2020-09-30-accounts - The Tavistock Institute Of Human Relations

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THE TAVISTOCK INSTITUTE OF HUMAN RELATIONS

Annual Report

TRUSTEES’ ANNUAL REPORT

FOR YEAR ENDED 30 SEPTEMBER 2020

Council of Trustees

David Hollywood ( Chair ) Dr Eliat Aram ( ex officio ) Joel Featherman (Honorary Treasurer & Chair of the Pensions Committee) Phil James (joined July 2020) Julia Lucas (resigned January 2020) Katharina Müller (joined July 2020) Stella Okeahialam MBE Martin Powell (joined July 2020) Viktorija Šmatko-Abaza (joined January 2020) Grant Taylor (joined March 2020) Prof Christopher Warhurst ( resigned July 2020) Professor Cliff Oswick (resigned July 2020) Ruth Yeoman (joined July 2020; appointed Chair of HRMC November 2020)

CEO Dr Eliat Aram, PhD, MSc Occup Psych, MSc G Psych, CBAM, Dip IoD Company Secretary Dr Leslie Brissett JP, PhD MSc (Econ) BSc (Hons) FHM-SA

Registered Office

30 Tabernacle Street, London EC2A 4UE

T: 020 7417 0407

E: hello@tavinstitute.org

W: www.tavinstitute.org

Company registration number 442517

Charity registration number 209706

Auditor

Goldwins Limited, 75 Maygrove Road, London NW6 2EG

Bank

NatWest, 440 Strand, London WC2R 0QS

Solicitor

Wedlake Bell LLP, 71 Queen Victoria St, London EC4V 4AY

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The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations was established as a not for profit organisation with charitable purpose in 1947. The Institute is governed by its Articles of Association dated 20 September 1947 as amended on 25 June 1963, 20 March 1991 and 22 July 2010. Ultimately accountable to the Association members, a Council of Management act as the board of trustees and work with the CEO and Management team to deliver against the mission and objectives.

The Tavistock Institute is dedicated to the study of human relations for the purpose of bettering working life and conditions for all humans within their organisations, communities and broader societies and to the influence of environment in all its aspects on the formation or development of human character or capacity; to conduct research and provide opportunities for learning through experience for this purpose; to publish the results of such study and research; to further the learning of people in their organisations, to offer educational opportunities for individuals in or for any branches of the said study.

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Our new Chair was appointed in March 2020, halfway through what has been a tumultuous year for us all. For the first six months, chaired by Cliff Oswick (to whom a big thank you), the Institute worried about the uncertainty surrounding Brexit. In March Covid struck and all our lives have been dominated and transformed by this ever since.

Despite everything going on around them the Institute team has not lost sight of its core values and legacy, which are unchanged, and, in helping the understanding of these, I commend the video link on page 5 to you.

However, Covid did drive major changes to the way we work. Most professional development offerings have moved to online (although the renowned Leicester conference took place very successfully face to face, but in Germany); A lot of work on research projects was done remotely instead of face to face; We engaged with new geographically dispersed audiences.

The Institute carried out a large international online survey between April and June 2020 to explore how Covid was impacting front line practitioners and what they were learning from it.

The Institute has demonstrated the role it plays in understanding the challenges to society that Covid has brought. For example, a new section on our website brings together all the work we are doing re Covid.

Our newly opened European subsidiary, Tavistock Institut gGmbH based in Germany, tasked with smoothing the aftermath of Brexit, is working out well.

Membership of Council has changed considerably in 19/20. I would like to welcome the new members of Council and thank both old and new for their support and contribution. This has been a very challenging year for Eliat and her staff and Council would like to thank everybody for their professional, enthusiastic and flexible response.

Despite the huge challenges,19/20 has been a remarkably successful year for the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations and all concerned are to be congratulated.

David J Hollywood Chair, Council of Trustees

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In September 1920, the Tavistock Clinic was founded and saw its first patient. Later, the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations was incorporated as a charitable organisation in September 1947, emerging from its early years as a social department within the Clinic, and carrying out psychoanalytic work with therapeutic groups and communities. Bringing together staff from various disciplines, the Institute found ways to apply psychoanalytic and open system theories to groups and organisations in order to better understand how to improve working life.

In 2020, we joined together with the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust and Tavistock Relationships to celebrate 100 years of the Tavistocks.

For the Centenary Celebrations, we produced a short video in which Institute staff tell the story of who we are, where we have come from and what our work means to us and the rest of the world. Staff touch on their personal connections with the Institute as well as the wider context and influence of our history.

Covid-19 has drastically transformed the world in which we live. At the Institute, we have adapted to work alongside the pandemic rather than against it. Whilst our workload has not slowed, we have adjusted to different ways of working – moving most of our Professional Development programmes and workshops online and carrying out our research and consultancy projects remotely. We have faced new challenges that have led to shifts in our perceptions about the work that we do; our research has taken on new forms. We are continuously learning alongside our partners and clients, as together we face what it means to function and perform not only during a pandemic but also think about the post-Covid world.

