Accepting the Whole

Employee For my last paper I decided to discuss, “The Changing Nature of the Employment Relationship: Reclaiming Values in the Workplace” by Sandra L. Williams and Gerald R. Ferris. In this article the two authors prove how the paternalistic organization is failing and the up rise of values is bringing the full people to work thus creating a competitive advantage for companies. In the first section of the article the authors discuss why values are becoming so prevalent is today’s businesses. Due to current research organizations are being viewed as networks where employees, employer, supplier and consumer are all interactive components of an entire system. Employees are seeking organization environments consisting of engagement based on ethics and values are emerging. One benefit of values being incorporated is it creates an environment with a constant exchange of information rather than people being scared for their jobs. Another benefit is the shift in power between employers to employees, where the paternalistic model of controlled employment to an adult-to-adult model of employment by choice. These employees are now not seen as assets but value that bring strategic competitive advantage for most organizations such as knowledge and adaptability. In analyzing this section, it is an important point to make, by eliminating competition in the business employees will integrate with each other without fear of their job security. One of the main reasons that employee’s refuse or self-sabatosh training future employees is because they are scared for job security. The aspect that I would like the author to expand on is if there is no legitimate power of managers how will a business benefit or hurt from this. If a negative result from this is that there is no order to an organization that will assign task, implement deadlines and most importantly establish rules and regulation. Though I believe that establishing a relationship of open communication is beneficial where is the line drawn. The next section goes on to discuss organizations bringing back trust and commitment to their environments. Employee trust in employers was lost in the 1980’s when major lay off took place leaving many traumatized. Though research from various organization and institutions has proved the benefits of these values, few have taken proactive steps. An effect of this doubt in leaders and organization has lead to individual’s not making work their primary focus. Organizations that incorporate values in their environment acknowledge that when an employee brings their whole self to work they become more committed to service and trusting. In analyzing this section the author did an amazing job in pinpointing the key values in opening up individuals to bringing their whole self to work. The author proved that by establishing trust not only do you eliminate company sabatoshing, but one opens individuals up to expand themselves in the company. Our work environment today, due to regulations and discrimination laws, has influenced the person to hide who they truly are. Most individuals feel that the environment is so untrustworthy they will be victimized by employers and other employees is they develop themselves. In the third section the authors discussed how organizations could take advantage of these values to better engage their employees to work, thus making the company more profitable. Organizations are finding various ways of motivating and bonding their workforce through the power of values. Many organizations are even asking their employees to create important values, organization visions, belief statements and standards. The side benefit of this goal is that employees are infused ethically, consciously, and value orientation in their work. In the end, employees of these companies are engaged fully in their work, are influencing creativity, giving the company a competitive advantage, and establishing loyalty from their customers. In analyzing this section there is a strong correlation between the employees establishing values and family businesses. Family businesses are among the most successful operation in the world and this is because the family has motivation incentives that are passionate to them. When an organization feeds individuals social, esteem and self-actualization needs motivation increases. The area that I would like the author to clarify is how can individuals establish company goals when they all have different personalities. In family businesses the family is tight knitted and has an established goal to create values around. In the fourth section the authors discuss which values to pick and why. This section gives various important values to specific companies and the benefits they had on their company. The underlining meaning to these examples is that each organization needs to identify the values that give their employees a personal sense of wholeness and integrate them into everyday work. In analyzing this section, at first read it served no purpose to the reader. It simply gave examples of organization main values and how they benefitted their employee’s growth. The author needs to summarize the examples purposes and say this is malleable for organization to establish the key values that are important to their employees. The last section the authors discuss is that of incorporating the whole-person, which involves, sexual orientation, religion and passionate topics to gain a sense of community in the organization. Now that these companies are preaching their values it is time for them to practice, as many working people feel that the workplace is an opportunity to practice their personal values. Some people yearn for work that touches their soul, stirs their imagination and corresponds with bedrock of personal identity. This is developing the workplace as an institute for personal development, community, and meaning of expression. Organizations, since starting this movement, have to implement these new ways due to talented people simply just going elsewhere. In analyzing this section there was a lot of skepticism when reading. The author is not only saying employers should promote values that motivate the employees, but also encourage a diversified community. This would create a community where the individuals could openly communicate about passionate topics. My skeptics came from two areas, the first being the legal factors and the other was power silos. People are bias, whether they try to be or not, and in the work place if individuals exhibit passionate topics and feel this bias, negative emotions will be displayed. As a result, do managers now serve as counselors for work place problems? The other skeptic is that of silos, in which company’s religious, ethnic, and sexual orientation employs solely make up the company. The company will be seen as solely that minority rather then a community. In relation to my life this situation has worked in contrary of the benefits stated. One day at work an individual decided to wear a personal statement shirt under their uniform that represented his profession after college. Later that day, our management staff received a concerned call stating the individuals would no longer be shopping at our store due to being personal offended. The shirt, though represented personal pride for a country defense group, caused offense to an immigrant who did not believe in war. In allowing the freedom of personal values to create pride and the whole person, it is often not compatible with everyone’s values. In an organization such as retail with high volume consumer in the door the personal integration of values has to be limited. At the beginning of this article I was would have recommending this article to anyone who is trying to engage their employees fully into their work. I truly believe that employees represent companies, and if one wants employees to take as much pride in their company as they do, organizations have to make them feel passionate. If organization can get the maturity level of incorporating the whole person to form a community I believe job satisfaction will raise and organization will be more successful. I would love for the author to elaborate or write a second article on steps to integrating these passionate topics. Citation Ferris, Gerald R. “The Changing Nature of the Employment Relationship: Reclaiming Values in the Workplace.” Human Resources Management. By Sandra L. Williams. 14th ed. N.p.: n.p., n.d. 407-12. Print.

