New iPhone loses headphone socket - the lesson for HR…

So you get your shiny new iPhone, unpack it with trembling fingers, sync it up to your iTunes, pop it in your pocket and set off to work. On the train a tune comes into your head and you go to play it on the phone ... where's the headphone socket? Oh, there isn't one. Thanks Apple...

What follows is one of two things - bodge a way round the problem by using adaptor cables, or embrace the new world and use some wireless headphones - maybe even buy some of the shiny new iBuds or whatever they're called. This causes some tension in my mind - do I want to be a brave adventurer and follow the new ideas, or do I resist unnecessary change and keep doing what worked perfectly well before?

It is so hard to know whether to embrace change or resist it - especially as the world tends to go round in circles, and if you stay in one place long enough you'll probably find you're on-trend again. But in the HR world the stakes are so high that knowing whether a change is useful or not is really vital.

Five years ago everyone was putting in pool tables and providing free Yoga sessions - at the time that looked like the shape of the future, but now entrepreneurs are starting to realise that endless perks just fuel a cycle of tolerance and withdrawal, the same as any addiction; they cost money and generate very little increased loyalty, if any.