Evidence Lab

The wellbeing of people professionals in implementing wellbeing strategies or initiatives

The purpose of this study is threefold:

1. Gain a better understanding of how the responsibility for implementing a wellbeing strategy, and looking after the wellbeing of an organisation's employees, may impact the wellbeing of people professionals.
2. Gain a better understanding of how people professionals address and navigate tensions and challenges, such as conflicting stakeholder demands, and scepticism or cynicism regarding wellbeing.
3. Explore what people professionals believe organisations could do to support the wellbeing of people professionals as they work at supporting the wellbeing of all employees in their organisations.

If you are a People Professional who has some responsibility for employee wellbeing, and you would like to register your interest to take part in an interview, please contact Dr Laura Byrne. Participation is voluntary and confidential. You will also receive a report of thematic findings.

This research is funded by the CIPD Professor Mick Marchington Research Grant and Aston University.

Contact details:

Dr Laura Byrne, Lecturer of HRM and Organisational Behaviour, Aston University.

Email: l.byrne2@aston.ac.uk

LinkedIn: Dr Laura Byrne

Do we practice what we preach? Role modelling for wellbeing in people management professionals

Dr Sarah Crozier’s work explores how we can optimise good employment for everyone within organisations. At the heart of this agenda is fostering organisational climates and cultures that promote well-being and inclusivity. An interesting dimension to address is how we develop such shared values and how those of us responsible for promoting good workplace experiences embody those values in how we work ourselves.

In our work, we looked at developing frameworks for understanding how experts in wellbeing and stress management applied this knowledge to their own experiences of stress.

We also conducted important work for the Greater Manchester Good Employment Charter that signposted how leadership, values and culture are central for driving inclusive and healthy workplaces.

This and our wider research advocates for further exploration of how healthy working practices are embodied and role modelled by leaders so that they may be socialised across organisations.

Early careers data hub

A new data-led research collaboration between UCL and large UK employers building an evidence base on barriers to entry level professional jobs:

• Are UK employers missing out on untapped diverse talent due to lack of aspiration & applications from underrepresented groups?
• Do candidates from underrepresented groups face greater barriers during the competitive recruitment processes for 'top jobs'? (even when they look the same 'on paper')
• Where is there adverse impact in selection processes?

We’ve built an ‘early careers data hub’ containing recruitment data on over 2.5 million job applicants (and growing) to entry-level roles from large UK employers over several years – the largest study of entry-level recruitment of its kind.

What do we do?

• We help employers attract, select and promote diverse talent by providing rigorous, independent, detailed data analysis and modelling of recruitment and promotions processes.
• We help employers create an evidence base to support investment in EDI-related recruitment initiatives and assess their impact.
• For early careers recruitment teams and educators - we provide deeper insights into why some underrepresented groups are less likely to obtain job offers for entry-level roles (graduate, apprenticeship, school leaver and work experience programmes), and offer talent pool and industry benchmarking.
• For line managers, promotions panels and HR teams - we provide deeper insights into why some underrepresented groups are less likely to progress to senior roles or take longer to do so.
• For policy makers and industry bodies - we collate all of this detailed HR data (a huge untapped data resource!) and provide labour market insights about early careers recruitment and workforce progression. This helps unlock the career potential of under-represented groups driving greater workforce productivity and economic growth.

Get the most out of competency-based assessments to influence decision-making and drive productivity

Professor Duncan Jackson - King’s Business School

We all know the consequences of making the wrong hire. A lack of fit can hurt the productivity of an organisation and the well-being of colleagues as well as the new hire themself. We are also all familiar with situations where developmental feedback goes wrong. Employees may use substantial company or personal resources to develop skills with no added benefit. What if the root of this problem was identifiable and fixable? But what if it also involved news barely anyone was comfortable hearing?

