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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship of stressful life events and health related events with sickness absenteeism and presenteeism (attending work while ill or injured).

A web‐based survey was conducted within a public service organization which had just undergone a significant downsizing, where the workforce was reduced by over 30 per cent.

The findings indicated that stressful life events were significantly associated with both presenteeism and absenteeism, to the same degree.

These results extend previous research in suggesting that employees are substituting presenteeism for absenteeism. However, different health risks (chronic conditions vs needing counselling support) were more likely to predict absenteeism than presenteeism.

By supporting a substitution hypothesis, the present study suggests that both presenteeism and absenteeism are important measures of employee health and organizational productivity.

The purpose of this article is to understand better how specific conditions such as the degree of trust developed from previous negotiations, the level of expertise/style demonstrated by the negotiators, the clarity of the bargaining issues and the ability of facilitators to use problem solving‐based techniques affect the success of an integrative collective bargaining process.

The researchers propose that cooperation may be affected by specific conditions. These key conditions were used in the analysis of two Canadian public sector collective bargaining experiences where two of the authors served as consultants and lead negotiators within the British Columbia public sector.

Based on the analysis of two public sector collective bargaining experiences, it is suggested that ensuring the clarity of the bargaining issues was an important catalyst in moving the bargaining agenda forward. In addition, the previous negotiations and the expertise/style of the negotiators were important in the fragile level of trust which developed. No one condition was responsible for the success of collective bargaining. Rather, various conditions are jointly important and supportive to the overall success of the collective bargaining process.

As a limitation, this research is exploratory in nature and cannot be generalized to other collective bargaining situations. However, the case studies and its subsequent analysis are intended to provide a template for expanded study of collective bargaining and the mutual gain process by suggesting that the process (medium) surrounding the intervention is as important as the intervention itself.

For practitioners, particularly labor relation specialists, the article provides a suite of conditions and practical strategies that may influence the cooperative nature of bargaining within their respective organization.

This case study paper provides a conceptual framework for both scholars and practitioners to deconstruct and analyze inter‐organizational dynamics within a collective bargaining process.

The purpose of this article is to explore the interrelationship between workplace stress, coping and resiliency and their influence on employee health and productivity.

This general review includes an examination of selected theoretical models within the areas of stress, coping and resiliency. In addition, a conceptual framework is presented which emphasizes the role that personality characteristics and coping strategies play in impacting employees' overall health and productivity within the workplace.

Through this general review, there is a recognition of the importance of both personality characteristics and coping strategies and their associated influence on employee health and productivity – specifically within Civil Service work settings.

Managers, executives and human resource management practitioners are presented with proposed strategies as a means of examining coping, resiliency and workplace stress within Civil Service work environments.

This article offers readers further insights into understanding why some employees are more or less resilient, given the same stressful situation. In today's Civil Service work environment, continually shifting performance expectations and media/public scrutiny are just two of the features common to working for government agencies. Therefore, the issue of understanding and building resilient Civil Service workforces that are able to handle the multitude of unique demands and constraints placed on them seems not only intriguing, but necessary.