Tag Archives: Knowledge Exchange

What works now: how can we use evidence more effectively in policymaking?

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Evidence use in policymaking is nothing new. It has been talked about by policymakers, academics and professionals for the best part of ten years, and has been highlighted a lot, among other places, on this blog. Over the years various government initiatives have been set up to try to establish how best to use evidence and identify “what works” in relation to specific policy interventions, and “evidence-based” policymaking has become the catchphrase of policymakers across most sectors.

One of the newest books to be added to the Idox Information Service library reflects on the rise of “what works” as an approach to policy development. The book builds on discussions from the first edition of the book, and provides a sector-by-sector breakdown of how evidence is – and could be – used in policymaking across areas like health, the environment, education and criminal justice. It also offers some insight into appraising evidence and how to assess quality, as well as how evidence is used internationally, providing examples from the USA, Australia, New Zealand and Scandinavia.

As one of our key aims is to support and facilitate the sharing and use of evidence in the public sector, this book has been a welcome addition to our collection.

Making use of research across policy

In 2013, the UK government launched the What Works Network, which is now made up of 10 independent centres committed to “supporting the creation, supply and use of evidence” in specific policy areas including crime and policing, education and economic growth. The centres aim to improve the way government and other organisations create, share and use (or ‘generate, translate and adopt’) high-quality evidence for decision-making. According to the UK government, the initiative is the first time a government has taken a national approach to prioritising the use of evidence in decision making.

What Works Now? highlights research from Weiss (1979) which suggests that there are “7 types of research use”:

  • Knowledge Driven – research will be developed, applied and used once it has been produced
  • Problem Solving – research will be applied directly to a particular policy problem in order to solve it
  • Interactive – research forms part of a wider web of knowledge, policy and other research which all interact with each other
  • Political – research could (and probably will) be used to retrospectively provide support for a policy decision which has already been made
  • Tactical – research can be used as a tool to delay or deflect from decision making or action around a particular issue (i.e. “more research is needed in this area”)
  • Enlightenment – research informs policy through encouraging people to think and discuss particular ideas or concepts in a different way
  • Embedded research – research production is embedded in a wider contextual system which includes political priorities, the law and the media

Building a research base to support “what works”

Creating and disseminating research effectively have been cited as being key to creating a “what works” evidence base. A number of research institutes and think tanks contribute alongside real-life experiences of practitioners and other stakeholders to try and establish the conditions which support effective interventions and lead to positive policy outcomes.

One of the big discussions currently is around the creation of academic research to support what works programmes. Exploring what sort of research is useful to practitioners and policymakers and aligning this with the research agenda of academics and universities can help to create an effective supply chain of evidence to inform policymaking. However, often academics often do not engage with the policy process, or politicians politicise evidence, picking and choosing which findings to take notice of, which can distort the perception of what evidence is available in a particular area.

Encouraging fuller participation and a more robust appraisal of research from across the board is something which many institutions are trying to work towards. Research impact and knowledge exchange is now integrated into research funding and a growing number of people are working to feed research more effectively into the policy arena.

Evaluating research and evidence and judging which to take forward to inform policy decision making is also important. Along with discussions around assessing and labelling evidence the book considers how some of the main organisations in the UK concerned with promoting evidence-informed policy have gone about appraising evidence, weighing it up, assessing quality and “fitness for purpose” and taking account of non-research based forms of knowledge and evidence, such as the personal experience of practitioners.

Applying “what works” in practice

Applying “what works” in practice can be a challenge, especially in a setting that is perhaps very different from the conditions of a study that has been shown to produce successful outcomes from a particular intervention.

In the book, 10 guiding principles to support the use of evidence in practice are set out:

  • Translated – To be used research must be adapted and reconstructed to fit with local contexts. Simply providing findings is not enough
  • Ownership – Ownership of the research and allowing people to feel a sense of ownership over the development of research
  • Enthusiasts – Individual “champions” can be useful in ensuring that research actually gets used
  • Local context – Local context must be taken into account, particularly in relation to specific barriers and enablers which might help or hinder change
  • Credibility – Credibility of researchers and the people who support the research is key to ensuring that the research is taken seriously
  • Leadership – Strong leadership provides motivation, authority and integrity in the implementation of evidence
  • Support to implement change – Ongoing support to implement change is important, this could include financial, technical, organisational or emotional support
  • Develop Integration – Activities need to be able to be integrated with existing organisational systems and practices, changes do not happen within a bubble
  • Engage key stakeholders – To ensure effective uptake and buy-in key stakeholders should be involved as fully as possible form the earliest possible stage
  • Capture learning/ Effective evaluation – Don’t forget the importance of evaluation, identify what worked and what didn’t to help share learning and support future projects

Final thoughts

In theory, using evidence to inform policy sounds straightforward. The reality can be quite different. What Works Now? highlights that the “what works” agenda remains dominant across the policy landscape, even if the application or approach to it differs from policy area to policy area.