It’s time we faced the discomfort and had a chat about competencies. Research shows that competency scores are often so unreliable that they cause damage without managers being aware of the problem. This lack of reliability makes it almost impossible to meaningfully use competency scores in any human resource decision-making. But there is, however, hope for the techniques you are currently using to measure competencies. With some minor tweaking, the likelihood is that they can be reconfigured to generate scores that will help, rather than hinder, critical human resource decision-making. In this session, Professor Duncan Jackson discusses a contextual approach to evaluation as an alternative to competency scoring that focuses on reliability and improved guidance for decision-making.

Working with Dementia

Dementia is and will increasingly become a workplace issue. Out of the 800,000 people living with dementia in the UK, approximately 7.5% of them are under the age of 65 and may still be working when diagnosed. Furthermore, an increasing number of family caregivers will be in employment while caring for a family member living with dementia.

The Working with Dementia (WWD) Network Plus aims to shift current understanding of working with dementia and to enhance work experiences for those affected by dementia to help to address the wider social and financial inequalities of dementia in society. The network is led by the University of the West of Scotland and involves researchers from Northumbria University, University of Warwick, Lancaster University, Edinburgh Napier University and Wilfred Laurier University. The team are collaborating with people with lived experience of dementia, carers, health and social care providers, researchers, policymakers, and employers to drive positive change.

At the knowledge exchange session Prof Valerie Egdell, Northumbria University, will provide an overview of the team’s work to date, before facilitating a discussion with roundtable participants around how can we create dementia-inclusive workplaces that promotes and supports a culture of care, understanding and awareness of person-centred needs.

Understanding algorithmic inequalities

Dr Emily Yarrow, Newcastle University Business School

At the knowledge exchange session we will explore and discuss current research which investigates how biased coding practices can contribute to discriminatory hiring outcomes and reinforce existing inequalities in the [human-AI augmented] workplace. Drawing on the voices of developers and platform vendors, Emily will highlight pressing industry issues and tensions surrounding inequality and discuss implications for HR practitioners.

Contact details:

Email: Emily.yarrow2@newcastle.ac.uk

Profile: Newcastle University Business School

LinkedIn: Dr Emily Yarrow

Does the Equality Act sufficiently protect fathers from discrimination?

Working with Employment Law Specialists (Alana Penkethman and Ruby Forster from Laceys Solicitors), we are exploring whether the Equality Act provides enough protection for fathers as carers. Specifically, whether a change to the list of protected characteristics to include ‘caring status’ would provide more protection for fathers from discrimination, harassment and victimisation when they exercise their statutory rights such as access to flexible working, carers leave, paternity leave. This exploration is following on from Rebecca Smith MP asking a question on our behalf in the House of Commons.

We know that fathers are more involved in caregiving post pandemic (The Conversation, 2023) and we also know that they face many barriers in combining work and care which impacts on their workplace experiences (Kelland et al, 2022). Dr Kelland's research from University of Plymouth has found that fathers at work face ‘fatherhood forfeits’ when trying to combine work and caregiving which is proposed as a type of discrimination (including being viewed suspiciously, as ideal and face mockery). This session aims to discuss a potential amendment to the Equality Act as a mechanism to reduce the discrimination faced by fathers at work with a view to reducing ongoing parental inequalities experienced within the workplace.

Join us at the knowledge exchange session to help develop understanding of how/if the current legislation falls short from the viewpoint of practitioners and explore how any changes could be operationalised  to improve the working lives of parents and maximise organisational performance.

Green skills and transitions

For almost 40 years IER has been producing labour market forecasts for the UK Government. IER continues to be at the forefront of research to understand how these factors play out to shape the future of work. Our research includes analysis of the impact on work of digital technology, Industrie 4.0, platform-mediated work, Covid and the green economy. We do so using mixed research methods to analyse labour markets, workplaces, jobs, tasks and skills regionally, nationally and internationally.

At Evidence Lab Live Peter Dickinson will be discussing the demand for and supply of green jobs and skills.