Final blog

Final blog

While doing this module an interpersonal skill that I have developed is problem solving, the reason for this is that while doing the blogs in encountered problems with finding relevant information and making the blogs more detailed. When I was working on the group report I faced some problems as well especially in terms of learning to work in a group and trusting others to get the task done as well. The way in which I was able to develop the interpersonal skill was that by doing each blog I was able to adapt to the style of writing, understand the questions more clearly and find relevant and specific information for the blogs.

Out of all of the blogs the most difficult one for me was the personality blog , the reason for this was that I found it difficult to understand what nomothetic and ideographic was and relate them to the nurture and nature.

If I was the module leader ,  changes that I would make to the module are:

•   . I would lower the amount of blogs for students to do, to around 8 to 10 blogs, as students would be able to make the blogs more detail with in-depth answers, the smaller amounts of blogs would also I feel students would be more inclined to get them done more quickly as well.
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•        I would have some work shops that would involve students to work together  to learn about parts of the module and decrease the amount of theory work. Students would be more involved in the workshops and pay more attention than they would if sitting in a seminar doing theory work
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•     The pass percentage placed on the blog is too high and weights down the module,  I would lower the percentage for the blogs to 30% and increase the pass percentage needed on the reports.  I think this would not put as much pressure on students trying to do the blogs and in order to complete them adding irrelevant information 

Performance management

Performance management is the  process which contributes to the effective management of individuals and teams in order to achieve high levels of organisational performance ( Armstrong and baron, 2004).

In school I was sent on work experience  to a engineering firm,  once a week i had a meeting with my manager to discuss my performance and ways in which i could improve. This was an affective appraisal for me because I was able to receive feedback which helped me to improve upon my weaknesses.  It also allowed me to be able to improve upon my performance in the job role by being set certain targets by the manger to reach and then reviewing my performance with the week with the manger to see if i was succeeding or failing to meet the targets. Due to the meetings i was able to learn how to improve my performance and make sure that i was meeting targets set,  i also learned by meeting my targets that i was able to do more work and be able to complete it to a high standard.

“Mentoring is so simple,” said Walsh. “All you are doing is getting someone who is better at something than you to guide you through.” Mentoring can be someone outside of the organisation who acts as a friend and trusted counsellor. (The times, 2004)

The skills needed to be a an effective manger are interpersonal skills and communication skills. The  reason is that the mentor must be able to speak confident in front of people in order to motivate them to improve themselves,  the mentor must also be able to be approachable and have good personality so that who every they mentor is more likely to take their advice achieve better in what they are doing.  Mentors can be hired by businesses for employees and more experienced employees can also be mentors for employees that are facing difficulty.

Someone in my life who has been a mentor to me is my college lecturer, Mr. martyn silver .  he helped me to improve my writing style and understand different parts of my business course that i was having difficulty with. He was a very helpful and approachable person. For his part of my business b-tec unit , i was not able to pass his unit even after 3 drafts of the coursework, by him mentoring me and helping me i was able to on my final draft get a good grade and i was able to develop a much better understanding of business.

This had a very big affect on my life as it allowed me to get the required grades needed for university, it also allowed me not to find the degree course as difficult. The reason for this was that i had more better understanding on the basics of business before starting my degree course. It also showed me that it is not quantity but quality that is required in work to be done well and by their being more focus on quality of writing then you are more likely to understand what you are writing.

Reference

The times , 2004

Reward

There are many different ways in which a business can reward their employees, such as offering them appraisals and incentives this can be to, motivate the employees to work harder or show employees that the business appreciates their contribution and thanks them.

An organisation that I am familiar with is B&Q. there are a lot of different ways of rewarding employees that B&Q use.  B&Q has a reward package that consists of many ways to reward employees, what B&Q say id that “We reward our colleagues with a competitive rewards package.” what the package consist of is:

- May different bonus schemes to celebrate success

- Discount cards offering 20% off B&Q products, in store or online

- Our Employee Benefit Book offers discounts on everyday product and services

- B&Q support working parents by offering childcare vouchers allowing significant savings. 

(diy.com, 2012)

Some of these rewards are:

Bonus schemes - The bonus schemes that B&Q have in place are designed to increase performance and reward accordingly, there are various types of bonus scheme that are each designed to allow employees to share in success of the business. B&Q make sure to annually review the schemes in order to ensure that they remain competitive in the market place.

Flexible working – B&Q take into account flexible working  and state that all permanent employees irrespective of sieve or caring responsibility have the right to request flexible working hours, so that they are able to achieve more balance between other commitments and work

HSA and BUPA membership- HSA is one of the largest health plan providers in the UK, employees of B&Q are offered membership rates to the services offered by the two organisations.

 Employee personal benefits - Employees of B&Q can enjoy various discounts at high street retailers, travel, leisure, and other great places. All of the employees are entitled to 6.6 weeks of annual leave.                                               

                                                                                                                                          (diy.com, 2012)

The rewards system that B&Q has in place differs from business such as Tesco or Asda as, B&Q offer their employees more rewards and try to motivate their employees to work to the best of their ability, what can be seen is that B&Q show that they really care about their employees as they have long term service awards for recognition for long term employees who have been with B&Q for a long time by awarding them additional annual leave and bonus payments on specific anniversary dates.  There is some difference in types of rewards given to employees as older people and younger people due to age and ability to work , as older people are unable to work as many hours and require more rest,  the healthcare memberships are more targeted at the older employees as well as less working hours and longer days off.