What counts as evidence is still disputed; getting evidence “out there” and encouraging academics to be involved in the policy process is still hard to achieve (although there is good work being done in this area to try and combat this); and context is still key to making evidence work in a particular environment.

Understanding evidence, and how to use it effectively has been a core aim of policymakers in the UK, and across the world for the many years. This book, and the supporting research outlined in it highlights that while evidence is still at the fore of policymaking, actually identifying what works and putting it into practice is a bit more of a challenge.

Members of the Idox Information Service can log into our website to request a loan of “What works Now?”

If you enjoyed this post, you may also be interested in:

A world of evidence … but can we trust that it is any good?

Follow us on Twitter to find out what topics are interesting our research team.

“For many children we are the first point of contact”: supporting children’s mental health in schools

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A 2018 evidence review from Public Health England reported that one in 10 young people have some form of diagnosable mental health condition. This, the report suggests, equates to as many as 850,000 children and young people with a diagnosable mental health disorder in the UK. It also reported that half of all mental health problems emerge before the age of 14, and children with persistent mental health problems face unequal chances in life.

Research has also highlighted the impact of “key factors” like poverty and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), including emotional trauma, abuse or neglect (which people living in higher areas of deprivation are more likely to experience) on an individual’s chance of developing a mental illness. However, an additional factor often cited in surveys around child mental health and wellbeing is the impact of school, including exam stress, and bullying. Mental ill health has also been found to have an impact on attainment, behaviour and a child’s ability to learn. As a result, teachers are often part of the front line of supporting adults for children who are suffering from mental ill health, with increasing pressure being placed on teachers and schools to identify and signpost children to other services.

Schools, as well as teachers,  are increasingly becoming a focus for the delivery of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in their community. Often schools are at the centre of their local community, so it is logistically convenient to coordinate services there; it can for some be a less intimidating or stigmatising environment than attending a clinic at a GP surgery, for example. School is the primary developmental space that children encounter after their family, and children’s learning and development and their mental health are often interrelated, so it makes sense for teachers to take an interest in terms of attainment and progress in learning. In December 2017, the Department of Health and Department for Education (DfE) published the Green Paper Transforming children and young people’s mental health provision which highlighted the role of schools as key in promoting a positive message about mental health and wellbeing among school age children and young people.

Good work is already being done, but how can we do more?

Research has shown that there is already a lot of good and effective practice being done in schools around children’s mental health. Many schools already work in partnership with local health teams to provide in house CAMHS support in the form of mental health nurses and social workers who are posted on site for children to access. One of the major recommendations in a 2018 Audit Scotland report on child mental health in Scotland was to encourage more of this type of partnership working. The report stressed the importance of joint working between public services if child mental health is to be improved, and where possible to include as wide a spectrum of public services in the delivery of CAMHS support, including criminal justice and housing practitioners, as well as health and social care and education staff.

In some schools senior pupils and designated members of staff are being offered mental health first aid training, and wear lanyards to help students identify them should they ever need to talk to someone. While it is important – particularly for students who participate in mental health first aid programmes – to be made aware of the challenges the role may entail, it can be a rewarding experience for young people to participate in and can also be a vital in-road to support for some students who would otherwise feel uncomfortable talking to a member of staff.

Other programmes like those developed by the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families, Centre for Mental Health and the ICE PACK and Kitbag tools (which have been used widely in UK schools) look at resilience building  and promoting coping mechanisms among young people, as well as encouraging the creation of trusting relationships which focus on nurturing and normalising mental illness to encourage children and young people to feel comfortable discussing their feelings and thoughts. These programmes also integrate early intervention and prevention approaches, hoping to identify children and young people who are suffering from mental illness as early as possible and signpost them to appropriate support.

The specific role of teachers

Teachers need to remember that they are not health or social care professionals and that – as much as they would like to completely solve all of the problems of their students – they can only do what they can, and that is enough.

