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What does it mean to say there's an evidence base for supported employment? One approach, known as Individual placement and support or IPS for short, has been extensively evaluated and proven to help high numbers of people with severe mental health problems into work. But there is still little evidence of this approach being put into practice here in the UK. This article recalls a visit this year to the UK by Professor Bob Drake and colleagues from Dartmouth, New Hampshire, USA where the approach was developed, and explains the principles of supported employment and what it can mean for service users, staff, families and employers.

This study explores the nexus between institutions and managerialist employment relations and subsequent work-life balance (WLB) challenges for Nigerian employees. Through an exploratory approach, the paper investigates how institutions shape employment relations, which is characterised by systematic and normalised managerialist practices and lack of employee participation.

Relying on a qualitative, interpretive approach, this study explores the relationship between institutional pressures, managerialism and employment relations. 31 semi-structured interviews and nine focus group interviews data was used.

This paper found that institutions shape organisational practice, specifically employment relations and human resource management (HRM) practice generally through its normative tendency. The study also found that although managerialist employment relations leads to WLB challenges, Nigeria's unique context aggravates this situation constituting serious WLB challenges for workers.

Researches dealing with the relationship between managerialism, employment relations and WLB are largely underdeveloped and under-theorised. HRM phenomena such as unhappy workforce, stress, lack of flexibility, burnout, turnover and turnover intention, associated with management practice, have major implications for engagement procedures and HRM strategies. However, the sample size used potentially limits generalisation including its qualitative approach.

This study contributes to the dearth of researches focusing on employer–employee relationship quality as a precursor to WLB challenges and a mediator between managerialist employment relations and WLB challenges. Additionally, the study contributes to the burgeoning WLB discourse from developing countries perspective, which is understudied. It also sheds light on how Nigeria's unique context can bring new insights into the nascent WLB discourse and its associated HRM practices.

Significant unemployment among adults with serious mental illness (SMI) is a well-documented problem. Estimates suggest that as many as 85% of adults with SMI are unemployed at any one time (Anthony & Blanch, 1987; Milazzo-Sayre, Henderson & Manderscheid, 1997; Rogers, Walsh, Masotta & Danley, 1991). Recent years have seen advances in the development and dissemination of a variety of supported employment services for adults with disabilities. When people with SMI are enrolled in services with a specific employment focus, they achieve employment outcomes (e.g. job placement rates, job tenure) superior to those achieved by people receiving standard mental health services such as day treatment (Bond et al., 2001; Cook, 2003). Supported employment is now considered an “evidenced-based” practice (Bond et al., 2001). Although supported employment approaches vary, evidence-based services share common principles, including (1) prioritizing client preferences for type and timing of work; (2) providing in-vivo and follow-along supports as long as needed; (3) viewing work attempts as part of a learning opportunity; (4) having a commitment to “competitive” employment as an attainable goal; and (5) not relying on pre-vocational training, day treatment or sheltered workshops (Bond et al., 2001; Mowbray, Leff, Warren, McCrohan et al., 1997; Ridgeway & Rapp, 1998).

The purpose of this paper is to present a narrative history of the birth of human resource management in the New Zealand hotel sector. This historical development is analysed through the influence of changes in the national economic and employment relations context, the demise of national corporatist structures and individual and enterprise level agency. Thereby, the paper provides a new explanatory framework for the origins of human resource management in hotels and also presents this unique birth of human resource management as a microcosm of the wider social, political and economic “big bang” that fundamentally changed the course of employment relations in New Zealand during the 1980s and 1990s.

The data for this paper were gathered as part of a larger historical study of employment relations in the New Zealand hotel sector from 1955 to 2000. The sources for the study included semi-structured interviews and archival research, which were interpreted using manual thematic analysis.

The paper presents an original explanation of the birth of human resource management in New Zealand hotels by drawing on historical changes in national frameworks, corporatist approaches and individual agency, and thereby, it illustrates the uniqueness and intensity associated with the implementation of human resource management in New Zealand hotels.

