Chapter 16

Concept and Brief Discussion:

Elements of a High Performance Work System: In order to establish a high-performance work system, the elements that must work together include organizational structure, task design, people, reward systems, and information systems (pg. 469).

Organizational structure is the way the organization is put into order and operations. This includes putting people into groups, departments, and reporting relationships. The company must group its employees appropriately in order to know how to best structure a efficient and effective company.

Task design gets more detailed in grouping tasks to defined groups of employees. Good job design promotes efficiency while promoting high quality.

Making sure that you hire the right people is crucial to the success of your company. Providing an organization with well suited and well prepared professionals will garner high performance. In order to maintain good people, proper training, development, and career management must be done to ensure these people are able to continue to perform well in their present and future tasks.

Reward Systems also contribute to high-performance work systems. It encourages workers to strive for objectives that support the organization's overall goals (pg. 470). This can include measuring performance and linking incentive pay and other rewards linked to success.

Finally, information systems are a key element in high-performance systems. Being able to gather and distribute information in this modern age is vital to a company's success. HR departments take advantage of technology to give employees access to information about benefits, training opportunities, job openings, and more.

The Hook:

You are restructuring a company's department. As you do so, how will each of these above listed elements help to organize a good department that will bring success to the company?

Key Points to Elicit in Conversation:

High-performance work systems can be accomplished with the right elements, which include organizational structure, task design, the right people, reward systems, and good information systems. As you incorporate these elements into an organization, you will find more success.

Facilitative Questions:

What has your current employer done to incorporate these elements into the work system you are in?

Chapter 13

Concept and Brief Discussion:

Employee Wellness Program (EWP): This is a set of communications, activities, and facilities designed to change health-related behaviors in ways that reduce health risks (p. 376). Typically, employee wellness programs aim at reducing risk factors like blood pressure, high cholesterol levels, smoking, and obesity. All these things can lead to chronic and acute heart problems, as well as many other system failures. Employers can provide services to their employees in a couple of ways. Passive programs provide information and services, but no formal support or motivation to use the program. Examples include health education and fitness facilities. Active wellness programs assume take on a much more proactive role and may include counselors who tailor programs to individual employees' needs.

The Hook:

As an employee of a busy firm where your time is stretched thin, you don't feel like you can make a commitment to go to the gym every day. You would like to be more active and can tell that your energy levels are affecting your performance. If your company were to provide on site facilities with showers and a locker room, how much more likely would you start exercising?

Key Points to Elicit in Discussion:

Employee wellness programs can cost a company a lot of money, however the benefits can far outweigh the costs. Workers will have more energy, morale will increase, and the overall health of the company will improve. Many insurance companies these days will give employees and employers discounts on insurance for participating in such programs too. I think every company should have some sort of wellness program or guidelines for their employees, even if it just involves an educational component.

Facilitative Questions:

What does having a good wellness program at a company say about their commitment to employees? Have any of your employers offered gym memberships at a discount or had on site facilities? How do you think a wellness program can help an organization?

Reflection on Thursday's Class

On Thursday, we got into our groups to talk about various ways to give incentives and bonus pay to employees. The two topics our group was given was profit sharing and stock options. I enjoyed reading over the material with my group and learning more about their experiences with these methods of pay.

Profit sharing is an incentive pay in which payments are a percentage of the organization's profits and do not become part of the employees' base salary. This is a low cost way of giving performance and bonus pay to employees, but can cause problems when the company isn't doing well. If employees begin to feel entitled to profit sharing bonuses, the company morale with go down hard when the company doesn't have anything to give out during hard times. I saw how profit sharing can be good and bad at my previous employment. One of the issues where I worked, was that older more tenured workers didn't like that I got the same share of profit sharing as they did, since they had been there longer.

Stock options include the rights to buy a certain number of shares of stock at a specified price. Companies will offer stock options to their employees as a way to get them to think more like owners, like they have something truly vested in the company. This method can be good to create long term incentive for employees to stay with a company. However, I don't think lower workers with stock options would have a huge connection with the company in that way.

