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Public health experts and advocates have long raised concerns about the pandemic preparedness of prison systems worldwide – an issue that became increasingly salient at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. People in prison experience poorer health outcomes compared to the general population, making timely access to adequate health services in prison critical for their health and wellbeing. This study aims to identify the extent of the literature on initial changes in mental health and substance use services for people in prison during the COVID-19 pandemic, summarize and synthesize the findings and identify areas in need of further study.

The authors conducted a review of the academic literature published internationally in English between 2019 and December 1, 2020 to describe the disruptions and adaptations to mental health and substance use services in prisons during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The authors found that mental health and substance use services in prisons around the world were widely disrupted due to the COVID-19 pandemic – predominantly consisting of the complete suspension of services, discontinuation of transfers to off-site treatment sites and limitations on service capacity. Adaptations ranged from virtual service delivery and changes to treatment dispensation processes to information sessions on overdose prevention.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first review to examine the nature and extent of the literature on delivery of mental health and substance use services in prisons during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Promoting positive mental health is increasingly being encouraged as the focus of research and policies on the mental health of construction personnel. Most measures of mental health, however, typically use negative indicators such as depression and anxiety and are not specifically developed for the construction workforce, especially those with a Global South background. These limitations have made it challenging to measure construction personnel’s positive mental health. The purpose of this study was, therefore, to develop a scale for measuring the positive mental health of construction personnel with a Global South background.

Guided by Keyes’ two-continua model of mental health, the study objectives were addressed through a mixed-methods study using the case of Ghana. Qualitative data collected from eight key stakeholder groups using 16 interviews and two rounds of focus group discussions were analysed thematically. Quantitative data were obtained through a survey of 425 construction personnel and analysed using confirmatory factor analysis and correlation analysis.

Thematic analysis revealed a four-dimensional structure of positive mental health, namely, emotional, psychological, social and spiritual. Confirmatory factor analysis and correlation analysis of the results indicated good instrument validity and reliability.

Existing measures of positive mental health are based on a three-dimensional model, i.e. emotional, social and psychological well-being. By including spiritual well-being, this study proposes a four-dimensional measurement model as a more comprehensive and promising measure to use in surveys of positive mental health among the construction workforce, especially those with a Global South background, and to develop suitable interventions for them.

Organizational diversity training is designed to enhance employees' skills and competencies regarding diversity and its management. The question of its effectiveness, and the conditions under which it thrives, remains a matter of debate. Unlike previous studies that have predominantly focused on the perspective of training participants, this study shifts the lens to the viewpoints of diversity training providers in Germany – a country where the formal requirement for diversity management was implemented relatively recently. The primary objective is to ascertain the critical factors influencing training effectiveness from the providers' perspective.

This research draws upon case studies based on document analysis and qualitative interviews with diversity training providers across Germany.

The investigation reveals that the effectiveness of diversity training, as perceived by providers, hinges on several key factors: the organizational environment (including the widespread recognition of diversity issues and the presence of an organizational diversity framework), the attributes of diversity trainers (notably their personal familiarity with diversity) and the setting and design of the training (such as venue, duration and a blend of instructional approaches). A notable barrier to achieving effective training outcomes is the lack of supportive conditions within client companies, exemplified by limited training budgets, which impedes the accurate assessment of training effectiveness.

This study marks a novel contribution to the field by explicitly focusing on the perspective of diversity training providers in Germany. It provides new insights into the importance of the organizational context surrounding diversity education within the private sector.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused significant societal changes and altered how much of the construction industry operates. This study investigates the impacts of pandemic-related changes, how these changes may apply to different companies, and which changes should continue post-pandemic.

We aim to identify pandemic-driven changes that have affected the construction workplace and the advantages and challenges associated with them. We then make recommendations for what could and should endure through the pandemic and beyond, and under what circumstances. To achieve this objective, we conducted both qualitative and quantitative analyses of 40 semi-structured interviews with US-based construction professionals.

Identified through these interviews were 21 pandemic-driven changes across six categories: management and planning, technology, workforce, health and safety, supply chain, and contracts. This study noted both positive and negative impacts of the changes on cost, schedule, productivity, collaboration, employee retention, flexibility, quality, and risk mitigation. Participants indicated that some changes should remain after the pandemic and others (e.g. select safety measures, schedule adjustments) should be temporary.

By incorporating these lessons learned into recommendations, the findings of this study will help businesses identify and implement the most appropriate improvements for their organizations. The findings also provide policymakers with valuable insights on how to promote innovation in the construction industry and potentially enact more effective policies during crises to drive long-term improvements.

