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Performance reviews are dying. It’s about time

Performance reviews are dying. It’s about time

The world of work has changed dramatically over the past few years, even before the pandemic and the rise in remote work cemented new ways of working. But while many historic business processes and practices have long since fallen along the wayside in favour of more...

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‘The Living Room Leader’ is my account of the shift that I and many of my peers (leaders in corporations and entrepreneurs running a range of differently sized organisations) have had to make in record time, in order to lead, hire and engage our people, during what is undoubtedly the most challenging work-life experience that any of us have ever encountered.

– Debbie Goodman-Bhyat, CEO of Jack Hammer

A Wakeup Call for ‘Quiet Quitters’

A Wakeup Call for ‘Quiet Quitters’

Quiet quitting became a trend after lockdown, but it is time for this trend to stop and rather change to trying to be the best at your job. Workplace trends in recent years have been dominated by phrases like quiet quitting and ‘acting your wage’, which involves doing...

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How to successfully negotiate a salary increase in 2023

How to successfully negotiate a salary increase in 2023

Debbie Goodman, CEO at Jack Hammer Global, was recently featured as a host speaker on Channel Africa Radio, to discuss how to successfully negotiate salary increases in 2023. Debbie discusses why negotiating a salary package is prickly and awkward (particularly for...

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The Great Breakup: SA women ditching inflexible workplaces

The Great Breakup: SA women ditching inflexible workplaces

Clement Manyathela spoke to Advaita Naidoo, Africa Managing Director at Jack Hammer Global on the employment trends of South Africa’s population of working women. A recent study shows, only 1 in 10 women want to work full time in the office. The McKinsey & Company...

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Getting back to business travel

Getting back to business travel

Travelling for business – locally and globally – is starting to pick up rapidly again in the wake of the pandemic, as companies once more start dispatching employees to the in-person conferences, events and meetings that were the normal order of business pre-2020....

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Working Well

Working Well

Debbie Goodman Of Jack Hammer Global On How Companies Are Creating Cultures That Support & Sustain Mental, Emotional, Social, Physical & Financial Wellness The pandemic pause brought us to a moment of collective reckoning about what it means to live well and to work...

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Top 10 inspiring women driving industry impact

Top 10 inspiring women driving industry impact

Earlier this month, Jack Hammer’s Group CEO, Debbie Goodman, was included on the list of the Top 10 Inspiring Women Driving Industry Impact! For more than 20 years, Debbie and the Jack Hammer team have been shaking up the male-dominated world of executive search....

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Defuse the ticking mental health timebomb

Defuse the ticking mental health timebomb

Workplaces across the globe are facing a mental health crisis of unprecedented scope, as the effects of almost two years of anxiety, uncertainty and fear will transition into another period of flux as we enter 2022, a leadership expert says. Debbie Goodman, group CEO...

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Preparing For The Future Of Work

Preparing For The Future Of Work

Debbie Goodman of Jack Hammer On The Top Five Trends To Watch In The Future Of Work Social impact is a critical differentiator for attracting top talent. The way in which high-quality candidates make decisions about their future has changed. Emerging as one of the key...

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Winning strategies for blockchain & crypto hiring

Winning strategies for blockchain & crypto hiring

I’ve called it a hiring ‘frenzy’. I’ve even resorted to the cliché ‘war for talent’ when describing the fierceness of the competition for skilled blockchain and crypto professionals. And that’s because the reality of what’s taking place in this incredibly hot market...

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Keeping clear of hiring chaos in hot emerging industries

Keeping clear of hiring chaos in hot emerging industries

After more than two decades as an executive recruiter and business leader in frontier and emerging markets, I have lived and worked through numerous waves of hiring splurges as new niches, in new industry sectors and new markets, started to spike. The tech boom in the...

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Book review: Radical Candor

Book review: Radical Candor

Towards the end of last year, I read No Rules Rules, the story behind the culture at Netflix and all the personal work that goes into making the company one of the most sought-after workplaces in the world. In it, the authors talk about Radical Candor which, at first...

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The future face of the office

The future face of the office

COVID-19 has changed the way we work, not only through global hard lockdowns, but also with a hard reset in the world of work. The traditional sense of the workplace has met its demise and it’s time to think of the post-pandemic office in creative, new ways. Remote...

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Video interview 101 in the year 2021 – Execs take note!

Video interview 101 in the year 2021 – Execs take note!

I thought I was a pretty skilled video interviewer. I mean, I’ve been doing this for more than a year now, day in and day out, and I can’t recall any particular disasters to date. I certainly believed that my video interview chops were right up there, no doubts about...

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Executive hiring: How to know if they’re good

Executive hiring: How to know if they’re good

I took an outdoor walk with a friend recently. Masked, of course. Physically distanced, naturally. But within conversational range. My friend knows that I’m ‘in recruitment’, but she’s unfamiliar with the specifics of executive search, and how this field is distinct...

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Jack’s growing…Globally and in Africa

Jack’s growing…Globally and in Africa

Thankfully, 2020 was a year of significant growth for Jack Hammer. With our US office in Los Angeles, and the extension of our on-the-ground presence to all the main markets in Africa, we were the fortunate (and delighted) recipients of a substantial increase in...

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Three key leadership trends to note in 2021

Three key leadership trends to note in 2021

1. Making a call on the office/WFH/hybrid strategy During 2020, it was all about logistics – how to get everyone working from home as quickly, efficiently and productively as possible. Sending office furniture and computers to those who needed them, addressing all...

