This page contains details of news articles and forthcoming events relevant to the project, as and when they occur.
February 2024
The beginning of February saw the end of project fieldwork on work package 1 of the study, which specifically focuses on disabled workers’ experiences of remote and hybrid working. These efforts involved an online survey to explore both experiences to date and what respondents would suggest for employers to do to make these models of work more inclusive, alongside 45 in-depth interviews with individuals across the survey sub-sample to explore their thoughts in more detail.
This spring sees the project team now move to a focus on exploring employer perspectives on inclusive remote and hybrid working.
Dr Calum Carson contributed to the Welsh Parliament’s Equality and Social Justice Committee’s Area of Interest call on the disability employment gap, within which the Committee is interested in exploring what action government and employers can take to increase employment opportunities for disabled people and to reduce the disability pay and employment gaps. Calum suggested areas of focus that the Committee could place an emphasis on to affect change in these areas, and provided some early insights from the Inclusive Remote and Hybrid Working Study that are relevant to the Committee’s work.
January 2024
Dr Calum Carson was an invited panelist at a roundtable hosted by Zoom on Thursday 25 January. Organised by the Disability Policy Centre, the event focused on how flexible working can work better for disabled people and carers, with panelists from across business, academia and the third sector, and was chaired by Wendy Chamberlain MP. Among other issues, the event discussed current barriers to disabled workers and carers accessing remote and hybrid working, how employers can help make these roles inclusive for all of their workforce, and what role there is for policymakers in helping to promote and facilitate these models of work. A pamphlet summarising some of the main themes of the event is forthcoming.
December 2023
Dr Calum Carson has written a guest article for Disability Rights UK on the need to listen more clearly to the voices of disabled workers in designing the future of hybrid and remote working models. The article can be read in full here.
Project leader Dr Paula Holland and project partner Dr Calum Carson have written an article together in recognition of the United Nations’ 2023 International Day of Disabilities on how to make remote and hybrid work more inclusive, and what employers can do to make this a reality. The article can be read in full here.
November 2023
Project leader Dr Paula Holland and project partners Dr Calum Carson and Rebecca Florisson have written an article together for The Conversation, responding to the government’s new Back to Work Plan and their accompanying rhetoric on disabled people “doing their duty” by taking up remote working roles in greater numbers. The article can be read in full here.
October 2023
Dr Calum Carson was the featured guest on the latest episode of the “Long Covid Podcast,” which can be listened to in full here. Calum discussed the importance of the project’s focus on representing as many diverse conditions as possible in it’s findings, including the experiences of those suffering from the effects of Long Covid since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Other episodes of the podcast can be listened to here.
September 2023
Rebecca Florisson (Principal Analyst for the Work Foundation and Inclusive Hybrid and Remote Working Study project partner) and Calum Carson have written a guest article for the International Public Policy Observatory, which you can find in full here. The article highlights the critical need to take advantage of the current post-pandemic landscape in ensuring that both employers and policymakers better understand how to develop and support new forms of remote and hybrid working that are more inclusive of disabled workers’ needs, and the wider need for the design and structure of new remote and hybrid working strategies to work for the entirety of a workforce rather than for only non-disabled workers.
On the 20th of September Dr Calum Carson participated as an invited expert in a closed roundtable on disability and hybrid working facilitated by the International Public Policy Observatory, alongside attendees from across academia and the public policy realm.
The International Public Policy Observatory (IPPO) aims to mobilise and assess evidence from across the four nations of the United Kingdom, and beyond, to inform policymakers about the best ways to address social harms, and to contribute to better policymaking and thereby to the wellbeing of all UK citizens. Established at the start of the global pandemic in late 2020, the observatory’s initial focus was to mitigate the negative effects of COVID-19, but have since extended to three other national cross-cutting and complex policy challenges: Place and Spatial Inequality, Socio-Economic Inequalities, Net Zero and COVID Recovery. IPPO’s policy research questions are shaped and framed by numerous and diverse conversations with decision-makers from across the devolved nations and draw on research and expertise from around the world.
August 2023
“How to make the workplace inclusive of people with physical and mental health needs” (Dr Calum Carson, Lancaster University)
Dr Calum Carson (Senior Research Associate for the Study) has written a guest article for the LSE Business Review, which you can find in full by clicking on this link. The article argues that that we must understand better the individual experiences of those facing health issues within the workplace, not only to ensure that existing inequalities are not repeated as the world of work changes but also to prevent new ones replacing them.
The LSE Business Review is a knowledge-exchange initiative designed to share the best of modern social science ideas, theories and evidence with business decision-makers and professionals, and to learn from them in turn. They present the expertise of professors in finance, economics, business studies, law, management, accounting, social psychology, mathematics, public policy, sociology, geography, philosophy, media, cultural and gender studies, and political science, in accessible and relevant ways for business.
June 2023
“Making remote and hybrid working more inclusive: understanding disabled workers’ experiences” (Dr Calum Carson, Lancaster University)
Dr Calum Carson (Senior Research Associate for the Study) has written a guest article for our project partner the Work Foundation’s website, which you can find in full by clicking on this link. The article explores the origins of how the Inclusive Remote and Hybrid Working Study came to be, why it is so important to better understand disabled workers’ experiences of remote and hybrid working and what they need to make such models of work inclusive to their needs, and how you can get involved in the research and ensure that your voice is heard in our findings yourself.
The Work Foundation is a leading think tank for improving working lives in the UK. They believe everyone should have access to secure, rewarding and high-quality work, and deliver rigorous applied research to tackle structural inequalities in the labour market and improve working lives across the UK.
“Press release: UK survey on disability inclusive remote and hybrid working” (Lancaster University)
The release of our project survey exploring UK-based disabled workers’ experiences of remote and hybrid working has been featured on the Lancaster University Press Office website, highlighting the focus and origins of the study as well as encouraging people to participate in the survey and/or share it with their own networks.
You can read the press release in full by clicking on this link.
