Reflection April 6

We went over the schedule for our papers and the peer reviews. We don't have class on Thursday so that should give us some time to work on our papers if we're smart... Prof also brought up that he's working on starting up a chapter of a student service group that helps people in poorer countries. This sounds interesting, I think it would be something that would be good to get involved in.

We discussed Utilitarianism and someone brought up the idea that people could reason that the choices that the company makes may not be good for the local citizens or a small group of people but will be beneficial for a large group of people. Does the gain outweigh the negatives. Virtue Ethics based on the capitalist economic systems. WalMart was brought up with it's low prices that drives down the market, but they are evil (personal note there). Costco compared to Sam's Club - Costco has better worker morale, but they have higher prices. Sam's has lower prices...but also lower worker morale.

Reflection April 1

Learning Organizations are so important to making your company run efficiently. There needs to be continuous learning, sharing of knowledge, critical thinking, learning culture, and your employees need to feel appreciated.

We also watched a video about johnson&johnson company and how they run their buisness and why they are so successful. They have continual innovation and have their employees go through continual education. The credo is a big part of what management uses in making their daily decisions, they describe it as they corporate culture. There is even a 6 month training program for all new employees. It's interesting that their mission statement is not just a mission statement, it is how they lead their lives and is part of their day to day business decisions. Some employees say that the credo helps them look at the long-term effects of their business decisions not just this quarter, last quarter, today.

Chapter 16 Discussion Topic

High performance work systems are the right combination of people, technology, and organizational structure that makes full use of the organization's resources and opportunities in achieving its goals.
I find that more often than not companies want the high performance work system but aren't willing to put forth the amount of money required to get their company there. They want highly motivated and productive employees, intelligent employees, but they look at the bottom line right now. "How little can I pay people and get them to do the job so I can make a bigger profit?" Seems a little silly if you look at the big picture. Human Resource Managers need to be able to look at the big picture and show managers, ceo's and owners that sometimes putting forth a little more or even a lot more money at first will bring better results in the long run.
What are some ways that HR professionals could convey this information? Use the diagram in the book Outcomes of a High-performance work system and ask yourself "why don't the people in charge see that this is the better way?"

March 30 Reflection

We finished up chapter 15 going over the Hofstede's 5 Dimensions of Culture and work in foreign countries and effects of culture on training design and also compensation for expatriates. We also discussed the papers that are due April 15. We will be doing peer reviews on the papers, I'm mildly interested to see what other people decided to write about.

Chapter 15 Discussion Topic again

I was interested in the Hofstede Dimensions so I thought I'd add more:
Hofstede's Five Dimensions of Culture -
individualism v. collectivism
power distance
uncertainty avoidance
masculinity v femininity
long-term/short-term orientation

Our culture is definitely on the individualism side of the spectrum and I see this at my job where everyone has pretty much the same job in my department and it's up to us to get our part done, we're monitored on our individual accomplishments as well as the group's.
The power distance in our culture seems to be rather low, we call our supervisors or managers by their first names a lot of the time.
Uncertainty Avoidance makes human resource management and forecasting so important in our culture, we don't like to be unsure about our future for the most part and we want to be prepared for what COULD happen.

What are some other things that we as human resource managers could do to deal with uncertainty avoidance? What are some of today's issues with the change in masculinity v. femininity in difference occupations? Do we still have a big issue with gender differences?

March 16 Reflection

We discussed how the union v. management activity went last week and what we got out of it. I could tell that it made a difference when the two sides communicated and when the teams communicated rather than one person for either side made a decision. With these types of scenarios it's very important to try to get as close to a win-win so that there will be more trust and also if it ends up being a lose-lose i.e the labor union "wins" but the company goes under because they can't handle the budget increase so the laborers lose their jobs anyway. You have to communicate with each other otherwise you can't create trust.

We also talked about what supervisors should and should not do to discourage unions. I can see that where I work is pretty much doing it all right.

