Categories
Academic

[ACADEMIC] Membership of Centre for Decent Work and Productivity @mmu_decentwork

I’m pleased to have been invited to join Manchester Metropolitan University’s new Centre for Decent Work and Productivity:

Work that is both decent for workers and productive for organisations, is vital to the success of any good society. Our research centre builds knowledge about the relationship between work quality and performance, and how these can be aligned.

We tackle the key question: “What is, and what causes, decent work and productivity?” through our four knowledge platformsThe knowledge platforms also address the seven challenges, which we believe decent work and productivity face.

  1. The Changing Nature of Work

  2. Workplace Wellbeing

  3. Vulnerable Workers in Employment and Self-Employment

  4. Creating Greater Diversity and Social Mobility in the Workplace

  5. Generating Decent and Productive Work in Small Enterprises

  6. Designing Decent and Productive Work in Health and Social Care

  7. Using Knowledge to Generate Decent Work and Productivity For All

My primary affiliation is with Work and Working Lives: ‘This platform is interested in managing people, worker voice, wellbeing at work, pay and reward, and regulation of work’, related to wellbeing at work in a digital age. I have a secondary affiliation with the Sylvia Pankhurst Gender and Diversity Research Centre: ‘This platform is interested in gender, sexuality, black and minoritised ethnic workers, age, class and caste’, especially related to women in leadership.

Categories
Event

[EVENT] Gathering of Women Leaders #GWLOct18

I wasn’t able to make it to London for the latest Gathering of Women Leaders. I always find it so encouraging and inspiring, so I’m glad to be able to catch up via tweets (around 65):

Photo from Sally Hunter

Categories
Digital

[GUEST BLOG] Stimulating the Next Generation of Digital Creatives with #DigiLeaders

Since I’ve moved to Manchester, I’ve been fortunate to attend a number of #DigiLeaders events, and volunteered to provide the write-up for the most recent one, held at the BBC in MediaCity. The blog starts: 2016-07-28 16.10.49

Around 20 creatives, academics, recruiters and business leaders met on 28th July at the BBC, MediaCity in Salford, in response to a statement produced by Digital Leaders Chair Rachel Neaman, that young “digital natives” are not as savvy as we think. This discussion was one of several had recently, concerned to address a large skills gap, with a fear that up to 80% of digital creative jobs required by 2017 will be unable to be filled by those coming through the education system.

Read the full article at digileaders.com: Stimulating the Next Generation of Digital Creatives http://digileaders.com/stimulating-next-generation-digital-creatives/

Categories
Life(style)

[STORIFY] Collected tweets from #GWLMar16

I’ve taken out the spam, otherwise it’s simply a reverse chronological order of tweets from yesterday’s Gathering of Women Leaders:

Categories
Event

Challenge and Inspiration: #GWLOct15

Gathering of Women Leaders started very small back in 2012 (here’s the original ideas – PDF) – I first visited one in 2013, and have endeavoured to make it to at least one every year (there have been three, next year there will be two), despite living a long way out of London – as I have formed some excellent relationships, friendships, and networking opportunities there (often all come together!) – whilst gaining the opportunity to hear from a wide range of women about issues, stories, celebrations that we can discuss.

Initially I’d been a little wary about joining a women’s group – these come with connotations of knitting, childcare, etc discussion – but I knew the people who were inviting me – and they were right – there was lots of meaty topics to get involved in – over time I’ve heard about the arts, theatre, women in ordained roles, women in everyday roles, domestic violence, FGM, and generally from women changing the world from where they are. Deeply inspiring. Deeply challenging.

We have a range of networking opportunities, then it’s onto the speakers. This time we had Jessie Joe Jacobs – award winning charity founder, and now activist with the Labour Party – determined to undertake structural change, rather than dealing with the effects of poor policy, especially with relation to poverty (and benefits):

We then heard from Emily Chalke – who has a lifelong passion for helping women be freed from prostitution and trafficking, and has been setting up a home for those women who tend to fall through the cracks in the system – she ran from Edinburgh to London to raise £30k to help kickstart it:

We also heard from Catriona Robertson, currently interim director for the Christian Muslim Forum alongside other roles – who is “interested in how people live well and equitably together without having to be the same. ”

We finished the day with q&a, and in group conversation about the themes that had rung through the day, and what we thought we were going to take away from it (aside from the left over sandwiches) … 

 

(I may have started the day with a few tweets from #GWL15!)

The next one is March 5th 2016 – keep an eye on the website for more information.