 Fairness and equity in the business is insured as people who have been working for long hours are given more leave and fewer hours so that they are able to work to the best of their ability, irrelevant of age employees are recognized for achievements by being made employee of the month based on their performance.  

The arguments for should chief executives of business receive large bonuses is that , the performance of a business does not solely rely upon the direction chief executives take the business in, the chief executives rely upon line managers and branch mangers of the business to ensure that employees are working hard and meeting targets.  If they employees are not meeting targets then the line manger and branch mangers are responsible for this and not the chief executives.  Large business can still be given to chief executives if businesses are underperforming due to it being stated in their contract. The reason they should be given large a large bonus is that the are working hard in their job role but if other employees are not working hard or doing jobs correctly then it is not the fault of the chief executive and he should not have a bonus he has deserved taken away from him due to the under performing employees.

The argument against chief executives receiving large bonuses, is that it is wrong for the people who are  head of the business to receive large bonuses when they are underperforming , instead their should be pressure put on the chief executives as to why the situation of under performing has occurred.  The whole performance of business relies on the chief executive as they are responsible for the direction that an organisation takes , an example is when the banking crisis happened head of the royal bank of Scotland Stephen Hester was offered by the board of directors a large bonus, he was forced to reject it due to the situation that he had put the bank in , the direction he took as well as other chief executives resulted in devastating impacts on the general public as well as the organisations own employees. Large bonuses could instead of being given to chief executives be used to help the business to increase their performance so that they are generating high profits in which case chief executives would deserve large bonuses.   

References

diy.com (2012) B&Q benefits and rewards [online] Available from: http://www.diy.com/diy/jsp/corporate/content/careers/our_roles/benefits.jsp [Accessed 2 may 2012]

Recruitment

The online recruitment website that was chosen to be review was www.monster.co.uk. The website is very easy to use; you can type in the search box a keyword which will take you to the jobs relating to the keyword.  This is very useful as it allows a person to be able to find jobs relating to their keyword very quickly, by adding other specific information the individual is able to find accurate information for the job roles he or she is looking for.  They website layout is very clear and simple, with helpful information which has been spaced out. The website has utilized usability features in an effective manner with drop down menus as the top of the website with a large section in the centre of the website that has a search and location bar. The website also has the features of uploading a CV and looking at employer’s profile that have been listed on the website. The list of the employers is large with big business being listed.

The e-recruitment campaign that interested me is www.jobsearch.co.uk. The reason that this interested me was that the website allowed me to upload a CV to the website and be able to sign up for job alerts through emails and newsletters.  The features are very good for the user because if their is a vacancy then the user will be emailed the job opportunities,  the user can continue to search the website, another useful feature is that application for mobiles allow searching for a job and getting notifications makes it easier for the user to be able to find a job.

I went on to the website and did some of the tests, by completing these tests I have come to the conclusion that these tests are suitable for a business to use when in the recruitment process, the reason for this is that it helps business to be able to assess if the applicant is suitable for the position, has a diverse set of skills that will allow him or her to do the job on a day to day basis.  The tests shows the business what skills applicants have, people will have different strengths and weakness and by asking the possible employees to do the tests businesses will be able to see which candidate would be suitable for the specific job role also depending on the different skills the people may have, people not suitable for the specific job role may still be considered for future reference, as they skills set the person has may be useful to the business in the future.

References

Jobsearch.co.uk (2012) job search [online] Available from: http://www.jobsearch.co.uk/ [Accessed March 27 2012]

Monster.co.uk (2012) monster job search [online] Available from: http://www.monster.co.uk/ [Accessed 27 2012]

Shldirect.com (2012) recruitment test [online] Available from:http://www.shldirect.com/ [Accessed march 27 2012] 

Flexibility

Three different companies that offer flexible working are: Tesco, Marks and Spencer’s and McDonald’s

Tesco

Tesco support flexible working, offering part-time roles and encouraging job-sharing opportunities and shift-swapping where possible. (Tesco.com, 2009)

By offering these types of flexible working tesco tries to be able to make it easier for staff to get work done. 

Part time roles

employees are able to work fewer days and hours, this would be very good for people who have others commitments and are not able to work everyday of the week for example parents and young people in university or school would be able to work two to three days a week and not have to work the same hours as full time employees. The advantage of part time workers for tesco would be that they would not have to employee a lot of full time workers and part time workers could be hired for seasonal work.  A challenge for the line manager would be that part time workers would need training to carry out some jobs due to lack of experience and there could be clashes between part time and full time staff.

Encouragement of job sharing

This means that people are encouraged by tesco to work together to get jobs done , more than one person can have the same job role this would be for an advantage for employees as it would allow employees to get tasks done more quickly or if an employee is away then the job would still be completed. The advantage of job sharing for the employer would be that tasks that need to be         completed such as stocking shelves could be done quickly and effectively and this could also be team building as employees would have to work together to get jobs done.  Challenges line managers in tesco could face are that employees may not be suited to jobs they are assigned to or they many object to doing the tasks assigned. 

