Placements are a key part of employability in higher education. They give students real world experience and help employers spot future talent. However, for disabled students, placements can involve barriers that are not always visible.
In a recent systematic literature review co-authored with Dr Laura William from the University of Greenwich and published in Studies in Higher Education1, we explored these challenges in detail. In this blog post, we focus on what the findings mean for HR professionals and placement providers and why inclusive pathways into work matter.
Why building awareness of disability and placements matters for HR and workforce planning
Many employers use placements to build talent pipelines and assess potential recruits. Yet there remains a 27.9 percent employment gap between disabled and non disabled people, alongside widening pay gaps. These inequalities often begin long before formal recruitment.
Placements are frequently a student’s first interaction with an employer. This makes HR teams central to shaping experiences that can influence confidence, skills development and long term career outcomes. Inclusive placements are therefore not just beneficial for students, they are critical for fair workforce planning.
Four key barriers HR should address
Our review of the existing literature identified four connected themes that affect disabled students’ access to and experiences of placements.
1. Organisational processes and systems: The most significant barrier is the lack of timely and effective reasonable adjustments. While the Equality Act 2010 places a legal duty on employers to remove barriers, this duty is often reactive and poorly understood.
Students describe delays, inconsistent support and anxiety about disclosing a disability. For HR professionals, this points to the importance of proactive policies, clear communication and training for managers so adjustments are put in place quickly and confidently.
2. Low expectations: Disabled students often face assumptions about what they can or cannot do. These low expectations can damage confidence and limit opportunities to learn and progress.
Employers who underestimate students’ potential risk missing out on skilled and motivated talent. HR professionals can help by challenging bias, promoting inclusive recruitment practices and designing placements that focus on strengths rather than perceived limitations.
3. Bio-social factors: Many students manage health related needs alongside placement demands. Balancing work and impairment can be particularly difficult when placements are inflexible.
Rigid schedules and limited understanding from supervisors can make challenges worse. HR teams can reduce these pressures by supporting flexible working, enabling access to healthcare where possible and recognising that disability often intersects with factors such as gender, age or cultural background.
4. The nature of the placement: Some placements involve poorly defined tasks, pressure to over perform or feelings of isolation. These conditions can be especially challenging for disabled students.
Inclusive placement design can make a significant difference. This includes meaningful tasks, clear expectations and visible support networks. When placements are well structured, both students and employers benefit.
Implications for HR practice
These barriers reflect wider patterns of disablism in the labour market. For HR professionals, the message is clear. Inclusive placement practices are not only about legal compliance, they are a strategic priority.
By building accessibility and equity into early career programmes, organisations can reach a wider talent pool, improve diversity and strengthen their reputation as inclusive employers.
Our next steps: empirical research
Before starting the systematic review, we established an Advisory Group that brought together placement officers, academics and employer representatives. This helped ensure the research was grounded in practical experience and informed by different perspectives.
As we move into the next phase of our research, we will continue working with this group to gather lived experiences from disabled students and placement providers. This collaborative approach will allow future recommendations to reflect real world insights and support the development of HR policies, employer training and inclusive placement design.
This article discusses themes of violence and sexual harassment in the work place.
In the UK in recent years, after one horrific femicide after another, there have been increasingly widespread conversations about the need to prevent violence against women and girls from happening in the first place. The new Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, has spoken of his goal to halve it in a decade. When it comes to prevention, the focus understandably tends to be on schools and young people. Yet young people possess relatively little social power, and for things to change among them, society around them must change, too. We therefore need to see prevention efforts scaled up at every level and in every corner of society. The workplace is a particularly important setting in this regard, and has the potential to play a significant role in instigating change.
There is thus an onus on employers to embrace violence prevention efforts. This is not least because violence against women affects the workplace directly; such as sexual harassment by colleagues or customers stopping women from being able to do their jobs, and domestic abuse significantly reducing victim-survivors’ ability to achieve their potential at work. I have conducted twenty interviews with educators and advocates spearheading preventative efforts in England, specifically within the business sector, to learn more about the key issues facing the development of this work. The research participants emphasised that preventing violence against women has positive effects on businesses themselves, by helping to create a culture in which everyone can thrive. The same masculinised dynamics which can enable sexist and misogynistic behaviour to proliferate also foster unsupportive, exclusionary environments in which hierarchies, callousness, and bullying are rife.
So what can businesses do to prevent violence against women? Firstly, my interviewees underscored that supporting victim-survivors and taking cases within their own organisation seriously sends powerful messages about what behaviours are (not) tolerated. More broadly, prevention is built upon dismantling patriarchy across the workplace, so that women are treated as equal members of the organisation. Engaging with men is crucial to this. Participants discussed how, too often, the onus is placed on women, as if simply by being more confident and assertive, gendered inequities will fade away. It was highlighted that men continue to hold most positions of power in businesses, and can therefore be key instigators of (or obstacles to) change. Men also have unique opportunities to influence other men, and to bring into question oppressive behaviours in the workplace. In turn, they have much to gain from being involved in creating more equitable organisations, in which the wellbeing of all staff is taken seriously, and work/life balance and caregiving are prioritised. Indeed, the workplace represents a crucial space to engage with men ‘where they are’, and make the connections between how different aspects of gender equality connect to their own lives.
We have seen some businesses get involved in external campaigns to prevent violence against women, such as through advertising. These can send powerful messages, and businesses have significant reach in the community. Gillette’s ‘The Best Men Can Be’ advert in the wake of the #MeToo movement is one example. However, several participants felt that even more important is the business’s own conduct and culture – with the risk of being seen as inauthentic if they cannot ‘walk the talk’. Ongoing education, training, and dialogue with staff across the organisation (especially men) which seeks to transform gender norms is therefore vital. Recruiting individual men to lead the way in speaking out about violence against women can support this, as can initiating allyship groups and networks, so that those men who already recognise gender equality as being their business can positively influence others.
