Exploring the experience of neurodivergent engineers in the workplace: Re-crafting engineering?

ripleywk | 17 April 20235 April 2023

Dr Vanda Papafilippou & Miss Lucy Downes

The neurodiversity paradigm views neurodiversity as natural variations in human cognition that should be equally valued and celebrated (Chapman, 2022) thus challenging earlier research (and practice) that tended to take a deficit perspective and referred to ADHD, Autism, Dyslexia, Dyscalculia, etc. as disorders that needed to be ‘treated’ (Chapman and Bovell, 2022). Nevertheless, despite the increased awareness of the strengths of neurodivergent thinking and the value that diverse perspectives can bring to organizations (Kirby and Smith, 2021), neurodivergent people may experience discrimination and marginalization once disclosing to their employer (Baldridge and Swift, 2013; Johnson and Joshi, 2017). What is more, to date there is limited research that explores the perspectives of neurodivergent employees to gain an understanding of contextual factors that might create barriers in the workplace (Doyle and McDowall, 2021) but also about how neurodivergent people approach work in general.

This blog entry looks at neurodiversity from both an academic/research and practitioner perspective, offering some practical future directions for employers. We are specifically focusing on an aspect of our findings: how neurodivergent engineers engage in job crafting. In order to do so, we draw upon Lazazzara et al.’s (2020) job crafting process model which considers the job crafting motives, the impact of context, the forms of job crafting, personal factors and the job crafting consequences.

Our exploratory study focused on how neurodivergent engineers (all sectors, including software) experience the entire employee lifecycle (i.e., recruitment, career development and progression). We chose to focus on engineering as, anecdotally, there are many neurodivergent individuals in the profession as neurominority thinking strengths align to engineering skills, such as creative thinking and attention to detail (Engineering Council, 2022; Loiacono and Ren, 2018).

Background

Wrzesniewski and Dutton (2001) noted that the need for control over work, establishing a positive self-image and connections with others motivate to engage in job crafting, which, in its turn, is argued to enhance the person-career fit (De Vos et al., 2020) and stimulate employees’ career growth (Hall and Las Heras, 2010). Employees may be proactively and/or reactively motivated to craft their jobs and that the form of job crafting depends also on contextual factors, such as organisational climate and job design components (e.g., resources, workload, demands) (Lazazzara et al., 2020).

However, to date there are no studies on how neurodivergent employees might engage in job crafting. An important gap considering that neurodiverse employees are often excluded and marginalised in the workplace due to negative stereotyping (Den Houting, 2019; Patton, 2019; Priscott and Allen, 2021) and negative organisational cultures (Kapp et al., 2019; Saleh et al., 2022) and this might impact their self-confidence, relationships with colleagues and control over work (Booth, 2016; Sheppard et al., 2016). Taking into consideration that there is little research on neurodiversity and employment (Doyle and MacDowall, 2021) this gap becomes even more pertinent. Therefore, we asked:

What processes can be identified that illustrate when and how neurodiverse engineers engage in job crafting?

How do contextual factors (i.e., organisational climate and job design) influence neurodiverse engineers to engage in job crafting?

This was a qualitative study drawing upon in-depth semi-structured interviews. We interviewed 35 engineers (i.e., chemical, mechanical, aerospace, civil, software, oil & gas), male (24) and female (11), mostly of White British, one White Australian and 2 from ethnic minority backgrounds (British Asian, British Black). Participants were mainly employed (i.e., in large and smaller organisation) apart from two who were self-employed/ contractors. The participants were recruited using purposive sampling and access was sought via personal contacts, social media (Facebook groups, Twitter, LinkedIn), support from large Engineering organisations (HR and Employee Resource Groups), the Engineering Council, and snowballing. The interview schedule was developed following guidance from Norris et al. (2020) to acknowledge the challenges that autistic participants in particular might encounter. Towards this end we have also included semantic prompting (i.e., a general prompt before asking for a specific instance) and visual prompting.

Findings

To analyse our findings, we drew upon Lazazzara et al.’s (2020) job crafting process model which considers the job crafting motives, the impact of context (supportive vs. constraining), the forms of job crafting (i.e., approach job crafting, avoidance crafting and crafting in other domains), personal factors (supportive vs. constraining) and the job crafting consequences.

