Talk Seminars Blog

CEO is ‘much easier’ role than HR director

That is according to Richard Smelt, group HR director of Carphone Warehouse and former chief executive of One Tel.

“I had to motivate people who were looking at losing their jobs, and maintain morale for existing staff,” he told Personnel Today.

"Transferable HR skills proved to be invaluable to the role... Being honest with people, listening to concerns and providing clear direction and time-scales were all things I’d learned in HR,"

"Good HR people also have plenty of emotional intelligence and are able to see where people are coming from. Quite a few CEOs don’t have that ability."

"It’s sometimes difficult in HR to see the bottom line effect of your productivity. Being directly accountable for business results was a great experience,"

UK Must Improve Management Skills

The UK must improve management skills before it can compete with India and China, reports Personnel Today.

The 'management crisis' in the UK must be tackled urgently if it is to compete with India and China, according Petra Wilton, head of public affairs at the Chartered Management Institute (CMI). She also condemned the state of leadership in UK businesses.

"Managers impact on decision making, and our research has shown that organisations that invest in management performance get better results."

UK Workers Need More Skills

British workers need a major injection of skills to beat migrant workers to London jobs, according to leading commentators, reports Personnel Today.

Research by the CBI and KPMG has found that two-thirds of companies expect skills shortages to be the biggest obstacle to growth in the first half of 2007. Half of those surveyed currently use people from other EU countries to plug skills gaps.

Zopa and Richard Duvall

"Once, we went on package holidays and listened to radio stations. Now we travel independently and download music on to our iPods. And we wondered what sort of finance company that would be"
Richard Duvall From NewBusiness Winter 2006

It turned out to be Zopa, the brainchild of the late Richard Duvall, who recently passed away in November. Richard brought us Egg in the nineties, arguably the bank that revolutionised banking in the UK and Zopa is the next step in the revolution.

When you think about creativity and finance, the two don't tend to mix. What they have created is a revolution however, matching independent lenders and borrowers and cutting out the banks. Both parties benefit from the savings in interest rates.

Richard was a creative thinker in an industry that isn't renowned for it. His legacy - his innovative thinking.

Money Isn't The Key Driver

Money is not the most important factor in choosing a job, according to two surveys published this week, and as reported by Personnel Today.

• 26% of people in the UK quit their last job because they couldn't get on with their boss, compared with 16% who left to find a better salary, according to the Vedior Survey.
• IT professionals rank challenging work, recognition and freedom higher than wages when choosing a job, according to a Computer Weekly report.