It is also very important for teachers to practise what they preach in as much as teacher self-care is as important as signposting children and young people who are struggling with mental health issues. A 2016 survey by the National Union of Teachers (NUT) found almost half of teachers had sought help from their doctor for stress-related condition. Teacher stress and burnout and those leaving the profession due to conditions like stress do not help to create an environment that is supportive of good mental health in the classroom. Teacher wellbeing is so important and building their own resilience is one way that teachers can start to embed good mental health in their practice. If you are doing it yourself it will be easier to help and show children how to do it if they come to you for advice!

Teachers simply being there and offering a safe space and first point of contact for many children is important. Listening and signposting can be so valuable for those pupils taking the first step and teachers should not be put off by any personal perception of a lack of expertise in mental health – a small amount of knowledge or understanding of what to do next is more than enough. In some respects, teachers should feel almost privileged that a student has chosen to come to them, someone they feel they can trust and talk to.

A poll conducted as part of a webinar held for educational practitioners found that rather than requiring more information about mental illness, what teachers actually wanted was more practical examples of how to apply support in the classroom and how to embed mental health into their teaching and the learning of their students.

A unique opportunity

Schools and teachers are on the front line of public services and have a unique opportunity through regular contact with children to help to build and promote resilience among pupils, and embedding this within the whole school can be an effective way of ensuring pupils feel the benefit without being singled out. Taking nurturing approaches to learning and teaching, and promoting the creation of trusting relationships is key to some of the already effective practice going on in schools. Sharing the learning and best practice that is already happening will be vital to ensuring that support for children suffering from mental ill health improves and adapts to changing needs in the future.

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in reading:

Writing and recovery: creative writing as a response to mental ill health

Addressing social mobility through education – is it enough?

The Changing Room Initiative: tackling the stigma of poor mental health in men through sport

Follow us on Twitter to find out which topics are interesting our research team

A world of evidence … but can we trust that it is any good?

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What is good evidence? And how can policymakers and decisionmakers decide what is working and what isn’t, when it comes to deciding where public money is spent and how?

These are the kinds of questions that models and tools such as randomised controlled trials and cost-benefit analysis attempt to answer. The government has also supported the development over the last five years of the What Works Network, which now consists of 10 independent What Works Centres. When talking about impact there’s also been a move to capturing and recognising the value of qualitative data.

As one of our key aims is to support and facilitate the sharing and use of evidence in the public sector, we were interested to read a new publication ‘Mapping the standards of evidence used in UK social policy’.

Standards of evidence

Produced by the Alliance for Useful Evidence, the research has found 18 different Standards of Evidence currently in use across UK social policy.

The report notes that over the last decade there has been increasing interest in grading effectiveness or impact against a level or scale. Typically, the higher up the scale, the more evidence is available. Theoretically this means that decision-makers can have higher confidence in deciding whether a policy or intervention is working.

While all the evidence frameworks generally aim to improve the use of evidence, the different goals of the organisations responsible can shape the frameworks in different ways. They can be used to inform funding decisions, to make recommendations to the wider sector about what works and what doesn’t, or as a resource to help providers to evaluate. And unfortunately this means that the same intervention can be assessed differently depending on which framework is used.

The Alliance for Useful Evidence concludes that while a focus on evidence use is positive, the diversity of evidence standards risks creating confusion. Suggested options for improving the situation include introducing an independent accreditation system, or having a one-stop shop which would make it easier to compare ratings of interventions.

Dissemination and wider engagement

The question of standardising evidence frameworks is just one part of a wider effort to increase transparency. As well as collecting evidence, it’s important that when public money has been invested in carrying out evaluations and impact assessments, that this evidence remain accessible over the longer term and that lessons are learned. It can often seem that government departments have very short organisational memories – especially if they’ve suffered a high churn of staff.

Two projects which we support in Scotland are focused on increasing the dissemination and awareness of evaluation and research evidence. Research Online is Scotland’s labour market information hub. Produced by ourselves and Skills Development Scotland, the portal brings together a range of statistics and research and acts as the centre of a community of practice for labour market researchers, practitioners and policy-makers.

Meanwhile Evaluations Online is a publicly accessible collection of evaluation and research reports from Scottish Enterprise. The reports cover all aspects of Scottish Enterprise’s economic development activities – some of the latest added to the site cover megatrends affecting Scottish tourism, innovation systems and the gender gap, and the commercial flower-growing sector in Scotland.

When working within the policy world it can be easy to suffer from fatigue as ideas appear to be continually recycled, rejected and then revisited as policy fashions change and political parties or factions go in and out of power. The spotlight, often driven by the media, will shine on one hot policy issue – for example, moped crime, cannabis legislation or health spending – and then move on.

Online libraries of evaluations and research reports are one tool which can help support a longer-term culture of learning and improvement within the public sector.

Evidence Week 2018

Inspired by similar objectives, Evidence Week runs from 25th to 28th June 2018 and aims to explore the work of parliamentarians in seeking and scrutinising evidence. It will bring together MPs, peers, parliamentary services and the public to talk about why evidence matters, and how to use and improve research evidence.

This may be the start of wider knowledge sharing about standards of evidence, to help those using them to improve their practice.

The Knowledge Exchange is a member of the Alliance for Useful Evidence. Our databases are used by government and the public sector, as well as private-sector consultancies, to keep abreast of policy news and research in social and public policy.

Research Online: an expert source of information on the Scottish labour market

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One of the Knowledge Exchange’s key aims is to support the use of evidence and research in public policy and practice. Our Information Service database has been recognised by the Alliance for Useful Evidence in its Evidence Ecosystem which illustrated the diversity of organisations involved in supporting evidence use in the government and public sector. But we also support two other sector-specific research portals – Research Online and Evaluations Online.

Here we introduce Research Online, which first launched over 14 years ago and which we have worked with Skills Development Scotland to develop and update ever since.

Scottish labour market intelligence

Research Online is Scotland’s labour market hub. The portal provides an authoritative source of labour market research and analysis relevant to Scotland and supports evidence-based policy making in the Scottish labour market.

Before Research Online was created, research suggested that although useful labour market research and analysis was undertaken within Scotland by a large range of organisations, there was no single dissemination source.

Therefore, a requirement existed for a portal that clearly identified current labour market intelligence (LMI), provided a common understanding of current gaps and provision in areas including labour supply and skills, and focused action to ensure LMI met Scottish user needs.

Research Online was conceived to improve access to this wealth of intelligence.

The most comprehensive collection of labour market intelligence

The portal now contains thousands of documents on a range of labour market topics including:

  • Employment;
  • Skills and training;
  • Unemployment;
  • Entrepreneurship;
  • Vocational education and training;
  • Workforce development; and
  • Equal opportunities.

The material available on the portal includes research, policy, analysis, discussion and sectoral and geographic profiles. Our team sources the latest research and policy documents from a wide range of sources, including academic journals, government departments and agencies, labour market research centres and material sent in directly by key organisations in Scotland and the wider UK. The available material includes grey literature, government policy and up-to-date academic research.

Research Online also incorporates a current awareness service that alerts registered users to new material on a fortnightly basis. It also has integrated reading list functionality.

Free to access

Research Online can be accessed by anyone, free of charge. You can browse the material here without registering, as well as create reading lists to be accessed at a later date or shared with colleagues.

If you would like to sign-up for a range of current awareness alerts that keep you up to date on a variety of labour market topics, covering both Scotland and the wider UK, you can do so here.

Our shared vision is for Research Online to be recognised as a key dissemination mechanism by Scotland’s producers of labour market intelligence and to be at the centre of a community of practice for labour market researchers, practitioners and policy-makers.

You can find out more about the projects The Knowledge Exchange team has been involved in, and the consultancy services we offer, here.

Evaluations Online: evaluating economic development activity in Scotland

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by Stacey Dingwall

Recently we profiled Research Online, one of the two research portals managed by the Knowledge Exchange team. In this blog, we focus on Evaluations Online.

Economic development activity in Scotland

Evaluations Online is a public portal providing access to a collection of evaluation and economic development research reports commissioned by Scottish Enterprise. Scottish Enterprise is Scotland’s main economic development agency and a non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government.

Idox won the contract to deliver Evaluations Online in 2007. The team developed a site which utilises a publishing platform designed specifically to deal with research material. Users can easily navigate to and assess the relevance of material thanks to specially-written abstracts and structured search functions based on a bespoke classification and record structure.

The site now contains over 500 evaluation and research reports commissioned by Scottish Enterprise, dealing with different aspects of economic development activity such as business support, investment, sector growth and improving skills. All of the reports are publicly accessible and free to access.

In 2011, the team won a further contract to refresh and improve the site, focusing on how the site could be refined to better meet the needs of key user groups including economic development policy-makers and practitioners across Scotland. In the last quarter of 2016, the reports hosted on the site were accessed over 30,000 times.

The importance of evaluation

One of the key reports hosted on Evaluation Online is the annual review of the risk capital market in Scotland. Scottish Enterprise commissions the report annually in order to consider the scale of new investment flows. The findings are also used to inform the nature of Scottish Enterprise interventions in the Scottish early stage risk capital market, such as the Scottish Co-Investment Fund and Scottish Venture Fund.

Scottish Enterprise commissions evaluations of projects and programmes each year in order to identify their contribution towards economic growth in Scotland, and particularly in terms of their impact on gross value added (GVA) and employment. As the findings of the evaluations inform decisions about public spending, it’s important that all of the appraisal and evaluation work is of a high technical standard.

We’ve highlighted the importance of evidence and evaluation on the blog several times before. It’s worth repeating that repositories of evidence can help bring about better policy in a number of ways:

  • improve accountability by making it easier for people to scrutinise the activities and spending of public sector organisations – this helps organisations meet Freedom of Information responsibilities;
  • improve the visibility and therefore the impact of evidence;
  • help identify gaps in evidence by making it easier to compare research findings; and
  • increase our understanding of what works (‘good practice’), not only in the activities covered, but also in evaluation and research methods.

We’re proud to support Scottish Enterprise in the dissemination of their evaluation and research output, through a portal which they believe increases the return on these activities.

You can find out more about the projects The Knowledge Exchange team has been involved in, and the consultancy services we offer, here.

 

Research Online: Scotland’s labour market hub

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by Stacey Dingwall

As well as the Idox Information Service, the Knowledge Exchange Team manages two other research portals – Research Online and Evaluations Online.

This blog focuses on Research Online, which we developed over 13 years ago and have worked with Skills Development Scotland to maintain and update ever since.

Scottish labour market intelligence

Research Online is Scotland’s labour market hub. The portal provides an authoritative source of labour market research and analysis relevant to Scotland and supports evidence-based policy making in the Scottish labour market.

Before Research Online was created, research suggested that although useful labour market research and analysis was undertaken within Scotland by a large range of organisations, there was no single dissemination source.

Therefore, a requirement existed for a portal that clearly identified current labour market intelligence (LMI), provided a common understanding of current gaps and provision in areas including labour supply and skills, and focused action to ensure LMI met Scottish user needs.

Research Online was conceived to improve access to this wealth of intelligence.

The most comprehensive collection of labour market intelligence

The portal now contains thousands of documents on a range of labour market topics including:

  • Employment;
  • Skills and training;
  • Unemployment;
  • Entrepreneurship;
  • Vocational education and training;
  • Workforce development; and
  • Equal opportunities.

The material available on the portal includes research, policy, analysis, discussion and sectoral and geographic profiles. Our team sources the latest research and policy documents from a wide range of sources, including academic journals, government departments and agencies, labour market research centres and material sent in directly by key organisations in Scotland and the wider UK. The available material includes grey literature, government policy and up-to-date academic research.

Research Online also incorporates a current awareness service that alerts registered users to new material on a fortnightly basis. It also has integrated reading list functionality.

Free to access

Research Online can be accessed by anyone, free of charge. You can browse the material here without registering, as well as create reading lists to be accessed at a later date or shared with colleagues.

If you would like to sign-up for a range of current awareness alerts that keep you up to date on a variety of labour market topics, covering both Scotland and the wider UK, you can do so here.

Our shared vision is for Research Online to be recognised as a key dissemination mechanism by Scotland’s producers of labour market intelligence and to be at the centre of a community of practice for labour market researchers, practitioners and policy-makers.

You can find out more about the projects The Knowledge Exchange team has been involved in, and the consultancy services we offer, here.

 

Idox: enabling transformation, collaboration and improvement

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If you follow this blog regularly then you’ll know that we write on all areas of public and social policy. What you might not realise though is that our Knowledge Exchange team is just one part of a much wider business – Idox – providing specialist information and data solutions and services.

I’ve been working with Idox for about four years, but I’m still topping-up my knowledge about the organisation. Last week, at the company’s end-of-year get-together, my brain was like an overworked sponge as it tried to absorb a multitude of facts, figures and achievements during two days of workshops and presentations (to say nothing of the informal chats in between the working sessions).

