Topic 1: Work-Life Balance


 


Create the Perfect Work-Life Balance


Daily Post (2006)


 


            Employers and policy makers around the world are accepting the changes in the labor force. In recent years, there has been a steady growth of female participation in the labor force. Many of these women have families and children to take care of. In order to accommodate these women, many employers and policy makers are coming up with flexible working arrangements. The article “Create the Perfect Work-Life Balance” focuses on the flexible working arrangements that are offered to women particularly mothers. According to the article, employers have finally cottoned on to the fact that they need to provide parents with flexible working hours and are striving to provide family-friendly policies for staff in order to increase their profitability and effectiveness.


            The article also mentioned that more and more workers are considering flexible working arrangements in order for them to be able to balance their responsibilities at work and at home. The article discussed some of the options that a parent can choose from if he or she wants to achieve work and life balance such as reduced working hours, job sharing and teleworking. Some family-friendly policies were also discussed such as childcare services.


 


 


A Measure of Attitudes Towards Flexible Work Options


(2004)


 


           


            The article focuses on the attitudes of workers to the use of flexible work options. The workplace was once seen as a separate domain from home and family, a separation that was largely defined by gender roles. However, recent decades have seen the increasing participation of women in the paid  workforce, changes in the structure of families, and an increase in dual-career families. Parents are challenged to find the balance between work and family responsibilities. The article examined the use of flexible work options as a means of achieving the balance between work and family responsibilities.


            According to the article flexibility and work-life policies are the major factors for parents when considering their choice of work. Employers are also realizing that flexible working arrangements can also provide benefits for the business. According to the article flexible working arrangements are becoming increasingly important to employees. Part-time or flexible work has been consistently favored by female employees, but flexibility is also becoming more attractive to male employees. The author found out that work-life balance issues are significant for employees especially for females.


 


 


 


Topic Two: Lifelong Learning


 


Lifelong Learning, More Than Training


 (2000)


 


            Lifelong learning provides extensive continuing training, from basic remedial skills to advanced decision-making techniques throughout employees’ careers. Lifelong learning programs can achieve three things. First, the training, development, and education provide employees with the decision-making and other knowledge, skills, abilities, and experiences they need to competently carry out the demanding, team-based jobs in today’s organizations. Second, the opportunity for lifelong learning is inherently motivational. It enables employees to develop and to see an enhanced possibility of fulfilling their potential; it boosts employees’ sense of self-efficacy; and it provides an enhanced opportunity for the employee to self-actualize and gain the sense of achievement that psychologists like Maslow, McClelland, and Herzberg correctly argue is so important. Third, although lifelong learning may not cancel out the potential negative effects of downsizing, it might at least counterbalance them to some degree by giving the employee useful and marketable new skills. Among the benefits of lifelong learning are reductions in downtime, accidents, staffing levels and increases in productivity. In addition, it is expected that maximizing individual employee potential will bring long-term benefits to the organization, including improved motivation, flexibility, creativity and commitment. Lifelong learning also attempts that suitable changes in staff attitudes, knowledge and skills occur in line with new strategies and needs for business.


 


            The article focuses on lifelong learning, and how it can help the employees and the organizations to achieve success and improve performance. According to the author there are different changes in the nature of work and education that necessitate new frameworks to learning. These are:


1. An increasing prevalence of high-technology jobs requiring support for learning on demand because coverage of all concepts is impossible.


2. The inevitability of change in the course of a professional lifetime, which necessitates lifelong learning.


3. The deepening division between the opportunities offered to the educated and the uneducated.


            According to the author, the changes in the nature of work and the introduction of innovative technologies necessitate new approaches in training. According to the author, in training, learning is often restricted to the solution of well-defined problems. Lifelong learning includes training approaches and also transcends them by supporting learning in the context of realistic, open-ended, ill defined problems. The author also discussed the different challenges and problems that workers face in the information age. These are:


1. Most people change careers three to four times in their lives, since what they learned in school was designed to prepare them for their first career.


2. The pace of change is so fast that technologies and skills to use them become obsolete within 5-10 years.


3. University graduates are not well prepared for work.


4. Companies have trouble institutionalizing what has been learned (e.g., in the form of organizational memos) so that the departure of particular employees does not disrupt the companies’ capabilities.


