Human Resource Management at Work Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words - 2

Human Resource Management at Work - Essay Example uum but the key here is that this area needs to work under a broader framework that links it to the strategy of the firm; external factors are found to be affecting it apart from the internal factors. The HRM takes into account all the individual and group related that is collective relations, a number of human resource practices, policies and process, activities pursued by the HR specialist, union’s role, developing some HR practices that will provide the organization with an edge, employee security or it can even work on incorporating some organizational change. These are some of the factors that can be worked upon and thus are designed in a manner to increase the performance of an organization by effective human resources management. Similarly as the case implies that Brendon Jones Inc. is a service providing company, and for this reason the employees are the key assets of the organization. The 200 employees found in working at 10 leisure outlets were working at the front line. They were basically responsible for bringing in the business. Dealing with the customers and maintaining the relationship was the best and most important factor for the organization like Brendon Jones. Looking at the today’s working environment Human Resource Management is much more important than ever. The functions of managing and developing people are seen critical to gain improvements in the performance of an organization. The same was the case in Brendon Jones; there were changes taking place, the company was bought by a corporate investment company. It was like a change in the ownership structure. Employees working with the original founder were somehow used to of the policies and procedures. But as its being mentioned in the case that there was no HR manager; it’s not the task of Finance and Administration director to handle issues that are related to human workforce. For this reason as to solve the challenges related to reducing the labor turnover and to maintaining

My Career In International Management Education Essay

My Career In International Management Education Essay The main purpose of this report is a self-evaluation of my skill, attributes and competencies relevant for my career in International Management. Point out skill that an international manager should have, evaluate these skills and see where my strengths and weaknesses are, and also giving evidence of my experience with these skills. Also included is a review of progress made regarding the mid semester SMART development plan, that had to do with targets within a period of six weeks. A smart development plan for a period of six months will be included in this report and it will focus on two important targets that i intend to improve on to help me for the next six months, it will be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time bound. 2.0 SELF EVALUATION The main aim of this self development plan is a guide in identifying skills, competences and attributes relevant to me for a future career as an international manager. According to MacBeath 2006, self evaluation is a process of discovery, knowing ones self and identifying strengths and capabilities, identifying weaknesses and also improving on them. For a future career in international management i have to first identify some skills and competences that i should have and that are important to be effective as an international manager these skills are: Cross cultural Communication skill Interpersonal skill Cultural intelligence Teamwork Time management Leadership skill Decision making Negotiation skill Cultural empathy There are so many other skills and competences that are not mentioned above, although these are the few that i can relate myself with and show to what extent i have developed in these areas. 2.01 CROSS CULTURAL COMMUNICATION SKILL Personally, i prefer face to face communication which involves direct contact with speaker involved, knowing the speakers facial expressions and gestures and to be able to listen properly and avoid miscommunications, having proper understanding of what the speakers is saying. For example when i started my masters programme i found it difficult to communicate with my lectures, because i had to send emails to them, this was a new experience for me. In communication across cultures contexts is very important, according to Browaeys and Price (2008), Hall (1990) settled firmly on two groups of culture high context and low context cultures. An example of the high context cultures are central Europe, Arabs and Asians who leave their messages unspecified and most of the message is hidden in the text making it a bit difficult to understand, while an example of the low context cultures are Germans, Americans their messages are explicit and can be understood through facial expressions and gestu res. Although communication with Chinese and Indian colleagues and class mates was very difficult a first due to the accent they have but with time, i began to understand them better without having any problems because of the everyday encounter. 