The relationships that care home staff have with their co-workers are a key influence on the way they feel about their work and how they perform in their roles. This has a direct influence on quality of care and life as experienced by residents. However, care home providers face a challenge to promote co-worker relationships because: (a) the care home workforce often lack human resource oversight; (b) registered managers (and nurses), who often lack leadership training, are tasked with managing the working relationships of staff, the majority of whom are care workers of different ages, ethnicity and cultural beliefs; and (c) most (care workers) do not have any formal qualifications and are not routinely provided with the communication skills to facilitate collaborative working in dynamic and pressured climates. In this forum article, we consider these challenges and their implications for collaborative co-worker relationships, before highlighting opportunities for research, policy and practice. An important starting point is to focus on developing the leadership skills of staff at all levels and provide care workers with the skills they require to manage their working relationships and support them in their everyday work for the benefit of residents.

Drawing on systems theory, this paper aims to search for a leverage point in a high-performance work system (HPWS) wherein a small change of a constituent part significantly enhances the effect of the whole system on organizational performance (OP). Based on meta-analysis of 59,207 firms and establishments from 240 sample studies up to December 2021, the paper examines the effect of HPWS composition, coupled with country of origin and industrial affiliation, on the HPWS–OP relationship. The paper finds that training and development serves as a leverage point to significantly strengthen the synergy of HPWS. However, this leverage point works in advanced countries rather than developing countries, and in service industries rather than manufacturing industries. The finding indicates that a leverage point is not omnipresent, but contingent on country of origin and industrial affiliation. This study has practical implications for managers, highlighting the importance of a leverage point to the HPWS–OP relationship and the contingency nature of the leverage point.

How does employees' work context and job characteristics influence their creative behavior? To explore this question, this study draws on the Job Demands – Job Resources (JD-R) model to examine the role of excessive work overload and training and development on employee creative behaviors. Additionally, the study explores whether employees' work passion mitigates or enhances the effects of work overload and training and development on their creative behavior. Data from 142 employee–supervisor dyads in a Singaporean telecommunications organization showed that work overload had a marginally significant positive effect on employee creative behavior. Additionally, employees' work passion was found to enhance the effects of training and development on their creative behavior. The study contributes to ongoing debates in the literature regarding how specific characteristics of one's job and targeted human resource practices may foster employee creativity.

According to self-determination theory, employees' well-being is related to the autonomy-supportive style of a supervisor. However, the effect of supervision style on well-being remains understudied in low-skilled occupations. This study employed a mixed-method, multi-level approach to examine the impact of autonomy-supportive training (AST) on supervisors and employees and to identify factors contributing to the maintenance of supervisors' autonomy support (SAS). The quantitative phase evaluated the effect of AST on supervisory style and employees' well-being, with a sample of 44 supervisors and 240 employees in New Zealand. The qualitative phase used focus groups and interview with 15 supervisors to explore factors that could influence the maintenance of SAS. Overall, supervisors can be trained to adopt an autonomy-supportive style, but these skills can also be diluted by organisational factors such as pressures and managerial behaviour. This study contributes to autonomy-supportive style research in order to account for factors affecting the maintenance of SAS in low-skilled occupations.

Based on positive organizational scholarship in healthcare, this study examined the relationships between four dimensions of employee perception of training: workplace stress, organizational outcomes, job performance, and turnover intentions. We hypothesized that employee training perception would have a negative relationship with workplace stress and that stress would mediate the relationship between employee training perception, job performance, and turnover intentions. We obtained data on 317 elderly-care workers in Northern Cyprus and analyzed it using structural equation modeling. Employee training perception was negatively related to workplace stress, and stress was negatively related to job performance and positively related to turnover intention. In line with Job Demand-Resource theory (JD-R), workplace stress partially mediated the relationship between employee training perception and organizational outcomes. The study contributes to the literature by confirming that elderly-care organizations that provide training opportunities for employees can reduce workplace stress, build organizational strengths, and facilitate positive outcomes.

There is limited research that addresses the inclusion of individuals with autism in the workforce. Autism employment in information technology (IT) is a new phenomenon and there is no established theory to draw from to investigate this phenomenon. In this paper, we review the existing literature on autism employment and present a theoretical framework to study information technology workplace readiness to equitably include individuals with autism. Our proposed framework extends Annabi and Lebovitz’s organizational interventions mitigating individual barriers theoretical framework to include Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behavior constructs. The framework will contribute to advancing the knowledge and understanding of the needs of individuals with autism, the knowledge and attitudes of neurotypical information technology employees, and organization and employment characteristics. Ultimately, this work will lead to discoveries that broaden participation of individuals with autism in the information technology industry and beyond.

This study used two theoretical lenses (positive organizational behaviour and social exchange theory) to examine the influence of an individual attribute – psychological capital (PsyCap), and an organizational factor – leader–member exchange, upon police officers’ perceptions of learning options (teamwork and training) and affective commitment. A cross-sectional design using a survey-based, self-report strategy was used to collect data from 588 frontline police officers in the United States. The findings indicate that leader–member exchange explained almost a fifth of PsyCap and together leader–member exchange and PsyCap accounted for almost a third of police officers’ satisfaction with training. Further, leader–member exchange, PsyCap, training and teamwork collectively explain almost half of affective commitment. One implication of the findings is that if senior management want police officers to be more committed, they have to improve officers’ relationships with their supervisors, upskill them (especially their supervisors) in PsyCap, and improve teamwork opportunities and processes.

The article reports on findings from a survey of hospitality employers in Nottingham, United Kingdom. It discusses one aspect of a research project funded by the East Midlands Tourism aimed at exploring the skill sets desired and made available to the local hospitality and tourism economy through students at local colleges and universities. The survey explored employers' motives, experiences and evaluations of employing students in their businesses. The research confirms that often the decision to employ students is ‘to meet the uneven levels of demand for hospitality services’, and in part, ‘to meet the extra demand created by the student economy in Nottingham itself’. During the academic year the two universities in Nottingham generate considerable demand in the local economy through the presence of students who come to study in the city from elsewhere. Furthermore, many employers in hospitality organisations are concerned to recruit casual labour, some of whom happen to be students. In most cases, employers are very satisfied with the contribution that students make, though few consider developing a long-term relationship with them. Consequently, most students are employed in routine unskilled, front-line roles. Few are promoted to supervisory or managerial positions, or considered for long-term employment after graduation.

This article examines literature published since 1997 on functional behaviour assessment (FBA) and behaviour intervention plans (BIPs), involving school-based personnel, for children identified as having or being at risk of emotional/behavioural disorder (E/BD) in school settings. Of interest was the level of involvement of school-based personnel in the FBA and BIP processes, intervention efficacy, the social validity of assessment and intervention, and intervention treatment integrity. Results indicate that involvement of school-based personnel in all FBA processes and BIP design was not common practice. FBA-based BIPs were found to be effective in reducing problem behaviours targeted for change for the majority of student participants. Social validity and treatment integrity measures, when reported, were high. Issues of training and barriers to successful application are discussed.