The Enterprise Culture of the 1980s helped transform economies of Western Europe, but left behind a legacy of stress, both for managers and shop floor workers. The cost to business is seen in absenteeism, reduced productivity, compensation claims, health insurance and direct medical costs, which in the US cost approximately $150 billion a year. Stress related absences are about ten time more costly in the UK than all industrial relations disputes put together, and sickness absence, premature death and retirement due to alcoholism costs a staggering £2 billion a year.
The future is likely to get worse. As the pace of change increases and competition intensifies, organisations will restructure and the pressure on individual workers will increase. They can expect to feel less in control and more insecure in their work.
This major work includes a collection of good practice examples and has been drawn together in a structured way to allow clear comparisons of a number of companies in the USA and Europe, ranging from the US Air Force, to an international pharmaceutical company (Zeneca), and a high-powered international retailer (Marks and Spencer). Human resource and occupational health professionals should find this an enlightening work, full of good examples to help them create a healthy environment for their workforce.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203305647

Many defenders of slavery have maintained that the slaves in Texas were well-treated and happy, but as a former slave remarked, ""Tisn't he who has stood and looked on, that can tell you what slavery is - 'tis he who has endured."" Here are the tales of those who have endured - a collection of the voices of the ex-slaves themselves, recalling what their lives were like under slavery. Over one hundred former slaves describe their slavemasters, their work, runaway slaves, their recollections of the Civil War and, finally, the coming of freedom. The narratives were collected by WPA interviewers in the late 1930s and subsequently edited by Ron Tyler and Lawrence R. Murphy. ""The Slave Narratives of Texas"" is a highly informative and readable book that provides a valuable history of the institution of slavery in Texas. It is also a profoundly moving text that yields great insight into the full impact of slavery upon human lives.