In a Nutshell: Five ways to ensure a positive relationship with the unions
Philippe Ferrie, worldwide employee relations coordinator at Vallourec, which makes specialist tubes for the oil and gas industry, has a long history of dealing with the unions. Here he offers his advice on the best way to ensure that you have a smooth and productive relationship with them too: 1. Show respect I’ve […]
How to administer pay cuts in times of austerity
Last week, Reuters reported that the Spanish royal family, surrounded by high unemployment and scenes of public workers striking, had offered to take a pay cut. The move is intended to reduce the €8.3 million annual cost to Spanish taxpayers of keeping them by some €100,000. Leading the way is the Spanish King, Juan […]
Christina’s Counsel: Managing attitude problems remotely
The challenge An HR client recently asked me for advice about how to tackle a situation that may become more commonplace as managing staff remotely increasingly becomes the norm. A manager raised concerns about a team member who worked some 75 miles away in a satellite office. Until recently, the office had been manned […]
Talent Spot: Philippe Ferrie, head of HR at Vallourec
When a global company has a decentralised culture, it can be hard to persuade people to accept standardisation that is handed down from head office, even if it makes their work lives easier. This was the situation that Philippe Ferrie, worldwide employee relations coordinator at Vallourec, found himself in when the company chose to implement […]
Blog: Cracking employee communication codes QR-style
In spite of how you might feel about technology, you must admit that it’s making some aspects of employee communication much easier and improving communication between employer and employee. Let’s look at the QR (Quick Response) codes for example…used properly and following a few basic rules, these little barcodes can create a huge impact […]
Ask the Expert: Can we recruit a leader if a team member is off sick?
The question Is it okay to recruit for a team leader from within a team if a member of the team is off sick? They are not on long-term sick leave, just recovering from an operation. What is the legal position here? Legal verdict Esther Smith, partner at Thomas Eggar As […]
Blog: How to have a high impact interview – From both sides of the desk
Whether you’re looking for a job or a job-holder, chances are you’ll have a few interviews ahead of you! Personally, I enjoy interviews, whichever side of the desk I’m on. I get to chat about myself and my work over a cup of tea to someone who wants to know – what’s not to like?! […]
Blog: Seeing eye-to-eye
How do you feel when someone doesn’t look you in the eye? It’s amazing what people read into poor eye contact. Peoples’ perceptions may differ but they all have one thing in common – they’re all negative … they’re all bad. Here are some of the comments I get on my confidence building courses […]
The art of influencing and making your ideas stick
1. Steve Martin on influence & communication Steve Martin is fascinated by the science of decision making and the power of influence. He explains: “I’m not interested in what people tell me they want to do; I’m interested in how they act.” He also states that information alone as an attempt to influence clients, […]
Three tips to ensure your social recruitment strategy is effective
Social media has been a game-changer for many hiring companies. Recruitment agents increasingly appear to have lost control of their little black books as professionals after new jobs and companies looking for fresh candidate pools start to make the most of online channels such as LinkedIn, Viadeo, Xing and Twitter. This week, news also […]
Blog: Performance and teamwork tips from Olympian Steve Williams
This blog post is the distillation of a talk about performance and teamwork given by Steve Williams at the Institute of Internal Communication’s annual conference recently. Steve is a double Olympic gold winner, and he focused much more on his Athens 2004 experience than Beijing 2008, although both were nail-biting close finishes! I’ve kept my hastily scribbled notes largely unedited […]
In a Nutshell: Five considerations when creating a welcome pack for new hires
When lastminute.com moved its group headquarters to a swanky new Farringdon office in April, it seemed like a good chance to revamp its welcome pack for new joiners. As a result, it turned to us, the same language consultancy that had worked on the ‘tone of voice’ of its marketing collateral a few years before, […]
Blog: Crisis stories – What RBS’ Stephen Hester can teach us
RBS‘ Stephen Hester has emerged to apologise to his customers for the ‘technical issues’ that have left millions of customers frozen out of their accounts. Interestingly, he used the analogy of delayed planes waiting to clear after heavy rain to highlight the fact that the backlog of problems needs time to be fixed. I’ve talked […]
Blog: Is HR really out of touch?
The study by Kenexa reported on HRZone last week has some interesting findings but I doubt it comes as a huge shock to HR. HR has a massive role to play in building a high-performing culture and contributing to the bottom line – but at the moment so many HR professionals are managing the nuts […]
Social media trends: Moving into the mainstream
The opportunities and possibilities offered by social media are limitless – and that’s the problem for many HR professionals. The question is where exactly do you start and how do you know what will work for your business? The simple answer is: just start somewhere, for the beauty of social media is that […]
Employee engagement on the rise?
Employee engagement is back on the up and up after years of decline, according to a new study from consultancy firm Aon Hewitt. The consultancy’s 2012 Global Engagement report analysed the engagement trends of more than 3,100 organisations representing 9.7 million employees worldwide. It found that 58% of employees were engaged in 2011, up from […]
How to communicate effectively with hard-to-reach workers
In tricky economic times, effective internal communications can have a vital role to play in helping to keep staff morale up and anxiety down. All too often these days, however, communication activity can end up being focused almost exclusively online, creating the risk that workers without access to the latest social media tool or even […]
Blog: Tips on how to create a powerful employer brand
We recently held an employer branding event held at The Sanctum Soho Hotel with some great insights from brands such ITV and TMP Worldwide who outlined their own employer branding journeys. What became clear is that with the right resources – and of course budget – employer branding messages can be very powerful. But how […]
Blog: Social media – Opportunity or danger?
And so it was that recently I took part in the People Managements webinar entitled Social Media: Opportunity or Danger? expertly facilitated by PM‘s Editor in chief Rob McLaughlan and Digital Marketing Manager Zoe Bearne. I was one of three ‘speakers’, the other two being Al Shah, Social Media Demand Manager for GlaxoSmithKline and Lucy Turner, […]
In a Nutshell: Five tips for a smooth office move
Moving house is considered to be one of the most stressful things that we can put ourselves through. Although moving office (hopefully) is not likely to be quite as fraught, it does require not only a huge amount of organisation, but also sensitivity in the way that the change is explained to employees. The […]
