Win an athlete at work™ development programme!
What you can win: The athlete at work™ K2’s athlete at work™ programme takes what elite athletes know about performance and applies it to the business world. There’s no mumbo-jumbo; the athlete at work™ simply makes the secrets of world-class performance available to key performers in the corporate arena. With the right skills, tools and […]
Identify the right skills and the skill gaps
Third in our series about workforce planning, discover how to identify skills and skill gaps in your organisation with a handy 'can do' chart. George Blair takes you through it… The story so far… We saw how to improve customer care, by matching staff more closely to customers in age, gender and ethnicity, in the […]
Can you afford to ignore your disengaged employees?
We often hear about how to better engage with employees, but what about the actively disengaged employee? Don’t stick your head in the sand, says Mike Friend. Tackling the drivers of both engagement and disengagement is critical to achieving high performance. The concepts of the service profit chain as proposed by Heskett, Sasser and Schlesinger […]
Proof of engagement – it worked for me
Councillor Alan Rudge, cabinet member for equalities and HR at Birmingham City Council has driven forward an award-winning employee engagement programme that will increase performance and productivity and protect the quality of the service delivered. He explains how it has improved staff engagement and the importance of putting people first. People are at the […]
Ask the expert: Off sick but on Facebook
One of our employees is on sick leave but still manages to go out drinking and update Facebook. Where do we stand? Adam Partington and Esther Smith advise. The situation: An employee is off sick with work-related stress – but we've seen them out clubbing and have Facebook evidence of them being out drinking. What should we […]
‘Must speak Polish’ job ad investigated
The government’s equality watchdog is investigating claims that a pre-packed cooked meat manufacturer discriminated against UK workers by advertising jobs for Polish speakers only. According to the Mail on Sunday, OSR Recruitment sent email notices out to hundreds of potential applicants on its books on behalf of Forza, which is a major supplier to […]
A bold step for IT L&D
The Institute of IT Training’s decision to become a self-governing body has been endorsed by thought leaders in the learning and development space. The not-for-profit organisation completed a management buyout from membership and research organisation, the National Computing Centre, earlier this month in a move that Colin Steed, its chief executive, described as a “great […]
Gas workers may strike over bullying
British and Scottish Gas workers are being balloted for strike action over claims of macho management and bullying by their employer. The GMB union has sent the ballot papers out to 8,000 of its members employed mainly as gas service engineers, central heating boiler engineers and distribution depot workers. The process is due to close […]
Manufacturing must retrain to stay competitive
The manufacturing and process industry has called on the government to invest directly in retraining its workforce to cope with new technology in order to help pull the sector out of recession and ensure that it remains competitive in world markets. Proskills, the Sector Skills Council for the industry, has got together with the […]
McDonald’s: Would you like a GCSE with that?
McDonald’s is launching the UK’s first national work experience-based qualification at the same time as a poll revealed that young people believe a strong academic background alone is no longer enough to secure them a job. Recent figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) appear to confirm this view. They indicated that, although youth […]
Graduates? No thanks!
Neither school leavers nor university graduates are providing employers with what they need due to basic problems with literacy, numeracy and attitude, a Tesco executive said today. The broadside came only days after university union, the UCU, slammed the business community for failing to “make a proper contribution” to funding for higher education, despite being […]
Engaging employees – it’s a management issue
Line managers play a more important role in keeping staff engaged and motivated than either more senior leaders or the boss, according to a new study. A survey undertaken among more than 276,000 employees by Best Companies, which compiles the Sunday Times ‘100 Best Companies to Work For’ list, indicated that overall engagement levels had […]
Small businesses, watch your back when hiring
Small business owners know the value of good employees. But unlike large corporations, smaller businesses are often unable to absorb the risks and liability that may come from bad hiring decisions. In this article, Traci Canning, Managing Director, Kroll Background Worldwide will be offering guidance on carrying out employee checks. More and more, employers feel […]
Five myths about public sector pay
There has been a great deal of comment in the past few months about public sector pay, some of it ill informed and much of it missing the point. Peter Smith, director of public sector consulting at Hay Group, looks at five myths that seem to have developed and comments on the real issues in […]
Take five – communicate better
Encouraging efficient, effective and appropriate communication is one of HR’s greatest challenges. Jim Collins promotes having ‘to do’ and ‘stop doing’ lists to help efficency, and Michael Richards has put together these five tips, which are the first of a two part series to help you break the bad communication habits. So take five and […]
Train and gain or snooze and lose
Dwindling levels of investment in training must rise this year if UK employers are to remain competitive on a global basis as the economy starts to emerge from recession, an expert has warned. According to the National Employer Skills Survey (NESS) for England undertaken among 79,152 organisations and commissioned by the UK Commission for Employment […]
Rise in vacancies and recruitment activity point to recovery
The number of vacancies posted online in February was the highest since December 2008 when the recession really kicked in, but the jobs market is not out of the woods yet. These are the findings of the Employment Index compiled by online recruitment web site Monster UK. It noted that the amount of positions available […]
Government watchdog spends £170k on role play
Even though role-playing is an accepted and widely-used form of training these days, the Conservative Party has slammed the Audit Commission for spending £167,000 on the practice over the last three years. The Commission uses Roleplay UK, which employs professional actors, to help it out when hiring new staff or training personnel up for […]
Not safe for work – the prevalence of porn
With one in five men admitting to accessing porn at work, organisations know they are sitting on a potential time bomb. While accessing porn is not illegal – unless it is explicit – the risks associated with brand damage and employee harassment litigation are significant, says Andrew Millington. No organisation can impose an outright ban […]
Engaging your talent through embodied leadership
Which qualities does a leader require to inspire engagement of their key talent and harness discretionary effort? Make healthy high performance part of your organisation. In today’s fast-paced, impatient and often stressful world, leaders need to find a way of being and leading that liberates people to contribute their unique talents willingly – thereby giving […]