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Regular conversations with your people

Do you remember what it’s like to land a new job? The interview process, the hope, the anticipation? You turn up on ‘Day One’, bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready. Ready to make a difference,...

Ignore poor performance at your peril

Managing poor performance is one of the most challenging aspects of leadership. It requires tactful conversations that meet business needs, preserve employee dignity and wellbeing, and stay on the...

Worker voices essential for integrity of RSE scheme

10 August 2022: Recent stories of shocking conditions and ill treatment of migrant workers in Marlborough show that New Zealand has work to do to ensure the integrity of the RSE scheme and prove that...

Let's stand together to stamp out worker exploitation

In this second in a series of blogs on how transparency is the greatest shield in being an ethical employer, our Chief Executive Chris O’Reilly talks about recent examples of alleged exploitation and...

The Great Reset: Hybrid Workforces and New Leadership Strategies

A little over two years ago New Zealand plunged into lockdown due to the appearance of COVID-19. Overnight our working world changed. Bustling office buildings became like ghost towns, complete with...

Is financial stress taking its toll on organisational productivity?

Today is the World Day for Safety and Health at Work. While it is primarily focussed on preventing workplace accidents, it’s worth reflecting on how the concept of workplace health and safety has...

NZ's Unique Opportunity with Modern Slavery

Proposed legislation released on Friday by Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Michael Wood is “heartening” and offers New Zealand an opportunity to position its produce as “the most ethical in...

Ensuring freedom, fairness, and dignity a heartening call

Wilful blindness is not an excuse. That’s a phrase I have repeated many times since we first started looking into how to help organisations rid their operations and supply chains of modern slavery...

Taking a stand for our people

Despite targeted legislation and overwhelming social pressure from consumers, vulnerable workers are failing to be identified and protected through current accreditation processes and practices. As a...

Businesses at risk as Omicron bites

As Omicron bites and takes a bigger chunk out of the workforce, pressure will come on those remaining to pick up the slack. It’s a watch out for leaders, to make sure they don’t accidentally pile too...

The summer holiday – essential respite from a busy job

Well, here we are almost at the end of another work year - and what a year it has been! 2021 certainly was reminiscent of 2020 with lockdowns, the need for people to work remotely, lots of...

AskYourTeam’s modern slavery detection tool has global application

AskYourTeam has developed a new tool that shines a light on supply chain integrity and helps to stamp out modern slavery not only here at home, but around the world. And I have never been prouder....

Revolutionary Tool Exposes Modern Slavery in New Zealand

On the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery, Ethical VOICE, powered by AskYourTeam, launches to replace “broken and dangerous” worker social practice accreditation systems 100% anonymous...

State sector employees want their leaders to lead

In the war for talent one of the most demotivating aspects for top performers is to see non-performance go unaddressed. This is an area where leaders consistently fail to deliver. Failing to act is...

Are New Zealand’s business leaders struggling?

The latest research into the effectiveness of New Zealand’s private sector leaders should be ringing warning bells in boardrooms across the country. Chris O’Reilly, CEO of AskYourTeam says the...

Unleash the power of the AND

COVID-19 has changed and challenged everything. What you knew about your customers pre- pandemic has either lost its relevance in 2021 or even worse, is wrong and could be a major hindrance. Today’s...

Beware of willful blindness

Ask around your colleagues at work - if you saw something wrong going on in the street, would you try to intervene, speak out, call the police? In my experience, just about everyone says yes they...

HR’s biggest Covid-19 challenge is yet to come

The Covid-19 crisis has tested HR leaders like never before. Globally, hundreds of millions of people have had their work lives upended. The rule book is being rewritten. It’s safe to argue we are...

Five ways Kiwis’ work lives improved under lockdown

Time apart for Kiwi workers and bosses during lockdown has had some surprising benefits, according to a nationwide survey of more than 20,000 New Zealanders working from home. It found bosses are...

Success through meaningful involvement

Diversity and inclusion drives brighter and better business. I’m sure you know that and are familiar with the terms demographic diversity and cognitive diversity. Demographic diversity gets the most...

Are you doing diversity and inclusion wrong?

The fact is that most of us have been doing diversity and inclusion wrong. Despite the volume of articles, think pieces, strategies and whitepapers being churned out week after week, D&I related...

The Three Cs for creating a culture of involvement in your workplace

It has become the number one jargon buzzword in business over the past five years. “Culture”. It gets used a lot, but seldom explained. “Good workplace cultures” get celebrated, “bad workplace...

Are the robots really coming?

There’s no doubt the future of HR will be tech-enabled. Every HR professional is either using a tech feedback tool or looking around for one to implement. Many of these tools are excellent and the...

Goodbye old school hierarchies, hello team mates

Global consultants McKinsey say organisations are like living organisms. Their “trademarks include a network of teams within a people-centered culture that operates in rapid learning and fast...

All hands on deck

Over a 17 year period, US Naval Captain David Marquet was a rising star moving up the elite ranks of the submarine service, being groomed to command the state of the art nuclear attack sub USS...

Workplace culture starts with involvement

It’s a human truth that we operate best in groups - in fact one of our most fundamental human instincts is the desire to cooperate and work together. Our most well organised and effective groups are...

How #MeToo has changed HR forever

As 2018 began drawing to a close, New Zealand was hit with several high profile accusations of toxic workplace cultures. First, it was accusations of bullying by Commissioner for Financial Literacy...

Beating the bullies

Ask any foreign visitor about the areas in which New Zealand leads the world, and you’re unlikely to hear “bullying” in the top ten. But that might be luck rather than a reflection of reality. In...

Beyond engagement

Once upon a time, in a land not so far away, engagement was heralded as the answer to every organisation’s challenge. Highly engaged employees equalled better business performance and companies all...

From talent to team: HR’s generational change

As Mohammed Ali finished addressing 2000 graduating Harvard University seniors in 1975 he responded to a call from the crowd to “give us a poem”. Ali paused, locked eyes on the audience member who...

Are you implementing a culture of empowerment in your organisation?

Empowerment in any workplace starts with leadership. It has to because at its essence, empowerment is a transfer of power from a leader in authority to someone lower down in the organisation chart....

The dictator is dead. Killed by technology.

History can teach us a lot about changing HR practice. The first principle of history is the same as HR -the technology that drives economic activity in any society also dictates the shape of that...

Digital tools create a people-led business revolution

Digital disruption is reshaping the HR landscape, creating new opportunities for those organisations that are ready to transform. The most exciting are new digital HR tools that extend the influence...

Building workplace cultures where unsafe behaviour is not tolerated

Every organisation should have a zero-tolerance to workplace bullying and intimidating behaviour, and no-one should be put in the position where they dread coming to work. Building a positive culture...

Are you measuring what matters?

As leaders, it’s easy to measure what we're comfortable with, instead of what will actually have the greatest impact on the success of our business. We might measure something that we already...

You don't have all the answers (and that's OK)

Leadership is no longer about the visionary guru leading the charge. That idea belongs to a time when businesses operated in a slower world. The goal was incremental change and increased efficiency....

Why Smart Businesses are Focussing on Performance Before Engagement

The engagement model has been flipped on its head. The traditional way of thinking about engagement is linear - employee engagement leads to improved business performance. But recent research is...

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