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The benefits of workaholism17 Jan 2012 | Permalink
Brian Amble | Stress. Work / Life Balance.
In Europe far more than in the United States, workaholism is seen as a phenomenon that has negative consequences both for individuals and society as a whole. But a recent paper by Rouen Business School professor, Yehuda Baruch, argues that workaholism while unquestionably an addiction can lead to positive outcomes for individuals, business and society. It should not, he says, be automatically dismissed as a vice. In an article published in Career Development International, Baruch observes that workaholism tends to be portrayed as something negative an addiction that brings with it high levels of stress at work as well as at home. But this portrayal is inaccurate, he argues, because research also shows that workaholism is associated with vigor and dedication - positive constructs that are the exact opposites of exhaustion and cynicism. Baruch likens work addiction to a chocolate addiction. There are some health benefits to be gained by eating chocolate; it energizes people and generates a good feeling. Similarly, workaholics are energized by their work and their accomplishments reinforce a sense of well-being. Using this as a metaphor, unless workaholic employees cause significant damage to their health, it may be best to leave it to them to decide how much work they are willing to carry out. "Chocoholism does not hurt the environment, and only under certain extreme cases might it be harmful to the individual's health," Baruch said. "Similarly, workaholism can be encouraged by intrinsic motivation and need, coupled with organizational identification and job satisfaction." Furthermore, he argues that workaholism can bring intrinsic rewards, particularly when the work is done for a "good cause." It can also strengthen social interactions and result in higher pay and promotions, which in turn raises self-esteem. Baruch takes into consideration cultural differences between countries. This includes different regulations and norms for working hours, which influence perceptions of workaholism. Cultures characterized by a high culture of power distance, or the extent to which less powerful members of organizations accept that power is distributed unequally, view workaholism as more positive. He also looks at the benefits of stress, as it's the price many are ready and even happy to pay for a successful career. "I believe that exploring the influence of workaholism should be studied from a balanced viewpoint, not one that takes it as being inherently negative," said Baruch. Lies, damn lies and CSR25 Nov 2011 | Permalink
Brian Amble | CSR & Governance. Environment.
Much of the environmental reporting data released by some of the world's biggest companies is either incomplete, inaccurate or deliberately distorted, according to a review of more than 4,000 CSR reports carried out by researchers from Leeds University in the UK and Euromed Management School in France. According to a report in the Guardian, corporate CSR statements are marked by "irrelevant data, unsubstantiated claims, gaps in data and inaccurate figures", with companies routinely ignoring data from individual countries or failing to mention polluting subsidiaries. "The quality of environmental data in sustainability reports remains appalling at times, even today," said Dr Ralf Barkemeyer, a lecturer in CSR at Leeds and one of the team leaders. "In financial reporting to leave out an undisclosed part of the company in the calculation of profits would be a scandal. In sustainability reporting it is common practice. Among the howling inaccuracies cited by the researchers is a company who stated that its carbon footprint was four times larger than that of the whole world, a power group that over-reported its sulphur emissions by a factor of 1,000 for three years in a row by using kilotonnes instead of tonnes and a large Swedish group that was not aware that it owned a paper and pulp business until the researchers pointed it out that it was the subsidiary of an acquisition. An unpopular cause16 Nov 2011 | Permalink
Brian Amble | Recruitment.
As far as most employers are concerned, having a criminal record is the kiss of death for a job applicant. But that's not the case for Richard Branson's Virgin companies, however, where the message is "everybody deserves a second chance". Encouraging a positive attitude towards ex-offenders isn't exactly the most popular of causes, but according to This lengthy piece in the Guardian newspaper, it is one championed by Branson. Branson has been encouraging Virgin Group companies to employ ex-offenders since hearing about an Australian transport company Toll, which has employed hundreds of ex-prisoners over the past decade, none of whom are known to have reoffended. According to the piece, Branson's attitude stems from personal experience: "I made some mistakes. I could easily have spent time in prison myself over importing records and not paying tax. Then I would have had great difficulty finding a job. Virgin might never have happened and the 60,000 people we now employ might not have had jobs. So I'm sympathetic from a human viewpoint." And whatever you attitude towards ex-offenders, Branson has another piece of advice that anyone involved in talent management should take notice of: "[give] people positions above what they would expect, [and] they will do everything to prove themselves." Poor Economics wins book prize04 Nov 2011 | Permalink
Brian Amble | Management Thinking.
