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 […]
How an effective EAP can help you anytime, anywhere

One in four adults in the UK are diagnosed with at least one mental health problem each year. This statistic may be surprising, but it has caused organisations to care more about mental health in the workplace. With stress levels rising amongst UK workers, organisations have a responsibility to look after their staff and this is where […]
Are your employees seen but not heard?

The nature and scope of employee voice is becoming increasingly complex, with drivers such as technology, new employment models and workforce diversity fundamentally changing the way we work. But are organisations flexing to accommodate these shifts in the way we express our voice in the workplace? This article was co-authored by Louisa Baczor (Research Associate) and […]
Redundancy recovery: how to get back on track

Redundancy is something many of us will have to deal with during our careers, and it's never a nice experience when it does happen – no surprises there. But what may raise a few eyebrows is just how many people would choose to keep news of their redundancy to themselves. Almost half of those who […]
Tackling health and wellbeing: why we created the National Forum for Health and Wellbeing at Work

Professor Sir Cary Cooper CBE is the 50th Anniversary Professor of Organizational Psychology and Health at Alliance Manchester Business School, President of the CIPD and Co-Chair of the National Forum for Health and Wellbeing at Work. We asked him to tell us more about why the forum was set up, and what it hopes to achieve. A […]
How to build a business case for your employee engagement programme

The main driving force behind any organisation is its people. The right people analytics programme will help you measure the leadership, vision, happiness and cultural alignment within your organisation. These metrics have in the past been considered as immeasurable and vague. Consequently, the drive to collect data around them is often discounted. Employee engagement technology […]