In June 2020, Institute staff have re-started the senior staff which had been put on hold for the first three months of the pandemic. Staff have managed to progress with the delivery of the programme adapted to the virtual world and in addition offered reflective spaces, support, and supervision to the senior leaders as they navigated the emotional impact of the pandemic on their person, their work and their roles as managers.

At the height of the pandemic, Institute staff delivered an innovative series of webinars to circa 200 vets, members of the , on topics including: resilience, understanding changes and resistances to it, working in conditions of rapid change and high uncertainty and emotional work with animals.

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With the arrival of the pandemic, the way the Institute has engaged digitally during 2019-20 has increased dramatically. We responded to the crisis as an opportunity to reflect on the existing methods we use and expand the way we use our digital platforms, which has led to us engaging with new, more geographically dispersed, audiences. It has included offering Food for Thought Lunchtime Talks, , and many of our Professional Development programmes, online.

We recognise the importance of demonstrating the role the Institute plays in understanding societal challenges and in the current crisis more so than ever. We have published 20 news items and thought pieces concerning the impact of the pandemic on life and work on the website. We also created a new section of the website to showcase this significant work.

The website promotes all streams of the Institute’s work, publishing regular articles 8-9 times a month, plus project case studies, presentations and thought pieces. In 2019-2020 over 103,000 people visited the website. These visitors actively engaged with content 139,000 times; equating to over 326,000 page views over the year.

The website attracts an international audience, 29% of the visitors are from the UK; 20% from the USA and the remaining 51% split across a broad range of geographic locations, including Germany, India, and Australia and Italy in the top five.

Our social media presence continues to grow, with 20,684 followers and connections across the key social media platforms (LinkedIn: 8,200; Facebook: 6,469; Twitter: 5,815; Instagram: 200). The Tavistock Group on LinkedIn, for those interested in Group Relations, currently has over 2,300 subscribers. The content that we share reaches a broad audience and proves to be engaging; for example, on Twitter, we post approximately 114 messages a month, with each message actively seen by around 2,000 people. On Facebook, our posts are seen on average by 330 people each day. People are talking with us, and about us, for example, on Twitter, we are mentioned approximately 95 times a month. We have also re-directed our Instagram account to share more of the work we do in the arts.

Communication also takes place through branded e-mail campaigns, promoting Professional Development, and other activities, which have been sent to subscribers 68 times during the last year.

With the successful recruitment of an Engagement Assistant in 2019, achieved through a partnership with Goldsmiths, University of London, offering recent Visual Cultures graduates the opportunity to apply for the 2-year role, we have further expanded our creative endeavours. For example, we are now producing films and podcasts that communicate our work in dynamic ways.

From April to June 2020, we conducted an international online survey of just over 250 professionals plus some qualitative interviews. The aim of this research was to explore how the pandemic has impacted on front-line practitioners and what they have learned from it.

The survey showed that almost all (93%) were forced to change their working practices because of the crisis – this included 79% who said they were now carrying out all their work remotely. Such a radical change in working practices for front-line practitioners was challenging for many of them.

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In the words of one therapist: “ You have to use different senses to interpret how the client is feeling as they’re not physically in the room with you ”. The survey also showed that many people have found it difficult working in isolation – and to find the inner resources to do their work effectively (60%).

For some people, the ‘new reality’ has presented opportunities and different ways of working more effectively, including spending less time commuting, news ways of organising their time, and gaining new clients or projects. Given that the ‘new reality’ is likely to continue despite the availability of vaccinations – this shows that the most challenging circumstances can lead to new beginnings and innovations which transform the way we work and live.

We have shared the results of this research in several ways, including two Lunchtime Talks, attended by more than 60 people and an online blog article and infographic.

The Institute is working with Ipsos MORI, New Philanthropy Capital (NPC) and the Third Sector Research Centre who together were commissioned to evaluate the Coronavirus Community Support Fund (CCSF).

The CCSF, distributed by The National Lottery Community Fund, included an allocation of c£200m in Government funding aimed primarily at small to medium charities in England. This money was part of the government’s support for voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations in response to Covid-19 and was distributed from the CCSF alongside funding from The National Lottery.

The CCSF set out to increase community support to vulnerable people affected by the Covid-19 crisis, through the work of civil society organisations and reduce temporary closures of essential charities and social enterprises, ensuring services for people impacted have the financial resources to operate.

In addition to exploring the impact of the CCSF, the evaluation contained a learning strand, led by the Institute and managed in collaboration with Ipsos MORI. By setting up an online Learning Hub, we hoped a stronger sector would emerge through sharing the ways organisations and community groups meet the challenges of working through the Covid-19 crisis.

