MGMT 206 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Corporate Social Responsibility, Occupational Health Psychology, Temporary Work
Some social and economic background:
• The IMF has waned that social security systems which have underpinned Western economies
since WWII will not be able to cope with the rise in the 'gig economy'.
o A combination of part-time and insecure work and persistently low wage growth.
• This outlook from one of the worlds leading financial stability and macro-prudential
organisations could force Australian policymakers and their counterparts in other countries to
re-think the foundations of their welfare systems.
o With businesses increasingly looking to hire workers on an as-needed basis.
• According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, there are now 1.1 million underemployed
Australians.
o Up from 170,000 in the 1970's.
• The number of people employed in the casual or 'gig economy' has surged alongside the
growth in service like Uber and Airtasker.
• In its October world economic outlook, the IMF said that accordingly it was time to re-
engineer social security systems like Australia's to cope with the global transition to less
stable, more freelance-orientated work.
• The last review of Australia's means-tested welfare system was commissioned in 2013 and
completed in 2015 when underemployment was 2% lower than it is currently.
o And when many 'gig economy' services were yet to launch in this country and wage
growth was a healthy 2.6%.
• The rise of part-time employment and temporary contracts challenges the current structure of
the social insurance system established in many 'advanced' economies like Australia after the
great depression and world war II.
o This system is better-equipped to handle people in full-time and continuing employment
or fully unemployed people.
o The taxes paid by fully-employed people funded the welfare system supporting the
unemployed; the fully employed greatly outnumbered the unemployed.
• The IMF said involuntary part-time employment and low productivity had led to sluggish wage
growth in Australia and many other advanced economies.
o Nominal wage growth remained below pre-GFC levels across the world.
• At the current rate of 5.6% Australia has historically low levels of unemployment, but the
growth in wages has stalled at 1.9%.
o Thus barely keeping up with increases in the cost of living.
HRM's current and emerging stakeholders:
• There are many stakeholders who have legitimate interests in the outcomes of HR decisions.
o The perspectives, goals and interests of these stakeholders can vary and influence
evaluations of the effectiveness of HRM systems.
• Employees are the core constituents of HRM
o They are embedded within multiple layers of the organisational and social context, most
importantly the organisation or firm itself and the family.
• Beyond the organisation or firm and the family there are many other stakeholders including
local communities, other businesses, governments and public sector agencies, and so on.
Thinking about HRM stakeholders:
Employees
• A well-rounded, holistic program of HRM is one that the services the employees of the
organisation.
o Employees are one of an organisation's most valuable assets
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