Chapter 12

Concept and Brief Discussion:

Incentive Pay for Executives: The book talks about two specific incentives for executives that attract leadership and influence performance. Short-term incentives include bonuses based on the year's profits, return on investment, or other measures related to the organization's goals. Long-term incentives include stock options and stock purchase plans. The rationale for these long-term incentives is that executives will want to do what is best for the organization because that will cause the value of their stock to grow. Controversy over high paid executives has recently been addressed as a public frustration. It appears that many top-level management employees are getting high incentives and compensation, even if their performance is low or the company they work for doesn't make profits.

The Hook:

You are on the board of directors for a large company, and you are currently reviewing the company's past year's performance. If the company is struggling, how much of the issues are due to poor strategic planning and execution by the top-level management at the company? What will you do to lessen the rewards for executives while keeping them fully vested in the company?

Key Points to Elicit in Discussion:

Company executives have a much stronger influence over the organization's performance than other employees do, so incentive pay is often offered as a way to show their importance and to persuade good performance. Much of executive's pay now comes from these short-term and long-term incentives. Long term incentives tend to be associated with greater profitability.

Facilitative Questions:

What kind of incentives do your employers have? How public is it discussed, and does it make any of you angry? How much is a really good executive worth?

Chapter 9

Concept and Brief Discussion:

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator: This is a popular psychological inventory assessment that tests individuals' preferences for source of energy, means of information gathering, way of decision making, and lifestyle. The assessment is more than 100 questions long and asks a variety of questions. Most of the questions deal with preferences and feelings about situations in the workplace and in your career.

The Hook:

You have been asked to do this test by your academic adviser. Once you take it, you see that your preferences on the test don't match what kind of work you plan on doing. How would you react to this and what questions might arise from this experience?

Key Points to Elicit in Discussion:

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator helps with employee development and helps employers understand the work style of their employees. Although this is a long and comprehensive test, it is still a self-assessment and can have problems. I don't think these tests really mean much and don't always point to accurate data.

Facilitative Questions:

Have you ever taken one of these tests? If so, how did your responses match up to your performance in the workplace?

Chapter 8

Concept and Brief Discussion:

Criteria for Effective Performance Management: There are many ways to predict performance of a potential employee, and likewise, there are also effective tools and ideas that will help to properly measure the performance of a current employee. In chapter 8, there are five criteria discussed that help us determine the effectiveness of performance measures:

• Fit with strategy--A performance management system should be aimed to see how well the employee is aiming with the overall goals and strategy of the company.
• Validity--This deals with the extent to which a measurement tool actually measures what it is intended to measure (p. 218).
• Reliability--The results of the measurement must be consistent and even tested over time to see if the employee has changed.
• Acceptability--The measurement tool must be acceptable to the people who use it. Employees must not believe that it is unfair or too time consuming.
• Specific Feedback--A performance measure should specifically tell employees what is expected of them and how they can meet those expectations (p218).

The Hook:

You go into a room with your supervisor to do a performance appraisal. He or she pushes through the official papers and reviews your numbers without allowing you to talk and set appropriate goals. This happens all the time in business. How do you feel when you are treated as a number in these situations?

Key Points to Elicit in Discussion:

In order to effectively evaluate performance of employees, there must be a concrete, effective measurement tool that will allow employees to set goals and understand expectations. I believe this is a good opportunity for employers to show how much they care individually about their employees. This should be a relationship building exercise that aligns boss and worker in a shared vision.

Facilitative Questions:

How have your past employers effectively measured your performance? How did it make you feel?

Reflection on Thursday's Class

On Thursday, we had a guest speaker come in from Tahitian Noni International. He talked to the class about training programs in business and the components needed to make it effective. Surprisingly, I think the biggest thing that I got out of the presentation was recognizing how well my current employer trains its employees.
One area of discussion that I particularly liked was when we talked about the process and not just the principle of training programs. I like what he said about being able to measure success from the trainings. This is a key principle, in my opinion, because like the speaker said, training is not cheap and unless you can show that your training is working or contributing to the overall bottom line, you will get cut off.
I love the trainings that happen at my current job. They remind me of the purpose of the company and keep me sharp at what I do. I believe all companies should invest in a training program.

