Evidence Lab

This research explores the key factors influencing the design of hybrid work to sustain employee engagement and well-being. It aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal to promote well-being and decent work. 

It evaluates the factors influencing well-being in hybrid work and strategies, such as improved work-life balance versus increased digital workload and blurred work-life boundaries. It offers theoretical perspectives for academics and HR practitioners for enhanced well-being in hybrid work, focusing on digital well-being. 

Please e-mail Roopa at the address below if you are currently in a role involved in organising hybrid work and are interested in participating in this research, quoting ‘Hybrid work well-being research’. Or if you wish to contribute to this research, please leave your thoughts on this padlet’ you could add you name to the post or leave it anonymous 

Contact Details: 

Roopa Nagori, Senior Lecturer and Course Director -MBA International Human Resource Management, Coventry University 

E-mail: roopa@nagori.net 

www.linkedin.com/in/roopanagori 

Organizations across multiple sectors are considering, have implemented or have trialled and ended a four-day work week. Yet there is a lack of coherent understanding of the factors that influence the relative success of this work mode. Through in-depth interviews with employers, managers, and employees across the UK we provide novel insights into the effects of this work model including for productivity, recruitment and retention, well-being, and work-life balance. The findings will offer valuable insights into the future of work, guiding organizations and policymakers as they consider adopting shorter and flexible work arrangements

This research explores how individuals with concealable stigmatised identities make disclosure decisions about themselves at work.  In particular we are interested in how this happens within small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs - organisations with less than 250 employees).  We are interested in exploring how disclosure decisions are negotiated from both employee and employer perspectives. Disclosure decisions provide employees with an opportunity to be open, yet make them vulnerable to conflict and discriminatory treatment. We believe that to address challenges of disclosure, we need to develop a better understanding of how stigmatization emerges, transfers, and is maintained or removed through the process of disclosure within SMEs. Practically, in-depth HR insights are needed for SMEs so that the right support can be targeted to create safer workplaces for the largest proportion of employers within the UK. 

A recent research study explored the workplace experiences of neurodivergent engineers, highlighting significant barriers such as limited awareness among managers, stereotypes, and exclusive cultures, which often lead to burnout and high turnover rates. The discussion will offer insights into fostering inclusive management practices and targeted interventions, such as allowing flexibility in roles, that suit neurodivergent employees’ unique strengths and needs, to improve retention and productivity.  

The two academics will also share some insights from their current study on neurodiversity in the energy sector which also include line managers’ (neurotypical and neurodivergent) perspectives.

What bonds people to their work in extreme settings? Consider humanitarian workers in disaster zones, soldiers at war, and investment bankers relishing in extraordinary working hours. While each of these settings involve physical or psychological hardship, participants also report a range of positive experiences: the chance to push their personal boundaries, experience a sense of community, or feel heightened significance in their actions. This research - undertaken in collaboration with emergency responders - aims to uncover how people in today's organisations engage with extreme work experiences that are paradoxically straining yet also felt to be the most rewarding. 

The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) is the body tasked with working with both employers and employees to improve workplace relationships in Great Britain. Our research for them in 2023 explored how collective conflict at work is changing. We identified changes and continuities in 1) the actors involved, 2) issues causing collective conflict and 3) channels through which it manifests. Two central themes recurred:  

1. A knowledge gap around collective conflict, on how to manage it, and the role Acas can play in its resolution;
2. The pressures of the current context which has contributed to polarising positions in collective bargaining, making agreements increasingly difficult to reach. 
   Find out more about continuity and change in collective workplace conflict in Britain

The Evolve Workplace Wellbeing toolkit was launched in May 2022. The purpose of the toolkit is to offer free, business-friendly resources to senior and HR managers in UK firms. It is based on extensive research carried out under the Economic and Social Research Council-funded ‘Practices and combinations of practices for workplace wellbeing’ project. The 7 years’ of funding for the University of East Anglia-led team produced wide-ranging findings on wellbeing and productivity, with important implications for practice. The toolkit resources ensure that these findings reach businesses directly. The Evolve Workplace Wellbeing toolkit of resources contains a guide to improving workplace wellbeing, a business case calculator, case studies, workshop videos, a link to a free online course, information on how to join the Evolve Network, regular podcasts and the latest news on workplace wellbeing research.  

