Outdoor experiential training became established as one of the big HR ideas during the 1990s. The theory is that leadership skills can be honed and team spirit developed by taking employees into the great outdoors, usually at weekends. The “survival” of workers might depend, for example, on...

As members of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra arrive for rehearsal you would not think anything out of the ordinary. The usual number of musicians are gathering, and there is the usual banter as they take their places and start to tune up. It is only when the practice begins that you notice what...

A team made up of employees from different sections of an organization can be a great recipe for success, but its full potential can only be achieved through skilled leaders creating an atmosphere of mutual trust. Mixed teams face various challenges, including differences in personality,...

Having a job where there are no set hours, days or places of work may sound too good to be true, but that is exactly what happens at a UK training and development company. All 30 employees of the Training Exchange operate on the principle that they are there for the customer – and it works.

When the CEO of a US rent‐to‐own company fired top HR people and eliminated many HR functions, he revealed more than one prejudice and set in motion a disastrous train of events which led to $47m of pay‐outs to plaintiffs. J. Ernest Talley’s decision to wipe out Rent‐A‐Center’s HR...

UK conglomerate Centrica has successfully recruited carers, long‐term unemployed, lone parents and people with disabilities to contact‐center jobs – and tackled assumptions and prejudices head on. Centrica touches the lives of millions of Britons through its well‐known consumer brands...

Office and factory life everywhere throws up individuals who have nothing positive to say about their employers, irrespective of whether the organization is, broadly speaking, good or bad to work for. A typical gripe of such people is that changes in working practice have been made but:...

Key figures in the workforce at Testronics, a small micro‐electronics company in the northeastern USA, could be forgiven for viewing the expression “knowledge is power” with a certain irony and skepticism. As part of the emerging class of knowledge workers, sales engineers with Testronics...

All employers asked to name the single most important factor in their success story would doubtless sing the praises of the organization’s most vital resource – their staff. It follows, then, that attracting and retaining real talent has to be the big issue facing companies. They need to...

Sweden, in common with all western nations, has paid considerable attention to the issue of selecting and developing its military leaders. Last year, the Swedish armed forces decided to introduce a new system of evaluation because it felt that there were weaknesses and limitations in previous...