Christina’s Counsel: What can we do to motivate disaffected middle managers?

Hello and welcome to this month’s dilemma:   The challenge   This month, an employer asked for advice on how to motivate a group of middle managers. These managers had provided feedback indicating that they were demotivated due to a lack of control as they felt that the senior management team had all of the […]

News: HR needs to break out of its comfort zone, warns report

Too many HR professionals are struggling to meet the needs of a constantly changing global business environment and feel themselves paralysed in the face of seemingly monumental challenges, research has warned. The study mirrors the findings of a report published earlier this week by management consultancy, KPMG, which revealed that the majority of senior executives […]

Talent Spot: Community blogger, Peter Cook

“If I had to reduce my life to three words, they would be science, music and business,” says Peter Cook, management consultant, speaker, author, blogger, music lover and former scientist. Cook is actually managing director of two management consultancies, which he jokingly refers to as his day job and his night job. The day job […]

Blog: Recruitment – The growing trend of asking curveball questions

HR professionals are often swamped by candidates that look similar on paper, with similar work experience, education and qualifications. When faced with equally qualified candidates, it can be difficult to find a point of differentiation.   Obscure interview questions such as ‘how do you fit an elephant into a fridge?’ or ‘why are manhole covers […]

Talking Point: Could HR and internal comms make happy bedfellows?

The business world is in for a turbulent time of it over the next decade, according to Rohit Talwar, futurist, award-winning speaker and chief executive of Fast Future Research. Without doubt, the world as we know it will change as a result of continued economic uncertainty, political instability, the redistribution of wealth from west to […]

Diary of a misfit: Becoming a wildcard

On my own personal change curve, I appear to have progressed from misunderstood misfit to shortlist wildcard in just under a month. Result, right? So, I am in my second month of job hunting and the transformation has come about largely as a result of a new and improved CV, thanks to a panel of […]

Blog: Danny Boyle’s secret to enabling creativity on an Olympic scale

Recognise This! – Creativity is not enough without delivery on the promise. I’ll hazard a guess that 100% of my readers watched the Olympics opening ceremony, at least in part, or read about it, or saw elements of it on news coverage. What did you think of it? Most feedback seems to range from “spectacular!” […]

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 […]

Book Review: The road to innovation by Cris Beswick and David Gallagher

I particularly enjoyed the punchy and concise approach that Beswick & Gallagher adopted when writing “The Road to Innovation”. The book successfully integrated seven key themes – which are key to HR professionals in any business context.   Moreover, the way in which each section asked questions of the reader made it a thought-provoking read […]

Talent Spot: Joris Luijke, Atlassian’s vice president of HR

Joris Luijke, vice president of talent and HR at fast-growing Australian software company, Atlassian, has followed in his father’s footsteps by choosing HR as a career. “When I was young, my father tried to convince me not to do HR. So just to annoy him, I went to work in HR!” he laughs. Luijke did […]

In a Nutshell: Five considerations to help boost staff innovation

Although a much over-used term, ‘innovation’ means to invent or apply new ideas, methods, approaches and the like. Although it sounds simple enough, creating an environment in which employees feel empowered, engaged and trusting enough to let their creative juices flow freely is easier said than done.   So here Joris Luijke, vice president of […]

Apprenticeships must provide more value for money, warns NAO

While adult apprenticeships provide a good return on public investment overall, value for money could be significantly improved by upping standards in line with other European countries, the government spending watchdog has advised. The report by the National Audit Office, released only days before the start of National Apprenticeship Week next week, revealed that, while […]

Regional mediation pilots for SMEs unveiled

Two regional mediation pilot projects have been launched in a bid to help resolve workplace disputes in small-to-medium-sized companies before they reach the employment tribunal stage. Cambridge and Manchester will be the first areas to create mediation networks, which will each consist of 24 SMEs that will be selected later in the year. The Department […]

Government must give gangmasters’ enforcement agency more teeth

The Gangmasters Licensing Authority risks becoming “emasculated” unless the Coalition Government provides it with enough teeth and funding to protect temp workers in the food industry properly, a recruitment consultancy has warned. Media reports in October had suggested that the enforcement agency was under threat of abolition as part of the Government’s Red Tape Challenge. […]

News Analysis: Jobs market shows mixed picture

The state of the labour market appeared mixed this week, with the number of City and retail jobs plummeting amid predictions of increasing numbers of opportunities elsewhere. According to the Centre for Economics and Business Research, a huge 30,000 jobs will have been lost in London’s Square Mile by the end of the year – […]

Blog: Committing to a compassionate culture within the NHS

Compliance to compassion was a phrase that has resonated with me this week, since another damning report was released on the state of the national health service’s approach to eldercare. A lady on the radio yesterday (Thursday) urged officials to shift thinking across the organisation, and actually change the way that individuals approach their day-to-day […]

Steve Jobs: ‘Insanely great, he created a nursery for young talent’

Veteran ICT journalist John Lamb pays tribute to Steve Jobs who died today: The death at 56 of Apple founder, Steve Jobs, is a blow to all those who have grown up with the IT industry. Together with Steve Wozniak, Jobs – catch phrase “insanely great” – produced the first mass-produced home computer in the 1970s, a […]

Stability, stimulus and solidarity key to employment and growth, says Cable

Stability, stimulus, and solidarity are key to creating employment and turning around the UK’s economic fortunes, Business Secretary Vince Cable has said. He told delegates at the Liberal Democrat conference in Sheffield that the current economic crisis was the financial equivalent of the UK being at war, adding: “It is wishful thinking to imagine that we […]

Vince Cable wages war on spiralling executive pay

Vince Cable has published a discussion document proposing changes to company laws and regulations in a bid to control spiralling executive pay and stop “rewards for failure”. At the Liberal Democrat conference in Birmingham today, the Business Secretary said that, although the renumeration of chief executives at the UK’s largest public companies had risen fourfold […]

Career visioning as an antidote to corporate rioting

There are very few people who would give those involved in this month’s rioting the time of day, let alone the chance to explain why they sought to bring disruption, violence and chaos to the streets of the UK. But as anyone working in HR will know, communication, whatever the circumstances, is always critical. So […]