There are also a number of challenges facing violence prevention in the workplace. Participants felt businesses often don’t treat social issues like men’s violence against women with the priority it warrants, especially in the face of the profit motive, and consider it ‘somebody else’s’ problem. They may be reluctant to get involved in work seen as politically ‘contentious’, and may thus opt for watered down, unthreatening initiatives. There is thus a risk that even when businesses do support efforts to prevent violence and engage men, they do so in ways which are tokenistic or superficial, or motivated by reputation-sanitising. Interviewees therefore underlined the need for this work to be deep-rooted and multifaceted – across the whole organisation – whilst recognising this to be a gradual process for businesses to come on board with.
We should also be wary of the potential for masculinised corporate cultures to ‘rub off’ on violence prevention work, for example by encouraging competition among under-resourced NGOs, or individualising what is a structural problem. Some participants debated the ethics of working with businesses altogether, especially those actively engaged in practices contributing towards violence, such as the destruction of the environment or the selling of alcohol. Of course, these organisations may also be where culture-change is most needed – but practitioners must balance this with the risk of giving them legitimacy. This demonstrates the need for change to come from outside as well as within businesses, such as through government regulation.
Finally, participants stressed the challenges of recruiting men to the cause. Many men have been taught little about how gender inequality and violence against women relate to their lives. Some may express defensiveness in response to the discomfort felt when they encounter these issues. However, participants felt it important not to be put off by backlash, which is likely to represent only a small (if vocal) minority of men. There are many more who remain unsure of what to think, who have much to gain from learning about the harmful impacts of masculine norms, and from the creation of more caring workplaces. It is therefore vital that businesses do not shy away from the responsibility that we all have to contribute to the prevention of violence against women.
As with work with men itself however, given the tensions of involving businesses, it must be undertaken with sensitivity and critical self-reflection, if we are serious about getting to the roots of the problem and not just ‘looking good’. Ending men’s violence against women forces us to ask difficult questions about ways in which we might be part of the problem – but these are questions which we all win from finding answers to.
Dr Stephen Burrell, is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow researching the connections between the climate crisis, masculinity, and violence. As Deputy Director of CRiVA, he co-hosts the podcast “Now and Men.” His work focuses on engaging men in gender equality, preventing violence, and exploring men’s responses to feminism. Follow him on Twitter: @the_daily_panda.
If you have been affected by topics discussed in this article there are support networks available. Here are a few places that may be able to offer you advice and support.
Stress in students is well-documented in the literature as having negative effects on cognitive, emotional and physical health. We’re all aware of the great stress most of our students are under, juggling paid work with university work, the ever-rising cost of living, negotiating personal relationships and trying to carve out time for a social life. But add into the mix, the challenges associated with being a parent, and the stress triggers are amplified. This blog post by Dr Hilary Drew discusses a new research project, in collaboration with Cardiff Metropolitan and Aberystwyth universities, investigating how students, who are also parents, juggle the demands of family, university work and sometimes paid work and how their ability to complete their chosen programme of study is affected.
What do we know?
Student parents in Higher Education (HE) are not a new phenomenon. Widening participation strategies since the late 1990s have deliberately targeted mature students, a demographic more likely to have caring responsibilities for dependent children than the under-21s (Brooks, 2012). We know that student parents typically come from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds and may experience intersectional inequality due to class, gender, disability or ethnicity (Moreau, 2016; Arday, 2017). Furthermore, in latter years, the number of international students, especially at postgraduate level, has increased. Many of these students are also likely to have dependents, as highlighted by changes to student visa requirements from January 2024, impacting students with dependents.
Whilst we can estimate that there has been an increase in the number of students who fall into the category of being most likely to have parental responsibilities, there are no exact figures available. This is not surprising, as there is no requirement to collect data about student parents, either at institutional or national level. The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) does not require that universities collect data on caring responsibilities, and many universities do not systematically collect information on student parents.
Hidden Figures
In our provisional enquiries here; at UWE Bristol, we contacted a number of different services across the university to find out whether or not our institution collects any data on student parents, as well as to ascertain the extent to which students with dependents are visible at UWE Bristol. However, in line with the literature, and in common with the findings of the two other institutions in our research project, we were unable to piece together a conclusive picture of student parents at our institution. Nevertheless, many student-facing services admitted that more information about student parents would assist them greatly in designing and delivering more targeted support and other initiatives.
Our enquiries about student parents bounced around the university; for example, we were directed to the Student Advice Team, as they support students facing both personal and academic challenges. We were recommended to contact Halley Nursery, but obviously this did not give us a full picture, because students can use other childcare services. We also spoke to Student Money Services as students may access the Enhanced Childcare Bursary, amongst other university service providers. Evidently, a further obstacle in obtaining this information is GDPR issues, as services are not able to share sensitive data on individual students and there is no central system where all the different pieces of information about students are captured.
‘That’ Gap
The conflicting demands of being a student and a parent are already well-documented in the literature, as well as, in some cases, undertaking paid work. It is widely reported that balancing parenting and academic work requires careful planning, in contrast with the widespread assumption that students’ lifestyles are hedonistic (Hodge, 2002). Moreover, unequal gender responsibilities at home, which we see elsewhere in society, also play a role here (Connell 2013; Osborne et al., 2004). Student-mothers report needing to develop coping strategies to manage their academic workload. These include studying when children are at school or nursery, or in bed and restricting any non-university or non-child-related activities (Moreau and Kerner, 2015). We’ve met parents of younger children who have even admitted to taking study notes along to soft play! Student-mothers admitted feeling guilty about trying to juggle motherhood and their studies; whereas Brooks (2015; 2012) found that student-fathers did not report feelings of guilt about being a student and a parent.
Since most universities are not set up to support students with dependents (Moreau, 2016), once on campus, we see student parents facing a myriad of challenges due to HE structural and policy barriers (poor on-site childcare facilities; restrictive ‘no child on campus’ policies; late availability of timetables; lectures scheduled too early or too late (Osborne et al., 2004; Alsop et al. 2008; Brooks, 2012; Brooks, 2015; Moreau and Kerner, 2015; Moreau 2016).
Where Next?
Building on the work of Claire Evans (Cardiff Metropolitan University) on student parents during the pandemic (Evans, 2023 Forthcoming), Hilary Drew[1], Damian Whittard[2], Mahwish Khan[3] and Lucy Venables[4] from UWE, together with Dr Evans[5] and Megan Williams[6] (Aberystwyth University) have gained ethical approval to find out more about students with dependents and are seeking funding to begin work on a project, entitled A Cross-Institutional Analysis of Student Parents’ Experience of Studying in Higher Education.
