The IKEA Effect in the workplace A research team Michael I. Norton of Harvard Business School, Daniel Mochon of Yale, and Dan Ariely of Duke, first named the IKEA effect in 2011. They described the IKEA effect as “labor alone can be sufficient to induce greater liking for the fruits of one’s labor: even constructing a…

Unleash is always something of a brain fry. There is so much to take in and much of it is overlapping, outwardly contradictory and nuanced. It would seem that in a digital self-service world within an organisation, HR is in danger of assuming the role of full-service digital process “nanny.” This carries the same message as…

Researchers and pundits in the media are predicting the advance of AI and automation with jobs tagged for disappearance. Andrew Ng suggested in 2016 “If a typical person can do a mental task with less than one second of thought, we can probably automate it using AI either now or in the near future,”  As…

Employer branding has always been important to attract top talent, but today it is more significant than ever. The emergence of a generation of super digitally savvy candidates means that the standard ways of building a strong employer brand are no longer sufficient. These candidates are smart enough to lift the curtain and dig deeper.…

And when did respect become political correctness? Have you ever noticed how people apologise for political correctness or pour scorn on it as somehow  it’s something we have to justify. We frequently hear sentences starting with “I know this is politically incorrect but…..”  They then go on to say something mildly or even extremely offensive.…

Last week I wrote a post “5 ways to avoid a toxic workplace culture.” This took a macro view of workplace culture. I have been asked by many readers to give practical tips to avoid being or becoming a toxic boss. There is an old adage that says people leave bosses not organisations so all…

Very often those leading or working in toxic workplace cultures are unable to see things how they really are. Bad habits and behaviours are so deeply ingrained that the individuals involved no longer notice. Or if they do, they make excuses “That’s how he/ she is” or “that’s the way we do things here.”  Then…

The stats on the level of engagement in all organizations come out overwhelmingly against the boss. 66% seems to be a standard figure for disengaged employees, so let’s work around that. It starts with the top employee who can bail fastest and more easily than the others. Then it trickles downwards, so that means losing your…

You might be surprised,  but the reaction that many people have to networking can be likened to the way they feel about having their legs waxed. 10 things networking and leg waxing have in common The processes are identical in many ways that you probably haven’t even thought of: The thought of it makes you cringe: both networking…

I am a huge tennis fan as many of you know,  but was disappointed to turn on my television yesterday to see John Inverdale commentating on the Davis Cup match Italy versus Great Britain.  Inverdale ignited a furore last year after the  Wimbledon final  when he suggested to an audience of millions, that because the new champion Marion Bartoli “was never going…