Personality week11

                    Personality                                           week 11

Nature and nurture are two different things. Nature is something that is inherited and that cannot be changed. It is something that is inherited from the parents and it is God gifted. Nature is something that we cannot change because it is from the day we are born. Whereas nurture is a different thing that means that humans can adapt behaviour from their surroundings and their personality is developed from the surrounding environment. Like if the environment is good then the personality will be the same like of those people around them. But according to me personality is from the start and it cannot be changed. Like when twins are born they live in same environment they eat same they wear and drink same but still the is a lot of personality difference. This is just because the environment can effect a person but can’t change the personality.
Nomothetic approach is same as of nature as it also claims that personality is largely inherited and resistant to changes. Whereas idiographic approach of personality matches the same as of nurture. This means that in this approach personality might change with the surroundings.

http://ponderosatcchs.wikispaces.com

There were five things that were tested in the personality test:

Openness: which measures the artistic sensitivity in this I scored 3.1 out of 5 that was low. So the personality test gave the answers that I’m very practical, reliable, traditional and very realistic way of thinking. He also said that this kind of personality is in demand in case of hardships as its practical and capable personality. In hardships the more the realistic way of thinking is the more accurate will be the future plan as this kind of personality is reliable so majority of members will support them.

Conscientious: reflects how well we plan and exhibit self-control. I scored 4.1 that was a high score which showed that I have a personality that makes me organised, reliable, rule abiding, self-controlled, good planner and don’t get distracted from the work I’m doing. The results showed that this kind of personality is the employers dream. This means that the employee with such qualities are in demand by the employees as they are reliable and work according to the laws.

Extrovert: is linked to positive emotions and energy. I scored 3.3 which is a medium score. In this it showed that this kind of personality is comfortable meeting new people and enjoy social occasions. And personalities like this have a positive outlook on life. This score shows that I am of very friendly nature in real and I accept all the things in my surrounding.

Agreeable: how much we care about feelings of others and how much we trust them. 4 out of 5 is not a bad score but still this personality finds easy to get along with people and are usually sensitive to feeling of people. I think people like me who get score high in this one can get easily trap in emotional things as we are sensitive by nature and we start trusting others very quickly which is indeed a very bad habit.

Neuroticism: is linked that how we perceive threats. Personalities like this are likely to be comparatively level headed about perceiving threats. Such personalities deal easily with all the conflicts and threats that are being received as my answer was medium so it proved to be just ok kind of situation.

On the whole the combination of score shows that such a personality can result in a powerful work ethic and a will to succeed. Personality test took a few seconds and it showed the results that how my nature is and how I adapt changes in the new environment. I believe whatever that was in the result of personality test was write and matched with my personality.

http://www.bbc.co.uk

Conclusion:
Every individual is unique in personality and might develop some skills with the passage of time. Some social scientists say that whatever the personality a person has is from the day he was born and it remains the same. On the other hand there are few social scientists who say that people adapt from their surroundings and they do whatever they have seen people doing around them. On the other hand I will say personality test proved to be very informative as it told me everything that what kind of personality I have and how I will behave in future when I will get a job.

References:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/whatamilike/index.shtml Accessed on 11-05-2011

http://ponderosatcchs.wikispaces.com/file/view/masks.jpg/121453021/masks.jpg  Accessed on 11-05-2011

Performance Management Week 22

Performance Management                           week 22

I recently had an appraisal at KFC where I work. I think the team works very well, the managers communicate very well as well. I had a brief induction and then was trained for the job (taking orders and serving customers) and I worked under supervision for the first week where I was being monitored by the supervisor.

After the first week of work was over I had a meeting with the manager who went through the checklist with me, told me about my progress which he said was very good and I have a bright future if I continue the way I started. My manager was very happy with my work and praised me which boosted my morale and confidence and motivated me to work well and do well in the future. I think the key to my success was the help I got from the management because they went through the cultural aspects with me as I am an international student and come from a different country. The management told me you must always meet the customers demand, must always keeps the customers happy, if you think you cannot meet their demand politely excuse yourself and call someone who can (manager, supervisor). I was told in the UK fast food is very popular and everyone consumes it from students, to busy workers and also busy families.

I think the most important and effective skills that are needed to be a mentor is to have knowledge, understanding and experience. This is because if you are going to teach or guide some one to be successful or how to do something you must have practically gone through it yourself in order to explain it to someone else. I also think if a person has struggled in life it makes them stronger because every step is crucial and they know how to cope through hard times. I think a person should always work with the thought expect the worst and work for the best that way they will always try harder. On the other hand I believe that there is a mentor inside every human who makes them think what is write and what is wrong but it’s us who usually adopt the wrong means instead of doing work by good means.

http://www.daveblackonline.com/mentoring.jpg

There have been 2 people who have been my mentors and they are my parents. They are also my friends, they've always taught me discipline in life and have always said “it is your life, do what you want be what you want but always remember who you are and never forget at first you are a human being.” I will always remember this, now I am an international student and have come to the UK from Pakistan to study and I always remember what my mentors have taught me. Especially my dad he used to tell me every aspect of life that how to deal and react to different situations. My dad had always been my source of knowledge and guidance. He was highly educated and I was too much impressed by my dad and his personality. For others he was a leader and for me he was a friend, a mentor and he was a source of knowledge for me. I always wanted to be like my my dad highly educated and very influential too others.

