Leadership is where one person, the leader, persuades another person, the follower, to accept the leader’s point of view. There are three elements. Leaders must have a point of view that they’d like their followers to accept. For leadership, that point of view should tap intrinsic or extrinsic employee needs. There must be an existing relationship between leader and follower that also has future meaning. And the leader must focus on practical action that he or she can take that will do that persuading.

When you make someone redundant, you are breaching the psychological contract that exists between the firm and the employee. One of the key assumptions that an employee has (particularly when on a permanent contract) is that the employment will continue. And that assumption’s just been smashed.

Where an employee is failing to perform during their probationary period there is an onus on the employer to provide training to support the person. If the person proves not to be capable of meeting the requirements they may be dismissed. You must still so this fairly.

• Helping you understand the mechanisms of search, considering the time candidates are available;
• Helping you decide which search methods to use for each type of job;
• Explaining the process you should use to probe the labour market and set up your search;
• Discussing what to do when searching (and what not to do); and
• Setting out the plethora of alternative sources of good candidates.

Firms do a great deal for staff. Of course they pay for work done, and give statutory holidays. But it goes a lot further than that. Keeping a good work-life balance and giving recognition and career builds employee commitment. Thinking about total reward helps managers add elements of great benefit to employee and firm without huge cost.

Many managers follow the economists' teaching to claim that people are rational and will strive to maximise their financial gain. But people are irrational. There are some maxims in designing performance-related pay. First, money is not a motivator. But fair reward encourages commitment. Second, offering a financial incentive will encourage isolationist behaviour. Be careful what behaviour you reward!