2.02 INTERPERSONAL SKILLS Interpersonal skill is mostly regarded as important as an international manager, having this skill will aid integration socially to gain knowledge and also establish relationships with people. I dont think i have any problem fitting into a new environment, i usually observe my environment first to know the kind of people, know what to say and what not to say to them that might hurt their feelings. After doing this most of the time i dont find it difficult getting along well with people. This skill has built my confidence a lot and it has also improved my relationship with people from different cultures 2.03 CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE CQ Cultural intelligence has to do with understanding different cultures by interpreting unfamiliar and ambiguous gestures (Earley and Mosakowski 2004). After taking a test on cultural intelligence from the article from my MCME module guide, the result reflected that i have a reasonable level of cultural intelligence. There were three aspects cognitive CQ, physical CQ and emotional/ motivational CQ. The total points out of 5 where, for Cognitive CQ 4, Physical CQ 4.3 and Emotional/ motivational CQ 4.5. I am confident with this result because before interacting with people i stop to think before acting and i can also change the form of speech like my accent. I scored higher in the Emotional/ motivational CQ i am confident that i can deal with people from different cultures and i can also adapt to the lifestyle of different cultures. When i first came into the UK i had to change my accent for people to understand and i also had to get used to the word love which is used often here. 2.04 TEAM WORK AND PRESENTATION SKILLS Working in teams is no new thing to me and it is a very important skill for an international manager. My course international business and management entails a lot of team work and we are usually put into groups of students from different countries. In these groups there are different people from different parts of the world, Chinese, Indians, Germans, and Italians with different team roles. According to Belbins team roles (Duggan 2009), people have different roles like coordinators, sharper, implementer, completer, specialist, resource investigators, having one or more of this skill will enhance a role in a team. Out of all these roles my preferred role is by coordinating, for example calling my group members and fixing meetings and also a team builder as well. I happened to have done a lot of group work for my masters degree, where we are put into for five to six members and a mixture of students from different cultures, Chinese, Indians and the outcome has been rewarding especiall y through feed backs of marks awarded by my tutors. This also relates to my presentation skill as the outcome for most of my presentations have been good and i have evaluated this form feed backs gotten form the tutors and also my class mates. Since the beginning of my course i have worked on my presentation skill and also my power point skill. I have used the skills online website provided by my school to enhance this skill. It has helped me focus more on main points in the presentation, being confident and making eye contact with the audience. 2.05 TIME MANAGEMENT SKILL This is a very important skill, when there is no good management of time they tend to be a lot of procrastinations, and this affects time because there is a tendency to delay in doing something that has been previously planned. Initially this was a problem for me and it started affecting most of my daily activities due to procrastination, this was really bad at first because it kept on occurring and then it began to affect my school work. I decided to have a to-do-list mapping out things i had to do on a daily bases and followed this list religiously, because as a student in the UK i have keep to time because it is part of the culture of the people to do so. Time is very crucial and important for a future career in international management because in the future, i have to be on time for business appointments and meetings. Developing this skill has been of good use to me. 2.06 LEADERSHIP SKILLS In evaluating my leadership skill, by looking at my role as a team member which is that of a coordinator and it has to do with organising members for group meetings and also building an effective team. I have had an experience in school where i had to take up a leading role because my group members where a bit relaxed and nonchalant about our presentation so i took up the role of coordinating the group and made sure the work was done properly. Out of the six leadership styles which are coercive, authoritative, affiliative, democratic, pacesetting, and coaching leaders, over time i have observed that i am more of an affiliative/ femininity leader in the sense that i tend not to be too hard on people and create an emotional bond with the people around me. Leadership varies depending on the culture, according to Hofsteds findings, there are four dimensions of different cultures, and they are power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism / collectivism, and masculinity/ femininity . Although in Nigeria where Im from leadership is more collective and masculine and also a high level of power distance. With my little work experience a lot of respect is shown by those who are being led. 2.07 NEGOTIATION SKILLS This is an essential skill for most business dealings today. Negotiation styles vary across different cultures. An example is a