Chapter 7

Concept and Brief Discussion:

Action Learning: This is, "training in which teams get an actual problem, work on solving it and commit to an action plan, and are accountable for carrying it out" (p. 197). In actuality, this is a form of group building and teaches employees how to solve problems as a group. The size of the team in training usually stays between 6 to 30 employees. The company will find a problem, usually one that affects multiple departments, and then organize these teams to figure it. The book suggests that the effectiveness of action learning has not been formally evaluated, however can deliver some obvious benefits to employees and employers. There is a lot of applied learning happening with this method and also teams are able to identify behaviors that interfere with problem solving.

The Hook:

Your employer offers you a position on a team that is assigned to resolve customer service problems in the organization. Your teammates include workers from from various departments. How will their contributions help to resolve the problem at hand, when they don't interact with customers on a daily basis like you do?

Key Points to Elicit in Discussion:

Action learning enables employees to get hands-on experience in problem solving. This could help employers develop future leaders in the organization and also give them job enrichment. One possible negative issue could be burnout. I feel there need to be limits to time spent on these action learning teams.

Facilitative Questions:

Has your company done anything like this? If so, did it amount to company savings or increased efficiency?

Reflection on yesterday's class

During Tuesday's class, we talked about recruiting tactics and how it affects an organization. There are many ways an organization can recruit new employees outside of just using referrals. Some of the ways include the following: advertisements in newspapers and magazines, electronic sources, public employment agencies, private employment agencies, and colleges and universities.

What I found interesting in this discussion was how much money some employers spend on "headhunters" to find employees. Basically, what I learned is that if you want a high profile employee, you may need to be willing to spend some money to get him or her.

Another thing that perked my interest was the talk about using temp. agencies and being involved with job fairs at universities. I got my first job off my mission using a temp. agency and ended up staying with the company for two years. I know this is a very useful tool for employers who need short term and even long term employees. Job fairs have been typically a negative experience for me. For example, the last internship and job fair I went to at UVU (last week) gave me nothing to look forward to. I went to the booth where Mountain Star Health Care was. The head of HR was there and represented the company very poorly. When I asked about internship opportunities, she was not helpful at all. In fact, not until I reminded her that there was an intern there, did she remember. Then she just looked frustrated and sent me off with an informational packet about the company.

If you are sent to represent at an internship and job fair, you should know about internships that are currently happening at your own hospital!!

Chapter 6

Concept and Brief Description:

Personality Inventories: Sometimes it is important for employers to know about candidates' personalities. For some jobs, such as the one I hold right now at Telos Residential Treatment Center, it is important that candidates 'fit' the position. There are ways to test potential employees, like giving them any of the commercial personality tests that are out there. As the book describes, there are the "Big Five" traits that are looked at: extroversion, adjustment, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and inquisitiveness.

The Hook:

There is a co-worker I have that is very uncomfortable with making the boys at Telos uncomfortable. This is a problem, since we are supposed to hold boundaries and help them in their treatment issues.

Key Points to Elicit in Discussion:

Personality Inventories can be a way for a company to assess candidates' personality traits. This is important when a company is looking for a certain type of person. Some jobs require various personality traits, however the most important trait to have according to research, is conscientiousness.

Facilitative Questions:

How does the 'fit' of employees in the workplace play a role in your company?

Reflection on Thursday's class

Last Thursday in class we talked a lot about downsizing and the alternatives that companies have in order to keep employment and morale higher. I have been at a job where my employers had to downsize because of the economy. Many guys were laid off, and everyone left working would constantly be making new rumors about who was going next. It was a terrible atmosphere and no one was happy.

