Dr Heather Griffiths

Guest lecture

• Work-life balance without children: legitimising alternative forms of care work | Understanding and Researching Organisations/Research Organisations MA and MSc HRM Programmes | Oxford Brookes University | November 2019

PhD Thesis | Gendered flexible working practices: negotiating time and work in two UK asset finance organisations

The thesis explored how gender was embedded in flexible working practices in two UK asset finance organisations. Drawing on feminist theories of time and work, the study deconstructed how employees negotiated flexible working practices both inside the organisation and in the home. The research asked how gender affected employees' access to flexible working practices and how the characteristics of the finance culture shaped their experiences of flexible working.

This qualitative study analysed produced during 26 interviews with employees from two UK based asset finance companies. The data was interpreted through a conceptual framework which incorporated feminist social theories of negotiation, time and the ideal worker. The thesis argued that gender was embedded in the way employees negotiated their flexible working practices, where negotiations were informed by masculine constructions of time and work, which were normalised within the asset finance culture.

The research was supervised by Dr Lynne Pettinger (Sociology) and Prof Clare Lyonette (Institute of Employment Research) at The University of Warwick.

Keynote Speaker

• Women and Spinouts: a case for action | Griffiths, H & Manfredi, S | Innovate UK: Celebrating women in innovation | London, UK | March 2020
• Women and innovation: the role of university spinout companies in promoting gender equality | Griffiths, H , Humbert, A L & Manfredi, S | International Training Centre of the ILO | Turin, Italy | November 2019

Papers Delivered

• Work-life balance without children: legitimising alternative forms of care work | Gender Issues in Business Schools (GIBS) Network Workshop | Oxford Brookes University, UK | September 2019
• Flexible working for all: negotiating time and care as a child-free employee | Gender and Working Lives Symposium | Cambridge University | March 2019
• Flexible work is mundane and everyday: how flexible work is used by employees in the UK finance sector | Gender, Work and Organisation Conference | Sydney, Australia| June 2018
• Gendered flexitime in asset finance: work-life balance at month-end | Warwick Critical Finance Seminar | University of Warwick | May 2018
• Needing a 'rock solid' reason: how informal flexible working procedures can discourage employees from using their right-to-request | World of Work Network Inaugural Conference | University of Bristol | April 2017
• Performing job roles and gender roles in asset finance | Annual Doctoral Conference | Sociology |University of Warwick | June 2017
• Fieldwork and flexibility in the finance sector: an insider outside | BSA Work, Employment & Society - pre- conference doctoral event | University of Leeds | September 2016
• Exploring the gendered impact of right to request flexible working policies inside and outside the financial workplace | BSA Annual Conference | Aston University | April 2016

Conferences organised

• Breaking our Silences on the Neoliberal Academy: facilitating change from a postgraduate perspective | Workshop jointly funded by the ESRC at The University of Warwick | Co-organised with Dr Kate Mahoney (History) and Liz Ablett (Sociology) | Oct 2016