The engineers in our sample seemed to engage in job crafting mostly reactively (e.g., because of pressure to behave as ‘engineers’ and work following a specific pattern) but also proactively (e.g., shape their careers/roles according to their strengths, use some strategies in order to improve their performance), depending on how supportive their organisational context was. However, most of them, and especially those in larger organisations, appeared to be experiencing constraints not only due to the organisational context (e.g., negative stereotyping, lack of support from HR and especially their line managers) but also professional standards (e.g., they struggled to ‘fit the box’ of being a chartered engineer). In some cases, line managers ruled out progression opportunities based on the stereotypical assumption that neurodiverse individuals lack the social skills needed to manage a team. The forms of job crafting that are emerging so far are: approach crafting (e.g., adding tasks they enjoyed doing more of, establishing different ways of managing their teams), avoidance crafting (e.g., avoiding networking or socialising, avoiding for going for certain promotions) but also crafting in other domains (e.g., adjusting their working hours when working remotely, changing their physical environment, etc.).

Practical Implications

Our findings can provide a set of practical implications for Engineering as a sector and organisations. Given the current skills shortage of engineers (Armitage et al., 2020), it is of crucial importance that the sector adapts its practices to ensure that it attracts, recruits, and retains neurodiverse engineers through building a genuinely inclusive professional culture which is also reflected on the criteria for chartership (i.e., being less prescriptive). The key learnings for HR are:

Commitment to an inclusive workplace culture

Organisations need to move away from deficit thinking around neurodiversity and work towards a more positive and inclusive culture which in its turn, will provide a supportive context for job crafting and most importantly enhance the sense of organisational and professional belonging.

Retention of talent: revisiting job descriptions career progression criteria

Organisations need to carefully reconsider job design (e.g., Do all engineers need to approach the problem in the same way? What skills and experience are essential?) and ensure that they offer autonomy in carrying out job activities (but also support when neurodiverse employees might struggle with their work-life balance).

Performance management

All line managers should be trained in how to manage, support, and review the progress of neurodiverse employees. HR could also evaluate performance management, using a neurodiversity lens, and identify which encouraged behaviours (e.g., being ‘diplomatic’) or practices (e.g.., networking) might impede career progression and/or influence what considered ‘good performance’.

References

Armitage, L., Bourne, M., Di Simone, J., Jones, A. and Neave, S. (2020). Engineering UK 2020: Educational pathways into engineering. EngineeringUK.

Baldridge, D.C. and Swift, M.L. (2013) Withholding requests for disability accommodation: The role of individual differences and disability attributes. Journal of Management. 39 (3), pp.743-762.

Baron-Cohen, S., Wheelwright, S., Stott, C., Bolton, P. and Goodyer, I. (1997) Is there a link between engineering and autism?. Autism. 1 (1), pp.101-109.

Booth, J. (2016) Autism equality in the workplace: Removing barriers and challenging discrimination. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Chapman, R. (2020) Defining neurodiversity for research and practice. In Chapman, R., ed. (2020) Neurodiversity Studies. London: Routledge, pp. 218-220.

Chapman, R. and Bovell, V. (2022) Neurodiversity, advocacy, anti-therapy. In Matson, J. and Sturmey, P. (2022) Handbook of Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorder. Springer, Cham, pp. 1519-1536.

Costello, E., Kilbride, S., Milne, Z., Clarke, P., Yilmaz, M. and MacMahon, S.T. (2021) September. A Professional Career with Autism: Findings from a Literature Review in the Software Engineering Domain. In European Conference on Software Process Improvement. Springer, Cham.

De Vos, A., Van der Heijden, B. I. J. M. and Akkermans, J. (2020). Sustainable careers: Towards a conceptual model. Journal of Vocational Behavior. 117: 103196, pp. 1-13.

Den Houting, J. (2019). Neurodiversity: An insider’s perspective. Autism. 23 (2), pp. 271-273.

Doyle, N. and McDowall, A. (2021) Diamond in the rough? An “empty review” of research into “neurodiversity” and a road map for developing the inclusion agenda. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal. 41 (3), pp.352-382.

Engineering Council (2022) Neurodiversity Celebration Week. Available from: Engineering Council (engc.org.uk) [Accessed 4 January 2023].

Hall, D. T. and Las Heras, M. (2010) Reintegrating job design and career theory: Creating not just good jobs but smart jobs. Journal of Organizational Behavior. 31, pp. 448–462.

Johnson T, D. and Joshi, A. (2016) Dark clouds or silver linings? A stigma threat perspective on the implications of an autism diagnosis for workplace well-being. Journal of Applied Psychology. 101 (3), pp. 430–449.

