Workplace Management

In the business world creating added value is beginning to be the main need of organizations, they are seeking employees, service providers, and clients that would add value to their organization. The workplace is considered to be a strategic tool in influencing the performance of employees and realizing business goals, that is why organizations are beginning to use the workplace to realize their corporate goals. The role of Facility managers in workplace management is beginning to grow into adding value to the organization hence placing FM in a more strategic position in organization. Workplace strategies are used by organizations to make sure that the work processes are aligned with the workplace to enable peak performance. This Master thesis deals with how workplace strategies can be used as a tool to positively influence the performance of employees. It explains how workplace management strategies and innovation can generate added value to an organization, hence increasing employee performance. This research adopts a qualitative approach in gathering data which resulted in conducting 11 semi-structured interviews with Inhouse Facility/Workplace managers and Consultants from around the world. The outcome of this paper gives insights on how facility managers can add value to their organizations through workplace management, to outline a detailed process of how to develop a workplace strategy, stating out the elements and benefits of a workplace management, and finally the positive impact of workplace strategies on employee performance. These findings are adequate only for knowledge intensive organizations because the interviews were conducted with participants from knowledge-based industries.

The purpose of this paper is to share the insights gained by a recent research and consultancy work performed by the authors accompanying an organization in workplace change management. The inception of the new ways of working may lead a company to rethink the office space
toward downsizing, with the main objectives to shrink occupancy costs and enhance workers’ productivity. The shift to a new office building and a smart working model needs to be well managed and verified ex-post. The application of a post-occupancy study can help fine-tune real and perceived quality with the enhancement of both space and people’s performance.

This toolkit explores the four key steps for engaging senior managers identified in the Engaging Senior Management: A Business Model for Diversity Management.

1. Define diversity
2. Develop a business case for diversity management
3. Sell diversity to senior managers
4. Engage senior managers

The diversity management challenges faced by the multi-religious Lebanese society reflect the ones that the world is increasingly experiencing with globalisation and the increased migration. Still, the management literature on religious diversity remains under-developed.

The objective of this chapter is to examine the patterns of religious diversity management in Lebanon. This diversity scheme refers to the power distribution among the different religious communities rather than on the moral issues or the freedom of practising religions in organisations or in the social life. The study is based on twenty qualitative interviews conducted with Lebanese men and women who spent part of their lives and careers in Lebanon and the other part in France.

Findings showed that the religious diversity scheme in
Lebanon obstructed participants’ access to job opportunities and their career advancement. The chapter challenges existing diversity theories that ignore equality matters and focus mainly on equitable representation of people at workplace according to their group membership. Findings suggest that equitable religious diversity schemes should be coupled with merit-based treatments in order to offer equal opportunities in the increasingly religiously diverse societies.

EXAMINATION OF OCCUPATIONAL ACCIDENTS OCCURRED IN SHIPYARDS: A RISK ANALYSIS IN PERSPECTIVE OF OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY
The first aim of occupational safety applications is to provide security of workers and prevent accidents. In this respect, job accidents are focus points of occupational safety process. In order to prevent job accidents effectively, it is required to define and analyze risk factors of these accidents. In this research, it was aimed to compare job accidents occurred in Marmara Region with both national and international similar job accidents, and to analyze risks of our country.
In the research selected shipyard job accidents in 2015 were examined, and evaluations based on regional and office based were performed. Afterwards, job accidents were evaluated according to risk factors and reported.
According to results of the study, accidents at regions did not show statistically significant difference based on age, experience, education and job type (p>0,05). In determining of accident frequency number of accidents, lost workday, total workers, monthly workday, monthly accident frequency and accident weights form a statistically significant model (p<0,05). Research results show that there are important lacks in ship construction industry, and data collection process is insufficient.