The members-only Learning Hub includes live events, discussions, shared resources and exchange activities. The Hub has provided real-time learning opportunities where people from funded organisations have shared, connected and learnt from each other. There have also been regular learning digests, blogs, podcasts and videos highlighting people’s stories and experiences, as well as discussion forums, with themes and content directed by the needs of Hub members.

The Digital Surgery series was created as a response to the gradual, global shift from working face to face, to working online. Launched in January 2020, the surgery sought to meet the needs of employees, managers or consultants who work in the virtual space and to respond to some of the hidden challenges that working this way can present:

loneliness and isolation of some employees;
poor connectivity and communication;
more miscommunications when working with global colleagues;
difficult team dynamics; and

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off-task virtual meetings.

Team dynamics is an established part of working with groups face to face and in the here and now. The Digital Surgery offers the same space to explore and work with virtual team dynamics, which until recently, had not attracted attention. The goal of the regular sessions was to work with the following questions;

What can we do about these difficult interactions?
How do we create effective meetings?
How do we work through challenging team dynamics at a distance?
What is going on ‘under the surface’ in the virtual team (and how to recognise and use this data)?

In the time that the group has been meeting, it has developed and grown into a space that is highly valued by the participants and become the foundation of a community of practice for people working in this way. The surgery will reopen in 2021 and welcomes new participants.

We have continued to develop and grow the Arts and Organisation stream of work. The year began with the multi-disciplinary symposium and other achievements included:

a widening network of artists; artists collectives we are working with;
joining the internal, an external visiting artist in residence;
launching the programme;
a contribution on Tavistock and the Arts in Chapter 8 Working with Groups II in the upcoming publication An Introduction to Systems Psychodynamics: Volume I ;
speaker invitations including Collaborative Conversations at Loughborough University;
a keynote on self organisation, creativity and the archive as part of a research symposium at Aalto University, Finland.

All part of a growing recognition and reputation for the work and the way it moves beyond using the arts ad hoc to their integration within an evolving social science practice at the Institute.

Mental health and wellbeing have continued to represent major cross-cutting themes within the Institute’s work in 2019-2020, with ongoing research, consultancy, and professional development activities focused on the subject.

This year has seen continued work on evaluations in the sector, such as the evaluation of for the Brent Centre for Young People and the evaluation of for Rethink Mental Illness. Both projects have aimed to support learning and reflection and evidence the impact of new initiatives in the field of mental health.

Research is also ongoing on the for The Wellbeing Project, an initiative to promote workplace wellbeing in NGOs across the world. In addition to these research projects 2020 has seen ongoing provision of professional development and consultancy direct to mental health

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teams, this includes the reflective practice group run with East London Foundation Trust as well as provision of reflective space for a CAMHS team.

Our staff have participated in professional development to build on our own competencies in the field. This has included a cohort of researcher/consultants undertaking in-depth training on the subject of trauma as a way to better understand the experience of and be better placed to work with project beneficiaries. In part due to this training, we have been able to introduce sessions on trauma-informed approaches in our evaluation of .

Beyond those projects primarily focused on mental health and wellbeing - these concepts continue to form part of our wider research and consultancy work. Evaluations such as those of and Barnardo’s Strategic Partnerships , all primarily focused care-experienced young people each contain a strand on the wellbeing of those young people and have involved the qualitative and quantitative evaluation of mental health outcomes.

Moreover, projects such as the , have seen us explore feminist approaches to mental health and how to support staff in participating organisations where high rates of turnover and burnout result from the content of their work.

Our approach to wellbeing is a nuanced understanding of the leadership and culture of an organisation – working towards whole-organisation wellbeing where the employees are the most valuable asset. The is now offered online in response to the pandemic.

Flexible

The Institute has been working with the Centre for Ageing Better to evaluate a Flexible Working Pilot project delivered by the Timewise Foundation in a large NHS Trust, and a private sector service provider.

The aim of the pilot is to work with, and support, these two large employers to increase the availability and take up, by older workers (loosely defined as those over 50), of more flexible working arrangements. It involved trialling changes to the working patterns of a cohort of over 50s, with Timewise providing support and guidance for them and their line managers. The pilot completed in February 2020 (therefore before Covid-19).

The overall aim of the evaluation, which started in March 2019, was to understand ‘what works’ in implementing and facilitating access to flexible working, for which people, and in what kinds of situations; and to explore the individual and organisational factors that support success. The evaluation was designed to unfold in three stages:

set up phase, working closely with all stakeholders to identify the pilot’s Theory of Change; 2. first round of fieldwork, involving in-depth interviews with pilot participants to understand their experience of the pilot; and
follow-up fieldwork phase, interviewing pilot participants, 8 months later, to understand their flexible working journey over time.

