How many of your workforce would you hire again?
A couple of years ago, we asked a number of FTSE 250 HR directors the question: "Given the option, would you rehire your workforce or would you start again?" While the response to the survey wasn’t huge, it was sufficient to draw a few conclusions – not least because a huge 68% of respondents said […]
Olympus sues 19 current and former execs for £30m in compensation
Olympus is suing 19 former and current executives for £30 million (Y3.61bn) in compensation as it struggles to recover from a long-running £1.1 billion accounting scandal. The Japanese camera manufacturer filed legal papers on 8 January with the Tokyo district court and confirmed today that all board members subject to the lawsuit, including president Shuichi […]
Blog: Question for 2102 – why would someone work for you?
As we enter the doors of 2012, the prognosticators have all given their respective thoughts on what is coming into focus for the year. These are all great readings, but if you have survived these past few years of economic turmoil (and the aftermath), you know that, really, who knows? All organizations have basically […]
Former CEO turned whistleblower to sue Olympus for unfair dismissal
The former chief executive of Olympus, who was ousted after blowing the whistle on a $1.7 billion accounting scandal, plans to sue his former employer for unfair dismissal. Michael Woodford, who was the first non-Japanese person to hold the posts of president and CEO at the 92-year-old electronics and medical devices manufacturer, said that he […]
SME manufacturing initiative to create 23,000 jobs, claims Government
The Coalition Government claims that a new version of an initiative intended to secure the future of England’s beleaguered small and medium-sized manufacturers will create 23,000 new jobs and safeguard a further 50,000. Previously operating on a regional basis and run by the now disbanded Regional Development Agencies, the Manufacturing Advisory Service will operate nationally […]
Private sector pensions hit by “seismic collapse”
The “seismic collapse” of private sector pension schemes means that the gulf with the public sector is only set to grow in today’s tough economic climate, a study has warned. A survey among 468 employers undertaken by the Association of Consulting Actuaries revealed that nine out of 10 private sector defined benefit schemes are now […]
Trends 2012: Talent management
It’s been difficult for the HR industry to keep pace with the multitude of employment law changes this year – a situation compounded by the turbulent economic situation in Europe. The UK Government’s reference to ”six years of austerity” was no empty threat and businesses are continuing to make redundancies, undertake restructuring and redeploy staff […]
Blog: The UK’s first HRD-only networking event launches
The first in a new quarterly series of exclusive HRD networking events took place in London last week centred on the latest thinking in measuring talent from guest speaker and Danish human capital management expert, Morten Kamp Andersen. The debate held by participants in the HRD Network focused on three areas: Why measure HR and […]
Half of UK managers expect redundancies in 2012
Nearly half of managers expect their organisations to cut more jobs in 2012, with more than a third feeling insecure about their own employment prospects. These are the key findings of a survey among 800 bosses in UK companies undertaken by the Chartered Management Institute. The study also revealed that more than half of those […]
Update: Lloyds boss to return in January with reduced workload
The boss of Lloyds Banking Group is set to return from his stress-related sick leave in January, albeit with reduced management responsibilities, the bank has revealed. Antonio Horta-Osorio, who joined the organisation in March to restructure it, has been absent from work since the end of October when he was signed off by doctors for […]
Four-year central government HR framework deal goes to Logica
Responsibility for providing transactional HR, payroll and finance services to central government has been handed to Logica under a four-year framework contract valued at between £50m and £500m. Marie-Helene Durif, head of sourcing and category management at the Government Procurement Service, said: "The award of this contract is another milestone in the government’s strategy to […]
2011 – The year of social learning: Five keys to realise true ROI
Why care about social learning? "The interaction between learning and forgetting is like racing down an upward-moving escalator. Just like people, companies can forget the know-how they gained, due to labour turnover, periods of inactivity, or failure to institutionalise knowledge that is being taken for granted. An analogy is tennis. I used to play it […]
News Analysis: The HCM battle begins – Will HRDs finally get technology they like using?
The human capital management software market was always going to be a turbulent place in 2012. The battle lines were to be drawn by Oracle rolling out its next generation Fusion applications, while Software-as-a-Service specialist Workday continued its attempts to steal away customers with ageing PeopleSoft systems from under Oracle’s nose. But last week, […]
More private sector collaboration will lead to brain drain, warn public sector bosses
Increased collaboration with the private sector will harm staff morale and and mean that key skills, experience and knowledge is lost, public sector bosses have warned. Although leaders are bracing themselves for significant increases in public-private sector collaboration over the next few years, the majority have big doubts over the likely success of such a […]
Pressure rises on banks for more pay transparency
Any large bank operating in the UK could be forced to disclose the pay packages of its eight highest-paid, non-board level executives in a bid to tackle “unacceptable” bonus levels in the City. The Coalition Government launched a consultation yesterday on the proposed new rules, which would come into force in 2012 in order to […]
Blog: The golden thread – aligning HR and business strategy
I once worked with an organisation that had introduced a Value Chain methodology. So far so good. But they had made the critical error of trying to pigeonhole HR into one of the ‘links’ in the chain, instead of realising that HR is a support function that, by definition, underpins everything that the company does. […]
News Analysis: ‘Glimmers of hope’ for jobs market as incomes set to drop
While there are “glimmers of hope” that the jobs market may revive somewhat over the next year, real household incomes are in contrast expected to fall by 7.4% over the next 36 months. The Recruitment & Employment Confederation’s JobsOutlook report for November, which is based on a survey of 600 employers, revealed that, although employers […]
HRD Insight: Dan Grant on Dell’s ‘Connected Workplace’ scheme
As job roles become increasingly global and Generation Y progressively enters the workforce, Dell’s aim in introducing its ‘Connected Workplace’ initiative was to continue being able to attract and retain staff. The initiative, which was initially piloted in the UK from November 2009 into early 2010, was rolled out across Europe, the Middle East and […]
Talent Spot: Ann Pickering, HR director at O2
Ann Pickering, HR director at mobile phone operator, O2, is very clear about her role. “I am a business person first and an HR person second,” she says. It’s a message that she makes sure her almost 100-strong UK HR team understands. Commercial acumen is a vital ingredient to being a top-level HR professional, she […]
Staff engagement: Systems versus the human factor
It is only natural that HR professionals are interested in better ways of managing the workforce. As a result, scarcely a week goes by without an advertisement or article on the topic of retention, engagement, motivation and/or talent management appearing somewhere. Systems are recommended to HR departments to help them understand, measure and generate […]
