British Workplace Research Articles

Job insecurity and employee outcomes: the moderating role of collective trust in management

Contextualized within the widespread cynicism and employment insecurity of the modern British workplace, this article intends to examine the moderating effect of collective trust on the correlation...

Ownership and Pay in Britain

AbstractDrawing on principal–agent perspectives on corporate governance, the article examines whether employees’ hourly pay is related to ownership dispersion. Using linked employee‐workplace data from the British Workplace Employment Relations Survey 2011, and using a variety of techniques including interval regression and propensity score matching, average hourly pay is found to be higher in dispersed ownership workplaces. The premium is broadly constant across most of the wage distribution, but falls at the 95th percentile to become statistically non‐significant. This contrasts with earlier papers which indicate that higher level employees are the primary beneficiaries of higher pay from dispersed ownership. The dispersed ownership pay premium is not readily explained by efficiency wage perspectives but is consistent with a managerial desire for a ‘quiet life’.

The productivity effects of multiple pay incentives

Drawing on recent incentive theory and the growing use of multiple incentives by firms, this article examines the effects of combining incentives on workplace labour productivity. Utilizing data from the British Workplace Employment Relations Survey, the article explores whether multiple incentives are more effective than single incentives. It is found that the productivity effects of individualized incentives are enhanced by profit sharing though not by collective payment by result schemes (PBR). Profit sharing also enhances the effect of collective PBR, and it is found that two group incentives are more effective than a single individual incentive. However there are limits on the number of incentive schemes that can be combined effectively. The effects of mixed incentives tend to be greater in workplaces with worker discretion and task variety, thereby providing support for a contingency perspective.

Reciprocity in Organizations: Evidence from the UK

Recent laboratory evidence suggests that personality traits, in particular social preferences, may affect contractual outcomes under moral hazard. Using the British Workplace Employment Relations Survey 2004 we find that behaviour of employers and employees is consistent with the presence of gift-exchange motives: firms that screen applicants for personality are less likely to pay low wages and more likely to provide (non-pecuniary) benefits. Firms likewise benefit from employee screening, as they can implement more team-working and are generally more successful. Other human resource management practices only poorly predict these patterns. Moreover, there is no association between dismissals and personality tests, indicating that personality tests do not merely improve the fit between applicant and employer. Hence, we conclude that motivation based on gift-exchange motives is a plausible explanation for our results.

What Role Did Management Practices Play in SME Growth Post-Recession?

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are known to contribute significantly to aggregate economic growth. However, little is known about the role played by management practices in SME growth since recession. We contribute to the literature on SME growth by analysing longitudinal administrative data on firms' employment and turnover, taken from the UK's Business Structure Database (BSD), with data on management practices collected in face-to-face interviews from the HR Managers and employees who were surveyed as part of the 2011 British Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS). We find off-the-job training is the only management practice that is robustly and significantly associated with higher employment growth, increased turnover, and a decline in closure probabilities, over the period 2011-2014. The findings suggest SME investment in off-the-job training is sub-optimal in Britain such that firms could benefit economically from increasing the amount of off-the-job training they offer to their non-managerial employees.

Job Anxiety, Work‐Related Psychological Illness and Workplace Performance

AbstractThis article uses matched employee–employer data from the British Workplace Employment Relations Survey to examine the relationship between employee psychological health and workplace performance in 2004 and 2011. Using two measures of work‐related psychological health — namely employee‐reported job anxiety and manager‐reported workforce stress, depression and anxiety — we find a positive relationship between psychological ill‐health and absence, but not quits. The association between psychological ill‐health and labour productivity is less clear, with estimates sensitive to sector, time period and the measure of psychological health. The 2004–2011 panel is further used to explore the extent to which change in psychological health is related to change in performance.

