Digitisation/Technology Archives

The key to improving your business in 2020

This blog in brief: People are looking for ‘the next big thing’ to propel their businesses forward, yet the missing piece is about getting the basics in place. Instead of exhaustive new initiatives, clarify your business purpose by underpinning it with authentic, simple values, which in turn, are supported by succinctly defined behaviours. Measure it, nurture and improve it and the magic will happen. Sometimes it’s necessary to go back to basics to be able to move forward. There’s a theme running through so many business conversations lately about how to gain competitive advantage in our ever changing world. People are looking [...]

Tom Lake 2020-01-15T14:32:59+00:00 January 15th, 2020|

Our latest thinking: Potential – thought leadership from Talent Toolbox

This article in brief: Potential is not just about skills and attributes. Identifying potential can no longer be a top-down affair. People’s aspirations and personal circumstances are a vital part of the mix, which is why self-assessment is vital. This can only happen fairly, consistently and easily with the right digital system in place with robust analytics to back it up. The term ‘potential’ has historically been used to indicate that an individual has certain qualities, such as behavioural characteristics, motivation, skills, abilities, experience and so on to effectively perform and contribute in [...]

Tom Lake 2020-01-15T13:57:19+00:00 November 5th, 2019|

Reinventing your organisation with a human focus

Our five-minute take on this year’s Global Human Capital Trends Report from Deloitte We like this research because it gives weight and rigor to the trends and advancements we know anecdotally to be the case. It also provides lots of helpful stats to help persuade budget holders of the critical aspects of investing in the future success of ‘the people stuff’ and to target this investment in the most effective way. This year Deloitte surveyed over 10,000 people across 119 countries on a range of workplace issues. So you don’t have to read 100+ pages, here are some of [...]

Tom Lake 2019-09-16T11:34:40+01:00 August 27th, 2019|

15 ways to take control of your email and become more productive

Email; on the face of it, is not the most riveting of topics yet such an important part of daily life. It comes up time and time again in group conversations about what stops people achieving their goals / change / results. Email requires thought and careful management to safeguard wellbeing and general quality of life. Hailed as a time saving nirvana in the ‘90s, it appears to since have become the scourge of the 21st century workplace. According to McKinsey, the average professional spends over a quarter of his or her time reading and answering email. Email is [...]

Tom Lake 2019-07-24T12:52:50+01:00 July 23rd, 2019|

Four ways to respond to workforce disruption

By Jane Sunley + Jo Harley, Co-Founders Purple Cubed It’s fair to say that in these VUCA times, HR faces more disruption than ever before as digitisation gallops ahead in its sophistication and impact. According to McKinsey, the changes presented are ‘akin to coping with the large-scale shift from agricultural work to manufacturing that occurred in the early 20th century’. No challenge there then… This surge in workforce disruption is largely driven by increased competition, technological transformation and ever-widening customer expectations. In their recent Global Talent Trends Summary, Mercer cite the current seven most significant human capital risks as: Excessive time taken to fill vacancies Low or declining employee engagement Inadequate diversity Weak leadership pipeline Ineffective hiring decisions Lagging production [surely [...]

Tom Lake 2019-05-09T16:32:35+01:00 May 8th, 2019|

A geek-free guide to AI for business leaders (a three minute read)

By Jane Sunley business author and founder, Purple Cubed Artificial Intelligence (AI) has existed conceptually since the 1950s, when the brilliant computer scientist Alan Turin predicted that by the year 2000, computers would be able to pass as humans in an online conversation. However, it’s only relatively recently become relevant and reliable enough to be adopted seriously by businesses. Before people start panicking that robots are taking their jobs, over-taking their intelligence or threatening to bring about end of the world, it’s important to know what we’re dealing with here. In simple terms, there are three categories of AI: Narrow [...]

Tom Lake 2019-02-15T11:12:16+00:00 February 11th, 2019|

Change series blog (7): Clarity fuels businesses – kicking off a successful approach

Clarity has always been a business imperative; perhaps, never more so than in these times of great challenge, rapidity and change. The ability to simplify the complex is an essential skill for leaders at all levels – for organisation, team and individual. Yet so many businesses suffer from ambiguity, leading to employee disengagement, customer dissatisfaction, inefficiency, lack of innovation and inability to adapt, all of which are potentially detrimental to the bottom line. Making things simple is tough; yet it’s something that deserves thought, effort and, probably, a change of approach. It starts at the top: People need to [...]

Tom Lake 2019-05-09T11:05:04+01:00 November 9th, 2018|

The Ultimate employee engagement score (a three minute ‘how to’ read)

Service businesses are worrying about candidate shortages, labour turnover and how they're going to fuel profitability and growth with such a shortfall of people. It’s clear that employee engagement drives customer satisfaction, which, in turn, impacts bottom line profits. There is also a clear correlation between managerial effectiveness and engagement levels, which goes on to impact the retention and morale of existing teams and, therefore, a company's ability to attract great people. By optimising people practices, leadership capability and accountability for engagement, together with clear ‘people KPIs’, the value add from your people is very likely to increase exponentially. However, [...]

Tom Lake 2018-09-19T11:31:01+01:00 September 19th, 2018|

Why you need joined up people systems (and how to do it…)

By Tom Lake, Product Manager at Purple Cubed HR software has evolved and changed over the years, with a dazzling array of cool apps now on the market. The need to adopt a joined-up, streamlined approach has, therefore, become increasingly important and a top priority for businesses across all industries. From simplifying processes to full-scale automation, companies are starting to realise that without integration, there can be no digital transformation. If systems aren’t aligned, it can be a time consuming and costly process to manage everything individually. More and more tech companies are coming together via APIs (application programme [...]

Tom Lake 2019-08-28T12:43:55+01:00 August 13th, 2018|

THE CHANGE SERIES #2 Getting the most out of your people tech

Jane Sunley, business author, CEO + Founder of Purple Cubed For organisations of all types and sizes, digitising the ‘people stuff’ will bring about numerous benefits. You’d expect it to help you save time and cost though, used correctly and with commitment, it will also help with recruitment and selection, with employee engagement and retention, with communication, creativity, recognition, health and wellbeing, with growing capability, with leadership, with enabling people to progress, contribute and drive their careers – the list goes on… However, investing in people tech is seen by many as a potentially risky and expensive business and [...]

Emily Moore 2018-04-24T10:47:10+01:00 March 27th, 2018|