Employee Well-Being Becomes Top Priority

With the increasing complexity of corporate culture where we talk about equality and diversity, it becomes imperative that we care for employee well-being in an organization. Employees are the most important asset for a company and their well-being eventually brings profit for the organization. This study is to analyse the factors responsible for measuring the employee well-being and how it is related to company performance. Research would also emphasize different practices in corporate world impacting employee morale and in turn well-being. The study will also include the retention programs and their benefit for overall growth and development of human resources. Workplace culture has also been studied here to determine its impact on long-term development of employees working in different organizations.

Workplace email communication in New Zealand and Malaysia: Three case studies

<p>This thesis is an analysis of authentic communication between professionals at work in three workplaces (Company NZ1, NZ2 and M). The research involves a contrastive study of internal emails in two different countries (New Zealand and Malaysia) with very distinct cultures. In addition to the email corpus comprising 1745 emails, the analysis is supported by data collected using a mixed-methods approach: fieldwork observations, a questionnaire and interviews. The analysis suggests that workplace culture influences people’s linguistic and non-linguistic behaviours. A Community of Practice (CofP) approach provided insights into characteristics of workplace culture such as the participants' behaviours, language, values and beliefs. This approach also facilitated analysis of how these behaviours were negotiated among the staff members, and how practices were established to signify membership of communities of practice. Using an adapted version of Speech Act Theory, the email messages were coded initially for their main communicative function. The next layer of analysis involved exploring the interpersonal and power dimensions of the communicative function of making requests. To this end, Spencer-Oatey's Rapport Theory was applied as the primary theoretical framework and Halliday's three metafunctions were also used to interpret the emails. The analysis indicated that all three workplaces use email for the same communicative functions, but the proportions of usage differed. In the New Zealand workplaces, providing information is the predominant function, followed by making requests. By contrast, making requests dominates the use of email in the Malaysian workplace. The analysis demonstrates that rapport is managed differently in the three communities of practice. The greater use of informal greetings and closings and various linguistic strategies such as modalised interrogatives and mitigating devices in one New Zealand workplace suggests that participants are attending to rapport, and that they are aware of the importance of maintaining harmonious collegial relationships when making requests of their work colleagues. On the other hand, a greater use of formal greetings and closings, bare imperatives and boosting devices in the Malaysian workplace suggests the converse. Furthermore, the analysis indicates that rapport is managed quite differently even when participants are from the same country (New Zealand) which practises an egalitarian culture. The analysis also demonstrates how superiors and subordinates 'do' power and construct authority through the use of various linguistic strategies, such as imperative mood, use of the personal pronoun ‘I’, and boosting devices. The greater use of these linguistic strategies in the other New Zealand workplace and the Malaysian workplace suggests that more importance was placed on getting the job done than on maintaining rapport. In addition, the analysis identifies different attitudes towards the manifestation of power. In New Zealand where egalitarianism is highly valued, an overt display of power could damage work relationships. By contrast, in Malaysia, inequality in power is accepted as normal. People do not question superiors' authority, rights and entitlement to privileges. Recognising such culturally different values proved important in interpreting the data. To conclude, this research illustrates how the use of a rapport management framework can provide new insights in relation to online workplace communication. Email not only 'does' power and performs transactional work, it also accomplishes relational work. Furthermore, the CofP approach provides insights concerning how each workplace establishes different linguistic and non-linguistic practices which form the basis of a distinct workplace culture. Finally, the analysis makes a contribution to the field of email communication from a cross-cultural perspective.</p>

