Unemployment in men in this recession is significantly higher than that in women. Beyond impact on work, huge social changes are resulting. In Europe there are now enough women in the workplace to change how it looks, feels, and functions. No longer a man’s world, women are also dominating higher education and 2 out of [...]

I found these golden nuggets from Uncle Sam, innovative ways in which businesses are reaching their people through a variety of social media tools.  Example include Electronic Arts, Pitney Bowes, and AT&T using social media tools and technology to tap workers’ collective intelligence to solve problems, reduce costs, and find new markets! Really interested to pick [...]

This week I’ve decided to string out a blast of questions on talent management. Why? Well for one it embodies coaching and mentoring – “ask really good questions that challenge/motivate you and-or offer a different perspective on things”. My first job after travelling was in Auckland, New Zealand. A job where everyone was left to [...]

Roger Federer Video on personal excellence and deliberate practice. Amazing shot and first time I’ve noticed he actually sounds Irish. I am sure there are plenty back home who would love to adopt him from Switzerland.

By the same token then, listed below are the six keys to achieving excellence and fun pepsi video on some [...]

Good talent is worth fighting for. At senior levels of an organization, the ability to adapt, to make decisions quickly in situations of high uncertainty, and to steer through wrenching change is critical. But at a time when the need for better talent is increasing, big companies continue to find it difficult to attract and [...]

German Coast Guard – 1st day on the job!

Inspiration to help find a job!

Some more visuals on the changing landscape of social media. Employees have over the past 12 months according to Nielson, spent 28% less time looking at e-mails. Firmly placed in the Number 1 spot is of course Social Media. Below some social maps on the changing landscapes in just under 3 years. Any predictions on [...]

Here is are an interesting set of initiatives from Societe Generale Banking Group in Paris on “Ambition 2015″ and how they aim “to deliver growth with lower risk” over the next 5 years. As Europe’s banks have supposedly tightened their belts and somewhat regulated over the past 12 months or so, if you have been [...]

Latest installment of funny videos – this week from Armstrong and Miller on the Origins of Job Interviews!

Below, you will find some of the more interesting career sites and graduate programs out there today. Plus, a couple of corporate student competitions which have become a successful way of sourcing young talent and  helping businesses find innovative ideas and solutions to some of their biggest challenges. I have also included an interesting thread [...]

Some feedback from past video’s we’ve posted, is to “please post more”. So if there is anything out there that is funny-timely (please do send them in) we will do our best to share them on time for your Friday morning coffee. This week I have pinched a funny advert from an HR job agency [...]

On reflection of one of our most visited blog posts – Vision Values and SuperPerformance – Mark Hurd has come through with flying colours for our HP Insider, as various discussion groups on the blogosphere from some “HPers” to vent and in some cases confirm his/her comments.

Our Comments on the good, the bad and the [...]

I found BBC’s Tom Burridge’s recent report on Finnish Schools very interesting.

Why do Finland’s schools get the best results?

Finland’s schools score consistently at the top of world rankings, yet the pupils have the fewest number of class hours in the developed world. Last year more than 100 foreign delegations and governments visited Helsinki, hoping to learn [...]

Siemens are to create jobs through green investment in Germany and Hungary. Siemens is participating in the development of two ecofriendly combined-cycle power plants – one in the German state of Brandenburg and the other in Hungary – in scope of which it will employ about 1,000 people over the next three years, the company [...]

Great ideas for conference calling!

The prominence of demographic change and skill shortages has recently been overtaken by the financial crisis of the past two or so years. With unemployment at record highs during that period, it would be easy to assume we no longer have a skills shortage problem. However, skills shortages still exist in many industries, and the [...]

Recently on holiday, over a well earned beer (we spent most of the first two days of our holiday abroad with my wife and son in the hospital – my wife broke her leg), I picked up the remote and switched on the TV for the first time in a long time.

Undercover Boss: Joseph M. [...]

Europe, 1 billion man hours lost to fictitious sick leave each year.

Across Europe, more than 120 million sick days a year are actually taken for personal reasons rather than for an illness according to Aon Consulting, the employee risk and benefits management firm.

15% of the 7,500 European workers surveyed in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, [...]

Steve Jobs and Ed Catmull – a backstage look at the mechanics of culture, decision making and innovation in Apple and Pixar.

Steve Jobs’ description of Apple’s culture as that of a startup gives an important insight into the company’s ongoing success. At the recent All Things D conference, Steve Jobs described Apple’s (AAPL) culture as “that [...]

The 15 Highest Unemployment Rates in the World by MarketWatch, DailyFinance, Yahoo! Finance, and TheStreet.com. (Europe not listed as a nation)

The global unemployment problem is so huge that the total number of jobless in the ten most populous nations in the world totals 1.1 billion. That is only slightly smaller than the population of China.

Macedonia’s [...]