Chapter 15 Discussion Topic

There are a few factors thataffect Human Resource Management in the International Markets. Culture, Education, Economic Status, and Political-legal systems. Culture involves such things as customs, languages, and religions. If you don't understand the culture of the place you are working, you can cause a lot of problems for yourself and make the job unnecessarily difficult. Small things such as when working in a Hindu-dominated culture to not use or bring a leather briefcase, wallet, etc. This can be tied in with the culture of an organization within the States, every job or company has its own "culture" and it is smart to always learn as much about the culture before you get into a situation that could cause much embarrassment.
How can you learn about a culture before you travel or try to get a job in a new organization? Do you think that it is important to learn about a major faith or beliefs and values of other people or countries you could be dealing with?

March 11 Reflection

We discussed Chapter 14 and the laws behind compensation. There are different types of benefits but one that is newer to Human resources seems to be "family friendly" benefits. These benefits include family leave, child care, college savings plans and elderly care. We did an activity about unions to see how they can help or hinder a company. We also turned in our research paper proposals and got back our Exam re-do's. It was awesome to be able to go back through our exams and try to pick up some of the points we missed, I think I got more out of it too because I could go back through and see what the correct answers were and understand the objectives I wasn't as confident in.

Reflection March 9

Discussed benefits and FMLA, we had a good class discussion. We had the SCOTS in and had a really good discussion on the things we'd like to see happen to the class, it's not that we hate this class and that Human Resources are not important, but this class could definitely be improved and we are all very willing to help. :)

Chapter 14 Discussion Topic

Unions. The text gives a list of what supervisors should do and not do to discourage unions. DO report any signs of union activity to a core management group, DO NOT threaten employees with harsher terms and conditions of employment or employment loss if they engage in union activity. DO treat all employees equally, with respect, etc. DO NOT spy on employees or offer better opportunities if they forgo union activity. Seems pretty basic, turn it over to the management and continue with work as usual, apparently union activity is not our thing.

If you remember a few years ago with the writer's strike and T.V sucked a lot during that time, so as HR Reps we need to make sure we can do what we can to avoid strikes of any kind.

What sorts of things can we do to help avoid strikes? Since it seems that HR reps aren't really supposed to do anything directly related to unions what can we do to help our employees feel that a union is unnecessary?

Chapter 13 Discussion Topic

Paid leave is a beautiful thing. Paid sick days, vacation, floating holidays, all are great benefits that are optional for your employer to provide (unless there is a serious illness). Health insurance is also optional.
I have found talking to your HR rep as long as they aren't idiots is helpful when you are signing up for your own health insurance because it can be daunting, so as future HR reps we should make sure we understand the policies the company offers and can inform the employees which aspects will be most beneficial to their individual circumstances.
What sorts of questions could we ask the employees that could help us help them but would still be legal? Or what could we do to help them on aspects that aren't within that legal realm?

Reflection March 4

I'm assuming that we discussed Chapter 12 which deals withrecognizing employee contributions with pay. The legal requirements for pay structure discussed in chapter 11 involve equal employment opportunity, minimum wages, pay for overtime and prevailing wages for federal contractors. All of this is assuming that pay is equal across gender, race, and favoritism lines. In Chapter 12 they discuss incentive pay, piecework rates with are for individual performance which is often used in factories (paid per product made over the worker average) which is nice because it rewards for going above and beyond.

Reflection March 2

We met in the library to discuss research methods and go over the available software we have. I actually found a lot of material for my research paper, I was pretty surprised. That word doesn't look right, anyway; Christine or whatever her name was helped a lot although I think she thought we were a bunch of rejects with the way she talked to us about the difference between scholarly journals and popular journals. She probably could have gotten away with cutting that whole part of the speech to "if it doesn't have references don't use it". I hate writing research papers, but at least I have interest and direct connection to the topic. :)

Chapter 12 Discussion Topic

Incentives are nice to have and to use as motivators for your staff; but if used incorrectly or poorly they can make things worse. Employees like to be a part of changes that are going to affect them, and working with them when dealing with pay-related decisions especially you can help set the ground-work for employee empowerment. You also need to talk with the employees and let them know what is going on and why decisions are being made. When people feel like they are a part of the process they can hopefully understand what is going on and will appreciate the incentives rather than feel like they have no control. This can build up the team as well. Another good idea is to hold interviews with employees so they can discuss any issues they may have regarding the new policy.

What are some incentive programs you have come across? Were any of them good? Were they handled well? How could you as an HR representative make use of such a program and how could you make it the most effective?

