Three ways HR can ease the skills shortage

Recruiting young overseas talent may fill much-needed roles while offering a unique career-building experience in the UK jobs market

Recruitment tips: don’t join the war for talent – build your own instead

For too long recruiters have complained of a ‘war for talent’ – but this thinking is wrong. Do your business a favour and look to build an achievement culture instead. You only have to Google ‘companies struggle to find skilled workers‘ to find a string of results showing that an apparent ‘war for talent’ rages […]

Are graduates lacking the fundamental skills needed to succeed in today’s job market?

Despite soaring tuition fees, Britain has more graduates than ever before. Yet research is showing that thousands of graduates are struggling to find employment that matches their skills, with more than a third ending up in low-skilled jobs. According to official 2016 figures, one in five graduates work in non-professional roles that do not require […]

“Encourage young talent into the business by sharing inspiring success stories”

Making those first few tentative steps into the job market is a daunting prospect. With more focus being put on apprenticeships and full time work as an alternative to university, there is more need to prepare those leaving education for the workplace. There is also a growing responsibility for employers to demonstrate their value to young […]

The four career preparation behaviours of recent graduates

There’s so much rich insight coming out of the academic sector that HR professionals need to know. At Academics’ Corner we feature the best HR researchers that tell you what they’ve found and what you need to do differently on the back of the research. Get connected to the academic sector through Academics’ Corner and […]

How to focus on developing future generations

It has never been more important for organisations to focus their efforts on attracting and developing future talent. Our latest Resourcing and Talent Planning survey, in partnership with Hays, shows that three-quarters of employers have experienced recruitment difficulties in the past year and four fifths feel that competition for talent has increased over the past […]

How to attract graduates – according to graduates

There seems to be an endless supply of graduates applying in their hundreds for the same job opportunities. Shouldn’t this imply that the employer can have their pick of the very best? In reality many employers are struggling to engage this demographic. Indeed, googling the term ‘graduate jobs’ will return around 139 million results, including […]

Top tips to retain your graduate talent

A report from leading advisory firm CEB, published in August, highlighted that a quarter of graduates leave their first job within a year of starting it with an estimated sunk cost in the UK of £112m in 2013. What can businesses do to retain their graduate talent? Here are my top five tips: 1. Employ the […]

Why HR needs to take religion seriously

This article is based on the chapter ‘Religion in Organizations: Cognition and Behaviour’ by Gary R.Weaver and Jason M. Stansbury from Religion and Organization Theory: Research in the Sociology of Organizations. HR Zone has exclusive free access to this chapter throughout October. For more information and to read the book chapter click on the link. www.emeraldinsight.com/tk/HRZoneReligion Religiously-influenced behaviour […]

Can we assign a credible value to talent?

Organisational leaders routinely tell us that talent is a firm’s most important resource. This may very well be true, but there is no universally agreed-upon method to place a valuation on talent. Over many decades there have been numerous approaches designed to value human capital – each approach may be reasonable, depending on what assumptions […]

Quarter of graduates quit job within a year, study finds

One in four graduates anticipates leaving their first job within 12 months of starting it, according to new research. The global report by advisory firm CEB revealed that 20% of graduates take jobs they don’t want just to “fill their CV” while they look for the career that interests them, and two in three regret […]

Interview: Gerry Wyatt, Operations Director, graduate-jobs.com

1. What are today’s graduates looking for from modern employers? To be honest, I don’t think the fundamentals of what the majority of graduates are looking for have changed all that much over the years. They’re eager to start their career and discover the working world, and the typical graduate is looking to do so […]

HR technology toolkit, written by Professors

DOWNLOAD OUR ACADEMIC TOOLKIT TODAY In our latest toolkit you’ll find contributions from academics in Italy, Germany, UK, France and America on topics including: Social media and Web 2.0 Big data and analytics Employee use of self-service Generation Y and technology Technology in multinationals …all based on leading research from top business schools. As always, […]

How to find real value in graduates

Creating a company culture is one way of driving success. However one thing the majority in HR and wider business will agree on is that without the right people you cannot build or maintain a culture. The general consensus is that it is harder to instil a culture in those who move from another company […]

Interview: Kristiina Mäkelä, Associate Professor, Aalto University

Kristiina Mäkelä is an associate professor of International Business at Aalto University. She has published on HRM and knowledge-related topics in a number of international journals and was awarded the European Doctoral Programmes Association in Management and Business Administration (EDAMBA) 2008 prize for the best doctoral dissertation in Europe. Kristiina’s latest research focused on evaluations […]

Leading under pressure – lessons from the High Seas

This piece was written by Trudi West, Researcher at Ashridge Business School, who was part of the team studying the Clipper Round The World race. The challenge of leading is never more keenly felt than when working under pressure. Whether that pressure comes from the external environment or one that we create for ourselves, making the […]

Workers unions and people-centric HR policies contribute to GDP

Countries where workers are protected by strong unions and good work and safety policies that acknowledge the importance of psychologically safe work environments have a higher GDP. This is according to new academic research which explores whether work-related stress factors can explain national differences in health and economic productivity, measured by GDP. The study, which […]

Talking Point: Is motivation the secret to employee engagement?

Employee engagement appears to be top of the agenda for today’s enlightened HR manager. It seems that, at every turn, there are consultants and articles in the business press telling us how to create an ‘engaged workforce’ and how much benefit such a workforce will have on your bottom line.   Naturally, business academics have […]

HRD Insight: GL Hearn’s Susan Wright on graduate intern schemes

The role of the business community in helping to develop new talent is becoming an increasingly topical issue.  The economic climate has created an environment in which graduates are now struggling to find jobs that only a few years earlier would have been readily available.   It is clear that these days experience counts, which […]

News: Employadam campaign garners mixed response

Graduate Adam Pacitti's decision to pay £500 for a Central London billboard to push a self-promotional website in his quest for work has provoked a mixed response among members of the twittersphere. The 24 year old who has a first class honours degree in media production said that he made the move after having spent […]