Shift swapping

This means that employees are able to swap shifts with other employees if they are unable to do their shifts.  The advantage of shift swapping for employees would be that , employees would be able to swap shifts with each other in advance and not have to reschedule anything hey may want to do out of work.  For example an employee working in the morning that may be busy in the morning could swap shifts with an employee working in the evening.  A challenge that the line manager may face is that if employees do not notify the line manger in advance problems could be caused as an experienced employee may be needed any would not be available due to changing shifts with another employee.

Marks and Spencer’s

Marks and Spencer’s offer a range of options for flexible working, be it part-time work, job sharing or term-time working. We also offer support for staff wishing to study or to take a complete break with our career break scheme of up to nine months’ unpaid leave. (Marks and Spencer.com, 2012)

Term- time working

This is aimed at students and other people in education who are only able to work between school terms and holidays.  The advantage of term time working for employees would be that they would be able to work in between half terms and holidays such as Easter and Christmas holidays. This would also be an advantage for the line manager and the organisation as they would not have to give full time contracts to the employees as they would be part time workers.  Especially in holiday’s businesses such as marks and Spencer’s are busy, by having employees for the term time work they would be able to lower the work load and have enough employees to deal with customers. Challenges faced by the line manager would be that the line manager may not be notified about who would be working in which term and this could cause problems for employees and the employer.

Job sharing

The advantage is that employees are able to share the same job and they are able to get more work done together instead of one person doing the job. This means that two employees share the same job, for example security guards are an example of job sharing as they work together in order to keep the shop floor secure.

McDonald's

Part time roles and employment of relatives.

McDonald's offers part time roles to students and other people that are only able to work small amount of hours, the have also introduced a new programme that means that they can employ a maximum of 4 people from the same family, the advantage of this is that if a employee is unable to work their shift then another member of the persons family will be able to cover or swap shifts. This would be good as McDonalds hires a large number of employees as they need to be able to serve customers with a quick service to customers. Employees with the organisation are trained so that they have necessary skills to be able to do all different types of jobs with McDonalds, the working environment is flexible as for example an employee is able to operate tills and also help prepare food when busy.

Tesco-careers.com (2012) why join tesco [online] Available from: http://www.tesco-careers.com/home/working/why-join-tesco  [Accessed 23 April 2012]

Marks and Spencers.com (2012) flexible working at marks and Spencer’s [online] Available from: http://corporate.marksandspencer.com/mscareers/rewards_benefits/lifestyle_options/flexible_working Accessed 20 April 2012]

Mcdonlads .co.uk (2012) join the team [online] Available from: http://www.mcdonalds.co.uk/ukhome/People/Join-the-team.html  [Accessed 19 April 20

Equal opportunity

Equal opportunity relates to legislation intended to outlaw discrimination.  (Mullins, L, 2010). Within a business the human resources department will take care of  equal opportunities issues  that may rise within  the organisation. There can be problems between employees or managers, the reason for the equal opportunities legislation is that is makes businesses have to action in a positive way against discrimination with the work environment. The legislation such as the equality act 2010 helps to eliminate unjustified discrimination by making it unlawful and it provides a mechanism for individuals that suffer from or have suffered discrimination to seek redress.

The different forms of discrimination that can arise are : indirect and direct discrimination.

Indirect discrimination is when a person has or is treated unfairly due to some requirement that would disproportionately exclude the group that the person belongs to, or when the requirement is not be justifiable.  An example of indirect discrimination would be all employees have to be over a certain height in order to do the job.

Direct discrimination is when an individual is or has been treated less favourably for a reason that has directly to do with his/her sex, marital status , race, origin of background , age and disability. An example of direct discrimination is to refuse a woman a truck driver job due to her being a woman.

Diversity

Diversity focuses upon the multiplicity of differences among people on the variety of people as heterogeneous grouping. Individuals differences are the basis of diversity. (Mullins, L, 2010).  It also means that the business is trying to meet the aims and objectives that were set by the business at the beginning of the year.

Some of the advantages of diversity are an increased adaptability and broader service range. In terms of increased adaptability businesses that employ a diverse workforce are able to provide a larger variety of solutions to problems with a service, sourcing and allocation of resources. Employees from several different backgrounds bring to the business, individual skills and experience in making suggestions for more flexibility in adapting to customer demands and market fluctations. 

The boarder service range means that their will be a more diverse collection of skills and experience this will include for example cultural understating or language skills. These skills allow business to provide services to customers on a global scale. ( Ariclesfree.co.uk, 2012)

Differences between diversity and discrimination

Differences between diversity and equal opportunities is that diversity is focused upon dealing with discrimination , by helping to solve issues and problems so that there is an increase in the contribution of employees to the business.  In equal opportunity cooperation between employees is strongly encouraged. Diversity does not require action to be taken in the same way as equal opportunity on which the human resources department in a business is relied upon to deal with the issues.  (Bizcoverimg.com, 2008)

Views of employers to wards young people and older people

The views that employers have against young people is that they are lazy and not committed to the jobs. This would show that employers think that young people are not motivated to come to work on time and are not committed because they will often not complete their tasks to the standards that is required by the business. . they way in which business can change their perceptions of young people is by offering incentives and appraisals to those young people that are working hard and are committed as this will also motivate un professional young people too also work hard and do a professional job so that they are also able to receive the appraisals and incentives.

