Longer nursing shifts might ‘hit patient care’

Peter Griffiths

Our recent paper about the length of nursing shifts in hospitals has attracted quite a lot of attention including, I am reliably informed, a piece in the daily Sun. In simple terms, the issue is this: Traditionally, shift work was organised by dividing the day into three eight-hour shifts. Workers would generally work 5 such shifts per week. This pattern was the norm in nursing for many years. In common with other industries there is now a trend for some hospitals to adopt longer shifts, typically two shifts per day each lasting 12-13 hours. Employees work fewer shifts each week (generally three instead of five). Changes are driven by perceived efficiencies for the employer (fewer handovers and reduced overlap between shifts), and improved work life balance for employees because they work fewer days per week. However, persistent concerns have been raised about negative impacts on the quality of care associated with working longer hours.

Our study, based on a cross-sectional survey of 31,627 registered nurses in general medical/surgical units within 488 hospitals across 12 European countries, found that 15% worked these long shifts. But in some countries, most notably England, Ireland and Poland, the practice was far more common. Nurses working longer shifts were more likely to report poor patient safety, quality of care and more care activities left undone. This effect was independent of any effect of working overtime.

Now, there are lots of issues here – in the end this is only self-report. However, these results are consistent with a number of studies from other countries showing higher rates of nurse burnout and even increased patient deaths in hospitals where nurses work 12 hour shifts.

So what are we to make of these findings? Our results suggest that a policy of moving to longer shifts to reduce overall workforce requirements may have unintended consequences and reduce the efficiency and effectiveness of the workforce in delivering high quality, safe care. But the response to our paper in the social media makes it clear that the issue is not simple. While many nurses responding to reports of the study in the ‘trade’ magazine Nursing Times agreed that working long shifts compromised quality, others (and sometimes the same nurses) expressed a strong preference for them. The emphasis seemed to be on the benefits of the extra days off. Most of these benefits were for the nurses themselves, not for the quality of care they could provide.

This presents a dilemma. Personally, the idea of working 12-13 hours in a busy hospital ward is a daunting one. On the other hand the idea that I might only have to work on 3 days per week is appealing. I might be tempted by such a compromise. But what should be done if what is at stake is not simply an equation to be balanced between my preferences and my employer’s desire for efficiency. What is at stake here is the quality and safety of hospital care.

I suspect that there is no going back. Hospitals with 12 hour shift patterns are likely to find it very difficult to move back because their employees, often female and with children, have organised their lives around this pattern. But research such as ours does point to the vital importance of considering some of the staples of research on shift work over the years. It becomes increasingly important to ensure that nurses get adequate opportunity for rest between shifts and are not required to work too many long shifts in a row. And perhaps, if more research like this accumulates, some consideration does need to be given to restricting choice. The EU working time directive governs many aspects of working hours but, as far as I can see, these shift patterns seem largely outside its scope. But in the end, should employees in safety critical work be permitted to choose to work in ways that are known to increase risk and should employers be allowed to ask them to?

(c)evolution-diet.com

Griffiths , P., D’all Ora, C., Simon, M., Ball, J., Lindqvist, R., Rafferty, A.M., Schoonhoven, L., Tishelman, C., Aiken, J.L., in press. Nurses’ shift length and overtime working in 12 European countries: the association with perceived quality of care and patient safety. Medical Care (online early DOI doi: 10.1097/MLR.0000000000000233

Are government workers really more public-spirited than those in the private sector?

Authors:
Mirco Tonin, Senior Lecturer in Economics at University of Southampton
Michael Vlassopoulos, Senior Lecturer in Economics at University of Southampton
The following article was originally posted at ‘The conversation‘ blog.

A fifth of UK workers are employed in the public sector. Though public sector work is obvious crucial – schools, hospitals, police and so on – measuring performance can be a challenge as output is not generally sold to customers and thus metrics like revenues or profits are not available.

Public organisations also often pursue many different objectives, with various stakeholders having divergent interests. For these reasons, the public sector is prone to phenomena like waste, regulatory capture or outright corruption. So if the public sector is to function well it is important that it is staffed by workers who are intrinsically motivated to deliver high quality services.

