In recent times, employers have continuously introduced positive initiatives to create employment opportunities for young workers. These encompass a wide range of options, including but not limited to internships, apprenticeships, graduate programs, contractor roles, and volunteer expatriation missions to support global business expansion. While these efforts reflect a commitment to fostering diversity and inclusion within their workplaces, some employers have also started falling short in providing stable employment to their young workforce, relying too heavily on insecure contingent work arrangements after their initial purpose has been fulfilled. This analysis will explore the advantages and disadvantages of offering this type of employment and discuss strategies to mitigate the risk of developing an unfavorable employer reputation in the eyes of younger generations of workers.
Category Archives: Psychology
Understanding Display Rules & Emotional Labour at Work: Cost, Consequences, and Coping Strategies
Imagine you work as a barista at Starbucks. A customer walks in on a bright sunny morning, eagerly anticipating your warm welcome, the comforting aroma of freshly brewed coffee, and your excited request for their name – which per pre-established rules, is always hand-written on the renowned coffee cup. However, that day you wake up feeling off, and show up to work as your true self – an individual battling different kinds of life stressors. You decide not to greet the client, you refrain from engaging in small talk, and avoid taking their name.
The customer looks up at you and asks: “Is something wrong?”
This scenario highlights the significance and ever-so-faint yet important presence of display rules and emotional labour in workers’ lives.
5 Ways To Enhance Wellbeing of Layoff Survivors
The majority of current layoffs have been in the tech industry, but there have also been significant layoffs in industries such as healthcare, tourism/hospitality, retail, manufacturing, construction, and transportation/warehousing. Although layoffs have always been an issue, the recent increase is due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to supply chain disruptions, an economic slowdown, and inflation. According to the International Labour Organization (2022), the pandemic is estimated to have pushed global unemployment to 200 million in 2022, up from 186 million in 2021. This represents an increase of 14 million in just one year. The ILO estimates that the global labor market will not fully recover from the pandemic until 2025.
5 Ways Companies Can Support Women’s Inclusion in Labour Markets
The pandemic is damaging the progress towards gender equality at work. According to the World Economic Forum’s (2021) Global Gender Gap Report, 5% of employed women lost their job compared to 3.9% of men, and less women were hired into executive or senior roles in 2020 as Broom (2021) clarifies.
Through my experience as the Founder of a solutions-based platform for gender balance at work, I got to know of initiatives that I think can help companies close the gap caused by the pandemic faster and potentially accelerate gender equality in workplaces as a result.
What can companies do to support women at work? And how can companies take gender equality to the next level beyond the pandemic?
4 Things You Should Know Before Becoming An Expat
Moving abroad for work can be a great career move, but those that have been on an international assignment before know that the expat life is not as easy or luxurious as it looks on the outside.
My first job in HR was in International Mobility, but that’s not where I gained my knowledge on expatriation. Above my professional and educational experiences, it’s my personal life experiences that have made me knowledgeable in the field. I started moving abroad when I was only 2 years old because of my family’s professional life and became what is known in the relocation world as a “Third Culture Kid.” By the time I was 25, I had switched cities, countries & continents 10 times, often going back and forth between them.
10 Ways HR Professionals Can Help Protect Employee Mental Health
Last year, I presented a Human Resources research project on wellbeing in the future of work and its impact on the HR function. When I reflected on the fact that this topic would gain importance in the future of work, and for the HR function in particular, I never would have imagined that “the future” was only a couple of months ahead. Fast forward time to the first months of 2020, and we are all seeing HR professionals and business leaders gain interest in wellbeing at work due to the side effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The positive consequences of taking care of employee’s mental health have been documented in thousands of research papers and academic books of psychological sciences and other related fields for many years. Despite this, it’s still one of the last remaining taboos of the world of work. Improving wellbeing & mental health at work has always been, and will always be, a very important aspect to keeping an organisation and its workforce healthy and efficient, even in the worst of times.