Performance related pay: what makes a successful scheme?

The complexities surrounding the issue of reward management can be seen as indicative of the contradictions that exist within the discipline labelled human resource management (HRM). For example, Storey's (1992: 27) distinction between 'hard' and 'soft' HRM identifies the need for 'strategic interventions designed to elicit commitment and to develop resourceful humans' ('soft' HRM) and 'strategic interventions designed to achieve full utilisation of labour resources' ('hard' HRM. The current state of knowledge on reward systems suggests that these are often designed to attempt both strategic interventions together; how successful they are on either count is perhaps less well documented. This tension within HRM has been noted by several writers and the processes currently used to reward individuals have been well scrutinised (Smith, 1992; Legge, 1995; Kessler, 1995). In the final analysis, it appears that many of the reward initiatives pursued represent no more than a 'shuffling of the pack' (Kessler, 1995:274), rather than any innovative, integrated strategy which could be considered part of a distinctive HRM approach. This paper considers one aspect of the current debate on reward systems by examining the operation of a PRP scheme in a multi-divisional company in Ireland. Before considering the findings of the research, the paper first of all considers some of the evidence available on the operation of PRP systems and describes the background to the study and the methodology used in the research

Career Aspirations of Older Workers: An Australian Study

Global challenges associated with the ageing workforce include lower levels of education and negative attitudes of older workers towards learning and covert age discrimination in the workplace. This report discusses initial findings from a survey of older workers employed in regional areas in Australia. The older workers surveyed were predominantly blue collar with low levels of formal education. Contrary to the stereotypical views, there were few attitude differences between older (>40 years) and younger workers (≤40 years). However, gender, education level and job type had a greater impact on attitudes in the older workers when compared to their younger colleagues

Unhealthy sport sponsorship continues to target kids

In the final month of the countdown to the Olympic Games, our sports stars are probably not eating and drinking the Games sponsors\u27 foods. Again, as in previous Olympics, the Olympic Games sponsors are Coca-Cola, McDonald\u27s and Cadburys, whose foods and drinks are not good choices for athletes due to their lack of nutrition and high levels of salt, sugar and saturated fats

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationAutism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a common childhood neurodevelopmental disorder. Epidemiological studies have found a disparity in diagnosis for children from Hispanic and low-income families, as compared to Anglo (White, non-Hispanic) children, who are more likely to be diagnosed earlier. This study considered whether parents‘ discursive ability and resources could be a factor in delayed ASD diagnosis. The purposive sample for this critical linguistic and discursive study included 10 Hispanic parents with a sociolinguistic heritage from Mexico, and 10 Anglo parents with a sociolinguistic heritage from the U.S. The Hispanic sample was less privileged than the Anglo sample, which had higher average levels of income, education, and English speaking skills. The sources of data included digitally transcribed texts from interviews of the 20 participant parents and the texts scraped from nine national ASD websites. Phase 1 of the analysis coded, compared, and critically analyzed accounts of Hispanic and Anglo parents regarding their experience of assessing and obtaining a professional diagnosis of their child‘s behavior. Phase 2 employed critical linguistic/discourse analysis of the scraped texts from ASD websites and subsequent content analysis of those texts regarding the diagnosis and treatment of a child with ASD. The findings from the first phase suggest that Anglo parents focused on constructing themselves as -good parents‖ who met ideological expectations for monitoring and caring for their children. In contrast, most Hispanic parents used their iv discourse and resources to construct themselves as concerned about their children‘s linear progress in school, ability to communicate, and social adaptability. Findings from the second phase of analysis suggest that the same discourse used by privileged parents in this study, on a microlevel, were consistent with the dominant U.S. macrolevel discourse and ideology of the -good parent‖ as emerged from the ASD website data. This study suggests that, the more closely parents, either Hispanic or Anglo, were aligned with the privileged discourse model or ideology of the U.S. Anglo -good parent,‖ the fewer barriers they reported to diagnosis. This study also suggests the need for further research, particularly about the Hispanic/Mexican discursive model of parenting

Interview with Marcia and Kelly Brown

Marcia and Kelly Brown discuss how they started their family farm, and how it wasn\u27t their original path they planned but how they loved the values family farming taught. They also talk about the chores on the farm for the children, and about their family as a whole. Finally, they discuss farming, schooling, and the hardships they experience on a family farm but the joy they get from their farm.https://digital.kenyon.edu/ffp_interviews/1010/thumbnail.jp

Assessing water filtration and safe storage in households with young children of HIV-positive mothers: a randomized, controlled trial in Zambia.

BACKGROUND: Unsafe drinking water presents a particular threat to people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) due to the increased risk of opportunistic infections, diarrhea-associated malabsorption of essential nutrients, and increased exposure to untreated water for children of HIV-positive mothers who use replacement feeding to reduce the risk of HIV transmission. This population may particularly benefit from an intervention to improve water quality in the home. METHODS AND FINDINGS: We conducted a 12-month randomized, controlled field trial in Zambia among 120 households with children <2 years (100 with HIV-positive mothers and 20 with HIV-negative mothers to reduce stigma of participation) to assess a high-performance water filter and jerry cans for safe storage. Households were followed up monthly to assess use, drinking water quality (thermotolerant coliforms (TTC), an indicator of fecal contamination) and reported diarrhea (7-day recall) among children <2 years and all members of the household. Because previous attempts to blind the filter have been unsuccessful, we also assessed weight-for-age Z-scores (WAZ) as an objective measure of diarrhea impact. Filter use was high, with 96% (596/620) of household visits meeting the criteria for users. The quality of water stored in intervention households was significantly better than in control households (3 vs. 181 TTC/100 mL, respectively, p<0.001). The intervention was associated with reductions in the longitudinal prevalence of reported diarrhea of 53% among children <2 years (LPR=0.47, 95% CI: 0.30-0.73, p=0.001) and 54% among all household members (LPR=0.46, 95% CI: 0.30-0.70, p<0.001). While reduced WAZ was associated with reported diarrhea (-0.26; 95% CI: -0.37 to -0.14, p<0.001), there was no difference in WAZ between intervention and control groups. CONCLUSION: In this population living with HIV/AIDS, a water filter combined with safe storage was used correctly and consistently, was highly effective in improving drinking water quality, and was protective against diarrhea. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Clinicaltrials.gov NCT01116908

The impact of teaching from home during the covid-19 pandemic on the student evaluations of female academics

Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) results play an important role in academic staff performance evaluation, but also in promotion processes. However, there is much evidence to suggest that the SET used in most universities across the Anglosphere has traditionally penalised female academics. As universities manage the recovery phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, they will also need to take into account the effect of remote teaching on the validity of student evaluation data. Given SET are critical to promotion success, it is important to then understand the gendered effect of remote teaching on student evaluations. We aimed to evaluate how intrusions of family life, academics’ home environment and competence with remote teaching technology of female academics were viewed by students and if there were noticeable differences in SET data. We analysed 22,485 SET data over 2019 (pre-COVID, face-to-face teaching) and 2020 (COVID-lockdowns, remote teaching) for female and male academics, matched with student gender, in the multidisciplinary First Year College at Victoria University, Melbourne Australia. Our results showed that there were no differences in the score ratings for teacher gender. However, the qualitative data showed that whilst overall there were overwhelmingly positive comments for both male and female teachers, there was an increase in the negative comments on teaching style by male students toward their female teachers during remote teaching and overall more comments relating to attitude. We speculate that this would have a negative impact on the confidence of teaching-intensive female academics hindering their leadership aspirations and career progression in academia