Recruitment: why ‘cultural fit’ is an essential requirement for assessing candidates
While a candidate might be technically qualified to do a job, if they’re not a good ‘cultural fit’ for the organisation and the team, it can lead to problems further down the line. Here’s how companies can reflect their unique culture in their hiring process. If recent statistics are to be believed, it appears that […]
Maternity discrimination: why do we continue to stereotype returning mothers?
While progress is being made to combat maternity discrimination, the problem of returning mothers being stereotyped and misrepresented remains – and this needs to stop if employers want to hang onto these valuable employees. Despite pregnancy and maternity being a protected characteristic under The Equality Act 2010, three in four mothers (77%) said they had […]
Working parents: shared parental leave has the potential to positively impact gender equality
With the uptake of new fathers taking up shared parental leave remaining stubbornly low, it seems a change in workplace culture and perception is needed in order for employees to truly feel the benefits. One professional dad shares his personal experience of the scheme and how it has positively impacted both his personal and working […]
Employee engagement: bridging the gap between generation Z and parents in the workplace
The US workforce is on the cusp of a significant transformation, as generation Z, the 61 million Americans born after the mid-1990s, enters the workforce. They’ll be joining a labour market that looks far different from the one their parents and grandparents joined. Technological innovation has disrupted entire industries, fundamentally changing the nature of work, […]
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 […]
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 […]
Supporting women past impostor syndrome and into leadership
Women are still lagging behind when it comes to confidence in their own abilities, so how can we help the female leaders of tomorrow turn that around? Are you doing enough to support women into leadership positions in your company? If you’re not tackling imposter syndrome then the answer is probably ‘no’. Why? It is […]
Closing the gender pay gap: what HR is doing wrong
Many organisations say they want to close the gender pay gap, but rebalancing the scales requires a bigger cultural shift. Brilliant people instinctively try to ‘fix’ problems. To address senior female under-representation and the gender pay gap, executives often focus on ‘getting’ more women. This fix of representation over culture is rapidly becoming part of […]
Hearing rather than solving is the new approach to creating inclusion
Despite many organisations putting time and effort being into improving diversity and inclusion, research shows that many people still feel excluded. Could the simple approach of listening attentively to our people, without looking straight to fixing problems, be an effective solution? One of the main challenges that affects those of us who help companies and organisations […]
Gender imbalance in the social care sector: time to plug the gap
We need to make careers in the social care sector more inclusive for men – before it’s too late. In the UK currently, there is a distinct lack of male nurses, male childcare experts and male adult social carers. In fact, there is a shortage of men in the social care sector altogether – they […]
Diversity at work: the business case for an inclusive culture
Exclusion can seriously damage your business, which is why inclusion needs to be a consistent and deliberate part of your HR strategy. Head Heart + Brian recently conducted research with companies about their diversity and inclusion initiatives to learn how these successful ‘lighthouse’ organisations are moving the dial on creating an inclusive culture, with particular […]
Inclusion means everyone… doesn’t it?
Gender equality is about men, just as much as it is about women, argues diversity and inclusion specialist Nadia Nagamootoo. I speak to a lot of women about my work to create gender equality for men – often because I’m attending a Women’s Network or the audience attracts more women when the subject is about […]
STEM’s long-standing image problem: how can we eliminate it?
STEM and digital skills are essential to the UK, both within technology firms and across virtually all other sectors. We need to address the STEM image problem to get more women into the industry. STEM subjects have longed suffered from an image problem. Many people assume that roles in STEM are highly technical or dull, […]
Millennials and boomers – a workplace match made in heaven?
Similarities and differences in generations may be key to economic and business success, says Nick Gold, CEO of Jobsite. Millennials are no longer the new kids on the workplace block. With many now entering their mid-30s, they make up the largest portion of the workforce and hold around 20% of leadership positions. Definitively the generation […]
Why talking about salary from the get-go will help you attract more talent
In a society where we are used to sharing so much information, talking openly about pay still remains one of our biggest taboos. Questions about pay expectations and salary are often left to the very end of an interview process, which can waste time and leave candidates and hiring managers feeling disappointed. But when salary […]
How to use diversity to create ‘good friction’
I think we’ve all heard it by now: diversity in teams and in leadership is good for business. But why is this so, and how can we use it actively in our strategic, tactical and daily business to nurture and encourage ‘good friction’? In a business world that is affected by disruption, technological and societal […]
Good interactions don’t counteract bias: why people steal petrified wood
Simon Fanshawe OBE, co-founder of Stonewall and Diversityby Design, argues that unconscious bias training is not only ineffective but could also worsen discriminatory behaviours or thinking. What’s the alternative? A revamp on how we do things. Some years back a fad started for unconscious bias training. I went to a diversity conference in Barcelona where […]
Brain-savvy Woman: a two-in-one guide to the neuroscience that can help your career
HRZone has a range of books available for review. If you would like to receive one of our business books, free of charge, please contact the editor on editor at hrzone dot com and we can send you a list of what’s available. In return, we ask for a 400-700 word review of the book, […]
How is the gender pay gap impacting the migrant female workforce?
The results are in and they make for a sobering read: 78 per cent of firms in the UK pay men more than women. As the dust settles following the last minute rush from companies to report on their gender pay gap, the debate is now turning to what the results mean for employers and […]
Bridging the gap – lessons to be learnt from gender pay gap reporting
In the month in which employers with 250+ employees have been required to disclose their gender pay gap for the first time, the issue of gender equality in the workplace is being subjected to some scrutiny by the media, the government and employers themselves. And rightly so – on the disclosed evidence the gender pay […]
