Professional and managerial black African women: Johannesburg and London’s emerging and transnational elites

The number of women entering professional and managerial jobs globally has increased over the past thirty years. However, only a small percentage of texts within feminist and organisational theory specifically address the lives and experiences of professional and managerial Black African women within the workplace and family life. As such, many organisational and social research questions in this area remain unanswered. This thesis examines the work and family lives of professional and managerial Black African women living and working in Johannesburg and London. It explores how such women with relatively similar colonial histories, cultures, career and professional backgrounds handle their complex social positioning. This complexity, as discussed in the thesis, is created mainly through the way in which identity characteristics such as gender, race/ethnicity and class intersect and impact on these women when working in an environment where they are in a minority and viewed in some instances as ‘space invaders’. The impact that these complex social categories, combined with the influences of culture and history, have on their identities as career women, mothers, wives, partners and daughters is also examined. As Black African women with careers in major cities on opposite sides of the globe, these emerging and transnational elite Black African women remain a rarity and hidden gem to most – making them unique both in the workplace and in communities. In London, they are not only minorities within the UK population but minorities in their role as professional and managerial women within the corporate private sector. In Johannesburg, although part of the majority population in the country, they still remain minorities within the professional and managerial circles of that country’s corporate private sector. The method I use to gather data is the Life History approach which allows me, the researcher, to reveal my participants’ individual views and interpretation of their own work and family life experiences. I do this by conducting semi-structured interviews as a means of collecting their ‘life stories’. These stories told by Black African professional and managerial women reflect their views of reality. Through a form of Life History analysis, this mode of enquiry further reveals the importance of acknowledging difference when implementing government and organisational policies that combat barriers brought about by corporate practices and cultural attitudes within the workplace and society as a whole

Mindfulness Practices for Women’s Midlife Transition

Every major period of life brings a unique set of opportunities and challenges. Midlife remains a mostly uncharted territory in the field of human development. Given that women of middle age currently comprise over 17 % of the total population, it is essential that we seek a better understanding of middle age and what may or may not be beneficial during this stage of life. The purpose of this work is to present a supportive academic rationale paper and a creative project consisting of a book with a journal component on mindfulness practices for finding ease and grace in the midst of midlife’s changes for women. This paper is based on existing research in the field of mindfulness in relation to stress and overall well-being. It is my hope to make the benefits of mindfulness practices accessible to women who are able and inclined to explore mindfulness as a supportive tool during this important phase of life

Strategies to Mitigate Voluntary Employee Turnover

AbstractBanking leaders are negatively affected when employees voluntarily leave their employment. Banking leaders who implement strategies can enhance employee satisfaction to mitigate voluntary employee turnover. Grounded in the transformational leadership theory, the purpose of this qualitative multiple-case study was to explore strategies some banking leaders use to mitigate voluntary employee turnover. Participants were five banking leaders from local and international banks, four banks in Lusaka, Zambia, and one bank in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, who successfully implemented strategies to mitigate voluntary employee turnover. Data were collected from semistructured interviews and company documents and analyzed using Yin’s five phases. Three themes emerged: leader communication to build employee trust and engagement, using remuneration and benefits to retain employees, and using training and development for employee retention. A key recommendation for banking leaders is to offer succession planning and training opportunities that ensure employee career growth. Implications for positive social change include the potential for employees to volunteer in local communities, increase tax revenues to provide improved social services, create more stable employment opportunities for community members, and improve community engagement with employees through mentoring and tutoring

Strategies to Mitigate Voluntary Employee Turnover

AbstractBanking leaders are negatively affected when employees voluntarily leave their employment. Banking leaders who implement strategies can enhance employee satisfaction to mitigate voluntary employee turnover. Grounded in the transformational leadership theory, the purpose of this qualitative multiple-case study was to explore strategies some banking leaders use to mitigate voluntary employee turnover. Participants were five banking leaders from local and international banks, four banks in Lusaka, Zambia, and one bank in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, who successfully implemented strategies to mitigate voluntary employee turnover. Data were collected from semistructured interviews and company documents and analyzed using Yin’s five phases. Three themes emerged: leader communication to build employee trust and engagement, using remuneration and benefits to retain employees, and using training and development for employee retention. A key recommendation for banking leaders is to offer succession planning and training opportunities that ensure employee career growth. Implications for positive social change include the potential for employees to volunteer in local communities, increase tax revenues to provide improved social services, create more stable employment opportunities for community members, and improve community engagement with employees through mentoring and tutoring

Community-facility linkage models and maternal and infant health outcomes in Malawi’s PMTCT/ART program: a cohort study