There is a concern that this type of public service motivation may be crowded out if services are privatised or outsourced to the private sector. Financial incentives, such as performance-related pay, may also attract into public service workers who are more sensitive to monetary incentives, but less motivated by serving the public. These financial incentives may also redirect effort towards the measures of performance that carry the best rewards, but potentially away from what really matters for a good public service.

To assess these issues it is important to understand first of all whether the public sector is indeed effective in attracting motivated workers.

Measuring motivation

So, how can one measure how prevalent public service motivation is in the government sector? Researchers in public administration and economics have relied mainly on two approaches:

Asking workers whether helping others or advancing social causes is an important value – that is, relying on what workers report as being important to them.
Using a person’s engagement in various positive social activities such as blood donation, volunteering, or charitable donations as indication of his or her public service motivation.

The first approach relies on what people say, whereas the second relies on what they do (or at least, say they do).

Still, finding out that a certain share of the public sector workforce donates blood, for instance, is not by itself very informative. To assess whether public sector employees exhibit public service motivations, a benchmark is needed. The typical strategy used in this line of research is to compare them to employees in the private sector that look as similar as possible in terms of personal characteristics (age, gender, education and so on).

The results are in

A recent study we carried out employs a survey of workers and retirees aged 50 and above across 12 countries in continental Europe, to perform this type of analysis. The survey asks people whether they volunteer for a charity, and the answer to this question is used as a proxy for one’s public service motivation.

Focusing on a sample of elderly workers and retirees, beyond being interesting in its own right because of ageing, has the merit that these individuals have made their career choices, unlike younger workers who may be still job-hopping in search of their dream career. Therefore, the sector of employment of a 60-year-old is likely to reflect his or her job preferences, whereas asking a 20-year-old his current sector of employment may be a much poorer indicator.

The average proportion of volunteers in the 12 countries is about 16%, with countries in the south such as Greece or Portugal having fewer volunteers and countries like the Netherlands recording almost one in three workers and retirees as volunteers. The study finds that current and former public sector workers are more likely to volunteer compared to those in the private sector. In particular, working in the public sector makes volunteering about three percentage points more likely.

However, this difference can be attributed to the composition of the public sector workforce. The public sector tends to employ workers with higher education and in occupations that require higher skills, and these people tend to volunteer more.

Of course, there are important differences across jobs in the private and public sector (working hours, job pressure) and these factors also influence one’s decision to volunteer. To address this possibility, we also looked at retirees, who have completed employment in either the public or private sector. By definition, there are no differences in working conditions among retirees. Our results for retirees were similar to those for current workers, thus confirming that, once we compare like for like, there is no difference across sectors.

There is just one exception to the rule: teachers. When we break down the public sector into the different industries (health, education, public administration and so on), we see that former public sector education workers are more motivated by public service than similar workers in the private sector.

All in all, there is good and bad news in these results. The good news is that, on average, workers in the public sector tend to be more involved in sociable activities as they are more educated and skilled. The bad news is that, beyond this effect, the public sector does not appear to attract particularly public-spirited workers.

Five years into Work Futures

We established the Work Futures Research Centre in December 2008 with four co-directors: Professor Susan Halford, Professor Pauline Leonard, Professor Alison Fuller, and Professor Catherine Pope. Originally supported by the Research Strategy sub-committee of the School of Social Sciences, a year later WFRC became a University Strategic Research Group.

Our objectives are :

– To build a collaborative, interdisciplinary network for academic research on changing forms of work organisation, workforce change, development and learning, and employment

– To improve links with employers, policy makers, and other stakeholders outside the University to strengthen Work Futures research

– To inform and influence the agenda for research on Work Futures and position the University of Southampton as a leading centre for this research

Since 2008 members of our WFRC network have raised in excess of £4.5m in funding across 21 research projects linked to our priorities. Our research has led to over 30 research papers and contributed to different Units of Assessment in the University’s REF2014 submission.

