Schedule Recovery: Unplanned Absences in Service Operations*

The U.S. service sector loses 2.3% of all scheduled labor hours to unplanned absences, but in some industries, the total cost of unplanned absences approaches 20% of payroll expense. The principal reasons for unscheduled absences (personal illness and family issues) are unlikely to abate anytime soon. Despite this, most labor scheduling systems continue to assume perfect attendance. This oversight masks an important but rarely addressed issue in services management: how to recover from short‐notice, short‐term reductions in planned capacity. In this article, we model optimal responses to unplanned employee absences in multi‐server queueing systems that provide discrete, pay‐per‐use services for impatient customers. Our goal is to assess the performance of alternate absence recovery strategies under various staffing and scheduling regimes. We accomplish this by first developing optimal labor schedules for hypothetical service environments with unreliable workers. We then simulate unplanned employee absences, apply an absence recovery model, and compute system profits. Our absence recovery model utilizes recovery strategies such as holdover overtime, call‐ins, and temporary workers. We find that holdover overtime is an effective absence recovery strategy provided sufficient reserve capacity (maximum allowable work hours minus scheduled hours) exists. Otherwise, less precise and more costly absence recovery methods such as call‐ins and temporary help service workers may be needed. We also find that choices for initial staffing and scheduling policies, such as planned overtime and absence anticipation, significantly influence the likelihood of successful absence recovery. To predict the effectiveness of absence recovery policies under alternate staffing/scheduling strategies and operating environments, we propose an index based on initial capacity reserves.     

Domestic violence in veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder who seek couples therapy

Domestic violence rates among veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are higher than those of the general population. Individuals who have been diagnosed with PTSD who seek couples therapy with their partners constitute an understudied population. Self-report measures of domestic violence, relationship satisfaction, and intimacy were administered at intake to 179 couples seeking relationship therapy at a Veterans Affairs clinic. Couples in which the veteran was diagnosed with combat-related PTSD were compared with two other groups based on the veteran's primary diagnosis (depression, adjustment disorder/V-code). Both the PTSD- and depression-diagnosed veterans perpetrated more violence than did those with adjustment/V-code diagnoses. Domestic violence rates among depressed and PTSD-diagnosed veterans were much higher than those found in previous research. Implications for assessment and treatment are discussed.     

The potential of asset‐based development strategies for poverty alleviation in Sub‐Saharan Africa

Ssewamala FM, Sperber, ES, Zimmerman JM, Karimli L. The potential of asset‐based development strategies for poverty alleviation in Sub‐Saharan Africa Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 433–443 © 2010 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and International Journal of Social Welfare. This article explores the potential of a relatively new approach to social development as a poverty alleviation strategy in Sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA): asset‐based development, an integrated approach to human, social, and economic capital formation. It considers the theoretical framework guiding asset‐based development and the accompanying set of programmatic and policy‐level tools for poverty alleviation in SSA. After considering the recent historical and theoretical contexts of the approach, the authors examine the potential of asset‐based development programs, specifically savings‐led microfinance programs for the poor, to engender development and, more specifically, poverty alleviation in the region. Major challenges and directions for future research are presented.     

REVIEWS

PROFESSIONAL BOOKS: Todd, T. C., & Selekman, M. D. (Eds.). (1991). Family therapy approaches with adolescent substance abusers .
PROFESSIONAL BOOKS: Edwards, J. T. (1990). Treating Chemically dependent families: A practical systems approach for professionals .
PROFESSIONAL BOOKS: Scharff, D. E., & Scharff, J. S. (1991). Object relations couple therapy .
PROFESSIONAL BOOKS: Brendler, J., Silver, M., Haber, M., & Sargent, J. (1991). Madness, chaos, and violence: Therapy with families at the brink .
PROFESSIONAL BOOKS: Sperry, L., & Carlson, J. (1991). Marital therpay: Intergrating theroy and practice .
PROFESSIONAL BOOKS: Kaslow, F. W. (Ed.). (1990). Voices in family psychology .
PROFESSIONAL BOOKS: Wiseman, J. M. (1990). Mediation therapy: Short-term decision making for couples and families in crisis .
PROFESSIONAL BOOKS: Gale, J. E. (1991). Conversation analysis of therapeutic discourse: The pursuit of a therapeutic agenda .
PROFESSIONAL BOOKS: Geffen, M. S. (1989). Guide to Computerized patient account systems .
SELF-HELP: Napier, A. Y. (1990). The fragile bond .     

