Good work, wellbeing and employment

Can better working conditions improve the performance of SMEs? An international literature review

Commissioned by the International Labour Office (ILO)

This systematic review of the international literature focused on the links between good practices in terms of working conditions, safety, health and skills, and business benefits such as improved productivity and profitability.  It was led by Professor Richard Croucher with contributions from academics across the Business School.  The study reviews the empirical relevance of the assumption that a 'win-win' scenario exists in SMEs, including in the context of developing economies, and the circumstances under which the 'business case' for owner-managers to invest in good working conditions, skills and training is strongest. The review was informed by an understanding that firms' resources and capabilities, and owner/manager motivations, have a role in this relationship, as do external interactions – i.e. the diverse market and regulatory/institutional contexts that condition competitive advantage and enterprise survival. The report identifies indicative evidence of some links between good practices in all the areas examined, and various types of positive enterprise-level outcomes, such as reduced employee turnover, higher discretionary contributions by employees to enterprise capacities, improved productivity and profitability. Although a win−win scenario may exist in certain circumstances, the report also underlines that more empirical research is needed, particularly in developing and emerging economies.

This report will inform the ILO's future work on "Productivity and Working Conditions in Small and Medium Enterprises", which has been identified as an Area of Critical Importance for the Organisation.

Commissioned by the University of Cape Town

CEEDR conducted a study on ‘Workplace Supports for Breastfeeding in South Africa’, in collaboration with (and commissioned by) the University of Cape Town. Breastfeeding-friendly workplaces are needed for economic, health and social development, especially in many African developing countries.  Although the health benefits of breastfeeding for both mother and child are widely recognised, research shows that the return to work is a major barrier to optimal breastfeeding, particularly for low income and informal economy workers. Despite high breastfeeding initiation rates, South Africa still has one of the lowest inclusive breastfeeding rates at six month in the world. Workplace support is thus critical to the continuation of breastfeeding among women employees, but breastfeeding tends to be treated as a private matter. The research addresses the current gap in research on breastfeeding support at work in South Africa and raises awareness of how different types of workplaces can support mothers’ breastfeeding practices through low-cost interventions.

Complaints Research

commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions

Cultural influences on health and safety attitudes and behaviour in small businesses

For the Health & Safety Executive

The aim of the project was to identify the role of cultural influences on health and safety attitudes and behaviour in small and micro-enterprises and the potential role of business intermediaries in helping disseminate good practice, particularly with respect to ethnic minority businesses. The methodology included a telephone survey of over one thousand small firms and a series of face to face interviews with small business owners/managers, employees, healthy and safety inspectors, business intermediaries and trade union representatives. The report concluded with a number of recommendations, including with respect to the relative roles of the health and safety inspection regime, sector-based trade associations and ethnic minority business intermediaries.

Published 2003

Contact CEEDR for more details or download full report.

Ealing Primary Care Trust Job Rotation

For the Ealing Primary Care Trust

This research commissioned in 2008, research was to assess the feasibility of implementing a Job Rotation Pilot in the health services as employers. Although a dynamic economy London has the highest numbers of people who are categorized as work less and on disability benefits relating to economic inactivity than any other region in the UK. Many advocacy organizations relating to disabled people have criticized 'work first' policies of the Government and a lack of commitment (and discrimination) by employers to employ disabled people. A significant proportion of it was considered important therefore to test out a model which embraces pre-employment support, guaranteed work based training and job experience and at the same time address the problem of low skills within the health service.

Download this report or contact CEEDR for more details on this project.

Maternity protection and workers with family responsibilities in the formal and informal economy of Ghana including practices, gaps and measures to improvement

Commissioned by the International Labour Office (ILO)

CEEDR was contracted by the ILO to deliver a Study on the Legal, Policy and Regulatory Environment Governing Maternity Protection and Workers with Family Responsibilities in the formal and informal economy of Ghana.

Given the continuing high rates of maternal mortality in Ghana, it is vital that women have access to health care pre- and postnatally and have a sense of entitlement to be able to actually take up this care while also continuing to work for their livelihoods. This is crucial for the health of mothers and their babies as well as having significant economic implications.

Our work gathered in-depth multiple perspectives on maternity protection, including the needs and concerns of employers, workers, providers of maternal health care in the existing health care system and other stakeholders. This study encourages an understanding of gaps in provisions and helpful practices, within the specific regulatory and policy context. The aim is also to encourage dialogue and collaborative and participatory approaches to issues relating to health of mothers and their families as well as the sustainability of businesses. The findings show that the formal sector may be stronger on provision of paid maternity leave but the informal businesses were more supportive for creating flexible working practices postnatally, and supporting breastfeeding.