February 25 Reflection

Jeff Weber came into class today from Ancestry.com, he talked about the Fair Labor Act, and how compensation changes with the economy. With the Fair Labor Act he showed that there are a lot of issues with companies determining Exempt or non-Exempt accurately. He said that he's noticed the most problems with restaurants, although WalMart had to pay out around 3 mill in 2007. He showed us a slide from a presentation he showed in march of 2008, it was amazing to see the big changes since then in compensation including the use of big sign on bonuses and that now they are not used because the problem is not filling positions, its having positions open to fill.

I think that if you know the laws you will save yourself and your company a lot of headache and money so you don't have pay out later if you determined employees as Exempt when they shouldn't have been. It is also helpful to either know how to forecast fairly accurately or have someone who does so that you can see how compensation can help you recruit better or the best options in employees.

Discussion Topic Chapter 11

I think that it is really important to keep pay structures fairly balanced in each department or division at a company and should be based on skill level, training, and the job or tasks involved in the job. It always seems silly to me to have the pay scale be even across the board when obviously not everyone is doing the same work, has the same level of skill and ability or experience so it doesn't seem fair or smart. Company's have a harder time filling in positions when they try to figure out some low-ball number to pay people and see how low they can pay and get away with it. Unless you're cool with only hiring high schoolers.
I worked at a place that paid the same amount for all (call-center) employees, regardless of the department. This seemed hardly fair because the data entry employees were making just as much as the people that dealt with ticked off customers all day, or talked customers through technical issues. They also were not big on pay raises even if you were full - time not just seasonal employees. I don't know if they ever figured out they would keep more people around and build up good rapport with the employees and the employees in turn would improve their skill sets and make the customer service procedures more smooth.

What sorts of problems have you come across with companies that didn't seem to have a good working pay structure? What are some things that you could do as an HR professional to help make the structure happen or to make it work better if there are any issues with the one currently in use?

Reflection 2/18/10

On Tuesday we had a guest speaker who discussed Employee Relations with us. He used an example of a new hire RN who would require a higher pay to come on than the RNs that already work at the establishment because he gets paid more at his current job. Staying competitive, but still keeping the equity theory in balance.

Today we discussed Managing Turnover, such as why people usually leave a job. It's suprisingly not because of pay, but most often due to poor fit with the culture, poor relationship with boss/coworkers, more interesting work, etc. We also discussed the Exam which should be awesome, I am looking forward to seeing how the exams go in this class.

Retraction...ish

Okay so not really a retraction, but I have come to the conclusion that perhaps our dear professor is not completely at fault for the ridiculous amount of homework and content provided in this class. In a brief moment of clarity I realized that maybe it is the fault of the directors, deans, etc, for requiring an entire textbook be covered in only one semester. With all of the work that is required this should be considered not a 3 credit course, but a 5 or 6 credit course. The material covered in this class should be given more time to discuss and analyze, not just be quickly briefed on before moving on to the next topic. We are doing way more work than the average 3 credit course, as I am sure our professor is also doing more work too. We should be given the credits for the amount of work we are doing and he should be paid as such as well. Okay, I feel better and I deeply apologize for the highly passionate anger I feel towards this class.

Discussion Chapter 10

Job dissatisfaction seems like a fairly normal thing. Apparently a lot of research has been done on the subject, there are even tests you can take such as the Meyers-Briggs Exam. This can help figure out what jobs work best for different personalities and which jobs have been found to have the highest job dissatisfaction for the different personality types. This is usually shown by behavior change, physical job withdrawal, psychological job withdrawal. What are some things that HR management can do to help prevent employees from job withdrawal?

Reflection February 11

We discussed Performance Management in class on Thursday. There are several different ways to measure performance, but it seems like the least effective methods are the most commonly used because they are easiest to do. Companies can be so lazy sometimes. Looking just as the bottom line, doing things because they know they are supposed to do them and not trying to do the best they can... which is odd because they are doing a poor job managing their people but they expect their people to do an excellent job on their end...just a thought. Oh the irony.

Chapter 9 Discussion Post

I think employee development is a really good idea. At Children's Healthcare of Atlanta they focus on development efforts on high-performing employees who have the potential to become managers. These employees complete a full day of assessment that includes personality test and participating in a business simulation in in which they take the role of managers. Each year they also attend five workshops, where they learn about leading change, developing a business strategy, and creating a personal vision. They work in teams to solve a practical problem affecting Children's and they receive coaching to help them set and achieve their own goals. I think this is such a good idea because it helps keep employees around if they feel like they have a chance to move up in the company and their hard work is being identified and rewarded.

