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5UIN Advice on how to choose the area to research

Hi there,

I'm just about to start unit 2, 5UIN, and I'm aware I have to choose an area to research and review.

Just wondered if anyone has any tips or advice on where to start, what to do first?

Thanks,

Beth

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  • Beth - at certain times during my studies i got lost going down 'rabbit holes' of research - one particular topic that fascinated me (being late to study) was the views/attitudes of younger workers and the very interesting studies done to track changes in attitudes. Look at what really piques your interest - when you have the time to let your curiosity lead you, where do you end up? Good to choose a topic where you can find some different/updated studies to show trends.
    Good luck - its a great unit!
  • Back when I was studying, I chose an area that was a hot topic in management journals etc at the time as I saw building knowledge in that area as a way to make myself more marketable. However, I wouldn’t have picked a subject that I didn’t also find very interesting. We are lucky in HR that there are so many fascinating fields of research, although it does make it harder to zero in on just one.
  • Hi Beth,

    I've just started this unit and I'm quite at a loss. I wondered if you had received any useful tips or advice and whether you could share them with me.
    Thanks in advance, Louise
  • In reply to Louise:

    Hi Louise, I'm just looking at it again now, was busy with work. So I've been told areas such as employee retention, employee wellbeing are good areas to look at. Talent and reward management also. I also read somewhere someone did mental health in the workplace.

    If you want to email me or keep in touch my email is bethnad@hotmail.com

    Thanks,

    Beth
  • Hi Beth, I am also due to start UIN and my tutor had advised us to do our research in the field of health and well-being. We've been advised that employee retention and employee engagement would be areas that we might find easier to complete our research.
    Good luck with the unit.
  • I chose to look at employee wellbeing when I did that module - lots of current research to read, and if you’re in a company that will enable/allow you to survey your employees, that covers some of the ‘data’ side of things.
  • I've just started and thinking the same..,
  • Hi Maya, I hope you’re well and good luck with your assignment. I’m also currently working on my 5UIN assignment and picked staff well-being but struggling to find relevant information. If you don’t mind me asking, where did you find your info from?

    Thank you in advanced.
  • I did this unit last year. My focus was agile working and the effects on health and well being. This really was on the basis that my organisation were working from home as we have been since March, so the research was helpful to my workplace. We have since moved to wfh permanently.
  • In reply to Julie:

    I have done my 5UIN on the implications of long term homeworking as my company have also moved to permanent homeworking but my assessor has thrown out my report saying that I have not 'identified a business issue' or 'proposed a resolution'. I'm very confused by this as my research identified issues such as isolation, career progression, work-life boundaries, work intensification etc. and my recommendations talked to what authors said was important to effectively manage these implications. I'm now actually quite depressed as I put a huge amount of work into my paper. Any help or advice welcome.
  • Hi Beth,

    I would recommend something in Employee Engagement or Employee Satisfaction/Happiness, this is a wide topic and you can pick/choose an area within it as your research topic, plenty of literature to use as basis and very relevant in any organization.

  • In reply to Omar:

    Hi Omar,

    Thanks for this, I was intending to do Employee Engagement however I attended an online classroom and the tutor said to be careful of this as it's too broad?

    I'm now thrown...I'm looking to do Recruitment now but was really looking forward to Engagement.

    Thanks,
    Beth
  • In reply to Beth:

    Hi Beth,

    Yes, Employee Engagement is "too broad", hence why I said find an area in it, examples are: -

    - Attracting the right talent impact on employee engagement.
    - Professional Development planning impact on Employee Engagement

    and so on and so forth, the idea is here for the research topic is to basically dig deep into one area of HR and get some findings and recommendations
  • Hi Beth - I think the best starting off-point is to think of a topic which particularly interests you, it'll help keep you motivated and thinking actively while researching, as well as basing it in something relevant to your organisation. For my 5UIN I looked at ways of improving gender parity in engineering roles, particularly for older women.
  • In reply to Amanda:

    Hi Amanda, really surprised to hear that. Several of my class, including myself, covered flexible/home working in a post covid world. Happy to look over your work and add comments is that would be helpful