News & Press

It is nothing new that in difficult times, public attitudes to migration harden, as migrants are increasingly seen as competing with native workers for limited jobs and public resources. Public attitudes to the recent migration from Eastern Europe have been no exception to this and the UK government has taken this further by considering an annual cap of 75,000 to all EU migration.

Work during study is a common experience for around half of all students. Recent IES research examines this issue in some detail, looking at what motivates students to do this, the kind of work they do, and what they gain from this.

The past five years have been extremely challenging in economic terms in the European Union, with public sector financial constraints and austerity measures having a massive impact on the labour market in many countries. Many individual businesses have been suffering in this climate and have tried to remain competitive by restructuring, usually involving the shedding of labour.

Although there has been a policy focus on addressing under-representation in apprenticeships, particularly by gender,1 over many years, achieving progress on the inclusion of women and ethnic minorities has proved challenging. For example, gender segregation cuts across ethnic and cultural identifies, and ethnicity can compound the impact of occupational gender segregation. We look at the issues, drawing on recent IES research.

The 2014 edition of our annual "Perspectives" report has now been published. Rather than focus on a specific theme, this year the report covers a wide range of topics. Some could be regarded as hardy perennials, like talent or diversity, but positioned in a new context. Others (eg outsourcing and zero-hours contracts) report on current areas of preoccupation for the HR function that have important antecedents. Then there are the new(er) kids on the block, like big data and crowdsourcing: novel concepts that again, it could be argued, have long-standing roots in business management.

There has long been a concern about HR's capability to deliver against its promise of being more business attuned, more strategic in orientation and able to add more value to their organisation and its performance. As business/organisational conditions have become more difficult over the last few years, the delivery challenge has intensified. In particular HR's change management skills are being fully tested. The distinction between what HR, learning and development and OD do has been blurred in the search for greater organisational effectiveness. It is no longer good enough to say that OD does change, learning and development does training and HR manages the exits, there has to be an integrated contribution to enhance people management during these troubled times.