Strategic briefings

In this briefing, Tricia Palmer, HR consultant, leadership expert and personal coach explores the debate on leadership styles during and post Covid-19, asking “do we need to change?” Tricia covers a number of recent writings on the leadership debate and draws from some personal experiences on leading and managing during the pandemic. She also considers whether the rule book has truly been thrown out of the window or whether we will all revert to type once some semblance of “normal” re-emerges. Finally, Tricia presents some observations on whether female leaders have fared better during this crisis as some writers have claimed.

Engin Mustafa, Lecturer in Employment Law at Kingston University, continues to explore gross misconduct and several cases relating to gross misconduct. In this second article of the mini-series, we shall examine a range of examples of how cases of Gross Misconduct have been judged. Although, the categories of gross misconduct detailed here cannot be fully exhaustive, we can review how employment tribunals have previously dealt with such incidents. This should serve as a guide to the likelihood of similar acts or omissions falling into the category of gross misconduct.

Tricia Palmer, HR consultant, leadership expert and personal coach reviews the literature on the connection between work commitment, the work ethic and productivity.

Gross misconduct in the workplace is a sensitive subject. HR as the employer has to exercise judgement about what constitutes the basis for dismissal on the grounds of Gross Misconduct. In this short mini-series, Engin Mustafa, Lecturer in Employment Law at Kingston University, summarises gross misconduct and explores several cases relating to gross misconduct.

Jonathan Lord, Senior Lecturer in HRM and Employment Law at Salford Business School analyses the background to employment law courts in the UK, how they have developed into the system they currently adopt and how they should be treated by all stakeholders.

While flexible working potentially brings multiple benefits for individuals and organisations, take-up remains low. Claire McCartney explores the latest UK policy developments in this area and provides strong research-based practice recommendations for employers on how to improve the take-up of flexible working.

Dr Jonathan Lord, Senior Lecturer in HRM and Dr Alex Fenton, Lecturer in Digital Business at Salford Business School analyse the precarious nature of technology creeping into workers’ lives in and outside of the workplace, requiring an increasing number of employees to be permanently available through the normalisation of remote digital access.

Susan Scott, organisational development consultant and executive coach considers how individuals can optimise energy to ensure their own wellbeing and personal productivity.

How to tackle inequalities in the workplace, especially with respect to people from ethnic minorities, is the focus of much research and UK Government consultation. Claire McCartney looks at some of the workplace factors that must be addressed to achieve fairness, in particular implementing ethnicity pay reporting, and finds that, despite some progress, there is still a long way to go.

While recent headlines suggest that there is still a long way to go before gender equality is achieved and maintained in senior roles in many sectors, Dianah Worman highlights the contribution of International Women’s Day and its latest campaign BalanceforBetter to making progress towards a gender balanced world.