Gerards, R
Ruud Gerards is a coordinating senior researcher at Maastricht University's Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA). He obtained his PhD degree in economics from Maastricht University in May 2012. Previously, he held positions at Statistics Netherlands (CBS), PricewaterhouseCoopers, H&S Adviseurs and Fontys University of Applied Sciences. His research focuses on sustainable employability in the 21st century, which amongst others includes investigating the effects of people’s financial stresses and resilience on their well-being and labour market outcomes and the effects that New Ways of Working have on employees. He has published in various journals such as Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, British Journal of Industrial Relations, Applied Economics, Personnel Review and Technovation. Ruud Gerards at IDEAS: https://ideas.repec.org/e/pge199.html
More information: http://www.ruudgerards.nl/
Expertise
Labour Economics, Industrial Relations, Human Resource Management, Entrepreneurship
Research Profile
Research Theme: Sustainable employability in the 21st century
Keywords: Employability; well-being; job performance; resilience; adaptation; HR policy
Summary: External pressures coming from multiple directions increasingly challenge individual workers and HR policymakers to maintain workers’ well-being and sustainable employability in three ways. First, technology driven developments in the workplace such as New Ways of Working, robotization, digitization and artificial intelligence continuously challenge workers’ resilience and adaptability. Second, institutional changes such as increasingly flexible labor relations have made societies more individualized and have shifted more pressure to remain employable onto individual workers, further increasing the resilience and adaptability required. Third, technological developments that manifest in workers’ private domain, such as increasingly digitized systems of taxation, government subsidies, banking and insurances have put the maintenance of healthy personal finances under increasing pressure, which in turn challenges workers’ well-being and employability.
To maintain their well-being and sustainable employability, workers need to be resilient to cope with the multitude of changes and HR policymakers are looking for novel ways to facilitate this. To increase workers’, companies’ and policy makers’ insights in the drivers of and threats to this resilience, this research theme focuses on workers’ well-being and sustainable employability in the context of changes in the workplace, societal institutions and private domains.
Research Projects
“Money on my mind": The dynamics of financial worry
A research project into dynamics of financial worry, for which we were awarded a long-term research grant by the ThinkForwardInitiative. Together with Bert Schreurs (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) and Riccardo Welters (James Cook University).
Teaching
Ph.D. and M.Sc. supervision
Co-promotor of Sanne van Wetten, Human capital selection for intrapreneurship, 2020, Maastricht University
Supervisor of over a dozen of master theses.
Course coordinating/developing activities
Maastricht University, School of Business and Economics, The Netherlands
Undergraduate level:
Country Risk Analysis (coordinator 2007-2011, 2013-2016)
Job Performance and the Employment Relationship (planning group, 2014 - 2016)
Postgraduate level:
Economics of labour markets and human capital (planning group, 2017 – present)
Social Europe(s) (planning group, 2007-2011)
Fontys University of Applied Sciences, International Business and Management Studies
Undergraduate level:
Coordinator of semester 7, the minor Academic Orientation and the minor Advanced Topics in Management. (2011 – 2012)
Lecturing and tutoring
Maastricht University, School of Business and Economics, The Netherlands
Postgraduate level:
Economics of labour markets & human capital (2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019)
Social Europe(s) (2007, 2008, 2009, 2010)
Undergraduate level:
Job Performance and the Employment Relationship (2014, 2015, 2016)
Country Risk Analysis (2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016)
Public Finance & Public Choice (2003, 2004)
European Economic Integration (2004, 2005)
International Financial Markets & International Banking (2003, 2004, 2006)
Macroeconomics (2004, 2005)
International Economic Relations (2004, 2005, 2007, 2009)
Economics and Business (2003, 2004, 2006)
Presentation Skills (2004, 2005)
Economic Psychology (2006)
Gender in Economics and Management (2007, 2008)
Maastricht University, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, The Netherlands
Undergraduate level:
The Economist’s Point of View (2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011)
Making a European Market (2010)
Maastricht University, University College Maastricht, The Netherlands
Undergraduate level: Macro-sociology (2006)
Fontys University of Applied Sciences, International Business and Management Studies
Undergraduate level: Economics, Statistics and Research Skills (all 2011 and 2012)
Post-graduate and off-campus teaching
2011 - 2018 Zuyd University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands: Thesis supervisor Master Personal Leadership in Innovation and Change.
2014 FHR Lim A Po Institute for Social Studies, Paramaribo, Surinam: Lecturer Managerial Economics in the MBA program on behalf of Maastricht School of Management
2009 University Maastricht Business School, The Netherlands: Lecturer macroeconomics for professionals from Statistics Netherlands (CBS).
2007 - 2008 Maastricht Hotel Management School, The Netherlands: Lecturer macroeconomics in the MBA Hotel and Tourism Management.
2004 - 2005 Maastricht University, Centre for European Studies, The Netherlands: Lecturer Research skills for the premaster program for Indonesian and African students.
