Academic associates
Professor Stephen Bevan, Director, Centre for Workforce Effectiveness, The Work Foundation
Stephen is Director of the Centre for Workforce Effectiveness at The Work Foundation and is an Honorary Professor at Lancaster University. He joined The Work Foundation from the Institute for Employment Studies (IES) 2002 as Director of Research. Stephen has carried out research and policy work for the No. 10 Policy Unit, HM Treasury, the Cabinet Office, the Department of Health, the Department of Work and Pensions and the European Commission. He has also advised many blue-chip companies on many aspects of HR strategy and practice. Stephen has conducted research on high performance work practices, employee reward strategy, staff engagement and retention and good work.
He has written and spoken widely about The Work Foundation's research programmes, both in the UK and overseas, including at the Health Technology Assessment International (HTAi) Conference in Singapore, 2009, the Pan-Hellenic Congress on Occupational Health & Safety, 2010 and the Swedish Almadalen in 2010. Stephen is a member of the expert group supporting the government’s review of Sickness Absence, a member of the McLeod Review’s ‘guru’ group and was an expert advisor to the Hutton Review of Fair Pay in the public sector. Stephen is Founding President of the Fit for Work Europe Coalition which promotes active policies to improve labour market participation among people with long-term health conditions and in 2010 he was named in the Top 10 most influential ‘HR Thinkers’ of the last five years by HR Magazine. He was Managing Director of The Work Foundation from 2008-2011.
Martin Hird, Honorary Fellow
Martin has held a range of managerial and educational roles. Following graduation and initial employment with the Dunlop Group he entered higher education becoming Dean of the business faculty at Humberside Polytechnic whilst also operating an OD/Development consultancy. From 1988-2005 he worked for BAE Systems, McLaren Group and Royal Mail in a series of HR Director roles which included responsibility for senior-level talent management and leadership development. He is a Fellow at the Centre for Leadership Studies at Exeter University. He researches and teaches within the Centre.
Dr Benjamin Reid, Senior Researcher, the Work Foundation
Benjamin currently leads the Work Foundation’s Creative Industries research programme, and its leadership development evaluation offering. He joined the Work Foundation in 2009 as Senior Researcher on its Future of HR Programme. Prior to joining the Work Foundation, Benjamin spent nine years as a researcher and tutor at Henley Business School – latterly as a post-doctoral Fellow in Leadership and Innovation. At Henley he worked on a wide range of large-scale collaborative commercial research projects – most of which focused on management and leadership development – and was a lecturer in HR, and research methods, on Henley’s MBA and DBA programmes. Between 2006 and 2008 he was a Visiting Tutor on the MBA at American International College, based in Springfield, Massachusetts. Benjamin’s primary research interests are around a) innovation and HR – both how HR develops itself and how HR supports organisational innovation, b) the evaluation of management and leadership development, and c) the role of evidence – particularly of qualitative methods – in organisational practice.
Research clients for major projects Benjamin has worked on include: the National College for Leadership of Schools and Children’s Services, the EU Leonardo and 6th framework programmes, the Clore Social Leadership Programme, PETRONAS, ITV, Channel 4, the DfES, the Advertising Association, Ford Motor Company, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, the Centre for Excellence in Leadership, the Corporate Research Forum, Henley’s HR Centre of Excellence, and the BBC. Between 2007 and 2009 he compiled the HR Most Influential listing for Haymarket Media’s HR Magazine.
Benjamin holds a PhD from Henley Business School at the University of Reading, awarded for a study of management and leadership development programmes from an individual identity perspective. He was supervised by Lancaster University Management School Professor John Burgoyne and Henley’s Professor David W Birchall.
Dr Wilson Wong, Senior Researcher, OD Insight and Practice, CIPD
Wilson joined CIPD’s HR Capability team in August 2012 and leads in the area of psychological contract research, primarily on the construction of organisational fairness and the impact of managing change and organisational cultures. He was senior researcher overseeing research streams of HR and leadership at The Work Foundation. There he applied futures methodologies to support organisational strategic thinking and planning. He was previously at the National IT Council secretariat in Kuala Lumpur where he was an IT Policy Technologist, heading globalisation research. Prior to the NITC, he was AVP at Malaysian Rating, rating corporate debt. He has worked as a research consultant to development agencies and charities, including technology adoption behaviour for SMEs. Recent clients include Barclaycard, Surrey Police, the Department of Work and Pensions, the Department of Health and Standard Chartered Bank. His monograph on The Employment Deal will be published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2013.
He holds a PhD in Economic Psychology (Exon), examining the psychology behind opportunity recognition. He also has a MA in Critical Theory and a MBA in Finance. He was called to the Bar (Middle Temple) in 1990. He is a Fellow of the RSA, and holds Associate positions at the University of Exeter, the Edinburgh Institute and the Centre for Performance-led HR at Lancaster University.
While at Exeter, Wilson was trustee at Exeter Community Initiatives with oversight of BME capacity development projects. He was Chair of the Devon BME Steering Group from 2006-2008, and is currently an active member of the Parochial Church Council at St James’s Piccadilly.
