Learning Reflection

My class has been giving presentation to the class about their research paper and what they have learned. It is very interesting to see the various topics chosen by my classmates and how much they have actually learned. We all have put a lot of time and effort on this paper that I believe we all have learned so much about our topic.

I presented a topic about objective vs. subjective employee evaluations at a service industry. It is easier for a service industry to use subjective measures of evaluation because people who receive services might use their perception to evaluate the service.

I found that there could be some inconsistencies in the evaluation, for example, sometimes there are inconsistencies in the type of goals managers and overall organization has, some information collected might not be recorded well in the system, and perhaps the information is bias.

I'm still working on my paper, but I am almost done. This semester has gone by fast for sure.

Learning Reflection

In class, we talked about 3 different ethical perspective:

*Utilitarianism
*Deontology
*Virtue Ethics

Utilitarianism is commonly known as the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Deontology is also known as a duty or obligation. Virtue ethics emphasize moral agent.

There are different ways to look at a behavior and see how people's point of view differs from other. Something interesting is that there is not a right or wrong answer. It is just a different way to look at things.

Learning Reflection

Today in class we talked about some conditions that contribute to a high performance. Some of those conditions are to have constant feedback to improve the process. Feedback helps the employee know where he or she stands and what things need to change or keep working on. Training is also a condition that is important. Employees need to have trainings to know what is the desire goal. Teams perform work is another condition,and it helps see who can work in teams, who is working, who is not. Work design can help the employee work on a variety of kills to not make the work being the same and boring all day long, but to use different skills that can help the organization.

There are many other conditions that can contribute to a high performance, but the ones mentioned above are important and necessary in the organization if we want the company to succeed and make the employees feel valuable.

Learning Reflection

Today in class, we learned how we look at culture and how to manage people in the two different levels in the company:
- individualism/collectivism
- power distance
- understanding avoidance
- masculinity/femininity
- long-term/short-term orientation
It is important to know how to treat and managed employees from different cultures because we want to respect them, and at the same time they are in the company to learn the culture around the organization.

CH 16 Analyzing the effect of HRM programs

Concept and Brief Description

One way to analyze Human Resource Management effectiveness is through the different programs or activities. This can help to see is if the program was successful according to their goals. Whether is an economic approach they could see If the value is greater than the program’s cost. The different programs should be able to improve their performance through some combination of greater efficiency and greater effectiveness. As the book mentions, greater efficiency means what the HR department does has a more beneficial effect on employee’s and the organization’s performance.

Emotional Hook

It is very important to set goals first to be able to accomplish the desire program. At the end they can see if it help the company to continue on or to change something and see what can be done.

Key Points to Elicit Discussion

To be able to analyze, the company should have some specific objective goals. At the end of the program, it is asked about their experiences and learning and rate what they have accomplished. Later, the department measures whether the employees’ performance has improved or whether if their behavior has changed.

Facilitative Questions

What kind of things you need to have to have a perfect combination of greater efficiency and greater effectiveness?

CH 15 Selecting Expatriate Managers

Concept and Brief Description

How to select expatriate managers? To be able to choose a person who can represent the organization needs to have technical competence in the area of operations. The organization should consider each candidate’s skills, learning style, and approach to problem solving. An expatriate manager to be successful, he or she must be sensitive to the host country’s cultural norms, adapt to those norms, and survive to the culture shock. Table 15.2 in the book provides a list of topics for assessing candidates for overseas assignments. The topics consist of motivation, health, language ability, family considerations, resourcefulness and initiative, ability, career planning, and financial.

To be able to adapt, an expatriate manager requires three kinds of skills: ability to maintain a positive self-image and feeling of well-being, ability to foster relationships with the host-country nationals, and ability to perceive and evaluate the host country’s environmental accurately.

Emotional Hook

It is very interesting the process of selecting an expatriate manager because he or she represents the organization and needs to be able to accomplish the organization’s goals to be able to be successful in that country. If the expatriate manager does not succeed because he or she cannot see the cultural differences to be able to adapt and learn form it, the expatriate will fail and the organization will fail too.

