Do you believe that above all else, the most important factor behind an employee’s engagement and productivity is their relationship with the direct supervisor? If you do, you’re not alone. Many believe that if people get along with their managers well, they’re likely to work well – it’s often as simple as that!

It is up to management to create a culture that fuels innovation, and there are some steps leadership should take to achieve that sort of workplace.

Following the judgement of the Employment Appeal Tribunal (9th March 2016), the question of salary sacrifice and maternity rights has been thrown into question! Was HMRC errant in providing guidance? Are employers now off the hook with provision of non-cash benefits in kind during maternity?

I’ve been working in a software implementation environment for nearly 20 years and in that time I’ve seen many successful projects. Sadly I’ve also seen a number of less successful projects and if I were to pick a main cause for each of them the two recurring themes would undoubtedly be:

In the 2015 Queens speech, the Government set out to create 3 million new apprenticeships by 2020. As part of the Enterprise Bill, apprenticeships would gain the same legal treatment of degrees. ‘The Richard Review’ brings new standards being developed by ‘trailblazers’ and new funding trialled giving employers greater control over spend on training delivery.

In my previous blogs I described how important a transparent labour model and flexible workforce are to the successful implementation of a WFM system. Today I want to focus on how such a system can help re-engage your workforce, improving morale and colleague retention.

I always like to think I give 100% to everything I do. For most of my career I thought the best way to do this was to work every hour I could. I would look back proudly after any given week and I think,

In part 1 of my blog I described how keeping the labour model as simple and transparent as possible increases the chances of user buy-in whilst still generating an accurate labour forecast. Today I want to talk about how critical the flexibility of your workforce is to the successful implementation of a WFM system…

It’s at risk of showing my age that I tell you I’ve been selling and implementing workforce management (WFM) software solutions across multiple industry sectors for nearly 18 years. During that time I have seen:

It’s 8am, and you’re about to dial into your first conference call. You have back to back meetings all day, with some double, even triple bookings. There are 50 new emails in your inbox, and you’ve got 5 voicemail messages. A colleague asks you how you’re doing, and you reply with “I haven’t even got time to stop for lunch today!” to which your colleague looks suitably impressed and walks off, under no doubt that you are very busy and therefore clearly adding lots of value to the business.

We thought 2013 was busy with the introduction of Real Time Information (RTI). Looking back it now seems a doddle, but ever a hope that the wrinkles will disappear along with ‘disputed charge’, ‘duplicates’, and ‘misbalance’!

Welcome to the future! I am back with a new blog, this time I look at 6 technology predictions over the next 5 years that will impact the world of HR & Payroll. Who knows where we’ll be in 2020?