Firms Fail to Deal with Under-Performance
More than half of employers are not grasping the nettle when it comes to dealing with under-performance, according to a new survey.The poll showed the public sector to be the worst culprit, with 62% of civil servants claiming that their organisation does not deal effectively with underperformers.While in the private sector, IT companies fared worst, […]
Review: The Fusion Manager
Title: The Fusion Manager Author: Robert Heller Publisher: Profile Books LtdISBN: 1861976461 Price: £14.99 Reviewer: Kay Maddox Fusion Management is, apparently, similar to fusion cooking. It combines the best of the West and East. Contextualising this in management speak it appears to be the certainty in the West (through scientific principles and the like) and […]
Review: The Management Task – 3rd edition
Title: The Management Task – 3rd editionAuthor: Rob DixonPublisher: Butterworth HeinemannISBN: 0 7506 5985 8Reviewer:Jo Lamb-WhiteThis book has been published in association with the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) and is one of a series marketed under the Institute’s banner and is pitched at Certificate level (NVQ level 4).If you have ever thought that NVQ meant […]
Feature: Sharing Knowledge
A customer facing and internal knowledge-sharing network can unlock information that employees, partners and customers possess, but don’t necessarily share. Peter Nicol, OutStart EMEA VP, explains how. The way a company makes the most of existing knowledge within the business is a determining force to its overall financial and operational success. But the knowledge needed […]
Staff Held Back by Poor Management
British businesses are being held back by managers who fail to get the best out of their staff, according to the latest Workers’ Index published by MORI and The Work Foundation. Almost one in four employees (24%) say that they are not inspired by their bosses and just over a quarter (27%) say that senior […]
Review: The Motivation Game
Title: The Motivation GameEditor/Author: Peter Gerrickens and Marijke VerstegePublisher: GowerPrice: £44.22ISBN: 0566085194Reviewer: Nigel HarrisMaybe it lost something in translation from the original 2002 Dutch version, but whilst this looks like a pack of playing cards, it most certainly isn’t a game! I would prefer to think of it as a box of visual aids for […]
The Way I See It… A Checklist for Leadership
The debate over what makes a good leader is a long, controversial and passionate one. In this week’s opinion piece Claudine McClean, of Structured Training, offers her view. The leadership imperative is increasing. Organisations that don’t have a clear strategy for leadership development are putting themselves at a competitive disadvantage. Unfortunately, it doesn’t develop naturally […]
Managers Make Better Decisions After Training
More than two-thirds of managers believe that training has improved their decision-making abilities, according to a survey by the Chartered Management Institute.The research, which questioned 615 senior executives, found that 45% of respondents felt better equipped to make decisions due to their management status, while, 70% suggested that training has influenced their ability. Despite nine […]
Team Building Tops Training Poll
Team building courses have been voted the best and most enjoyable in a survey of HR and training managers.Team building beat Neuro Linguistic Programming training (second), and management skills education courses (third). Train the trainer courses came fourth in the poll.Meanwhile Health and Safety courses were voted the worst or least enjoyable, ahead of finance […]
The Way I See It… Team Tactics
Are your teams able to hit the ground running? Here Mark West sets out why they need to be ready and how to prepare them. We don’t belong to one team any more; we belong to many. Moreover some of those teams – project teams for example – may be short lived. We no longer […]
TUC Call to Ban Workplace Bullying
Around two million people have been bullied at work in the past six months, many of them by their managers, according to the TUC. The union body is calling on the government to change the law to prevent millions more workers becoming the new victims of the UK’s office bullies. According to the TUC’s research, […]
New President at CMI
David Varney, the executive chairman of HM Revenue and Customs, is the new President of the Chartered Management Institute. He succeeds Sir Paul Judge, the chairman of the Royal Society of Arts. Varney’s career started as personnel assistant at the Shell Refining Company, where he moved through the ranks to become a director of Shell […]
Staff Development Key to Company Success
Talent development rather then recruitment should be the priority within organisations, keynote speaker Rosabeth Moss Kanter told delegates at the CIPD Conference.Moss Kanter said that HR professionals should concentrate on providing the right environment for staff to flourish, rather than focussing on recruiting new talent.The Harvard Business School professor, recently named as “one of the […]
The Way I See It… Favouring the First Born
Nick Hood, senior London partner at business recovery and turnaround specialist Begbies Traynor highlights the danger for businesses in unfairly favouring existing employees at the expense of later arrivals. A study by the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration shows how the first born invariably becomes a higher achiever in families with more than […]
Review: Outdoor Management Development
Title: Outdoor Management Development: A Critical Introduction for the Intelligent PractitionerAuthor: Willem G Krouwel Publisher: Institute of Training and Occupational Learning ISBN: 0-9539790-1-6Price: £7.99Reviewer: Mike Taylor This unimposing book packs quite a punch. An introduction it is, but it is far from superficial – and no matter how experienced you are in using the outdoors […]
Feature: Coaching Poor Performers
Phil Morgan of People Business Results looks at how line managers can use coaching to help staff with performance issues improve. Three quarters of UK bosses (75%) and almost 80% of their staff (79%) believe that “deadwood” – employees who consistently under-perform – is an issue of concern to their organisation, according to a survey […]
The Way I See It… Honesty is the Best Policy
Following on from last week’s opinion piece Motivation is not a Commodity, Peter Hunter explains why honest, straight talking can be a great motivator. Throughout our industries, both public and private, there persists a perception that motivation is a commodity to be handed out by the manager at his own discretion. Nobody seems to consider […]
Trainer’s Tip: Management Training Exercise
If you have management training coming up, try this exercise from Phil Morgan. A nice simple exercise is to ask the following questions: Why do people perform? Why do people not perform? 1. Split the group into small sub groups and get them to answer the questions on a flip chart. 2. Debrief the answers […]
Development Opportunities Attract Managers
Forty per cent of managers say they joined their current company because of the development package on offer, according to a study by the Chartered Management Institute.But while managers may be actively seeking companies that offer opportunities for learning, 41% of respondents said that their employer had no specific training and development budget.This lack of […]
The Way I See It… Motivation is not a Commodity
In a world of quick fixes, motivational seminars may seem like a way of getting results, fast. But can motivation really be turned on like a tap? Peter Hunter maintains that staff motivation problems are generally too deep-seated for a simple cure-all. Motivation is seen as something to be supplied to the workforce in discrete […]