PrOPEL Hub Knowledge Exchange Fellow Dr Helen Fitzhugh shares details of her and colleagues’ research as part of Norwich Business School and in collaboration with Norwich Good Economy Commission to improve the experience of work as employers build back after COVID-19 and shares how firms interested in sharing their experiences can get involved.

Take part in the Good Jobs Project 2021!

We understand that it has been a difficult time for a lot of businesses in Norwich. We are exploring ways to support managers and employees in Norwich businesses to embed good experiences of work into the way they build back after the crisis. We have a particular focus on what good jobs look like for frontline workers – for example in sectors like hospitality, retail and care – that have experienced challenges during the COVID-19 crisis. To be able to deliver a successful project for Norwich, we need to hear about what’s gone well for businesses, what’s been a challenge and what you think is possible going forward to support employee wellbeing and productivity.

Call for employers to take part

There are a few different ways for employers to be involved. Committing to one does not commit you to all, you can be as involved as you would like to be.

We are looking for employers who would be willing to:

  1. Discuss the experience of employing frontline workers in Norwich with one of our researchers. What are the successes and challenges of improving (or even just maintaining at the moment) a good employee experience of work? The discussion will take approximately 30 minutes via video or audio call and everything we hear will be anonymised before we use it for our research report so you can be confident to speak with our research team about challenges as well as successes.
  2. Send out our call for participants out to your workers. We would love to speak to frontline workers for 15-30 mins to hear their experiences too, so if you invite people to volunteer we can take it from there.
  3. Give us feedback on any ‘resource’ (video / poster etc) we create for the project to support a good employee experience of work before we try to circulate it more widely in the city?

Please contact h.fitzhugh@uea.ac.uk if you are happy to add your voice to those of other Norwich businesses. One of our researchers – Helen, Brett or Ritchie – will get back to you asap.