Introduction

Summary

In a global world, a lot happens all at once.

In Ontario, a nurse manager at critical care health center quickly finds a replacement for a nurse who is sick and unable to come in to work her shift. Seems easy enough, but the nurse in question has an assignment that requires certain levels of accreditation. So, a replacement must be found within a staff of 2,600 who has that same level of training.

Meanwhile, in California's Sierra Nevada Mountain Range, where skiing is both fantastic fun and big business, payroll is prominent. One of the area's major resorts has ramped up its diverse seasonal workforce to over 2,500 employees, and they play roles in everything from recreation to hospitality, from real estate development to food and beverage services, as well as retail sales. That means simultaneously adhering to a multitude of pay rules to avoid things going downhill.

Further south, in Mexico, at a massive automobile manufacturing plant, more than 15,000 employees hold coveted jobs where workers earn roughly three times the national average wage by toiling in the international automaker's second largest manufacturing facility. But those workers have families, so some are putting in for time off at the same electronic time clock they use to check in and out of work.

Halfway around the world and down under in Australia, executives at a beverage company, creators of some of that continent's most loved and iconic nonalcoholic thirst quenchers, are collecting valuable data analytics in an effort to maximize the output of their workforce.

Meanwhile, in India, an insomniac recent college grad stays up late filling out a job application online in the hope of gaining employment with a retail consumer electronics giant. An employer to over 3,000 employees, this company is the kind of employer that empowers its staff with user-friendly tools like self-service kiosks, so hours can be checked and time off can be scheduled with a few taps on a keypad, providing just the type of modern environment that makes this college grad want to work for them.