Publications

This paper describes how IES has helped employers to make changes to their reward strategies and payment systems, and highlights common 'pressure points' and solutions.

The main aim of the project was to investigate the use of labour market information (LMI) in decisions about where to locate business premises and jobs in the UK. Anecdotal information had suggested that expensive mistakes can occur where LMI is either not used, is misunderstood, or is marginalised in relation to other factors. The project has looked for evidence to back up such anecdotal information and we found some limited evidence of this.

This paper asks what team-based pay is and why it is attractive to employers. It outlines the mechanics of team-based pay and discusses evidence of its effectiveness and success factors. Problems with team-based pay are covered and the paper concludes by talking about future trends.

It wasn't so long ago that UK employers were worried about labour surpluses. Inevitably, as recession turns into boom, concern about growing levels of employee turnover and skill shortages bubble up once more. So are employers right to press the panic button again? Should they brace themselves once more for long-forgotten turbulence in the labour market?

Three approaches to managing attendance are discussed in this paper: management policy, preventative measures and rewarding attendance.

Flexible working is one of the most important vehicles for improving employees' ability to balance the demands of work and life. This paper summarises the main elements of a business case for flexible working. In doing so it draws upon labour market forecasts, research on employee demand for flexible working and recent studies of the bottom-line impact of adopting such practices.

The study aimed to assess the experiences of beneficiaries who had taken part in Objective 3 projects to explore their labour market difficulties, identify their activities on the projects, and ultimately to look at their outcomes from the projects. In essence, the research sought to learn whether ESF Objective 3 had made any difference to the labour market chances of those taking part.

This report contains initial findings from a three-year study, following a sample of young people (aged 18-30) receiving business start-up support from The Prince's Trust. The study aimed to identify the wider benefits of such support, in comparison with other labour market interventions and, in particular, to look at the impact of such programmes on longer-term employability.

This study was commissioned by the Physics Programme of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). The study was intended to examine the views of those who employ postgraduate physicists as to both the quantity and quality of the current provision. In line with previous studies covering postgraduates of other disciplines, special emphasis was put on examining employers' requirements in terms of soft skills.

Another report from the acclaimed EMERGENCE Project, this pioneering survey tracks, for the first time, the use of eWork across the EU and in the three largest Central and Eastern Europe candidate states. Not only does it show employers' use of ICT to support homeworking and multilocational working, and to relocate work to remote back offices and call centres, it also documents the use of electronically supported outsourcing, the locations involved, and the reasons for their choice.