Handling Injustices

In last class we talked about organization justice, which is, “the maintenance or administration of what is just, especially by the impartial adjustment of conflicting claims or the assignment of merited rewards or punishment”(Cascio, Wayne F.). Though this term may be easily understood it is many times harder to follow. Especially when discussing norms versus rules, policy’s and procedures. Norms are usually unwritten standards that the company gets used to, and may even go against the rules. Rules are written standards that the company is to adhere to. If there are norms that certain people follow but others follow rules this leaves the individuals who follow the rules feeling they have been unjustly treated. At the place that I work there is a potential for unjust treatment since there is a strict no drinking on the retail area rule. Though many times our family brings in coffee and sneaks sips throughout the day. This can be seen as a injustice towards other who are not allowed to have beverages. This was recently brought to my attention, as many injustices against individuals are not intentional. In a business setting when individuals are from different norms it is common that others could offend others unconsciously. So that is why everyone needs to keep up to touch on the rules so even unconscious justice do not enter into the work place. Another way that this unconscious injustice can be avoided is by bringing it to authority attention though email, note, one-on-one meeting and more. This is important because if let unhandled it could lead to company emotional dissonance, self- sabatoshing, embezzlement or lack of motivation for company.

Citation: Cascio, Wayne F. “Chapter 14, Procedural Justice and Ethics in Employee Relations.” Managing Human Resources: Productivity, Quality of Work Life, Profits. 10th ed. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. Print.

30 Days to Becoming an HR Pro

For my thirty days to becoming an HR pro I decided to explore Prezi. When first searching for HR related topics I found a tremendous amount on companies who create a training prezi. This is a prezi presentation that the employees can take home and learn or even refresh their memory. A lot of times employees when new go through the training process and only retain half of what they will need to know when doing their job. Later when they are in a more calm and relaxed environment they can go through the presentation and think more about the different aspect of the job in relation to the presentations. Some of the presentation included sanitation requirements, where to go if you have a problem, emergency routines and much more. In relation to Maplewood there are a lot of facts about meat and sanitation that are crucial for the business to run successfully. Once I start working full time I am going to take the knowledge that I learned while doing this activity and apple it to making Maplewood an employee prezi. Some topics will cover sanitation when deal with thing like smoked vs. fresh meat, the different cuts of fresh meat and what works best for certain dishes, the routine to greeting a customer, and lastly clean up procedures. This way when the employee is in our fast pace environment and does not retain all the information they can go to this resource. I hope that in making this prezi the employees will gain a better knowledge of their workplace and may even encourage some to be interest in the meat industry.

Can something be FUN and SAFE???