Recent successes include a commissioned scoping study for ESRC, on the ‘New Dynamics of Working’ which will inform research strategy for this major funder. Pauline Leonard and Susan Halford were also recipients of funding from the inaugural PublicPolicy@Southampton project which led to a symposium at the House of Commons on ‘Gender Equality at Work: How far have we come and how far have we got to go?’ in 2013.

WFRC members developed an innovative undergraduate curriculum module ‘Work and Employment Theory in Practice’ and delivered a multidisciplinary seminar series with the Digital Economy USRG focussed on the role of technology in school-to-work transition.

In September 2013, Alison Fuller left the University of Southampton to take up a new post at the Institute of Education at the University of London ESRC Centre for Learning and Life Chances in Knowledge Economies. Alison remains a key collaborator in WFRC and Professor Peter Griffiths has joined us as a co-director. Peter is based in Faculty of Health Sciences and brings further expertise on workforce configuration and organisational policy in health sector to the Centre. Peter is currently working on a major review for NICE about staff-patient ratios in the NHS.

WiSET/WFRC Campbell Lecture: So who was Ishbel Campbell?

One month today, WiSET will be hosting the annual Campbell Lecture, in celebration of women in STEM subjects. This year’s double bill is co-sponsored by the WFRC, but it’s surprisingly hard to find information on who Ishbel Campbell was, and why we have a lecture named after her. WFRC coordinator Jo Corsi decided to find out more.

Ishbel Grace MacNaughton Campbell was the 9^th child of Reverend John Campbell and Elizabeth Balfour Renwick, of Newtonmore, Scotland. [1] She was a pioneering chemist, who spent much of her academic life at the University of Southampton, and can be considered to be a fantastic influence on young chemistry students (particularly female students) during her time here.

Ish, as she was known, was a science student at the University of St Andrews from 1923 – 1927, and graduated with First Class Honours. Following this she was able to take up a place as a research student, with the support of a Carnegie Fellowship. Her PhD was awarded in 1931, although she did not attend graduation as she was at that time working at Cornell University, funded by a Commonwealth Fellowship [2] (one of the first awarded to a woman,[3] now known as a Harkness Fellowship [4]).

After a brief period at Bedford College, which was the first higher education college for women in Britain, Ish joined the Chemistry department at Southampton in 1938. [3] Whilst at Southampton she was responsible for teaching organic chemistry, [5] as well as undertaking her own research. She is most well-known for her work on organic compounds of the Group V elements, [6] in days before modern spectroscopic techniques were available. Former PhD student, Martin Hocking recalls: “Ish was experimentally well known for her ability to coax more-or-less pure crystals of a new substance from tiny amounts of solution of an unlikely looking, gluey reaction product. It was rumoured that her success was the beneficiary of traces of her cigarette ash that provided nuclei in the crystallization test tube to help initiate the crystallization process aided by temperature changes and by scratching the side of the tube with a glass rod.” [3]

Ish was popular with her students, who remember a caring and supportive lecturer. Brain Halton, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at the Victoria University of Wellington recalls: “Ishbel Campbell waited with us outside the examination hall checking that we were all there and wishing us the best. If one of a class failed to appear, she would promptly rush away to bring the errant being in”. [5]

Ish was physically active, and is known to have enjoyed long walks in the hills around Southampton. She also played tennis into her 80s, [3] in addition to representing the University of St Andrews as an undergraduate. [2] She was a regular sight at the University well after her retirement, with Hocking recalling that she never really retired: “Long after her official retirement Ish enthusiastically gave us a tour of the new medical faculty at Southampton and where she had volunteered to teach courses in chemistry to new medical students. ‘It keeps me young’ she said, and it certainly worked!”. [3]

After her arrival at the University of Southampton, Ish lived in Highfield for the remainder of her life, first in Glebe Court, [7] and later in Orchards way. Ish was elected Fellow of the Chemical Society in 1940, [7] and was later promoted to Reader. [6] Ish passed away at a residential home in Blenheim Avenue, Southampton in October 1997, at 91 years of age. [8]

Today, there are few reminders on campus of a woman who spent well over 50 years at the University of Southampton. The undergraduate teaching facilities on level 5 of the Chemistry building are named the Campbell Laboratory, and are situated where her own research would have taken place. [4] On March 19th, we will celebrate diversity with the annual Campbell lecture, hosted by WiSET, with speakers Curt Rice and Athene Donald. I hope a few people will take a minute to think of the “slight, but physically tough and proud Scottish spinster” [3] in whose name we are gathering.

