Overview of New Forms of Employment - 2018 Update

Across Europe, new forms of employment are emerging that differ significantly from traditional employment. Some of these forms of employment transform the relationship between employer and employee while others change work organisation and work patterns. They often involve locations other than the usual employer’s premises, and or extensive use of information and communications technology. This report identifies nine forms of employment that are either new or have become increasingly important in Europe since the year 2000. All of the nine forms discussed are aimed at increasing flexibility for employers and/or employees. Some may benefit employers and employees equally, but in a few cases there are concerns regarding their impact on working conditions and the labour market. The report highlights the need for awareness of potential problems and of safety nets for workers

Harnessing Collaborative Technologies: Helping Funders Work Together Better

This report was produced through a joint research project of the Monitor Institute and the Foundation Center. The research included an extensive literature review on collaboration in philanthropy, detailed analysis of trends from a recent Foundation Center survey of the largest U.S. foundations, interviews with 37 leading philanthropy professionals and technology experts, and a review of over 170 online tools.The report is a story about how new tools are changing the way funders collaborate. It includes three primary sections: an introduction to emerging technologies and the changing context for philanthropic collaboration; an overview of collaborative needs and tools; and recommendations for improving the collaborative technology landscapeA "Key Findings" executive summary serves as a companion piece to this full report

Managing Wireless Networks in the Healthcare Sector: Emerging Experiences of Cultural Impacts

The existing body of knowledge has generally supported that organizational culture plays a significant role in shaping group identity, work pattern, communication schemes, and interpersonal relations; all of these cultural elements are important organizational factors that shape workplaces and operational routines. In the context of emerging information technology, it has also been suggested that organizational culture could affect IT implementation and management. However, little is known about how emerging information technology shapes organizational culture, which in turn helps reshape the organization as a whole. The purpose of this paper is thus to build empirical understanding of how IT in general and emerging wireless networks in particular reshapes organizational culture. Case studies conducted in two hospitals situated in southwest U.S.A. illustrated that the implementation of wireless networks indeed helped shape and/or reshape organizational culture in the healthcare sector and in turn enhance healthcare organizations’ competitiveness in the marketplace. For IT managers and practitioners in healthcare institutions, effective strategy to plan and manage emerging ITs such as wireless networks will thus have long-term implications on cultivating organizational culture that could eventually reshape workplace and competitiveness

Emotions in context: examining pervasive affective sensing systems, applications, and analyses

Pervasive sensing has opened up new opportunities for measuring our feelings and understanding our behavior by monitoring our affective states while mobile. This review paper surveys pervasive affect sensing by examining and considering three major elements of affective pervasive systems, namely; “sensing”, “analysis”, and “application”. Sensing investigates the different sensing modalities that are used in existing real-time affective applications, Analysis explores different approaches to emotion recognition and visualization based on different types of collected data, and Application investigates different leading areas of affective applications. For each of the three aspects, the paper includes an extensive survey of the literature and finally outlines some of challenges and future research opportunities of affective sensing in the context of pervasive computing

The NLRB’s Social Media Guidelines a Lose-Lose: Why the NLRB’s Stance on Social Media Fails to Fully Address Employer’s Concerns and Dilutes Employee Protections

[Excerpt] The expanding use of both personal and professional social media sites has resulted in its growing impact in the workplace. Recently, many examples have emerged where an individual’s use of social media for communicating frustrations or sharing personal information resulted in significant conflict between the individual and their employer. Employment actions arising from an employee’s social media use have become so contentious that a number of employers have been charged with unfair labor practices for overly broad social media policies or implementation of unfair policies. Following several important Board decisions the NLRB issued guidelines, identifying acceptable employer-initiated social media policies. As social media’s popularity will likely only continue to grow, it is important to understand how employer policies impact employees’ social media use and the potential invasion these policies may have on employees’ rights. This article concludes that the NLRB’s issued guidance fails to adequately address social media concerns raised by employers and dilutes employees’ rights to communicate workplace concerns. This is because even though the guidance permits employer developed social media policies, the NLRB’s stance permits employers to monitor and analyze employees’ social media use and does not clarify when an employer can act on social media information