The full report can be downloaded here

The Power to Change charitable trust commissioned CEEDR and Locality to explore ‘good work’ in the community business sector. Power to Change (part of the Big Lottery Fund)  supports community led businesses set up and led by local people. Any profits flow back into the business to deliver positive local impact.

The project builds on previous research, conducted by the research team, on how community businesses address the wellbeing needs of their staff and volunteers, and on the link between ‘good’ or ‘decent’ work and improved productivity and business performance in small and medium-sized enterprises (see related report). However, the key factors that shape the quality of working life within community businesses have not been investigated in any great depth.

The qualitative study examines how community businesses create a good working environment for employees and volunteers while also delivering viable community services and other beneficial impacts in a sector which operates in diverse – and often challenging – contexts. It involves interviews with leaders, employees and volunteers from ten case study community businesses, and the development of a Good Work Toolkit to allow community businesses to benchmark themselves on the quality of their working environment and identify areas for improvement.

funded by the Sheffield University Innovation Impact and Knowledge Exchange Research (IIKE) Programme

The project was funded under the Sheffield University Innovation Impact and Knowledge Exchange Research (IIKE) Programme involving a grant of £19k with Sheffield Local Enterprise Partnership as the main research partner.  The broad objectives of the research were to explore the concept of ‘inclusive governance’ in the context of policy devolution examining the way partnerships and programmes focus on and facilitate both the employment and skills needs of disadvantaged groups and in turn address the low pay low skills cycle. The project focused on the ongoing design and delivery of the Work Programme and skills policies in the Sheffield City Region. The research was carried out between October 2015- May 2016 and involved a scoping and literature review, text analysis as well as stakeholder mapping that captured both employment and skills policies and actor aspirations in relation to collaborative governance of the labour market. It deployed 20 semi-structured interviews with key actors operating across the SCR.

Download our submission report to the BIS Select Committee

Maternity Protection in SMEs: An international review 

Commissioned by the International Labour Office

This report reviews the key international literature on the outcomes of maternity protection in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It also addresses the questions of how, to what extent and under what conditions maternity protection in SMEs can generate positive outcomes for enterprises as well as broader society, considering implications for policy and practice.

Although rarely quantified, the cost of maternity protection in SMEs is widely perceived to be greater than the benefits and to lead to competitive disadvantage. This review suggests that effective maternity protection is not only feasible in SMEs but can offer a range of positive productivity-related outcomes for enterprises. To achieve these positive effects, and for maternity, paternity and family responsibilities to become "a normal fact of business life", maternity protection and other work-family balance measures need to fit into the practices and interests of SMEs. The report proposes a multi-pronged approach, involving strategies adopted at state, market, community and family levels to combat gender inequality, support SMEs and ultimately achieve wider development objectives.

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Commissioned by Department for Business, Energy and industrial Strategy

The aim of this feasibility study was to outline how future research might be designed to estimate the scale and nature of NMW underpayment in the informal economy. This was a hard-to-measure area, presenting a number of challenges. We focused on two broad methodological themes – namely the methodological challenges and the data challenges – in structuring out approach. We over-layed this with a general challenge about measuring the informal economy: the behaviours around non-compliance necessarily mean data was riddled with systematic biases for under-reporting. Our approach also included expert reviews, recognising such input was needed to assure the approaches recommended.

Read more in our report here

Recruitment and Skills Issues in the North London Health Sector

Commissioned by the Learning and Skills Health Council, London North

The report presented the main findings of a research study (commissioned in 2002), into recruitment and skills issues in North London's health sectors. The study focused on the boroughs of Barnet, Haringey and Waltham Forest and included an occupational breakdown of the health sectors, a review of existing literature, an evaluation of health sector training, an assessment of the suitability of current training programmes and an evaluation of local initiatives that recognised overseas qualifications. It also gave an insight into pre-employment training and work experience programmes.

Contact CEEDR for more details on this project.

Public Service Sector in Rural England

Commissioned by the Countryside Agency

This study commissioned in 2004, was concerned with developing evidence based knowledge on the contribution of key employing sectors to rural economies. As such, it related to the Agency's recent work on understanding the dynamics of rural economies, as documented in its report 'Rural economies - stepping stones to healthier futures' (Countryside Agency, 2003). This study drew on statistical analysis, consultations with national organisations, reviews of the literature and a survey of 102 organisations. Trends in employment, the nature of operating in rural areas and specific support needs were identified for the following sub sectors : public administration, defence and security, education, health and social work.