Contact workplace.wellbeing@uea.ac.uk  

This research project investigates whether employee resource groups (ERGs), also known as staff networks or affinity groups, can be a relevant voice mechanism for under-represented groups in the workplace. It draws on and extends a conceptual framework focusing on three dimensions: voice purposes, voice processes and voice outcomes.  The evidence provides new knowledge to show how ERGs may be more influential than has been previously recognised. Underpinned by formal and informal voice channels, ERGs can input into a range of organisational areas. Crucially, the importance of ERG voice also stems from ERGs’ unique purpose of representing the collective but group-specific interests of minoritised employees. 

Digital technologies continue to transform both worker voice and wellbeing, captured by recurring contests over employee representation and workplace power. We report on an ongoing project that is exploring if, and how, digital technologies are being utilised for workplace communications, as well as more formal systems including target-setting, monitoring, control, algorithmic management, training, and support, and the implications for wellbeing across diverse workforces. We are focusing on three distinctive job roles – warehouse associates, call centre operatives, and app-based private hire drivers, and we would be delighted to hear from colleagues engaged in any of these sectors. 

Fathers encounter structural challenges when attempting to combine work and caregiving. My research has identified that caregiving fathers face specific ‘fatherhood forfeits’ in the workplace: 

• Fathers get less workplace support for caregiving than mothers.  

• Fathers face social mistreatment within the workplace and socially – they are mocked, viewed as idle, struggle with friendships, face negative judgement and are viewed with suspicion when they attempt to combine work and caregiving.  

• Fathers are less likely to obtain a role that allows them to combine caregiving and work (such as part-time employment).  

• Fathers are considered as secondary parents within the workplace context, regardless of actual family set up 

My recent research has observed that these fatherhood forfeits continue to be evident notwithstanding the fact that work patterns changed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Nest Insight’s cutting-edge trials of workplace emergency saving – where employees can regularly save into an easy-access savings account through payroll, with rollover into retirement saving – are inspiring market and policy changes internationally including the workplace emergency savings provisions in the US SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022.  

Through innovative real-world trials covering around 150,000 employees across 8 UK employers, Nest Insight has built a rich and robust evidence base showing the huge potential of workplace payroll savings to boost the financial resilience and wellbeing of workers. We discuss why workplace emergency savings are a popular and proven way to powerfully boost financial resilience. 

Nest Insight is a public-benefit research and innovation centre finding better ways to support people’s financial wellbeing, now and in later life. Join our mailing list to hear the latest about our projects and learnings or to read more about the workplace emergency savings research, see here. 

Most people have a clear sense of what they mean by social class. We can talk about privilege or disadvantage in education and background, the ease with which people progress in their careers, ‘upper’ versus ‘working’, the ‘haves’ versus the ‘have nots’. But how class plays out in the workplace can be fuzzier. For this fascinating topic, we will sketch what we know from existing research, present new UK research, and invite discussion of HR practice. How do we define socio-economic background and social mobility? How does it affect workplace outcomes? Can and should we measure it? And what can we do about social mobility? 

Labour underutilisation or underemployment –defined as workers employed below their potential or preference in terms of hours, wages and skills– has been evidenced to impact staff turnover, employee performance, organisational outcomes, and work behaviours. Research from the Underemployment Project has shown that labour underutilisation is widespread and growing in the UK 

Employers (managers/HR reps etc.) are central to understanding the challenges of, and solutions to, this important labour market issue. We are looking for hospitality, retail, and health and social care employers to take part in a confidential conversation and share their insights. If you are interested, please contact: Dr Levana Magnus, Levana.magnus@bristol.ac.uk or visit https://underemployment.info/get-invovled-employers/ for more information.  

High workload has been shown to be a main cause of stress-related absence in the workplace. Line managers play a critical role in employee wellbeing.  This research explores how the negative effect of workload on employee wellbeing can be reduced.

By participating organisations will receive a tailored feedback report. Line managers completing a series of surveys will receive £15.  Employees completing a series of surveys will receive £35. All will survey completers will be eligible for a £50 prize draw (5 prizes).

If you are interested your organisation participating or to find out more information please contact:

Dr Kristin Hildenbrand at k.hildenbrand@sheffield.ac.uk