Tickets to the lecture are available (for free) through Eventbrite.

References:

Family Search Community Trees, accessed 10/02/2014
The McNaughtons and the University of St Andrews, Alasdair McNaughton, accessed 10/02/2014
Rayner-Canham, M. and G., (2008) Chemistry Was Their Life: Pioneering British Women Chemists, 1880-1949, London: Imperial College Press
Records of Harkness Fellowships of the Commonwealth Fund: Australian Division, accessed 10/02/204
From Coronation Street to Consummate Chemist, Brian Halton, accessed 10/02/2014
Chem. Brit., April 1998, 34, 72
Proc. Chem. Soc., 1940, 10
The London Gazette, 23^rd February 1998, accessed 10/02/2014

With thanks to Geoff and Marelene Rayner-Canham for sharing their notes.

Work Futures for Older Workers

This edition of the Work Thought Blog was contributed by WFRC chair Susan Halford.

As the 21^st century unfolds, it is rapidly becoming clear that most of us – in the West at least – will have to stretch our working lives far further into old age than the recently retiring generations. The steps taken by governments, employers and financial institutions to deal with the ongoing pensions’ crisis means that most of us will simply not be able to afford to retire in our early or mid-60s. Meanwhile, and in any case, the ageing demography of Western nations will demand that older workers stay in the labour market longer to fuel the emergent recovery and beyond.

Nowhere are the demands for older workers going to be more keenly felt than in the healthcare sector, where the conditions described above are greatly exacerbated by the needs of an ageing population for services and care. In short there’s a double whammy: an ageing workforce must meet the demands of an ageing population. To make matters worse, the healthcare sector currently has one of the worst records for long-term sickness and highest rates of early retirement of any sector in the labour market. It’s a triple whammy.

More generally, one thing is clear: we cannot continue to provide healthcare services in the way we have been doing. Whilst the precise solutions vary, there is widespread recognition that the balance between primary and community care must shift, so that fewer people are treated in expensive hospital beds, and that the traditional boundaries between professions and organizations must be breached to enable more flexible, joined up services. And new technologies are being introduced to underpin these changes, promising improved information, that can be used to manage complex patient trajectories, across multiple boundaries and provide detailed management information from which further lessons can be learnt and efficiency improvements made. But here’s the paradox: research across a range of disciplines suggests that the prevalence of early retirements rises in those organizations with the highest levels of change, particularly change linked to technical innovation. To put it bluntly: we have a looming workforce crisis in public healthcare, that will lead to major social crisis if we can’t resolve it, and current changes designed to secure the future of the health care system may only make things worse!

So it is rather important that we begin to unpick the dynamics of this. What is the relationship between organizational change and early retirements? Is this inevitable? And are there ways that we might intervene? The answer depends on how we understand age and ageing. If, as some research has suggested, older workers are simply more conservative and resistant to learning or change then we have a problem and, in healthcare especially, one that may be exaggerated by the physical demands of clinical work. However, recent research by WFRC in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Tromsø suggests a rather different explanation. This three year project with doctors and nurses over 50 years old, including some in retirement, at two large University hospitals in Norway concluded that it is not age per se that leads to early retirement but rather the conditions of work and organization of the workplace that leads to staff feeling under-valued, out-of step and incapable. It is not age that makes these workers resistant to change; its change – and the way it is (mis)managed – that makes these workers feel old. Feeling old, often for the first time, leads to thoughts of retirement. In particular, changes to the organization of work may make certain skills redundant, whilst staff are sometimes expected to just pick up new skills with very little training (especially related to the use of digital systems). Furthermore, the continued organization of working hours around the standard shift pattern can make the work too much for those with physical limitations, as well as those with domestic responsibilities (ageing parents can be as much of a conflicting demand for time and energy as children, but few employers are willing to recognise this). These points are underscored by the many cases that were found in the research where older workers were happily staying in healthcare work. These were the niches where older workers skills were still valued, where training and support was given, and where line managers made special arrangements to enable appropriate working hours and responsibilities (albeit ‘below the radar’ of senior managers). Notably, the research found that working conditions for nurses were far more likely to produce age than those for doctors reflecting – perhaps – the greater autonomy and higher status of the medical profession and the associated capacity to achieve concessions e.g. reduced hours. Note too the gendering of these professions.

