It is easy to treat people well when things go well - but the true test of whether an organisation is to be trusted is ‘How do they treat people when things go badly?’ Last month Tesla described their contractors as ‘barnacles’ that needed to ‘scrubbed off’ and warned that there would be a lot of barnacle removal. Elon Musk then went on to say that any contractor who was not personally recommended by a Tesla employee would be denied access to their worldwide offices the following Monday. And this follows Tesla letting…continue reading →

We seem to be galloping towards Christmas. Soon, we’ll leave the tinsel-decked office for the last time this year and we’ll each head off to celebrate the festivities in our own way. For some it will mean spending time – possibly a little too much of it – with family and friends, eating, drinking and making merry. Others will simply be looking forward to a well-earned rest and a mince pie in front of the TV. A lucky few may even be anticipating Christmas on the beach… This time of year is truly…continue reading →

This weekend I cleared out my kitchen cupboards - a proper job - everything out, shelves cleaned, stuff sorted and then put back. And this simple job showed just how distorted ‘thinking’ can be. In this simple task I learnt: It is easy to over-estimate or under-estimate time. I thought this was going to be an all-day job so I kept postponing it as it was difficult to find the time. In fact, it took two hours. How much old junk had been sitting there unused for years. I filled a large bag…continue reading →

Can work really be fun? Of course the answer is yes! But sadly many people do not experience it as such and the common reasons are: Somewhere in their past they acquired the belief that work is NOT fun; rather that work is to be endured, got through, and is a necessity rather than something they would choose to do. And by holding on to that belief they have ended up in a job that is not fun – well, not for them, at least. When they started the job role it was…continue reading →

Brexit has taken up a lot of our time, energy and certainly news space over the past two weeks. Whichever way you voted, the action that has followed in the wake of the historic referendum has all the hallmarks of the most dramatic of soap operas. But among all of the resignations, speeches, protests and political manoeuvrings was a very interesting piece of information that came out the analysis of why some people voted Leave - that the highest percentage of Leave voters came from areas that received the largest EU grants. At…continue reading →

Recruitment is a hard task. Even with the apparently infinite resources that big companies have at their disposal for occupational psychologists, assessments centres and banks of interviews, they still make recruitment mistakes. And it’s because making the right hiring decision is so difficult that the probation period was created. Yet again and again I hear from managers who hesitated over taking action with a new hire during the probation period and have now found themselves with a difficult employee and a sense of helplessness. Here is the step-by-step guide to successfully managing the…continue reading →