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Determining Personality Using Mr Men
Written by John Berry on 1st May 2017. Revised 22nd April 2025.
5 min read
Timpson’s interviewers have one criterion in selection - they seek to determine which Mr Men character the candidate most closely resembles. The criterion is a proxy for personality. Using personality as a criterion is valid but the Timpson method is likely far from accurate. It likely results in a below-par predictive validity of around 0.4. Here's why and what managers can do to improve.
There really is no need for dead man's shoes
Written by John Berry on 14th November 2017. Revised 12th April 2025.
6 min read
There’s a very basic problem in SMEs concerning staff succession and promotion. It’s that there’s apparently nowhere to go – everyone is in a job and no one is about to move over to allow ‘promotion’ of those below. It’s ‘dead man’s shoes’. But it doesn't have to be so. Here's why not.
Stress in the Workplace
Written by John Berry on 3rd May 2017. Revised 10th April 2025.
7 min read
Stress seems to be the one word that reduces otherwise competent managers to gibbering wrecks. It's every manager's nightmare. There is a direct link between stress and long term sickness absence. And often stress issues become long term sickness absence. Act now. Here's how.
Achieving competitive advantage through people
Written by John Berry on 1st May 2017. Revised 7th April 2025.
4 min read
Competitive advantage is where a firm enjoys lower costs or greater sales than competitors. This paper builds an argument for a set of HR practices that form the basis of the psychological contract, the set of expectations that both employee and employer hold.
To interview volunteers or not
Written by John Berry on 6th January 2025. Revised 6th April 2025.
3 min read
Surely interviewing is normal? Surely you must enter the relationship with some view about whether the volunteer will do well in the job? Why is there any doubt about the need for interviews? The answer is complicated. Here we explain. By telling candidate volunteers they must face an interview, the manager puts a block in the volunteers’ paths. They send the message to the candidates that volunteering is just like employment. Volunteering is declining. Managers might want to think about alternatives.
Employing Foreign Workers Abroad
Written by John Berry on 2nd May 2017. Revised 28th March 2025.
22 min read
Managers can find it extremely attractive to ‘employ’ foreign staff resident abroad. Engaging workers in foreign countries is complex. In many cases it is better to trade at arms length through business to business agreements, paying against invoice. But that won't suit many firms, particularly where they have constraining upstream contracts. They must employ workers locally. Here are all the issues for firms wanting to gain worker services in both EU and non-EU countries.
