Banking is a major employment sector, which has experienced phenomenal growth over the last decade. Following the de-regulation of the financial marketplace and the entry of ‘new players', the industry has suffered from an almost ruinous internal struggle between its traditional, gentlemanly ethos (Clarke and Vincent, 1989) and the enforced adoption of aggressive sales and marketing strategies (Knights and Tinker, 1997). My research has investigated the various ways that ‘change’ (particularly strategic change consequential to the piecemeal adoption of ‘Japanese-style' systems of working and management -'HRM, TQM and lean production) have been met, experienced, negotiated, and to some extent contested, by branch-based employees working for Bank UK (one of the historic 'big four' clearing banks). Data was gathered through varying periods of participant observation in seven branches of Bank UK over two years, supplemented by group and individual interviews with managers and staff. A key informant was later recruited, who added both depth and a greater understanding of raw data. My thesis suggests that changing strategies (particularly those introduced in order to strengthen market position and expand sales opportunities) have created multiple paradoxes in the management and organisation of work in Bank UK, mostly through issues of cost At the same time as attempting to drive through a whole raft of changes that clearly involved increasing employee participation and commitment through teamworking, Kaizen activity, performance related pay and individual sales bids, the bank had been concerned to decrease operating costs in an attempt to improve key economic ratios. Between 1999 and 2000, Bank UK reduced staff expenditure by £72 million by shedding 7,300 employees. This significant loss of staff created huge difficulties in the everyday operation of branches, resulting in growing customer dissatisfaction with the service on offer, at the same time that weekly individual and branch sales targets were introduced, which clearly demanded extended customer interaction. The composition of the workforce in Bank UK has become increasingly flexible (both numerically and functionally) and two-tiered. Permanent staff enjoy the traditional 'perks' of employment, including performance related pay, whilst the growing number on 'casual' or flexible contracts (mostly ex-permanent staff) do not. Yet, paradoxically my research reveals that Bank UK's successful integration of sales and marketing strategies into the branch network can be generally attributed to the attitudes of its ‘casual' workforce who appear to have made a bigger contribution in terms of sales results and commitment to flexible working practices than their 'permanent' colleagues, despite lacking the same level of recognition and reward.

Class of 2015 Abstract / Objectives: To assess pharmacists’ perspectives on patient safety in relation to their working conditions. Methods: The survey was sent to 1000 pharmacists within Arizona. Results for the item evaluating pharmacists’ level of agreement with the statement regarding their employers providing a work environment optimized for safe patient care were compared to those from the Oregon Working Conditions Survey using Mann Whitney U. Mann Whitney U was also used to compare agreement between Arizona pharmacists who filled less than and more than 200 prescriptions per shift, and between Arizona community and hospital pharmacists. Chi-squared test was used to compare community pharmacists in Arizona and Oregon. A priori alpha level was 0.05 for all statistical tests. Results: Arizona pharmacists were significantly more likely than Oregon pharmacists to agree with the statement that their employer provided a work environment conducive to patient safety (p < 0.001). Arizona pharmacists who filled less than 200 prescriptions per shift agreed significantly more than those who filled more than 200 prescriptions per shift (p < 0.001). Hospital pharmacists were significantly more likely to agree with the patient safety statement than community pharmacists (p < 0.001). Conclusions: The pharmaceutical climate may play a role in the difference between Oregon and Arizona. With a lower percentage of chain/mass merchandiser community pharmacy respondents in Arizona, the overall agreement with the patient safety statement could have been influenced by practice type. Regardless, higher prescription volume still remains as a factor that can have potentially deleterious effects on optimization of patient safety.

Masters in Public Administration - MPA / Absenteeism is a serious problem globally, and it entails a high cost for organizations. Shortage of nurses is a world-wide concern and absenteeism worsens the existing shortage in hospitals. In order for hospitals to run smoothly and render quality nursing care, regular attendance is required. The South African health institutions are faced with challenges of poor working conditions, low pay, as well as physical exhaustion from the workload. These challenges are seen as contributing to nurse absenteeism. The overall aim of this study was to describe factors that contribute towards absenteeism among nurses in an acute psychiatric hospital in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. The study was carried out in an acute psychiatric hospital in Cape Town. Only permanently employed nursing staff at Valkenberg Hospital and Community service nurses were considered for the study. This study was quantitative in nature and it used the descriptive survey design. A self-administered questionnaire was used as a tool for data collection. The sample size of this study consisted of 135 (67.5%) nurses. It was drawn from a hospital population of 200 nursing staff. A number of factors emerged as significantly contributing to nurse absenteeism. The results show that 69% of participants agree that they were absent as they are dissatisfied with pension funds, medical aid contributions and the criteria for issuing incentive bonuses. Moreover the same percentage of participants, 69% strongly felt that the amount of work was overwhelming due to the fact that the staff patient ratio is too high. About 51% of participants were not satisfied with their progression in their career of nursing. About 68% of participants were not satisfied with the sufficiency of equipment and 51 % were unhappy with working conditions. The results also show a significant rate of absence of female nurses and older nurses. Absenteeism has become a major challenge that cuts across many organisations and national borders. It is a global phenomenon. The study, in hint sight, recommends that the physical working conditions of the institution need to be revamped to accommodate employees’ basic needs. It further recommended that staff patient ratio be revised, as it places tremendous pressure on nurses in terms of excessive workload. A facility like pre-school also needs to be provided as the female nurses appear to be more absent from work due to their multi-task roles.

