Let’s get political: harnessing post-election office debates
A recent study found 72% of UK employees feel comfortable discussing politics at work. Employers can harness these conversations constructively by creating open, respectful workplace environments that encourage productive debate and build trust among colleagues.
Public sector engagement: personality and employer branding
Employer branding shapes how public sector employees perceive their organizations and directly impacts engagement and retention. Using personality-based assessments, organizations can uncover whether employees view them as supportive and visionary or confused and bureaucratic—revealing the gap between external brand promise and internal employee experience.
Public sector engagement: workplace tensions and job pressure
Public sector employees face mounting job pressure and workplace tension due to budget cuts and resource shortages. Since 2010, local authority spending has declined by 37%, forcing staff to manage excessive workloads with fewer resources, affecting service quality and employee wellbeing.
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?
Public sector employees contribute job engagement, capability, and organizational commitment to their roles, but disengagement persists despite seemingly positive engagement scores. Research reveals that true engagement involves psychological presence, competence, and quality conversations with managers—factors that significantly impact performance and retention.
Public sector engagement: what should employers offer to employees?
Public sector employers must strengthen their psychological contract with employees by offering training, development, fair treatment, and job security. As budget constraints increase workloads without proportional rewards, employers risk disengagement and talent loss unless they communicate clearly and manage employee expectations during organizational change.
An introduction to our blog series: developing a new employment deal for local government
This blog series explores the Employment Deal Diagnostic (TEDD®), a model that conceptualizes the employment relationship as a balanced exchange between employer and employee. Drawing on academic research, the series examines how quality employment relationships are shaped by contributions, conversational practices, and workplace dynamics in local government.
How to cultivate a winning mindset in your new joiners
Help new joiners develop a winning mindset before day one by using structured pre-boarding processes and the PERMA framework. This approach builds confidence, engagement and belonging, enabling fresh employees to make an immediate business impact beyond just having the right skills.
The Black Box of employee engagement
Employee engagement forums often struggle due to unclear expectations and undefined roles. This “black box” phase can be transformed by clarifying discussion boundaries, establishing roles, setting timelines, and identifying goals—ideally with neutral external facilitation to build trust and motivation.
Are your employees surviving or thriving at work?
Only 13% of people report living with high levels of good mental health, meaning most UK employees struggle with mental health concerns. Employers should prioritize workplace mental health support just as they would physical safety, creating environments where employees can thrive rather than merely survive.
The myth of empowerment: how to give your direct reports real ownership over their work
True empowerment requires managers to provide clear guidance, direction, and support—not abandonment. Rather than leaving employees to manage themselves, effective leaders must establish decision-making guidelines, clarify responsibilities, and equip their teams with the tools and knowledge needed to succeed.
Tie real consequences to performance to create empowerment and accountability
Effective accountability requires setting clear expectations upfront, consistently tracking performance, and following through with real consequences tied to actual results. This ongoing process, practiced frequently rather than annually, empowers employees by creating a fair system where they understand what’s expected and how their work will be measured and rewarded.
Falling into an HR hole? What potential pitfalls are ahead for HR.
HR directors face a critical challenge: trapped managing day-to-day recruitment and staffing tasks, they struggle to develop long-term business strategy. This reactive approach risks exacerbating talent shortages and skills gaps that already affect over one-third of UK businesses unable to fill skilled vacancies.
The promises and pitfalls of hand drawn graphics
Hand drawn graphics use simple images and text to explain complex information, improve engagement, and facilitate collaboration in meetings and presentations. Research shows 90% of brain information is visual, making graphics highly effective for communication and decision-making across organizations.
How to build an award-winning company culture
Simply Business was named Best Company to Work For two years running by the Sunday Times, ranking first based on employee feedback. Learn how to build an award-winning company culture through meaningful values, smart working policies, equal opportunities, growth opportunities, and employee engagement.
The energised employee we all want to hire
Mercer’s Global Talent Trends Study reveals that most employees feel energized at work, with 45% rating their engagement 7-8 out of 10. Energized employees are significantly more likely to stay loyal and rate their organization highly, though career growth concerns still drive some departures.
Great Place to Work announces best workplaces of 2017
Great Workplaces Special Report reveals significant gaps between top-performing employers and UK averages in employee trust and engagement. Best Workplace employees show notably higher levels of trust in management, intention to stay, and likelihood to recommend their employer compared to workers at average organizations.
Millennials aren’t from Mars; employers aren’t from Venus
Millennials aren’t fundamentally different from previous generations—they simply reflect evolving social norms shaped by the information age. Rather than viewing them as uniquely challenging, employers should recognize that meaningful work, purpose, and clear opportunities engage young people across generations.
Change leadership: how to give employees a sense of control
When implementing organizational change, giving employees a sense of control is critical to success. Rather than imposing changes, involve leaders and teams in the decision-making process so they understand the reasons for change and can influence implementation, helping them feel part of the solution.
“Going into opening our new location in Dublin, we knew we were entering a war for talent.”
Liberty IT faced a competitive talent market when opening a Dublin office in 2015. The HR Director shares how they balanced maintaining core cultural values like dignity and respect while empowering the new team to shape their own identity, prioritizing cultural fit over technical skills in hiring.
