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Litigation and courts have been important arbiters of labour policy reforms aimed at redressing Japan's growing social inequality. This article considers seven lawsuits brought by non-regular workers, who sought to use Article 20 of the 2012 Labour Contracts Act to gain equal pay for equal work. All seven cases reached Japan's Supreme Court amid Abe Shinzō's 2018 labour reforms. The Court's interpretations reaffirmed employer discretion in categorising employees as a reasonable principle, albeit one which limits the law's power to redress wage inequality. However, the Court also found the non-provision of various minor benefits to be unreasonable. These outcomes evince a pattern in which litigation marginally transforms reformed labour policy into institutional support for greater equality of compensation and benefits between workers of different statuses. More than advancing equal pay for equal work, the outcomes of these cases support recent government-industry campaigns to boost productivity by encouraging increased use of job-based treatment and diversifying Japan's employment system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing and supporting a diverse workforce that reflects the communities we serve is a central value and a customer-based business decision of the University of Arizona (UA) Libraries. In response to data collected through climate surveys, the UA Libraries’ Diversity Committee has been systematically working to improve the organization's climate for diversity. One activity undertaken was the development and incorporation of diversity competencies into the Libraries’ hiring and training processes. This article explores the importance of a diversity-competent workforce, shares the UA Libraries’ experiences in diversity competency development, and suggests why and how other libraries can engage in a similar process. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Previous research has demonstrated that individuals improve their performance of a task after observing and evaluating others perform that task, a phenomenon known as the observer effect. Most of the research has demonstrated this when the observers were aware that their performance of the task was also being observed, suggesting that reactivity may play an important role. The current study examined this by evaluating the impact that observing others’ safety performance had on the observers’ subsequent safety performance under reactivity and nonreactivity conditions. Results suggest that the observer effect might be more robust when observers are aware that their performance is also being evaluated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We aimed to identify longitudinal leisure activity profiles among working adults and their links to recovery experiences and job performance. Leisure activities, recovery experiences, and job performance were investigated among 831 employees using survey data collected in spring 2013 (T1) and 2014 (T2). Through latent profile analysis (LPA), four stable longitudinal leisure activity profiles were identified. "Social Sports(wo)men" (46%) engaged in physical and social activities but rarely in creative or cultural activities. "Active Artists" (23%) pursued all leisure activities, particularly creative activities. "Socially & Culturally Inactives" (17%) exercised frequently but seldom engaged in social, cultural or creative activities. "Inactive Soloists" (14%) spent little time on physical activities. "Active Artists" reported most beneficial recovery experiences and job performance. Our results corroborate the importance of leisure activities (particularly diverse and creative activities) in facilitating recovery from work stress and job performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Doctoral research into competence for social work practice engaged with 17 participants who drew upon their experiences of being practice educators and registered social work practitioners and the analysis of data suggested they identified a difference between competence to pass a final placement and capability for social work practice. Baseline social work knowledge, skills and values will enable a student to pass a final placement however, research data suggest that the individual’s approach to learning, emotional intelligence and resilience give confidence that they are more likely to be able to cope in a social work role. Practice educators intuitively recognise these characteristics and this article argues that in addition to working with students, practice educators are ideally situated to support individuals throughout their post qualifying social work learning journey. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The use of mixed-preference reinforcer delivery (i.e., the random delivery of a set of items with varying degrees of preference for each individual) with employees has been found to produce moderate levels of responding in an analog setting; however, mixed reinforcer delivery may not conform to the recommendations made by some popular writers in organizational behavior management. The current investigation used a progressively thinning high-preference stimulus delivery procedure to investigate the use of mixed reinforcer delivery with 5 employees. Results indicated that most participants did not reliably complete work when the percent chance of earning a high-preference item dropped below 100%. These results do not support the use of varied reinforcers in applied settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the frequency with which performance feedback interventions are used in organizational behavior management, component analyses of such feedback are rare. It has been suggested that evaluation of performance and objective details about performance are two necessary components for performance feedback. The present study was designed to help clarify which components are required for maximal effectiveness by comparing four conditions: (a) combined evaluative and objective feedback, (b) evaluative feedback alone, (c) objective feedback alone, and (d) no feedback. A total of 105 undergraduate students were recruited to work on a simulated bank check processing task while being exposed to one of the four feedback conditions. The number of checks correctly processed served as the dependent variable. Results suggest that a combination of objective and evaluative feedback is necessary for maximal performance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Coaching in organisations is often limited to high potential employees and varying levels of management for a specific duration of time, typically lasting six months. The Strategies for Enhancing Performance Initiative introduces a more simplified usage of coaching and one that has potential to address a much larger audience. The Strategies for Enhancing Performance Initiative began in 2003 and involved 115 workers in an experimental/control design. The purpose of the study was to identify, test and measure the most effective Performance Control Practices used in the workplace to increase performance while simultaneously mitigating the negative effects of stress. Participants took part in a 4-hour traditional classroom-based training programme, followed by one individual 30-minute phone coaching session with an external coach 3–4 weeks after the training programme. The results for the experimental group, when compared to the control group, showed a significant difference in their ability to identify solutions to issues that positively impacted their work to be done, their effectiveness when being criticised, their heightened ability to deal with changing priorities and more effectively dealing with tight deadlines and turning around assignments. The experimental group also showed an increased adeptness for articulating ideas more clearly and concisely when compared to the control group. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Sports coaches operate within a complex, ever-changing environment that imposes many pressures on them. Here, we address the psychological impact of these demands via a critical review of the literature pertaining to stress in sport coaches. The narrative is divided into three main sections: (1) conceptual and definitional issues, (2) theoretical and empirical issues, and (3) implications for applied practice. The review focuses on the environmental stressors that coaches encounter, their appraisals of and responses to these demands, and the impact this has on their personal well-being and job performance. The influence of various personal and situational characteristics is also discussed. A key message to emerge from this review is that the potential health and performance costs of psychological stress to sports coaches are significant. The rapid rate of change in contemporary sport and the dynamic nature of stress mean that stress in coaches is an ongoing problem that needs to be monitored and addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study tests the general idea that people in different organizational positions can have different perspectives on what performance means in a particular job and that these different perspectives are reflected in their implicit trait policies (ITPs) about performance in that job. We test the hypothesis that prison inmates harbor ITPs about the importance of agreeableness and conscientiousness in correctional officers' performance that are different from the ITPs harbored by officers and supervisors. Our results show that critical incidents of officers' performance that are generated by inmates emphasize agreeableness more and conscientiousness less than critical incidents generated by officers and supervisors. Our results also show that inmates' ratings of the effectiveness of officers' behavior described in critical incidents are more strongly associated with the agreeableness of the behavior and less strongly associated with the conscientiousness of the behavior than are officers' and supervisors' ratings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the concept of "competency" as it applies to college instructors in Russia. The author provides a background of studies on competency in the U.S. and explains several 21st-century Russian pedagogical interpretations of competency, which include "the personal component of professionalism" (T. Iu. Bazarov), "the result and the criterion of the quality of specialist training" (A. G. Bermus, I. A. Zimniaia), and "a new approach to the drafting of educational standards" (A. V. Khutorskoi). He discusses changing roles of college professionals, noting that their training includes imparting learning skills and instilling motivation in students as well as sharing knowledge. He discusses personal growth, continuous education, and ability to compete.

I cannot begin to describe my delight at having the opportunity to write this introduction to the special issue on typical versus maximum performance. It's humbling to realize that a paper you've written emerges as the seminal paper that starts a new line of research. But that appears to be the case: The notion of differentiating between typical and maximum performance on the criterion side of the equation is generally credited to Sackett, Zedeck, and Fogli (1988). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Librarians participating in Oregon's collaborative statewide virtual reference project used an analysis of chat reference transcripts to evaluate librarian performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Competency management has attracted much attention, especially between business consultants and human resources professionals. Nevertheless, the lack of a unified framework of generic work competencies has been a significant obstacle for the further development of the field, both in research and in practice. This article discusses the development, validation, and psychometric properties of a measure of generic work competencies assessing three types of generic work competencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We conducted a laboratory experiment to determine whether legitimacy appraisals (i.e., the extent to which an outcome distribution is thought to be fair and just) would influence the extent to which entitlement beliefs about wages were based on in-group wage comparison information and perceptions of one's own performance. To manipulate legitimacy appraisals, participants were led to believe that the wage allocation procedure was unbiased, potentially biased, or biased. In addition, they were exposed to wage comparison information, indicating that in-group members had earned more than out-group members in the past or vice versa. Results show that, when procedures were thought to be unbiased, participants' beliefs about the amounts they deserved to be paid were influenced more by in-group wage comparison information than perceptions of their own performance. In contrast, when participants perceived allocation procedures to be biased, entitlement beliefs were influenced more by perceptions of their own performance than by in-group wage comparison information. These findings are presented in terms of the paradoxical contentment often observed among members of objectively disadvantaged groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of experience on the goal-setting behavior of Type A and Type B individuals was assessed using anagram tasks. Sixty men and 60 women were administered the Jenkins Activity Survey as well as a questionnaire assessing their previous experience with anagram tasks. Before each of three anagram trials, subjects set a performance goal and indicated how certain they were that they could reach that goal. The analyses indicated that Type A men had the largest differences between performance goals and actual performance, even though men, in general, were more certain that they would reach their goals. Differences across trials, however, decreased for all individuals. Men with the most prior self-reported experience were least satisfied with their performance. Of interest was the finding that Type B women had higher difference scores than did Type A women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]