<p>The licentiate thesis explored the relationship between working conditions and wage income, and the relationship between working conditions and sense of coherence in relation to ill health, focusing on cardiovascular disease, musculoskeletal pain, and psychological distress among the working population in Sweden. The studies were based on cross-sectional and longitudinal survey data (ULF and LNU), and on the Swedish census (FoB90) linked to the national cause of death registry. The samples included employed men and women residing in Sweden, aged 18-64.</p><p>The main results show that working conditions contributed to income differences in CVD prevalence as well as CVD mortality irrespective of study design or way of assessing working conditions. Further, sense of coherence moderated, yet not consistently, the impact of working conditions on musculoskeletal pain and psychological distress. The moderating role seemed to vary by work exposure, gender and health outcome. Hence, the results do not support the hypothesis that sense of coherence is a global health-protective factor.</p><p>The findings stress that future research into working conditions and employees’ health would benefit from including income in the analyses since wages are closely related to working conditions and to people’s position on the labour market. In addition, focusing on individual resources such as sense of coherence increases our undertanding of how individual differences in coping with adverse working conditions may affect health. Since the results also revealed considerable gender differences, suggesting that the factors that determine future work-related health are different for men and women, it is important to study men and women separately.</p>

<p>Manufacturing is becoming a crucial part of now-a-days fast growing economies and increase of earth’s population. Recently manufacturing is changing rapidly, different manufacturing strategies are being implemented, the conceptual understanding for manufacturing is changed, and new ways of producing products are showing up. Automation has been the essential term regarding the modern manufacturing processes. The humanmachine sharing is playing a major role in the production systems, and the most elegant thing is to create and design the appropriate level for interaction between them depending on the desired outcome in the production area. Technological innovation is the implementation of new more efficient production method by achieving qualitative improvements of the goods and services in a specific area in this paper’s case is a production system. This paper is regarding the importance of the correct production system being chosen for an organization regarding the right level of automation (LoA) being used, which is a way of controlling the overall effectiveness of the system.  Different approaches and methods are going to be used for demonstrating the choice of  the exact and right level of automation and the possibility of changing it by introducing and implementing the ongoing DYNAMO research on a different conceptual solutions for a foundry application in Factory-in-a-Box. The main objective of the research is to develop a method and system for supporting sustainable flexible and reconfigurable production system providing competitive industrial characteristics in the fast developing world.</p> / ProViking, Factory-in-a-box, Dynamo

Manufacturing is becoming a crucial part of now-a-days fast growing economies and increase of earth’s population. Recently manufacturing is changing rapidly, different manufacturing strategies are being implemented, the conceptual understanding for manufacturing is changed, and new ways of producing products are showing up. Automation has been the essential term regarding the modern manufacturing processes. The humanmachine sharing is playing a major role in the production systems, and the most elegant thing is to create and design the appropriate level for interaction between them depending on the desired outcome in the production area. Technological innovation is the implementation of new more efficient production method by achieving qualitative improvements of the goods and services in a specific area in this paper’s case is a production system. This paper is regarding the importance of the correct production system being chosen for an organization regarding the right level of automation (LoA) being used, which is a way of controlling the overall effectiveness of the system.  Different approaches and methods are going to be used for demonstrating the choice of  the exact and right level of automation and the possibility of changing it by introducing and implementing the ongoing DYNAMO research on a different conceptual solutions for a foundry application in Factory-in-a-Box. The main objective of the research is to develop a method and system for supporting sustainable flexible and reconfigurable production system providing competitive industrial characteristics in the fast developing world. / ProViking, Factory-in-a-box, Dynamo

