Flexibility and work-life balance.

This chapter is about matching the personal needs of employees outside of work with the operational and commercial needs of employers in the workplace

Crystallization and preliminary X-ray analysis of a D-alanyl-D-alanine ligase (EcDdlB) from Escherichia coli

A recombinant form of Escherichia coli DdlB (EcDdlB) has been prepared and cocrystallized with ADP and D-alanyl-D-alanine to represent the ternary complex of EcDdlB. Furthermore, EcDdlB has been cocrystallized under the same conditions with the ligands ATP and D-alanyl-D-alanine, representing the product-inhibited complex. The crystals belonged to space group P212121, with unit-cell parameters a = 53.0, b = 97.6, c = 109.5 Å and a = 51.2, b = 97.8, c = 110.1 Å, respectively, and both contained two molecules in the asymmetric unit. Complete data sets were collected to 1.5 and 1.4 Å resolution, respectively, from single crystals under cryogenic conditions using synchrotron radiation

Hollowing out national agreements in the NHS? The case of "Improving Working Lives" under a "Turnaround" plan

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to consider the resilience of a national-level initiative (Improving Working Lives (IWL)) in the face of local-level initiative (Turnaround) in an NHS hospital and compare to Bach and Kessler’s (2012) model of public service employment relations. Design/methodology/approach: Case study research consisting of 23 in-depth semi-structured interviews from a range of participants. Findings: The principles behind IWL were almost entirely sacrificed in order to meet the financial objectives of Turnaround. This indicates the primacy of localised upstream performance management initiatives over the national-level downstream employee relations initiatives that form the basis of the NHS’ claim to model employer aspiration. Research limitations/implications: The case study was conducted between 2007 and 2009. While the case study falls under previous government regime, the dualised system of national-level agreements combined with localised performance management – and the continued existence of both Turnaround and IWL – makes the results relevant at the time of writing. Originality/value: Some studies (e.g. Skinner et al., 2004) indicated a perception that IWL was not trusted by NHS staff. The present study offers reasons as to why this may be the case

Transparency and disclosure in supply chains: modern slavery and worker voice

Under section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 (MSA), large British companies are required to report on their efforts to monitor and protect the labour rights of their employees and workers on an annual basis. There are however criticisms. First, there is no requirement to audit Modern Slavery statements and this raises question over the credibility of the information that companies report. Second, the MSA is a soft governance tool that allows too much reporting flexibility. While the original intention behind this was to encourage companies to get to know their supply chains in the first place and subsequently focus on improving their reporting over time, there have been general calls to tighten up the non-mandatory reporting requirements of the MSA in the hope that this would in turn result in better quality of reporting. In this report, we present the key findings for our detailed examination of the Modern Slavery Statements of the largest 100 British companies. In order to examine the statements, we devised a detailed index, based on (a) the mandatory and optional aspects of the Modern Slavery Act (2015, s. 54), (b) content recommended by CORE (2017) and (c) additional criteria based on consultation with The Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, an internationally based labour rights NGO with an office in London. We focus on 6 information categories. Apart from the General Information, which covers mostly mandatory disclosures, the remaining five categories were optional under section 54. These five categories are: Organisation and Structure of Supply chains, OS; Due Diligence, DD; Risk Assessment, RA; Codes of Conduct/Policies/Strategy(ies), CPS; and Training collaboration, TC. We find that of the five non-mandatory information categories, companies prioritise reporting on two: RA procedures and DD processes These are the categories of most importance to investors. We find that any changes to reporting on these two categories are positively linked to reporting on CPS but not to those on OS and TC. While the level of reporting for all the three latter categories were lower than reporting on RA and DD, the reason why changes in CPS is closely linked those of the RA and DD lies in the way companies report to illustrate their parallel efforts to devise the necessary CPS to support the outcome of RA and facilitate the implementation of DD processes. However, the same could not be said about OS and TC. It was evident that while companies are reluctant to draw attention to potential challenges and problematic areas along their supply chains, they show limited efforts on their training programmes, raising questions over how in-depth corporate efforts have been in changing their culture on labour rights issues and/or perhaps the more serious challenges that they encounter in the process of devising training programmes. While our findings reveal an interesting reporting pattern, we can see areas that we still have very limited knowledge of before any meaningful proposals can be made to move the labour rights reporting agenda forward. We anticipate that there are complexities and challenges that companies face along their supply chains, especially in areas that are outside their national jurisdictions and where the legal framework can be either weak or non-existent and/or regional norms and cultures are in a way that can make it controversial or costly for companies to devise training programmes at local level

Ethics and spirituality in the workplace: the growing role of the business case in reforms

This paper amalgamates three inter-related presentations at the conference entitled “Diversity: a Practitioner’s Journey”. Papers addressed issues of employee well-being in the context of political and ethical concerns in the workplace and society at large. Dr Tim Freeman, who chaired the session, has edited a summary of these papers informed by his own research into leadership and the workplace. We start with spirituality and religion in the workplace (Dr Aylin Kunter), followed by workplace diversity (Dr Carlis Douglas) and finally, the ethics of employment deregulation (Dr Ian Roper). We all have a desire to understand how we can make the workplace better for those who engage with – and rely on – it for their livelihoods and, increasingly, as a source of identity

Reporting on sustainability and HRM: a comparative study of sustainability reporting practices by the world’s largest companies

As a response to the growing public awareness on the importance of organisational contributions to sustainable development, there is an increased incentive for corporations to report on their sustainability activities. In parallel with this has been the development of ‘Sustainable HRM’ which embraces a growing body of practitioner and academic literature connecting the notions of corporate sustainability to HRM. The aim of this article is to analyse corporate sustainability reporting amongst the world’s largest companies and to assess the HRM aspects of sustainability within these reports in comparison to environmental aspects of sustainable management and whether organisational attributes – principally country-of-origin – influences the reporting of such practices. A focus in this article is the extent to which the reporting of various aspects of sustainability may reflect dominant models of corporate governance in the country in which a company is headquartered. The findings suggest, first and against expectations, that the overall disclosure on HRM-related performance is not lower than that on environmental performance. Second, companies report more on their internal workforce compared to their external workforce. Finally, international differences, in particular those between companies headquartered in liberal market economies and coordinated market economies, are not as apparent as expected