Substantial benefits to both the organization and its employees have resulted from job‐flexibility and work‐life balance initiatives at UK building society Nationwide. In the organization’s latest employee‐opinion survey, more than three‐quarters agreed with the statement: “I am...

Switching from three‐week rolling shifts to fixed shift patterns at Seeboard Energy’s customer‐contact center was seen as a high‐risk strategy by some managers, but has dramatically reduced staff turnover and improved recruitment. Seeboard Energy Ltd is a utility company with around 1.8...

UK airport operator BAA plc has undergone two major change‐management programs since it became one of the first publicly owned organizations of its kind be privatized. Human‐resource management has been an important factor in both. The “Freedom to Manage” cultural‐change program,...

It is not every company that would think to provide kayak racks for employees wishing to travel to work by boat, but that is precisely what Capital One did when it opened a new canal‐side building at its European headquarters site in Nottingham, UK. The move reflects an important philosophy at...

An award‐winning equality scheme has helped almost to treble the proportion of senior‐management jobs held by women at Wakefield Council over the last six years. When the Stepping Up scheme was launched, in 1996, 69 percent of the council’s employees were women, but only 13 percent of...

Around a quarter of employees at UK bank Barclays now work part time – a figure which is rising all the time as a pioneering national job‐share register helps to match potential job‐share partners. Fiona Adams, Barclays equality and diversity manager, explained: “A dedicated equality and...

Teleworking increases productivity, reduces absenteeism and improves quality of life, but also increases working hours, a survey of almost 2,000 staff registered with Workabout, BT’s official teleworking scheme, has revealed. BT, one of Europe’s leading telecommunication companies and one of...

Job satisfaction is an expression that came into common usage during the 1970s. For many people, the term simply meant whether or not they enjoyed their work. It is of course a far more complex affair, one which encompasses issues such as satisfaction with supervision at work, the work itself,...

Bill Parsons, HR director of ARM Holdings, market leader in mobile‐phone technology, is passionate about communication. He sees it as the core ingredient sustaining the company’s phenomenal innovation record. Surrounded by a workforce that is highly intelligent, intellectually curious and...

Few industries sailed through the increasingly choppy waters of the 1990s without, at some point, feeling a little bit queasy. Throughout the decade, as the business world became ever more competitive, firms looked to business process re‐engineering (BPR) and business restructuring to improve...