Kapp, S.K., Steward, R., Crane, L., Elliott, D., Elphick, C., Pellicano, E. and Russell, G. (2019) People should be allowed to do what they like: Autistic adults’ views and experiences of stimming. Autism. 23 (7), pp.1782-1792.

Kirby, A. and Smith, T. (2021) Neurodiversity at work: Drive innovation, performance and productivity with a neurodiverse workforce. London: Kogan Page Publishers.

Lazazzara, A., Tims, M. and de Gennara, D. (2020) The process of reinventing a job: A meta–synthesis of qualitative job crafting research. Journal of Vocational Behavior. 116: 103267, pp.1-18.

Loiacono, E.T. and Ren, H. (2018) Building a Neurodiverse High-tech Workforce. MIS Quarterly Executive. 17 (4), pp.263-279.

Norris, J. E., Crane, L. and Maras, K. (2020) Interviewing autistic adults: Adaptations to support recall in police, employment, and healthcare interviews. Autism. 24 (6), pp. 1506–1520.

Patton, E. (2019) Autism, attributions and accommodations: Overcoming barriers and integrating a neurodiverse workforce. Personnel Review. 48 (4), pp.915-934.

Priscott, T. and Allen, R.A. (2021) Human capital neurodiversity: an examination of stereotype threat anticipation. Employee Relations: The International Journal. 43 (5), pp. 1067-1082.

Saleh, M.C., Chang, H.Y., Bruyère, S.M. and Vogus, T.J. (2022) Employment Selection Methods and Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder. In: Bruyère, S.M. and Colella, A. eds., (2022) Neurodiversity in the Workplace: Interests, Issues, and Opportunities. New York: Routledge.

Sheppard, E., Pillai, D., Wong, G.T.L., Ropar, D. and Mitchell, P. (2016) How easy is it to read the minds of people with autism spectrum disorder?. Journal of autism and developmental disorders. 46 (4), pp.1247-1254.

Wrzesniewski, A., & Dutton, J. E. (2001) Crafting a job: Revisioning employees as active crafters of their work. The Academy of Management Review. 26 (2), pp. 179–201.

Can industrial relations and trade unions be ‘smart’ in the digital world of work? Insights from three cases: Industry 4.0, e-commerce, and digital platforms in Italy

ripleywk | 28 February 202313 March 2023

Dr Stefano Gasparri

The effect of digitalization

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.

WEF (2023), Why we need to prioritize digital transformation – even in a downturn

Forbes (2022), The Path To Digital Transformation For Businesses

Researching equality, diversity, and inclusion in Italy: why are transsexual individuals not included in the ‘equality debate’?

ripleywk | 16 January 202316 January 2023

Please note, this article discusses topics of suicide and discrimination and may be distressing or triggering for some. Links for support on topics that are discussed in this article can be found at the bottom of this page.

Sara Fanti

As an international PhD student researching pay gaps, gender, and sexual orientation in the context of my native country – Italy, I read a number of Italian newspaper articles to keep up with the latest business world news as well as current events in general. One article, in particular, caught my attention. This article left me baffled and in deep grief for my country, my community, and humanity: The suicide story of a transgender woman.

The story of Cloe Bianco

A single tree with a rope swing sits on a pink field with a baby blue sky, giving connotations of the trans pride flag.

Cloe Bianco was a high school teacher at the “Scarpa-Mattei” Agricultural School in San Donà di Piave (VE), Italy. In 2015 Cloe decided to ‘come out’ as a transgender woman to the school where she had worked for years. Specifically, to come out to her students, finally living her life as the person she had always felt she was “since she was 5 years old” (La Stampa, 2022). On the morning of 27^th of November, Cloe walked into her classroom and introduced herself with her new name, asking her students to refer to her using the correct pronouns she/her. Unfortunately, Cloe’s courage to be herself did not sit well with some of the parents of her students, who promptly e-mailed the regional alderman for the Ministry of Education to complain about what had happened. This resulted in Cloe receiving a disciplinary sanction resulting in a three-day suspension, followed by a demotion to administrative roles in a back office of the school where she was permanently employed, and subsequentially any other schools in her Region (i.e. Veneto) where she tried to work as teacher (Open, 2022)[1].

On the 11^th of June 2022, the remains of Cloe’s body were found in a torched campervan where she had been living in isolation for seven months. The investigation that followed uncovered a suicide letter left in her blog. The verdict: Cloe died of suicide at the age of 50, after she had been actively prevented from fulfilling her fundamental Constitutional right and duty to work (Art. 4 of the Italian Constitution).

