HR must shift its focus to enhance agility: leadership development is king
HR leaders must prioritize leadership development to drive organizational agility, according to research from senior HR professionals. While 67% recognize agility as business-critical, nearly 70% acknowledge their leadership development practices need significant overhaul to meet evolving business demands.
Getting to day 1: HR’s crucial role in the E.ON carve-out
E.ON successfully split into two independent companies within one year, with HR playing a crucial role in allocating 14,000 employees across borders and ensuring seamless operations. The transformation required coordinating complex staffing decisions, regulatory compliance, and employee engagement while maintaining service to millions of customers.
Coffee Break: Dress code, employee perks and the case for changing your job title
Explore this week’s top HR insights covering employee retention strategies, unconventional workplace perks, job title changes, dress code policies, and how technology is reshaping human resources practices.
Coffee Break: Internships, workers rights and the link between sleep quality & success
Explore this week’s essential HR news covering recruitment trends for Gen Z, legal shifts around unpaid internships, workers’ rights challenges with gig economy companies, and the impact of sleep quality on professional success.
We will only get truly inclusive organisations if we question the way work works
To achieve truly inclusive organisations, we must fundamentally rethink how work is structured. The outdated eight-hour, five-day model fails to accommodate people with caregiving responsibilities or other constraints, resulting in underutilised talent across all demographics. Creating flexibility around work arrangements is essential for building genuinely inclusive workplaces that reflect modern society.
Tackling bribery and corruption: where are the gaps for HR to fill?
HR plays a crucial role in combating bribery and corruption, yet many organizations struggle with enforcement and employee awareness. While most companies have anti-bribery policies, research reveals that two-thirds of compliance officers say their organizations are better at developing guidelines than enforcing them, and many employees lack basic understanding of procedures and reporting mechanisms.
Should your CEO be on Twitter?
CEOs active on social media should ensure their public behavior aligns with their company’s stated values. This executive’s reference to staff as “subordinates” on Twitter raises questions about whether organizational values reflect actual workplace culture and leadership authenticity.
Employee engagement at the world’s third-largest charitable foundation, the Wellcome Trust
The Wellcome Trust, a leading biomedical research charity, appears on the Best Workplaces list due to its powerful mission to improve health, strong organizational culture, and shift from paternalistic management to a values-based approach that empowers employees. The foundation has focused on evolving its workplace environment to drive engagement and foster pride among staff.
Looking at leadership after Brexit
Effective leadership after Brexit requires all leaders—regardless of voting preference—to inspire their teams with a positive vision for the future rather than dwelling on past decisions. By focusing on opportunities ahead while maintaining integrity and honesty, leaders can build trust and guide their organizations through this period of change.
Vintage HR – Talkin’ Bout An Evolution
HR has drifted away from core fundamentals toward passing fads, but a return to “vintage” HR basics—focused on genuine employee welfare, robust absence management, and authentic engagement—offers a more effective, evidence-based approach than trendy buzzwords.
Leadership lessons from the Referendum
The UK referendum campaign reveals fundamental failures in political leadership, with both sides prioritizing victory over honesty and integrity. The author examines how politicians abandoned core leadership principles, relying instead on misleading claims and fear-mongering rather than serving the public interest.
It’s one thing to create a culture of innovation, but how do you sustain it?
Building an innovation culture requires continuous investment in people, not a one-time project. HR and leadership must evolve pay structures, rewards systems, and employee expectations to support ongoing collaboration and skill development rather than treating innovation as a finite milestone.
Engaging your people in the innovation journey
Building an organizational culture of innovation requires engaging employees at every level, not just leadership. With 72% of employees lacking understanding of what innovation means to their employer, organizations must take innovative approaches to communication and engagement to achieve true cultural transformation across all departments and divisions.
Have you mobilised your innovation agents?
Innovation leaders aren’t just found at the top table—they’re the influential individuals throughout your organization who shape culture and drive change. These “i-agents” come from all levels and can champion innovation across your business, transforming it from a top-tier ambition into an embedded organizational culture.
Are you ready to build and lead a culture of innovation?
Leading organizational innovation requires more than a senior title—it demands a fundamental shift in leadership approach. Leaders must move beyond traditional hierarchies to foster collaboration, embrace calculated risk-taking, and embed innovation into organizational culture at every level. Success hinges on the entire leadership team authentically adopting innovation beliefs and behaviors.
Coffee break: Resilience, unconscious bias and rigging your performance review
Explore this week’s curated HR insights covering resilience for professionals, workplace culture’s impact on performance, strategies for fair performance reviews, and how to address unconscious bias in leadership and decision-making across organizations.
Coffee Break: Commuting, HR Tech & million dollar mission statements
Stay updated with the week’s essential HR insights covering leadership strategies, employee engagement challenges, emerging HR technology trends, and workplace commuting issues reshaping modern work culture.
Mutiny on the ice: Earnest Shackleton and the trust equation
When Ernest Shackleton’s ship sank in Antarctic ice a century ago, mutiny threatened his stranded crew. Shackleton maintained leadership through credibility, reliability, and intimacy—elements of trust that proved essential to surviving one of history’s most desperate expeditions.
Coffee Break: Managing teams, robo recruiters and offices for introverts
This weekly roundup curates essential reads on team management, employee engagement, workplace design for introverts, and the impact of AI recruitment on job prospects. Topics span business strategy, nonprofit sector insights, and modern workplace trends including diversity initiatives and gender pay gap solutions.
Zero-hours contracts – friend or foe?
Zero-hours contracts, which guarantee no minimum hours of work, have faced criticism over misuse by some businesses. However, completely avoiding them may push employers toward less secure alternatives for workers. Used transparently to meet genuine fluctuating business needs, zero-hours contracts can be a legitimate flexible staffing solution.
