Posted By
Stephen Bevan
31 May 2013
In a knowledge-based economy, perhaps the next ‘great leap’ lies in the use of cognitive enhancers or ‘smart drugs’ to improve our concentration, allow us to work longer without sleep, improve our memories, reduce impulsivity or improve our ability to plan.
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Posted By
Professor Stephen Bevan
17 April 2013
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Posted By
Professor Stephen Bevan
12 April 2013
A review the seminar at which Stephen was involved, organised by the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) political grouping in the European Parliament.
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Posted By
Professor Stephen Bevan
20 March 2013
A review of the impact that tax relief to employers – up to a limit of £500 per head - who help employees back to work after a period of absence.
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Posted By
Stephen Bevan
19 February 2013
Approximately one in six workers in the UK are currently experiencing a mental health condition – most often anxiety, depression and stress. These conditions are a major cause of sickness absence and worklessness, resulting in 600,000 lost workdays each year.
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Posted By
Stephen Bevan
23 January 2013
This week, as post-Christmas blues, poor weather, returning to work and the arrival of unwelcome energy bills all combined to lower the national mood (annually dubbed Blue Monday), we provided a sneak preview to our partners of a forthcoming report through a webinar with a distinguished panel.
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The Government has reduced the consultation period for redundancy from 90 days to 45 days. Is the Government's 'Mood Music' helpful in promoting good workplace relations.
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Posted By
Steve Bevan
12 December 2012
Performance-related pay for teachers was announced in the Autumn Budget. But does evidence support the ideas behind the policy?
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Posted By
Stephen Bevan
12 December 2012
Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) remain the single most important cause of absence from work among UK workers. With more support from public serices, this could all change.
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Posted By
Stephen Bevan
21 November 2012
The publication of our Fit for Work? reports in Australia and New Zealand earlier this year confirmed that the initiative now has a global ‘reach’. With Canada, Israel and Turkey the subject of previous reports (and Russia, Brazil and the USA in the pipeline) the Fit for Work? messages are really gathering momentum. And last Friday I had the honour to be in Tokyo to present the findings of our Fit for Work? research in Japan.
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Posted By
Stephen Bevan
29 October 2012
A third of people in the UK say they would not be willing to work with someone who has a mental health problem. Despite the progress which has been made to raise awareness of mental illness in the UK, one of the biggest barriers to a breakthrough is stigma.
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Posted By
Stephen Bevan
29 October 2012
A 500-page document known as El Ladrillo or ‘The Brick’ has a special and painful significance for many people in Chile. It was, in 1973, the basis for what became a twenty year economic experiment. Guided by the free-market philosophy of Milton Friedman and colleagues at the University of Chicago, the so-called ‘Chicago Boys’ in the post-coup government of General Pinochet used it to shape the deregulated and privatised future of Chile’s economy. Today, of course, it’s hard to imagine that a whole economy could be run as a live experiment. It was no less than an audacious large-scale test of a political and economic ideology.
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Posted By
Stephen Bevan
19 October 2012
This week I have been chairing the 4th Annual Fit for Work Summit in Brussels. The Fit for Work programme is a 35-country study which has been examining the burden of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) on the health and productivity of working-age people across Europe, Australasia, North America and parts of Asia. Over 200 delegates from across the world spent two days hearing presentations from eminent clinicians, from patients, from policy-makers and from health economists. Their message was clear: MSDs in the workforce cost the EU over 240 billion Euros each year (up to 2% of GDP) and much more can be done to prevent the loss of productivity and the risk of social exclusion which they represent.
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Posted By
Stephen Bevan
10 October 2012
On World Mental Health Day it seems appropriate to pause and to reflect both on what has been achieved in promoting better understanding of mental illness, and what is still to achieve. Today I spoke at an event with Health Minister Norman Lamb MP to draw attention to the issue of mental health at work and to highlight some of the excellent work which the Department of Health as an employer is doing to promote psychological wellbeing.
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Posted By
Stephen Bevan
10 October 2012
Mr Osborne managed to avoid using the word ‘growth’ even once in his speech at the Conservative Conference this week. Yet, as the IMF pointed out in their report the day after, this is something which the UK and other developed economies are likely to be short of for a few months yet.
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