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Title HRD challenges when faced by a disengaged, disenchanted, overworked

UK workforce

Dr Diane Keeble-Ramsay

Dr Andrew Armitage

Lord Ashcroft International Business School Rivermead Campus Bishops Hall Road

Chelmsford, Essex, UK

Email: diane.keeble-allen@anglia.ac.uk; Andrew.armitage@anglia.ac.uk

Stream 6: Employee Engagement & HRD

6,600 words

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HRD challenges when faced by a disengaged, disenchanted, overworked UK workforce

Introduction Greater employee engagement, as a key component leading towards greater

profitability, is perhaps one of the ‘holy grails’ of people management thinking. It

relates to how ‘connected’ employees feel towards their employer (Smith et al, 2012).

From which, where employees feel engaged in their work, there have been direct

benefits in improved customer service and resulting sales clearly shown (Smith et al,

2012).

Despite this, the endeavour to capture any essence for increasing commitment and

motivation has been elusive, with the level of research into engagement perhaps being

limited at the beginning of this millennium. In a quest to show links towards

improved engagement to increased profit levels (Robinson et al, 2004), it has been

furthered (Sprangel et al, 2011) that as organisational development (OD) demands

differing forms which explore shared aspirations, allow for dialogue building that

fosters trust and questions stances taken within an organisation’s culture could lead to

greater engagement for employees. An appreciative culture, achieved by way of

authentic engagement as a new model for human resource development (HRD)

(Halm, 2011) and provides a proficient use of human capital to generate

improvements in performance by way of the benefits of intellectual engagement,

which seeks to improve the jobs carried out within organisations (Alfes et al, 2010).

Employee engagement overlaps the previously considered and researched topics,

commitment and organisational citizenship and as a two-way concept, it demands the

employer choose to work to engage employees. The employee also decides how

much to offer the employer, to which levels of engagement may vary during their

employment (Robinson et al, 2004). Involvement in decision making, employee

voice and job development and concern for health and wellbeing affect employee

engagement levels (Robinson et al, 2004). Moreover, the level of employee

engagement has been shown to have a direct impact upon sales and subsequently,

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profits, by way of standards of customer service. To which, a positive feeling of

being valued can be linked to positive employee views (Robinson et al, 2004). Yet it

has also been recognised that different employees eg younger or longer term

employees, can have different expectations from employment, which has been coined

as contributing to a ‘death of deference’ since barriers to engagement are recognised

(MacLeod and Clarke, 2009). Interestingly, different types of employees eg gender,

whether they are a manager or on a permanent contract, impacts upon their potential

to be engaged in the workplace (Alfes et al, 2010). However, many of the difficulties

are recognised through a lack of awareness of the value of engagement by employers

or an underestimation of its potential contribution (MacLeod and Clarke, 2009) and

uncertainty about how to address engagement with the workforce. As such, one of the

‘engagement’ blockages could be considered to be the level of development itself

(MacLeod and Clarke, 2009).

Employment engagement can be viewed from different dimensions, emotional in so

far as employees feel connected to others and gain satisfaction from work. A

cognitive dimension employs the skills and abilities of the individual whereas a

behavioural dimension reflects the increase in performance through effort and

willingness brought about through being engaged (Smith et al, 2012). It seems that

individuals are unlikely to become engaged because they are told to do so by their

employer (De Mello et al, 2008). If the work conditions are right it happens naturally

and at this point individuals apply their strengths where engagement-friendly cultures

which value the diversity of talents employees bring with respect for their needs. It is

a long term commitment and will not occur by the application of one single training

event which encourages relationships, worklife balance and focuses upon career

development (De Mello et al, 2008).

Given such ideal settings for engagement, there are further approaches that might

offer furthering workforce energy resources (Halm, 2011). Yet in terms of any ‘death

of deference’, it might be reflected Britons work longer hours than any other

European Union state already (Burke and Cooper, 2007). UK numbers working more

than 48 hours a week doubled in the first decade of the new millennium. Long

working hours in the UK have been accepted for a variety of reasons; economic

necessity; in response to organisational pressure; or possibly passionate employees

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seeking investment for their career (Burke and Cooper, 2007). Threats of

increased globalised competition accepted as the reasoning behind downsized labour

forces increasing pressure upon employee workloads and a rise in consumerism, or

decline of trade union power, have been seen as contributors (Burke and Cooper,

2007). Moving on, post the 2008 global financial crisis, brings challenges in the UK

particularly at the point of a triple dip recession, not only of engagement but through

new OD models which may remedy increasing work intensification.