Cloe’s story is just one of the many where active discrimination in the workplace undermines the lives of Italian LGBT+ people every single day. Whilst most western countries focus, more or less effectively; on developing inclusivity within the labour market, Italy falls far behind.

Even failing to legislate basic, protective laws against discrimination for gay, bisexual, transgender or non-binary people.

So, my question, as an extremely frustrated Italian academic is this.

Why, in Italy, is it so easy to ruin the life of somebody who works in the public sector by explicitly discriminating against them and get away with it?

To answer this question, it is first important to understand the influence of culture on the debate around gender vs. assigned-at-birth sex, and how this ultimately results in the lack of interest when including sexual and gender-based minorities in the equality, diversity, and inclusion debate.

Gender vs. Sex

The debate of gender and gender identities is not new in literature. Nonetheless, the definition of ‘What is gender’ is still very relevant and in a constant flux of redefinition and negotiation. A simple definition accepted by LGBT+ literature is that gender refers to the psychological sense of self, it relates to how someone deeply and truly feels on the inside and that this is based on their individual understanding of genders. Anatomical sex (or assigned-at-birth sex) is typically assigned at birth based on biological and physical characteristics such as chromosomes, hormones, genitals, body hair etc.

Queer theorists define gender as the result of power performances, negotiated within societies which are influenced by culture and the historical period (Foucault, 1981; Butler, 1990, 1993; Harding, 1998) It is performed in every moment and aspect of individuals’ lives throughout external appearance – gestures, language, clothes – prior to any choice of gender identity (Butler, 1990). Soon-to-be-parents are told what sex the baby will be, and while raising them, project their own socially learnt bias of gender. These include a series of norms on how to behave, how to dress, how to express emotions and, how to care for others, which differ depending on the assigned-at-birth sex.

The biological sex assigned at birth, plays a pivotal role in the societal expectations placed upon an individual. These expectations are dependent on whether they are born with female or male characteristics and can begin to form before they are even born. Gender identity however, develops within an individual’s sense of self and defines what an individual believe about themselves and who they are. Sometimes, this might not coincide with the anatomical or biological sex. Transgender, transsexual, gender-queer (GQ), gender-fluid, non-binary are all terms that are used to describe people whose gender identity does not align with their anatomical or biological sex (Stonewall, 2020).

“Gender identity develops within an individual’s sense of self and defines what an individual believe about themselves and who they are…”

Nevertheless, this definition of gender is often refused by institutions of conservative countries such as Italy, where an essentialist idea of sexuality is still very predominant. Within a gender essentialist paradigm every person is believed to be born with a male or female “essence” which is determined by the biological sex assigned at birth (Gagnon & Parker, 1995). Femininity and masculinity are, therefore, understood as a natural contraposition of sexes that is at the essence of sexuality regardless the culture and historical time, is defined by biology and chromosomes, and is carried within it a definite set of personality traits. The first gentle and maternal, and the other aggressive and strong (Segal, 1994).

Essentialist standpoints are often used to rationalise gender-based biases and heterosexist or transphobic discourses. For example, to justify the gender segregation of the labour market, gender pay gaps, and to withhold legislation in support of LGBT+ rights. Gender essentialists’ standpoints are clearly taken in the Italian political debate and supported by the Catholic Church which deeply influence political choices and welfare measures in Italy in a clientelist relationship.

When inclusivity is not even in the picture

A slate-grey city scape immersed in fog, displaying a foreboding scene

The first attempt to give a definition of gender as opposed to anatomical sex has been introduced in the proposal of the so-called DDL Zan (Disegno Di Legge, tr. Law Draft). Drafted in 2019, by Alessandro Zan, a member of the Chamber of Deputies and leading member of the gay association Arcigay. The DDL Zan (Senato della Repubblica, 2020) included a total of ten articles. Five of which suggest modifications to existent articles in the penal code giving aggravating circumstances for crimes against gay, bisexual, transexual, disabled people, and women. This law draft provides a definition for biological sex, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity; it defines the line between the right to freely express an opinion as opposed to hate speech against sexual minorities and women; it proposes a national awareness day against homophobia, bi-phobia, and trans-phobia; and, finally, it proposes a strategy to collect hate crime data on a national scale and a plan to actively fight against homophobia, transphobia, and gender discrimination.

