Marc Grau, a researcher and coordinator of the Joaquim Molins Figueras Childcare and Family Policies Chair in the Institute for Advanced Family Studies, recently co-edited a new book called The New Ideal Worker: Organizations Between Work-Life Balance, Gender and Leadership, published by Springer.
In the book, twenty-one professionals from twelve universities look in-depth into the paradox of presenteeism acting to the detriment of excellence.
Many company directors and organisations continue to assume that “ideal workers” are those who spend long hours at their place of work with no family interference.
However, it has been demonstrated that this notion of an “ideal worker” has negative consequences in the long term for the workers, their families, and even more surprisingly, for the organisations themselves.
This new book provides a large amount of empirical evidence from around the world, as well as new conceptual frameworks, which aim to help organisations and researchers move beyond the classic notion of the “ideal worker”. In short, it puts forward new ideas on the characteristics of the ideal worker of the future, as well as the benefits this could lead to for society, organisations, and the workers themselves, as well as their families.