Poor Economics, by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, has won the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award 2011. Marking a refreshing change from all those clichι-ridden tomes on leadership, the book is about poverty those living on less than a dollar a day. Based on 15 years of research, it tries to understand the specific and sometimes contradictory problems that come with poverty (why does a Moroccan farmer who can't afford food find money to buy a television?) and to find solutions that work. Banerjee and Duflo, who are MIT economists and co-founders of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, say that so much of anti-poverty policy has failed over the years because of an inadequate and often simplistic understanding of poverty. The battle against poverty can be won, they argue, but it will take patience and a willingness to learn from evidence. And in particular, it needs "the three I's: ignorance, ideology, and inertia" to be banished from policy making. The award aims to find the book that provides "the most compelling and enjoyable insight into modern business issues". It was presented to Banerjee at the Wallace Collection in London last night (3rd November). The authors share the £30,000 prize, with each of the five runner-up authors receiving £10,000 each. The price of insomnia04 Oct 2011 | Permalink
Brian Amble | Health & Wellbeing. Productivity.
Insomnia is costing the US economy some $63 billion a year in lost productivity, with every unfortunate sufferer costing their employer between $2,280 and $3,274 annually. That's according to a study by researchers at Harvard Medical School and the University of Michigan which, according to HREOnline, is (rather surprisingly) the first of its kind to focus on the impact of insomnia in the workplace. The researchers quizzed some 10,000 employed adults and found that almost a quarter some 23 per cent - sometimes suffer from insomnia "We were shocked by the enormous impact insomnia has on the average person's life," lead author Ronald Kessler, professor of healthcare policy at Harvard Medical School, said in a statement quoted by UPI. "It's an underappreciated problem. Americans are not missing work because of insomnia. They are still going to their jobs, but accomplishing less because they're tired. In an information-based economy, it's difficult to find a condition that has a greater effect on productivity." "Now that we know how much insomnia costs the American workplace, the question for employers is whether the price of intervention is worthwhile," he added. "Can U.S. employers afford not to address insomnia in the workplace?" To coach or not to coach16 Sep 2011 | Permalink
Brian Amble | Coaching & Mentoring.
If you were offered the services of an executive coach, would you jump at the chance? According to a new survey, most of us would. But a significant proportion of executives sometimes refuse the coaching their employer offers. A survey by AMA Enterprise of senior managers and executives at 230 American organizations found that a almost two-thirds of employees seldom or never decline coaching when it is offered. But that leaves around a third of executives who are less convinced of the benefits of coaching and who will sometimes refuse to accept it. AMA Enterprise's Sandi Edwards said that while smart executives recognise that coaching can be a key to their advancement, coaching engagements still need to be handled with tact. "So long as the objectives for the initiative are transparent for all involved, our experience has been that most coaching assignments are wellreceived," she said. Individuals often ask for coaching support, too, said Edwards. "It seems people request coaching more often than refuse it. Indeed, I think we can infer from our data that people are twice as likely to request coaching as refuse it." But the survey also found that coaching is usually kept secret at two-thirds of organizations and sometimes secret at a quarter. So why the secrecy? Is there still a stigma or ambivalence around coaching, despite its gaining ground as a sign of status? Take time out to exercise02 Sep 2011 | Permalink
Brian Amble | Health & Wellbeing. Productivity.
As someone who regularly takes a couple of hours out during a working day to get some miles in on my bike, I was delighted but not surprised - to learn of some new research that has found taking time out of your working work week to do some exercise may lead to increased productivity - despite the reduction in work hours this entails. A study published in the August Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine looked at a group of employees at a large Swedish public dental health organization who were assigned to a mandatory 2½ hour exercise program carried out during regular working hours. A second group received the same reduction in work hours, but no exercise program, while a third worked regular hours with no exercise program. The researchers, Dr Ulrica von Thiele Schwarz and Dr Henna Hasson, from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, found that employees assigned to the exercise program showed significant increases in self-rated measures of productivity. They felt more productive while on the job and had a reduced rate of work absences due to illness. The productivity gains seem to result from higher output during work hours and fewer missed work day. Drs. von Thiele Schwarz and Hasson conclude, "Work hours may be used for health promotion activities with sustained or improved production levels, since the same, or higher, production level can be achieved with lesser resources." Stress of commuting worse for women25 Aug 2011 | Permalink
Brian Amble | Health & Wellbeing. Stress.
