Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development

Abstract Although reduced working time and furlough policy initiatives are widely regarded as important for economic and business reasons, little is known about their impacts on workers’ mental health at the onset of COVID-19 pandemic. Using data from the UK Household Longitudinal Panel Study data from 2018 to February 2020 and April 2020 and change score analysis, this study aims to compare mental health changes between those who worked reduced hours, were furloughed and left/lost paid work. The results suggest that at the onset of COVID-19 reduced working time and furlough can protect workers’ mental health, but only for men not for women. The gender differences remain significant even after controlling for housework and childcare responsibilities at the onset of COVID-19. These results highlight the importance of distributing paid work more equitably and formulating gender-sensitive labour market policies in protection of workers’ mental health.

Sociologists have long been interested in the meaning workers derive from their jobs. The issue has garnered increasing academic and policy attention in recent years with the concept of “meaningful work,” yet little is known about how social stratification relates to access to it. This paper addresses this issue by exploring how the meaningfulness of jobs—as rated by their incumbents—is stratified across classes and occupations in a national survey of 14,000 working adults in the United Kingdom. It finds modest differentials between classes, with those in routine and manual occupations reporting the lowest levels of meaningfulness and those in managerial and professional occupations and small employers and own account workers reporting the highest levels. Detailed job attributes (e.g., job complexity and development opportunities) explain much of the differences in meaningfulness between classes and occupations, and much of the overall variance in meaningfulness. The main exception is the specific case of how useful workers perceive their jobs to be for society: A handful of occupations relating to health, social care, and protective services which cut across classes stand out from all other occupations. The paper concludes that the modest stratification between classes and occupations in meaningful work is largely due to disparities in underlying job complexity and development opportunities. The extent to which these aspects of work can be improved, and so meaningfulness, especially in routine and manual occupations, is an open, yet urgent, question.

ABSTRACTThis paper responds to calls for new inquiries into the use of technology in HRD. We examine how, and to what extent, social media tools contribute to learner experiences and learner outcomes in an HRD intervention in a workplace context. We analyse qualitative and quantitative data relating to a massive open online course (MOOC) in a healthcare sector case study setting. We examine the interaction between the MOOC programme, social learning through social media tools and learner outcomes. The results of our evaluation show that usage of social media tools does not significantly affect knowledge outcomes but social media usage enhances affective outcomes. We conclude that social media tools can foster productive social learning processes. We also find evidence of some reluctance to engage with the technologies and declining patterns of interactivity using social media over the duration of the MOOC programme. We conclude that a more nuanced theorization to take account of personal and professional workplace context is necessary to explain how learners regulate their engagement with social media tools and the effect of social technologies for sustained social learning in HRD interventions.

Over the last three decades there has been a radical shift in the regulatory framework dealing with formal manifestations of workplace conflict in the UK. Legal structures that supported collective industrial action have been weakened and replaced with a system that allows individuals to pursue enforcement of employment rights through litigation, via employment tribunals (ETs). Current debate often focuses on the costs of the ET system for the workers involved, in particular its implications for business performance and public expenditure (De Dreu 2008; OPP 2008; CIPD 2011; Gallie et al. 2013; Mangan 2013). Policymakers and academics consistently ask how we can best manage workplace conflict in order to prevent escalation to the ET process, and this area has accordingly seen various policy changes to rectify perceived problems following the publication of the Gibbons Review in 2007.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the contours of fairness by showing how different facets of fairness impact three important employee outcomes (job satisfaction, turnover intention and employer advocacy) and examining the mediating role of quality of management and leadership (through perceptions of both senior management and the quality of exchange with immediate supervisors) in attenuating negative impacts of unfairness on these outcomes. The study extends the concept of fairness beyond the traditional focus on organizational justice and models the mediating role of leadership on the relationship between (un)fairness and the three employee-level outcomes in a sample of employees representative of the UK workforce. Design/methodology/approach – Data were obtained from a nationally representative sample of 2,067 employees in the UK. Exploratory factor analysis and then confirmatory factor analysis is used to refine three unfairness factors and address their dimensionality of the unfairness scale and then multiple regression analysis is used to test a fairness-leadership-employee performance outcome model. Findings – Results of multiple regression analysis revealed that both trust in leadership and leader-member exchange partially mediate the relationship between organizational (un)fairness and job satisfaction, advocacy and turnover intention, respectively. Practical implications – The findings highlight the important role that leaders play in influencing the relationship between perception of unfairness and employee outcomes. This has implications for both theory and practice as it suggests that the pattern of inclusion that leaders create through the relationships that they develop with their followers has a significant impact on the relationship between unfairness and the work outcomes. They not only must manage traditional perceptions of justice, but also the assessments employees make about trust in management judgements and the perceived consequences of such judgements. Originality/value – In an environment where perceptions of unfairness are becoming both more endemic but also more complex, the study shows that both senior leaders and immediate supervisors have important agency in managing negative consequences. Through the measurement of satisfaction, turnover intention and employer advocacy it also provides potential links to link fairness into the engagement literature.

PurposeEarly last year, the CIPD released survey findings exploring how talent management strategies are being affected by the current uncertain economic backdrop and how important talent management is to organizations when things get tough. The reason for surveying on this topic was not to further contribute to the negativity awash in the media, but rather to focus on some of the positive measures that organizations can take in response to the economic challenges.Design/methodology/approachThis research pulls together the experiences of ten diverse organizations (including International Personal Finance, BT, Tesco, the National Leadership and Innovation Agency for Healthcare, Gala Coral Group, Stanza, NPIA, National Express, Standard Chartered and the Borough of Tower Hamlets).FindingsAlthough the current economic climate has heightened the focus on short‐term business critical needs there is a strong recognition by all of the organizations featured, that short and longer term perspectives need to be carefully balanced. What's more organizations need to develop a sustainable approach to talent management which by its very nature, should be focused on developing the current but also the future talent and capability of the organization.Originality/valueThis second phase of research once again validates the messages from the “War on Talent”, namely that talent management becomes more not less important in a downturn. All of the organizations included in this research recognise the importance of talent management at this time more than ever in enabling them to meet both their immediate and longer‐term business critical needs.

PurposeTo highlight the shift from training to learning.Design/methodology/approachThis was case‐study driven.FindingsThere has been a shift from training to learning.Practical implicationsIt is about how the individual learns. The type of training or learning must meet the needs of both the individual and the organization.Originality/valueThis is valuable to trainers, employers, managers and staff.