The widespread damage caused by the recent wild weather and flooding across the eastern-seaboard gives rise to a number of significant personal and commercial difficulties.

In an industrial relations context, many of our clients have been seeking advice on their legal obligations in situations where their employees are not able to attend for work as a result of the wild weather, or they have no useful work for employees to perform as…

More from Tedx, this time in Philadelphia, where Adam Grant discusses the most effective method for motivating employees, and it’s free.

Adam Grant spent some time in a call centre in the Midwest. He arranged for a group of trainees to meet an “internal customer” or an employee from another department whose job depends on the sales brought in by these trainees. The result was a 20% increase in revenue per shift. Of course, the meetings were combines with inspirational talks from the…

Following the recent Kochie outrage; mothers, breastfeeding and public places are a hot topic. Rather than jumping on the bandwagon and diving into familiar debates over women’s rights, appropriateness and professionalism, we thought we’d share some examples of women who are breastfeeding wherever and whenever they choose (including the workplace) and how the government and employers are responding.

Over in the US,…

Here’s a story that you might be able to relate to.  (Names and some details have been changed to maintain anonymity.)

We have a friend (let’s call him James) who works for a family run business – Dad’s the CEO, Mum’s the bookkeeper/finance manager. One of their adult kids works in the business too; their daughter is the office manager.

The business is reasonably successful – it has good products that fit a niche in the market, and the business appears to be making a good…

 I have worked with managers in the past who have said that a particular team member is looking around – go have a chat with them, find out what salary we need to offer to keep them. So I ask, how do you know they are looking around. Well, they say, I heard from such-and-such who told so-and-so that this person was on the phone with a recruiter and was seen using Seek.

In all likelihood, it is too late. If someone is out there on final interview, or in fact gives you notice, offering…

Abstract:

Global Project teams should be considered the best vehicle for organizations to respond to a changing environment characterized by cultural and logistic complexity, but their effectiveness depends on achieving a degree of integration and mutual commitment to organizational goals. For a project team to achieve maximum performance and potential, its manager must find the right balance between process and people orientation, the…

One of the biggest barriers I have found in organisations when developing vision and strategy has been the lack of understanding about different ways people take in and process information.  When this isn't recognised, nor addressed in the right way, there ends up a mismatch of buy-in right from the intial development phase.  I remember an acquaintence some years ago telling me she was totally frustrated about all of these meetings her boss and some colleagues were holding about the future…

Malcom Gladwell's book, Blink: The power of thinking without thinking (Penguin, 2005), has a number of fantastic insights highly relevant for recruiters, specifically when Gladwell explores the ‘less is more' syndrome.

Gladwell asserts that in certain circumstances, receiving more information about an issue can cause you to become more inaccurate or ineffective in your response to, or conclusions about, that issue with a corresponding increase in your…

Communication is the oil in the engine of any business and yet it is often neglected, careless or squandered – especially in meetings. Few people look forward to business meetings because they are frequently felt to be unproductive and a waste of time.  But, all too often they are also reluctant to put in the required effort to prepare in advance, be on time and stick to the agenda! 

You can’t have it both ways

If any of the meetings…

...WHAT'S THE WEATHER GOING TO BE LIKE TODAY?

How often have you thought or asked this question at the start of the day?…

At the beginning of every year a stream of research appears, claiming a decline in engagement levels, a lack of job satisfaction and grim tales of ever-decreasing retention rates, also known as employee New Year Blues.

For example, particular piece of research conducted by Seek Learning reveals widespread New Year Blues, after a survey of over 1200 Australian working adults. Seek…

Let’s talk about reporting and metrics.

I know we all write reports of various kinds and I also know that many of them are headed for landfill before the ink is dry. Heaven knows, I’ve done my share over the years!

The emerging story of HR and big data is fascinating and worth paying attention to. It is supported by rapid advances in technology and the increasing specialization of HR roles. Josh…

The Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Amendment Bill 2012 (Cth) (“the Bill”) received assent in December 2012. The Bill implemented several amendments to the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Act 1999 (Cth) including a name change to the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 (Cth) (“the Act”).

The amendments to the Act are targeted towards promoting gender equality in the workplace, to improving the…

The recent discovery of a leadership gene has reignited debate around the historically popular concept of a magic leadership trait. Research from the University College London indicates that there is a gene associated with directing and coordinating people. Does this mean that some have an innate advantage to gaining upper-level positions over others?  While leaders across the nation offer self-congratulatory pats on the back for beating natural selection, let’s step back and reassess what…

Since when is it okay to wear blue jeans to a job interview?

This was the question posed by a client this week as he shook his head in disbelief that a candidate could think that this was in some way acceptable attire for a first job interview. Especially for a senior role paying in the vicinity of $150K….I had to agree.

I’ve come a long way from working at…

If you're an acknowleged star at work and you wonder whether the grass might be greener on the other side, the evidence is likely to have you recommit to your current employer.

Here's why:

Recently LeadingCompany published a Harvard Business Review article based  on detailed research over seven years into the…

 Do you sometimes just feel stuck, frustrated or weary of the effort of trying to change either yourself or others? .  One of the traits of a great leader is open-mindedness.  What follows is a simple technique to help you to practice your open-mindedness muscle.

I don’t think any of us could be totally open-minded because we continually have to make decisions and in order to make decisions we usually have to come to some sort of conclusion even if that means not making a decision at…

What’s the difference between a team and a collection of individuals each taking clearly defined roles?  What defines a mature team from an immature one? When do we support an ailing team-member, and when do we call it a day?  Wouldn’t it be simpler to streamline operations and just do it yourself?  

These are just a few of the very real questions that have come up in the past couple of months. Here are a few of the insights that have emerged:  

• No team will ever be perfect ……

I have already discussed the importance of …

Aaah, January. The time of year when we all head back to work feeling rested, reinvigorated and excited about the year ahead -right?

Well… maybe in a perfect world – reality might look a little different. This is something that we hear a lot from our clients; the business owners head into the first day of work feeling excited about all the great things planned for the year ahead. But when they get there, they discover some of their employees are still riding the high of the festive…