I think taking the psychological inventory and skill/interest assessments are such a good idea to help you as an employer understand your employees more and as an employee to understand yourself and where you probably want to be.

What sorts of things should be covered in development training other than managerial aspects? What are some assessment tests you have come across that can help you develop your skills before you even enter your career or graduate?

Chapter 8 Discussion Topic

Errors in performance measurement. So your company is actually evaluating people's performance, yay kudos to them. Whoops; they screwed up and, apparently, there are several opportunities and ways they could have done it.

One of the ways is the person who is evaluating compares the person being evaluated to themselves. "I'm effective and this person is kind of like me so they must be too." Have you ever had people say that you remind them of someone else? Have they ever compared you to someone they thought would be a compliment to be compared to, but you actually find it as an insult? Or you are actually nothing like that, and you wonder how much people actually pay attention to either your or that other person. My dad always used to compare me to him, when you're 16 and your dad is the least cool person you can imagine next to your 4th period math teacher this is a travesty and a big blow to the ego. This also meant my dad expected me to make the same mistakes he did when he was my age. But I wasn't my dad, and you aren't your boss/supervisor/whatever. This can be highly ineffective and research has demonstrated that this effect is strong, but can be considered discriminatory so be careful of doing this yourself.

Another way is that the person being evaluated is compared to other employees rather than to an objective standard, contrast errors can occur. This can be nice if you are what would be considered average or even above average in most situations and you work with a bunch of idiots, but it doesn't seem as nice when your are good or even just competent and you work with a bunch of over-achievers. It'd be like comparing a 9th grader from Panama (foreign exchange student -real scenario) 7th graders from the U.S., obviously the 9th grader is going to have a better understanding of the material so if the teacher were to curve the class then everyone else would look like complete incompetents when in fact they would probably test as normal for the age group.

Distributional errors occur when the rater only really uses part of the rating scale, you know the really strict teacher that never gives an "A" because "that is equivalent to perfection, and you aren't perfect", the teacher that easily gives an "A" - nice for the under-achievers, much anger induced from the achievers/over-achievers section, or the one that may not fail anyone but you still have to work extra extra hard for the "A"....ahem... This can make it difficult to see how the employees are actually doing.

Basically, when rating performance there should be a standard to be followed and even though you may be closer to some employees the best option is to just follow the standard and look at the overall performance of employees and do your best to show what's really going on.

What would be a good way to do performance evaluation? Should your relationship (how the employees associate with you) with the employees have any bearing on the evaluation, whether its good or bad? What are some other things that could cause issues with performance evaluation?

Note from the Editor

Does anyone else think that these things are a huge time suck? Because I feel like I'm constantly playing catch up with this class, not just with the reading, the blog posts and then still having to write a paper on top of it, but in class if we actually get into a discussion there doesn't seem to be time budgeted for such a thing. I know "if this was my job I wouldn't be able to have a sob story, I'd just lose my job"...blah blah blah, whatever. I also wouldn't have to spend about a minimum of 10 hours on this "job" alone plus 30 hours at another job, and 3 other "jobs" that also required my time, on top of real life. Get over yourself, this is not real life it's college, and you aren't my only class. I figure I should just say this now since it'll be more helpful than at the end of the semester on the course evaluation; although, it'll be on there too.

Chapter 7 Discussion Topic

Measuring the results of training seems so obvious and simplistic but how many places actually do it? The book talks about how the planner for the training program should prepare how to evaluate a training program when the program itself is being developed.
It would seem impossible to know whether a program was effective or not if you had no way to measure the results or didn't check for a change in behavior. Usually there is a written test, but there are also regular performance evaluations that would be more accurate for evaluating whether or not a training was effective. This is also known as a transfer of training or on the job use of training.
A lot of companies will purchase software to do e-learning which allows for quick testing and evaluation, I've also worked for did weekly testing on information we needed to know to do our jobs and help our customers more fully and quickly. This seemed like a pain as employees but this was also pretty helpful because we usually remembered things better when we had been tested on 1)because the better the score the better the prizes we got; 2) if you screw it up and because you can't remember before the test you are more likely to remember it after being tested.
I think ultimately it's really important to evaluate the results of a training to see if the time and money is being used to it's best possible use and also because why do the training at all if you the information doesn't matter enough to track its use?