The overarching aim of the research is to examine parental provision at the three institutions, with the aim of encouraging our institutions to make student parents visible and to use their voices and experiences to inform policy and practice. Across the three institutions (Cardiff Metropolitan University, UWE and Aberystwyth University), we will focus on two key research questions:
To determine how being a student-parent affects engagement with the programme of study;
To determine what kind of initiatives help or hinder student-parents to pursue their HE goals.
Given the exploratory nature of the research questions, a qualitative approach will be adopted. To that end, a series of semi-structured interviews, lasting approximately 60 minutes, will be undertaken. In order to ensure that we can be as flexible as possible, and can fit into the participants’ already busy lives, these interviews will be performed on-line via Teams, telephone or in-person, according to the availability of the participants. For more information about the study and how to participate, please see our Sway presentation and/or get in contact with Dr Hilary Drew hilary.drew@uwe.ac.uk .
References
Alsop, R., Gonzalez‐Arnal, S. and Kilkey, M. (2008). The widening participation agenda: The marginal place of care. Gender and Education, 20(6), pp.623-637.
Arday, J. (2017). Exploring black and minority ethnic (BME) doctoral students’ perceptions of an academic career. University and College Union.
Brooks, R. (2012). Student-parents and higher education: a cross-national comparison. Journal of Education Policy, 27(3), pp.423-439.
Brooks, R. (2015). Social and spatial disparities in emotional responses to education: feelings of ‘guilt’ among student‐parents. British Educational Research Journal, 41(3), pp.505-519.
Connell, R. (2013). Gender and power: Society, the person and sexual politics. John Wiley & Sons.
Evans, C. (2023) ‘Failing as a parent, failing as a student’: the challenges faced by student parents in the COVID-19 pandemic. Forthcoming.
Hodge, M. (2002) Examination of witness, question 263 (London, House of Commons Select Committee on Education & Skills).
Moreau, M. P., & Kerner, C. (2015). Care in academia: An exploration of student parents’ experiences. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 36(2), 215-233.
Moreau, M.P. (2016). Regulating the student body/ies: University policies and student parents. British Educational Research Journal, 42(5), pp.906-925.
Osborne, M., Marks, A. and Turner, E. (2004). Becoming a mature student: How adult applicants weigh the advantages and disadvantages of higher education. Higher education, 48, pp.291-315.
[1]Hilary Drew gained her PhD from Cardiff University. She joined UWE in 2011 and is currently the Director of Partnerships and International at CBL. She is a member of the HRWE and DRAGoN groups and her research interests are in low pay and student working.
[2]Damian Whittard is an Associate Professor in Economics at UWE, Programme Manager of the Wage and Employment Dynamics Project, and an Academic Assessor for the Government Economic Service. Additionally, he is a Research Fellow funded by ADR UK, an ESRC investment.
[3]Mahwish Khan has a PhD from UWE and she is the Associate Director of Organisation Studies cluster and a member of the HRWE Group. Her research interests include gender and employment, equality and diversity management and comparison of public and private sector employment practices.
[4]Lucy Venables is the School Manager for Bristol Business School, UWE. She has over seven years’ experience working in student service roles in universities and is interested in using research to better understand and support the student experience.
[5] Before turning to academia, Dr Claire Evans qualified as a chartered accountant with PwC (Coopers & Lybrand Deloitte at the time) and worked in industry. Since working at Cardiff Metropolitan University, Claire’s research interests have focused gender, inequality and low-pay.
[6]Megan Williams, Aberystwyth University, is a qualified accountant (CIMA). She has taught in Higher Education for over 20 years, teaching financial and management accounting to UG and PG students.
Today is International Women’s day (IWD) a global celebration and recognition of women’s achievements. It is also a time to reflect upon the challenges for women and the interesting and diverse ways in which these are being addressed, through a range of initiatives. One of these initiatives is the alta mentoring scheme, an on-line, free to use, mentoring platform set up to offer mentoring support to professional women across the aviation and aerospace industry. Launched on IWD in 2019, alta has continued to grow, offering mentoring support to more and more women and also being awarded a prize by the Economic and Social Research Council in 2022, for Outstanding Impact in Business and Enterprise.
The IWD campaign theme for 2023 is ‘Embrace Equity’.
According to Internationalwomensday.com ‘Equity recognizes that each person has different circumstances, and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome. Equity can be defined as giving everyone what they need to be successful. In other words, it’s not giving everyone the exact same thing. If we give everyone the exact same thing, expecting that will make people equal, it assumes that everyone started out in the same place – and this can be vastly inaccurate because everyone isn’t the same’. The concept of ‘equity’ does not replace ‘equality’, instead, equality is the goal and equity is the means to achieve this.
What is alta?
This resonates with the ethos of the alta mentoring platform. Whilst our aim is to achieve gender equality across the industry, we recognise that women are not all the same and that mentees will require different support from their mentors. For example, while one mentee may be looking for mentoring support to manage work-life balance, another may be looking for technical advice, while another may be looking for general career support. This means that not all of our mentors are the same and the nature of the alta mentoring platform (global, reaching across the industry and outside of the mentee/mentor’s organisation) means that our mentors are drawn from a range of backgrounds, roles and professions and can therefore offer a diverse range of support, depending upon the needs of their mentees. We also offer networking and mentoring events throughout the year to help mentors and mentees meet face to face or online, as well as provide insights into career development and management. Alta aims to empower women to be themselves and to progress their careers with the support of other, more experienced women.
The alta mentoring platform was designed with women in mind (it is the first global mentoring platform of its kind in the industry, designed ‘for women/by women’ and is free to individual women to sign up). It was designed on the back of industry research that asked women, ‘what they wanted and needed’ from a mentoring programme. We also enjoy support from a number of high profile organisations in the industry, whose donations help us to reach out to even more women and to improve our services (the likes of GKN, Boeing UK, Raytheon, Collins Aerospace, Vistair, Signature Flight Support).
