News & Press

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.'

‘I regularly wonder how we can get the best out of people so that they perform as well as they can and so that they enjoy coming to work - and how easy it is for organisations and managers to get it wrong.'

‘I have long since taken the view that politician and media hype on flexible labour markets has got in the way of finding benefit in flexible work arrangements.'