Discover our insights and the latest thinking in HR
We are not our employees’ family. We never have been. And that’s not a bad thing. It’s healthy.
Examples of how HR are using nudges instead of training to help influence the behaviour of our leaders and employees.
Disruptive HR founders Lucy Adams and Karen Moran answer your questions on how to make hybrid working work.
If you search online for L&D roles you might be shocked to see how few organisations are grasping the changes in learning. Perhaps you’re already on the path to making changes in your L&D function, but need a bit of inspiration?
Succession plans are increasingly outdated and don't reflect the pace of business today. This blog looks at the alternatives.
Rather than relying on an HR policy to help you manage a team who are working flexibly, try asking yourself these questions to make sure you’re getting hybrid working right.
HR has a bit of a ‘love-hate’ relationship with the finance function, don’t we? It’s time to make our relationship with the Finance team a bit healthier and stop trying to BE them.
In this 5 minute video, we look at the most popular options for HR team structures and outline three key features of new HR team design.
With the race for top talent growing by the minute, every organisation is rethinking their approach to how they currently attract prospective employees.
We spend a lot of money recruiting someone and then put them into this probation period which has such negative connotations. Isn't it time to do something different and ditch probation?
Of course, you’ve all been making change happen regularly, particularly in the last two years. But how can we do it differently? Here are four change management essentials that I believe it’s worth thinking about.
Find out how to lead through disruption using the EACH model – Employees as Adults, Consumers and Human beings.
We’ve put together a few tips and an example of a Head of Diversity job spec to help you get started with creating an inclusive culture where everyone can do the best work of their lives.
Watch our animation looking at the wave of new trends in hiring that can boost your employment brand and transform the experience for hiring managers, candidates and HR.
The HR leaders who are having the most impact are those who have the courage to avoid the neat processes and instead, offer light-touch, agile and less perfect solutions to the challenges we face.
Getting people to leave is key to creating talent movement, but is often missing from our talent strategies. This video looks at some options for creating space.
Duration: 29 minutes Lucy interviews Tanuj Kapilashrami, Global Head of HR at Standard Chartered.
Many of us are offering continued flexibility about where we work. But what about the risks of 'proximity bias'? Will being 'out of sight', mean we're 'out of mind'?
Duration: 20 minutes Founders of Disruptive HR, Lucy Adams and Karen Moran, talk about the latest trends in Performance Management.
Find out about the latest trends in Talent Management with our latest animation.
The people strategy shouldn’t be a remedy for insomnia. We can produce short, punchy documents that get people energised by our plans and which, more importantly, focus on a few key ambitions that actually matter.
This blog from Disruptive HR explores the tactics we could adopt to make sure we’re getting the best HR talent out there.
Despite tons of effort and investment our progress in creating truly diverse organisations remains pretty slow. This blog explores the traditional approaches we need to stop and what we should do differently.
Duration: 28 minutes Lucy talks to founder of Zig Zag, Ben Wiseman about improving the candidate experience and the opportunities technology offers to change recruitment.
Our reliance on the leader as the source of truth is diminishing and smarter HR teams recognise how we can use the fact that we trust 'people like us'.
Whilst traditional interviews are still the most common approach in selection, we all have questioned whether they tell us enough about whether someone can actually do the job and worry that we might be missing out on candidates who are not great at interviews but would be perfect for the job.
Duration: 23 minutes Lucy talks to Ailsing Tellard, founder of performance management tool Our Tandem about helping employees to own their performance and careers.
Duration: 28 minutes Lucy talks to Imola Richards from GE about HR leadership development and sustaining the ability to challenge the status quo.
Whilst our desire to compensate for poor managers comes from a good intent, we can end up making things worse. In this blog we look at how we can stop compensating for poor managers.
We’ve summarised the four key skills that we in HR need for the future, in order to thrive in this disrupted world.
Many of you are opting for a hybrid workplace. In this blog, we share some tips on how managers can make the future workplace – work.
Duration: 27 minutes Lucy talks to Founder of Wow Accountants, Paul Bulpitt, about how to ensure your people live up to your brand.