One of the problems that was made clear to me on Thursday, was that my employer and the management at that company did not properly approach the strife. There was no clear communication about the state of the company, and no one knew what was going on. They also didn't use other methods like cutting hours, cutting pay, or anything else to help employees keep their jobs. They just caused a lot of fear and frustration. So, downsizing struck a chord with me during class on Thursday.

Chapter 5

Concept and Brief Discussion:

Referrals: This is when an organization hires someone because someone within the organization prompted them to do so. The book says that the largest share (about one-fourth) of new employees hired by large companies came from referrals. An advantage of hiring this way is that the selection of the applicant will be one based on performance within the organization already. It is easy to see if the applicant has fit well into the company. The major downside of referrals is that they limit a company's exposure to fresh viewpoints. Also, referrals sometimes seem unfair or can lead to nepotism, or the hiring of relatives.

The Hook:

You have applied to an organization many times with no job offers, but your friend, who knew someone in the organization, got offered a job within the first few tries. What can you do to "get in" to an organization that they will consider you, since they are so big on referrals?

Key Points to Elicit in Discussion:

Referrals can be an effective way to find employees to fill positions in an organization. It costs less, the process is faster, and there is usually a good track record or name to those that are referred. The downside is that organizations who do too much hiring of referrals may become stagnant, not open to fresh perspectives on the company.

Facilitative Questions:

How have referrals been helpful or harmful to you in your job searching?

Reflection on yesterday's class

Yesterday in class we discussed issues in chapter 4. One of the things that was discussed in length about was creating job descriptions. A job description is a list of the tasks, duties, and responsibilities that a particular job entails. My understanding of job descriptions increased in how important they are for HR professionals. We talked about how job descriptions are a valuable part of job analysis and how they help employers and employees understand the expectations of a particular job. Doing so helps with screening for proper applicants, which shortens the hiring process and decreases cost.

Another thing job descriptions do is help with performance appraisals. Employers and their workers can get on the same page and often times, updates to job descriptions are made during this time. At my current employment, the job description for Mentor's is really broad and general. I did not realize that my job would entail so many things. For me, this was a good thing, because my employer allows me and my co-workers to do many things and get involved in many aspects of operations and treatment. For some, a general description could be a hard thing to deal with. Some people don't like new things and don't like to feel that their employer is giving them things to do that aren't included in their job description. They feel like they're not getting paid for what they were hired to do.

I personally don't like a really strict and defined job description. I feel like it limits my opportunities for advancement and knowledge and I'm glad that I am given the freedom to expand my job description at my current job.

Chapter 4

Concept and Brief Discussion:

Job Enrichment: This is the idea of "empowering workers by adding more decision-making authority to their jobs" (p. 105). The idea comes from the work of Frederick Herzberg. His thoughts were that individuals are more motivated by intrinsic aspects of work. I believe strongly in this idea, having experienced this first hand myself. Here are the five factors he associated with motivating jobs:

• achievement
  
• recognition
• growth
• responsibility
• performance

An example of job enrichment in my own life could include Telos (my current place of occupation) allowing me to expand my role as a mentor and even encouraging me to participate in many aspects of the operations that exist in the company. Another thing they do is allow me to be a decision maker in the moment, when things are in crisis with a troubled boy. This to me is job enrichment.

The Hook:

Some jobs, and often manufacturing or production line jobs, do not let employees make any decisions at all. They are there to be a body and to perform their function. There are no doubt competent employees who work those jobs and know of ways to increase efficiency in the production of their product. Many times, those employees don't have much of a say in the decision making, because their bosses are not connected to the process and the people they manage as well as they should. Job enrichment is most likely quite low for employees in this situation.

Key Points to Elicit in Conversation:

Job enrichment empowers employees and promotes internal motivation, which is much more effective than external factors. Employees who are able to experience job enrichment usually find their jobs more rewarding and enjoyable. As employers give more decision-making authority to their workers, there may need to be more extensive training, which in turn may cost more initially but will be made up with efficiency and lower turnover rates.\

Facilitative Questions:

What has or hasn't your employment done to use the principle of job enrichment?