The founding members of alta (the Royal Aeronautical Society, the University of the West of England, Airbus, the Royal Air Force and Little Blue Private Jets Limited) came together with a common purpose: to tackle the inherent gender inequalities in the industry and offer mentoring support to women working in a male dominated industry. We were funded partly by the Economic and Social Research Council and the founding partners. The platform is hosted by the Royal Aeronautical Society and is part of the Society’s commitment to delivering on the pledges it made as a supporter of the Women in Aviation and Aerospace Charter, which was signed by government and industry at the Farnborough Airshow.
Who can join alta?
Alta is open to professional women working in the industry who are looking for mentoring support and to women who wish to become mentors and connect with other women throughout the industry. It is free to join and you do not need to be a member of the Royal Aeronautical Society or an employee of any of the founding/supporting partners. The scheme looks to change the way females are perceived in male-dominated industries and aims to put an end to gender inequality.
How do I join alta?
The on-line platform is easy to sign up to and both mentors and mentees are required to answer a series of matching questions that then enables the platform’s algorithm to suggest the most suitable matches. After initial contact, both parties are free to arrange when, where, and how often they meet. All meetings and correspondence can be planned through the platform, providing a place for both parties to maintain their mentoring relationship in a safe, secure, and confidential online environment. On-line training and support is also provided through the platform, including videos and factsheets, a dedicated handbook with in-depth advice and guidance as well access to other mentoring materials which are reviewed and updated regularly.
While alta is free to individual women to join, organisations wishing to become more involved in alta can also join as alta supporters by making a small donation. This enables us to further develop alta and to reach out to even more women across the industry.
Digitalization has become the ‘buzzword’ that captures all aspects of technological change associated with the increasing use of digital technology in organizational and productive processes, especially after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and the diffusion of remote work that followed.
The business case seems straightforward: Digitalization drives productivity and, therefore, organisational growth and profitability (Forbes 2022; WEF 2023). However, we know that the digital transformation of workplaces is not a neutral process for the people involved and, in particular, it affects how workers and their managers interact. Indeed, digitalization is leading to standardization, work intensification, monitoring and surveillance of workers in an increasing number of workplaces. The spread of digital ‘labour platforms’ is also conducive to novel transformations of the ‘standard’ type of employment contract and presents trade unions with further difficulties in representing new groups of ‘atypical’ workers, such as ‘gig’ workers. Furthermore, the labour-replacing impact of digitalization may be considerable, especially for low skilled workers in low pay sectors and in countries with low levels of digital infrastructure and e-skills development.
To engage with these emerging issues, Arianna Tassinari and I investigated the capability of trade unions in Italy to actively govern and respond to the challenges of digitalization in the regulation and reordering of work and employment or, very simply put, to be tech-savvy and ‘smart’. The resulting research led to an article, published in the journal Relations Industrielles – Industrial Relations and now ( open access) exploring three illustrative issue areas that encapsulate the main challenges and opportunities of digitalization.
The research
We began by considering the role of trade unions in policy discussion surrounding the technological restructuring that digitalization imposes across the economy (e.g., Industry 4.0). We followed by examining trade union efforts to bargain with disruptive players, such as e-commerce platforms (e.g., Amazon). We then investigated trade union responses to the spread of ‘platform work’ as a novel model of work organization and contracting (e.g., food-delivery digital platforms). In general, upon a review of the literature and interviews with trade union officials and industrial relations experts; we note that union strategies and their effectiveness have been significantly shaped by the interplay between the political opportunity structure unions face at different levels and the power resources and capabilities they can mobilize.
First, the depth of trade union involvement in national policy initiatives such as Industry 4.0 remained limited, akin to ‘cosmetic’ consultation rather than substantive negotiation. Trade unions have thus sought to make use of their resilient power resources—especially network embeddedness and narrative resources—to develop their framing and learning capability. They have invested considerable resources, in both their production of knowledge to influence public debate about digitalization and their capability for intermediation and articulation. Simultaneously they work with employer organizations to extract concessions from the government on issues such as skill development.
Second, trade unions aiming to bring to the negotiating table key players in e-commerce such as Amazon took advantage of the degree of resilience that collective bargaining still enjoys in the country but, at the same time, faced difficulties due to the unilateral approach to industrial relations by management and the differences in the employment contract model between, first of all, warehouse workers and drivers. Results, as expected, were mixed: major agreements to regulate work and employment at Amazon were signed, but fragmentation between segments within sectors persisted, i.e., between those who are covered by protective institutions and those who are not.
Thirdly, given that digital platforms fall outside the scope of existing workplace representation and collective bargaining institutions, established trade unions have been limited in the channels of action available to them. Because of this, they have not yet managed to intervene effectively in the emerging platform economy through traditional, grassroots unionization. Instead, in the case of drivers, they have focused on strengthening their framing and intermediation capabilities by amplifying the demands of self-organized riders and pursuing novel collaborations and strategic alliances with the riders’ organizations. In this regard, they have shown themselves able to adapt their repertoires of action to compensate for their weaknesses.
Our conclusion
Overall, our findings suggest that unions have been able to respond to and manage digitalization. They have expanded already established institutions and utilised collective bargaining by investing considerable resources and by using their varied capabilities. The desirability of strengthening collective bargaining is unmistakable. It remains to be seen however, if such adaptive approaches are ‘smart’ enough to effectively govern the digital transformation of work for the whole supply chain or, if more radical institutional experimentation will become necessary. In particular, will this be enough for areas with weaker labour markets and areas with more hostility to organized labour? Either way, even if the goal of ‘smart’ industrial relations might be achieved in ways that are far from straightforward, trade unions still have an active role to play.
References
Gasparri, S. and Tassinari, A. (2020), ‘Smart’ Industrial Relations in the Making? Insights from Analysis of Union Responses to Digitalization in Italy, Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 75(4): 796-817.
Dr John Neugebauer, Visiting Fellow, Bristol Business School
How often do we step back to think critically and analytically about the issue of graduate employability? Here are some personal thoughts, based on my own experience in senior management in human resources, as an academic who has also been involved in higher education (HE) Knowledge Exchange, and most recently as a co-editor of the forthcoming SAGE Handbook of Graduate Employability.
