Certified nursing assistants (CNAs) perform an important role in the long-term care system because they provide the majority of paid care to nursing facility residents. Unfortunately, annual CNA turnover often exceeds 100 percent nationally. Many factors account for this, including stressful working conditions, low pay, and limited benefits. The…

A survey of 923 employee involvement programs (57%) yielded 10 themes: range of problem content, team staffing, team membership status, team resources, training practices, information access, financial rewards, performance management systems, goal-setting structures, and roles of job supervisors. (JOW)

This book is designed to provide school administrators and labor leaders with ideas about how to improve school district labor relations by incorporating the principles of Total Quality Management (TQM). In schools that apply the principles of Total Quality Education (TQE)--that is TQM as it modified to school practice--labor and management can…

Organizations are being urged to become "high performance work organizations" (HPWOs) and vocational teachers have begun considering how best to prepare workers for them. Little consensus exists as to what HPWOs are. Several common characteristics of HPWOs have been identified, and two distinct models of HPWOs are emerging in the United…

This book advances the premise that teachers, in addition to students, must be viewed as customers of the school. Teachers' jobs and work environments must therefore be redesigned for maximum professional growth and development. Unless teachers are supported in developing a quality work environment, efforts to improve schools will be marginally…

This paper presents the initial findings of a comprehensive 28-school multi-site case study, which sought to identify patterns in schools that are changing bureaucratic work patterns to those found in quality-management systems. The schools are located in Florida, Virginia, Minnesota, and Louisiana; all are led by principals who are trainers in…

Chaos theory provides a useful mental model for guiding change as leaders garner the energy from unpredictable events for realizing transformation goals. The paper considers chaos theory as a framework for managing school change toward Total Quality Management work cultures. Change is possible to manage when plans are made and then followed by a…

Designed to help adult learners realize the importance and necessity of implementing continuous quality improvement (CQI) in a rapidly changing, competitive, and modern world of work, this document presents a comprehensive explanation of CQI. The following topics are discussed in the book's introduction and seven chapters: importance of quality in…

The 11 chapters in this book focus on "The New American Workplace" and assess its adequacy or inadequacy as a guide for the U.S. labor movement in relation to new work systems. "Unions and Workplace Reorganization" (Bruce Nissen) introduces the subject. "The New American Workplace: A Labor Perspective" (AFL-CIO Committee on the Evolution of Work,…

Western enterprises confront an era of global competition in which industry leaders can no longer overlook negative effects originating from past Taylorist and autocratic organizational structures. Corporate leaders are exploring innovative methods to change their organizations from the Taylorist model to workplace environments that foster worker…

This booklet is one of six texts from a workplace literacy curriculum designed to assist learners in facing the increased demands of the workplace. The booklet contains seven sections that cover the following topics: (1) meaning of total quality management (TQM); (2) the customer; (3) the organization's culture; (4) comparison of management…

This Total Quality Management (TQM) course was designed to introduce students to the principles and tools of TQM in a full-semester course in high schools or community colleges. The course includes all the competencies found in TQM and is intended to be taught with an interactive method in which students are involved in the learning process. This…

This module for a 1-semester Total Quality Management (TQM) course for high school or community college students covers the topics of benchmarking and the continuous improvement process. It includes the following components: (1) a narrative summary of the topics; (2) a discussion of benchmarking; (3) a benchmarking exercise (the "numbered ball"…

This module for a 1-semester Total Quality Management (TQM) course for high school or community college students contains a brief overview of the definition of processes, a section on process flow diagrams, and a section on process management as well as a description of process variation. Examples are used throughout the module to make processes…

This module for a 1-semester Total Quality Management (TQM) course for high school or community college students contains a brief overview of problem solving and offers a practical approach along with some of the tools that can be used. The following components are included: (1) narrative of the problem-solving process; (2) the problem-solving…