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Where do responsibilities begin and end in managing wellbeing?
Written by John Berry on 27th November 2019. Revised 25th March 2020.
4 min read
Managers expect that employees will turn up on time and be upbeat, fit and well and ready to do what’s asked of them. Employees expect that managers will give them interesting, good quality work that’s within their capabilities. But much can go wrong. There's much spillover degrading employee wellbeing. Managers must step up and embrace their responsibility to manage whole-employee wellbeing, albeit recognising that a big part of the scope of that responsibility will be marked ‘private’.
Getting Brits to take jobs
Written by John Berry on 25th February 2020. Revised 28th February 2020.
4 min read
How many times have we heard it – “There’s no use offering jobs like that to Brits. They don’t want that sort of work”. The result is that British employers offer poor quality jobs to immigrants. But soon there will be no immigrants to take those jobs. If, as a country, we want to re-invigorate workers who do what are at present menial jobs, we need to redesign those jobs. Here's how.
For pities’ sake, write it down!
Written by Sue Berry on 14th February 2020. Revised 26th February 2020.
4 min read
Managers don’t write things down. They don’t document the various discussions with employees. They don’t prepare for meetings and document what they hope to achieve, then don’t document what they actually said and what was actually done. They don’t use daybooks. Find out why it's important to get into the habit of using a daybook.
Any claim about the skills managers need for the future must include a clear analysis of the future employment scenario. Specifically, commentators must say how that future employment scenario differs from that of the previous period. Here’s one such analysis that sets out the management environment for the coming decade. It sets out key trends and speculates on the management needed.
All stop for freelancers and ski season workers
Written by John Berry on 27th January 2020. Revised 30th January 2020.
6 min read
As many workers are finding, EU firms are, even now, not prepared now to extend contracts for freelancers and seasonal workers beyond the transition period ending in December 2020. The assumption is that those workers will, as soon as Brexit bites, fail to get a visa and hence fail to be able to work in an EU27 country. Such workers will have to find work at home in the UK. They’re hidden casualties of Brexit.
Five absolutely essential attributes in young workers
Written by John Berry on 25th January 2020.0
7 min read
It’s all very well asking for high-level skills from young workers like being growth oriented, being able to process data and solve problems. But not everyone has those – and indeed, not all managers need all those ‘skills’ - managers should be selecting the personal characteristics specific to each job for which they hire someone. But everyone loves a list so here's a more basic list that every manager does need from every young worker in all jobs done in a firm.
