This book will be a very valuable tool to help HR professionals and organisations to take their health and wellbeing strategy to the next level. To optimise its impact, a strategy should be based on the health risks and needs of its workforce throughout the employee life course. The CIPD fully supports the notion that employers need to consider the whole person if they are to be effective in reducing work-life conflict and supporting their health and wellbeing as they journey through work and life. The book provides an excellent narrative of how this needs to include the multidimensional nature of peoples identity and experiences. The different chapters cover a range of key life-stage events, such as menopause transition, that individuals can encounter through the employee lifecycle and which can understandably impact on health and work. The book is a welcome clarion call to breakdown the silence and taboo that persists in many workplaces around broader wellbeing issues that affect so many, so that people can receive empathy, support and understanding. -- Rachel Suff, Senior Policy Advisor, CIPD I am delighted to provide an endorsement for this handbook edited by Dr Krystal Wilkinson and Dr Helen Woolnough. Through a series of well-informed empirical chapters, they respond to the call to broaden understandings of the work-life interface to consider a range of challenges for different groups across the life-course. Many of the chapters highlight topics that have previously been underexplored in work-life literatures, and are highly topical, such as social class in Chapter 2, the earliest stages of working lives (Chapter 3 and 4) solo-living for women (Chapter 5), menopause (Chapter 12), apprenticeship (Chapter 9) and male perspectives on parenthood (Chapter 11). The ground-breaking work is carried in the middle of the book with chapters 6 to 8 on topics that are historically missing from academic agendas; bound by the development of theory on the connection between fertility treatment, miscarriage and perinatal mental illness respectively. These chapters successful illuminate silenced and taboo topics, bringing them into mainstream workplace narratives to the benefit of readers.
Strength and depth are added by intersectional empirical studies with reflections on work-life complexities from older workers (Chapter 13), ethnic minority female workers that manage chronic illness (Chapter 10) and older ethnic workers (Chapter 14). Taken as a whole, authors draw on a range of theoretical frames and lenses including the work-life interface; equality, diversity and inclusion, career theory, empowerment, training and wellbeing. The book is pitched to appeal to both academics and practitioners through its accessible credible approach. The style is provocative and critical; it challenges our assumptions as researchers or organisation practitioners to think creatively and be more work-life inclusive. All chapters conclude with implications for practice. Thanks to insightful guidance and analysis from Drs. Wilkinson and Woolnough, their book plants a stake in the sand that others in the field will need to observe. -- Professor Carol Woodhams, Professor of Human Resource Management, Surrey Business School: Taking an inclusive approach to the work-life issues employees face at different stages of the life-course should be part of an organizations overarching inclusion strategy. This book is a welcome step forwards in deepening our understanding of the multi-faceted nature of peoples lived experiences of the work-life interface. Feeling included at work has a positive impact on employees engagement, productivity and wellbeing. This book is a call to action for organisations to go further in cultivating inclusive cultures by shining a light on some of the under-explored and hidden issues employees face when navigating their working life and personal experiences. A highly informative and valuable read which will help readers think more creatively about how people experience the work-life interface. -- Craig Oddy, Head of Talent and People Experience, Novuna Financial Services
