ERC has been working with the UK Commission on Employment and Skills (UKCES) to assess the impact of human resources and human resource practices on SME growth and innovation.

In ‘Innovation and HR practices in five professional service sectors’ we examine the impact of HR practices on firms’ innovation activity and productivity growth based on new survey data. ‘Sustaining growth’ focuses on the HR practices of a group of fast growing SMEs as they develop from micro-businesses to larger companies. ‘Human resource practices and firm growth’ matched data from the Employer Skills Survey and the Business Structure Database to identify those HR practices most strongly associated with fast growth.