Background: In sub-Saharan Africa, 3 community-facility linkage (CFL) models—Expert Clients, Community Health Workers (CHWs), and Mentor Mothers—have been widely implemented to support pregnant and breastfeeding women (PBFW) living with HIV and their infants to access and sustain care for prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT), yet their comparative impact under real-world conditions is poorly understood. Methods and findings: We sought to estimate the effects of CFL models on a primary outcome of maternal loss to follow-up (LTFU), and secondary outcomes of maternal longitudinal viral suppression and infant “poor outcome” (encompassing documented HIV-positive test result, LTFU, or death), in Malawi’s PMTCT/ART program. We sampled 30 of 42 high-volume health facilities (“sites”) in 5 Malawi districts for study inclusion. At each site, we reviewed medical records for all newly HIV-diagnosed PBFW entering the PMTCT program between July 1, 2016 and June 30, 2017, and, for pregnancies resulting in live births, their HIV-exposed infants, yielding 2,589 potentially eligible mother–infant pairs. Of these, 2,049 (79.1%) had an available HIV treatment record and formed the study cohort. A randomly selected subset of 817 (40.0%) cohort members underwent a field survey, consisting of a questionnaire and HIV biomarker assessment. Survey responses and biomarker results were used to impute CFL model exposure, maternal viral load, and early infant diagnosis (EID) outcomes for those missing these measures to enrich data in the larger cohort. We applied sampling weights in all statistical analyses to account for the differing proportions of facilities sampled by district. Of the 2,049 mother–infant pairs analyzed, 62.2% enrolled in PMTCT at a primary health center, at which time 43.7% of PBFW were ≤24 years old, and 778 (38.0%) received the Expert Client model, 640 (31.2%) the CHW model, 345 (16.8%) the Mentor Mother model, 192 (9.4%) ≥2 models, and 94 (4.6%) no model. Maternal LTFU varied by model, with LTFU being more likely among Mentor Mother model recipients (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR]: 1.45; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.14, 1.84; p = 0.003) than Expert Client recipients. Over 2 years from HIV diagnosis, PBFW supported by CHWs spent 14.3% (95% CI: 2.6%, 26.1%; p = 0.02) more days in an optimal state of antiretroviral therapy (ART) retention with viral suppression than women supported by Expert Clients. Infants receiving the Mentor Mother model (aHR: 1.24, 95% CI: 1.01, 1.52; p = 0.04) and ≥2 models (aHR: 1.44, 95% CI: 1.20, 1.74; p < 0.001) were more likely to undergo EID testing by age 6 months than infants supported by Expert Clients. Infants receiving the CHW and Mentor Mother models were 1.15 (95% CI: 0.80, 1.67; p = 0.44) and 0.84 (95% CI: 0.50, 1.42; p = 0.51) times as likely, respectively, to experience a poor outcome by 1 year than those supported by Expert Clients, but not significantly so. Study limitations include possible residual confounding, which may lead to inaccurate conclusions about the impacts of CFL models, uncertain generalizability of findings to other settings, and missing infant medical record data that limited the precision of infant outcome measurement. Conclusions: In this descriptive study, we observed widespread reach of CFL models in Malawi, with favorable maternal outcomes in the CHW model and greater infant EID testing uptake in the Mentor Mother model. Our findings point to important differences in maternal and infant HIV outcomes by CFL model along the PMTCT continuum and suggest future opportunities to identify key features of CFL models driving these outcome differences

“I would love if there was a young woman to encourage us, to ease our anxiety which we would have if we were alone”: Adapting the mothers2mothers mentor mother model for adolescent mothers living with HIV in Malawi

Pregnant and post-partum adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa experience inferior outcomes along the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) cascade compared to their adult counterparts. Yet, despite this inequality in outcomes, scarce data from the region describe AGYW perspectives to inform adolescent-sensitive PMTCT programming. In this paper, we report findings from formative implementation research examining barriers to, and facilitators of, PMTCT care for HIV-infected AGYW in Malawi, and explore strategies for adapting the mothers2mothers (m2m) Mentor Mother Model to better meet AGYW service delivery-related needs and preferences

Chattbot som assistent vid ett IT-konsultbolag

Intresset för chattbotar är idag mycket stort och de används i många olika områden. Det finns många tillvägagångssätt för att implementera chattbotar, ett av dessa sätt är med verktyget Hubot. Detta arbete undersöker hur effektiv en chattbot utvecklad med Hubot är med avseende på användbarhet och responstid. Användbarheten bedömdes med hjälp av System Usablity Scale (SUS) med 8 testpersoner. Resultatet visade att chattboten hade en relativt låg användbarhet (64,38 poäng enligt SUS), men mycket snabba responstider. Detta indikerade att Hubot inte är en effektiv chattbotlösning i detta arbetes kontex

Chattbot som assistent vid ett IT-konsultbolag

Intresset för chattbotar är idag mycket stort och de används i många olika områden. Det finns många tillvägagångssätt för att implementera chattbotar, ett av dessa sätt är med verktyget Hubot. Detta arbete undersöker hur effektiv en chattbot utvecklad med Hubot är med avseende på användbarhet och responstid. Användbarheten bedömdes med hjälp av System Usablity Scale (SUS) med 8 testpersoner. Resultatet visade att chattboten hade en relativt låg användbarhet (64,38 poäng enligt SUS), men mycket snabba responstider. Detta indikerade att Hubot inte är en effektiv chattbotlösning i detta arbetes kontex

Chattbot som assistent vid ett IT-konsultbolag

Intresset för chattbotar är idag mycket stort och de används i många olika områden. Det finns många tillvägagångssätt för att implementera chattbotar, ett av dessa sätt är med verktyget Hubot. Detta arbete undersöker hur effektiv en chattbot utvecklad med Hubot är med avseende på användbarhet och responstid. Användbarheten bedömdes med hjälp av System Usablity Scale (SUS) med 8 testpersoner. Resultatet visade att chattboten hade en relativt låg användbarhet (64,38 poäng enligt SUS), men mycket snabba responstider. Detta indikerade att Hubot inte är en effektiv chattbotlösning i detta arbetes kontex