Brexit and business planning: do you know who your workers are?
As the impact of Brexit and the recent UK general election slowly become clear, now is the perfect time for organisations to take stock of their strategies and business models, and embrace people data to its full potential. The UK’s decision to leave the European Union has highlighted just how few organisations consider the long-term […]
HR data and GDPR: what you need to know about consent (and why not to rely on it)
The upcoming General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) has significant implications for HR and has, understandably, grabbed the headlines recently. Predictions of hefty fines for employers abound. These are often attributed to the higher standard of consent for processing personal data that the legislation requires. It is true that with the new legislation, which comes into […]
The insidious problem of men not taking parental leave, resilience and the mental stress of Brexit
Professor Sir Cary Cooper is Professor of Organizational Psychology and Health, Manchester Business School. We caught up with Sir Cary at this year’s Good Day At Work Conversation. He was previously Distinguished Professor at Lancaster University and Chair of the Academy of Social Sciences. In June 2005 he was appointed head of the Sunningdale Institute, which, managed by the […]
I wanna be a famous HR writer!
“Blogging isn’t writing. It’s just graffiti with punctuation.” This line from the viral thriller Contagion made me wonder if the writing bug spreading through the HR profession is making it difficult to stand out from the crowd and become a respected writer. Like politicians and celebrities, HR bloggers can bypass the conventional media channels by […]
Book review: Humans are Underrated
HRZone has a range of books available for review. If you would like to receive one of our business books, free of charge, please contact the editor on editor at hrzone dot com and we can send you a list of what’s available. In return, we ask for a 400-700 word review of the book, […]
If it can be routinized, it will be: the charter for HR
The Plainspeak Analyst is Katherine Jones, Partner and Director of Talent Research at Mercer, the world’s largest human resources consulting firm. Her job is to design and deliver insight research and services to Mercer’s global clients. She was previously VP, Human Capital Management Technology Research at Bersin by Deloitte. She has a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction from Cornell University. […]
HR and the bigger world picture: how can it make an impact?
We live in extraordinary times – the political landscape is coping with post-truth propaganda and organisations are grappling with an unprecedented rate of change and disruption. I believe that the enterprises that will not only survive but outperform in the future will be the ones that amplify the power of their people. As HR professionals, we […]
HR, up your impact: what gets measured gets done
Once we are clear on the strategic goals and focus areas for HR, we need define our targets and how we measure our progress. Through this we are influencing what gets done, so we need to get it right. Otherwise, we divert resources and investment to potentially damaging number chasing. In the first article of the series, […]
Four ways for HR to become a force for innovation
HR is increasingly being challenged to help with generating greater innovation. Our responses typically have been to tackle the usual suspects. We invest in innovation training. We include “the ability to innovate” in our leadership promotion criteria. We adapt our psychometric assessments to try and spot the innovators. Unfortunately, these interventions rarely create truly innovative […]
A new wave of AI and what it means for recruitment
As many recruiters will tell you, finding the right person for a job can feel like looking for a needle in a haystack; it’s not uncommon for employers to receive hundreds of applications for an opening, only to find that most of the resumes don’t lead to a potential hire. The statistics are quite dismal: […]
Greatest extension of workers’ rights or a great big headache for SMEs?
Theresa May’s announcement today is being heralded in some quarters as the great expansion of workers’ rights. So does this mean it is unfriendly to SME businesses? We don’t think so – the one thing businesses do not like is uncertainty and we now know that the EU-based employment laws that we currently have are […]
Artificial intelligence equals artificial jobs…?
What do you think when someone says ‘artificial intelligence’? Robots? Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey? Siri? Artificial intelligence (AI) has come a long way from concept to reality in a short space of time and, despite being a buzzword for the last couple of years, is now mainstream enough that all the main tech […]
Is it HR’s duty to resolve the ‘productivity puzzle?’
HR teams have a national duty to improve economic productivity by encouraging and enabling individuals to take responsibility for their own learning. According to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics, the UK’s productivity, as measured by output per hour, is respectively 27, 30 and 35 percentage points lower than in France, the […]
Sir Ken Robinson: “There are processes that are more likely to encourage innovation than not.”
Sir Ken Robinson gave the most viewed TED talk of all time, Do schools kill creativity?. HRZone Managing Editor Jamie Lawrence caught up with Sir Ken at HR Tech World in London, in March 2017, and asked him about creativity in organisations, the role of the human being in future organisations, and more. “There’s a […]
Gig economy: what’s its place in the future of work?
In this five-part series to understanding the gig economy, we’ll look at a number of topics: What is the gig economy? How to integrate freelancers into a talent acquisition strategy The challenges of managing a freelance workforce Address skills shortages with talent pools and the hidden workforce Gig economy: what’s its place in the future […]
Address skills shortages with talent pools and the hidden workforce
In this five-part series to understanding the gig economy, we’ll look at a number of topics: What is the gig economy? How to integrate freelancers into a talent acquisition strategy The challenges of managing a freelance workforce Address skills shortages with talent pools and the hidden workforce Gig economy: what’s its place in the future […]
Gig economy: the challenges of managing a freelance workforce
In this five-part series to understanding the gig economy, we’ll look at a number of topics: What is the gig economy? How to integrate freelancers into a talent acquisition strategy The challenges of managing a freelance workforce Address skills shortages with talent pools and the hidden workforce Gig economy: what’s its place in the future […]
Gig economy: how to integrate it into a wider talent acquisition strategy
In this five-part series to understanding the gig economy, we’ll look at a number of topics: What is the gig economy? How to integrate freelancers into a talent acquisition strategy The challenges of managing a freelance workforce Address skills shortages with talent pools and the hidden workforce Gig economy: what’s its place in the future […]
Gig economy: what exactly is it?
In this five-part series to understanding the gig economy, we’ll look at a number of topics: What is the gig economy? How to integrate freelancers into a talent acquisition strategy The challenges of managing a freelance workforce Address skills shortages with talent pools and the hidden workforce Gig economy: what’s its place in the future […]
Gig economy: the equality challenge?
This article was co-authored by Sean Dempsey, Partner, Lewis Silkin LLP and David Hopper, Associate, Lewis Silkin LLP. The onward march of technology and the “gig economy” is re-shaping the workplace with the move away from traditional “9-to-5” jobs and towards technology-enabled “gigging” for a multiplicity of work providers at any one time. An authoritative study published […]
