Working out: The benefits shape-up
Despite the downturn, more employers are offering health and wellbeing benefits than ever before. But does a brief flirtation with a never-ending supply of Golden Delicious and some Nicorette patch slapping benefit the boss? Annie Hayes reports. Wellbeing benefits on offerSubsidised gym membership no longer pre-empts an ‘oh wow’ response. It’s about as expected as […]
Embracing innovation
In these hard economic times, Neil Davidson urges employers to focus on innovation – or risk diminished growth and serious losses within the business. Sometimes, when I use the word innovate, I tend to notice a certain glazing over of eyes, and my listeners slowly appear to retreat into themselves. And I understand why; the […]
Achieving a successful 360-degree appraisal
Using 360-degree appraisals is a very effective means of improving management and team performance. To succeed, they have to be carefully planned and well executed, says Valerie Heritage. Planning your approachFirstly, you need to understand how the proposed 360-degree appraisal process fits with your current performance appraisal and people management processes. This will help you […]
HR confident business leaders can do it
Leaders in the UK are rated most highly, with almost half of HR professionals confident in their ability, a global leadership report shows.This is according to the 5th Global Leadership Forecast 2008/2009 by business leadership consultancy DDI, which reports that 44% of respondents rank UK leaders as very good or excellent compared to 37% globally. […]
A deal’s a deal: Personalising your employee value proposition
Bettina Pickering, Fiona Quarrie and Janet Windeatt explore how to improve retention by matching the expectations and promises set at the recruitment stage with the actual employee value proposition. As the cost of sourcing talent increases and filling positions with the right staff gets harder, it is increasingly important that new recruits and existing employees […]
HR tip: Implied contractual terms
These questions are being answered by Learn HR, a market leader in the provision of HR and payroll training and nationally-recognised professional qualifications. Question: "What are implied terms?" HR tip: Express terms are those that have been explained to the employee, for example by being set out in the offer letter, contractual statement or employee handbook. […]
Fury at Marks & Spencer as retailer plans to slash redundancy benefit
Retailer M&S is facing furious staff over its plans to cut its redundancy payout by up to 25%.According to a story reported in The Times newspaper, M&S wants to cut the maximum payout that employees can receive in relation to their length of service from 70 weeks to 52 weeks. An employee due £35,000 under […]
Who’s going to win? Software Satisfaction 2008 HR & training nominees
More than 700 votes were cast in the HR and training categories in this year’s Software Satisfaction Awards, which see some of the larger, established software suppliers lined up against newer arrivals. John Stokdyk reports.ASR (now part of COA Solutions) and SAP will contest the enterprise HR category against Vizual’s HR.net and Softscape Apex. ASR […]
Productivity probe exposes 40-day loss
A staggering 40 days every year are wasted by the average person, according to a new survey.The Learning and Skills Council (LSC) revealed the findings as part of a campaign to counteract the perception that people don’t have time to learn.A total of 1,658 people were quizzed as part of the survey, which found that […]
Pay for what you get: Compensation for performance
The Egyptian pyramid builders could have probably showed us a thing or two about performance management; back in those days the threat of death was all that was needed to get a stone block dragged up a hill. However, now there are laws against that kind of practice, Matt Henkes takes a look at how […]
How to ensure a fair redundancy
With unemployment predicted to rise over the next couple of years, and fears of a recession on its way, Charles Price offers his advice on how to ensure employers follow a fair redundancy process. The British Chamber of Commerce predicts UK unemployment will rise by between 250,000 and 300,000 in the next 18 months to […]
When is a GCSE not a GCSE?
Candidates are eagerly awaiting their GCSE results this Thursday, which will be important for students, universities and employers alike. Yet, GCSEs are now run in many different ways, which can be confusing when it comes to recruiting. Mike Morrison explains what the different qualifications mean on a CV. Today, employers take note of qualifications, especially […]
HR workers love the job despite rising workloads
A whopping 94% of HR workers say they are happy in their role even though workloads are rising as the credit crunch bites.This is according to recruitment outfit Badenoch & Clark’s ‘Happiness at Work Index’. The findings show that, of those surveyed, HR workers reported the highest increase in their workload since the start of […]
Ask the expert: Asking for redundancy
Following a reorganisation in the business, one member of staff has asked to be made redundant yet the employer does not view it as a redundancy situation. Esther Smith, partner at Thomas Eggar, and Martin Brewer, partner at Mills & Reeve, advise on what to do. The question:We have a member of staff who has […]
Caption competition: And the winner is…
This month’s competition was inspired by a recent poll by recruitment consultants Office Angels, which compared UK workers to the nation’s favourite celebrity chefs.There were some amusing entries this month – but there could only be one winner, so we have decided to give the prize to Bryony Bennett, an HR assistant from Kent. Her […]
Older workers and women first for the chop
Both women and older workers are the prime victims of the credit crunch chop, according to The Age and Employment Network (TAEN).The comments follow released figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) which show a fall of 9,000 in the number of people aged 50 to state pension age in employment – 1,000 fewer […]
Unemployment set to reach 2 million
The UK is on the brink of a technical recession according to the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), which is predicting a significant hike in unemployment rising to over 2 million.According to the BCC’s quarterly economic forecast, the jobless count is likely to increase by 250,000 to 300,000 over the next two to three years […]
Temp or Perm?
The term “The Shamrock Organisation” was coined by the management guru (and son of an Irish Pastor) Charles Handy. (http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/08/can-management-gurus-lead-us-to-nirvana.html ) This is a form of organisational structure with three bases on which people can be employed and on which organisations can be linked to each other. The three bases or groups are professional managers; […]
Talent & HR related blogs in one place
Hi there,I’ve been working with Jackie Cameron to create a list of UK based bloggers on the topics surrounding HR.The outcome is a site that outputs all blog posts in one place. It also includes a blogroll of those included.It can be found here: http://blogs.talentsocial.com/Contact me if you’d like additional blogs listed.I hope you find […]
Delivering effective L&D on a tighter budget
As the credit crunch bites, managing a learning and development (L&D) team and running effective programmes on a tight budget will again become familiar territory for L&D managers. Amanda Young looks at the best ways to deliver effective programmes in the challenging economic times ahead. Retaining quality employees is a big challenge for human capital […]
