Do you get up in the morning and go online before getting your coffee? Do you sit down to meals with your mobile phone next to your plate? Do you get an awful feeling of complete disorientation and not knowing what to do with yourself when you disconnect from the Internet?

Early this month, over 400 Ombuds met in Denver for their annual conference and networking event. It was an excellent opportunity to meet colleagues from all over the world and to share best practices and benefit from an ongoing exchange of professional experience.

Some people call it “motivation”, others “recognition” or “success”. For all, feeling happy at work is an important contributing factor to feeling good about life. How much of it is in our own hands and how much depends on the Organization’s ways of working?

Smiling comes easily when we are among friends. Similarly, one could expect that it should not be so hard to smile – or in some way, acknowledge – our colleagues in the workplace.

With the annual MARS exercise approaching, now is an ideal time to consider how to carry out a successful interview.

With the annual MARS exercise quickly approaching, now is an ideal time to consider how to carry out a successful interview.

Contracts come to an end, projects move from one phase to another, hierarchy changes… in the 21st century, things have the tendency to move very quickly in the work environment.

After thirty-three years at CERN, including three and a half years as Ombuds, I am leaving. During my time of Ombuds I have seen many people for discussions, misunderstandings, difficulties in communication and also conflicts. No institution can live without conflicts.

We can all agree that efficiency leads excellent results; this is a cornerstone in research and organisational matters. However, people may not unanimously point to which method of management and leadership is best for achieving such a goal.

Achieving two goals at once is a real challenge in personnel management: on the one hand, a manager must reach the results expected by the institution with the available workforce; and on the other hand, the manager must take care of their collaborators' well-being.