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Drawing on interviews with two types of essential workers – wound clinicians and care workers – the chapter examines stigma management in dirty care work through the lens of emotion management. The study combines two dimensions of dirty work: physical taint in relation to bodywork and social taint linked to working in close proximity to socially stigmatized clients. Hence, stigma management extends to dealing with the physically and socially dirty features of essential care work. In addition, the authors’ assessment of social stigma includes how essential care workers also sought to alleviate the social stigma encountered by their clients. In so doing, the authors extend the literature on dirty work to identify how emotion management skills are central to the stigma management strategies of the essential care workers in this study. The authors demonstrate how both groups deal with their stigma by emphasizing the emotion management skills in ‘doing’ dirty work and in the ‘purpose’ of this work, which includes acknowledging how the authors attempt to address the social taint encountered by their clients. Additionally, by comparing two occupations with different contexts and conditions of work, the authors show how complex emotion management skills are gendered in care work to expand the understanding of gender and stigma management. Furthermore, these emotion management skills emanate from the deep relational work with clients rather than through occupational communities. The authors argue that by focussing on emotion management, the hidden skills of dirty work in gendered care work are illuminated and contribute to contemporary debates about whether stigma can be overcome.

Skilled workers are crucial for an organization’s success, and managing, retaining and attracting them is vital in long-term. This study aims to explore talent management practices in the Finnish restaurant industry and to align workers' expectations with the real-world experiences of their work to reduce turnover and enhance job satisfaction.

The study adopts a mixed methods approach, including a survey and interviews with workers and managers to gain insights into their expectations and experiences of work. The study considers themes for designing and implementing effective talent management procedures.

This study highlights the importance of employees' experiences of their work conditions, leveraging positive emotions and fair utilization of temporary agency work (TAW). Understanding the different work preferences of generational cohorts and addressing the challenges associated with owner disengagement and TAW can also contribute to attracting and retaining talent in the restaurant industry.

Skilled workers have often been portrayed as targets that need to be managed, with insufficient consideration given to their preferences, needs and expectations. With the findings of this study, companies can establish mutual understanding with their employees and attract diverse talent.

Organizational scholars studying compensation often place an emphasis on certain employee groups (e.g., executives). Missing from this discussion is research on the compensation systems for low-wage jobs. In this review, the authors argue that workers in low-wage jobs represent a unique employment group in their understanding of rent allocation in organizations. The authors address the design of compensation strategies in organizations that lead to different outcomes for workers in low-wage jobs versus other workers. Drawing on and integrating human resource management (HRM), inequality, and worker literatures with compensation literature, the authors describe and explain compensation systems for low-wage work. The authors start by examining workers in low-wage work to identify aspects of these workers’ jobs and lives that can influence their health, performance, and other organizationally relevant outcomes. Next, the authors explore the compensation systems common for this type of work, building on the compensation literature, by identifying the low-wage work compensation designs, proposing the likely explanations for why organizations craft these designs, and describing the worker and organizational outcomes of these designs. The authors conclude with suggestions for future research in this growing field and explore how organizations may benefit by rethinking their approach to compensation for low-wage work. In sum, the authors hope that this review will be a foundational work for those interested in investigating organizational compensation issues at the intersection of inequality and worker and organizational outcomes.

The New Zealand (NZ) construction industry significantly impacts the country's economy and is one of the largest sectors in terms of total employment. However, a persistent and pressing need for improvement exists. Meeting the ongoing demand for housing and urban development requires enhancing residential construction productivity. The purpose of this paper is to determine what factors improve construction productivity in the NZ residential construction sector.

Data were obtained from construction industry bodies using a semi-structured online questionnaire survey. From 305 online questionnaires administered, 106 samples were completed by residential industry construction professionals across NZ. The data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics to establish the importance of empirical factors for improving construction productivity in the NZ residential construction sector.

The Garrett ranking technique revealed this study's top five factors for enhancing construction productivity: adequate design, communication, quality management (QM), supervision and organizational training. Other factors, such as unskilled workers, skilled workers, reworks and employee motivation, ranked less important.