Reflection on Thursday's class

During class on Thursday, we went over some of the major legal issues involved with HR management. I really enjoyed the group activity we did where we split up the laws between groups and presented them. Since our group did ours on the Americans with Disabilities Act this naturally left an impression on me.

Reading about the ADA really gave me a new perspective on the provisions employers have to take to ensure discrimination is not taking place. There are three parts to the definition of a disability as described by the ADA. The first part refers to individuals who actually have serious disabilities, such as epilepsy, paralysis, blindness, etc. The second part refers to individuals who have a history of disability like cancer patients in remission, or someone with a history of mental illness. The third part refers to people's subjective reactions to a disability they may have, such as a disfigured face. This may not inhibit their physical performance, but could cause other social or mental limitations.

The most interesting part of the ADA is what is not included in it. Currently obesity, substance abuse, eye color, hair color, and lefthandedness are not included. However, in class we talked about substance abuse and how you can't fire someone for being an alcoholic, just for poor performance if that affects it. This seemed to be a touchy subject for some in the class, and I certainly hadn't thought about some of the angles that were discussed.

I think the ADA is an important act that helps many people, however I can see how some employers could struggle with this. One thing I am learning quickly in this class is how strict the process of HR management is and how much it affects people.

Legal Issues/Concerns in HR

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced on Jan. 6th of this year that 93,277 workplace discrimination cases were filed with the federal agency nationwide during Fiscal Year (FY) 2009, the second highest level ever, and monetary relief obtained for victims totaled over $376 million. The EEOC Acting Chairman Stuart J. Ishimaru said that the work of the commission was far from finished, noting the high numbers of cases. An article on the EEOC's website said, "Continuing a decade-long trend, the most frequently filed charges with the EEOC in FY 2009 were charges alleging discrimination based on race (36%), retaliation (36%), and sex-based discrimination (30%)."

According to the EEOC, the reasons for the near-record number of cases filed for the Fiscal Year 2009 could be many. The article mentioned the following as possible factors for the high discrimination cases last year:

• greater accessibility of the EEOC to the public
• economic conditions
• increased diversity and demographic shifts in the labor force
• employees’ greater awareness of their rights under the law
• changes to the agency’s intake practices that cut down on the steps needed for an individual to file a charge.

Whatever the reasons, this article reminded me of how much problems we can encounter in the workplace. People use their autonomy to make poor decisions and many times do not think of the affects they have on an organization. Hopefully, as the EEOC continues to monitor and resolve discrimination cases, there will be a downward trend in the number of cases.

Info found at www.eeoc.gov

Reflection on yesterday's class

Yesterday in class, one of the prominent issues talked about that impacted me was the aging population and its effect on the future of our economy. Currently, people are working at older ages than they have in the past, due to financial hardships related to the recession and other factors. Still, within the next 10 to 20 years, there will be a lot of jobs opening up without enough to fill them. We talked in class about the strain this is to HR professionals due to the intense planning and training that needs to occur to survive the coming trend.
This discussion changed my thinking about the role of HR professionals and the responsibility I have to get myself into a position where I can accept a mid-to-high management level job during that time. While I am excited about the prospect of many high level executives retiring within the next ten years, I understand that for HR professionals this will pose a difficult task: to find enough well-trained leaders to carry the economy.
Another thing that was talked about in class was outsourcing and offshoring. The effects of having an expensive labor force, (older workers is one factor) has influenced companies to use these practices to decrease cost. I wonder how much this will continue to grow in popularity for production and manufacturing companies. I also wonder what industries that currently don't use these practices will begin to do so in the next few decades.

