Removing the Pain from the Christmas Party
07 / 12 / 2015
Christmas can be a lovely time of year. Our trainee Lauren is an indefatigable advent-calenderist (I think I may have invented a new word). Every year she makes 25 colourful little boxes or bags which festoon the office ceiling during December. She takes endless trouble and plans the contents out like a general: Chris doesn’t like Haribos, Kirsty doesn’t do...
Management Tips from Practitioners in the Field
04 / 12 / 2015
Managing employees isn’t easy. We often make reference to the title of Warren Bennis’ book “Managing People is Like Herding Cats” which sums up the difficulties very nicely. People have different priorities, are at work for different reasons, and have varying degrees of commitment to what your organisation is trying to do. Here are some tips from a number of...
Values in the Workplace
02 / 12 / 2015
I’m not talking about the value give to things or people but values as in the things we live to, the way we feel life should be. Many companies not list their values alongside their mission statements and so imply that they are important to them. I suspect that in many organisations those values espoused on the marketing materials and...
Black Friday Shopping Frenzy Concerns Employers (But Not Our Clients!)
30 / 11 / 2015
Last week someone said to me “Have you finished your Christmas shopping yet?” Errm, no. I haven’t even started thinking about it, never mind buying anything. But it seems that lots of people have it well in hand, assisted by the Black Friday phenomenon. The UK seems to be adopting more and more traditions (most of them commercial) from the...
Change to ‘Mindful’ Employees
27 / 11 / 2015
Most people are wary of change. So often it’s “better the devil you know”. The mind focuses on the risks of change and starts thinking up ways of resisting. That’s natural, as we’re generally wired to be creatures of habit. In 2013, economist and social scientist Christian Gärtner wrote about the concept of mindfulness in preparing people for change within...