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Book Review – The Psychology of Employee Empowerment

Book Review – The Psychology of Employee Empowerment

A long-standing theme of my work in relation to leadership and management has been the importance of getting the best out of employees (supporting them, developing them, taking workplace well-being seriously), rather than making the mistake of trying to get the most out of them (piling on the pressure, seeking to maximise exploitation, regarding them as expendable). I therefore welcome this important book on employee empowerment. Underpinning employee empowerment is the well-supported idea that giving employees a degree of autonomy and trusting them to make decisions within their sphere of responsibility will produce better results in both quantitative and qualitative ways, and give rise to better consequences for the organisation and the individual alike... Click here to read more
Dr Neil Thompson
September 7, 2017
Expect more stories of slavery – and demand more victim support

Expect more stories of slavery – and demand more victim support

If the National Crime Agency’s latest findings are anything to go by, expect many more headlines like this over the next decade: ‘Lincolnshire slavery gang forced man to dig his own grave in ‘truly shocking’ 26-year hard labour ordeal‘. We are only just starting to hear the stories of Britain’s hidden slaves. Figures released the week before last showed the scale of concern among law enforcement agencies. In May and June alone, 130 potential victims were discovered and 111 arrests were made. Local news outlets from Cambridge to Kirklees have reported an upsurge in slavery-related police activity. Over 300 police operations targeting modern slavery are in action across the UK. “The more that we look for modern slavery”, said Will Kerr, the NCA’s Director of Vulnerabilities,…
Dr Neil Thompson
September 7, 2017
Firefighters’ battle with PTSD: “Every day is an anxious day”

Firefighters’ battle with PTSD: “Every day is an anxious day”

For nine months, former-firefighter Roger Moore had the image of a girl he’d seen die, hovering in his peripheral vision. The child had been killed in a car crash several years before and Moore had been one of the first on the scene. It had been harrowing at the time, but he’d got up and gone to work as usual. It was only once the firefighter retired from his 30-year career a few years later, in 2013, that the image of her face returned to torment him. “I didn’t tell anyone about it for a long time but it was the first sign that something was wrong,” says the 55 year-old, speaking from his home in the Midlands. Other experiences…
Dr Neil Thompson
September 7, 2017
SWU Member benefits: Learn with Neil Thompson

SWU Member benefits: Learn with Neil Thompson

The following message has recently been sent to all Social Worker’s Union (SWU) members: A personal message from Neil Thompson I am delighted to be working with SWU to offer membership of my online learning programme at half price. It’s not a course in the conventional sense. Rather, it’s an online learning community, a place where people support each other in their learning. It’s based on principles of self-directed learning (the most effective type of learning) where you decide – with guidance and support – what you need to learn and how to learn. The Programme has a wide range of helpful facilities to promote reflective practice, including an e-portfolio for professional registration purposes. It is a sort of online…
Dr Neil Thompson
August 24, 2017
Neil Thompson’s Lesson for Living – Grief and trauma can bring learning and growth

Neil Thompson’s Lesson for Living – Grief and trauma can bring learning and growth

Despite the common strong association between grief and death, grief is a reaction to a significant loss, and not just to a death. This means that we can have a grief reaction to any major change in our life, even positive ones. For example, someone excited about moving to a new job or promotion may still grieve for aspects of their old job. Gains will always also be accompanied by losses of some sort. Grief reactions are perfectly normal responses to loss and change. They are part of our way of adapting to new circumstances. The impact can range from minor and insignificant to devastatingly major. When our reaction is at this latter end of the spectrum, we will often…
Dr Neil Thompson
August 24, 2017
What happens when you introduce four year olds to an eldercare home

What happens when you introduce four year olds to an eldercare home

Lying on the floor pretending to roar like a lion can do wonders for an elderly man's well-being. That's not a scientific fact, but it was one of the surprising and memorable moments we observed while making a television program which introduced a group of very young people with residents of a retirement village. The two episodes of Old People's Home for 4 Year Olds set out to explore the increasing isolation of older people within our communities. The impact of young children and older people sharing daytime care facilities has already been shown to be generally positive. But this was the first time an experiment was undertaken within the UK to measure the impact of inter-generational interaction on the health and happiness of the older group.…
Dr Neil Thompson
August 24, 2017
Shocking BBC pay revelations heralds golden opportunity to model social change

Shocking BBC pay revelations heralds golden opportunity to model social change

The unsurprising yet still shocking BBC pay revelations of elite employees’ salaries give voice and substance to a pay gap that we know exists but to date has lacked a concrete sense of reality. Figures from the Office for National Statistics indicates a UK pay gap at 19.2% for full- and part-time workers, with women earning an average of 80 pence for every £1 earned by a man. The BBC’s publication of a top list of earners with household names we can all relate to, renders discrimination tangible and familiar. Making visible individual TV and broadcast celebrities’ annual salaries connects the UK license paying population to a clearly discriminatory hierarchy of pay. The highest earning female Claudia Winkelman’s substantial annual salary documented at £499,000…
Dr Neil Thompson
August 24, 2017
Supporting children who have an incarcerated parent

Supporting children who have an incarcerated parent

Prison and jail staff and volunteers play an important role in facilitating visits and helping make visits a positive experience for children with incarcerated parents. Visits from family members can help promote strong family ties and have been shown to decrease recidivism. For children, visits are an important way to maintain the relationship with their incarcerated parent, which can have important implications on a child’s behavior and mental health. Staff and volunteers are the first and last individuals that children see in the facility; their support of family visits can set an important tone that parent-child relationships are valued and important. Click here to read more
Dr Neil Thompson
August 24, 2017