Tuesday, January 28, 2020

Maintain a balance work life for employees

Maintain a balance work life for employees In todays workplace, the environment is constantly evolving. Many of the ideas that will be driven in HR firms will be based upon working to adapt to these changes while being proactive as well. This is the eventuality that must be confronted while trying to maintain a balance work life for employees and manages alike. Measuring performance will take on a new dynamic, as well as, employee/manager interactions. Work will become less bound by the walls of a building in more ways than one. The challenge for many companies will be developing a HR system that is flexible enough to conform to these changes while anticipating the foreseeable future. The HR department of the future must reevaluate the relationship between manager and employee. In many service based organizations, managers function as coaches on the floor. Most commonly in call centers, they listen to prerecorded and live employee/customer interactions. Next, they do an evaluation of the employee and subsequently inform them of strengths and weaknesses. Human resource departments expect managers to use this time to build rapport with their employees while also trying to reinforce a commitment towards accountability. Sometimes there may be a need for corrective action. This requires a manager to tread a thin line between confidant and disciplinarian. Often when these relationships become strained, the HR department works as a mediator to resolve any tension. If the relationship between employee and manager becomes beyond repair, then HR is expected to arbitrate the situation. The survey of 572 Canadian HR Reporter readers and members of the Human Resources Professi onals Association found 95.6 of respondents agree or strongly agree HR professionals have responsibilities that go beyond serving the interest of employers or clients (Klie, May 2010, p 10). Many HR departments seem like they have an issue maintaining this standard. Another survey conducted by Canadian HR Reporter indicated 36.9 percent of its respondents believed that HR usually served in the favor of employers (Balthazard, May 2010, p 11). It is clear that HR must try and maintain the prescience of fairness, in lieu of these glaring statistics: failure to do so could result in tremendous consequences. In situations where productivity is tapering off, HR departments are forced to make decisions that call for radical changes, such as, reassigning manager teams and revisiting employee policies. Adjusting to these changes provide challenges for employees and managers alike. Whenever there is major change, it is the initial transition period that provides the most difficulty. In the event of applying stricter employee/manager regulations, HR departments must anticipate the backlash that maybe pending. It is during this period that employees suffer from lower morale and turnover becomes more prevalent. This makes managing personalities a little more difficult for line managers; therefore, driving a wedge between them and employees. The final prospect that the company is looking at after this fallout is the very real possibility of losing mental and financial capital. Simply put, it costs money and time to train new employees. Hiring a new employee costs $1,580 on average (Hagel, Spring 2007, p 12). This is not a cheap cost for any company to incur and it bound to add up to an immense expense if turnover becomes an issue. The lost of an employee with many years of experience is immeasurable. In short, they tend to make work far more seamless than their less knowledgeable counterparts and dont require as much time for training. One obvious challenge for HR departments headed into this new decade is certain: minimizing turnover in the midst of new employee regulations. In the future, Human Resources will have to find more inventive ways to involve employees and managers in the process of establishing new rules and regulations. This will make employees more knowledgeable of any pending changes on the horizon: minimizing the time and effort it would normally take to retrain current employees. This would not compromise too much since HR heads still maintain the authority of having the final say on matters of policies. What may transpire; however, is a process of educating HR personnel, line managers, and employees alike. Employees tend to be aware of certain nuances of customer interaction that line managers and hr personnel may not be privy to. A few suggestions from the everyday worker could spark better ideas from Human Resources to solve compelling problems that may exist. Managers tend to notice certain