Engaging employees in the workplace today can be difficult for even the best companies. Another challenge exists… how do we sustain commitment in employees who are already engaged?
A piece of research by Xanthopoulou demonstrates that engagement levels of individuals can affect both individual and team performance. » Read more: Work engagement and financial returns
“Mayday Mayday, the time is 23.35 and you are on a flight from Paris to London Heathrow. Currently at 35,000ft to the North East of London travelling at 500 mph, flying in a Boeing 737-800 (Next Generation). The Cabin Crew make an announcement “ladies and gentlemen, we regret to inform you that we have lost both our pilots due to the serious sickness illness and now need two volunteers to fly the aircraft” » Read more: Using Boeing 737 Full Flight Simulators for Development
After a very late night at the ABP Conference this year, Dr Nic Sale had a big task of engaging a very tired audience. Her interactive presentation brought listeners alive when discussing the importance of cultural fit in predicting cultural intelligence at work and various methods of assessing it.
She referred to an interesting values studyby Schwartz, who identified ten ‘value types’ that can be combined. These multiple values then create a new single values category for that organisation. The 10 values included: » Read more: Increasing Cultural Intelligence in Organisations
In 2009, Sportingbet the online gaming company invited Zircon to investigate and report on their level of employee engagement across the Sportingbet international businesses. Sportingbet plc is a British e-gaming operator traded on the London Stock Exchange’s Main Market . Sportingbet operates local-focused sportsbooks, virtual games and casino sites, and the online poker cardroom, Paradise Poker. Overall, the company has over 2.5 million registered customers in 200 countries, who place over one million bets (casino, poker, sports and virtual games) per day. » Read more: Engagement Levels in Sportingbet 2010
When Zircon attended the ABP Conference last month, we saw Louise Kordel and Deborah Tom present a double act demonstrate two very different and effective leadership development programmes they have delivered in retaining top talent at Barclays Capital. Both programmes that were illustrated; consultancy led and leader led were incredibly compelling in the methods they used. » Read more: Consultancy Vs Leader led Leadership Development Programmes
Help! I am lost in London – On a bike!
London’s streets have justifiably a reputation for not being particularly cyclist friendly. As the Mayor of London wants to support this most environmentally friendly of all mechanical transport modes, Transport for London has been tasked with looking for ways to achieving just this. A critical, but so far not explored factor is just how do cyclists make decisions when they plan journeys? Also, an understanding of how they effectively navigate through the streets of London would be crucial to any on the road support that cyclists should receive. Zircon has supported Arup, a renowned firm of designers, planners, engineers, consultants and technical specialists, with delivery of a project that researched cognitive wayfinding of cyclists on behalf of TfL. » Read more: Finding your way around London on a bike – how our Psychologists have helped!
David Carew, Senior Psychologist at DWP presented his keynote speech on engagement at the 10th Annual ABP Conference this year. His passion for engagement was clear and he stressed “engagement matters most under conditions of uncertainty.” He addresses a number of questions about how organisations could more effectively engage their employees. In particular, some of the questions he posed included:
“How do you transfer employee engagement data and how do you action this data in the workplace?”
“What are the organisational goals we are trying to achieve?”
“How do we maximise positive outcomes as a result of an engagement survey or intervention?” » Read more: Expanding Positive Outcomes of Engagement
Lucy Ryan ‘s interactive presentation on “Positive Psychology” at the ABP Conference earlier in May 2010 ensured every listener left the session feeling optimistic. She explained that whilst there are only eleven validated interventions in positive psychology, there is still so much research that can be applied to businesses to develop employees. Value cards which are a fantastic tool for developing self-awareness and impact were used to imitate coaching discussions. A key learning point from this activity is that the tool or technique used within positive psychology coaching should be the catalyst to a discussion and not a solution. » Read more: Positive Psychology and Coaching
Having recently taken part in the successful sailing day organised by Zircon and Spinnaker Yachts I was struck by the insight into people that such a day can produce. It is recognised that placing someone in an ‘alien’ environment, such as a 41 foot yacht, out of their normal comfort zone, results in them having to focus almost exclusively on the task in hand. This takes up more cognitive resource and people tend to compensate for this by resorting to their ‘core’ behaviours, which is always worth exploring. » Read more: Spinnaker Yachts Sailing Day … From a Psychological Viewpoint
Human judgement and decision making played a central role in the events that led to the deepest global crisis for decades. Surely psychology can illuminate why things went so wrong and help provide guidance on how to stop such mistakes being repeated? To help find out, on 16 March the British Psychological Society and the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) jointly held a free, public seminar on Behavioural Economics at the House of Commons. » Read more: Using Theories of Leadership Derailment to avoid the Next Global Crisis
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