Outlines the symptoms of employee burnout, specific counseling strategies to avoid and treat burnout, and organizational approaches to helping affected employees. (SK)

Holds that institutional abuse of children is best prevented by designing programs according to acceptable standards rather than by investigating individual cases. Uses guidelines published in the new "Guidebook on Residential Child Care" to describe prevention theory, staffing and supervision procedures, involvement of outside community members,…

In multinational organizations, effective localization means that a local citizen fills a job with sufficient competence. Three considerations are the nature of the organization, the capabilities of the individual, and the capacity to train in particular skills. Obstacles may be inappropriate job specifications and the attitudes of both local and…

The important role of academic department secretaries at institutions of higher education is considered in the context of a survey of 121 academic department support staff. Possible strategies for retaining these valuable employees are offered, including accurate position descriptions, appropriate compensation, team-building programs, and special…

Discussion of telecommuting possibilities focuses on a program at Information Access Company that allows indexers and abstractors to work at home. Employer and employee expectations are discussed, equipment provisions are described, employee benefits are examined, and implications for the library environment are suggested. (LRW)

Boston College's (Massachusetts) vice president of information technology remarks on the elements contributing to his success on the occasion of receiving a professional award. He credits talented and energetic employees and an improved administrative structure for making innovation work. An interview about personnel changes at Boston College is…

Core principles of successful workplace literacy programs are relevance, integration of literacy and job skills, flexibility, continuity, and shared ownership and accountability. Success often involves complex negotiations to balance needs of employers, employees, and educators. (SK)

Reports on a study that found that the perceived quality of coworker information and superior-subordinate communication concepts were directly related to voluntary turnover intentions, as were organizational commitment and perceived job alternatives. (TB)

The "focus group discussion," a qualitative technique often used in market research, has been a useful tool in corporate exploration of employee child care needs and preferences and has led to the development of management policy regarding child care. The child care focus group has helped the employer learn more about employees' child care…

This document reports the oral and written testimony of five witnesses who addressed the accuracy, uses, abuses, and possible benefits of drug testing in the workplace at a Congressional hearing. The hearing was conducted to discuss H.R. 691, the Employee Drug Testing Protection Act, which would prohibit drug testing in the workplace except in…

This report by the President's Planning Commission at Elgin Community College (ECC) presents two visions of the college's future based on community and staff views of how the college should develop and provides goals to help realize these visions. First, the report presents the basic planning assumptions, or megatrends, on which the scenarios for…

The role of "woman manager" is confusing at best. On the one hand, the woman manager is told to forget that she is a woman; on the other, she is advised to cultivate feminine qualities to achieve managerial positions in departments where these qualities are valued. Women's participation in management increased slowly. Whereas one-third of the work…

Looks at changes in the manager's role due to technological advancement in the workplace. Discusses wider range of uses for computers (analysis, decision making, communications, planning, tracking trends), importance of supervisor training, cyberphobia (fear of new technology), cyberphrenia (addiction to new technology), and the effect of a work…

Discusses the current emphasis on assessment of library effectiveness and describes several assessment techniques. It is argued that, by encouraging staff to develop an attitude of self-assessment based on their ability to add value to library services, the assessment phenomenon can be used to improve the overall quality of libraries. (11…

Learning to interact positively with personality-challenged individuals will result in a more productive work and home life. A behavioral-styles model, and the effect of conflict on the personality types in the model, are displayed in figures and text. Case studies demonstrate successful interaction strategies. (MLF)