Engagement is recognised as being positively present during work where employees

willingly contribute (Alfes et al, 2010) and has three core facets these being,

intellectual engagement in thinking about the job; feeling positive relates to affective

engagement and taking opportunities to discuss improvements at work with

colleagues reflects social engagement (Alfes et al, 2010). It appears there is no

difference in engagement however, whether the employees are employed within the

public or private sector but instead depend upon senior management style and

corporate strategy coupled with implications from the size of the workforce and type

of work eg skilled or environment (Alfes et al, 2010). It is the consideration of the

changing nature of the environment, and nature of management then, which may be

critical to the potential for engagement of the workforce, in particular by their

development of employees through an environment which allows engagement to

naturally occur as a long term organisational strategy.

The research informing this paper has been informed by a study undertaken to extend

the work of Hassard et al (2009). Hassard et al’s (2009) recognised the contrasts

between Braverman’s (1974, Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of the

Work in the Twentieth Century) and the potential impact that a down-sized and

restructured work force in the first decade of the 21st century might encounter.

Hassard et al’s (2009) focussed upon the experiences of managers within 3 countries,

post 2000 and recognised that rather than increasing energy levels, much

organisational change had led to work intensification and increased stress levels for

managers. There was substantial evidence of unpleasant and difficult working

conditions emerging post 2000, attributed to short-term thinking. Our study sought

to explore the shared experiences of workers, post 2008, in the UK workers in a

smaller study (Hassard et al, 2009). Hassard et al (2009) considered the impacts upon

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managers yet evidence suggests all of the workerforce’s stress levels are increased by

work intensification and further, through poor management (Nygerga et al, 2011).

The Hassard et al (2009) study reported that social constraints of a long hours culture,

summarising that managers did not perceive financial income as a substitute for

genuine well-being. They noted an apparent decline of any influence, post 2000,

from the HRD function to instigate any improvement in working practices (Hassard et

al, 2009). If the traditions of HRM, and thus HRD, are linked back to the influences

of society in terms of the historical and negative impact of societal power relations

within Western culture (Freire, 1970, 1972; Kincheloe and McLaren, 1998) perhaps

this is unsurprising. The very nature of strategic human resource management

(SHRM), and SHRD (strategic human resource development), claimed it had become

central (Schuler and Jackson, 2005), yet Ray and Goppelt (2011) recognise that issues

have lain with limited appreciation of the social complexity of organisations.

Links to engagement, through Hassard et al (2009) are reflected through discussion of

aspiration towards High Performance working (HPW) having prior focus of attention

post 2000. However, within HPW thinking, adopting a low cost or low road

strategic human resource (SHRM/D) approach has been recognized as potentially

impacting negatively upon workforce performance and any sustainability of

productivity and performance (Butler et al, 2004). Whilst HPW had been espoused

as a set of conceptual approaches, (Butler et al, 2004) as the collective use of HR

bundles and ‘new’ working practices (Wood and de Menezes, 2008), central to the

burgeoning of HPW into academic controversy was been its limited consideration of

the complexity of employer-worker relationships (Hughes, 2008). An absence of

consideration for the environment within which employee relations operates

potentially limits the opportunities for increasing employee engagement particularly

where engagement is founded upon social, intellectual and emotional settings (Alfes

et al, 2010; Smith et al, 2012). Within the UK, HPW could be only partly successful

in its original claim to offer ‘a universal panacea for complexities of managing people

that might transcend national, cultural and economic divides’ (De Waal, 2006). UK

people management practices of re-structuring and down sizing, prior to 2008, driven

by short-term financial goals potentially constrained the role of HPW (Keeble-

Ramsay and Armitage, 2009). Further, in the face of a global financial crisis, there

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was an eradicating of any aspiration towards embedding HPW’s orthodoxy in favour

for low road ‘lower cost’ short-term HRD. As such modification and mediation of

HPW inclined towards a ‘billiard ball model’, where ready-made solutions were

injected but had the consequence of neglected attention towards the experiences of

employees (Hughes, 2008). The power balances and relationships continued over

time with consequences (Ramirez, Guy and Beale, 2007) and limiting the employees’

voice (Cullinane and Dundon, 2006) diminishing prospects for social or emotional

engagement through HPW.