The article I chose was, Innovative Employers are Using Creative Handbooks to Engage Employees by Kathy Gurchiek. This article argues that the boring old handbooks that enforce runs can be thrown out, and fun-engaging handbooks can replace them. The article starts out by giving examples of company handbooks that have taken this new approach, and how they incorporate their atmosphere into the handbook. After the examples, the handbook explains when making the handbook fun, there are crucial aspects that still need to be taken into account. The first aspect, make it fun and engaging, which includes illustrating workplace rules and situational practice. The second, color and visuals, so it is easier for the employee to read and understanding the key points. The third, communication of the workplace culture, which incorporates the workplace rules, values and mission. The fourth, explaining why the rules are important to the company so that the employee can relate the environment to the rules. The fifth include required notifications for legal purposes. Lastly, the sixth, remembering it is a legal document and the number one purpose is to be that. Even though it is fun, the handbook should clearly display legal insights. In relation to my life I do believe the company I work for could develop a more creative handbook to effectively display our family friendly culture. The scary aspect, though, in developing a creative handbook is loosing the seriousness of the legal handbook. The company I work for has dangerous equipment and if an individual develops a different idea from the handbook, it could leave them susceptible to danger. I do think that many times if a company has too dry of a handbook the employees will not reference it in many situations. As a human resources individual it is crucial to find the balance of fun and sophistication when developing this important document.

Compensation for All!

In class we talked about employee benefits, which include extra compensation that comes in various types of non-wage benefit to the employees that is an addition to their normal wages or salaries. These benefits are given for various reasons such as the law mandates benefits during certain time periods, tax treatment benefits, employee differentiation, organized labor and more. One of the more interesting compensation pieces that we talked about in class in workers compensation. This compensation law protects employees who are involved in job- related injuries and to the families of worker who accidentally die on the job. The confusing aspect to this benefits is that it is a no fault liability. That means if an individual were to be messing around and cut his finger off he would be treated the same as if someone were following the rules. The compensation is in place to avoid the legal aspects of workers injuries such as lawsuits, since our legal system is already backed up. In relation to my own life with workers compensation the place that I work just revised the insurance dues for their workers compensation. Like any insurance the employer has to [ay to be covered. At my work the insurance cost goes up during certain hours and days of the work period since it can be more dangerous at times. On Tuesdays when we slaughter the insurance rates go up because the potentiality of a worker getting hurt is greater. Though this law does protect against individuals who do not follow rules this law also enforces OSHA come through and do evaluations. The benefit of this is that many companies who are not supplying their workers with protective gear or improperly training will be fined and made to fix these problems. This leads to a safer work environment for all.

30 Days to Becoming an HR Pro

For my thirty days to becoming an HR pro I decided to explore Prezi. When first searching for HR related topics I found a tremendous amount on companies who create a training prezi. This is a prezi presentation that the employees can take home and learn or even refresh their memory. A lot of times employees when new go through the training process and only retain half of what they will need to know when doing their job. Later when they are in a more calm and relaxed environment they can go through the presentation and think more about the different aspect of the job in relation to the presentations. Some of the presentation included sanitation requirements, where to go if you have a problem, emergency routines and much more. In relation to Maplewood there are a lot of facts about meat and sanitation that are crucial for the business to run successfully. Once I start working full time I am going to take the knowledge that I learned while doing this activity and apple it to making Maplewood an employee prezi. Some topics will cover sanitation when deal with thing like smoked vs. fresh meat, the different cuts of fresh meat and what works best for certain dishes, the routine to greeting a customer, and lastly clean up procedures. This way when the employee is in our fast pace environment and does not retain all the information they can go to this resource. I hope that in making this prezi the employees will gain a better knowledge of their workplace and may even encourage some to be interest in the meat industry.

