Living systems where everything’s linked
“Learn how to see. Realise that everything connects to everything else.”
Leonardo da Vinci
The words of a truly great, artist and polymath who pushed countless boundaries in his time. Having drawn inspiration from the time of the Renaissance, let’s move our focus to a revolution: the significance of hyper-connectivity, here and now, in our fast-changing world. What does ‘hyper-connected’ mean? A dictionary might say something about the ‘widespread or habitual use of devices that have internet connectivity’.
We’re going to look at it from an HR perspective, however, and for me the starting point is to view organisations as living, biological systems with many intricate nuances. It’s about treating your company as a complex, conscious system and making use of data and technology to ensure a personalised experience for every individual within it. Why is this concept important? Companies that want to thrive no matter what happens need to bounce back quickly as the economy recovers, which means welcoming back employees and considering all their experiences - for the good of everyone.
- Topic:
- Human Resources
Once upon a crime…
Here’s a quick story. My eldest son is a pretty typical 17-year-old. He has his own bank account, with a card, and loves finding great deals online, mostly via the family’s tablet. Recently, an advert for a well-known retailer grabbed his attention. It was selling a favoured brand of trainers at an incredible price. He clicked on the link, was taken to a site he recognised, registered the usual information – including bank details – and placed an order. The trainers should have arrived within two days, but a week later nothing had appeared. It was around then that I noticed a ‘Thank You’ pop-up related to the order, which also promised more great deals on the website. It looked suspicious so I closed it down, asked my son about it and heard about the deal. I then checked the website of the retailer directly, only to find there was no such offer. We contacted the bank, cancelled the card, performed an antivirus scan on the device and changed the passwords for all its apps and accounts. Suffice to say, the trainers never arrived. We’d been defrauded.
The reason for recounting this tale is a belief that personal stories can play a really valuable role within training, giving people the confidence to talk about and share experiences with colleagues and managers – and that matters, because now more than ever employees have a vital role to play in businesses’ resilience against the ever-growing threat of cyber-attacks and data breaches.
We recently submitted a Freedom of Information request to the Law Society in relation to compliance with its Conveyancing Quality Scheme (CQS), and the response will be of particular interest to firms holding this accreditation.
- Topic:
- Legal
Joe and Izzy couldn’t wait for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. They’d been planning what they were going to get for weeks. It was going to be the perfect start to the Christmas period and their next bonanza!
It was simple to design their best online targets – to be the first to the gifts awaiting them. Sadly, for many people, Joe and Izzy were going to ruin their own plans. They were part of a well-organised criminal gang who were planning multiple cyber-attacks targeting the public at a time when many of us are more vulnerable than usual by chasing the ‘best online deal around’.
In the wake of the pandemic, it’s no surprise that our collective mental wellbeing has taken a tremendous hit, with stress and anxiety having been frequently cited as the top contributors. So, as part of International Stress Awareness Week, we’ve put together some top tips for employers to mitigate the risk of stress for their people where they have the influence to make the most difference - in the workplace.
See how you can take a simple piece of learning and deliver it with the impact of Mike Tyson riding a bull on a turbo-powered treadmill…
Whilst the onset of increased homeworking was undoubtedly a novelty for many, almost six months down the line the benefits are rapidly being overshadowed by the growing health and safety concerns.
Face to face training has long been an effective medium for workplace training, offering a classroom environment for staff to share ideas and interact one to one with the trainer. However, training delivery has evolved and now includes solutions such as virtual F2F as a credible method of training.
However, there has also been a considerable shift towards eLearning in the past decade and never more so than amidst the current global pandemic; necessitating major changes to workplace practices some of which may well be here to stay.
In this, the first of three blogs, we will explore how eLearning can turn the training typically delivered face to face, into an effective and valuable training resource.
In simple terms, Gamification is the practise of placing the principles of gameplay into a traditionally non-game scenario; there are many famously effective examples of distinctly different businesses employing this approach.
Having recently covered microlearning and some of the key benefits it brings to an increasingly digital world within a previous blog post, here we’ll be expanding further upon one of these benefits - learning in the flow of work.
