James Chowhan

Purpose: As competitive pressures persist and global economic influences continue to present new challenges, businesses need to be able to respond to emerging circumstances. Goal-setting and planning are key mechanisms contributing to organizational competitive success, yet organizations underappreciate the role of competency and capacity building factors that contribute to successful planning. This paper integrates three theoretical models enabling an investigation into the positive relationships between managerial activities generating information feedback, training in planning and skills and organizational performance outcomes, while exploring the positive mediating roles of goal-setting and planning.Design/methodology/approach: A unique organizational sample of agribusiness producers (n = 499) in Canada is examined. A structural equation path analysis model is used to evaluate the main relationships.Findings: The results suggest that organizations are finding that managerial and training activities should not be considered in isolation, but rather as supports for goal-setting, planning and performance outcomes. Thus, the implications are that managers can find organizational value enhanced through the building of human resource competency (e.g. management activities and training) with these emerging capacities aiding goal setting and planning activities.Originality/value: This study makes three main contributions: first, by adopting a rational-design perspective and integrating theoretical frameworks focusing on (a) planning-performance and (b) goal-setting-planning. This extended model goes beyond previous studies by including managerial activities, training, goals, planning and performance outcomes. Second, this study uniquely accounts for a more comprehensive set of key confounding factors such as operational activities, organizational strategy and organizational size in the integrated framework. Finally, as far as the authors are aware, there has not been a survey study at the organizational level that has explored the role of managerial activities and training in planning within a similarly comprehensive model.

Purpose: This study, using a comprehensive job demand–resources (JD-R) model, aims to explore the pressures of workload, work–life interface and subsequent impacts on employee stress and job satisfaction, with implications for employee job performance, in the context of working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.Design/methodology/approach: A cross-sectional sample of employees at seven universities (n = 4,497) and structural equation path analysis regression models are used for the analyses.Findings: The results show that a partial mediation JD-R model was supported, where job demands (such as workload and actual hours worked) and job resources (including expectations, support and job security) have relationships with work interference with personal life and personal life interference with work. These have subsequent negative path relationships with stress. Further, stress is negatively related to job satisfaction, and job satisfaction is positively related to employee job performance.Practical implications: Potential policy implications include mitigation approaches to addressing some of the negative impacts on workers and to enhance the positive outcomes. Timely adjustments to job demands and resources can aid in sustaining balance for workers in an uncertain and fluid environmental context.Originality/value: This study makes a contribution to knowledge by capturing sentiments on working arrangements, perceived changes and associated outcomes during a key period within the COVID-19 pandemic while being one of the rare studies to focus on a comprehensive JD-R model and a unique context of highly educated workers' transition to working from home.

Purpose: This paper presents a typology exploring employers’ perceptions of the quality of available applicants and employers decisions to buy qualified staff vs. to hire available workers and then make i.e. develop them via employer-supported training.Design/methodology/approach: This study uses 2015 survey data from Southwestern Ontario, Canada, based on responses from 834 employers regarding their hiring, separations, training and other HRM policies.Findings: Among surveyed employers, 10% are “Reliants” who found the quality of available applicants to be low, yet these employers do not provide employee training. Almost half of employers (at 45%) are “Developers” who find the quality of applicants to be low but they do provide employee training. Approximately, 7% of employers are “Poachers” who find that the quality of applicants is high and do not provide employee training, while 38% are Refiners, who find the quality of applicants is high and they provide employee training.Originality/value: Employers need to make their training decisions in alignment with their assessment of the quality of job applicants to whom they have access. In this paper, decisions on training and applicant quality are considered concurrently. From an academic viewpoint, the findings raise the issue as to whether other stakeholders (such as educational institutions) are sufficiently helping individuals gain the skills, credentials and work experiences that employers are seeking. If job openings are remaining unfilled because employers are unwilling to hire those available, then applicants lose, employers lose and societies lose.