The research identified a number of areas where rural policy-makers needed a greater understanding of the potential of these sectors to contribute to rural economies and the specific constraints they faced operating in rural areas.

Contact CEEDR for more details on this project.

Commissioned by Oxford Brookes

This research, commissioned by Women in Racing (WiR), was conducted by the Centre for Diversity Policy Research and Practice at Oxford Brookes Business School in collaboration with Dr Bianca Stumbitz at CEEDR. It explored the challenges facing working mothers in the British horseracing industry, and builds on the 2017 report Women's representation and diversity in the horseracing industry which found that women are under-represented in the most prominent areas of British horse racing. The qualitative study included a series of regional workshops and semi-structured interviews.  A set of case studies showed examples of the ways in which motherhood impacts women’s careers and allows an exploration of how the industry might better support them.

View the report

Complementarity and Co-ordination of Self-Employment Support in Rural Areas

For the Countryside Agency

This project commissioned in 2002, examined the types of support for self-employment and micro-businesses in rural and urban areas. In particular it examined the support from Small Business Service, New Deal, and DEFRA. The types of co-ordination and partnerships were examined and the extent to which programmes were complementary or overlapping were explored in five case study areas.

Contact CEEDR for more details on this project.

Negotiating Skills for Sustainable Growth: Trade Unions and the Sector Skills Councils

Commissioned by Wales Institute of Social Research and Data Methods (WISERD)

This research was commissioned in 2010 to explored trade union roles and participation on the UK Sector Skills Councils (SSCs). The research, small scale and exploratory in nature, analysed through a survey of union representatives and other trade union stakeholder how trade unions are engaged organisationally, and their influences on skills policy agendas. The study took a case study approach focusing on apprenticeships, initiatives to promote more women in vocational training such as the women and work sector skills initiative. Given the close interest of Union movement in international and specifically European models of good practices the research analyses the Danish VET system and assesses the lessons that can be drawn from Denmark. The paper concludes with an analysis of future potential directions in bargaining and influencing skills that trade unions can take through the SSCs.

Improving Labour Market Outcomes in South Africa

Commissioned by the British Council 

This project (commissioned between 2009-2013), investigated the interaction between employers and job seekers in the recruitment and selection process. The research found that interventions from local government, employers' groups and trade unions had achieved very limited impact and identified a number of failings both on the supply side and the demand side of the local labour market and set out a series of interventions to address these failings. British Council funding was used to develop a set of development programmes for job seekers, a programme of support for employers and briefings for Trade Unions, NGOs and policy makers.

Activities included delivering development workshops to unemployed job seekers in the most disadvantaged areas, seeking to equip participants with job search, employability and entrepreneurial skills and enabling the job seekers to more effectively align themselves with the needs of employers. The development workshops started in 2009, and in the four years since, over 3,000 unemployed people have graduated from these workshops. An independent evaluation found that over 80% of participants had progressed within 3 months either to employment, officially accredited training or had started their own business enterprise.

Download independent evaluation summary report: 

Improving Labour Market Outcomes in South Africa

Commissioned by the British Academy

‘Modern slavery’ is a relationship based on severe exploitation – often, though not always, economic exploitation. It is defined by a range of ‘slavery-like practices’, which can include forced or compulsory labour, servitude, forced or servile marriage, the sale or exploitation of children, human trafficking, and debt bondage. In all instances, this exploitative relationship is characterised by the control over a person through the prospect or reality of violence, and is enabled by a poor human rights framework.

Modern businesses rely on global supply chains which connect consumers to goods and labour. One alarming feature of modern business in both the developed and developing world is the prevalence of modern slavery. The scale and complexity of modern supply chains means they can be extremely difficult to govern, and exploitative practices are often difficult to detect. Modern slavery has consequently become a hidden crime of global significance. In developing countries where regulation is weak, there is considerable potential for exploitation, especially low down in the supply chain.

To address these abuses, the United Nations (UN) included within the Sustainable Development Agenda a specific target for states. National governments were called upon to take immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking, and to secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour by 2030. This specific development goal, SDG 8.7, was closely connected to other ambitions including promoting decent work, gender equality and the right to education. In addition to the UN’s Sustainable Development Agenda, several states have introduced domestic legislation. One of the most notable examples is the UK’s 2015 Modern Slavery Act, which requires companies to confirm the steps taken to ensure that slavery and human trafficking are not taking place in the business (or in any supply chain) or declare that no steps to confirm the existence of slavery or trafficking have been taken. In so doing the Act gives law enforcement the tools to fight modern slavery, ensure perpetrators can receive suitably severe punishments for these crimes and enhances support and protection for victims.

