The epithet ‘women's town’ has long been applied to Dundee. Norman Watson's detailed study notes how frequently and enthusiastically this designation has been used, perhaps most colourfully by Scotland on Sunday in 1994: ‘Dundee women are strong, gallus and an inspiration to their sex. Today, as in the past, Dundee women are different.’ As Valerie Wright shows in ‘Juteopolis and After: Women and Work in Twentieth- Century Dundee’, Chapter 6 below, such views have an obvious material base in the peculiarities of the city at the beginning of the twentieth century. ‘Dundee is pre-eminently a city of women and of women workers’, wrote Mary Walker in 1912, and contemporary data supports this. In 1901 there were 127 women for every 100 men in the city, and the employment figures show almost 28,000 women in textiles (overwhelmingly in jute) out of a total of 40,000 operatives. Dundee circa 1900 was unusual in this numerical predominance of women and the prevalence of married women's employment. Though there were more men than women in the total labour force, employment openings for men were limited by the small number of male job openings in jute, and many men joined the forces, emigrated, or worked away from the city. The employment opportunities available to women meant that they also played a prominent role in many household economies (Table 5.1), data which provides a nice counterpoint to any simple notions about male breadwinner households predominating in Britain before the First World War.

In this final chapter, we explore emerging trends in business, technology and society, with a particular focus on how these developments are influencing ideas, practice, employee experience and academic research in the field of performance and reward management. We begin with emerging trends and practices that are already impacting the design of performance and reward management systems and academic research in the field. We focus on three interconnected global trends that have already started to change performance and reward management practice; an impact that is very likely to increase in the years ahead. The first trend is the technological revolution associated with the digitisation of nearly all areas of work and leisure; the second is the progressive disruption of the traditional 20th-century ‘standard hours’ model of co-located employment by far more flexible and non-standard working arrangements; and the third is the social transformation flowing from generational change around the world. We wrap up the chapter by revisiting the two ‘reality check’ themes considered throughout the book, as well as canvassing some of the cutting-edge academic research relevant to each theme.

Chapter 1 introduced the basic ‘tools’ of performance and reward management, including key aspects of purpose and practice. In this chapter we introduce two overarching concepts of alignment that recur throughout this book: ‘strategic alignment’ and ‘psychological engagement’. The design, implementation and maintenance of effective performance and reward management systems requires simultaneous, systematic and constant attention to both of these dimensions of alignment.

‘Strategic alignment’ refers to the plans, processes and actions involved in establishing and maintaining an alignment between an organisation’s overarching purpose or intent and how it manages employee performance and reward, as well as all other aspects of people management.