Karen Cregan
Senior Lecturer in Human Resources & Business Management
My name is Karen Cregan and I am a Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management within the Chester Business school at the University of Chester. Following a successful career working in large private and public sector organisations, I moved into academia to share my business experiences and passion for this subject area. I am committed to continuous learning for both myself and the students, thus students learn to appreciate the importance of how good people management practices result in high levels of business performance.
Working in partnership and collaboration with the National University Colleges Employers Association, Mental Health First Aid, Universities Human Resource forums and Dame Carol Black (Government Policy advisor), I have led various projects across the University sector to design Employee Engagement and Wellbeing frameworks, to support good people management practices. In addition, I am a member of various UK Healthy Universities Networks and have been a speaker at many conferences including the Institute of Employment Studies, UCEA and USHA, where I have been championing the importance of employee wellbeing for business performance.
As well as a general interest in all things to do with human resource management! I specialise in topics on organisational behaviour, workplace health and wellbeing and coaching and mentoring.
Research interests include:
The psycho-social effects of wellbeing interventions and the influence on organisational performance.
She has conducted research in this area of study particularly with Virgin Media call-centre agents on the use of sit-stand desks (2016) and with Mental Health First Aid England, evaluating a Higher Education Mental Health First Aid course. (2016).
Higher Education Mental Health First Aid Study, Cregan, K., Phipps, D. & Lowndes, J., 2016, University of Chester. Submitted for publication. Summary available at healthyuniversities.ac.uk
Parker, E(1), Sheath, D(2), Morris, M(1), Cregan, K(1) & Buckley, JP(3), Cardio metabolic and psycho-social effects of using sit-stand desks in media call-centre workers. Proceedings of the Annual Exercise Professionals Conference of the British Association for Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation. Birmingham, May, 2017.
Wellbeing of staff within Higher Education. This piece of work was published in the wellbeing and engagement in Higher Education paper (2012) for HEFCE and UCEA.
Cregan K., Rowe L., Wall T. (2019) Resilience Education and Training. In: Leal Filho W., Wall T., Azul A., Brandli L., Özuyar P. (eds) Good Health and Well-Being. Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Springer, Cham.
Evans.V, Cregan K,. Wall T.(2019) Organisational Resilience . In: Leal Filho W., Wall T., Azul A., Brandli L., Özuyar P. (eds) Good Health and Well-Being. Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Springer, Cham.