If you genuinely want your team to know you care – then it is about asking the right questions. In this video we share the three questions every manager could use.
HR is replacing rules and policies with broad principles that use notions of reasonableness, that start from a position of trust - or assume positive intent.
Lucy talks to Thomas Moeller Lybaek about his role redesigning HR processes for Lego.
Find out about the latest trends in performance management with our latest animation.
Lucy talks to Selina Millstam from Ericsson anout their unique approach to transformational change.
Deciding on your future working arrangements can be tricky with so many personal agendas floating about. Here are our list of some do's and don'ts for holding these discussions.
Lucy talks to Executive Coach Elle Harrison about how coaching can be used to bring in talented mavericks without disrupting the culture.
The HR teams who are making fantastic and innovative changes don't waste their time on the biggest resistors. They focus instead on the curious and the open.
Lucy talks to Catherine Garrod (ex-Sky and founder of Compelling Culture) about how to take fresh approaches to diversity and inclusion.
If our organisations are going to survive and thrive in this new, disrupted world then we need a fundamentally new way of relating to our people. Disruptive HR would like to introduce you to the EACH approach – employees as adults, consumers and human beings.
Lucy talks to Jason Larry, the Global Head of Real Estate at Mondelez about their approach to post-pandemic hybrid workplace.
What are the skills and mindsets that are needed to be an all round great HR person? Take our free diagnostic to see how you compare and get some practical tips on how to develop.
Duration: 29 Minutes Lucy talks to Chief People Officer at DAZN, Shaun Conning about non-traditional routes into and approaches to HR
It isn’t a seat at a top table that gives HR influence. We build credibility and influence through the power of our relationships, our perceived value and contributions. In this short video we look at how you can improve your influence without having positional power.
What does it take to be an exceptional, high performing HR Business Partner. What are the skills, knowledge and attributes of the best? Here are our thoughts and a sample job spec.
Duration: 27 Minutes Lucy talks with learning expert and HR Director Learning at Deloitte, Nick Shackleton-Jones about how people learn and how that understanding can dramatically re-shape our approach to L&D
Whilst of course great diversity and inclusion should lead to action, there is an important stage before that which, if we get it right, can help ensure those actions are more effective. And that is how we frame our intent. This blog looks at how to get your D&I intentions right.
We are seeing a wave of new trends in performance management that take less time, cost less and actually drive up performance – which was kind of why we started this whole thing, right?
Duration: 27 Minutes Lucy to talks with MD of search firm Fortune Hill, Joel Barnett about the HR search market and what his clients are looking for from their HR hires.
Part of our 5 Minute Monday series from the Disruptive HR Club, this short video looks at how we can make sure that talent management and career development is happening, even now with the current constraints.
The plans we are making now for a post-Covid world offer a genuine opportunity to re-shape our businesses and the lives of our people but we have to re-shape our thinking as well as giving up the lease on our office.
Duration: 26 minutes Lucy interviews Tanith Dodge, one of the most foremost HR Directors in the UK about what it takes to get to the top of the HR profession.
There's some great tech on the market for L&D - but it can get confusing to make the right choice. Here are our recommendations for the best in 2020.
Duration: 24 minutes Lucy interviews Claude Silver, Chief Heart Officer at VaynerMedia to learn more about how they have continued to lead with the heart throughout the pandemic.
We should question whether our healthy snacks and instructive posters are addressing the real barriers to feeling well. Should HR be the caring parent and provide the right kinds of food, exhortations and education? Or should we look to reduce the things that create the stress in the first place?
Duration: 39 minutes Karen chats to Maggie, the Head of People Operations at Xoserve about how they have transformed their approach to performance management.
Employee persona are invaluable for helping you to make sure your HR products and services are designed with the end-user - your employees - in mind. We’ve put together a handout that takes you through a step-by-step process to help you create your Employee Persona so that you can get started with personalising the employee experience for your people.
In HR we are often told that getting certain types of managers to move away from process is impossible, that they have to have a process, especially for people management. In this blog we look at why that is not the case and how all managers, even engineers, are capable of changing the way they lead!