negotiation exercise i participated in, where we were divided into groups of US negotiators and Chinese negotiators, i realised that the US negotiators are mostly based on getting the deal done and are eager to get as much information they can to make progress in negotiations, while Chinese negotiators mostly try not to give information and this may cause frustration, for example for a US negotiator. The categories of different cultures of negotiation by Richard D Lewis (Rushton 2009 ) are linear active, multi active and reactive cultures. I am from a multi active culture where most people are extroverts, they talk a lot, but personally i am more of an introvert, i tend to be quiet sometimes. Although havent yet had much experience of negotiating professionally, i do have to negotiate at times for example, going to a local market and negotiating on a price for an item. I still need to improve on this skill because it essential for me if i intend to pursue a career in international Business. 2.08 DECISION MAKING AND CULTURAL EMPATHY Decision making is not an easy process although it is required as an international manager to be able to make good decisions for an organisation or business. It is also essential for good leadership. When its times to take decisions on my own, i usually seek advice from family, friend and people around me. Making good decision a times could be a problem for me. For cultural empathy i always try to listen to people, appreciate their views and use my cultural intelligence skill in this as well. 3.0 MID SEMESTER SMART DEVELOPMENT PLAN REVIEW In relation to a review of the progress made in my mid semester SMART development plan which was set at the beginning of my course, Msc International business and Management for a period of six weeks had positive results. Although due to the fact that i had many skills to improve on, it was a bit difficult to achieve all of them. One of the skills i planned to improve on which didnt quite work out fine was the writing skills. The reason why it wasnt too successful was because the period of time given was too short for me to have covered all i wanted to and i was not able to attend the session on writing skills made available by graduate skills programme because some of the sessions clashed with my classes. Although i made some progress on my power point skill, and this skill is relevant for me to produce good visual aids for presentations during my course. I had a lot of practise done on my own and also i also volunteered to produce visual aid for group presentation which was a good outcome with regards to feed backs from my presentations. Also progress was made on my research skills, and this was done by exploring different sources of text books, articles, journals and this was very helpful during my course. I have also been able to manage my time by making use of my to-do-list which i made on a weekly basis . On the to-do-list i put high priorities first before any other activity and this helped me to a great extent. I was able to make time for my research, course work and also create time for myself. My mid semester development plan had both negative and positive outcomes, although it was very useful for me because it helped me identify skills to be developed and improved on. 4.0 SMART DEVELPOMENT PLAN With this SMART development plan, i will focus on a specific goal to be improved on within the next six months. By so doing i intend to take specific steps on improving on skills that will be of good use for both my course and in my professional life. I would like to improve on my writing skill and on my leadership skills, but for the purpose report i would improve on my writing skill, because writing is a very important skill as a student and as an international manager. To justify my reasons for improving on this skill, below is a SMART development plan for the next six months SPECIFIC I plan to improve on my writhing skill within the next six months, given that its a longer period i should be able to work on this skill and accomplish it by the end of the sixth month. MEASURABLE In six months time i should have improved on my writing skill by: Reading relevant books, articles and journals on writing especially on academic writing. Using information from the skills online website made available for me by the school. I should be able to know the appropriate structure and format for both essay writing and report writing because it is very relevant for my course. Properly apply the right grammar and punctuations in my writing. Going for sessions on how to develop writing skills offered by the graduate skills programme of Sheffield business school. ACHIEVABLE This skill can be achieved by putting a lot of effort and by making use of the resources from the library, the internet to help me with this skill, although there might be some restraints due to other commitments in terms of course work. These are the activities that i should be able to achieve in the next six months: 1st Month First month starting from February i will attend class sessions like English for post graduate students by the university English scheme. This will help focus on general language skills like writing and also preparing for my dissertation. I will attend these classes at least 2 times in a week for a month. 2nd Month Make use of the learning centre find books on writing that will enable me understand writing properly. 