May 1, 2014
Hierarchical organisations ‘stifle’ employee productivity, claims CIPD
Rigid organisational hierarchies hamper the development of management, employee productivity and leadership skills within the workplace, warns the CIPD. Their report, ‘Leadership – easier said than done,’ finds a growing trend in developing the capability of individual leaders and managers, an approach known as ‘distributed leadership’. However, faced with outdated organisational structures and cultures – these managers are unable to apply what they’ve learnt in the training room. The report recommends that leadership development should give greater consideration to the organisation-wide factors that can help or hinder the practical application of great leadership skills by employees at all levels. It urges HR managers to take the next step from training individual leaders, to improving the leadership capacity of the organisation as a whole; focusing on understanding what kind of leadership it requires and what changes are needed. More →
May 13, 2014
Workplace design, Facebook likes and the need of companies to be your friend
by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Environment, Facilities management, Workplace design
Companies put an awful lot of time and money into getting people to like them on social media these days. While it would be easy to see the like button on Facebook as the primary conduit for this corporate neediness, but it cuts across many aspects of the ways in which companies work, including their relationships with employees and the ways in which they develop new forms of workplace design and management. This is most evident in the tech palaces which are aimed at the same digital natives that firms habitually target with their online marketing, but the need to make customers and employees friends of the business cuts across a wide range of sectors. The workplace is yet another channel of communicating chumminess, and it offers many of the same challenges as social media.
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