News & Press

Right now, compassion is trending. Google hits for 'compassion' in the UK show a steady rise over the last eight or so years. The dictionary describes compassion as 'a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for someone struck by misfortune, accompanied by a desire to alleviate the suffering'. It is embedded in our humanity and helps us affiliate, care and nurture our friends, family, neighbours and community. It is as much a part of our human make up as our ability to read body language or offer a smile to a friend. But then, casual cruelty is human too, the desire to laugh at others, to treat 'us' and 'them' differently, to turn away from pain, to be worn out by others complaints... We can swing either way it seems and evidence suggests that affiliative, caring, trusting, cultures with well-managed workloads are more likely to incubate compassion than harsh, coercive, disengaged, disempowered environments where work overload is the norm.

‘I was taking part in a panel discussion at a recent conference. We were talking about the highlights of the event for us and invited the audience to join in. I was then rather surprised when we were asked whether Human Resources was the right name for the function and was it really an improvement on Personnel as a description. ..'

The 2014 edition of our annual "Perspectives" report has now been published. Rather than focus on a specific theme, this year the report covers a wide range of topics. Some could be regarded as hardy perennials, like talent or diversity, but positioned in a new context. Others (eg outsourcing and zero-hours contracts) report on current areas of preoccupation for the HR function that have important antecedents. Then there are the new(er) kids on the block, like big data and crowdsourcing: novel concepts that again, it could be argued, have long-standing roots in business management.

It's that time of year again when the Christmas parties start to fill up our diaries. The office Christmas party is often a popular way of thanking staff for their hard work over the year, but for some, the December merry-go-round of celebrations can be part of a damaging corporate hangover, implying hard drinking is normal behaviour and resulting in workers coming into work suffering the after-effects of excessive drinking, which, in turn, reduces their productivity.

Social media is much on everyone's minds at the moment; Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter have become everyday communication tools for many of us, not only in our private lives, but also in our working lives. This throws up certain challenges for HR, some practical and some ethical, mostly linked to the blurring of the boundaries between work and private life.

I recently spoke at a conference in Rome on work life balance and work innovation and their impact on organisational performance. The conference was organised by the Italian Department for Labour and brought together several speakers who could comment on the situation in Italy or bring an international perspective. I was there reporting on some cross-European research we at IES had undertaken exploring how work itself was being innovated to create greater flexibility, team working, involvement, efficiency and well-being. I'm well used to being at UK conferences where the performance or practices of the UK give cause for concern so it was fascinating to watch another nation in the same situation. Italy is not as flexible as it would like to be and this is seen as limiting the contribution of women and holding the country back in competitiveness terms.

‘Knocking the employee survey seems to be the current flavour of the month. In the past few weeks, I've heard it described in a lot of ways, rarely positively. But is there really a good and practical alternative to the employee survey?'

Now the summer is coming to an end and we are all 'back to school', literally or metaphorically, it is time to focus on the upcoming changes to employment law and other statutory duties.'