Duration: 23 minutes Lucy to talks to Elena Aylott from Oriflame Cosmetics about how she has introduced Employee Experience.
Do you feel that your current job descriptions are a bit tired - a long list of tasks or just don't reflect your brand? Then we’ve put together some simple tips to give them a refresh and included an example job description to get you started.
A taste of just some of the content you can get from our Disruptive HR Club! Here's one of our 5 Minute Mondays - an example of one small change you can make in a video that's less than five minutes! This one is about how appraisals are not the answer for poor performers.
Duration: 11 minutes Hear how Essex County Council transformed their approach to performance management. From research to ensure their approach was user-centred, to getting rid of ratings, becoming employee-led and focusing on ‘in-the-moment’ feedback!
What does an HR team for a disrupted world look like? In this blog we look at five key trends in HR design that will offer greater opportunities for real creativity, increased capacity to deliver and happily, should save money too.
Duration: 32 minutes Lucy interviews Aidan Geary, Director of Operations at Conde Nast. He talks about the challenges of running a global media brand during the crisis and some of the positives that have come from it.
HR budgets are tight and are probably going to get a lot tighter. Here's some HR stuff that you can stop doing that will save you money - and create a better people experience.
Duration: 19 minutes Lucy chats with Inge Oosterhuis who heads up Global Innovation/Human Potential at Accenture about the trends she's seeing as a result of the crisis.
We need a fresh perspective on what great talent management looks like. Here are five things that great talent leaders don’t do that we might have admired in the past.
Duration: 19 minutes Anne-Katrine describes her excitement about how the crisis has given her team renewed confidence that they can make change happen.
Despite HR’s progress in lots of other areas in reward, getting rid of bonuses has proved almost impossible. I think that’s because we, and our leaders, cling onto a number of myths that have proved hard to shake. This blog tries to bust those myths and to give you the ammo you’ll need if you want to fight this particular battle!
Duration: 21 minutes. Lucy chats with Esther Wallington, the Chief People Officer at HMRC about the changes in managers' and employees' behaviour during the crisis.
We have a winner! Well, actually we have five winners! Five HR teams who have shown amazing resilience, innovation and agility. Five companies who have used the crisis to make lasting changes in how they deliver HR.
Duration: 21 Minutes Lucy talks to Amy Brand, Global HR Partner for Swiss Re.
Duration: 24 minutes. Lucy chats to Andrea Gordon, HR Director at Peabody Housing Trust.
What does leadership look like post-crisis? In this blog we explore what #BetterNormal leadership looks like and share examples of how leaders are doing it well.
Duration: 19 minutes. Lucy interviews Amy Girdwood, EVP People and Culture at media giant Discovery.
We want to celebrate those of you who are creating a #BetterNormal. So, we’re launching our #BetterNormalAwards.
One of the upsides of the current crisis has been a shift in the way that leaders are communicating with their teams. When we think about returning to normal, it is vital that we don’t lose some of these four leadership communication trends.
Duration: 32 minutes. Lucy interviews one of the UK's most prominent HR Directors, Simon Linares.
Duration: 21 minutes. We hear from Katherine, who heads up HR at the NHS Blood and Transplant service.
For all the sadness of this crisis, it presents HR with an amazing opportunity to create something better. A better normal. This blog explores how you can start to do just that.
This second blog in the series on HR Crisis Management looks at five approaches that have worked for HR leaders in previous crises to get the work done.
With the current COVID-19 crisis, your team may be finding it challenging working from home for long periods of time. So, knowing that what they do matters and is appreciated is more important than ever right now. Take a look at Disruptive HR’s simple ideas to say ‘thank-you’ that will surprise and delight every personality in your team while they’re at home!
As an HRD of some fairly big organisations, I would have said I was well-used to leading HR through crises, but clearly nothing has prepared HR for what we’re going through now. In this blog we focus on how HR can support leaders.
Duration: 25 minutes. Hear Andy Emerson and Oliver Langford from Thrive Tribe talk about the people activities that support their great culture.
HR had already been making some significant changes over the last few years, and the good news is that all of these changes are likely to stand you in good stead for facing the new post Covid19 world. In this blog we explore what the implications of the crisis could be for HR.