Key Points to Elicit discussion

The expatriate’s family is very involved in the expatriate assignment. They need to adapt to the culture as well as the expatriate. The family, as well as the expatriate can learn culture experience.

Facilitative Questions

If you were selected to be an expatriate manager, would you go and take your entire family? Once in a life time opportunity,

Learning Reflection

We talked about how a company can select what benefits to offer to their employees. This is very crucial because many employees look for those benefits packages. For an organization to know what the employees want one way is to give the employees a survey and see the results, but a downside on surveys is that employees are actually expecting those benefits. If organizations do not come up with those benefits after giving the survey, the employee might feel discourage after their hopes where high.

For the organization, after selecting certain benefits that will offer to the employees, the organization needs to make sure it goes with he organization's goals and objectives. Also, seeing what type of a culture the organization is, benefits should resemble that.

CH 14 Unions of Company Performance

Concept and Brief Description

Impact of unions of company performance can be a concern about whether or not the unions will hurt their performance on productivity, profits or stock performance. There have been studies where it shows that unions can have a positive influence.

Positive aspects of unions can reduce turnover by resolving problems, an employer might be force to improve its management practices, and union workers are more productive.
Negative aspect is that unions decrease productivity because of work rules union contracts. The question still remains if the union workers are more productive than non union workers. If unions caused greater productivity, then why union memberships are decreasing in numbers.

Emotional Hook

It is interesting to see unions that have a main objective, and will not stop until they get what they want. Sometimes it is scary because it can decrease productivity in the organization and that can lead to less pay to the workers. Union workers might not like how the organization is running or other aspect of it, and it is necessary for them to speak their mind.

Key Points to Elicit Discussion

When two or three union workers are not happy about what is going on about for example their pay, is it necessary to bring a big army to fight for it.

Facilitative Questions

According to evidence it shows that union workers are more productive, why would that be the reason? Why will they need to make a big deal about it?

Learning Reflection

In class we talked about providing employees benefits. One aspect of employee benefits is the unemployment insurance, which it is required by law. It was very interesting to hear about this type of insurance because some people might be taking advantage of this insurance. While they are not working and hopefully seeking for a job, they have this insurance that can help them in the mean time. Some say that some people can get more money than what they were getting if they were working, is that fair? it may not be. There are many people who actually use it for good and they are glad they have this type of insurance because unexpected things can happened.

CH 13 Communicating Benefits to Employees

Concept and Brief Description

Communicating Benefits to Employees is being able to let the employees know the information that can be valuable for them. This is very important because it can help to achieve the objective of attracting, motivating, and retaining employees. Some ways that employers do to let the employers know about some information on the benefits is through technology as the internet and supporting databases.

Many employees do not know much about their benefits and mostly is because employers do not communicate that to their employees. To communicate better the benefits and being able to understand, they can combine different options. Those options are brochures, question and answer meetings, intranet pages, memos, and e-mail. As the book mentions, it can also include some training programs, and benefits fair,

Emotional Hook

It is very important to let the employees know and also have the employees ask questions about concerns or anything to let them understand more about their benefits. Many employees do not know their own benefits and how much they need to pay for co-pay if any.

Key Points to Elicit Discussion

Some employees actually believe that because they have insurance it means they do not need to pay anything. At a dental office, when employees are told an estimate on what the might have to pay if their insurance pays a certain percentage, most of the insurance holders do not want to pay anything. The employees do believe their insurance have to cover the entire cost when in reality it is just a portion of it.

Facilitative Questions

I do not have questions for communicating benefits to employees. I believe this is very straight forward and important to let the employee know what they have thus it is easier and more valuable.

