The rise of flexible working
On 16th July 2019, the BBC reported on conservative MP Helen Whately who introduced a flexible working bill in Parliament. I was a little surprised to read this as there is already the right to request flexible working within the UK. Currently employees with continuous 26 weeks service, who have not previously made a request in the preceding 12 months, have the right to request to work flexibly. Employers must consider the request but there is no statutory obligation to grant the request.
Do employees trust their employers to do what’s right by them?
In an employment relationship, trust and confidence plays the part as an implied term of the mutual expectations between both Employer and Employee. It doesn’t really need spelling out, we are all humans and generally trust and confidence in each other should be a given, right? Much of this works in the same way as it does with your relationships outside of work…
The personalisation of HR again and stepping away from AI
I’m going to jump in with both feet and just give a personal view in this blog, because it interests me but also because AI both amazes me and scares me at the same time! After a long winding road of thoughts about the subject I came to the conclusion that AI technology is slightly trying to steal our shine. AI is in fact described as the simulation of human intelligence, but ask yourself, if it’s based on human intelligence, it will only be as intelligent as the person/s feeding in information and teaching it. So how intelligent is it really? Basically, AI is trying to be the copycat of us amazing human beings but in my opinion it’s not quite there yet.
Training and Development - Are you really filling the important gaps?
As a training provider, you would think that most of our work comes to us through clients who know exactly what they want, have either worked with us before or they've heard about us through word of mouth, through the website or perhaps social media. For a lot of our clients and new clients, they come to us asking the question that comes before that, which is “what do we actually need?”. For example, a client will come to us saying that they have an issue perhaps in a certain team or sometimes the whole business! As we all know the impact of a team not functioning well will be that productivity drops and has an impact on the performance of the whole business.
Empowering Manager's to support their teams
Previous data collected from departing employees, analysed in a Gallup survey conducted in 2018 suggests that people tend to leave managers and not the company. With one in two people admitting that they left a role due to their manager, this is a stark warning to employers. How can we be sure that our managers are contributing to our turnover rate? Can a great manager be created or is it a skill set that is an intrinsic personality trait?
Giving Feedback
Effective communication is a fundamentally essential component of high performance. There are numerous benefits of giving and receiving feedback for personal development. It helps with the building and maintaining of good relationships, at the workplace or at home. And while it is accepted that the role of feedback is a major contributor to all of this, many people struggle with both giving and receiving feedback.
Should we bring in new talent to fill roles, or develop in-house talent?
One question we get asked quite a lot within the HR team is whether we recruitment for our clients. The answer is one of those annoying responses of “yes and no”! By this I mean we do not do the actual recruiting which I'll explain shortly, but what we do is offer advice to help the client establish what the need actually is and the best way of fulfilling this. So, when I say that we don't do the recruiting, we're not a recruitment agency and have no intention of ever offering this as a service. To be a good recruitment agency, that needs to be the sole purpose of the business with people highly skilled in recruitment. We work with many of the best recruiters across the UK (and beyond) so if you're reading this thinking, I needed help with recruitment, do give us a call and we can point you in the right direction.
The secret to how outsourcing can save your life!
As business owners or managers, we excel in our field, some may even call us experts including ourselves! But one thing we all discover is you can’t be good at everything and this blog discusses the pros of using outsourced help.
Why is the employee experience so important?
Employee experience? Isn’t that basically the same as employee engagement, or indeed another fancy description of it? Let’s have a look at the differences so we can understand why it is so important.
Open plan offices – good or bad?
Whether you are in an open plan office or looking at this as an option, it’s a good thing to consider whether it will work for your particular business, whilst being considerate of the needs of your employees.
Is silence golden?
I had a thought recently (just the one, I don’t like to overwork the grey matter), and that was, whether an office worked better silently or was hustle and bustle a better idea? This idea didn’t just pop in to my head...
The TUPE transfer: what does it actually mean?
The process starts with a commercial decision to either sell part or all of the business or change the service provision or contract to another supplier. Once this has been confirmed, any employees that are currently employed by the outgoing company undertaking that specific element of the business, are identified as having the potential to transfer to the new company.
Are you supporting your employees with non-visible disabilities?
I am currently sat outside the British Library in the sunshine using my time before my meeting to put this blog together for you. The reason I mention my location (other than to ...
The importance of goal setting to your professional success
There is an industry built upon this subject, there are business coaches and mentors and all manner or inspirational courses for you to attend, most of them with good reason. Setting a goal for yourself can be tough.
The role and value of Coaching in the workplace
The role and value of Coaching in the workplace