The Power of Transparency

Does the dissemination of organizational financial information shift power dynamics within workplaces, as evidenced by increasing workers’ wages? That is the core question of this investigation. We utilize the 2004 and 2011 series of the British Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS) to test whether employees who report that their managers disclose workplace financial data earn more than otherwise similar workers not privy to such information. Our findings suggest that disclosure results in higher wages for workers after adjusting for profit and productivity levels and a range of other workplace and worker characteristics. We estimate that workers who report their managers are “very good” at sharing organizational financial information outearn those who report their managers are “very poor” at financial disclosure by between 8 and 12 percent. We argue that disclosure is a key resource that reduces information asymmetries, thereby providing legitimacy to workers’ claims in wage bargaining. More broadly, our focus on managerial transparency and its effects on worker earnings reveals a largely ignored characteristic of modern workplaces that has implications for contemporary trends in inequality and wage stagnation in Great Britain and other liberal market economies.

High‐performance work systems and workplace performance in small, medium‐sized and large firms

This article draws on the Organisational Growth and Development (OGD) life cycle model to explore the relationship between high‐performance work systems (HPWS) and performance in firms of different size, thereby extending understanding of congruence or ‘best fit’ theory within strategic HRM debates. With reference to management control theory, economies of scale and the availability of specialist managerial skills, the article hypothesises that while an HPWS–performance relationship might exist in small, medium‐sized and large firms, the relationship will be stronger in large firms than in both small and medium‐sized firms, and stronger in medium‐sized firms than in small firms. Analysis of data from the British Workplace Employment Relations Survey demonstrates, however, that there is no association between HPWS and workplace performance in medium‐sized firms, in contrast to the positive relationship between HPWS and performance found in large firms and between HPWS and labour productivity in small firms.

Socio-pragmatic influence on opening salutation and closing valediction of British workplace email

This paper reports the findings from a study into the variation of (in)formality of opening salutation and closing valediction in the emails of a group of British professionals. Drawing on both the literature and data used in this research, a number of socio-pragmatic factors were identified for exploration in terms of their influence on the (in)formality of opening and closing formulae. With the use of multivariate regression analysis, 387 emails were examined, 2 discrete models built, and 24 independent variables investigated. Results revealed 13 of the independent variables as significant in terms of their impact upon the (in)formality of opening and closing forms. Greater formality of both opening salutation and closing valediction was driven by external communication, and the social distance between parties. Preference for informality of opening salutation was driven by conversational progression, and the use of politeness markers. Preference for informality of closing valediction was driven by conversational progression, and time elapsed between successive email turns. Contrary to the idea that closing and opening forms constitute optional elements of email composition, the results indicated that such devices were not used as mere skeuomorphs of earlier epistolary communication but served deeper socio-pragmatic concerns.

‘It’s Nothing Personal’: Anti-Homosexuality in the British Workplace

Scholarship on homophobia has been critiqued for being individualistic and psychological, failing to account for structural inequalities, experiences of homophobia and discursive manifestations of homophobia. This Economic and Social Research Council funded study attempts to address some of these concerns by focusing on the experiences of lesbians, gay men and bisexuals (LGBs) in relation to bullying, harassment and discrimination in the British workplace. We examine what homophobia is understood to be and how psychological and organisational discourses make it difficult to make sense of negative experiences and how anti-homosexual attitudes and work environments are sustained and left unchallenged through the claim ‘it’s not personal’. Drawing on theories of selective incivility and modern discrimination, we illustrate how ambiguous anti-homosexual sentiments are, and argue that the term ‘homophobia’ not only prevents people from challenging negative experiences, but it further masks inequalities based on sexuality at work.

Do high-performance work practices exacerbate or mitigate the gender pay gap?