While providing a valuable exploration of factors that can positively impact residential construction productivity in NZ, this study contains certain limitations. The study's focus on a specific geographic location and a small sample size (n = 106) may restrict the generalizability of its findings to other regions or countries. Furthermore, the reliance on self-reported data from industry professionals introduces the possibility of bias or inaccuracies in the results. In addition, this study did not investigate the potential influence of external factors, such as economic conditions or regulatory changes, on residential construction productivity. Despite these limitations, this study presents a foundation for future research on this topic. Future research could address these limitations by conducting multi-country studies and using objective productivity measures to provide a broader context. In addition, open-ended questions could be used to collect more detailed qualitative data, enhancing this study's dependability. This methodological constraint could have omitted important experiential nuances, which could be explored in future research to provide more comprehensive and rigorous findings.

Research studies indicate that several construction productivity factors have remained unchanged for over three decades (Arditi and Mochtar, 1996; Hasan et al., 2018). The implications of this study are significant for the residential sector in NZ. By identifying the key factors that can improve productivity in the sector, such as complete design and specifications, effective communication, quality management, adequate supervision, training, skilled labour and employee motivation, this study provides valuable insights for industry practitioners and policymakers. It expands the existing productivity literature around factors for improving NZ residential construction productivity. One important implication of this study is the link between QM and improved productivity, highlighting the significance of strategic organizational investments in QM and the added opportunity presented to policymakers concerning industry-wide improvements. Moreover, the findings suggest that investing in worker training is essential. Ensuring workers possess the necessary skills and knowledge to perform their tasks efficiently can enhance productivity and project outcomes. In conclusion, this study's findings emphasize the factors that can improve construction productivity in residential projects in NZ, ultimately leading to improved outcomes for all stakeholders.

This research offers a unique perspective on improving residential construction productivity in NZ by identifying and analysing specific factors that can enhance efficiency across the sector. It provides novel findings and valuable insight into possible organizational improvement strategies yet considered in the NZ residential sector.

The Covid-19 pandemic appears to have engendered heterogeneous effects on individuals’ labour market prospects. This paper focuses on two possible sources of a heterogeneous exposition to labour market risks associated with the pandemic outbreak: the routine task content of the job and the teleworkability. To evaluate whether these dimensions played a crucial role in amplifying employment and wage gaps among workers, we focus on the case of Italy, the first EU country hit by Covid-19.

Investigating the actual effect of the pandemic on workers employed in jobs with a different degree of teleworkability and routinization, using real microdata, is currently unfeasible. This is because longitudinal datasets collecting annual earnings and the detailed information about occupations needed to capture a job’s routine task content and teleworkability are not presently available. To simulate changes in the wage distribution for the year 2020, we have employed a static microsimulation model. This model is built on data from the Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (IT-SILC) survey, which has been enriched with administrative data and aligned with monthly observed labour market dynamics by industries and regions.

We measure the degree of job teleworkability and routinization with the teleworkability index (TWA) built by Sostero et al. (2020) and the routine-task-intensity index (RTI) developed by Cirillo et al. (2021), respectively. We find that RTI and TWA are negatively and positively associated with wages, respectively, and they are correlated with higher (respectively lower) risks of a large labour income drop due to the pandemic. Our evidence suggests that labour market risks related to the pandemic – and the associated new types of earnings inequality that may derive – are shaped by various factors (including TWA and RTI) instead of by a single dimension. However, differences in income drop risks for workers in jobs with varying degrees of teleworkability and routinization largely reduce when income support measures are considered, thus suggesting that the redistributive effect of the emergency measures implemented by the Italian government was rather effective.

No studies have so far investigated the effect of the pandemic on workers employed in jobs with a different degree of routinization and teleworkability in Italy. We thus investigate whether income drop risks in Italy in 2020 – before and after income support measures – differed among workers whose jobs are characterized by a different degree of RTI and TWA.