Chapter 3

Concept and Brief Discussion:

Reasonable Accommodation: This refers to situations where an employer is, "obligated to do something to enable an otherwise qualified person to perform a job " (p. 72). This can include many things and can sometimes lead to conflict between worker and employer. In most cases, however, this principle is not a problem in the workplace and allows for more diversity in an organization. As long as the accommodation does not present an undue hardship on the employer, he or she should do what they can to provide reasonable accommodation for employees. An example in the book of this principle is from a case involving Electrolux Group. Some Muslim workers from this company complained that they were being disciplined by management because of their observance of religious beliefs. The Muslim workers were taking unscheduled breaks as prayer time to comply with their 5 X a day prayer belief. Ultimately, it was found that the employer needed to be more accommodating due to their strict religious observance desires. Better communication between employers and employees in the hiring proccess would have helped prevent problems like this.

The Hook:

As part of a support team that is assisting medical staff working on patients in surgery, one of its workers demands that they be relieved and replaced during the middle of a procedure. The worker desires to observe the scheduled prayer in his religion. The medical staff mentions to the worker that he cannot be accommodated in that manner in the middle of the procedure. The worker gets angry, but decides to stay in the operating room. The worker decides to file a complaint against the medical team, saying they did not try to accommodate for his situation. When does reasonable accommodation become unreasonable and who decides this line? How does this principle affect other workers in the organization? Does it cause conflict between workers?

Key Points to Elicit in Conversation:

The concept of reasonable accommodation can be useful when trying to provide an emotionally safe and flexible organization for employees. Applying this concept will promote more equal employment opportunities and a generally more diverse workplace. It is important to note that communication in the hiring proccess is key to understanding potential accommodations for employees, and an examination of the organizational and operational structure of your own company may need to be done to ensure that conflicts will not arise.

Facilitiative Questions:

How have the companies you've worked for made reasonable accommodations for you or another employee?

Reflection on today's class

Today in class we got into groups to talk about concepts included in chapter two. The two most prevalent topics we discussed in our group was teamwork and the rapid change that is taking place in the business world. It was interesting to hear what the rest of the group had to say about these two things. I think everyone has been in a situation where a teammate isn't pulling their weight, so understanding how to approach slacking teammates is important. We didn't get too into it because it was said by Jon that we would cover it more thoroughly in the future.

I think the most interesting part of the class today was when we watched the movie clip about Pikes fish market. This clip went over a little bit of the history of the business and showed how the value of human capital made a difference in their success.

The owner's perception of his employees when he began his business was that they were just objects and manpower to accomplish tasks. He watched over them closely and did not empower them or value them as he should have. It was interesting to see this man's testimonial about how his mindset had to change. He realized, with the help of the HR guy in the clip, that his employees and business would only thrive and be sustained through a positive and trusting culture where the employees are empowered and respected.

This success story shows how important human capital is and how principles of human resources can be applied to real life situations. I hope to visit Seattle someday so I can see the flying fish at Pikes!

Chapter 2

Concept and Brief Discussion:

Teamwork: The book describes teamwork as, "the assignment of work to groups of employees with various skills who interact to assemble a product or provide a service " (p. 35). Teams are used often in organizations as a way to give decision making power and authority to its employees. Work teams often do things that managers traditionally do such as, selecting new team members, scheduling work, and coordinating work with customers and other units of the organization. Teams can be very effective in the workplace and can motivate employees by making work more interesting and significant to them. With the advancements in technology, some teams can function with members spread out in different locations. These are called virtual teams, and they rely on communications technology to keep in touch and to coordinate activities. This type of teamwork can reduce costs for the employer. Teams often have a leader and other assigned roles to its members. Effective teamwork requires good communication, hard work, and members who are able to share a vision to accomplish great things.

The Hook:

You are assigned to work on a team whose goal is to reduce costs in your department at the hospital. What are the roles of the team members? How will you balance accountability for the team? How will your teamwork affect others in the organization?

Key Points to Elicit in Discussion:

Teamwork can be a valuable tool to empower employees and unite individuals to accomplish strategic goals. Effective teamwork can lead to positive change or production in an organization. As team members fulfill their roles with a shared vision and hard work, success will follow. Weak links in a team can bring down morale, burden other team members, and lead to mediocre results.

Facilitative Questions:

How do you approach team members at work or school that fail to perform to expectations?