Jesus Canduela

The changing nature of employment has led to increased awareness of leaveism, a practice involving employees using allocated time off when unwell, taking work home, and picking up work when on annual leave. However, there are theoretical, methodological, and policy/practice‐related weaknesses, apparent in current understandings. The main article aim is to develop, theoretically, the emergent notion of leaveism, drawing on concepts related to work intensification (WI) and ideal worker norms (IWNs), concepts underpinned by reference to information communication technologies (ICTs), then exploring such ideas via an electronic questionnaire (n = 959), aimed at UK‐based employees performing leaveism. The main argument is leaveism is more than a lacuna between presenteeism and sickness absence; it is an unsustainable employer‐driven social phenomenon sitting at the intersection of WI, IWNs and ICTs. The findings have policy/practice implications for human resource management (HRM) professionals, trade unions and governments. Recommendations for future research including exploring leaveism in an international context, and in a Covid‐19 pandemic‐defined era.

This article considers whether employee ownership mitigates the negative workplace outcomes identified by the Disconnected Capitalism Thesis (DCT). Drawing on a programme of in‐depth interviews with workers and managers in employee‐owned businesses (EOBs), the article reveals how they are partially insulated from the vicissitudes endemic within contemporary capitalism. In contrast to the workplace outcomes envisaged within the DCT, these firms are characterized by strong workforce participation, high levels of employment security, active employee engagement and strong levels of employee creativity. Not only are these features beneficial for productivity and firm performance, they generate a form of ‘connected’ capitalism, partially offsetting wider negative systemic forces at play in the economy.

Aims and objectives: To expose problems of using bespoke questionnaire‐based surveys to create knowledge and to advance the use of secondary data as an alternative research approach. Background: Many researchers from students undertaking dissertations to those who attempt to create knowledge to advance society collect data by using questionnaires. But this raises reliability and validity concerns as a consequence of low response rates and non‐response bias. This constrains knowledge creation. Design and method: First, the value of questionnaire‐based research will be discussed. Then, it is argued that much can be accomplished using secondary data. The paper concludes by presenting a case study developed from the Scottish Health Survey. Results and conclusion: We demonstrate that there may be an alternative for creating bespoke questionnaires by researchers. The data to answer their research questions may already exist in official surveys whose data are available to students and researchers. By analysing a case study, we demonstrate the value of one of these secondary sources – the Scottish Health Survey. Relevance to clinical practice: We show that clinical practitioners in their training and in any professional research should consider alternative methods of collecting data for undertaking quantitative research. We advance the use of analysis of data collected by official surveys. Using secondary data can be more efficient in training students in research methods and make dissertations produced more meaningful.

Policy-makers across industrialized nations have sought to increase participation in work-related training as a route to improved competitiveness. However, research conducted in Britain during the 1990s identified significant differences in participation, suggesting that processes of labour market polarization were being played out in unequal access to training. This article updates and builds upon this work through an analysis of British Labour Force Survey data. The analysis sought to assess continuing inequalities in work-related training, comparing the experiences of samples of public and private sector employees, in order to identify evidence of polarized access to skills development opportunities. The study also sought to establish if union representation increased participation and reduced inequalities in access to training. It was found that older workers, the lower skilled and unqualified, part-timers and temporary workers (among others) remained disadvantaged. Trade union presence had powerful positive effects on participation and reduced some inequalities, especially in the private sector.

Policy makers have introduced a number of measures to encourage older workers to stay in the labour market, with improving access to training a particular priority. Policy action appeared justified by evidence that older workers are less likely to participate in training, and more likely to have never been offered training by employers – a key finding of Taylor and Urwin’s (2001) review of Labour Force Survey (LFS) data from 1997. This article models LFS data from 2007 to assess whether age remained a predictor of inequalities in training. It finds that men over 50 remained among those least likely to have been offered training by employers. There were other significant inequalities in participation, suggesting a polarization in access to jobs that offer opportunities for training and progression. The article concludes that policies promoting ‘active ageing’ need to challenge negative employer attitudes and acknowledge fundamental inequalities in access to skills.

This article explores the characteristics, destinations and progression routes of early school leavers – specifically ‘exceptional entry winter leavers’ – in Scotland. Exceptional entry allows students to enter college in the term before their statutory school leaving date – such young people attend college while formally remaining the responsibility of their school. Such arrangements represent an innovative model of supporting transitions to further education among a specific, potentially vulnerable client group, while also offering lessons for the development of school–college collaboration in other areas. Based on an analysis of official data, new survey research with schools and colleges, and in‐depth case studies, this article identifies how schools and colleges work in partnership to support these early school leavers. We find that schools and colleges have developed a range of innovative approaches to engaging with winter leavers, and that the majority complete their programmes or achieve other positive end‐of‐year outcomes. However, the most disadvantaged young people remain least likely to progress. The article concludes by identifying lessons for good practice in school–college partnership‐working and considering implications for policies to prevent young people from finding themselves not in employment, education or training.