Managing people and learning in organisational change projects

Purpose: This article assesses the influence of people management practices on the outcomes of organisational change projects through their contributions to organisational learning. The contributions to their outcomes of particular corporate and project-specific people management practices are considered. Method: Case studies of two organisational change projects undertaken by Arts Council England during 2006-07 are used to examine how far and in what ways people management practices influence the outcomes of such projects. Organisational change is considered as an instance of organisational learning, which in turn is examined in relation to the twin activities of developing new ideas and internal sense-making. Findings: Evidence is presented that certain people management practices, individually and in combination, influence the outcomes of organisational change projects significantly through their contributions to organisational learning. Research implications: Research into the influence of particular people management practices, and the contexts and processes through which it is exerted, is necessary to develop more generalisable conclusions. This influence is liable to be invisible to less granular research into people management as a general construct. Originality/value: Research into the use of project management methods specifically to implement organisational change is sparse. The findings of this article contradict findings from research into the influence of people management on project outcomes in general, which suggest that it does not have a significant effect

Blacklisting and its legacy in the UK construction industry: employment relations in the aftermath of exposure of the Consulting Association

This paper explores responses to the exposure of blacklisting in the UK construction industry in the period following the closure of the Consulting Association (CA) in 2009. It asks whether employer collusion to blacklist in this way has been terminated and concludes that it is now largely of historical interest although other forms of anti-union activity continue. It highlights particularly the historic and continuing importance of ‘double breasting’ and reports on divergent employer paths in the aftermath of the exposure and subsequent closure of the activities of the CA

What difference does ("good") HRM make?

The importance of human resources management (HRM) to the success or failure of health system performance has, until recently, been generally overlooked. In recent years it has been increasingly recognised that getting HR policy and management "right" has to be at the core of any sustainable solution to health system performance. In comparison to the evidence base on health care reform-related issues of health system finance and appropriate purchaser/provider incentive structures, there is very limited information on the HRM dimension or its impact. Despite the limited, but growing, evidence base on the impact of HRM on organisational performance in other sectors, there have been relatively few attempts to assess the implications of this evidence for the health sector. This paper examines this broader evidence base on HRM in other sectors and examines some of the underlying issues related to "good" HRM in the health sector. The paper considers how human resource management (HRM) has been defined and evaluated in other sectors. Essentially there are two sub-themes: how have HRM interventions been defined? and how have the effects of these interventions been measured in order to identify which interventions are most effective? In other words, what is "good" HRM? The paper argues that it is not only the organisational context that differentiates the health sector from many other sectors, in terms of HRM. Many of the measures of organisational performance are also unique. "Performance" in the health sector can be fully assessed only by means of indicators that are sector-specific. These can focus on measures of clinical activity or workload (e.g. staff per occupied bed, or patient acuity measures), on measures of output (e.g. number of patients treated) or, less frequently, on measures of outcome (e.g. mortality rates or rate of post-surgery complications). The paper also stresses the need for a "fit" between the HRM approach and the organisational characteristics, context and priorities, and for recognition that so-called "bundles" of linked and coordinated HRM interventions will be more likely to achieve sustained improvements in organisational performance than single or uncoordinated interventions

Working with individuals who have experienced homelessness. Stresses and Successes

Purpose Staff who work with vulnerable people with multiple needs are known to experience high levels of stress and burnout, as well as high levels of job satisfaction. This paper explores the experiences of staff working in a project with individuals experiencing long term homelessness in Lincolnshire. Design/methodology/approach An evaluation of a project working with individuals experiencing long term homelessness included a focus group set up to explore the experiences and well being of front line staff and managers. One to one interviews with staff were also held to provide more in depth data about the experiences of individual staff members. Findings Six key themes were identified from the discussions with participants. Decision latitude and the ability to follow service users on person centred journeys over long periods of time were positive aspects of the work which were highly valued and seemed to contribute to high levels of job satisfaction. Things which also made a positive contribution were elements of support provided by the employer and a number of personal coping strategies. Themes identified which had a negative impact on well-being related to high workloads and to the multiple and competing demands from service users and other agencies. Originality/value Few studies of any kind have explored the experiences and wellbeing of staff working in the frontline of homelessness services. This small scale qualitative study provides a number of suggestions for further research with this population. Findings cannot be generalised but match those of other recent studies which suggest high levels of stress but little evidence of burnout, and that carefully developed workplace support mechanisms play a key role in maintaining commitment to the role and preventing burnout

