Blog

How to find motivation

There comes a point in the working lives of most people when they struggle to find the inclination to push themselves to their full potential. There can be a variety of causes for this, with the most common being an unpleasant boss or simply boredom. Feeling demotivated can have hugely negative consequences on an individual’s [...]

Read More...

Creating a passionate workforce

Every manager dreams of a passionate, engaged workforce that skips into work every day ready for the challenges that lie ahead; unfortunately, the reality is rarely this utopian. Many different factors influence how employees approach their work, and this can make instilling passion a difficult challenge for managers. Personal issues, boredom at work and engagement [...]

Read More...

How to develop and sustain employee engagement and passion at work

When Towers Watson recently conducted a global workforce study, they made an interesting discovery; although traditional employee engagement programmes are effective in promoting better performance, they often become less effective as time goes by. It seems the challenge senior management faces is not just to create a strategy that will foster employee engagement and passion [...]

Read More...

What is meant by employee engagement and passion at work?

Employee engagement is often also referred to as worker engagement. This is a topic often encountered in business management literature. Engaged employees have three easily distinguishable attributes; they are fully involved in their job; enthusiastic about their job and will act in a manner that benefits the interests of their employer. Scarlett Surveys provides the [...]

Read More...

Developing Personal Potential: Workplace Considerations

The development of personal potential can take many forms.  For some people, it refers to nurturing native talents including such things as the capacity to enjoy and even create art, music, and literature.  Other people feel that developing personal potential consists of activities that allow one to achieve lifelong dreams.  One view of personal potential [...]

Read More...

Enabling and Blocking Employee Engagement

According to research studies, when employees are highly engaged in their tasks and responsibilities, businesses enjoy dramatically improved revenue.  In some cases, revenue growth as high as 250% has been realised through improved levels of employee engagement.  So, what are the key characteristics of a workplace that encourages staff engagement? The Importance of Leadership Most [...]

Read More...

Emotional intelligence and business success

The business world is no more immune to fads than any other aspect of society.  In one decade there may be a great deal of pre-occupation concerning employee empowerment, while in the next that approach is dropped in favour of comprehensive mission statements.  Some developments in the business world, however, offer a lasting set of [...]

Read More...

Stress Management – solutions in context

Most individuals in business sooner or later experience both short-term and long-term stress related to their careers.  Short-term stress, as the name suggests, originates with conditions that are by their nature not likely to last for years or even decades.  Long-term stress, on the other hand, is based on circumstances that represent a permanent challenge [...]

Read More...

Creativity – what to reward

  It is generally thought, right across the world of business, and indeed life, that incentives and rewards are important motivators in the generation of success. Entire management styles and systems have been built on this premise. Indeed, entire societies and civilisations have been built on this basic human assumption and in the short term [...]

Read More...

Management in difficult times

There can be no denying that the current worldwide economic recession is as deep as anyone can remember. The effects are being felt across the developed economies and even China, India and Brazil have not been immune to the contraction and credit drought. In the United Kingdom, the recession barely abated before officially returning late [...]

Read More...

Supporting Employees’ Needs with Soft Skills Training

Employee development is important for the growth of any business. If you care about the performance of your staff and you want to see them excel and grow, then it may be time to look into soft skills and employee development training. These training sessions will not only help your employees develop their technical skills, [...]

Read More...

Employee engagement! Important for business?

Employee engagement and motivation are vital for any business to thrive. An engaged employee will be willing to work harder for your company and is less likely to leave. According to Scarlett Surveys, “Employee engagement is a measurable degree of an employee’s positive or negative emotional attachment to their job, which profoundly influences their willingness [...]

Read More...

How employees can take responsibility for engaging and motivating themselves and others

Every business needs engaged and motivated employees in order to thrive. All business managers know that employees who are motivated are less likely to have time off for stress related issues, are likely to be vastly more productive and less likely to resign and move on. Something that can prove difficult is empowering employees to [...]

Read More...

10 practical things you can do to infuse project teams with passion

This article is written by the developers of the PassionWorks!™ engagement model. PassionWorks!™ is at the heart of our Employee Engagement and Passionate Leadership courses. It is based on in-depth research into the nature and components of passion – or engagement – at work. That research led directly to a new definition of passion at [...]

Read More...

Team dynamics: try this activity with your team

To open up an interesting conversation with your team and to check-in on each person’s PassionFlow!™ (PF) as well as the overall team’s PF, try the following activity: Draw our PassionWorks!™ Model on a flipchart. Next, ask each person to think about what phase they think the team is in, predominantly. What is the primary [...]

Read More...

When does ‘challenge’ become stress?

It has long been recognised that a certain amount of challenge is a good thing. This is true in both the business and academic worlds. Challenges serve the useful function of motivating workers and learners to strive for excellence. This leads to such positive behaviours as time management, developing new levels of efficiency, and delegating [...]

Read More...

Do you need to make your organisation more creative? And can you?

WARNING: This article contains the top 3 ways to avoid creative thinking! Clive Lewis, Founder and Managing Director of Illumine Training looks into this very important, but widely ignored subject from the perspective of a senior manager and business leader. I looked at the first question above and was reminded of the single question, two [...]

Read More...

Releasing the Creativity of Your Employees

Stop for a moment and consider the most successful companies of the last 50 years. Do you know what made them successful? Their employees and the fact that the company heads tapped into the creative thinking of those working for them. The more you use the talent at your disposal, the better your company will [...]

Read More...

Why Soft Skills Development is Essential in Business

Many companies today engage in personal and employee development. This helps give them a competitive edge in the business world and it ensures that their employees handle themselves in a professional manner at all times. It is important that employees show that they are empathetic to the needs of their peers and customers, are self-aware, [...]

Read More...

The Nature of Perception and How It Affects Thinking and Learning

The nature of perception itself depends on one’s view of the world. Some people believe in a theory known as strong direct realism, which holds that our perceptions are generally accurate. The broad representative theory, in contrast, teaches that what we see and hear in the physical world is only understood through a filter consisting [...]

Read More...