It had been long held that, in reality, the US and UK would not enact HPW

(MacDuffie, 1995) since Godard (2004) furthered there is no evidence that higher

productivity is achieved by moving from traditional HRD practices. Further,

Fleetwood and Hesketh (2006) presented that the links between HRM or people

management practices to changes in productivity are ‘under-theorised’. It is

suggested that UK organizations would not change their direction if the argument was

considered insufficient yet in the face of fierce competition, firms should transform

themselves to be ready to adapt (Joo and Shim, 2010). Moreover, given any decline

in the aspirations towards HPW within the UK, there has remained a dearth of earnest

employee participation practice within UK industry, perhaps, reflecting the pluralist

stances of UK business (as opposed to any diversity of practices furthered by Poutsma

et al, 2003). A preference for the short term gains in productivity from work

intensification practices has remained in the UK post 2008. It is also argued that, post

2008, HRD professionals have spent much time trying to save their own jobs to the

point that they may have failed to do their (HRD) job (MacKenzie, Garavan and

Carbery 2012). As such then, the challenge for HRD would be to adopt OD models

which redress this. Yet the UK government has potentially moved to abandon or

replace HPW with an agenda focused upon the value of employee engagement in the

addressing of productivity in times of recession and its potential for growth by ways

of increased profits enjoyed from engaging the workforce (Robinson et al, 2004).

In light of such discussion, it would appear that there is demand for HRD models,

which seek to make long term impact upon the organizational environment and

challenges for HRD professionals to consider both the issues of management teams

who feel unsure of how to tackle engagement (De Mello et al, 2008) and awareness

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raising of the potential for engagement. Moreover, it is further considered that for

intellectual and affective engagement to be nurtured it is critical to find approaches

which allow the individual employee opportunities to use proactive behaviour and

initiative to mould their job roles for improvement (Frese, 2008). By identifying

management approaches, which do not seek for employees ‘just to follow instructions

or task descriptions’, it is essential to develop or embrace HRD models, which allow

the individual employees to develop their own goals and solve problems which have

yet to happen (Frese, 2008). Centralisation of command and control cannot facilitate

such approaches and to elicit emotional and social engagement, intellectual and

affective engagement. As such then, this paper seeks to consider the initial findings

from research undertaken in terms of the working environment in the UK post 2008.

Findings and Discussion

When initiating the research that informs this paper, it was considered that Hassard et

al (2009) had conducted studies of changes within multi-national organisations from

2000 across 3 countries, yet this prior study was limited to manager’s perceptions and

further did not incorporate the period post-2008 where the cataclysmic impact

financial turmoil of the global credit crunch might be fully reflected if it held any

implications for the potential of employee engagement. As a result, we undertook

focus group research utilising convenience samples, which derived from contacts we

had with existing employers operating within the UK. We engaged focus group study

by way of 10 groups, of approx 7 participants, each representing different companies

within the general workforce from the UK (this is potentially comparable to the UK

element of the Hassard et al (2009) study where 62 interviews were conducted across

different organisations reported in 2008). Whilst the representative nature of the

study to provide comparative generalisations might be constrained, given this is a

smaller study than Hassard et al (2009) in total participants, the evidence appears

from the answers provided by focus group participants to be consistent with the prior

Hassard et al (2009)’s research reporting of the approaches of multinational

companies. By comparison to Hassard et al (2009), the study participation did not

include managers, but skilled or professional practitioners not working in a

managerial capacity. Three themes taken from Hassard et al (2009)’s prior study

grouped as ‘perceptions of change’, ‘culture’ and ‘the impact of IT’ were presented

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into the focus group schedules by way of stimulus questions to allow the focus groups

to consider their negotiated understanding of the working environment since 2008.