Much Achieved Already
Strenuous efforts have been made across the HE sector to improve employability and knowledge exchange. Many employers have sought to improve graduate prospects. And, of course, graduates themselves are better prepared within the UK.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found that tertiary education averaged across 22 OECD countries is 45% and for the UK 56% (OECD, 2021 P43). According to the OECD, graduate status is also linked with the broader society benefits, such as positive development of employment, higher per capita income, and health and social outcomes (OECD, 2021).
For the UK, Higher Education (HE) statistics for 2021 seem suitably reassuring:
The employment rate for working-age graduates (aged 16 – 64) was 86.7%, for postgraduates 88.2%; and for non-graduates 70.2%;
The median salary premium for graduates over non-graduates was £10,000 and £16,000 for postgraduates;
65.2% of working-age graduates, and 77.4% of postgraduates were in high-skilled employment. For non-graduates the figure was 24.3% (ONS, 2022
Despite popularist nay-sayers, the value of Higher/Tertiary Education is valued, not only in the UK, but also globally.
But we don’t need to look very far to hear criticisms of graduate employability, and challenges for the future. Here are some personal views on issues which HE can still address.
Do we understand what future skills graduates need?
Across the overall global labour market (including non-graduates) the World Economic Forum (WEF) expects 85 million jobs to be displaced, but 97 million new roles to emerge, by 2025. (WEF, 2020). To respond to changing labour market requirements and the need for reskilling and retraining, the WEF places its emphasis on critical thinking and analysis, problem-solving, self-management, active learning, resilience, stress tolerance and flexibility (WEF, 2020). These are skills which higher education should be well equipped to deliver.
Understanding employers’ needs, especially the needs of smaller organisations
UK employment markets for graduates depend on a combination of open market (advertising roles then hoping to fill them), and varying degrees of organisational-HE relationships to co-operate in understanding needs and seeking to achieve an appropriate level of supply. But one significant area where scoping employment demand and supply is especially difficult is with smaller employer destination organisations.
Within the UK, the Federation of Small Businesses, (2021) claims that small and medium sized organisations account for three fifths of total employment and around half of economic turnover in the UK private sector; 48% of employment is within small organisations, employing less than 50 people.
Employers themselves, HE institutions, Local Enterprise Partnerships may seek to understand graduate requirements. But it is difficult to bring together a comprehensive and cohesive strategy in such a fragmented employment market.
Inclusion
Graduates enter an employment market where challenges of inclusion are similar to those of the wider workforce; other barriers are specific to higher education.
Gender pay gaps remain evident across all UK sectors of graduate employment (ONS, 2022 ; CIPD, 2017). The WEF (2020) has also reported that without proactive efforts, inequality is likely to be exacerbated by the dual impact of technology and the pandemic recession. Chapter submissions for the Handbook also highlighted researched challenges based on ethnicity, and disabilities, where UK opportunities continued to favour white British graduates, and those who are non-disabled (ONS 2022).
Class and/or elitism continues at all levels of the employment market, including opportunities for graduates. ‘Elite universities’ produce the highest returns, and draw ‘top’ employers to their graduates (for example, see Rivera, 2015, Sullivan, et. al., 2018, Berghaus, 2020). In the UK, media and even Government ministers stoke the devaluation of some HE courses, for example by speaking about international students ‘…propping up, frankly, substandard courses at inadequate institutions’ (Smyth 2022).
This might be changing, but very slowly. For example, PwC, the accounting and consulting group which recruits 2,000 graduates a year, has recently announced its intention to extend its campus visiting programme from 75 to over 100, drop the requirement for a 2.1 degree or higher, and no longer insist that graduate recruits should have first undertaken an internship with PwC. Along with similar plans for employers in the sector, it will also extend their remote/virtual outreach to undergraduates (Saunders, 2022).
Despite these public pronouncements, my own experience discussing graduate opportunities with a range of high-profile employers suggests a continued preference for ‘top’ universities. We will need to see more actual evidence of the positive impact of these wider resourcing pools.
Macro-economic timing mismatches
The African Union Agenda 2063 sets goals to revitalise and expand tertiary education, research and innovation, so as to address continental challenges and promote global competitiveness across its member states. (African Unity, 2013). Even so, The Economist (2019a) reports that these worthy objectives are often frustrated – graduates are leaving universities in Africa, but a lack of inward investment and opportunity limits their ability to work at professional level within Africa. The Economist (2019b) similarly reported on difficulties which students China encountered finding graduate level roles
A more radical response from HE?
And in case we might feel at ease- even comfortable- about the state of graduate employability, what might we think of more radical measures?
In a comprehensive review of graduate readiness for employment in Australia, Pennington, and Stanford, (2019) set out the opportunities, but considerable challenges, facing Australian graduates (even before Covid 19 global disruption). They comment on the demands for universities to produce candidates who are ready for roles but challenge the ‘distortions’ caused by employers’ expectations of graduates “fully formed” from the day they start work (P 99). However, Pennington, and Stanford, (2019) noted that 78% of Australian employers regarded post placement/internship graduates as better prepared, but that such opportunities had reduced by 25% to 29%.
This observation appears to be replicated elsewhere. For example, in the UK, the Institute of Student Employers (2021) continued to criticise a perceived lack of graduate employability skills such as lack of self-career management, poor team skills, and poor upward management of the manager. (Ironically, human resource managers might observe that some of those perceived deficient skills, were not confined to graduates, recent or otherwise.)
Little wonder that apprenticeships, apprenticeship degrees, and simply entering the workplace without a degree are seen as legitimate other options to studying for a degree. How also will degree related apprenticeships develop? As we evaluate widening experience of these, is there really any reason why they should not be just as robust academically as more conventional degree courses? And if they are, how willingly and capably would all stakeholders (HE, employers, students) transition to this model? For example, how could an extension in workplace internships or placements, not necessarily linked with an extension in the time of a degree course, make more intensive use of the 20 weeks a year when most students are not in class?
Conclusion
Higher education is a big, international and global business, and not just for the Universities. Students invest life years, money and commitment to their futures. Employer organisations offer opportunities. Wider societies benefit.
But we cannot allow the progress achieved over the past few decades to be an ‘end’ position. The journey of learning, discovery, and improvement continues. You might not agree with some ideas in this blog – but I hope that it will continue to stimulate our appetite to develop research and practice in this important area of HE activity.
If you are interested in the above, please contact John at john.neugebauer@uwe.ac.uk
References
CIPD (2017) The graduate employment gap: expectations versus reality, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, London
Institute of Student Employers (2021) Graduates lack work-ready skills that businesses need during Covid era, reports ISE Student Development Survey, available at https://ise.org.uk/page/graduates-lack-work-ready-skills-that-businesses-need-during-covid-era?msclkid=6649341abb6811ec93011f03070489b1
Pennington, A. and Stanford, J. (2019), The Future of Work for Australian Graduates: The Changing Landscape of University Employment Transitions in Australia, The Australia Institute, Centre for Future Work, Canberra
Rivera, L. A. (2015) Pedigree: How Elite Students Get Elite Jobs, Princeton University Press, Princeton New Jersey
Saunders, T (2022) PwC expands university visits in the race for new recruits The Times 5 October 2022
Smyth, C (2022) Ministers may cap number of children foreign students can bring to UK’ Sunday Times, 9 October 2022
This month’s guest post on employee benefits is written by Stefano Gasparri, Senior Lecturer in HRM, UWE Bristol.
This blog brings to the fore the importance of employee benefits for organisations and employees, as part of their reward offering. I have recently authored two articles (details below) on employee benefits that draw out the advantages and disadvantages of this reward tool, from a critical perspective. Employee benefits have long constituted a classic human resources (HR) topic that also fits with the University of the West of England’s (UWE) research priorities on health and well-being. If you have an interest in employee benefits (you may be an employer, employee or someone who has a research interest in this area) then please read on.
What are employee benefits and who really benefits from their provision?
Employee benefits usually include healthcare insurance and retirement plans, educational tuition reimbursement and recreational facilities, childcare and elder assistance, wellness programs, extra holiday allowances and shop discounts (SHRM 2018) and, as such, they have an evident impact on the life quality of their recipients. Often, there is also a positive effect on productivity, a key concern for business organisations and policymakers alike that HR experts have long discussed. The CIPD (2021), for instance, assumes that employee benefits constitute a typical tool of a reward strategy that aims to attract, motivate, engage and retain workers; at the same time, it acknowledges that not all benefits are the same: some are suited to achieve specific goals; others have a social purpose (e.g. sustainable mobility) and therefore are fiscally promoted (e.g. salary sacrifice schemes). What is certain is that employee benefits pertain to complex issues, so here is how I try to explore and clarify them.
My starting point is the work by Titmus (1976), who associated different benefits with three types of welfare – social (based on public agencies), fiscal (tax breaks) and occupational (industry-based). He illustrated that their mix is based on private and public sources, concluding that what really matters is how these two integrate: are they well intertwined, supporting each other, or in constant tension, undermining each other? I apply this reasoning to employee benefits, which I frame in terms of ‘company welfare’ and consider a form of occupational welfare whose diffusion depends on measures of fiscal welfare and affects the provision of social welfare. Then I focus on what drives changes of this welfare mix and note that interest organisations play a key role. The literature here offers contrasting examples: it can be workers’ mobilisation and their ability to forge cross-class alliances to push for the egalitarian social policies and benefits, as occurred in Sweden throughout the XXth c. (Esping Andersen 1985); vice versa, it can be employers’ resistance to public welfare the main reason why companies emerge as the gateway to benefits, as happened in the US after WW2 with private pension and health insurance plans (Swenson 2002). Eventually, the question that underlies my research interest in employee benefits is the following: who benefits the most, amongst individuals, business organisations and/or society as a whole, from the diffusion of employee benefits and how/why the transformations of such benefits over time alter this? The two articles I wrote contribute to answer this question in two different ways, as illustrated in the next section.
Insights on employee benefits from two articles about ‘company welfare’ in Italy
The first article, published in the Management Revue – Socio-Economic Studies, examines the changes of employee benefits in light of the controversies associated with paternalistic work regimes (Thompson 1978; Dworkin 2020). It reviews historical (industrial, scientific, bureaucratic, sophisticated) and recent (libertarian) variants of paternalism (Jacobi 1998; Kaufman 2001; Thaler and Sunstein 2005), eventually framing contemporary developments in terms of ‘market paternalism’. This is a rather counterintuitive neologism that appreciates the marketization of employee benefits and the measures of fiscal and corporate welfare that support it (Farnsworth 2013; Morel et al. 2018; Greer and Umney 2021). Evidence to substantiate this argument comes from an overview of historical forms of paternalism and the evolution of company welfare schemes in Italy.
The second article, published in the Journal of Industrial Relations, applies the concept of ‘frames of reference’ (Fox 1974; Heery 2016) to explain the growth of company welfare in Italy after the 2008 crisis (Colombo and Regalia 2016; Sacchi 2018). The analysis considers three phases: in the first, a path-breaking case, the eyewear conglomerate Luxottica, launches an innovative set of employee benefits (Eurofound, 2012), nourishing a debate on the potential of company welfare (McKinsey, 2013; Ferrera and Maino, 2014); then, Renzi’s government promotes company welfare through tax breaks in the 2015-2016 budget laws (Eurofound, 2016); finally, trade unions try to affect the diffusion of company welfare, displaying contrasting ideologies as well as pragmatic joint solutions in the process. Overall, two contiguous sub-frames – ‘consultative unitarism’ and ‘collaborative pluralism’ (Bray et al. 2020) – offer the mainstream justification to the events and the policy debate around them (Heery 2016; Gasparri 2017). A critical interpretation is present too, suggesting that the recent success of company welfare schemes is due to the mobilisation of a political and economic elite and results in few cases of positive employment relations alongside broad social inequalities and economic imbalances (Johnstone and Wilkinson 2016).
Conclusions and implications for practice
My research on employee benefits and company welfare examines crucial aspects underlying the role of business organisations in health and wellbeing. It contributes to clarify the interconnections between private and public sources of welfare, a topic attracting renewed attention (Natali et al. 2018; Seelkopf and Starke 2019) and that the Covid-19 pandemic makes even more topical (e.g. my latest research is on the role of interest organisations in national immunisation campaigns and, wherever present, company vaccination programmes). At the same time, the analysis has implications for practice, which can be summarised in the following four recommendations.
