About
Dr Jane Parry is an Associate Professor of Work and Employment and Director of the Centre for Research on Work and Organisations in Southampton Business School. Her applied research looks at how employment, careers and work organisation are changing, and how HRM and policy spheres can respond. Jane recently sat on the BEIS working group on The Future of Work, and in 2021 was the highest-ranking academic in HR Magazine’s influential thinkers list. A former parliamentary academic fellow for the Parliamentary Office on Science and Technology, Jane undertook research there looking at skills development in policy careers. She leads the cross-institutional UKRI/ESRC-funded project Work After Lockdown, and is currently researching young people and voluntarism during the pandemic with Prof Peter Rodgers.
Research
Research interests
- Changing workplaces and occupations
- Workforce inequalities
- Flexible, remote and hybrid working
- The interaction of paid and unpaid work in individual lifecourse trajectories
- Policy-focused research
Current research
Work After Lockdown
Young people, voluntarism and self-provisioning during the pandemic
Research projects
Active projects
Completed projects
Publications
Supervision
Current PhD Students
Teaching
Qualitative research methods
The sociology of work and organaisations
Strategic human resource management in a pandemic economy
External roles and responsibilities
Biography
Jane is an Associate Professor of Work and Employment at Southampton Business School. She is Director of the Centre for Work and Organisations and Deputy Head of Department for Research in the Department of HRM and Organisational Behaviour.
Jane is a sociologist of work and applied qualitative researcher, who has managed projects for a range of funding bodies and government departments over the past two decades, raising over a £1m in reserach revenue. Her research looks at how employment and careers are changing within different occupations, as well as how disadvantage operates within labour markets, with a particular focus on life course factors.
Jane came to an academic career from starting out as a researcher for Peter Hain PC. She is particularly concerned with producing impactful research, and involving policymakers and practitioners to ensure that that policy is continually informed by high-quality evidence. Her research on independent living was taken up by the Minister for Pensions to inform the then Link Age strategy, and she has run a roundtable at Portcullis House on flexible work sponsored by the Shadow Minister for Work and Pensions. She has worked for clients including the Health and Safety Executive, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Economic and Social Research Council, and, on many occasions, the DWP. She has recently sat on BEIS working group on The Future of Work. Jane is a former Parliamentary Academic Fellow for the Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology (POST), and is leading Work After Lockdown, a cross-institutional UKRI/ESRC project that has followed organisations and individuals negotiating change following COVID-19 driven working from home.
Prizes
- HR Magazine’s most influential thinkers (2021)