Managing change in the legal firm through the teaching company scheme

This paper draws from our experiences in the initial stages of this project and illustrates the many challenges facing legal firms undertaking such major restructuring of their business processes. Theearly involvement of all stakeholders and the development of effective change management strategies are emphasised

Simultaneous observations of changes in coronal bright point emission at the 20 cm radio and He Lambda 10830 wavelengths

Preliminary results of observations of solar coronal bright points acquired simultaneously from ground based observatories at the radio wavelength of 20 cm and in the He I wavelength 10830 line on September 8, 1985, are reported. The impetus for obtaining simultaneous radio and optical data is to identify correlations, if any, in changes of the low transition-coronal signatures of bright points with the evolution of the magnetic field, and to distinguish between intermittent heating and changes in the magnetic field topology. Although simultaneous observations of H alpha emission and the photospheric magnetic field at Big Bear were also made, as well as radio observations from Owen Valley Radio Interferometer and Solar Maximum Mission (SSM) (O VIII line), only the comparison between He 10830 and the Very Large Array (VLA) radio data are presented

A Workplace Study of Four Southern-Ontario Children’s Aid Societies (FULL REPORT)

Rationale Children’s Aid Societies have experienced extensive change since the implementation of recent child welfare reforms in Ontario. Agencies are facing a number of challenges including recruiting and retaining staff, high workloads, extensive requirements for documentation and administration, and less time to serve families and children. The purpose of this study was to understand employee experiences as workers in child welfare. Research Design A survey was distributed to employees of four children’s aid societies. Completion of the survey was voluntary and all individual responses were kept confidential. Completed surveys were returned directly to researchers. Six to eight months after the distribution of the survey, employees voluntarily participated in a series of targeted focus groups. Focus groups were used to facilitate the interpretation of survey results. Survey Results Four hundred and three surveys were completed (for a return rate of 49.3%). Forty-nine percent of employees reported low levels of intention to leave, and 12% reported strong intention to leave their organization. However, intention to leave among direct service workers was higher at 15%. Forty-six percent of all employees who responded to the survey indicated high levels of overall job satisfaction, and even among direct service workers, 42% reported high levels of overall job satisfaction. However, 43.5% of direct service workers also reported being highly emotionally exhausted. Thirty-nine percent of all employees responding to the survey reported high levels of emotional exhaustion, suggesting that high levels of stress are affecting a significant proportion of individuals working in child welfare organizations. Twenty-nine percent of all respondents scored in the high range on a scale measuring an unfeeling or impersonal response to clients; among direct service workers, 39% were high on this scale, and among direct service workers in Intake departments, 49% reported high scores in terms of an impersonal and unfeeling response to service recipients. Focus Group & Survey Comment Results The experience of child welfare work itself was mixed. Feelings of gratification were associated with believing one’s work is important and meaningful, and dissatisfaction was linked to increased documentation and less time for client contact. Employees emphasized the importance of a solid team, collegial support, and supervisory support in counterbalancing dissatisfaction with the work itself. A perception of inadequate support from the organization and a lack of resources (both within the organization and in the broader community) were identified as problems. Employees reported needing more equitable distribution of caseloads, improved communication between departments and from management, and the establishment of an agency culture that cares for the well being of all employees. Discussion & Implications Despite experiencing high levels of emotional exhaustion, almost half of all survey respondents reported being highly satisfied 4 with their jobs. This is an interesting paradox that warrants further study. We suspect that the paradox is related to the female dominated workforce in child welfare agencies, and the tendency of women to sacrifice their own needs for those they see as requiring care. We argue that current levels of emotional exhaustion among employees in child welfare are unacceptable. Emotional exhaustion is clearly a significant contributor to employee turnover. Policies and practices that promote a more balanced approach to the work, as well as fostering cultures that are both caring and committed to service excellence are needed. The relatively high rates of depersonalization especially among DSWs raises concerns about the attitudes of some workers towards the families receiving child welfare services; do unfeeling and impersonal responses contribute to resistance and a lack of cooperation from some families? Employees are very satisfied with the intellectual challenge of the work. Job satisfaction could be increased by maintaining the intellectual challenge and, at the same time, improving the “doability” of the job. Employee turnover will improve as ways are found to decrease emotional exhaustion, improve workers’ perceptions of being treated fairly, and improve job satisfaction

