01732 759725
magazine
07
agenda
This spring sees the opening of the £16 million
West Lakes Village at Butlins in Minehead, Somerset.
The site includes 117 spacious new chalets
surrounded by lakes, greens and communal gardens
that Butlins Conference & Events is promoting
as ideal accommodation for business events and
conferences held at the main resort. The chalets
combine a colourful, retro design with modern
appliances and complimentaryWi-Fi.
Where business
meets pleasure
Social media cuts
both ways
Trawling job applicants’ Facebook,
Twitter and LinkedIn pages for evidence
of inappropriate behaviour is now
a standard part of the recruitment
process, warns health and safety law
consultancy Protecting.co.uk.
Its survey of 550 managers with
responsibility for recruitment found that
74% of recruiters admitted to looking at
the social media profiles of candidates and
existing employees.
More than two thirds (68%) have
rejected an applicant on the basis of what
they saw there and one in four (24%) has
warned an existing employee over their
social media presence.
Social media profiles can also be an
asset if they demonstrate qualities that
might not be apparent from an application.
Fifteen per cent of respondents said they
were suspicious of people that didn’t have
a social media presence.
The next generation
While most organisations are still trying
to understand what makes Millennials
tick, Global Messaging has been surveying
Generation Z – those born after 2000 – to
learn about their habits and aspirations.
It found that:
•
81% use some kind of social media;
•
72% want to start their own business;
•
25% left Facebook in 2014;
•
66% list gaming as their main hobby; and
•
On average they have an attention span of
eight seconds.
Full findings and advice on how to market
to this age group can be found at
www.
globalmessaging.co.uk/index.php/beyond-
facebook-market-new-generation
One billion and counting
The number of smartphones shipped worldwide
passed the 1 billion mark for the first time last year.
According to mobile analyst firm Jupiter Research,
smartphone shipments grew 29% to 1.2 billion
units in 2014. This includes record sales of 74.5m
iPhones in Q4, up 46% on the same period in 2013,
which helped Apple achieve
a market share of 15% for
the whole year. In contrast,
Samsung reported its first
annual earnings decline in 3
years, as its market share fell
from 30% of shipments in
2013 to 25% in 2014.
•
Please sponsor me
•
Happy birthday
•
Introducing new starters
•
The printer has broken down
•
There is going to be a fire
alarm
•
Secret Santa
•
Congratulations for ‘a job
well done’
•
Can everyone chip in for a
whip around please
•
Someone has left their car
lights on
•
Debates over the
temperature of the aircon
•
Sweepstake for the lottery
•
Sweepstake for the Grand
National
•
The toilet is blocked
•
Food has gone missing from
the fridge
•
The fridge needs cleaning
•
Who has left their
photocopying on the
photocopier?
•
Ran out of milk
•
Has anyone seen my
building pass?
•
Someone is blocking me in
in the car park
•
Someone has stolen my
stapler/calculator etc.
•
Whose turn is it to make
tea?
•
There aren’t any tea bags/
coffee left
•
Someone has stolen my
mug
•
Someone has used my
favourite mug
•
The bins need emptying
•
Dishwasher needs empting
•
There isn’t any toilet roll left
•
Anyone got the keys to the
pool car?
The e-mails you hate to receive
Headset specialist Sennheiser has worked out that every year the average UK office worker
receives 1,728 pointless emails. Here are some of the messages that people find most annoying:
Have you got the face for
success?
Forget about nominative determinism –
the influence of someone’s name on their
career choice – how someone looks is just
as likely to have an impact on their career
progression.
Research by Dr Dawn Eubanks at Warwick
Business School suggests that leaders in certain
fields are being selected in part because their
face fits the stereotype of their profession.
In a series of experiments designed to find
out whether it is possible to identify which
industry someone works in from their facial
characteristics (excluding hair), participants
successfully picked out leaders from business,
sport and the military but found politicians
harder to categorise.
Dr Eubanks believes this process could also
heavily influence leadership selection.
She said: “Our findings imply that within
business, military and sport, individuals who
achieve the highest positions of leadership
share common facial features that distinguish
them from leaders in other domains. The
most plausible explanation, in our view, is
that leaders are being selected, at least partly,
according to how they look.
“The research suggests the ideal face of a
leader extends beyond fitting the correct ‘type’
but needs to fit the industry or profession as
well. That is, leaders may benefit not just from
having competent or attractive looking faces,
but also from having facial features that ‘fit’
a certain stereotype uniquely associated with
their particular domain.
“In fact, just having facial features that
make one look like a good generic leader might
not be sufficient to reach the most prestigious
leadership positions in a domain; one may
also need to possess facial features that
stereotypically ‘fit’ the leaders in that domain.
“These findings are particularly noteworthy
for those involved in leadership selection
decisions. It is important to not let implicit
biases get in the way and ensure that there is a
rigorous selection process in place.”
The research study
The many (distinctive)
faces of leadership: Inferring leadership
domain from facial appearance
by researchers
Christopher Olivola of Carnegie Mellon
University, Dr Eubanks of Warwick Business
School and Jeffrey Lovelace of Pennsylvania
State University was published in
The
Leadership Quarterly.
The BlackBerry Passport
Noteworthy findings: Dr Dawn Eubanks
