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Date: March 2010
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Nursing a headache?
Thursday, 25 March 2010
Category:
Health and Wellbeing
The NHS yesterday announced over £4bn in efficiency savings, including ambitious targets to reduce staff sickness absence. Commenting on these plans, Vince Cable – the Lib Dem Treasury spokesman - queried the feasibility of these and asked "And how do you make nurses not be ill?...".
Well, if Mr Cable had read the Boorman Review of the health of the NHS workforce, for which The Work Foundation led much of the research effort, he would find out that reductions in NHS staff sickness can be made if a mix of measures are taken to improve working conditions, to promote healthy lifestyle choices and enforce existing absence management and reporting. We calculated that, by reducing NHS absence to the average of the private sector, 15,000 more NHS staff would be available to deliver patient care each day – saving £555m annually. This not only saves money but also improves patient care – a double win. Of course nobody want NHS staff with infectious diseases wandering around wards making patients ill, but in reality most NHS absence is caused by musculoskeletal disorders and by depression and anxiety, some of which is preventable.
However, Mr Cable implies that illness among employees is not preventable. There are decades of research evidence which contradict this view – not least the Whitehall 2 study of Civil Servants conducted by Professor Sir Michael Marmot of University College London and one of the world’s most eminent epidemiologists. Our own research on Healthy Workplaces also shows how ‘good jobs’ can make a big difference to both employee health and to productivity.
‘Waste’ in the public sector is bound to be a political plaything as we approach the coming election, and sickness absence is an easy target for people wanting to score points. All I’d ask is that we leaven the political debate with some evidence.
Stephen Bevan
Is leadership in crisis?
Wednesday, 24 March 2010
Category:
Leadership
Enron fraud; MPs expenses and the latest lobbying scandal; financial services induced recession followed by record bonuses; executive pay rising consistently faster than average earnings – is leadership in crisis?
Ruth Spellman, chief executive, Chartered Management Institute
The Shape of Things to Come
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Category:
Knowledge Economy
As we entered the recession with a rate of decline steeper than anything in living memory, there was a proliferation of metaphors illustrating the recession’s likely shape.
Charles Levy
Softly, softly: Business policy from the Liberal Democrats
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Category:
Policy Reactions
In an interesting and engaging discussion at the Work Foundation today John (Lord) Thurso, Liberal Democrat Shadow of State for Business outlined the ‘direction of travel’ of Liberal Democrat policy in this area – and the economy more generally – for the forthcoming general election.
Ben Reid
Recession and the third sector
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
Category:
Leadership
As the economic news coverage moves from fears of a double-dip to public sector redundancies and back again, spare a thought for leaders in the third sector
Laurence Hopkins
The battle of the generations for workplace rewards
Friday, 12 March 2010
Category:
The Future of HR
This week we had the privilege of welcoming Dr Elaine Alden to The Work Foundation’s Research Rumbles where she presented her research on the connections between generational membership (Traditionalists; Baby Boomers, Gen X; Gen Y) and their reward preferences
Wilson Wong
Benefits cheats?
Wednesday, 10 March 2010
Category:
The Future of HR
Last night on BBC1 there were two programmes which presented an aspect of the world of work familiar to millions of people in the UK: seeking it. Both sought to understand the experience of joblessness through the presentation of a small number of individuals currently looking for work in the UK. However, here the similarities between them ended.
Benjamin Reid