3rd Month Make use of the key skills online which has been made available for me by my school; explore every option including a skill check on writing which will help me get clearer view off my writing skills. 4th Month Search for books, articles journals that relate to essay and report writing. Look at examples and identify structures, the use of English. 5th Month Get books that can help me with my use of English, punctuations, grammar, vocabulary and also learn how to proof read my essays and reports. 6th Month practice writing on my own, using all the information and knowledge learnt from previous months, show a friend or colleague that is good in writing to double check what i have written and make corrections. REALISTIC The need to improve on my writing skill is realistic in the sense that it will be useful for the remaining part of my course for my assignments and my dissertation. It will influence my assignments by writing proper essays and reports use proper grammar and punctuations and also it help me in the future if i intend to pursue a career in international management. TIME BOUND The time set for my SMART development plan is six months and within this period i will still be undergoing my masters program, writing will be a good skill to develop on because i will be doing a lot of writing and the time of six months is realistic. 5.0 CONCLUSION The self evaluation was mostly about the skills and competences that are relevant to me as i would like to pursue a future career in international management. Hopefully with more work on these skills it wont be difficult for me to work in a multicultural environment. The SMART development plan is about the skill i intend to improve, it is very important to me as a student and also in my future career in international management. BIBLOGRAGHY BROWAEYS , Marie Joelle and PRICE Roger (2008). Understanding cross cultural Management, Prentice Hall DUGGAN, Chris (2009). Multicultural team work. [Lecture hand outs]. From an MCME lecture held on 17th November at Sheffield Hallam University. EARLY Christopher P and MOSAKOWSKI Elaine (2004). Cultural Intelligence. Harvard Business Review, October 2004. GOMAN Carol Kinsey , Ph.D ( 2007) Communicating Across Cultures[online]. Last accessed 26th January 2010 at: http://www.asme.org/NewsPublicPolicy/Newsletters/METoday/Articles/Communicating_Across_Cultures.cfm MACBEATH John (2006). Self inspection and self evaluation: Working with new relationship, USA and Canada, Routledge RUSHTON, Diane (2009). Leadership skill for 21st century MNCs (lecture hand out) from an MCME lecture held in November at Sheffield Hallam University . RUSHTON Daine (2009). Cross Cultural Negotiation [lecture hand outs]. From an MCME lecture held on 10th November at Sheffield Hallam University SCHNEIDER, Susan C, and BARSOUX, Jean Louis (2003). Managing Across cultures, prentice Hall Skills online website, last accessed 26th January 2010 at: http://keyskills.shu.ac.uk/lskills/TLTP3/entersite.html

lighthod The Epiphany in Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness :: Heart Darkness essays

The Epiphany in Heart of Darkness   In The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, Marlow experiences an epiphany, a dramatic moment in which he intuitively grasps the meaning of a situation. Marlow's epiphany begins when Marlow's helmsman was killed in an attack by savages as they were progressing up the Congo between the central station and the inner station. Marlow had a realization about the darkness within man's soul. His helmsman, whom Marlow viewed with a kind of partnership, was killed by the natives sent by Kurtz, and his body fell bleeding upon Marlow's feet. In that moment, Marlow begins thinking about the evil which is involved in the entire ivory trade operation, and which he later finds Kurtz is engulfed in. Marlow immediately removes his bloodied shoes and throws them overboard. This can be seen as an action showing how Marlow wanted to remove himself from all of the violence, bloodshed and evil of the ivory trade he was involved in. Marlow continues to grasp the essential nature of man's heart of darkness later on in the story when he is conversing with Kurtz in the woods. There, he "struggled with a soul." Marlow's mind set changes from seeing all of the glory and profit involved in the ivory trade, to also seeing the horribly evil involved, the death and destruction. Almost every other white in the ivory trade is in it for profit, as Kurtz was. When asked, one of the men who traveled into Congo said he was in it "just for the money, of course." Marlow realizes that, in Kurtz's operation especially, there is much evil involved. The darkness had "got into his veins, consumed his flesh, and sealed his soul to it own by the inconceivable ceremonies of some devilish initiation." Powers of darkness had "claimed him for their own." Kurtz was reported to "preside at certain midnight dances ending with unspeakable rites, which-as far as I reluctantly gathered from what I heard at various times -were offered up to him." All of theses show how Kurtz allowed himself to become engulfed in evil and darkness. The significance of this change in Marlow is that Marlow realizes that within every man there is a heart of darkness, which can overtake a man as it did to Kurtz.

