Category Archives: Blog

Changing Organisational Space: Green? Or Lean and Mean?

 

“As organisations strive towards creating a greener workspace, managers must take great care how they explain to staff the reasoning behind the changes. Too often, what’s intended to be ‘green’ is instead views as ‘mean’”, Professor Pauline Leonard.

A recent study at the University of Southampton’s Work Futures Research Centre was published in the leading government and public service media platforms: the Public Servant and Government Today.

The research project ‘Making the Workplace Work’, funded by the British Council for Offices, aims to contribute to sociological understanding of organizational environmentalism through a focus on the workplace and changes in workspace. Lead by Professor Pauline Leonard, Professor of Sociology and Co-Director of the WFRC, the research findings was published in the following articles:

Going Green? Look out for the backlash, Public Servant, Edition December 2012

Stop presenting sustainability as a Con, Government Today, Featured Article, 27th November 2012.

he recent dynamism in the design of workspace is frequently constructed by developers and managers as motivated by a desire to improve sustainability. These claims are reflected in the growing currency of ‘greenspeak’ in organizational discourses and policies at local, national and global levels, as well as a developing academic interest in organizational environmentalism. This article explores the extent to which the increase in an environmental rhetoric has been accompanied by a meaningful shift in organizational practices. Drawing on a new empirical study exploring the place of sustainability within workspace transformation, the study engages with Lefebvre and Foucault to argue that ‘green’ has frequently become bound up with ‘lean’ and ‘mean’ within organizational discourses and imaginations. This has important policy implications for organizations as well as broader theoretical implications for organizational environmental sociology.

Further information:

Changing Organisational Space: Green? Or Lean and Mean? Sociology published online 16 May 2012

 

Speaking truth to power

The WFRC responds to parliamentary consultation on health workforce

Speaking truth to power might be a duty of researchers or ‘public intellectuals’ but we seldom have direct access to the ears of those in government.  Instead we spend an inordinate amount of time trying to disseminate research via reports, conferences, papers and the occasional press release in the hope that policy makers will listen.  When we heard that the House of Commons Health Committee wanted responses to its consultation on health education, training and workforce planning it was an opportunity we could not ignore.  We were able to call on the knowledge of WFRC members based in the Faculties of Medicine and Health Sciences who educate future health professionals to point out how the mix of skills of healthcare staff is changing – for example by extended scope physiotherapists who use techniques previously only used by orthopaedic surgeons. We crafted a short response to the consultation drawing on our expertise – for example citing our recent research about how information technology was being used to augment or ‘replace’ roles and at healthcare workplaces as learning environments.

Over a hundred individual pieces of written evidence were submitted alongside evidence from an impressive cast of witnesses ranging from Dr Peter Carter the General Secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, to Dr Patricia Hamilton CBE the Director of Medical Education at Department of Health. Launching the Committee’s report Stephen Dorrell MP criticised NHS workforce training as “complex, inflexible and unfair” and aired concerns about workforce planning in the reconfigured NHS. As we here at Southampton prepare for the new academic year – greeting the new cohorts of doctors, nurses and allied health professionals joining courses at this University, and as we continue to research healthcare work futures, we are looking through the government’s response to the inquiry, published in September to see if they were listening.

Work Thought Blog

The Directors of WFRC (Pauline Leonard, Susan Halford, Alison Fuller and Catherine Pope) monthly Work Thought blog.

Bringing you the very latest news and discussions on the wide range of work-related research carried out within the Work Futures Resource Centre.