The 5Ps model was developed as a tool for assessing, interpreting, and designing appropriate conflict prevention and intervention strategies. Based in the work of Galtung, Bronfenbrenner, and Ury, this model is appropriate for research, teaching, training, and practice. This talk was designed specifically for professional who work with workplace issues but the model is applicable for a range of conflict situations. Contact me at shayes32@kennesaw.edu

Abstract : Conflicts are an everyday phenomenon in each organization. The conflicts cannot be avoided, but it is possible to
manage and resolve them in a way that we recognize them on time. Scholarly work in the field of conflict has expanded greatly in
recent decades giving number of theories and approaches to resolve it. However Kautilya’s approach given in ancient
Arthashastra to Conflict resolution is very sophisticated.
The research article attempts to present how the Kautilya’s Conflict Resolution approach is very sophisticated heading towards
the sustainable Organizational and Behavior Management. The dominant motive for research is to provide how the ancient
theories of Arthashastra are still relevant and very much sophisticated in today’s modern era to manage organizational behavior.
Discussions in the article explain the relevancy of Kautilya’s Saam Niti, Daam Niti, Bheda Niti and Danda Niti Approach towards
Conflict Resolution in modern time. Article ends by outlining areas for further research.
Keyword: Arthashastra, Conflict Resolution, Kautilya’s Approach, Organizational Behavior Management.

This paper draws from an incident on a construction site when Xhosa workers organised a rite of passage for a fallen colleague. Probing into the history of the industrial, corporate workplace, an anthropological study of the 'Rites of Passage' shows how these ancient, culturally universal rites could work in the corporate workplace to provide employees with the symbolic tools needed to traverse the inevitable passages of human life: events of birth, marriage, death, accident, disease and death. Western corporate practices regarding life event management are held up to scrutiny and comparison with traditional indigenous methods of people management. Challenging Psychology's pre-eminence in making recommendations to companies as regarding employee management, anthropology here does the same with an hypothetical modification of the rites for the 21st century workplace.

Partiendo de la premisa de que las estructuras organizacionales existentes en la actualidad en las instituciones de educación superior, contribuyen a generar rezagos en la calidad educativa y a poner barreras a la transformación de las escuelas en organizaciones que aprenden, en este trabajo se realiza una propuesta para modificar las formas de organización del trabajo de las universidades y transformar su estructura jerárquica, con el fin de dar cabida a una organización más flexible. Los cambios que se proponen están orientados a la creación de ambientes y espacios que favorezcan la labor de todos los que colaboran en la universidad, especialmente los docentes y el director. Para lograr este objetivo, se ha considerado importante utilizar un enfoque de procesos estratégicos en los que se reorganicen las funciones, puestos y trabajo de conocimiento de todos los miembros de la universidad. De esta manera se busca que los docentes se vean beneficiados por los esfuerzos institucionales en su conjunto, pero sin perder de vista que el objetivo central seguirá siendo la calidad educativa.

The workplace influences the safety, health, and productivity of workers at multiple levels. To protect and promote total worker health, smart hardware, and software tools have emerged for the identification, elimination, substitution, and control of occupational hazards. Wearable devices enable constant monitoring of individual workers and the environment, whereas connected worker solutions provide contextual information and decision support. Here, the recent trends in commercial workplace technologies to monitor and manage occupational risks, injuries, accidents, and diseases are reviewed. Workplace safety wearables for safe lifting, ergonomics, hazard identification, sleep monitoring, fatigue management, and heat and cold stress are discussed. Examples of workplace productivity wearables for asset tracking, augmented reality, gesture and motion control, brain wave sensing, and work stress management are given. Workplace health wearables designed for work-related musculoskeletal disorders, functional movement disorders, respiratory hazards, cardiovascular health, outdoor sun exposure, and continuous glucose monitoring are shown. Connected worker platforms are discussed with information about the architecture, system modules, intelligent operations, and industry applications. Predictive analytics provide contextual information about occupational safety risks, resource allocation, equipment failure, and predictive maintenance. Altogether, these examples highlight the ground-level benefits of real-time visibility about frontline workers, work environment, distributed assets, workforce efficiency, and safety compliance.

