Work in Challenging and Uncertain Times

Work in Challenging and Uncertain Times PDF

Author: Patricia Leighton

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-07-12

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13: 1000044300

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This book was written as the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic began to have a devastating effect on employment across the globe. The crisis has served to highlight many deepseated, often longstanding challenges to employment relationships. These include uncertainties and fears about the impact of technological advances, concerns about safety and wellbeing and controversies around emerging business and employment models. It is difficult to avoid the fear that the combination of these and other practices will lead to a ‘race to the bottom’. The book calls for a radical rethink and reassessment of the core values underlying employment relationships. In Work in Challenging and Uncertain Times, the authors take a refreshingly realistic view of how contemporary work relationships are managed and look to how they will need to change in the future. Some key questions are posed, such as ‘who is the employer in complex skills supply chains?’; ‘how do we ensure a skilled workforce in a context of fragmentation and increasing individualization?’; ‘in a context of AI, robots etc., what does it mean to be human?’ and ‘how do we achieve change and improvement’? Based on extensive research presented in an accessible and engaging style, the book provides insights valuable to students of employment relationships, HRM and employment law as well as to practitioners and policy-makers. It draws on a range of academic disciplines and thoughts from interviews with key practitioners and commentators on workplace as well as students.

Change and Risk in Employment Relationships

Change and Risk in Employment Relationships PDF

Author: Patricia Leighton

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 9781003020820

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This book was written as the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic began to have a devastating effect on employment across the globe. The crisis has served to highlight many deepseated, often longstanding challenges to employment relationships. These include uncertainties and fears about the impact of technological advances, concerns about safety and wellbeing and controversies around emerging business and employment models. It is difficult to avoid the fear that the combination of these and other practices will lead to a 'race to the bottom'. The book calls for a radical rethink and reassessment of the core values underlying employment relationships. In Work in Uncertain and Insecure Times, the authors take a refreshingly realistic view of how contemporary work relationships are managed and look to how they will need to change in the future. Some key questions are posed, such as 'who is the employer in complex skills supply chains?'; 'how do we ensure a skilled workforce in a context of fragmentation and increasing individualization?'; 'in a context of AI, robots etc., what does it mean to be human?' and 'how do we achieve change and improvement'? Based on extensive research presented in an accessible and engaging style, the book provides insights valuable to students of employment relationships, HRM and employment law as well as to practitioners and policy-makers. It draws on a range of academic disciplines and thoughts from interviews with key practitioners and commentators on workplace as well as students.

Finding Our Way

Finding Our Way PDF

Author: Margaret J. Wheatley

Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers

Published: 2005-02-14

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 1605098795

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The acclaimed author “richly articulates how the insights of modern science . . . can usher in a new era of human and planetary health” (Systems Thinker). For years, Margaret Wheatley has written eloquently about humanizing our organizations and helping people to work together more effectively and compassionately. She has shown how breakthroughs in chaos theory and quantum physics can enable organizations to function more like responsive, self-organizing living systems, rather than cold mechanisms of control. And she has gradually expanded these ideas into the wider arena of human society. In short, Margaret Wheatley is one of the most innovative and influential organizational thinkers of our time, and Finding Our Way brings together her shorter writings for the first time, touching on all the topics she has addressed throughout her career, showing how she has applied the ideas in her books in many different situations. “However,” she writes, “this is not a collection of articles. I updated, revised, or substantially added to the original content of each one. In this way, everything written here represents my current views on the subjects I write about.” Provocative, challenging, at times poetic, and often deeply moving, Finding Our Way sums up Wheatley’s thinking on a diverse scope of topics from leadership and management to education and raising children in turbulent times; from societal commentary to specific organizational techniques and more. “Wheatley provocatively lays out how managers must operate to be effective in a system that is ‘alive’ . . . Finding Our Way challenges us to see the enterprises we lead in new light.” —Leader’s Beacon

Flourishing in Uncertain Times

Flourishing in Uncertain Times PDF

Author: Danny Kyei-Poakwa

Publisher:

Published: 2020-05-28

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9781649458858

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This book could not be timelier as it neared completion during the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic. Flourishing in Uncertain Times is a work that will inspire in a time when the world needs inspiration. It is a fresh look at the power of prayer and faith in a world that changes from day to day. This innovative book creates synergy and challenges leaders to move beyond the fundamentals and stand on the promises of God. You will enjoy this challenging read as you use these principles to lead and teach others to lead.

