We’re sure you’re all familiar with the concept of a ‘Nudge’ - encouraging people to do the right thing without being overly directive. Imagine if you could stick a sticky note on everyone’s screen that ‘nudges’ your employees to maintain their engagement with ongoing appraisal conversations. That’s exactly what we’ve done in our cloud-based performance management software called Performance.…

With so much workforce uncertainty over the last two years in particular, succession planning – or workforce planning – has risen up the strategic priority list. Skills shortages in leadership and business-critical positions at all levels of organisations – both smaller and larger in size – are under increasing pressure to withstand the ripple effect across organisations of losing key people and skills sets. But how sure are you that your succession planning strategy and processes are robust enough to not just to cope amidst these organisational shifts but be confident that you have the necessary successors ready to make the most of a recovering economy and keep it successfully on course in line with your strategy? We think that if the recent challenges have taught us anything it’s that businesses need to embrace and embed succession planning software if they are to survive and thrive.…

How a manager approaches a 360 feedback meeting will partly depend on who initiated the process. Perhaps a team member requested the review seeking a specific career development path or the manager has sought feedback on a direct report’s performance, or as part of a wider process the organisation may be seeking to identify high potential candidates in a high stakes promotion process. Either way, the line manager’s role in the success of the 360 review process is crucial. So, we’ve put together a list of question prompts to help better prepare managers to get the most out of 360 review meetings.…

360 degree feedback can give businesses powerful information to help give valuable insights into the development needs of your people and identify high potential and future leaders as part of your succession planning and promotion strategies. But how do you implement a successful 360 degree feedback review? Or if you’re already running a 360 feedback review, how do you know if it’s working for you? Are you getting high quality feedback from reviewers? Are action and development plans being implemented following the review? Is there buy-in across the organisation including those at the top? Is there more you could be doing to increase what you get from your 360 programme? We’ve collated a bumper guide of best practices in 360 degree feedback looking at these questions and more.…

The consumerisation of HR processes including succession planning has been widely documented for a number of years, such as in these earlier blogs, calling for organisations to respond to individuals taking greater control over their so-called portfolio careers. Professor Nick Kemsley reflected on this for Head Light back in 2015 urging organisations to adapt their succession planning strategies to these emerging trends or risk losing top talent. Six years on, are these themes still relevant? Set against an even more fluid, volatile and complex market backdrop it seems timely to revisit the key themes he identified for organisations to adopt in response to the career planning consumer.…