Publications

An important theme in current and emerging government policy is the importance of practices that allow individuals to combine employment and caring responsibilities. These 'family-friendly' practices also have direct and measurable business benefits: reduced casual sickness absence, improved retention, productivity and recruitment, and improved morale and commitment. Recognising these benefits can help overcome the fears in small to medium sized enterprises that family-friendly policies are costly, impractical or a threat to stability. This publication is no longer available.

Estimating your future workforce requirements is an inexact science. But a number of different techniques exist to help you do this, as well as to calculate the state of the labour market in the short to medium-term - and assess any problems or implications that result. This audit will help ensure that you have reliable monitoring and planning systems in place, so that implications for strategic and cost planning can quickly and easily be assessed.

This audit pulls together previous HR audits. Drawing on what you know about people policies, pay and remuneration, training and leadership skills, this audit aimed to help you measure the real importance of your HR function.

The virtual call centre opens up many opportunities for flexible management of variable workloads, including facilitating the transfer of work to other time-zones, outsourcing or the use of teleworkers. It is the potential for teleworking in call centre work that forms the main focus of this study. This publication is no longer available.

This study, funded by the IES Research Club, was based on analysis of the literature and secondary data on the demographic and labour market characteristics of the older workforce, as well as interviews with five leading employers from a range of sectors, and a one-day workshop with IES Corporate Members. The aim of the interviews and the workshop was to draw out the implications of the secondary data analysis for HR policy and practice.

Drawing on extensive experience and comprehensive data analysis, IES researchers have developed an innovative new approach, making it possible for the first time to compare trends in teleworking and identify which countries are successfully attracting the new jobs, and which risk losing employment. This allows policy-makers to identify risks and opportunities and identify both competitors and potential collaborators.

This report focuses attention, among other things, on the support various stakeholders in higher education provide for students considering self-employment.

This report presents the results of the most detailed UK work yet to explore how employee attitudes and behaviour can improve customer retention and, as a consequence, company sales performance. It presents compelling data to demonstrate these links, highlights the 'Attitude Chain' model which underpins it, and highlights how other businesses can take this work forward in their own markets.

A major national study undertaken by IES into student choice of full-time higher education in the UK, in particular, choice of institution. The study comprised: surveys of 2,000 16 year olds and 20,000 applicants to HE in 1998, interviews with a further 200 students and analysis of UCAS and other statistics on HE applicants. It reveals what students want in terms of information and how it is presented, in order to make sound, well-informed choices for a successful course of study. It also explains how universities and higher education colleges can improve their prospects of attracting students.