Maternity discrimination: five ways line managers make maternity returners want to leave

Hiring and training new staff is a costly business, so it makes financial sense to try and retain as many existing experienced employees as possible. Sadly, too many organisations are losing talent due to a negative approach to maternity returners. Did you know that there is a direct correlation between the relationship of a maternity […]

Remote working: why virtual teams fail and how you can avoid it

Recruiting and managing a virtual team requires a whole different approach to office-based staff and there’s plenty that can go wrong if leaders don’t take this into account. Research shows that a worrying two out of every three experienced managers fail in their first attempt at running a virtual team. This matters greatly now because […]

Gender pay gap: no time for short cuts

Ignore the gender pay gap at your peril – organisations that aren’t addressing this are falling behind. It’s time for HR to stop paying lip service and start creating true, systemic change. This April, more than ten thousand large firms provided details of their gender pay gap. Three quarters of them, it turns out, pay […]

Employee wellbeing: do you foster a culture of self-care in the workplace?

Employee wellbeing should be a priority for all businesses, as neglecting self-care could cost your organisation more in the long-run. The long standing ethos of market economics, ‘more, bigger, faster’ is based on a misguided assumption that our personal resources are infinite. Indeed, our personal resources are far from infinite (as we all know), and if we […]

Digital transformation: three ways HR can use AI more effectively

AI and analytics tools are only as good as the data they can access, so in order to make the best use of these, HR teams need to ensure that they have the right data integration strategy in place. Data is changing the world, but today’s enterprises remain inundated with an ever-rising tide of data […]

What role do employees play in a brand’s customer experience?

While companies like to think they are in charge of their customer experience, its front-line employees who live and breathe it every day – and they’re the ones your customers are seeing. The brutal truth for any brand to face up to is that they all have a customer experience, whether they like it or […]

Modern leadership: why a responsive management style is the future

In today’s ever-changing business environment, there isn’t one management style or technique that works all the time – what’s required is a responsive approach to stay ahead.  The world has changed. As new demands from both the market and employees come to the fore, traditional management styles are being overtaken by a new leadership mindset. […]

HR Tech Masterclass: get results from your technology projects

Early bird tickets are available now for our CPD-accredited HR Tech Masterclass, taking place in London (September) and Manchester (November). Book your place today. Our one-day CPD-accredited masterclass will guide HR leaders and teams through each step of the full HR tech lifecycle to help them deliver results from their technology projects. Purchase your early bird ticket for £249 + VAT TODAY. […]

The true value of financial wellbeing

When it comes to employee wellbeing, financial wellbeing is key. When talking about good ‘financial wellbeing’ we mean a state someone is in when they have control over their financial lives. As such, financial wellbeing is intrinsically linked to financial resilience and the ability to comfortably manage one’s finances. More specifically, being able to manage […]

Employee engagement: sometimes it is the small things that make a difference

Employee engagement – there are lots of great resources out there on how to improve employee engagement across the organisation. But for most of us, it’s not so much the big interventions that make a difference to how we feel about work, it’s the small things – the day-to-day ‘stuff’. Small things can make a […]

Time to reflect – why does it matter in the workplace?

Reflection can be a very empowering process. It can help you to make sense of your day, to come to decisions, to set a course of action, to step away from your habitual way of doing and thinking to discover new freedoms and opportunities. Consider just how many of us go about our days on autopilot, […]

The eight core capabilities that future leaders need

It’s difficult to plan for future leadership roles when we don’t know what the future holds. Jenny Straumers from Cirrus offers some advice. The future is uncertain and unpredictable. Organisations everywhere face the challenge of planning for future leadership roles, even though we’re not actually sure what many of those roles will look like. Digital […]

Recruitment bias: would you hire the handsome fella first?

Despite good intentions, research has shown that a candidate’s looks can often bias the interview process – sometimes without the interviewer even realising it. So how can HR professionals avoid this situation and ensure their organisation is hiring the best person for the job? In today’s working environment we are increasingly aware of encouraging diversity […]

Have we got authenticity wrong?

What do successful leaders need more than anything?  Well according to the Harvard Business Review in January 2015, “Authenticity has emerged as the gold standard for leadership.” Most leading companies provide programmes or coaching to develop “authentic leaders”. And reams of paper and internet columns have been devoted to describing what authenticity is and how you achieve […]

People management: how modern business culture is killing leadership

By undermining traditional social structures, organisations are harming both company performance and individual wellbeing. It’s no secret that there is a genuine issue today with culture and productivity, with leadership (or lack of it), with talent acquisition and also with people development. These issues are all of course, closely interlinked as they stem from the […]

Employee engagement: the new rules for 21st century teams

Creating a happy, loyal workforce without the need for beer and beanbags. There are many studies that have shown the commercial benefit to an organisation of happy workers – they stay in the job longer, work more efficiently and better together and take less stuff from the stationary cupboard. Spend time nosing through Glassdoor or […]

Scientific People Analytics: a look at Value Profiling

This article is the second in a four-part series exploring how Scientific People Analytics (SPA) can be used to support human capital decisions made by organisational managers. In order to understand how SPA can be used to guide and support management decision-making, it is necessary to look at why and how managers make human capital […]

The Pimlico Plumbers case: tipping the balance in favour of gig economy workers

Philip Richardson, Head of Employment Law at Stephensons, examines how the recent Pimlico Plumbers ruling will impact the rights of gig economy workers in the future. The recent decision by the Supreme Court in the case of Pimlico Plumbers vs Smith has been heralded as spelling the end of the gig economy and the casual […]

Find me a job Alexa! Recruitment with cloud-based voice services

Are cloud-based voice services the future of candidate engagement? Voice-based devices like Amazon Alexa and Google Home are opening up massive new opportunities for recruitment for corporates, agencies and jobs boards, as well as for candidates themselves. By 2020 it is predicted that the connected home market could be worth almost US$150 billion globally, and […]

Reputation management for HR professionals

A positive reputation is not just a ‘nice to have’ for HR professionals – it’s an essential requirement for effective leadership.  You may not be in control of your reputation, but it impacts you in every conversation, every day. It might seem unfair and unreasonable, but it’s true. People form opinions about you quickly – […]