La pandémie de COVID-19 a créé une nouvelle réalité dans le monde du travail. Les employeurs se rendent compte que pour poursuivre leurs activités pendant la pandémie, ils doivent penser le travail différemment : comment le travail est organisé, qui fait quoi et où il est effectué. La présente étude vise à déterminer s’il existe des différences dans les caractéristiques démographiques et le capital humain des personnes qui travaillent à domicile pendant la pandémie et celles qui travaillaient à domicile auparavant. Ainsi, cette étude profite des conditions naturelles d’une pseudo-expérience pour identifier les facteurs sociodémographiques (c.-à-d., le genre [femme/homme], le statut d’immigrant, l’âge) et le capital humain (c.-à-d., le niveau de scolarité, la santé) des personnes qui ont la possibilité de faire du télétravail afin de mieux comprendre les répercussions des fermetures sur ces sous-groupes. Cette étude utilise les données de la première enquête de la Série d’enquêtes sur les perspectives canadiennes (SEPC) de Statistique Canada sur les répercussions de la COVID-19, ainsi qu’un échantillon analytique (n = 2 653). En outre, l’Enquête sociale générale de 2016, cycle 30, a été utilisée afin d’obtenir des estimations prépandémiques pour les comparaisons descriptives. Nous constatons que les femmes ne sont pas moins susceptibles que les hommes de faire du télétravail et que le statut d’immigrant est négativement corrélé au travail à domicile pendant la pandémie. De manière générale, la corrélation avec l’âge est confirmée, la probabilité du télétravail étant relativement plus faible à mesure que l’âge augmente. Le niveau de scolarité est positivement corrélé au télétravail pendant la pandémie (p. ex., le fait d’avoir un baccalauréat ou un diplôme universitaire supérieur est positivement corrélé au télétravail). Enfin, il n’y a pas de relation entre la santé physique ou mentale et le télétravail. La présente étude contribue à la littérature en quantifiant les répercussions d’un bref événement de télétravail de masse et ses implications sur l’accès au télétravail en fonction des caractéristiques sociodémographiques et du capital humain. Dans un monde post-pandémique, tirerons-nous les leçons de cette expérience imposée par la pandémie ? Résumé La présente étude est axée sur les caractéristiques démographiques et sur le capital humain des Canadiens qui sont absents du travail ou qui travaillent à domicile (TAD), depuis la pandémie de COVID 19 ou qui en avait déjà l’habitude, par rapport aux Canadiens qui continuent de travailler à l’extérieur du foyer (c.-à-d. qui ne font pas de TAD). Les résultats montrent des différences significatives dans l’incidence du TAD pendant la pandémie : 1) il n’y a pas de différences significatives entre les femmes et les hommes ; 2) les immigrants sont moins susceptibles de faire du TAD ; 3) les jeunes travailleurs sont plus susceptibles de faire du TAD ; 4) l’éducation et le TAD ont une corrélation positive ; et 5) l’auto-évaluation de la santé n’est pas liée au TAD. Les résultats de cette expérience naturelle laissent sous-entendre de potentielles répercussions politiques et organisationnelles si le TAD en raison de la pandémie se poursuit pendant une période prolongée.

Background: Midwifery students’ intention to stay in the profession can be influenced by how the interface of their work and personal life is affected by their clinical placement experience. The purpose of this study is to compare the intention to stay in the midwifery profession and its association with three work/personal life interface constructs among pre- and post-clinical placement midwifery students in Canada. The constructs investigated are work interference with personal life, personal life interference with work, and work/personal life enhancement. Methods: Quantitative cross-sectional data were collected through two separate online surveys completed by pre- and post-clinical placement students. In total, 456 midwifery students attending six different midwifery education programs responded to the surveys. Results: Compared to pre-clinical placement students, post-clinical placement students had significantly lower intention to stay in the profession. For pre-clinical placement students, higher personal life interference with work was significantly associated with lower intention to stay in the profession. For post-clinical placement students, higher work interference with personal life was associated with lower intention to stay in the profession. We did not find any significant relationships between work/personal life enhancement and intention to stay in the profession in pre- or post-clinical placement students. Conclusion: Pre- and post-clinical placement students have different intentions to stay in the profession. For pre-clinical placement students, those who report that their personal lives highly interfere with work are less likely to want to stay in the midwifery profession. Post-clinical placement students reported that when working interfered with their personal lives they were less likely to want to stay in the profession. Our findings highlight the importance of offering students a realistic preview of the required commitment, workload, and personal involvement in the midwifery profession prior to applying or accepting a spot in a midwifery education program. Furthermore, facilitating the development of skills to better manage the expectations in midwifery work and personal lives might help with maintaining positive intentions to stay in the profession.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating role of stress between work intensification and musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) focusing on personal support workers (PSWs) in home and community care.Design/methodology/approach: The analysis sample of 922 comes from the 2015 survey of PSWs employed in Ontario, Canada. The endogenous variable is self-reported MSDs, and the exogenous variable is work intensification. Stress, measured as symptoms of stress, is the mediating variable. Other factors shown in the literature as associated with stress and/or MSDs are included as control variables. Structural equation model regression analyses are presented.Findings: The results show that stress mediates the effect of work intensification on PSW’s MSDs. Other significant factors included being injured in the past year, facing hazards at work and preferring less hours – all had positive and significant substantive effects on MSDs.Research limitations/implications: The survey is cross-sectional and not longitudinal or experimental in design, and it focuses on a single occupation in a single sector in Ontario, Canada and, as such, this can limit the generalizability of the results to other occupations and sectors.Practical implications: For PSW employers including their human resource managers, supervisors, schedulers and policy-makers, the study recommends reducing work intensification to lower stress levels and MSDs.Originality/value: The findings of this study contribute to the theory and knowledge by providing evidence on how work intensification can affect workers’ health and assist decision makers in taking actions to create healthy work environments.

The links between HRM practices and organizational performance have received considerable research attention as significant contributors to sustained competitive advantage. However, the processes that link HRM practices and organizational performance are not fully understood. This study examines the relationships between skill‐enhancing, motivation‐enhancing and opportunity‐enhancing bundles of practices, innovation and organizational performance, and looks at the mediating effect of innovation over time at the workplace level. The results indicate that the temporal pathway from skill‐enhancing practices to innovation to organizational performance is positive and significant even after controlling for reverse causality. Strategic activity is also explored and is found to be a significant moderator. This is an indication of the importance of aligning strategy with HRM practices and innovation to achieve improved organizational performance outcomes.