Virtual Teams: Work/Life Challenges - Keeping Remote Employees Engaged

Remotely located employees are quickly becoming a norm in the modern workplace in response to evidence that telecommuters save on costs and produce more efficiently. There are many intangible benefits also felt with the increasing prevalence of remote employees. Telecommuters are more satisfied with their work/life balance and report lower rates of job burnout. Though there are also many well-identified setbacks remotely located managers and employees may face. Employers see the most success with telecommuting by first recruiting the people best fit to fill these remote roles. However, the process of developing remote employees is a process that requires constant monitoring. The purpose of this paper is to identify the best practices being used by companies to keep remote employees engaged while simultaneously avoiding burnout

Lighting, well-being and work performance: A review of the literature

Commissioned White Paper Report for Philips International

Offenders and E-Learning - a literature review on behalf of Becta

This literature review has been prepared by the Hallam Centre of Community Justice at Sheffield Hallam University, on behalf of Becta. The literature review provides a summary of existing research and knowledge relating to e-learning in the offending learning sector with a view to developing a range of e-maturity indicators across the sector. The review also highlights linkages with current Government policy in relation to offender learning and skills

Critical success factors for e-tendering implementation in construction collaborative environments : people and process issues

The construction industry is increasingly engulfed by globalisation where clients, business partners and customers are found in virtually every corner of the world. Communicating, reaching and supporting them are no longer optional but are imperative for continued business growth and success. A key component of enterprise communication reach is collaborative environments (for the construction industry) which allows customers, suppliers, partners and other project team members secure access to project information, products or services they need at any given moment. Implementation of the stated critical success factors of the project is essential to ensure optimal performance and benefits from the system to all parties involved. This paper presents critical success factors for the implementation of e-tendering in collaborative environments with particular considerations given to the people issues and process factors

Work-related road safety risk assessment: utilisation of self-report surveys to predict organisational risk

Work-related driving safety is an emerging concern for Australian and overseas organisations. Research has shown that road crashes are the most common cause of work-related fatalities, injuries and absences from work. This study's objectives were to identify driver characteristics which pose potential risks to work-related driving safety within the organisation, as well as determining the value of such self-reported data to predict crash involvement and general aberrant driving behaviours. This paper reports on a study examining the predictive utility of predominant self-report questionnaires to identify individuals involved in work-related crashes within an Australian organisational fleet setting (N = 4195). Survey questionnaires included the Manchester Driver Behaviour Questionnaire (DBQ), Driver Attitude Questionnaire (DAQ), Safety Climate Questionnaire – Modified for Drivers (SCQ-MD) and Risk Taking. The tools were distributed through the company’s internal mail system to employees who volunteered to participate in the study. An important finding to emerge was that a potential fleet "speeding culture" was identified from univariate analyses. For example, drivers were most likely to report engaging in speeding behaviours and also believed that speeding was more acceptable compared to drink driving, following too closely or engaging in risky overtaking manoeuvres. However, multivariate analysis determining factors associated with self-reported crash involvement revealed that increased work pressure and driving errors were predictive of crash risk, even after controlling for exposure on the road. This paper highlights the major findings of the study and discusses the implications and difficulties associated with utilising driver behaviour measurement tools within contemporary organisational fleet settings

Knowledge transformation and impact : aspirations and experiences from TLRP

This paper reviews the intentions and strategies adopted by the UK’s Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP) in its attempts to maximise the impact of its research portfolio. The Programme’s early commitment to user engagement and to an ‘interactive, iterative, constructive, distributed and transformative’ impact strategy is described. The specific outputs and initiatives of the Programme are analysed in relation to three issues - the transformation of findings beyond abstract academic forms; the authentic engagement of users; and the exploitation of ideas which are culturally and politically current. From TLRP experience, it is argued that such work requires significant resources, technology, imagination, expertise and time. The paper concludes with a call for substantial, long-term investment in an appropriate infrastructure to maximise the impact of research in education

Directing the Teaching and Learning Research Programme: or ‘trying to fly a glider made of jelly’

TLRP’s generic phase (1999-2009) is believed to have been the largest ever UK investment in educational research. This paper describes the critique from which TLRP emerged, its strategic positioning and the roles of successive directors and their teams in its development. The paper offers an early stock take of TLRP’s achievements from the perspective of the last Programme Director. The efficacy of the form of the Programme, once likened to ‘a glider made of jelly’, is discussed

Leading for Learning Sourcebook: Concepts and Examples

Provides a detailed discussion of ideas and methods that educators can use to enhance leadership in learning. Offers examples of leaders using the ideas and tools for assessment, planning, and teaching. Includes four annotated longitudinal cases