From this wealth of information, I’ve compiled a selection that I think conveys a flavour of the depth and diversity of Idox today.

Ten things you might not know about Idox…

  1. The Reading Room, which is the newest addition to the Idox family of companies, has developed digital solutions for a wide range of customers, including Porsche and Clarence House, and this year developed a virtual reality test drive app for Skoda.
  2. Idox’s recently-launched iApply service enables planning applications and building control consent to be applied for via a single source, streamlining the application process.
  3. The Idox GRANTFinder policy and grants database contains details of over 8000 funding opportunities.
  4. Real-time information delivered by Idox’s Cloud Amber keeps the travelling public up-to-date about transport services and helps manage traffic congestion.
  5. The Idox group currently employs almost 600 people in over 10 countries, including the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, the United States, India and Australia.
  6. The Idox Elections service not only ensured the smooth management of postal voting for the 2015 UK general election, but has also supported delivery of local authority and community council elections in the UK, as well as this year’s local elections in Norway.
  7. Idox has a strong presence in the compliance sector, raising awareness among managers and employees of the importance of complying with regulations, from corruption prevention and data privacy to occupational safety and cybersecurity.
  8. Idox Engineering Information Management, provides critical engineering document management and control applications to the oil and gas, mining, pharmaceutical and transport industries in 50 countries.
  9. CAFM Explorer, Idox’s computer aided facilities management software, supports building maintenance and property management for organisations in 45 countries, and recently partnered with the Hippodrome to help maintain one of London’s most popular attractions.
  10. From food safety monitoring to licensing taxis, Idox’s regulatory services help local authorities enforce the rules that keep us safe.

One more thing…

Finally, the meeting reminded me of one thing I already knew, and it’s to do with the part of Idox where I work – the Knowledge Exchange.

Over breakfast on the second morning, a colleague from McLaren talked about the difficulties in finding the right information on the web. Search engines only go so far, he said, providing too little or too much. This is where skilled intermediaries, such as Idox’s team of Research Officers, can make a difference, identifying, sorting and presenting information that people can use to make decisions, support arguments and advance their businesses.

The Idox event was an enjoyable, if exhausting, couple of days, and it demonstrated the many ways in which the company is supporting public, private and third sector work.

Clearly, there’s much more to learn about Idox.

Our popular Ask-a-Researcher enquiry service is one aspect of the Idox Information Service, which we provide to members in organisations across the UK to keep them informed on the latest research and evidence on public and social policy issues. To find out more on how to become a member, get in touch.

Follow us on Twitter to see what developments in public and social policy are interesting our research team.

The next big thing in management and organisational development … why your organisation should be considering reverse mentoring

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A jigsaw of a handshake being completed ny two hands.

Think of the modern workplace and a number of features may spring to mind: technological innovations, flexible and remote working, to name a few. However, a more social factor is also at play: the multigenerational workforce. For the first time in history, it is now feasible that a workforce could comprise employees from four different generations, i.e. the World War II Generation (born 1929-1945), Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964), Generation X (born 1965-1979) and Generation Y/Millennials (born after 1980).

The characteristics of a generation

In 2012, Ashridge Business School identified that Generation Y (Gen Y) has grown up in an environment that is very different to previous generations. Additionally, their survey of managers from around the world found that Gen Y:

  • comes to the workplace with different skills;
  • is motivated by different things;
  • thinks differently about learning and development; and
  • approaches work relationships differently.

As noted by Steve Regus, writing for HR magazine in 2012, Gen Y also take a less hierarchical attitude towards work, and place a high importance on mentoring and feedback. The trick, according to Regus, is for organisations to utilise the strengths of this diverse workforce to their advantage, by creating opportunities to learn from each other.

The technological benefits of reversing

One way that some organisations have approached this is through reverse mentoring. Rather than following the usual path of older, more senior employees being assigned a newer colleague to mentor, reverse mentoring (unsurprisingly) sees younger or newer employees sharing their knowledge with company stalwarts. An early champion of this strategy in the 90s was Jack Welch, then CEO of General Electric. Welch recognised the importance of capitalising on the skills of the company’s younger employees, and instigated an initiative that saw older employees learn how to use Netscape. Today, reverse mentoring is commonplace in global companies including Microsoft and Cisco.

