Back to Blog

Charitable Christmas Greetings!

Having agonised over which charities to support, we thought we would explain our decisions in a bit more detail. As we said before, we are very proud to have The Eve Appeal and Orbis as clients. They both do tremendous work in their fields. The Eve Appeal, which funds research into women's gynaecological cancer, is particularly close to Kate's heart because her mother died of ovarian cancer back in 1986. It's something of a hidden killer because it's very difficult to diagnose early. Since...

Christmas Greetings from Evolutionhr

Evolutionhr would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. This year, instead of sending paper Christmas cards to our clients and others we know, we will instead be keeping costs low by sending e-cards and donating the money we have saved (plus quite a bit more) to charity. We have selected three charities, two of which we are very proud to say are our clients, The Eve Appeal, a gynaecology cancer research charity and Orbis, a global eye health charity. We will also ...

Size isn't everything!

We are delighted to confirm that Kate has been invited to speak again at 2015's Guerrilla Tactics, RIBA's flagship professional event for small practices, taking place on 10-11 November 2015 at 66 Portland Place, London W1. Her session will take place on the afternoon of 11 November, the CPD day, and is entitled "Size isn't everything! HR when each person matters to your business". Kate will focus on one aspect of her forthcoming book "HR in Creative Companies": a great challenge in the curre...

Social Media in the Workplace

Two of the greatest challenges for employers and HR professionals in the workplace at the moment are engagement and retention, so by actively seizing the opportunity of this current of behaviour , the positive benefits of social media to business is being explored. Typical questions include - 'do we need a policy for such and such? What can we do in such and such situation? How can we control it? This caused us to look further into the challenges that social media is giving to business and HR...

Travelling to and from work?

Travel time to and from work many be considered as work time In a Spanish case before the ECJ, it has been established that time spent by workers, who do not have a fixed place of work, travelling between their homes and their first and last appointments of the day constitutes "working time" for the purposes of the Working Time Directive. The case of Federacion de Servicios Privados del sindicato Comisiones Obreras v Tyco Integrated Security SL and another concerned employees of a Spanish s...

Events Coming Up!

We are delighted that GCS Recruitment Specialists have invited Kate Marks of EvolutionHR to speak alongside Piers Leigh-Politt and Dan Begbie-Clench of Doyle Clayton, at a series of HR seminars, this time focusing on 'The Impact of Social Media at Work'. There will be two opportunities to experience this unique look at social media. READING: Wednesday 7th October 9:00am – 10:30am Millennium Madejski Hotel Reading RG2 0FL LONDON Tuesday 20 October 2015 9:00am – 10:30am Corney & Ba...

Everybody's 'Appy Nowadays....

Everybody's 'appy nowadays… On Thursday morning last week, I turned up at a networking event looking forward to hearing a talk by Jane Duncan, the new Chairman of the RIBA. It was her first speaking event since taking office some few days before. Many people were expected and lots of us turned up early as suggested by the organisers. We discussed whether this was a generational thing…. We were all middle aged and therefore perhaps more programmed to follow instructions without question! ...

Equal Pay

I'm sure I was not the only working woman who initially reacted to David Cameron's 'new' initiative about bridging the gender pay gap with a small sigh. Haven't we heard it all before? And how effective will this new initiative actually be? Why is it, so many years after the brave ladies of Ford, Dagenham put their livelihoods on the line, that we still have this pay gap? And, is it not now further deepened or worsened, by the application of race to the equation? Let alone any of the other cha...

Social media: Friend or foe in the workplace?

Two of the greatest challenges for employers and HR professionals in the workplace at the moment are engagement and retention, so by actively seizing the opportunity of this current of behaviour , the positive benefits of social media to business is being explored. With this in mind, Evolutionhr recently co-hosted a breakfast seminar with Davenport Solicitors on the subject of social media in the workplace. This was a very interesting topic to cover, because, as consultants to small businesses...

Work/Life Balance 1

There is something appealing about lie-in, especially if you haven't had one for ages. So when I crawled out of bed at 7.30am on a recent Sunday, I wasn't in the best of moods. Two hours later, I was negotiating the intricacies of Walthamstow's Little Holland – thereby lies another tale or potential rant – and rushing to get a car full of people's unwanted gifts, old clothes, toys, books, videos, CDs, and other bric-a-brac to the Orford Road Club, E17 for a 10.00am start. That's when the fu...

