UK’s ‘special relationship’ with India needs to be nurtured
Sunday, 21 September 2008
In a new report from research consultancy The Work Foundation, "The UK and India: the other ‘special relationship’?" the government is urged to do more to develop the special relationship between the UK and India.
Stephen Overell
More ‘good work’ needed to boost jobs and cut child poverty
Thursday, 18 September 2008
A package of policies designed to create more ‘good jobs’ is urged today in a new report. The quality of employment has an impact on health, life expectancy and life chances and government cannot make serious progress towards the reduction of health inequalities unless it has policies to improve job quality for the most disadvantaged. Work is better for health and life expectancy than worklessness, but it is only really good for us if it is ‘good work’, the report argues.
Stephen Overell
The Work Foundation announces new work programmes
Tuesday, 09 September 2008
The Work Foundation today announces changes to its structure and focus to consolidate its position as the leading research and consultancy organisation specializing in work in the UK and Europe.
Stephen Overell
Gap widening between ‘resurgent’ and ‘stuck cities’
Wednesday, 16 July 2008
The Work Foundation today releases a league table of the productivity of different cities across the UK that reveals wide and growing disparities between ‘resurgent’ cities and those that appear to be ‘stuck’.
Stephen Overell
Better management is the key to tackling workers’ stress
Monday, 16 June 2008
The combination of demanding, complex jobs and low levels of support from managers and colleagues is driving the high prevalence of stress among workers, The Work Foundation says today. When job intensity is coupled with inadequate support and few opportunities for employees to progress in their careers, symptoms such as sleeping problems, anxiety, irritability and stress are a likely result.
Stephen Overell
UK must attract more highly skilled migrant workers
Monday, 02 June 2008
The UK will need to attract more highly skilled workers from abroad - both from the European Union and outside it - in order to secure the future of high technology, ‘knowledge intensive’ industries in an increasingly global world, a new report finds today.
Stephen Overell
How cities can make the most of collaboration projects?
Tuesday, 13 May 2008
The government risks creating so many partnership programmes among local authorities that the real benefits of collaboration — co-ordination, simplification, and more voice and influence - become undermined, a new report says today.
Steve Overell
'Meaningful work': what it is and why it's growing
Tuesday, 06 May 2008
The Work Foundation today publishes a new essay that asks what is ‘meaningful work’, why more people seem to be seeking it, and what employers can do to make work more meaningful?
Stephen Overell
Knowledge economy programme – new report published
Tuesday, 11 March 2008
The Work Foundation today publishes a report outlining its research thus far into the knowledge economy, 18 months into a three-year, £1.5 million research programme which will conclude in April 2009.
Stephen Overell
Public as well as private sector spending drives knowledge economy success in cities all over the UK
Monday, 07 January 2008
The ‘poorer North’ and ‘richer South’ idea of the UK is no longer an accurate description of the economic life of the nation, a new report finds today. The new report argues that a more subtle analysis of cities across the UK is needed if policy makers are to fully understand their diverse economic profiles and find the right policies to help different places flourish.
Stephen Overell
CEOs should not be paid for risks they do not bear
Saturday, 22 December 2007
Being a chief executive of a major company is a relatively low-risk job in comparison with many other sorts of work, a new paper argues. Therefore, the old arguments about risk and reward traditionally deployed by those seeking to justify growing chief executive pay packets cannot be sustained.
Stephen Overell
Cities gear up in ‘battle for distinctiveness’
Monday, 08 October 2007
A new paper from The Work Foundation today says that in ‘distinctiveness’ - the discovery of specialisms and characteristics that help cities build and sustain a cohesive identity - an alternative strategy to the apparent homogenisation of Britain’s towns and high streets is opening up.
Stephen Overell
Work is ‘cure as well as cause’ of major workplace illnesses
Friday, 07 September 2007
'Musculoskeletal disorders’ (MSDs) - an umbrella term that covers over 200 different ailments including arthritis, back pain and damage to joints, muscles and tendons - affect twice as many people as ‘stress’, account for up to a third of all GP consultations, cause 9.5 million lost working days, and cost society £7.4bn a year*.
Stephen Overell
Regional ‘knowledge economy’ overshadowed by London
Monday, 03 September 2007
The difficulty of creating ‘knowledge economy’ jobs in cities based in the north and west of the UK may be the principal reason for the continuation of the north-south divide, a new report argues today.
Stephen Overell
Report hails economic vitality of Britain's creative industries
Monday, 25 June 2007
The value of Britain’s flourishing creative industries to the economy is now broadly comparable to that of the financial services sector, a new report says today. But without careful policy-making, targeted public investment and a supportive institutional architecture, the flow of creativity worth commercialising may begin to slow, it warns.