The views that employers have towards older people is that they are unable to do jobs quickly and are unable to do certain task due to their old age. Employers also believe that they can be a liability for the business are they are more likely to get injured at work. The organisation can change their perception of older people by offering them longer brakes  and holidays with smaller shifts so they are able to rest, the business could also position elder people on tills and have younger people do carrying items and stocking shelves. Because younger people will be more productive in doing labor work than older people would be .  these suggestions would be beneficial for the business as it would help to change business attitudes and productivity of staff.

B&Q diversity and equal opportunities

“At B&Q we are committed to equal opportunities in employment and value diversity within our Company. We wish to create a positive work place, where people feel comfortable to be themselves and where everyone is treated with fairness, dignity and respect. We will eradicate all forms of inappropriate/offensive behaviour including bullying, intimidation, victimisation, discrimination or harassment and ensure that we protect the rights and opportunities of an employee to work and progress.” (diy.com,2010)

What b& Q say about diversity is that respecting diversity is central to their success, or reputation and their profitability.  It’s not an optional extra or a nice to have; it is the mark of our humanity and is crucial to our B&Q culture.  (diy.com, 2010)

In order for B&Q to increase their diversity and make sure that every employee has equal opportunities B&Q uses monitoring, this is useful as they say that by B&Q holding monitoring information on every employee consisting of their age, disability, gender and ethnic origin, B&Q are able to identify areas for improvement, by doing this B&Q hope to ensure that customers and staff will say it is a great place to work and shop for everyone.  The information is treated confidentially.  In order to make improvements upon diversity they have set some goals for the year, these are:

● To achieve and retain a top ten position in Race for Opportunity Benchmark

● To achieve our aspirational gender target for total management population and improve position in Opportunity Now (Gender) Benchmark

● To achieve and retain a top ten position in the Employers Forum on Disability Standard Benchmarking

● To achieve an upper quartile position in Stonewall LGBT index

● To achieve a world-class score on Q12 employee engagement measure (diversity question)

● To extend the range of Daily Living Made Easy products and increase sales in this category by 10%

● To achieve external recognition for B&Q’s diversity programmes from a range of external stakeholders   (diy.com, 2010)

Conclusion

In conclusion their can be many cases within an organisation where discrimination may occur between employees in the workplace ,  in order to prevent this from occurring manger and bosses need to make sure that if there are any problems positive action is taken in order to deal with the problem HR departments are responsible for dealing with equal opportunities and diversity within the business, B&Q is  a very large organisation that has many legislations and acts that are enforced to prevent discrimination and increase diversity with the business for their employees.

References

 Mullins, L J. ( 2010) Management And Organisational Behaviour. 9th Ed. Pearson’s Education Limited: Essex

diy.com (2010) B&Q equal opportunities and diversity [online] Available from: http://www.diy.com/diy/jsp/corporate/pdfs/diversity.pdf [Accessed 2 may 2012]

Bizcoverimg.com (2008) equal opportunities in workplace [online] Available from: http://bizcovering.com/business/diversity-management-and-equal-opportunities/ [Accessed2 may 2012]

(Ariclesfree.co.uk (2012) diversity in the work place [online] Available from: http://www.articlesfree.co.uk/Art/73294/292/Diversity-in-the-Workplace-Benefits-Challenges-and-Solutions.html [Accessed 2 may 2012]

selection

The three different types of selection methods used by tesco are interviews, assessment centres and screening.

Business such as tesco use selection methods to gather information about a job candidate’s personality and a get a better understating of why the person wants the job.  Candidates are put into situations that may require them to work in a team, employees such as tesco will observe if a person is able to work well in a team and if they posses the skills that the job requires.

Interviews

Out of all selection methods the most used is interviews,  it is unusual for people to be hired without an interview, there are two different types of interviews these are, structured or unstructured. Roberts, G. (1997). The types of interview that tesco uses are over the phone interviews, face to face or group interviews. They best type of interview to use is face to face as this gives the employers a chance to see the candidate and asses their body language when asking questions.

In an un structured interview the interviewer uses his or her judgement about the performance about overall performance of the candidates. It is the most used interview type by selection agencies for businesses such as tesco as businesses have confidence in these agencies ability to assess candidates without the restrictions of structured interviews.  Candidates are often encouraged to answer freely in unstructured interviews as this will allow them to feel more comfortable and answer more questions with confidence.

The advantage of an interview is that it allows the interviewee to get an idea of the type of person the candidate is by seeing them face to face.  Candidates will also not be able to receive any help that would help them to succeed in a face to face interview as they would be a telephone interview. The answers of the candidate are their own answers and opinions to the questions.  Interviews also allow the business to get a better understanding of the candidate as the answers to questions reflect on the suitability of the candidate for the job position.  The disadvantage of using an interview can be very time consuming and costly due to the time required too assess all the applications and prepare interview questions and compile a feedback report to give to other staff members and choosing the best candidate for the job role. 