Putting Skill to Work

Putting Skill to Work PDF

Author: Nichola Lowe

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2023-05-09

Total Pages: 197

ISBN-13: 0262547910

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An argument for reimagining skill in a way that can extend economic opportunity to workers at the bottom of the labor market. The United States has a jobs problem—not enough well-paying jobs to go around and not enough clear pathways leading to them. Skill development is critical for addressing this employment crisis, but there are many unresolved questions about who has skill, how it is attained, and whose responsibility it is to build skills over time. In this book, Nichola Lowe tells the stories of pioneering workforce intermediaries—nonprofits, unions, community colleges—that harness this ambiguity around skill to extend economic opportunity to workers at the bottom of the labor market. Skill development confers shared value to both workers and employers because it lies at the intersection of their respective interests. Connecting skill to economic inequality, Lowe calls for solutions that push employers to accept greater responsibility for skill development. She examines real-world examples of workplace intermediaries throughout the United States, exploring in detail the work of manufacturing-focused organizations in Chicago and Milwaukee, and a network of community colleges in North Carolina that coordinates training for biopharmaceutical manufacturers. As workforce intermediaries help employers reinterpret skill, they also convince them to implement inclusive work-based systems that extend family-sustaining wages and better working conditions across the entire workforce. With renewed policy emphasis on skill development, these opportunity-rich solutions can be further expanded—ensuring workers across the entire educational spectrum contribute skills that drive innovation forward and share the gains they generate for the twenty-first century workplace.

Fit for Growth

Fit for Growth PDF

Author: Vinay Couto

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2017-01-10

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 1119268532

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A practical approach to business transformation Fit for Growth* is a unique approach to business transformation that explicitly connects growth strategy with cost management and organization restructuring. Drawing on 70-plus years of strategy consulting experience and in-depth research, the experts at PwC’s Strategy& lay out a winning framework that helps CEOs and senior executives transform their organizations for sustainable, profitable growth. This approach gives structure to strategy while promoting lasting change. Examples from Strategy&’s hundreds of clients illustrate successful transformation on the ground, and illuminate how senior and middle managers are able to take ownership and even thrive during difficult periods of transition. Throughout the Fit for Growth process, the focus is on maintaining consistent high-value performance while enabling fundamental change. Strategy& has helped major clients around the globe achieve significant and sustained results with its research-backed approach to restructuring and cost reduction. This book provides practical guidance for leveraging that expertise to make the choices that allow companies to: Achieve growth while reducing costs Manage transformation and transition productively Create lasting competitive advantage Deliver reliable, high-value performance Sustainable success is founded on efficiency and high performance. Companies are always looking to do more with less, but their efforts often work against them in the long run. Total business transformation requires total buy-in, and it entails a series of decisions that must not be made lightly. The Fit for Growth approach provides a clear strategy and practical framework for growth-oriented change, with expert guidance on getting it right. *Fit for Growth is a registered service mark of PwC Strategy& Inc. in the United States

Global Perspectives on Change Management and Leadership in the Post-COVID-19 Era

Global Perspectives on Change Management and Leadership in the Post-COVID-19 Era PDF

Author: Al-Aali, Ebtihaj

Publisher: IGI Global

Published: 2021-04-02

Total Pages: 374

ISBN-13: 1799869504

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The COVID-19 pandemic is the largest global health crisis that we have faced since World War II. The greatest challenge for organizations was to establish a clear vision for a quick change that needs to be shared with employees in a way that is both understandable and inspiring. The year 2020 is a time of global change where leaders need to fulfill the change management role with decisions made efficiently and sustainably. To understand the impact of the pandemic on organizations, researchers will need to trace leadership development and change management in the Post-COVID-19 Era. These studies will help to present the different types of leadership roles, policies, and strategies for business transformation in the time of crisis. Global Perspectives on Change Management and Leadership in the Post-COVID-19 Era highlights the global perspectives of COVID-19’s impact on change management and leadership and presents the lessons learned and opportunities afforded to promote new strategies and develop better practices within the field. The chapters report on case studies and real-life challenges faced by organizations in countries across the globe. This book covers important topics such as business sustainability, newfound challenges in the workplace, adaptive performance, success factors within organizations, corporate governance, and more. This is a valuable reference work for managers, executives, practitioners, researchers, students, academicians, stakeholders, business leaders, and anyone interested in leadership styles and the management of change during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Two Lives in Uncertain Times

