Human Resource Management International Digest

2004 Human Resource Management International Digest

doi: 10.1108/09670730410540013

Improving work‐life balance is often used as a euphemism for keeping all contact with the office to a minimum, but a company that is regularly ranked among the best to work in the UK is finding quite the opposite. Sports and social activities are thriving at building, transportation and environmental consultancy FaberMaunsell and people are using the company as a springboard for increased participation in their local communities.

2004 Human Resource Management International Digest

doi: 10.1108/09670730410540022

It is hard to picture the scene – a manager in a major manufacturing company with a background in chemical engineering, standing on stage in a tuxedo reading Nelson Mandela’s inaugural speech. But 29‐year‐old John Petre, process and packaging‐development manager for soup, with responsibility for all of Batchelors’, Oxo and Campbell’s UK processing and packaging needs, was not the only one that day to let his hair down in pursuit of better leadership skills.

2004 Human Resource Management International Digest

doi: 10.1108/09670730410540031

Museums are not only about exhibits, but also about the people who work with them and interpret them for the public. A 360‐degree feedback system has helped London’s Victoria and Albert to develop the skills of its people and cement its reputation as one of the world’s leading museums of art and design.

2004 Human Resource Management International Digest

doi: 10.1108/09670730410540040

A new learning strategy is helping to improve the status, confidence and career opportunities of employees of a UK company that finds productive work for around 6,000 people with a wide range of mental, emotional and physical disabilities. Remploy, which has existed for more than 50 years, is a highly flexible commercial enterprise that supplies 50 percent of the UK’s FTSE top 100 businesses. The firm also supports a further 4,500 disabled people in partnership with employers such as Asda, Tesco and J. Sainsbury.

2004 Human Resource Management International Digest

doi: 10.1108/09670730410540059

If you are possibly the best-known broadcaster of TV and radio programs in the world, and your output is both phenomenal in number and hugely wide-ranging in content, it goes without saying that lots of those programs are bound to involve issues of race, diversity, equal opportunity and discrimination - positive or otherwise. Not just factual, documentary or discussion-type programs. Dramas and comedies also have to take account of the make-up of the communities they serve if they are to have a resonance with the whole audience.

2004 Human Resource Management International Digest

doi: 10.1108/09670730410540068

As the reality dawns on more and more organizations that their cutting‐edge competitiveness is inextricably linked to the talents, knowledge, energy and enterprise of the people they employ, how many of them are doing enough to make sure they do not run short of that vital raw material? Too few seems to be the simple and honest answer. Strange, is it not, that both huge companies and small ones are pretty adept at making sure they have enough “stuff” to do what they do. So why is it that so many companies put so much effort into making sure they have a never‐ending supply of every essential item they need, bar these – key leaders and managers?

2004 Human Resource Management International Digest

doi: 10.1108/09670730410540077

Whenever groups of workers are made the subject of research, it should not come as any surprise when they start saying things like “We like to feel appreciated”, “We want management to listen to our views”, or “If we’re doing a good job we want someone to tell us so”. But sometimes, amazingly, these sorts of answers do come as a surprise – perhaps not to the researchers but to the organization they are conducting the study for.

2004 Human Resource Management International Digest

doi: 10.1108/09670730410540095

A common assertion made about people who appear to be busy but who achieve very little, is that they are mistaking movement for action. Conservatism is a natural enough human impulse. Employees are inclined to be believe that organizational change is being forced on them for its own sake and they are likely, unless a convincing contradictory argument is made, to believe that what they are witnessing is movement to no purpose.

2004 Human Resource Management International Digest

doi: 10.1108/09670730410540086

Ask anyone for their view of partnership agreements in UK industry and their response will be dictated to a great extent by the side of the fence on which they are sitting. This is not to say that their response will automatically be a knee‐jerk one of the “them and us” variety. Nevertheless, different kinds of skepticism are likely to be found among bosses and employees. The former are bound to ask themselves whether management’s right to manage unhindered will be impeded. Some employees, on the other hand, will be concerned about emasculation of trade union power.

2004 Human Resource Management International Digest

doi: 10.1108/09670730410549528

When Delta, one of Canada’s biggest hotel companies, appeared for the third consecutive year in a list of “The 50 best companies to work for in Canada” they knew they were doing something right. But being a place where people like to work did not just happen. Getting the right results involved, and continue to involve, a complex strategic approach to sustainable quality for their customers – something which does not, as yet, seem to have been taken on board by the majority in the hotel industry.