The opposition to this law was strongly supported by far-right parties – i.e., La Lega, Fratelli D’Italia (FdI), Il Popolo della Famiglia etc. – as well as the Catholic Church and pro-life associations. The main point of debate was precisely the Article 1 which provides a definition of gender and anatomical sex as two distinct concepts as outlined above. The opposition would have been willing to vote in approval of the law only if that definition was cancelled from the draft (La Repubblica, 2021). Terminating Article 1, however, would have further alienated trans people, excluding them from being protected against discrimination and transphobic crimes. Finally, without reaching an agreement, the drafted law was voted out by the Senate of the Republic in April 2021. A new discussion was scheduled in April 2022, but to date (June 2022) nothing has happened.

Conclusions

Cloe’s story is just one of many discrimination cases that end in tragedy. Gay Help Line, the main call centre helpline that provides phone support for LGBT+ people, reported in 2021 a steady increase of calls concerning discrimination such as: discrimination in accessing the labour market, or maintaining a job after coming out (35%); discrimination in accessing private (25%) or public services (22%) such as healthcare or housing; discrimination as customers (18%). It is also reported a 10% increase in calls concerning hate crimes against trans people, especially bullying, stalking, non-consensual sharing of private photos in the workplace (15%), aggressions and threats (19%). Also, 42% of cases concern family abuse, 59% of which are perpetuated by adult family members and 9% by partners; 21% of the cases concern violence perpetuated by strangers. 17% of all calls come from transgender or non-binary people. Gay Help Line also reported that very few people in the LGBT+ community report this type of crimes to the police.

The Italian Constitution proclaims equality and dignity amongst all citizens regardless of their personal or social condition (Art. 3). Sex and sexual orientation discrimination in the workplace and in the hiring, process is illegal under the Article 7 of the Legislative Decree no.165/2001; the Article 15 of Law no. 300/1970; and the Legislative Decree no. 216/2003. However, it appears clear that trans people are not included in the equality debate, and there is close to no interest in providing them the Constitutional right of equality and inclusion in society, let alone in the workplace.

Finally, the newly elected right-wing government, not only has purposely left out any reference to equality, diversity, and inclusion in their election campaign, but has also actively promoted legislations against adoption rights and surrogacy which have been contested by LGBT+ activists as discriminatory and homophobic (BBC, 2022) raising concerns for the future of equal and civil rights in Italy.

[1] To read an English version of the story, please see – https://jane-67706.medium.com/of-suicide-and-transphobia-1b077865b73f

Links for support

LGBT Foundation – Helpline and Email Support

Samaritans | Every life lost to suicide is a tragedy | Here to listen

Mindline Trans+ – Trans+ emotional support helpline

Citations

Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. London and New York: Routledge.

Butler, J. (1993). Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of sex. New York, 38.

Foucault, M. (1981). The history of sexuality: An introduction, volume I. Trans. Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage.

Gagnon, J. H., & Parker, R. G. (1995). Conceiving sexuality. Conceiving sexuality: Approaches to sex research in a postmodern world, 3-16.

Gay Help Line. (2021). Report Gay Help Line. [online] Available at: https://gayhelpline.it/report-gay-help-line/.

Harding, J. (1998). Sex acts. Practices of Femininity and Masculinity, London.

L’Unione Sarda English. (2022). Coming out at school, then marginalization: the story of Cloe Bianco, the trans teacher who set herself on fire. [online] Available at: https://www.unionesarda.it/en/italy/coming-out-at-school-then-marginalization-the-story-of-cloe-bianco-the-trans-teacher-who-set-herself-on-fire-a7ttj2qu [Accessed 20 Jun. 2022].

La Repubblica, 2021. DDL Zan, cos’è e cosa prevede, articolo per articolo e il testo integrale. la Repubblica. Available at: https://www.repubblica.it/politica/2021/06/22/news/omofobia_legge_zan_ecco_che_cosa_prevede-307139790/ [Accessed March 15, 2022].

La Stampa. (2022). La storia di Cloe Bianco, la prof transgender che si è data fuoco nel suo camper: ‘Ora sono libera’. La scuola la sospese dopo il coming out. [online] Available at: https://www.lastampa.it/cronaca/2022/06/14/news/la_storia_di_cloe_bianco_la_prof_transgender_che_si_e_data_fuoco_nel_suo_camper_ora_sono_libera_la_scuola_la_sospese_do-5405846/ [Accessed 20 Jun. 2022].

Open. (2022). Dal coming out a scuola al suicidio, tutta la storia di Cloe Bianco: la prof di fisica uccisa dalla transfobia. [online] Available at: https://www.open.online/2022/06/15/cloe-bianco-transfobia-suicidio-storia/.