Stephen Overell
The Work Foundation moves to new premises
Tuesday, 03 April 2007
After more than 40 years in Carlton House Terrace, the Board and Directors of The Work Foundation have decided that it is time for The Work Foundation to have a new home. So in May 2007 the organisation will relocate to a new state-of-the-art suite of offices and event space in Palmer Street, London, SW1, beside St James's tube station
Stephen Overell
'Britain needs ‘knowledge economy policy’
Tuesday, 20 March 2007
Gordon Brown should use the opportunity of the Comprehensive Spending Review this summer to set out an economic policy that will enable Britain to flourish in the knowledge economy, The Work Foundation says today.
Stephen Overell
The Future of Welfare Reform
Monday, 12 February 2007
Commenting on today's speech by Jim Murphy MP, minister of state for employment and welfare reform, Will Hutton, chief executive of The Work Foundation said:
Stephen Overell
1-2-3-4-5: The magic numbers for economic improvement
Tuesday, 23 January 2007
Many of society’s most intractable social problems - crime, drugs misuse, unemployment, poor skills and endemic unhappiness - are rooted in the experiences of children during their first five years of life.
Steve Overell
Employment law not the only route to justice at work
Friday, 12 January 2007
The cause of justice at work will not be best served by introducing any new employment laws in the near future. Instead, what is needed is a new policy initiative aiming to encourage employers both to comply with existing laws and actively pursue a fairness at work agenda.
Stephen Overell
CEOs should not be paid for risks they do not bear
Friday, 22 December 2006
Being a chief executive of a major company is a relatively low-risk job in comparison with many other sorts of work, a new paper argues. Therefore, the old arguments about risk and reward traditionally deployed by those seeking to justify growing chief executive pay packets cannot be sustained.
Stephen Overell
Managers and professionals dominate new job growth
Thursday, 14 December 2006
Relatively well-paying managerial, professional and semi-professional type jobs have grown faster than any other sort of work in the UK over the last decade, a new analysis from The Work Foundation reveals.
Stephen Overell
Public sector work-life balance is more rhetoric than reality
Thursday, 07 December 2006
Employers in the public sector ‘talk the talk’ on work-life balance, but have only low levels of commitment to changing standard working patterns in practice – and in some cases deliberately block people from flexible working or grant requests only to selected favourites
Stephen Overell
UK Competitiveness Index
Monday, 13 November 2006
North-south divide is beginning to close
The first compelling evidence that the north-south divide that has marred British economic life for a generation is beginning to close is published today.
Stephen Overell
Low investment limits the knowledge economy dividend, report finds
Thursday, 12 October 2006
European countries together have a ‘knowledge economy’ that is as big if not bigger than that of the US, with over 40 per cent of workers employed in knowledge-based industries*. But the continent has not matched the US in terms of economic growth and productivity largely because it has not invested as much in its knowledge base and may be suffering a slowdown in technological progress as a result.
Stephen Overell
Too much recklessness blights government IT projects, report finds
Tuesday, 19 September 2006
Contrary to the stereotype, public sector managers have sometimes been too gung-ho in their attitude to risk when developing and implementing information technology projects, wasting many millions of pounds of taxpayer’s money in the process
Stephen Overell
New study exposes flexibility myths
Monday, 12 June 2006
The widespread conviction that low levels of employment regulation and weak trade unions are the cause of Britain’s good record at creating jobs and keeping unemployment down is today exposed as a myth in a new study by The Work Foundation
Stephen Overell
Tesco and corporate responsibility
Wednesday, 10 May 2006
Tesco’s is leading the debate about what corporate responsibility means, says The Work Foundation
Stephen Overell
Knowledge economy project
Friday, 28 April 2006
Biggest ever research programme on the knowledge economy, led by The Work Foundation receives Chancellor Gordon Brown’s support
Stephen Overell
Peugeot Citroen closure
Sunday, 02 April 2006
Peugeot Citroen closure will be as devastating for redundant workforce as Longbridge warns The Work Foundation
Stephen Overell
Workworld Awards winners
Friday, 20 January 2006
The Work Foundation’s Workworld Awards Winners Announced
Stephen Overell
Healthy work: productive workplaces report
Friday, 30 December 2005
In a report published on 30 December 2005, 'Healthy Work: Productive Workplaces', The Work Foundation has joined with the London Health Commission to warn that Government strategy on health and work lacks cohesion and will have little impact on the real issues affecting health and productivity.
Stephen Overell
Wait 'til your father gets home?
Tuesday, 11 October 2005
The offer to take six months of unpaid paternity leave will be ignored by new dads, warns The Work Foundation.
Stephen Overell
Money, Tickets, Passport, Blackberry??
Thursday, 25 August 2005
The British summer holiday is synonymous with traffic jams, inclement weather and bored children, but for some it is all about work.
Stephen Overell
British Business DNA Decoded
Tuesday, 19 July 2005
The Work Foundation today (19 July 2005) launched the findings of its year long investigation into how the UK's companies could be more productive.
Stephen Overell
Ideopolis: Knowledge City research
Friday, 08 April 2005
Business and Public Sector combine to back Ideopolis: Knowledge City research into knowledge economy and regional cities
Stephen Overell