If you’re not doing stay interviews yet, you should be! They are a fantastic way to increase engagement and retention. In this webinar we show you how to get them going in your organisation.
Trust in leaders matters more than ever and yet, many leaders destroy that trust every day. In this blog we share how leaders can create a relationship with their people that is based on trust, even in the most challenging of times.
Duration: 14 minutes. Claire Camara and Clare Fogden from The Coop share how they have begun to implement employee experience, or as they call it, 'colleague experience'.
Duration: 14 minutes. Claire Camara and Clare Fogden from The Coop share how they are building leadership capability in new ways including focusing on the behaviours they need in the future, taking out tired processes and changing the ways leaders are chosen.
Every organisation seems to crave greater levels of innovation. This blog looks at how HR can play their part in making this happen.
You have to offer flexible working to attract the best – but how do you actually make flexible working work in your organisation? In this webinar we look at how to do it successfully.
'Tis the season ... when HR gets roped into writing policies to make sure we don't enjoy ourselves too much during the festive period! Check out our 'HR Festivity Policy'!
As the pressure to secure the best talent mounts, HR is rightly questioning the real value of one of our most favoured talent tools – the 9 Box Grid.
Not the most exciting area of HR but our employment policies can say so much about how we want to treat our people. This webinar offers some fresh ways of doing them and is just one of a wide range of tutorials available on The Disruptive HR Club.
HR and Marketing are natural allies. We can use many of the Marketing Team's techniques to make HR more relevant and impactful.
The best job descriptions bring to life for the candidate what their day might look like, who they’ll work with, what they’ll accomplish and what the culture is like.
Like many other employment concepts that sprung up in the 80’s and 90’s, corporate value statements seem increasingly old-fashioned and irrelevant. Maybe it’s time we took the posters off the wall and went for something different?
Duration: 32 minutes. Nebel talks through her exciting and innovative approaches in fashion retail HR.
Duration: 39 minutes. Caoimhe and Alex talk about the innovative approaches to onboarding and D&I at MSM.
Duration: 22 minutes. In 2018 A+E Networks UK were named the best place to work in TV in the UK by industry magazine Broadcast. We chat to their VP of HR, Karl Burnett, to hear how they did it and get him to share some of the secrets of their success.
Saying you're moving to frequent check-ins as an alternative to annual appraisals is one thing - making them happen is another thing entirely! In this blog we look at how HR teams are doing this successfully.
Talent management, like so many aspects of HR is getting a welcome overhaul. The traditional focus of HR teams on the big cumbersome processes and painful assessments is being replaced with more agile, conversational and outcome focused approaches. In this blog we discuss the myths around traditional talent management and explore the 3 big trends we're seeing from progressive HR teams.
Duration: 28 minutes.
Hear how Drew and his team have used consumer insight techniques to shape their approach to Employee Engagement.
How can HR go faster? How can we ensure that we are going at the pace of the fastest? How do we ensure we that we are setting the pace instead of putting the brakes on? This blog explores 7 ways HR can pick up speed.
Duration: 22 minutes.
Tracy talks about how Sky has moved away from class room based learning to an approach that is owned by the employee.
The number of articles predicting the demise of the HR profession continue to stack up. In this blog we look at who on the Board would take over HR's role and what fresh approaches they might bring.
Duration: 23 minutes.
Hear how Suzie developed a new leadership framework that made a real shift in the performance of the business.
Duration: 32 minutes.
Listen to how ABN AMRO used employee personas to help them with their employee experience journey.
Duration: 28 minutes.
Lucy and Russell talk about leadership and the role of HR
Duration: 20 minutes.
Hear from Katee about how even small changes can have a bit impact.
Duration: 36 minutes.
Suzanne talks about how Virgin Atlantic have revamped their approach to Performance Management.
Duration: 27 minutes.
Hear how Colleen adopted agile principles within HR at Vistaprint.
Duration: 20 minutes.
Hear about how Sky is getting their Diversity & Inclusion agenda right.
Duration: 27 minutes.
