Anne Bardoel

Community and work–life issues in a global context: new perspectives in a changing world

The goal of this Special Issue is to provide new perspectives of community and work life issues in a global context. We were particularly interested in contributions exploring previously ‘unheard’ voices and the work life challenges in newly industrializing and developing economies. The papers selected provide readers with a mix of conceptual and empirical papers, cross-disciplinary perspectives, and a broad range of research approaches and methodologies. Although work life papers in a global context have featured in Community, Work and Family, this is the first Special Issue devoted to papers exploring this theme. Complexities and ongoing developments in international business present many important challenges, demands, and opportunities for scholars and practitioners interested in community and work life issues. This Special Issue offers a number of explorations and studies that may facilitate understanding and management of these issues. The papers have implications for a range of stakeholders in work life including policy makers, employers, employees, citizens, and researchers. Our first paper by Newman, MacDougall, and Baum sets the scene for this Special Issue and draws our attention to how the global changes impact on local environments and the flow-on implications for families. The paper is particularly innovative because it presents voices that are often ‘unheard’ in research those of children and their accounts of the impact of parental job loss after global restructuring of the automotive industry led to the closure of a local car factory. They contend that the children’s accounts contribute to a better understanding of adult domains including the value of family friendly work environments and also provide insights into government action that might have been overlooked. For example, the children spoke about the importance of remaining in local areas, school and friendship networks, which puts a question mark on government policy that sees relocation assistance as a key strategy for assisting redundant workers. The second paper by Ollier-Malaterre also has an organizational focus and analyzes how national context shapes the adoption of organizational work life practices in France, the UK and the US. This comparison of policies is augmented by in-depth interviews with human resources (HR) professionals, employee representatives, and unions in France. Ollier-Malaterre found that French organizations adopted less work life practices than their British and American counterparts. This was explained by several factors including at the macrolevel the weaker legitimacy of French employers to act in the nonwork domain and at the mesolevel a lack of awareness and expertise about work life practices by HR departments in France. The third paper by De Cieri and Bardoel builds on the theme of the importance of cultural context by exploring how the competing global and local demands for work life initiatives are managed in MNCs operating in Asia. They conclude that the

Case 2: Work-Life Balance in an MNE Context

Global work-life initiatives present unique challenges for HR departments in multinational enterprises (MNEs) because of the complexity of implementing policies that require sensitivity to local issues such as cultural traditions and legislation (e.g., Bardoel and De Cieri 2007; Scullion et al. 2007; Sumelius et al. 2008). However, discussion specific to work-life management in a global context is limited (e.g., Allen et al. 2010; Lewis et al. 2007). Amid unprecedented levels of global mergers, acquisitions and international growth, the challenge for HR professionals working in multinational enterprises is to define a global work/life strategy that establishes shared guidelines while allowing for local differences. Although there are a number of common issues faced by working women and men and their families, a global work-life strategy needs to reflect a course of action that is appropriate to the local environment. According to Spinks (2003) an effective family friendly strategy requires managers to be cognizant of a number of local factors that influence employees’ work and personal lives. These factors include the culture and tradition, the role of key stake-holders, public policies, community resources and infrastructure, and workplace practices and demo-graphics (Bardoel and De Cieri 2007).

Implementation of evidence-based weekend service recommendations for allied health managers: a cluster randomised controlled trial protocol

BackgroundIt is widely acknowledged that health policy and practice do not always reflect current research evidence. Whether knowledge transfer from research to practice is more successful when specific implementation approaches are used remains unclear. A model to assist engagement of allied health managers and clinicians with research implementation could involve disseminating evidence-based policy recommendations, along with the use of knowledge brokers. We developed such a model to aid decision-making for the provision of weekend allied health services. This protocol outlines the design and methods for a multi-centre cluster randomised controlled trial to evaluate the success of research implementation strategies to promote evidence-informed weekend allied health resource allocation decisions, especially in hospital managers.MethodsThis multi-centre study will be a three-group parallel cluster randomised controlled trial. Allied health managers from Australian and New Zealand hospitals will be randomised to receive either (1) an evidence-based policy recommendation document to guide weekend allied health resource allocation decisions, (2) the same policy recommendation document with support from a knowledge broker to help implement weekend allied health policy recommendations, or (3) a usual practice control group. The primary outcome will be alignment of weekend allied health service provision with policy recommendations. This will be measured by the number of allied health service events (occasions of service) occurring on weekends as a proportion of total allied health service events for the relevant hospital wards at baseline and 12-month follow-up.DiscussionEvidence-based policy recommendation documents communicate key research findings in an accessible format. This comparatively low-cost research implementation strategy could be combined with using a knowledge broker to work collaboratively with decision-makers to promote knowledge transfer. The results will assist managers to make decisions on resource allocation, based on evidence. More generally, the findings will inform the development of an allied health model for translating research into practice.Trial registrationThis trial is registered with the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ANZCTR) (ACTRN12618000029291). Universal Trial Number (UTN): U1111-1205-2621.