Assessment centres

Another selection method that is used is assessment centres. The selection, method is used mostly after candidates have been short listed for the job. The Assessment centres involve application of a number of techniques that over a period of time, they last from at least a day and often a number of days Roberts, G. (1997).  Assessment centres have has a process that ask candidates to complete certain task and make a final decision based on the assessment performance.

The advantage of suing assessment centres is that they use a range of different techniques too assess the possible candidates instead of just one, this allows them to be able to observe different candidates strength and weaknesses as one candidate may be stronger in one task than in a different task where he/she may not be able to performance well in.  The assessment centres have the highest predictive validity out of all the different selection techniques Roberts, G. (1997).  

The disadvantage of assessment centres is that in order for them to help pick good candidates is that they need to be developed as cost effective. This is to ensure that candidate specification is clear and techniques are matched more effectively to the criteria.  The evaluation process needs to be effective for bring results of various techniques into the overall assessment. Roberts, G. (1997

Screening

The screening method used by organisations in the recruitment process means to select which applicants will progress to further stages in the recurring process.  This provides selectors with a clear idea of the qualities and traits to focus on screening the application forms together with poor or good evidence, the reason is that it will vastly improve the quality and consistency of the screening process. The same principles can be applied to curriculum vitae, although the different nature of each candidates CV makes the task more time consuming and difficult. Roberts, G. (1997).  For example in Tele sales usually initial screening of a candidate is done over the telephone.  When a candidate applies for a job they ill call the organisation, a screening person will answer the call and using a script ask questions to the person, based on the answers the candidates give over the phone they are told that the organisation that if the applicant receives a call form them then they have been selected to go through to the next stage if not the they were unsuccessful.

The advantage of screening is that it is not time consuming for the employers as they area belt o go thorough the application forms and find the suitable candidates for the job role. The screening process will help them do this by narrowing the applicants down to the most suitable people for the job, the process is also unbiased as the selectors personal opinion cannot influence which candidates advance as they are only able to make decisions using the data they have collected.  The disadvantage of the process is that over the phone the screening person does not know if it is the candidate answering the questions asked or if it is another person helping out a friend or family member, CV and application forms may also have false information in them, in the process this may be over looked and people not suitable for the job may be chosen in place of much more suitable candidates due to the information they have provided.

An interview that I took part in was at school, the school had organised some mock interviews with local businesses being invited to the school to take part in the interviews. The students were given the business that would be interviewing them. Students were told to dress smart and appropriately on the interview date and told the time of their interviews. The different organisations ranged from engineering firms to universities.  The school gave all of the student’s questioners to fill out what they would like to do when they left school. These questionnaire sheets were given to the interviewers, my interview was with a local engineering firm called Hale Hamilton.  The interviewer asked me some specific questions in relation to the business and why I would like to work there. The type of interviewing was unstructured as she expected me to freely build upon my answers giving detail, as I gave the answers she made notes about my performance and the interview ended. Later in the week the students were given letters that showed a tally sheet with our performance and some feedback from the businesses, in my case the business was happy with  the answers that I had given in the interview and said that Hale Hamilton would have accepted me if the interview has been real. Although the  interview that I had did not relate to what I wanted to do in the future I was able to be relaxed and give good answers to the questions I was asked  this gave good experience on how to conduct yourself in an interview and the type of body language to have

In conclusion business should make sure that when carrying out the selection process they need to analyse the type of business they are and if they have sufficient funds and time to go through process. In the case of Tele sales, over the phone screening may be more appropriate and in a retail business an application form would be more suitable.  If organisations use incorrect methods of selection it can lead to mistakes being made, wrong candidates could be chosen and the organisations may miss out on the correct employee for the job.

References

Businesscasestudies.co.uk  (2012) tesco recruitment and selection [online] Available from http://businesscasestudies.co.uk/tesco/recruitment-and-selection/selection.html [Accessed 30 April

Roberts, G. (1997) Recruitment And Selection. The Cromwell Press: Wiltshire

Mullins, L J. ( 2007) Management And Organisational Behaviour. 8th Ed. Pearsons Education Limited: Essex

Corporate social responsibility

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) can be defined as the “comprehensive approach organisations take to meet or exceed the expectations of stake-holders beyond such measures as revenue, profit and legal obligations. It covers community investment, human rights and employee relations, environmental practises and ethical conducts.”(Mullins,L,2010, Page 713).

An organisation within which there is a good example of CSR is tesco.  Examples of CSR within tesco are :

Creating jobs, building careers

Tesco says that their growth means that their will always be jobs.  They also state that their success has meant that their employees have a steady income and real security for themselves and their family.  Tesco’s aim is to create locals jobs that will allow local communities to also share in Tesco’s success.  Due to the size of tesco and their diverse range of jobs for employees, tesco state that they have in the last ten years created a job every 20 minutes.  Lots of jobs have been given to people that have been unemployed for a long time and are being given the benefits of being a tesco employee.  An example of this from tesco is that they state on their website that they have created 667 jobs for long term unemployed people through eight new registration schemes (tesco-graduates.com, 2011)

Healthy options, more choice

Tesco is always helping their customers to make healthy choices. They have done this by having new healthier ranges, and helping customers eat more fruit and vegetables and they provide better nutritional labelling on their products through which they encourage their customers to eat more healthily. Tesco is also encouraging people to do more exercise and have in the Last year got 7 million people active on an international scale though, aerobics in Thailand, football in China and charity runs in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. This shows that they are encouraging customers to make healthier choices and trying to get people to be more active. (tesco-graduates.com, 2011)

