Managing Employment Relations

Tony Bennett is a senior lecturer at Sheffield Business School, Sheffield Hallam University in the UK. He is also a visiting fellow at the Institute for Research on Organisations, Work and Employment at the University of Central Lancashire. Prior to a career in higher education, Tony worked as a data communication engineer and manager, including working for the TUC. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Association and an academic member of the CIPD. He key research interests, on which he is widely published, are managing conflict on the workplace, equality and diversity, the role of trade unions and workplace wellbeing.

Richard Saundry is Professor of HRM and Employment Relations at the University of Sheffield. He is one of the UKs leading experts in the management of workplace conflict. Richard started his working life at the National Union of Mineworkers where he was Head of Industrial Relations, and subsequently worked at the Universities of Leeds, Central Lancashire and Plymouth. He has taught hundreds of HR practitioners on CIPD accredited Masters' programmes over the last twenty years and is an author of 'Managing Employment Relations' the core CIPD text for Employee Relations. He also edited 'Reframing Resolution' published in 2016 by Palgrave Macmillan and his work has been published in a wide range of leading international academic journals including the British Journal of Industrial Relations, Human Relations, Human Resource Management Journal and Work Employment and Society. He has held a wide range of research grants and is currently working on a major project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) investigating the link between conflict competence, employee engagement and productivity. Richard has worked closely with the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) over the last ten years to develop cutting-edge insights into conflict management.

Dr Virginia Fisher is an experienced academic, manager, teacher and researcher in the Human Resourcing, Employment Relations and Diversity subject areas. Her doctorate was a poststructural feminist ethnography exploring the gendered nature of one UK Business School. She has published in the areas of gender, ethnography and employment relations. During 2018 and in collaboration with Professor Richard Saundry and Dr Sue Kinsey, she investigated the complexities of HR and the management of workplace conflict, resulting in the 2019 ACAS publication, 'Managing workplace conflict: The changing role of HR'. Her most recent research, with Dr Sue Kinsey, is an investigation into the silences and third-party complicities surrounding sexual harassment in the workplace. This work was presented at the 2018 CIPD Applied Research Conference. She is currently a Senior Lecturer at the University of Exeter Business School, Exeter, UK. Previously she held posts as an Associate Head in the Faculty of Business and Law at the University of the West of England and as Associate Professor (HRM) at the Universities of Plymouth and Wolverhampton. She is an active trade union representative and caseworker for the University and College Union. She started her working life as an HR manager in the public sector and is a long-standing member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.