The decision to incorporate focus group study was made given a recognition that

focus group represents a research method where reality can be co-constructed through

interaction (Tsaousi and Brewis, 2013). As meanings can be bargained and

dispensed through group experiences from their contexts of practice (Wilkinson,

2004) and through the communicative nature of focus groups, it was recognised that

this can facilitate social meaning as participants build on each others’ views.

Moreover given constraints of access and time, as this was an initial stage of further

research to be undertaken into this area, this led the research to identify a research

instrument which might adopt a synergistic approach through the interactive and

communication and yet which might facilitate social meaning still (Tsaousi and

Brewis, 2013).

By way of drawing from Hassard et al’s (2009) study, in terms of the 3 themes

selected, allowed for a stimulus sheet of questions to be drawn up as a catalyst to

assist focus group discussions. The stimulus questions asked whether they had

experienced any organisational re-structuring since 2008, whether there had been any

change to the organisation’s ethos, whether the size of the workforce had declined,

whether the organisational culture had changed, or whether the introduction of more

advanced IT had been within the motivations underpinning any organisational

transformation interventions. Participants also recorded their collective agreed

responses to the stimulus questions as joint focus group summaries, which provided

the research with the extracts reported within this paper taken from these original

agreed responses, as well as those taken from transcripts of individual contributions.

The subsequent analysis is based within Hassard et al’s 3 themes identified from their

2009 study noted above. The contributions included were considered in terms of the

shared perceptions reported by focus groups and all contributions were reported

anonymously.

When considering the first theme of perceptions of change in the workplace then, the

participating cohorts agreed that they perceived that the work climate had changed,

post 2008, into a more chaotic, tougher place to work. They identified this had taken

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place by an absence of discussion or upward communication, yet with greater

accountability to senior management. Individual roles had become more constrained

which had resulted in decreased morale within the workforces given such an intense

period of change. Participants identified that post, 2008, the sheer rate and number of

organisational changes had evolved the business towards a financially focussed

culture. In so doing, the nature of the work, by way of increasing workloads,

decreasing the size of the workforce and increasing the length of the day was reported

by participants as a cause for low morale and increasing stress levels within the

workforce.

Participants from 5 groups recounting from focus group discussions included in their

summaries that their reflections included as they identified what they considered as a

‘shock culture’ post 2008. Their agreements concluded that they felt an absence of

HRD in the facilitation of positive engagement and that this had decreased morale

within the workforces given intense change, post 2008. In many senses, this perhaps

mirrored some of the negative experiences and views identified by managers within

the Hassard et al (2009) prior the 2008 financial crisis.

To illustrate one participant noted in their focus group discussions:

‘…the organisation had changed its policy on workplace training, where previously

any time engaged in personal development was part of the working week now

employees have to make up the time. In other words if you attend a one day course

then you have to do another day’s work. If you do a weekly 3-hour course even if a

further 3 hours of the course are attended in the evening as the course is 6 hours

overall and the second 3 hours is completed in your own personal time, you have to

make up 3 hours again in further workplace time. This feels like a form of bullying

to stop you undertaking personal development as if they fear you might leave if you

have any development. Even though the development is funded by the organisation,

they make me want to feel like leaving as it feels they no longer value

development…’

This demonstrates potentially employee perceptions of increasing control but also

perhaps less concern for the welfare of the workforce being substituted by greater

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concern for financial controls or presenteeism in the workplace. A potential mode of

exploitation through longer working hours reduces the potential for the participant

expressing that they felt the work climate was authenziotic and restricts natural

engagement as a result.

The focus groups also reported in their joint summaries, by a majority of 8 out of the

10 groups, that they viewed that the communication of change to the workforce was

problematic. Most of the participants felt that, even if they were in a management

role, they had very little participation in the design of change agendas and less control

in their implementation. They felt that such change was dictated to them largeley

with a general explanation that there were such imperative economic needs for change

that they should not consider questioning the change agenda as revealed to them.

