institute for employment studies

the IES HR Network

Research with the networks

The HR Network research programme is devised by IES with member organisations. Other research papers associated with member events are produced throughout the year.

Current research projects

Older workers and longer working lives – do they inevitably involve downshifting to less satisfactory jobs?

Not long ago, early retirement was the norm for employers to reduce head count; now we all contemplate longer working lives. This rather profound change in perspective requires a tremendous shift in deep-seated attitudes to work, from all parties. For example, is downshifting to less satisfactory jobs inevitable? Is it the result of individual choice, or driven by employers’ needs to fill jobs?

What is a good fit between employers’ expectations and older workers’ aspirations and needs? There is a widely-held view that the over-50s have more positive attitudes to work and are generally more engaged with their organisation. However, this assertion obscures the fact that individual circumstances vary between those who need to work and those who want to.

• What is the evidence that older employees want or need to work longer, and what are the factors driving this?
• Do employers need their older workforce to work longer, and in what circumstances and for which jobs?
• What are the factors impacting on employee and employer decisions and that govern their choice?
• What are the implications for employers, and HR in particular, on employment policies and practices?

What do customers want from HR?

There is much interest in the ‘new’ operating model of HR. Early adopters may have tweaked their initial version. Those that are moving to it now or in the near future may have moved away from, or adjusted, the so-called ‘three-legged stool’ form. But either way, have organisations tested customer opinion on what they thought of the traditional service, and what they make of the new(ish) approach? This is especially pertinent if the driver for change was more about cost and less about the desire to deliver a better service. It is not as if the model is easy to manage, demanding much of HR in terms of skills and communication. The repositioning of the HR function implicit in many HR transformation programmes may make managers feel dumped upon and leave employees feeling neglected. Manager self-service and employee self-service may seem like necessary investments to HR, but may not be so well received by those ‘empowered’ by the technology. And where does senior management stand? Has it endorsed the model, but then lost interest?

Against this background, we have been asking a number of questions:

• Is HR meeting organisational needs more effectively than before?
• What do managers want from HR, and has it changed?
• What do employees want from HR, and has this changed?
• Does the function know what is wanted by customers?
• Which of the set of changes (structural, process, relationship-based etc.) seem to have worked well, and which not so well?
• How does the function measure customer opinion? What techniques seem most successful?

We have taken a case study approach, visiting organisations for conversations with HR, and undertaking surveys of senior managers, line managers and employees to gather opinions. Final report to be published in September 2008.

Information sharing on investment in human capability

We are also undertaking an information sharing exercise on human capability and the link to business performance measures. The Human Capital debate and the work on high performance workplaces have focused once again on the relationship between how people are managed and organisational performance.

Much of the available benchmarking material is limited in scope and focuses too heavily on the HR function, whereas the evidence is that it is people management practices which make the difference. There is a range of existing models that purport to relate people management inputs to better business performance, but many are expensive to buy, use a range of survey tools which have to be completed, and do not relate to the huge literature of rigorous studies on this subject.

IES has developed a coherent, evidence-based, overarching framework of the way in which people management practices relate to business performance. We have constructed a set of measures. Embedded within this framework is a tool for measuring employer engagement, which again has been tested in a range of organisations. We would like to use this experience to provide support to share information across the membership and to provide insight to all members as to their own performance.

We anticipate this knowledge-sharing extending to other areas that members would find useful, eg collating policies and procedures and updating members on key elements of such, or collecting statistics that are not easily available, such as on diversity.

Other recent Network research projects

(See also our published reports.)

• Pulling Together: Getting the Most out of teams
• Changing skills mix: a recipe for success?
• HR skills in the light of new business models
• Appreciative enquiry
• IES employment review
• Career coaching
• Training trends
• Planning training for your business
• Beyond the screen: supporting e-learning
• Performance management of flexible workers
• Setting individual objectives in a business context
• Whither performance management?
• Managing a mixed-age workforce
• Employee engagement, phase 2
• Employee involvement
• Corporate social responsibility towards employees