Work choices : Increasing productivity, job creation and work-family balance? Not likely!

The introduction of the Workplace Relations (Work Choices) Amendment Act 2005 (Cth) has resulted in one of the most contentious changes to federal labour law in Australia’s history. There is considerable debate as to whether it has fulfilled the government’s expectations of giving ‘flexibility’ and ‘choice’ to both employees and employers or if there has been an overall deterioration in working conditions. In order to identify the impact of this legislation in the workplace, Deakin University surveyed 11,000 AHRI members throughout Australia. Preliminary results are reported in the paper but, even at this early stage, there is sufficient material to critically comment upon the changes to Australia’s industrial relations system. It appears that the vast majority of AHRI members felt that there had been no change in productivity, job creation or work-family balance and that only a few expected an improvement over the next 3 years.

Load balance algorithms for anycast

Increasingly, replicated anycast servers are being used to deliver network applications and service ever increasing user requests. Therefore, the strategies used to guarantee network bandwidth prerequisites and perform load balancing across the nodes of an anycast group are critical to the performance of online applications. In this paper, we model user requests, network congestion and latency, and server load using a combination of hydro-dynamics and queuing theory to develop an efficient job distribution strategy. Current, anycast research does not explicitly consider the system load of nodes within an anycast groups when distributing requests. Therefore, the performance of a heavily loaded anycast system can quickly become congested and uneven as jobs are routed to closely linked nodes which are already saturated with requests. In comparison, the nodes of further away systems remain relatively unused because of other issues such as network bandwidth and latency during these times. Our system redirects requests from busy systems to the idle, remotely linked nodes, to process requests faster in spite of slower network access. Using an empirical study, we show this technique can improve request performance, and throughput with minimal network probing overhead.

The degree of job satisfaction experienced by site-based construction professionals

The construction industry worldwide is having problems attracting and retaining skilled workers. This study analyses a series of factors affecting job satisfaction of site-based construction professionals employed in medium to large scale metropolitan construction firms in Melbourne, Australia. The industry survey carried out identified salary as the strongest determinant of job satisfaction. However, many respondents reported being dissatisfied with pay levels when compared to other industries and the number of work hours expected. The greatest causes of dissatisfaction were related to difficulties in maintaining a work-life balance. The indicator "Variety, interest and challenge" was the most frequently cited positive aspect of a career in construction. Given the shortage of skilled construction workers in Australia, it is important for companies to maximise the retention of site-based construction professionals and ensure that key job satisfaction indicators are met.

Housing service officers : agents of the state or customer service officers?

Staff employed in the Victorian Office of Housing are invariably required to exercise discretion in their day-to-day work managing housing assets and providing services to public housing tenants. Policies specify processes but they never cover all situations and do not provide guidance on competing objectives. For example, preparing a property for reletting is a process with protocols and budget constraints. However, staff can make procedural variations that compy with policy. These variations, generally learnt from peers on the job, often result in budget over runs, but do result in improved properties for new tenants. Discretion is being exercised in balancing housing asset, budget control and tenant service objectives. A housing officer sums up the enduring tension in balancing objectives in the question and statement:’ Am I an agent of the state or a customer service officer? Because I can’t be both’. Organisationally these tensions are spoken about as ‘management issues’, ‘policy reengineering’ and ‘unrealistic understandings’. Using data from an ethnographic study in the Victorian Office of Housing, the paper addresses the question: ‘What do we know about the way in which front line housing officers manage competing objectives in their daily work and how might this knowledge be usefully used in the development of operational policy?’ The paper will explore the way in which complex administrative rules are used as a device to align staff to the Office of Housing objectives and limit the exercise of discretion by frontline staff. Against the background of this analysis the paper will consider the limitations of rule making and the extent to which other organisational strategies might be important for improvements in service provision in a context of constrained resources and limited resources.

The Bali Aga housing : minimalist and functionalist architecture

Nusantara (Indonesia Archipelago) Architecture is a significant heritage which has been inherited to descendants. Nusantara Architecture is rooted from the existence of culture that spread over the Indonesia archipelago. The culture in each region related to their traditional customs and religions that binding the culture and physic as well as socio-culture of its society. It cannot be denied that the traditional architecture is closed to realm and tactful definitely to interact to the environment. Likewise the Balinese traditional architecture is a substantial treasure which has been inherited and maintained currently. Culture and tradition are adhered in the Tri Hita Karana philosophy, which shows how Balinese balance to their Gods, natures and fellow creatures. The concept implies in the architecture of housing as product of culture. The housing pattern of the Bali Aga villages in Bali Province which has hut forms with linear or compound pattern, it lies naturally from headwater of the mountain to downstream of the sea. The existence of Bali Aga housing stills abide and maintain that defined as reflection of minimalist and functional architecture. Example for this is some observations in the indigenous villages' i.e Pinggan Village, Buahan Village, Julah Village etc. Those housing pattern shows the minimalist concept for living facility and its functions. The discourse of traditional architecture aims to preserve Nusantara architecture which is facing nowadays as a dilemma to be abandoned.

Job satisfaction and response to incentives among China's urban workforce

This article examines job satisfaction and incentive structures among China's urban workforce. The main determinants of job satisfaction are found to be age, education, occupation and personal income. The criteria that Chinese urban employees considered most important when choosing a job were job stability, a high income and professional development. Employees who considered job stability, high income, professional development opportunities, work/life balance and provision of social insurance as being important when selecting a job were more likely to have higher levels of job satisfaction. © 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The application of Lob in the UAE: a case study of a housing project

Line of Balance (LOB) scheduling technique is a significant technique that plays a vital role in repetitive construction projects. It became more demanding in the construction industry due to the construction of mega repetitive projects e.g. housing schemes, high rise buildings, railways and highways, etc. This paper aims to evaluate the real application of LOB in repetitive housing projects in the UAE which could fill the gap as there is lack of similar empirical studies in the Middle East. The paper firstly presents a concise literature review on the application and limitation of LOB comparing to CPM in repetitive projects. Then, a case study of 275 villas housing project in the UAE is demonstrated and analysed, where LOB technique was used and monitored throughout the lifecycle of the project. The findings point out significant controlling benefits of using LOB comparing with CPM in the project and address some limitations hindering the efficient use of LOB in the UAE.