This paper makes a significant contribution to the scant literature on the historical origins of human resource management. It also explains the historical and contextual embeddedness of various employment relations approaches in New Zealand hotels.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between managerialist employment relations and employee turnover intention in Nigeria. The study context is public hospitals in Nigeria, which have a history of problematic human resource management (HRM) practice, a non-participatory workplace culture, managerialist employment relations and a high employee turnover intention.

Based on a qualitative, interpretive approach, this paper investigates the process by which Nigerian employment relations practices trigger the employee turnover intention of doctors using 33 semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders in public hospitals.

This study found that Nigeria’s managerialist employment relations trigger the employee turnover intention of medical doctors. Additionally, it was found that although managerialist employment relations lead to turnover intention, Nigeria’s unique, non-participatory and authoritarian employment relations system exacerbates this situation, forcing doctors to consider leaving their employment.

Studies on the interface between managerialism and employment relations are still under-researched and underdeveloped. This paper also throws more light on issues associated with managerialist employment relations and human resources practice including stress, burnout and dissatisfaction. Their relationship with doctors’ turnover intention has significant implications for employment policies, engagement processes and HRM in general. The possibility of generalising the findings of this study is constrained by the limited sample size and its qualitative orientation.

This paper contributes to the dearth of studies emphasising employer–employee relationship quality as a predictor of employee turnover intention and a mediator between managerialist organisational system and turnover intention. The study further contributes to the discourse of employment relations and its concomitant turnover intention from developing countries’ perspective within the medical sector.

The purpose of this paper is to examine equal employment policies in Australia’s male-dominated construction industry and categorise the types of activities undertaken against an equal employment typology to identify links to outcomes for women in the form of increased participation and management.

To explore the issue of low representation of women in construction through the content analysis of 83 construction organisations’ equal employment opportunity (EEO) reports.

This industry is not engaging with equal employment issues and the numbers of women working in the industry and/or management are based on individual decision rather than an institutional commitment to equality in diversity.

Australian legislation mandates organisational reporting of relevant data and offers public access to this information offering a unique data set.

An ageing population means that the predominately older male workforce is leaving construction in greater numbers with fewer potential replacements making new labour markets a vital consideration.

Legislation and organisational policies designed to promote EEO for women have existed in numerous countries for decades. One objective of this legislation was to reduce male domination in senior positions and industries/occupations where women were under-represented. Despite this, few women are employed in construction in operational or management roles worldwide.

This study offers a comprehensive analysis of a male-dominated industry in one jurisdiction rather than a few selected cases and uses a broader rigorous typology for analysis that acknowledges both equal and different treatment options.

This study aims to investigate the specific role of the components of ability-based emotional intelligence (their relative importance) in building different aspects of career adaptabilities and job-search success of university students.

This study employed survey data from 729 full-time students enrolled in an Indian university. Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to test the hypotheses, and the size of indirect effect was tested using SPSS PROCESS macro.

The ability-based emotional intelligence, along with the use and regulation of emotion in job-search success, plays a significant role in shaping career adaptabilities and job-search success. The ability to use and regulate emotions does have its impact on job-search success through a self-regulatory psychological resource of control and confidence over one's career. Self-emotional appraisal is necessary for an individual to be concerned for a career which forms the initiation of any job-search.

Ability-based approach of enhancing emotional intelligence allows the university students to take a developmental approach in employment. This approach benefits the more “targeted approach to training interventions” provided by various stakeholders in the university, associated with career and employment.

Further, the study focuses on the psychological difficulties (over operational) faced by students in their employment endeavour. Both emotions and psychological resources are believed to play an important role in the career intervention. For instance, past researches have studied trait-based emotional intelligence as a personality construct. However, this study considers emotional intelligence as an ability-based aspect of intelligence, which “readily lends itself to interventions that can be enhanced through targeted training, coaching or counselling”.