The impact of performance-oriented work practices on the gender pay gap has been the subject of considerable conjecture but little empirical investigation. Using the 2004 and 2011 British Workplace Employment Relations Surveys, the analysis finds that whilst average earnings are significantly higher for men and women across private sector workplaces that have introduced so-called high-performance work practices, the presence of such practices is not associated with a narrowing of the gender pay gap and, if anything, tends to exacerbate the differential in earnings between men and women. Data from the 2004 survey suggest that women are more likely to work in high-performance workplaces, but this is not the case for 2011. There is no evidence that gender segregation is significantly less in high-performance workplaces than in workplaces taking a more traditional route. Policy makers and employing organisations therefore need to be careful in reconciling their performance and equality strategies. In particular, they need to examine whether the former are truly gender-neutral. This requires additional measures, possibly the introduction of human resource audits in the public and private sectors.

Reciprocity in Organisations - Evidence from the WERS

Recent laboratory evidence suggests that social preferences may affect contractual outcomes under moral hazard. In accordance with previous research, this paper uses written personality tests for job candidates as a proxy for whether firms care about personality traits of employees, in particular whether these employees are inclined towards reciprocity. Using the British Workplace Employment Relations Survey 2004 (WERS) we find that behavior of employers and employees is consistent with the presence of gift-exchange motives: firms that screen applicants for personality are more likely to pay generous wages and to provide (non-pecuniary) benefits like employer pension, on-the-job training, or job security. Firms likewise benefit from reciprocal employees as they can implement more team-working and are generally more successful. Other modern human resource practises like competency tests or incentive pay only poorly predict these patterns. Moreover, there is no association between dismissals and personality tests, indicating that personality tests do not merely improve the fit between applicant and employer. Hence, we conclude that motivation based on gift-exchange motives remains as the most plausible explanation for our results.

Workplace Flexibility Practices and Corporate Performance: Evidence from the British Private Sector

This paper investigates the relationship between workplace flexibility practices (WFPs) and corporate performance using data from the British Workplace Employment Relations Survey 2004. Disaggregating WFPs into numerical, functional and cost aspects enables the analysis of their relationships to an objective measure of corporate performance, namely workplace financial turnover. Furthermore separate analyses are presented for different types of workplace: differentiated by workforce size; ownership; age; wage level; and unionization. Results show that different types of workplaces need to pay attention to the mix of WFPs they adopt. We find that certain cost WFPs (profit‐related pay, merit pay and payment‐by‐results) have strong positive relationships with corporate performance. However, training delivers mixed corporate performance results, while the extent of job autonomy and the proportion of part‐time employees in a workplace have an inverse association with corporate performance. Given the limited existing research examining disaggregated measures of WFPs and objectively measured corporate performance, this paper offers useful insights for firms, policy makers and the overall economy.

"High Performance Work Systems and workplace performance in small, medium-sized and large firms"

This paper assesses the association between high performance work systems (HPWS) and various indicators of performance in small, medium-sized and large firms. Using data from the 2004 British Workplace Employment Relations Survey, the analysis demonstrates that there is no HPWS-performance relationship in the medium-sized firm sector, in contrast to the positive relationship between HPWS and performance found in large firms and (to a lesser extent) in small firms.

Teams, wages and wage dispersion

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to estimate the influence of workplace teams on wages and wage dispersion within UK establishments. Design/methodology/approach – Four types of workplace teams are analyzed using linked employer and employee data from the British Workplace Employee Relations Survey. Findings – Workplace teams are positively associated with wages but negatively associated with wage dispersion within establishments. The four team variables examined have the same directional influence on both wages and dispersion suggesting that it is the use of teams that is important not necessarily the particular characteristics of teams that are being used. The role of occupation is also examined as teams may be more likely to form in certain occupations. The team results for both wages and wage dispersion are robust to the inclusion of detailed occupational information. Originality/value – The influence of workplace teams is examined on both employee wages and wage dispersion within establishments. Additionally, the paper extends the previous empirical literature on teams by controlling for occupations at a fine level of detail not previously explored.

