Two countries, four cities and lots of air-miles...My recent trip to North America took in San Fransisco, Toronto, New York and Napa. This was a great opportunity to experience business life on another continent as well as the chance to lift the lid on the recruitment and HR industry in the most advanced economy in the world.

On a professional level, there was a lot to learn and bring home to share with colleagues and clients.

The American Talent Acquisition and Recruitment…

As the world’s population continues to grow and becomes increasingly older we are experiencing a change in the traditional organisational structure of employment. For many, a number of socio economic factors, have led to a prolonged working life and as a result, the retirement age has become redundant. So, whilst the recent news that Australian Treasurer, Joe Hockey, wants to raise the nation’s retirement age to 70, this has little impact for those with delayed retirement on the agenda…

Last week we begun a mini series on understanding perception to improve behaviour and communication at work - if you missed Part 1 on ‘assumptions’ click here. This week we are surfacing the idea of ‘Maps’.

The Map Is Not The Territory

In team workshops I use a phrase called “the map is not the territory”. What this means is, we tend to develop “maps” in our minds that are…

I have said before and those who have read my previous blogs may recall me saying, we employ people in order to reach our business goals, our vision - but without communicating it?  Not a chance!

Goals are the short term steps to reach the desired long term vision.    Unless you plan on having your staff for the short term (which isn’t a great investment) then why wouldn’t you share, discuss, communicate and review your vision with them?  Goals are great as they give the guidance and…

We are about to launch into a 4-week series on how to understand ‘perception’ and people’s mentalities to better know how to improve behaviour and communication in the workplace.

 This is important because when we know how to communicate better with ourselves and together as teams, we are more positive, resilient and intentional in how we manage different circumstances. We know how to avoid sabotaging our efforts and performance at work when driving results…

Maintaining engagement during a change process is critical and I am often asked how organisations can accomplish this, especially during times of stress such as during a merger, restructure etc. The solution organisations generally adopt is to communicate widely… which is certainly part of the process. However, on its own, ‘top-down communication’ is not enough to achieve engagement as it may not be aligned with staff needs. Accordingly, a ‘bottom-up’ communication process…

This post is contributed by Workplace Conflict Resolution’s Legal Commentator, Tiffany Healy

Minor Breaches of Policies and Procedures and Patterns of Behaviour: Where Do the Parties Stand?

There are many benefits to implementing policies and procedures in the workplace. One of these benefits includes…

Organizations / companies are a crucial part of every society being the ‘places of work’ that contribute to the growth, sustenance and development of the society. The business mission, or any other mission in general, certainly plays the light-house-tower to put light on the path it requires to take to see the face of success but at the same time an inherent non-commercial bit of societal responsibility and development is a requisite to keep the human-face of it intact. The regulatory…

My last few blogs have been based around the 5 domains that our brains treat on the same plane as survival; status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness and finally, fairness.

When these domains are triggered in a negative manner we draw upon the reptilian brain and we become threatened and begin to feel ‘unsafe’ in our environment. When these domains are driven in a negative way at work its hard for employees to perform well and collaborate alongside others with warmth and…

It seems that more and more often organisations are competing on price. We live in such a price dominated world. We are bombarded by prices every day. From the Petrol station price boards to the jingles "Down, down prices are down". Our continual exposure to this price war mentality has a big influence on us especially when it comes to the pricing of our our services and goods.…

Two different divisions trip over each other, recruiting the same candidate. A consulting firm is unable to meet staffing needs for a new, tightly scheduled project. An organization doesn’t have a clear picture of up-and-coming leadership for succession planning. A business merging with another company can’t easily identify overlap of staff skills.

Sound like a recipe for organizational dysfunction? All of these examples point to poor integration of talent…

Four recent court decisions in favour of employers help clarify the ever-muddy concept of what constitutes reasonable management action taken in a reasonable way, and what doesn't.

Sister site to HR Daily and the workplace safety news service I write for, OHS Alert, has published many articles relating to reasonable administrative action, as this is an area that's regularly being challenged in employees'…

I believe there are 3 levels that measure how we value of our most important commodity – time. The level at which you use your time will determine the proficiency and height of productivity in your tasks and projects.

The three levels of using time

Mediocre - these people are great at wasting time, they are happy to wait in line to get a seat at a restaurant, stay on hold for many minutes on the phone, talk…

A value proposition is a statement that clearly identifies what advantages customers will receive by purchasing a particular product or service. Applied to HR, the …

It’s a simple fact of business that if you try to do it all on your own you won’t succeed, yet many managers fall into the trap of being too busy to engage with their teams and develop positive working relationships.  The latest findings in the neuroscience community tell us that effective leadership and high productivity is about balancing our analytical thinking with ‘social’ thinking because it makes us smarter, happier and more productive.   

The Social – Non-social…