Purple Patch Blog

Increase employee engagement in one simple step

Jo Harley on how developing your managers can lead to an increase in engagement.

It’s a year since we launched our free engagement survey (click here to set yours up) and therefore a year since we first completed it ourselves; time to practice what we preach and run it again to see how things have changed. You’d think that specialising in the areas of employee engagement, best places to work, retention and development we’d be scoring a whopping 10 out of 10. However there are always improvements that can be made and we were pleased with our rather respectable score of 8.5 (especially as this was 1.5 points up on last year –phew!) Compared to all the organisations that have taken part since we launched (over a thousand people) we compare very favourably as the average score is five out of a possible ten.

A recent poll by Gallup states that 24% of people are not engaged in their job at present, which reflects similar studies by Blessing White and the Corporate Leadership Council. Although they found that that the number of actively disengaged had doubled from 20% of the workforce in 2008 to 40% in 2009 which is very worrying and presents an opportunity to make improvements.

Continue reading Comments (0) 28 July 2010

The iPhone, iPad and iDont know what’s next!

Jon Reed takes a look at inovation and impact.

As I walked past a mobile phone shop in London a few weeks ago, there was a huge queue that made me wonder if the Wimbledon Championships had moved to Covent Garden. I didn’t know what was going on... Then I opened the metro and made the link... the iPhone 4!! People were queuing to get their hands on one!

It was exactly the same with the iPad. It’s absolutely amazing to me that something like this would get people up at the crack of dawn to be one of the first to own one. I really can’t see the attraction but I’m truly in awe of how the likes of Apple get people so engaged that people queue up all night to buy their products!

Organisations like Apple are so hot on marketing and always innovating. I get the impression they have already designed, tested and finished their next big product before they release current products. Now that’s forward thinking; and providing organisations can foresee trends (or create trends) then that’s how we should all be working, isn’t it? Back when I used to work in restaurants we worked by the phrase ‘you’re only as good as your next menu’ and I’m sure the same applies in retail with fashion trends, and in finance with deals.

Continue reading Comments (2) 21 July 2010

A week at the purple palace through the eyes of a 15 year old

Vaishnavi Ravinthan spent a work experience week with us, and shares her thoughts from her time here.

I came to do a week of work experience at learnpurple as a really nervous schoolgirl. I wondered what the company would look like and how everyone in it would be. I came to learnpurple as a girl who only knew about studies, my life and hobbies. Before my placement, I went on the website and tried to learn a bit of background information about this company, but since I have never worked, and don’t really know anything about people development – it just made me feel more confused.

After just a week, I realised that learnpurple helps employers to get the full potential out of their employees. They also try to bring out the best of the business itself. I learnt that learnpurple’s sister company is called talent toolbox. Talent toolbox is a piece of software that is an award winning online appraisal system. This helps to bring the manager and employee together so that they can set goals for the next year and so both the individual and company benefit.

Continue reading Comments (2) 14 July 2010

The good, the bad and the ugly

Ben Buet takes a look at the lessons learnt from the World Cup.

So another World Cup goes by with another disappointing end for England. Yet again the England football team over promise and under deliver, something you will not see happening at the purple palace. Why is it every time there is a big tournament our expectations grow massively and the “world class” players all seem to fall to pieces?

There are many theories as to what it takes to be successful. And there are many different areas that need to click so that you can be a winning team. In my observation here are just a few - and it’s the same both on and off the football field:

Continue reading Comments (1) 12 July 2010

Make it simple – before it’s too late

One of learnpurple’s values is ‘Make it simple’. This is very important when it comes getting the job done.

I should stop there really because that would be practising what I’m preaching here. Or maybe I should Twitter this instead? However there is little point pointing out the obvious if you’re not going to back it up with some examples and ‘how tos’.

So why do I feel compelled to write this blog? Because we all have to fit more into less time, yet many people still over-complicate things unnecessarily. Add this to the fact that that the world moves faster; information whizzes around at the speed of light; customers want better, faster; employees are more challenging to manage. People feel they are working harder but with less to show for it. Maybe we’re heading for some sort of implosion. Or at least a lot of stress and disappointment through failing to get things done.

Continue reading Comments (1) 5 July 2010