Chapter Ten

Concept and Brief Description: Chapter Ten is a mixture of how to best let go of employees who are hurting the company and helping those who have the potential to be amazing become amazing. It talks also about layoffs and things that just happen and aren't always as a result of employees, but the part that interests me most is employee retention through helping people find satisfaction in their job. I know that not all jobs can be amazing and what everyone is looking for, but I feel that the suggestions made in chapter ten can help to make many dissatisfied employees into eager and motivated employees. Its things like meaningful work, a task that is appropriate for the person, and asking them how they feel it can improve that reassure employees that we care and that we want them to be happy. Happy employees work harder and find more satisfaction in their work, even if its not amazing.

Emotional Hook: There is good to be found in everything, it just takes effort on everybody's part to make it evident.

Key Points: 1. Knowing that what your job does means something makes a huge difference 2. The opportunity to try new things and be trusted enough to make decisions in your job allows one to feel more satisfied 3. It is important to ask employees how they feel and their advice on what could be done to help them feel more involved and important

Facilitative Question: Should pay and benefits be given more appropriately in the first place or is it better to start a little low to have something to use for incentive?

Chapter Nine

Concept and Brief Description: This chapter deals mainly with getting the most out of yourself, as well as your employees. Assessing one's self to see where you are at and what is needed to improve, then setting goals and putting forth the efforts to reach those goals. Sometimes goals can be achieved with little to no help, but for most of us it is a little more difficult than that. This chapter gives ideas, or hints, to how you can get help and what to do with it once you've gotten it. Helps are things like: Mentors, coaches, different kinds of job opportunities and experiences to make you stretch and grow. It also gives a kind of cheat-sheet on how to assess yourself to get you started.

Emotional Hook: With dysfunctional leaders, sometimes its tough to do your best, but I feel that if you have goals to keep you going and doing your best you can make it.

Key Points: 1. How important it is to make assessments of all employees, and yourself, to be able to fully understand where you are. 2. What is and how does the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator work? 3. What huge opportunities the whole job experiences stuff brings. For example: Job enlargement, Job rotation,transfers, externships, etc. 4. Dysfunctional managers. I think we have all dealt with one at one point or another, but it really brings things down and effects the whole business.

Facilitative Question: What do you do with a dysfunctional manager and how do you avoid becoming one yourself?

Upon Reflection

Feb 8th Class: Today we talked about the recruiting and hiring processes. I was very interested to learn that there is much more to it then just telling someone they are hired. We talked about making the tests and things reliable and valid. I don't think I have ever worked somewhere that has done a good job and doing this. If we ever took a test it was a one time, very random thing. It is important to find a test that you will give consistently and that will have consistancy and effectiveness to it, or whats the point? We also talked about Value. The value of having a good and effective employee and that almost always those kinds of employees come from the care and quality put in my the team of managers over a business.

Chapter Six

Concept and Brief Description: The chapter dwells mainly on the basic of hiring; things such as applications and resumes, tests and assessments, right down to interviews and the final hiring decision. There are many tests that either should or could be done to determine whether a certain applicant is qualified or even able to be placed in the job position. It gives caution about the laws that apply and must be followed and also gives great ideas on ways of getting the best candidate for your job opening.

Emotional Hook: I feel like some of the tests suggested, although excellent ideas to find quality workers, can get you in a lot of trouble if not careful. For example, the personality tests could very easily be made to look like a bias and cause problems.

Key Points: 1. The importance of keeping in close contact with those who could become your next employees. I have had times when I apply and never hear anything back, and some times when I don't hear anything for a long time, but finally get a call months later when I had already taken a less appealing job. I also feel that while being thorough in the hiring process it is also important to be fast and efficient with it. 2. Making applications, tests, and interviews all valid, reliable, and successful is important. 3. In my current internship I am sifting through resumes and realizing that the layout and content of these resumes is either an attention grabber or a total turn off. People that send in their resumes and they have filled the whole page but there are spaces and gaps galore; all to make it look impressive when really... 4. Interview types, most specifically, the panel interview. I think that legally it is the smartest way of doing interviews. I know that time is money so it isn't always the easiest but the quality of employees would sky rocket in my opinion.

Facilitative Question: What's more worth it...to spend less and have less affective ways of doing things or being a little more generous with money to improve the quality of things such as tests and interviews?

Upon Reflection

Feb 3rd class: Today was a very interesting discussion. We talked mainly of training strategy. Our guest speaker was from Tahitian Noni and works very closely with the training department. He talked about different ways to make training more effective and when you accomplish that then it shows in your business quality and success. I feel the same way; to just give a small training session when you first hire then employees come out confused and assuming that their job is really not that bib of a deal. When this happens, productivity and success decrease and cause problems for you business. It is important to understand this and to work hard and staying away from this problem.

Chapter Seven

Concept and Brief Description: In this chapter we learned all about the ins and outs of training and orienting new employees. This is very important for HR's to excel at because it is not only their job but it effects the jobs of the newly hired and the company's progress as a whole. There are several techniques and options when it comes to training. These techniques are divided by expensive to cheap, lecture learning to hands-on, informative to innovative. Each important to consider and apply.
Emotional Hook: When you look at the big picture, training and orienting new hires can be one of the most crucial tasks in the company; every issue can be taken back to the effectiveness of their training.
Key points: There were many good topics that I want to discuss with my group but the main ones are 1. Effectiveness of presentation or lecture training compared to hands-on or team training. 2. On-the-Job training opportunities, such as internships, apprenticeships, etc. 3. Evaluating the productiveness of the training session. Evaluating not only the content but the skills and techniques employees come away with and taking into the job with them. 4. Diversity training- the importance of it but also ways to make it more effective; therefore lessening the chance of issues happening later on.
Facilitative Question: How much can each company dedicate to making training the most effective? Are many of them willing to do it?

Upon Reflection

Feb 1st class: We discussed the HR planning process. We went into depth about forecasting and setting goals that help us be prepared for whatever may come. It is a risky thing to forecast and make all these changes to things you aren't even positive will happen, but necessary. We talked about how some companies try to avoid the risk by simply waiting to see what their competitors are doing. This, in my opinion, is the even riskier move. I think forecasting is an even better tool for making the company stop, reflect, analyze, determine what could be coming, and set goals to help prepare. The other companies who are waiting learn nothing about their company and follow trends specific to someone elses company.