Workplace Trends of the Future

Via
California Job Journal

The rapid evolution of technology, the aging population of baby boomers, the rising cost of healthcare and energy, and other societal and business trends are having a significant and irrevocable impact on the workplace.

Where, how and why we work has changed dramatically over the past two decades and it will go through further transformation over the next twenty years, according to employment experts at Challenger, Gray &Christmas, Inc.

The global outplacement and business coaching consultancy predicted these ‘Workplace Trends of the Future’ at last Monday’s opening of the Society for Human Resource Management’s 60th annual national conference.

Four-Day Workweeks With rising gasoline prices, the availability of increasingly portable and affordable technology, and the desire among growing numbers of employees for better balance between their work and home life, four-day workweeks will become the new standard for corporate America.

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Free From The Chains Of Email

Via
NY times

I Freed Myself From E-Mail’s Grip

By LUIS SUAREZ

EARLIER this year, I became tired of my usual morning ritual of spending hours catching up on e-mail. So I did something drastic to take back control of my productivity.

I stopped using e-mail most of the time. I quickly realized that the more messages you answer, the more messages you generate in return. It becomes a vicious cycle. By trying hard to stop the cycle, I cut the number of e-mails that I receive by 80 percent in a single week.

It’s not that I stopped communicating; I just communicated in different and more productive ways. Instead of responding individually to messages that arrived in my in-box, I started to use more social networking tools, like instant messaging, blogs and wikis, among many others. I also started to use the telephone much more than I did before, which has the added advantage of being a more personal form of interaction.

I never gave up my work e-mail address, because I still need it for some work-related activities — for example, for one-on-one discussions that are too private and confidential to discuss publicly.

I was in a good position to give up most of my other e-mail because I’m a “social computing evangelist” for I.B.M. and have used social software tools for years to collaborate on projects and to share knowledge. I live in the Canary Islands off the coast of Spain and report to managers in the United States and the Netherlands. Between time differences and participation in various projects, it’s important that I spend my time efficiently.

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Our Pen-and-Paper Doctors

Via
NY Times

With electronic health records seen widely as a way to make medical care better and possibly cheaper, it is disturbing how slowly they are being adopted by American physicians. If this country does not accelerate the conversion from paper to modern technologies, many of the gauzy promises of health care reform made by politicians and health planners will become irrelevant.

The bad news about electronic health records was gathered in a survey of 2,700 practicing physicians led by researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital, with financial support from the federal government and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The results were published online by The New England Journal of Medicine.

The study found that a paltry 4 percent of the doctors had a “fully functional” electronic records system that would allow them to view laboratory data, order prescriptions and help them make clinical decisions, while another 13 percent had more basic systems.

This is a startling contrast with other industrialized nations.

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Neuroscience & Psychology Unite For Productivity

EDITOR'S NOTE: During the APS Coordinators Seminar recently held in Bangkok with IMPAC being a major sponsor, Dr. Victor Vroom of Yale University was one of the speakers. Dr. Vroom was interviewed by "The Nation" newspaper during the seminar, and we thought you might like to see the article which appeared in Thailand's largest business newspaper -- The Nation.

Looking to brain science to retain, develop human assets
Published on June 7, 2008

Professor Victor Vroom of Yale University, the long-standing authority on management, leadership and workers' motivation, told me that advances in neuroscience were having a great impact on psychology.

For instance, the latest brain-imaging technology has allowed scientists to observe what is actually happening in specific parts of the brain in real time. Such observations are expected to have significant consequences on the study of the human mind and behaviour in future.

Back in the 1960's, when Vroom, who earned his PhD in psychology from the University of Michigan, authored "Worker and Motivation" (1964), which is still in print today, neuroscience and psychology were still distant cousins, given the absence of imaging technologies such as magnetic resonance imaging and computerised tomography.

Today, neuro-psychology gains prominence as scientists have these sophisticated tools to better study the mind and behaviour.

In this context, increased knowledge about workers' motivation and other aspects of life will likely emerge to help managers and organisational leaders boost productivity and efficiency in the workplace. According to Vroom, who also authored "Leadership" and "New Leadership" in the 1970s and 1980s, the forces of globalisation, technological advancement and increased competition in the market-place have resulted in more complex issues for management.

Hence the decision-making process to resolve these problems needs to be more organic or adaptive and participatory, since today's knowledge is more specialised and managers alone do not have enough knowledge to tackle the problems.

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APS Web Site

UN Report: Productivity Issues For Colombia's Cocaine Output

Via
AlterNet

Colombia cocaine output down, more coca planted
By Hugh Bronstein

BOGOTA, June 18 (Reuters) - Colombian cocaine production edged down last year despite an increase in crops used to make the drug, showing that law enforcement efforts have reduced the efficiency of the business, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

U.N. investigators said the output in the world's biggest cocaine-producing country was 600 tonnes in 2007, down 2 percent from the year before.

Planting of coca bushes used to make cocaine meanwhile rose to 99,000 hectares in 2007, up 27 percent from 2006.

Farmers are quickly replanting in more remote areas after the government sprays herbicides on their coca fields, part of a multibillion-dollar U.S.-backed program. A record 538,700 acres (218,000 hectares) of coca were eradicated last year.

"What's happening is that the efficiency of production is going down," said Aldo Lale-Demoz, representative in Colombia for the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.

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Rail Freight Productivity Review

Via
Supply Chain

NTC review to look at productivity in rail freight network

The National Transport Commission (NTC) will look at productivity in rail freight as part of a strategic review into the sector.

Improving rail productivity was a key priority identified through industry consultation for the NTC strategic plan. Federal and state transport ministers are also looking at rail through their National Transport Policy Framework.

"If Australia is to move people and freight safely and efficiently as the transport task grows, the performance of all transport modes must be optimised," says the NTC’s General Manager of Economics and Productivity, Meena Naidu.

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High efficiency needed to be competitive

Via
Pakistan Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: If the government wants to be competitive in international market, it had to enhance the efficiency and productivity of all sectors of the economy, Minister for Industries and Production, Mian Manzoor Ahmed Wattoo said.

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Productivity Surge

Via
NY Times


Productivity Rose at a Pace That Exceeded Expectations

By REUTERS

United States productivity grew at a slightly faster-than-expected rate in the first quarter, which may calm some of the Federal Reserve’s worries over elevated inflation, the government reported Wednesday.

Productivity grew at a 2.6 percent annual rate during the first quarter on stronger output than was initially gauged.

The Labor Department said in a statement that first-quarter output was revised higher to show a 0.7 percent gain at an annual rate, from the 0.4 percent previously reported. Worker hours shrank 1.8 percent as businesses cut back on labor inputs to shield profits amid a cooling United States economy. It was the third straight quarterly decline in hours.

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