Suchergebnisse

"Religion and spirituality are closely woven into the fabric of South African public and private life - though not always seamlessly or in matching thread. This book is concerned with the role of religion and spirituality in individual identity and belief, as well as in the public spheres of governance and policy-making. It brings together significant researchers from various disciplinary perspectives, ranging from law and politics to theology, literature and media studies, with the aim of investigating new critical approaches to religion and spirituality, particularly in the postcolony/South. The authors engage seriously with the challenge of accounting for the range and power of religious and spiritual discourses that run through individual and communal identification. This volume provides stimulation for further thought and work in this crucial area of South African, and postcolonial, study and life"--Cover

'We are all in this together' has been a common leadership cry during the coronavirus crisis. But do their rewards designs generally reinforce collective performance? Why have collective bonus and incentive plans made little headway in Europe and what is the evidence on their effectiveness? The author presents findings from a bonus and incentive research review carried out for a major oil company. He found two-thirds of companies operate variable pay plans, with three-quarters of them based on individual performance. Collective plans are, however, spreading in incidence. The research literature he found replicates the North American evidence, indicating collective schemes are associated with higher performance across a variety of metrics. But they are not universally successful. Risks include diminishing effectiveness over time and lack of employee understanding. The research highlights success depends on tailoring to suit the culture and using a range of high-performance work practices. The author concludes success is more likely where collective plans are viewed 'not just as a vehicle for disseminating incentives but for imparting a sense of shared ownership'.

In 2017, the U.K. government enacted legislation making it compulsory for employers across all sectors with more than 250 employees to report six gender pay gap statistics on a consistent basis, with the majority adding voluntary explanatory reports. Over 10,000 have reported in each of the 2 years since, pushing the issue significantly higher up both corporate boardroom and academic research agendas. In this article, after briefly explaining the national and legislative context, the author profiles the action plans which U.K. employers have published designed to close these gaps, focusing on higher education institutions. The author goes on to profile the research on what works in closing gaps and highlights the significant dissonance between the two perspectives. Employer actions tend to focus narrowly on training and other "soft" involuntary initiatives, while the academic research highlights a multipronged approach across all areas of human resources activity as most effective and including compulsory actions such as "blind" recruitment. The author concludes by outlining how these two perspectives may be integrated to produce more relevant research and evidence-based practice, thereby driving more significant and sustainable reductions in gender pay gaps.

The author argues that the terminology and concept of "total rewards" is become increasingly meaningless and outdated in our postrecessionary economy of austerity and inequality. Its generic and unthinking application in uniform flexible benefits packages risks isolating the rewards profession into an administrative backwater. Instead he argues for a new approach that he provocatively titles "smart rewards," following recent thinking and writing in economic and foreign policy on both sides of the Atlantic. He discerns four components of this emerging reward management approach: a simpler and clearer focus on a few core values and principles, a stronger basis in evidence and measurement, more emphasis on employee engagement through rewards and improved and more open communications and line management of reward. Brown concludes that adapting and tailoring this type of approach is much more likely to create the genuinely business-enhancing and employee-engaging reward practices in our contemporary context that reward professionals and their policies aspire to.

The UK is currently experiencing declining real incomes which are disproportionately affecting the low paid It also faces a stubborn gender pay gap of c15%. The author demonstrates the association between these issues, with the majority of low paid workers being female. He suggests HR and compensation professionals need to give higher priority to gender pay issues, and suggest workable actions they can take to close the gender pay gap, and generate business returns on any additional costs involved.

Rather than just sitting and wringing our hands over the effects of widening income inequality, what if anything can governments and individuals actually do about it? Using data and examples from the United Kingdom, the author describes how restricting high pay inflation, increasing low pay and even pay redistribution are all possible strategies to help resolve this damaging social and economic phenomenon.1

At the time of year when many people are having their appraisal meetings, Duncan Brown questions whether the SMART approach to objective setting is really smart and relevant in today's climate. He proposes a more democratic and engaging approach to agreeing a focus for future work.

The author's contention is that just as our political leaders are realizing that, 4 years into economic depression, they need to combine their austerity approach with a new focus on investment and growth; so the balance of compensation and reward activities in our organizations needs to shift away from an extreme cost focus toward policies that more positively engage their employees and develop their talent. Using data from a comprehensive study of reward strategies and practices among 252 organizations based in 25 countries in Europe, he profiles a number of dimensions of this shifting balance: from low to added value pay, from fixed to variable rewards, and from a focus on technical design to paying more attention to reward delivery, emphasizing line manager involvement and more open employee communications. Making this shift will take courageous leadership in the current climate but will, he argues, of itself be a powerful force for reengaging employees and driving recovery in corporate and national economic performance.

Linking competencies to pay is a controversial topic, with competencies often criticized for excessive complexity and lack of business relevance. The experiences of Standard Life, Europe's largest mutual insurer, over the past decade demonstrate that competencies and rewards can have a powerful impact on business performance and staff commitment. Standard Life first used competencies in the late 1980s for development and then selection purposes. The linkages with rewards have been made primarily through the vehicle of an effective contribution management process, which the company introduced in 1996. But this has been done in the context of a much broader set of HR and rewards initiatives, including most recently grade restructuring and the introduction of job families. It also has been supported by intensive management training and staff communication and involvement. These processes have driven a transformation in the company's culture, in personal and business levels of customer service and, consequently, in financial performance.