Public management in the UK has long been perceived as a bloated and over‐bureaucratic model. It is something that the UK enjoy lampooning, whether in tabloid newspaper articles about “red‐faced officials” or in radio or television comedy where public organizations tend to be viewed as...

London Electricity (LE) Group’s staff‐volunteering program, Helping Hands, made an impact right from its introduction – not only by contributing to communities, but also by building employee motivation, skills and a common identity across the business. The group is committed to...

When Condor and Neckermann (C&N) acquired Thomas Cook in early 2001, it saw an exciting opportunity to expand its international business and roll out the Thomas Cook brand across the company globally. Thomas Cook’s successful past spans 160 years and has given rise to a rich pioneering...

A documentary shown on UK television last year followed the fortunes of a group of Indian university graduates who were being trained to work in call centers catering for UK customers. The trainees had to work on being as accent‐less as possible and they also had to “bone up” on aspects of...

One of the world’s largest oil companies is saving more than £10 million a year at its UK site because of smarter maintenance decisions at all levels. The savings have been achieved not because of a new high‐technology maintenance system, but through understanding how people interact with...

UK people living in areas where there is a large ethnic population are often struck by the lack of non‐white faces when they move to areas which are less culturally diverse. The population of the UK classed as ethnic minority is around 7 percent. In the South East, the Midlands and the North...

Major UK building society West Bromwich is developing cultural harmony and gaining the benefits of a diverse workforce through its revised equal‐opportunities policy and action plan. West Bromwich, which employs around 800 people, is building cultural harmony rather than cultural conformity...

During the 1980s, a new word came into common usage in the UK to describe a phenomenon that was typical of that aggressively enterprise‐driven decade. “Presenteeism” was a witty reference to workers who were reluctant to leave the workplace, always staying longer than their peers to...

Managers at Agfa, the UK arm of the Belgium‐based imaging company Agfa‐Gevaert, were highly skilled in the technical aspects of their jobs, but lacked many of the essential people and performance‐management skills needed for success in the modern business world. Following a six‐month...

The days when people were unnerved by computers have long gone. Less than a generation ago, employees would talk in awestruck terms about “going live” when computerized technology was introduced to the office. Today, computers, data and e‐mail are part of the office furniture. Even older...