IER News & blogs

The Director of IER, Professor Chris Warhurst, as Chair of Human Relations Editorial Management Committee, Tavistock Institute will be attending various festival events next week.

The Tavistock Institute opens its doors with a very public celebration of its 70th birthday 17 - 20 October.

Venues across London: Swiss Church, Covent Garden (main); Conway Hall, Holborn; Garden Museum, Lambeth; Wedlake Bell, Mansion House; Wellcome Library, Euston Road.

Festival website: www.festival.tavinstitute.org

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Warwick IER experts have contributed to new guidelines on promoting positive mental health at work.

Erika Kispeter and Sally Wright examined how Suffolk County Council has responded to the challenge of managing mental health at work. The case study was published in October 2017 alongside new Acas guidelines to mark World Mental Health Day 2017.

The new Acas guidance aims to help employers promote positive mental health in their workplaces. Employers are encouraged to read the materials and develop practices and policies for their own workplaces.

The case study concluded that:-

• Senior management support is essential to the success of mental health training programmes
• Training should be part of a broader organisational strategy and be reflected in business objectives
• Training materials need to be tailored to an organisation’s unique needs
• The ‘train the trainer’ model can be effective but staff volunteers need support and time allocated to conduct training separate to their day-to-day responsibilities

Click here for more information

The case study, Promoting positive mental health at work by creating a sense of shared responsibility, is available online here.

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A new study led by IER raises concerns that employment and career development opportunities for young people are becoming polarised between those with the resources to access secure, fulfilling employment and those on the path to precarious and unpredictable working lives with poor prospects.

The report, Present tense, future imperfect? Young people’s pathways into work was published on September 28. It presents the findings of a three-year study examining the youth labour market in the Midlands from the perspectives of young people themselves, and their employers. The project was conducted by a team led by Kate Purcell.

The study finds evidence that young people with solid educational and family backgrounds, with the contacts and confidence to seek out career opportunities, are highly likely to gain access to work in secure occupations with good conditions of employment and career development. By contrast, job-seekers without these advantages are increasingly found in low-skilled, low-paid jobs, very often on short-term contracts with no guaranteed hours and with few opportunities for progression.

This research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

We would like to congratulate Dr Mariam Gbajumo- Sheriff, who has graduated from the IER Doctoral Programme and was awarded her PhD in Employment Research at the JUniversity of Warwick Degree Congregation in July 2017. Mariam's thesis "Does work-life balance have a cultural face: Understanding the work-life interface of Nigerian working mothers" can be viewed on the Warwick Research Archive Portal (WRAP). We wish her well on her return to her role as lecturer in the Department of Industrial Relations and Personnel Management, University of Lagos.

The IER is also pleased to welcome two new full-time students, Bhaskar Chakravorty and Xiaotong Zhang onto the MPhil/PhD in Employment Research programme and our visiting student, Xue Han, who will be with us for 12 months on a British Council Newton Fund placement from the Beijing Institute of Technology.

Applications are now open for entry in October 2018. For further information see our webpage. PhD applicants who are interested in applying for a scholarship should look at:

Chancellor's International Scholarships for overseas students which is open for applications. Closing date: 19 January 2018.
ESRC Studentships for UK/EU students which will be open for applications shortly.

A comprehensive report into migration and the construction industry by IER and IFF Research has been published by the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) . The large-scale research has brought together the views of construction firms, employment agencies and migrant workers.

The report has revealed that a third of firms employ migrant workers, saying they have comparable skills to British workers and are more readily available. In London one in two employers say they are ‘very dependent’ on migrant workers, compared to around one in six in Yorkshire and the Humber. Some employers (22%) also said that migrants have a better work ethic. But only 1% of firms said they specifically look to recruit migrants. The research team at IER included Anne Green, David Owen and Erika Kispeter.