Publications

Setting up HR shared services in local government

Through combining dispersed human resources' (HR) administrative activities, shared services can deliver cost and quality benefits for councils. This guide examines some of the key issues councils should consider when introducing HR shared services. It presents possible options, offers the big questions to ask – for councillors and senior managers – and provides some practical suggestions on where to start.

Anticipating and Managing Restructuring: Ireland

This national background paper examines restructuring developments in Ireland. It gives an overview of the general economic and labour market context of the country, in particular against the background of the economic crisis. The report includes data on redundancies, and the challenges that the rising level of redundancies pose, especially in sectors such as construction, which has been particularly hard hit by the recent recession.

Large Scale Change - NHS Mobilisation

NHS Institute commissioned the Institute for Employment Studies to undertake work to understand how social movement theory could provide insights into how to reconnect the Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention message to the core values of staff and create a ‘contagious commitment’ to rapidly increasing quality and driving down costs. This report is structured around a visual summary of the social movement literature.

European Restructuring Monitor Quarterly - 2010, Issue 1

Though no longer in recession, the EU economy remained fragile, with growth well below trend rates. Unemployment continued to rise, though at a slowing pace (it stood at 9.6% in the EU27 in February 2010).

Public/private sector sickness absence: the impossible divide

Can the gap between public and private sector sickness absence levels ever be closed?

This article examines explanations for the differences between public and private sector performance when it comes to sickness absence levels and suggests that some simple changes in public sector policy and practice could make a very real difference, provided that the public sector follows the general public trend, selects the 'value' or 'basics' range of products, and makes the best use of 'well-worn clothes'.

Employment and Skills: six critical priorities for the next government

With over 40 years’ experience of policy evaluation and labour market research in the UK and abroad, the Institute for Employment Studies (IES) gathered a wide range of evidence on the most important issues that needed to be tackled to raise employment and skills levels across the economy. IES identified half a dozen important policy issues to be first across the desks of the new ministers with briefs relating to education, skills, health, welfare and work, and some of the solutions needed to consider to help tackle these key issues.