Put employee benefits in perspective. The history of company welfare displays very different forms of benefits, whose rationale ranges from enlightened to authoritarian, from residual to rewarding, each time expressing a peculiar relationship with other welfare measures, either positive or negative. It is important for practitioners to understand the context they operate in and how employee benefits fit in: if inclusion and sustainability are key to today’s business, employee benefits are to be shaped accordingly.
Beware of tax breaks favouring employee benefits, especially in the medium term. The more employee benefits are normalised through tax incentives, the less they are an effective lever for enhancing employee productivity. When benefits interfere with wage dynamics, expect further scrutiny, disputes and dissatisfaction.
Watch out for employee benefits experts! The market for welfare services is enlarging for many reasons (e.g. ageing workforce, tight public budgets) and constitutes a massive business opportunity for specialised providers, often multinationals, tied with large consultancy firms, the finance industry and academic thinktanks. This might be far from convenient to employers, who are charged fees to offer benefits to their own employees. Whether the tax incentives will offset these fees is uncertain.
Is a win-win scenario possible? Within companies, employees tend to welcome such initiatives: when wages stagnate, the offer of employee benefits and their fiscal convenience look attractive. Besides, on some occasions, trade unions have a say on the design and implementation of such schemes, pressing for the creation of industry-wide negotiated programmes. However, looking beyond the organisational level, company welfare schemes risk provoking social inequalities and economic imbalances. Taxpayers in Italy, for instance, are funding those companies in a better position to take advantage of the tax breaks to employee benefits, that is mostly large manufacturers and finance players in Northern Italy, arguably the least in need of such support across the country.
References
Gasparri, S. (2020), Employee benefits and paternalistic work regimes. Historical and contemporary perspectives on company welfare in Italy, Management Revue – Socio-Economic Studies, 31(4): 465–488.
Gasparri, S. (2021), Framing work and welfare. Insights from the growing relevance of company welfare in Italy, Journal of Industrial Relations, 63(2): 235-262.
Barry M and Wilkinson A (2016) Pro-social or pro-management? A critique of the conception of employee voice as a pro-social behaviour within organizational behaviour. British Journal of Industrial Relations 54(2): 261–284.
Bray M, Budd J and Macneil J (2020) The many meanings of co-operation in the employment relationship and their implications. British Journal of Industrial Relations 58(1): 114–141.
CIPD (2012), Employee benefits: an introduction, Factsheet. Retrieved 20.04.2021: https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/fundamentals/people/benefits/factsheet#gref
Colombo S and Regalia I (2016) Changing joint regulation and labour market policy in Italy during the crisis: On the edge of a paradigm shift? European Journal of Industrial Relations 22(3): 295–309.
Dworkin, G. (2020). ‘Paternalism’. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2020 Edition). Retrieved 20.04.2021: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2020/entries/paternalism/
Esping Andersen G (1985) Power and distributional regimes. Politics & Society 14(2): 223–256.
Eurofound (2016) Italy: New Stability Law extends range of tax-exempt benefits, 27 April. Retrieved 20.04.2021: https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/publications/article/2016/italy-new-stability-law-extends-range-of-tax-exempt-benefits
Farnsworth, K. (2013). Bringing Corporate Welfare In. Journal of Social Policy, 42(1): 1–22.
Ferrera M and Maino F (2014) Social innovation beyond the State. Italy’s Secondo welfare in a European Perspective. WP-2WEL – 2/14. Available at: https://secondowelfare.it/allegati/ferrera_maino_wp2_2014_2wel.pdf (accessed 06 November 2020).
Fox A (1974) Beyond Contract. London: Faber and Faber.
Gasparri S (2017). Studying work in theory and practice: Insights for a globalising academia from the IR trajectory in Italy. Industrial Relations Journal 48(4): 310–325.
Greer, I. and Umney, C. (2021), Against Marketization: How Capitalist Exchange Subverts Democracy and Disciplines Workers, Zed Books.
Heery E (2016) Framing Work. Unitary, Pluralist and Critical Perspectives in the 21st Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jacoby, S. (1998). Modern Manors: Welfare Capitalism since the New Deal. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Johnstone S and Wilkinson A (eds) (2016) Developing Positive Employment Relations: International Experiences of Labour Management Partnership. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kaufman, B. (2001). The theory and practice of strategic HRM and participative management: Antecedents in early industrial relations. Human Resource Management, 11(4): 505–533.
Morel N, Palier B and Palme J (2012) Towards a Social Investment Welfare State? Ideas, Policies and Challenges. Bristol: Policy Press.
Morel, N., Touzet, C. & Zemmour, M. (2018). Fiscal welfare in Europe: Why should we care and what do we know so far? Journal of European Social Policy, 28(5): 549–560.
Natali D, Keune M, Pavolini E, et al. (2018) Sixty years after Titmuss: New findings on occupational welfare in Europe. Social Policy Administration 52(2): 435–448.
Sacchi S (2018) The Italian Welfare State in the crisis: Learning to adjust? South European Society and Politics 23(1): 29–46.
Seelkopf L and Starke P (2019) Social policy by other means: Theorizing unconventional forms of welfare production. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice 21(3): 219–234.
SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management) (2018). Employee Benefits. The Evolution of Benefits. Alexandria, VA: SHRM.
Swenson, P. (2002). Capitalists against Markets: The Making of Labor Markets and Welfare States in the United States and Sweden. Oxford: OUP.
Thaler, R. and Sunstein, C. (2005). Libertarian Paternalism. American Economic Review, 93(2): 175–179.
Thompson, E. P. (1978). Eighteenth-Century English Society: Class Struggle. Social History, 3 (2): 133–66.
Titmuss, R. (1976). Essays on the welfare state. London: Allen and Unwin.
A British Academy/Leverhulme Trust funded project, led by Professor Susan Durbin, with Professor Jennifer Tomlinson (Leeds University Business School) and Stella Warren (UWE)
The Problem
The challenges of greater gender balance at senior management levels and on corporate boards are faced by businesses worldwide (Durbin, 2015). Working hours are critical to career advancement and women rather than men tend to seek a reduction in hours at career defining life course stages. Our previous research demonstrates that women face stagnating careers when they reduce their working hours (Durbin and Tomlinson 2010; 2014). However, there has been very limited research focusing upon executive/senior management careers of women and men in relation to reduced hours working.