A little care for the environment

Tesco is taking making effort to cut back on their direct impact on the environment and are also encouraging suppliers and customers to do the same. Tesco has stated that they pledge to be a zero carbon business by 2050. Some of the things that tesco are aiming to do in order to achieve this that they want:

·         To halve carbon emissions from all new stores worldwide between before 2020 (compared with an equivalent store built in 2006)

·         To halve emissions from our existing stores and distribution centres worldwide by 2020

·         To halve the CO₂ created per case of goods delivered worldwide by 2012 (compared with 2006)

This year we diverted 100% of our waste in the UK directly away from landfill. We also gave 120 products a carbon-label, to help customers make environmental choices. (tesco-graduates.com, 2011)

References

Mullins, Laurie, 2010, Management and Organisational Behaviour, Ninth Edition, London,

Tesco .com (2012) Tesco Corporate Social Responsibility [online] Available from:http://www.tesco-graduates.com/home/about/social-responsibility [Accessed 30 January 2012].

Tesco-graduates.com (2012) A little care for the environment [online] Available from: http://cr2010.tescoplc.com/environmental.aspx [Accessed 30 January 2012].

Tesco-graduates.com (2012) Creating jobs, building careers [online] Available from: http://cr2010.tescoplc.com/buying-and-selling-our-products-responsibly.aspx [Accessed 30 January 2012].

Tesco-graduates.com (2012) Healthy options, choice [online] Available from: http://cr2010.tescoplc.com/healthy-choices.aspx [Accessed 30 January 2012].

Personality

The difference between the nurture and nature approach to personality is that:

The nature approach says that personality is inherited and that traits of personality can be passed down to people though genetics, for example if a person was a power and successful leader 200 years ago then their descendants would also be successful and powerful people. On the other hand the nurture approach explains that that personality is developed due to environmental conditions this means that dependant on where a individual is will have an impact on their personality. For example if a person works in an office and they had a happy personality before depending on the working environment they employ personality can change in contrast to eh work environment.  Below is explained the Nomothetic and ideographic approaches to personality .

Nomothetic

The Nomothetic approaches are primarily concerned with the collection of group data.  An example of a nomothetic approach is the nature approach to personality.

Nomothetic approaches tend to view environmental and social influences as not very important and view personality as inherited and that it does not change even in a different environment. It does not reduce the difficulty that personality brings but the , Nomothetic approach says that it is possible to measure and predict the ways in which personality types would behave in certain circumstances. (Mullins, 2008)

Eyesenck conducted an investigation of 700 servicemen and was able to use thorough statistical data to test his hypotheses, what  his findings showed was that it supported the notion that there were two major differences which could be measured these were extroversion and stability .

What Eysenck`s theory showed was that an individual could fit in to one of four main personality

types.  Eysenck’s theory and his subsequent Personality Inventory allowed identification of a personality type. From this description it was possible to predict likely behaviours. Eysenck had a clear view about the constancy of personality. He believed that personality was largely inherited and that introverts and extroverts are born with differing physiological tendencies. Furthermore, he argued that the personality we are born with is largely unalterable by environmental influences. Eyesenck`s approach to personality relates to managers in organisations which are concerned with predicting the future behaviour of employees, for Selection and promotion.  (Mullins, 2004)

Ideographic

The Idiographic approaches are concerned with understanding the individuality of people

and development.  An example of an ideographic approach is the nurture approach to personality They regard personality development as a process which is open to change. The measurement of traits is seen as inappropriate in that one person’s responses you may not be abler to compare to another persons. The ideographic approach suggests that personality assessment is not a valid method of understanding the unique

ways in which a person may understand the world. The depth of a person’s personality cannot be revealed in a way such as with paper-and-pencil questionnaires.

 Cattell and Eysenck both used similar  methods in studying personality. He used

Quantitative. He used objective techniques in order to analyse his data and followed traditional scientific procedures in order to understand personality. Cattell used three main sources for the collection of personality data. These are

1 L-data (life record data) – this is used in ratings by trained observers.

2 Q-data (self-rating questionnaire) –  these are responses to a questionnaire which measured

personality traits

3 T-data (test data) – these are observations collected in specific situation tests.

                                                                                                                                          (Mullins, 2004)

In my opinion the dominant influence between the nurture and nature is the nurture approach. The reason for this is that there is no guarantee that personality traits can or will be inherited by people . As times change, personality traits that may have been an advantage in the past will not be necessary in the present day, so if someone inherits some traits form a family member they will not be able to use these personality traits depending on their positions within a business.  Nurture personality approach is more dominant because what it shows is that someone’s personality is affected and can be changed due to their environment they are within , this is true as if someone hangs out with a certain type of people or works in a certain job a persons personality will change.  For example a student in the university personality would change and adapt to a new environment when they go to a job ,  the persons would be more serious and focused on doing their job on the other hand the personality of the student would be happy and wanting to have fun but due to the change in environment their personality would be affected.  For this reason the more dominant approach of personality is nurture.