Reflection February 4

We had a speaker in class today from TNI, or Tahitian Noni International. Brian Brown is a senior manager of sales and customer service. He helps create the training process at TNI, apparently their process is pretty intensive. They have a lot of steps and it takes a lot of money to do a good job. I have definitely been in the trainings where the trainer doesn't want to be there and doesn't know the information and/or the content is pretty much not helpful. Their trainings seemed to focus on getting feedback from people throughout the organization including the (gasp) customers. I like the idea of making the employees feel of more worth because the company is investing in them and taking time to actually help them do their jobs better. Giving well thought out trainings, testing and watching the progress after the training to see if that particular training set met the objectives. TNI spends a long time planning the training, the content and the objectives they want to meet with the training, but they evaluate it before they present it. They also use a few different methods; E-learning, in class, and group meeting. Where I work we mostly do E-learning, although I've heard that later down the road they do some in-class training, but we also have team meetings every once in awhile if an issue arises. These issues can be something that we as the employees brought up, management brought up, or corporate visitors so we can be briefed. All of this helps us feel more like a team and less like just co-workers. All in all, training is good and a nice break from the actual work.

February 2 Reflection

I think with the clip from Oceans 11 you see that their screening process is based on results. They know how each person will handle different situations and have a reputation for quality work. I think in reality the hiring process should be, and often is similar. You're not usually getting ready to rob a casino, but you still want to know how someone is going to handle a difficult customer/client/vendor. Reading the resume is seeing what they say they can do, the interview helps to see more of the person behind the skills, and testing or the training process help show if that person can live up to or improve upon the information that was on the resume.

We also talked a little about hiring staff (HR, managers, supervisors, etc.) checking social networking sites to see what the potential employees say about their job, how they speak to people, whether they put forth a responsible persona. I know that some people feel that this is a breach of privacy, but I think that if it's on the internet it's not private whether or not you have your account set to private. I have heard of interviewers asking to add interviewees as friends so the person who was interviewed will know that they are being looked at and also so then the info is really not private.

If you don't want your mom, your potential employer or your church leaders to know about it don't but it up on the internet.

Discussion Topic Chapter 6

Resumes

There are so many ways to create a resume and pretty much each employer and/or school I've spoken to/been to has a different way that they prefer the resume to appear. We as employees don't like to make them, and employers don't like to read them. It's really a lose/lose situation for all of us but for some reason they are still necessary to get a job.

They can provide a first impression (or second) of the applicant, but as the book states the content of that resume and first impression is controlled by the applicant. They can be helpful to the employer too because this can show which applicants meet the required educational training, skills, any related work experience and any equipment or software knowledge, and can also set the applicant apart from others from the get-go.

I heard that people used to be required to submit a picture of themselves with their resumes, I thought that sounded ludicrous, but those were the times. This of course caused some HR issues and is probably why it's not done anymore, but can you imagine? I've heard too that some people lie about their skills and experience in different areas in order to get a job and figure they will be able to learn in if they need to once they get the job.

What are some ways that we as HR Managers could avoid wasting our time on these applicants that pretend to be a good fit for the job so we don't pass up on people who really do know what they are doing? Could we do testing as part of the interview process like many customer service jobs require?

Reflection January 28, 2010

The class on thursday talked about designing jobs that motivate. We talked about forecasting a lot, and I think that it is a very important topic.
If used appropriately, it can save your company a lot of money, or even help it make a lot of money. In the case of the mass retirement move projected for the next few years down the road a company can find out how many of their employees are going to reach retirement age in the next few years and start recruiting for replacements so they can take a few months to a year to train the new hire for the job, which would cost less than to have to bring the retiree back later on to do the same thing.
If used inappropriately, or not at all, a company would miss that the opportunity to get as much of the knowledge and experience out of the retirees before they leave, or in an economic downturn would not have time to prepare their employees for any lay-offs, cut-backs, etc. They could prepare by finding out if people would be willing to take paycuts so they didn't have to lay anyone off, or do a hiring freeze, or hire temps rather than regular employers.