Discuss the value of chemistry in society

For some time in the modern world, and especially subsequent to the events of September 11th, there has been a wave of concern regarding chemistry and its potential destructive powers. There are many people who hold a fearful attitude towards the chemical industry and its products. This is because the threat of chemical and bio-chemical weapons is very real and is a negative aspect of the business. Also it is often deemed environmentally unfriendly and unsafe for the nearby public. However it is far wider believed that the pros outweigh the cons massively. To display this I have produced a case study on Glaxo Smith Kline. Read this Practice Test Chem 105 Background Glaxo Smith Kline, based in the UK, is one of the pharmaceutical industry leaders, with an estimated seven per cent of the world's pharmaceutical market and declare a global quest to improve the quality of human life by enabling people to do more, feel better and live longer. This shows just how people based the company is despite its huge size. GSK is also involved in four major therapeutic areas – anti-infectives, central nervous system (CNS), respiratory and gastro-intestinal/metabolic. In addition, it is a leader in the important area of vaccines and has a growing range of oncology products and treatments. The company also has a Consumer Healthcare section comprising over-the-counter (OTC) medicines, oral care products and nutritional healthcare drinks, all of which are among the market leaders. Employees and Employment GSK GSK has over 100,000 employees worldwide. Of these, over 40,000 are in sales and marketing, the largest sales force in the industry. Over 42,000 employees work at 104 manufacturing sites in 40 countries and over 16,000 are in R;D. R;D is based at 24 sites in seven countries. The company has a leading position in genomics/genetics and new drug discovery technologies. The GSK R;D budget is about à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½2.4bn. Implications This shows that the industry is a great employer for many job types, including lab technicians, researchers, doctors, I.T. staff, biologists and others. It also employs testers for development of drugs and measure side effects on human patients. This is where much of the development money goes as the patients are only willing to be test subjects for quite large fees due to the potentially harmful side effects. Health and Safety GSK They take health and safety really seriously as GSK. Because a lot of the work that goes on involves highly flammable organic solvents, no heating is done with naked flames (there is only one Bunsen burner in the entire plant, and that is used by the glass blower for shaping pieces of glassware.) In the research labs heating will be done using electric mantles or electrically heated oil baths. However, in the ‘scale-up' plant, where large volumes of soluble materials are used, even electrical heating is not allowed because of the danger of sparks. Instead they heat vessels by passing a pre-heated liquid through an outer jacket around the vessel. No mobile phones or any electrical equipment are allowed inside in case they generated sparks which could ignite any flammable vapours. In the corridors outside the research laboratories there are emergency showers for people to use in the event of a chemical spillage and Hazard warnings are displayed everywhere. All chemicals have hazard-warning labels. Most pieces of equipment have warning labels on them. Details of every experiment were displayed where the experiment was carried out. A full risk assessment is done on any process before it is carried out. If any particularly hazardous materials are being used, a notice is displayed on the outside of the lab and entry is restricted to authorised personnel. In school we sometimes wear gloves when using chemicals. At GSK gloves are used routinely. There are various grades of gloves to chose from, depending on the nature of the chemicals being used. The different grades are colour coded. The researcher has to specify which gloves to use in the risk assessment. Implications These near perfect safety precautions go a long way to proving that the chemical industry is really very safe and does not pose as much danger to the public as is often thought by many people. With the help of modern technology and careful planning the industry, it has become safer than many school science classes! Drug Development GSK GSK spends millions of pounds each year on research and development. It costs something in the region of à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½450,000,000 to produce a new medicine. The process of developing a new medicine takes about 10 years. Research usually begins with genetic research, which identifies the proteins involved in the disease. Then thousands of compounds will be tested to see if they react with the protein involved in the disease. This process is highly automated, using compounds stored in the automated chemical store. From this the best compound is identified. This will be the compound, which reacts best with the protein. This will not yet be good enough to be used as a therapeutic drug though. It may be too soluble to stay in the body for long; it may be too insoluble to get into the blood stream. It may be toxic, or have other characteristics that make it unsuitable for use as a drug. The next step is to modify compounds structure so that it has as near perfect properties as possible. For example, to make the compound less water-soluble so that it stays in the body for longer, large organic side groups could be added to the structure. (When penicillin was first discovered it was extremely water-soluble so was very