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 [...]

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 [...]

We are delighted to introduce Allan Freed as a guest author.  Allan Freed is a principal consultant with The RBL Group, a consulting firm focused on helping leaders and organizations deliver results and increase value. Allan’s current work helps organizations identify and build capabilities required for the execution of strategy through leveraging human resources and [...]

“I would tell you to go to Hell but I work there and I don’t want to see you every day.”

The above quote is apparently available as a fridge magnet in the USA …. no comment required!

Writing in the FT recently Lynda Gratton asked readers if they could feel the wind of change heading for [...]

Transatlantic from Bloomberg BusinessWeek to Sky News reportedly Nokia is looking to replace its chief executive as it struggles to compete in the smartphone market against the likes of Apple and Google. Interesting cover near on three years ago from Forbes back in 2007 on 1 billion customers can anyone catch the cellphone king? around [...]

HRN are long time fans of award winning business reporter and researcher Stefan Stern of the FT. Stefan leaves the Financial Times in August for a leadership post as Global Head of Strategy at PR giant Edelman. We are delighted to have Stefan both Chair and input his expert opinion at this year’s talent [...]

HR professionals have been fast adopters of social media, why for example HR and OD professionals on LinkedIn represent the largest group alongside sales & marketing and ICT professionals. HR are not just using Social Media for networking but for improving their value as a profession. Clearly in many cases, many identify social media channels as [...]

TRANSFORM 2010 – The European HR Transformation Summit

Dates: 10-11 October 2010

Location: London, United Kingdom

Please visit [Event Website]

Introduction

In the business world today organizations have to learn to expect the unexpected. It can be many things ‐ game changing technology, innovation, economic crisis, terrorism, natural catastrophe, or even legislative change. Business needs to be agile, flexible, and [...]

For many people “work” still remains a necessary evil – it’s too often a case of doing something that has to be done, like it or not, to survive in the modern world. The dark satanic mills evoked by William Blake in Jerusalem may have almost disappeared in the developed economies, and employers constantly [...]

Does your company qualify as a most or least admired company?

If your company is ’least admired’ does that mean your business is - will perform poorly?

An interesting take on “top companies for leadership” from our friends at The RBL Group – this time Norm Smallwood digs a little deeper to offer better perspective on why he believes leadership development in [...]

Competing for the attention of the talented is a something of a challenge these days, and in the online soundbite world you need to grab attention fast; first impressions count. Beyond first impressions, attracting people today, particularly those young talented high potentials we read so much about, companies are having to contend [...]

Go to the people

Live among the people

Learn from them

Love them.

Start with what they know,

Build on what they have.

But of the best leaders,

When their task is accomplished,

Their work is done,

The people will remark,

“We have done it ourselves.”

Chinese Poem

My family recently moved home again and I found this poem in one of my old work diary’s - it had been tucked [...]

This month I wanted to revisit a nervous twitch I had recently in Vienna – airports, airlines and union strikes. France is often the first mental picture my mind conjures when I hear “strike”, however I think the UK is fast replacing that picture. In the media spotlight strikes can send butterflies to the pit of your stomach for many reasons but [...]

Most of us will have had a feeling or presentiment about another person and have, if we are honest, allowed it to influence our judgement. There is a legend that says most people either get a job / second interview based on the first 30 seconds of the meeting – perhaps this is an [...]

Coaching is a crucial management skill. Unfortunately, there are still many misconceptions about the subject. Here’s a list of 30 tips from Jeroen De Flander and Sir John Whitmore. The  post has been reproduced by kind permission of Jeroen De Flander, author Strategy Execution Heroes. Jeroen will respond to comments on this post.

Ask open questions. [...]

Or aquisition? Thanks to better human resource management practices over the last few years, HR will merge/marry with other functions such as marketing and communications. Social media and emerging web technologies in general are used for recruiting (finding prospective employees), marketing (creating business opportunities), building relationships (getting connected with the community) and in general feeding relevant [...]

I have lost my share of time over the years on projects, start-ups ….. the world of work and felt some sort of retribution when I discovered (See below) a sample daily schedule of a Googler. Life as a Google executive seems more like a classic modern day tale of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

Sample Schedule as seen on BusinessWeek:

Marissa Mayer [...]

Marge: “Homer, the plant called. They said if you don’t show up tomorrow don’t bother showing up on Monday.”

Homer: “Woo-hoo! Four-day weekend!”

Recently, I became a very proud father. The positive affect of our new arrival in the first few months – to say that it was difficult to concentrate on work, is an understatement. Our [...]

Over at Harvard Business Review Tammy Erickson writes up her “Predictions for 2010: Five Changes in the Way We work”. This is an interesting comment and one I commend to readers of this blog; her predictions seem not only to be spot on but also have considerable implications for the way people are managed [...]

Heavy HR? Looking for a New Year’s resolution? Does your HR Department need to go on a diet?

Driving through the snow this morning I pondered my first post of 2010, given the time of year I thought it best to focus in on January tradition. Roll up! Roll Up! Yes it is that time [...]