Daily commuting is more stressful for women than for men, a new study by researchers in the UK suggests. The study, published in the Journal of Health Economics, found that while women spend less time travelling to and at work than men, commuting has a negative effect on women's mental health. Men somewhat surprisingly - are generally unaffected, the study claims. The researchers suggest that this could be because women have a greater responsibility for day-to-day household tasks, such as childcare and housework, which makes them more sensitive to the time spent commuting. "We know that women, especially those with children, are more likely to add daily errands to their commute such as food shopping and dropping-off and picking-up children from childcare," said Jennifer Roberts, Professor of Economics at the University of Sheffield and co-author of the study. "These time-constraints and the reduced flexibility that comes with them make commuting stressful in a way that it wouldn't be otherwise." The largest adverse effects seen were on women who have pre-school age children. The psychological impact on these women was four times as large as for men with pre-school children. Even women in relationships but with no children were affected. The only women unaffected were those who were single with no children or who were able to work flexible hours or whose partners took primary responsibility for childcare. The only men who suffered psychologically from their commute were those with pre-school age children and even then the effect was smaller than for women in relationships but without children. Take a holiday to fight fraud12 Aug 2011 | Permalink
Brian Amble | CSR & Governance.
Here's an angle why taking a proper summer holiday is a good idea that had never occurred to us before. According to Ernst & Young, summer is the peak time for detecting fraud in organisations because alarm bells are often raised when company fraudsters are away on their summer holidays. "We see a clear increase in fraud detection where companies enforce a compulsory two week break over summer," said Jonathan Middup, Partner at Ernst & Young's Fraud Investigation & Dispute Services practice "Perpetrators are away and not able to cover their tracks easily. Frauds, such as accounts manipulation that are covered up in the course of the year are often spotted when colleagues take over and notice something is not quite right. "The profile of a typical fraudster is a long serving, trusted employee, who works long hours and is reluctant to take their annual leave. Without doubt, one of the most simple and cost-effective anti-fraud measures is to ensure employees take at least two consecutive weeks holiday." Conformity does not equal co-operation01 Aug 2011 | Permalink
Brian Amble | Psychology. Team Working.
If you follow the pack are you more likely to co-operate with others in it? The answer, it seems, is 'no'. Contrary to what you might expect, non-conformists are more likely to be team players while conforming to social norms can actually make people less likely to co-operate. That's according to new research by psychologist Dr Piers Fleming and economist Prof Daniel Zizzo, of the Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science at the University of East Anglia in the UK. Their study, published in the August issue of the journal "Personality and Individual Differences", shows that people who do not conform are most likely to work together for the greater good. In an experiment, the researchers first measured participants' conformity levels and then let them play a game where they could choose whether to contribute financially to the public good. The twist was that although co-operation was mutually beneficial, being unco-operative could produce greater personal gains because of other people's generosity. They expected to find that those who conformed to 'social norms' were more likely to co-operate with others. But contrary to their predictions, conformity did not appear to lead to co-operation. "Social desirability has an impact on behaviour in that it doesn't actually lead to people co-operating more," said Dr Fleming. The findings could have an impact on how we view co-operation at work, he added. "Here we've got a measure of people's co-operation, which could apply to any situation where you've two or more people who are trying to co-operate in an activity. For example in a work setting, if you are part of a team working on a project you expect everyone to put the same effort in to the task. "The expectation is that people who are high in social desirability will conform to the effort other people are putting into the task, but actually the conforming people may be less helpful because they take their cue from the less helpful members of the team. They are conforming to the person who is not necessarily working that hard. "If someone is less conformist they may take a lead and put in more effort, so then others may be prepared to put in more effort themselves, and the individuals and the team benefit. Conformity can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what you are conforming to." The price of failure?18 Jul 2011 | Permalink
Brian Amble | CSR & Governance.
