challenging," said Martin Addison, managing director of Video Arts. "It's vital that you know […]
The People Cloud: HR needs to get smarter
HR needs to “get smarter” with technology if it is to succeed in adopting a more strategic role within the business, according to a panel of experts at the Business Cloud Summit in London on 30 November. But when introducing new technology, HR also needs to give higher priority to the wider goals of the […]
Ask the expert: P45 – which date should be shown?
The experts, Adam Partington and Esther Smith advise on which date should be shown on this employee’s P45. The question: P45 – which date should be shown? A one month’s notice period has been served to one of our employees who has been working with us since last one year. We are confused as to […]
Opinion: What will the skills strategy really mean for business?
Terry Watts, CEO of Proskills, the Sector Skills Council (SSC) for process and manufacturing, comments on the new skills strategy and explains what this really means for businesses and the future of skills in our workforce. The government’s new skills strategy, ‘Skills for Sustainable Growth’ paints a very colourful picture for the future of skills […]
Aligning HR with the business
In a tough economic climate, uncertainty around job cuts looks set to dominate HR over the next few years. Cost saving, improved efficiency and streamlining are recurrent themes in media headlines. They are also terms increasingly being used by organisations fighting to safeguard their future. Whilst HR is naturally expected to take a pivotal role […]