Agency theory and performance appraisal: how bad theory damages learning and contributes to bad management practice

Performance appraisal interviews remain central to how employees are scrutinised, rewarded and sometimes penalised by managers. But they are also often castigated as ineffective, or even harmful, to both individuals and organisations. Exploring this paradox, we highlight the influence of agency theory on the (mal)practice of performance appraisal. The performative nature of human resource management increasingly reflects an economic approach within which its practices are aligned with agency theory. Such theory assumes that actors are motivated mainly or only by economic self-interest. Close surveillance is required to eliminate the risk of shirking and other deviant behaviours. It is a pessimistic mind-set about people that undermines the supportive, co-operative and developmental rhetoric with which appraisal interviews are usually accompanied. Consequently, managers often practice appraisal interviews while holding onto two contradictory mind-sets, a state of Orwellian Doublethink that damages individual learning and organisational performance. We encourage researchers to adopt a more radical critique of appraisal practices that foregrounds issues of power, control and conflicted interests between actors beyond the analyses offered to date

The UK gender pay gap 1997-2015: what is the role of the public sector?

The Labour Force Survey is used to examine the influence of sector on the UK gender pay gap 1997–2015. The assessment is twofold: first comparing gender pay gaps within sectors and second through identifying the contribution of the concentration of women in the public sector to the overall gender pay gap. The long‐term narrowing of the gender pay gap, which predominately reflects relative improvements in women's productivity‐related characteristics, is found to stall in 2010 within each sector. This is considered in the context of claims that public sector austerity represents a critical turning point in progress toward gender equality at work

Building Resilience in Health and Social Care Teams.

This paper accepted for publication in Personnel Review on 14/9/2015, presents the results of a UK study with H&SC managers. Data collected from five focus groups ( n = 40) was used to explore resilience and its usefulness in H&SC teams. The research objectives were to capture the views of team leaders and managers working in integrated health care settings to examine: 1. The place of resilience in the team work setting in H&SC. 2. The making of resilient teams and factors that may influence their performance. 3. How these findings can assist organisations in their workforce development strategy. Purpose Maintaining user-focused integrated team working in complex care is one of the demands made of UK health and social care (H&SC) organisations who need employees that are resilient, resilience being the ability to persevere and thrive in the face of exposure to adverse situations (Rogerson and Ermes, 2008, p. 1). Grant and Kinman (2012) write that resilience is a complex and multi-dimensional construct that is underexplored in social care team work. The purpose of this paper is to capture the views of managers in H&SC to explore the making of resilient teams, identify factors that influence team performance and inform organisational workforce development strategy. Design/methodology/approach A general inductive approach (Silverman, 2011) was applied. Five focus groups were facilitated (n=40) each with eight participants all of whom were leaders and managers of teams in H&SC, working in the integrated care context in the UK. Findings Findings indicate that further investment in strategies and resources to sustain and educate employees who work in teams and further research into how organisational systems can facilitate this learning positively may contribute to resilient teams and performance improvement. The authors note specifically that H&SC organisations make a distinction between the two most prevalent team types and structures of multi-disciplinary and inter-professional and plan more targeted workforce development for individual and team learning for resiliency within these team structures. In doing so organisations may gain further advantages such as improved team performance in problematic care situations. Research limitations/implications Data captured are self-reported perceptions of H&SC managers. Participant responses in the focus group situation may have been those expected rather than those actually modelled in the realities of team work practice (Tanggaard, 2008). Further, in the sample all participants were engaged in a higher education programme and it is possible participants may have been more engaged with their practice and thinking more critically about the research questions than those not currently undertaking postgraduate study (Ng et al., 2014). Nor were the researchers able to observe the participants in team work practice over time or during critical care delivery incidents. Practical implications The preliminary link made here between multi-disciplinary and inter-professional team type, and their different stress points and subsequent workforce intervention, contributes to the theory of resilient teams. This provides organisations with a foundation for the focus of workplace learning and training around resilience. H&SC practitioner views presented offer a greater understanding of team work processes, together with a target for planning workforce development strategy to sustain resilience in team working. Originality/value This preliminary research found that participants in H&SC valued the team as a very important vehicle for building and sustaining resilience when dealing with complex H&SC situations. The capitalisation on the distinction in team type and individual working practices between those of interprofessional and multidisciplinary teams and the model of team learning, may have important consequences for building resilience in H&SC teams. These findings may be significant for workforce educators seeking to develop and build effective practice tools to sustain team working. Keywords: Qualitative, Health and social care, Resilience, Teamwork, Multidisciplinary, Integrated care, Interprofessional Type: Research pape

