This post was contributed byTarita Turtiainen.

When getting time away from your desk becomes increasingly more difficult, so does getting opportunities for quality continuous professional development. Therefore, I was very pleased to hear about and have the chance to attend lectures during the Birkbeck Business Week, on two topics which have become even more important during the current economic climate, ‘Perspectives on Employee Engagement’ by Richard Williams, and ‘Decision-making at Work’ by Dr Chris Dewberry.

Richard Williams gave a sound, comprehensive review on the several perspectives into employee engagement and the claims made of its impact on performance, such as return on assets and profitability. Although the measures of employee engagement have been marred by lack of clear definitions, it is easy to see how psychological meaningfulness of work, such as feeling worthwhile, useful and valuable at work can have a positive relationship with productivity and happiness at work. Whether you choose to view employee engagement from the perspective of a management instrument solely developed for improved productivity or simply as the road to happier employees, I am sure you would agree on its importance.

Dr Chris Dewberry presented on decision-making styles and on the development and empirical examination of the first structural model of decision-making style. It was great to hear first-hand about the recent findings and the research currently happening at Birkbeck and it was clear that Dr Dewberry is very passionate about his field.

Both the lectures encouraged me to the think how are we, at work, applying the huge amount of research and knowledge that is available on these topics and not to rely on human resources alone for implementation.  I could easily see the parallels between the theories and the opportunities we could take advantage of within our team.

Although my time spent at Business Week was limited, I felt that it was definitely worthwhile and what better way to get reviews of current topics and information about research taking place, both for practitioners and those interested in further study. In addition, every time my friend frets about what to order from the restaurant menu, wants me to order on her behalf and then regrets the choice she (finally!) made, I can amusingly link it all to the theory on decision-making styles.