Part-time, or reduced hours working, is the most widely utilised form of flexible working in organisations in the UK. Yet despite its widespread use – there are more than seven million part-time workers, 75% of whom are women (ONS 2018) – it is not evenly dispersed throughout occupational categories but tends to cluster in low paid, low skilled occupations. While part-time work has grown in professional occupations, the same cannot be said for managerial occupations. Indeed, in the managers, directors and senior officials occupation, less than 4% of jobs are occupied on a part-time basis (ONS 2018).
This has significant consequences for the utilization of women’s skills, pay and career opportunities across the life course. The issue of flexibility in middle management careers has been the focus of a Government Equalities Office seminar on a wider programme of research and evidence on what can be done to reduce the gender pay gap (Tomlinson 2018). The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has also recently released an authoritative ‘Mega Trends’ report on flexible working. This report lays bare the paucity of flexible jobs at a managerial level, including executive levels and cites our work (Durbin and Tomlinson, 2014) which focuses upon how part-time working can impact the careers of managers. In the context of an increased interest in workforce flexibility and flexible working arrangements that facilitate work life balance, the question of whether careers (rather than work) can be successfully navigated flexibly is an open question (Tomlinson et al. 2018).
We know from previous research that certain flexible working practices can facilitate career sustainability across the life course and particularly at critical life junctures, such as following maternity (Chung 2018). Yet while there are notable recent studies on the use of flexible work, these tend to focus exclusively on the experiences of women (Chung 2018; Young 2018), as did earlier studies (Crompton and Lyonette 2014; Durbin and Tomlinson 2010, 2014).
The Project
As researchers who specialise in women’s careers and in tackling gender inequalities in the workplace and labour market, we believe that making reduced hours working available at senior levels would enable more women to step forward into senior roles. We also believe that this opportunity should be open to men. Women’s work, especially when performed on a reduced hours basis, is under-valued and not enough women are making it into senior roles. For most women, and some men, having the opportunity to work the hours that would enable them to have a work/family balance could be key to their future prospects and benefit the wider businesses in which they work. The support of employers is key to making this happen. This research enables us to get in touch with senior men and women working on reduced hours basis and to explore why and how they reduced hours and what that means for their senior careers.
The project began in November, 2019 and is funded by the British Academy/Leverhulme Trust. It departs from currently existing research and asks, with the rise in the use of flexible working arrangements at the organisational level, and a drive for more inclusive workplace cultures, what are the prospects for navigating executive and senior management careers while working reduced/part-time hours? When individuals at senior levels do work reduced hours, what are their experiences of work in terms of job quality and growth potential, and how do the experiences of reduced hours working compare and contrast between male and female executives and senior managers? Furthermore by focusing exclusively upon executives and senior managers, this research explores the experiences of organisational leaders who have reduced hours and the strategies they employ to manage a demanding position requiring leadership and visibility while working less than full time, and the extent to which they feel they can act as role models for others seeking to advance careers on a flexible basis. We address this important research gap to better understand how male and female senior managers navigate flexible careers and how gendered assumptions might impact their careers.
Our Partners
We are working with seven external partners who have offered their support to the project. All have a keen interest and take active roles in the promotion of gender equality in organisations. They know the importance of gender diversity at all levels of organisations and the business benefits this can yield. Crucially, they are able to help us to access and interview the rare and hard to reach executives and senior managers who work on a reduced hours basis, in the UK.
Flexology(flexible working specialists in the recruitment of professional part-time and flexible working roles and the design and implementation of flexible working practices); Workwell(a HR and people change consultancy, providing support in the areas of HR/people support, flexible working, project management, strategy, stakeholder management and research); TeachFirst (a charity that was set up to address educational disadvantage in the UK and is currently extending the uptake of job share working at senior levels); the Bristol Women in Business Charter Community Interest Company (which supports the operation of a city-wide Charter recognising and supporting progress on gender equality in city businesses). One of the goals Charter signatories commit to is the promotion and increased availability of flexible and part-time working, especially at senior levels that attract better pay and conditions; Timewise(an organisation that was founded to tackle the lack of quality part-time jobs and to encourage more organisations to open up to both men and women jobs on a flexible basis, at all levels of organisations); Fair Play South West (the women’s equality network for the South West of England, researching and consulting women on their aspirations and barriers to achieving them and campaigning for change); Moon Executive Search(undertakes executive recruitment for senior management and board level roles and other highly skilled candidates).
How the project is being conducted
The project is being conducted through virtual interviews with male and female executives and senior managers working reduced hours in organisations across the UK private sector. Interviews began just before ‘lockdown’ (March, 2020). Through the interviews we are exploring the experiences of male and female executives and senior managers in relation to: how and at which point in their career they accessed reduced hours working; reasons for working reduced hours; the quality of their role since reducing hours; how senior managers anticipate navigating their future careers while working reduced hours; the prevalence of organisational and other forms of support, including mentoring and networking; aspirations for and the realities of further advancement since switching to reduced hours working; and the support received from their employers, as a reduced hours senior member of the organisation. Importantly, the interviews also explore the impact of the pandemic on interviewees’ careers, including working from home, their views on this new way of working and its potential future ‘normalisation’, organisation readiness for lockdown/working from home and the general impact of covid on the individual and their ability to work from home.
The project will culminate in an end of project event (September/October, 2021), involving all research participants and partner organisations, key business leaders, policy makers and groups set up to support gender balance in business. At this event, we will present the key research findings and discuss recommendations for best practice, alongside a panel of business experts and policy makers who are keen to promote the social and business benefits of reduced hours and wider policies on flexible working. This would also be of interest to and engage with those campaigning for a shorter working week as a means to improving mental and physical well-being, work-life balance and creating a better standard of life for all (e.g. Spencer 2009, 2015). And to those interested in the knock on effects of the pandemic, such as working from home and how organisations are supporting their workforces.
If you would like to know more about the project and/or would like to take part in an interview, please contact sue.durbin@uwe.ac.uk
