Management Articles

Individuals face demands on their time from work and life requirements. If they cannot balance the requirements, it could mean an unhealthy life or unemployment. Work-life balance has become an important topic of study and discussion because of its impact on public health and business results.

The Council of the European Union issued the European Working Time Directive in 1993. The directive seeks to ensure a better level of protection of the safety and health of workers, at the same time avoiding administrative, financial and legal constraints that could hold back the creation and development of small and medium-sized undertakings.

Workforce planning is a key workforce management step for long-term survival in a situation where workers are aging or leaving, and business environments are constantly changing.

You might be able to attract people with high value skills through a well-presented ad. However, to keep them with you, your organization must have put in place workforce management policies that make these people want to continue with the organization.

Unless yours is a one-man organization, you achieve your organizational goals, to a smaller or greater degree, through a workforce. If that workforce is not productive, the efficiency of goals-achievement suffers and costs of achievement go up.

Have you ever wondered why some businesses are successful when others die shortly after seeing the light? It's not only about finding the right product to sale or the right service to offer. In business management sometimes what do you do is less important than how you do it. In competitive times like this, excellence wins the game. Every time a new business is created it has to struggle with its equals in order to take (and maintain) a small share of its relevant market.

A radio interviewer recently asked me if I thought there was more conflict in the workplace today than in the past. After thinking about it, I replied, “Yes, I think there is more conflict today.”

In the past, we developed teams by putting people together and letting them spend time learning about each other before we charged them with completing assignments. In spite of all our best effort, some teams were more successful than others.

Today's rapidly changing technology, the economy's roller-coaster ride, the constant mergers and acquisitions among companies, upsizing, downsizing and resizing, and, of course, our country's response to terrorism have forced almost all of us to change, in some cases almost daily.

Organizational culture comprises the attitudes, experiences, beliefs and values. Work-groups or teams within -organizations have their own behavioral quirks and interactions, which, to an extent, affect the whole system. These behavioral quirks are termed Organizational Culture.