Highest level of adults engaged in learning for a decade

The proportion of adults who are currently in some form of education or training or have been over the last 36 months is at its highest level for 10 years due to the difficult economic climate. According to a UK-wide survey of 4,964 adults undertaken by TNS Omnibus and sponsored by the Local Government Association […]

Seven steps to managing attendance

Managing absence positively and clearly can reduce a sickness rate and decrease disruption and cost absence can cause an organisation. Take seven steps to better absence management. The average employee has seven days off work a year attributed to sickness.  This increases to 12 for those in call centres and 10 in local government employment. […]

New L&D degree launched

The University of Chester has got together with the Training Foundation to offer practitioners a Foundation Degree in Learning and Development Practice in a bid to help professionalise the sector.   The two-year long part-time degree will be delivered by facilitators from private sector course provider, the Training Foundation (TF), under the supervision of the […]

Bebo-speak: the language your younger employees don’t want you to understand

Teenagers are using a secret language on social networking sites to prevent employers and others in authority knowing what they are up to, according to researchers.  Lisa Whittaker, a postgraduate student at the University of Stirling, who studied the behaviour of 16 to 18 year olds in Scotland who used Bebo, said that the slang […]

TrainingZone Live – grab your early-bird discount

Grab an early-bird discount at TrainingZone Live, the new event for L&D professionals, consultants and HR practitioners – that’s £200 off the ticket price. PLUS: CMI and BILD members get a 50% discount!       The event has been developed based on feedback from TrainingZone community, and will consist of two days where delegate […]

Are you sitting comfortably?

Most employees asked these days would probably answer yes: companies invest hundreds of thousands of pounds in high quality adjustable chairs with ergonomic desks all complying to the latest legislation, so why are muscular skeletal problems still the biggest cause of sickness absence in the UK today and on the rise?   The modern day workstation […]

‘Time to Train’ is now in force

Employees working in organisations with 250 or more staff are, from 6 April, eligible to request time off under the Time to Train scheme, which will be extended to all employees from April 2011.   Legal changes have come into effect from 6 April 2010, which give employees the right to request time for study […]

Cheers! How a global brewery engaged their employees

Employee engagement has never been more discussed than it is currently. But how often do companies plan and implement engagement strategies with a very clear business goal?   Molson Coors Brewing Company (UK) Ltd, the global family brewer, has just completed the first phase of a major new people engagement programme designed to do just […]

Join us for a learning and development special event

Our sister site, TrainingZone, is hosting a very special and exciting live event for L&D professionals, consultants and HR practitioners. Join us there for all the buzz on training.       The event has been developed based on feedback from TrainingZone community, and will consist of two days where delegate will immerse themselves in […]

Essential HR skills: Project management (part one)

Today it is essential HR managers are not only good people managers, skilled negotiators, great listeners and business minded, but also have a healthy set of project management skills. A project is a process of delivering a defined change, usually to a fixed timescale and budget with defined quality standards. Several projects may form part […]

Female students rule out career in finance due to perceived discrimination

While the UK’s top female students are ruling out careers in the City seeing it as unethical and rife with discrimination, two thirds of healthcare workers are enthusiastic about their jobs, with nine out of ten feeling that they really make a difference. According to a survey of 450 female undergraduates at Oxford University undertaken by […]

HR 2.0 – how you’re using social media

HR professionals now routinely use social media not only to stay up-to-date and network with peers but also to build up their personal brand.  These are the findings of a poll undertaken among 925 HR executives from across the world this January by online knowledge sharing communities platform, Toolbox.com, and advertising and marketing agency, PJA. The […]

Identify the right skills and the skill gaps

Third in our series about workforce planning, discover how to identify skills and skill gaps in your organisation with a handy 'can do' chart. George Blair takes you through it… The story so far… We saw how to improve customer care, by matching staff more closely to customers in age, gender and ethnicity, in the […]

Engaging employees – it’s a management issue

Line managers play a more important role in keeping staff engaged and motivated than either more senior leaders or the boss, according to a new study.  A survey undertaken among more than 276,000 employees by Best Companies, which compiles the Sunday Times ‘100 Best Companies to Work For’ list, indicated that overall engagement levels had […]

Take five – communicate better

Encouraging efficient, effective and appropriate communication is one of HR’s greatest challenges. Jim Collins promotes having ‘to do’ and ‘stop doing’ lists to help efficency, and Michael Richards has put together these five tips, which are the first of a two part series to help you break the bad communication habits. So take five and […]

Workforce planning: Do you have the right people and skills?

In the first of the series, we explored where to look for wasted effort in your organisation and the importance of left-field thinking in re-designing processes. In this article, George Blair, President of the HR Society looks at how the right people with the right skills can make a difference, and how targeted recruitment and […]

Retain talent and avoid the brain drain

Organisations must steel themselves for the looming talent drain as their employees grow secure enough to look outside of their current job role – bear in mind all the organisations that will soon be in a position to begin poaching talent again from their competitors.  Our global engagement research found that employees are 1.5 times […]

Re-engagement – now is the time

Strong internal relationships are central to building productive and profitable workforces and the role of HR in helping to create and maintain environments that are conducive to keeping your crucial players is key, says Clive Hyland.    However, a recent study shows there may be some challenges for HR professionals to address – research conducted […]

Transforming leadership

Transform HR in your organisation by meeting the leadership challenge of understanding the business and the people you lead, explains Christian Hasenoehrl. No business sector has journeyed like HR to find it’s place and path. No other department has undergone such radical transformation, has questioned itself more deeply or has doubted itself more strongly. Rather […]

Developing a sense of ownership and responsibility among staff

Efficiency is about taking ownership and responsibility for behaviours as much as it is about designing new business processes, says Andy Neal of Changemaker International. It is important that businesses are run efficiently, even more now when companies are facing greater challenges from the economy. Yet at times such as this, businesses cannot afford to […]