Deepening Democracy in Buffalo by Honoring Prior Commitments (And a Legacy)

The waning years of the 2010s and the opening weeks of the 2020s have been rife with headlines, editorials, academic articles, lectures, and book titles lamenting a “crisis of democracy”. Among other things, the concerned authors and observers participating in the discourse cite foreign election interference; the global rise of populist authoritarians; the exorbitant financial costs of electoral politics and the attendant subordination of policy to wealth and corporate interests; increasing social and cultural cleavages and polarization; sharply rising inequality; the ongoing erosion of public trust; and a host of other factors as both causes and consequences of the present weakened state of democracy in and beyond the United States. Not surprisingly, in light of these trends, strengthening democratic institutions and expanding democratic participation are among the highest priorities included in proposals to combat intersecting social, economic, and ecological problems from local gentrification to global climate change. With that in mind, this policy memo highlights two opportunities for the City of Buffalo, New York to answer these urgent calls to deepen democracy. Both opportunities—promoting worker cooperatives and the use of participatory budgeting—have already been experimented with in Buffalo, and have received meaningful resource commitments from the City in the recent past. Earlier progress on those fronts is part of the legacy of former Delaware District Council Member Michael J. LoCurto, who championed both causes through legislation and advocacy. Honoring that legacy means renewing prior commitments to these causes and ensuring that they become lasting fixtures of local governance

Connecting Labor Market Institutions, Corporate Demography, and Human Resource Management Practices

With the growing attention to entrepreneurship as an engine of job creation and economic development, it is important for social scientists who are broadly interested in labor market and employment topics to focus attention on new firms and the policies and practices that surround them. The authors argue that the next generation of scholarship should pay particular attention to labor market institutions, the ecosystem of existing employers, and the human resource management practices that provide the strategic context for entrepreneurs and shape the career opportunities for workers. Remarkable variation occurs across space and time in the prevalence and performance of entrepreneurs. There are also many open questions as to the antecedents and consequences of entrepreneurship, for entrepreneurs, their communities, and their employees. The availability of new administrative data across many countries will allow for comparative cross-national studies and will provide opportunities to bring qualitative and mixed-method approaches to entrepreneurial labor market studies. This introduction and the articles in this special issue offer a path forward

What Should be in Place to Assess the Effectiveness or Return on Investment of a Company\u27s Leadership Development Programs?

[Excerpt] Leadership is vital to a company’s bottom line, yet only 41% of C-suite leaders believe that their organizations’ leadership development programs (LDP) are of high or very high quality. However, only 18% of companies are gathering relevant business impact metrics, key determinants for measuring a program’s effectiveness and ROI. Many organizations focus on the Kirkpatrick model--reaction, learning, behavior, and results--to evaluate learning, it is critical to extend this framework to include return-on-investment. This focus on operational and strategic metrics that will drive results for the business and individual to accurately measure LDPs spanning the entry and executive levels to focus on relevant indicators

What Best Practices are Emerging to Understand and Measure Skills in the Talent Pool?

[Excerpt] One of the largest problems facing companies today is the shortage of available and qualified talent. This skills gap is largely going unaddressed with 60% of executives reporting that they cannot keep their workforce current on necessary skills. In the future, this problem is likely to intensify as millions of workers are forced to reskill or change jobs or industries due to technical innovation. For these reasons, companies need to expand their understanding of qualified candidates both internally and externally. One way of doing this is to abandon the traditional signals such as experience and education in favor of a more direct approach

What Are the Academic Findings About the Impact of Coaching on Individual and Organizational Performance?

[Excerpt] The definition of coaching has evolved alongside developments in Organizational Psychology and Human Resources. One such definition is, “a helping and facilitative process that enables individuals, groups/teams and organizations to acquire new skills, to improve existing skills, competence and performance, and to enhance their personal effectiveness or personal development or personal growth.” For this Executive Summary, we mainly focus on two subsets of coaching: Manager and Executive coaching

How do Global Organizations Build Employee Advocates Who Champion Their Brand

[Excerpt] Increasingly job applicants are focusing more on the image of the companies that they are applying to. 54% of online job seekers read company reviews before deciding to join and 75% of job seekers consider the employer brand before deciding to apply to a job. A staggering 69% of would-be employees would not accept a job from a company with a bad employer brand even if the alternative was no job at all. Additionally, positive employer brands can have positive effects on a company\u27s bottom line. A study found that positive employer brands can lead to reductions in turnover and cost-per-hire, as well as an increase in qualified applicants and time to hire. These statistics show the strategic importance of focusing on an employer brand that delivers for potential applicants. In the following research we will determine the best strategy for building an employer brand through a company’s own employees

Dandelion Curriculums and Roadmap - 1 Year (1 of 2)

The proposed Curriculum is designed to guide the Dandelion Support Team (Technical and ASC) through the implementation of the Dandelion Program. The related Roadmaps show the recommended sequence of process transformation initiatives, over a period of 12 months, based on business and IT priorities, effort, and learnings

Organisation Change Plan

[Excerpt] The vision of the program is the establishment of a capability within the organisation to attract, recruit, on-board and sustain talent from people on the autism spectrum. Why is this important? As we know we are in a war for talent to fuel our organisation with capability and innovation to service our clients and future clients. Organisations such as DXC, JP Morgan Chase, Microsoft and SAP have commenced programs to reach into untapped talent pools

Human Trafficking and Foreign Policy: An Introduction

[Excerpt] Human trafficking (also known as trafficking in persons) refers to the subjection of men, women, or children to exploitative conditions that may be tantamount to modern-day slavery. From a foreign policy perspective, human trafficking can be viewed as a human rights problem, a manifestation of transnational organized crime, and a violation of core international labor standards. Human trafficking also raises economic development, international migration, and global governance and security issues, and disproportionately victimizes vulnerable populations. The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA, Division A of P.L. 106-386; 22 U.S.C. 7101 et seq.) defined “severe forms of trafficking in persons” to include sex trafficking induced by force, fraud, or coercion, child sex trafficking (under 18 years of age), and forced labor trafficking. The latter involves the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person—induced by force, fraud, or coercion—for the purpose of subjecting that person, including a child, to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery