Virtual work teams – trend or necessity?
What challenges and traps await virtual teams? Can each local manager manage virtual teams, especially multicultural ones? Are normal managerial competencies enough to do it? Or maybe the global manager of the 21st century needs something else to function effectively in the complex labyrinth of matrix-like organisational structures, virtual meetings, time zones, and multicultural communication […]
Equal opportunities and healthy organisation. Perspectives from other cultures
I have not yet seen a long-term HR plan without a strategy to ensure equal opportunities to all employees and counteract discrimination. As HR professionals, we take it for granted that the evaluation of employees and their promotion opportunities should depend on substantive skills, regardless of gender, nationality, sexual orientation or religion by: Irek Zyzański […]
Intercultural intelligence
Even many years of work in an international environment – in Europe, Middle East and Asia – are not sufficient protection against traps or basic errors in intercultural communication and management that await us. by: Irek Zyzański This article is primarily dedicated to reflections on the fact that even long-term expats can make mistakes connected […]
How to hear “hidden no”?
by: Irek Zyzański Most of us like to listen to music. We have different tastes and listen to it in different ways. Some collect high-quality audio equipment, buy high-resolution files, savour the width of the music scene and details of instrument separation. Others enjoy music by listening to it on networked small, monophonic loudspeakers with […]
A remedy or poison?
We often accept as an unquestionable truth that the bonus system motivates employees, in particular employees of sales departments, to work better. And as in life, sometimes it will motivate them, and sometimes it will have the opposite effect. by: Irek Zyzański In this article, I will focus on P4P (pay for performance) systems, i.e. […]
Relocation to another country: development opportunities and pitfalls
One of the most expensive and “exclusive” development tools in many companies is sending an employee to a branch in another country. In many international organisations, it is difficult for employees to reach a higher level in the hierarchy and occupy a position of responsibility without international experience. How to rank expatriation abroad among other […]
The hero meets the mentor on his journey
In 1949, Joseph Campbell published the book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. He describes in it the archetype of the hero’s journey found in the oldest myths, ancient literary works, as well as in the latest Hollywood box office hits. This journey is a perfect metaphor of our development, in which the mentor plays […]
Mentoring for change. How to maximise the effects of its implementation during a crisis?
The past two years have been a difficult time for organisations, which have had to react fast to unpredictable and sudden phenomena. During change, it is the HR department that is responsible for shaping programmes to support the organisation during a crisis. One of them is mentoring, because it benefits each side of the process: […]
Catalyst of the organisation’s development
It is difficult to imagine a strategic HR programme without the word ‘mentoring’ written in capital letters. And prise for that to HR teams, because mentoring can be a great catalyst for the development of people and the company’s culture. However, when inappropriately implemented, mentoring will act as a handbrake applied suddenly – the effects […]