Getting Things Done Archives

Let sleeping dogs lie

I ended up with a broken toe the other day, and it was all my dog’s fault; that’s what you get for saving a canine from drowning!

I woke up at 1am, needed a “comfort” break and hotfooted it to the bathroom.

As it turned out, Comet was sleeping halfway across the doorway, and I stepped on his ear.

Thankfully he emerged unscathed, but it did disturb him and made him move.

Having been comforted, I came out of the bathroom door and discovered him now completely blocking the bathroom door.

Half asleep, I decided I couldn’t possibly wake the sleeping dog, so I tried to step over him and close the bathroom door behind me.

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Is GDPR the death of email marketing?

Written by Carolyne Wahlen

If you’ve been in business for a while, you’ll be familiar with the trends coming round and round again.

And often in small business marketing, with marketers trying to sell new initiatives all the time, methods die and then rise from the ashes like a phoenix, only to be pronounced dead again when the marketer needs to sell a new service.

And particularly with GDPR coming in, the death of email marketing has been predicted – again.

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Tales of an HR Services Expert – Day 24: Professional negligence?!

Written by Carolyne Wahlen

Professional negligence?!

I do tribunal audits on employment contracts and handbooks so that the company knows what needs to be updated, how much risk they are at, and whether the documents are really “fit for purpose”. Once they have that knowledge, they can make an informed decision about whether they will be updating their paperwork themselves or outsourcing it (to me hopefully!).

Most companies that have been doing HR themselves have fairly basic contracts where a couple of clauses are either void or non-existent.

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Tales of an HR Services Expert – Day 14: Minimum Wage

Written by Carolyne Wahlen

Doing employees a favour doesn’t always work

I was approached by a company to help with a situation that was baffling them.

They had employed someone who wasn’t really as experienced as they would have liked, but they liked him and created a job for him.

However what they also did was pay him less than minimum wage. [Read more…]

Tales of an HR Services Expert – Day 6: I row – it could have been me!

Written by Carolyne Wahlen

I had the huge pleasure of meeting Ben Hunt-Davis (who is really tall, 6ft 6!). Ben is an Olympic gold medal winner from the Sydney 2000 games. He won, with his team, the gold medal for rowing in the men’s 8s.

This is particularly relevant to me as I rowed in the Goring and Streatley Regatta the last two years.

Last year was the first time I had rowed (although I have paddled a canoe before) and the effort required to get four people to do the same thing at the same time, consistently, is mind-blowingly difficult. Ever had that feeling at work?!

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