This paper examined gender differences in the perceptions and experiences of sexual harassment in the workplace. Sexual harassment has negative effects and is an obstacle to proper integration of women into the labour market. Gender was found to significantly correlate with experiences of sexual harassment, delineation of sexual harassment and the reactions and options adopted in handling it. There were disparities on the possible consequences of sexual harassment. Sexual harassment in the workplace results in an uncomfortable, hostile, offensive or intimidating work environment, which affects employee work morale and work performance. It also reduces job satisfaction and productivity but increases turnover, absenteeism and health challenges.
Sexual harassment may never be totally removed in the workplace but all stakeholders stand to benefit from its reduced occurrences and the solutions to the challenge are not simple. However, employers can curb sexual harassment by establishing on boarding training as part of their initial orientation especially as it pertains to women in the work force, to affirm that sexual harassment is unacceptable. They can also issue tough policies opposed to it, educate employees on the subject; institute formal complaint procedures to address allegations of sexual harassments; and build cultures that disallow sexual harassment.

The main objective of the current study is to investigate the relationship between workplace social support and work-family conflict among employees who were married, living with a partner, or had at least one child or dependent living at home and worked a minimum of 20 h/week in Rural Water and Wastewater Company employees Kermanshah, Iran. The relation between workplace social support and work–family conflict (WFC) was  examined using a two-dimensional measure of WFC and both global and summed facet measures of workplace social support (perceived coworker support and perceived supervisor support (pss). Data were gathered from 158 employees. The results indicated that workplace social support related significantly to both types of WFC, but the relation was significantly stronger to perceived coworker support than to perceived supervisor support (pss). When considering all three forms of conflict simultaneously (time-based, strain-based, and behavior-based), regression results revealed that behavior-based was the only form of conflict significantly related to workplace social support. The results underscore the importance of considering both the form and direction of WFC. The study population included 158 employees. It used the improved Leiden Quality of Work Life Questionnaire by Van der Doef and colleagues and the work-family conflict questionnaire by Kelloway and colleagues to measure participants' responses. One-way ANOVA and Pearson linear correlation coefficient were used for data analyses. Results: There was a negative relation between Workplace Social Support and work-family conflict. Respondents experienc!ed higher levels of work-to-family conflict than family-to-work conflict. There were significant negative relations between Perceived Coworker Support with work-family conflict and Perceived Supervisor Support (PSS) with work-family conflict. work-family conflict of employed women could be reduced by rearranging Workplace Social Support and conditions.
JEL: A39, J81, E23, J21

Os processos de flexibilidade produtiva com transformações tecnológicas e organizacionais nas empresas, que ocorrem no Brasil sob a égide da reestruturação produtiva capitalista desde 1980 e com maior ênfase a partir de 1990, são observados neste artigo à luz da problemática da divisão sexual do trabalho, tomando como campo de análise o setor eletroeletrônico, o qual possui a mais elevada proporção de mulheres da indústria metalúrgica brasileira. Com base em estudo setorial (LAPA, 2015) focado em duas indústrias metalúrgicas fabricantes de eletroeletrônicos como telefones celulares e computadores, cujas plantas localizam-se em municípios do interior de São Paulo, apresentam-se, neste artigo, formas contemporâneas de organização do trabalho e sua divisão sexual na indústria eletroeletrônica e as condições de trabalho que delas resultam, especialmente para as operárias. Adicionalmente, são identificados elementos da subjetividade das operárias por meio da investigação do significado social do trabalho para as mesmas. Busca-se com este texto visibilizar trabalhadoras como objeto de conhecimento nas análises sobre a classe trabalhadora, procurando oferecer contribuição à sociologia do trabalho a partir de reflexão empírica-teórica gendrada sobre o trabalho, sustentando assim a necessidade do reconhecimento da composição sexuada da classe e reivindicando a indissociabilidade das dimensões classe e gênero.

Workplace persona, not unlike the persona in terms of analytical psychology, should be realistic and flexible, thus helping navigation within corporate life as well as society in general, but not colliding with, nor hiding the true self. In the best cases, the persona is appropriate and tasteful, a true reflection of our inner individuality and our outward sense of self.

