Be Interactive review the relationship between happiness and success in business

Research has found that a happy workforce is a productive & successful workplace. Be Interactive have reviewed the relationship between happiness & success & looked at various ways business leaders can ensure they have a happy workforce.

Be Interactive believe that staff morale is reflected in every business process so it is important for staff to be happy and motivated as this will be shown in the outcome of a project. The firm points out that if employees are unhappy, feel unappreciated and are therefore unmotivated this is likely to be reflected in a project or in customer service which will have a negative impact on business and customer loyalty. Be Interactive also feel that it is important for all workers to be on the same page because conflicting ideas could cause confusion and this will affect productivity.

About Be Interactive: http://www.beinteractivepty.com/aboutus/

Be Interactive has looked into research that offers ways to improve happiness and agrees with some of the findings. The study showed that being willing to try new things and being more open to conversation are two of the things that make people happiest as well as being good traits for aspiring leaders. Be Interactive suggests that to have a more positive start to the day commuters should try talking to other commuters on their journey to work as research shows commuters have a significantly improved journey when they connect with a stranger compared to sitting in solitude. Be Interactive also believes that acting happy even when feeling down and making friends with extroverts can have a positive effect on a person’s happiness.

 Be Interactive is an outsourced sales and direct marketing company located in Brisbane. The firm work on behalf of their clients to represent their brands in accurate and personalised formats. Be Interactive connect with consumers via face-to-face marketing methods because they believe this is the most effective way to create long-lasting and personal relationships between brand and consumer. This method of marketing often leads to improved customer acquisition, brand awareness and brand loyalty.

Be Interactive believe that happiness is extremely important in direct marketing because engaging with customers on a one-on-one basis requires a positive attitude, good customer service and a genuine interest in the customer. Being happy around customers is likely to improve the amount of sales made and therefore help the sales rep meet targets. More importantly this positive attitude will get consumers engaged and genuinely interested in the product or service. Be Interactive says that this engagement will then allow for the sales rep to build genuine and personal relationships with the consumer which will most likely encourage the consumer to return to the brand.

Steria Recruitment shortlisted for two APSCo Awards for Excellence 2014

Steria Recruitment has been shortlisted in APSCo 2014 Awards for Excellence in two categories - Recruitment Company of the Year over £50 million turnover and RPO/MSP (Recruitment Process Outsourcer/Managed Service Provider) of the Year. 
London, UK, 8 September 2014 - Steria Recruitment, one of the leading UK staffing companies and managed recruitment service providers, is delighted to announce that it has been shortlisted for two Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo) Awards for Excellence. Steria Recruitment has achieved finalist positions in two categories: Recruitment Company of the Year over £50 million turnover, and RPO/MSP (Recruitment Process Outsourcer/Managed Service Provider) of the Year.

Peter Holliday, Managing Director, Steria Recruitment, commented, "This is excellent news for the company. Our team aims to be the best at what we do and I’m proud that our efforts are being recognised by APSCo, whose mission is to raise standards right across the staffing profession. We're pleased to have reached finalist positions as a managed recruitment service provider as well as a UK staffing organisation, as we’re seeing a real increase in demand for managed recruitment services right now. Managed recruitment is all about working in true partnership with our clients, and we want to ensure that our solutions deliver to all our clients’ recruitment needs. We're honoured by this news from APSCo because we do strive to play our part in raising standards across the recruitment profession, for example by challenging and translating complex legislation, adding value through real industry knowledge and developing our capabilities through the Steria Recruitment Academy."
The APSCo judging panel is meeting with all finalists later in September.

Bullhorn Onboarding to help UK recruitment companies manage contractors

Bullhorn, the global leader in customer relationship management software for the staffing and recruiting industries, has launched Bullhorn Onboarding in the UK to give users control over the entire onboarding process through electronic document management and tracking.
Launched in direct response to the rise in contract and temporary recruitment in the UK, Bullhorn Onboarding is designed to improve the contractor experience and provide operational efficiencies in the back office. It eliminates the need for manual data entry and centralises and automates all of the steps in the onboarding process. It enables recruitment agencies placing contractors and temporary workers to deliver a professional and fast new hire experience.
With Bullhorn Onboarding users can:

• Create as many forms as clients demand
• Automatically populate placement data including contractor name and address
• Provide a secure login to a portal for candidates’ electronic signatures and easy completion of documents
• Track the progress of each candidate’s documents online
• Send electronic reminders to candidates to ensure paperwork is completed on time
• Focus on building candidate and client relations instead of administrative tasks

Peter Linas, international MD of Bullhorn, comments: “Contractor and temp recruitment is on the rise in the UK as today’s workforce becomes increasingly flexible. This is great news for recruitment agencies, but contractor recruitment comes with its own unique administrative challenges.
“Individual clients require custom letters, specific contracts, and a whole range of different forms before a contractor even turns up for work on day one. This is all down to the recruitment agency to manage, so we created Bullhorn Onboarding to help agencies with this process across a diverse client base. It dramatically reduces the time between placement and onboarding and helps agencies retain the best candidates and improve client relationships by ensuring a seamless onboarding process. This means recruiters can focus their time on billable activity without worrying about the admin challenges presented by contract recruitment.”
Brian Cunningham, director of Allen Recruitment, one of the first companies to sign up for Bullhorn Onboarding in the UK and Ireland, says: “Contractor and temporary recruitment is one of the fastest growing areas of our business but as our contractor base grows so does the associated risk of human error. Different clients have all sorts of different requirements when it comes to contracts and paperwork and we needed a solution that would automate this process, enabling us to focus our time on placing candidates, not on the admin side of contract recruitment.
“Bullhorn Onboarding integrates with Bullhorn CRM so all we need to do is input information for each client once, and the rest is taken care of. It’s already improving both client and candidate relationships by streamlining the onboarding process.”
For more information on Bullhorn Onboarding, please click here.


