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It is commonly assumed that the more experience a person has, the more learning they will have done, and thus the more they will have to offer, but it’s important to realise that this is a very unsafe assumption to make. We don’t have to go far generally to come across someone who has a lot of experience, but has learned relatively little from it. There can be people with three years’ experience in a particular field who have done an excellent job of drawing out the lessons from that learning, of really making that experience count in terms of improving their practice and developing their confidence. But, there can also be people with thirty years’ experience who have done…

Family physicians in Britain are increasingly prescribing art classes, gardening clubs and walking groups — as an alternative to pills — to patients with mental health challenges. The practice, known as social prescribing, is covered by the U.K.'s National Health Service or NHS and is geared toward people with mental health challenges described as mild or moderate. "What we're looking at is non-medical solutions — where appropriate — for people that can often be more transformative than just giving them medication, which doesn't always get to the root of the cause," says Marie Polley, founder of the Social Prescribing Network, a group of health professionals involved with using the method. "Within the NHS, we have general practitioners who are all recognizing that people are coming back to see them over and…

Eldercare is a growing workplace issue as the numbers of workers caring for an elderly family member rises. Carers UK reports that there are three million working carers, representing one in eight in the workplace; a significant proportion of which are eldercarers.  With an ageing population, longer living, extended working lives and a squeeze on social services, the number of working eldercarers is set to soar. The organisation predicts that by 2037 there will be nine million carers in the UK. Around 85% of these carers, the majority of whom are women, are the ‘sandwich generation’, caring for offspring as well as elderly parents.  And there is a growing number of the ‘club sandwich generation’ too; baby boomers taking care…

Social supermarkets have emerged in Britain in the past five years as a response to food poverty and food waste. These non-charitable initiatives sell food “surplus” to people on low incomes at heavily discounted prices, and provide social support.In new research, my colleague and I have mapped the growth of social supermarkets and found that while they help support people who are struggling, they do little to challenge the inequalities in the food system. Despite being the fifth richest country in the world, food poverty in Britain has increased over the last decade. Based on UN estimates, as many as 8.4m people are food insecure in the UK. Meanwhile, there has been intense media and political attention on the amount of food that goes to waste in Britain. It is estimated…

A quality job. What’s not to like? But what do we mean by ‘quality’ and how can we measure it appropriately so it can be improved? The CIPD has conducted a detailed and extensive survey of approximately 6,000 workers across different sectors using seven critical dimensions which employees, employers and policy makers can measure and focus on to raise job quality and improve working lives. Applied to the UK workforce, the index provides a snapshot of what job quality looks like in Britain today. Our survey report reveals some myth-busting findings, and underscores the critical role of skills development, access to training, career conversations and especially employee well-being in advancing job quality. Click here to read more