Economic theory tells us that human capital, i.e. employee ability, is positively linked to productivity and that high performers should be rewarded. Strong financial incentives for performance, however, can carry unexpected costs for companies. (The financial crisis was but the most vivid demonstration of this.) A recent study of a private Polish retail bank suggests […]
Subject: HR Management
Developing Talent to Manage Big Data
The type and amount of information collected by organizations today is on a scale never seen before. This explosion in the volume of data received through sources such as social media feeds, customer service databases, etc., has created a new opportunity for businesses to compete by collecting and analysing this so called “big data.” And […]
Conquering Racism by Taking Personal Responsibility
Developing deeper awareness of our own prejudices is often cited as the solution to racism. Recent research, however, suggests it’s just the first step. In a pilot study conducted at an American university, 75 per cent of white respondents acknowledged and were consciously aware of their own racial prejudices — and in a follow-up study, […]
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Delaying Retirement Can Be Bad for the Brain
The greying of the post-war baby boom generation and increasing life expectancy are threatening the financial sustainability of pensions systems in many industrialized countries. European governments are responding by raising the mandatory retirement age. But this could be a short-sighted strategy. Recent research suggests that working for longer can have a negative effect on cognitive […]
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Fostering Diversity and Inclusion with Respectful Leadership
"The answer is moral leadership, or, more specifically, respectful leadership." One of the goals of leaders is to motivate employees to perform well, work in the collective interest and define themselves in terms of ‘we’ rather than ‘me’. (See Idea Number 164, ‘Instilling Morality In Organizations’.) In this, leaders who are demographically different from followers are […]
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Instilling Morality In Organizations
The banking crisis and scandals involving companies such as Enron, Worldcom, Tyco and, more recently, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, have made the need to understand moral behaviour in organizations more urgent. Research so far has tended to take a leader-focused approach, implying that the ethical behaviour of leaders translates directly to ethical behaviour in followers. […]
Ten Critical Skills for Tomorrow’s Workforce
The authors say that a qualitative shift is taking place in the ways we work. Their research is based of ongoing studies of the key forces driving change in society, combined with interviews, through which they explore the impact of these changes on workers and their careers. As such, they identify 10 skills they believe […]
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Rewards that Motivate More than Money
A large-scale study by Vlerick Business School, in association with three media partners, De Standaard, La Libre Belgique and NRC Handelsblad, underlines the importance of non-financial rewards to employees. The study, based on a poll of 4,877 people in Flanders, Wallonia and the Netherlands working in 18 different sectors, measured attitudes to salary, bonuses and […]
When Successful Managers Go off the Rails
Derailment is the term assigned to the phenomenon of once-successful managers whose careers have ‘gone off the track.’ They are no longer effective in their functions or as leaders. They are no longer promotable. They are no longer contributing to the organization, despite years of experience and accumulated knowledge. What happened? Through a number of […]
Onboarding New Employees Successfully
Here is how most employees’ first day on a new job goes: they are shown how things are done, introduced to the company’s environment and culture, and subtly told what a great organization they have just joined. Sound familiar? This is the onboarding process followed by many HR professionals, with the commonly-held belief that this […]