This article assesses the extent to which employers displaying the Positive About Disabled People ‘Two Ticks’ symbol adhere to the five commitments they are expected to uphold and whether adherence to these commitments is greater in Two Ticks than non-Two Ticks workplaces. It also...

In recent years marked changes have occurred in the way employers recruit and select agency workers, with this activity increasingly being outsourced to third party organizations providing ‘vendor managed services’ (VMS). Drawing on data from a study of English social services, this...

Drawing on a matched sample of pairs of Union Learning Representatives (ULRs) and managers in 90 workplaces, this article evaluates managers’ views of the impact of ULRs on training and compares these views with those of ULRs themselves. Although managers are less positive than are ULRs about...

The last five years have witnessed a steady growth in the use of agency workers to fill core professional roles in public sector organizations. Whereas in the past the use of agency workers was driven mainly by employer demands for improved flexibility, this current expansion is predominantly...

This article evaluates the nature and incidence of equal opportunities (EO) policies in the UK using data from the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey (WERS 98).The article identifies the types of workplaces that are more likely to adopt formal gender, ethnicity, disability and age...

Analysing data from the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey we establish the extent to which levels of training activity in Britain are lower in SMEs than in larger firms.The antecedents of training activity within the SME sector are examined in terms of the workplace characteristics that...

This article provides an empirical assessment of the relationship between unionization and the adoption of equal opportunities (EO) policies and practices in British workplaces, using data from the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey. The results demonstrate an association between union...