How HR can help support the Reserve Armed Forces
Working in HR I am used to dealing with difficult questions and addressing people’s fears, but “What if I die?” is a tough one to answer when people are convinced military service means do or die charges across the battlefield. With reservists set to play a key role in the UK’s Armed Forces, people who […]
Freelancers experience “enthusiasm-based” work–nonwork interference
There’s so much rich insight coming out of the academic sector that HR professionals need to know. At Academics’ Corner we feature the best HR researchers that tell you what they’ve found and what you need to do differently on the back of the research. Get connected to the academic sector through Academics’ Corner and […]
How to develop resilience quickly
In organisational life, pressure, change and adversity are almost inevitable daily aspects of our work. To cope, we need a proactive rather than reactive approach: we need to develop resilience. People describe resilience in many different ways: as ‘mental toughness’, ‘emotional stability’, ‘grit’ or ‘perseverance’. Perhaps more helpfully, we can think of resilience as the […]
Personal development resolutions for the modern workplace
Striking the perfect work/life balance can sometimes feel like an overwhelming task. The average day rarely feels long enough to get everything done and the pressure can have a negative impact on your professional life. Personal goals sometimes take a back seat, but it is important to ensure they are not resigned to the bottom […]
A life less ordinary – getting commercial value from Army Reservists
Look through any HR article at this time of year and you will probably be treated to predictions – all the issues facing organisations standing in the foothills of 2015 as they set out to scale this year’s personnel challenges. The old favourites get a mention of course – staff must be trained and developed, […]
Will flexible forms of working be the answer to work-life balance?
This issue was tackled in-depth in our latest report, ‘Workplace trends of 2015: What they mean for you,’ which has been produced in association with Acas and the CIPD, and looks at five key workplace trends for the year ahead and explores what they mean for HR professionals. Each trend has three expert contributions. We […]
Five steps to being productive when travelling
We’re all on the road more and more these days as we travel for meetings or to meet colleagues in other divisions. And yet we also need to be productive when we’re travelling to ensure we don’t get back to a nightmare inbox or drop the ball on important projects that can’t afford to be […]
Bring your business into the 21st century
Find out more ways to improve your workplace wellbeing with The Ultimate Wellbeing Toolkit – a practical learning hub brought to you by financial protection specialists Unum, designed to equip HR professionals with the skills and knowledge they need to show employees that they are valued. Establishing a balance between work and private life is a hot topic […]
Under-pressure managers work extra day unpaid per week
Nearly half of UK managers work at least one extra day of overtime per week, according to new research. Almost two thirds of workers feel under pressure to put in the extra hours, with 13% working two days of overtime each week, the study by the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) found. Heavy workloads […]
France moves to ban out-of-hours working
Dan Pink says that mastery and autonomy are key to employee productivity, so will banning work emails after 6pm – in an effort to improve work-life balance – actually harm engagement and success? France has just introduced rules to protect roughly a million people in the digital and consultancy sectors from receiving work email outside […]
Eight strategies to improve quality and balance in life
Regularly we read news stories about how many hours staff work beyond those they are contracted for. It’s claimed that one in five employees in the UK regularly worked unpaid overtime last year, worth over £33bn pounds to the economy. There’s even a day dedicated to working your proper hours, which this year was February […]
Burn Out or Flow Out? What a choice…
This week we were thinking about work and how much is too much. I spend a lot of my working life poised between two extremes. At the stage of the business I am currently at, I am working hard to ensure that we grow, that we retain quality, that we add value to the bottom […]
Bad work-life balance? Strengthen the separation, don’t destroy it
The original work-life balance debate emerged as gender roles broke down and the number of women in work, particularly mothers, increased dramatically. The debate was driven by equal opportunities – women with established domestic duties suddenly had professional responsibilities as well. The work-life balance has evolved – it’s now about self-actualisation. We need to be […]
Carry on Cabby – self-employment fuelled by recession and by choice
The number of people listed as self-employed rose by 367,000 between 2008 and 2012, according to the Office for National Statistics, with 60% of the increase coming between 2011 and 2012 The figures represent a 9% rise in self-employed workers since the start of the economic downturn in 2008. In total, 4.2 million people […]
News: Law firm’s ‘be in the office by 9.15am or else’ email causes storm
An email from a British manager at a global law firm which demanded that lawyers in his Shanghai office stop coming into work late has caused a storm after going viral. In a lengthy memo circulated to all associates and staff that was subsequently leaked to a legal blog, Andrew McGinty, a managing partner at […]
Blog: Work-life balance is a bottom line issue
"You are a great model of work-life balance, Ron. Thanks for showing me.” Last week I linked to an article titled Why the Work-Life Balance is Now More Important Than Ever. It was a UK-based article on work-life balance and it cited five countries and how each of them approaches it. The comment was based on […]
Blog: Are your staff getting enough shuteye?
For many of us pressing the snooze button on our alarms has become part of our daily routine and taking your laptop home alongside that extra pile of paperwork has become something of the norm. But do we actually realise the negative impact this is having on our productivity in the workplace? ‘Chronic lack of […]
News: Workmates more important than bosses for job satisfaction
While getting on with the boss certainly helps to keep staff happy at work, it is nowhere near as important as having a good relationship with colleagues, according to research. A survey undertaken among 1,000 UK workers by online recruiters Jobsite.co.uk revealed that seven out of 10 see their ‘nine-to-five buddies’ as being most crucial […]
Blog: National Work-Life Week: Getting women on the board
Everywhere I turn the debate about getting more women into British boardrooms continues. Last week we learnt the government is building a team of allies to fight the EU’s proposed introduction of mandatory quotas. The week before, BBC2 aired the second part of Dragons’ Den entrepreneur Hilary Devey’s investigation into why so few women […]
News: State pension age rises to create “limbo zone” for older workers
Increases in the state pension age will lead to the creation of a new “limbo zone” in which many workers are too young to draw their pension but too old and infirm to work. The TUC issued the warning on releasing an analysis of official labour market data, which revealed that a mere 54% of […]
