Blog: Three reasons staff lie to get time off work
Recognise This! – Responsible managers and HR Pros must dig deeper to understand the real reasons behind employees embellishing reasons to miss work. Is it ever okay to lie to get vacation days you want? Of course, the obvious answer is, “No.” But giving the obvious answer and moving on is the lazy way […]
Putting the Games plan into practice
“The Olympics is a big morale booster for the country this year,” believes Phoebe Leet, head of HR for UK and Ireland at IT network giant, Cisco. And as a technology partner for the Games, the vendor has naturally had the event on its mind for some time. As a result, it has already […]
CEO Insight: Stinkyink’s John Sollars on staff motivation and development
Across the office and warehouse, I have a team of about 16 people. And I think the thing that I am most proud of is the way that I have been able to help them develop and ‘improve’. Small businesses can find it hard to set concrete goals for employees’ performance because they need to […]
Blog: How to offer a benefits package that staff actually want
If your company has an employee benefits package, is it offering your employees what they really want? For employers finding the right employee benefits scheme that helps to motivate and retain staff and that employees actually want can be quite a difficult task, particularly when there are discrepancies between what employers care about and what […]
Let the Games commence – But make sure you plan for them
Love them or loathe them, with the Olympics bang on our doorstep, the Games can’t be ignored. Travel disruption and staffing issues will all play havoc with normal working days, particularly for those organisations and workers in and around the capital and other Olympic venues. Demand for holiday leave and increased absenteeism will affect […]
News: Pay and promotion not based on merit, believe UK staff
A huge two thirds of UK employees do not believe that pay rises and promotion at their workplace are based on merit or that their employer provides decent opportunities for career advancement. These are the key findings of a survey among 2,628 workers conducted by professional services company, Towers Watson. The study revealed that […]
In a Nutshell: Five tips to motivate yourself and others
For Gill Crowther, HR director at the registry for all .uk internet domain names, Nominet, a key part of the job is trying to ensure that people love coming to work. The way to do this, she believes, is to give them roles that play to their strengths, but are also challenging. But her […]
Blog: The importance of seeing the why in what we do
As a school girl, I was pretty horrendous at meeting deadlines for handing in homework. At the time I didn’t realise the more I was rebuked and reminded I was going to ruin my future, the more resistant I was to doing the work at all. Luckily I scraped by. Progressing to the world of […]
Blog: Fact – Improve management practice by 1% or hire 25% more staff
Recognise This! – A little effort to improve management skills is worth as much as a 25% increase in headcount. A consistent source of good advice and cross-industry perspective on company culture, Blanchard Leader Chat is one of my must-read blogs. Last month, for example, they featured recent global research from McKinsey, Stanford, and […]
Blog: How to boost employee engagement
Recognise This! – Recognition, reputation, and performance management are among the top opportunities for improving engagement as identified by Aon Hewitt. Aon Hewitt recently released their 2012 Trends in Global Engagement. Several findings were unsurprising, but worthy of highlighting as many organisations still struggle with getting these basic factors of engagement success right. First, it’s […]
Talent Spot: Gill Crowther, HR director at Nominet
By the time Gill Crowther, director of HR at Nominet, had finished university, she already knew that she wanted to work in HR. She had studied engineering, but the fact that she seemed to be very good at getting people to help her with her studies gave her a “moment of revelation” that management […]
Blog: The Olympics – Learning lessons in flexible working
RBS has announced that its staff will be able to work flexibly during the Olympics. This news echoes that of Whitehall who also recently announced staff would be permitted to work from home for the 7 week period covering the Olympics and Paralympics. Whilst the intentions of both these organisations is to help employees […]
Book review: Engaged: Unleashing your organization’s potential through employee engagement
It is no secret that widely differing, and sometimes conflicting, views exist on exactly what employee engagement looks like and how it is achieved. It has been referred to as just plain old job satisfaction dressed up in 21st century language. It has been likened to an updated version of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs […]
Blog: Making the abstract real – Living workplace values
Recognise This! – Your company values do you no good unless employees know how to live them in their daily work. I think it’s a fairly safe bet to say most companies today have defined set of core values – behaviors and ideals the executive team has invested a good deal of time and effort […]
Blog: Why a balanced boardroom is a better boardroom
So, it’s a proven fact that having women in the boardroom improves business performance. Now, before you write me off as a radical feminist with a chip on her shoulder pad – hear me out. Drawing upon a database of 441 companies, the McKinsey Women Matter 2010 report found that “companies with the highest share of women outperform companies […]
In a Nutshell: Five considerations when creating a welcome pack for new hires
When lastminute.com moved its group headquarters to a swanky new Farringdon office in April, it seemed like a good chance to revamp its welcome pack for new joiners. As a result, it turned to us, the same language consultancy that had worked on the ‘tone of voice’ of its marketing collateral a few years before, […]
Blog: An anti-engagement manifesto
A few weeks ago, in my Alien Abduction blog, I promised a bit more on the topic of employee engagement. So here is the employee anti-engagement guide…It is a pretty well-established fact that when it comes to keeping people enthusiastic, money is surprisingly far down the list of effective motivators! Fat salaries and bonuses […]
Editor’s Letter: The art of engagement
Two years on from the McLeod Review and it seems that engagement levels still remain worryingly low among the UK workforce. A recent survey conducted by ORC International – and there are many similar such polls – revealed that only 43% of respondents believe they have a positive relationship with their managers. Less than […]
Blog: 5 ways to get creative with fundraising in the workplace
If you think fundraising means suffering through yet another temptation-filled bake sale, think again. There are a number of ways to get creative with fundraising in the workplace. Doing so will benefit not just the charity but your company as well, building morale and injecting a bit of fun into the everyday routine. We’ve […]
Talking Point: Do HR pros need to get back to basics?
HR is not just a job – it’s a career. As a vocation, it often attracts people who want to help employee communities feel wanted and understood. To this end, scores of HR operational models have been adopted, practiced and adapted over the years, many of which include the core ideal of ‘staff engagement’. […]