Segal, L. (1994). Straight sex: Rethinking the politics of pleasure. Univ of California Press.

Senato della Repubblica , 2020, Misure di prevenzione e contrasto della discriminazione e della violenza per motivi fondati sul sesso, sul genere, sull’orientamento sessuale, sull’identità di genere e sulla disabilità available at: https://www.senato.it/service/PDF/PDFServer/DF/356433.pdf

Senato della repubblica, n.a., Constitution of the Italian Republic retrieved from https://www.senato.it/documenti/repository/istituzione/costituzione_inglese.pdf

Stonewall (2020). List of LGBTQ+ Terms. [online] Stonewall. Available at: https://www.stonewall.org.uk/help-advice/faqs-and-glossary/list-lgbtq-terms.

Kirby, P. (2022) Who is Giorgia Meloni? the rise to power of Italy’s new far-right PM, BBC News. BBC. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-63351655

Graduate Employability – Doing Enough?

ripleywk | 6 December 202212 January 2023

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

Federation of Small Businesses (2021) UK Small Business Statistics Take from https://www.fsb.org.uk/uk-small-business-statistics.html on 22 October 2022

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

ONS ( 2022) Calendar Year 2021, Graduate labour market statistics. https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/graduate-labour-markets (taken from the web 22 October 2022)

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

Sullivan, A., Parsons, S., Green, F., Wiggins, R.D., Ploubidis, G. (2018) Elite universities, fields of study and top salaries: Which degree will make you rich? Volume 44, Issue 4 P663-680

The Economist (2019a) Tertiary Education in Africa A Higher Challenge August 10, P38-39

The Economist (2019b) Idle Hands, August 3, P48-49

World Economic Forum (2020) The Future of Jobs Report 2020 Taken from WEF_Future_of_Jobs_2020.pdf (weforum.org) 22 October 2022

The “Necessary evil” of a compliance role for HR: Examining the day-to-day realities of human resources (HR) practice

ripleywk | 8 November 20229 November 2022

Dr Helen Mortimore and Dr Catherine Mackintosh

The problem for HR practitioners

When was the last time you heard somebody praise their HR department: “oh, they’re so helpful” or “they’re great at what they do”? HR professionals battle for credibility in organisations and struggle to convince others of their contribution. Many organisational members probably do not really know or have any interest in knowing what HR practitioners actually do on a day-to-day basis, never mind understand what doing it “well” might look like. Even more challenging for HR professionals though, is this lack of understanding and interest in the realities of HR practice is arguably just as true of many of the academics who study it.

The current narrative of most HR academics, practitioners, and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) emphasises the value of HR professionals as business partners to line managers who carry out devolved people management activity (e.g., Guest, 1987; Ulrich, 1997). In other words, it is suggested that to be strategic, HR practitioners should advise but not intervene with line managers who “do” people management. This idea of the “devolution” of HR management (HRM) is broadly accepted (Purcell & Hutchinson, 2007) but, nevertheless, is problematic for practitioners. It creates a tension where they are required to relinquish power to line managers but the accountability for HR outcomes remains with them (Sheehan et al., 2014). Current research tends to under-play and under-examine the influence of national regulation on HR practice (Gilbert et al., 2015). In the UK, where our research was undertaken, this means there is not sufficient consideration of how protective employment law, such as the Equality Act (2010), influence the work of HR professionals. In the UK, tribunals are the enforcement option for handling employment rights and HR practitioners are tasked by their organisations with managing legal risk and avoiding claims. However, this aspect of HR practice is near impossible to fulfil if HR professionals fully embrace the logic of devolution. Instead, the regulatory context creates an “interventionary” compliance role for HR, yet the HRM narrative that promotes devolution delegitimises such activity and may leave HR practitioners reluctant to promote this element of their role.

Our research

To gain insight into how HR professionals understand and navigate this tension between devolving people management activity to line managers, and the need to ensure compliance with national regulation, in our study we focused on talking to HR practitioners about what they actually do day-to-day (rather than what HR work “ought” to be). Our findings indicate that HR practitioners frame their role as both advisory and interventionary: they take an advisory, non-interventionary role when line managers’ decision-making is within a ‘safe zone’ but intervene when line managers risk provoking a tribunal claim. Both HR and line managers, from the perspective of the HR professionals, accept the need and value of this compliance role, seeing it as a “necessary evil” to protect the organisation.

