Talent Spot: Community blogger, Tara Daynes
As a freelance HR professional, employment law consultant and corporate trainer, Tara Daynes needs to be confident presenting to large groups as well as on a one-to-one basis. Luckily, she learned the art of presenting early on as she went to stage school. “I was all singing and dancing”, she remembers. Media success came […]
News: Temp hiring on the up as employers continue to shed permanent jobs
Despite the UK moving into double-dip recession, a report suggests that there has been a healthy upswing in temporary hiring among organisations in the financial services, commerce and industry and public sectors. The 33% jump in the first quarter of this year compared with the latter quarter of 2011 was caused by businesses shedding permanent staff […]
Blog: Four tips for handling a difficult boss
It’s a fact that the main reason why most people are unhappy with their job is poor management. At one point or another, chances are you will have to deal with a difficult, grumpy or (hopefully) unwittingly disparaging boss. You know the type: they get angry for no apparent reason, they completely ignore your questions […]
Blog: How to hold on to good employees – Part 2
In my last HRZone blog entry I set out the five main reasons why employees leave their companies. Today I’m going to describe some corresponding employee retention strategies: 1. Create and maintain a working environment that attracts, retains and nourishes good people The issues you need to attend to include developing a corporate […]
The value of flexible benefits
Recent figures have shown a considerable rise in the take-up of flexible benefits packages lately. In part, this situation can be attributed to factors such as the difficult economic climate and changing employee demographics. Add to these issues the HR community’s growing interest in the subject and it is likely that we will see flexible […]
Blog: Employee engagement taskforce – Impressions from the one-year-on conference
Warning! Long blog post alert, do yourself a favour and grab a cuppa first. Background As regular readers will know I’ve had an interest and involvement with the EE Taskforce since I (and of course many others) contributed to the original Engaging for Success report. This report got kicked into the long grass partly […]
Flexible benefits revealed: CIPP report
More than seven out of ten employees are offered salary sacrifice schemes by their employers, with the most popular options being either pension contributions or childcare vouchers. These are the key findings of a Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals survey conducted among 213 people during December and early January to establish what type of flexible benefits […]
In a Nutshell: Six steps to becoming a goal-driven organisation
If you really want to ensure that your business performs, ensure that individual and corporate goals are managed effectively. Becoming a goal-driven organisation doesn’t have to be onerous. Start with these six simple steps: Establish clear goals for everyone: That means from the chief executive to the most junior person in your organisation. These goals […]
Blog: Making your employee benefits count – and not just the financial ones
Make your employee benefits count! I am not talking here about financial benefits. If you are a great employer you know the market levels of financial reward and presumably you are paying a fair salary in return for the work of your employees. Pensions are another financial reward which I know is subject to […]
Talent Spot: Donna Miller, European HR director at Enterprise Rent-A-Car
Ask Donna Miller, European HR director at car rental firm Enterprise Rent-A-Car, what she does for a living and you may get a rather surprising answer. “I’ve always been a very sales-oriented person and when people ask me what I do, depending on whether it’s in Enterprise or outside, I’ll often say I’m in sales,” […]
CEO Insight: Sinead Hasson on Hasson Associates’ CSR programme
The arrival of 2012 brought with it the news that there are still 2.65 million people out of work in the UK. Widespread redundancies, salary freezes or even cuts as well as the increasing loss of employee benefits are not only hitting employers hard, but also causing employees to question their job security. And […]
Blog: Why you should dump ’employee of the month’
Recognise This! – Employee of the Month programmes create competition and resentfulness, not appreciative work environments. Compensation pros – when you think of base pay in today’s organisation, do you think in terms of guaranteed annual increases or in some form of pay for performance? Most realise the former is the method a century […]
How to avoid 10 common employee communication pitfalls
Finding ways to manage employee communications effectively is essential as it helps shape the organisation’s culture and engage employees. It is also vital to ensure that staff understand and buy into organisational change or take up benefits, for instance. As long as communications are regular, open and tailored to the workforce, they can likewise […]
Blog: How to hold on to good employees – Part 1
If you want to attract and retain good employees, you need to (1) understand why employees leave a company, and (2) implement employee retention strategies to get them to stay. This article examines the reasons why employees leave their companies. In my next article, I will set out five strategies for keeping hold of your […]
Cultivating emotional intelligence: Lessons from two public resignations
There was a time when the manner and timing of your arrival was the coup de grace moment. But, if two recent articles that are getting considerable attention in online circles are anything to go by, the golden moment might now actually be the method of your departure. It all began when Greg Smith […]
Blog: What economic impact is ‘gross national happiness’ likely to have?
Happiness is a tangible outcome! Because of my commitment to great people management and engagement, I was heartened to discover that the UN conference on happiness and wellbeing which began in New York City on 2nd April came to the conclusion that good performance on GNP (Gross National Product) didn’t automatically mean that GNH (Gross National […]
In a Nutshell: Seven tips for managing stress-related illness
Cardiff and Vale University Health Board is one of the largest NHS organisations in the UK, providing health services for those living in Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan. The Board employs around 14,500 staff and manages nine hospitals and 17 health centres among other responsibilities. Its aim is to take a preventative approach […]
Blog: Most employers spend more on office cleaning than staff motivation
Does having a clean office improve your profits and where am I going with this? Most HR professionals recognise that happy employees are more effective, hence our performance equation mantra, happy employees = happy customers = happy profits. Motivated employees are by default happier and many studies prove that employers with highly motivated workforces outperform […]
Talent Spot: Rebekah Wallis, HR director at Ricoh
Back-to-back company and employee integration programmes have kept Rebekah Wallis, HR director at printing and IT services firm Ricoh, pretty busy over the last four years or so. This is because HR has been considered core to the success of such integration work by ensuring that staff are supported and helped to make the necessary […]
Blog: Career development part one – Why employers are investing in it
What does career development mean to you and to your company? Why is it important? How to do it? This is the first of two posts on the subject of career development practices in companies. First, I want to discuss the reasons why companies are interested in career development. In the next post I […]