HYMAN, Jeff

In difficult times : influences of attitudes and expectations on training and redeployment opportunities in a hospital contraction programme - 2002

This article explores reasons behind the low take-up of training and redeployment opportunities in a three-year downsizing programme in a National Health Service (NHS) mental health hospital. It examines these from an interpretive paradigm, identifying social-psychological effects on barriers and motivation to training and redeployment. In reporting factors that inhibit the movement of staff from the hospital the findings indicate that the direction of even a well-planned and positively intentioned programme can be counfounded by the responses of employees faced with an undertain future. When drawing up restructuring programmes involving retraining and redeployment, managers need to take into account the anticipated profound reactions of those affected