This project carried out theoretical research, development work, and experimentation to explore the process of developing an application for mobile tablets which facilitates and improves cross-cultural communication within the context of a business conversation. In its complete form, the application will be able to facilitate intercultural communication within meetings, aid in discovering communication inefficiencies within an organization, provide insight into employee conflict, and provide data to allow for more precise team composition by predicting collaboration outcomes from different employee groupings.
In the process of development, the project examined 5 proposed hypotheses detailing different areas of enquiry within the field, with the aim of helping to further the integration of artificial intelligence in the work process of corporations. The project focused on four main functionalities designed to improve communication: modelling conversation, analysing a conversation in a quantifiable way, detecting argumentation schemes, and detecting misunderstanding.
The project carried out an extensive background review of related topics and detailed several important implications of literature to be considered when attempting to apply it to software development. One such discovery made by examining Weigand’s (1999) standard model of misunderstanding was that misunderstanding should be accepted as an integral part of communication. Chat-bot technology and artificial intelligence, primarily pertaining to the theoretical fields of machine learning and natural language understanding, was used to implement the theory behind the project. Upon testing, the final product of the project successfully delivered positive results as measured by the hypotheses and requirements set out in the beginning. Still, limitations remain. Future research directions and possible applications of the produced application are provided.

Valérie Brunel est psychosociologue. Cet ouvrage est issu d’une thèse de doctorat en sociologie clinique sous la direction de Vincent de Gaulejac (Paris VII). Son objectif est de comprendre le succès dans les années 90 du management qui intègre au monde de l’entreprise les techniques du « développement personnel » et du coaching tout en procédant à une « critique épistémologique et idéologique ».

Purpose-Despite the growing importance of workplace spirituality, organisations have been reluctant to integrate spirituality into their workplaces; this paper discusses how to integrate spirituality into the workplace. Design/methodology/approach-This is a theoretical paper that builds its arguments on the synthesis of workplace spirituality and contemporary management paradigms. Findings-The study argues that workplace spirituality is an extremely important driving force for the sustainable and healthy growth of any organisation; however, infusing workplace spirituality into companies in the industrial and digital eras would be a futile effort, as industrial organisations are built on an ethos highly incongruent with spiritual principles. Therefore, in the post-digital era, spirituality-driven organisations (SDOs) will emerge, marking the beginning of a true "spiritual paradigm" for business and human society at large. The study also elaborates on the characteristics of the post-digital era and the nature of SDOs. Originality/value-Workplace spirituality has been a research topic for years but has never gained sufficient momentum. The Covid-19 global pandemic has made workplace spirituality a more pertinent issue on corporate agendas. Therefore, this paper provides the theoretical foundation to embed workplace spirituality in contemporary management thoughts and practices.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to share the insights gained by a recent research and consultancy work performed by the authors accompanying an organization in workplace change management. The inception of the new ways of working may lead a company to rethink the office space toward downsizing, with the main objectives to shrink occupancy costs and enhance workers’ productivity. The shift to a new office building and a smart working model needs to be well managed and verified ex-post. The application of a post-occupancy study can help fine-tune real and perceived quality with the enhancement of both space and people’s performance. Design/methodology/approach The experience is presented as a case study. Data have been collected through the triangulation of different methodologies, both quantitative and qualitative. Walk-throughs, observations, questionnaires, interviews and focus groups have been conducted. Interpolation and interpretation of all the information obtained led to ...

The rapid development of information communication technology has led towards the emergence of the “connected world” characterised by the pervasive embeddedness of smart technologies. Smart technologies have a transformative impact on different domains of life. The application of smart technologies redefines the way people live, interact and conduct business. To date, the attention of the scholarly community has been paid primarily to smart cities, smart manufacturing and smart homes. However, despite numerous studies discussing the benefits of advanced technologies in the workplace, there is a lack of research on smart offices and how they affect productivity and employee well-being. This opinion paper argues that office spaces constitute a distinctive type of space, and research on smart homes or manufacturing does not suffice to capture its essence. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to propose a research agenda that can advance the current literature on smart and information communication technologies in relation to workplace spaces and the potential implications these could have on productivity.

Small Group Meeting on the Future of Workplace commitment,  23 – 24 September 2016, Bath (UK).
Submit an abstract for this meeting (up to 500 words) by Friday 15th of April 2016 to ygtvr20@bath.ac.uk. Program committee: Howard Klein, Omar Solinger, Rolf van Dick, Aaron Cohen, Kathleen Bentein, Franck Bietry, Jordan Creusier, Steven Kilroy and Juani Swart.

More info at:
http://eawop.org/news/the-future-of-workplace-commitment
http://50years.bath.ac.uk/event/the-future-of-workplace-commitment/