Vying for time. Work and family

Time--there is never enough of it. There are never enough hours in the day to do everything at work and at home. Today's employees, forced to choose between work obligations and family responsibilities, often feel frazzled and guilty. Some employers recognize these conflicts and are finding ways to lighten the work/family load. They are offering a sophisticated combination of dependent-care options, flexible work hours and family-related benefits tailored to meet the needs of the employees within their specific industries. HRMagazine looks at leaders in six major industries--manufacturing, health, communications/technology, financial management, government and retail. No one can give employees that 25-hour day that everyone feels they need to juggle all their work and family obligations. But these industry leaders have provided a nurturing environment where employees can successfully balance those obligations.

Recruitment standards and practices in occupational therapy, 1900-1930

Debate regarding recruitment standards and practices exemplifies various visions of practice that exist within a profession. In occupational therapy, early recruitment criteria provide an example of how the field's founders envisioned the professional practitioner. As occupational therapy grew in membership throughout the 1920s, that vision was challenged. This paper identifies and describes the recruitment ideas expressed by both the founders of occupational therapy and their challengers from 1900 to 1930 and suggests the influence of their ideas on recruitment standards.

Today's worker in tomorrow's workplace

Louis B. Mayer, the head of MGM studios during Hollywood's golden era, once said, The inventory goes home at night,' conceding, however inelegantly, that without his corps of talented directors, writers, and actors, MGM would be nothing.

Predictors of nursing staff turnover

Nursing turnover is of great concern to patients, management and the profession, and numerous studies have been conducted to increase understanding about this phenomenon. Most of these, however, have focused on staff nurses in the public sector; little is known about nurse manager turnover or the characteristics of nurses leaving the private hospital sector. The purpose of this study was to examine turnover of staff nurses and nurse managers in both the public and private hospital sectors. Variables which appeared to have a consistent relationship with nurse turnover were identified from the literature, and multiple regression methods were used to attempt to identify variables which could be used to predict turnover behaviour of staff nurses and nurse managers. This study encountered methodological difficulties similar to those which have plagued previous studies; nevertheless, a clearer picture of nursing turnover is emerging.

Setting up a temporary shop

Instead of calling an agency to fill a temporary position, some companies especially in banking and health care, are taking care of the recruiting inhouse. Flexibility and quality seem to be the main reasons why companies are handling the extra responsibility.

US laboratory staffing crisis

In this article, the factors contributing to a shortage of qualified medical laboratory technologists in the US have been examined, and the Canadian perspective studied. Continued public relations programs, with special programs directed to high school, college and university students would seem to be the appropriate way to prevent similar problems from occurring and escalating in Canada.

Health personnel: the challenges ahead

The interrelations between the changing supplies of health professional personnel and the evolving health care system have been conspicuously underresearched and underevaluated. In part this reflects the relative independence of the two sectors--health education and training, and health services--in ambulatory and hospital settings. In part it reflects the strong guild arrangements that make it difficult for health care managers to exercise much initiative/discretion in developing new patterns of personnel utilization aimed at greater efficiency and economy. Considering the fact that personnel costs account for about 60 percent of all health care costs, this relative neglect of improved personnel utilization is that much more costly. This article sets out the major dimensions of the three critical personnel groups--physicians, nurses, and allied health workers--and reviews the forces affecting their numbers and utilization. Finally, it raises some issues related to the near- and middle-term changes that lie ahead.

Personnel faces the future

Nic Seddon reflects on what the future holds for personnel staff in the NHS. His main concerns are the effects of the white paper, employment in the 1990s and the Single European Market.

Turning danger into opportunity

Brian Edwards looks at the management of change required to pave the way for successful implementation of the white paper, and sees a challenging time ahead.

Applying technology today. A computerized nursing recruitment database

This article describes the development and implementation of a computerized nursing recruitment program. This system offers a fast, efficient, individualized, item-selectable mechanism for tracking and monitoring recruiting activities. Included in this system are easily accessible functions that provide precise information regarding the activities and costs relating to recruitment transactions. It is user-focused and coded for accurate storage and retrieval of information. This program has multiple implications for improving or revising recruitment activities. Nursing administrators can obtain detailed reports of the operations of the recruiting office, and internal audits can be easily generated to identify areas of efficiency as well as areas needing revision. It is written to be integrated with other management systems, thus providing a rapid and comprehensive network of communication that is cost-effective and precise.