News: Disclosure & Barring Service to offer “one-stop-shop” criminal record checks
A new organisation to oversee criminal records checks, referrals and barring investigations has been set up in a bid to provide employers with a “one-stop-shop” service. The Disclosure & Barring Service was formed out of the merger of the Criminal Records Bureau and Independent Safeguarding Authority in an attempt to make the checking process clearer […]
Blog: Engaging for Success in the words of ITV’s Archie Norman
In my Engage for Success launch blog post last Monday about defining and measuring employee engagement, I also mentioned we heard from Archie Norman, currently chairman at ITV. Archie (I will refer to him by his first name, I hope he doesn’t mind) was invited to talk to us about what employee engagement means to him, and after David MacLeod introduced Archie as […]
Christina’s Counsel: How can I tackle my team’s habitual negativity?
Hello and welcome to this month’s dilemma: The challenge As a result of an internal transfer, a client recently took over a new team. But he quickly realised that some of its members had a negative and unhelpful attitude. This negativity manifested itself in a small clique complaining about customer expectations, some of […]
Case Study: How Norfolk Council maintains staff morale despite tough times
During the last few years, Norfolk County Council has experienced a squeeze on resources common to many public sector organisations. It’s been forced to make savings of £135 million over three years and is now halfway there, but hundreds of staff have been axed as a result. The cuts have arrived in conjunction with […]
Case Study: Staff wellbeing measures cut sickness absence at Julia’s House
Julia's House is Dorset’s only hospice for children with life-threatening illnesses. It opened in 2006 and staff numbers have since grown from an initial 40-odd to 125 today. Despite the harrowing nature of the work, its employees are highly-engaged and, last year, it was awarded top slot in the charity and public sector category of […]
Blog: Engage for Success – A question of defining and measuring?
I was among a cast of hundreds invited to the QEII conference centre yesterday to bear witness to part of the launch of Engage for Success, the UK based movement centred on the phenomenon that has become known as employee engagement. It’s no secret that I’m not totally bought into employee engagement, whatever that might […]
Blog: Segmentation as a tool for employee engagement
As we work towards the end of the year, one of Melcrum’s research team’s key priorities is to connect with our Strategic Communication Research Forum members to agree on the themes we should focus our research efforts on next year. One of the topics we’ve been discussing year on year is the constant changes around […]
Blog: How to get employee recognition programmes right
Recognize This! – Culture management continues to rise in importance to HR leaders as the ability to measure and analyze culture also improves through strategic employee recognition. A couple of weeks ago, in a broader post on how to get more value out of your core values, I alluded to the SHRM/Globoforce Fall 2012 Report. […]
Blog: Making recruitment pinteresting
With the rise of social media, a 2-page formulaic CV is quickly becoming an old fashioned way of understanding what personality and talents a candidate has. Today, it’s all about their Twitter feeds, LinkedIn profile, Facebook, and increasingly, Pinterest. In June this year, Pinterest recorded a staggering 10.4 million users, and 400% month-on-month growth, […]
All you need to know about hiring a former drug or alcohol user
I’ve spent much of the last 17 years working with current and former drug users, homeless people and ex-offenders in London and Sheffield. Much of that time has been taken up helping them to access services, which include housing, treatment and mental health support, so that people have the necessary assistance to try and turn […]
Book Review: The high engagement work culture – Balancing me and we
I read the sleeve notes of this book with interest: “The financial Crash of 2008 was not just about government regulation or lack thereof; the low tide of the Crash also revealed just how vulnerable our societies are to those organizations which focus so much on their own self-serving goals, that they ignore the damage […]
Blog: Why do we nearly always misread what motivates others?
Recognize This! – Money does not motivate. It compensates. What motivates us at work is ultimately a very personal and individual topic, though generalities do apply. That’s why I get a chuckle out of research study after research study showing we nearly always guess incorrectly what would motivate others. Case in point, research out […]
Talent Spot: Susie Robinson, DHL’s executive VP of HR for EMEA
Susie Robinson has been with DHL since 1998 but, as the logistics giant has gone through a merger roughly every couple of years, she feels as if she has had to constantly reinvent herself – and the HR department. “Although the business is large, it is still relatively young and changes massively, so trying to […]
Blog: US election – The need for charismatic leaders during times of austerity
“I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting.” My Vision by Barack Obama. In Chicago last week a rejuvenated and […]
The HRZone Interview: David MacLeod on employee engagement
David MacLeod is co-chair of the employer-led Taskforce on Employee Engagement. He, together with Nita Clarke, director of the Involvement and Participation Association, was responsible for compiling an influential report for the government on engagement in 2009, which was followed by the launch of the Taskforce to carry on promoting and developing some of the […]
How to rebuild staff morale following a crisis
There have been plenty of instances of organisations lately in which bad news can only have damaged employee morale and confidence and had a negative impact on overall effectiveness and efficiency. Cases in point include the four figure job losses experienced at Ford and the BBC’s handling of investigations into sexual abuse claims surrounding Sir […]
News: CIPD 2012 – Engage for Success movement unveiled
On Monday 12 November, three years after the publication of the MacLeod Report on employee engagement, a series of events around the new ‘Engage for Success’ campaign will be launched in a bid to make the promise a reality. For example, about 30 chief executives have signed a letter that will be published in The […]
News: CIPD 2012 – Four ways to ensure positive industrial relations
Even with just a threat of industrial action, the stakes are high because people are forced to take sides, which is damaging for employee engagement and the credibility of the organisation and its managers. This was just one of the insights provided by Darren Hockaday, HR director for London Overground, at the Chartered Institute of […]
In a Nutshell: Four tips for raising engagement levels
Successfully raising engagement in an organisation involves more than doing an annual engagement survey. Louise Rooney, head of HR at IT firm, ServiceSource, outlines her top tips for motivating staff to commit to the business. 1. Alignment Identifying and being explicit about the company vision and values definitely helps employees connect with the business. This […]
HRD Insight: William Hill’s David Russell on an African adventure
It’s just two months since we announced our employee project in Kenya – a major building and development project at the Ol Maisor Primary School. Our aim was to create an experience where a group of people from William Hill were able to help a rural community in Africa and by doing so learn more […]