Work integration social enterprises (WISEs) create jobs through business ventures that function as locations for training and employment of disadvantaged workers. A key challenge for US WISEs is that the businesses that are easiest to launch and best suited to absorb large numbers of unskilled workers may be located in the same low wage labor market sectors out of which these interventions are designed to catapult workers. This paper aims to present data on an understudied aspect of WISEs: the labor market niches where they are active, the occupations associated with these labor market positions, and the work conditions offered through their WISE businesses.

Data presented in this paper are from a national WISE database developed by the author that includes 254 businesses associated with 123 WISEs, and a pilot study of 15 WISEs testing an instrument for use in a national survey of US WISEs. Each business associated with the WISEs in the national database was coded for industry, occupation and wage data using categories developed by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Each WISE business was further coded as preparing its workers for either low or middle skill jobs. These data were analyzed using frequency counts, chi square tests of association and a two‐step cluster analysis. To explore employment conditions inside WISE businesses, the pilot study data were analyzed using a multiple case study analysis approach. Through focused coding techniques, descriptions of the employment conditions associated with the WISE jobs are reviewed.

Analysis at the level of occupation category reveals that about 72 percent of the jobs that WISEs train clients to perform exist in low skill occupations. Chi‐square tests of association between NTEE code (a proxy for target population) and job skill level are not significant suggesting that low skill training is utilized by organizations serving clients facing a range of disadvantage. Cluster analyses indicate that for WISEs targeting disabled populations and for newer organizations targeting the general unemployed populations, low skill job training pervades but for education organization and for older employment organizations, middle skill job training is more prevalent. The pilot data analyses show that the WISEs offer minimum wage or higher wage positions but many without guaranteed hours or a clear pathway out of WISE employment.

These data suggest WISEs in the USA have grown well beyond their earlier, narrower niche working with the disabled to employ a much broader portfolio of client populations, many higher functioning. However, the findings that many WISEs are positioned in the low skill labor market and on some dimensions can mirror the low skill labor market employment conditions suggest that additional aspects of WISE workforce development strategy should be taken into account.

The paper focuses on the labor market niches where WISEs are active, the occupations associated with these labor market positions, and the work conditions offered.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the research within the area of employment for ex-prisoners who have a Serious Mental Illness (SMI).

A review of the literature examining the employment of ex-offenders who have a SMI whilst also presenting a possible novel solution.

The research highlights a distinct lack of employment opportunities and numerous barriers for offenders with research often failing to distinguish between those who have mental health difficulties. However, early findings suggest that Individual Placement and Support (IPS) approaches can generate competitive employment for this population.

Offenders with a SMI are often routinely excluded from vocational services due to their mental health. This review has indicated that the way in which such offenders are treated in prison and reintegrated into the community needs to be addressed.

By tackling this issue not only could the mental health and quality of life of ex-offenders be improved through sustained employment, but the marked economic costs to society that unemployment and recidivism encompasses could also be alleviated.

This review not only suggests a possible solution to the problems faced by offenders with mental health difficulties in gaining employment, but also presents a novel approach to future research that extends to outlining causal explanations for what works for whom.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the development of “Green” jobs in one region of the European Union, Scotland, where the government has sought to develop renewable and sustainable energy industries and associated employment.

The paper analyses selected secondary data and policy documents and conceptualises issues concerning employment in the renewable energy sector.

It analyses published data and projections on employment in renewable energy sectors, considering the reasons for the lower actual job creation. Many of the jobs in the renewable energy sector are likely to be high skilled, so there is need to support the development of low-skilled workers and job seekers so that they can enter and progress in the industry. Similarly there is a strong gender bias in the industry which may similarly reduce the entry and retention of the best staff and inhibit social equity.

The paper suggests that “Career first” recruitment and development policies are needed which emphasise improving both productivity and the “quality” and attractiveness of sustainable, long-term careers in the sector.

In addition to relying on general labour attraction policies and separate industry-specific skills initiatives for those already in work, more attention needs to be given to developing sustainable employment with career progression for people moving into, or already in, the industry.

The links between support for those moving into jobs and developing the skills of existing workers in sustainable industries have been under researched and this paper adds new conceptual developments, in terms of “Career” first approaches and empirical analysis of employment in renewable industries in Scotland.