Current Issue : January - March Volume : 2012 Issue Number : 1 Articles : 6 Articles
Long term illness has far reaching impacts on individuals, and also places a large burden upon government. This paper quantifies the indirect economic impacts of illness related early retirement on individuals and government in Australia in 2009.\nThe output data from a microsimulation model, Health&WealthMOD;, was analysed. Health&WealthMOD; is representative of the 45 to 64 year old Australian population in 2009. The average weekly total income, total government support payments, and total taxation revenue paid, for individuals who are employment full-time, employed part-time and not in the labour force due to ill health was quantified.\nIt was found that persons out of the labour force due to illness had significantly lower incomes ($218 per week as opposed to $1167 per week for those employed full-time), received significantly higher transfer payments, and paid significantly less tax than those employed full-time or part-time. This results in an annual national loss of income of over $17 billion, an annual national increase of $1.5 billion in spending on government support payments, and an annual loss of $2.1 billion in taxation revenue.\nIllness related early retirement has significant economic impacts on both the individual and on governments as a result of lost income, lost taxation revenue and increased government support payments. This paper has quantified the extent of these impacts for Australia....
The article is an attempt to analyze the concept of employer branding and apply the concept to selected companies in United Arab Emirates (UAE). The concept of employer branding is drawn upon pre-existing theories, models, and practices across fields of marketing, human resource management and organizational behaviour. Various literature from marketing, organisational behaviour and human resource management were analysed to built the conceptual framework then three companies were selected to illustrate adoption of employer branding in United Arab Emirates. The research method used in the research paper is content analysis. The analysis shows that employers in the region do engage in employer branding initiatives....
There is a serious human resource crisis in the health sector in developing countries, particularly in Africa. One of the challenges is the low motivation of health workers.\nExperience and the evidence suggest that any comprehensive strategy to maximize health worker motivation in a developing country context has to involve a mix of financial and non-financial incentives. This study assesses the role of non-financial incentives for motivation in two cases, in Benin and Kenya.\nThe study design entailed semi-structured qualitative interviews with doctors and nurses from public, private and NGO facilities in rural areas. The selection of health professionals was the result of a layered sampling process. In Benin 62 interviews with health professionals were carried out; in Kenya 37 were obtained. Results from individual interviews were backed up with information from focus group discussions. For further contextual information, interviews with civil servants in the Ministry of Health and at the district level were carried out. The interview material was coded and quantitative data was analysed with SPSS software.\nThe study shows that health workers overall are strongly guided by their professional conscience and similar aspects related to professional ethos. In fact, many health workers are demotivated and frustrated precisely because they are unable to satisfy their professional conscience and impeded in pursuing their vocation due to lack of means and supplies and due to inadequate or inappropriately applied human resources management (HRM) tools. The paper also indicates that even some HRM tools that are applied may adversely affect the motivation of health workers.\nThe findings confirm the starting hypothesis that non-financial incentives and HRM tools play an important role with respect to increasing motivation of health professionals. Adequate HRM tools can uphold and strengthen the professional ethos of doctors and nurses. This entails acknowledging their professionalism and addressing professional goals such as recognition, career development and further qualification. It must be the aim of human resources management/quality management (HRM/QM) to develop the work environment so that health workers are enabled to meet their personal and the organizational goals....
This article focuses on how South African organisations manage their employees� wellness through their Employee Wellness Programmes (EWPs).\r\nThe objective of this research is to describe employee wellness in South Africa by investigating the types, foci and perceived success of EWPs.\r\nDespite the growing awareness of the importance of EWPs in South Africa, the nature, content, context, participants, role-players and anticipated benefits as well as the possible drawbacks of these programmes in the South African context are unclear.\r\nThe researchers used a cross-sectional design. The first author developed the Employee Wellness Survey, consisting of quantitative and qualitative questions, to collect data from 16 organisations, four service providers and seven labour unions in South Africa.\r\nThe results showed that organisations, service providers and labour unions define employee wellness differently and that these role players give different reasons for introducing EWPs. Almost half of the participating organisations have no baseline measurement with which to compare the effectiveness of their EWPs. Generally, all the organisations present the results of their programmes reasonably. However, the programmes involve little overall expenditure to the organisations.\r\nOrganisations should monitor the state of their employees� wellness in order to manage it effectively. This will only become possible when information about employee wellness improves.\r\nThis study provides new information about the nature, content, context, participants, role-players, anticipated benefits and possible drawbacks of EWPs in the South-African context....
In the past decade flexible labour market arrangements have emerged as a significant change in the European Union labour market. Studies suggest that these new types of labour arrangements may be linked to ill health, an increased risk for work disability, and inadequate vocational rehabilitation. Therefore, the objectives of this study were: 1. to examine demographic characteristics of workers without an employment contract sick-listed for at least 13 weeks, 2. to describe the content and frequency of occupational health care (OHC) interventions for these sick-listed workers, and 3. to examine OHC interventions as possible determinants for return-to-work (RTW) of these workers.\r\nA cohort of 1077 sick-listed workers without an employment contract were included at baseline, i.e. 13 weeks after reporting sick. Demographic variables were available at baseline. Measurement of cross-sectional data took place 4ââ?¬â??6 months after inclusion. Primary outcome measures were: frequency of OHC interventions and RTW-rates. Measured confounding variables were: gender, age, type of worker (temporary agency worker, unemployed worker, or remaining worker without employment contract), level of education, reason for absenteeism (diagnosis), and perceived health. The association between OHC interventions and RTW was analysed with a logistic multiple regression analysis.\r\nAt 7ââ?¬â??9 months after the first day of reporting sick only 19% of the workers had (partially or completely) returned to work, and most workers perceived their health as fairly poor or poor. The most frequently reported (49%) intervention was 'the OHC professional discussed RTW'. However, the intervention 'OHC professional made and discussed a RTW action plan' was reported by only 19% of the respondents. The logistic multiple regression analysis showed a significant positive association between RTW and the interventions: 'OHC professional discussed RTW'; and 'OHC professional made and discussed a RTW action plan'. The intervention 'OHC professional referred sick-listed worker to a vocational rehabilitation agency' was significantly associated with no RTW.\r\nThis is the first time that characteristics of a large cohort of sick-listed workers without an employment contract were examined. An experimental or prospective study is needed to explore the causal nature of the associations found between OHC interventions and RTW....
This paper analyses the behaviour of real wages over the business cycle for Australia, using quarterly observations for the period 1984??:??1ââ?¬â??2008??:??2. The unobserved cyclical components of prices, real wages, and three other cyclical variables are extracted from the observed time series using Harvey's (1985, 1989) structural time series model. A model relating these components is estimated, producing results which show that both prices and real wages are procyclical....
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