Bank holidays - Are you calculating them correctly?

The Working Time Regulations 1998 state that employees who work 5 or more days per week are entitled to 5.6 weeks holiday per year. This is made up of 20 days annual leave, plus 8 days bank and public holidays. Sounds simple enough, right? For this year and next year, things may not be as simple as they seem… This year, due to the dates upon which certain bank holidays fall, the number of bank and public holidays awarded to staff will depend on when your holiday year begins. If your h...

Breakfast Seminar: 25 June 2015

Join us for a Breakfast Seminar, jointly hosted with Davenports Solicitors. Date: Thursday 25 June 2015 Time: 0830hrs - 1000hrs Venue: Corney and Barrow, 10 Paternoster Square, London EC4M 7DX Social media in the workplace can work positively for you and the business. How can we move beyond perceptions that it may be a threat or a problem? Numbers are limited, so please do let us know if you would like to attend. Contact: kate@evolutionhr.co.uk or niki@evolutionhr.co.uk...

HR Breakfast Seminar by Kate Marks and Niki Winsor

As is often the case, there are changes to employment law that will become effective as of 6 April 2015. Our seminar aims to provide clear guidance and practical tips on how these changes may affect you. We also run through recent case law as it affects employment and HR....

The latest Holy Grail of HR: Employee Engagement

As a matter of course, Niki and I regularly receive updates on HR and related topics. Within the last fortnight, there has been a recurring theme – that of employee engagement. Trends and buzzwords abound in HR as they do in any profession, but infrequently with quite as much focus as seems to be the case with engagement at the moment. So why is this occurring and what are the salient points we can glean from the various articles with which we've been bombarded? The prevailing belief is th...

Obesity as a disability

A recent European Court of Justice ruling means that obesity can be classed as a disability in certain circumstances. In which case, the employee in question will be protected from discrimination. Disability itself is defined as 'a limitation which results from long-term physical, mental or psychological impairments, which may hinder the full and effective participation of the person concerned in professional life on an equal basis with other workers'. So this is not just about someone who's pu...

MIPIM Virgin Alert

I've asked around and apparently it's OK to call myself a MIPIM virgin….. For those of you who are unaware, MIPIM is an annual conference held in Cannes during March where the great and good of the property world gather for four days of moving and shaking. It's billed as gathering "the most influential international property players from all sectors for 4 days of networking, learning and transaction". My personal experience began vicariously, many years ago, when I used to help organise t...

Professor Stephen Hawking and HR

It is Professor Stephen Hawking's birthday today and, coincidentally, I went to see the film The Theory of Everything yesterday evening. I have felt inspired by it all day. We can all learn from it. Firstly, sterling performances by Eddie Redmayne as the man himself, and also Felicity Jones who plays his first wife, Jane. Secondly and more importantly, a lingering sense of awe at his intellect and humour, and a desire to learn from his stoicism, enjoyment of life and hope against massive odds....

Shared Parental Leave - Your Checklist

Shared parental leave is the government's latest idea to allow working families more flexibility, and to encourage fathers to participate more in family life. Instead of the mother taking up to a year's maternity leave, she may now decide to transfer up to 50 weeks' leave to her partner, and 37 of those weeks will be paid leave. So employers of both prospective mothers and fathers need to be aware of the changes. 1. When does shared parental leave come into force? The...

HR Breakfast Seminar by Kate Marks and Niki Winsor

Two seemingly unrelated topics, but each are vital in enabling you to provide a supportive working environment for your staff in an increasingly competitive market place.    Our seminar will provide information and practical tips on the topical subjects of pension auto-enrolment and workplace stress....

What to look for in an HR consultant

We firmly believe that HR should not impede your company’s evolution, but be a catalyst and an intrinsic part of your business strategy. Small and medium sized entrepreneurial companies deserve to receive the highest level of HR support when they need it and on their terms. We ask you about your needs and help determine the best option for your HR support. It may be on an ad hoc basis paid hourly. It may be on an on-going basis on a monthly retainer. It may be on a project by project basis pa...