Workplace email communication in New Zealand and Malaysia: Three case studies

<p>This thesis is an analysis of authentic communication between professionals at work in three workplaces (Company NZ1, NZ2 and M). The research involves a contrastive study of internal emails in two different countries (New Zealand and Malaysia) with very distinct cultures. In addition to the email corpus comprising 1745 emails, the analysis is supported by data collected using a mixed-methods approach: fieldwork observations, a questionnaire and interviews. The analysis suggests that workplace culture influences people’s linguistic and non-linguistic behaviours. A Community of Practice (CofP) approach provided insights into characteristics of workplace culture such as the participants' behaviours, language, values and beliefs. This approach also facilitated analysis of how these behaviours were negotiated among the staff members, and how practices were established to signify membership of communities of practice. Using an adapted version of Speech Act Theory, the email messages were coded initially for their main communicative function. The next layer of analysis involved exploring the interpersonal and power dimensions of the communicative function of making requests. To this end, Spencer-Oatey's Rapport Theory was applied as the primary theoretical framework and Halliday's three metafunctions were also used to interpret the emails. The analysis indicated that all three workplaces use email for the same communicative functions, but the proportions of usage differed. In the New Zealand workplaces, providing information is the predominant function, followed by making requests. By contrast, making requests dominates the use of email in the Malaysian workplace. The analysis demonstrates that rapport is managed differently in the three communities of practice. The greater use of informal greetings and closings and various linguistic strategies such as modalised interrogatives and mitigating devices in one New Zealand workplace suggests that participants are attending to rapport, and that they are aware of the importance of maintaining harmonious collegial relationships when making requests of their work colleagues. On the other hand, a greater use of formal greetings and closings, bare imperatives and boosting devices in the Malaysian workplace suggests the converse. Furthermore, the analysis indicates that rapport is managed quite differently even when participants are from the same country (New Zealand) which practises an egalitarian culture. The analysis also demonstrates how superiors and subordinates 'do' power and construct authority through the use of various linguistic strategies, such as imperative mood, use of the personal pronoun ‘I’, and boosting devices. The greater use of these linguistic strategies in the other New Zealand workplace and the Malaysian workplace suggests that more importance was placed on getting the job done than on maintaining rapport. In addition, the analysis identifies different attitudes towards the manifestation of power. In New Zealand where egalitarianism is highly valued, an overt display of power could damage work relationships. By contrast, in Malaysia, inequality in power is accepted as normal. People do not question superiors' authority, rights and entitlement to privileges. Recognising such culturally different values proved important in interpreting the data. To conclude, this research illustrates how the use of a rapport management framework can provide new insights in relation to online workplace communication. Email not only 'does' power and performs transactional work, it also accomplishes relational work. Furthermore, the CofP approach provides insights concerning how each workplace establishes different linguistic and non-linguistic practices which form the basis of a distinct workplace culture. Finally, the analysis makes a contribution to the field of email communication from a cross-cultural perspective.</p>

Evaluating Safe Patient Handling Systems: Is There a Better Way?

<p>The literature presented here shows that injuries suffered by staff and patients due to patient handling are preventable but patient handling injuries to health care workers and patients remain a costly problem to health care organizations in many countries. "No Lifting" patient handling policies have been adopted yet health care organizations currently sit amongst the top three worst performing industries in terms of disabling injuries to their employees. A factor that contributes to this situation is the lack of tools for evaluating patient handling systems including workplace culture and climate. This observational study analyzes the responses of 38 nurses from two similar units that use different patient handling systems to test the reliability and validity of the Safe Patient Handling Survey (TM) SPH Survey(TM), a perception survey and improvement tool for employees and employers. The survey contains 55 questions divided into 6 clusters, staff and patient injury and violence questions, and picture questions depicting unsafe techniques. The data were analyzed to see how the SPH Survey(TM) scores correlate with incidents, and its ability to detect differences between the two units. The results of the Pearson and Cronbach(TM) alpha tests show strong reliability, validity and consistency of the SPH Survey(TM). ANOVA comparison of means and Spearman(TM) rho tests shows that higher (better) scores on the SPH Survey(TM) clusters correlate with lower numbers of patient injuries, lower reports of verbal and physical violence episodes, and lower staff injuries. Differences were detected between the units with Unit 2 scoring higher than Unit 1 in all SPH Survey(TM) clusters and scoring lower in staff and patient injuries and violence incidents. Although the analysis was limited by the small sample size, the study has created a sound basis for further investigation. Health care organizations, unions, government bodies, insurers, educational institutions, and researchers must continue to reduce patient handling risk for both health care workers and for patients. The SPH Survey(TM) is shown to be an easy way to reliably evaluate patient handling systems and workplace culture, target improvement initiatives, and continually monitor the level of patient handling risk in the workplace. Low-risk patient handling gives health care providers the means to focus on delivering high quality patient care, without endangering their own health and well-being.</p>

Evaluating Safe Patient Handling Systems: Is There a Better Way?

<p>The literature presented here shows that injuries suffered by staff and patients due to patient handling are preventable but patient handling injuries to health care workers and patients remain a costly problem to health care organizations in many countries. "No Lifting" patient handling policies have been adopted yet health care organizations currently sit amongst the top three worst performing industries in terms of disabling injuries to their employees. A factor that contributes to this situation is the lack of tools for evaluating patient handling systems including workplace culture and climate. This observational study analyzes the responses of 38 nurses from two similar units that use different patient handling systems to test the reliability and validity of the Safe Patient Handling Survey (TM) SPH Survey(TM), a perception survey and improvement tool for employees and employers. The survey contains 55 questions divided into 6 clusters, staff and patient injury and violence questions, and picture questions depicting unsafe techniques. The data were analyzed to see how the SPH Survey(TM) scores correlate with incidents, and its ability to detect differences between the two units. The results of the Pearson and Cronbach(TM) alpha tests show strong reliability, validity and consistency of the SPH Survey(TM). ANOVA comparison of means and Spearman(TM) rho tests shows that higher (better) scores on the SPH Survey(TM) clusters correlate with lower numbers of patient injuries, lower reports of verbal and physical violence episodes, and lower staff injuries. Differences were detected between the units with Unit 2 scoring higher than Unit 1 in all SPH Survey(TM) clusters and scoring lower in staff and patient injuries and violence incidents. Although the analysis was limited by the small sample size, the study has created a sound basis for further investigation. Health care organizations, unions, government bodies, insurers, educational institutions, and researchers must continue to reduce patient handling risk for both health care workers and for patients. The SPH Survey(TM) is shown to be an easy way to reliably evaluate patient handling systems and workplace culture, target improvement initiatives, and continually monitor the level of patient handling risk in the workplace. Low-risk patient handling gives health care providers the means to focus on delivering high quality patient care, without endangering their own health and well-being.</p>

