EAWOPii's first event on 11 May attracted an enthusiastic reception, with 45 attendees from 13 countries enjoying the first presentation of our eagerly anticipated Living Wage animation.
With a welcome from EAWOPii’s Director Prof Rosalind Searle, the president of EAWOP, Prof Frederik Anseel, outlined why EAWOP had decided to form their impact incubator.
Dr Ishbel McWha-Hermann, who leads the EAWOPii’s Decent Work strand, then outlined the work of the Small Group Meeting in 2019 on living wages, which produced two special issues and briefing documents.
An animation, developed by Prof Searle and Dr McWha-Hermann, offered an effective summary of current research — 115 papers — from across the field, identifying the critical shift in perspective Work and Organisational Psychology provides on living wages and why they matter to individuals, their employers and wider society.
The response to the animation was overwhelmingly positive. Attendees remarked that the clear and digestible nature of the animation will make it a great resource for teaching, training and raising awareness within organisations about the importance of living wages.
After the animation was premiered, Prof Stuart Carr, co-founder of Project Glow (Global Living Organizational Wage) and renowned for his research concerning living wages, provided an overview of the impactful recent work he had done along with other projects elsewhere in the field. Throughout his discussion, Prof Carr presented insights into the various theories and methodologies employed by psychologists exploring the consequences of living wages around the world. He emphasised that the job disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic exacerbates the need for a continued move towards living wages, hailing the EAWOPii’s living wage animation as a fantastic tool to help this effort.
EAWOPii will release their second product — an animation translating work and organisational psychological science concerning how employee-based threats arise in organisationson — on 8 June. Find out more about this event.
Meanwhile, the living wage animation is freely available in several languages on the EAWOPii YouTube channel.