Outdoor experiential training became established as one of the big HR ideas during the 1990s. The theory is that leadership skills can be honed and team spirit developed by taking employees into the great outdoors, usually at weekends. The “survival” of workers might depend, for example, on...

The most important element of successful change is never to let your people get offside, says Marie Gill, head of organizational development at UK supermarket Asda, which recently merged with Wal‐Mart, one of the world’s largest retailers. She was speaking at a forum organized by Brathay, a...

Throughout the turbulent recent history of UK carmaker Rover, culminating in parent BMW’s sale of the company for £10 to the Phoenix consortium in May 2000, internal communications with the workforce were never far from the top of the agenda.

Reinsurance and financial‐services organization Swiss Re has repositioned its alternative risk resources after a radical reorganization. Strategic imperatives included establishing a new performance culture among its 500 associates, who mostly work in virtual teams as part of the new Swiss Re...

Action learning – often seen as only a tool for personal development – was the way chosen to open up the culture, sharpen up service provision, increase revenue and reduce costs in the UK Publishing Services division of Oxford University Press.

In this age of management consultants, change and uncertainty – it is often the employee who feels left out. In the past few years, organizational restructuring has been widespread in UK local government. At the same time, staff are being increasingly consulted on their views and options...

If our hospital did not exist, how would we create it? This was the question asked by doctors and managers at Leicester Royal Infirmary, one of two English pilot sites to evaluate the use of business process re‐engineering (BPR) in a healthcare environment.

Over a five‐year period, AT&T Consumer Services experienced radical structural change, in preparation for US deregulation of the telecommunications and information‐services markets in 1996, and afterwards. This had far‐reaching internal impacts, including waves of downsizing, growth and...

Faced with declining revenues and significant business losses in the early 1990s, IBM reviewed its products, services, infrastructure, operations and functions. As part of this process, HR processes, policies and practices were either reformed or eliminated. Bob Gonzales, vice‐president of HR...