Technology is an area in which reverse mentoring is particularly valuable. Having grown up in an age of constant technological change and development, Gen Y are ideally placed to offer insight into how technological innovation can benefit an organisation and its processes. Crucially, technological innovation has also opened up the possibility of working more flexibly, something that is highly valued by Gen Y employees. Senior employees who have taken part in reverse mentoring programmes have also highlighted gaining an insight into the potential benefits of flexible working as one of the positive outcomes of developing a mentoring relationship with a younger employee. Thus, opening up this dialogue between generations can potentially diffuse conflict between the traditional 9-5 generations and the less hierarchical Gen Y.

A two-way street

In practice, reverse mentoring has been found to be less ‘teaching an old dog new tricks’ and more of an exchange of information and experience. At General Electric, one of the most basic benefits for the young mentors was simply the ability to gain contacts in the upper echelons of the company. The mutual benefits of the relationship can also be seen in terms of the insight it offers each party. The older participant gains in terms of gaining new perspectives on the company’s industry, and the thinking of its workforce, while the younger gains a better understanding of the company’s strategies and objectives, and becomes better placed to recommend actions or technologies that may support these.

Reverse mentoring – how to do it

In 2013, Boston College’s Sloan Center on Aging and Work published an evaluation of the implementation of a reverse mentoring initiative by The Hartford, a leading US insurance company. The company’s CEO had identified a need for the company to become more confident in its use of digital technologies, particularly social media, and recognised that its younger employees were best placed to drive this forward. Following a successful initial pilot that went onto become a national initiative within the company, The Hartford highlighted the following factors as crucial to the success of any reverse mentoring programme:

  • the creation of a project timeline;
  • identifying the business objectives – link the reverse mentoring programme to what the business is trying to achieve as far as possible;
  • ensure that mentors are fully informed of what mentees are expecting to get out of the exchange;
  • making sure the initiative has clear agendas and timelines;
  • using the mentor role as a way of keeping younger employees motivated; and
  • encourage both mentors and mentees to be open to the relationship and gaining new knowledge, and to respect that each other approaches learning differently.

The final point is echoed by the majority of companies who have used reverse mentoring within their organisation. Initially, Cisco had issues around more senior employees adapting to younger employees’ more informal way of working. As they, and other reverse mentoring adoptees have discovered, though, the key is commitment to the programme, in recognition of the value it can bring to the business.

Follow us on Twitter to see what developments in policy and practice are interesting our research team.

Further reading: if you liked this blog post, you might also want to read Heather Cameron’s post on how entrepreneurship drives growth in the UK.

Let’s get personal: top tips for using our information alerts

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Personalised infoBy Heather Cameron

With the abundance of information available these days and with time becoming ever more valuable, finding the information you need when you need it can be an arduous task.

Whether you are interested in a particular topic in general or need to be kept abreast of latest developments, having tailored information sent to you at times that suit you is invaluable.

This is something the Idox Information Service can help with. As highlighted in our previous blog showcasing the service, current awareness services are a large part of our offering.

Current awareness tools

In addition to our weekly bulletin providing a selection of the latest policy, research and comment added to our database, and our more subject-specific fortnightly topic updates which include 29 topics to choose from, we also offer the option of information alerts that allow for an even greater degree of personalisation.

With the Idox Information Service’s email alert service, our users can create a customisable schedule of alerts on topics of specific interest. So if co-housing is an area of particular relevance but you don’t want to receive items covering the wider topic of housing (which you can find in our housing topic update) then an alert on co-housing will pinpoint only those items of interest.

Setting up an alert

If you are a member of the Information Service, all you have to do to set up an email alert is log in, run a search as normal and click on the ‘Save as alert’ link at the top of your results: alert1

This will then provide options for saving your search as an alert so that you receive an email update whenever any new content that matches your search criteria is added to the database. You can choose a name for your alert and decide how often you would like to receive it. Alerts can be sent to you either weekly, fortnightly or monthly. Alternatively you can run the saved search whenever you choose from the My alerts page:

Alert pageIf you have selected a daily, weekly, monthly or fortnightly alert, you will receive emails with a list of records that match your search as below:

email alert2If there are no items in the selected time period that match your results, you will not receive any emails. And if you are going on holiday, you can also suspend the alert while you are away and reactivate it on your return – no need to worry about your inbox being clogged up!

Editing your alerts

These tailored updates allow you to receive focused information on the specific subjects that you need for your work, and you can adapt your search criteria to reflect your changing information needs as often as you like.

