IER News & blogs

In August, the Director of IER, Chris Warhurst, was invited to present at a Scottish Enterprise Masterclass in Aberdeen, organised by Workplace Innovation Europe.

The topic of the presentation was ‘Engaging Employees in Innovation’ and it was based on IER’s recently completed QuInnE Horizon 2020 project examining job quality, innovation and employment outcomes.

IER staff, led by Peter Elias, are currently engaged in a project funded by the Office for National Statistics, to add more detail into the next revision of the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC).

Having just completed work on the revision of SOC2010 to SOC2020, the new project will provide for a six-digit structure to the classification. The work involves a series of face-to-face meetings with interested parties, such as the NHS, Royal Society, Careers Wales, Skills Development Scotland and a wide range of government departments and agencies.

As part of this work, ONS and IER have teamed up to create an online survey available to anyone with an interest in this work. Details can be found here.

A new report written by Erika Kispeter about the current and future demand for digital skills at the work has just been published by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

The report argues that digital skills should not be looked at in isolation from other skills, pointing to a need for ‘21st century skills’, especially interpersonal skills, cognitive competencies and learning strategies with creative use of digital skills becoming increasingly important.

The feasibility of developing a methodology for measuring the distance travelled and soft outcomes for long-term unemployed people participating in Active Labour Market Programmes has just been published by the European Commission.

Sally-Anne Barnes and Sally Wright undertook the review as part of the ESF funded European Transnational Employment Platform Project led by AEIDL. The aim of the review was to establish the scope for application of 'Distance Travelled Models', which could be adapted by those supporting long-term employed integration.

Sally-Anne and Sally also delivered a half day workshop for the Slovenian public employment services to support the development of a distance travelled model for the labour market programmes.

A new report, co-written for Eurofound by Peter Dickinson and Chris Warhurst of IER, examines cooperatives’ and social enterprises’ resilience to economic changes.

Based on new research it highlights how the management practices of these organisations help sustain employment levels and deliver goods jobs in the face of structural and cyclical economic changes. Read more here.