David Cameron last week warned that the lack of women in board roles is undermining the economic recovery. He pointed to “evidence” that promoting more women to executive roles would boost business performance. What can be done, then, to remedy this and strike a better gender balance in UK boardrooms?

The government has taken a relatively gentle approach to this issue to date. Early in 2011, businesses in the UK were set a voluntary target to increase the number of women on boards by at least 25%.

I mentioned in a post last year that there had been signs of encouragement. In truth, progress looks to have been slow. At last count there was a modest increase of just over 1.5% year on year. This means that women make up just 14% of the boards at FTSE 100 companies. It is clear that the target will not be met at this rate.

The big question really is; should the government take a more hard line stance on this? Other EU countries including Spain, Iceland and Norway have introduced compulsory quotas for businesses.

I’m not sure this is the right solution for UK business though. It seems too simplistic. We need more understanding as to why there is such an imbalance before we can find a solution. The proportion of women working in mid-manager level is far higher. So this is perhaps where we need to focus in order to reform working practices and career progression in search of better balance…

I often hear about employee complaints of not feeling well supported or ‘managed’ by managers. This made me wonder, has the art of management been lost? Did it never really exist? Why is this happening and what can be done about it?

A simplistic answer to why this is a problem, is time. Or lack of time, specifically.

Another reason is that managers aren’t rewarded for managing. There’s nothing in it for them.

In some cases, managers simply don’t know how to manage. Many lack basic people management skills and competencies. This can happen when high potential employees are promoted into managerial positions based purely on technical skills.

The importance of good management goes without saying. As such, companies are acting to develop managers and leadership teams. In an earlier post this year I highlighted that this was a top priority for HR professionals in 2012.

Our latest benchmark data suggests that companies are making progress. Employees are becoming more satisfied with how they are managed. There’s still work to do though.

Much of what makes a good manager is, in truth, pretty straightforward. You need to take the time to listen to and coach your team, to make yourself available to employees, to communicate well and to be supportive. This would at least be a good start…

Is your current employee survey benefitting your company? Some suggest such surveys are just a tick box exercise. That surveys offer little or no real business value. Both assertions may well be true … for some companies, at least. However, this needn’t be the case.

Your employee survey should be designed to fit the company’s unique organisational context and reflect and measure your business strategy. We cover this topic in greater detail in our latest original HR insight paper Mastering questionnaire design in employee surveys.

Relevance is crucial to a meaningful employee survey – and an accurate measure of engagement. A generic set of questions relating to a standard definition of engagement is likely to provide fairly similarly generic data. This restricts your ability to really understand what is driving engagement for your business and implement targeted action plans.

What an engaged employee looks like is different in every company. That means every survey model should be bespoke – an approach advocated by David MacLeod in the Enaging for success report.

A well-aligned survey will give a more valid measure of employee engagement for your business and shows you are progressing on your business strategy from an employee perspective. Such insight and understanding is vital in making informed business decisions and maintaining competitive advantage.

Estimates put usage of 360 or multi-rater feedback at around 89% of medium and large companies. Its enduring popularity with companies owes to its unique versatility as a development tool.

For those taking part though, it isn’t always so popular and can be quite a daunting prospect. Receiving feedback, especially if some of it is negative, can be particularly uncomfortable.

Leaders must be prepared to be more open in order to leverage genuine value from the 360 process though, as a recent article in the Wall Street Journal explains.

Sharing is good. Sharing 360 development actions with others will create clarity around the process and help foster trust between managers and their teams. What’s more, there is compelling evidence to show that this will help increases the effectiveness of the 360.

By sharing, leaders and managers will also show that they have taken feedback on board. This will not only validate the 360 process but it will also strengthen the feedback culture and, help the individual in question to follow through on development actions.

The battle to attract and retain the best talent continues to top the business agenda. A strong employer brand is a prerequisite just to compete.

To get a clear picture of your employer brand, you need feedback from those closest to it – your employees. An annual employee survey is a step in the right direction. But best in class organisations have a more regular dialogue with employees. Communication is, after all, a two-way process.

As I explained in an article for HR Magazine, there’s a real business need to go to the next level and assess engagement throughout the employee lifecycle.

For a number of companies we work with, this has meant implementing surveys for new starters or leavers or running ‘pulse’ surveys at regular intervals.

Such surveys can provide rich data for companies, which can be used to inform strategy:

Overall, by encouraging more regular dialogue with employees, you will have a much clearer idea of how employees feel, what motivates and engages them and how they like to work. This, in turn, can help you enhance the employer brand and attract and retain the best talent.

A number of senior HR people tell me that leadership development is their biggest organisational focus this year. But what is behind this trend?

