COMMUNICATION AND INVOLVEMENT

Employee participation is the process of employee being involved in decision making process. There are two methods of employee participation:

1. Representative method means that employees are not directly involved in communication and decision making. They have only their representatives which are dealing with workers views.

2. Direct method means that workers are directly involved and are participating in decision making. (Farmer M, Peop & Org, 2008)

Employee involvement is creating an environment in which people can have an impact on decision making and actions that affect their jobs.

How can organisations involve employees in decision-making? Think of three examples to illustrate practice.

To involve employees in decision making an employer could:

1. Inform workers about problems in the organisation and organise meeting for all those who are interested with involvement and finding best solutions for their company.

2. Send to workers a letter with questions (survey) or suggestions in what areas should the organisation be improved. It is very good to get feedback from the employees.

3. Through a meeting choose some ideas proposed by employees and try to make them work. In that case staff could feel important, appreciated and involved in the firm.(About.com, 2010)

How people using social networking sites? Youtube is the answer!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOuKHJJe5-A&feature=PlayList&p=DCEB0D454C658760&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=36

REFERENCES:

1. About.com, 2010,Part of the New York Times Company, Human Resources, Employee involvement –online source

Available from:

http://humanresources.about.com/od/glossarye/a/employee_inv.htm

(Accessed 03 May 2010)

2. Farmer Marilyn & Yellowley Wendy, People & Organisations, Buckinghamshire New University,2009, London, Page 40-41

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

Performance Management is the facilitation of high achievement by employees. Performance management involves enabling people to perform their work to the best of their ability, meeting and perhaps exceeding targets and standards. Performance management can be coordinated by an interrelated framework between manager and employee. Key areas of the framework to be agreed are objectives, human resource management, standards and performance indicators, and means of reward. For successful performance management, a culture of collective and individual responsibility for the continuing improvement of business processes needs to be established, and individual skills and contributions need to be encouraged and nurtured. One tool for monitoring performance management is performance appraisal. For organizations, performance management is usually known as company performance and is monitored through business appraisal. (BNET, 2010)

Appraisal at work. When I used to work for Bupa Care Services, once a year my manager would call me for an appraisal and every two months for supervision. As a line manager, I needed to do the same for my staff. At the appraisal my manager would ask me questions about my performance. I could receive feedback on areas in which I should improve. I had a team of ten people working with me and I needed to answer questions about their performance too. My manager had rated my performance between 1-5 and my score was always 4. Every time on the appraisal I was getting target to achieve for the next year it was very hard to reach manager expectations because during the year she was changing her decisions too often and it was difficult to follow her ideas.

Mentor is person who has skills and experience to help other people, by giving advices or listening. A mentor leads as an example and is a role model. He/she can help to find ways to deal with immediate difficulties as well as helping to plan a long-term career strategy. Skills which mentor should have are:

· Analytical skills

· Experienced in areas

· Good at listening

· Good teacher

· Is approachable with any sorts of queries ( Business Times Online, 2008)

When i was sixteen I started my six form education in completely new school. I was lost and did not know anyone and because of that I had a school mentor who helped me through my two years of education. She introduced me to students with the same interests so that I could make friends quicker. She guided me trough whole study and helped me to build my confidence. By having a mentor I never felt alone. I knew that I could get help whenever I needed. My mentor taught me to always think positive and to be confident.

Performance management will not succeed without mentors because mentoring is one of the biggest way to develop staff and is a great way to help organisation to achieve their goals. A good mentoring program will provide motivation and inspiration.

REFERENCES:

1. Business Times Online, 2008,Business/Entrepreneurs: mentor can tune your skills-online source

Available from:

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/entrepreneur/article3778514.ece

(Accessed 02 May 2010)

2. BNET, 2010, Business dictionary-online source

Available from:

http://dictionary.bnet.com/definition/Performance+Management.html

(Accessed 02 May 2010)

EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES

EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES

Equal opportunity means to treat people with fairness and dignity. All employees and applicant for employment should be treated equally without discrimination in term of race, age, disability, sex or religion. (Macmillan Dictionary, 2010)

Equality means that all people from the UK should have an education, employment and health services regardless of their views or race.

Diversity means that people are different from each other but they should have the same opportunity to perform and fulfil their potential.

Margaret Mountford stated that more women should get promotion in different companies. Women are not on the same level as men and to show that companies treat men and women in the same way they employ more women just to show there is no discrimination. She also stated that women cannot be promoted because their will sooner or later have children therefore they will not be able to run their positions properly. Margaret also stated that when it comes to team work men are more organised and can finish given tasks quicker and more effectively than women who are spending more time on unnecessary details such as decorating their desk and will not succeed. I think that women and men should have the same opportunity to get higher trainings or to be promoted to higher positions. These days many women decide to take on a career and that is why women should be able to get the same standard of trainings and later on, decide whether they will choose family or career.

