How to cope with Friday the 13th (and other superstitions)
Fear of the number 13 is so common that there’s actually a word for it: Triskaidekaphobia. Many employers are affected by peoples’ fear of this number and have had to change their practices to accommodate it. For example, buildings often avoid naming a 13th floor, while airlines report that every time a Friday 13th […]
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 […]
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 […]
Blog: Would you win top prize at the Chelsea Flower Show?
For the 2nd year running Cleve West is celebrating winning best in show at the RHS Chelsea flower show for his garden celebrating the 250th anniversary of Brewin Dolphin. As I watched the video of his thank you speech I was brought to tears. I wondered why that might be and concluded it was a mixture of […]
Blog: Four managerial traits to ensure flexible working works
Earlier this year telecoms giant O2 announced that the vast majority of their employees (88%) were just as productive when working flexibly than when they are present in the workplace. Meanwhile a Stanford University study showed that one travel company noted a 12% rise in productivity when staff worked from home. The evidence would […]
Video Interview: Top tips for dealing with a stressful work environment
Steve Smith, Olympic high jump medallist and co-founder of workplace performance improvement consultancy, Raise the Bar, along with head of training and development, Gayle Robling, share their insights into how best to minimise workplace stress, boost mental resilience and give employees the competitive edge.
Blog: What makes a star performer?
We might like to think that two people doing the same job will produce similar levels of output, but in practice there can be significant differences. Certain people are twice as productive, sometimes even five times as productive, as others. In these challenging times, being able to identify, recruit and develop these rare performers […]
Blog: Nine attitudes to help you become an emotionally intelligent leader
Emotionally Intelligent Leaders and Managers get the best results! Like learning to drive, leading and managing people is an experiential journey. My entrance onto the leadership stage was when I was promoted into the role, having stood in for the team leader from time to time. I don’t know about you, but although I […]
CEO Insight: Sinead Hasson on Hasson Associates’ CSR programme
The arrival of 2012 brought with it the news that there are still 2.65 million people out of work in the UK. Widespread redundancies, salary freezes or even cuts as well as the increasing loss of employee benefits are not only hitting employers hard, but also causing employees to question their job security. And […]
Cultivating emotional intelligence: Lessons from two public resignations
There was a time when the manner and timing of your arrival was the coup de grace moment. But, if two recent articles that are getting considerable attention in online circles are anything to go by, the golden moment might now actually be the method of your departure. It all began when Greg Smith […]
Talent Spot: Rebekah Wallis, HR director at Ricoh
Back-to-back company and employee integration programmes have kept Rebekah Wallis, HR director at printing and IT services firm Ricoh, pretty busy over the last four years or so. This is because HR has been considered core to the success of such integration work by ensuring that staff are supported and helped to make the necessary […]
Performance psychology: Developing the power of the mind
Performance psychology focuses on those factors that enable individuals, teams and groups to flourish and become the best that they can be. It is a long away from other branches of psychology that are often steeped in malady and dysfunction. Instead performance psychology combines business, sports and positive psychology, with the ultimate aim of […]
How to spot a maverick (and channel their talents)
Ever wondered how to spot a maverick? Look for someone who uses their left rather than their right ear to listen at a closed door or at a colleague’s chest to hear their heartbeat. According to the London School of Economics and Political Science and the University of New South Wales in Australia, the […]
Blog: Two reasons why psychometric tests suck…
Here are two biiiig reasons why I think personality or psychometric tests suck… You know the drill. Once in a while the boss decides you’ve all got to get together and find out about each other. What makes you tick, and all that jazz. So how’re ya gonna do that? Lucky you – it’s MBTI time (other tests are available). […]
Blog: ‘The start-up of you’ – Becoming a career entrepreneur
The co-founder and chairman of LinkedIn Reid Hoffman with co-author Ben Casnocha have recently produced a thought-provoking new book on how to apply the strategies of successful entrepreneurship to career development. In other words, how to approach your career as “the start up of you”. Although The Start-up of You (2012) is written for all ages, […]
Blog: Harnessing employee emotional intelligence to boost productivity
I read an interesting story on emotional intelligence in the workplace in the Guardian a few weekends ago, which I couldn’t resist sharing. The article is based on a recent report from occupational psychologists JCA, which studied 12,400 workers from 2001 to 2010, the results of which got me fairly worried. According to the […]
Move to darker suits reflects darker employee mood
It appears that, since the start of the recession, navy suits are no longer de rigueur but have instead been replaced in sartorial terms by charcoal as a reflection of employees’ darker mood. According to workwear specialists Alexandra, sales of navy blue suits have dropped from 47% of the total in 2005 to only 37% […]
Blog: Is there a link between staff resilience and engagement levels?
Resilience has been a hot topic for me lately and that trend isn’t slowing. One of my colleagues recently attended the Division of Occupational Psychology’s Annual Conference where he presented a paper: Is an employee’s level of resilience related to their work engagement? In this, Ali Shalfrooshan studied the relationship between individual resilience and […]
The secrets to HR outsourcing success
Outsourcing can work and be good for the business. But, time and time again, we hear reports of dissatisfaction and things going wrong. So what are the secrets to success and what do HR directors need to consider here? A good starting place is to ask yourself why you want to outsource at all. […]
CIPD Conference: ‘No one-size-fits-all for leadership practices’
Despite the abundance of formulas to identify what makes a good leader, the problem is that each one has different competencies and, therefore, leads in quite different ways. This means, said Marcus Buckingham in his keynote speech at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development’s annual conference in Manchester this week, that trying to transfer […]
