Employee engagement on the rise?
Employee engagement is back on the up and up after years of decline, according to a new study from consultancy firm Aon Hewitt. The consultancy’s 2012 Global Engagement report analysed the engagement trends of more than 3,100 organisations representing 9.7 million employees worldwide. It found that 58% of employees were engaged in 2011, up from […]
How to communicate effectively with hard-to-reach workers
In tricky economic times, effective internal communications can have a vital role to play in helping to keep staff morale up and anxiety down. All too often these days, however, communication activity can end up being focused almost exclusively online, creating the risk that workers without access to the latest social media tool or even […]
Blog: How to wear someone down when applying for your job vacancy
In the last post, we described how jobs are often reserved for someone who is a friend of an executive. In the case described, the post of communications chief was reserved for a crony of the Mayor of London. Some of you might have qualms about this. You might feel it’s wrong to waste […]
In a Nutshell: Five top tips for staying stress-free
Stress is now the leading cause of long-term sickness absence in the workplace. A survey published recently by the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development and private health insurance company, Simplyhealth, revealed that nearly two-fifths of the 592 UK employers questioned had seen an increase in stress-related absence among their employees over the last year. […]
Heathrow: Ensuring staff actions line up with corporate values
I think it was Napoleon who said that Britain was a nation of shopkeepers. It’s certainly true that we know a thing or two about queuing – it’s pretty much a national past time. So it seems strange that we could get it so wrong at Heathrow Airport. It’s not as if it’s something […]
Christina’s Counsel: How can I make my workplace more family-friendly?
The challenge If you are struggling to get the best people to come and work for you, have a high rate of unexplained absence or believe that your employees aren’t giving their best, not least due to stress because their work and domestic lives conflict, it may be worth reviewing how family-friendly your workplace culture […]
Blog: The employee impact of a recognition desert – survey
Recognise This! – The only qualifier for needing recognition in the workplace is being a member of the human race. Last week I had the pleasure of co-presenting with Thad Peterson the results of the Globoforce Spring 2012 Mood Tracker survey (which tracks the perceptions of full-time, currently employed U.S. workers). Now available on […]
Five reasons why HR should adopt social media
Over recent years, social media has crept into the workings of many a business department, and HR is no exception. Some HR professionals have been using social media as part of their day-to-day activities for a while, but those that haven’t are likely to need to do so in the near future in order to […]
News: Lessons from IBM in going social
With the latest IDC figures predicting that the social enterprise market will reach $200 billion by 2013, it looks like social is set to become an increasingly important part of your business, according to IBM‘s vice president of social business evangelism and sales. Speaking at the Social Business Strategy Summit in London yesterday, Sandy Carter […]
In a Nutshell: Five tips for doing an MBA while working full-time
Stephanie Murphy, currently an interim HR business partner at EDF Energy, has just graduated from the Open University with an MBA. She acknowledges that the things she learned while undertaking the course have proved invaluable in her work as an HR and business professional. But completing a qualification like this while in full-time employment […]
Blog: Three steps to help you improve your work-life balance
When I am coaching clients in the corporate world, I often come across a common complaint: “I have lots of good intentions, but I just can’t seem to find the time to create a better work/life balance”. Unfortunately, this is a result of working in a fast paced career environment. We know we need […]
News: Workplace disenchantment hits “crisis” levels
With disenchantment in the workplace hitting “crisis” levels, it is incumbent on HR professionals to find new ways to engage staff and compensate for below-inflation wage increases that are continuing to squeeze household incomes. According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development’s Labour Market Outlook survey of more than 1,000 employers, some 51% were […]
In a Nutshell: Five tips when rolling out HR software
In January, Jack Morton Worldwide completed a global roll-out of a new performance management system from SAP’s Software-as-a-Service acquisition, SuccessFactors. The system replaced bespoke applications so the brand experience agency was determined to reapply the lessons learned from its first implementation in order to ensure that its second one went as smoothly as possible. HR […]
Blog: Charity partnerships – Benefitting from philanthropy
Corporate Social Responsibility isn’t a new thing. But certainly it has a new face these days (usually a pink, puffy, sweaty one from running sponsored marathons). Now that we’re all credit-crunched, coughing up charity cash donations is happening less – but actually that is no bad thing. Why? Well, for many reasons, not least […]
Blog: 10 recommendations for boosting employee engagement
How do you improve the engagement culture within your organisation? Employee engagement is big business these days. A recent internet search I carried out highlighted 5,370,000 results on Google and 2,005 books on Amazon. (By the time you read this, those numbers will probably have increased!) There are also a multitude of surveys that […]
Blog: Social media – Opportunity or danger?
And so it was that recently I took part in the People Managements webinar entitled Social Media: Opportunity or Danger? expertly facilitated by PM‘s Editor in chief Rob McLaughlan and Digital Marketing Manager Zoe Bearne. I was one of three ‘speakers’, the other two being Al Shah, Social Media Demand Manager for GlaxoSmithKline and Lucy Turner, […]
Blog: 10 learning tips for National Learning at Work Day
Today, Thursday 17 May is National Learning at Work day, with events promoting learning at work happening across the UK. To support the day, we’ve created these Top Ten Tips for Learning to help and encourage business to make learning fun and relevant in order to motivate and engage employees: 1. Make learning social – […]
Blog: How to promote workplace safety
Engaging employees in workplace safety can be a formidable challenge. Many employees view training sessions as a distraction, and they won’t pay attention if they find the materials boring or largely repetitive. At the same time, creating a safe work environment can mean the difference between a productive and profitable business and one that […]
CEO Insight: Briggs Equipment’s Richard Close on how to work effectively with unions
Disputes between trade unions and employers have flooded the news in recent weeks, not least due to the threat of a tanker driver strike that would have had a severe impact across the country. Strike action is often seen as a last resort by employees when negotiating with their employers, but it is nonetheless likely […]
Green Office Week: How to promote workplace change
This week sees the start of the fourth ‘Green Office Week’, which is intended to encourage workers across the country to implement simple, practical, step-by-step changes in order to help make their workplaces more environmentally-friendly. Our aim in launching the event was to champion a ‘bottom-up’ approach to encouraging behavioural change by using it as […]
