CTWD Researcher Highly Commended in 2020 Emerald/EFMD Outstanding Doctoral Research Awards

Congratulations to our Research Fellow, Giverny de Boeck who was selected as a highly commended winner in the Emerald/EFMD Outstanding Doctoral Research Awards (ODRAs)!

Her thesis, The Realization of Potential in the Workplace: An Employer and Employee Perspective, supervised by Prof Nicky Dries, is highly commended in the field of Human Resources Management.

The Emerald/EFMD Outstanding Doctoral Research Awards (ODRAs) aims to recognise and reward exceptional doctoral research

For a full list of award winners, please click here:

https://www.efmdglobal.org/awards/outstanding-doctoral-research-awards/odra-winners-2020/

Sharon Parker recognised as one of Australia’s leading researchers in business,economics &management

Published in The Australian on 23 September , Julie Hare

Sharon Parker was acknowledged in The Australian’s Lifetime Achievers Leaderboard, which lists the top 40 researchers from Australian universities and research institutions.

Sharon Parker

Organisational behaviour expert, Curtin University

Research leader in the field of human resources and organisation

Back in 1930, John Maynard Keynes, one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century, wrote in an essay predicting the future of work: “For the first time since his creation, man will be faced with his real, his permanent problem; how to occupy the leisure (time).” Keynes’ utopian 15-hour week hasn’t eventuated. The opposite is true.

“Greedy jobs” eat up 15-hour days for some; the gig economy depletes financial security for others.

What is common in a surprising number of jobs – not matter how elite or pedestrian – is how badly designed they are, says Sharon Parker, an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow and professor of organisational behaviour at Curtin University’s Future of Work Institute. Her central focus is on the design of work: what makes jobs rewarding, meaningful, healthy, productive and stimulating.

“From a psychological perspective, when work is well-designed, workers have interesting tasks, autonomy over those tasks, a meaningful degree of social contact with others and a tolerable level of task demands,” Parker says.

For many, jobs are tedious, uninspiring, repetitive, dull and exhausting – whether we work in a high-end consultancy firm or an Amazon warehouse.

“Our research suggests, if you give people autonomy and agency and you trust them, they usually do a good job. They will be trustworthy and they will deliver on expectations.”

She says most jobs are a hangover from history – including the nine-tofive work day. Rarely, however, do managers ask the question: Could this job be done in a different, more efficient, more creative and better way?

To address the lack of design, Parker and her team have designed a framework called SMART. It embodies five key principles – stimulating, mastery, agency, relational and tolerable – that if adopted can guarantee fulfilling and rewarding work.

Parker’s research interests are now branching out into neuroscience: how different work design combinations impact cognitive functioning and whether SMART jobs can protect against Alzheimer’s.

Next year, she will launch what she hopes will be a 20-year study to track 10,000 individuals’ work experiences, with a particular focus on the impact of automation on jobs. It’s called WALC (Work Across Life and Careers).

Of course, the work revolution thrust upon almost the entire economy by the pandemic is rich pickings for Parker and her team. Their recent article in the Harvard Business Review explored how managers are coping with having staff working remotely during COVID. For many, not so well.

Parker and her co-authors found that 40 per cent of the 215 managers surveyed had low self-confidence in their ability to manage staff who were working remotely, and a similar number thought staff were slacking off, incompetent or lacked essential skills compared to in-office colleagues.

“The picture is a not a rosy one,” they write, with staff feeling distrusted and micromanaged by bosses who don’t feel in control.

Interstate separation takes toll on families

Published in Geraldton Guardian on 4 September 2020

“Will you be home for Father’s Day?” — A question often on the lips of FIFO partners in the lead-up to the big occasion. Working in the mining industry can mean missing out on big days, especially in the age of COVID-19. Curtin University Researcher Sharon Parker says the extra time away from home caused by quarantine and border closures has been difficult for FIFO families

If Petra Avery does not move to Western Australia, her young children will only get three weeks with their dad this year.

Her son Oliver was six months old when her husband Bruce Avery left their home in Toowoomba, Queensland, and travelled to a mine site in Western Australia for work.

“When he came back, the baby had no idea who he was,” she said.

Although Mr Avery was able to come home for a short period, he had to leave three weeks later, and she said it was unlikely he could return for another six months.

Mrs Avery said this arrangement had been hard for her young family, and she was afraid the time away had damaged her children’s relationship with their father.

“All the kids at their school are making Father’s Day gifts, and my kids won’t have that in the same way. Bruce just buries himself in his work,” she said.

Their daughter Harper, 3, used to have a very close relationship with Mr Avery when he lived in Queensland. “He doesn’t get the boundaries I have put in place with her while he was away,” she said. “Their personalities are clashing.” The family have considered moving to Perth to be closer together, but the decision has been difficult for Mrs Avery, as she is hesitant to leave her entire support network with two young children. The Averys are not been the only ones struggling.

Curtin University’s Sharon Parker has researched the impact of COVID-19 border closures on fly-in, fly-out workers’ mental health. “Preliminary analyses show that more than 40 per cent of workers are experiencing high or very high psychological distress,” she said.

“Events like Father’s Day are very difficult for FIFO fathers who are away, especially for those interstate workers who might be uncertain about when they will get home.”

She has called for employers to do more for their workers during this challenging time.

“We need companies to do the right thing by caring for their employees and do whatever they can to support them at this time,” she said. “The way companies treat people during times of crisis is a great indicator of the real values of a company.”