Kathryn Kendall

Up Close and Personnel

Month: September 2016

How Can I Enforce My Organisational Culture?

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On 29th September 2016

In Culture

Culture and cake

If you’ve read the previous blog post I wrote on culture, you’ll know that a motivating culture is something I think is pretty fundamental when it comes to providing your employees with a great working experience and delivering against business objectives.

The obvious question therefore is, if my organisation doesn’t have the culture I believe is right to achieve this, can I just turn around as an HR professional and enforce it? Can I simply stand up in front of my employees and tell them that from now on, this is the way things are going to be around here?

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What’s My Employer Brand? – And Why Does It Matter Anyway?

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On 27th September 2016

In Employer brand

Employer brand love

I was running some training sessions on recruitment last week, and in discussions with the delegates we got onto the topic of our employer brand. What was it, and why was it important, particularly in the context of recruitment? And – even more critically – what could we do about it?

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Management Development: Does It Really Matter?

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On 22nd September 2016

In management

management development programme

The question I quite often get asked by graduates who come to interview, eager to progress up the rungs of the career ladder, is ‘How do I become a manager?’ The challenge, I always tell them, is that there’s no easy answer.

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Employee Feedback: Keeping It Real

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On 19th September 2016

In Engagement

Employee Feedback Image

Now, more than ever, we live in a world where our employees demand to be heard. Read any article you like on the relative virtues and perils of the Millennials now flooding the workforce (and if you want to read one, this one, by Benefex’s very own Gethin Nadin, is a great one to pick), and the theme that comes through loud and clear is that here is a generation who has a voice, and wants it to be heard.

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Annual Appraisals: Are They Dead And Buried?

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On 15th September 2016

In Performance management

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If you happen to ask line managers how they manage the performance of their employees, in my experience you’re likely to receive a variation on one of two responses:

  • ‘Oh, I understand the disciplinary process, I know that if an employee isn’t performing then we need to go down the formal route.’
  • ‘Well, we have an annual appraisal, so I’ll tell them then how they’re doing.’

If you’re new in a management role, from the examples above it can become very easy to make the mistake that performance management is a one off, annual event, as opposed to the ongoing, proactive process that it needs to be in order to really deliver results.

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The Learning Agenda: Why it’s everyone’s responsibility

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On 13th September 2016

In L&D

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Training and development is something which it seems all too easy for managers and employees alike to dismiss with a sweeping ‘that’s HR’s responsibility’. The logic being, presumably, that it involves people, and therefore anything people related should remain the sole remit of HR.

The trouble is, that logic doesn’t quite follow through. People will be involved in every aspect of your business activities, and to silo the gargantuan responsibility of their learning and development into a box marked ‘HR’, without any of the specialist knowledge and experience from departments right around the business, means at best you miss a massive opportunity, at worst you seriously under deliver to your people and disengage them as a result. 

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Culture – Why Bother?

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On 13th September 2016

In Culture

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Culture has become something of a buzzword around the HR industry of today. Dependent on your point of view, it’s either a fluffy distraction dreamt up by HR, or a critical factor when it comes to driving employee engagement and business performance. 

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