There is lots of negativity in the news right now, families facing the reality of public sector cuts, the risk of redundancy, uncertainty whether the private sector will really be able to pick up the shortfall in the employment market and now a double dip recession.

Many a wise person has already commented that the savings needed in the public sector should be conducted avoiding a non thinking “salami slice” approach.  Departments and other public bodies have been working hard these past two years to or more to deliver required savings without impacting service users. I have written here myself about the terrible and difficult choices having to be made in Prisons and Health as just a couple of examples.

We know that times  are tough, we get told about it at least five times a day, so it is interesting that now is the time that a number of Trade Unions choose to call for action , including strike action in relation to pay and pension claims.

After dropping my son at school this morning, I popped into one of my local ‘Big 4’ supermarkets to pick up a few items.

As I wandered around the aisles I came across the store manager and a senior regional manager discussing how things were going.

The store manager was quite up beat in his assessment and was commenting that “despite the current climate, things are going well and I’ve got a happy staff group.”

I have been mulling on the issue of leadership in organisations over the past couple of days, not least because more and more it seems,  leadership qualities  is increasingly identified as the missing magical “something” that organisations are using to differentiate  their workforce. They are using the description of these seemingly mystical behaviours to a) describe the next layer of performance that high performers should be aspiring to, and therefore also all those operating beneath them if they want to be successful, but also b) to sort the wheat from the chaff, in a time of extreme cuts it is being used in organisations as a means of identifying those who no longer fit; redundancy criteria.

This is an important observation in both categories a and b, after years of talking about and getting people to focus on performance at work (I’m thinking in particular about the Public  Sector here) and finally getting it, now it seems something altogether different is required.

We would like to wish you all a very Happy Easter.

Our opening times over the holiday period are as follows:

We will close at 1800 Hrs on Thursday 5th April & re-open at 0800 Hrs on Tuesday 10th April.