Is perseverance more important than intelligence?
Intelligence, or a person’s cognitive ability to understand and deal with complex problems in a rational and purposeful way, is undoubtedly a huge asset in the workplace, and is crucial in dealing effectively with work demands and challenges. However, in today’s fast paced environment where the speed of change is dizzying, intellectual horsepower is insufficient […]
How to create sustainable employability
Our career is essentially a pathway through our working life. This is a route that we build ourselves and one that requires construction through the social, economic and personal aspects that we are born into and we come across as we develop. We know that, as adults, the biggest single factor to any achievement is […]
Do you ignore context when developing people?
You need talent, and you need it fast. The question is how. One of the most common queries we are asked is how to accelerate people’s development. How to help people learn and develop and be ready for promotion sooner than they otherwise would. In technical specialisms with a fast-aging workforce, or geographies with a […]
Can you predict job satisfaction?
Prediction of the match between job satisfaction and job performance has been an area of intense study for organisational psychologists since the first examination in the 1930s by Roethlisberger & Dickson and has continued with research papers published periodically to the present day. The theory is if we can understand the relationship between job satisfaction […]
How can HR make the most of the UN International Day of Happiness?
Tomorrow it’s the United Nation’s International Day of Happiness 2015 and I’ve just received a press release about a newly-launched ‘Happiness Printer’ which comes pre-loaded with 1000 ‘happy’ images You can’t buy the printer – but you can win it by telling the company producing it how you would use it to make the world […]
Are line managers holding back your talent?
It makes sound business sense to identify who in your organisation has the capability and potential to add real value in the future. When you know who your rising stars are, you can provide accelerated promotion opportunities and development programmes to nurture, engage and retain them. But what if you’re identifying the wrong people? Line […]
Is EI or IQ more important than the other when it comes to rising up the management ladder?
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Don’t be too smart when you’re trying to learn
How quickly do you learn? Are you one of those people who picks things up with ease? Feel slightly smugly in training courses? Don’t need anything explaining twice? Well here’s a way of thinking about learning that might give you pause for thought. One way of categorising different types of learning is to distinguish between […]
Boris Johnson ‘committed’ to helping his staff manage stress
Employees working for London mayor Boris Johnson are being given free advice and support on how to manage their health and wellbeing. Free resources, such as mindfulness podcasts, are being provided on the Greater London Authority’s (GLA) staff intranet at City Hall, the Huffington Post UK reports. "We have a wellbeing portal on our intranet […]
Staff that smile on demand play havoc with their emotions
There’s an emotional and physical price to pay when people are forced to display feelings that don’t coincide with how they’re actually feeling. Researchers followed 78 bus drivers in the north-western United States. Over two weeks they answered surveys before work, after their shifts and just before they went to bed. The questions focused on […]
Managing the psychological contract in the interim market
Psychological contracts are nothing new. Once the favoured buzz-phrase of 1960s HR managers, they had something of a renaissance following the economic downturn of the 1990s. The most recent global financial wobble, and subsequent green shoots of recovery, have brought them, or at least the concepts behind them, back into focus. Most of the debates […]
The Paradox of Choice, by Barry Schwartz – TED talk
This article is based on a 2005 TED talk from Barry Schwartz, Dorwin Cartwright Professor of Social Theory and Social Action at Swarthmore College. His TED talk has racked up over six million views and questions whether the choice that we think makes us free actually makes us unhappy. All western industrial societies have an official […]
The ‘shadow side’ of personality brought to life – part 2
In the first part of this series, I examined the individual characteristics typically seen in people when under pressure, focusing specifically on the ‘moving towards’ and ‘moving against’ types. In this final part, I look more closely at those who ‘move away’ from others, bringing them to life as characters attending a company away day. […]
The ‘shadow side’ of personality brought to life – part 1
In a previous HRZone article, I discussed the ‘shadow side’ of personality, i.e. those bits of ourselves which we normally keep hidden, but which emerge when we’re too stressed, tired or drunk to keep up a polite façade any longer. There are three broad trends – under pressure some of us move towards others, some […]
The Neuroscience of Interviewing – Part 2
This article is the second of a two-part series. View the first article: The Neuroscience of Interviewing – Part 1 Welcome back. I am so glad to see you again and that you have chosen to continue our dialogue. You will remember from our last meeting that we explored the topics of growth and fixed […]
Corporate psychopaths and mental health
This article was written by Clive Boddy and Derek Miles. Clive and Derek are, respectively, Professors in Leadership and Human Resource Development at Middlesex University Business School. You can email them at c.boddy@mdx.ac.uk or d.miles@mdx.ac.uk. In relation to a previous article in HR Zone on how corporate psychopaths influenced the workplace, one commentator on the […]
The Neuroscience of Interviewing – Part 1
This article is the first of a two-part series. View the second article: The Neuroscience of Interviewing – Part 2 If you are involved in the interview process for your company and you don’t know the answers to these questions then you might want to read on…. "Tell me about your approach to hiring – do you […]
How to make Happy Hour from 9-5
What is the ultimate role of HR? Is it all about benefits, processes, perks, hiring and firing? I say NO – the ultimate role of HR is to create a happy workplace. And while this may seem like a Pollyanna daydream, it makes a ton of business sense. Happy employees are not simply in a […]
‘Shadow side’ of personality – there’s more to it than corporate psychopaths
One of the most popular articles on HRZone last year was the eye-catchingly titled “Are you employing a corporate psychopath?”. This is entirely understandable – almost everyone has come across a smooth-talking, back-stabbing political operator at some stage in their career and there is something slightly thrilling about the idea that he or she may […]
Interpreting social signals in the workplace
Most people agree that communication is key to a happy and productive working environment. However, when that communication is non-verbal are we able to deal with and interpret the messages correctly? In this article I want to touch upon how we communicate at work and what role ‘social signals’ play in our daily conversations with […]