Our findings highlight the strategies HR practitioners use to encourage compliant behaviour from line managers. At times, HR practitioners need to involve and garner support from those higher up the organisational hierarchy (e.g., the senior management team) in order to compel line manager action. As such, our data reveals that even in scenarios where a HR practitioner does not have the power to dictate line manager decision making (e.g., because HR lacks status within the organisation or the individual practitioner is more junior) they still have methods of moving between an advisory and interventionary approach to working with their stakeholders. When they consider it necessary to intervene, HR practitioners will also highlight the risk of tribunal claims and/or procure specialist legal advice to persuade line managers to adopt a specific course of action. This evidences how line managers can be unwilling to accept the recommendations of HR practitioners without the reinforcement of external legal advice, and therefore the challenges HR professionals face in establishing credibility with organisational actors. Importantly, while HR practitioners have strategies for overcoming these challenges and to influence line manager behaviour, these tactics do not necessarily resolve their struggles for status.

Despite HR practitioners use of employment lawyers to persuade and appease line managers, they do not simply regurgitate the third-party advice they have sourced. Our findings also demonstrate how HR professionals add value through their own balancing of the legal position and the specific needs and context of their organisation (e.g., taking into account the employer’s management of previous similar cases). However, HR professionals will not necessarily disclose this value adding activity to line managers as it may undermine the force and influence of obtaining the third-party advice. As such, aspects of HR’s compliance role, the skills and knowledge that they use to support positive outcomes for organisations, can go unseen and undervalued.

So what?

Based on the findings of our study, we propose that the value of and craft involved in HR’s compliance role has been downplayed by academics and the profession. We bring into question the nature of HR business partnering in organisations by highlighting that in their day-to-day working lives practitioners move between interventionary or advisory approaches to working with managers. We therefore suggest that intervention is not incommensurate with a HR Business Partner role but can be an essential element of it, and a component of effective HRM. Consequently, we call for researchers and the CIPD to acknowledge the need for and value of HR’s regulatory and compliance responsibilities in support of HR departments and professionals more clearly demonstrating their contribution to organisations.

If you are interested in this research and would like to know more, please contact: helen.mortimore@uwe.ac.uk or catherine.mackintosh@uwe.ac.uk

What do we want? Equal Pay! When do we want it? 1970!

jyotishaw | 20 January 202219 May 2025

This blog post was written by Hazel Conley, Professor of Human Resource Management in the Faculty of Business and Law.

Both Karl Marx and President Obama, although one rather more diplomatically than the other, noted that social progress can be measured by the way societies treat women and girls. That observation is as prescient today as it was in the 19^th Century. Some of our sisters are still fighting for even basic human rights and it wasn’t that long ago, 51 years to be precise, that working women in the UK were not deemed worthy of the same rates of payment, regardless of their level of skill, as even the most unskilled man. The idea of having a skilled male rate, a semi-skilled male rate, an unskilled male rate, a significantly lower woman’s rate, and although never formally acknowledged, the probability of an even lower Black woman’s rate, seems shocking now, but how far removed from the actuality of that are most organisations in 2021?

An interdisciplinary AHRC funded research project that I am working on with colleagues at UWE, Edinburgh University and UCL tracks the progress made towards women’s formal equality in the UK by examining the history of the equality legislation and the struggles fought by women to achieve it. My main role in the project is to lead the part of the research that examines equal pay and, more latterly, the gender pay gap. The starting point of this research is to examine the activism and events that led to the Equal Pay Act in 1970 and the continued efforts to make the law workable in the face of immense structural and attitudinal barriers to its effectiveness.

The research is proving to be fascinating in so many ways. As part of the research, I have been reading the Castle Diaries, the political autobiography of Baroness Barbara Castle, the Labour Party Politician who oversaw the passing of the Equal Pay Act 1970. Growing up in a working-class family active in trade unionism of the 1960s and 70s, it is a period in history that I still remember but, politically, it seems almost like reading science fiction. Thinking about a trade union movement with a powerful ‘seat at the table’ feels like another lifetime, but what was clear then and has continued to weave in and out of the history of equal pay, is the tension between collective bargaining and women’s pay equality. The tension is rooted in a conceptualisation of equal pay as a cost: an inflationary cost to the government of the 1960s and 70s, a cost in terms of the public sector pay bill for past and present governments, a cost to men’s wages for trade unions and the cost to private sector employers in the form of a drain on profits. Of course, we are now very familiar with ‘business case’ arguments for equality but it still feels unconscionable to think that equal pay for women should ever be reduced to a cost-benefit analysis. Pay equality on the basis of sex is a human right but still we have thousands of women fighting equal pay cases and a national gender pay gap of 15.5%, much the same as the Ford Dagenham women had in their now famous dispute in 1968. We might, therefore, ask just how far the social progress dial has moved in 51 years.