References

Mullins. L (2004) management and organisational behaviour , 7^th edition : Ft Prentice Hall

Perception and communication

A situation within which my initial perception of someone was incorrect was in school. The situation was that a new person had joined the school and due to the dress code they had, what was perceived by the students was that he was weird. This was due to stereotypical view because the person used to wear a lot of dark clothing and did not try to interact with other people or make any contribution in class. What my initial perception was that this person was odd and that I would not like to be friends with this person. Then one day I was told by the teacher to work with the person in pairs on a project. Instead of being withdrawn and not wanting to speak to, the persons and I got along very well and he had said that he liked gothic music that was the reason for his dress code and that people thought that he was some depressed kid and stayed away from him. After getting to know the person I was able to realise my initial perception was incorrect and that he was the same as other but was more shy, as the project progressed we become good friends until we finished school. In order to avoid making this type of judgment and having an incorrect perception of an individual I would try to get to know the person first and not listen to stereotypes as this could lead to an incorrect perception of someone

After reading the article on “how to improve staff communication”

http://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/pm/articles/2010/07/how-to-improve-staff-communication.htm

 I have identified 3 ways in which the university can improve communication with students these are:

• 1.    The university could branch further into social networking and set up face book and twitter pages on which latest information regarding the university could be posted, in regard to any events taking place at the university or if they are taking place in the surrounding area around the university.  By doing this an improvement in communication between staff and students would be established as students and staff would be provided the same information as staff members regarding events.

• 2.       Instead of using the email system that is being used at present by the university, they could notify students by text messages, face book and twitter messages if lectures are cancelled or if the university will not be open on the day, this could be due to bad weather such as snow.

• 3.       Weekly tutorial meetings could take place in order. This would be very good as it would allow students to ask any questions or explaining any difficulties they may be facing in the course with their personal tutors.  the tutors could also sit down with each student in their group and talk to them about the current progress they are making on the course and how they could improve their progress in order to achieve higher grades and they could be told about essential deadline dates or work they need to have completed In order to make sure that all students are up to date on the course.  

Conflict

A conflict is when a issue arises in a group of two or more people about an issue that they both disagree about and by having different views and not accepting the others opinions or suggestions a conflict arises. An example to define conflict would be that while studying at Uxbridge college I was put into a group of three with two other people they where john and James, what we were asked to do was to present a slideshow presentation on airline business in front of the class. After some personality clashes we came to a conclusion and I was nominated to be leder of the group , by acting as leader of the group I assigned tasks for all members of the group to carry out. The members in our group were each given the task to do 3 slides each to describe the content within the presentation. John was meant to do the first three slides that was the introduction to the presentation and gave some background information on airlines. I did the main slides that went into detail about the airlines and included other important information and the James was to do the last slides with a conclusion. The conflict that arose within the group was that I and john felt that James was not contributing to the group presentation and so we confronted him, James was not willing to do the work and was expecting to be able to receive credit fro the work that I and James had done. The strategy that we used was to tell James that if he did not do his part and contribute to the presentation then we would leave the PowerPoint slides blank and he would have to explain to the lecturer why he had not done the work. In the end James did not contribute to the PowerPoint presentation and the group as a whole failed the task due to the work being incomplete.

French and ravens sources of power

Leadership and power are closely linked. People tend to follow those who are powerful. And because others follow, the person with power leads. Most effective leaders use mainly referent and expert power. (mindtools.com, 2011)

The different French and ravens sources of power that were identified in 1959 are:

Coercive power:  It is the belief that a person is entitled to punish others for not complying. (mindtools.com, 2011).  The problem that can be with this source of power is that it can be prone to abuse. Examples of coercive power is that, people in higher positions in a business threatening employees under their control  with being fired or demoting them to lower positions, giving them task that are undesirable and the managers knowing that an employee is not comfortable with  carrying out the tasks.  Most mangers will abuse this power although they may have to punish employees if they do not carry out the job they were assigned to do, the managers do not have the right to threaten their employees without any reasons. This type of power will cause lots of problems for the business, it could lead to employees not willing to work under the mangers and either leaving or asking to be moved to different departments within the business. An example of coercive power within a business is that a manger has assingemd employees a task to complete, an employ has refused to carry out the task because he does not feel comfortable doing the task. The employee objects to the manger and say that he would like to be assigned to another task because he is not comfortable carrying out the task because he may not have much experience in the certain filed. The manager not accepting to give the employee a different assignment they are more comfortable and feeling a sense of non compliance from the employee says to the employee if they do not carry out the task they will be fired. This would be a case of coercive power, in order for the leader to be a good leader he or she needs to make sure that they do not rely on coercive power alone and also instead of just punishing employees also reward them for jobs done well.

Reward power : This results from one person's ability to compensate another for compliance. . (mindtools.com, 2011).  People that have power are able to give rewards to employees these can range from promotions, desirable assignments training opportunities or a compliment.  All of these are rewards given by people that are in higher positions in power.  Although employees will expect to receive big rewards in return for getting assignments completed to the person in power for example a managers standards, they will expect to receive a reward for this. Although this can increase performance of staff and can benefit the business n a positive way , reward power can also be problematic. The reason behind this is that there is not much control in the business in ways to reward employees as even the CEO has to ask permission of the board of directors before handing out rewards to employees, also if the reward given is not of any perceived value by individuals then the power will weaken.  The reward should be used to motivate employees to work hard on getting assignments done and should not be given to employees very easily. An example of reward power in a business is if an employee completed to a high standard a task they were assigned to, the reward given to him or her by the mangers being impressed with the quality of work be a raise in salary or a promotion to a higher position.

