Bringing Rights of Older Persons to the Real World: Lessons Learned From a Rights-Based Training

When gerontological education and training are grounded in a rights-based approach, this framing provides a tool to ensure the rights of older people are advocated for and experienced. A “train the trainer” program was given to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) providing services to refugees in Jordan. The goal of the training was to educate NGOs on how to use a rights-based approach when responding to and supporting older refugees. The training covered a range of topics in ensuring the rights of older people in the provision of care, protection, and inclusion. Training outcomes revealed an increased awareness of the rights of older people. Skills and knowledge gained as a result of this training empowered participants to further develop their own work, within their cultural context, to reflect a rights-based approach to services and programs.

Leading Remotely in a Time of Crisis: Relationships with Emotional Intelligence

Leaders around the world have been thrust into leading remotely, using virtual platforms and other various technologies to communicate and stay engaged with their employees and teams during this current extraordinary global crisis. Previous research supports that leaders share concerns around trust, communication, engagement, and support when leading remotely. Prior research also identifies “people skills” as essential in overcoming these concerns. We propose that emotional intelligence is essential in leading remotely during crisis situations. Thus, the current study explores the relationships between the construct of emotional intelligence and the emotional intelligence composites of self-perception, self-expression, interpersonal relationships, decision-making, and stress management with leader concerns when leading remotely during a time of crisis.

A systematic review of e-tail product returns and an agenda for future research

PurposeThis study conducts a systematic literature review of e-tail product returns research. E-tail product returns are essentially acquisition of products that have been sold through purely online or brick-and-click channels and then returned by consumer to business.Design/methodology/approachUsing a systematic literature review protocol, we identified 75 peer-reviewed articles on e-tail product returns, conducted bibliometric analysis and content analysis of the articles and summarised our findings.FindingsThe findings reveal that the subject of e-tail returns is a new research area; academics have started to investigate several aspects of e-tail returns through different research methodologies and theoretical foundations. Further research is required in leading e-commerce countries and on key areas such as omni-channel returns management, customer satisfaction and service, the impact of resources such as people skills, the benefits of technology and IT systems in managing e-tail returns.Practical implicationsThe study offers a summative account of current e-tail knowledge areas, which can serve as a reference guide for e-tailers to develop strategies for more efficient and competitive product returns.Originality/valueThis study contributes theoretically by developing clusters of key themes or knowledge areas about e-tail returns. It also provides a conceptual framework for e-tail returns management, which can be used as a springboard for further empirical research.

Renewed talent management: more productive development teams with digitalization supported HR tools

In most companies and organizations, performance is related to talent management and skills to analyze what and why people are working on. However, many companies do fail to implement a long-term strategy for the performance enhancement activities, considering the talents they have recruited. In this article, we propose a tool for HR work, in context of talent management and how to utilize people skills and productivity analytics to improve team performance and related KPIs. A project data-based case study is illustrated, in which a set of devel-oper and content marketers were analyzed as core team members. In practice, the presented framework makes an important contribution to decision-making activities, where people analytics and proper software tools are used to build new novel knowledge into talent pool of the team. With the framework-based analysis, it is possible to analytically compare team members’ performance and enhance the team’s skill and structural development which means that we can employ analytics to find best performers and set their roles for more optimally working teams. Our research supports the concept of using the right framework can make a big positive difference in team analytics.

Explorando habilidades requeridas para la industria 4.0: Un enfoque orientado al trabajador