Overall then the challenges of an ageing workforce are not primarily about age, in and of itself, they are about how we design work, how we structure our workplaces and what we expect of our staff. Whilst these points may be very familiar in relation to previous debates about gender at work, to date we have barely scratched the surface in thinking about them in relation to age and ageing. Now is the time to so, to support those of us who must continue working into later years and to ensure that we retain a skilled and committed workforce to care for all of us into the future.

Out with the old…?

This month’s Work Thought blog post is provided by WFRC Chair Professor Pauline Leonard.

As we leave the trappings of seasonal celebrations behind us and tip headlong into another ‘new’ year, I find myself pausing to think: just what was achieved last year in terms of improving issues of gender equality at work? In many ways I feel it can be viewed as really quite a productive time: the period immediately after our publicpolicy@southampton event on ‘Gender Equality at Work: How far have we come and how far have we got to go?’ held at the House of Commons on the eve of International Women’s Day 2013 saw the publication of several high profile policy reviews, well covered in the national media, which pushed gender workplace equality thoroughly into the public eye. So far so good-but did the reports contain any hope of positive change?

The Fawcett Society’s excellent report ‘The Changing Labour Market: delivering for women, delivering for growth’ openly questioned the current Government’s plans for growth. In short, it argued, this is leaving women behind: 60% of ‘new’ private sector jobs have gone to men, whilst almost 3 times as many women as men have become long term unemployed in the last couple of years. Even more worrying is their warning that the worst is yet to come: although women have already borne the brunt of cuts to the public sector workforce, some 75% of these are still to emerge.

No good news there then! Then, there was the House of Commons’ own report produced by the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee on ‘Women in the Workplace’. This noted the fundamental right of all of us to reach our full potential at work, and acknowledged the sheer waste in individual, social and economic terms if this does not happen. The use of ‘if’ here is of course somewhat whimsical: ‘that’ would be a more accurate conjunction. For of course, as the report goes on to confirm, after 40 years of legislation, equality of pay has not been achieved, as the gendered stereotypes governing jobs, childcare, opaque pay agreements and domination of men at senior levels continue to describe the UK’s labour market.

So, same old, same old! The Institute of Public Policy Research exploration of the promises of gender equality in their report ‘Great Expectations’ argued for a rather different approach. The chapter on women in work-entitled ‘False Promises’- intelligently suggested that the usual measurements of equality-employment rates, average pay and advancement to senior positions-are misleading. Rather, what needs to be tackled are the underlying causes of women’s disadvantage, particularly the poor quality of work at the bottom of the labour market and the impact of women’s primary responsibility for care on their employment prospects.

These are only three reports of many which appeared last year: the Centre for Women’s Democracy produced another eye-popping expose of ‘Sex and Power’ and the ways that the UK is run by men; the European Institute for Gender Equality produced an Index which revealed how work operates to the detriment of women across the labour markets of Europe, and the Women’s Resource Centre raised serious questions about the Government’s commitment to women’s equality here in the UK. Further, the relentless findings of the year’s many reports were joined by a continuous stream of evidence about discrimination produced across the media, both mass and social.

