Entries with tag hr .

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Blair McPherson
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10 Mar 2017 - 10:53

null International Women's Day

  The Black Panthers, the Vietnam war, Bob Dylan and the woman's liberation movement, this is the New York scene in the Late 60's early 70's. The story is set in the open plan office of a weekly magazine, the editor, deputy editor and all the journalists are white males, all the researchers are female. It soon becomes clear that the women do all the leg work, come up with the most... See more
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Blair McPherson
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06 Feb 2017 - 11:11

null Three strikes and you're out

  February 6th is national "sickie" day, so called because traditionally absenteeism is at it highest at this time of year. Employers in the public sector have in recent years being getting tough on high levels of sickness leave and copying the strategies used by the private sector. If you work in the public sector you may not be aware of what happens to your counter parts in the... See more
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Blair McPherson
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05 Oct 2016 - 10:06

null How to catch a monkey

The monkeys live in the trees to catch them the locals place a large heavy pottery vase at the bottom of the tree and place fruit, sweets and other things the monkeys like to eat inside. The bulbous vase has wide base and a narrow opening just wide enough for the monkeys small hand. At night the monkey climbers down from the tree reaches in to the vase and grabs a treat making a fist out of... See more
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Blair McPherson
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20 Jul 2016 - 10:57

null Dry stone walling

Can a leader take a group of misfits and make them into a strong, effective unit, a sort of "Dirty Dozen" only not by focusing their aggression but channelling their independence of thought. More like the characters in The Big Bang Theory. The approach has been referred to as Dry Stone Walling.   Take irregular shaped individuals the ones who don't fit into the organisations neat breeze... See more
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Blair McPherson
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13 May 2016 - 15:23

null The Performance Coach

  You think HR is for softies! Mr and Ms reasonable. The nice people who ensure you do the right thing, the ones who resolve conflict and get managers out of the holes they have dug for themselves. You think HR is about softening the blow of redundancy or putting a human face on absence management. Then you wouldn't expect a Performance Coach to be part of HR. A performance coach is... See more
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Blair McPherson
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01 Jul 2015 - 11:19

null Muddle through Management

The muddling through model of management has a more negative sound than its popularity would indicate. It's proponents tend to refer to this way of managing as common sense, pragmatic management or the "lets not get carried away here and keep it simple", alternatively the approach is described as a quick fix.  The method is to respond to all problems without any deep thought or to use the... See more
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Blair McPherson
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26 Jun 2015 - 14:34

null Recruiting,Retaining and Rewarding Talent

Managing talent was about recruiting, retaining and rewarding now it's about redeployment,redundancy and retirement. Prolonged austerity has challenged traditional ways of recruiting, retaining, managing and rewarding talent. Public sector organisations have been shrunk. Early retirements, redundancies and management culls have been the key feature in workforce strategies. Experienced staff... See more
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Blair McPherson
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23 Jun 2015 - 10:33

null Shirkers v Workers

Some people defiantly work harder than others. Some just give the impression they do. Some managers think they can identify the shirker from the worker unfortunately for them it's not that easy and getting it  wrong could cost them their job. How much of your work involves telling people what you are doing- at meetings, in updates for the boss or reports to the Senior Management... See more
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Blair McPherson
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02 Jun 2015 - 15:05

null How many managers have you got?

It's a typically challenging question from the new leader of the council. The underlying implication is too many whatever the answer is. The honest answer is I don't know but that is an unacceptable answer and makes me look foolish. The correct answer is it depends how you count them but that just sounds like I am trying to be cleaver and risks antagonising my new boss. I could say 500 because... See more
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Blair McPherson
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27 Jan 2015 - 11:11

null Should you tell the Boss

Should you tell the boss if you don't have enough work to do? May be the reorganisation has left you in a bit of a limbo, maybe your new boss doesn't know how best to use you or doesn't know much about what you and your team do. You could of course use this opportunity to spend more time with your team, take it in turn to shadow each of them for a day, move to weekly team meetings, offer more... See more
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Blair McPherson
wrote a new blog post
13 Jan 2015 - 11:59

null Reasons to be fearful

There is never much sympathy for senior managers from the rank and file who view the higher ups as detached, over confident and over paid. If the general public have a view on the reduction of management posts in the public sector it is probably that there were too many in the first place and government ministers have picked up on popular disapproval of large redundancy payments for senior... See more
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Blair McPherson
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20 Mar 2015 - 11:39

null Pornography and the work lap top

Three Judges are dismissed and one resigns caught viewing pornography on their work lap top.   Does the social media enable staff to share knowledge and experience or share sexists cartoons and racist jokes? The internet opened up a world of information, and  easier access to pornography. Facebook and Twitter allows fiends to share photos and the minutiae of their day, and... See more
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Blair McPherson
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18 Sep 2014 - 12:05

null The tail should not wag the dog

I had been in post about a year when there was a management restructuring and the chief executive offered me the post of assistant director operations. A couple of weeks later the director of HR invited me to head office to discuss how we would work together in the new structure. Buoyed up by my promotion and the confidence that the chief executive had shown in me I decided that this was the... See more
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Blair McPherson
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12 Jul 2014 - 15:25

null Man marking

  Man marking like many management expressions originates from sport. To man mark is to follow    your designated opponent around the field of play, wherever they go you follow never letting them out of your reach. Man marking is the practise of employers closely scrutinising the work of an employee. It is different to the close supervision and support a manager gives a new... See more
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Blair McPherson
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10 Jun 2015 - 10:16

null Carers' Week-Caring for carers

  It was a conference for our staff who were also carers. The idea was to identify those members of staff who cared for a family member or relative and enlist their support in coming up with ways we could be a better employer. To date people had been reluctant to identify themselves as carers. In general people kept quiet they didn't mention it at interview for fear that it would be... See more
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Blair McPherson
wrote a new blog post
12 Jul 2014 - 15:19

null Labrador or Rottweiler

  Which is the better dog a Labrador or a Rottweiler? Its a ridicules question one makes an excellent guard dog the other is ideally suited to be a guide dog. So it makes no sense to compare the type of HR support the public sector previously experience with the type it currently receives unless of course you want to highlight how the public sector has changed.   If I had to... See more
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Blair McPherson
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12 Jul 2014 - 15:19

null Less support for managers

The back ground grumbling has turned into out spoken criticism about the reduced support to managers. A slight of hand by which it is claimed savings have been made without cutting front-line services. But is this the best use of management time and will it lead to overwhelmed managers neglecting the important stuff? http://www.publicservice.co.uk/feature_story.asp?id=22655   See more
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Showing 21 to 37 of 37 entries.