The Department for Work Pensions has limited evidence of what works when it comes to supporting disabled people to work, according to the National Audit Office (NAO) in a report published today. The number of disabled­­ people in work has risen by 930,000 (31 percent) in the last five years, but this has not been matched by a reduction in the number of disabled people who are out of work. The NAO found that the government’s headline goal of getting one million more disabled people into work from 2017 to 2027 cannot be used to measure the success of its efforts. The Department itself recognises that this measure cannot be linked directly to any specific government policy or programme. Broader factors, such as more people who are already in work reporting a disability, and rising employment rates, have a significant effect on the measure. It therefore lacks a target for which it is willing to be held to account. (more…)

The Institute for Employment Studies (IES) HR Research Network, in conjunction with The Henley Forum, part of The Henley Business School, is pleased to announce the launch of a new practitioner guide, Changing Together: Change Tools for Teams. The concise booklet is designed to assist teams to be change-ready, maximising full change-capability potential when faced with growing demands for increased agility and adaptability in the workplace.

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The biggest motivator for staff at work is more recognition, whether monetary or not, according to a new survey on rewards at work by XpertHR. When asked which rewards are most important to employees, more than half (53 percent) said higher basic pay, followed by a wider range of benefits (37.1 percent), but being recognised for the work they do was also cited as an employee priority by 56.1 percent of respondents). The survey also claims that employers are facing a constant battle to get employees’ salaries at the right level. Almost all (97.7 percent) organisations questioned said they would be looking at salary levels in some way over the coming year – whether that be through the annual pay review, benchmarking salaries against the market or complying with the national minimum wage legislation.

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New research from the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) claims that recently trained managers use on average 50 percent more of the structured management practices associated with increased labour productivity than those not trained within the last 12 months. The research, involving 940 managers, revealed that managers who received management training in 2018 used an average of 6 management practices, compared to an average of 4 practices for those who had received no management training over the same period. The impact of recent training on management practices can be seen across businesses of all sizes. (more…)