The Rise of the Frontline Workers


Book Description

2.7 billion of the world's workforce are frontline workers - this book explains how business leaders can transform their organization by making frontline workers more effective, efficient, motivated, and happier in their work."An essential business book for senior management in retail, manufacturing, construction, hospitality, or indeed any industry that employs large numbers of frontline workers." Given that 80% of the world's workforce is employed on the frontline, why have organizations not invested in the mobile tools that will make those workers more effective, efficient, motivated, and happier in their work? Desk-based workers have been provided with such tools, why not their frontline counterparts?These are the questions that Cristian Grossmann addresses in his new book, The Rise of the Frontline Workers, in which he outlines why it is so important for businesses to digitalize their frontline workforce and explains how organizations should best approach doing so.Cristian is a tech entrepreneur whose company Beekeeper has raised more than $80M in funding and supplies its employee communications app to some of the world's biggest and best-known organizations, including London Heathrow Airport, Domino's Pizza, and Hilton Hotels. Cristian, a former frontline worker himself, has an extensive understanding of what technology is required to make the frontline workforce more effective and describes why frontline workers need tools and solutions that are designed specifically for them, not a patched-up version of something that works for desk-based workers.The Rise of the Frontline Workers explores how frontline workers are essential to the smooth running of society. The events of 2020 and the Covid-19 pandemic have proved that beyond any doubt. Yet for many employers, frontline workers and their needs are overlooked, time and time again. During the various lockdowns of 2020, frontline workers rarely had the option of working from home and continued to work on the frontline, often at personal risk to themselves due to a lack of PPE.This ignoring of frontline worker needs is not new and dates back centuries. But things are changing. Covid-19 has accelerated trends that had been building for years. People were already using smartphones in massive numbers and reaching frontline workers via their smartphones has become a mission-critical objective for many organizations. The on-going rise of mobile technology and changing perceptions of how frontline workers are valued have combined to create a perfect storm in which the needs of the frontline workforce are finally being addressed. Providing frontline workers with the tools to communicate with, to give them access to the information that will keep them safe at work, and to ensure they feel valued has become one of the biggest priorities for businesses now.By the end of The Rise of the Frontline Workesr, you will have gained a greater understanding of the perfect storm that has gathered to make digitalization of frontline workers so important, learn from companies that have already done so, and be ready to start your own frontline worker digitalization projects. Organizations that take the needs of 80% of their workforce seriously by providing them with the right digital tools for the job will survive and indeed thrive in the future. Those that continue to ignore the needs of the frontline workforce will head in the opposite direction. This book makes it clear why you should choose the former option.




From the Ground Up


Book Description

“Everyone in a hospital leadership role should read this book as it offers a wealth of practical advice for organizations intent on improving their clinical care delivery.” —Amy C. Edmondson, professor, Harvard Business School, and author of The Fearless Organization All Americans deserve and should have access to high quality, affordable healthcare services delivered by professionals who have sufficient time and resources to care for them. This book offers proven and practical approaches for redesigning healthcare organizations to be less fragmented—and more patient-centered—by tapping into the experiences of staff on the front lines of patient care. Peter Lazes and Marie Rudden show how collaboration and active communication among administrators, medical staff, and patients are a core element of a successful organizational change effort. Through case studies and the direct voices and experiences of frontline workers, they explore exactly what it takes to effectively engage staff and providers in improving the patient care shortcomings within their institutions. This book not only is a manual detailing what can be achieved when frontline staff have a direct voice in controlling their practice environments but was written to show how to accomplish transformative changes in how our hospitals and outpatient clinics work. At a time when the massive gaps in our healthcare systems have been laid bare by the fragmented responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, this book offers hope and a plan for change.




The COVID-19 Crisis


Book Description

Since its emergence in early 2020, the COVID-19 crisis has affected every part of the world. Well beyond its health effects, the pandemic has wrought major changes in people’s everyday lives as they confront restrictions imposed by physical distancing and consequences such as loss of work, working or learning from home and reduced contact with family and friends. This edited collection covers a diverse range of experiences, practices and representations across international contexts and cultures (UK, Europe, North America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand). Together, these contributions offer a rich account of COVID society. They provide snapshots of what life was like for people in a variety of situations and locations living through the first months of the novel coronavirus crisis, including discussion not only of health-related experiences but also the impact on family, work, social life and leisure activities. The socio-material dimensions of quotidian practices are highlighted: death rituals, dating apps, online musical performances, fitness and exercise practices, the role of windows, healthcare work, parenting children learning at home, moving in public space as a blind person and many more diverse topics are explored. In doing so, the authors surface the feelings of strangeness and challenges to norms of practice that were part of many people’s experiences, highlighting the profound affective responses that accompanied the disruption to usual cultural forms of sociality and ritual in the wake of the COVID outbreak and restrictions on movement. The authors show how social relationships and social institutions were suspended, re-invented or transformed while social differences were brought to the fore. At the macro level, the book includes localised and comparative analyses of political, health system and policy responses to the pandemic, and highlights the differences in representations and experiences of very different social groups, including people with disabilities, LGBTQI people, Dutch Muslim parents, healthcare workers in France and Australia, young adults living in northern Italy, performing artists and their audiences, exercisers in Australia and New Zealand, the Latin cultures of Spain and Italy, Asian-Americans and older people in Australia. This volume will appeal to undergraduates and postgraduates in sociology, cultural and media studies, medical humanities, anthropology, political science and cultural geography.