A Workplace Study of Three Children’s Mental Health Centres in Southern Ontario

Rationale Recent cuts to resources for children and families requiring children’s mental health services coupled with an increase in the number of children needing these services have left staff in many agencies feeling extremely challenged in providing positive service environments for children and families. In this context, agencies are faced with the challenge of providing working environments that attract and retain staff, particularly in children’s residential mental health services. The purpose of this study was to explore sources of job satisfaction and stress, and why employees stay with and leave these organizations, in an effort to understand what contributes to a positive work environment in children’s mental health services. Research Design A survey was distributed to employees of three children’s mental health services agencies. Completion of the survey was voluntary and all individual responses were kept confidential. Completed surveys were returned directly to researchers. Survey Results Ninety-eight surveys were completed (for a return rate of 44.3%). Forty-eight percent of employees reported low levels of intention to leave, and 18% reported strong intention to leave their organization. However, strong intention to leave ranged from 13.5% to 35.3% across the three participating children’s mental health agencies. Over 55% of all employees who responded to the survey indicated high levels of overall job satisfaction. Across the three participating agencies overall job satisfaction ranged from 43.2% to 70.6%. The majority of respondents, however, were only moderately satisfied with salary and benefits, as well as with promotion availability and process. Twenty-three percent of all employees responding to the survey reported high levels of emotional exhaustion, suggesting that high levels of stress are affecting almost a quarter of survey respondents. However, the majority of respondents reported low to moderate levels of emotional exhaustion. Over 70% of children’s mental health employees who responded to the survey reported high levels of personal accomplishment, or a feeling of competence and successful achievement in their work with people. Discussion & Implications The majority of employees in all three organizations are only moderately satisfied with the financial rewards and benefits, and in all of the organizations it seems that the front-line staff are the group least satisfied with this aspect. Front-line staff and clinicians are more likely to be high on intention to leave, and less likely to be highly satisfied with their jobs overall. They are less likely to feel that their jobs are highly “doable” and more likely to be unsatisfied with promotional opportunities. Clinicians, along with front-line staff, are also less likely than employees in other positions to be highly satisfied with their pay. Overall job satisfaction, while in the high range for 55% of children’s mental health employees as a whole, varies considerably across the three organizations. Employees with low job satisfaction are 4 more likely to have high levels of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, to perceive a lack of fit between their personal values and goals and those of the organization (image violation), and to see the employment relationship as inequitable. The scales that are statistically associated with high intention to leave for all three organizations include “perceived inequitable employment relationship” and “image violation”. It may be that those employees who are feeling most strongly about pay levels and limited promotional opportunities perceive that they are giving more than they are receiving from the organization

The Little Republic: Masculinity and Domestic Authority in Eighteenth-Century Britain

The relationship between men and the domestic in eighteenth-century Britain has, until now, been obscure. The Little Republic rescues the engagement of men with the house from this obscurity, better equipping historians to understand masculinity, the domestic environment and domestic patriarchy. This book reconstructs men’s experiences of the house, examining the authority that accrued to mundane and everyday household practices and employing men’s own concepts to understand what men thought and felt about their domestic lives. This book explores the distinctive relationship between the domestic environment and masculinity, and finds that ‘home’ is too narrow a concept for an understanding of eighteenth-century domestic experience. Focussing instead on the ‘house’, Harvey foregrounds a different domestic culture in which men and masculinity were central. Men acted within the domestic environment as general managers, accountants, consumers and as keepers of the family history in paper and ink. The book explores a model of domestic patriarchy based on a widely-shared discourse of ‘oeconomy’ – the practice of managing the economic and moral resources of the household for the maintenance of good order. ‘Oeconomy’ was a meaningful way of defining masculinity and established the house a key component of a manly identity and in practising ‘oeconomy’, men established their household authority through small acts of power. The book shows how the public identity of men depended upon the roles they performed within doors, straddling the divide of ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ the house

A Workplace Study of Four Southern-Ontario Children’s Aid Societies (SUMMARY REPORT)

Children’s Aid Societies have experienced extensive change since the implementation of recent child welfare reforms in Ontario. Agencies are facing a number of challenges including recruiting and retaining staff, high workloads, extensive requirements for documentation and administration, and less time to serve families and children. This paper explores employee experiences as service providers in child welfare. A survey was distributed to employees of four Children’s Aid Societies and employees participated in a series of focus groups. The paper discusses how workplace experiences contribute to job satisfaction, to stress and burnout, and to staff turnover. Actions organizations can take to improve the workplace and to reduce turnover and stress are discussed

The effects of anxiety management and study skills training on test anxiety in college students

This study measured the effects of anxiety management and study skills training on test anxiety in college students. Twenty-one college students from two sections of Introductory Sociology were involved in the study. The Test Anxiety Inventory (TAI) and exam scores were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the training. Pre-test, post-test, and delayed post-test measures were obtained. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicated no significant difference on TAI scores or exam scores between the control and experimental groups. Recommendations for further research are given

A Workplace Study: Follow-Up Research Report

In response to the Partnerships for Children and Families Project\u27s study of Canadian child welfare workers that unexpectedly found participants scoring high on a measure of emotional exhaustion (burnout), and at the same time, high on overall job satisfaction, a qualitative study of 25 child welfare workers\u27 experience of emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction was undertaken. This analysis was guided by several key questions including what are the personal qualities, workplace and organizational context, and coping skills that employees identify as being a part of their experiences of emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction

A Demonstration of a Systematic Item-Reduction Approach Using Structural Equation Modeling

Establishing model parsimony is an important component of structural equation modeling (SEM). Unfortunately, little attention has been given to developing systematic procedures to accomplish this goal. To this end, the current study introduces an innovative application of the jackknife approach first presented in Rensvold and Cheung (1999). Unlike the traditional application of jackknife procedures for the purpose of identifying outliers and influential cases within a dataset, this jackknife procedure is applied for the purpose of identifying and eliminating items from a structural model. Items are identified through the jackknife procedure and eliminated from the model without altering the measurement or structural integrity of the model. The goal of this application is to create the most parsimonious model by reducing the number of items in an inventory, without altering the construct represented by the model. Accessed 10,388 times on https://pareonline.net from April 23, 2012 to December 31, 2019. For downloads from January 1, 2020 forward, please click on the PlumX Metrics link to the right