Centre for Workplace Excellence

There’s no doubt that people are an organisation’s greatest asset, but we know they can also be complex to motivate, manage and retain. Our researchers recognise this and want to make sure you know what the most effective practices are for attracting, engaging and retaining employees.

We also recognise that diversity can contribute to increased creative decision-making, boosted morale, less skill shortages and improved organisational effectiveness. Through our research and partnerships with industry, we aim to understand how to best create an engaging workplace that attends to employees’ needs.

Changes in the workplace mean we need new ways of thinking about how leadership affects the dynamics of networks and interpersonal relationships, including challenges surrounding bullying, conflict and negotiation. We analyse a wide range of leadership strategies and how they influence employee, team and organisational effectiveness.

Our research into shared leadership, humility, power and status hierarchies, as well as gaps in understanding between leaders and followers, can help to guide a new way of thinking in organisations.

From large-scale international workplace disasters to increasing instances of physical and mental health impacts of stress, overwork and bullying on employees – the evidence is clear that better practices are required at national and organisational levels.

Our research empowers organisations to assess corporate psychosocial safety climate, and monitor stress and wellbeing. Current research examines ways to promote human centred work, identify and intervene in bullying cultures, and practices that enable healthier workplaces.  

Attracting the right people can be difficult. But retaining, developing and engaging good people takes far greater effort. Organisations need to master the right mix of human resource management strategies and work health and safety, systems, practices and processes, that allow them to reach and sustain a competitive advantage that will enable well-led high performance yet sustainable workplaces.

Our researchers investigate these factors and how they influence the success of both the organisation and its people, with systems and structures that support performance and enable agile and responsive teams and organisations.