Just before our first fieldwork phase (March 2019), Covid-19 happened, changing the entire landscape of working and personal lives and triggering a rapid and extensive scaling up of flexible working – to an extent “backgrounding” the pilot and impacting on the flexible working arrangements that participants were in the process of implementing. In order to take account of the pandemic which has hugely affected individuals and organisations, we adapted our work and expanded its focus: the evaluation in fact

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offered the unique and important opportunity for all project stakeholders to learn about the ways in which Covid-19 was impacting on the working and personal lives of the people involved in the pilot as well as on flexible working practices more broadly and individual/team/organisational responses to the pandemic.

We are continuing to work with the Centre for Ageing better and the two large employers to focus the final phase of the work to elicit understanding of the current and potential future impact of the pandemic on approaches to flexible working for their organisations and their older staff.

Our first project (through our European subsidiary, Tavistock Institut gGmbH) was particularly relevant in 2020. Digital exclusion has a significant confluence with social exclusion, so that people who are marginalised in general, including people with disabilities, older people, Travellers and people from poor neighbourhoods, tend to find digital services difficult to access.

Our research with these communities brought out the voice of marginalised groups. Whilst this research found various structural and personal barriers to digital inclusion, we also found a number of avenues to reduce digital exclusion, including tailoring training courses to the needs of at-risk groups, making services more user-friendly and being patient with pilot initiatives.

Our initial research has found that isolation, loneliness and depression have greatly affected communities in lockdown, and whilst some people have become motivated to use digital technology to stay in touch with their colleagues, virtual interactions are more labour intensive and less fulfilling than in-person groups.

In early 2021, we will work with local decision makers, delivery staff and digitally excluded people to cocreate a plan of action for recovery from the impact of the pandemic and the easing of digital exclusion generally in Limerick.

InterReg 2 Seas is a European Territorial Cooperation Programme covering coastal regions in England, France, the Netherlands and Belgium (Flanders). It is part-financed by the European Regional Development Fund and has a total of €241m to co-finance projects in the 2014-2020 period and beyond.

The context is the presence, in each region, of about 10,000 low-skilled jobseekers, aged 18-24. In many cases, the participants have left school or been excluded from school after the 5[th] Form so that they have not managed to achieve even the most basic minimum requirements to get into a vocational training programme. The project also includes older low-skilled people aged up to 50 who are in low-skilled employment than could be lost in the future through the changing nature of work and technology.

The aim is to help low-skilled jobseekers into work placements followed by employment, in the 4 regions, including Kent in the UK. The Institute is contributing to the professional development of a series of cohorts of participants (including tests and pilots), plus 360 degree support, promoting family positive

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influence, supporting the mentors from the organisations offering work placements, and the evaluation of the UK intervention and whole-system consultancy.

The project provides educational programmes in basic engineering, and supervised work placement experience in local engineering and construction industries that will up-skill the jobseekers sufficiently to achieve an employment interview, be offered a job at the end and sustain their job afterwards.

Tavistock ‘Learning-from-experience’ methodologies are being applied to:

(i) The participant cohorts meet with Tavistock consultants to participate in here-and-now experiential learning events to promote their constructive participation in their work placements, employment and their communities;
(ii) Selected families from each cohort during the 12-weeks of each programme to help the families support the participants;
(iii) Tavistock Institute consultants work with the organisational mentors in study groups;
(iv) The Tavistock undertakes the evaluation of the UK part of the project.

Part of the Launching Young Leaders initiative, these workshops help young and emerging leaders (18-30) think about what it means to be a leader and how individual identity plays into that.

The first workshop explored the qualities that make us unique, the skills, knowledge and experiences that each bring to their roles played at work but also amongst friends and family. It looked at the connection between how young leaders show up in different contexts and the overlaps between them.

One core leadership skill that is often underestimated is the ability to handle the emotional impact of work. Leading is not always easy and making the right decision that benefits a team may not directly benefit the leader, if they take their role as leader seriously.

The workshop was attended by 48 participants from across the globe with a participant making the following comment in an evaluation afterwards:

Leaders come in all shapes: the leader in the mind shapes how you relate to yourself and others, and that can hinder or promote learning. leadership is context-dependent and context making.

Plans are underway for more Self Leadership workshops and a virtual PD programme as part of .

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As part of the Institute’s ongoing partnership with CECAN (Centre for Evaluation Complexity across the Nexus) we have continued to publicise the importance of having an understanding of complexity and the behaviour of complex adaptive systems, in the field of Evaluation.

Working with CECAN colleagues, key achievements during 2019-2020:

Publishing a supplement to the Magenta book, the UK Treasuries cross-government guidance on evaluation: Addressing Complexity in Policy Evaluation
Developing of a Complex Evaluation Framework , published by Department for the Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs (Defra)
Participating in various CECAN-hosted events and webinars disseminating this work
Two articles accepted for the forthcoming CECAN special issue of the journal Evaluation .
Norwegian Evaluation Conference

University of Tampere, Finland – Juliet Scott gave a keynote speech and a workshop the next day on Social Dynamics of Self-organizing in the light of Historical Evidence from the Tavistock Institute Archive in November.

