Workplace Harmony in Small Businesses: An Academic and Practical Guide

This 140 page book explores and theorizes workplace harmony, ultimately providing academic and practical step by step guides to foster workplace harmony in small businesses. For several decades, academic and industry have both continued to grapple with how best to nature workplace harmony and this is of paramount importance considering workplace harmony impacts significantly on both employee and firm productivity. Yet, what workplace harmony really entails has largely remained elusive with many equating it with workplace conflict, which of course is a totally different independent concept. Owing to this assumption, traditionally the absence of workplace conflict has been deemed to denote the presence of workplace harmony, which of course is not always the case, given there can be superficial workplace harmony. What has also been amiss is the huge circumvention of small businesses in this debate with scant research exploring how small business owner managers approach workplace harmony. Considering the advent of the 21st century has brought with it complexity and dynamism in the workplace, such as the changing nature of work, employee diversity and inclusivity, employment contracts (permanent, causal, fixed), forms of working (office, remote, home), machine and human work roles, inevitably workplace harmony issues are rising. Surprisingly, little is known about how owner managed small businesses, which are engines that drive global economies, approach workplace harmony. This dearth of knowledge is detrimental to the performance of both the owner managed small businesses and the economy at large. Given the above, this book breaks new ground by addressing this very important knowledge gap. It is particularly novel in providing a two in one perspective: An academic frontier on one hand and a small business practical guide world view on the other hand. Specifically, the book breaks a first by providing the following several practical guides, thus: Six questions to learn to foster workplace harmony Seven steps to acquire know how to manage people Six steps to make harmony with yourself Seven questions to understand employees' needs Five steps to understand employees' needs Six steps to make employees understand your business and commit to it Twelve steps to understand different interactions at work: Group dynamics Five steps to craft a workplace harmony framework for your business 90 Key employment issues that influence workplace harmony Sixteen steps to execute a workplace harmony strategic plan Four steps to justify transforming HRM practices Three levels of fostering workplace harmony Integrated Model for Workplace Harmony in Small Businesses (IMoWH) The Workplace Harmony Flywheel Finally, the book offers real life opportunities for small businesses to access a wide range of professional business support services provided by Dr Charlie – The Small Business Doctor (T.S.B.D.).