Learning Reflection

We talked about different types of incentives that managers give to employees. Those are piecework rates, standard hour plans, merit pay, individual bonuses, and sales commissions. It was very interesting to hears the pros and cons of each. Many of these incentives are very positive but at the same time can become not fair to the employee.
It is very interesting to work in an organization and to motivate the employee, managers give incentives to their employees. I believe any employee loves getting incentives specially when it is about money. Specially in today's economy, money is a big issue. Managers need to make sure those incentives are worthwhile for the employees.

CH 12 Standard Hour Plan

Concept and Brief Description

Standard Hour Plans is an incentive plan that pays workers extra for work done in less than a present standard time. If you are able to finish a project that normally takes longer than you get paid the full time. For example, the book mentions tuning up a car, If you are able to tune up a car in 1 ½ hrs and normally takes 2 hours, then you will get paid the 2 full hours. An advantage of this quantity-oriented incentive is that employees are encouraged to work faster. Two big disadvantages if employees are more concern in finishing the work than the quality or customer service. Also, employees just want the extra money than work at a pace that might be better.

Emotional Hook

If you go to an organization to get some type of service and if the only thing the organization wants is the money by giving the service as fast as they can, I believe I would not want to come back. They would probably lose their customers, which lose their business.

Key Points to Elicit Discussion

Imagine you getting a haircut. How awful would it be if you get a very bad haircut just because they were cutting fast but not really caring about you but your money? This type of pay seems a not very smart move on the organization.

Facilitative Questions

What organization would want this type of pay to their employees? Are they taking a risk to pay their employees base on how fast employees can work instead of the quality of the work?

Learning Reflection

Today I learned how to look for scholarly journals in the library website. Christy Donaldson gave very good tips on how to search a research paper. There are many wonderful tools in the library that can help any student to write a good paper. Also, it was very interesting to learn how some journals are not necessarily scholar. Thus, it is important to double check and see which journal works and does not work.

It takes a little bit of time to search for journals, but having a specific topic and using key words can be an easier search. As a student, I have all the tools to write a good paper. All I need to do is use them and eliminate what is not necessary.

Learning Reflection

Jeff Weber is the VP People from ancestry.com and he talked about compensation. It was very interesting all the different possibilities that companies do to differentiate themselves from other organizations and stay on top. Some of the things that company do to differentiate from others are the location, vision, reputation, technology, etc.

He mentioned that it is crucial for a company when compensating their employees to not go all the way. One of the reasons is when you take it away from the employees, they feel like the organization has taken something away that they are entitled to. One example he said was that he gave donuts to his employees, every Thursday morning, but they were trying to implement good health. Thus, the organization took away those donuts and the employees were mot happy about.

Compensations are important in an organization. They need to be very well planned and go over the objectives to see if everything is in order and something might need to be changed.

CH 11 Child Labor

Concept and Brief Description

The concept that I chose from this chapter was Child Labor. Many years ago, the laws and regulations on child labor were not as strict as today’s. As the book mentions, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) prohibits the use of child labor. There are some exceptions for example, acting, baby-sitting, and delivering newspapers to consumers. Children who are 16 or 17 years old cannot work in hazardous places. Children who are 14 or 15 years old can work off school hours and also nonhazardous places.

A company needs to have the necessary documentation and work permits if they want to hire a minor. Before a company hires a minor, they need to make sure they are following regulations in their state as well as the FLSA.

Emotional Hook

What if your kid of 5 years old is working to be an actor? You as a parent take your kid everywhere for classes, castings, photo shoots, and auditions. You know that this type of job is hard and knows what is best for your kid. He is becoming a good little actor, but many times that is not what he wants to do because he wants to play with his/her friends.

Key Points to Elicit Discussion

This is a very interesting topic that can create many arguments. With the example above is that considered child labor? The kid does what the mother tells him/her what to do. Being an actor or actresses is hard work. Some kids do very well and love doing what they do, so in those cases is not really child labor, it is just a job.

Facilitative Questions

What if the dream of the parents is to have their child become a star? Is that considered child labor? Some parents think they know what is best for their kids and because they still are under age they do not know what they want? Is it true?