Presentation at 2019 DCDC conference: How an Archives Revealed Scoping Grant supported the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in dealing with its early born digital material - continuing our innovative leadership in archival practice. Antonio Sama, Professional Partner and Frank Owen, Digital Consultant.

SRA exhibition installation – we won the Judge’s Award.

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Our Professional Development programmes continue to be in high demand, recruitment was buoyant as we approached the Spring with two programmes underway. Then in response to the pandemic we moved all our programmes online. Recruitment continued through this period and all our programmes successfully ran and we have learnt much.

We continue to work and develop in the virtual space. Our Digital Surgeries are an established part of our offer. We are designing a new offer for those interested in working with virtual organisational and team dynamics. We have also been experimenting with working in different time zones thus making our programmes more widely accessible. Next year we will be offering Dynamics @ Board Level in two different time zones.

The Institute continues to build robust institutional relationships and partnerships with stakeholders across the world. From the second Caribbean Group Relations conference in Trinidad in October 2019, through to taking part in a pre-pandemic face to face training programme in Small and Large Study Group consultation in partnership with Group Relations International in Boston, and staff the OFEK Conference in February 2020.

During the pandemic, online Group Relations Conferences and events have taken place. The first event was held in April by ICI of Canada, and then a pioneering, jointly sponsored conference in July by the Institute, between Israel (OFEK), USA (AKRI), India (GRI) and Netherlands (Utrecht University). The Institute supported events and Conferences held by Partners in Confronting Collective Atrocities, Group Relations Russia and Italy (IL NODO).

A longitudinal study launched at the Belgirate meeting 2018 to explore collaboration across the global group relations institutions has developed. Initially formulated as a Gathering of Presidents of Group Relations Sponsoring Organisations, it has met online at regular intervals to study the dynamics of authority and representation, and consider the Leicester Conference as a “shared object”. 20 organisations are in regular attendance, with a rotating 6 monthly Chair.

3 publications written by Group Relations organisations around the world, under the banner of The Patchwork: what Group Relations thinking can contribute to understanding the Pandemic, were well received and reached 1000’s of readers. This collaborative writing demonstrated the Institute’s commitment to partnership and disseminating learning about inter-organisational processes.

A logistic, strategic and symbolic impact in the midst of a global pandemic, was to hold the 2020 Leicester Conference face to face. The conference has happened every year since 1957 in the UK. 4 weeks to go, the first UK local lockdown hit the City of Leicester! We had to find a new venue, outside the UK that would allow members to travel. We relocated to Bavaria in Germany, thanks to our partner, oezpa GmbH and the institute internal team.

There were 10 members and 4 staff. Nationalities represented at the conference included The Netherlands, Russia, UK, Finland, New Zealand, Vietnam, Denmark and France and Argentina. The conference was redesigned to reflect the pandemic context and the size of the membership. A

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context Event and Eliat Aram’s Design Event were used in week 1. Back to Back groups created the same dynamics as a Large Study Group and the introduction of a Curatorial Event at the end of week 2 was a place to bring together the experiences from the Design Event.

The Institute has been developing a partnership with the emerging Group Relations Russia organisation for just over a year now, challenged by the pandemic which has unfolded alongside the conference preparations. The work has moved online, temporarily, although it has felt as more of a new fixture in the world of GR, than a temporary one, as the year has progressed.

Following a small training event for the staff in spring, the first Group Relations Conference (GRC) in September consisted of 11 staff and 40 members from all over the world, with 14 countries represented and a number of people on the waiting list.

The GRC topic - “Exploring Role and Identity in COVID era in Group Relations work online” – reflected the complexities in this period. Typical questions explored in GRCs were found here too, including issues of boundaries, authority, dependency and leadership. It seemed to us that these have all been exacerbated in what we call the Covid era. Technology, isolation and connection were additional dimensions of concern and pain on the one hand, and excitement and longing on the other. Several people were overwhelmed as well as grateful for the opportunities offered via Zoom without which they would have felt much more desolate.

The role of leading, trust in leadership, the ambivalence towards taking up leadership as well as being a follower were all evident in the event, exacerbated by the Covid context which induces Basic Assumption Dependency.

The Social Dreaming Matrix was a relatively new format for the Russian organisational market. Through the overnight dreams, feelings such as disappointment, confusion, loneliness, fear, ambivalence surfaced – which would otherwise be difficult to articulate and give voice to, especially through the virtual space.

Despite humans’ natural curiosity and the excitement in the possibility of connecting across the globe, a lot was left unsaid and unexplored - perhaps, we hypothesised, this is a key impact of the pandemic and lockdown; the remoteness combined with internal self-restrictions. More online and eventually in-person GRCs in partnership between GR Russia and the Institute are planned in 2021.

This year has been transformative for our Lunchtime Talks. It began with David Strudley in our offices, and then we hosted the project partners from the Erasmus+ project. When the pandemic hit in March, we adapted the Talks to be held virtually. This has been a great success, as we are now averaging 70 participants from across the globe – a wonderful example of connectivity during a difficult time.

