Psychological Profiling and Recruitment

This one made me smile!

More Evidence of the Potential for Better Management to Boost Productivity, Performance and Fulfillment at Work

More than four in ten UK employees are considering quitting their job in the next year, YouGov research for Investors in People suggests. In a report published in April 2008:
A lack of motivation at work is cited as a major problem, with unreasonable workloads, feeling underpaid and a lack of career path being blamed.
About [...]

How To Be an Outstanding Manager

This new 2 hour seminar is aimed at Managers, Senior Managers, Leaders and Human Resource Managers from any type of organisation where improving performance matters.
It will show how managers can quickly boost their managerial effectiveness.
The seminar will introduce participants to four practical management processes that are the hallmark of highly effective managers. These four [...]

Top Tips for Improving Performance Reviews

The performance review process is not about writing good performance reviews.
It is about planning a trajectory for the employees work in the coming year – based on an analysis of their performance in the past year – it is about influencing the future.
Always ask the employee to provide you with their own self assessment 2-3 [...]

Praise can backfire!

Giving employees positive feedback in the hopes of promoting better performance can sometimes backfire, suggests new research from the psychology department and the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and the London Business School.
As I understand it they conducted an experiment where undergraduates were asked to act as managers in a recruitment process. [...]

Time Management Resource

A new manifesto has just been published on time management over at the Change This site.
In essence it recommends forgetting about tips, tricks and gizmos – instead building a really solid understanding of the 7 fundamental practices of time management;

Capturing – making sure that all calls on your time are captured in a system – [...]

NHS Trusts Poor Management Practice

The Healthcare Commission has published a report based on an annual survey of 155 000 NHS staff and some of the findings make interesting reading for the progressive manager.

Only 26% thought their trust valued their work. This figure ranged between trusts from 58% to 11%.
Survey responses indicate poor levels of communication between staff and [...]

Alien versus Predator 2; Profit taking versus social enterprise

“For a profit maximising company, the bottom line is how much money you make. But when you run a social business, it’s about impact.”
Mohammed Younis
For a publicly listed company there is a legal obligation on the Board of Directors to act in a way that will maximise the return on investment to shareholders i.e. profit.
For [...]

People are our Most Important Asset…

That is the ‘espoused’ theory in just about every business I have EVER worked in or consulted for. It says it on the web site and in the annual report so it must be true.
But the theory in practice is usually a very different one.

People are a controllable cost
People are interchangeable parts – just [...]

In Praise of Praise – Wally Bock

 
Wally Bock has written a great post on the power of praise in management.  It includes sections on:

What we know about praise
What we know about how to give good praise, and
Why don’t managers praise more?

If you find giving affirming feedback difficult – or just want to get better at it then have a look at [...]