trends concerning employee behavior and may also be able to influence more efficient policy as well. Evaluating company rules and mission stateme nts require more than a simple process of crunching statistics: it requires that the application of knowledge obtained from real, at work scenarios be applied and put to practice. The usage of customer, employee, and managerial surveys can make the evaluation process that much simpler while still giving stakeholders some power to influence HRs decision making process. Most importantly, companys maybe able to better engage their employees in the workplace as a result. . A question posed to a communications manager at Coca Cola Enterprises; was summed up with this basic response, Achieving world-class engagement scores is one of our long-term business priorities, so our leaders are committed to it. At a recent conference for our top 300 managers in Europe, they insisted that we devoted an entire afternoon to analyzing the headline results of our latest employee engagement survey and forming some early action plans, which is really encouraging(Strategic Communications Management, Dec 2009/Jan 2010). It is safe to say that engaging employees are a major concern for HR firms. The knowledge of employee engagement can provide the company with an asset vital to understanding just how hard to push workers and when to relent. Employee engagement measurement is most effective when thought of in terms of a series of related inputs and outputs (Brown Kelly, Oct/Nov 2006, p22). HR must be able to decide sufficient factors for deciding which inputs best reflect productivity, in conjunction with, the corresponding outputs. Many companies already use phone, mail, and internet surveys to obtain customer opinions, in order to, develop efficient strategies. . This can be an effective way of getting employee and managerial opinions for the purpose of evaluating engagement. . With the advent of current technology, obtaining this type of information from customers, managers, and employees is just one of the many processes that can be facilitated to make HRs job that much easier. The face of HR is changing quite rapidly. By the year 2020, it is expected that 75 percent of organizations will be outsourcing their HR functions (Millar, April 2004, p 3). .This could possibly provide a better opportunity for HR departments to act in an independent interest. The perceptions of HR are definitely going to change over the course of the upcoming years and will totally require revising even more ideas. According to SHRM research, 80 percent of respondents will increase their use of technology to handle HR transactions (Sandler, Rath, Troy, et al., October 2004). In short, a lot more of the decisions made by HR department will be determined by programs that calculate productivity and monitor spending. The demands of improving the usage of technology must be met with developing hr personnel for management through technology. 57 percent of HR focus survey respondents believed that increased investments in training for HR staff would be vital (Sandler, Rath, Troy, et al., O ctober 2004). It should be noted that with this demand of increased training investments will follow a responsibility to select the most capable candidates for HR, managerial, and employee positions. A study by the Society for HR Management estimates the cost of a poor hire for intermediate positions at $20,000, senior management at $100,000 and sales representatives at $300,000. Pierre Mornell, in his book Hiring Smart, says that if you make a mistake in hiring and you recognize and rectify the mistake within 6 months, the cost of replacing the employee is two and one-half times the persons salary. For example, if you were to use this formula, the cost of a poor hiring decision for a candidate earning $50,000 per year would be $125,000 (Hagel, Spring 2007, p 12). This is a high expense for any company to have to incur. Making the correct hires from the top down would most likely ensure that companies spend less money replacing inefficient workers. It is rather safe to conclude that maintaining a successful corporate takes a lot of careful evaluation. There is a need for affirmative evaluation and not too much guessing. Without a reliable plan, a company could find itself losing tremendous amounts of money and having to spend extra time creating a more effective approach. No company has the perfect method for HR management, in respect to, running an efficient operation. Some companies just realize that aiming towards that goal requires looking at running a company from all angles. This is the ultimate challenge that companies face in the HR sector.