5. Although employers and workers, alike, realize that they must learn new things, they often do not feel they have the time to do so.


 


In the article, the author also explores the differences between training and lifelong learning. According to the author, lifelong learning is more than training or continuing education. It must support multiple learning opportunities that include exploring conceptual understanding as well as narrowing to practical application of knowledge, ranging over different settings such as academic education, informal lifelong learning, and professional and industrial training. The author stressed that learning new skills and acquiring new knowledge cannot be restricted to formal educational settings. Effective learning needs to be integrated into the work process. Current teaching programs train people to use what is effectively a snapshot of an evolving technology. Training is often considered as a variable plugged into an economic model. This short-sighted cycle of training and retraining cannot be broken unless we recognize that learning is a lifelong process that cannot be separated from working. By integrating working and learning, people learn within the context of their work on real-world problems. Learning does not take place in a separate phase and in a separate place, but is integrated into the work process.


 


Topic Three: Skills Shortage and the War for Talent


 


Skills Mismatch in the Labor Market


 


The article discusses one of the major issues that human resources management faces today – skills mismatch or skills shortage. The term skills mismatch can describe situations in which workers’ skills exceed or lag behind those employers seek. There is a widespread belief that workers’ skills and education are not adequate for the demands of jobs in the current economy. Journalistic reports, employer surveys, popular and policy debates on school quality and education reform, sociological writings on the economy and the underclass, and economic accounts of the recent growth of wage inequality all suggest a mismatch between the skills workers possess and what jobs require, what economists call an imbalance between the supply of and demand for human capital. Many believe that the problem will become even more serious because the pace of change is accelerating and jobs are becoming increasingly high tech, service oriented, and reorganized to involve greater employee participation in the workplace.


 


           


 


The Perfect Storm: The Future of Retention and Engagement


 


 


            The articles analyzes the “war for talent” issue, a phenomenon that is said to be caused by various changes in the workforce. The war for talent is not a short-term phenomenon but the beginning of a long-term change in the labor force. The drivers of change has remained from the time the war for talent phenomenon surfaced and they are expected to continue to change the labor force condition for years and even decades to come. The combination of rising job dissatisfaction and demographic trends that predict labor shortages, skill deficits, and fewer knowledge workers has all the elements for dramatic changes in the way work is performed, who performs it and where, and the skill sets that will be needed. The author also discussed the different factors that drives the war for talent. These are:


 


1. Low Employee Morale


            Employees seem to be more dissatisfied with their jobs and experts are worried that this will continue. Many workers are saying that they are only moderately engaged or not engaged with their jobs. Up to now, workers have stayed put because there are not many choices. This is seen as a factor that will strengthen the war for talent. As organizations develop strategies to attract workers, the war for talent will become fiercer since there are many workers who are more than willing to leave their present jobs.


2.  Labor Shortage


            Experts are anxious about the coming labor shortage brought about by the changes in the demographics. The mass retirement of baby boomers will cause a severe blow in the labor market. The war for talent will become fiercer as companies offer higher wages enough to induce workers to change careers, emigrate to where the pay is, or retrain themselves in the desired skills. Companies will also bend over backward to retain skilled workers, lure skilled retirees back into the labor force, or redeploy other workers.


            The changing characteristic of the labor market makes the competition between public and private sectors over applicants stiffer. Turnover and attrition factors force organizations to constantly search for a talented workforce. With an unemployment rate remaining historically low, information indicating that the workforce population will grow at a considerably low rate and the issue of age diversity in the workplace, both the private and public sectors must be prepared for further hiring challenges and potential shortages.


            To cope with the supply and demand dynamics of the market, private sector organizations have placed particular emphasis on maintaining a pool of employees who exhibit competencies that are essential to achieving the organization’s mission and goals. The implementation of human capital policies and practices that are designed to competitively hire, develop and retain employees with the desired competencies have been a top priority to private sector organizations. For example, monetary compensation and incentives, including bonuses related to organizational performance and individual performance incentives, allow the private sector to develop a competitive advantage over the financially restricted public sector. In order to compete on a similar level, the public sector, too, must address the issues of the market and develop an organizational philosophy that represents true dedication and commitment to the human resources management function


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


           



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