Workplace injury and voice: a comparison of management and union perceptions

This article moves beyond the existing institutional focus on union representation and workplace injury by looking at the substance of union representation and participation in the management of occupational health and safety (OHS). The effects on workplace injuries of different configurations of OHS voice (negotiation, consultation, information or ‘none’), as mapped by the perceptions of both management and unions in the same workplace, are explored using the British Workplace Employment Relations Survey 2004. The findings indicate that some participation is better than none, that more inclusive voice configurations are better than those that are less inclusive and that the alignment of voice between management and unions is fundamental to success. The impact of less inclusive participation is also found to be conditioned by the extent of trade union membership in the workplace.

The ill-treatment of employees with disabilities in British workplaces

There are few quantitative studies that show the workplace is experienced in a different way by employees with disabilities. This article fills this gap using data from the British Workplace Behaviour Survey, which found that employees with disabilities and long-term illnesses were more likely to suffer ill-treatment in the workplace and experienced a broader range of ill-treatment. Different types of disability were associated with different types of ill-treatment. The survey also showed who employees with disabilities blamed for their ill-treatment and why they believed the ill-treatment had occurred. Drawing on the existing literature, four possible explanations for ill-treatment are considered: negative affect raises perceptions of ill-treatment; ill-treatment leads to health effects; ill-treatment results from stigma or discrimination; ill-treatment is a consequence of workplace social relations. Although some of these explanations are stronger than others, the discussion shows that more research is required in order to decide between them.

The Extent of Collective Bargaining and Workplace Representation: Transitions between States and their Determinants. A Comparative Analysis of Germany and Great Britain

AbstractThe institutions of collective bargaining and worker representation are eroding in many nations, not least in Germany and Britain. This is the first article to explore transitions into and out of these arrangements. Using successive waves of the German IAB Establishment Panel and both cross‐sectional and panel components of the British Workplace Employment Relations Survey for the period 1998–2004, we find industrial relations are in flux, with many workplaces switching into and out of collective bargaining and other agencies of worker representation, respectively, works councils in Germany and joint consultative committees in Britain. Yet although there are some commonalities in behaviour, the driving forces behind the decline in collective bargaining differ markedly in the two countries.

Partnership, flexible workplace practices and the realisation of mutual gains: evidence from the British WERS 2004 dataset

This paper examines the potential for workplace partnership to produce mutual gains through the implementation of high-performance, flexible-working initiatives. Using a large manager–employee matched dataset, originating in the British Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS 2004), it focuses upon a range of related workplace practices reported by manager and employees as available or in use in their establishment, to consider the extent to which their implementation is associated with mutual benefits (positive-sum), reported by both managers and employee respondents, or whether gains for one group occur at potential cost to another (zero-sum). Bivariate probit models allow measures of manager and employee-reported organisational outcomes to endogenously affect each other, first from a managerial perspective, second from an employee perspective and third from a combined managerial and employee perspective. The results highlight the significant potential for partnership agreements to deliver mutual gains, albeit within a narrower range of workplace practices than might be the case if the innovation package was designed with the primary interest of only one group in mind. Unsurprisingly, managers and employees were found to have different perspectives in relation to partnership arrangements, with the latter having the more realistic expectations of achievable outcomes. However, since partnership agreements, as defined by this paper, remain underdeveloped within UK workplaces, with only 8% of the sampled 23,000 employees benefiting from such workplace arrangements, the evidence advanced by this paper would indicate a potential scope for realisable gains deriving from well-designed, participatory forms of partnership.

The determinants of hiring older workers in Britain revisited: an analysis using WERS 2004

This article reexamines the role of specific human capital and back loading of compensation as deterrents to hiring older workers. We utilize the framework initially suggested by Hutchens (1986) and more recently implemented by Daniel and Heywood (2007). This approach identifies the extent to which firms hire older workers at a rate less than full replacement would imply. Using the 2004 British Workplace Employment Relations Survey, we examine whether a more favourable climate including a much tighter UK labour market combined with the abandonment of defined benefit pension schemes has increased the tendency to hire older workers. We also examine the impact of private health insurance.