Young graduates in Morocco are encountering an increasingly challenging labor market environment. Confronted with intense competition, job insecurity, and unclear career trajectories, many find themselves in low-skilled positions despite possessing relevant qualifications. This issue is particularly pronounced among vocational training graduates, who experience professional downgrading at a rate three times higher (33.6%) compared to their peers from general education (11.6%) (HCP, 2018). Our study aims to investigate professional downgrading among young vocational training graduates in Morocco, focusing on the factors contributing to this phenomenon and identifying potential solutions to address it.

Our study is based on the insertion and career path survey conducted by the Department of Professional Training with graduates of professional training programs in Morocco. For this edition, the survey was conducted in 2020, encompassing all 31,498 graduates of the 2016 professional training programs. The Heckman self-selection model is employed to analyze and explore various dimensions of downgrading. Factors such as gender, age, marital status, parental education, and the choice of vocational training field are scrutinized to understand their influence on downgrading.

The study reveals several key findings: Women exhibit a lower probability of professional downgrading compared to men. Young graduates are more vulnerable to downgrading, emphasizing the necessity for career guidance and mentorship programs to facilitate their entry into the job market. Marital status plays a role, with married individuals having a higher likelihood of downgrading. Parental education, particularly that of mothers, proves critical in preventing subjective downgrading of vocational training graduates, highlighting the need for adult literacy and education programs. The effectiveness of the National Agency for the Promotion of Employment and Competencies (ANAPEC) programs in preventing downgrading among vocational training graduates is questioned, suggesting the need for program revisions tailored to this population. The choice of vocational training field significantly impacts downgrading, with graduates of technical training programs experiencing advantages. This emphasizes the importance of diversifying training fields and aligning them with market demands.

This study provides valuable insights into the phenomenon of professional downgrading among young vocational training graduates in Morocco. The findings emphasize the need for targeted policy interventions. Recommendations include supporting young graduates, reassessing programs offered by the ANAPEC, and enhancing technical training to better align with the evolving demands of the labor market.

Organizations are increasingly joining inter-organizational networks to foster sustainable employability for their employees. The purpose of this study is to identify the factors and mechanisms central to their success as experienced by key stakeholders.

An explorative, qualitative approach was adopted, using four focus groups with network coordinators (N = 18) and HR professionals (N = 14). Fourteen Dutch inter-organizational networks were represented. Respondents were recruited through purposive and snowballing sampling techniques. Thematic analysis was applied using open coding to generate themes.

The results of this study outline environmental, structural, and inter-personal factors and mechanisms that contribute to the success of inter-organizational networks that aim to foster sustainable employability for their employees. The environmental factors and mechanisms consist of challenges stemming from the labor market. The structural factors and mechanisms include: a network’s flat structure, flat fee, lack of informal rules, the allocation of roles and expectations for stakeholders and shared network activities. Lastly, the inter-personal factors and mechanisms are: communication among stakeholders, establishing reciprocity, interaction and collaboration between stakeholders, the valuation of trust, a convivial culture and shared vision among stakeholders. The dynamics between these factors and mechanisms are compared to other forms of inter-organizational networks. Furthermore, several recommendations for network coordinators and practitioners regarding the development of networks are presented.

This study provides insights into the factors and mechanisms that are regarded by stakeholders as influencing the success of inter-organizational networks in their ability to foster sustainable employability for workers. We have identified a unique model that captures this new way of inter-organizational collaboration and builds on insights from literature on collaborative governance regimes, institutional fields and entrepreneurial ecosystems. Specifically, the model provides a framework that consists of environmental, structural and interpersonal factors and mechanisms for network success. This study increases our understanding of how collaborative efforts can be fostered beyond organizational boundaries and existing Human Resource Management practices.

With Industry 4.0 and the extensive rise of smart technologies, we are seeing remarkable transformations in work practices and workplaces. Scholars report the phenomenal progress of smart technologies. At the same time, we can hear the rhetoric emphasising their potential threats. This study focusses on how and where intelligent machines are leveraged in the workplace, how humans co-working with intelligent machines are affected and what they believe can be done to mitigate the risks of the increased use of intelligent machines.