We are Not the Problem

In the article, Prepared for the Future, Michelle Martinez, argues that if companies establish level playing fields, create feeder programs, identify high performers, and encourage leadership programs, women can efficiently utilize their perspectives and skills to give companies a competitive advantage. In the article, Martinez begins by revealing the ugly secret that several thousand females are not leaving their corporate level jobs because they are giving up a paying job altogether. Rather, they are leaving out of frustration from the pressure of conforming to the male dominant company. Martinez’s argues, though, that, “If leaders could see that human capital can convert to money, we could convince people that they would be better served by breaking the glass ceiling” and these companies will not change unless “the need to tie human resources to human capital and look at it as a commodity, something to maximize.” (Martinez, Michelle.). In analyzing the introduction, Martinez main point of discouraging the misconception of women leaving their corporate level positions for other responsibilities such as child bearing is very important. This stigma of the lack of women in the work force has been around for many years, yet since many females are choosing to purely work lifestyles the truth about male dominance is coming forward. The other point that the author makes that is important is the display of profitability through their diversification of ideas and perspectives women can make in a company. If a person brings new ideas or profits to the table if does not matter what gender, race of ethnicity they are the company will value what their ideas are. The first characteristic that companies must strive for, to advance women, is that of leveling the playing field. In this category Martinez illustrates the process and benefits of equality through the increase of women in the sales force team by, George C. Harvey former CEO of Pitney Bowes in Stamford. Harvey recruited several women due to their performance, not affirmative action, and as a result, they were able to perform at their maximum level and improve company wide performance. Today, Pitney Bowes still encourages recognition of all people through there, corporate diversity task force. This task force encourages all eight units to form a model of what diversity is to them and prove why this way of business is better than traditional forms. In critiquing this section Martinez did an excellent job of explaining that when companies recruit strictly on performance and not gender, companies can effectively give women and minorities an equal chance for success. This helps the company by giving individuals’ opportunities to voice their opinion and for the company to grow in new ways that other companies cannot. The confusing aspect of this section is the brief mention of minorities in the workplace. I believe the author should include the inequality of minorities throughout the article since it strengthen the argument that by including unseen corporate level individuals it encourages economic growth. The next section is that of how companies can establish feeder programs to ensure that women possess the proper skills to perform higher-level jobs. When recruiting new talent, companies commonly externally recruit when they should be internally developed their own talent. For example, when trying to gain power in a specific job of your company one should research the percentage of women in their particular industry. If that number is low, develop feeder programs or internships to attract more females. Lastly, the author stresses that companies make mistakes when they simply abide by the Affirmative Action Law. This law tries to give women opportunity, but many times ends of simply places unprepared women in positions that lead them to fail. In analyzing this section Martinez makes an incredible point that affirmative action, though it attempts to help woman in the work place, has the potential to do more damage than good. If a women is promoted without proper knowledge or training, she will become the weakest link. In a team setting this will create a negative image of females in higher positions for everyone around her. Thus, pushing the idea that women are simply not capable of handling a corporate level job. Another critic to this section, these ideas benefit the employee tremendously, but the author cannot forget that to emphasize why a company would go out of their way to develop feeder programs for women. For example, feeder programs benefit businesses by future employers, insights into talent, increase productivity and much more. In the next section the author goes on to talk about how a company can identify high performers in the company. One of the main ways companies can identify high performers is by having executive managers oversee diverse list of employee growths in order to properly assess them and help various individuals realize their goals. The author states that in identifying high performers the company’s two major aspects should be a clear plan on what is takes to get to the upper level positions, and to offer opportunities to contribute in a meaningful way. Juanita Cox Burton is an example of the process stating that her mentor “put me in a situation where I was visible and had to take risks”. In analyzing this section I thought it served a useful view that, when executive management, identify high performers and give assessments they are efficiently giving females clear opportunities. As a devils advocate, though, it is clear that this process would be difficult for most managers will not be willing to train individuals that will take their positions. Lastly, the author should include some key steps as how these executive manager trains these individuals and what they asses on that makes them successful. Throughout this article is throwing out brilliant key concepts but lacking the details of how to effectively perform them The next section focuses on leadership programs targeting women, in which the aim is to develop women’s confidence, self-esteem and leadership styles. In the past, and still today, women have failed in the business environment due to its modeling a military and competitive atmosphere. In these settings men thrive in since they were brought up in a win or lose environments. The author suggests leadership programs where women are trained by performing activities that force them out of their comfort zone, and as a result increase their self-confidence and develop ways to promote themselves. In the end, women will hopefully be able to work with all individuals in their business environment while being a confident leader. In analyzing this section I believe that the author was right in establishing that many women are not leaders since they lack the confidence and networking skills, yet she neglects other crucial factors. Many times in the work area women are pushed to the back due to factors such as social norms, mansplaining or biases. The author should mention these factors and how companies can limit or even eliminate them from interfering with female’s success. Lastly, Martinez closes by saying that if the business world continues to keep suppressing female contributions companies will stay stagnant and miss out on many great leaders. Men and women both need the same resources to advance as leaders, which are environments that posse’ opportunities in an open an accepting work environment. In applying this article of female equality in the business field, I feel as though the author missed out on a huge portion of what the problem truly is. As a reader, relating this to my own life I have gone to higher schooling and am a very confident person in the work I perform. When I am at work I am constantly being talked over or silenced by men around me due to their personal mindset of being more intelligent or that I am simply wrong. This article in some ways places blames on the females saying that we need to be better skilled or more confident, when in most situations that is not the problem. The problem is that of men being incapable of accepting the opposite sex as equal to them. There needs to be training programs and seminars for men educating about how the diversity of women is the future to successful businesses. Women can knock on the glass ceiling all they want, but if no one is listening, what is the point. In recommending this article to others I think it has significant points of identifying that women can pose high level positions and that the playing fields need to be leveled. Other than that, I think the author did a poor job at clearly giving points of how to get into positions, what the benefits are for the future of the company and the negative encounter women will face.