The nature and speed of change had caused concern with one participant who stated:

‘….I had a discussion with one of the senior management team regarding the pace of

change noting that the change had been so rapid it meant that perhaps we were not

taking people with us. Whilst he stated there is nothing else to be done, we just have

to accept rapid change, I suggested to him that we might review the business model

and rather than continue with a pace of change that the workforce might find difficult

to engage with, consider whether we were better to ‘stick to the knitting’ in some

areas of the business and focus the change. This was met with a response, which

suggested I was being incredulous. The response was almost that if staff are so lazy

they cannot keep up then perhaps they are better off not being employed in the

business…’

The participant carried on to agree within the group that this was a reflection of the

lack of caring in the current culture and lack of capacity for engagement by the

workforce and it had facilitated followed by the subsequent levels of increased stress

by including this within their joint summaries.

Another possibility raised from the data provided from the joint summaries was that

changes to the culture in the organisation had been far more incremental for other

participants. Yet, rather than the pace of change causing problems with workforce

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engagement, the suggestion was that a less authentizotic climate was created through

the lack of sense of importance for identity or territory for the individuals within the

workfoce. Participants agreed that recent restructuring had led to less physical space

in the office for each individual staff. They noted that this may seem a small change

but it was received by the workforce as a destructive act and evidence of autocratic

management control (Nyberga et al, 2011), which did not seek to build trust within

the workforce:

Restructuring was recurrent in the expressions of the focus group participants in their

different group summaries. One group agreed the term ‘parade of restructuring’ as

being a process implemented through a series of emails and meetings accompanied by

company-wide newsletters or letters to the workforce. To which they expressed,

collectively, that they felt they had little voice and that such restructure was simply

inevitable and had to be accepted. They agreed they felt they were not be consulted

but solely notified, aside from the occasions where they might be able to seek external

guidance through employment law:

One participant contributed that:

‘…Much of the change had been communicated by email using an impersonal

manner. Rumours often pre-empted the formal communications received by email…’

It was considered within the discussions in one focus group that such approaches

increased stress rather alleviated personal concerns about the changes in the

workplace and some of the workplace emails were seen as openly threatening. Within

that group one participant noted that:

‘…a new member of the management team started an email by praising us for our

effort in their words, ‘during a period of continuous and difficult change’, and then

concluded the email with a threat of disciplinary action for negligent behaviour if we

didn’t manage to do all the new processes. There was no sense that the sender hadn’t

any idea of the workloads we had in reality or had thought through how we might

manage to cope with the workload but the threat that if we should fail was that we

would be disciplined. This hardly encouraged staff to feel valued but instead morale

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dropped further like a stone as staff read the email and discussed it round the

office…’

It was suggested by the participant that this felt the management approach has beomce

more dictatorial and threatening (see Nyberga et al, 2011).

Another focus group discussed the nature of work intensification, post 2008, by

illustrating differing practices regarding lunch breaks in their discourse. A participant

recounted to the others that:

‘… the organisation had recently refurbished the staff room with an intention that this

would be a ‘relaxation centre’, which might encourage participation and involvement

and a space for innovative thinking. However, if staff entered the area for their

lunchbreak or during the working day, comments from the management team led

them to feel intimidated by ‘wasting time’ taking lunch periods and returned to eating

at their desk where a ‘presenteeism culture’ made them feel it was more acceptable…’

Another participant noted that:

‘…[within their workplace] staff do not take lunch break excepting one member of

staff who works in an office on their own since their limited opportunity for social

contact was to take a lunch break. This had become a topic for discussion at

management meetings in terms of the reasons behind why this member of staff was

less productive if they were taking lunch breaks particularly outside the building. It

was not suggested that they were exceeding the time for lunch nor acting

inappropriately but the mere action of stopping for lunch was considered exceptional

behaviour…’

Others in another one of the focus group explained to the others that:

‘… their organisation was good at having a ‘9 to 5’ culture in terms of working hours.

