The Good Work Guide: How to Make Organizations Fairer and More Effective »

Nick Isles is Editor-in-Chief and Managing Director of Corporate Agenda business advice service. He is a former Director and current Associate of The Work Foundation and is a well known contributor and commentator to the national media on business and economic issues.

As the world reels from the credit crunch and fall into recession of late 2008, the search is on for a better way to do business. In an increasingly knowledge-driven economy, the importance of people’s discretionary effort to business performance is key to success—or failure—but many businesses and managers do not understand the alchemy required to gain the extra few per cent from their human resources.

This new guide lays out how and why companies should be doing more to improve conditions for their staff. It opens with a discussion of the latest thinking and research into the link between high performance outcomes and improvement in the quality of working life, and looks at how organizations should approach creating ‘good work’ in general. The book then goes on to focus on action organizations can take in the key areas of:
• autonomy and empowerment (including time management, work at home, training, job design, health, family)
• fairness and conflict resolution (including pay, ethics, diversity, values, the impact of climate change)
• voice (covering the role of technology and workplace, careers and leadership)

It concludes with the 10-point plan for good work.

Filled with examples from actual companies and organizations on the ground, and backed up by cutting edge research, this is the essential management handbook that no business can afford to ignore.

List of Figures, Tables and Boxes vii

List of Acronyms and Abbreviations ix

Acknowledgements x

Foreword xiii

Introduction xix

Chapter 1 A New Capitalism? 1

Chapter 2 Knowledge, Good Work and the New Economy 21

Chapter 3 The Good Work Organization 55

Chapter 4 The Ownership Question 85

Chapter 5 Fusion 117

Chapter 6 The Good Work Leader 153

Chapter 7 The 10 Steps to Good Work 181

Index 201