HR for small business: why everyone needs a mentor
In my line of work, I support heads of HR, HR directors, and L&D managers in both large corporations and SMEs, and I’ve noticed a remarkable difference between them. The HR job description can cover an incredibly diverse spectrum. Is this down to the role or the type of person in it? Are they naturally […]
Wellbeing at work: managing the £37 billion sleep epidemic
The modern workplace is changing, with the standard 9-5 becoming less common in favour of greater flexibility. While traditional, office-based schedules have their limitations, they do still enable employees to work within their natural sleep/wake cycles. Employees work during the day, enjoy free time in the evenings and sleep at night. Research shows that nearly […]
Financial wellbeing: the high cost of falling ill
Most of the focus when it comes to workplace financial wellbeing is unfortunately at point of crisis. Very little is being done to educate employees and help them build resilience to the knocks they will inevitably face in life. This is especially important when the three main areas of wellbeing collide. The cyclical relationship between […]
Employee experience: has a ‘job for life’ become a thing of the past?
Sir Bradley Wiggins recently announced that he’s swapping sport for social work, as he looks to carve out a new career at age 39. While not many of us can claim to have won an Olympic gold medal, that feeling of wondering what it would be like to try something new is one we can […]
How HR can champion diversity and inclusion within a small business
SMEs have more opportunity than their larger competitors to lead diverse and inclusive organisations, because every employee focused decision that they make has a huge impact on their organisation right away. Indeed, a vibrant workforce is actually very important for small businesses, who can struggle to attract staff. They have the ability, therefore, to broaden […]
Recruitment: four hiring challenges for small businesses
Being the first HR person in a small and growing business can mean many things – excitement, for sure, as there will many things to put your stamp on. It can, however, be daunting and challenging too, particularly if recruitment is part of your brief. Here’s a snapshot of some of the key challenges you’ll […]
HR for SMEs: why small business can’t ignore employee wellbeing anymore
Workplace wellbeing has never been higher on the business agenda in the UK. For the third year in a row REBA’s annual state of wellbeing research showed the rise continuing, with two thirds of businesses now having a wellbeing strategy in place, and the number without one expected to fall to under 20% by 2020. […]
Achieving the mindshift to tackle failure demand in HR
Failure demand is everywhere, clogging up your team’s schedule, getting in the way of value-driving activity and impacting user experience whenever your people interact with HR. It’s not people who create failure demand, but the system. To learn how to identify and tackle failure demand, we need to start thinking differently. We need systems thinking. […]
HR for small business: how to write HR policies for SMEs
Generally speaking, SMEs are an exhilarating whirlwind of start-up or scale-up businesses providing so much learning, excitement, pace, change – everything you can relish. It’s like every sort of fairground ride – waltzers, dodgems, log flumes – you name it. The temptation is to see your job as bringing order to the wild ride, to […]
Six steps to better learning and development for small businesses
Are you an HR professional within a small business? Do you support small businesses with HR consultancy? If so, how often do you have conversations about learning and development? I know that you are busy. If you work in an organisation, I know that you are called upon to wear many hats: HR manager, health […]
Employee engagement: why small businesses need to do it too
Years ago, I did a talk on employee engagement for small businesses. At the end, one of the participants came to speak with me. He ran a small business, and he wanted to engage his staff, but it seemed like more work on top of running the business itself. How would he find the extra […]
Workforce analytics: data storytelling and why you should know your audience
I had a debate recently with someone who believed that, when working with complicated analytics, it was important to explain the process and statistical methodology to add credibility to the storyteller and the message. His view was that this was important to all audiences, since credibility was the most important facet to portray in storytelling. […]
Workforce analytics: demystifying HR analytics – it’s not what you think
Perhaps the biggest misdirection or mystery surrounding HR analytics is what it is, and what it is not. HR analytics is not a discipline that is only focused on the functions, challenges and required solutions for HR itself. Also, it is not just complicated statistics and mathematics that nobody understands unless they have a PhD. […]
Workforce analytics: how to be a successful people analytics leader
During the last four weeks I have met over 60 workforce analytics leaders in the US and Europe in my pursuit to learn more about and help advance the discipline of workforce analytics. The companies they represent are some of the world’s most well known brands – banks, tech firms and retail companies among many […]
Reimagine business value: the world’s changing expectations of companies
For decades, society was content for business to drive economic growth and wealth creation. People looked to governments to keep their worlds secure, while ‘doing good’ was the job of charities. Companies were free to operate in a bubble of employees, products, customers and profits, as long as they made money for shareholders. Trade brought […]
Ten reasons to love doing HR for a small business
Alright, alright. You don’t have access to a ‘Leadership University’ or state of the art breakout rooms. You don’t have an army of HRBPs, and if you want a promotion you’ll have to give it to yourself. That said, doing HR in a small or medium sized enterprise has its perks. Let’s examine them. 1. […]
The ethical employee: a look at moral behaviour
In parts 4.1 and 4.2 of this discussion we looked at how our actions cascade outward through the organisations we work in, and how even our smallest actions can generate dramatic effects. We saw the importance of ‘the whole of us’ to the workplace, and that each of us is far more than just a […]
The ethical employee: what we bring to our business
Let’s begin this part of our analysis with a brief thought experiment… Imagine, just for a moment, that there is a part of you that is nothing more than a ‘work delivery unit’ (WDU). This is the part of you that fulfils your contract of employment to the letter. It’s the part of you that […]
The ethical employee: we have the power
In previous articles in this series I’ve talked about the nature of ethics, outlining three basic moral aims that we can use in assessing the morality of our businesses and our own management practice. These are: To nurture others To nurture our species as a whole To nurture all life I’ve discussed at a high […]
Recruitment: how to hire HR professionals and why it’s not as simple as you think
Most people think HR recruitment is one of the easiest areas to recruit for. HR people are ‘lovely’, there are lots of candidates out there, and you can pretty much guarantee that every company has an HR team. All of the above is true, but when you start to dig a little deeper into the […]
