Q1 Blog

Are Companies Utilizing Engagement Analytics for Success?

To significantly increase employee engagement you need to understand the passions, motivations, and expectations of the individual, and use an approach based around engagement being a shared responsibility between the employee and the organisation.

What on Earth does Harrison Assessment have to do with Personal Values?

Let me explain – The following model is affectionately referred to as the Alignment model in Leadership Development Circles.  From top to bottom it suggests that at the highest level we have a purpose in everything we do from our existence to our reasons for attending a meeting or having a conversation with a loved […]

TRUST – the reality of this Company/Personal ‘Value’

Companies often pride themselves in including ‘Trust’ or ‘Trustworthiness’ in their company values but what does it actually mean?  The question to ask is ‘if I was to walk round your organization and see everyone behaving in a trustworthy manner, what would that look like?’ 

Harrison Assessments – The Perfect Partner for NLP!

The aspect of NLP I love most is its ethos of treating everyone as an individual – no boxes, no labels no norms!   Such freedom to develop excellence!
Here are 5 ways Harrison differs from other assessments and why it fits so well with NLP

What do you do with your time?

I often get asked to run time management courses.  Managing time should be easy – write a list of things to do and get on and do them.  So what gets in the way?

Business people sitting bored in a meeting

Is that meeting really necessary?

Meetings within organisations can be a costly business, in terms of salaried hours of attendees, travel costs and and potential time lost in other value adding activity. Evaluate the value of your meetings by using the Alignment model.

Is there a difference between ‘well done’ and ‘thank you’?

Most employees have appreciation expectations and want their contributions to be valued and recognised. However, some employees may not need external appreciation, relying more on their own assessment of their work, but definitely want recognition from their peers. So how does a manager discover each person’s expectations and meet them in the right way?

What Makes HR Look Good in the Board Room – if indeed they even get there!

Most organisations will tell you that their people are the most important resource they have and that looking after them and developing them is paramount.  So why is it that the person who is Head of HR is often not represented on the Board and if they are, they often have to shout loudly to be heard?

Anonymous Engagement Surveys – why they don’t work!

‘Someone somewhere in the organization is unhappy about something but we don’t know the details and can’t therefore have a progressive conversation’. Why do organisations involve themselves in the anonymity of such surveys?

training principles

12 principles of effective training

12 principles of effective training: Things to consider when designing and delivering effective training, courtesy of Realisation at Stenhouse.

Employee engagement is a personal matter for each individual.

To significantly increase employee engagement you need to understand the passions, motivations, and expectations of the individual, and use an approach based around engagement being a shared responsibility between the employee and the organisation.

Where do your leaders need most support?

Where do you focus to help your leaders and managers to develop more effective behaviours and strategies to improve these skills and bring better success in their role?

5 Tips For Improving Your Communication

Communication is one of the most important skills a successful leader can develop. Here are 5 areas you could consider if you want to do a bit of work on your own communication skills and style

How often do you tell yourself ‘well done!’?

Too often at the end of work we’re still mulling over unsolved issues/problems which can spillover into and impact home-life. Try this simple habit changer to free yourself to start the next activity.

PARADOX SERIES: OPINIONS

The paradox of OPINIONS – what it can look like when the balance between CERTAIN and OPEN/ REFLECTIVE is off-kilter, and what it can look like when balance is achieved.

PARADOX SERIES: POWER

The paradox of POWER – what it can look like when the balance between ASSERTIVENESS and HELPFULNESS is off-kilter, and what it can look like when balance is achieved.

We get knocked down… But we get up again

Developing resilience, combined with perseverance, will help you and your team not only to succeed in the good times, but to learn, grow and succeed through the crises, set-backs and ever-changing landscape.

What does effective communication look like?

Communication is one of the most important skills a successful leader can develop. How our communication is received will depend on the perception and viewpoint of the person receiving it and is open to interpretation.

PARADOX SERIES: COMMUNICATION

The paradox of COMMUNICATION
Leaders need to be able to balance FRANKNESS and DIPLOMACY – one dynamic and one gentle trait – to achieve optimal behavioural performance, balanced versatility and effective communication.

