Book review: Employee Engagement – A Little Book of Big Ideas
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, […]
The case for and against… soft benefits
There are plenty of contentious issues in HR and the workplace, and we think it’s important to get a balanced discussion going on some of the bigger questions out there. In this series, we’ll be asking HR experts and practitioners to give us opposing viewpoints on a key issue, and we welcome your input too! If […]
Let’s get political: harnessing post-election office debates
It’s a commonly-held custom; no talking religion, salaries, or politics in the workplace. Political discourse has historically always been a professional taboo, however as the UK continues in this period of uncertainty, having conversations with co-workers about politics is now harder-than-ever to avoid. Our analysts at Peakon recently looked into this subject, studying the attitudes […]
Public sector engagement: personality and employer branding
Based on an innovative and forward-thinking whitepaper, this blog series highlights several key parts of how a new empoyment deal for public sector staff could revitalise the sector and tackle disengagement. Employer branding has been described as an attempt by employers to better define the psychological contract in terms of the value employees derive from their […]
Public sector engagement: workplace tensions and job pressure
Based on an innovative and forward-thinking whitepaper, this blog series highlights several key parts of how a new empoyment deal for public sector staff could revitalise the sector and tackle disengagement. Job pressure is a measure of constant perceived excessive workload. Workplace tensions examines an individual’s ability to cope with competing pressures in the workplace such […]
Public sector engagement: the role of conversational practice
Based on an innovative and forward-thinking whitepaper, this blog series highlights several key parts of how a new empoyment deal for public sector staff could revitalise the sector and tackle disengagement. The TEDD® model views the organisation as a ‘conversational arena’, recognising the importance of day-to-day conversations between managers and their team in managing performance. Such […]
Public sector engagement: what should employees be contributing?
Based on an innovative and forward-thinking whitepaper, this blog series highlights several key parts of how a new empoyment deal for public sector staff could revitalise the sector and tackle disengagement. Employee contributions describe what employees feel they are bringing to the employment deal. These include job engagement, capability and organisational engagement. Job engagement [JE] We […]
Public sector engagement: what should employers offer to employees?
Based on an innovative and forward-thinking whitepaper, this blog series highlights several key parts of how a new empoyment deal for public sector staff could revitalise the sector and tackle disengagement. Within the employment relationship, employer contributions describe the different ‘offerings’ that employees value and expect to receive from their employer. These are broadly characterised as: […]
An introduction to our blog series: developing a new employment deal for local government
This series of blogs sets out the essential elements of the whitepaper, Developing a New Employment Deal for Local Government. The centrepiece of the whitepaper is a model called the The Employment Deal Diagnostic, otherwise referred to as TEDD® Influenced by the latest academic research, TEDD® conceptualises and personifies the employment relationship as a fluid […]
How to cultivate a winning mindset in your new joiners
In HR and Talent Acquisition circles, we place great emphasis on quality of hire, but recruiting people with the right skillset and experience is only part of the equation. With increasing pressure and expectations for new joiners to ‘hit the ground running’, we want our new joiners to slot in quickly, navigate easily and direct […]
The Black Box of employee engagement
About a month ago, I started working with a new client, helping them to create an employee engagement forum. They had put together a group of representatives and I went in to speak with them. When I walked into the room, I could feel the tension, a tight feeling as if everyone were holding their […]
Are your employees surviving or thriving at work?
Would you consider your employees to be in good mental health? It is, perhaps, a simple question to ask and answer. My employees come in, they smile, they get their work done, and they go home. Simple. But consider this: would it surprise you to learn that only 13% of people report living with high […]
The myth of empowerment: how to give your direct reports real ownership over their work
There are several factors that prevent managers from taking a stronger hand in leading their people to success. One of those is the Myth of Empowerment: that the way to empower people is to leave them alone and let them manage themselves. This is false empowerment, and probably the number one myth in the workplace. […]
Tie real consequences to performance to create empowerment and accountability
In order to empower your direct reports and make accountability work, it’s not enough to chant the slogan around the office and hope people get it. First, accountability works only as a management tool if the employee knows in advance that she will have to answer for her actions. IF you tell an employee that […]
Falling into an HR hole? What potential pitfalls are ahead for HR.
The latest CIPD HR Outlook [PDF] has found that the top three current and future priorities for the profession are cost management, talent management, and the increasing agility or flexibility of their organisation. These top three priorities should come as no surprise – they are perennial to the HR Industry. In fact, talent management is taking […]
The promises and pitfalls of hand drawn graphics
Hand drawn graphics are simple images accompanied by text. The terms sketchnoting, graphic facilitation, visual thinking and visual communication all relate to hand drawn graphics. Organisations can make use of hand drawn graphics in many areas. For example, a simple one page graphic can be used to explain a complex process; graphic facilitation can be […]
How to build an award-winning company culture
How do you create a fantastic working environment and a happy workforce? It’s the million dollar question that we believe we’ve found some answers to. Simply Business has been named the Best Company to Work For two years in a row, topping the Sunday Times list in both 2015 and 2016. The rankings are based […]
The energised employee we all want to hire
The Plainspeak Analyst is Katherine Jones, Partner and Director of Talent Research at Mercer, the world’s largest human resources consulting firm. Her job is to design and deliver insight research and services to Mercer’s global clients. She was previously VP, Human Capital Management Technology Research at Bersin by Deloitte. She has a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction from Cornell […]
Great Place to Work announces best workplaces of 2017
Every year, the Great Workplaces Special Report profiles the UK’s top workplaces for employee engagement and gives insight into how best-performing organisations are pushing the boundaries in terms of connecting with their workplaces and driving performance through innovative engagement and people management. This year’s report points to large discrepancies between companies appearing on the Best Workplaces list and […]
Millennials aren’t from Mars; employers aren’t from Venus
Justin Hughes is Managing Director of Mission Excellence, a consultancy which accelerates organisational effectiveness. Justin previously spent 12 years as an RAF fighter pilot and served for 3 years on the Red Arrows. He is a renowned speaker on performance and risk and the author of The Business of Excellence, published by Bloomsbury. He can be found on […]