The Role, Status and Style of Workplace Email: a Study of Two New Zealand Workplaces

<p>This thesis discusses ethnographic research carried out in two very different workplaces, one a manufacturing plant, the other an educational organisation, to explore the relationship between the organisational or workplace culture and the role, status and style of email. The research was concerned with looking at the specific functions of email alongside other means of communicating at work and how it was perceived by its users and receivers compared to these other means of communication. It also investigated when and why email was the preferred medium of workplace communication and some of its distinctive stylistic features. In addition to relating these latter to the workplace culture, the effect on email style of sociolinguistic variables was also explored. Pragmatic theories provided the framework for analysing the data which was interpreted from a social interactionist, social constructionist perspective. A combined corpora of 515 email messages provided the primary linguistic data. This was supplemented by quantitative survey data and qualitative data from observations, two diaries of reflective practice, interviews, and recordings of four people's communicative interactions over one workday. The messages were coded initially for communicative function and then, in order to explore the affective aspect of email communication, for mitigational and boosting elements. In addition to the above, a qualitative analysis of a thread of email messages was undertaken to demonstrate how email communication is used in knowledge creation. The study found that there was little difference between the two organisations in the communicative functions for which email is used. In both, the transmission and seeking of information is its predominant use followed by the making of requests. However, the two workplaces differed considerably in the use made of email which is shown to be essentially a whitecollar mode of communication. But even in the educational organisation where email is used extensively, face-to-face remains the preferred form of communication and dominates communication time. The type of organisation also seems to affect the way in which email messages are written. Email messages from the manufacturing plant displayed more features of solidarity than those from the educational organisation. There was a much higher use of greetings in these messages and more direct language forms. The messages were also longer. There was also a difference between the two workplaces in male and female style. Women in the educational organisation wrote longer messages and used more affective features in their emails than their male counterparts. The converse was true in the manufacturing plant. Stylistically, email directives were seen, in general, to lie midway between the mainly direct forms of spoken communication and the mainly indirect forms of other types of written communication. The study also found that as part of its communicative functions, email plays an important role in organisational knowledge creation, and that in addition to being a useful communication tool assisting in the functional work of an organisation, it does considerable relational work. This has implications for the way in which email messages are written.</p>

The Role, Status and Style of Workplace Email: a Study of Two New Zealand Workplaces

<p>This thesis discusses ethnographic research carried out in two very different workplaces, one a manufacturing plant, the other an educational organisation, to explore the relationship between the organisational or workplace culture and the role, status and style of email. The research was concerned with looking at the specific functions of email alongside other means of communicating at work and how it was perceived by its users and receivers compared to these other means of communication. It also investigated when and why email was the preferred medium of workplace communication and some of its distinctive stylistic features. In addition to relating these latter to the workplace culture, the effect on email style of sociolinguistic variables was also explored. Pragmatic theories provided the framework for analysing the data which was interpreted from a social interactionist, social constructionist perspective. A combined corpora of 515 email messages provided the primary linguistic data. This was supplemented by quantitative survey data and qualitative data from observations, two diaries of reflective practice, interviews, and recordings of four people's communicative interactions over one workday. The messages were coded initially for communicative function and then, in order to explore the affective aspect of email communication, for mitigational and boosting elements. In addition to the above, a qualitative analysis of a thread of email messages was undertaken to demonstrate how email communication is used in knowledge creation. The study found that there was little difference between the two organisations in the communicative functions for which email is used. In both, the transmission and seeking of information is its predominant use followed by the making of requests. However, the two workplaces differed considerably in the use made of email which is shown to be essentially a whitecollar mode of communication. But even in the educational organisation where email is used extensively, face-to-face remains the preferred form of communication and dominates communication time. The type of organisation also seems to affect the way in which email messages are written. Email messages from the manufacturing plant displayed more features of solidarity than those from the educational organisation. There was a much higher use of greetings in these messages and more direct language forms. The messages were also longer. There was also a difference between the two workplaces in male and female style. Women in the educational organisation wrote longer messages and used more affective features in their emails than their male counterparts. The converse was true in the manufacturing plant. Stylistically, email directives were seen, in general, to lie midway between the mainly direct forms of spoken communication and the mainly indirect forms of other types of written communication. The study also found that as part of its communicative functions, email plays an important role in organisational knowledge creation, and that in addition to being a useful communication tool assisting in the functional work of an organisation, it does considerable relational work. This has implications for the way in which email messages are written.</p>