Businesses need efficient global supply chains, but face legal, reputational and economic risks from issues around slavery, human trafficking and child labour. Productive global supply chains require well trained, healthy and educated people. Moreover, they create millions of new consumers. The failure to tackle the human rights abuses in production and services has the potential to damage the finance and reputation of businesses, as investors and consumers are increasingly sensitive to the ethical performance of the companies they engage with, as well as their record on human rights.

One key challenge for businesses was how best to respond to (the risk of) human rights abuses within the production process across all sectors. Global businesses are often exceptionally complex and the challenge of governing across the supply chain is not to  be understated. Companies are often reliant on tools, such as social auditing, to detect risks within their supply chains, which may not identify all existing and potential abuses and which are rarely open to public scrutiny. Many human rights violations take place in the informal sector, which makes them even more difficult to detect. Hence, businesses cannot be fully sure that this approach is an effective way of tackling modern slavery, human trafficking and child labour, or whether their responses to these problems actually drive bad practice even further underground. Current understanding of what works in addressing modern slavery, human trafficking and child labour is very limited.

Recognising the existing evidence gap, in November 2017, the British Academy - the UK’s independent national academy representing the humanities and social sciences - initiated a programme, ‘Tackling Slavery, Human Trafficking and Child Labour in Modern Business’, with support from the UK’s Department for International Development. The programme aims to promote ground-breaking research and make evidence widely available and accessible to those seeking to develop and support more effective policies, business models and interventions in relation to Sustainable Development Goal 8.7. This programme has funded eight innovative and interlinked research projects which seek to identify promising practices and share knowledge about what works at scale in different contexts.

The projects was led by multi-disciplinary research teams from universities in the UK and the USA, including Bath, Bristol, Brown, Coventry, Leeds Liverpool, Nottingham, and Sussex and are global in nature. Field research took place in Bangladesh, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Mexico, Peru and Vietnam.

The projects compared production processes across different sectors including chocolate and textiles, beef production and timber, construction and domestic work, among others. In addition, there were detailed single case studies of the development of smartphone technology in East Asia, child sex trafficking in Jamaica, and debt bondage and seafood production in Indonesia. Though it was not the sole topic of research, all eight projects addressed issues around gender (including childhood), and also aimed to work with researchers and other stakeholders in developing countries to help build local capacity in tackling the challenges of modern slavery, human trafficking and child labour.

Read our publication in the British Academy Review, No.32, Spring 2018

Renewing VET provision: Understanding feedback mechanisms between initial VET and the labour market

Commissioned by the European Commission Vocational and Education Agency (Cedefop)

This study was carried out by Dr David Etherington (CEEDR) and Professor Carol Costley (Work and Learning Research Centre) as part of a wider Consortium also involving 3s Consulting ( lead partner in Vienna), Tallinn University, Estonia and Consoltor, Norway.

The key finding was that the role and position of actors and the involvement of stakeholder was the most decisive criterion in characterising differences in feedback mechanism in particular the role of social partners. However there were also big differences in the involvement of other stakeholder groups  such as teachers or students, and among the social partners.

The study found also that the nature of social dialogue as it shapes cooperation was central in terms of providing a close link between education policy and the labour market as well as meeting some of the key challenges posed by the current economic crisis and downturn.

The economic crisis has led to reinforcement of social dialogue in VET in many countries (e.g. in France, Spain and Sweden). In some countries this led to new forms of apprenticeship like systems (e.g. in Sweden and England) which are also trying to introduce new feedback mechanism with a stronger involvement  of the social partners. Download published report

Commissioned by Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)

UK research on pregnancy and maternity related discrimination at work found that small employers had the lowest awareness about the rights of pregnant and newly maternal employees, and that they were least likely to provide options for flexible working. In the UK, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) account for 99.9% of the business population, three fifths of the employment and around half of turnover in the private sector. Whilst this research has highlighted the concerning extent of pregnancy and maternity related discrimination in differently sized UK workplaces, the study neither included specific recommendations on how to improve maternity support in SMEs, nor the experiences of new fathers. However, the management of new parenthood in SMEs is very different from large firms as SMEs are characterised by a number of key features, including resource scarcity and preference of more informal approaches to staff management. They often do not have a dedicated Human Resources department and no written maternity/paternity policies. SME owners/managers are also often more resistant to maternity/paternity protection regulations than large firms, fearing the time and costs involved.

