February’s recommended read: Legacy by James Kerr

quino-al-517733

After an incredible start to this years’ Six Nations this weekend, I thought that this month’s read was incredibly apt, given that it is all about what the New Zealand All Blacks team can teach us about leadership and sustaining success.

This unique and inspiring book was recommended to me at the CIPD MAP conference last year by Matthew Crawford who spoke at the conference about the future of work from an educational (and children’s!) perspective.

This book will suit everyone, for those looking for a “how to” approach, techniques for professional standards, and practical lessons for effective leadership. It also encourages the development of leadership qualities such as accountability and ownership.

Continue reading “February’s recommended read: Legacy by James Kerr”

What a true HR leader looks like, according to HR

brooke-lark-194253

After another fantastic HR Hour on Twitter this week, we explored what qualities we would look for in a HR leader.

As you can imagine, this really generated a constructive conversation and it appears that many HR professionals like to see the same qualities in a leader, albeit in different ways. In this post I’ve picked some of my favourite tweets from the evening, so a huge thank you to the contributors who made the session so informative, we learn something new every week!

Having been fortunate throughout my career, I have worked with a couple of inspirational and positive HR leaders, but many involved in this week’s HR hour were convinced that a HR leader honing these desirable qualities is hard to find.

Continue reading “What a true HR leader looks like, according to HR”

It’s time to make recruitment more human

rawpixel-com-351765

We hear the term “making the workplace more human” so when we are putting this into practice, why do we insist on using the same old recruitment processes?

After Thursday’s thought provoking HR Hour on Twitter, I thought it would be appropriate to highlight the HR world’s thoughts on how we can improve the process and really make it relevant to the changing world of work.

Every manager dreads asking competency based interview questions “Tell me about a time when…” these questions are rigid, artificial and if candidates googled the ideal answers to these standard questions, they’ll be able to get well-structured answers to put them in the best light and the hiring manager will be none the wiser, thinking that they’d found the ideal candidate.

Continue reading “It’s time to make recruitment more human”

Back to work blues? Blame the bosses…

anna-dziubinska-348

 “A bad boss can take a great workforce and destroy it, causing the best employees to flee and the remainder to lose all motivation”

After all the festivities, it’s time to head back to the office and it’s no surprise that January is notoriously known for being the most depressing month of the year (yikes, tough crowd you’ve got here January!).

However, despite the dark days, dark nights and miserable weather, January is a month of opportunity and a perfect time for organisations to review their working practices to make improvements for the future.

Continue reading “Back to work blues? Blame the bosses…”

2018… Bring it on!

nordwood-themes-467442

Happy new year to you all!

As the Prosecco starts to wear off and the parties end; the New Year is the perfect time to realign our focus onto what is important.

Reflecting on 2017, we saw plenty of employment changes in the workplace. A responsive Human Resources department should be able to fulfil the needs of their organisations. In the past year alone, we have seen the introduction of the Apprenticeship Levy, the removal of Employment Tribunal fees, experienced the impact of impending Brexit, and we are now preparing our clients for the challenges that come with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in May 2018.

Continue reading “2018… Bring it on!”