About Bullhorn
Bullhorn creates software and services that help recruiters put the world to work. For thirteen years our innovations have powered the recruiting and staffing operations of fast-growing start-ups up through the world’s largest employment brands. Headquartered in Boston, with offices in St. Louis, Richmond, Vancouver, London, and Sydney, Bullhorn’s applicant tracking system, recruiting CRM, and social recruiting products serve more than 10,000 clients representing nearly 350,000 users across 150 countries.

Supply chain & logistics vacancies climb 45% amid competition for top talent

Jobs in supply chain & logistics are increasing sharply in number, according to new research from one of the UK’s leading professional specialist recruiters.

Q2 data from the Robert Walters UK Jobs Index, which charts vacancy numbers posted to online platforms, shows year-on-year openings for supply chain & logistics professionals rising by 45%.

Added to data from the first quarter - where year-on-year vacancies grew 38% in volume - the figures point to a strong upward trend in supply chain & logistics recruitment.

The impressive performance of the regions strikes a further note of optimism. Midlands employers contributed hugely to the national increase, adding 52% more supply chain & logistics jobs since the second quarter of 2013.  Across the same period, meanwhile, vacancy levels in the North West jumped by over 40%.

Neil Morgan, Manager of Supply Chain & Logistics Recruitment at Robert Walters UK, comments:

“These figures have sparked a high level of confidence among supply chain & logistics professionals, many of whom are now signalling their desire to move onto new and exciting challenges.

“Demand is particularly strong for middle management professionals and directors with the ability to reduce working capital and improve bottom line profitability. This has been recorded across all sectors, with the FMCG and pharmaceutical industries the most buoyant.

“With confidence continuing to grow across the market, we expect to see a continuation of this trend in the second half of 2014.”

Coping with your colleagues’ frustrating work habits

It can be hard to keep your cool in the office, after all, you’re there most of the time, and you can’t choose your work colleagues. Some of them are bound to have annoying habits that can be hard to put up with day after day.
But blowing up over something minor, even if it’s been building up for weeks, isn’t going to do your professional reputation any favours at all. So finding ways to contain your stress levels towards your fellow members of staff, and learning to manage their annoying behaviours without getting their backs up may well make your working environment a much more pleasant place to be.
Whether your desk mate is a slob, a serial shirker or just way too chatty in the morning, coping with their annoying habits begins at looking at your own less than attractive ways. Do you slurp your coffee, cross the invisible desk dividing line with your stuff, or simply snort when you laugh? Before you pick fault with other people, make sure your habits are exemplary or you’re likely to become the target for your colleagues’ ire.
After all, we all have our own quirks. However, being able to gently steer people into more courteous behaviour is a skill that will serve you well throughout your professional career. Dealing with people directly rather than funnelling problems upwards can avoid making a drama out of an ad break, so politely asking them to tone down their offending behaviour will alert them to the fact that it is annoying you without bringing in the big guns.
For example, if someone is persistently late, instead of accusing them, ask them whether they have been having trouble getting in, to try and understand why they might be struggling to get in on time. If someone eats fast food at their desk, suggest you go out for lunch in the open air. If the smell of grease is bothering you.
If someone wants to draw you into gossip, but you’d rather not get involved, offer to make them a cuppa, then try to change the subject.
Making people come round to your way of doing things without making people feel bad will go a long way to helping you gain popularity and respect, so assert yourself gently with a smile on your face and you’ll find that your comments are taken on board more easily than if you had lost your cool.

Hays secures ESPO Strategic HR Services framework

Hays has further underlined its capability and commitment to public services, with its appointment onto the Strategic HR Services framework for the ESPO (Eastern Shires Purchasing Organisation), one of the UK's largest public services professional buying organisations.