I am on my own in the UK no one is guiding me, helping me, motivating me or even keeping an eye on me. I remember what my mentors have taught me,now I’m on my own I am grateful to have been given such mentors who have taught me how to be a good human being. I think a person behaves what he has been taught or what kind of environment he has grown up. Mentors play an important part in ones life because if someone gets a bad mentor he might get into wrong things at an early stage of life so its very important to have a good mentor so that you know the difference between good and wrong. 

Conclusion:
After reading this topic I have known the importance of mentors that how they impact on ones life. Apart from this, this blog has cleared up my mind that how we develop our nature and how we accept others as our mentor as they have a great influence on us.

References:
http://www.daveblackonline.com/mentoring.jpg  Accessed on 11-05-11

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/entrepreneur/article3778514.ece  Accessed on 11-05-11

Equal Opportunity week 16

Equal Opportunities                                  week 16

What is the difference between equality and diversity? Equality means being equal, everyone is equal in the sense we are human despite different backgrounds, cultures, religion, race and sex. We all should be dealt with equally. Equality can be made or can discuss in many ways as equality means to be fair enough with everyone even if he is your friend or enemy.

http://thumbs.dreamstime.com

Diversity is almost as diverse as subject itself. Diversity means accepting different things like people working at a same place but with different background, different colour, different cultures etc etc. Diversity is an involvement with the wider community and a better understanding of society. There are many leaders who spent their whole lives in fighting for the acceptance of Diversity and in the list of those leaders Nelson Mandela is one of those who spent their life in telling people to accept diversity.

http://vator.tv/images/attachments/010310090941HEAD_citizenship_diversity.jpg

So basically equality concentrates on the fact people should not be discarded by employers or anyone because they might be different to someone, while diversity concentrates on the fact that it is good to have people from different ethnic backgrounds, religions, communities, age groups as this will bring more skill and strength into a team.

The age legislation act means an employer cannot discriminate against employees or potential employees because of their age. In this current world where competition in markets is very high, the fact is that the majority of younger generation thinks the older generation is useless and vice versa. Stereotypes are younger people think older people are past it and don’t know what to or how to be successful in the current world and older people think that young people are just trying to show off fake intelligence (degree certificates and hold no significant sense on work or decision making.

Two ways on how employees can cope with these in my opinion is first of all be fair in the work place and not make redundancies because of age. Companies think that there work is done slowly and can be done more efficiently if they hire someone young and experienced. Many firms are handing redundancies to older workers as the government announced after a specific date this will not be allowed to be done. Secondly I think firms should get younger people to work with older people, this can break the barrier in my opinion because older people have loyalty, sincerity and dedicated experience which will benefit the younger generation a lot and possibly the generations to come as it will be passed on.

I think ASDA is a good example for equality when employing people. First of all they don’t ask for applicants age, the good thing is they may shortlist a suitable application without knowing the age and after the interview will come to know the person is the right for the job or not . Also ASDA scrapping age pay schemes, the company said we will pay all employees same because they are doing the same job it doesn’t matter if they are under 16 or over 40, they are doing the same type of work so will be paid equally which is a fair policy in my opinion. This is one of the visible aspects of ASDA which can be seen in their stores that young and old people both are working on the same level as others.

According to me I think age and equality are both good things that employers should take into notice. People should not be declined a job because they are of a different religion, race, sex, age or even they support a different football team, potential employees should be judged on their potential and their skills and knowledge. But still there are many people who do not offer jobs if someone is too young or old because the employers think that they will work slowly as compared to other employees.

Conclusion:

I think by bringing diversity it will make the work force stronger because everyone is different and will bring individual specialities into work which will shine as a united team. I took the benefit of learning the factors of diversity from this topic that how it increases productivity and competition amongst employees which is beneficial to the employer as it would increase in rate of generation of new idea’s as different minds have different perspectives so as UK is a country that has mixed population from all over the world but still there are few societies in UK that do not accept others as part of them so diversity is what breaks away all such barriers and makes a step close to success for an organization. I also learnt how much equality is important nowadays while getting job or working in a company. This topic tells that organizations should treat all the employees on equality basis.

References:
http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/thumb_262/1209207805AwQBu7.jpg   Accessed on 10-05-2011
http://vator.tv/images/attachments/010310090941HEAD_citizenship_diversity.jpg   Accessed on 10-05-2011

Participation and Involvement week 26

Participation and Involvement                             Week 26

Employee participation is a process in which employees are also involved in the decision making process rather than just acting as puppets who act as they are ordered to. Employees can just be involved in decision making when they are given authority or empowerment. Empowerment is a method that involves passing down the authority to perform tasks to workers. Empowerment goes further away, by allowing workers some degree of control over how the task should be undertaken. This is also termed as delegation of powers. Delegation involves passing down of authority to perform tasks and take decisions from higher to lower levels of organisation. It should be remembered that it is only the task that is assigned to the subordinate but the final responsibility rests in the hands of the manager. So employee participation is the involvement of employee after they are given delegated powers.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com

Whereas Employee Involvement means that every employee is unique in nature and each employee means a lot to the company. It also refers that every employee is important for the success of the business as they are working hard to achieve the goals that are set by the organisation. Each employees’ input is valued and respected by the management of the company and each employee is involved in the day to day running of the business. Employee involvement is something that makes the employees feel that they are of too much worth to the company and the company really needs them which eventually results that the employees are highly motivated.

There are many differences between Employee participation and Employee involvement. Employee participation is something in which power is delegated to employees and they can take part in decisions whereas employee involvement is something in which employee do not take part in decision making but they are shown that how important they are to the company and how much company values them and their hardwork.