The reason was a lack of engagement by the staff who would not wish to work past

5pm…’

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In their deliberations the focus group agreed that they did not feel the reasons for the

‘9 to 5’ culture represented negotiated arrangements in terms of work-life balance or

pastoral welfare. It was considered that there was evidence of a lack of engagement

by the overall workforce and therefore they ‘couldn’t wait’ to leave with their coats

on and packing up to leave in advance of the end of the day. They reflected that

historically the workforce had been happier and one participant recounted that

‘…before 2000, you could measure by how late workers stayed by the numbers of

cars in the staff car park long after 5pm, whereas post 2008 the building was clear by

6pm…’.

One focus group contained employees from a private sector organisation, which had

benefitted from contracts being outsourced by the public sector since 2008. They

agreed that an entrepreneurial approach by the senior management team had

encouraged and facilitated an entrepreneurial spirit by the workforce. To which they

felt very loyal and proud that this was the foundations of growth within the busienss.

They noted that that constant cost cutting of service contracts meant the business had

looked towards greater work intensification practices to meet contractual obligations.

However, one participant noted:

‘… the entrepreneurial spirit and economic success of our business inspired the

workforce to take on additional activities as the work force were ‘happy to have a job’

in areas where low skills were required …. and the employment appeared to be

sustainable in this successful organisation. The management of the organisation have

taken a very facilitative approach and as such the workforce felt ‘part of the team’ and

increased work was seen as an indication of successful outcomes having maintained

or increased the contractural base of the business through successful levels of

customer service….’

This illustration from the focus group raised the possibility that the intellectual and

affective engagement (Alfes et al, 2010) potential of a workforce, who feel they are

working with a liberated leadership base encourages their employee engagement.

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The participants then went on to note in their joint summaries that the organisation

had recently held an awards ceremony for all the employees who had taken part in

recent development activities and invited families to attend to help celebrate the

achievements of the employees in their staff development. They recorded:

‘… as a result we really felt that our contributions to the workplace from the skills we

had developed through the HRD programme we had taken part in were truly valued.

One of the senior management team made a speech to the group and genuinely,

caringly told us how very pleased they were to see how our work had contributed to

the continued growth of the company. We knew that our current growth targets had

been exceeded and the senior manager suggested these were around 15% so we all felt

that every contribution we had made further to our development programme had

resulted from our hard work. This was really inspiring and at least one of our team is

going to continue on to get an MBA which is fantastic since none of us had been to

university so we really welcomed the ceremony. It truly motivated us to feel part of

the success of the business…’

The recital of the participants of the focus group through a glowing tribute evidence

suggests in our analysis as emotional and cognitive engagement (De Mello et al,

2008) and at least its potential in motivating the individual employee where they

perceive a supportive, appreciative, authentic environment (Smith et al, 2012; Halm

2011).

However, even for this focus group, alongside all of the others, they agreed and

reported an increase in daily work activity as linked to increased technological

changes. This focus group identified that the use of SMART telephones meant

employees were expected to be available to receive emails and telephone calls at all

times, even during holiday periods. One of the other focus groups identified and

agreed that a practice where the employer had brought in rules to limit the use of

email by penalising departments who allowed employees to spread communications

throught the use of lengthy lists of copies to others in the organisation would address

the impact of technology. This was particularly so as departments were required to

defend who had been recipients to email correspondence and if someone had been

copied in unnecessarily then the department would be penalised by a budgetary

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reduction. As a result, the focus group concluded that this limited the misuse of

emails in terms of the spread across addressees in the organisation which had an

indirect result of increasing individual’s workloads and stress levels as they felt they

should respond. The reduction of the burden of the workforce from this reduction in

email traffic had been welcomed but another participant in the focus group identified

the opposite in their organisation. They felt the increase in email traffic constituted a

‘catch me out if you can’ culture, where staff were on their guard 24/7 in the fear that

not responding to an email in a timely manner would result in disciplinary action.

Therefore they no longer queried whether the email was important (or urgent) but felt

there was a pressure for quick responses day or night leading to a more bullying and

blame oriented culture.

