Working from home during COVID-19: What does this mean for the ideal worker norm?

The ideal worker norm is associated with specific ways of working. The ideal worker is a man who works long hours, is constantly available, and highly productive. Emerging research suggests that the shock of COVID-19, which forced millions of employees to work from home, may have been powerful enough to disrupt the ideal worker norm. We therefore ask: how did working from home during the pandemic impact the ideal worker norm? We apply Acker's ideal worker norm to determine whether different groups of women employees who worked from home during the pandemic worked in ways which aligned to the norm. We conduct this analysis through the lens of two modalities of time: being clock time and (feminine) process time. Our examination of how employees experienced time extends existing, yet limited, research focused on time use during the pandemic. We used a mixed-method design to analyze survey data from almost 5000 Australian employees to show that significant proportions of women, women carers, and disabled women worked in a manner aligned more to the ideal worker norm, compared with pre-COVID times. We therefore conclude that a multidimensional ideal worker is emerging and one which works to both clock time and process time. This is an important finding as we seek to better understand how employees can work in a hybrid environment and what this means for organizations and employees

Challenging gender pay gaps::organizational and regulatory strategies

Milner S, Pochic S, Scheele A, Williamson S. Challenging gender pay gaps. Organizational and regulatory strategies. Gender, Work & Organization. 2019;26(5):593-598

Newly qualified Saudi nurses' ability to recognise the deteriorating child in hospital

Background: It is recognized that nurses' failure to recognize and respond promptly to deterioration in children's physiological status can result in increased morbidity and mortality. Aim: The aim of this study was to explore the ability of Saudi-educated, newly qualified nurses, working in paediatric wards, to recognize children's deterioration.Methods: A pilot study was carried out to assess nurses' responses to three clinical vignettes (deteriorating child, improving child and ambiguous scenarios). The nurses' ability to make a correct identification was captured using a 'Think Aloud' approach and quantified using a visual analogue scale. Results: Twenty-seven nurses in two geographical regions in Saudi Arabia participated. Only half the nurses (51·8%) correctly identified the deteriorating child vignette. Of those who could not, 37% were unsure and 11% responded incorrectly. No nurses correctly identified all three vignettes, and four nurses (15%) responded incorrectly to all vignettes. Conclusions: The recognition of the deteriorating child is complex, and even in non-stressful simulated scenarios using vignettes, many newly qualified nurses working with children failed to recognize clear signs of deterioration. A focused (culturally specific) educational intervention is being developed to target this, taking into account Saudi nurses' perceived education and training needs. Relevance to clinical practice: Newly qualified nurses working in paediatric wards frequently find it difficult to identify the deteriorating child

Public servants working from home during the pandemic: Who gained and who lost?

Employees experienced both advantages and disadvantages while working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Researchers have examined these impacts on women and those with caring responsibilities; however, little research has examined the impacts on other groups of employees, such as those with a disability or employed on a casual basis. In this article, we focus on the public sector and examine who gained and who lost while working from home, based on a 2020 survey of over 5000 Australian public servants. We have constructed loss and gain indices to measure three elements of a change model, which enables an evaluation of the impacts on various groups of employees. The elements of change management examined are operational areas, performance management, and beliefs and values. To analyse the factors affecting gains and losses, as summarised in the indices, we applied a statistical model estimated using linear regression methods. Our findings reveal that, on average, survey participants experienced a net gain. Families and employees with a disability gained; however, women gained less than men in the first two categories and gained more than men on the beliefs and values category. These findings highlight areas on which public service organisations need to focus as we enter a COVID-normal era

Building a User Sensitive Intelligent Portal to Breast Cancer Knowledge To Meet Diverse Information Needs

The Internet provides access to a plethora of information, with health information being no exception. Portals for guiding users seeking health knowledge are proliferating. A major challenge in their development is filtering the information available in a user-sensitive way. The Breast Cancer Knowledge Online (BCKOnline) project addresses the challenge of meeting the diverse information needs of women with breast cancer and their families through the provision of timely, relevant and reliable information to support decision-making. This paper focuses on how the outcomes of user needs analysis and user-aware resource description will feed into building an intelligent portal prototype to breast cancer knowledge

Characterisation of the impact response of energetic materials: observation of a low-level reaction in 2,6-diamino-3,5-dinitropyrazine-1-oxide (LLM-105)

Time-resolved and integrated diagnostics including high-speed photography, mass and optical spectroscopy, and optical-radiometry were used to study the impact response of high explosives in substantially more detail than possible with conventional sensitiveness tests. Specifically, we compare pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) and cyclotetramethylene tetranitramine (HMX), with 2,6-diamino-3,5-dinitropyrazine-1-oxide (LLM-105), the latter of which is currently receiving a great deal of interest as a promising insensitive high explosive. We conclude that under modest impact conditions, LLM-105 can undergo a low-level reaction whose characteristics explain apparently contradictory sensitiveness results obtained using standard tests. Our results demonstrate how more sophisticated diagnostics with large dynamic ranges, can quantify the hazard response of energetic materials in detail, enabling complex behaviour to be distinguished.The authors wish to acknowledge the funding and provision of samples for this research by AWE plc.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the Royal Society of Chemistry via http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/C6RA03096