Ann shares how Badoo is approaching their talent challenges in super competitive industry.
The speaker and author on the right way to manage change – and how not to criminalise employees
Duration: 30 minutes.
Steve and Karen talk about recruiting digital talent.
Mario shared with us the journey Vagas has been on to become the dynamic company that it is today. An interesting read on how this company makes self-managing teams work for them.
In the second part of this blog we share the ways in which organisations are taking fresh approaches to D&I.
Diversity and inclusion is an area of HR that has long needed refreshing. This blog looks at why our typical approaches aren't working and the new trends that are really helping organisations become more diverse and inclusive.
Duration: 1 hr 27 minutes, Stream #21 Sam talks with Lucy Adams about the future of work and the role of HR by Sam Talks Technology from desktop or your mobile device
The third and final blog in our series on how to create an amazing employee experience. This blog offers a step by step guide to get you there.
Why does HR need a fundamental re-think? Hear from, Lucy Adams, author of the bestseller ‘HR Disrupted’ as she uncovers a new way of thinking about the role ...
Hear from, Lucy Adams, author of the bestseller ‘HR Disrupted’ as she talks about the obstacles facing HR and how to tackle them as we go through our third evolution in HR.
It's easy to get confused with so many HR tech products out there. Here's our pick for 2019!
Part 2 in our blog series on creating an amazing employee experience explores the different elements you might want to include.
Despite all the hype, moving to an employee experience focus is genuine game changer for HR. This blog is the first in a series on how you go about creating an amazing employee experience in your organisation.
It should be the most interesting report in the Board pack, so why is it usually last on the agenda and met with indifference? In this blog we look at how to make the People Report into something they actually enjoy reading and look at the two questions every Board should want to know about our people.
Most of HR's energy gets spent on either the top or the bottom 10% of our employees. This blog suggests that there are serious downsides to this approach and that it's time to stop obsessing about our "stars and rogues".
If we are going to help leaders and managers move with our desire to change approach and to deliver HR that is more relevant for today’s disrupted world, then we need strategies that make it easier and more appealing than our usual HR initiatives. This blog provides some different ways of helping leaders to embrace new techniques.
In HR we have prided ourselves on becoming great service providers. In this blog we explore how this service mindset may have done us no favours and how moving to HR products might give us greater impact.
“We started out with real agility and entrepreneurialism. Then, as we grew, we started to bring in lots of policies and process. Now we feel slow and less creative. We never wanted to end up being this type of company.” If this sounds like your organisation then this blog is for you. We've got some tips to help rediscover what made you great in the beginning and to avoid the accepted wisdom of what it means to be a grown up company.
A need for collaboration between teams is something many HR teams are wrestling with. Unfortunately, our traditional approaches and processes do nothing to help foster better working relationships and, in some cases, actively work against them. So how can HR help to create greater collaboration in their organisations? Here we look at four of the approaches that companies are taking to ensure their people focus on beating the competition and not the team next door.
Whilst the 'no more ratings' argument seems to be winning, many of us are still wrestling with the dilemma of how to pay out bonuses if we don't have a number assigned to individuals each year. In this blog we look at the options you've got to make this happen.
Worrying about our credibility can be a bit of an HR obsession. We worry that we still haven’t got that seat on the Board. We worry that we aren’t taken seriously as Finance. In this blog we look at credibility boosters that work (and those that don't!)
HR Transformations don't transform HR. Eight out of ten large companies are currently running one to reduce HR costs but less than 20% actually deliver. In this blog we look at why that is and what the alternatives might be.
It’s January 2018 and some of you out there will be entering another year of your major “HR Transformation”. You’ll probably be over-budget and behind schedule. Why not have a look at some of the great app alternatives?
Whilst it's often easier and cheaper to implement one-size-fits-all processes, they rarely deliver results. If we are going to genuinely change behaviour, we need to become the human not process experts. In this blog we explain how.
Welcome to Part Two of the Top 10 books that helped to disrupt my approach to HR
There’s a few reading lists doing the rounds so I thought I’d jump on the bandwagon and give you my personal favourites.