As I’m using Facebook only so I just looked about Microsoft that how it is using its page on facebook so I just found out that they are providing information to the people about their new products and services that are out for selling in the market. Apart from this Microsoft is also using it as a medium to promote its goods so that people get to know what they are working on what are the company’s future or upcoming plans. Microsoft is using its page on Facebook to keep its employee up to date as well by posting news that are running in the company. The page also shows a link to the history of the formation of Microsoft that how it was formed and the changes came as the time passed. Apart from Facebook there are other social websites that are also used as medium to provide information are twitter, orkut etc

These social networks are used because of huge audience that is using such social sites which lets people to look for information when they are free rather than searching on other websites. These social website pages are updated with every news as this is the only attraction to people.

References:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/career_and_jobs/best_100_companies/  Accessed on 9-May-2011
http://www.facebook.com/Microsoft 10-May-2011
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6AM-kb0mkbAFrqbnmSkJ3eGgHzrs5CwxB_lAE8luMkARh_PvtYF2mAEXDSZMpX7NJM7ZGb576xovet0h0-b0-SP9GrgLl02SGEgWC-xHfik8wKCm5nuwzZDI5mFSJy6MHv075qWZ5xh-h/s1600/Class+Participation.jpg Accessed on 8 May 2011.

Reward week 23

Reward                                                  week 23

The organization with whom I’m familiar with is Volvo. The reward the employees in many ways in order to motivate them.  There are two types of rewards that are given by Volvo, one are financial rewards and second one’s are non-financial rewards. It’s very important to reward employees who work at their best and who work efficiently and effectively at the tasks which they are given by their managers. Giving rewards to employees motivates them through which the productivity of employees’ rises. Here are some financial and non-financial reward given by Volvo to it employees.

Financial Rewards:
Piece Rates: this the term used when the pay is given according to the pieces or the level of output. Which means that the higher the pieces the higher would be the pay. But there are high chances that the quality might be compromised due to the quantity but still to avoid this Volvo has set its standards.

Commission: this is given when a certain amount of sales are met and with that the target pieces are also made for that specific period. So Commission is the extra money paid to the employees as the sales are increased.

http://www.avonconnects.co.uk

Performance related Pay: this is the pay that is totally based on the performance e.g. it is just given when the certain target is met.

Time Rate: it is usually called as overtime. Overtime pay is more than the normal pay but this is just given to employees who are active so that production and quality does not effect.

Fringe Benefits: these are usually for the high ranked employees like managers’ who get company car or house etc free from the company till they are the employee of the company.

Non-Financial Rewards:
Empowerment: this method involves passing down the authority to perform tasks to workers. Empowerment in Volvo goes further, by allowing workers some degree of control over how the task should be undertaken. This is also termed as delegation of powers.

Team Work: it is established fact that workers perform their duties more effectively if they were given a chance to operate in form of a group. Volvo is famous for this as it highly appreciates teamwork. They employees at Volvo work as a cohesive unit and pursue goals successfully. Moreover, this practice makes work enjoyable and less monotonous.

http://www.ceridian.co.uk

Job Enrichment: this is a non-financial reward given to senior and experienced employees at Volvo that allows them to work with greater independence and hold a more authoritative position in the company. Such arrangement is very helpful in making an employee more responsible and confident, and also enhances his overall motivation level.

It differs from different group as Volvo appreciates teamwork so employees are divided in different groups so the group that performs the best gets more pay due to commission and the supervisors are also paid more and receive more bonuses as they are senior than other workers and so the manager gets the most of the bonuses as he is the senior most amongst all of them.  According to me this is fair because everyone is getting what they deserve and every gets for his/her hard work. I think company I quite fair with everyone as the teams which meet the targets will get the bonuses.

Chief Executive Officers (CEO) is the senior most officers of the organisation. They belong to the top management, in many cases they may also be the owners of the company. They get their own certain amount from the profits of the company, which are known as salaries plus the bonuses they get. To decide that CEOs should be given bonuses even when they underperform is difficult as every employee of the company must get a pay for the work they have done. If they are not given an incentive to work harder, their productivity and efficiency might deteriorate for the coming time as well and the company might further suffer through losses because of that. Getting pay is the right of every worker and i think CEO should get incentives may be a little so that he gets motivated and may bring new ideas to the business due to which the company might progress in the near future.
If CEOs are paid large bonuses even after the company has underperformed then it is really unfair with all the other employees as well. And the company again would never be able to succeed because of being unfair. Other employees will be demotivated due to this as they would think that their hard work is not paying of because they wont be getting bonuses if company is not earning profit.

References:
http://www.avonconnects.co.uk/servlet/JiveServlet/showImage/38-8159-4346/rewards.png Accessed on 7 May 2011
http://www.ceridian.co.uk/hr/images/applause1.jpg Accessed on 7 May 2011
http://www.volvogroup.com/GROUP/GLOBAL/EN-GB/CAREER/Pages/career.aspx Accessed on 8 May 2011

Selection Week 20

Selection                                               week 20

This blog is about the selection process for an organisation and the three selection methods I choose are:

Interview: interviews are usually a one to one with interviewer and interviewee and at times the interviewer is accompanied by someone. The whole reason for an interview is to for the employer to speak to a potential employee and talk to them. So the employer just wants a formal/informal talk with the potential employee to ask open and closed questions to assess the body language, confidence of the applicant.

http://www.elec-intro.com

The positive thing about this process is the fact it is a face to face discussion between two potential colleagues to discuss a possible job contract. And also to check whether the person is capable of delivering the output that the company expects or not.However the negative aspect is that interviews can often go wrong easily with interviewers like not making interviewees feel comfortable and making them feel nervous, asking too much closed questions or even using an inappropriate tone. Interview should be done in a way that the interviewee is in a normal condition and interviewer should make them feel relax so that they can show the best of themselves.  