As the slow-motion implosion of the Murdoch media empire continues to pile drama upon crisis upon plot-twist, it's nice to see that some things never change. Yes, as far as senior executives are concerned, it doesn't matter how catastrophic your failure or how damaging the consequences of your actions have been for others: you'll still walk away with a seven-figure payoff. The Daily Mail reports that Rebekah Brooks, News International's disgraced chief executive who was arrested at the weekend as part of the investigation into phone tapping and payments to police can expect to walk away with a severance package of up to £3.5 million ($ 5.6m) - regardless of what happens to her or what it transpires she did or didn't do and regardless, too, of the fact that since the scandal began to unfold, more than £4 billion has been wiped off the value of the News International. The company's recently-departed lawyers, Jon Chapman and Tom Crone - will each get about £1.5m ($ 2.4 million), the report suggests, while the departing editor of the now-defunct News of the World newspaper, Colin Myler, is understood to be in line for a £2m pay-off. Factor in the payout to 50-year News International veteran, Les Hinton (who was Chief Executive of News International's UK newspapers at the time phone hacking was allegedly endemic), and we're looking at more than £10m although this may be a small price to pay since, as the as the Daily Mail notes, the settlements will include strict gagging orders to stop them discussing company affairs outside public inquiry or criminal proceedings. How these payouts compare to the treatment of the hundreds of former News of the World staffers who look set to lose their jobs remains to be seen. Still, they might take some comfort from the fact that as the New York Times pithily put it - 'some mistakes don't stay buried, no matter how much money you throw at them'. Tweet you way to an MBA08 Jul 2011 | Permalink
Brian Amble | MBA Issues.
If you're something of a dab hand with the pithy 140-character Tweet and fancy a helping hand to study for an MBA, the University of Iowa has just the thing for you. The Tippie Full-time MBA program is awarding one full-tuition award package to the applicant who most creatively Tweets an answer to the question, "What makes you an exceptional Tippie MBA candidate and full-time MBA hire? Creativity encouraged!" The award, which comes from private funding, will be presented to a student entering the program in fall 2011. If the 140-character limit proves too limiting, you can link to other social media such as blogs, video, Facebook, or a web page. Colleen Downie, senior assistant dean of the full-time MBA program said: "We think that by saying 'creativity encouraged,' we open the door and allow people to go way beyond 140 characters." "The best Tweets aren't all-encompassing, they are teasers that lead the user somewhere else on the Web where they can dive deeper. This exercise encourages applicants to show us they can draw someone in and so dive deeper." The award is valued at $37,000 and the deadline for the Tweet is July 28. Does your boss have an honest face?06 Jul 2011 | Permalink
Brian Amble | No categories specified.
If you have a male boss, take a good look at his face. Is it long and narrow or altogether wider? And if he does have a wide face, beware. Because according to a new study, men with wide faces are more likely to be dishonest and unethical than their thinner-featured colleagues. Professor Michael Haselhuhn of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, claims that his research suggests that the link between men's facial ratio and their unethical behaviour is caused by a sense of power. "Men with larger facial ratios feel more powerful, and this sense of power then leads them to act unethically," he said. "Men's facial width-to-height ratio is generally a positive signal, evolutionary speaking. Specifically, when men compete for resources with other men, relative facial width is a strong sign of aggressive, self-interested behaviour. "Our findings suggest that some men are simply predisposed to act unethically in order to achieve their goals. This has important practical implications, for example someone in the market for a new car may wish to peruse photos of salesmen online before visiting the dealership in person to increase the chances of finding an honest negotiator," he added. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the research was an examination of the facial profiles of some 60 chief executives from the US Fortune 500. What Professor Haselhuhn was that successful companies are more likely to be led by men with wider faces, suggesting that they are channelling their aggressive, unethical tendencies into something more constructive (or not, as the case may be . . . ) "It's also important to recognise that men with larger facial ratios aren't all bad," Haselhuhn said. "The same feelings of power and aggression that spark unethical behaviour can be a net benefit if they are channelled correctly." Americans need more holidays, says Richard Branson28 Jun 2011 | Permalink
Brian Amble | Flexible Working. Work / Life Balance.