If you’ve been in HR a while, you’ll have your own collection of cringe worthy moments. Those memories of when you launched a new process that achieved absolutely nothing. Instead of trying to make our broken processes easier to use, this blog explores how we can have a genuine impact.
HR surveys tell us the creation of a great employee experience ranks as a major trend again this year. They also acknowledge that only a minority of companies have found a way of doing it well. In this blog we share how you can create not just one employee experience, but a customised one.
The leadership competency model is based upon a myth of the perfect leader. If we can attain all the competencies, we'll be perfect! Of course, this doesn't exist. So, how can we determine what we need from leaders in this disrupted world? In this blog we look at fresh alternatives.
Anyone who loves to shop gets what a great customer experience looks and feels like. In this blog we look at what we can learn from retail as we think about creating a memorable employee experience.
Picture this leader. She has lots of people wanting to leave her team, she recently lost a couple of good people to a competitor and she neglects her high-potentials. Meet the new great leader of talent!
Whatever your sector, we’re all tech companies now. The need to attract and build a digital capability is one of the key challenges for all leaders and HR professionals. In this blog we look at how two experts have done in their companies.
The most recent global survey into the issue of trust has some challenging implications for HR. So much of our current approach stems is based around our leaders being the font of all truth, wisdom and credibility.
My business partner loves uncertainty. She deliberately won’t book a hotel till the last minute so she has the excitement of not knowing where she’ll be staying that night. She starts her shopping on Christmas eve. She actually enjoys hot desking. She is not the norm.
Succession planning in traditional ways isn't delivering. This blog looks at alternatives that are more suited to a disrupted world.
We often get asked to work with clients who want to change their approach to performance management. Typically, this focuses on the sensible desire to remove the dreaded appraisal ratings. There's nothing wrong with this.
Is there anyone out there who still thinks the annual engagement survey is a good use of time and money? Is there anyone left who still believes that the annual engagement survey improves engagement?
Whether you call it onboarding or induction, it means the same thing – it’s all about how we get new employees bedded in and working effectively as quickly as possible.
If you’re in HR, then I’m sure you experience those awful moments when you question whether the processes you and your team have worked so hard to create are actually delivering results.
We often hear organisations say that their “employees are our greatest assets”. What a horrible phrase. Assets are things like buildings, computer equipment and furniture – not human beings.
I am going to assume that anyone reading this already gets the need for better and different HR practices. I am not going to bang on about the demands of a “VUCA” world, the pace of change, the rise of the Millennials, or a more globalised, networked economy.
Over the last few weeks I’ve been looking at the traditional repertoire of talent management tools and techniques. I’ve been doing the easy bit - dissing the old favourites like the 9 Box Grid and Hi-Po Programmes but not putting forward what might work instead.
I always found it interesting that despite having to make quite deep cuts in my budgets over the years, my CEO’s would be reluctant to see the removal of one of the bigger ticket items in the HR portfolio – the High Potentials Programme.
Despite our seeming obsession with what we call and how we structure ourselves, the latest HR makeover to Employee Experience can, I believe, present an opportunity for genuine change.
Think of the best reward you were ever given at work. Actually, think of the best reward you were given anywhere. I was recently hosting a panel of seven business leaders and posed that question to them.
I’ve never hidden my dislike of the annual appraisal, and we don’t exactly lack for articles discrediting them, yet they’re a resilient, persistent breed that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere any time soon.
As the dissatisfaction with the traditional "three legged stool" model for HR increases, many HR professionals are asking the question “What is the next generation HR structure?”
When people find a mission in life, it’s usually something really awe-inspiring – like climbing Kilimanjaro or saving some rare species of whale. Mine is really lame.
A client recently called me to talk about improving their employment brand. I was very excited and had loads of ideas about how they might change their approach to some of the big HR ticket items such as talent, performance and succession.
The fact that people believe that only one in five business leaders will tell the truth when the going gets tough would suggest that they are not managing their communications terribly well.
We can really over-engineer things in HR and Internal Comms can’t we? The jargon, the models of engagement, the diagnostics ….
It’s that time again. That time of year that we all dread. Appraisal season.
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