Tests: are held mainly to test the applicant. This is when an applicant has to fill in answers on a sheet, where the applicant may get a choice of multiple choice answers or their opinion. Tests are generally held to test the applicants’ skills, knowledge, confidence etc about the job. The reason an employer uses this method is to assess how suitable the applicant may be and to check what they would do in different situation and what their point of view is about the company and the related skills for the job.

The positive about this is that the employer will get a good insight of the applicants’ potential abilities to succeed. Employer will also get to know that what kind of thinking the employee has got and how his behaviour will vary in different situations. The negative is the applicant may easily lie and put in answers that will make the applicant look good. Apart from this the employer will try not to show the real himself if he is not putting the answers correctly but later on he might get fired due to the fraud he had done with the company as hid decisions in future might cause problems.

Assessment centres are occasionally held, it is a selected panel from an organisation to take short listed candidates through different tasks and offering the job to the person they judge the best the job. They put a group of people in different situations to check how they behave and how well they are at certain things. Like they will do tasks that are teamwork oriented, some those are related to knowledge, some that are related to skills and some that reflect their personality etc.

http://www.urthebrand.co.uk

The good thing about this method is the fact employers will be able to see their potential employees in action that how they perform in different tasks so that employer can choose the best out of all of them. These activities will reflect the real insight of the employers which they won’t be able to hide in so many activities as those activities will show what skills they all have got. However the problem with this is that some people maybe shy or even nervous in these cases and will not perform to their best ability so the panel of judges may not see the best in the candidates. Apart from this people might do more to what they are in order to impress the employer and by doing this they might be ignoring the team work and that over confidence might lead them to a wrong way.

I applied for a job at cineworld and I was quite happy when I received the call for an interview, to be honest I was sure that I will get this job because I was very well motivated and I had a bulk of knowledge about movies which made me think that im the perfect guy for such a job. So I went for the interview and I saw there were around sixteen people for the interview. They divided us into groups of four and gave us a topic to write a story on, at first I was like what kind of interview is this then our group made a success as we won that activity and as a reward our group got free tickets for a movie. Later they asked us to ask and talk to the guy next to you and at the end they called for an individual interview. Next day I received a call that I was not chosen as a part of team member for cineworld. I think for me the interview was really very effsctive as this was the first time I went for such an interview so it was  a new experience for me. I learnt that its never just you who has to do all of it or its never you who will get the credit its always the team effort that gives an effective output and its always the team who is rewarded when you are working in a team. Apart from this I also got the thing that one should never be too confident as over confidence got me lose that job.

I am familiar with Anglian Home Improvements and Zenith Windows (sales companies) as my colleagues work there and I think the selection process could be improved. The organizations listed above will advertise a vacancy and will hire anyone who turns up for the interview, no real training is given for sales and when they see the employee is not as to what they expected they will sack them even though it was the employers who did not ask relevant questions. So I think interviewers for the above organizations should ask questions that will help them assess the employees’ confidence and also maybe run a role play. If not possible the employer must give some training related to the job they have to do so that they can meet up to the expectations of the employer in the near future.

Conclusion:

The selection process is important when an organization looks to employ people, they should conduct the process appropriately and make sure they get the best out of their potential employees. Selection process is very compulsory these days as most of the organizations are doing it so that they do not have to look for a new employee in the near future.

References:
http://www.elec-intro.com/EX/05-13-14/Interview.gif Accessed on 7 May 2011
http://www.urthebrand.co.uk/images/assessmentcentres_467x242.jpg Accessed on 7 May 2011

Teamworking week 13

Teamworking                                         week 13

At school we had to give a presentation in groups of three on the recession in Europe and its affects all over the world. I would say we applied the Belbin theory within our group, although there were only three of us in the group which obviously means the three of us could not take more than a role each. But what we did was picked a role each and tried to put our best into it. One of the member was very creative and he had a lot of knowledge as compared to the others in the group, so he was the one who gave the ideas and suggestions. The second member collected and finalised the required piece of work that was needed and later he explained all the work in points to the whole group so that no confusions could be left behind. The third member piled up all the work and jotted all the points inform of slides on PowerPoint so that the presentation could be delivered in a way that everyone gets attracted to it. We were all satisfied with the work because we all knew we put in equal effort into the work as we all had done it together so our team work and advance planning shows that we applied Belbins theory which tells the ways to avoid future problems.

http://www.istockphoto.com

 Though we were a small group but everyone had some qualities. One member of our team was action oriented as he was well disciplined; task oriented and was a good finisher. The second member was people oriented as he was committed to team goals, he was a good listener as he was getting all the knowledge and he was the one who motivated the team that how well we all were doing. The third member played Cerebral role according to Belbins theory as he was highly creative, hardworking with lots of knowledge and he was the one who used to take crucial decisions

According to the theory of Bruce W. Tuckman there are four stages of group development; Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing. Adjourning is also a stage but it is after the work is finished.

http://www.theflyingdoctor.nl/blogs/media/tuckman.jpg

Relating my group to these stages:
Forming is a process in which group comes together and start to get to know each other and further plan out the tasks that who has to do what. So on the next day when we were given the assignment we had our meeting in which we all had casual chat to get to know each other and then we started planning our assignment. We planned everyone’s role that who is responsible for doing what work. So this situation exactly matches with the first stage.
Storming is the stage when group acquires some sense of security as they clear up the issues of what they should be doing. In our next group meeting we sorted everything that who is the group leader and what role each one of us has to play.
Norming is the stage when group decides that how they are to operate together. We sorted the barrier of communication by exchanging our cell numbers and our email ids so that we could tell and ask what we all are doing so that we could inter-relate all the work. We also motivated each other when anyone of us brought a good idea or did a good piece of work.
Performing is when the group produces what it has gathered together. This is the last stage and it was the day before the deadline when we finished all the work and helped out each other if there were any confusions. Our group gathered all the work and we all discussed how it all went for all of us.
Adjourning is the final stage when the task is finished and everyone shares his/her feeling that how well it was. So after submitting the assignment we all had a good chat that how helpful the information was in the assignment and how much we all enjoyed during our meetings.

