This month, the Living Wage Foundation announced that over 2,000 employers have signed up to pay the Living Wage. That sounds good but does that bode well for employees and employers – have the hidden costs been glossed over? Individuals should be paid a fair wage for their skills/effort provided they maintain such skillls, are […]
[Note: this article was amended on 29/09/2015 to correct typing errors]. Professional journals and newspapers have been lamenting that rising wage costs are not matched by increases in productivity. Some writers have referred to this dilemma as the Productivity Enigma. Have we taken our eye of the ball? Productivity is a key concern of […]
[Text amended 01/09/2018] Making Organisations Fit for Purpose Organisational capability, agile organisations, responsive organisations are phrases we encounter in the search for an organisational structure that will prove fit for purpose. The pace of technology and the growth of knowledge workers has cast doubt on whether the traditional hierarchical organisation structure is appropriate to […]
Why Do You Appraise Staff? Do you experience tangible benefits for the time invested? Appraisal is one of the practices that we seem afraid to terminate in case we are branded as backward managers. We could rename our process as performance management which may sound more effective but that will not solve the underlying tiredness […]
When the economic climate is troubled, industrial action tends to increase due to several factors – differing political views, general uncertainty, frustration and accentuated problems within organisations. You can be caught up by such action even though your organisation is not a target. For example, delivery drivers and service engineers may encounter picket lines when […]
The need to engage with work forces to help drive the economy forward is receiving much attention. Many attempts have been made to define engagement (1) but put simply it is about connecting with employees and others associated with the organisation to produce an effective and customer focused firm that adapts successfully. Academic studies have […]
In companies and public service organisations, senior managers face similar challenges to raise performance and provide added value. Their technology, markets, resources and context will differ but they will assert that their people are their most important asset but still struggle to optimize innovation and performance of their people. In the turbulent months ahead, it […]
Managers have faced the need to contain or reduce costs for many years although the current economic climate has accentuated that for many. The growing interest in innovative ways to reduce costs will be reviewed in this and subsequent articles over the next few months. Many articles describe the ‘new’ approaches but omit to explain […]