Proponents of artificial intelligence (AI) have envisaged a scenario wherein intelligent machines would execute routine tasks performed by humans, thus, relieving them to engage in creative pursuits. While there is widespread fear of corresponding job losses, organizational think tanks vouch for the synergistic culmination of human-machine competencies. Using the dynamic skill, neo-human capital and AI job replacement theories, we contend that the introduction and adoption of AI calls for employees to upskill themselves. To determine the key skills deemed critical for the upskilling of employees, we interviewed 20 experienced professionals in multinational corporations (MNCs) in the information technology sector in India. Deploying Gioia's methodology for qualitative analysis, our investigation revealed five critical skills for employee upskilling: data analysis, digital, complex cognitive, decision making and continuous learning skills.This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Purpose While literature cites several distinct studies on workforce diversity and employee well-being (EWB), attention to their combined significance has been limited. Extant work highlights cognitive outcomes of diversity, while its impact on affect-related outcomes is underexplored. The purpose of this paper is to examine how employee perceptions of diversity (based on surface and/or knowledge attributes) influence their well-being and how perception of inclusion mediates this relationship. Design/methodology/approach In total, 248 full-time employees from large organizations across varied industries in India have participated in this survey-based study. Findings Structural equation modeling results indicate surface and knowledge diversity to significantly impact EWB. Surface diversity adversely affected well-being, while knowledge diversity had favorable impact. Besides, inclusion was found to be a significant mediator between knowledge diversity and well-being but not between surface diversity and well-being. Research limitations/implications Present study explores the diversity–well-being link through the lens of perceived inclusion. Future research should consider contextual factors that will influence these relationships. Practical implications Managerial nudging can enhance employee self-control, intrinsic motivation and well-being. Further, managers should note how knowledge diversity aids in well-being toward constructive cross-functional synergy building. Originality/value Study conceptualizes diversity from Indian social and employment perspectives, while incorporating inclusion as a contextual factor currently under-researched empirically in the Indian context. Further, the authors contribute to the limited literature on affect-related effects of diversity.

The present pandemic caused by COVID-19 has caused unprecedented turmoil in human lives. Invoking the typology of crises, we classify COVID-19 as an intractable crisis that necessitated nations to impose lockdowns. As national economies and businesses got a severe blow with this closure, organizations encouraged employees to work from home. Drawing upon the employee isolation literature, we aimed to examine the impact of work from home on employees during the lockdown. This investigation would help us learn about the nature and quality of work in the context of the current crisis. Towards this, we conducted in-depth interviews with 24 middle and senior-level managers across manufacturing and technology-enabled service sectors in India and analyzed the data using MAXQDA software. Employees reported an increase in working hours, major changes in their roles, reduced levels of productivity, and increased levels of stress. Besides these findings, we discovered sparks of creativity among employees during this isolation period. These creative steps were either towards nurturing oneself for career growth or towards solving long-pending organizational issues. Interestingly, the creativity was self-initiated. Our findings have key implications for organizations and their leaders who need to revisit work-from-home policies for the future workforce. We highlight our theoretical contributions and outline the scope for future research.

Purpose Literature highlights diversity to facilitate cognitive outcomes; nevertheless, there is limited scholarly attention on affective diversity effects. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of perceived diversity on employee well-being (EWB) and contend different types of diversity to yield differential impact. Further, the authors explore how nature of employee work can moderate these relationships. Design/methodology/approach With 311 full-time employees representing large manufacturing organizations in India, the authors test the hypothesized relationships using PROCESS macro. Findings Results indicate perception of surface and knowledge diversity having a significant positive impact on EWB. Further, the authors found nature of employee work to moderate the link between knowledge diversity and well-being such that perception of knowledge diversity under complex tasks enhanced well-being; no impact of work complexity was observed on the link between surface diversity and well-being. Research limitations/implications Perceived diversity is malleable lending itself to longitudinal work in this field. Besides nature of work, future research may explore other key contextual factors in diversity dynamics. Practical implications Contrary to the longstanding theories such as social categorization/similarity attraction, the authors found surface diversity to positively influence EWB. This indicates firms’ effective diversity management strategies in creating inclusive workplace. Further, the authors draw implications around team design and workforce composition. Originality/value While the scholarly attention to perceived diversity is gradually growing, in a first, the authors empirically examine the impact of diversity perceptions on employee affect in the context of Indian manufacturing firms.

No abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic hit mankind at an unprecedented scale. In their attempt to continue functioning, organizations asked employees to work from home. Though employees experienced stress due to ‘forced’ work from home and blurring of work–family boundaries, they had to cope with the challenging times. The present study aimed to unearth the aspects of boundary management and adaptation in the context of work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, we address the research question ‘how did the employees adapt to the sudden forced work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic?’ Since work from home was forced upon employees during the pandemic leading to the violation of boundaries, we invoked the boundary theory that highlights the boundaries that people draw between their personal and professional lives to maintain a balance. Further, we referred to the theory of cognitive adaptation to explain how employees adapted to the challenges while working from home during COVID-19. We conducted in-depth interviews of 30 experienced professionals working in the technology-enabled sectors in India. We applied Gioia’s methodology to analyse the qualitative data. Four aggregate dimensions emerged from the data analysis, as employees involuntarily worked from home: stress due to work disruptions, threats to employee well-being, boundary violation and employee resilience. Our findings contribute to the current theoretical understanding of employee stress, boundary management, adaptation or resilience and employee well-being, in the context of forced work from home. While employees were stressed and boundaries had blurred between work and family, they adapted and demonstrated resilience to the unprecedented changes in their lives. Practical implications of our study include managers’ conscious efforts towards respecting work–family boundaries, enhancing employee well-being and building a resilience-promoting work environment.

In this paper, minimization of time-averaged ageof-information (AoI) in an energy-harvesting sensor equipped remote sensing setting is considered. An energy harvesting (EH) sensor generates energy packets according to a Bernoulli process at discrete time instants. These energy packets are used by the sensor to make measurements of physical processes and send the observation packets to a remote estimator or a sink node. The trade-off is between the freshness of information available at the sink node and the available energy at the energy buffer of the sensor, which requires the sensor to opportunistically sample and communicate the observations to the sink node. To this end, infinite horizon Markov decision process theory is used to formulate the problem of minimization of timeaveraged expected AoI for a single energy harvesting sensor. The following progression of scenarios is considered: (i) single process, perfect communication channel between sensor and sink node, (ii) single process, fading channel with channel state information at transmitter (CSIT), (iii) multiple processes, perfect channel, (iv) multiple processes, fading channel with CSIT. In each scenario, the optimal sensor sampling policy is shown to be a threshold policy involving the instantaneous age of the process, the available energy in the buffer and the instantaneous channel quality as the decision variables. Finally, numerical results are provided to demonstrate the policy structures and trade-offs.

The notion of well-being has been evolving as research continues to unfurl its multidimensional nature. The importance of well-being in the organizational context is becoming a valuable line of inquiry, and employee well-being has emerged as a pivotal focus in positive psychology. Despite this, employees report high levels of disengagement and stress at work. Thus, we conducted 15 in-depth interviews with middle- and senior-level managers in the service sector in India to understand the factors that impact an employee’s well-being. Research question: What comprises an individual’s well-being at the workplace? Theory: Conservation-of-resources theory, broaden-and-build theory. Type of the case: Applied problem-solving. Basis of the Case: Phenomenon. Protagonist: Not needed. Findings: Data was analysed using grounded theory. We synthesized the factors contributing to employee well-being into the following themes: encouraging organizational culture, providing social support, demonstrating positive leadership, integrating work and life, finding meaning in work, providing autonomy and ensuring good working conditions. Discussion: Study findings extend the conservation-of-resources and broaden-and-build theories by emphasizing on gain spirals; that is, individuals use a positive effect to conserve, replenish, broaden, and build their inner resources and well-being. While leaders in an organization invest in enhancing employees’ well-being, they need to be cognizant of the several factors at interplay. An overall positive environment, autonomy, safety and meaningfulness contribute holistically towards the well-being of employees.