Learning Reflection

John Campell from Valley Mental Health came to talk to the class. He really wanted us to learn something that we did not know before. He talked about if money is a pay motivator or what kind of motivators you have to get excited to go to work everyday.

For some people, yes, money is a big motivator because that is what they want. They do what they do because of the money. But there are other who have intrinsic motivators to go to work the next day. Those intrinsic motivators are more powerful because your work gets exciting, and your values are more important than monetary rewards.

Working in the real world have its own risks such as pay. Some organizations do not realized that they are braking the law. It is very important to know the state laws and regulations. Also, getting reliable data about the market pricing is crucial. One can get any information anywhere such as the internet, but we need to make sure the data is reliable.

The fundamental pay principles are external competitiveness, and internal equity. The internal equity is important to have it in control if not it will hurt the company.

CH 10 Monitoring Job Satisfaction

Concept and Brief Description

Monitoring Job Satisfaction is a way to monitor the satisfaction levels of the employees and make any necessary changes. To find out the level of satisfaction, the company performs surveys. As the book mentions, conducting surveys to employees gives them a chance to let the company know how they are doing and how they can improve. One type of survey is the Job Descriptive Index (JDI), which measures different areas such as pay, the work itself, supervision, co-workers, and promotions. Another type of survey for a general satisfaction is the Job Satisfaction from the Faces Scale.

Another type to monitor job satisfaction is taken by the employees who are leaving the organization. This is called “exit interview” where the supervisor’s employee and or a human recourse specialist sit down with the employee and have an interview about the reasons for leaving. The interview questions should be open ended and leave room for the employee to mentions the reasons.

Emotional Hook

According to the Conference Board page, they survey 5,000 US households and about job satisfaction and the results were that 45 percent were satisfied with their job.

Key Points to Elicit Discussion

Being able to give the employee opportunities to let know the company if they are satisfied or unsatisfied with their job can help with the company to see if they need to make necessary adjustments. If the company gets too many people leaving the company they can gather information by talking to their employees and see what changes need to be made, and may be make some of the employees return to work for them again.

Facilitative Questions

Have you ever had a job satisfaction survey?

Learning Reflection

In class, we talked about types of performances measurement rating errors. Such as contrast error, and distributional error to mention some. Contrast error is when a rater compares an individual against other employees. Distributional errors tend to use only one part of the rating. Either employees rate high, meddle, or low to the people he or she is rating.

It can be a problem when there is only a few options to choose and you have to rate other people. When there are few options, it forces the employee to give a rate that does not truly reflect the true behavior or measure of work. Sometimes these types of rating do not give enough information regarding how well the people are doing. Hopefully, companies do not rely only on these ratings because it can cause problems between employees.

I think it is sad to know that when people rate you and only have few options to choose from, it makes the whole point of ratings not worth keeping the information. Because it is hard to rate people when there is a limit number of options.

CH 9 Dysfunctional Managers

Concept and Brief Description

A Dysfunctional Managers is a manager who is not fulfilling all of his or her duties. He or she is not sensitive, cannot be a team player, arrogance, poor conflict management skills, inability to meet business objectives, and inability to adapt to change. A study done at Florida State University surveyed 700 people with different kinds of jobs about what complains they had about their managers. The top 4 complains were supervisor failed to keep promises, failed to give credit when due, made negative comments about them to other employees or managers, and blamed others to cover up mistakes or minimize embarrassment.

Emotional Hook

There are programs especially for managers that help improve their behavior. One of the things they do is to videotape the manager as she or he role-played an actual clash she or he had had with another manager. Then the coach views the tape and helps the manager see and understand what is going on.

Key Points to Elicit in Discussion

I wonder how many managers actually need to go through a program to help them with their management skills. There are many good and bad managers everywhere, but regardless of being good or bad, I believe everyone needs to be a good aware how well of a manager he or she is being.

Facilitative Questions

How do you tell your boss he or she needs some management skills?