Counseling for Normative and Nonnormative Influences on Career Development

Most theories of career development have conceptualized normative events, periods, and stages to explain how the careers of men and women unfold. This article conceptualizes career counseling as human development intervention to allow a more differentiated and comprehensive view of normative and nonnormative factors that affect career development.     

Dimensions of Adolescent Employment

Work during adolescence, including part-time work during the school year, has been viewed as vocational behavior with mixed effects on other behaviors and attitudes. Using two different samples (West Point cadets and high school seniors who qualified for ROTC membership), we examined possible positive and negative correlates of adolescent work as a function of work dimensions, and both concurrent and subsequent performance criteria. Results indicated that concurrent costs and benefits of adolescent employment may depend on dimensions of work as well as adolescent characteristics. Similarly, adolescent employment was found to be generally related to subsequent work motivation and nonacademic performance.     

The Construct of Identity and Its Use in Career Theory and Research

Erikson's construct of identity has received much attention in the contemporary literature on adolescent development (e.g., Archer, 1989a, 1989b; Blustein & Palladino, 1991). In the vocational literature Bordin (1984) and Holland (1985) have made significant efforts to incorporate a construct of vocational identity into their theories. Although most contributors to the career development literature has acknowledged Erikson as the intellectual father of the construct of identity, none have succeeded in formulating a construct of identity that is more than a caricature of Erikson's thinking. In this article, I suggest that what is needed is a serious look at the requirements for formulating a viable, dynamic, developmental conceptualization of the construct of vocational identity.     

COST EFFECTIVENESS RESEARCH IN FAMILY THERAPY*

The authors attempt to demystify the process of conducting cost effectiveness research by defining relevant terms and decribing the necessary steps. Two provious cost-effectiveness studies of family based treatment are briefly described to illustrate cost-analysis procedures that may be used in future family therapy research.     

A FEMINIST FAMILY THERAPY SCALE*

This paper reports on the development and psychometric properties of a 17-item instrument intended to reflect the degree to which family therapists conceptualize the process of family therapy from a feminist-informed perspective. Items were adapted from those generated by 37 feminist-informed family therapists in a previous study. Factor analysis results on 383 subjects reflect a unidimensional scale. The Feminist Family Therapy Scale had a Cronbach Alpha of 83 and was found to discriminate between (a) self indentified feminists and nonfeminists, (b) women and men, and (c) subjects scoring higher on Scanzoni's (1975) Sex Role Modernity Scale and those scoring lower. Additional psychometric data are reported, and possible uses of this scale are discussed.     

Socioeconomic status, smoking, and health: a test of competing theories of cumulative advantage

Although both low socioeconomic status and cigarette smoking increase health problems and mortality, their possible combined or interactive influence is less clear On one hand, the health of low status groups may be harmed least by unhealthy behavior such as smoking because, given the substantial health risks produced by limited resources, they have less to lose from damaging lifestyles. On the other hand, the health of low status groups may be harmed most by smoking because lifestyle choices exacerbate the health problems created by deprived material conditions. Alternatively, the harm of low status and smoking may accumulate additively rather than multiplicatively. We test these arguments with data from the 1990 U.S. National Health Interview Survey, and with measures of morbidity and mortality. For ascribed statuses such as gender, race, and ethnicity, and for the outcome measure of mortality, the results favor the additive argument, whereas for achieved status and morbidity, the results support the vulnerability hypothesis--that smoking inflicts greater harm among disadvantaged groups.