Professor Jason Heyes
Management School
Professor of Employment Relations


+44 114 222 3219
Full contact details
Management School
A015
91直播 University Management School
Conduit Road
91直播
S10 1FL
- Profile
-
Jason Heyes is a Professor of Employment Relations in the School of Management at the University of 91直播.
He is also the director of the Centre for Decent Work (CDW), one of the school's research centres, and was the Management School's Associate Dean for Impact and Engagement between 2020 and 2024.
Before joining the Management School in 2012, he was a Reader in Human Resource Management and head of the Organisation, Work and Employment group at the University of Birmingham.
His research has been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), British Academy and European Commission. He has also undertaken research projects on behalf of, among others, the International Labour Organisation (ILO), European Commission, Low Pay Commission and the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI).
He was a co-investigator on the multi-disciplinary ESRC-funded programme (2017-2021) .
In October 2022, he became the Principal Investigator on a three-year ESRC-funded project that will examine The Transitions of Young Workers in the UK Labour Market: Consequences for Careers, Earnings, Health and Wellbeing. The project is part of the ESRC鈥檚 .
He is also a Co-Investigator for the ESRC-funded The Productivity Institute (TPI) and the academic lead for the Yorkshire, Humber and North East Regional Productivity Forum, which is funded by the TPI and whose members comprise representatives from the worlds of business, policy and education within the region.
He regularly engages with policy and practitioner bodies and has had extensive involvement with the ILO, a specialist agency of the United Nations. He has written several reports for the organisation and acted as a technical expert for ILO technical cooperation projects in Turkey, Azerbaijan and Ukraine. He is regularly invited to contribute to the activities of the ILO's International Training Centre in Turin. His cooperation with the ILO has also led to two books on Labour Administration, co-edited with Ludek Rychly, a former ILO senior specialist (and current visiting professor in CDW), and jointly published by the ILO and Edward Elgar. The most recent book, , is available on an Open Access basis from Edward Elgar's website.
He is an Associate Editor of the Industrial Relations Journal and a member of the editorial boards of Work, Employment & Society and the Social Policy Forum (SPF), a journal published by the Czech Research Institute for Labour and Social Affairs.
He is also a Member of the ESRC's Peer Review College and an Academic Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).
- Research interests
-
Jason鈥檚 main research interest is in the connections between employment relations, political economy and public policy.
His current research focuses on:
- Workers' labour market transitions
- Underemployment and work intensity
- Governance of labour issues (labour administration)
His research typically makes use of qualitative and quantitative methods.
Previous research has examined, among other things, the consequences of the Great Recession for European labour markets and policy agendas; the European Commission's flexicurity agenda; the impact of the UK's statutory minimum wage regulations on pay, employment and training; employer support for employees with care responsibilities; and trade union support for migrant workers.
Jason is interested in research that leads to impact. For example, in 2015 he led a project on comparative developments in labour administration, which was co-funded by the ILO and the ESRC and led to the development of a training toolkit for labour inspectorates. The toolkit, which was designed by Jason Heyes and Dr Thomas Hastings on behalf of the ILO, is intended to help labour inspectorates extend their reach to the informal economy. The toolkit has been used to train many labour inspectors in countries including South Africa and was showcased in an Impact Case Study submitted to the 2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF) exercise.
- Publications
-
Edited books
Journal articles
Chapters
Book reviews
Reports
Working papers
Dictionary/encyclopaedia entries
Presentations
Other
- Research group
- Teaching activities
-
Jason has a strong commitment to providing students with an interesting and intellectually challenging learning experience. He has a substantial experience of leading and teaching courses on employment relations, HRM and research methods at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. He currently contributes to the MGT6225: Doctoral Training in Management module for postgraduate research students.
He has contributed to the Faculty of Social Science鈥檚 Global Leadership Initiative (GLI) and has arranged for groups of students to attend meetings of the ILO鈥檚 governing body, held in Geneva.
His contribution to the GLI has been recognised through a Faculty of Social Science Learning & Teaching Award in 2015 and a Senate Award for Collaborative Activities in 2016.
- PhD Supervision
Jason is an experienced PhD supervisor. Applications for PhD study are encouraged in the broad field of Work and Employment and particularly in the following areas:
- Employment relations and political economy
- Labour market transitions
- Underemployment
- Work intensity
- The state and employment relations
- Employment protection legislation
- Governance and regulation of the labour market
- Low-paid work and precarious work
Jason is currently supervising:
He has previously supervised:
Name Thesis title Year of completion Joanna Konstantinou Human Resource Management and Greek SMEs in a Context of Crisis 2024 Maria Marimpi Underemployment, overemployment and mental health among dual-earner couples in Europe 2024 Shweta Sharma Accessing Decent Work Conditions: A Study of Woman Street Vendors in Delhi, India 2022 Are you interested in applying for a PhD?