For example, if you think you receive too many or too few records, changing your search terms in order to broaden or narrow your search may help.

To do this, click on the ‘Edit’ link on the relevant alert on the My Alerts page which will take you to the ‘Edit Alert Schedule’ page. Then simply click on ‘Edit Terms’ and you will be taken back to the main search box, where you can change your terms. To update your alert, run the search with the edited terms, click on ‘Save as Alert’, then use the ‘Update Existing Alert Schedule’ option:

updateMeeting changing information needs

We cover a variety of topics on our database ranging from economic development, regeneration and planning, to social care and health. Some recent alerts that have been set up include:

  • Local welfare
  • Disguised compliance
  • Children and families social work
  • Child poverty
  • Safeguarding adults
  • Youth crime
  • Scottish tourism
  • Poverty and social justice
  • Benefit cap
  • Business and development
  • Land value tax
  • Community engagement
  • Community safety/involvement
  • Sustainable development

Our information alerts provide an efficient way for users to receive the tailored information they need and expect. Hopefully this article has shown how easy they are to set up.

If you’d like to find out more about our email alerts, or any other aspect of the Idox Information Service, you can contact us.

Happiness and productivity, and how our Ask A Researcher enquiry service can help to increase at least one of these things…

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Image created by Sergio Barros from the Noun Project

by Laura Dobie

It’s the International Day of Happiness today. To mark the occasion on the blog, we’re going to take a closer look at a recent literature search that we did on happiness and productivity, and how the service can help our members to be more productive in their work.

Ask A Researcher

The Idox Information Service offers an Ask A Researcher enquiry service, which is very popular with our members who need to source and synthesise evidence and policy documents to meet tight deadlines. We’re often told that our searches save our members a day’s work or more, were they to conduct the searches and synthesise the research themselves, and they free up our members to work on other areas and achieve more with their day.

They can ask us to search for information on their behalf, and our team of research officers will conduct complex searches of our in-house database (over 200,000 references across a broad range of subjects in relation to economic and social policy), and other sources, where appropriate, to compile lists of relevant references to send back to the enquirer.

We don’t just send on a list of references for you to sift through: our research officers will also produce a research summary to accompany the results, which provides an analysis of the references that we have retrieved. This highlights:

  • Trends;
  • Key findings;
  • Implications for policy and practice; and
  • Significant research reports and articles, which are particularly relevant to the enquirer’s needs.

If the enquirer has asked a specific question, we will do our best to find an answer in the documents that we have sourced and present this in the summary.

Literature search on happiness and productivity

We recently carried out a search on our database for research which examined the link between levels of happiness in organisations and productivity and organisational performance. You can view this sample search here.

This search provides an ideal example of what we’re trying to do with the Ask A Researcher service: rather than simply compiling references, we have specifically highlighted resources in the results (and key words in the abstracts) which help to answer the research question.

The results describe the search terms and date limits which were used, and provide an overview of the content of the resources which were retrieved.

The summary highlights key documents within the results which are particularly pertinent to the research question, including:

  • MacLeod and Clarke’s concept of employee engagement: an analysis based on the Workplace Employment Relations Study, which explores employee engagement and organisational performance. It found that high levels of employee engagement were strongly associated with both financial performance and labour productivity.
  • Healthy staff equal healthy profits, IN Management Today, Jul/Aug 2013, pp56-57, which observes that organisations which look after the wellbeing of their employees see a return in greater commitment and higher productivity. It stressed the importance of effective communication of employee benefits, which can have a significant impact on productivity.
  • A government literature review, which has investigated the business benefits of adopting work-life balance practices, highlighting the positive association between flexible working and productivity and reduced absences, and between family friendly policies and retention and reduced absences. It observes that “A large body of evidence demonstrates that effective outcomes at the level of the individual, including job commitment, ‘happiness’, satisfaction, engagement and, in turn, discretionary effort, are all associated with business benefits such as reduced leaving intentions, fewer absences, less tardiness and improvements to performance and productivity.” (p.viii)

In addition to the results sourced from our own database, we also highlighted research from the University of Warwick, retrieved online, which also demonstrates the link between happiness and productivity.

Hopefully this article has provided some useful insights into the links between happiness and productivity, and demonstrated how our Ask A Researcher service can help our members to source and synthesise research in a short space of time and be more productive at work.

If you’d like to find out more about our Ask A Researcher service, or any other aspect of the Idox Information Service, you can contact us.