Behaviors of Turnover

This article addresses how a manager can detect pre-quitting behaviors in their employees before the action takes place. In a study done by psychologist, David Buss he established a technique to recognizing behaviors that your spouse is cheating and used his system to create a system for the workplace as well. What they came to conclude was that individuals who are about to quite will exhibit lack of work ethic, act less team like, express dissatisfaction, and lastly be less focused. Surprisingly though, the behaviors that had always thought to be requiting signs did not match most of the signs that resulted from this experiment. Lastly, the writer gave helpful ways in which to detect this behavior and how to eliminate star employees from leaving. For example they suggested that employers focus on short term rather than large-scale interventions to improve departmental or firm level commitment, job satisfaction and job engagement. Even though it is inevitable since everyone eventually will leave the company having and maintaining star employees can lead to many successful years. In applying this to my own life we recently had an individual leave, which showed many of the 13 behaviors described in the article. In the beginning he would always display a smile, work very hard and never made mistakes. After a few months he started to show up late, make huge mistakes and was very disrespectful towards our fellow managers. Eventually he quite, but the reasons that our managers did not step in to avoid the problem is that he was not a star employee. If he had been with the company for many years and was eager to have a future at our company the situation would have been differently. In specific cases where the employee is values detecting sign to avoid a turnover are crucial but in other cases it is irrelevant.

“Age is an Issue of Mind Over Matter. If You Don’t Mind, it Doesn’t Matter.” Mark Twain

During class we discussed the myths versus facts about older workers, and I discovered the unconscious bias many of us place against elders in the work place. Some of the myths are that of older workers are less productive, it cost more to prepare older workers for a job, they are absent more and so on. These facts are proven to be false but since we think they are true it leaves us to discriminate against older individuals in businesses.

In relation to my work we employee older ladies since many of the college employees head off to college. If one were to look at the older ladies in a bias way they would be seen as slower and not able to lift heavy objects. This is certainly not true since the older ladies are some of our best worker. They are always curious of the customers, they are on time to work, they are motivated and focused, and lastly they are loyal to Maplewood and have worked here for many years. Employing older worker has actually benefited Maplewood since they stay longer with Maplewood making us spend less money on interviews and training processes.

The Power of a Positive Mind

The activity I chose for my 30 Days to Becoming an HR Pro is that of a Ted Talk by Amy Cuddy titles Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are. The beginning of her talk she explained the in life, and especially in the business setting, the way you present yourself defines whether you are a successful person or not. Someone who sits with arms tucked in and head down will not be viewed as confidant or a leader. And Cuddy explains that this is fine if you are not a natural leader but you have to present yourself as one to be viewed as one. Yet through time if you do “fake it till you make it” your personality will develop to that of your physical presence. Lastly Cuddy wanted to share the message that individual who many times see themselves as not capable of doing something or as if they are out of place, you are exactly where you are suppose to be. This speech directly correlates with my life in the education environment. I am not a natural smart person but rather I am the kind who studies for days and still manages to pull of a average grade on the exam. I am a visual learner who best performs in hands on situations. When in the classroom setting, especially in group projects, I would sit in silence with my hand at my sides and my head down. I did not want to be asked my opinion because I felt as though every thought I had would be wrong. Until one high school teacher by the name of Mr. Gieser sat me down one day after performing poorly on a math exam and said, “you failed because you were focused on failing. If you want to succeed like you do at work, in sports and other aspect of your life focus on the success.” After that exam I never failed a test. In preparing for test I focused on learning the information rather then cramming information. During the test I focused on completing problems rather then getting a good grade. Eventually I developed the idea in life that to be a successful person I did not focus on random accomplishments but rather being a happy person. In the beginning it was hard but I faked my positivity until it became whom I was.

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