A big thumbs up to serial entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson, founder and chairman of the Virgin Group, who thinks that the pitiful amount of holiday American workers are given "stinks" and believes American business need to be much more open to workforce flexibility. "The amount of holidays people are given in America stinks. I think that all companies should rethink it and give people decent holidays. And if it's not going to work financially then let them go on unpaid leave," said Branson in a live open interview in the opening session of the SHRM Annual Conference and Exhibition in Las Vegas. "People would rather have slightly less money and decent holidays to spend time with their children and to reenergize. People would rather live than be a cog in a machine." He also said that American companies don't seem to understand the concept of workforce flexibility. "Flexibility is critical and I think US companies are particularly bad at it. And I'm not saying that Virgin is a great example of it." However, there are a lot of people working for companies in the US that are either full-time or not working at all. But if you ask your workforce, you'll find that many would love more flexibility, maybe to go part-time or job share, or go off for six months unpaid leave. But they are frightened to ask." Branson also told the conference that the wrong leadership can quickly destroy a company. "To keep staff engaged you need the right kind of people running the companies and if they are the kind of people who lavish praise on people, inspire them, listen and who get out from behind their desks and take notes and act on those notes then you can create a great company. If you have a bad chief executive or manager can destroy the spirit of a company incredibly quickly. "The chairman of the company and HR people must push that person out of the company before they destroy it or push the HR person out." Want to bury your head?21 Jun 2011 | Permalink
Brian Amble | Health & Wellbeing.
If the goings-on in your workplace sometimes leave with an overwhelming desire to emulate an ostrich and bury your head in the sand, we have just the thing to help you. Uber-trendy design studio, kawamura-ganjavian, (you know it's uber-trendy because the name is all in lower case ) have come up with their own answer to the Ostrich, albeit something that looks like a cross between a large, padded, somewhat deformed sweater and a set of broken bagpipes (minus the pipes). The idea seems to be that you put your head in it, slump forward on your desk, and have a nap. According to its creators, "OSTRICH offers a micro environment in which to take a warm and comfortable power nap at ease. It is neither a pillow nor a cushion, nor a bed, nor a garment, but a bit of each at the same time. Its soothing cave-like interior shelters and isolates our head and hands (mind, senses and body) for a few minutes, without needing to leave our desk." Other left-field kawamura-ganjavian objects with potential workplace applications include a set of three mini-pieces of cutlery (knife, fork, spoon) that fit at the end of your fingers perfect for lunch-on-the-go (use in conjunction with their refrigerated tray), and Earshells which are, as their name suggests, sound-enhancing shells that clip onto your ears and might help you hear what your colleagues are trying to say to you . . . Ernst & Young launches maternity coaching scheme08 Jun 2011 | Permalink
Brian Amble | Women & Work.
For all the equality legislation, rhetoric and good intentions, the so-called "mommy-track" the career-damaging penalty many women face after having children is still a very real phenomenon across Europe and the USA. Now, in an effort to increase the numbers of women staying with the firm after they have children, the UK arm of accountancy giant Ernst & Young has announced a new maternity coaching scheme for women which, they say, will help women make an informed decision about how and when they return to work. The scheme, which has been taken up by almost 250 women since it was lanched five months ago, offers four coaching sessions, which take place before, during and after their maternity leave. The sessions cover areas such as managing relationships with clients and colleagues, exploring alternative work patterns, and re-integrating into the workplace. The line managers of women due to go on maternity leave also attend sessions about how to provide the right level of contact and support. Liz Bingham, partner sponsor of the programme at the firm, said: "Gender diversity isn't just an issue in the boardroom. It's vital that organisations create talent pipelines to ensure that high-potential women are being developed at every level through their careers. "Initiatives like our new maternity scheme are designed to remove any perceived or real blockages in the pipeline. We want to ensure that all our people, at every stage of their personal and professional lives are supported and are able to make informed choices about their career development." Interestingly, she added that Ernst & Young now has led to plans to extend the scheme to new fathers. It's the attitude, stupid31 May 2011 | Permalink
Brian Amble | Recruitment.
