The COVID-19 outbreak has highlighted the extent to which society depends upon essential workers, with health and social care workers in particular playing a critical role in pulling us through the crisis.
Last year people took to the streets to applaud their heroic work. But what happens now that the clapping has stopped? What is the aftermath of COVID-19 on the health and social care workers who have spent the last year working under extreme pressure in sometimes dangerous conditions? What lessons from before and during the pandemic should we take forward into the post-covid era?
Across June and July, the PrOPEL Hub will be running a series of free events drawing on evidence gathered before and during the pandemic to explore the implications of Covid-19 for employment relations in the Health & Social Care sector across the four UK nations.
Professor Colin Lindsay from the Department of Work, Employment and Organisations (WEO) is organising the series and chairing a number of the events.
He and Professor Patricia Findlay – who are Deputy Director and Director of the Scottish Centre for Employment Research (SCER) respectively - will be leading one webinar on June 14 at which they will share insights from more than a decade’s worth of research into partnership working in the NHS and care sector, and they’ll consider the future of partnership working post-Covid19.
Find out more on this and the other events here:
https://www.propelhub.org/spotlight-on-health-and-social-care-event-series/
The Strathclyde Virtual Business Networking Society (SBVNS) is a new, innovative society where students can get an insight into the many industries they might end up in as graduates.
With frequent events featuring guest speakers, Q+As, and discussions, students can see business theory put into practice. The Society provides a platform to empower students to develop their networking skills in a virtual environment, which will ultimately serve practice for future job roles. With the way business is shifting to a virtual environment, the society believes it will be hugely beneficial to all its members, and it aims to include something for everyone.
The society was set up by Ben Ridder, MSc Project Management & Innovation (PMI), Chris Chelich (MSc PMI), Nick Read (MSc MBM) and Tiana Sexton (MSc MBM) at the start of the academic year and since then they have gained another committee member - Helen Fleming (MSc MBM) - who joined to help with the growing number of social events that the group had planned.
Society secretary Ben Ridder said, “As the society was founded this year, we made it a goal to achieve the gold level active and engaged status that is set out by Strathclyde Union (SU). This includes elements that range from administrative such as having hand over documents for the committee next year to ensuring that the committee is trained in society finance, unconscious bias training, leadership or a number of other options as provided by SU. We also completed a community event during which the committee raised £355 for Movember.
“Once we received the gold level we became eligible for the STAR awards and competed against the other gold level clubs. We were delighted to receive the overall award for Gold Society. The membership of the society has been growing all year and we now have over 50 members.”
Since it launched, the Society has hosted monthly industry-leading business talks and socials with local and international organisations; supported mental health awareness; recognised by the University's ‘inspire’ programme as a leading resource for entrepreneurship; and now been recognised as Gold Society of the Year.
Ben added, “We are incredibly thankful for the recognition and to everyone who has contributed to making our society a resounding success. Without our community we could not have accomplished this achievement.
You can find the Society on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/StrathclydeVirtualBusinessNetworkingSociety and more about the Star Awards here: https://strathlife.strathunion.com/star-awards-2021/
Freya Young (23), a recent graduate from the MIBML programme, was named winner of the Young Scot Award in the ‘Community’ category.
In the early stage of the pandemic, Freya decided to set up a ‘street library’ for the people of Eaglesham where she lives. The street library contained more than 1000 donated books, DVDs, CDs, board games and jigsaws for people in Eaglesham
Freya also made grocery deliveries to her fellow Eaglesham residents who were shielding during lockdown, and earlier this year launched a community larder to help people in need.
Staged as an online virtual event this year, The Young Scot Awards were held on April 22 and streamed live via YouTube.
The community larder is set to continue longer term now after Freya received grant funding from the Scottish Government to buy a metal shed-like structure. Having been supported by the local church, the larder will still sit outside the Carsewell Centre in the village and is for the local and wider community, including anyone in East Renfrewshire or people in East Kilbride within five miles of travel.
“Just to have been nominated was amazing, and I really didn’t expect it, so it was such a shock when my name was read out as the winner,” said Freya.
“I’m delighted with the award. This [community work] all started in May last year and I didn’t expect to be doing it almost 12 months later.”
If anyone in the Strathclyde community is keen to follow in Freya’s footsteps and help their communities through volunteering, then the University has a volunteering fair with volunteer opportunities coming up soon on June 3 which is open to current students and recent graduates (up to 5 years).
You can find out more here: https://careers.strath.ac.uk/Events/View-Event/PageId/EventDetails/EventId/28584/rdtab/1234?EventStartDate=6%2f3%2f2021+13%3a30%3a00&EventEndDate=6%2f3%2f2021+16%3a00%3a00
Dr Matt Hannon, Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship, hosts a podcast with Dr Rebecca Ford (Politics) which focuses on smart local energy and a zero carbon future. In the most recent one, he interviewed Lord Barker of Battle (Greg Barker - former Energy and Climate Change Minister during Coalition government) for it. You can find it here
Ali Taleb will be graduating with an MPhil in Economics this summer. His thesis is titled “Air Quality Management Areas and Pollution – Evidence from the UK” and was supervised by Dr Markus Gehrsitz. Ali is now employed as a Research Assistant at the European University Flensburg, Germany on a project "Growing Inequality: a Novel Integration of transformations research" which is a Horizon 2020 project involving collaboration between several European Universities. Flensurg’s contribution is led by Prof. Dr. Marcel Smolka.
Rohan Sachdev succeeded in passing his PhD viva with minor corrections at end of January 2021. His thesis is titled “The use of Multi-Sectoral Models in evaluating the Macroeconomic impacts of reduced Household Consumption of Sin Goods: The Case of Alcohol Consumption in Scotland “ and was supervised by Dr Grant Allan and Dr Stuart McIntyre. Rohan has now begun work as a Research Economist with responsibility for Systems Modelling at the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute Northern Ireland (https://www.afbini.gov.uk/ ) based in Belfast.
At the recent PrOPEL Hub Masterclass delivered in partnership with Glasgow City innovation District, Professor Colin Lindsay, Professor Patricia Findlay and Hannah Davidson explored how organisations can best align introduction of and investments in new technologies with people management strategies that empower employees to innovate and drive productivity.
Catch up on the session here: https://www.propelhub.org/our-shared-digital-future-managing-people-for-innovation-and-fair-work/