Blog: Debunking 5 employee performance myths
Deciphering the myths of employee performance: Myth 1: A Mission Statement is Enough Employee performance touches every part of the organisation. However, simply creating a new company vision every three to four years and setting board level objectives of increasing sales or market share is not enough. Such goals have no relevance to […]
Blog: Fact – Improve management practice by 1% or hire 25% more staff
Recognise This! – A little effort to improve management skills is worth as much as a 25% increase in headcount. A consistent source of good advice and cross-industry perspective on company culture, Blanchard Leader Chat is one of my must-read blogs. Last month, for example, they featured recent global research from McKinsey, Stanford, and […]
Talking Point: What’s happened to business ethics?
It seems that every time you open a newspaper at the moment, there’s a new business scandal. The fall-out from Barclays Libor-rigging fine continues to be an ongoing story. The scandal has already claimed the scalps of the bank’s chairman and chief executive – and who knows how many more may follow? Barclay’s leadership […]
News: Land Securities proposes bonus clawback scheme
Land Securities is to become one of the first companies outside of the financial services sector to introduce a clawback mechanism on bonuses and share awards for top executives. The proposals made by the commercial property firm in its 2012 annual report were the result of a review of senior managers’ pay after the sector […]
Blog: Leadership/management lessons from the Diamond debacle
We know that former head of Barclays bank, Bob Diamond, was leading the financial institution during the period in which the well-documented Libor rates or interest rates for inter-bank borrowing, were being manipulated. It has now come to light that Diamond had absolutely no idea it was going on. Surely, if he was at the […]
Blog: How to boost employee engagement
Recognise This! – Recognition, reputation, and performance management are among the top opportunities for improving engagement as identified by Aon Hewitt. Aon Hewitt recently released their 2012 Trends in Global Engagement. Several findings were unsurprising, but worthy of highlighting as many organisations still struggle with getting these basic factors of engagement success right. First, it’s […]
Talent Spot: Gill Crowther, HR director at Nominet
By the time Gill Crowther, director of HR at Nominet, had finished university, she already knew that she wanted to work in HR. She had studied engineering, but the fact that she seemed to be very good at getting people to help her with her studies gave her a “moment of revelation” that management […]
Christina’s Counsel: Help! My boss is creating a long hours culture
The challenge Recently appointed in a relatively new company as its first HR manager, my client has a dilemma. She described with some dismay her fear that the managing director was starting to instil a long hours’ culture in the organisation. No explicit statement existed in this regard, but some behavioural trends, which seemed […]
The HRZone Interview: The CMI’s CEO Ann Francke on management
Ann Francke only started her new job as chief executive at the Chartered Management Institute on 12 June, but she is already on a mission. As you’d expect, she not only wants to encourage more managers to gain professional qualifications, but she also wants them – and their employers – to recognise the power of […]
Is leadership development really the answer to your problems?
The idea that there is a key requirement for ‘better leadership’ as the ‘answer’ to most, if not all, business and organisational problems remains prevalent. Numerous surveys by management consultancies reinforce the notion that there is a leadership talent ‘gap’ and, by extension, a need for more and better leadership development activity. This idea […]
In a Nutshell: Five considerations when creating a welcome pack for new hires
When lastminute.com moved its group headquarters to a swanky new Farringdon office in April, it seemed like a good chance to revamp its welcome pack for new joiners. As a result, it turned to us, the same language consultancy that had worked on the ‘tone of voice’ of its marketing collateral a few years before, […]
Blog: Still waters run deep – Never underestimate an introvert
Google is one incredible business. Not just because it has revolutionised the way we search for ‘things’ on the internet, but because of how the company’s progression is fuelled by great ideas and innovative thinking. The search engine gives staff free time to develop their own ideas for the business, and many of the […]
Blog: How can you make performance management more social?
The workplace today has changed beyond recognition; new technology is continuously bringing efficiencies to our way of working. However, one thing remains constant – the performance appraisal process. Now, consider Generation Y for a moment, will they be content to wait for their annual or bi-annual review to find out how they’re doing? Probably not! […]
Strategy: 5 things to consider when adopting HR shared services
HR Shared Services centres are posited as a way to reduce costs and increase efficiencies in administration, but setting up such arrangements can be a daunting task. HR case management firm Dovetail Software has identified five areas that it says are often overlooked but critical to success. These are: Standardizing common HR processes including […]
Blog: Isn’t the ‘seven second’ performance appraisal throwing the baby out with the bath water?
An article in People Management regarding the new approach by mining company, First Quantum Minerals, which hangs on the idea of a ‘seven second’ performance appraisal form, reminds of the appeal associated with those ‘2 second’ pop-up tents you see advertised. It’s the promise of convenience, ease, speed and time not wasted doing something you are not […]
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, […]
Blog: HR – also known as The A Team
Are you the Mr. T of your organisation? By that I don’t mean do you wear excessive amounts of gold bling, have a slightly dubious Mohican and yell “Quit your jibber-jabber!” in meetings. I mean if there is a problem, if no-one else can help, and if they can find you, maybe your staff can […]
News: Men v women or men + women?
Men and women have different leadership strengths, and organisations need a balance of both if they are to be truly effective. That’s the conclusion of a new study from Talent Innovations which analysed feedback results of nearly 14,000 managers to identify the differences in how men and women were rated against a set of 18 […]
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 […]
Performance psychology in action
A goodly number of businesses and public authorities are now starting to adopt performance psychology techniques as a means of trying to enhance how their employees operate on a day-to-day basis. Performance psychology combines business, sports and positive psychology, with the aim of enabling individuals, teams and groups to flourish and become the best that […]