coordinated by Pilar Ficapal-CusíISSUE 8 (NOV 2017)
Evidence-based people management: what is it, why does it matter and how can it be implemented?
Evidence-based people management is an approach to the profession and practice of people management that focuses on increasing the use of critical thinking and the best evidence available for decision-making. This article puts forward several reasons why people management practitioners do not adopt a more evidence-based approach and argues how useful this approach can be for organizations. A seven-stage process is presented for making decisions that make better use of evidence: identifying, asking, acquiring, appraising, aggregating, applying and assessing. There are four sources of evidence that can improve the quality of decisions in people management: scientific evidence, organizational data, professional experience and stakeholder input. Finally, practical suggestions are offered for implementing this approach in organizations, as well as the main objections presented by managers are outlined.
ODS
Eva Rimbau-GilabertPhD in Business and Administration and Management from the Universitat de Barcelona. She has been a lecturer at the UOC since 2004, where she teaches courses related to people management, change management and corporate social responsibility. Moreover, since 2014, she has been a member of the Academic Committee of the program of the PhD in Information and the Knowledge Society. She previously worked as the Academic Director of various programs: the Bachelor Degree in Work Sciences, the Master in Occupational Risk Prevention and the Postgraduate Department of Economics and Business Studies.
With respect to research, here interests focus on the following lines: flexible work organization, specifically in relation to remote working and contingent contracts; the relationship between digitization, people management and employee wellbeing; organizational behaviour; and online learning, particularly in relation to interpersonal skills, virtual teams in online education, and leadership and employee wellbeing at online universities.
Eva is a member of the Digital Business Research Group (DigiBiz), which has been named as a Consolidated Research Group by the Catalan Government. Her research has been published in catalogued journals and chapters in books by highly-respected publishers. She has also spoken at international conferences. She has been involved in research projects at both a national and international level in her specialist fields. She has been accredited as an assistant professor by the AQU (Catalan Agency of University Quality).
