Blog: who holds the real keys to the organisation anyway?
What is the narrative of your movie reel? The rank-and-file workforce had weathered layoffs, had their commissions slashed, and on top of that, their salaries had been frozen over the past five years. However, the chief executive’s decision was this — let’s have the senior management team take a lavish trip down to Bermuda and […]
Expert voice: reaping the value of soft benefits
It’s a basic fact of human nature that we all like to feel valued and nurtured. But with tight budgets making it increasingly difficult to reward staff with big pay rises, organisations are, in many instances, looking at offering so-called soft benefits instead. And office perks such as sporting activities, gym membership and in-house […]
Blog: 3 tips for better feedback reception
Recognise This! – How you receive feedback is as important as how you give it. We can’t be great 100% of the time. Yes, we all work hard and want to do a good job, but sometimes we miss the mark. Or perhaps the “mark” moved on us and we didn’t adjust in time. Frankly, […]
Talent Spot: Michael Doolin, HR director at DHL’s Tradeteam
“I swore blind I wouldn’t end up doing what my father did and, 34 years later, I am,” laughs Michael Doolin, HR director at DHL’s Tradeteam. His father had been a shop steward before moving into industrial relations, which meant that there had been lots of very dull-looking manuals hanging around at home that had […]
Blog: leadership personified by inspirational mothers
Whilst watching Breakfast News last week, I was completely in awe of two mothers, Grace Idowu and Margaret Mizen, who have both experienced the dreadful pain of having a son killed in an unprovoked knife attack. Their courage and compassion bowled me over and I was struck by how, as a result, they decided to […]
Blog: The followers guide to what your leaders want
Today, a search on Amazon.com showed 98,516 results for “leadership”. A further search for “followship” came back with a mere 39 results. I searched again for “team player” and received over 101,000 results, although “team player” wasn’t quite what I was looking for. I know sometimes part of great leadership is setting out what […]
Living Leader Learnings: The Redundancy Challenge
The Company: Insurance Company The Challenger: Group HR Director My company is in the process of introducing a series of job cuts across the workforce, and some of the members of my team will be involved. I want to communicate with them directly and prepare them, though I know other board members are not planning […]
Blog: who are the best leaders – men or women?
As John Gray advocated in his 1992 bestseller Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, there are fundamental differences between the genders. According to a new study, these differences are evident when it comes to leadership behaviour. At Talent Innovations, we’ve analysed the 360° feedback results of nearly 14,000 UK leaders and managers, to […]
News: Police shared service move could see 1,100 jobs outsourced
Local press reports suggest that around 1,100 posts across the three police forces of Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire could be outsourced along with back office services, which include HR. Later this month, the three forces plan to publish proposals for private companies to supply HR, finance and IT services to their respective police authorities. […]
In a Nutshell: Five top tips for staying stress-free
Stress is now the leading cause of long-term sickness absence in the workplace. A survey published recently by the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development and private health insurance company, Simplyhealth, revealed that nearly two-fifths of the 592 UK employers questioned had seen an increase in stress-related absence among their employees over the last year. […]
News: Lessons from IBM in going social
With the latest IDC figures predicting that the social enterprise market will reach $200 billion by 2013, it looks like social is set to become an increasingly important part of your business, according to IBM‘s vice president of social business evangelism and sales. Speaking at the Social Business Strategy Summit in London yesterday, Sandy Carter […]
Blog: Steve Jobs and valuing the ‘B’ players
Recognise This! – There are always B players in any organisation who are just as important to your success as A players, if in a different way. During the last few months, one of the top books has been the Steve Jobs autobiography. It’s a fascinating read and doesn’t hold back on both the […]
Talent Spot: Lisa Sarjeant, HR director at the CIPD
As HR director at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development – Europe’s largest chartered professional HR body – it’s no surprise that Lisa Sarjeant sits on the executive team and is instrumental in setting organisational strategy. While those HR professionals who are struggling to make their voices heard at the top table may envy […]
News: Former Olympus CEO settles unfair dismissal case out-of-court
Former Olympus chief executive Michael Woodford has reached an out-of-court settlement with his ex-employer for unfair dismissal. Woodford was sacked just two weeks after his appointment on blowing the cover on a $1.7bn accounting scandal at the Japanese company. The terms of the settlement have not been disclosed, but the Financial Times has reported […]
Blog: Punk rock HR – A no-nonsense guide to hiring, inspiring and firing
This is the first post to introduce my new book “Punk Rock People Management”, which I intend to serialise on the HRZone. If you are in a hurry to read the whole thing, simply contact me with PUNK in the title and I’ll send you the whole thing in one go for free. […]
Blog: Seven tips for navigating murky M&A waters
News last week that Mike Lynch is to leave Hewlett-Packard, just a year after the technology giant bought Autonomy, the data company that Lynch built from scratch, has sparked much speculation about a ‘clash of cultures’ between the two companies. This highlights the importance of a robust HR strategy to guide companies through the managerial […]
News: Three police forces adopt shared HR services for first time
The three police forces of Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire are set to become the first in the UK to share HR services under a collaborative agreement with outsourcing provider, Capita. The shared system called Origin will be provided by Capita’s secure resource solutions business under a contract worth £2.3 million over five years and, over […]
Blog: You may call yourself an HR business partner, but are you – really?
“So, what does the new title mean?” She had walked out on Friday as a generalist and returned on Monday with a new title of Business Partner. “It means I am now assigned to a business unit, I am their personal HR representative. “ And with that, a new title took hold, but within the […]
News: Half of pubic sector workers got zilch in April pay settlement
As the April pay bargaining round in the public sector gets into full swing, it appears that just over half of all workers can expect to get nothing this year. The latest figures from online resource, XpertHR, based on 29 pay reviews that came into force last month, indicated that in 55.2% of cases, staff […]
A typical HRD: Part 2 – The third sector
As the economic landscape has changed over the last four years, so too has the typical profile of an HR director in the third sector. Historically, in some circles, the industry was regarded as a bit of a backwater – a pleasant environment in which to work, but not at all ‘cutting edge’ from an […]