Learning Reflection

We talked about interviewing effectively. It is very important to have a structure interview, especially if the employee wants to avoid illegal questions. Having panel interviews also helps because there are more people asking questions and if for any reason the applicant thinks he was asked an illegal question, then there are more people that were present against one.
Another type of questions can be behavioral based questions. If an employer asks those kind of questions, then the applicant can be able to answer in a more truthful answer than just trying to make up the answer on the spot.
It was very interesting to hear the teacher say that there are a big amount of resumes that have things that are not true about the applicant. Many of those resumes make them look good for the employee to interview them, but not necessarily is what the applicant did in real life.
It is important to be honest on what we put on a resume because it also shows how honest you are, and if the company likes to have honest employees, then we might start in the wrong foot if we put started putting things that are not true then the employee will eventually find out.

CH 8 Sources of Performance

Concept and Brief Description

One of the sources of performance Information is 360-degree performance appraisal. As the book mentions, it the performance measurement that combines information from the employee’s manager, peers, subordinates, self, and customers. Evaluating a performance, helps when different types of people are giving the information on how the person can be evaluated because they all have different perspective in the employee’s performance.

Managers know the job requirements and therefore know better how the employee is doing. Although the manager cannot observe everything that the employee is doing, he can see the reports of the employee and make an evaluation. Peers are another source of performance. Peers can see what the manager cannot see, but a down side is that they can be bias. Subordinates are another source. They are the ones that report to the manager, they see how well the managers treat their employees. Self is another source. Self rating are not done alone, they usually are done to get the employee thinking about their own performance. Customers, they are the ones that the performance was given and they can evaluate how the employee did.

Emotional Hook

I believe that managers and customers are the most important source of evaluation. Managers can see the work and thus give feedback to the employee. Customers can see how you are doing and what he or she did not do or did wrong. Have you ever felt that an employee did not do such a good job to you, when you were the customers? Did it seem they did not show any type of emotion?

Key Points to Elicit in Discussion

Many times I would like to write a letter to the company telling them what things they should improve, but never do it. Or I try to make sure I see a box of suggestions so I can write something either positive or negative.

Facilitative Questions

Have you ever done a performance evaluation? What kind?

Learning Reflection

Ryan Browne from Tahitian Noni came to talk to the class about how Tahitian Noni does to make a training work and to be effective. In the company, they require 1hr. training each week, international training team of 7 members (20:1), e-learning, quizzes, recaps, intense focus on gathering feedback from and listening to the customers, and 30 min "team briefings" each day. One of the questions he asked was why to allocate resources to training, and it actually helps by meeting the department mission and focus, and most importantly it impact the revenues of the company.

One of the reasons for why it is important to have trainings in the company is to better the skills of the employees and thus increase revenues, but if the training is not teaching what it should then the company could fail. Also, the training plan needs to be correct and has a point. It is very important that employees should come out with new perspectives and ready to make things better.

On one of the slides of his power point he mentions: “Teaching someone new skills will increase their performance incrementally. Helping someone cultivate a passion towards vision will increase their performance drastically.” I think it is very important to let the employees know that what they are doing matters in the company and having the right skills and vision can not only help the company but help the employees as well.

CH 7 Training Methods

Concept and Brief Description

Training Methods are instructor-led classrooms, online self-study, virtual classrooms, and other methods including workbooks and videos. Classroom instructions are not very expensive and are very common in the workplace to use this method. Trainers can use slides, discussions, case studies, question-and-answer session and role playing.

Audiovisual training and computer-based training are part of online self-study. A positive side on these methods is that they have control over the presentation and they can review, slow down, or speed up. The computer-based training is a very cheap method. In the book, it mentions that when technology improves it become cheaper.

Other methods are on-the-job training, simulations, business games and case studies, behavior modeling, experiential programs, team training, and action learning. All these different methods help the employees develop skills that are necessary for the company they are working for.

Emotional Hook

Imagine being in a company where you are being train, but the training is very boring that you did not learn anything because it did not even pertaining to your job?