Companies have, almost en masse, pinpointed leadership development as key within their people strategy. In some cases this is due to companies introducing fresh strategies and wanting to ensure they have the right leadership skills in place to implement effectively. But for the majority of companies, it simply reflects the growing acknowledgement that good leadership is critical to business success. The flat economic forecast has sparked a need to boost performance internally and as such, leadership has never been more important.

This is the case for several of our biggest clients including Sainsbury’s, who are investing in putting managers through 360-degree feedback to help identify key areas of focus. Such a process provides useful data to inform both a strategic development proposition and individual personal development plans.

This trend should be welcomed. Everyone stands to benefit from better leadership and management. That includes the most junior employees through to shareholders and everyone in between.

Business leaders and managers at all levels play a crucial role in motivating and engaging employees. The skill and competency of a company’s managers will therefore have a direct bearing on a company’s long term success. It will influence staff turnover, employee engagement, customer service scores and, of course, the bottom line.

Keeping levels of engagement up and the ‘war for talent’ will undoubtedly remain big challenges for HR professionals this year. But what else can we expect to top the agenda in 2012?

Leadership development appears to be a high priority. In some cases this is due to companies introducing fresh strategies and wanting to ensure they have the right leadership skills in place to implement effectively. More commonly though, it reflects a growing acknowledgement that good leadership is essential for long-term business success.

Leadership has a strong influence on engagement, morale and performance. This is why many organisations are investing in people managers through tools such as 360-degree feedback and subsequent leadership development programmes.

Employer branding is another high priority for 2012. In the age of the internet forum, blogs and the ‘twitterverse’ news travels fast (and far). More companies will invest resources here to attract the best and brightest talent and to manage the employer brand in social media channels.

With a flat economic forecast, companies will also focus on productivity and process efficiency. One way in which this will be achieved is through taking more HR processes on-line. Despite an initial investment up-front, this will afford companies huge time and cost savings later. And the ability to use powerful reporting tools to inform business decision-making is an added bonus.

We are all braced for a challenging year but it can also be a successful one for businesses. Whatever your HR priorities are, ensure that you invest budgets wisely and align plans to the wider business strategy in order to add real value.

The economic world remains in a state of flux as we watch and wait for a resolution to the debt crisis. And, after using our veto, the UK is very much a spectator in this process. The uncertainty surrounding the Euro and a flat economy suggests a tough year ahead. But I was buoyed to see that HR professionals appear in bullish mood where 2012 plans and budgets are concerned.

We polled 70 mid-to-senior level HR professionals to gauge expectations for their 2012 budgets in light of the struggling economy. Half of the respondents said budgets would remain the same or increase next year. A further third of those polled (31%) expect a small reduction of their HR budget – by up to 10%.

Put into context, this looks very positive. It suggests that executives are recognising the business value of identifying, developing and engaging talent and aren’t keen to cut back on investment in this area.

It’d be foolhardy to make bold predictions about 2012 while so much uncertainty remains – particularly as the success of the UK’s economy’s is so closely aligned to the rest of Europe. But these figures are at least cause for quiet optimism.

There’s no end in sight yet for the Eurozone debt crisis and UK economic growth forecasts have been slashed for 2012. Times are tough for companies. And our latest research suggests employees are suffering too.

Many businesses are reigning in spending and cutting costs. Employees understand such measures – even if it impacts on pay reviews and bonuses. This doesn’t mean that they like it, but they accept it.

The clear message from employees though, is that many of the causes of their dissatisfaction at work do not relate to financial matters.

Our research – which featured the views of 400,000 private sector employees – highlighted the following as among the most contentious issues:

These are things that needn’t require extensive investment. Listen to your employees and take action to address their concerns. Not only will you have a more engaged workforce, but in the process you’ll strengthen your employer brand proposition and possibly even your bottom line.

360-degree feedback is used on an unprecedented level by medium and large companies. The best estimates put usage at about 90 per cent of these organisations. But many report struggling with common issues preventing them from realising its full strategic value.

If you use 360 but it isn’t delivering the desired results, don’t throw it away. Go back to the drawing board. The most critical thing is aligning it to the wider business strategy or organisational goals. If it isn’t, it’ll have little business value.

In our latest original HR insight paper – 360-degree feedback: tackling the three biggest challenges, we suggest there are three main areas of focus when implementing 360-degree feedback. Unsurprisingly, these are also the aspects of 360 that companies are struggling most with:

There’s no doubt that 360 is a strategic business tool. It can help companies embed cultural values, behaviours and ways of working. It can have an enormous impact on the long term success of businesses. It can help boost employee engagement, retention, strengthen the employer brand and boost customer service and revenue. But in order to realise any strategic benefits, it must be implemented effectively.