The licentiate thesis explored the relationship between working conditions and wage income, and the relationship between working conditions and sense of coherence in relation to ill health, focusing on cardiovascular disease, musculoskeletal pain, and psychological distress among the working population in Sweden. The studies were based on cross-sectional and longitudinal survey data (ULF and LNU), and on the Swedish census (FoB90) linked to the national cause of death registry. The samples included employed men and women residing in Sweden, aged 18-64. The main results show that working conditions contributed to income differences in CVD prevalence as well as CVD mortality irrespective of study design or way of assessing working conditions. Further, sense of coherence moderated, yet not consistently, the impact of working conditions on musculoskeletal pain and psychological distress. The moderating role seemed to vary by work exposure, gender and health outcome. Hence, the results do not support the hypothesis that sense of coherence is a global health-protective factor. The findings stress that future research into working conditions and employees’ health would benefit from including income in the analyses since wages are closely related to working conditions and to people’s position on the labour market. In addition, focusing on individual resources such as sense of coherence increases our undertanding of how individual differences in coping with adverse working conditions may affect health. Since the results also revealed considerable gender differences, suggesting that the factors that determine future work-related health are different for men and women, it is important to study men and women separately.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty Arts in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Masters in Social Work in the Department of Social Work at the University of Zululand, South Africa, 2016 / The study was about work related conditions affecting community caregivers on HIV/AIDS positive people at eMondlo Township, which is approximately 28 kilometres from Vryheid town in KwaZulu-Natal. Vryheid is located in the Northern part of KwaZulu-Natal province and forms part of the Zululand District Municipality. It has a population predominated of black people. Mondlo Township is the area that was established in 1963 as an exclusive African settlement through the process of forced removals according to the Apartheid Law of Group Areas Act of 1950. Many of whom individuals had freehold title to their land and residence were also removed from so-called “black spots” as well as farms surrounding Vryheid. The researcher’s intention was to establish how community caregivers are affected by their work, explore how community caregivers feel about their work related conditions and outline the consequences experienced by community caregivers. Community caregivers provide long term care to the community despite the challenges they encounter when executing their duties. The study was conducted at eMondlo Township using twenty four (24) participants from three different public health clinics. Eight (8) respondents were selected proportionally from these clinics. The researcher used qualitative research design. Content analysis was used to analyze data. Findings of the study indicated that the community caregivers are affected by their work. Various challenges have been identified, namely, shortage of resources, lack of substantial food, poor service from clinics officials, travelling long distances on foot, lack of debriefing and less salary. These findings show that the community caregivers are depressed. They have accepted living with the burden of caregiving, whereas it is slowly damaging their self-esteem and affecting their lives. The study indicates that community caregivers are now doing their work simply because they are passionate and are attached to their patients. Even the little salary they earn is the only income they have to support their families which sometimes end up being used in performing their work.

ABSTRACT The purpose of the project research was to investigate the impact of the Zambian 2003 national cultural policy on the performing arts industry with specific reference to working conditions both in the public and private domains in Zambia. It is also an effort to assess the efficacy of the cultural policy within a broader policy environment. Generally, two categories of performing artists namely the publicly and privately sponsored exist in Zambia. Two sample groups representing the two categories of performing artists were consulted in the study. The publicly sponsored sample was drawn from the uniformed services and the national dance troupe while the privately sponsored performers were represented by a selection of performers who do not work in the civil service. The methodology included field and desk research in which social-scientific and humanistic methods involving structured and semi-structured interviews were used, coupled with the use of textual materials from employment and performance contracts, civil service terms of employment, the National Arts Council Act, national arts associations’ constitutions, cultural and labour policies among others. The results revealed mixed reactions from all the respondents with regard to the research question; however it became apparent that the policy had not positively impacted on the industry as the negative responses outweighed the positive feedback. Despite the policy theoretically addressing a number of issues in the arts industry, it was very difficult to practically implement the strategies therein successfully. A number of reasons can be advanced for the inefficiency such as lack of matching sectoral legislation to enforce the policy and the absence of a union to complement government’s efforts. It was further discovered that to some extent, the formulation of the policy was rushed and did not very well fit into the traditional perspectives of the people about the arts industry. This reinforces the question of whether is it necessary for all nations to have cultural policies when supporting institutional and legal frameworks are not in place. The Zambian case reveals the pitfalls in legislating culture. 1

BackgroundThe rough labour market in the Philippines affects the employability. The Philippines has a unemployment rate of in-between 7-8 percent. Therefore, many Filipinos are seeking employment overseas. Today, ten percent of the population are working on the globalized market. The globalization has affected the industry, where 28 percent of the entire worlds seafarers are Filipinos. Previous researches establish that Filipinos are popular because of their knowledge in English and due to their adaptability.PurposeOur aim is to examine why a group of Filipino seafarers choose their profession. The aim is also to examine how they experience their work on international vessels, as well as if they experience any changes in life when working as international seafarers.MethodWe made a qualitative study through a ship management located in Manila in the Philippines. We used semi-structured interviews, which were applied on ten seafarers.ResultsOur respondents mention the well-paid wages as an important reason when choosing to work as a seafarer. The wages are significant in order to support family members and to have the opportunity to live a wealthy life. The seafarers are working long periods away from home that causes homesickness. A good relationship with the crew is for many seafarers important, since they are living and working together. / Program: Organisations- och personalutvecklare i samhället