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 […]
Change leadership: how to give employees a sense of control
A few years ago a group of London psychology students were charged with carrying out a survey on the general public. Their study consisted of approaching strangers in the street and posing the question, “Which of the following would you find the most physically challenging? (1) deep sea diving, (2) power gliding, (3) addressing a […]
“Going into opening our new location in Dublin, we knew we were entering a war for talent.”
Cathy Donnelly is HR Director at Liberty IT. She was previously UK & Ireland HR Manager at Ikea and before that Head of HR at Botanic Inns. In 2015, Liberty IT opened a new office in Dublin (with an established one in Belfast) and Cathy talked to us about how they smoothed the process and […]
If your organisation came to life as a person, how would you describe it?
This is one of the questions that Martin Reddington asks with his employee engagement tool. On March 9th, I went to the launch of the white paper on workforce engagement in the public sector, where Reddington shared his research and work with us. The presentation was interesting in several regards – since I normally work in […]
Book review: The Coaching Habit: say less, ask more & change the way you lead for ever
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, […]
Getting employee engagement on your CEO’s agenda: Create actionable steps
This is the concluding article in the series How to secure employee engagement on your CEO's agenda – make sure you've read parts one and two your case before you carry on with this article. In your role as a HR leader, it is likely that maintaining employee engagement and striving to improve it are recognised as […]
Getting employee engagement on your CEO’s agenda: Appeal to emotional triggers
This is part two in the series How to secure employee engagement on your CEO's agenda – make sure you've read Part one: Presenting your case before you carry on with this article. Employee engagement is far more than a hot topic: through extensive research, we have come to know a lot about the direct results of […]
Getting employee engagement on your CEO’s agenda: Presenting your case
For any meaningful changes to happen within a business, the subject needs to be firmly on the CEO’s agenda. However, this is easier said than done and more often than not, it appears that the business has more important issues that will compete with your efforts to push topics such as employee engagement. Whether you […]
“It was great to see the enthusiasm for adopting the new way we want to talk to customers”
Since 2008, Tesco Bank has been wholly owned by Tesco plc. 3,000 staff based in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Newcastle serve 7 million customer accounts. Tesco Bank’s aim is to be the financial services provider of choice for Tesco shoppers by giving them great service and good value while rewarding their loyalty for shopping at Tesco. […]
5 steps to support mental wellbeing in the workplace
I am David Brudö, CEO and Co-Founder of personal development and mental wellbeing app Remente. I first started my own business in e-commerce a few years ago, but as much joy as you get from running your own business, it can be stressful and demanding My work was all-consuming and I wasn’t prepared for the […]
Internal comms: lessons from the ad industry
Muse is a new online service from Woodreed designed to solve the business challenges HR, engagement and internal communications professionals tell us they face. Accessed online via PC, mobile or tablet, it’s a combination of three services designed to improve the quality and effectiveness of internal communication. Click here to find out more. Would you let your […]
