Projects

This work aims to address four inter-related questions: How is Defence perceived and understood by different segments of society; How can the nature of work, the workplace and workforce be expected to change between now and 2035?; What are the implications of these changes for Defence; How might Defence prepare for these changes so that it can attract, engage andf retain the workforce that it needs?

This project will provide consultancy support and the role of critical friend for a place-based approach to implementing health coaching. IES will guide local change champions, using an action research methodology, during the Berkley Vale Cluster Better Conversations ‘test and learn’ pilot. The aim of this pilot is to create the critical mass of practice change required across professions and organisations in a discrete geographical area. IES will also write a learning report, drawing on data collected during the period of the pilot.

IES is partnering with the CIPD, the professional body for HR and people development, to investigate the state of strategic human resource management in UK organisations. Thirty years after the concept of strategic HRM arrived in the UK from across the Atlantic, the project will analyse the key issues on organisations’ HR agendas. It will consider how and how well people management activities are integrated with business strategy, and HR’s contribution to innovation and change. Importantly, the project will compare and contrast both the recent academic research and real-life practice in this area, and how research and practice could and should evolve in the future. Do organisations still have HR strategies in these fast-moving times? What do they call them? Most importantly, how do they land and deliver them and ensure that HR policies really are having an impact on employee engagement and wellbeing and organisation performance? The project will comprise a review of the academic literature on strategic HRM, alongside a quantitative survey of HR directors and detailed case-study research in a range of employers. Assessing the realities of strategic HRM, this project will identify the extent to which HR is contributing to business strategy and performance, and how this fits with calls for HR’s future role to be as the guardian of culture and values and the ‘moral compass’ of an organisation. What do HR directors think about increasing government intervention through employment legislation and how are they balancing the demands of their different stakeholders: leadership, employees and wider society? Business strategies and workplaces are very different to the norm 30 years ago and so we need to document how the concept and practice of strategic HRM has evolved and needs to change now. Intelligent HR software and changing workforce expectations could be the gateway to the birth of a new-look, evidence-based and values-driven HR function. HR policies could contribute to addressing the corporate and national skills crisis, achieving genuinely agile and diverse organisations, increasing employee engagement and involvement and social inclusion, and responding to the present and future challenges of job automation. But just how and can HR functions build that positive future? For more details of the project and to take part as a case study, please contact Duncan Brown. IES head of HR consultancy: [email protected]

The aim of the project is to provide an overview on the spread and impact of health coaching within the NHS Innovation Accelerator Programme. Through the development of organisational impact case studies, IES will explore local outcomes for patients, the workforce, and organisation culture, costs and performance. In addition IES will lay the ground work for future economic evaluation research.

This project will review and update course materials on vision and visioning for a senior leaders development programme on transformational change. IES will examine both the literature (on new thinking and approaches to visioning) and practical examples (where a change vision has transformed public services) over the last ten years.

IES has been commissioned to update course materials on introducing and embedding a culture of innovation. The team will conduct a review of both the academic and ‘grey’ literature and design a conceptual model and accompanying exercises to help senior leader course participants apply their learning to create cultures of innovation back in their own organisations.

Using a randomised controlled trial (RCT) this research project will identify performance and resilience outcomes at both individual and team levels following participation in a mindfulness programme for teams. This is an IES-led research project designed and conducted in collaboration with Cranfield University School of Management.

For Health Education East of England, IES contributed to an online toolkit to support the spread of health coaching as a social movement. Using an evidence-based model of embedding and sustaining change within organisations, we described what needs to happen locally, ie who needs to be influenced, about what and when. IES presented step-by-step guidance, expert commentary, practical advice and ‘top tips’ from early adopters of health coaching.

IES, in partnership with Cranfield University, was commissioned by a government department to conduct a systematic review of industry best practice on workplace mindfulness-based applications. The review considered the potential of mindfulness to support a wide range of HR, Leadership and Organisational Change strategies. We also explored outcomes (intended and unintended) and metrics.

At the time of this project 43 district councils in England shared a chief executive with one or more other councils, and displayed various levels of service integration. Such activity is vital to delivering the government’s aims of greater efficiency and improved services in local government. But experiences to date had been that the existing HR policies and organisation design (OD) or change management approaches had not always best facilitated the integration of, nor supported the alignment of staff behaviours with, the future goals of the councils. Evidence of similar integration in the private sector shows success is highly variable at best, and that the intended business objectives are often not fully delivered by mergers and partnering. The Local Government Association already provided quality information and advice to authorities, and asked IES to extend this by carrying out a piece of research focusing on the experiences of ten council partnerships. The aims of this project were to: investigate the extent to which the current HR and OD practices were fit for purpose and supported future business goals and employee needs; highlight external practice and learning in similar settings; indicate practical measures that the ten councils could take and improvements they could make; summarise the research and learning on behalf of LGA in a way that could be applicable and disseminated across the sector and more widely. The work was carried out in phases, with an initial ‘diagnosis’, desk research and survey phase to document existing practice in the partner councils and summarise relevant external research; and a second more in-depth qualitative research phase, involving visits to the partners, interviews and case write ups.