On reflection then, it was certainly a noisy year! And from this I draw some glimmers of hope for 2014. My new year’s resolution? Keep the pressure on! The Work Futures Research Centre will be contributing to this with their sponsorship of Professor Curt Rice as one of two high profile speakers at the prestigious Campbell Lecture on March 19th 2014. Curt Rice is a Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study. From 2009–2013, he served as the elected Vice Rector for Research and Development (prorektor for forskning og utvikling) at the University of Tromsø, where he is a professor of linguistics. He tells us that his talk will argue that the core challenge to improving gender balance is finding ways to overcome implicit bias. We can’t wait to hear more…

You can book your place at the Campbell Lecture here.

Holiday balancing acts: misogyny, work and leadership

This month’s post is a review of Anne Summers’ TheMisogyny Factor by WFRC director Professor Catherine Pope

The directors of the Work Futures Research Centre like the idea of work-life balance even if the demands of our working lives sometimes seem to get in the way. One of the ways I try to inject some ‘balance’ into my life is through taking holidays when I spend time reading things that are not directly related to my research work – often fiction, but not always. If I venture abroad I try to pick up a book connected to the place I am visiting and this has been a great way of discovering new things – ranging from poetry to ancient history.

This year I was lucky enough to follow an academic visit to see colleagues at University of New South Wales involved in a project about organisational performance and accreditation with a trip to Australia. I was there just ahead of the general election so the news was full of electioneering and amongst this lots of discussion about Kevin Rudd the then Labour prime minister and his predecessor Julia Gillard.

The YouTube video of Julia Gillard’s misogyny speech of 2012 had already gone viral at this point, and this was followed by some UK media notably a self-penned piece after the election (in which Labor lost) in the Guardian on ‘power, purpose and Labor’s future’. Sydney Opera House hosted a discussion between feminist writer Anne Summers and Gillard which had picked up on some of the themes of sexism and leadership that Gillard had debated in speeches and writing – and these are revisited in Summer’s book ‘The Misogyny Factor (2013) which I bought for my holiday reading.

If we in the UK are disheartened about lack of progress on workplace equality agendas then this book suggests that our sisters in Australia have even more to complain about. Summers describes how, despite pioneering workplace reforms (Australia was the first to introduce the 8 hour day) and human rights (one of the first places to grant women the vote was South Australia in 1894), Australia lags behind in supporting working women. Australian women have lower participation in work than many other OECD countries and the gap between lifetime earnings of men and women is a shocking AUS $1 million. The Misogyny Factor is not a lighthearted read – Summers documents the political and legislative history of the struggle for gender equality in and outside work, and devotes a chapter to a fairly harrowing account of the way that Julia Gillard was taunted, attacked and vilified because of her gender in politics’ ‘top job’. Thankfully the book concludes with a chapter called ‘Destroying the Joint’. The title comes from a phrase which entered the Twitter lexicon when another feminist writer, Jane Caro, decided to take on the misogynists when radio presenter Alan Jones said ”Women are destroying the joint – Christine Nixon in Melbourne, Clover Moore here. Honestly.” Caro responded with her now famous tweet, “Got time on my hands tonight so thought I’d spend it coming up with new ways of ”destroying the joint” being a woman & all. Ideas welcome.” This ignited a social media debate about misogyny – in Australian politics, in the workplace and in the street which alongside other projects like #everydaysexism has become a global conversation about gender inequality. We are hoping to add to this conversation with our Policy Briefing on ‘Gender Equality at Work : where are we now and how far have we still to go?’ which will be out soon.

Guest blog by Su White: Athena SWAN and Southampton

Su White is part of the Web and Internet Science research group in ECS. Her research interests include research-led learning, the effects of technology on education and learning, and web science.

The need and value for balanced and diverse teams and equality of treatment of all staff are two principles which might seem rather challenged in academia when the representation of female academics as a proportion of the whole is considered.nd web science.

This year has seen a widespread and continued series of small celebrations for prestigious Athena SWAN Awards around the University achieved by a range of academic areas. Six academic areas and the university as a whole have all gained bronze awards. There are three more applications in the pipeline, and two more areas are exploring the possibility of making applications.

A_SWAN_LOGO_ALL

Athena SWAN is an initiative designed to advance the representation of women in science, engineering and technology, mathematics and medicine.