Unpacking the history of equal pay has undoubtedly confirmed that governments and employers will go to extraordinary lengths to limit the financial impact of anything approaching women’s pay equality. Trade unions have held a more ambivalent position, at times championing equal pay and at others being part of the problem rather than the solution. Looking in detail at the job evaluation scheme that relegated the Ford Dagenham women to 85% of the unskilled male rate is a classic example of how women were repeatedly hoodwinked and, quite frankly, bullied into accepting a lower rate for their work than they knew they were worth. At the start of their dispute the Ford women were angered by the grade they had been given following the job evaluation and may not have immediately recognised their sense of injustice as an equal pay dispute. At that time only middle-class women working in the civil service and teaching had nominally been granted equal pay, so why would women factory workers think, in 1968, that they should have equal pay with men when government, trade unions and employers alike told them that they were the bottom of the pile when it came to a share of the immense profits being made by the Ford Motor Company. Having said that, one of the trade unions involved, although it must be said rather instrumentally, raised the idea that the disparity was one of equal pay rather than simply a grading dispute. Regardless of arguments about whether the Ford women had class or feminist consciousness, the historical data point to the dispute being as much about equal pay as fair pay.

The next phase of our research will take us into the years following the implementation of the Equal Pay Act in 1975 when many of the overt cases of gendered pay discrimination had either been resolved or obscured to make it less evident, hiding in the crevices of inadequate legislation. The number of equal pay disputes began to decline in this period, not only as a result of the Equal Pay legislation but also because labour law during the Thatcher period and beyond made it increasingly difficult to take industrial action of any sort. Our early findings tentatively suggest that this may have had a particular impact on women’s collective disputes for equal pay and may have been one of a number of factors in the growing use of the equal pay legislation and case law from the mid-1980s onwards that has come to characterise women’s struggle for equal pay in the UK.

Forbes Article – ‘Gig workers are the workforce of the future: Here’s how to engage them’

jyotishaw | 16 March 202116 March 2021

Dr Rochelle Haynes, Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management at UWE Bristol and CEO of Crowd Potential Consulting Group co-authored a recent global survey of nearly 2,000 independent workers and business leaders, some of the survey findings were highlighted in a recent article written by Larry English for Forbes last month.

(Excerpts taken from Forbes article)

More and more, workers are breaking free of the 9-to-5 paradigm and striking out on their own as independent contractors, freelancers and digital nomads. Although a large percentage of business leaders expect gig workers to make up a larger share of their workforce in the near future, the reality is few have figured out how to effectively engage them. A recent global survey of nearly 2,000 independent workers and business leaders showed that only 10% of gig workers feel highly valued by their clients, and half feel undervalued. Additionally, many of these workers receive no support and are rarely recognized or rewarded for their contributions, says Dr. Rochelle Haynes.

The relationship between businesses and gig workers must evolve if businesses want to continue attracting top talent and maintain a competitive edge. In addition to highlighting the problems gig workers encounter, Dr. Haynes’s research also provided clarity on how businesses can better engage these workers and tap into their value:

Design a comprehensive onboarding process for gig workers. “One of the things we heard from digital nomads was that they’ve had jobs get delayed because they couldn’t get in touch with a person in the organization,” Dr. Haynes says.
Create a work environment that embraces all types of workers. Dr. Haynes, who helps companies and gigsters work better together, suggests putting mechanisms in place to make sure gig workers’ needs are being met – perhaps by offering a coworking membership or setting up hot desks at the office so gig workers can easily drop in.
Figure out what thrills your gig workers. “A lot of gig workers complained that they weren’t appreciated and recognized for what they do in the same way full-time workers were,” Dr. Haynes says, adding that companies need to learn how to adequately recognize the contributions of everyone.
Provide gig workers with some security. While some gig workers are happy to hop from job to job with no safety net, many others would appreciate some security, Dr. Haynes says. Considering that the biggest risks gig workers face are late payments and unreliable cash flow, companies should offer reliable payment and clear, mutually agreed-upon contracts.

To find out more about the four points above on successfully engaging Gig workers, read the full Forbes article HERE

Tag: Human resources