PARADOX SERIES: STRATEGIC

Leaders need to be able to balance two seemingly opposite traits – one dynamic and one gentle – to achieve optimal behavioural performance and balanced versatility. Here we look at the paradox of strategically managing risk – what it can look like when the balance is off-kilter, and what it can look like when balance is achieved.

Podcast: How to help Leaders get REAL Insights

Quadrant 1’s Pat Hutchinson talks to Gerry Murray about personal development and leadership and what it’s like to learn and apply practical things after you go on a training course.

Should you trust your gut in business?

We’re often taught in business that decisions should be made based on facts, data and evidence. But relying on evidence alone can leave you with just half of the picture.  

Assessment Centres

What are you doing about Assessment Centres right now? Current norms are preventing us in many cases from running traditional Assessment Centres but that doesn’t mean you can’t still identify top talent and potential leaders accurately and effectively. You may argue that there is ‘nothing like the real thing’ but we believe we can offer […]

Remote Working Analytics

Measure, understand and coach your employees’ ability to effectively work remotely and how your leaders need to adapt their management style to help employees succeed

Letting Go Of The Day Job

Letting Go of the Day Job I work with leaders from a cross section of organisations, helping them to transition from being an expert in their field to taking on leadership roles.  We have known for a long time that leaders often feel bereft at having to let go of the day job and try […]

The Lunacy of People Assessment

The Lunacy of People Assessment A thought occurred to me recently. If your organisation measured growth in sterling for the first quarter, US Dollars for the second, Yen for the third and Euros for the fourth would you think this a sensible idea? When your children were growing up did you measure their height in […]

How do you measure the success of your leadership development programme?

With the UK Learning and Development Report 2018 showing that 94 per cent of the best performers surveyed say learning and development is critical to success it is essential that development programmes are successful, effective and represent an appropriate return on investment. But how then can you measure the success of a development programme?

Talent Development

Identifying Career Development Expectations – before the competition does

One of the major reasons for losing talented staff is that they are not being given the developmental opportunities they often think they deserve – or expect – and look elsewhere. So understanding and exploring employees career development expectations is another key factor for engaging and retaining top talent.

Research Report: Leading Technical People

A report by Blessing White outlines research they undertook to examine the dynamics specific to leading technical people – a competency that proves to be increasingly important for almost every organisation in every industry, even those we might think of as less expert-dependent.

Is there a difference between ‘well done’ and ‘thank you’?

Understanding employees’s expectations towards authority helps to analyze the relationship between the desire for autonomy and the level of initiative, the relationship between the desire to lead and the willingness to make decisions, and how an individual responds to structure.

Communication Expectations – are your people engaged?

If the cost of poor communication is: mistakes, wasted time, wasted money, bad recruitment, missed sales, dysfunctional teams, poor morale and slow innovation – what is the value of good communication?
And… what does ‘good communication’ mean to individual employees?

What’s keeping your talent in your organisation?

Many tools will measure current employee engagement levels according to factors set by your organisational expectations, but how do you determine which factors are personally important to your employees, and therefore will keep them in your organisation?

The many ways prospective employers blow it!

The competition for top talent is fierce – so what can employers do to make sure they attract and retain the top talent – or rather, what should they not do? Read on for some major booboos!

Isn’t it time we banned ‘Lunch & Learn’?

In this day and age where mental health is such a big issue, are we really still asking employees to spend this short window in their working day, not on taking a breather and relaxing, but on focusing on… more work?!

Why do your people decide to stay or leave?

In this day and age of virtually full employment it can be difficult to recruit and retain your best talent. Recruitment alone is a costly process. So what makes someone come to your organisation in the first place and what makes them stay?

The Missing Key!

Have you got the right sales people in place and is your reward scheme set up properly? This business mustn’t have got the memo!

Harrison Assessments – Perfect Partner for NLP!

I’m delighted to have been asked to speak at the 2018 NLP International Conference on 18-20th May in London… In an interactive, upbeat workshop on the Saturday afternoon I will explain why Harrison Assessments is Perfect Partner for NLP!

Would you like to be able to clone your best performers?