quickly passed out of the body in the urine. Because penicillin was in such short supply it had to be recovered from the urine and recycled!) Once a suitable compound has been found the next problem is to scale up production from milligram's to grams then to kilogram's At this point the drug will need to be tested on living tissue (cells, not usually whole animals) So far this process will have taken 4-5 years. Scaling up production has lots of difficulties associated with it. Reactions that work well on a milligram scale may not work on a 20 kg scale. There may be difficulties associated with weighing, heating, stirring, transferring, cooling and purifying. Ways of solving all these difficulties have to be found. The drug will then enter the clinical trials stage. At first it will only be tested for side effects in a few healthy volunteers. It will then be used in trials in patients with the disease. If successful the drug will then be licensed for use and made generally available. Even after this point the drug must be monitored. Implications There is a massive amount of money being poured into the chemical industry by investors. This is good for the stock market and the global economy, the employees of the company and the public who will need the developed drugs. It is a very safe system and those who are put at risk do so by their own admission. The testers are paid quite large lump sums for testing if the drug has any side effects and are usually young healthy men and women at university or college. Very little testing on animals is being carried out any more. There is testing on animal tissue, but this is done on a very small scale and animals are rarely harmed. This is a great step for the industry, which for some time has been beset by animal rights groups protesting their actions. Also the time taken for the drug to be developed is good for job stability for the researchers and developers who are needed far beyond the initial stages of production. Environmental Issues GSK All solvents are collected in large containers under the benches of each lab. When these are full they are taken away and dealt with in a way appropriate to the particular solvent. All waste from the labs is treated as being contaminated and is incinerated. The ash from this is disposed of in landfill sites. Potentially a very large volume of water would be put into the local sewage system. To avoid overloading the system, GSK have installed a recycling system where the water that passes through condensers is reused in a closed system. This also of course saves water. There are no sinks in any of the labs so that nothing can be poured away like is practiced in schools. They are very environmentally friendly. Implications This is great for the environment as nothing is thrown away. It is all dealt with carefully and the industry is becoming far more eco-friendly than in the past. Conclusion From my case study of Glaxo Smith Kline I have found that the industry is in reform. It is becoming far safer and there are many less ethical issues than ever before. Animal testing is low and the environment is finally being preserved. The industry is good for the economy and employs many people from college and university graduates to product test subjects. The pros of chemistry in society far outweigh the cons and this is illustrated perfectly in Glaxo Smith Kline.

Interview Outline

In life everyone has different think and behaviors usually do to how a person is raised during childhood, what they have seen during childhood, or it is inherited through genes that are passed on to them. I chose two people for my final paper, they happen to be a husband and wife, their names are Lela and Jerry Hyles, they have been married for ten years they have no children together but they have many step children, Lela is 40 and Jerry is 58, the wife is about eighteen years younger than her husband, They are both currently unemployed they are disabled to work. These people are my parents Lela is my mother and jerry is my step father but if I have to choose one I would rather speak to the wife instead of the husband because I have more contact with her than him the wife is not only my mother but she is my best friend. I made the decision of choosing both a male and female for my interview because men and women think a little differently in some situations, which I thought, might shed a little light on the difference between the two genders and their thinking. Interview Questions; 1. ) Does the interviewee prefer studying in a library, or at home where there are background noises and some distractions? 2. ) Has the person you are interviewing taken the Myers Briggs test? Report the results. 3. ) Does the interviewee think these results are accurate? Why or Why not? 4. ) Which experience does this person think contributed most in the development of his or her personality? 5. Does this person feel that he or she is self-monitoring in regards to his or her attitudes? How or how not? 6. ) What does the interviewee feel was the strongest influence on his or her attitude? 7. ) What role does your interviewee think a person’s race, gender, or ethnicity play when forming that person’s personality and attitudes? 8. ) Does this person feel he or she is better at tasks when intrinsically motivated or extrinsically motivated? . ) The learning and memory process? 10. ) Does the interviewee remember information more accurately if he/she ob serves the behavior being performed? Yes I do have permission to speak to them on this paper. Also Instructor Michelle Hill I hope I done this assignment correctly. My reference: I got them from the questions from Appendix A that I will be asking to the interviewers. – Final Project Overview.