The ESPO (Eastern Shires Purchasing Organisation) Strategic HR Services framework is an agreement through which customers within local and central government, arm’s length bodies, education establishments, housing associations, emergency services, the NHS and not-for-profit organisations can solve all their resourcing challenges whether looking for support in recruiting, managing or transiting a single individual to thousands of staff.
The framework enables all parts of the sector to engage Hays across the full end-to-end spectrum of Hays’ service offerings in an easy to engage mechanism that can be aligned to the specific needs of each customer. With many organisations looking to engage HR and recruitment partners quickly, whilst still fully compliant with EU procurement regulations, the ESPO Strategic HR Services framework removes unnecessary procurement costs and enables same-day service engagement.
Hays already provides over 1,500 public services organisations with a wide range of solutions including; temporary and permanent recruitment, recruitment outsourcing, managed service programmes, executive search and interim management, assessment and selection services, e-recruitment platforms and digital solutions, and career transition and outplacement services across the UK.
Our continued growth in this area has led Hays to be appointed as a Strategic Supplier to the UK Government, evidence of the high quality and robustness of our recruitment solutions, and the effective resourcing outcomes they deliver.
David Saunders, Director of Hays Public Services, commented: “At a time of significant change in the way public services are delivered, this new framework will enable our existing and new customers to rapidly engage the talent they require through recruitment solutions tailored to their own operational needs. Delivery will span across our entire business, so the framework is a key strategic win for us.”

How small businesses can combat the post-holiday blues

As the summer period draws to a close, a combination of post-holiday blues, shorter daylight hours and the sharp ‘return to reality’ can give employees little to smile about. This can be a difficult period for many small businesses who can’t afford to absorb a drop in their productivity post the holiday season.
The HR Dept is advising local small businesses to take positive action with their staff before that post-summer malaise sets in, to re-create that pre-holiday momentum and kick start the next quarter.
The HR Dept said, “The evenings are drawing in, that warm beach is now a distant memory, the kids have gone back to school, and it’s only a matter of time till they bring that inevitable cold home. This combined with having to play catch up upon returning to the workplace can make your staff feel a bit flat with little to look forward to.”
After the busy holiday period, many workforces are once again close too or are back to full strength. The HR Dept is advising local businesses to recognise this period as an opportunity to refocus and re-energise their workforce, to revisit and reengage with business plans for the next quarter.
The HR Dept added, “Before the post-summer malaise sets in, take this opportunity to give a little boost to your staff. Hold a team meeting and encourage managers to re-engage in one to one meetings in order to refocus your staff, review objectives and plan for the rest of the year. A well-constructed one to one meeting and target review helps to avoid problems in the last quarter of many companies’ financial year.
The HR Dept is there to help local SME businesses with objective setting and workforce engagement, helping you to make sure those post-holiday blues don’t spill into work and affect your business.”

Unilever Selects Workday for HR in the Cloud Global Company Looks to the Future with Workday HCM for Greater Flexibility, Employee Empowerment, and Workforce Insights

Workday, Inc. (NYSE: WDAY), a leader in enterprise cloud applications for finance and human resources, today announced that Unilever, one of the world’s leading fast-moving consumer goods companies, has selected Workday Human Capital Management (HCM). With Workday, Unilever will move its HR operations to the cloud, creating a flexible technology foundation that is agile, fast, and designed to deliver real-time analytics about its workforce. Employing over 174,000 people in 90 countries, Unilever has more than 400 brands including Lipton, Knorr, Dove, Ben & Jerry’s, and Axe. Workday HCM will enable Unilever to: Standardise business processes globally, streamlining operations and reducing complexity to increase efficiencies and productivity throughout the business. Configure HR processes in minutes, such as approval flows or organisational structures, and easily change them when needed. Empower its people with self-service to perform transactions, access information, and take action on any mobile device. Access real-time actionable analytics that can help drive hiring and sourcing decisions, such as cost, current and project capacity, and capability gaps across different geographies and business structures. Gain deeper insights into its workforce that will enable managers to better measure performance, recognise top talent, and align skill sets with roles. Leverage continuous innovation from Workday’s development on a single code line delivered in the cloud. Comment on the News “With Workday, Unilever will have an HR system that is built for the future – agile, fast, and able to provide real-time analytics into its global workforce. With this foundation, Unilever can easily adapt to business change and access insights that can help drive decision-making,” said Chano Fernandez, president EMEA, Workday. “Workday HCM will also empower Unilever’s workforce in new and exciting ways, enabling them to perform tasks and access information from anywhere, at any time, changing the way they work.” About Workday Workday is a leading provider of enterprise cloud applications for finance and human resources. Founded in 2005, Workday delivers financial management, human capital management, and analytics applications designed for the world's largest companies, educational institutions, and government agencies. Hundreds of organisations, ranging from medium-sized businesses to Fortune 50 enterprises, have selected Workday.

Employment and wages continue to edge up, but real debate should be about improving productivity through better management

Gerwyn Davies, Labour Market Adviser at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) comments as follows on official labour market statistics published earlier today by the Office for National Statistics (ONS):

“Today’s headline employment figures provide a lot of festive sparkle given the improvement in the quality and quantity of jobs that have been created over the past year.  However, while average earnings have moved up a little in the last few months, this will not be sustainable unless we can improve our productivity.

“CIPD research published today shows that the UK management is one area where we are falling behind our international competitors.  It shows that managers are failing to adopt many of the sophisticated management practices associated with hgher levels of productivity. With anywhere between 30 and 45 per cent of employees having some type of managerial responsibility, there are many small but simple improvements each manager that can make a big difference to the growth prospects of UK organisations. If these practices were adopted more widely, the prospect of real wages accelerating sustainably against the backdrop of low inflation would offer a welcome change of fortunes for people in work in 2015.”