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  Debbie Meech, HR Director, Cable & Wireless and Graham White, HR Director, Westminster City Council discuss some of the issues facing HR personnel in a difficult financial climate. Interesting observations about Human Resources functions on generating positive sentiments about organizations during times of downturn and job cuts.

Adapted from Dan Pink's talk at the RSA, illustrates the hidden truths behind what really motivates us at home and in the workplace. Interesting research work showing how higher rewards not always leads to higher or better performance for knowledge workers.  Makes you wonder if we need to review and redesign performance management philosophy and Organizations reward approach. Higher performance need not always be driven by higher rewards, economic behavior is also a function of purpose of work and inherent satisfaction which a job provides. I am reminded of Herbert Simon's Satisficing approach where he pointed out that human beings lack the cognitive resources to maximize: we usually do not know the relevant probabilities of outcomes, we can rarely evaluate all outcomes with sufficient precision, and our memories are weak and unreliable. A more realistic approach to rationality takes into account these limitations: This is called bounded rationality .  These observations ...

Guest Post by Sean Conrad To weather an economic downturn, companies need to focus on their core business and strengths, reduce unnecessary costs and be more efficient. Here are 7 talent management practices every company should implement to get the most out of their workforce. 1. Align Goals and Track Everyone's Progress You need to make sure that every employee's goals are aligned with organizational goals. You also need to regularly monitor progress on goals so you can take corrective action as required. Finally, you need to be able to quickly and effectively communicate any change in focus, priorities or tactics. Your talent management system should allow you to quickly communicate changes that impact organizational goals to everyone who has a linked individual goal. 2. Conduct Regular Employee Reviews to Keep Employee Performance On Track Employee performance reviews give employees an opportunity to talk with their manager about what they are doing well, areas for improvem...

Critical managerial decision making is the key to superior performance at work.One has to refer to critical Data, past records and performance metrics and analysis before making decisions . Mc Kinsey study tries to assess the various factors which influence decision making at work. Executives often end up referring to wrong sources, which lacks scientific rigor and credentials in its finding, for arriving critical decisions. Just because one strategy works for a particular organization may not prove to be equally effective for other enterprises. Unfortunately, many of the studies are deeply flawed and based on questionable data that can lead to erroneous conclusions. Worse, they give rise to the especially grievous notion that business success follows predictably from implementing a few key steps. In promoting this idea, authors obscure a more basic truth—namely, that in the business world success is the result of decisions made under conditions of uncertainty and shaped in part by fa...