News: Eight ways to cope with the clocks going back
As the clocks go back this Sunday, millions of workers face the winter blues and disrupted sleep patterns. Monster.co.uk offers eight practical tips to cope with the time change, including personalizing your workspace, maintaining a healthy breakfast routine, managing workload effectively, building support networks, rewarding yourself, and focusing on workplace positives.
Blog: Employee Engagement Taskforce to unveil resources-based website
The UK’s Employee Engagement Task Force is launching a resources-based website on November 26, offering tools, workshops, and networking opportunities to help employers move beyond engagement buzzwords to drive real workforce change and productivity.
Christina’s Counsel: What can we do to motivate disaffected middle managers?
Middle managers struggling with motivation often lack decision-making authority and feel unheard by senior leadership. Addressing disengagement requires a holistic approach: empowering managers’ voices, evaluating organizational control structures, building transparent communication, and ensuring employees understand their role and value within the company.
The HRZone Interview: Jon Ingham on where HR is going wrong
HR consultant Jon Ingham argues that HR professionals risk losing their core purpose by prioritizing business credentials over their unique role in steering organizations toward people-centered working practices. He warns that excessive focus on employee engagement as a business tool misses the opportunity to fundamentally redesign organizations around trust, autonomy, and community.
Blog: Ten signs that you love your job (really)
Discover ten genuine signs you love your job, from having workplace friendships and enjoying colleague success to losing track of time because you’re engaged in meaningful work. These indicators reveal when work truly matters to you beyond just a paycheck.
Blog: Wasabi – A lesson in effective staff communications
Wasabi successfully rolled out a new pension scheme by implementing an effective staff communication strategy that bridged language barriers and achieved 71% employee enrollment. The sushi retailer’s approach combined group meetings, one-on-one advisors, and translators to ensure consistent messaging across diverse locations while maintaining local relevance.
HRD Insight: Allianz’s Philip Gennoy on aligning HR and business goals
Allianz Insurance’s HR director Philip Gennoy explains how to align HR strategy with business goals by balancing tactical day-to-day execution with long-term planning. He emphasizes breaking down master plans into practical steps—such as filling immediate vacancies and developing talent pipelines—to ensure HR directly supports corporate objectives.
News: HR needs to break out of its comfort zone, warns report
HR professionals must break out of their comfort zone and become true business partners to address global talent shortages and workforce changes, according to a new report. The study warns that HR departments are failing to keep pace with shifts in markets and technology, despite progress in diversity and flexibility initiatives.
Blog: Would you hire someone with a drug or alcohol dependency?
Employment is critical to sustained recovery from drug and alcohol dependency, yet most employers perceive hiring people with this history as high risk. Only one-third of surveyed employers would consider hiring qualified candidates with past substance misuse, highlighting significant workplace barriers.
The HR Headmistress: How to weed out litigious job candidates
Employers can protect themselves from vexatious litigation by implementing rigorous selection processes, documenting hiring decisions objectively, and providing clear feedback based on job requirements. Some candidates exploit anti-discrimination laws to pursue frivolous claims unrelated to genuine job applications.
CEO Insight: Spencer Ogden’s David Spencer-Percival on engagement
Spencer Ogden CEO David Spencer-Percival discusses workforce engagement strategies, emphasizing that employee retention depends on creating positive work environments through thoughtful office design, leadership outlook, and competitive incentive schemes rather than relying solely on aesthetics.
Blog: Are British workers really the most idle in the world?
A book by Tory MPs claims British workers are among the world’s most idle, citing low productivity and working hours. However, critics argue poor workplace engagement and lack of employee recognition, rather than laziness, better explain Britain’s productivity gap with other G7 nations.
Blog: Five ways to move on from a mistake
Learn five practical strategies for moving past workplace mistakes productively. Managers can turn errors into learning opportunities by making cheap mistakes, staying flexible, avoiding dwelling on the past, distinguishing between mistakes and systemic problems, and being honest about failures.
Blog: Five tips for plucking up the courage to pick up the phone
Overcome phone anxiety with five practical strategies, including identifying your fears, using social media for conversation starters, preparing talking points, and setting call expectations. These tips help HR professionals and business developers maintain valuable client relationships through regular, purposeful contact.
News: Impact of AWR 1 year on? Depends who you talk to
Conflicting research emerges on the Agency Worker Regulations’ impact one year after introduction, with employer surveys showing starkly different views on whether the rules reduced temporary staff hiring or had minimal effect on business practices.
Blog: Working Families Conference – How to achieve true flexible working
At the Working Families Conference, Matt Dean facilitated a discussion on achieving true flexible working, exploring why traditional career paths and long work hours persist. The session identified nine key ideas for creating flexible careers as a “voyage of co-discovery” between employers and workers, challenging outdated assumptions about advancement and ambition.
Engaging for success: Motivating line managers to motivate others
Effective line managers need to master five fundamental roles—prophet, storyteller, strategist, coach, and pilot—to engage and motivate their teams. HR professionals can support this development by helping managers become stronger strategists and demonstrating high personal engagement themselves.
The first HCM reporting benchmark: BITC’s Workwell model
Business in the Community’s Workwell benchmark, launched today after five years of research, provides the first HCM reporting standard for FTSE 100 companies. The evidence-based model establishes guidelines for measuring how employers manage employee wellness, engagement, skills, and resilience across four key pillars, addressing investor demand for rigorous human capital management transparency.
HRD Insight: Enterprise Rent-A-Car’s Leigh Lafever-Ayer on flexible working
Enterprise Rent-A-Car discovered that home-working for call centre staff reduces costs by £3,500 per employee annually while improving productivity and reducing absenteeism. The company piloted the flexible working programme at its reservations department and plans to expand it into a long-term initiative.
Well-being at work: Learning to love what you do
Social connections at work are as important for health and well-being as diet and exercise. Building high-quality relationships through empathy, treating colleagues as equals, and finding flow in your work can significantly boost job satisfaction, productivity, and overall happiness.
