This timely Handbook addresses the concepts of stress and well-being among workers in various public sector roles and occupations across the globe. Emphasizing the importance of well-being and stress prevention initiatives in ever-changing workplace environments, this Handbook highlights successful organizational initiatives and provides insight into best practice for promoting healthy employees and workplaces. Containing contributions from leading international experts in their respective fields, the contributors hope that this multi-disciplinary Handbook will help to enhance the health and well-being of public sector employees.

There has been much recent commentary regarding a ‘crisis’ in academic mental health and wellbeing. This Research Handbook showcases cutting-edge studies and insightful narratives on the wellbeing of doctoral students, early career researchers, and faculty members, illuminating the current state of academic mental health research. Importantly, authors also offer potential solutions to the increasingly poor mental health reported by those working and studying in the higher education sector.

This book provides a novel contribution to the wider bodies of literature on student and academic wellbeing by including a series of rich and nuanced discussions of specific aspects of the wellbeing of legal academics. It contains original research contributions on this topic drawing on insights from law, education and psychology and throws a spotlight on an emerging field of interest. In particular, it focuses attention on the need to understand the implications of workload, communication, competence, and community for academic wellbeing with the collection providing insight as to the amelioration of stress linked to these themes. Reference will be made to the key factors which influence each of these themes, such as the neo-liberal academy, the contours and staffing of the law school, the impact of COVID-19 and the role of values and ethics. Relevant theoretical perspectives relating to these themes, including self-determination theory and the notion of an ethic of care, will also be discussed.

Questions about the causes or sources of work stress have been the subject of considerable research, as well as public fascination, for several decades. Earlier interest in this issue focused on the question of whether some jobs are simply more inherently stressful than others. Other questions that soon emerged asked whether some individuals were more prone to stress than others. The Handbook of Work Stress focuses primarily on identifying the different sources of work stress across different contexts and individuals. Part I focuses on work stressors that have been studied for decades (e.g., organizational-role stressors, work schedules) as well as stressors that have received less empirical and public scrutiny (e.g., industrial-relations stress, organizational politics). It also addresses stressors in the workplace that have become relevant more recently (e.g., terrorism). Part II of the Handbook covers issues related to gender, cultural or national origin, older and younger workers, and employment status, and asks how these characteristics might affect the experience of workplace stress. The adverse consequences of these diverse work stressors are manifold, and questions about the possible health consequences of work stressors were one of the major historical factors prompting early interest and research on work stress. In Part III, the individual and organizational consequences of work stress are considered in separate chapters. Key Features: Affords the most broad and credible perspective on the subject of work stress available The editors are all prominent researchers in the field of work stress, and have been instrumental in defining and developing the field from an organizational-psychological and organizational-behavior perspective International contributors are included, reflecting similarities and differences from around the world Chapter authors from the United States, Canada, England, Sweden, Japan, and Australia have been invited to participate, reflecting most of the countries in which active research on work stress is taking place The Handbook of Work Stress is essential reading for researchers in the fields of industrial and organizational psychology, human resources, health psychology, public health, and employee assistance.

With the introduction of policies to combat COVID-19, far greater numbers of employees across the globe—including those with limited job autonomy—have moved to undertake their entire job at home. Although challenging in the current climate, embracing these flexible modes of work such as working at home, including relevant investment in technology to enable this, will not only deliver potential organizational benefits but also increase the adaptability of the labor market in the short and longer terms. Although perhaps not the central concern of many in the current climate, “good” home-based work is achievable and perhaps even a solution to the current work-based dilemma created by COVID-19 and should be a common goal for individuals, organizations, and society. Research also has shifted to focus on the routines of workers, organizational performance, and well-being of companies and their employees along with reflections on the ways in which these developments may influence and alter the nature of paid work into the post-COVID-19 era. The Handbook of Research on Remote Work and Worker Well-Being in the Post-COVID-19 Era focuses on the rapid expansion of remote working in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic and the impacts it has had on both employees and businesses. The content of the book progresses understanding and raises awareness of the benefits and challenges faced by large-scale movements to remote working, considering the wide array of different ways in which the large-scale movement to remote working is impacting working lives and the economy. This book covers how different fields of work are responding and implementing remote work along with providing a presentation of how work occurs in digital spaces and the impacts on different topics such as gender dynamics and virtual togetherness. It is an ideal reference book for HR professionals, business managers, executives, entrepreneurs, policymakers, researchers, students, practitioners, academicians, and business professionals interested in the latest research on remote working and its impacts.

The COVID-19 pandemic provides an illustration of how chaotic changes to large systems are caused by small, seemingly insignificant environmental events such as the initial case(s) of COVID-19 in China. From this small starting point for the pandemic, there have been (and continue to be) millions of lives lost and trillions of dollars spent trying to alleviate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. World government and corporate leaders are striving to deal with this pandemic, but uncertainty is felt across the globe. Unprecedented strategies (e.g., the United States government’s multi-trillion-dollar stimulus package (s)) have been used to halt the spread of COVID-19. These small events cascade throughout larger and larger systems leading to unforeseeable consequences. Organizations must experiment and make decisions on how to react. Decisions must be made and implemented to see what the effects of these decisions are. The chapters in this volume provide important insights for all organizations during this time of crisis. The chapters express bottom-up and top-down approaches to a crisis-initiating environmental change by organizations. The chapters provide insight into the way organizations perceive the effect of COVID-19 as 1) a permanent or transitory change in the organization’s environment; and 2) as a crisis or opportunity. Taken together, the chapters provide both scientists and practitioners with a starting point for understanding the impact of COVID-19 on organizational theory and on management practice for readers.

Written by experts in the field, this well-established book provides a critical and academically rigorous exploration of the key functions, practices and issues in HRM today. The first part of Contemporary Human Resource Management covers fundamental HRM practices while the second half examines contemporary themes and issues such as work-place bullying, flexibility and emotion at work. Each chapter contains two thought-provoking case studies, encouraging readers to identify, examine and apply key concepts to real-world examples. This substantially revised sixth edition includes three completely new chapters and case studies on: HRM in SMEs The Future of Work Employee Wellbeing

Return to HMP Parkhurst in this raw and fascinating account of life as a prison officer. David Berridge returns with more stories from his time as a prison officer at HMP Parkhurst, giving a uncompromising look at the harsh reality of working in British prisons. From dealing with inmate violence and clearing out defiled prison cells to the unsavoury nature of prison language and life, this is an even more detailed look inside Britain's most infamous prison. Through it all, David retains his wry humour and offers a much-needed assessment of the state of UK prisons today, the job crisis and poor recruitment, the corruption and gangs running rife, and the mental health epidemic hitting prisoners, causing many to take their own lives.

This edited collection brings together academics, lawyers, civil servants, and researchers working in the human rights NGO sector, to explore the work and role of prison officers around the world. Each chapter offers a distinctive perspective on the work of prison officers within localised socio-economic and criminal justice contexts, to provide a unique overview and insight into the realities and complexities of the role through accessible scholarly interpretations of their work. The aim of the book is to advance knowledge and understanding of the crucial role that prison officers occupy within carceral systems. The collection has widespread applicability with relevance beyond academia into criminal justice practice and policy internationally. Chapter 3 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

The first volume focuses on globalization, international migration, employment, labour agency, technological change, and labour resilience. This book aims to examine how labour institutions, both in developed and developing countries, have responded to the challenges faced over the last 30 years. It will be relevant to students and researchers interested in labour economics, political economy, and development economics.