Legitimizing Workforce Reduction: A Review on Impact of COVID-19 Outbreak to the Economy

COVID-19 outbreak continues to impact business organizations around the world financially. One major concern is the common practice of business organizations to reduce their workforce. Issues might arise from such management decisions. The purpose of this conceptual paper is to analyze the legitimacy of managerial decisions relating to workforce reduction. The methodology of legal analysis was used by referring to and reviewing literature in Malaysia, Singapore and the United Kingdom. Major findings show that management decisions on workforce reduction especially during the COVID-19 outbreak must accord with employment law and existing government measures. Apart from that, an employer's failure to resolve issues of workforce reduction according to the law and government measures would result in trade disputes and eventual court action. The findings of this study can assist employers to make sound management decisions with valid reasons in situations, not within their control.

Well-being and career change intention: COVID-19’s impact on unemployed and furloughed hospitality workers

Purpose This study aims to examine the psychological distress experienced by unemployed and furloughed hospitality workers during the COVID-19 crisis and further investigate how this distress affects their career change intentions. Design/methodology/approach Derived from a sample of 607 unemployed and furloughed hospitality workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, the data for this research are analyzed using structural equation modeling. Findings This study reveals that unemployed and furloughed hospitality workers are financially strained, depressed, socially isolated and panic-stricken due to the pandemic’s effects. These effects lead to impaired well-being and an increased intention to leave the hospitality industry. Female and younger employees are impacted to a greater extent, while furloughed workers received fewer impacts compared to their laid-off compatriots. Research limitations/implications This study suggests that lockdown restrictions need to be implemented more deliberately, and the psychological well-being of the hospitality workforce deserves more immediate and continuing attention. It advises that hospitality businesses consider furloughs over layoffs when workforce reduction measures are necessary to combat the financial crisis. Originality/value This study adds to the current literature by examining the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic from the employee perspective. New insights are offered on the psychological toll of workforce reduction strategies during the financial fallout and how these distressing experiences affect career change intention.

Corporate liquidity, supply chain and cost issues awareness within the Covid-19 context: evidence from us management reports’ textual analysis

Purpose The purpose of this study is to assess the management responses and intentions of 3,279 US firms from all industries, before and after the coronavirus outbreak, to identify the level of managerial concern about specific financial issues and potential economic costs of the COVID-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses textual analysis of official management reports to search for specific single words in five domains related to corporate finance and governance. This paper focuses on the relative frequency of single words using a weighting scheme that adjusts for document length and for the inverse document frequency. This paper then uses t-tests to investigate the univariate differences across groups of reports before and after the US stock market crash in February 2020. Findings The applied textual and empirical analysis provides evidence that firms’ primary concerns relate to the disruption in supply chains, liquidity need and coronavirus-led recession. This paper also shows that the main cost reduction measure they are considering is salary reduction, rather than workforce reduction. This paper also shows evidence that firm managers are rather swift to provide coronavirus-related information in the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) corporate filings. Practical implications The findings provide a primary view of the directions, on which US firms will move in the near future, and thus, they can be used as tools for the formulation of appropriate government policies in the corresponding sectors, which could mitigate the economic risks related to the pandemic. At the business level, the disseminated knowledge can assist firms either in the same sector or in similar/related sectors to “locate” themselves within the map of the pandemic and to adjust or align correspondingly their strategies and decisions as they will have a view of the bigger picture. Originality/value The empirical analysis divulges US firms’ management primary concerns after the COVID-19 outbreak, and thus, offers insights to the processes taking place in the US business community and the formulating new corporate and economic reality.

Robotic milking of dairy cows: a review

Automatic milking systems (AMS) have aroused worldwide interest recently. The first installation was by the company Lely in a project in the Netherlands (its homeland) in 1992. But nowadays, AMS represents a growing reality due to lobby for labor issues, rising costs, difficulty finding well-trained workers, and/ or difficulty keeping people on farms. This work aimed to present a review of the literature on AMS, beginning with a brief history of the evolution of the technology, showing advantages and limitations of its use, and ultimately giving some suggestions. The understanding of the technical functioning and operational running can help farmers and technicians in decision making on the adoption of the new technology. Besides workforce reduction and labor quality promotion, AMS has potential to improve feed conversion to milk, milk quality (with lower SCC), and cow productivity, as well as providing useful data and parameters for better farm management. Potential limitations include high investment costs, changes in milk composition (solids, free fatty acids), and increased risk of ketosis in cows.

The Workforce and its Costs – Constraints of Agricultural Development in Bosnia and Herzegovina

The subject of the research was workforce, its availability and price, and its importance for agriculture development in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). The aim was to determine whether the workforce remains to be a comparative advantage or has become a limitation on agricultural development in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The introduction to the selected subject of research was done on the basis of a literature review, followed by an authors’ own survey based on a randomly selected sample of farms. The results confirmed that it is increasingly difficult to find workers for seasonal works in agriculture in Bosnia and Herzegovina and that farms rely primarily on the workforce within families, relatives and friends. The price of labour in agriculture is rising, but it is still lower than in other sectors and abroad, which is the reason why workers are leaving agriculture. Bosnia and Herzegovina compared to three years ago, it is harder for Bosnia and Herzegovina farms to find additional workforce and they pay it more. The future agricultural policy in Bosnia and Herzegovina should seriously count on family farms and their modernization in terms of creating conditions for workforce reduction and substitution.

