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.

It’s bizarre. We’ve a record 32.54 million people in work in the UK. But the number of job vacancies jumped to a record high of 853,000. Despite record employment today, companies are suffering skills shortages. Managers have three options - accept the lack of skills and invest in technology to sustain capability - or invest in the people they do have to improve productivity. Here's the rationale.

Sometimes, the scenarios that our clients ask us to work with are straightforward – a revised pay structure, a manpower plan or a restructure of existing activities. But occasionally they present something that takes a little more to understand, is more complex and takes more time to develop solutions for. Here’s an example of one such complexity involving complex work patters, pay and tax.

There's such an argument in practitioner circles about which psychometric test to use. Some say 'simpler the better' whilst others say 'accuracy first'. Others focus on the moral and ethical issues in providing any unfiltered information to test respondents. So how to make sense of this debate?

There's been a flurry of high profile cases with celebrities and MPs being accused of sexual harassment. In the workplace, the employer should deal with allegations of harassment. For harassment to be deemed to have taken place the alleged behaviour must have had either purpose or effect. Suspension is normal in any case where investigation would be hampered. The investigator then develops a report, setting out all the evidence. A decision is made based on ‘reasonable belief’. Here's more on the process.

Making people redundant is a management reaction to a change in the circumstances of a business. Whatever the reason for the change, redundancy management must start with a valid business case. To manage a robust redundancy, managers must have a policy and follow a process. Here are some issues.

Job design should be done in response to modelling of the operating model and the functions needed. Each job must have purpose and contribute to the intended business outcomes. Job contribution differs. Job evaluation assesses relative contribution. We help managers build jobs and evaluate them to yield due reward for the jobholder.