‘’Management and Organisational Behaviour’’ by Laurie J. Mullins

Two companies out of hundred top companies to work for:

The best company to work for I think is Microsoft. They are enjoying their success in the whole world just because their teamwork n hard work is paying off. Their strategy is that the owner Bill Gates selects employees by vision that how they will prove to be a success for the company. Not just this Microsoft sets targets for its employees which are obligatory on them to accomplish. At the end of every year the employee is seen as the least motivated or not goal oriented is fired from the job so this makes the employees more motivated to their work.
               
The second best company according to me is Blue arrow which is a recruitment agency. Teamwork plays an important role in the day to day dealing of the company as they have certain jobs to which only specific or appropriate people can apply so they help the people and the company to choose the best out of the people with related skills needed for the job to be done. People have to register with the Blue Arrow if they want to seek employment from the company. So Blue Arrow has lots of branches in UK and are well established as they are helping both the company and the employees.

References:
http://www.theflyingdoctor.nl/blogs/media/tuckman.jpg  Accesses on 16 April 2011
http://www.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/2055573/2/istockphoto_2055573-teamwork.jpg  Accesses on 16 April 2011
‘’Management and Organisational Behaviour’’ by Laurie J. Mullins. Ninth Edition (Prentice Hall). Page no 318

Conflict Week 6

Conflict                                                week 6

It was one of our coursework assignments in the university in which we were sorted in a group of four where we all were very motivated as we finalised our topic after our first group discussion. We planned our next meeting on the very next day so that we could set the goals for our group so that no conflicts can be seen in our group. We decided what role each person was going to play and what were the duties of everyone to bring out the best from our group. The next week we met and we brought the information we all had gathered about that topic but two of the team members came empty handed. One had an excuse that he was too busy and the second one said he just did his part but he couldn’t bring. So we just avoided the first thing that could have turned into a conflict. Later on we planned the next meeting but just two of our members were there so we thought the problem was of communication. We came to a conclusion that how to overcome the problem of communication which was leading towards a conflict so we shared everyone’s cell no and email id. Things were all going smooth after that but we were unable to achieve our purpose that was to get an A grade but still we all tried to give our best but still some problems were seen due to which we couldn’t achieve our goal.

Different Sources of Power:      
Coercive Power: this is the power that is seen with the ability to bribe, to threaten people and to use physical force to let people do something you want. This can be seen In case of getting jobs where people usually bribe the selectors to get that job so that even the people who deserve more are rejected. This is seen in most of the developing countries where corruption rates are very high.

Referent Power: comes from within the person as it solely depends on the interpersonal skills of the person due to which people follow them and respect them. Referent power is also based on the personal relationships and friendships that are found in working situations. Example can be taken in case of political leader whom people follow and due to their charismatic leadership they get the work out of people they want.

Expert Power: it is based on the expertise held by an individual so it is similar to that as referent power as it originates from within the person. These are the people or group of people who use the power of their skills and knowledge they possess to get what they want. This is seen in case of highly educated people who can get the job where ever they want to work with their own terms and conditions this all because of their skills and knowledge.

http://www.healthylifestylesblog.co.uk

Reward Power: is the ability to influence behaviour like managers have the power over the distribution of organisational rewards such as pay, promotion etc so in the same way the employee have the power of the promotion of supervisor and his rewards as their feedback make changes a lot. This is also called a 360 degree feedback system. This is seen in organisations such as KFC where a person gets promotion only by the positive feedback of the employees.

‘’Introduction to Organisational Behaviour’’ by Richard Pettinger

Five strategies to overcome Conflict
Goal Oriented approach: goals should be clarified before starting the work. Like role should be finalised which means everything should be planned that who is going to do what which will avoid any misunderstandings.

http://www.missionarycare.com

Communication: is the transfer of messages from the sender to the receiver through a medium. Whereas an effective communication is the one in which message is understood by the receiver and acted upon through a feedback if required. This was also one of the problems as I discussed above were seen in our group although some measures were taken but still the problem lied in our group was a better communication. A better source of communication is also needed to overcome any conflicts.

Compromise: in my eyes this is the best way to overcome conflict. It is always better to sit face to face with whole the team and discuss all the problem and then some should be the ones which should be dealt with and on the rest both sides should compromise.

Group Activities: relates that the group should also casually sit together and discuss other topics so that they get to know each other. The group should try to have some kind of activities so that they may get comfortable while working with each other rather than meeting in a very formal way. So group activities or casual meetings also avoid conflicts.

Avoidance: this can sometimes be the best source to overcome conflicts as a person totally avoids others views and thoughts just not to start a new conflict but it usually does not happen but sometimes this is the best solution.

‘’Management and Organisational Behaviour’’ by Laurie J. Mullins.