Assessing the awareness and readiness of the Malaysian furniture industry for Industry 4.0

The lack of knowledgeable and skilled workers is a major challenge faced by the Malaysian furniture sector. It hinders industrial productivity and its ability to move up the value-chain by adopting high technology. Therefore, in order to assess the awareness and readiness of the Malaysian furniture industry for Industry 4.0, a questionnaire-based survey was conducted with a sample of 778 large-, medium-, and small-sized furniture manufacturers throughout Malaysia. This study is part of an on-going Erasmus+ program funded by the European Commission, initiated in 2018 to develop a university-level education program to train workers capable of handling Industry 4.0 technologies for the furniture and wood industry in Malaysia. The results revealed that manufacturers of wood-based panel and metal furniture were more prepared to adopt automation and Industry 4.0 technologies compared to solid-wood and leather furniture manufacturers. The benefits from Industry 4.0 technologies include increased production capacity, product diversity, cost competitiveness, and workforce reduction. Further, the results of this study suggest that the lack of knowledgeable and skilled workers to handle Industry 4.0 technology is a concern among furniture manufacturers, and possibly the proposed university-level Industry 4.0 program may be beneficial to train workers for the future of the industry.

Cost Saving in Operational Mechanization Projects on Organizational Performance of Tea Firms

Cost reduction strategies assist firms to gain competitive advantages over other firms in the same industry. The introduction of mechanization in the tea industry has come with a shortfall of workforce reduction and the replacement of workers with machines. One of the important questions brought about by this is does mechanization benefit tea firms through cost reduction? Do the benefits outweigh the costs? This article investigates the effect of the accrued cost savings on organization performance. Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was used to support the concept of technology utilization in production. The descriptive and causal research design was adopted. A sample size of 101 respondents was selected from a target population of 135 respondents using stratified sampling technique from within Multinational Tea Companies in Kericho, Kenya. Data was analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. This study concludes that using tea-harvesting machines saves costs, which directly affects organizational performance. This study also concludes that tea-harvesting machines might affect production flexibility, which in turn influences organizational performance. There is a need to put in place policies that will enhance the use of tea harvesting machines to save operation costs. This will affect organizations’ performance positively.

EFFICIENCY AND PRODUCTIVITY ANALYSIS OF UNIVERSAL SERVICE OBLIGATION: A CASE OF 29 DESIGNATED OPERATORS IN THE EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

The main aim of this paper is to perform efficiency and productivity analysis of Universal Service Obligation (USO) based on the Malmquist Productivity Indices (MPI) analysis. The study focuses on 29 Designated Operators (DOs) and two isolated periods, the years 2003 and 2017. There is a clear trend of workforce reduction (12%). Considering the postal services, the data confirm a general trend that the letter-post is in decline (30%) and the parcels are on the rise (52%). Considering the financial results, both costs and revenues are increased; however, there is a higher increase of revenue (33.13%) compared to the cost (32.61%). Further, the results of implemented methodology are twofold. Firstly, a progress is determined at the average level of all observed DOs according to the efficiency and productivity indicators. Among other, the results indicate the increase of productivity for both input MPI (3.5%) and output MPI (8%). However, there are significant variations of efficiency and productivity at the individual level. Secondly, the aim of research was also to examine the sources of productivity changes by considering postal market liberalization, ownership, marketing services and e-commerce. Our findings show that the last three specified variables contribute to the explanation of productivity change.

Early retirement incentive programs as a human resources restructuring strategy in public sector

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the conceptual framework about human resources downsizing and restructuring and how organizations of the public sector can do that effectively and efficiently. These facts drive to the conclusion that the implementation of early retirement incentives requires the most elaborate planning and execution to be effective, predictable and safe in the long term. Design/methodology/approach This paper adopts an analytical, descriptive methodology approach to describe the basic features of the data by using the descriptive research design. Data have been collected through different sources, which include secondary data, to introduce the theoretical literature of the subject as books, journals, articles, published working papers and referred previous studies related to the same subject. Findings Downsizing process is a deliberate administrative process that includes, but is not limited to, workforce reduction and is primarily aimed at achieving efficiency in public organizations. The definition of workforce downsizing may be narrowed to reducing the number of workers, or more likely to refer to general efforts to restructuring human resources in public organizations, Early Retirement Incentive Programs (ERIP) represents a viable alternative for organizations seeking to reduce staff. For the ERIP to be successful, the program coordinator must understand the business objectives and goals that the organization is trying to obtain. Originality/value Human resources strategies concerning downsizing public administration workforce should be more appropriate to those who leave the organization and those who stay at work, reducing the negative psychological, administrative and economical effects. This could be achieved through a strategy called early retirement incentive programs.