Chapter 5 Discussion Topic

The company I work for is big on nepotism, which in many areas can be seen as a bad thing. Unless it gets me a job, which it did, after having been unemployed for 3 months and the feds being too tight to pay out so my parents were kind enough to cover my bills until I got back on my feet.

The company doesn't just use relatives, but it has a few direct applicants, mostly from internship programs and referrals. I haven't found anyone there yet who didn't come from one of these three categories, in some cases this is very limiting, but for them it works. The benefits are pretty great, they do tuition reimbursement, several companies for insurance so you can find a good fit for your budget and situation, and flexible scheduling.

Direct applicants are pepople who apply for a vacancy without prompting from the organization. Referrals are people who apply because someone in the organization prompted them to do so.

The book said that there are advantages and disadvantages to all of these, the biggest concern being that using referrals and nepotism you keep a lot of the same kinds of people in your organization and that you limit the likelihood of exposing the organization to fresh viewpoints. Advantages would be that its cheaper and easier on the company since they don't have to do any of the recruiting.

I think at the company I work for because they offer tuition reimbursement more of the employees are going back to college or going to college for the first time and learning about things and situations and software they wouldn't have normally learned about. I haven't noticed much of the CEO's kids getting hired above us more quickly either, one of the Heads of Recruiting has a son that is in my department and he is treated like everyone else...possibly because everyone has a parent or friend or relative that works there too.

What issues do you foresee for a company such as mine? Or other company's that run based on nepotism? What do you think could be done better/differently?

Reflection January 25, 2010

Today's class had a lot of information, although when we got to chapter 4 I think I really go the most out of it. I think that it is so right that in order to train an employee well you need to really understand what they need to do and to have a good job description. I liked what someone said in class about starting out slowly in monitoring an employee's training and progress with their tasks, and then slowly giving them "the reins" and let them do the job their way as long as everything gets done and done well. I agree that this will help you find a good fit for the job.

January 25 Discussion Topic - Chapter 4

It's kind of amazing to me that there is a field of study for making a job better, yet most jobs still blow chunks and contain redundancies right and left. Industrial Engineering is the study of jobs to find the simplest way to structure work in order to maximize efficiency. The authors of the book are smart enough to realize that as important as that is it's not the most important aspect of the workplace. Employees need to find their jobs interesting and satisfying and should be able to see aspects of the job motivating to do their jobs the best they can.

For one company that produces artery stents the maker of the products invited production workers to an annual party where they get to meet patients whose lives were actually saved by the product they helped produce. That is an amazing motivator. A tangible motivator. A lot of times we feel that our jobs are meaningless or we're so low on the totem pole no one would notice we weren't working at all if it weren't for that monkey on our shoulder (i.e. our boss or cameras).

The five characteristics listed in the book as a way to make a job more motivating seems pretty basic; skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy and feedback. How many times have we worked a job where we went into work and did the same mindless task for hours and hours and had no idea why were doing it or if there was an easier or better way of doing that task, knowing full well your boss couldn't care less about what you thought?

How can we make sure that this time of lax thinking about the empowerment of employees doesn't occur in the workplace when we are in HR? We have a say, in fact it's an important aspect of our jobs, so what would you do if you saw employees so bored their eyes are glazing? Or that turnover is high because people can't handle doing the job for long because of exhaustion, boredom, or because they wish they could make the job more interesting but don't feel they can speak to their supervisor.

Reflection January 21, 2010

What I got out of class today is that we need to document, document, document. Everything. Have some sort of tracking record for your employees for conduct, work ethic, injuries, timeliness, productivity. Be prepared to have to be a jerk. I mean this in the way that you can't give someone missed opportunity after missed opportunity where they screw up and aren't learning from their mistakes, because it can come back and bite you. People are awesome sometimes. Some people are just amazing when you try to give them opportunities and chances and they just don't want to take them, but man if you decide you've had enough they will make your life a living hell and try to ruin you for not being understanding or for discrimination or some other ludicrous claim, take it to court and get that judge who accepted the lawsuit against McD's and their suprisingly hot coffee.

I can see why employers can get so cynical.