Sounds reasonable! Belinda’s doing a great job, let’s see if we can find more Belindas (or Bobs!). But how? What is it about Belinda or Bob that really makes them successful not only at their roles but also in this particular organisational environment?

I’m not here to be average I’m here to be Awesome!

If you were about to recruit someone into your organisation who was going to play a pivotal role in your company’s success (that’s everyone by the way!) would you want someone who was average or someone who was excellent?

Talent is not just for HR

Many organisations assume the responsibility for talent management lies solely with HR. An effective and well-organised business will take a collaborative approach, sharing the responsibility across all core functions. This enables the talent strategy to be linked to the core business objectives.

Employee remuneration expectations – frequency or value?

If you want to earn a higher salary, the excepted way of doing it is to take on more responsibility and possibly undertake further training.
For those who want higher pay, this can often be the sticking point, particularly if they are not self-motivated enough to develop their own careers.

Do high performers want, or need appreciation?

Understanding employees’s expectations towards authority helps to analyze the relationship between the desire for autonomy and the level of initiative, the relationship between the desire to lead and the willingness to make decisions, and how an individual responds to structure.

Identifying leaders based on their authority expectations

Understanding employees’s expectations towards authority helps to analyze the relationship between the desire for autonomy and the level of initiative, the relationship between the desire to lead and the willingness to make decisions, and how an individual responds to structure.

Communication Expectations – are your people engaged?

If the cost of poor communication is: mistakes, wasted time, wasted money, bad recruitment, missed sales, dysfunctional teams, poor morale and slow innovation – what is the value of good communication?

Good communication is a key indicator of how your employee engagement strategies are working.

social expectations

Social Expectations – engaging your team

The greater part of a worker’s day is spent in the work environment, so not surprisingly employees want good relationships with the people whom they spend the majority of their time with: their immediate co-workers, other employees, supervisors and bosses.

Career Development and Training

Identifying Career Development Expectations – before the competition does

One of the major reasons for losing talented staff is that they are not being given the developmental opportunities they often think they deserve – or expect – and look elsewhere. So understanding and exploring employees career development expectations is another key factor for engaging and retaining top talent.

work-life balance employee expectations

Work-life Balance – what organisations do wrong

Although much has been said and written about work-life balance, the focus has been on organisation-wide policies and initiatives, but what about individual employee’s real needs and those of their team colleagues?

Next Monday is Blue Monday. Are you ready?

Asking the right questions, and analysing each individual employee’s real engagement factors ensures managers and the wider organisation provide an environment that retains the best talent. People want to feel recognised but there are other factors that need to be understood if they are to further engage in their work and the overall success of the organisation.

Employee Expectations

Employee engagement is a shared responsibility

Employee engagement is a hot topic—and for good reason. It can have a major impact on key organisational metrics including talent retention, growth, and profitability. This white paper includes key pointers to help you achieve greater performance metrics.

Recruitment – Five Things Leaders in SME’s Must Do

Hiring the right people isn’t just about recruiting the people who have the technical abilities you need, it’s about engagement and finding those people who will enable your business to succeed. Here are 5 recommendations from the CIPD.

Are you being too harsh or too permissive?

Managers often fall into the trap of being either too harsh or too permissive. Both of these traits are due to an imbalance in management style. The secret of effective management is to understand a number of paradoxes and the ability to balance two opposing behaviours.

How to develop great leaders

Some managers make excellent leaders, but many never make the grade. The one foundational strength found in effective leaders is ……. courage.

5 tips for running and attending great meetings!

All too often meetings take place through a sense of duty and those attending often feel they have no choice in whether to attend. Here’s some useful pointers to ensure a productive meeting for all.

Are you engaging in enough Candid Conversations?