Key Points to Elicit in Discussion

The method used to help the employees learn the skills depends on what the company thinks it is necessary for the training. I have a friend that has told me many times that she needed to watch a video and answer a number of questions because it was part of her training. She works at home, thus the company in her situation sent her a video in her email and she had a deadline to watch and answer.

Facilitative Questions

What methods has your company used to train employees?

Learning Reflection

In class we talked about different recruitment sources. The one that I will focus is image advertising. Image adversing is a way to recruit potential employees. In some places, it is very easy to get applicants to apply for a job because the company is very well known. One example of a more recognized organization is Google. They are very well known among the people. On the other hand we have other companies who are struggling to get someone to apply for a job because they do not have good reputation. An example of such a place I would not mention because I do not want to get in trouble.

Having a good image to society has its advantages. Just to see a logo of a company we can tell much about the organization. If for any reason a company's image is not very well recognized, then the company has a hard time finding people to apply for any job. Getting the company to be recognized as a good place to work is hard, but it is not impossible.

CH 6 Resumes

Concept and Brief Description

Every time a person wants to apply for a job, he or she prepares a resume. As we all know, a resume contains the necessary information such as education, work experience, and any other important skills. Many of the resumes are prepared carefully to make sure it stands out to the employee and get an advantage for an interview. One of the negative sides of a resume is that the applicant controls the information provided and the way it is presented. If the resume is unclear and has many mistakes, then that applicant will be on the no pile. The positive side is that a resume can show any accomplishments you have done where the employment application cannot say that. Also for the employee, it is a starting point who to look for potential employees.

Emotional Hook

It takes approximately 15-30 seconds for a human resource person to see a resume and decide if he or she is a potential employee. That is not a long time, even when you have worked hard on that resume.

Key Points to Elicit in Discussion

To think that it does not take long for a Human Resource staff to look at a resume seems kind of harsh. With years of experience, and HR staff do have the ability to eliminate resumes in seconds. To make your resume stand out, we must make careful changes, or add something that can be valuable for that company. It takes multiple drafts to get a good resume.

Facilitative Questions

What can you do to have a good resume?

Learning Reflection

Part of the class we talked about different ways to approach reducing surplus. One that most everyone in the class talked about was downsizing. It is scary to be in an organization where they are planning on downsizing because that could mean either you or someone else would lose their job. For other employees it means they keep their jobs, which also means they need to work extra hard and be a better employee to be able to keep working in the organization.

Another way is pay reduction. As I was thinking in this term, I thought that pay reduction was better than downsizing because in this way you are not being fired, but just working fewer hours, which means less money. But, at least the employee has a job. With this economy that we are living right now, it is hard to lose your job because trying to get another just get harder and harder. There are not jobs available. It is really hard, but one must keeps trying to survive in one way or another.

CH 5 Recruitment Sources

Concept and Brief Description

Internal Sources refers to the employees who are currently working in the organizations and that are applying for another position in the same organization. There are few advantages for recruiting this way. First, they are people whom the organization already knows, they also know how the organization runs, and it is cheaper and faster than finding someone outside the organization.

External Sources refers to finding applicants outside the organization. This will help the organization to get new and fresh ideas. This type of sourcing has two types of categories, direct applicants and referrals. Direct applicants refer to a person who applies without any referral to the organization. A referral means that the person has someone in the organization told them to apply.

Emotional Hook

The percentage of employees getting hired through referrals is bigger than any other type of recruitment.

Key Points to Elicit in Discussion

There have been many occasions where I hear friends telling other friends of some opening in their place of work, and that they should apply. Many of them do apply, and I think it is great because they believe they could have a chance working there. Helping other people about job openings that are available is a nice thing to do, especially right now in this economy.

Facilitative Questions

Have you found jobs because someone in the organization told you about?

Learning Reflection

Today in class we discussed a little bit more legal issues especially preventing sexual harassment. To show what not to do at a job situation, thus we saw a small clip from the show “The Office.” It is very interesting to see in that show specifically all the things that we are not supposed to do, but they are funny at the same time, because they do happen. It is sad at the same time because it is not right.