Expert power: This is based on a person's superior skill and knowledge. (mindtools.com, 2011)  when a person in a higher position has advanced knowledge and skills to deal with task in the business,  employees will look up to them and try to learn from them new skills that would allow them to develop the skills as well. When expertise have been demonstrated then people tend to respect and trust their supervisors and mangers more. An expert in a specific subject matter, the ideals of the person in power will have more value and they will be looked up to for leadership in the certain subject area.  It is one of the best ways to improve leadership skills as the leaders can use their confidence and rational thinking and expand them to other subjects and issues. An example of expert power would be facing problems at work with a private issue or maybe unable to complete the tasks,  a member of the team or the manager would offer solutions to the problems that they would be facing, the employees would take the advice and apply it to the job at hand the reason for this is that the manger has more experience in the field of work.

Referent power: This is the result of a person's perceived attractiveness, worthiness, and right to respect from others (mindtools.com, 2011) this is thought of as charisma, charm, admiration, or appeal.  Referent power comes from a person liking and respecting another and identifies with the person in a similar manner. An example of referent manner is an employee with some charm and makes everyone around them feel good for this reason they normally have a lot of influence in decision making.  To have referent power is a big responsibility because work is not necessarily need to be done in order to earn it, for this reason people with this power can abuse it quite easily.  An example of this in business would be, if an employee was very likable in a business and hard working and able to make people happy but lacked honesty and would often lie could rise to power and use the power in ways to hurt and alienate fellow employees for personal gains or advantage in getting a promotion.  If a leader wanted to have a successful leadership position and be respected  it would not be a good strategy for him or her to  rely solely on referent power alone.  When combined with other sources of power, however, it can help you achieve great success (mindtools.com, 2011).

Legitimate power: This comes from the belief that a person has the right to make demands, and expect compliance and obedience from others. Social hierarchies, cultural norms, and organizational structure all provide the basis for legitimate power. (mindtools.com, 2011). Legitimate power is unpredictable and unstable, because if the title of position of a person is lost then legitimate power will disappear, the reason for this is that people where influence by the position the individual had and not by the person that position.  An example of this is that if the CEO of Microsoft was to be fired from his position by the board of directors then he would lose his legitimate power as people and employees were influenced not by who he was and what he did but the power and position he had in the business, suck as making important decisions that could lead to increased profits and a better reputation of the business.  In terms of legitimate power ,  the scope of power is limited to the time that people such as board of directors believe that the CEO has the right to control and if they believe they are making a loss then the CEO would instantly be removed form the position and legitimate power would be lost. Also relying on legitimate power as the only way to influence people is not enough, in order to be a good leader you need more and in some job roles legitimate power will not be needed at all in order to influence people.

What can be seen from the work related stress article is that, businesses should make sure that their staff members are not put under stress by giving them lots of work to do, they businesses should make sure that employees are given sufficient breaks and not required to work long hours.  By looking at the statistics mentioned in the article, what can be seen is that stress is slowly becoming a major risk to business; this will have a large impact on how employees work and the business performance.  If employees are under stress they will not be able to work to the best of their ability and as the article shows will take days of from work. This can lead to the business not being able to provide the same services or manufactures the same amount of products which will result in the business losing profits and could lead to employees leaving due to the large amount of work they are required to do and because of stress cannot handle. Work relates stress does not only affect an employee’s performance at work but also affect their home life and health. Business in order to decrease the stress that their employees are having should carry out surveys to find out what they feel is leading to them having too much stress and try to deal with the problems that employees are facing. Due to the recession many business have had to make their employees redundant and this has lead to employees who have been kept on by the business to take on extra work, this would also lead to stress for employees. The article shows that there are lots of different factors contributing to work related stress and that business are not doing anything to deal with it, what the article outlines is that if business do not make changes then employees will leave the business not being able to deal with stress and this will effect the business in the long run.

Conclusion

In conclusion, in order for person to be a successful leader and be an inspiration for their employees , it is essential that a good leader how at least two of French and ravens powers, the powers that would be best to have are referent power and expert , the reason for this is that both the powers go hand in hand and attributes of these powers allow a person within any type of business to be a good leader and get along with employees without problems, employees will also be more comfortable in a working environment if the leader has expertise in certain fields and is also rewarding and encourages employees when they do a good job. There will always be conflict in organisations especially when people with different personalities are required to work together, what can be done to avoid there being conflicts developing the business should know which employees work well together and have the same way of thinking as this will allow people with the same way of thinking to work together, this can be tricky though as in a group there will always be conflicts between members of a group.  As mentioned when at college working with others was very stressful and by confronting the person who there was conflict with a solution to the problem was found and the group although did not pass was able to work well together. 

References

mindtools.com, (2011) French and ravens source of power [online] Available from: http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_56.htm [Accessed 21 December 2011].