Why good managers don’t get promoted
I’ve now trained thousands of people managers through the Management Bites programme and I know there are some good ones out there. These are managers that their team respects, who … Continue reading
10 Awesome Diversity Initiatives
We know the research says that diverse organisations do better than homogenous ones. But how can you really build a culture of diversity and inclusion? I’ve search the globe for … Continue reading
Forest fires, idiots & HR policies
Last week we were back in the US re-visiting one of my two favourite cities of 2017 – Portland, Oregon. (I will reveal the other favourite in a later post….) … Continue reading
How does the British Empire link to your development plan?
Now we’ve launched Elephant in the U.K., we spend a few months a year in blighty. That’s as much of the bureaucratic culture that exists here as we can take. … Continue reading
Magic ways to train when your managers are flung far and wide!
The traditional way to train managers was to work out what areas they needed to build skills in and then run a programme of facilitated workshops to cover those skills. … Continue reading
How to make your employees cry
One of my biggest discoveries as a new people manager was that managing people was much harder than it looked! I was 25 years old, HR Manager for a national … Continue reading
Psychology and HR – new ideas for your HR development plan!
Are you stuck with where to develop your HR career next? Wanting to stretch your HR knowledge further? This might be the answer! A few years ago when the HR … Continue reading
Performance Reviews are NOT dead!
You’ve probably seen or read at least one article about the performance review being dead. About how people find them demotivating and disengaging and that companies are throwing them out. … Continue reading
Is this your biggest pitfall?
Every conference that we run at Elephant, I put so much into it that I’m pretty exhausted the following day and can’t do much useful work. I know this from … Continue reading
Building Resilience
Have you ever suffered a horrific loss in your life? Have you gone through something incredibly traumatic? Many of us have, and at the time it can feel extremely … Continue reading
The steps to making mentoring work!
Mentoring is one of those things that I’ve seen company after company introduce – supposedly to provide development and guidance for younger employees. After all, the research says that Gen … Continue reading
NZ HR Advisor of the Year: the winner is…
Last week we revealed the runner up of the HR Advisor of the Year Awards. These awards happened at the HR Advisors Conference in Auckland last month. We had 4 … Continue reading
Are Emma Watson’s boobs hidden in your HR policies?
You may have seen the furore on social media about Emma Watson’s photo for Vanity Fair where she is a wearing a knitted poncho which covers only a small amount … Continue reading
Are you practising the art of dark HR?
You may have heard about voodoo. Witch craft. Black magic. All known as the dark arts. But the other day I read a article about dark social. I thought what … Continue reading
How toxic people can be good for you
I’ve had a number of toxic people in my life. People who make your life miserable or who create awful places to work. This includes the HR Manager who read … Continue reading
The secret to being happy!
This year I’ve discovered a very simple trick to be happier and more satisfied with life. I found out about it after my trip to Denmark and reading up on … Continue reading
How to manage people working from home or remotely
I read an interesting article the other day where the author had been asked for an HR Policy on working from home. She said you didn’t need one – you … Continue reading
Is your workplace and HR this clever?
Fraser and I recently spent a week in Copenhagen, Denmark. Every day we were constantly seeing things that were just really clever! Things like: Towels had a loop to hang … Continue reading
Have we forgotten what’s work is about?
I was in Copenhagen last week (I got obsessed with Denmark after watching Borgen and The Bridge so when a friend moved here and said we should come and visit … Continue reading
Are your managers foreigners?
Here in Britain they call anyone who isn’t from Britain a ‘foreigner’. And even though I was born here and spent the first 12 years of my life in England, … Continue reading
The thing you should never say…..
There are moments in life that are really sent to test you. To push you to the limits and see what you’ll do. Some of you’ll know last month I … Continue reading
The 12 best HR people in New Zealand
I’ve met thousands of HR professionals over my career – HR people who have attended our HR training, presented at or come to one of our conferences, who have been … Continue reading
What kind of leader do you want?
There are thousands of articles and books on what behaviours leaders should be demonstrating – yet many leaders still aren’t doing these things. I hear so many HR people tell … Continue reading
Reinventing Job Titles
I’m currently in California and have had a brilliant few days catching up with friends of ours from LA who are both fire fighters. Now as I can’t seem to … Continue reading
10,000 copies sold. Yeah baby!
When I was 14 years old I got badly bitten. I was bitten by the writing bug. And I knew I was going to be a writer. I spent most … Continue reading
How to make the best HR intranet in the world
Once upon a time, not so far in the past, there was an HR team who designed an HR intranet. This HR intranet was for managers and employees to find … Continue reading
Lessons from being sued
I always try and look at bad experiences as learning opportunities – whether it’s from an avoidable mistake or from factors outside of your control. How did you react? What … Continue reading
Would you wear a bikini in front of a crowd?
Last year for my 40th I went to Hawaii for a week and learned how to surf (it was great fun but really tiring on the arms!) In the afternoons … Continue reading
The Challenges of being an HR BP!
Last year at Elephant we started the HR Business Partner Summit. This was designed to bring together people in HRBP roles or those working towards an HRBP role to: discuss … Continue reading
Going Global
Can you launch an international training programme from little old New Zealand? Last year I announced that was exactly what I was going to do – take the Management Bites … Continue reading
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