Performance Management: A New Light through Old Windows?
The case study of Maple Leaf Concrete Products is examined in this paper. The experts weigh in on how Maple Leaf Concrete Products can improve their performance management systems.
Human Resources
Employee Performance and Discipline Problems: A New Approach
This study provides a detailed guide to managing employee performance and discipline problems within the context of new high performance systems.
E-Mail in the Workplace: The Potential for Increased Employee Participation
This current issues paper studies the benefits and drawbacks of email in the workplace – and its potential for increasing employee participation by enabling more democratic communication.
Cross-Training at Peace River Pulp: A Case Study
To maintain competitiveness, many companies are turning to cross-training so that employees are skilled in multiple jobs. This case study looks at a Peace River Pulp of Alberta, which provides a successful example of cross-training in practice.
Mergers and Acquisitions: The Role of HRM in Success
This study of the strategies of 44 Canadian companies with active merger and acquisition programs provides clear understanding of common “people problems” related to failed mergers.
Work and Family: Programs that Help to Balance the Dual Role
Work-life conflict causes stress and burnout for increasing numbers of Canadians. From a detailed study of a leading biotech company, the author identifies key components of effective work/family programs.
Relationships by Objectives: The Experience at Petro-Canada
If Canadian industries are to compete successfully in the new economy, unions and management must move away from their traditional adversarial relationships. This study analyzes a conflict resolution method, known as Relationships by Objectives (RBO), that directs unions and management away from conflict and towards cooperation through joint problem solving. RBO was part of the Preventive Mediation Program provided by the Ontario Ministry of Labour beginning in 1978.
Strategic Human Resources Management: Challenges and Opportunities
In this interview, IRC Senior Research Associate Mary Lou Coates talks to Dr. David Weiss about the challenges and opportunities in strategic human resources management. Dr. David Weiss is a Partner in the international organizational change and human resources consulting firm of Geller, Shedletsky & Weiss and a HR Profession.
Electronic Meeting Systems: Win-Win Group Decision Making?
Electronic meeting systems (EMS) can help conflicting groups move from disagreement to consensus and help enable management and unions to become strategic partners says the author of the study, which provides a detailed account of the operation of an EMS system, potential benefits, and pitfalls to avoid.
Attendance Management Programs: Doing It Right
The author outlines for employers what they need to know about principles established in jurisprudence regarding absenteeism and attendance management programs.
Mergers & Acquisitions: Organizational Culture & HR Issues
This study highlights the importance of the proactive management of HR issues and offers detailed practical advice to practitioners.
Human Resources Best Practices During a Merger
The author, Julie Anderson, wrote a paper on people management during mergers and acquisitions. This information sheet is extracted from that paper, and discusses the human factors that can be responsible for merger failures.
Free Trade in North America: The Impact on Industrial Relations and Human Resources Management in Canada
This paper studies the impact of free trade on industrial relations and human resource management in Canada by examining the cases of two globally focused companies with a strong Canadian presence
People Management: The Crucial Aspect of Mergers and Acquisitions
This examination of the merger of two beer companies provides insights about the human impact of mergers, as well as merger principles for HR professionals.
The Retention of Physicians in Rural Areas: The Case of Nova Scotia
The research explores current issues relating to the shortage of rural physicians, including access to rural care, recruitment and retention, working hours, fee-for-service versus salaried earnings, and incentives.
Managing the Contingent Work Force: Lessons for Success
Many employers are scaling down their regular fulltime, full-year work force and increasing their use of contingent workers to reduce labour costs and meet the fluctuating demands of the global marketplace. But if a contingent work force strategy is to succeed, employers must take steps to alleviate the well-documented negative impact of contingent work on worker health. If employers do not do so, their savings may be offset by a decrease in productivity and in work quality.
A Framework for a Formal Mentoring Program
Mentoring is an ancient concept that experienced a renaissance about a decade ago (Goodson 1992, 19). Mentorships are relationships which provide guidance, support, a role model, and a confidante (known as a mentor) for junior organizational members (known as protégés). An effective mentoring relationship is one in which both mentor and protégé develop a productive level of intimacy, enabling the protégé to learn the ropes and adapt to organizational expectations (Burke and McKeen 1989, 1).
Contingent Work Force Strategy: Guidelines for Success
This overview offers guidelines for managing contingent employees, which may include non-regular part-time workers, temporary workers, independent contract workers, dependent contract workers, and employee leasing arrangements.
The information in these guidelines was extracted from the 1997 IRC Press Publication by Kelly Ann Daly entitled Managing the Contingent Workforce: Lessons for Success, which provides more detailed information on the topic.
Outsourcing and the ‘New’ Human Resource Management
Once believed to be strictly an administrative function low on management's priority list, the human resource function is increasingly involved in strategic management decisions. Intense competitive pressures are forcing it to reexamine its structure, the services it provides, and the competencies it requires. As a result, HR is looking at outsourcing as a way to reduce its workload and concentrate on strategic core functions. Interviews with nine HR executives reported in this study provide a snapshot of how Canadian organizations and their HR functions are changing to cope with the new economic environment.
Employee Involvement, Strategic Management & Human Resources: Exploring the Linkages
There has been very little research addressing the relationship between human resource practices and organizational strategy and culture. Among the questions that frequently arise are: what practices have other organizations implemented?, what HRM practices and organizational strategies distinguish successful and unsuccessful organizations?, and what is the impact of strategy and culture on the success of HRM practices and organizational behaviour? The present study is aimed at addressing these questions.
Business Strategies and Human Resource Policies
In this interview, IRC Senior Research Associate Mary Lou Coates talks to Lee Dyer about business strategies and human resource policies. His teaching and research interests focus on human resource strategy, human resource planning and decision making, and comprehensive employee relations.
Human Resources as a Source of Competitive Advantage
In this Don Wood Lecture in Industrial Relations, Lee Dyer discusses using human resource strategy to provide business with a competitive advantage.
Job Evaluation: A Quest for Gender Neutrality
The long debated issue of gender bias in job evaluation systems has become even more important with the advent of pay equity legislation in Ontario. This statute requires the use of a gender-neutral job comparison system to identify and rectify wage discrimination in female-dominated jobs. Unfortunately, this legislation provides very little guidance as to what is meant by a gender-neutral job comparison system. This paper identifies the ingredients of a gender-neutral comparison system.
Developments in Industrial Relations and Human Resource Practices in Canada: An Update from the 1980s
This study was undertaken as part of the Structural Change in Canadian Industrial Relations project at the Centre for Industrial Relations, University of Toronto. The Canadian industrial relations system has followed a course of incremental change and adjustment over the past decade that leaves intact the basic institutional framework and relationships among labor, business, and government. Thus, the system, while changing in ways that are similar to employment relations in other industrial nations, has not undergone any dramatic transformation.
Who Gains from Worker Participation?
There is a growing interest in participative management as a way to overcome rigidities in labour-management relations. This implies a higher degree of self-supervision, flatter hierarchies and blurring of the lines dividing workers and managers. In other words, participative management entails a restructuring of the power relation between labour and management. This paper addresses this issue.