institute for employment studies
the IES HR Network
IES HR Network themes
Planning and resourcing your workforce
theme leader:
Linda Barber
The Workforce theme addresses the key challenge of ensuring the right number of people are in place at the right time, with the right skills, to ensure the workforce is ‘fit for purpose’, both in the short and longer term. This theme focuses on how organisations can make effective and sustainable resourcing decisions based upon a sound understanding of both internal and external labour markets and the context in which they operate. It recognises that employers, staff and future pipelines have become increasingly diverse and complex, and acts as a catalyst for resourcing-related issues. Research activities within the theme, together with employer research and consultancy assignments, focus on attraction, recruitment, retention, graduates, workforce planning and labour market intelligence.
Developing your people
theme leader:
Wendy Hirsh
IES helps employers to make the best use of the skills and potential of the people they employ to meet their changing business needs over time. This theme takes a broad view of development at work, and through our research and experience provides practical approaches that fit the organisation and its capacity to deliver and support development.
We cover topics such as talent, succession and careers; strategies and approaches to learning and development; identifying skill needs, frameworks for skills and competencies; coaching and strengths-focussed development; and the evaluation of learning and development.
We address the workforce overall as well as specific occupational groups, including managers, leaders and knowledge workers. We provide information on different learning interventions, both formal and informal, short-term and longer-term. This theme links in with our other people-processes themes, such as workforce planning and performance management.
Reward and performance management
theme leader:
Duncan Brown
This Network theme looks at topical issues in the reward and performance management world, combining perspectives from the latest research with the everyday experiences of organisations. Employers in recent years have been investing heavily in well-publicised concepts such as total rewards, broadbands, job families, variable pay, total performance management and creating great places to work. But the current economic climate is putting a new focus on efficiency and assessing the impact and effectiveness of changes designed to deliver these agendas. Our research and events provide the opportunity to learn from academic research and to share both leading-edge and down-to-earth experiences in an honest, risk-free environment, on what’s working, what isn’t and why in the reward and performance management arena.
Motivation and well-being
theme leader:
Dilys Robinson
In today’s business environment, it’s people who matter. A highly-motivated, committed and engaged workforce will give a company an invaluable competitive edge and will attract good people to work for, and stay with, the organisation. Employers want the best, but HR professionals know that this cannot be achieved without good HR practice and attention to work-life balance – and they also know how easy it is to break employees’ trust and turn commitment into disengagement. This theme focuses on these softer yet highly important issues.
Getting the most from your HR, OD and L&D function
theme leader:
Peter Reilly
It seems HR, more than any other function, is concerned with purpose and role. This theme looks at the whole picture of how the function operates. It brings together our work on organisational and role design, training and development to meet skills and career needs, relationships to stakeholders, the challenges of resourcing the function, decisions on sourcing activities, and how to measure its strategic and operational performance.
Organisational development (OD), change and organisational effectiveness
theme leader:
Valerie Garrow
This theme addresses performance at an organisational level and how organisations become more effective through the alignment of structures, processes and people. It incorporates the practice of organisational development (OD), the management and evaluation of change, high performance work practices, working with culture and values, and leadership.
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