Monday, January 20, 2020

I Want to Face the Challenges of Architecture :: Graduate Admissions Essays

I Want to Face the Challenges of Architecture    When you drive home from work, do you ever explore? Sure, it might take longer than usual, and there may be unpleasant stops along the way, but occasionally you will find an unexpected surprise. By casting aside strict conventions and routines and by taking risks, we can achieve things we never considered or thought possible.    I find that many people in our religiously capitalist society only seek the fastest, cheapest, and most efficient route. While some industries hire to increase diversity and thereby innovation, many dare not attempt anything new. In particular, many established architects and developers fear taking chances and fear the risk of failure inherent in untested methods. I, on the other hand, believe that architects must not feel constrained by the past but must follow-up on promising possibilities.    Exploring undiscovered methods and paths requires self-criticism, self-assurance, and courage. In my junior year in college, I doubted the teaching style of my instructor in my first design studio class. I felt as if he pushed his own rigid ideas into the students' creations and did not allow the students the opportunity to pursue their own original designs. Fearing my intellectual growth might be stunted by his lectures and dissatisfied with his teaching, I basically taught myself design by researching and combing through hundreds of architecture books. Through my own studies, I came to realize that architecture should be learned, not preached. That semester, I further challenged myself by working on a design of my own creation, a design not assigned by my instructor. While it would have been easier to accept the instructor' s lessons and just follow his ideas, I realized that I could never take the easy way again now that I discovered that the beauty of architecture lies in learnin g it myself. That semester helped formulate my approach towards architecture and influence my design decisions to this day.    Although self-motivation is extremely important, seeking the guidance and critique of others is essential to good design since others can find what I may have overlooked. One critic who has been particularly crucial to the development of my work is Craig Scott, a Progressive Architecture Awards Winner in 1996,who worked together with Homa Fardjadi and Sima Fardjadi. Craig was my studio critic during the spring term of 1997.

Sunday, January 12, 2020

What killed audiolingualism

Audiologists is one of the nine 20th century language teaching approaches which was based on contrastive analysis about behaviorism and structuralism, and was created as a reaction to the reading approach that was lacking of emphasis on oral- aural skills. The results of this approach, dialogues approach, were generally regarded a great success. The small groups of learners and high motivation were the caveats that undoubtedly contributed to the success of the approach.However, successful as it was, Audiologists reached its end in the sass and is no longer seed today. There are some reasons as to why this approach collapsed. The first reason was the emergence of error analysis that makes audiologists received attacks from many linguists. Chomsky attack on behaviorism view on which audiologists is based is very well-known. He also proposed that people have innate system- generally known as Universal Grammar- within them that provides them with ability to construct their own grammar.T he error in audiologists was also viewed not as something to be avoided. Error Is a good thing through which learners' mind is shown. There was another attack as well saying this approach, especially in the late sass, failed to follow the learners' needs In a way that the learners needed advanced academic skills more than they need oral skill because of the university requirement for enrollment at U.S and British (grab, 1991). That audiologists banned students from using Al because It will Interfere with their LA acquisition also received critics because some linguists viewed Al not as a hindrance, but as an important resource In decision making In writing Another reason that killed audiologists Is the negligence of the caveat that audiologists be taught In small class with highly motivated students.This negligence occurred because of several reasons; people's amazement toward how successful audiologists was that they Implemented It anywhere hoping to get the same success, and the b oredom that students felt due to the monotonousness for using drilling so often that they lose their motivation. This monotonousness was one thing that led Harmer (1991) to suggest that It not be used too frequently and too long. It Is human nature to get ordered and It Is Inevitable.In Dalton, the level of emergency also became the significant factor In a way that former learners with dialogues method viewed LA as an urgent need. Some needed It for World War 2, some-especially those who lived In one place with two language-needed It to be mediating language because It was the only way to communicate. However, LA learning today Is not because It Is urgently needed. Most of the time, It Is Just learned because It Is In the curriculum. However, despite all reasons mentioned above, It Is not that Audiologists Is a bad teaching approach.The alma of this paper, and also the alma of learning language teaching approach, Is not to Judge any approach. There Is no such thing called the best o r the worst method. Audiologists Itself Is not a bad approach since, at some point In history, It has been very successful. Thus, Audiologists, Just Like any other approaches, Is not for us to discredit. The task for all language teachers Is to find the method that Is most suitable and most effective for the learners. What killed audiologists By realization also viewed not as something to be avoided.Error is a good thing through which especially in the late sass, failed to follow the learners' needs in a way that the audiologists banned students from using Al because it will interfere with their LA but as an important resource in decision making in writing Another reason that killed audiologists is the negligence of the caveat that audiologists be taught in several reasons; people's amazement toward how successful audiologists was that they implemented it anywhere hoping to get the same success, and the boredom suggest that it not be used too frequently and too long.It is human natu re to get bored and it is inevitable. In addition, the level of emergency also became the significant factor in a way that former learners with dialogues method viewed LA as an urgent need. Some needed it for World War 2, some-especially those who lived in one place with two language-needed it to be mediating language because it was the only way to communicate. However, LA learning today is not because it is urgently needed. Most of the time, it is Just learned because it is in the curriculum.However, despite all reasons mentioned above, it is not that Audiologists is a bad teaching approach. The aim of this paper, and also the aim of learning language teaching approach, is not to Judge any approach. There is no such thing called the best or the worst method. Audiologists itself is not a bad approach since, at some point in history, it has been very successful. Thus, Audiologists, Just like any other approaches, is not for us to discredit. The task for all language teachers is to fi nd the method that is most suitable and most effective for the learners.