Our 3-year study, which is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), addresses an important gap in detailed knowledge on transition to parenthood in UK SMEs and is designed to have a direct impact on practice and policy as well as academic understanding of the management of maternity/paternity in SMEs. It is timely as it feeds into current/recent UK policy debates on parental leave, flexible working, and on how to support fathers in the workplace. However, while focusing on the UK, our project addresses a global problem: SMEs are globally under-researched although they employ the majority of (parental) workers worldwide.

The project includes key stakeholders in the co-design of context-sensitive, low-cost and scalable solutions for effective management of new parenthood in SME workplaces through: 1) our practice-based co-investigators Working Families and the Fatherhood Institute; and 2) our Advisory Board – confirmed members include the International Labour Organization (ILO), Equality and Human Rights Commission, Maternity Action, Acas, Federation of Small Businesses, Medical Women’s Federation, SME (owner-) managers, SME employees – including expectant/new mothers and fathers, and policy makers.

We adopt a mixed methods design, combining quantitative and qualitative elements. Specifically, data collection will include the following elements:

1. Employing a longitudinal and participatory approach, qualitative data will be collected on experiences in relation to pregnancy, maternity/paternity/adoption/shared parental leave, flexible working, breastfeeding and childcare support, and accompanied by an awareness raising intervention co-designed by (owner-)-managers and employees. Semi-structured interviews will be conducted with (owner-)managers and employees in three phases over a one-year period. In addition, focus groups will be conducted with a) prospective/expecting parents; b) co-workers to explore perceptions and experiences related to new parenthood and work; c) parents who requested flexible working.

2. Two large-scale cross-sectional surveys of employees and employers working in SMEs to complement the qualitative data and more broadly explore attitudes, intentions, experiences and social norms around pregnancy, breastfeeding and childcare support, parental leave and flexible working for parents and the availability to and take-up by mothers and fathers to further inform academic and policy debates.

Key outputs will include a final report, data-sets emerging from the different methods, an awareness raising toolkit with a focus on SME specific low-cost solutions, a video designed to support positive employer-employee interactions, and a series of factsheets and related short video documentaries. Dissemination, user engagement and impact activities will include a stakeholder engagement event and a one-day academic conference, presentations at academic conferences and publications in peer-reviewed journals.

For more information on this study, please contact project leader Dr Bianca Stumbitz ([email protected]). Learn more about and participate in Transition to Parenthood in UK SMEs.

Commissioned by The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

The Government’s National Security Strategy (NSS) and Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR), introduced ‘Promoting our Prosperity’ as a national security objective. This included commitments to refresh defence industrial policy as one of a number of measures to help the UK’s defence industry grow and compete successfully, to drive greater innovation in defence procurement, and to ensure that future investment decisions contribute to a more dynamic and productive economy. To support this work BIS identified a need to better understand the contribution that the defence sector currently makes to the UK economy and commissioned this project to refresh, and develop further, the evidence base to support the UK government in assessing the costs and benefits of investment decisions in defence. A particular focus of the project was on identifying the wage premium associated with skilled jobs in the UK defence sector in comparison with jobs requiring the same skills in other sectors. For this purpose an experimental approach (e.g. Propensity Score Matching) was employed.

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Client - Economic and Social Research Council

In 2010 the Coalition Government (CG) introduced a more stringent workfare (or work first) regime than under previous New Labour Governments - access to benefits became conditional on tougher work and work-search requirements, and the reforms also involved an increased use of the benefit cap and sanctions. The CG established its flagship welfare to work programme via the Work Programme involving an extension of the market in the provision of welfare to work services for long term unemployed. The report, drawing on stakeholder interviews and literature/evidence based review; (1) analysed and assessed the implementation of the Coalition Government welfare reforms with a specific focus on different aspects of welfare and benefit conditionality;(2) Assessed the extent to which conditionality reinforces poverty and social exclusion of benefit claimants; and (3) Considered how the welfare reforms and increases the conditionality impact on the social rights of claimants. Our findings suggested that conditionality itself seemed to play a relatively minor role in driving  employment outcomes – particularly for the more disadvantaged groups -  and there are potential longer term dis benefits, including issues of poverty, as well as low pay and continued poverty in work.

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