Research carried out within the Centre for Research in Employment, Skills and Society (CRESS) into employee engagement has been recognised in the government’s MacLeod Review of engagement in the UK.

Professor Katie Truss (pictured), Director of the Centre for Research in Employment, Skills & Socity at Kingston Business School has been invited to join the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills Expert Group appointed to contribute towards implementing the recommendations made by the Review.

The CRESS team have been conducting research into the drivers and outcomes of employee engagement since 2006, and have ongoing sponsorship from the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development and members until 2012. Current members include Veolia plc, Amey plc, Mace Ltd, Birmingham City Council, Nampak Ltd, and five other large public and private sector organisations. A second phase of the Consortium project is about to start with a mixture of continuing and new members.

The team has just delivered a third major report to the CIPD. Dr Kerstin Alfes, lead author of the report, commented, ‘Our research has clearly demonstrated the positive impact of employee engagement on both organisational success and individual well-being. Whilst engagement levels in our members’ organisations were generally high, we believe that more can be done to further raise levels of engagement. We identified six key factors, most importantly, creating meaningful jobs, which help employers to create a virtuous circle of engagement.'