IER News & blogs

Duncan Adam, Gaby Atfield and Anne Green have had an article published in the journal Urban Studies on 'what works' in terms of policies for employability in cities. Employability policies targeting urban job seekers have often had a ‘work first’ focus on quick job entries, neglecting sustainability and progression. This article reviews evidence on ‘what works’, drawing generic lessons from research on locally-focused urban policy initiatives in Great Britain operationalised in the context of persistent worklessness in many cities. The findings highlight the importance of employer engagement to open up job opportunities, recognising the diverse needs of individuals, the significance of personalised support for those furthest from the labour market, and co-ordination of local provision. It is argued that providers need to ensure workless groups have the skills and support to access opportunities created by economic growth. Robust local policy analysis remains challenging but important in the context of limited budgets, payment-by-results and a fragmented policy landscape.

Adam, D., Atfield, G. and Green, A.E. (2017) What works? Policies for employability in cities, Urban Studies 54(5), 1162-1177.

Are you prepared for the challenges of the changing labour market? Do you want to better understand and apply skills related to emotional awareness, active listening, reflection, coaching skills, peer coaching and powerful questioning? Do you want to explore tools for handling labour market information (LMI) and the digital agenda? The 'Changing World of Work' MOCC (Massive Open Online Course) is a 6 week course with an estimated workload of 3.5 hours per week. The course has been developed as part of the EmployID project which has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no. 619619. IER and Associate staff involved in course delivery: Jenny Bimrose, Alan Brown, Rachel Mulvey, Deirdre Hughes and Graham Attwell. For more information register now.

As part of the Levering Workplace Innovation project funded by the Faculty of Social Sciences’ Impact Accelerator Account, Sally Wright organised a seminar for policymakers at the UK Government’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. It examined ways to improve the innovative capacity of firms. She was joined as a presenter at the seminar by Chris Warhurst and Bengt-Åke Lundvall of Aalborg University in Denmark. The seminar focused on encouraging a change in current thinking about what best levers innovation, highlighting that firms that combine two approaches – the current one based on science, technology and R&D, the other based on progressive ways to manage and organise employees at the workplace-level – have five times greater product innovation.

Dr Clare Lyonette is the UK expert on a new French project, funded by the ANR: 'Quel genre de managers avant 40 ans ? Faits et discours dans quatre pays européens'. She and the other team members met in Aix-en-Provence in February 2017 to discuss the research plans, based on an earlier 2015 meeting in Paris. Clare will be involved in work package 7: 'Articulation of personal and professional spheres'. The mixed-methods project involves quantitative data analysis of managerial roles and new semi-structured interviews with managers in 4 countries. The project is being coordinated by Vanessa di Paola (Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, LEST, Car Céreq), Arnaud Dupray (Céreq, Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, LEST), Dominique Épiphane (Céreq) and Stéphanie Moullet (Aix Marseille Université, CNRS, LEST, IRT, Car Céreq). For more information.

Professor Rachel Mulvey will be in Paris all this month, working at INETOP/CNAM - France's national institute for the study of work and career. Rachel is no stranger to CNAM, having taught in 2015 on the ECADOC summer school which brought together doctoral students from across the globe, all doing research on career. She returned last year as examiner on a PhD jury and is both honoured and delighted to be invited back, this time as visiting professor.

In addition to its research and scholarly work, the institute offers Masters programmes in both occupational and career psychology. Rachel will be running workshops on qualitative methods for these students who are now in their dissertation semester - and for doctoral candidates too. She is contributing to European research on 'decent work' led by Valérie Cohen-Scali and Jean-Luc Bernaud. This elaborates themes considered at the UNESCO conference on life design and decent work.Rachel will present findings from the two CEDEFOP studies to colleagues at the institute, showcasing the findings by the French country team (which she led) set in the context of the wider study undertaken with IER colleagues Jenny Bimrose, Alan Brown and Sally-Anne Barnes.