The role of HR leaders through crisis events
How HR can lead the way in preparing for crisis situations.
Avoiding ‘game over’: incorporating gamification into recruitment and assessment
In 2014, Gartner noted that human resources is a particular growth area: “while customer-focused applications [of gamification] continue to be developed, there has been faster growth in employee-focused applications”. Initial usage within the HR space focused on learning and development, utilising game dynamics to enhance engagement with development activities and improve learning. More recently, the […]
Interview: Dr. Matthias Reuter on the changing face of leadership development
How digital technology is enabling organisations to optimise the potential of their people.
How to become an inclusive leader who values diversity
The evolution of human consciousness as studied and documented by a great number of people – from historians, to anthropologists, philosophers, mystics, psychologists and neuroscientists – has been found to develop in stages. Organisations, as an expression of the same human consciousness, have evolved over time too and correlate with each stage of consciousness. Gaining […]
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. […]
Business after Brexit: the changing needs of UK employees
Ahead of the uncharted waters of Brexit, the UK labour market appears to be continuing to shrug off the wider signs of economic doom and gloom. According to Office of National Statistics data, the UK labour market has charted its strongest earnings growth in 11 years, with annual growth in average weekly earnings for employees […]
Change management: how to shift the behaviours and mindsets of your people
Why do people resist change? It’s a simple question and yet it is one that sits at the heart of successful change management. The first step in understanding people lies in understanding yourself. Gallup’s 10 reports to share with your leaders in 2019 includes the statistic that managers account for at least 70% of the […]
How to overcome the business myth of gender blindness
Many individuals and organisations claim to be ‘gender blind’, but this is a fallacy. In this article, Dr Marie Luise Sunde and Isabelle Ringnes share their personal experiences of gender discrimination and explain how organisations can begin to address this issue. You may have heard the riddle that goes: a father and his son are […]
Company culture: the single issue at the heart of organisational failure
Almost every organisational failing – from Oxfam to Barings Bank, from Arcadia to Boeing – can be linked to a single issue: toxic company culture. Despite this, most businesses don’t understand how to accurately measure culture, let alone change it. It is now possible to measure the genuine behaviours within a business and establish the leading […]
Managing employee stress: a vital technique for protecting workplace mental health
HR professionals have many roles within an organisation. They’re there to design, shape and implement workplace policy. They shape recruitment processes, make key organisational decisions and – perhaps most importantly – protect the wellbeing of their employees. When it comes to mental health, more often than not, we can see the focus shift towards people […]
Four ways HR leaders can tackle a toxic work culture
Working environments have never been more transparent, and public scrutiny of businesses has never been higher. Lately, companies regularly face backlash for nurturing cultures deemed ‘toxic’. Toxic cultures can lead to increased incidents of sexual harassment, bullying, discrimination, or other forms of unethical conduct. While cultural issues such as low employee engagement, siloed workstreams […]
Why a VUCA business environment can be a positive thing
A lot has been written about the volatile and complex trading environment today but it’s only as difficult as we make it for ourselves. If we focus instead on collaboration over competition, we could make VUCA a positive thing. We like an acronym in the business world. VUCA is one that has been doing the […]
Three ways to help solve the HR productivity problem
How can HR professionals improve their technology use, workflow and communications to enhance their productivity? Recent research has revealed that HR workers spend seven hours a week manually checking, responding to and keeping up with different HR applications – the equivalent of 367 hours a year. With these workflow interruptions, it comes as no surprise […]
How can HR meet challenges along the many routes to future work?
If, as an HR professional, you believe the often used quip ‘one size does not fit all’, then accepting the need for multiple paths, bridges and contingencies to future work should not be that difficult. In part three of this series on crossing the chasms to future work, Mike Hammer – aka ‘The Gig Doctor’ – […]
Soft skills: how to increase empathy in business
Greater empathy within organisations has been linked to improved business performance, so isn’t it time we all injected a bit more empathy into our day-to-day business practices? Digital transformation is a bandwagon many companies continue to try and jump on. Last year alone, a purported $1.3 trillion was spent globally on digital projects. Despite this, […]
The future of HR: from human resources to human revolutionaries
Artificial intelligence may be able to take on certain tasks in the workplace, but human soft skills will always be in demand – it’s up to HR to champion and support them. The tech revolution dominates most conversations about the changing face of our world and, inevitably, business. The consequence of digital transformation is that the […]
How can HR build new bridges for future work?
The assumptions, strategies and techniques that have helped HR in the past will not suffice for navigating through the disruptive tsunami that is set to impact every business and its workforce. In the second of this series, Mike Hammer – aka ‘The Gig Doctor’ – explores how to sort out the good, the bad and […]
Four things you should never say about change
Communicating change requires management to look beyond trite cliches and consider the emotional complexities staff members will experience and support them appropriately. I’ve never liked clichés. Beneath many clichés there is a truth, but there’s also a lie. As HR professionals, we need to look hard at our assumptions if we aren’t going to perpetuate […]
Company transition: three ways HR leaders can get on the right road
HR leaders need to find ways to support employees during periods of company transition – with the best strategies built into an organisation’s overall culture, not hastily created at the last minute. Over 50 major retail chains went bankrupt in 2017 – up from 47 filings in 2016 and 30 in 2014. It seems as though retailers across the nation are […]
How can HR managers make the case for investing in culture?
Successful businesses have strong cultures that underpin their performance. So, why are some professionals still resistant to investing in this aspect of a business? Great organisations take culture seriously – or are eventually forced to. Companies such as Apple, P&G, Walt Disney and McDonalds have achieved enduring success by investing properly in workplace cultures defined by […]