Currently there are no STEMM subjects at Southampton that have equal proportions of male to female academic staff. Furthermore the numbers of female staff at higher pay grades are significantly reduced at.

The figures for the rounded percentage of female staff in STEMM is as follows: overall 41%; 49% Grade 4; 47% Grade 5; 31% Grade 6; 21% Grade 7.

This looks quite respectable, however, when you discount colleagues from medicine, health sciences and psychology the picture is less rosy. Overall 33% are female. The breakdown is 41% Grade 4; 37% Grade 5; 23% Grade 6; 17% Grade 7.

In a desire to secure recognition of good practice there has been a massive effort on campus over recent months to look at the university workplace alongside the student experience, to think about the way we balance the gender scales; and how we could do it better.

The university successfully renewed its charter this summer, and the self assessment team chaired by Professor Iain Cameron Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, have declared the ambition to achieve a silver award in 2015. There has been concerted effort by academic teams in all the academic areas involved, the work assisted by the University’s diversity and equality officer Alexander Melhuish alongside others in HR.

Despite reward and recognition of successful female academics in the University, like the rest of the sector we seem to be experiencing a ‘leaky pipeline’ where the proportion of females diminishes as we progress along the career ladder. Systematically ensuring that our processes are fair and equal for all staff and students are important activities for which the prospect of an Athena SWAN award can provide a constructive focus and motivation. Furthermore, there are some areas of academic study where the percentage representation of female students at all levels appears to be surprisingly unbalanced. Effective actions which can improve the experience of staff and students include monitoring current practice, investigating the possible causes of imbalance and remedying problem areas.

Observations that there appear to be differences between the expected progression of staff, or the recruitment of students when analysed by gender need to be made objective so that effective interventions can be identified and implemented.

This in turn may require an increase in the budget for professional development or broad brush developmental and awareness activities which are the necessary pre-cursors to organisational change.

The work of local interest groups such as WiSET (Women in Science Engineering and Technology) can be invaluable in identifying issues which need remedy. Such groups can lobby for change or raise awareness of unexpected issues.

The Bigger Picture

Equality of treatment and experience for all staff and students is essential and backed up by equality legislation, however evidence from national and international surveys suggests that there is room for improvement.

Women in the UK account for around 38% of science researchers, according to the UNESCO institute for Statistics’ 2012 report.

There are some major external drivers to make sure we get things right. Around two years ago institutions were told not to expect to be shortlisted for biomedical research grants unless they could demonstrate evidence of actively supporting women’s career progression.

And it was widely reported earlier in the month that the universities and science minister David Willets said he expected those bidding for government cash to offer evidence of ‘commitment to equality and diversity’.

In mid October the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee held its first evidence hearing for its enquiry into “Women in STEM’ careers. The panel will hear personal views and experiences from witnesses who have worked or are working in academia.

Gender equality is only one aspect of equality, but an awareness of current practice can impact on all facets of equality. From an institutional and societal perspective, we are denying ourselves the opportunity to benefit from the best if we do not ensure all possible participants are recruited and developed. The strengths and value to an organisation of diverse teams is widely recognised, depriving ourselves of the potential for fully balanced teams seems to be shooting ourselves in the foot – never mind the possible consequence from loss of research funding.

Sex Work Futures?

Sex work futures?

It’s the start of the new term for Universities and Colleges throughout the world. Choices and compromises have led new students to embark on courses that are likely to profoundly influence their future careers – because of the knowledge and skills they acquire, because of the networks of contacts they build and because of the previously unthought-of of possibilities that they are awakened to. Of course, universities can also influence future career choices in other ways and student clubs and societies can also play a role in developing people’s future career choices and opportunities.

So far this sounds like a dull homage to the benefits of a university education and the role of extracurricular activities in preparing for the future. Not really the stuff of a blog on work futures and, let’s be frank, potentially disappointing given the title of the blog. Not so.

