Projects per year
Personal profile
Personal Statement
I have been in post since 2010. I am Professor of Work and Employment Relations and my research and teaching expertise is in the study of work and the management of the employment relationship. To illustrate, my published work includes topics such as workplace innovation; improving job quality; skills implication of automation; workplace learning, including union-led learning; skills and skills valuation; employer-employee partnerships. My research is funded by a variety of organisations including the ESRC, ERDF, the Technology Strategy Board, government, public, private and third sector organisations.
I am also the Director of the Scottish Centre for Employment Research (SCER) which aims to inform academic, policy and practice debates on work and employment. Building on our previous Innovating Works initiative, SCER has worked closely in recent years with multiple stakeholders in a project aimed at Harnessing Knowledge, Research and Networks to drive Fair, Innovative and Transformative Work (FITwork) in Scotland, funded by Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Skills Development Scotland and the Scottish Funding Council and supported by STUC. in addition, SCER has delivered a series of industry facing Workplace Innovation Masterclasses in conjunction with Scottish Enterprise and is leading an evaluation of Community Pharmacy Technology Pilots in conjunction with Scottish Government and NHS Scotland. With Lindsay, I recently worked with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation on research analysing employers' roles in addressing in-work poverty.
I currently lead a research team of colleagues from SCER, the Fraser of Allender Institute and Global Public Health at Strathclyde University and from Eindhoven University and the Erasmus University in the Netherlands on an £861k ESRC funded project on ‘Improving management practices, work engagement and workplace innovation for productivity and wellbeing’.
I am currently the Co-Chair of Scotland’s Fair Work Convention (since 2017) having previously been a member of, and Academic Adviser to, the Convention, since its inception. I was previously a member of the Scottish Government Review Group - Working Together: Progressive Workplace Policies in Scotland. I am also a member of the Scottish Government's Innovation Forum; the SG Gender Pay Action Plan Steering Group; and the SG Human Trafficking and Exploitation Strategic Oversight Group. I previously supported the work of the Scottish Government’s Strategic Group on Women and Work through my activities as Chair of Research and Analysis for the Women’s Employment Summit.
I currently sit as a member of SCDI’s Productivity Club and am a member of the Scottish Apprenticeship Advisory Board’s Gender Commission.
I am a member of the Economic and Social Research Council Peer Review College and previously of the ESRC Future Research Leaders SIFT panel. I am a member of the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland Review Panel. I sit on the Editorial Board of the Industrial Relations Journal, having previously been a board member of the journal Work, Employment and Society. I have a long-standing association with, and have co-organised, the International Labour Process Conference and have organised streams at the Society for the Advancement of Socio Economics (SASE) Conference. I am a member of the British Universities Industrial Relations Association, the British Sociological Association and SASE. I am also a long-standing member of the Employment Tribunals Service and sit on the Steering Group of the Scottish Living Wage Campaign and the Advisory Group to the Oxfam Decent Work Project, having previously sat on the Steering Group of the Oxfam Scotland Humankind Index.
A key part of my role at SCER is to support the activities and career development of SCER’s researchers and doctoral students attached to SCER projects.
Research Interests
My recent research activity has focussed on four key themes: job quality and how this can be improved; skills and learning, gender equality; and industrial relations governance within and outwith the workplace. These distinct research themes are also relevant to my broader interest in workplace innovation within a mutual gains framework. Current/recent research projects include:
- Harnessing Knowledge, Research and Networks to drive Fair, Innovative and Transformative Work (FITwork) in Scotland
- Evaluation of Community Pharmacy Technology Pilots
- Workplace Innovation Masterclasses
- Innovating Works ... improving work and workplaces
- The future of work, employment, skills and training in Scotland
- Automation, organisational redesign and associated skills implications within hospital pharmacy services
- Profiling women’s participation in manufacturing
- Smart HR metrics and monitoring equality and diversity data
- Occupational pay comparisons
- Union-led employability and employment rights support
- Making bad jobs better
- Improving skills utilisation
- Union-led learning and trade union revitalisation
- Employer-employee partnerships and mutual gains organisational change
- Teachers’ pay comparability
- Gender inequality in financial services
Teaching Interests
My two main areas of responsibility in teaching in recent years has been for a group of doctoral students and for the MBA Module Managing People in Organisations. I have also delivered teaching for bespoke MBA programmes through the Centre for Corporate Connections.
Expertise & Capabilities
- Workplace Innovation
- Job quality, skills and learning
- Fair work
- Employee Relations
- Employment Regulation
- Gender Equality
Education/Academic qualification
Bachelor of Laws, UNIVERSITY OF STRATHCLYDE
Award Date: 1 Jan 1997
Doctor of Philosophy, University of Oxford
Award Date: 1 Jan 1991
Bachelor of Arts, UNIVERSITY OF STRATHCLYDE
Award Date: 1 Jan 1984
External positions
Member, Scottish Apprenticeships Advisory Board Gender Commission
2019 → …Member, Scottish Government Gender Pay Gap Action Group
2018 → …Member, Scottish Government Human Trafficking and Exploitation Strategic Oversight Group
2018 → …Co-Chair, Scotland's Fair Work Convention
Dec 2017 → …Fellow, Royal Society of Arts
2017 → …Member, Scotland Can Do Innovation Forum
2017 → …Research Assessor, The Carnegie Trust
2016 → …Member, ESRC Peer Review College
2012 → …Member, Employment Tribunals Scotland
1993 → …Keywords
- employment
- skills
- workplace learning
- workplace innovation
- job quality and fair work
- labour market
- trade unions
- HRM
- gender inequality
- employment regulation and governance
- Women and work
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Projects
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KTP - SHE Transmission. The project will embed engaging work practices, flexible management processes and systemic capacity for the effective implementation of strategy and innovation initiatives.(2 associates)
Mackay, D., Findlay, P., Lindsay, C. & Smith, M.
Scottish Hydro Electric Transmission PLC, Innovate UK
18/01/21 → 17/01/23
Project: Research
Research output
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Business models, innovation and employees' experiences in the workplace: challenges for the post-Covid-19 economy
Findlay, P., Lindsay, C. & Roy, G., 22 Jan 2021, Productivity and the Pandemic: Challenges and Insights from Covid- 19. McCann, P. & Vorley, T. (eds.). 1 ed. Cheltenham, p. 132-146 14 p.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
Open AccessFile -
Developing the Skills System for the National Manufacturing Institute for Scotland (NMIS)
Anderson, P., Hawthorne, M., Findlay, P., Ion, W., Morrison, D., Morrison, D. H., Millar, S. & Viza, E., 30 May 2019, Glasgow. 51 p.Research output: Book/Report › Commissioned report
Prizes
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Emerald Management Reviews Citations of Excellence Winner
Findlay, Patricia (Recipient), 2010
Prize: Other distinction
Activities
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Challenge Poverty Business Roundtable
Patricia Findlay (Keynote speaker) & Colin Lindsay (Keynote speaker)
9 Oct 2019Activity: Talk or presentation types › Invited talk
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Fair Work Measurement Roundtable
Patricia Findlay (Chair)
4 Oct 2019Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Participation in workshop, seminar, course
Impacts
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Supporting the funding and delivery of union-led learning services that widen educational access and benefit learners, unions and employers
Patricia Findlay (Participant) & Chris Warhurst (Participant)
Impact: Impact - for External Portal › Policy and legislation, Professional practice, training and standards
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