Meredith A. Newman

Federal Family-Friendly Workplace Policies Barriers to Effective Implementation

Womens work experiences continue to be characterized by metaphors such as glass ceilings, glass walls, sticky floors, and trap doors (Guy, 1995) To what extent do the implementation of flexble workplace policies and personnel practices improve womens work experience? This article attempts to answer this question as it relates to the utilization of family-friendly workplace policies within federal cabinet-level departments The authors examine how the Clinton administrations family-friendly initiatives are being operationalized in several departments, companng and contrasting these efforts in varying settings The authors conclude that—progressive federal legislation notwithstanding— significant barriers remain to the widespread implementation of such policies

Emotional Labor: Why and How to Teach It

Abstract Feedback from graduates often indicates that their training failed to adequately prepare them for the human processes involved in the administration and delivery of public services. Although provided with training in cognitive skills, they are left on their own to acquire an appreciation for, and to develop skill in, nuanced emotive skills. This is especially the case for graduates who work in service-delivery programs that are emotionally intense, such as disaster services, child protective services, domestic violence, emergency medical services, corrections, and law enforcement. To a lesser degree, it is the case for all programs that provide person-to-person services. This paper discusses why these skills are important, how they are referred to in the proposed National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration Standards 2009, and explains how they can be incorporated into a curriculum.

Symposium Federal Civil Service Reform: Another Legacy of 9/11?

In this post–September 11, 2001 era, it can be argued that civil service reform has increasingly taken on a sense of urgency. By any measure, the current reforms in process at the federal level are...

Best Practices in Managing Reductions in Force Lessons Learned From the Australian Public Service Reform

Confronted by limited resources and the pressures of cutback management, reductions in force (RIFs) have received much attention from both practitioners and scholars in the public sector in recent years. It has often been argued that a RIF constitutes a very difficult task for administrators, who are universally reluctant to lay off personnel, and that enormous levels of organizational stress are experienced when workforce reductions become necessary. Nevertheless, a strategically planned RIF, along with other productivity improvement strategies, may help conserve valuable human resources even in uncommonly bad economic times. This article examines best practices followed in managing a RIF in the Australian Public Service and suggests factors that should be considered for successful RIF processes in the public sector elsewhere, should the necessity arise.

Managing emotions while managing crises

Purpose – Using the July 2012 massacre at a midnight showing of a Batman movie as a case study, the paper aims to demonstrate how emotional labor is required of responders and spokespersons and then enumerates the human resource functions that can enhance emotion work skills.Design/methodology/approach – Using the massacre as a case in point, the authors demonstrate how emergency responders are called upon to manage their own emotions as well as those of victims and other constituencies. The authors then discuss human resource functions that can legitimize, enhance, and develop emotion work skills.Findings – This case demonstrates multiple facets of emotional labor in emergency response. Special attention is paid to the case of public information spokespersons because they are the bridge between the event, the response, and the image of competency that is created in the eyes of the public. Recommendations are enumerated for how the human resource function can facilitate emotion work skills.Practical impli...

Nonprofit Sector Unionization and Gender Equity Learning Lessons From a Case Study of a Teacher Organization in the St. Louis Archdiocese

This article examines issues that arose between a large Catholic archdiocese and its elementary school teachers when the latter organized to form a union to negotiate over wages, benefits, working conditions, and grievance procedures. Similar tensions are likely to reoccur in archdioceses across the country as the number of nuns continues to decline and parochial schools are forced to hire lay teachers. The St. Louis, Missouri, story underscores the gender inequity inherent in this area of nonprofit organizations’ labor relations; indeed, gender equity is the silent and heretofore invisible dimension driving major developments observed in the St. Louis experience. Similar gender equity-!oriented developments likely lie ahead in labor relations in the nonprofit sector as it expands its role in the contemporary hollow state of American government.