Search results

The 1990's see the managerial woman in a transition phase in her quest for equality in employment. As Still (1993) suggests, a tension associated with this transition is that of conquering traditional and enduring organisational and attitudinal barriers while responding to new employment opportunities as organisations re‐vision in response to global socio‐political and economic change.

Presents a report of research which surveyed managers’ views on stress, their beliefs about stress interventions and who should be responsible for addressing job‐related stress problems. Stress management interventions have embedded in them a range of practices that offer opportunities for individual development and employee wellbeing. Equally, though, there is a strongly‐held belief that many interventions fall short, because they offer only a partial solution or fail to recognize the wider contextual‐structural issues within which organisational behaviour takes place. One reason for this may be that little attempt has been made to find out what managers understand by stress and the extent to which they think that their organisation has a responsibility to address problems of stress. Both qualitative and quantitative techniques were used to explore these issues, using a sample of 540 New Zealand managers. The results draw attention to a number of issues including: do managers’ views of stress reflect acknowledged definitions? Who should assume responsibility for managing stress? What do managers mean when they indicate that an intervention is effective? Are stress interventions any different from standard human resource practices and is there a role for theory in stress interventions?

This research aims to explore perceptions and practices in the area of valuing human resources. It focuses on the importance of valuing human resources, current measurement practices, barriers to measurement and the progress expected in this field.

This research uses a survey questionnaire design to identify and describe perceptions and practices in valuing human resources in three types of UK organizations: traditional companies; knowledge intensive companies; and local authorities.

While the majority of respondents regarded the measurement of human resources as important to their organization, little or moderate progress was expected in measurement practices over the next few years. The main reasons for this included a lack of organizational support, uncertainties as to what should be reported, lack of precision in current measurement practices and sensitivities around what should be reported.

A limitation was in identifying who in the organization should receive such a questionnaire in order to improve the response rate.

Organizations need to be made more aware of the benefits and strategic importance of measuring human resources particularly in an era of resource‐based strategies – competing through people.

The paper highlights that by reporting the data descriptively it can be used as a context for considering what issues need to be resolved and what barriers need to be overcome to take measurement beyond just recognizing its importance.

Recently a more cynical attitude to workplace stress reduction programmes has been emerging. If these programmes are accepted as beneficial then what has gone wrong? Attempts to answer this question and to search for reasons why stress intervention programmes have failed to realize their potential. Identifies a number of possible stumbling blocks including issues of power, ethics, theory, methodology, philosophy and skill practice. Out of the discussion come a number of directions for future practice.

THERE has recently sprung up a great interest in antiques, probably due to Arthur Negus and his TV and broadcast programmes, and perhaps it is this which has made county librarians also, think about their past and their beginnings. Gloucestershire was the first to become aware of the fact that its library was fifty years old, and that a genuine antique, in the shape of its first librarian, still existed and could be questioned about the early days. So in December, 1967, the Gloucestershire Library Committee staged a most successful 50th birthday party, and invited me to cut the birthday cake, on which were 50 candles! And a very great occasion it was.