Corporate psychopaths and mental health
This article was written by Clive Boddy and Derek Miles. Clive and Derek are, respectively, Professors in Leadership and Human Resource Development at Middlesex University Business School. You can email them at c.boddy@mdx.ac.uk or d.miles@mdx.ac.uk. In relation to a previous article in HR Zone on how corporate psychopaths influenced the workplace, one commentator on the […]
Do CEOs do HR’s job?
These are loaded statements, but do any of them sound familiar? “CEOs do the job of HR."“HR has become all about processes and not people.”“HR has lost the plot.” On the face of it these words seem rather harsh, after all HR work extremely hard often under difficult conditions, but this was the consensus of […]
Engage and retain staff in 2014 and beyond
It’s a common misconception that an individual’s performance at work is based solely on just their capability. Whilst possessing the right skills and abilities is important, in today’s competitive business world, it is based on so much more than this. The silent threat of ghost turnover The period of economic recession played host to […]
Onshoring and employee engagement – is there a link?
Over the past few decades China has become the manufacturing centre of the world, but a trend that started in the US is filtering to UK shores as businesses are starting to bring their manufacturing bases back home. This on-shoring shift in business behaviour is of course great news for the UK economy, and has […]
Talent mobility – essential to organisational success
In the first of a four part series of articles, Matt Russell, Head of Talent at Lee Hecht Harrison, introduces his concept of ‘talent mobility’ and the results of an in-depth research programme into the subject and looks in brief at what HR professionals need to do in order to ensure and benefit from talent […]
Embracing employee engagement in 2014
Employee engagement may have been the new ‘buzz word’ from America just a few years ago but now businesses large and small are buying into it in some shape or form. However, in many companies it still seems to be a side project or a matter on the agenda, rather than an intrinsic part of […]
Finding your “Why” – the crucial starting point of employee engagement
No leadership team will commit time and money to a plan to increase employee engagement unless they believe it will improve performance. So the first question any HR professional should ask themselves before committing to an employee engagement survey is, “What are we looking to achieve?” This simple but thought provoking question sets the context […]
Secret to brand engagement? Trust in good leadership
Brand engagement only works if there is employee trust in the new values. But trust cannot be won through good internal marketing alone, although it undoubtedly helps. Leaders need to be seen to be involved, to be actually leading the programme and above all, to be trusted. We must remember though, that leaders include all […]
Four ways your employee survey is holding back internal communications
The degree of success enjoyed by your organisation’s internal communications can depend on many factors – yet ultimately all decisions you make on these matters rely on good quality information. And where does much of that information come from? The employee survey, naturally, by now a traditional (but not necessarily venerable) annual event for many […]
Employee attitudes in Britain – trends for 2014
It is too early to tell for sure but 2013 could become known as the year the UK turned an economic corner and started a slow but definitive road to recovery. Currently the economy is still 2.5% smaller than its peak in 2008 but the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has just announced 0.8% growth […]
How to give real meaning to work
Employee motivation and engagement are perennial hot topics for business leaders, management and HR professionals. Every year there is a veritable avalanches of surveys, books, courses and tools published to address issues around the recruitment and retention of talent that are centred on theories of motivation and engagement. Employers have a responsibility for the environment […]
Five ways neuroscience can improve your engagement results
How to create the super powered engagement leader Engagement is a hot topic but do HR functions really care about it or has it become just another process to run i.e. ‘it’s the survey season again’, rather than the outcome of leadership and work practice? Clearly something isn’t working as all the data says our […]
History of employee engagement – from satisfaction to sustainability
Employee engagement may seem a relatively recent concept but actually it goes back over 20 years when the term first appeared in an academic journal in 1990. Prior to that, during the 70’s and 80’s, HR’s (or as it was then ‘personnel’s’) focus was on employee satisfaction. But this had little or no connection with […]
Top 10 excuses for failing to engage with engagement
Over the 25 years or so Great Place to Work® has worked with thousands of organisations across the globe we’ve heard virtually every rationale as to why they’ve not yet engaged with engagement. Whilst we fully understand these barriers or obstacles our experience shows that they are not insurmountable; they may be hurdles but not […]
10 things you didn’t know about engagement
Despite engagement being firmly established in HR circles and endorsed at government level, there is still no universally agreed definition. Engagement is an output – one of the key drivers is trust. Only around 1/3rd of employees say they are engaged, putting the UK 9th out of the world’s twelfth largest economies (based on GDP). […]
Employee engagement is about more than just a survey
I work with many organisations that have made a significant investment in money and resources, over multiple years on large unwieldy surveys producing tons of data but making very little impact on increasing or sustaining engagement. Engagement surveys are a useful and valuable diagnostic, they take a ‘temperature check’ of the organisation at point […]
Five reasons CEOs fail to engage
There is now a weight of evidence connecting employee engagement and business success, within which leadership plays a key role. Yet, much of the UK workforce remains dis-engaged. So, why aren’t our leaders engaging more? Engagement, that is to say, the sense of emotional connection and purpose that is created among employees so that they […]
The neuroscience of trust and how it can improve your engagement results
A while ago I was working with a leadership team who got into a debate about trust. The team was split with the senior leader insisting their role was to mitigate risks by putting in place policies and policing people to ensure the company was safe. His starting premise was people are not trustworthy, if […]
Key insights from Gallup employee engagement report
This is a few months' old but it’s a good read so thought I’d draw your attention to a few insightful tidbits. “TO WIN CUSTOMERS — and a bigger share of the marketplace — companies must first win the hearts and minds of their employees.” Top-level: Engagement makes a quantifiable difference to the bottom line […]
True engagement – why managers need to be seen as ‘real people’
Managers and leaders within an organisation can make a difference to engagement levels, but only if they themselves are engaged, trustworthy, authentic and crystal clear on their role and what the organisation needs from them. They must then work with their teams to align their personal goals, motivators and drivers to job satisfaction and their […]