With much of the world still mired in economic woe, it might seem rather paradoxical that almost a third of employers worldwide complain that they cannot find qualified talent. According to a survey by the ManpowerGroup, one in three employers globally report difficulty filling jobs due to lack of available talent, the highest percentage since before the recession in 2007. In the US, half of employers report recruitment problems despite record levels of un- (and under-) employment. Nine out of 10 employers cite candidate-specific factors behind the challenge of filling mission-critical roles including a lack of necessary skills and experience, insufficient qualifications, or a lack of soft skills, the survey found. But the key point of the survey isn't found in the headline numbers. It's the fact that the hardest roles to fill (sales representatives and skilled trades workers) are the same jobs that employers have reported having difficulty filling for the past four years. So why are employers not re-evaluating how they are recruiting for these positions? The answer as Dan Bobinski put it very succinctly in a piece he wrote more than five years ago is simple. Hire for attitude train for skill. Since this message still doesn't seem to be getting through, it's worth repeating: "The most important factor in hiring is attitude. Hire for it. Through the resume process you're going to find people who have the basic skill levels you're looking for. That's the first hoop. Then with a telephone screen you can find out if people have the foundational knowledge and the intellect for what you want. Or to put it more bluntly as Laurie Ruettimann did in a forthright post recently, "there are plenty of reasons why jobs go unfilled but much of it has nothing to do with a lack of qualified candidates ....The war for talent is overstated by HR teams and recruiting professionals who lack the required skills, resources, and backbone to hire talented people". Women shunning finance careers16 May 2011 | Permalink
Brian Amble | Financial Services. Women & Work.
Young women in the US are turning their backs on the finance sector despite all the efforts of employers to attract and retain women. According to an article on Fins.com, between 2001 and 2010 the number of women between the ages of 20 and 34 working in the finance industry fell by 394,000 some 20% - according to an analysis of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Fins, a financial news portal, is curiously reticent about exploring too deeply the reasons for this dramatic decline, only suggesting that "Wall Street still hasn't been able to offer much in the way of work-life balance" and that the old-boys club mentality remains tough to break down. The raft of other reasons for shunning Wall Street is left unsaid although as one comment puts it, "the current generation of both men and women do not share your workaholism and your careerism. Maybe they know something you don't know; that life is about more than money, power, and prestige." UK businesses shun public sector staff12 Apr 2011 | Permalink
Brian Amble | Productivity. Public Sector.
As the UK's public sector starts to feel the full weight of financial belt-tightening, the government is doubtless hoping that many of those who will lose their jobs are going to find work in the private sector, particularly with smaller employers. But according to a new survey of small business owners, the overwhelming majority of SMEs take a very dim view indeed of former-public sector staff, with a mere two per cent saying they would actively seek to recruit public sector workers and almost a quarter only hiring them if they couldn't find anyone else for the job. Just over one in ten said they would not take on a public sector worker at all, whatever the circumstances. The reason for this lies in the perception that the public sector has encouraged "over-indulged staff with unrealistic expectations of the work place". Half (55 per cent) of SME owners believe public sector workers are unrealistic in their expectations about pay, holidays and employment terms, and only one in 10 (11 per cent) think that public sector workers are as productive as their private sector counterparts. And just to underline the yawning perception gap between the two, just six per cent think that that a public sector worker would fit in well at their company. Keeping your head down08 Apr 2011 | Permalink
Brian Amble | Engagement & Motivation.
It's a sad, but not particularly surprising fact that the way many organisations have reacted to the recession has made their employees less - rather than more likely to be proactive or creative or to 'go the extra mile'. In fact according to a new UK survey by HR specialists, The Curve Group, almost half (45 per cent) of employees are now less likely to put their head above the parapet at work for fear of losing their jobs. They are risk averse, have stopped being proactive or innovative and will only do what they need to do to survive. The same survey also found that a quarter to UK organisations are not looking at ways to keep their top talent or engage their staff. According to the Curve Group's Lyndsey Simpson: "This move to survival mode is a known shift coming out of a recession but it does have major repercussions for organisations including lower levels of performance, especially from survivors of a redundancy process and managers using a short-term, reactive management style." 
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