Conclusion:
There are many minor things which we usually ignore but still we never know that how big they turn out to as a big conflict. It’s always better to sit face to face and discuss all the problems so that a group can avoid conflict and achieve its goals that it has set for itself. On the other hand power also means a lot when getting the work done by the time and with the own choice but still the power shouldn’t be used where it is not needed as it will prove to be an unethical and sometimes unlawful offence.

References:
‘’Introduction to Organisational Behaviour’’ by Richard Pettinger published in 1996 (Macmillan press LTD). Page no 210-212
‘’Management and Organisational Behaviour’’ by Laurie J. Mullins. Ninth Edition (Prentice Hall). Page no 101-103
http://www.healthylifestylesblog.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Power-of-Blogging.jpg  Accessed on 5-04-2011
http://www.missionarycare.com/images/conf1.gif  Accessed on 5-04-2011

Recruitment week 18

Recruitment                                                  week 18

I viewed a certain online recruitment sites like Reed, Monster, Fish4jobs etc and found how they impact on people. Basically these online recruitment agencies are the organisations that maintain a database comprising of all relevant information on individuals who are looking for jobs and businesses where vacancies exist. These agencies make an effort to arrange meetings or act as a communication channel between the two parties and charge commission of their services. Apart from helping companies and employees these online agencies also help people to make their CV. They tell the ways in which to improve their CV making skills in order to meet the professional skills for applying a good job. These online recruitment agencies are used as a platform to advertise jobs by different companies. These recruitment sites also help in some common interview asked questions and so they try to provide every single aspect that is related from finding a job to calculating the salary for the job. Whereas the layout is concerned all the recruitment sites have similar things but the layout style is different from others. Every recruitment site has a different layout to attract people to register with them. Recruitment agencies like Reed have offices in almost most of the areas in UK so that they can help people to get local jobs and this thing proves to be highly useful for individuals who intend to work in their hometown.

http://www.economicalinformation.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Online.gif

The recruitment campaign that really interested me was of Awaaz radio that is a new 107.4FM channel recently started in High Wycombe. Awaaz Radio is a new radio channel which had many vacancies at the time when I was interested in it. They were advertising the jobs by leaflets and on other radio channels. Not just this they had posters all over the High Wycombe and other near areas to attract people to apply for jobs. This was the channel specially started with intention to entertain the Asian community that is living in or in the surrounding areas of High Wycombe. Many people are in UK from different parts of the world but majority of them are Asians who moved have moved to UK. So my intention was to do something for my community by any means and this was the time I had the perfect chance to do so. The motto they had on their posters was that this is the time to do something good for the Asian community so that got me very interested as my thinking was same as that written on the poster. 

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRG9dS0OOYZHjFAk-IUIETFCbZOlZyRDMVuxbLzll1Zp4VVjzJRh2QLF6WUaAimp7q5nT7SrhkgaygYYsAdcUoYU5QxSFpWrTRfeZsoZorUqWZ1UXoCTQSAhDL2pcXJWs2ABmAKZxOF56V/s1600/awaz-107.4.jpg

Five advantages of online recruitment:
Cost Effective: as the company who has to advertise a job has to spend a lot of cash on advertising the job by different means like on newspapers or by leaflets etc but online recruitment agencies have saved that cost as they charge very low as compared to the other advertising methods.

Less Time Consuming: by advertising the job on recruitment agency sites it saves time for the company as well as for the people. Company saves time as the just advertise on the online recruitment site and so later on they get the response that they are looking for on the other hand it saves a lot of time for the people as they have to go to every place to apply for a job. But now people can apply jobs by sitting at home all they need is a computer and an internet connection.

Big Audience: there are millions of people who are using recruitment sites to apply for the jobs that they are looking for. Big audience gives advantage to the companies as they can get the kind of employee that they are looking for with the required past experience and education.

Success rate: there are better chances of success as the people can apply to as many jobs as they can and can get lucky at any one of them. Companies also get success as they get loads of CV’s from different people with different experiences in the past so this gives a sea of options for companies to choose the right employee.

Quick Response: sometimes it does happen that some companies need an urgent employee for the company so they post a job on the recruitment agency website and they might interview people within an hour’s due to bulk to application and they might get an employee by the end of the day. This sometimes happens but not usually as it depends on the time company has to get an employee.

Five Drawbacks of Online Recruitment:
Big Audience: it sometimes proves to be disastrous for both the company and the people as there will be many applications so it will be hard for the company to appoint the best out of so many as many applications might be ignored due to bad presentation of past experiences or the amount of applications.  So company might waste their time spending on looking for so many applications.

Not Reliable: means that it’s not always sure that your CV is whether checked by the company or not. It’s not sure that they will just hire someone who has applied via the online recruitment site because there are many companies which advertise their job in many ways eg newspaper etc if companies just rely on online recruitment they might miss out one of the top candidates.

Less Face Contact: this might make the company to take interview on call as so many companies do nowadays which proves that the company to misinterpret the personality as its quite different while talking on phone instead of talking face to face.

Specialized Jobs: in case of jobs that require too much knowledge and experience won’t be suitable to be advertised on the online recruitment site as this process would be done in a more suitable manner. So in case of specialized jobs companies should use a better way such as headhunting. So it is not always suitable for people who are highly skilled and highly educated to get the kind of jobs they are looking for.

Expensive: may be the candidate selected for the job might be from another country so it might prove to be too expensive to bring him in the country of origin where company is operating.

