Reimagine business value: the world’s changing expectations of companies
For decades, society was content for business to drive economic growth and wealth creation. People looked to governments to keep their worlds secure, while ‘doing good’ was the job of charities. Companies were free to operate in a bubble of employees, products, customers and profits, as long as they made money for shareholders. Trade brought […]
The five biggest mistakes in employee engagement
Leadership teams often think their employees are engaged, without really understanding if this truly is the case. Here’s how to really understand what’s happening on the ground – and make sure your team is fully engaged. In our work with cultural transformation, I am fortunate to meet many executive leaders and gain insights into companies, […]
Changing perspective: from employee engagement to employee experience
Employee engagement surveys only tell part of the story when it comes to understanding the needs and motivations of your staff. In order to get the full picture, employee experience is where organisations need to focus their attention. Over the past 50 plus years, organisations have conducted surveys of their employees to gauge employee satisfaction, […]
Ethics in the workplace: what does an ethical business look like?
In the second article of a nine-part series on ethics in the workplace, Luke Andreski considers the key characteristics of ethical organisations and asks, ‘Is ethics a success factor in modern business?’ It’s worth beginning our discussion with a preliminary question: ‘Are organisations ethical by default?’ The answer to this question is that organisations have […]
The human-focused workplace: how to redesign your organisation to achieve people-centricity
In part three of this three-part series on ‘Making HR truly strategic’, HR expert Jon Ingham outlines three requirements for redesigning an organisation with people at its heart. An increasing number of organisations are using a growing range of approaches to help build an environment in which people can do their best work. For example, […]
Why the human-focused workplace leads to competitive success
In part two of this three-part series on ‘Making HR truly strategic’, Jon Ingham explores how HR transitioned from being a support function of the business to being the key driver of business success. It is an exciting time in HR currently, as so many shifts towards a more human-focused workplace are all taking place at the […]
Are you really awake? Why conscious leaders are key to unlocking wellbeing
Positive wellbeing in the workplace does not come from discounted gym memberships and free fruit. It comes from a healthy working culture spearheaded by conscious leaders who instill good habits and value people’s need to switch off. We’re facing increasing complexity and stress in the modern world of work. Everywhere we’re seeing headlines about increasing […]
Supporting the business isn’t strategic HR – people centricity is
HR practitioners sometimes report being conflicted about whether to align with the business to be more strategic or to better support their people. However, it is actually much more useful to see these poles as a paradox rather than a dilemma. That is, we need to do both – to focus on the business and […]
De-stressing the business: getting managers and workloads in check
Stressful working environments harm employee wellbeing and productivity. To get a handle on this, businesses need to address their management style and how they approach workloads. A recent CIPD study has revealed that poor management and heavy workloads are the biggest causes of workplace stress. These findings will raise some important questions for businesses, but […]
Modern leadership: is neuroscience the solution to toxic leadership?
A toxic work environment is detrimental to workers’ mental health and productivity, so how can you recognise the signs and reform your office culture into a healthy and happy one? It’s all too easy to ignore a toxic culture and dismiss low level grumbling as the unfounded complaints of an insignificant minority. It’s also common […]
The death of hierarchy: why open source leadership is key to business success
A new era of open source leadership has arisen and businesses would be wise to take a leaf from the book of the Silicon Valley technology hub in its approach to humble, transparent leadership that nurtures creativity. The old-fashioned, ‘stick management’ style of management is dead. For decades, companies have been founded upon rigid, hierarchical […]
Behavioural excellence: an essential quality in high performance leaders?
How do certain behavioural qualities set top leaders apart? Charlotte Dennis and Sarah Wall, of leadership development training company, LeadEQ, explore… Technical excellence is a given for all senior leaders, yet when it comes to soft skills many reach a tipping point in their career when they find that they do not have the capabilities […]
Why data will underpin the transformation of modern leadership
Most business processes rely on a certain amount of data to operate efficiently, but increasingly it’s the leadership function that is being transformed by a more data-driven approach – and this can only be a good thing. Organisations have become hugely data driven around their finances and operations and more recently around their customer processes. Data […]
The problem with modern leadership: diversity, inclusion and the ‘hero’ complex
The world is facing a leadership crisis. We need to radically refocus the way we think about leadership to focus less on the individual and more on collective responsibility. Only a diverse and inclusive approach to leadership can solve the mess we’re in. How many times have you heard someone say, “diversity and inclusion are […]
Three trends gleaned from gender pay gap reporting round two
We’re all aware by now that the second round of gender pay gap reporting has brought disappointing results. But by investigating the data a bit deeper, useful insights have emerged as to how employers can put their best foot forward as we head into the third year of reporting. April 1st marked the second annual […]
Leadership: confidence is king when it comes to crowning successful leaders
A lack of confidence is a career killer for those in leadership positions, so it’s essential that others see you as confident if you want to get ahead, according to new research. Confidence is a critical state for leaders. Whilst competency criteria may not explicitly require it, confidence is the prerequisite for success. An apparent […]
Leadership: why HR has a responsibility to build a sense of belonging among employees
It’s been proven that individuals and teams perform best in environments where they feel a sense of belonging. Leadership teams should be doing everything they can to help encourage this. A mountain of research spanning almost 200 years and looking across multiple cultures and contexts demonstrates beyond doubt that the single biggest predictor of our […]
Why companies need to open up the dialogue around diversity
Creating a workplace culture that is truly diverse is not about ticking the ‘right’ boxes, it requires a shift in the way organisations communicate with their staff, HR teams and new recruits. Workplace diversity isn’t about recruiting a bunch of people from different backgrounds. That’s just a diversity of faces, and only leads to employees having to […]
How to create a healthy feedback culture
The giving and receiving of constructive feedback should be embedded into workplace practice, but to succeed it requires a culture built on self-compassion. The importance of developing a feedback culture at work and how it supports professional growth is often discussed, yet still not fully understood. One of the reasons it’s so hard to achieve is because for […]
Management transformation: time for change
In this time of rapid change leaders must remain agile and flexible in their approach. We examine how staff can help management identify ways to lead effective transformation. We are in a new world of unimaginable uncertainty. Not just with our Brexit woes, but with AI tech, emerging markets, globalisation, new competition et al. Monzo, Netflix, […]
