Workforce

About: Workforce is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 32140 publications have been published within this topic receiving 449850 citations. The topic is also known as: labour force & labor force.

COVID-19's impact on the hospitality workforce - new crisis or amplification of the norm?

Abstract: Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to highlight the immediate impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the hospitality workforce in situ between mid-April and June 2020. Design/methodology/approach: This is a viewpoint paper that brings together a variety of sources and intelligence relating the impacts on hospitality work of the COVID-19 pandemic at three levels: macro (global, policy, government), meso (organisational) and micro (employee). It questions whether the situations faced by hospitality workers as a result of the pandemic are seed-change different from the precarious lives they normally lead or just a (loud) amplification of the “normal”. Findings: In light of the fluid environment relating to COVID-19, conclusions are tentative and question whether hospitality stakeholders, particularly consumers, governments and the industry itself, will emerge from the pandemic with changed attitudes to hospitality work and hospitality workers. Practical implications: This raises questions about hospitality work for key stakeholders to address in the future, some of which are systemic in terms of how precarious labour forces, critical to the global economy are to be considered by policy makers, organisations in a re-emerging competitive market for talent and for those who chose (or not) to work in hospitality. Social implications: This paper contributes to ongoing debates about precarious work and the extent to which such practices are institutionalised and adopts an “amplification model” that may have value in futures-orientated analysis about hospitality and tourism. Originality/value: This paper is wholly original and a reflection on the COVID-19 crisis. It provides a point of wider reference with regard to responses to crises and their impact on employment in hospitality, highlighting how ongoing change, fluidity and uncertainty serve to magnify and exacerbate the precarious nature of work in the industry.

Health System Reform in China 5 China's human resources for health: quantity, quality, and distribution

Abstract: In this paper, we analyse China’s current health workforce in terms of quantity, quality, and distribution. Unlike most countries, China has more doctors than nurses—in 2005, there were 1·9 million licensed doctors and 1·4 million nurses. Doctor density in urban areas was more than twice that in rural areas, with nurse density showing more than a three-fold diff erence. Most of China’s doctors (67·2%) and nurses (97·5%) have been educated up to only junior college or secondary school level. Since 1998 there has been a massive expansion of medical education, with an excess in the production of health workers over absorption into the health workforce. Inter-county inequality in the distribution of both doctors and nurses is very high, with most of this inequality accounted for by within-province inequalities (82% or more) rather than by between-province inequalities. Urban–rural disparities in doctor and nurse density account for about a third of overall inter-county inequality. These inequalities matter greatly with respect to health outcomes across counties, provinces, and strata in China; for instance, a cross-county multiple regression analysis using data from the 2000 census shows that the density of health workers is highly signifi cant in explaining infant mortality.

Bridging Troubled Waters: Family Caregivers, Transitions, And Long-Term Care

Abstract: Families are the bedrock of long-term care, but policymakers have traditionally considered them “informal” caregivers, as they are not part of the formal paid caregiving workforce. As chronic and l...

Battle Buddies: Rapid Deployment of a Psychological Resilience Intervention for Health Care Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Abstract: The outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and its rapid global spread have created unprecedented challenges to health care systems. Significant and sustained efforts have focused on mobilization of personal protective equipment, intensive care beds, and medical equipment, while substantially less attention has focused on preserving the psychological health of the medical workforce tasked with addressing the challenges of the pandemic. And yet, similar to battlefield conditions, health care workers are being confronted with ongoing uncertainty about resources, capacities, and risks; as well as exposure to suffering, death, and threats to their own safety. These conditions are engendering high levels of fear and anxiety in the short term, and place individuals at risk for persistent stress exposure syndromes, subclinical mental health symptoms, and professional burnout in the long term. Given the potentially wide-ranging mental health impact of COVID-19, protecting health care workers from adverse psychological effects of the pandemic is critical. Therefore, we present an overview of the potential psychological stress responses to the COVID-19 crisis in medical providers and describe preemptive resilience-promoting strategies at the organizational and personal level. We then describe a rapidly deployable Psychological Resilience Intervention founded on a peer support model (Battle Buddies) developed by the United States Army. This intervention-the product of a multidisciplinary collaboration between the Departments of Anesthesiology and Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at the University of Minnesota Medical Center-also incorporates evidence-informed "stress inoculation" methods developed for managing psychological stress exposure in providers deployed to disasters. Our multilevel, resource-efficient, and scalable approach places 2 key tools directly in the hands of providers: (1) a peer support Battle Buddy; and (2) a designated mental health consultant who can facilitate training in stress inoculation methods, provide additional support, or coordinate referral for external professional consultation. In parallel, we have instituted a voluntary research data-collection component that will enable us to evaluate the intervention's effectiveness while also identifying the most salient resilience factors for future iterations. It is our hope that these elements will provide guidance to other organizations seeking to protect the well-being of their medical workforce during the pandemic. Given the remarkable adaptability of human beings, we believe that, by promoting resilience, our diverse health care workforce can emerge from this monumental challenge with new skills, closer relationships, and greater confidence in the power of community.

Cohort profile: the GAZEL Cohort Study

Abstract: Electricite de France-Gaz de France (EDF-GDF) is the only utility firm in France involved in production, transmission and distribution of energy. For several reasons, EDF-GDF is a unique setting for epidemiology. The company employs about 150 000 workers in all regions of France, from large cities to small villages; there is a wide socioeconomic range of occupational positions, including white and blue-collars workers. The workforce is very stable: due to their civil servant-like status, employees almost never leave the company and are not lost to follow-up even after retirement, since retirement benefits are paid by the company itself. An extensive human resources system allows for a complete follow-up of the workers, even when they retire. EDF-GDF has its own Occupational Health and Social Security system; about 300 physicians work for the company and are responsible for the health surveillance of the workers. During the seventies the medical department of EDF-GDF decided to build a comprehensive database on the health of the workforce. The database was designed in close collaboration with researchers at INSERM—the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research—Research Unit 88, directed at that time by one of us who was also a Scientific advisor for the medical department of the company (MG). The database contained demographic, socioeconomic and professional data on each worker. An exhaustive register of sick leave, accidents, permanent disabilities, compensated diseases, causes of death, cancer and coronary heart disease incidence among active workers was created. Further, a job-exposure matrix was established for 30 potentially carcinogenic agents. 1,2 Using these databases several epidemiological studies on working accidents, sick leave, cancer and mortality were carried out. However the absence of individual level data on lifestyle, self-reported health conditions and the social environment limited the ability to study numerous research questions in-depth. With the aim of overcoming some of these shortcomings, researchers at INSERM designed a new project to develop a longitudinal cohort made of a sample of volunteer EDF-GDF workers: the GAZEL Cohort Study (GAZEL stands for GAZ and ELectricite). The management, the unions and the medical department of EDF-GDF gave their consent to the project, and the company accepted to provide regular access to all personal and health data files. EDF-GDF and the worker’s social activities organization decided to fund INSERM Unit 88 for the major part of the GAZEL Cohort Study costs on a regular basis; regular funding came also from INSERM Unit 88’s own budget, and specific funding for the setting up of a biobank came from private foundations (Fondation de France and Association pour la recherche sur le cancer). These resources allow only for the basic functioning of the cohort and all specific research projects must find their own additional funding. The GAZEL Cohort Study was launched in January 1989. INSERM Unit 88 (now Unit 687: Public Health and Epidemiology of Occupational and Social Determinants of Health) manages the project and has had full responsibility for it since the beginning, without any interference from the company in relation to the scientific work or publication of results.