Leadership Archives - Purple Cubed

Toxic bosses – how to consign workplace bullying to the last century (a three minute read)

By business author and Purple Cubed founder, Jane Sunley Ever since I wrote this viewpoint about a grad’s experience of an organisation’s misguided recruitment process, I’ve been hearing from other young people starting out in the world of work. Whilst there are many excellent employers out there, some of these stories make for uncomfortable reading. Purple Cubed is all about sharing great practice and it would just be too negative to write about them all. However, I do feel compelled to write a piece about workplace bullying and to share with you the worst example I’ve heard so far (are you [...]

Tom Lake 2019-03-18T16:26:06+01:00 March 6th, 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 have [...]

Tom Lake 2019-03-06T13:27:33+01:00 November 9th, 2018|

Purple Breakfast Club – Summary of Outcomes

On 3rd October, at an exclusive event for the C-Suite, business owners and investors within the hospitality space, an exclusive audience of 30 of hospitality’s ‘great and good’ gathered to debate: PUTTING PEOPLE FIRST - YOUR BEST BUSINESS MOVE Richard Branson’s been saying it for years, Luke Johnson wrote about it in The Times. So why isn’t every board putting people at the top of the agenda? PANEL: TIM KIDD, MD, Kantar Worldpanel, Europe and US - placed 5th in The Glassdoor Top 50 most people-centric CEOs (ahead of Mark Zuckerberg, Rob Papps, Tim Cook) KIERAN LAWTON, [...]

Tom Lake 2018-10-10T11:15:40+01:00 October 10th, 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|

Change series blog (6): The Role of Leadership in Change (a three minute read)

By Jane Sunley, Author + Founder of Purple Cubed Leadership isn’t just about the inspirational and visionary CEO; it’s about everyone. To the person on the front line, their line manager is the leader, exemplifying what the company is all about. Therefore to have at shot at handling change successfully, organisations must create highly engaged leaders at all levels. The middle management layer is critical – it can form your most active conduit, or it can become your greatest barrier. Imagine a team leader who articulates, transparently and in a supportive, positive way versus one who is full of doubt [...]

Emily Moore 2018-08-02T11:49:08+01:00 August 2nd, 2018|

Change series (#4) Why employers must change their attitudes to mental health at work (a three-minute read)

By Jane Sunley, Author + Founder of Purple Cubed According to a study by Deloitte, poor mental health costs employers between £33bn and £42blth every year, with an annual cost to the UK economy of between £74bn and £99bn. Yet even today employers who proactively support mental at work are in a minority – this must change. ‘Thriving at Work’, the Stevenson/Farmer review of mental health and employment sets out what employers can do to better support all employees, including those with mental health problems, to remain in and thrive at work. Deloitte’s analysis shows that investments made in [...]

Emily Moore 2018-07-26T17:25:10+01:00 July 26th, 2018|

360 review – why you should proceed with caution (a three minute read)

By Jane Sunley, Author + Founder of Purple Cubed For some reason we’ve been experiencing an increase in requests to facilitate 360-degree review. This form of employee feedback provides a holistic view of an individual through feedback (normally given anonymously) from his or her manager, peers and direct reports, and sometimes external sources such as clients or suppliers. In an age of transparency where trust and openness are key, we’re not fans. People should be learning how to be honest and open with each other on an ongoing basis and operating in a culture and environment where that is [...]

Emily Moore 2018-07-20T15:40:41+01:00 July 20th, 2018|

First impressions count

Organisations spend lots of time and money on tools to help them select and recruit the right person. However, unless the new starter is integrated into the workplace then these efforts could well be wasted. An engaging and thorough Induction (onboarding) is a must. This time is crucial and is often the most lasting impression the employee is going to have of the organisation. A good induction has a major impact on retention with many people deciding within the first 100 days if they are going to stay long term or they’re already planning their exit to leave you. [...]

Emily Moore 2018-07-17T11:32:50+01:00 July 17th, 2018|

How generation pause is affecting careers (a three minute read)

By Jane Sunley, Author + Founder of Purple Cubed Mentoring young people, I’m observing first-hand the consequences of ‘early generation pause’. Generation pause is a buzz phrase to describe how, for today’s young adults, rites of passage and major life events are put on hold. Typically, the term refers to personal events such as leaving home. For example, one in four young adults (aged between 25 and 34) live in the family home; that’s a 23% increase in 20 years (ONS). One in ten believe they may never be able to afford to marry. A quarter of those aged [...]

Emily Moore 2018-07-10T10:49:01+01:00 July 5th, 2018|

THE CHANGE SERIES: A change of approach-a three-minute read

Over the years, we’ve commented on transactional versus transformational HR. In the same vein, there are transactional versus transformational organisations, with their respective transactional versus transformational leadership. The transactional companies are doing thing right (playing to the rules, following convention, concerned with process and avoiding risk), whereas the transformers are doing the right things, tackling change head on and embracing creativity, talking calculated risks and, in general, allowing people to try things out in order to innovate. In the past business was, in the main, transactional; leadership was autocratic, traditional in structure, hierarchical. Now the world has changed; life [...]

Emily Moore 2018-06-22T17:16:27+01:00 June 22nd, 2018|