Reflection January 19, 2010

Today in class we discussed more about the issue of the Aging Workforce. I know I'm part of the stuck-up generation where we think that because we have all this new technology and new way of doing things, etc. that most of the aging population really isn't going to be a huge issue. I realized however that just because we have this massive amount of unemployed people out there, most of them probably don't have the skills or training for most upper-level and specialized jobs. We are much fewer in number than the Baby-Boomers generation and with our specialized jobs and new technology we require more people to do the same job that used to take only one or two people. So this makes the off-shoring and out-sourcing much more important to stay competitive.

This discussion brought us to a comparison of the old and new psychological contract. With the Baby-Boomers, and most generations before them, you came to work, did your job and stayed there your whole working life. Now we show up to work, do the job, share our ideas, gain new ideas and skills then move on to bigger and better things (i.e. jobs). This is so different from past generations, you used to be in the same company if not position for so long you knew your job inside and out. Now we stick around for long enough to either make it look good on a resume, to get out of the job/company all that you think you can before you move on to something that pays better or is in a better or more interesting location, or offers a schedule we like better.

I don't like job hopping much, but I know that if I know that a different company works to keep their employees as long as they can and treats their employees better I'm more likely to want to go to them than stay at a job that the employers treat me like I'm already half-way out the door the second I'm hired on. It's kind of a new slant on the chicken and egg scenario.

News Article - HR Legal Concerns

http://www.hrlegalnews.com/will-obama-make-sick-days-mandatory/#more-1263

This article is about a bill that is in the House of Representatives that may require all companies with at least 15 employees to offer their full-time employees 7 paid sick days. This would include taking off time to care for a "family member", which can be anyone with a relationship that is equivalent to a family member. If a company already has a policy in place that is equivalent to the time required by the bill. Companies would not be able to lower other PTO in order to off-set the costs of the extra paid sick leave.
Apparently this was kicked out of the House a few years ago, and now our dear President Obama is trying to get this through again and is backing it with gusto. Most states have already attempted to make sick leave mandatory but all attempts have failed completely. There are a few cities, three that were listed in the article; Milwaukee, Washington, D.C, and San Francisco, that approved the mandatory paid sick leave.

I think that this is going to, hopefully, fail again in the House. This would incur a lot of financial issues to a lot of smaller companies, let alone the larger ones. I like the idea of paid sick leave, and at the job I have I believe we do get some paid sick time, but I don't like the idea of the government sticking their noses in every nook and cranny of our lives when we don't really need it. Companies, like people, should be allowed some autonomy to do their best.

What do you think would be some of the issues that would arise if this bill passes? Do you think this would open up a window for the feds to input more of their oh-so-helpful opinions into more ways that a company should run or compensate their employees?

Chapter 3 Discussion January 18, 2010

I want to start this out by saying that for the last half of this chapter I was in training for every job I've ever had, and that's a lot of jobs. Okay, down to business.

Discrimination in the workplace is such a tough subject, if you look at the laws and legislation that have been set forth at a distance then it looks pretty basic. Don't say something stupid about anybody's race, gender, religion, disabilities, etc even in jest. The more you look at it, though, the more sketchy and difficult to navigate it becomes.

I was amazed at the book's examples of discrimination against pregnant workers, especially the one where the CEO told the woman who turned down a promotion while she was pregnant that she showed a lack of dedication and she should just leave. I started thinking about it, and I realized that I didn't even think of that as a type of discrimination. Not hiring someone that is already pregnant, or if there are cutbacks letting go of the women that are near their due dates just seemed like an easy and smart way to bypass the issue of having to figure out what to do about making up for the loss of work when the women leave for maternity leave. The more I read about it, though, I began to think about if one of my friends or I was pregnant and our employers just decided to let us go, or we couldn't get a job because we were going to be gone in a few months seems ridiculous. As we discussed in the last chapter people are not staying in their jobs for as long as they used to, so even if the woman was gone for only a few days to a few months after giving birth the company should have policies in place to prepare for these types of occurrences just as they should be prepared if someone was injured and unable to work or became ill and had to be out of work for a short amount of time.

How can we be more aware of pregnancy discrimination? How can we help prevent pregnancy discrimination? What sorts of policies and procedures could we have in place for employees that become pregnant or future employees that are already pregnant to prevent any discrimination and to handle the workload when they are gone?