We conducted in-depth interviews with 15 respondents working in various leadership capacities associated with intelligent machines and technologies. Using NVivo, we coded and churned out the themes from the qualitative data collected.

This study shows how intelligent machines are leveraged across different industries, ranging from chatbots, intelligent sensors, cognitive systems and computer vision to the replica of the entire human being. They are used end-to-end in the value chain, increasing productivity, complementing human workers’ skillsets and augmenting decisions made by human workers. Human workers experience a blend of positive and negative emotions whilst co-working with intelligent machines, which influences their job satisfaction level. Organisations adopt several anticipatory strategies, like transforming into a learning organisation, identifying futuristic technologies and upskilling their human workers, regularly conducting social learning events and designing accelerated career paths to embrace intelligent technologies.

This study seeks to understand the emotional and practical implications of the use of intelligent machines by humans and how both entities can integrate and complement each other. These insights can help organisations and employees understand what future workplaces and practices will look like and how to remain relevant in this transformation.

This study aims to investigate the importance of lifelong learning in cultivating competent human capital, fostering long-term career sustainability and promoting gender equality in Bangladesh.

This study has used a qualitative research methodology with inductive reasoning. The researchers used purposive sampling to conduct semi-structured interviews with 34 male and female students at the graduate and undergraduate levels, in addition to six stakeholders. This research is grounded in the theoretical frameworks of human capital development theory and gender and development theory.

The results suggest that there exists a positive correlation between lifelong learning, sustainable career development and gender equality in the context of Bangladesh. Successfully executing strategies might also play a significant role in attaining Bangladesh’s sustainable development goals (SDGs).

Educational curriculum reform within institutions is urgently needed, necessitating the active involvement and influential contributions of actors and stakeholders. Implementing lifelong learning must also align with gender equality and SDGs.

This study addresses a significant gap in the existing literature by offering insights into the relationship between lifelong learning, career sustainability and gender equality within the specific context of Bangladesh. This study provides valuable contributions to scholars, stakeholders and policymakers while establishing a foundation for future research endeavors.

Productivity increase is correlated with profitability, sustainability and competitiveness of the construction firms. Recent studies reveal that the primary causes of productivity decline are poor usage of scientific and technological advances, ineffective supervision strategies and poor apprenticeship facilities/opportunities. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to evaluate how well construction supervisors can utilise fundamental science and technological concepts/ideas to increase the efficiency and productivity of construction activities.

A new strategic layout was designed with the use of potential training guide tools. Based on the designed layout, a new supervisory training programme was developed, and 62 construction supervisors were selected, trained and evaluated in line with six parts of competencies and the relevant learning domains. An assessment guide with different levels of descriptions and criteria was developed through literature analysis and expert interviews. The research tools were verified using comprehensive approaches.

The overall mean values of supervisors’ performance scores indicate proficient-level grades in the competency characteristics related to taking measurements, generating drawings/designs using manual techniques and computer-aided tools, involving Bill of Quantities (BOQ) preparations and preparing training plans/materials for improving the competencies of labourers on estimation, measurements and understanding drawings. Their proficiency was notably lower in the use of information and communication technology application tools in construction tasks compared to others. The findings point to a modern generalised guideline that establishes the ranges of supervisory attributes associated with science and technology-related applications.

The study outcomes produce conceptualised projections to restructure and revalue the job functions of various working categories by adding new definitions within the specified scope. This may result in constructive benefits to upgrading the current functions associated with urbanisation, sustainability and society. The implementation of the study’s findings/conclusions will have a significant impact on present and future practices in other developing nations and developing industries, even if they are directly applicable to the Sri Lankan construction industry.

Up to certain limits/stages, the study fills not only the knowledge gap in the field of creating protocols and application techniques connected to lifelong learning and skill enhancement/upgrading but also the existing gaps in work attributes and roles of construction supervisors associated with the utilisation of fundamental science and technological concepts/ideas towards reinforcing sustainable and productive site operations.