Internet: internet is now very common these days but still there are many parts of the world where still internet is not easily accessible so there might be many people who deserve the jobs better than others but still are not getting due to the unavailability of internet.

http://ezinearticles.com/?E-Recruitment:-Advantages-and-Disadvantages&id=5228230

References:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRG9dS0OOYZHjFAk-IUIETFCbZOlZyRDMVuxbLzll1Zp4VVjzJRh2QLF6WUaAimp7q5nT7SrhkgaygYYsAdcUoYU5QxSFpWrTRfeZsoZorUqWZ1UXoCTQSAhDL2pcXJWs2ABmAKZxOF56V/s1600/awaz-107.4.jpg  Accessed on 5-May-2011
http://www.economicalinformation.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Online.gif Accessed on 5-May-2011
http://ezinearticles.com/?E-Recruitment:-Advantages-and-Disadvantages&id=5228230  Accessed on 7-May-2011

Perception and Communication Week9

Perception and Communication                          Week9

The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.

Marcel Proust, “The Captive, “Remembrance of things past”

The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write stories. Stories of life. Some of these stories leave an everlasting affect on you and change your perception of life and behavior towards your relations. Friendship is one of the most beautiful relations in this world, God’s gift for His people. But one has to be very careful while choosing friends. Because people you trust most, sometimes desert you most. I have a similar story to tell you, how a dear friend of mine changed my way of thinking.

http://www.sapdesignguild.org

In my early teenage years I used to have lots of friends. And I was in habit of spending plenty of time with them, ignoring my family. For me they were the most precious asset of life. May be it was because my parents sent me to boarding house when I was too small. And inside me there was some sort of rage against my family for sending me away from themselves. I just decided in my own self that everybody can leave me except my friends. But I was wrong.

Bilal was one of my very good friends and also my first cousin. We used to stay all day together, sharing views on every minor happening of life. Whenever he needed me I was there. I used to give him preference on my own siblings. Not thinking of the fact that this behavior might be hurting them. But perhaps I loved teasing them. I had this confidence that Bilal would give his life but not let anyone hurt me. I did not know that something would happen one day and change my whole perception.

One fine evening I and Bilal were going to have dinner outside, as sitting and dining with family at home was like a curse to me. On our way I saw some villagers going in a group at the side of the road. But when I reached near them, all of a sudden two of them came in the mid of the road while chatting with each other and not knowing about our upcoming car. I had to apply my car’s brakes in emergency but even I was not sure that I would be able to save them or not. With God’s grace I saved them and myself too. My car’s brakes produced a huge sound and the men in front of me got so scared that they fell down in the mid of the road. I came out of my car to see if they r fine but they got really offended and started abusing me. I tried to explain myself but this could only add to their fury and they started beating me. I was assuming that Bilal would come out of the car and save me from these illiterates. But to my surprise he did not bother to come out for my rescue. At that time I felt that kicks and slaps of those villagers could not hurt me more than my friend’s silence. They left me half-conscious on that road. I dragged myself to car. Bilal was sitting quietly, not saying even a single word. I went straight to my own house from there. When I entered home my parents and siblings got shocked seeing me. They took me to hospital and pampered me as much as they could, not ask anything about the incident.

http://www.clipartoday.com/_thumbs/022/People/adolescents_cartoons_200722_tnb.png

This accident was like an eye opener for me. I never saw Bilal after that. But I never forgot him. Because he made me realized what I was missing in my life, love and affection of my own family. I apologized them for my behavior in the past. And they forgave me and accepted me back to the family whole heartedly.

Somebody said once that “my mistakes are my life”. I totally agree with him. I learned from my mistakes. Friends are precious but not more than our family. We cannot give them the place that is totally reserved for our beloved parents, brothers and sisters. And one more thing, now I take too much care while making friends and then trusting them. For our feelings are priceless and we should not allow anyone to hurt them.

Three ways in which the university can improve communication with the students.

Effective feedback: means here that a proper effective method should be made by the lecturer at least once a month to discuss all the issues and problems that students are going through. It should be a kind of one to one meeting so that a student who is shy can also deliver his/her views about the lecture and apart from this it will also help the lecturer to find that who is weak in that subject so that lecturer might help that student in her next lecture’s. The lecturer will also be able to give feedback to every student that what they are lacking in and what they are good it and I think this thing will motivate the students as they will be appraised for the hard work they are putting in.

Attractive activities: I feel there should be a group activity arranged by the lecturer once or twice a month covering specific topics done in past as this will help the students to keep up to date with the work they had already done. Apart from this it will also create a friendly atmosphere among the class mates as the group activity will bring all together and it will reduce the racism as well. I fell that lecturer should put people from different cultures into one group so that everyone gets to know each other and a better communication could be made as friendly discussion removes the barriers like racism.

Student Representative: I have been receiving emails regarding student representative from the university so what I think is that there should be a student representative for international students as well with whom all the international students can meet and discuss the issues that they are going through. This will not only help the students it will also leave a good impact as it will show how concerned the university is about international students and this will give the students an effective medium to talk to the management of the university for what they expect and for what they are going through.

Furthermore there are many other ways in which university can improve its communication with the students but as far as I’m concerned I think these are the most important ways to improve communication between university and students.