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Human Relations is a highly ranked international peer-reviewed journal. Human Relations articles have significant impact on academic debates on a wide variety of topics that affect people at work, for example:

the changing nature of managerial work
leadership
politics at work
economic inequality and management
job quality
careers
employee well-being; and much more…

In January 2020 Human Relations said goodbye to its Editor in Chief, Prof Nick Turner, who helmed the journal for 3 years. Prof Turner oversaw a very successful period for the journal, with impact factors and submissions increasing year on year. After a handover period, Prof Mark Learmonth took over as Editor in Chief in March 2020. Prof Learmonth is a Professor of Organisation Studies at the Business School, Durham University and prior to becoming EiC, served on the HR Editorial Board for four years. You can read an interview with Prof Learmonth.

Submissions continue to increase year on year, particularly in 2020; since the Covid-19 outbreak in March 2020 Human Relations has seen a 25% increase in submissions and 1000+ submissions are expected by the end of 2020. Submissions are geographically diverse and 2019/20 has seen a submission from every continent of the globe. To manage this increase, HR has recruited six new new full time Associate Editors, including academics from across the globe, and as a consequence decisions and publishing times have decreased. We also welcomed a new production editor from Sage Publishing, Helen Hardy.

The journal has an active social media presence and, as a testament to its high standing academically, over 730,000 full-text articles were downloaded in 2019. We expect the 2020 download figure to be even bigger and already had 700,000 downloads in September!

Usually Human Relations Associate Editors would travel to conferences around the world, including the AoM conference held in August. This year, presentations were given virtually including at AoM and other ‘Meet the Editor’ sessions at various institutions.

Covid-19 did not stop the hard work of all our reviewers and authors in 2019/20. Our Reviewer of the Year Award was given to Dr Oliver Weigelt, University of Rostock, (Germany) and the Paper of the Year Award given to Karanika-Murray & Biron for their paper, The Health-performance Framework of Presenteeism: Towards understanding an adaptive behaviour .

Ranking: Human Relations continues to be well respected internationally and is included in the FT50 list of journals used by the Financial Times in compiling the FT Research rank, included in Global MBA, EMBA and Online MBA rankings.

Human Relations has a solid Thomson Reuters Journal Citation Reports (ISI) ranking – the 2019 2-year and 5-year impact factors are 3.6 and 4.659 respectively (ranked: 6/108 in Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary and 66/226 in Management). Human Relations is an A* journal in the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) Journal Quality List and is ranked 4 in the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS) Academic Journal Guide 2018.

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The Council holds bi-monthly meetings. The CEO provides an update to the trustees at each of the Council meetings. This includes a status update on the key projects and other significant events. An update of the financial status of the Institute is also reviewed at each meeting. Further, the Council has a rolling programme which covers the key activities of the Institute over the course of twelve months.

In addition, the following sub-committees are in operation:

The Pension trustees meet 2-3 times a year and are responsible to the pension fund.
The Human Relations Management Committee (HRMC) meets twice a year to discuss and review the activities of the HR journal.

Internally, the CEO holds bi-weekly management meetings.

Salary progression reviews are carried out annually and are normally based on the performance of staff members and business context. All staff are positioned organisationally in a range of salary bands which are directly related to their roles and grade. The bands are as follows: R – Researcher, S – Senior Researcher and P – Principal. The difference in grade reflects seniority of knowledge, experience and workload. The majority of the principal grade employees are line managed by the CEO who makes a recommendation of any increase in salary within the same percentage range as other staff member (1-4%). This is confirmed as both reasonable and affordable by the Head of Finance. In 2019-20, the Institute froze salaries for all staff in light of the economic uncertainty of Covid-19 and implemented a process of fixed term furlough across all employees during the initial phase of the furlough scheme between April and June 2020.

The Institute managed to navigate its way through the Covid-19 pandemic in 2019-20 in achieving an operating surplus of £234k. Whilst this is lower compared to the operating surplus of £330k achieved in 2018-19 it represents a very strong performance in the unprecedented circumstances which impacted national and global economies. The accounts for 2019-20 include the consolidation of the Institute’s subsidiary, Tavistock Institut gGmbH, which began operations in 2019 and itself achieved a small operating surplus.

The Institute’s research, evaluation and consultancy activities and royalties business streams saw an increase in revenue for the year which helped offset lower Professional Development income much of which was deferred to 2020-21. The Institute continues to have a healthy level of live contracted project work and will also look to continue to secure new project work in 2020-21.

The Institute continues to hold a provision of £117,585 at the end of September 2020 for potential costs related to its membership of the Menon Network EEIG following the bankruptcy of a fellow member of the

TRUSTEES’ ANNUAL REPORT FOR YEAR ENDED 30 SEPTEMBER 2020

EEIG and which will impact the EEIG and its members. The Institute is retaining the provision to cover any further payment settlements related to other EEIG projects.

