Head of HR Research Development, Institute for Employment Studies, Lancaster University
Stephen is Head of HR Research Development at the Institute for Employment Studies and an Honorary Professor at Lancaster University. Stephen has conducted research on high-performance work practices, employee reward strategy, staff engagement and retention and Good Work.
He has a special interest in workforce health and wellbeing, leading a number of national and international projects focusing on workforce health and the impact of chronic illness on productivity and social inclusion. He is an advisor to a number of UK government departments and has advised employers and policymakers in Europe, Asia-Pacific, Australasia and North America.
In 2014 he was named the 6th most influential HR thinker in the UK. Stephen is a reviewer for several academic journals, including The Lancet, a regular columnist for HR Magazine, a judge at the Global Healthy Workplace Awards and is a member of Public Health England’s Health & Work Advisory Board and the DWP's Ministerial Advisory Group on Mental Health and Employment.
Oct 24, 2022 17:31 pm UTC| Business
The UK was supposed to be facing a spike in unemployment after the pandemic furlough schemes ended, but instead the job market is the tightest in a generation. Given that there are also more vacancies than active job...
Remote working: why some people are less productive at home than others – new research
May 02, 2021 08:05 am UTC| Life
Has working at home during lockdown made people more productive or not? This has been the subject of some lively debate recently. Many companies do not routinely measure productivity. A large number will have...
How employers can help cancer survivors return to work – based on my own experience
Jan 07, 2020 15:48 pm UTC| Health
When I lost a relative to cancer in the late 1970s, people usually viewed a cancer diagnosis with horror. At the time, many treatments were both brutal and unsuccessful. Only 24% of patients survived ten years after...