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A Proud Day for Leadership

A Proud Day for Leadership

Yesterday was a great day for Americans. It was a great day for anyone living in America (like me). It was a great day for democracy. It was a great day for unity. It was a great day for anyone who looks to America as an example of freedom, humanity and justice....

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Jack Hammer’s annual bonus and business sentiment survey

Jack Hammer’s annual bonus and business sentiment survey

At this point in the year,  we would typically survey executives from dozens of companies on whether they expect to receive a bonus this year, whether they’re expecting increases next year, what their overall business outlook is and whether they’d consider job...

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Book Review: No Rules Rules

Book Review: No Rules Rules

The book that should be on every leader’s holiday reading list is No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention. Once you start reading, it won’t even stay closed long enough for you to claim it’s “on your bedside table”. The prose is digestible and...

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Why boardroom diversity matters

Why boardroom diversity matters

For any company to succeed, its board is crucial. Recruiting suitable, diverse candidates can be difficult. Whether the need is driven by investors, required by law or simply a matter of good business practise, a strategic approach to board diversity is increasingly...

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Podcast – Debbie Goodman on EO Wonder

Podcast – Debbie Goodman on EO Wonder

In honour of Women's Entrepreneurship Day, listen to Jack Hammer CEO, Debbie Goodman, giving a glimpse into transitioning from a contemporary dancer to law student to the powerhouse behind three s successful businesses.

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Board Diversity – Talent Pipelining to Shift the Needle

Board Diversity – Talent Pipelining to Shift the Needle

If you speak to leaders and board directors on a daily (hourly) basis like I do, you’ll start to hear a common theme when it comes to their biggest challenges. And no, it’s not about Covid, or work-from-home issues and productivity (although this remains an ongoing...

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An Embarrassment

An Embarrassment

Happy Anniversary. To me! Nine years with Jack Hammer, finding leaders who will help great businesses to grow and prosper. Could there be a better job in the whole world? I suffer from an embarrassment of good fortune - and have decided it's not serving me to avoid...

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Finding Sanity in Covid WFH Reality

Finding Sanity in Covid WFH Reality

I started writing this a little while ago and stopped because it felt like maybe this blog had missed its time. However, hearing a number of stories this past week reiterating what I had struggled through almost verbatim, made me want to share again while I feel like...

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Business unusual – moving on after the crisis

Business unusual – moving on after the crisis

The past few months have seen the world thrown into turmoil; as one popular meme puts it, we’re all awaiting a return to “precedented” times. But we all know that won’t happen. McKinsey calls it The Next Normal. Satya Nadella has crystallised the three phases of...

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LinkedIn and search – they aren’t mutually exclusive

LinkedIn and search – they aren’t mutually exclusive

LinkedIn is an invaluable tool. It provides access to data around talent relatively quickly and can often narrow the pool of talent in a considerably shortened time. There is a flaw, though: this information is completely unverified. No checks, references nor the...

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Covid is not an excuse to make low-ball offers!

Covid is not an excuse to make low-ball offers!

I sit (virtually and metaphorically, of course) with one leg on either side of the Atlantic, living in the US, whilst overseeing businesses in Africa. I get my daily news literally 24/7, and find myself viewing ‘the economy’, business in general, and the job market...

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Covid and beyond – what role will you play?

Covid and beyond – what role will you play?

It has been fascinating to note the impact that the Covid-19 response has had on our search assignment portfolio. Any number of clients have ‘paused’ on hires until some version of normality resumes, but just as many (on my desk, at least) are forging ahead with hires...

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Podcast: Practical advice for managing remote teams

Podcast: Practical advice for managing remote teams

With close to 30 countries across the globe in full or at least partial lockdown, working from home became the norm overnight, speeding up a process that normally would have taken weeks and months to set up. As someone who's spent a year dealing with the teething...

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I’m not okay and I’m owning it

I’m not okay and I’m owning it

Lockdown has been extended. What was a 21 day countdown, is now a million day countdown (or so it feels). Please allow me to be not-okay for a moment. Despite everyone trying their best to stay positive, this is one of the hardest things to do - and it’s okay to say...

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Locking down video call etiquette

Locking down video call etiquette

After the first week and a bit under ‘Lockdown’, many of us may be questioning whether we’ll emerge with our sanity in tact. And we’re now contemplating the next full week of proper ‘work from home’ under these extraordinary circumstances. For the next while, video...

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A letter to my Work-Friends

A letter to my Work-Friends

Dear Work-Friends As we head into Week 1 of Lockdown in South Africa, I’m into Week 3 (THREE!) of self-quarantine here in Los Angeles with my family (where I currently live). My daughters are also into Week 3 of remote learning (otherwise referred to as...

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Leading remotely: management mindshift in time of crisis

Leading remotely: management mindshift in time of crisis

Advice abounds for the suddenly remote workers across the globe on how to adjust to the new normal for the foreseeable future, yet leaders of companies and teams who may have resisted the idea of remote work until now may need an even greater mindset shift during...

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Coronavirus: The end of the office?

Coronavirus: The end of the office?

Could the coronavirus pandemic hasten the demise of the traditional SA office environment? The country is several years behind much of the world in adopting "remote working" — the ability to work for your company from wherever you want. But now, as in the rest of the...

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Corona-quarantining – a note to WFH parents!

Corona-quarantining – a note to WFH parents!

It’s one week down, into what is probably going to be the new norm for the foreseeable future. Full time working mum, alone at home with two small children, digging into the depths of her patience capacity! A similar situation to so many around the world right now. I...

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