Latest Projects
Our Projects
We are engaged in a number of different projects at any one time, and these can change frequently. For the latest news and information about our projects, please go to the 'News and Events' page, and download our bi-annual newsletter.
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Presently we are working on the following:
-Health literacy in young people - evaluating the NHSGo app
-Resilience in prison officers
-Transgender career paths
-'Return to work' toolkits
-Training in email strategies
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For information on past and present projects across the group, see also below.
| Return to work toolkit
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A team of researchers at Kingston University, Loughborough University and Affinity Health at Work have developed this toolkit to support employees and employers through the return to work process following mental health sickness absence. The toolkit includes employee and employer guides, conversation frameworks, checklists and self-led activities to help improve communication throughout absence and on return.
Contact Jo Yarker or Rachel Lewis for more information on the research and how to get involved.
| Strategies for Managing Email
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In this long-term research programme, the strategies people use to deal with email and other e-communcations (e-coms) at work have been identified across a series of studies. Working with collaborators across other UK universities we have identified key strategies that people use and how these relate to goal-achievement, well-being and individual differences in personality. Our next tranche of research will be focussing on helping organisations diagnose the 'e-com fitness' of their organisation (how well are employees using email and other e-coms). Interventions to improve the management of email and e-coms, and the direct effect this has on well-being and productivity outcomes will be assessed. Contact Emma Russell for more information on the research and how to get involved.
| The MAP app
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Alison is currently developing a mobile phone app that will enable people to track their satisfaction with life, plus users can record their daily levels of meaning, achievement and positive/negative emotion including the reason for their ratings. This will enable users to see how balanced their life is – for example, are they constantly achieving at the expense of relaxation or family time? Over time, users can learn what day-to-day factors make them feel like they have achieved, or have experienced meaning or positive emotion in their day, so that they can aim to replicate helpful events and minimise unhelpful events in their day. The information generated across the user population will enable us to understand between-person trends, and track correlation of daily ratings with satisfaction with life. Contact Alison Price to get involved and find out more.
| Identity and well-being
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Research evidence suggests that positive and negative experiences are associated with indicators of subjective well-being (e.g., feelings and life satisfaction). Identity relevant variables, such as the importance that individuals attach to life domains and to their personal attributes, have been shown to influence these associations in various ways. Experiences related to a domain or attribute that is seen as highly important can have stronger (or weaker) impact on well-being than experiences that are perceived as less relevant to one’s identity
Contact Hans-Joachim Wolfram for more information on the research and how to get involved.
| Well-being, ethnicity and life
A current study (with Kenisha Linton and Nona McDuff), using a sample of Undergraduate students, examines the association between ethnic harassment experience and indicators of well-being, and whether this relationship is affected by the importance that respondents attach to their ethnic background.
A future study of employees from a range of occupational fields will look into work stress, family stress, importance of life domains, and domain-specific indicators of well-being (i.e., work satisfaction and family satisfaction).
Contact Hans-Joachim Wolfram for more information on the research and how to get involved.
| Gender inequality and selection
Katy is currently conducting research into potential gender inequality within employee selection, specifically investigating whether subconscious bias is evident through subtle discourses within job interviews and job adverts, which could hinder both women and men. Katy's MSc thesis investigated gender discourse within workplace team meetings.
Contact Katy Schnitzler for more information on the research and how to get involved.
| Developing leaders to manage sustainable engagement, health and well-being
This three year programme of work, sponsored by a consortium of organisations, has aimed to understand the success factors associated with management development programmes aimed at engendering health, wellbeing and engagement in employees. This research used an evidence based practice model, gathering evidence from four different sources. The initial results of this work won Rachel Lewis (along with her colleague Emma Donaldson-Feilder) BPS Practitioner of the Year and DOP Practitioner of the Year awards. The final year of work has involved further research to refine existing outputs (checklists) and create new outputs (maturity model, top tips document, case studies).
Contact Rachel Lewis for more information on the research and how to get involved.
| Leadership of distributed workers
Out of sight, out of mind? This research project, sponsored by IOSH, and led by a team at the University of East Anglia, aim to establish the parameters of good OSH leadership behaviours for those managing distributed workers (line managers and OSH professionals). The outputs of this work will include a practical toolkit for OSH managers and line managers and knowledge dissemination through reports, articles, conferences and a launch event.
Contact Rachel Lewis for more information on the research and how to get involved.
| Meaning in Recruitment
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Ruth is currently researching how job applicants make sense of cumulative negative outcomes following face-to-face interviews as part of her MSc Occupational and Business Psychology dissertation.
Contact Ruth Abrams for more information on the research and how to get involved.
| Fostering values-based leadership
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Since 2000, there has been a surge in reported corporate scandals together with a perceived increase in challenges facing society. These ethical breaches by leaders resulted in calls for a new positive perspective of leadership. Employees are increasingly looking for authentic leaders who are trustworthy, genuine and who base their actions on values. This research aims to compare and evaluate the effectiveness of two types of training interventions for developing authentic leadership. Specifically, it is exploring the impact of the training interventions on authentic leadership, authentic followership, leader well-being and engagement and follower well-being and engagement. Contact Taslim Tharani for more information on the research and how to get involved.
| Co-location as Strategy
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Currently undertaking a research study of co-location as a strategy for service innovation, for managerial learning and for better adaptation in integrated workplaces’. This is examined in the context of public services where the focus is on integrated healthcare services and comparisons between different universal health care services (i.e. the UK and Canada) are studied.
Contact Ally Memon for more information on the research and how to get involved.
| Leadership Development and Change in NHS Commissioning
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As a partner project, Emma, Jo and Ally from the WWK are working with a regional NHS Trust, to evaluate change and service improvement via the study of a collaborative Leadership Development programme for Commissioners.
Contact Emma Russell for more information on the research and how to get involved.