Development and Validation of the Career Competencies Indicators (CCI)

This paper describes the development and validation of the Career Competencies Indicator (CCI); a 43-item measure to assess career competencies. Following an extensive literature review, a comprehensive item generation process involving consultation with subject matter experts, a pilot study and a factor analytic study on a large sample yielded a seven factor structure; goal setting and career planning, self-knowledge, job-performance, career-related skills, knowledge of (office) politics, career guidance and networking, and feedback seeking and self-presentation. Coefficient alpha reliabilities of the seven dimensions ranged from .93 to .81. Convergent validity was established by showing below chance similarity between CCI sub-scales, and discrminant validity between the CCI sub-scales and the big five personality scales. The results also suggested criterion-related validity of the CCI, since career competencies were found to jointly predict objective and subjective career success

Ethnicity and low wage traps: favouritism, homosocial reproduction and economic marginalization

This article analyses the relationship between cultural difference, social connections and opportunity structures using interview evidence from low-paid workers and managers in local government, the health service, facilities management and housing. Exploring the operation of homosocial reproduction it reveals the double-edged nature of informality and the role of favouritism in particular in perpetuating ethnic advantage and privilege. While demonstrating that uses of homosocial reproduction need to be sensitive to intersections of identities or categories of difference, the article adds further evidence of the persistent gap between equal opportunities policies and practice for ethnic minorities in the United Kingdom labour market. The article concludes that stronger forms of positive action, and even positive discrimination, are needed to address the low pay traps and restricted opportunities of ethnic minority workers

Resilience training in the workplace from 2003 to 2014: a systematic review

Over a decade of research attests to the importance of resilience in the workplace for employee well-being and performance. Yet, surprisingly, there has been no attempt to synthesize the evidence for the efficacy of resilience training in this context. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to provide a systematic review of work-based resilience training interventions. Our review identified 14 studies that investigated the impact of resilience training on personal resilience and four broad categories of dependent variables: (a) mental health and subjective well-being outcomes, (b) psychosocial outcomes, (c) physical/biological outcomes, and (d) performance outcomes. Findings indicated that resilience training can improve personal resilience, and is a useful means of developing mental health and subjective well-being in employees. We also found that resilience training has a number of wider benefits that include enhanced psychosocial functioning and improved performance. Due to the lack of coherence in design and implementation, we cannot draw any firm conclusions about the most effective content and format of resilience training. Therefore, going forward, it is vital that future research uses comparative designs to assess the utility of different training regimes, explores whether some people might benefit more/less from resilience training, and demonstrates consistency in terms of how resilience is defined, conceptualized, developed, and assessed