As the book mentions, it is important to have a very clear policy statement where everybody can read and understand that sexual harassment would not be tolerated in the workplace. It is really sad to hear in the news people trying to take advantage of people. It is also very interesting to read that many complains come from women being sexual harassed from men, but it also happens that men get sexual harassed from women.

We are living in a world where the work force is changing, people are changing. Many of those changes are good and some others not so good. I believe sexual harassment was a topic no one will dare to talk about, but now it is important that people know about it because it happens and we all have rights to be respected.

CH 4 Flexible Work Schedules

Concept and Brief Description

Flexible work schedule is part of designing a job that motivates. Companies have to find ways to be on the top and have their employees keep and be satisfied with their jobs. This main concept has two parts: flextime and job sharing. Flextime is when employees choose their work schedule according to specified guidelines from the organization. Job sharing is two individuals who work a single job. Companies give flexible work schedules to the employees so they can perform better and give them the ability to make other necessary appointments.

Emotional Hook

How hard it would be if a member of your family needs you to take them to the doctor but you just can't because your work schedule does not permits it? Or when you have to plan way in advance your personal appointments?

Key Points to Elicit in Discussion

I have many friends that are very grateful for their jobs because they give them the ability to work around their schedules for personal time to be with their families. Having flexibility at your job helps the employee to give better performance at the job. The employees are more motivated to work since they have time to do other things that they need not only in the organization but also outside the work. I think it is very important to have this kind of flexibility because it is not all about work, work, work, but family and friends.

Facilitative Questions

How much flexibility a company can have to make their employees happy?

Learning Reflection

We have been talking about legal issues in class and we cover major EEO Laws and Regulations. I was thinking in one these laws and how it was before and now. The law of Equal Pay Act of 1963 which requires that men and women should receive equal pay if they are performing the same job.

It is interesting to know how back in the 1960’s the men were the ones who had to maintain the family and therefore they needed to get paid more. Now, in today’s society this mentality of men being the bread winner has change. Women are more independent, they get higher education, and many of them are not raising a family yet, and have a good job. On the other hand, there are some men who now they are the ones taking care of the family while the mothers are the bread winners.

This legal act protects both men and women. They both ca have the same capacity, education, and experience to perform any job. It is interesting to know how the mentality before was that men are better, they are stronger, well they are men, but now we can see that women are like me, better, stronger in their own characteristics.

Legal Issue

Concept and Brief Description

I found an article in the internet about issues that employers need to be aware for this year 2010. The issue is Social networking and electronic media. Social media refers to the application and websites such as Facebook, instant messaging, and Twitter.I believe almost every job has a computer with internet connection. Almost everyone can have some access to these sites while working. This social media contain personal information that an employer cannot access the employee's sites to check on them or to screen them before hiring them.

Emotional Hook

For employers it is a legal risk to use social networking technologies. It is off limits since it contain information such as photographs and personal data relating to age, sexual orientation, political beliefs or religious affiliations.

Key Points to Elicit Discussion

It is very interesting to hear stories about employees using social network, which is fine, but there is a limit. Somebody told me a story about an employee who was fired because this person was spending most of the time at work in the internet either shopping online or using a social media.

Facilitative Questions

How do we set a limit or should we block entirely the site so the employers cannot get access?

Learning Reflection

Today in class, we talked about the changes in the Labor Force. One in particular was aging work force; many baby boomers are still working hard because the economy is not giving them the change to retired with good money in their pockets. Many of them are still working in the same job for many years. In today's age, technology has been changing dramatically that jobs require being up to date with technology. Many baby boomers do not know how to send an email or use any other type of program. My mother is a great example; she does not know how to send an email. I have taught her multiple times how to do it, but still seems that she does not get it.