Here is the thing. Last week, the annual University of Southampton Fresher’s week ‘RAG’ showcased the work of many student societies, including the University Pole Dancing Club. Now I must confess that encountering a pole dancing demonstration outside a University Students Union was, for me, rather unexpected. I was equally surprised that the display was not the subject of any protest by members of the student body, but perhaps my view on these things has been skewed by being a the University of Sussex in the 1980’s where (I am fairly certain) such things would not have been tolerated.

I know that pole dancing is now being pushed as ‘exercise’, but let’s be very clear about this. It is a form of exercise that is based on a form of sex work. This got me thinking. Am I simply a dinosaur stuck in the past? Perhaps sex work is just one more career opportunity and if some members of the University Pole Dancing club find their way into the sex industry because their horizons are broadened while at university, so be it. Certainly evidence from recent surveys suggests that sex work does have a role, potential of actual as a means of supplementing students’ income while at University in the UK. The ‘mainstreaming’ of sex work seems widespread in other developed economies.

Is sex work just another job?

So can we regard sex work as ‘just another job’? Is it simply a choice that some (mostly women, although by no means exclusively) choose to make, as free and legitimate as any other? Perhaps for some it is, I really don’t know. But what I do know is that sex work operates in a context that is associated with human trafficking and forms of slavery. Sex work operates in a context that relies on the objectification of other human beings in a way that is often predicated on treating them as less than fully human.

You might protest not in this country (are you sure?), not our University Club (of course not!), not pole dancing (…maybe?). Perhaps, but in my view, until the sex industry operates in a world where women are universally given equal opportunities the association between sex work and exploitation is too close for me to ever feel comfortable with pole dancing being treated as just another recreational activity or a fully informed career choice. Of course, exploitation is not confined to the sex industry and when we consider the future of work we should consider the many forms of exploitation that remain hidden to a greater or lesser extent – cheap labour in sweat shops comes to mind. Perhaps next year the Fresher’s fair could include a sponsored sweatshop in which students have to produce garments at high speed in order to get enough money for tomorrow’s food? Or would that be seen as distasteful? It certainly would not be seen as opening up a career opportunity

Some might find it reassuring, others depressing (perhaps it is both) that the club raised a grand total of £2.10 for charity at the Fresher’s fair – the lowest of any of the clubs or societies listed on the University web site.

WFRC welcomes Professor Peter Griffiths as co-director

Peter Griffiths

We are delighted to announce that we have recruited a new co-directorto the Work Futures Research Centre.

Peter Griffiths is currently Professor of Health Sciences Research in the Faculty of Health Sciences.

Peter studied Social Psychology at the University of Sussex in the 1980s, a decision that he says was influenced by an ‘anarchist egg attack’ on David Owen in 1981. Following a subsequent career in nursing, Peter undertook a PhD in nursing research at Kings’ College London.

Peter’s research interests include the relationship between healthcare management structures and the outcomes for staff and patients. His early research involved nursing-led care delivered to post-acute patients, where he set up and evaluated pioneering nursing-led units.

More recently, Peter has been involved in the EU-funded RN4CAST study, which examines human resources management of nursing staff in 13 countries across Europe, Asia, Africa and the USA, and the impact of nurse deployment on patient safety. Peter also collaborates with the Health Quality Council of Saskatchewan in Canada where he is helping to evaluate the Productive Ward programme, and the Health Quality Improvement Programme in England where he assessed the feasibility of a national audit of nutritional care in hospitals and care homes.

Before arriving at Southampton, Peter was director of England’s National Nursing Research Unit from 2006 to 2010, and retains a visiting professorship there. He is also Executive Editor of the International Journal of Nursing Studies.

Peter’s strong background in multidisciplinary research means that he is an excellent addition to the WFRC, and we are looking forward to incorporating his ideas into our programme. Incidentally, this is not the first time Peter has been involved with the WFRC, he gave a seminar on his research back in 2011.

Peter will take the place of Alison Fuller at the WFRC, which was made available following her appointment as Chair in Vocational Education and Work at the Institute of Education. We wish Alison the very best in her new adventure and welcome Peter to the team.

Peter will be making his debut on the Work Thought Blog later this week, make sure you look out for it!

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