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THE UK WORK ORGANISATION NETWORK

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UKWON Forums

UKWON is a unique organisation that brings together a diverse range of partners to explore the future of work and organisations, and to help bridge the gap between leading-edge practice and common practice.

Forums are open to all, engaging managers, employees, trade union representatives, researchers, policymakers and other stakeholders in sharing knowledge and experience on a regular basis.

Our 2012 Programme focuses on employee engagement. It includes free events led by Centrica, NextiraOne, The Lindum Group and Whitbread, four companies with impressive stories to tell about how to engage employees in innovation, improvement and performance enhancement. Full details can be found here or you can book now.

Some previous Forum events are summarised below:

Employee Engagement - the key to sustainable success

An engaged workforce is no longer just nice to have: it’s about survival. Evidence from across the world shows that organisations with engaged workforces perform significantly better than those without - and that they are much more resilient against the challenges posed by the state of the global economy. Employee engagement is not just about HR: it’s about productivity, innovation and quality as well as about looking after your workforce.

The problem is how to achieve it.

Two highly interactive Symposia - at the Rose Theatre in Kingston on 15th October and the New Art Exchange in Nottingham on 20th October - explored these issues in depth. Both Symposia included an overview of future directions in employee engagement and workplace innovation led by Professor Peter Totterdill, and used forum theatre as a means of engaging participants in reflection, knowledge exchange and dialogue.

The Kingston Symposium, sponsored by Kingston University Business School, included a special keynote address by Sharon Darwent, Head of Employee Engagement at BT. Sharon's presentation contains fascinating insights into BT's approach to engaging its workforce during a period of radical changes in the company's external environment.

The Nottingham Symposium, held in conjunction with Acas, included a keynote presentation by Julie Crabtree, Director of Jersey Post. Julie's presentation contains a valuable case study of public sector transformation through employee engagement.

UKWON's consultancy company Workplace Innovation Limited can help your organisation enhance employee engagement - contact us to learn more.

Forum Report Beyond Corporate Social Responsibility: Integrating CSR into Everyday Policy and Practice

Monday 5 July 2010

This afternoon event focused on the current state of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the UK across the private and public sectors. Individual sessions examined CSR in health and education, the part played by ownership in securing responsible management and the role of CSR in small and medium-sized enterprises.

Introduction and welcome

Peter Totterdill
UKWON

Speakers
Philippa Foster Back OBE
Director, Institute of Business Ethics
Peter Cressey and Michelle Farr
Department of Sociology, University of Bath
Nigel Mason
Policy Director, Employee Ownership Association
Laura Spence
Director, Centre for Research into Sustainability, Royal Holloway University of London

Synopsis:

Philippa Foster Back OBE: CSR in today’s environment

How a company does its business has never been more important. From consumer expectations to company reputations, the issues that corporate responsibility embraces means it is a subject directors and senior managers cannot ignore. This session will set the scene as to what companies are doing today to address the issues.

Peter Cressey and Michelle Farr: Co-participation: how can staff and users collaborate to change public services?

This presentation looks at attempts in the public sector to go beyond employee participation. This means looking at new forms of partnership based on both user and worker involvement.

Nigel Mason: Why Ownership Matters

The role of active owners in determining an organisation’s CSR policy is often overlooked. This session will explore the still under-utilised roles of shareholder activism and engaged ownership in directing the course of a business.

Laura Spence: CSR in SMEs: Integration or World View?

Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are different in nature, not just in size, from large firms. While policy makers and corporate customers seek to influence the 'CSR' credentials of SMEs, they rarely acknowledge the different nature of CSR in smaller organisations. Rather than being an additional strategic approach to bolt-on or at best integrate into the SME, CSR, it is proposed, is more likely to be characteristic of the world view of the SME owner-manager.

Current forums

Employee Engagement Network

Welcome to the Engagement Network, UKWON’s programme of free events designed to enable practitioners to share knowledge and experience of building an engaged workforce.     MORE...