A recent study has shown that office workers can work up to an extra 16 days a year if they eat lunch at their desks and do not take a break.

The research, performed by a UK university, also discovered that:

-       Half of the 1,000 employees surveyed claimed that they felt guilty if they took a full hour

-       60% of employees surveyed say they eat lunch at their desks

-       Two thirds take 30 minutes or less, even though they are entitled to a full…

There is no doubt about it, the Australian workplace is going through massive structural changes.  Wage costs are high. The cost of living and working in the major capitals is also high. In case you hadn’t noticed, Sydney is the seventh most expensive city in the world. Melbourne is the eighth.

So it’s no surprise that organisations have been…

Over here at RedBalloon we've been discussing how disengagement manifests itself across different industries. The topic of athletes came up after a discussion about the Olympics - so we had a bit of fun chatting about some famous Aussie athletes who have shown signs of disengagement in recent times.

So here is our list of the top five most well-known disengaged and misbehaving Australian Olympians, and where…

Those who read the thermals of the future workforce are like eagles. But when we unexpectedly lose our job, we're like seagulls, fighting over the scraps.

 High skilled jobs will be the cornerstone of our economy and HR will play a leading role in directing job seekers and ‘upskillers’ to the VET sector.

 The Australian Government's Skills for All initiative is now subsidising  places for all Australians aged 16 to pension age to complete a first  certificate 111 or IV…

Why should you invest in creating an entrepreneurial culture for your organisation? Quite simply, you will create a team of people who push the boundaries, look for hidden opportunities and understand profitable growth.

Once you’ve developed a workplace that breeds innovative thinking, you won’t accept talent into your business that doesn’t have that spirit about them. New staff will immediately see a culture where challenging and pushing the boundaries is encouraged and…

I’ve noticed, as I go around talking to organisations about diagnosing, understanding and harnessing their creativity to improve their business practices, that there is one crucial ingredient of creativity that most people don’t know about. This makes me think that idea Incubation might be the secret ingredient of innovation and problem solving.

Some people, like Steve Jobs, know the secret automatically, but…

Ask a group of managers for their tips on providing effective feedback, and the ‘sandwich’ method is often put forward as a winning approach.

The premise of this technique is that if a person needs to deliver some "negative" feedback to somebody else they should sandwich it between two pieces of positive feedback, to cushion the…

Whilst the focus has always been on the all-important high level of engagement in employees, (and the subsequent positives outcomes for your business); a new report suggests that the correlation is not as simple as previously thought. The research identifies that there are actually…

A recent decision of Fair Work Australia serves as a useful reminder of the importance of properly characterising contractors and employees. It is also likely to give rise to exclamations of surprise given the presence of what might otherwise have been thought to have been iron clad indicia of a principal/independent contractor relationship.

In Kuat Chee v Renown Business Solutions Pty Ltd (Renown), Commissioner Jones was called upon to determine whether the…

People management – great or grim?

In early April I posted a blog HR Manager’s Effectiveness: 21 variables to aspire to.

It took 2077 hits.  What follows is a further development of the theme – the…

Recruiters on the wrong side of the two-speed economy should be look to improve internal processes before focusing on external business development programs.

Outside the mining and resources sectors, the soft jobs market has left recruiters with plenty of time on their hands, and many have gone full tilt into campaigns designed to broaden the company’s scope and secure new clients.

However, a pre-occupation with bringing in new clients is not the silver bullet to surviving the…

Attempting to predict what your employees will do and say according to a personality profile may seem ambitious, but profiling can help you to understand employees and what motivates them; not to mention what may trigger disengagement and subsequently subtract…

Many years ago when I was much younger, single and making my way in the world of work I carefully considered what type of education would help me develop my career. I had concluded that my economics degree may not be sufficient to take me where I wanted my career to go, which was into some form of leadership role.

I looked at the brochures (these were the pre-Internet days) of a few post-graduate programs that I was interested in that were available at various Sydney tertiary…

Whatever your role in the workplace, I’m betting you would like to go to work and be able to do your best in an environment which is fun, productive, friendly, happy, inspirational and positive, makes a difference, and has a great reputation (oh and pays enough to give you a decent standard of living).

Would I win my bet?  If not, please contact me right away as I will be fascinated to know the reason why!

I’ve been in a minority at times given the grouches people have about…

We  already know that an engaged employee is a valuable one, but the full cost of the disengaged employee goes way beyond the dollar.

Just how far, you ask? Let’s compare:

Your engaged employee is a dream to employ, they are enthused by their job, arrive at work ready to excel and to help their colleagues to do the same. Not only do they feel they get out as much as they put in, they feel they get more and will readily tell anyone who will listen just how much…

Dear Hiring Manager,

So, just to make sure I clearly understand you.

You consistently call our entire industry  ‘cowboys’, who add no value and who cannot, or will not, build relationships. You often warm to your theme by telling us we don’t understand your business or your briefs, fail to match appropriately, never provide insights, and do not invest time to understand the nuances of your company and your unique culture. You deride us as ‘resume shufflers’ and ‘phone-jockeys’,…

Since the emergence of social media as a recruiting tool, I have heard a number of people comment and read articles that suggest recruiters now need to think like marketers. This is very true, but please tell me something new!

Whether you are working in an in-house recruitment or agency role, without doubt much of what you do and have done for ever requires good old fashioned marketing principles. I remember one of the toughest things I had to learn when entering the…

Welcome to my blog!

Power2Motivate provides the world’s best employee reward & recognition, sales incentive, customer loyalty and training solutions. We partner with our clients to create solutions that improve performance.

I will be blogging about people and performance management, employee engagement and motivation, staff retention and ways to inspire innovation in employees.

So please bookmark, share, add our Google Reader feed or just have a chat…