Two Lives in Uncertain Times PDF

Author: Wilma Iggers

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2006-10-01

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 178238796X

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Published in Association with the German Historical Institute, Washington, D.C. Wilma and Georg Iggers came from different backgrounds, Wilma from a Jewish farming family from the German-speaking border area of Czechoslovakia, Georg from a Jewish business family from Hamburg. They both escaped with their parents from Nazi persecution to North America where they met as students. As a newly married couple they went to the American South where they taught in two historic Black colleges and were involved in the civil rights movement. In 1961 they began going to West Germany regularly not only to do research but also to further reconciliation between Jews and Germans, while at the same time in their scholarly work contributing to a critical confrontation with the German past. After overcoming first apprehensions, they soon felt Göttingen to be their second home, while maintaining their close involvements in America. After 1966 they frequently visited East Germany and Czechslovakia in an attempt to build bridges in the midst of the Cold War. The book relates their very different experiences of childhood and adolescence and then their lives together over almost six decades during which they endeavored to combine their roles as parents and scholars with their social and political engagements. In many ways this is not merely a dual biography but a history of changing conditions in America and Central Europe during turbulent times.

Managing in a VUCA World

Managing in a VUCA World PDF

Author: Oliver Mack

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2015-07-15

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 3319168894

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This book examines volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA) and addresses the need for broader knowledge and application of new concepts and frameworks to deal with unpredictable and rapid changing situations. The premises of VUCA can shape all aspects of an organization. To cover all areas, the book is divided into six sections. Section 1 acts as an introduction to VUCA and complexity. It reviews ways to manage complexity, while providing examples for tools and approaches that can be applied. The main focus of Section 2 is on leadership, strategy and planning. The chapters in this section create new approaches to handle VUCA environments pertaining to these areas including using the Tetralemma logics, tools from systemic structural constellation (SySt) approach of psychotherapy and organizational development, to provide new ideas for the management of large strategic programs in organizations. Section 3 considers how marketing and sales are affected by VUCA, from social media’s influence to customer value management. Operations and cost management are highlighted in Section 4. This section covers VUCA challenges within global supply chains and decision-oriented controlling. In Section 5 organizational structure and process management are showcased, while Section 6 is dedicated to addressing the effects of VUCA in IT, technology and data management. The VUCA forces present businesses with the need to move from linear modes of thought to problem solving with synthetic and simultaneous thinking. This book should help to provide some starting points and ideas to deal with the next era. It should not be understood as the end of the road, but as the beginning of a journey exploring and developing new concepts for a new way of management.

HBR Guide to Dealing with Conflict (HBR Guide Series)

HBR Guide to Dealing with Conflict (HBR Guide Series) PDF

Author: Amy Gallo

Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press

Published: 2017-03-14

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1633692167

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While some of us enjoy a lively debate with colleagues and others prefer to suppress our feelings over disagreements, we all struggle with conflict at work. Every day we navigate an office full of competing interests, clashing personalities, limited time and resources, and fragile egos. Sure, we share the same overarching goals as our colleagues, but we don't always agree on how to achieve them. We work differently. We rub each other the wrong way. We jockey for position. How can you deal with conflict at work in a way that is both professional and productive—where it improves both your work and your relationships? You start by understanding whether you generally seek or avoid conflict, identifying the most frequent reasons for disagreement, and knowing what approaches work for what scenarios. Then, if you decide to address a particular conflict, you use that information to plan and conduct a productive conversation. The HBR Guide to Dealing with Conflict will give you the advice you need to: Understand the most common sources of conflict Explore your options for addressing a disagreement Recognize whether you—and your counterpart—typically seek or avoid conflict Prepare for and engage in a difficult conversation Manage your and your counterpart's emotions Develop a resolution together Know when to walk away Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, with the most trusted brand in business. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.