Tecnologías emergentes están dando forma al mundo del trabajo, creando así una industria cada vez más digital, también conocida como "Industria 4.0". Por tanto, examinar el requirimiento de habilidades se vuelve esencial para facilitar la adaptación organizacional a esta revolución tecnológica. El objetivo de este estudio fue explorar la percepción de las habilidades requeridas por los trabajadores de una empresa manufacturera altamente tecnológica. En el Estudio 1 (n = 671), se realizó un análisis factorial exploratorio para identificar grupos relevantes de habilidades. Un año después, en el Estudio 2 (n = 176), confirmamos la estructural factorial a través de un análisis factorial confirmatorio y realizamos un análisis de curva de crecimiento latente para examinar posibles cambios en las habilidades requeridas debido al confinamiento y el trabajo remoto forzado durante la pandemia del COVID-19. Los resultados mostraron que las habilidades cognitivas, funcionales del negocio, estratégicas y de gestión de personas se consideran recursos importantes para la industria 4.0, siendo las habilidades funcionales del negocio más relevantes en el tiempo 2. Además, identificamos diferencias entre gerentes y subordinados con respecto a tales habilidades. Discutimos las implicaciones teóricas y prácticas para el desarrollo de habilidades en la era digital. Emerging technologies are shaping the world of work, thus creating an increasingly digital industry, also known as “Industry 4.0”. Thus, examining skill requirements becomes essential to facilitate organizational adaptation to this technological revolution. The aim of this study was to explore the perception of skill requirements of workers of a highly technological manufacturing company. In Study 1 (n = 671), an exploratory factor analysis was carried out to identify relevant groups of skills. A year later, in Study 2 (n = 176), we confirmed the factor structure through a confirmatory factor analysis and we conducted a latent growth curve analysis to examine potential changes of the previous skill requirements due to the lockdown and the forced remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings showed that cognitive, functional business, strategic and managing people skills are considered as important resources for the industry 4.0, being the functional business skills increasingly relevant in time 2. Moreover, we identified differences between managers and subordinates regarding such skills. We discuss theoretical and practical implications for skills development in the digital age.

Effects of the Peace Education Program on the Social and Emotional Behaviour for Pre-School in the Sultanate of Oman

The education of peace has become a prominent pre-requisite for societies to survive in this competitive globalised system. As a result of the tremendous technological development, especially in communications and the intermingling of interests among members of societies, and the codification of many issues of common concern among nations, it is very necessary to set foundations for peaceful co-existence among human beings. Johnson and Johnson, stated that students should be equipped with core values such as respect for the efforts and ideas of others, an inclusive relationship with people, skills for compassion and peaceful conflict resolution. Furthermore, the present chapter provided a study of peace education program (PEP) for pre-school children aged (4–6) years in Oman. Where the program contains (28) training sessions are offered within (15) weeks at the rate of one hour per session. The researcher used a scale of two images, the behaviour of the children was measured before and after the experiment, where the researcher adopted the quasi experimental method, the sample consisted of (40) children in the experimental group and (40) children in the control group. In addition, the results of the study were in favour of the experimental group, where an improvement in their behaviour was observed after being enrolled in the program.

High Impact Educational Practice through First Year Experience: Case of Undergraduates in UNIMAS

A compulsory course known as Soft skills and Basic Volunteerism offered at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) adopted the High Impact Educational Practices (HEIPs) through First Year Experience. This course aims at imparting soft skills among all students in UNIMAS, taken in their first semester of their program. The main course learning outcomes are to develop personal and social skills, academic skills, and conduct volunteerism activities. The course learning units were designed to assist students adapting smoothly to the new university environment while improving academic and people skills. A survey to gauge students’ perception about their learning skills was conducted before the course began and another survey was conducted after the course ended. In the assessment, the students reported group activities relating to meeting faculty members and academic advisors as reflections in e-portfolio platforms. In terms of personal gain, the majority admitted to increased self- confidence to communicate in English as a result of participating in public speaking, presentations and a variety of volunteering projects. Suggestions for future include out campus activities, use of high technology digital training materials and diversification of assessment reflective of the complete soft skills course.

Leadership Challenges in Agile Environments

Several companies in the information technology field are progressively adopting Agile methodologies. This change necessarily transforms the management paradigm and poses new challenges to the leadership process. In this sense, this study seeks to explore the challenges perceived by leaders and perceive the competencies they should have to manage projects and teams in an Agile environment. The study used a survey to obtain data from 387 professionals in the information technology sector. The findings reveal the most important skills include the ability to have people skills, team management competencies, provide feedback on employee performance, and have problem-solving skills. Additionally, this study reveals people's management dimension is key to increasing productivity in Agile environments, and furthermore, respondents' years of experience proved to be discriminating in perceiving the importance of these skills. The outcomes of this study are relevant for companies that are migrating to the agile paradigm and are facing challenges in managing the leadership of these projects.