Refrences:
http://www.sapdesignguild.org/resources/optical_illusions/images/motion.jpg  Accessed on 5-04-11
http://www.andreadams.com/assets/watermark%20files/fight.jpg Accessed on 5-04-11

Leadership Week 5

                                                                    LEADERSHIP                                      WEEK 5



A manager is a person tasked with overseeing one or more employees or departments to ensure these employees or departments carry out assigned duties as required. Depending on the size of the company there might be a single, dual or triple management layer involved. Management can be described by the following functions and elements:
Planning: this involves setting objectives and also the strategies, policies, programmes and procedures for achieving them. Planning is primarily the job of line managers who might act upon the advice of specialist staff managers.      
Organising: managers set tasks which need to be performed if the business is to achieve its objectives. The tasks such as manufacturing and packaging need to be organised to achieve this goal.  
Commanding: managers have to give instructions to subordinate to carry out tasks.
Coordinating: is the bringing together of the activities of people within the business. Individuals and groups will have their own goals, which may be different to those of the business and each other.
Controlling: managers measure and correct the activities of individuals and groups, to make sure that their performance fits in with plans.          

Whereas, Leadership is the art or process of influencing people so that they perform assigned tasks willingly and in an efficient and effective manner. Leadership is, therefore, crucial in motivating and inspiring the workforce. It is useful to distinguish between managers and leaders. Managers have positional or legitimate power as a result of an appointment to a particular position. Leaders may be appointed or may emerge. Managers act as functionaries whereas leaders are innovators. Moreover, managers accept responsibility but leaders are known for seeking it. So in short, manager is the one who is involved in planning, organising, commanding, coordinating and controlling whereas leaders are those who are involved in handling the management and all.

http://www.mindtools.com

The country club leadership is a kind of leader who is too much concerned about the needs and feelings of his/her team member and thinks that this attitude keeps the staff motivated and makes them to work more hard but it ends up with lack and poor level of production due to lack of direction.
Impoverished are the kind of leaders who are least bothered about the need of members of team and are in no mood to guide the other colleagues to the right direction which eventually leads to complete failure of business and disharmony in the organisation.
Middle of the Road is a style that seems to be balanced but still a problem also lies in it as they are not too much concerned because of so many compromises due to which neither the production nor people needs are fully met.
Team Leader is the ideal style of leadership thought by Blake and Mutton as this leader is highly concerned with the needs of production as well as the needs of the people which altogether make a suitable and best working environment for the organisation. When employees are committed to their work as they know organisations success is purely based on their hard work so this leads to high quality level of production and on the other hand it makes the leader highly concerned to its member’s needs.
Produce or Perish are those leader who are autocratic as they just think the employees needs are secondary to the needs of the organisation. These leaders are quite strict and follow on their own rules as they think employees just work better if they know they will be punished for any mistakes. What they are just concerned is that the job must be done at any cost.
‘’Management and Organisational Behaviour’’ by Laurie J. Mullins.

Recently I worked at KFC and found out how their working environment is. At the start they all were very friendly and I thought this is the best organisation to work for but as soon the work started I was quite amazed that how these people are working without any rest for so long. We had one manager and one leader at every shift. The manager used to sit in the office and used to come after a couple of minutes just to check how things are going where as our leader was the one who used to stand and move on every task to help others. As I was the new member so I was too slow as compared to people working over there because it was the first time I was doing a job in a fast food restaurant so the leader used to stay most of the time with me on cash till. My job was to serve the customers by taking their order. Our leader was really concerned to the employees and the production which involves the serving and taking of orders. So I think the style of leadership of our leader was of Team Leader according to Blake and Mutton diagram. I think this because our leader used to help employees when they used to get tired as he asked them to take some rest and he will continue their work for that time and apart from this he was active member when he helped every area that was working slowly in order to keep the pace of the work proper.

http://www.nutmegradio.com

 The leader I like the most is Nelson Mandela as we discussed about him in the lecture that how much hardships he had to face all his life just due to the unfairness and discrimination that black and coloured people are subjected to in South Africa. Nelson Mandela personifies passion. As he sacrificed all his private life and his youth for his people, and remains South Africa's best known and indeed a superhero for his own people. Mandela participated actively in politics to oppose the apartheid movement. He fought all his life just to end the racial segregation so that the next generation doesn’t has to go through what they had gone from. His whole life is lived in the vision of creating racial equality and with only a one view of humanity as he believes that all are free to do anything and anywhere. Mandela spent 27 years behind bars as a political prisoner due to his movements and other political fights that he had gone through. But that has not left a dent in his spirit and never stopped him from continuing his struggle to rid South Africa of Apartheid. In 1994, four years after his release from prison, he became the first democratically elected president of South Africa at the age of 75 and still we can see on news that how much respect and honour his people have for him. I like his personality due to many reasons as we all still see how down to earth he is and what he has done for his people and I think not just for his people but he has set an example to the whole world to finish the racism that is ruining the minds and lives of thousands of people. The other thing I like his personality was his commitment and his aim that stayed consistent throughout the time even he was in jail or even when he had to go through hardships. He is the man of mouth as never refuses what he promises or what he says. Apart from giving examples I think we all should follow the example that Nelson Mandela has set for all the human beings on earth.
http://www.nelsonmandela.org

Conclusion:
This blog tells all the types of leadership styles according to Blake and Mouton grid and tells us how we can separate the styles of leadership into different categories. Every leader is different as he does something different for which he is well known and people do remember a good leader for decades and great leaders never die as they live in our history which we can’t regret and Nelson Mandela is one of those whom people will never forget.

References:
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_73.htm Accessed on 15-04-2011
http://www.nelsonmandela.org/index.php/memory/views/biography/ Accessed on 15-04-2011
http://www.nutmegradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Nelson-Mandela.jpg Accessed on 15-04-2011
‘’Management and Organisational Behaviour’’ by Laurie J. Mullins. Ninth Edition (Prentice Hall). Page no 461-463