The Trustees recognise the need to hold reserves both to enable the Institute to progress its long-term projects and to protect its current activities. The Institute believes that a reserves level of three months’ income is appropriate for the ongoing operations of the organisation. Of the accumulated reserves on September 30, 2019 of £612,438 (excluding the pension fund liability), an amount of £15,243 is invested in operational assets and this amount is not available to meet ongoing expenditure. The unrestricted free reserves are £597,195 which represents 4 months of future expenditures.

The Institute continues to fulfil its obligation as per the revised pension recovery plan with the pension trustees (approved by the pensions regulator) whereby the deficit will be paid within 15 years. During the year ended 30 September 2020 the Institute paid £296,132 in accordance with this plan. The actuarial valuation of the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations Retirements Benefit Scheme at 30 September 2020 for the purposes of FRS102 showed a decreased funding deficit of £5,763,000 (2019: £5,962,000).

The Trustees have a duty to identify and review the strategic, business and operational risks that the Institute is exposed to, and to ensure that appropriate controls are in place to provide reasonable assurance against fraud and error.

In order to achieve this, the Trustees and management team have undertaken an assessment of the risks that the organisation is exposed to and have produced a risk register which assigns management of these risks to specific individuals and recommends actions to be taken, where necessary, in order to manage the likelihood and impact of these risks. The risk assessment and resulting risk register are reviewed and updated on a regular basis.

The most up to date review, in March 2020, confirmed the current primary risks to be the ongoing Covid19 pandemic situation along with Brexit which combined creating economic uncertainty and volatility impacting work opportunities in the UK and Europe. We continue to monitor the risk of losing staff for various reasons although we think this has now subsided with the latest wave of recruitment and we continue to develop new streams of funding whilst keeping focused on saving costs wherever prudent.

Goldwins Limited, Chartered Accountants, have agreed to continue their appointment as external auditor.

Each of the directors has confirmed that so far as they are aware, there is no relevant audit information of which the company's auditor is unaware, and that they have taken all the steps that they ought to have taken as a director in order to make themselves aware of any relevant audit information and to establish that the company's auditor is aware of that information.

TRUSTEES’ ANNUAL REPORT

FOR YEAR ENDED 30 SEPTEMBER 2020

The trustees (who are also directors of the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations for the purposes of company law) are responsible for preparing the Trustees' Report and the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards, including Financial Reporting Standard 102 The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice).

Company law requires the trustees to prepare financial statements for each financial year which give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the charitable company and of the income and expenditure of the charitable company for that period. In preparing these financial statements, the trustees are required to:

select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently;
observe the methods and principles in the Charities SORP;
make judgments and accounting estimates that are reasonable and prudent;
state whether applicable UK Accounting Standards have been followed, subject to any material departures disclosed and explained in the financial statements, and
prepare the financial statements on the going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the charitable company will continue in business.

The trustees are responsible for maintaining proper accounting records which disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the charitable company and enable them to ensure that the financial statements comply with the Companies Act 2006. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the charitable company [and the group] and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.

In so far as the trustees are aware:

there is no relevant audit information of which the charitable company's auditors are unaware; and
the trustees have taken all steps that they ought to have taken to make themselves aware of any relevant audit information and to establish that the auditors are aware of that information.

The trustees are responsible for the maintenance and integrity of the corporate and financial information included on the charitable company's website. Legislation in the United Kingdom governing the preparation and dissemination of financial statements may differ from legislation in other jurisdictions.

BY ORDER OF THE COUNCIL

David Hollywood 24 March 2021

OF HUMAN RELATIONS

INDEPENDENT AUDITORʼS REPORT TO THE MEMBERS OF THE ASSOCIATION OF THE TAVISTOCK INSTITUTE FOR YEAR ENDED 30 SEPTEMBER 2020

We have audited the financial statements of The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations (the ‘Charity’) for the year ended 30 September 2020 which comprise the consolidated Statement of Financial Activities, the group and parent Charity’s Balance Sheets, group’s statement of cash flows and notes to the financial statements, including a summary of significant accounting policies. The financial reporting framework that has been applied in their preparation is applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards, including Financial Reporting Standard 102: The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice).

In our opinion, the financial statements:

give a true and fair view of the state of the group’s and Charity’s affairs as at 30 September 2020 and of its income and expenditure for the year then ended;
have been properly prepared in accordance with United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice;
have been prepared in accordance with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006.

We conducted our audit in accordance with International Standards on Auditing (UK) (ISAs (UK)) and applicable law. Our responsibilities under those standards are further described in the Auditorʼs responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements section of our report. We are independent of the Charity in accordance with the ethical requirements that are relevant to our audit of the financial statements in the UK, including the FRCʼs Ethical Standard and we have fulfilled our other ethical responsibilities in accordance with these requirements. We believe that the audit evidence we have obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion.

