Online Advice Archive

Feel free to ask for advice.

Welcome to the Online Advice Archive! Here you’ll find all of the real-world stories that people have approached us for, along with our practical suggestions.

Use the search function to find themes that interest you. And feel free to ask for advice on any of your own leadership, team or culture issues using the Online Advice tool.

Leading Virtual Teams

"How can our line managers better engage with their direct reports when they work remotely?"  - HR Manager, Global Chemicals Manufacturer Ensuring Engagement in Virtual Relationships   It is entirely possible to develop an engaging and productive relationship...

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Developing Agile Leaders

"We need to develop agile and resourceful leaders who will be able to make decisions and take action in complex, rapidly changing conditions. What do we need to focus on?"  - HR Business Partner, Global Chemicals Manufacturer Leaders versus Followers   Research...

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Attracting the Next Generation: Going Beyond Digital

"Company-wide we are struggling to build our digital capabilities, which impacts how successful we are in hiring and maintaining new generations. Currently, new generations don't consider our organisation as one to work for."  - HR Business Partner, Global Consumer...

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Horizontal Career Move: Love it or Leave it?

"We have the reputation of being a good employer and so we have a lot of people who continue to stay employed with our company for a long time. The challenge, then, is to promote talent when we don't have any space open at the top of the company. How can we get our...

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Staying Focused During Times of Change

"How can our leaders decide what is top priority in our New Reality, when the playing field is constantly changing?" - Deputy Head Leadership & Culture Development, Global Insurance   Get Started Here are four steps that you can implement immediately: Step One...

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Getting Unstuck: Change the Setting

"We are going through an organisational restructuring. Even within my HR Team, some people are afraid to lose their jobs. However, no one brings it up during our weekly meetings. How do I get this 'undiscussable topic' on the table?"  - HR Director, Financial Services...

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Providing JIT Development

"We noticed in our Talent Management and Organisational Development team that we don’t have access to just-in-time training. When individuals need help with something, they need it now and not in a few months’ time. We need to find a different way of supporting our...

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Navigating Organisational Politics

"Through Hay evaluations and exit interviews, we concluded that many of our newly recruited talent were leaving the organisation because they were struggling with what they describe as "the politics around here". We needed to find a solution to keep them on board and...

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Leveraging Diversity for Greater Performance

"We are experiencing a high turnover of talent, just when we are about to launch a breakthrough product in the market place. Exit interviews have revealed that these employees are leaving the organisation because they no longer trust their managers. Management is...

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Maximising Mentor Participation in Mentoring Programmes

"We run a mentoring programme every year, and every year we struggle to get the mentors to attend our kick-off events and to actually schedule -- and stick to -- mentoring appointments."  - HR Director, Aircraft Manufacturer In general, mentoring programmes tend to...

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Finding New Ways to Pinpoint Customer Needs

"We have been experiencing a substantial decrease in market share in one of our key product categories. We have always prided ourselves in being close to our customers, listening to their needs and turning this knowledge into innovative and compelling products....

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Keeping Productivity High During Times of Change

"We have created a new organisational structure to support our new brand identity; new teams, new bosses, new responsibilities. How can we maintain our high level of output for our internal customers while our people are focused on how to be successful in this new...

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Balancing Short versus Long Term Focus

"We tend to focus too much on short term operational emergencies, and as a result we lose focus on our long term tactical and strategic issues. Time spent on operational issues – oftentimes problem solving – takes up a lot of bandwidth and prevents time allocation for...

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Making your Corporate Purpose Come Alive

"Together with my Executive Team, I recently defined a new corporate purpose for our organisation. I now need to make this come alive and have our employees live it on a daily basis."   - CEO, Cosmetics Industry     Corporate Purpose leads to Corporate...

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Lifting Team Performance Across Generations

"Aligned to the overall strategic shift in our company towards a more team-based structure, we need to be better at developing interpersonal and social skills, especially with regard to the new generations now starting to grow in our company.” - Global HR L&D...

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How to Engage Busy Managers in Development

"We have built a series of leadership development initiatives based on the expressed needs of our internal customers. We have also clearly defined the business outcomes per programme, so we know that we are ‘speaking the language of the business'.  However, I am...

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Aligning Career Path Development Across the Organisation

"Our corporate HR department wants to define a company-wide framework for career path development, taking into account the different needs and objectives across all divisions – and at the same time, set standards and align approaches. So far, only isolated attempts at...

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Moving beyond Compliance to Commitment

"My aspiration is to develop the attitude and skills of my Pan-European HR Team so that they can support our organisation’s new strategic focus – from product-focus to client-focus.  Speed to market is now a key factor for our success. If our HR Team becomes more...

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Moving from Stalemate to Collaboration

"Our company was recently acquired by another one, and we are in the midst of streamlining the new corporate learning function. This is proving difficult, as both sides have opposite views of the services we should offer, based on our respective legacy companies. I...

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Creating a Culture of Collaboration

Creating a Culture of Collaboration"How can we instill a culture of collaboration, when people in our organisation feel the need to protect their turf and are afraid of ‘giving things up’? We fully recognize that in our organisation, technical and operational advances...

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Re-engaging Disengaged Managers

"My aspiration is to help our senior management redefine their role within the company, a role whereby commitment and engagement can find new ways of expression, and whereby long term aspiration is reinforced. We regularly organise working sessions with external...

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