Low-Wage America


Book Description

About 27.5 million Americans—nearly 24 percent of the labor force—earn less than $8.70 an hour, not enough to keep a family of four out of poverty, even working full-time year-round. Job ladders for these workers have been dismantled, limiting their ability to get ahead in today's labor market. Low-Wage America is the most extensive study to date of how the choices employers make in response to economic globalization, industry deregulation, and advances in information technology affect the lives of tens of millions of workers at the bottom of the wage distribution. Based on data from hundreds of establishments in twenty-five industries—including manufacturing, telecommunications, hospitality, and health care—the case studies document how firms' responses to economic restructuring often results in harsh working conditions, reduced benefits, and fewer opportunities for advancement. For instance, increased pressure for profits in newly consolidated hotel chains has led to cost-cutting strategies such as requiring maids to increase the number of rooms they clean by 50 percent. Technological changes in the organization of call centers—the ultimate "disposable workplace"—have led to monitoring of operators' work performance, and eroded job ladders. Other chapters show how the temporary staffing industry has provided paths to better work for some, but to dead end jobs for many others; how new technology has reorganized work in the back offices of banks, raising skill requirements for workers; and how increased competition from abroad has forced U.S. manufacturers to cut costs by reducing wages and speeding production. Although employers' responses to economic pressures have had a generally negative effect on frontline workers, some employers manage to resist this trend and still compete successfully. The benefits to workers of multi-employer training consortia and the continuing relevance of unions offer important clues about what public policy can do to support the job prospects of this vast, but largely overlooked segment of the American workforce. Low-Wage America challenges us to a national self-examination about the nature of low-wage work in this country and asks whether we are willing to tolerate the profound social and economic consequences entailed by these jobs. A Volume in the Russell Sage Foundation Case Studies of Job Quality in Advanced Economies




Judgment on the Front Line


Book Description

Front-line employees who deal directly with customers are the face of any organization. Not only do they have the most impact on how a brand is perceived, but they are also the most valuable source of insight into what customers want and how to give it to them. Unfortunately, as management experts Chris DeRose and Noel M. Tichy explain, most organizations don't know how to evaluate the risk of giving employees more autonomy. Many of those who are willing to try haven't even invested resources in ensuring that-once the shackles are off-front-line employees make good judgments. Tichy and DeRose offer powerful examples of front-line leadership, such as: How Zappos trusts its people to do anything in service of a customer, including providing free product or reimbursing for mistakes How Mayo Clinic of Arizona enabled its nurses to challenge the hierarchy in order to improve patient care




Masked Heroes


Book Description

A 2nd edition of Masked Heroes which includes artistic tributes of portraits to the frontline workers of the COVID-19 pandemic and their shared stories.




Employee-Driven Innovation


Book Description

Presents research in Employee-Driven Innovation, an emergent field of study that meets the demand for exploiting new innovative potentials in organizations. There is a growing interest in creating new knowledge in innovation, emphasizing human resources and social processes. The authors intend to take the global lead in research on these areas.




The Rise of Rage


Book Description

Of all the human emotions, anger is probably the most misunderstood. Why is it important to understand anger at all? Rage through the centuries--revolutions, wars, civil rights, independence from colonial rule, political unrest, Black Lives Matter, storming the US Capitol--has shown that anger can be a catalyst for change; it can also be a tool employed in fear by those resisting reform or trying to quell protests or advancements by other people. Perhaps you too have experienced the rise of rage within yourself. You might be fed up with feeling angry and not having any way to express it. You don't want to hold it all inside anymore, and you are done being everybody's doormat. But counselor and psychotherapist Julie Christiansen says that if we take time to examine the belief systems that fuel our anger, we can free ourselves from the bondage that anger puts us in, learning how to make it work for us instead. When we map out our anger, we can learn to manage it. With a ten-step program full of practical exercises such as defining your anger style, understanding your belief systems, releasing residual anger, and more, The Rise of Rage will help you: -Identify the ten anger styles -Develop tools for resolving anger at work -Give effective feedback and criticism -Listen more effectively with a view to deepening connection -Enhance communication in all manner of relationships -Harness the power of forgiveness and acceptance -Communicate effectively with angry people Embrace this journey of self-discovery with The Rise of Rage to learn what real anger is, what real forgiveness looks like, and which safe, effective, and successful anger resolution tools work best for you.




The Emotional Organization


Book Description

This landmark collection is exclusively devoted to demonstrating/mapping (what is understood today about the power and structural effects of emotion and identity in organizations. Essays at the leading edge of research reveal the influence of workplace cultures, power, and institutional expectations, while also exploring the negative impacts of emotion management in the workplace. Brings together an international group of cutting-edge researchers to write critically about emotion in different organizational and cultural settings Includes research on policy, change, management and professional practice Exposes the influence of workplace cultures, power and institutional expectations on emotion Reveals the darker and oppressive features of emotion management in organizations Applies recent critical organizational theory to emotion.




The Rise of Mental Vulnerability at Work


Book Description

Since the 1960s a major mental health crisis has emerged among Western working populations. Through a study spanning several decades, this book uses an original framework to capture the history and developments of mental vulnerability in working life.