Effective management is about effective communication. Surveys also tell us that on average 70% of employees are disengaged from their work. What is going on? What are managers missing? The answer is surprisingly simple…

Benchmark Your Way To More Sales

“You don’t close a sale; you open a relationship if you want to build a long-term, successful enterprise.”  – Patricia Fripp Benchmarking Top Performers The most successful businesses employ the right staff in the right roles. What makes someone ‘right’ for a role? How do you ensure every person in your business performs at the highest […]

Q1 supports ‘Get Britain Standing’

Quadrant 1 are proud to support the ‘Get Britain Standing’ campaign aimed at increasing awareness and education of the dangers of sedentary working and prolonged sitting time. The British spend a staggering 8.9 hours each day ( on average) sitting down. Major international research has produced compelling evidence that sitting for more than 4 hours […]

Emotional Intelligence – how to measure it

At Harrison Assessments we are often asked if we can measure the behavioural traits that make up Emotional Intelligence.  The short answer is that, because HATS utilises working preferences the whole system measures emotional intelligence.  If we enjoy what we are doing then emotional behaviour will reflect that, if we don’t then our emotional behaviour […]

Quadrant 1 Supports Oxford Against Cutting

Oxford Against Cutting (OAC) OAC is committed to working to help prevent female genital mutilation (FGM) of girls and women living in Oxfordshire. Mission Statement Oxford Against Cutting is a rights-based group working to help prevent female genital mutilation (FGM) of girls and women living in Oxfordshire. We believe in the personal integrity and dignity […]

Harrison Assessments Talent Solutions

HATS Training – From A Novice’s Perspective

I attended a Harrison Basic Accreditation Training Course  in the spring. The course took place at the beautiful Middle Aston House nestled in the picturesque Oxfordshire Countryside. I am not a HR specialist my background is firmly rooted in marketing. I now run my own IT & Marketing Consultancy business. I have in the past […]

Meet our Team of Harrison Assessments Consultants – Gerry Murray

Here is the next blog in our series of ‘Meet our Team of Harrison Assessments Consultants’. Today we would like to introduce you to Gerry Murray, a Master NLP Coach and Trainer who works with leadership teams to enable them to inspire their people and take performance to higher levels of excellence…..

David Klaasen

Meet our Team of Harrison Assessments Consultants – David Klaasen

Welcome to the first in our series of ‘Meet our Team of Harrison Assessments Consultants’. Today we would like to introduce you to David Klaasen, a highly skilled trainer, coach and facilitator who specialises in leadership and management development…..What do you enjoy most about your work?

3 Reasons Why Employee Engagement Surveys Don’t Work!

There is a strong case for measuring engagement and retention in organisations and using the right tools is essential. Providing accurate engagement survey analytics to leaders who believe employee expectations are important, will enable them gain higher levels of engagement.

Appraising Talent

Performance reviews often use measurable goals to identify areas for development but rarely do they measure attitudinal abilities. Here’s how one college is using appraisals to measure cultural values and behaviours.

Measuring the Success of your Competency Framework

We never cease to be impressed with the time and effort organisations put into producing competency frameworks. So why is it that such an important feature of the organisation is measured in such a subjective way?

Shaping Talent for the next 10 Years

Late last year the Society for Human Resource Management published the results of a survey of the top HR challenges for the next 10 years. The results show some significant changes with *developing corporate leaders, retaining and rewarding the best employees among the top challenges.

Leadership development at its best!

Leadership development is traditionally conducted via a programme or an executive coach. Both methods have their merits, however stakeholder centred coaching adds valuable dynamics for even greater results. Here’s why….

Talent Management Solutions – A Strategic Approach

One challenge for HR Directors is establishing a talent management solution which gives real, progressive data on attracting, developing and retaining the best talent. So what if HR professionals were able to predict job performance and success, identify career development opportunities, measure company values and benchmark excellent performance?

Great talent – is it in the right place?

Do you have the capability to source the right talent for your organisation? According to a recent People Management article and some research completed by the CIPD, it seems conventional ways of recruiting and retaining top talent no longer cut the mustard. So what’s the solution……

How do you measure company values?

In our role as development consultants to organisations we see many different cultures – some highly effective, some not so. So how do you measure the success of company values and culture? It’s a simple process…

Leadership – what are you measuring?

Most people would agree they would like their leaders to be competent, knowledgeable, visionary, progressive and decisive with excellent interpersonal skills, innovative and open to new ideas. But how do you measure these traits?