We have nothing to report in respect of the following matters in relation to which the ISAs (UK) require us to report to you where:

the trustees’ use of the going concern basis of accounting in the preparation of the financial statements is not appropriate; or
the trustees have not disclosed in the financial statements any identified material uncertainties that may cast significant doubt about the Charity’s ability to continue to adopt the going concern basis of accounting for a period of at least twelve months from the date when the financial statements are authorised for issue.

The trustees are responsible for the other information. The other information comprises the information included in the annual report other than the financial statements and our auditor’s report thereon. Our opinion on the financial statements does not cover the other information and, except to the extent otherwise explicitly stated in our report, we do not express any form of assurance conclusion thereon.

OF HUMAN RELATIONS

INDEPENDENT AUDITORʼS REPORT TO THE MEMBERS OF THE ASSOCIATION OF THE TAVISTOCK INSTITUTE FOR YEAR ENDED 30 SEPTEMBER 2020

In connection with our audit of the financial statements, our responsibility is to read the other information and, in doing so, consider whether the other information is materially inconsistent with the financial statements or our knowledge obtained in the audit or otherwise appears to be materially misstated. If we identify such material inconsistencies or apparent material misstatements, we are required to determine whether there is a material misstatement in the financial statements or a material misstatement of the other information. If, based on the work we have performed, we conclude that there is a material misstatement of this other information, we are required to report that fact.

We have nothing to report in this regard.

In our opinion, based on the work undertaken in the course of the audit:

the information given in the trustees’ report (incorporating the directors’ report) for the financial year for which the financial statements are prepared is consistent with the financial statements; and
the trustees’ report (incorporating the directors’ report) have been prepared in accordance with applicable legal requirements.

In the light of the knowledge and understanding of the Charity and its environment obtained in the course of the audit, we have not identified material misstatements in the Trustees’ Annual Report. We have nothing to report in respect of the following matters in relation to which the Companies Act 2006 requires us to report to you if, in our opinion:

adequate accounting records have not been kept or returns adequate for our audit have not been received from branches not visited by us;
the financial statements are not in agreement with the accounting records and returns;
certain disclosures of trustees’ remuneration specified by law are not made; or
we have not obtained all the information and explanations necessary for the purposes of our audit.

As explained more fully in the trustees’ responsibilities statement set out on page 12, the trustees are responsible for the preparation of the financial statements and for being satisfied that they give a true and fair view, and for such internal control as they determine is necessary to enable the preparation of financial statements that are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error.

In preparing the financial statements, the trustees are responsible for assessing the Charity’s ability to continue as a going concern, disclosing, as applicable, matters related to going concern and using the going concern basis of accounting unless the trustees either intend to liquidate the Charity or to cease operations, or have no realistic alternative but to do so.

OF HUMAN RELATIONS

INDEPENDENT AUDITORʼS REPORT TO THE MEMBERS OF THE ASSOCIATION OF THE TAVISTOCK INSTITUTE FOR YEAR ENDED 30 SEPTEMBER 2020

Our objectives are to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements as a whole are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error, and to issue an auditor’s report that includes our opinion. Reasonable assurance is a high level of assurance but is not a guarantee that an audit conducted in accordance with ISAs (UK) will always detect a material misstatement when it exists. Misstatements can arise from fraud or error and are considered material if, individually or in the aggregate, they could reasonably be expected to influence the economic decisions of users taken on the basis of these financial statements.

A further description of our responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements is located on the Financial Reporting Council’s website at: https://www.frc.org.uk/auditorsresponsibilities. This description forms part of our auditor’s report.

This report is made solely to the Charity’s members, as a body, in accordance with Chapter 3 of Part 16 of the Companies Act 2006. Our audit work has been undertaken so that we might state to the Charity’s members those matters we are required to state to them in an auditor’s report and for no other purpose. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we do not accept or assume responsibility to anyone other than the Charity’s members as a body, for our audit work, for this report, or for the opinions we have formed.

Anthony Epton (Senior Statutory Auditor) for and on behalf of Goldwins Limited Statutory Auditor Chartered Accountants 75 Maygrove Road West Hampstead London NW6 2EG

OF HUMAN RELATIONS

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES (INCORPORATING INCOME AND EXPENDITURE) FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30 SEPTEMBER 2020

OF HUMAN RELATIONS

STATEMENT OF CASH FLOWS

FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30 SEPTEMBER 2020

24 March 2021

OF HUMAN RELATIONS STATEMENT OF CASH FLOWS

FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30 SEPTEMBER 2020

OF HUMAN RELATIONS NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30 SEPTEMBER 2020

OF HUMAN RELATIONS NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30 SEPTEMBER 2020

OF HUMAN RELATIONS NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30 SEPTEMBER 2020

OF HUMAN RELATIONS NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30 SEPTEMBER 2020

OF HUMAN RELATIONS NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30 SEPTEMBER 2020