Friday, January 3, 2020

Definition and Discussion of the Minutes of a Meeting

In business writing, minutes are the official written record of a meeting. Minutes are generally written in the simple past tense. They serve as a permanent record of  the topics considered, conclusions reached, actions taken, and assignments given.  Theyre also a record of which individuals made contributions to the meeting in terms of new ideas and how those ideas were received. If there is a vote taken at a meeting, the minutes serve as a record of who voted for and who voted against a proposal, which can be taken into consideration in future when the consequences of either implementing or rejecting that proposal come to fruition. Who Takes the Minutes? Some minutes are kept by a recording secretary, an employee specifically tasked with taking minutes, keeping all records and files, tracking attendance and voting records, and reporting to the appropriate designated parties (for instance a board of directors or the upper management of a business). However, minutes may be kept by any individual in attendance at a meeting and are generally distributed to all members of the unit represented at the meeting. The Main Parts of Meeting Minutes Many organizations use a standard template or a special format for keeping minutes, and the order of the parts may vary. Heading—The name of the committee (or business unit) and the date, location, and starting time of the meeting.Participants—The name of the person conducting the meeting along with the names of all those who attended the meeting (including guests) and those who were excused from attending.Approval of previous minutes–A note on whether the minutes of the previous meeting were approved and whether any corrections were made.Action items–A report on each topic discussed at the meeting. This can include unfinished business from the previous meeting. (For each item, note the subject of the discussion, the name of the person who led the discussion, and any decisions that may have been reached.)Announcements–A report on any announcements made by participants, including proposed agenda items for the next meeting.Next Meeting—A note on where and when the next meeting will be held.Adjournment—A note on the time the meeting ended.Signature lineâ₠¬â€The name of the person who prepared the minutes and the date they were submitted. Observations In writing minutes, be clear, comprehensive, objective, and diplomatic. Do not interpret what happened; simply report it. Because meetings rarely follow the agenda perfectly, you might find it challenging to provide an accurate record of the meeting. If necessary, interrupt the discussion to request clarification. Do not record emotional exchanges between participants. Because minutes are the official record of the meeting, you want them to reflect positively on the participants and the organization.(From Technical Communication, Ninth Edition by Mike Markel) Guidelines for Writing Meeting Minutes The person writing the minutes should have the capability of doing so in real-time as the meeting progresses so that the finished product is in near-final form by meetings end.Minutes should concentrate on results and goal-oriented actions.Good minutes are brief and to the point. They are not verbatim accounts, but rather concise, coherent summaries. Summaries should include points of agreement and disagreement but dont require every last detail.Minutes can be used as source material for a report or memo, however, they should be written for the purpose of recapitulating events for those who attended a meeting, rather than for those who did not.Minutes should be completed and distributed promptly after a meeting (rule of thumb is within a day or two). Source Hiebert, Murray; Klatt, Bruce. The Encyclopedia of Leadership: A Practical Guide to Popular Leadership. McGraw-Hill, 2001