Reflection 01/14/10

I've been to Pikeplace Fish Market before, when I was 17, and I remember thinking how amazing it was that hundreds of people show up to this place everyday just to check out a place that sells fish. That the environment that the employees worked in was so fun, they loved their jobs and they got their work done while having fun and joking around and taking pictures with all the tourists. After seeing the video in class, I took away the idea that the environment was created on purpose. It didn't just happen. The fun with the productivity didn't just happen by accident or show up one day, that it was worked on and not just by the employees trying to make their day a little easier, but the management took the time to get the ball rolling on this revolutionary ideal.
The management at Pikeplace Fish Market may not have been trained on the concept of Human capital and they may have but either way they "got it". They understood; or rather, understand, their employees need to be trained well and then empowered to become better. How many companies do we see, or have we worked with that just think of the majority of their employees as just numbers? Or an expendable asset? Or even, think of their customers as just numbers? As income?
Employees are so important to our business, we need their talents, insight, and creativity to yes, bring in the money, but also to keep the company in business. Customers don't like going to businesses where they don't feel respected, or where the employees don't like their jobs and aren't afraid to show it. It's all tied together, and as HR managers we will need to make sure we are aware of this and that we use this information to the advantage of the company and the people that can come in to either help or frustrate the efforts of the company.

Introductory Essay - Get to know you..er me

My Name is Catie Wangberg. I am a Project Management major in the Digital Media Department.
I am working full time in Salt Lake for a company called L-3 Communications and hope I can get an internship there in HR or using my degree in some aspect or another there as they have many different opportunities for their employees.
I am a senior credit-wise, but I still have a solid 4 semesters to look forward to since I've changed my major a number of times.
I am the oldest of 3 girls and so I am the experiment child; however I think that being the oldest has helped me to be comfortable with being in charge and delegating responsibility early in life. I grew up moving all over the country so I generally have a tough time answering the question "Where are you from?". I moved here in january for the second time after an almost 2 year hiatus and back to school after an almost 3 year hiatus and I'm glad to be back in Utah and back at school.
I'm looking forward to graduating and moving past the single college-student aspect of my life, even if getting a "real" job is mildly terrifying.

Chapter 2 Discussion - Psychological Contract/Flexibility

I was really interested in the idea of a psychological contract. I find it so interesting that people aren't staying in the same job as long as they used to in past generations. People used to stay in their jobs their whole lives and now I can't imagine staying at the same job for more than a few years unless there is opportunity for growth. I like the idea of companies working with employees to train them and offer job experiences for future jobs. Companies know full well that people aren't going to stick around for long, and most of the time the company wouldn't be able to keep people around anyway for very long due to changes in technology, skill requirements, mergers, layoffs and organizational restructering. I think people now see there are a lot of opportunities and we are a generation that likes our choices, whether its with food, clothing, music or our jobs. We see the choices and want to sample each one and see how it works for us.

For myself, I have a difficult time thinking of a job I would want to do for the rest of my life other than be a parent/spouse. I get bored easily and seek out new and more exciting opportunities just because they are out there ready for the taking. I know in the economy we have right now we all have to think more about keeping the jobs we have, but luckily so many employers have seen that we need flexible schedules because of family, school and other out of work activities.

I think that its important to have some quid pro quo in the workplace, the employer will offer better benefits, training, job experience, and in turn the employees will work hard, maintain a good morale, provide good if not excellent customer service and loyalty.

How do you think this type of work environment can be created or maintained in an atmosphere with the alternative work arrangements that are popping up in many organizations?

Reflection on class 01/12/10

I think this is going to be a rough semester. We are going to be learning a lot and hopefully we can actually learn all of this important information rather than just memorize it for the test and forget about it later since the content of this class is going to be so helpful in our future.

I really liked the assessment of Southwest Airlines because they seem to have it right and are doing so well financially as well as with their reputation as a company that provides excellent customer service and satisfaction. It seems so easy; look at the big picture, yet so many companies and execs look at the immediate cost or bottom - line. So many companies focus on being able to bring in the big bucks but don't stop and think about the fact that they are dealing with people and that people will pay more if they enjoy the experience as well as the product. It's amazing to me that these execs have pigeon-holed their view and seem completely unable or interested in improving their game.