Richard Chaplin tagged posts

September 11, 2014,  Thought Leadership  No comments

Accountants create budgets by aggregating multiple assumptions over levels of activity, headcount, costs, growth rates and similar factors.

Any budget review should initially focus on the underlying assumptions and policies before considering the numbers.

Given high levels of uncertainty over future demand, revenue forecasts are seldom more than inspired guesses by client-facing teams that are almost certainly wrong.

The challenge is to arrive at sensible assumptions over the headcount, productivity, salary and space requirements needed to support different levels of predicted demand.

In addition, given the usual inter-dependencies, it’s important to explore the people conseq...

August 2, 2014,  Consumer behaviour  No comments

MRI scans indicate that physical pleasure is experienced by the brain when we give; when people co-operate with us; when we believe we have a good reputation; or when we receive recognition. Being treated fairly by others also lights up reward pathways.

These triggers can be equally or more powerful as those for receiving financial reward.

Yet, comments Jan Hills in her excellent new book Brain Savvy HR, the remuneration policy at most firms appears to be based on two fundamentally incorrect assumptions: work is an economic exchange with time and skills given in return for money; and people are narrowly self-interested, focused on gaining benefits for themselves and avoiding ...