This book aimed to conceptualise a construction workforce management model suitable for effectively managing workers in construction organisations. To this end, this chapter presents the conceptualised model, which consists of seven workforce management practices with their respective measurement variables. Drawing from existing theories, models, and practices, the chapter concludes that a construction organisation that will attain its strategic objectives in the current fourth industrial revolution era must be willing to promote effective recruitment and selection, compensation and benefits, performance management and appraisal, employee involvement and empowerment, training and development, as well as improving workers emotional intelligence and handling external environment pressure. These practices can promote proactiveness, participation, and improved skills and can lead to effective commitment, better quality, and flexibility within the organisation.

This chapter draws on longitudinal case study research that focused on the experiences of hospitality employees working in a UK university who worked split shifts in the morning and evening while completing NVQ 2 and 3 apprenticeship training. We show how fragmented working time (Rubery, Grimshaw, Hebson, & Ugarte, 2015) rather than long hours led to the apprenticeship training further eroding an already blurred work-life boundary as workers were required to complete training activities in their non-work time which for them is during the middle of the day. We argue current depictions of the positive impact of training and development on low paid workers are decontextualized from the challenges and priorities of workers whose work-life interface is already complex because of working fragmented hours across the day. This is complicated even further by the dynamic and evolving experiences of workers themselves as they experience the highs and lows of combining paid work and training. We situate the research in the context of wider conceptual debates that call for a more inclusive approach to research on the work-life interface (Warren, 2021) and highlight implications for HR practitioners who want to offer such opportunities to low paid workers in sectors such as hospitality, while also recognizing the complex challenges such workers may face.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework to facilitate early supplier involvement (ESI) as an approach for reducing construction waste (CW) generated during the design process.

A research methodology consists of literature review, case studies and survey questionnaire was designed to achieve the abovementioned aim. First, the literature review was used to investigate CW, CW generated during the design process, the design process and ESI. Second, two construction projects were analysed to investigate the role of ESI towards reducing CW generated during the design waste. Third, a survey questionnaire was carried out with a representative sample of architectural design firms (ADFs) in Egypt to examine their perception and application of ESI towards reducing CW generated during the design process. Based on the results of the above, the research developed a framework to facilitate ESI during the design process to reduce CW.

Through literature review, the research highlighted the causes of CW generated during the design process and identified the benefits and challenges that encounter ESI in ADFs. Results of data analysis showed that “last-minute changes due to client requirements” was ranked the highest challenges of ESI in ADFs in Egypt followed by “lack of design experience”. Moreover, “providing technical information about materials and equipment and their capabilities” was ranked by respondents as the highest contributions of suppliers during the design process which leads to waste reduction followed by “better estimation of materials and costs”. Finally, respondents stated that “resistance of ADFs to include suppliers in the design phase” was ranked the highest challenge of ESI in the design process followed by “no clear guidelines or policies that organise ESI”.

Because of the conceptual nature of the proposed framework, it has to be tested and validated to ensure its capability to overcome the challenges of ESI as an approach for reducing CW generated during the design process.

This research presents a practical solution to the problem of CW generated during the design process through ESI.

The research discussed the causes of CW originated from the design process and the benefits and challenges of ESI in ADFs. It investigated the perception and application of ESI in ADFs in Egypt. The proposed framework which was designed to facilitate the integration of suppliers in the early stages of the project life cycle represents a synthesis that is novel and creative in thought and adds value to the knowledge in a manner that has not previously occurred.

While the main emotional labor strategies are well-documented, the manner in which professionals navigate emotional rules within the workplace and effectively perform emotional labor is less understood. With this contribution, I aim to unveil “the good, the bad and the ugly” of emotional labor as a dynamic theatrical performance.

Focusing on three geriatric long-term care units within a French public hospital, this qualitative study relies on two sets of data (observation and interviews). Deeply rooted within the field of study, the chosen methodological approach substantializes the subtle hues of the emotional experience at work and targets resonance rather than generalization.

Using the theatrical metaphor, this research underlines the role of space in the practice of emotional labor in a unique way. It identifies the main emotionalized zones or emotional regions (front, back, transitional, mixed) and details their characteristics, before unearthing the nonlinearity and polyphonic quality of emotional labor performance and the versatility needed to that effect. Indeed, this research shows how health-care professionals juggle with the specificities of each region, as well as how space generates both constraints and resources. By combining static and dynamic prisms, diverse instantiations of hybridity and spatial in-betweens, anchored in liminality and trajectories, are revealed.

This research adds to the current body of literature on the concept of emotional labor by shedding light on its highly dynamic and interactional nature, revealing different levels of porosity between emotional regions and how the characteristics of each type of area can taint others and increase/decrease the occupational health costs of emotional labor. The study also raises questions about the interplay of emotional labor performance with the level of humanization/dehumanization of elderly people. Given the global demographics about an aging population, this gives food for thought at a social level.