The age/old question

With age discrimination being a major consideration round here (and in the majority of organisations in the recruitment sphere thanks to recent changes in UK legislation) I found this from Louise very interesting.

Not entirely surprisingly "assumptions about personality and age are exaggerated or incorrect".

T-Shirts and office furniture

Putting together a couple of stories I've talked about recently, here is a post from Guy about his recent visit to everyone's favourite t-shirt company, Threadless. This combines nicely with my recent posts about the office move and potential decor - I don't think we'll be going for the grafitti look but something chilled out and relaxed would perhaps be the right feel given the type of people that make up Omni. Basically I'm of the opinion we don't need to conform to any kind of corporate stereotype; the way things are moving in business now we can embrace the individuality that people have been wanting to see in the new place.

How to fast track your career

Quick link to an interview with Penelope Trunk that Guy has on his site. Penelope is a blogger and author of the book 'Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success'. The interview is really interesting and makes me think the book might be well worth a read.

We're moving house!

As I flagged up a little while ago, Omni are moving! We’re not going far, just down the road actually. It’s an important move though because in terms of current growth levels if we stay where we are we’ll have to sit on each others knees by September! The new office will have enough space for us to double in size, meaning plenty of room to grow into as we expand. Plus there’ll be more space for some fancy meeting rooms, some cool ‘break-out’ areas and all the other fun things that we’ve been talking about for a while now.

Part of the process is going to be getting ideas from people about what they want to see in the new place. What kind of furniture, what colour walls, what sort of ‘feel’ should it all have; it’s massively important that this is an environment where people can do their best work and be productive. Whilst the current office is great the limitations here needn’t apply somewhere new. We have a blank canvas to work on and that’s a really exciting prospect.

So, to all my colleagues out there that are reading this please let me know what you want to see in the new office. You can post it in comments here, or email me or just pop over with any thoughts.

To anyone not an Omni employee but with an opinion, I’d love to hear from you too! How do you use your work space? What gets the best out of people in the environment you work in?

[If you need some inspiration just follow the link from the Chief Happiness Officer’s blog in this post where there’s some food for thought]

Management methods for success

First off apologies for the lack of updates from the HR Forum. 'Technical issues' are to blame initially, but I'll be trying to get some info on it up soon, as promised.

In the meantime, there is someone that I haven't linked to yet but really should have done as his blog is very good. Joel on Software is funny, entertaining, informative and very easy to read. It's a regular of mine and despite my lack of software knowledge I still feel that I get a lot from it. A good example is a series of posts from his archives on management styles. Joel is talking in the sense of how to manage a technical team but in reality it's good advice for any managers. Read all 3 and in order if you can. Highly recommended.

Joel on Command and Control Management
Joel on Econ 101 Management
Joel on Identity Management

Get your boss to buy you a house

Although it sounds crazy an article I read online today seems to be suggesting that in the not-too-distant it could be fairly commonplace for employers to help staff get a foot on the property ladder. And this got me thinking...

The first rungs of the property ladder in the UK have been greased somewhat by rapidly increasing house prices in the past few years. The average price for a house in the UK went past the £150,000 mark for the first time last year. Combined with a staggering 2006 average student debt of £13,252 per person (according to Natwest) it's really no fun at all for a number of those trying to land their first house. Add to this recent interest rate rises and even if a first time buyer manages to squirrel away enough money for a deposit and mortgages themselves to the hilt for a 1 bed flat in the dodgy part of town, they'll still have to be super-frugal to avoid becoming one of the 17,000 people who had their home reposessed in 2006!

All in all it's a pretty glum picture and it makes the response from HSA all the more welcome. By allowing people to save up specfically for a house it takes a lot of the burden off the individual and gives them a suitable target to aim for without being unrealistic. So good work to the HSA!

What else can be done though? What more could (/should?) employers be doing to look after their staff? How about the following:

• Consultations with professional financial advisers provided for all employees, completely free of charge. Absorbing what would be a relatively small cost to ensure that your people don't end up in financial difficulties. Staff with comfortable home lives are happy staff. And happy staff are productive staff, as we know.
• Free or subsidised transport for employees. If the office is out of town maybe set up a minibus service. Reward car sharing, provide travel allowances, generally make it easy and cheap for people to turn up (because let's face it, on a rainy Monday morning turning up may be the last thing they want to do).
• Help and advice on where to live, what the locality is like and any other pertinent information (schools, shopping, cinemas - all that non-work stuff that work gets in the way of). You can find a lot of the info here, so there's no excuse for not providing the basics at least.
• Flexible working hours and locations where possible, particularly to take into consideration family commitments. As can be seen with this handy calculator (the link came from Guy, I think it's Mother's Day in America shortly), a stay-at-home parent is worth serious money. Making their life as easy as possible should be one of an employer's top priorities.
• For larger organisations how about company-owned property that can be rented out to staff at a cheap rate. Not Robert Owen-esque or anything, just some apartments that people can stay in whilst they save up and find their feet. This would be particularly helpful for new graduates or those looking to relocate. It could also help out when hiring specialist contractors who are looking to commute to work for short periods of time.

Obviously all of the above take time, money and effort. Plus, they're ideas off the top of my head rather than fully developed strategies. If employers are to truly offer a unique proposition to potential employees though, there's a lot worse starting points they could go from. Thoughts?

Guest blogger next week - Craig Sweeney

I'm pleased to announce that next week in addition to the regular postings that I'll be making, we'll also have the pleasure of some content from Omni's Ops Director, Craig. Craig is going (along with Robert, the MD) to the HR Forum's annual meet-and-greet onboard a crusie ship called the Oriana. For those who aren't familiar with the concept basically it's a huge networking event where a group of 'clients' and a group of 'suppliers' are trapped on a boat for 3 days and forced to endlessly eat, drink, be merry and (most importantly) network!

Craig will therefore be blogging from the frontline, providing fascinating insights into potential new clients, interesting business opportunities and how to stay on your feet when drinking cocktails on a boat.

Best of luck Craig!

[Correction - the boat is actually the Aurora this year, it was the Oriana last year. Thanks for the heads up Bev!]

'Nice' is the new 'You're fired!'

Although ‘Sir’ Alan can still reel ‘em in with the best of them by snarling curmudgeonly advice at bewildered ‘management’ types his days as the archetypal businessman may be numbered. In workplaces the world over, being nice is fast becoming the new black…

Don’t believe me? Check out this link from Penelope Trunk (which I found via Louise’s blog) that extols the virtues of a spot of home baking for your beloved colleagues and this post (link via Alex the CHO) describing a novel approach to falling profits by a McDonalds franchisee (in fact check out the blog that link comes from generally for 'nice examples, it's called The Nice Blog for a reason!).