It is impressive to see baby boomers knowing how to manage and work a computer efficiently. They do want to learn this new technology because that is a great advantage to them to be able to keep their jobs a little while longer. Many employees that are part of the baby boomers keep their jobs because many of them want to have something to do. They feel good if they feel needed.

Knowing how labor force is changing can open many doors to the job that we currently have or will want to have. Even if we are the managers of own company, we need to be aware how as little as the age of one person can change either the training, looking out for the older employees. The baby boomers have extremely life time knowledge than can benefit the company. We just need to know how to use that kind of knowledge in a quick and faster way.

CH 3 Enforcement of the OSH Act

Concept and brief description

The OSH Act, Occupational Safety and Health Act,to be enforced, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration conducts unannounced inspections to the companies. This is due to see if the companies are following the regulations that are necessary to protect any person involve in the company. Once the person representing the OSH shows he or she is there to inspect the company, there are four different components to take in consideration. First, the compliance officer looks at the company's records of deaths, injuries, and illnesses. Second, the officer and someone representing the company go around and take a tour. While doing the tour, the officer makes notes about the conditions that may violate regulations. Third, the officer makes employee interviews to see if anyone is aware of any violation that needs to be taken care of. Fourth, the officer has a conference with the employer and talks about the findings about any violation. If any violation found, the officer gives a time frame to the employer to fix the violation. If the violations are fixed, there are still fines that the employer may have to pay.

Emotional Hook

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2008 there were 5,071 fatal injuries in the United States, and in 2007 there were 5,657.

Key Points to Elicit in Discussion

There have been instances were on hears in the news places where a company had a number of violations but there were never fixed and that caused many fatalities. It is very important to follow regulations that pertain to the company, especially about safety and health of the employees. Without the safety regulations nobody will be able to work and be safe at the same time.

Facilitative Questions

How can we, as employees of a company, help maintain a safe environment in the company?

Learning Reflection

In today’s class, we watched a video about the way how a fish market can become world famous place. In the video the manager talked about how at the beginning he was a very different manager. His employees knew he was the boss. But this fish market had to turn around and make new changes in order to survive. I think that in any type of company, every manager needs to look at the way his or her strategy is working and make any necessary changes. In the video, they talked about how changes take time to see the results. Some of the key factors that the fish market’s manager applied in his management skills are to trust his employees, treat them as people and not as numbers, and have every employee coach everyone.

This video made me think on the previous jobs I have had before. The place where I worked were good places to work and my coworkers liked to work there. Why? Because of the way my bosses worked with us. He or she trusted us with the job, we had a fun and friendly environment where we worked and we respected each other. Being in a friendly environment, I believe every employee will give it their best at what they do, and the company can become one of the top.

It is hard to work in a place where the boss of the company is very strict and he or she is always right. Nobody would want to work in a place like that. Taking a change, making a shift in the management style, and doing it with a purpose can make a great difference in the way people work. I think that believing in what you are doing with your company and knowing that you want your company to succeed it takes hard work, but in the end it will be worth it.

CH 2 High Performance Work Systems

Concept and Brief Description

High Performance Work Systems: The way companies try to make their employees and technical systems better. This helps the companies to be on top of the other companies. The high performance work system consists of Knowledge Workers, Employee Empowerment, and Teamwork. First, Knowledge Worker is the employees who have focused their studies and careers in one type of specialization. Second, Employee Empowerment is giving responsibility and authority to make decisions. Last but not least, Teamwork, which a group of employees are assigned to work together for a particular product or service.

Emotional Hook

It will take forever to train an employee if he or she does not have the right qualities to help the organization. Many times that employee will learn fast. For a company to be on the top, it needs to have the best knowledge on what they do, high top quality equipment, and great people.

Key Points to Elicit in Discussion

We all go to school to get an education and get a good job. We all try to be different from other people to help the company, to find new ideas, to get promoted, etc. Companies are looking for that person who has the right skills, who can add value to the company.

Facilitative Questions

In what situations will you choose to hire someone who does not have the right skills to someone who does?