A further observation was that, as staff were enabled to use the technology available

to them on mobile devices and platforms, then it had evolved in their increased

workload as activities, which might have historically been undertaken by support staff

were now being undertaken by them but not recognised in their workload. They

perceived that this invisible increase in work activity was treated as a failure in duty

by employers if tasks previously provided by support staff had not been done now

automatically. This was interpreted through their discussions, not as an

empowerment from job enlargement but as an increase in pressure in the workplace as

they felt that there was no avenue to negotiate since they perceived the level of

activity had become an expectation by the management team and organisation,

without any prior consultation.

One of the focus groups identified and discussed initial resentment to many of the

technological changes. Whilst they noted this appeared to be improving by the time

the focus group was conducted. Another focus group noted that:

‘… re-structuring and financial changes had now happened each year since the crisis

and as a result we [workers] were concerned about their security and this caused us

considerable stress…’

From the excerpts taken from the focus groups, as provided, it appears that a number

of the contents were consistent with the expectations of the prior Hassard et al (2009)

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study of change within management where Hassard et al (2009) reports increased

workloads, stress and perceptions of work intentification.

Further, this is consistent with the issues surrounding the nature of engagement.

Whilst Hassard et al’s (2009) study focussed upon the period prior to the 2008 crisis,

and upon middle management responses, the insights that our focus groups provide

suggest that also, like managers, the general workforce perceived generally increased

stress from the changing nature of the organisational climate from a negative viewing.

However, the one focus group cohort comprising workers from the private company

who were enjoying financial growth reported by contrast a supportive management

team suggested increasing levels of intellectual, social and emotional engagement

which impacted upon their behaviours.

It is difficult to ascertain from the limitations of the focus group research conducted,

whether the perceived management approach reflected the realities or intentions of the

management team ie could their intentions actually be more (or less) exploitative? It

might be furthered that in times of profitability and growth there may be a focus by

employers upon providing an appreciative culture. However, the experiences within

other organisations, post 2000, (Hassard et al, 2009) which are reported as being more

financially focused reflect that these organisations are responding to a difficult trading

climate. Perhaps this does not reflect the governmental drive towards the benefits

from improving engagement as employers are responding to the post-2008 economic

climate by moving towards a more disengaging stance.

Conclusions and Implications

The data presented intended to reflect the different encounters that participants had

and the differences in their discursive versions of the reality they co-constructed

through focus group interaction. The analysis provided from the data collected from

the focus groups attempts to show the meanings that groups allocated to their lived

experiences and reality or identities expressed through their discursive versions of

their shared perceptions of work within UK organisations post 2008. By identifying

themes from Hassard et al (2009)’s earlier study, this paper sought to identify

challenges faced in terms of engagement and implications for HRD. If the UK

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workforce represented here then suggests that, further to the global financial crisis,

they are ‘overworked’ and this leads to disengagement and disenchantment perhaps

this reinforces the stance of HRD needs to evolve towards a more critical stance (Rigg

et al, 2007). Or to greater workforce ownership (Sprangel et al, 2011) and OD forms

that embrace employees (Halm, 2011) rather than as an onlooker to short-term

financiallly focussed work intensification where the social assets of the workforce are

not fully engaged.

This study recognises that, despite its apparent replication of Hassard et al’s (2009)

findings of increased workloads and stress, absent of improvements remedied by

HRD, given the constraints of sample size this provides only insights which will be

furthered in later research to be conducted. Further the paper provides only a

contribution to a limited scholarly literature or commentary on post-2008 lived

experiences and perceptions of workplace change and impact upon engagement.

However, the accounts suggest potentially a possibility of the challenge for HRD to

recognise the nature of the UK post-2008 climate. As such potentially also, a need to

seek to gain corporate commitment towards new forms of OD/HRD (Sprangel et al,

2011), (recognising the complexity of social totality within organisations which take

the high road that HPW aspired towards since short term, work intensification

mechanisms appear to reduce engagement and morale depleting the workforce). The

failing to grasp any such challenge might then lead to a deficit towards recovery post-

2008, wasting the potential of new OD models for the UK and limiting the

understanding of how to improve engagement and thus bottom line profit. As such

then this provides some initial readings into the issues HRD professionals may wish

to reflect upon.

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