Age Legislation October 2006

Legislation on age is scheduled to be implemented in October 2006 and it will cover employment and vocational training. It will cover people of all ages and it will affect you.

Age will be the final strand of equality legislation to be implemented and it will be enforced alongside existing legislation on race, sex, disability, sexual orientation, religion or belief. (is4profit, 200-2010)

This legislation was posted to those companies who started during employment to get rid of the elderly employees who are in their opinion not good enough anymore to do the job. Employers want to have young and strong team of workers which will not go off sick very often and will work longer hours. Due to this legislation it is harder for employers to terminate someone’s employment because of their age or disability.

Due to focus, that employment policy gave early retirement of elderly workers i.e. their exclusion. Some authors simply call such an approach early retirement culture. In the 1970s, 1980s and in the beginning of the 1990s, as one of the measures to reduce unemployment, especially unemployment of the younger generation, it has become predominant in nearly all European countries. (Hrcak, 2001)

Companies should take to the consideration that if they’re going to employ only young people who will give them training and guide them in their career. We should always remember that those youngsters will get old as well and new young people will come. This cycle we are not able to break.

In my research I discovered that there are many companies which have policies and treat people equally. For example Tesco and Asda large organisations with high employment. Both of the companies’ give equal opportunities to their employees, friendly and supportive staff is always ready to help. Human Resource takes good care of their employees. Those companies are helping people to achieve their goals. At recruitment there is no questions about religion, sex, believes or age there is a place for everyone and with every background, skills and experiences. From my experience I would like to say that in those companies the policy and legislation is respected at all stages.

Personally I think that every company should treat people with fairness and dignity because all of us should get opportunity and possibility to achieve something in life. Companies should not discriminate and divide people to those who are young or old, black or white.

REFERENCES:

1. Hrcak, 2001, Portal of scientific journals of Croatia-online source

Available from:

http://hrcak.srce.hr/index.php?show=clanak&id_clanak_jezik=47427&lang=en

(Accessed 03 may 2010)

2. Is4profit, 2000-2010, free business advice and information, age discrimination legislation-online source

Available from:

http://www.is4profit.com/business-advice/employment/age-discrimination-legislation/age-legislation-october-2006.html

(Accessed 03 may 2010)

3. Macmillan Dictionary, 2010, definition of equal opportunity-online source

Available from:

http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/equal-opportunity

(Accessed 03 may 2010)

IMPROVING STAFF PERFORMANCE

1. Explain the differences between content and process theories.

Content theories explain the specific factors that motivate people. They explain what drives human behaviour and what motivate them. Process theories explain how motivation influence behaviour through that process and how it helps people to achieve their goals. (Enzine Article, 2010)

2. Company examples-Find two organisations and identify all the ways in which they motivate their employees. Use primary research and/or secondary sources for example by looking up an organisation such as Innocent, BA, John Lewis. This information can often be found within the careers section of the website.

Tesco PLc is well known chain of Tesco stores.The history of Tesco began from 1919 when Jack Cohen sell surplus groceries from a stall in the East End of London.First profit was £1 ans sales £4. In 1924 name “TESCO” was created from initials of TE Stockwell partner in the firm of tea suppliers and CO from Jack’s surname.

The way Tesco motivates its employees is the same in every store, simply by

Staff trainin Discount for staff purchasesClub pointsFlexibility of working hoursFree uniformHolidays/holidays vouchersOpen opportunities.

Because Tesco stores is a large organisation the employees does not need to have much expeerience to be a sales assistant or warehouse assistant , tesco offers free training in different sectors needed by employee, what kind of motivation Tesco can offer and are the expectation from the staff are included in Tescos’s policy.

"Tesco is a great place to work - whether you're planning the layouts of our aisles, sourcing products in Thailand or improving our supply chain in Turkey."( Tesco, 2010)

Bupa was established more than 60 years ago and is one of the largest companies who provide care to elderly people. They also have a strong international presence with around 10 million customers in almost 200 countries and more than 55 000 employees. They employ people in variety roles including home managers, nurses, carers, administrators, catering staff, activities organisers, maintenance personnel, housekeeping staff and more. They offer flexible work which includes full time and part time or bank, jobs share and working from home. For example parents are allowed to work from home if their young children are off school.

Bupa is committed to the principles associated with the Investment In People (IIP) initiative and has successfully upheld the IIP standard in several parts of the business. Staffs are encouraged to take part to the full extent of their capabilities and there are various career and personal development initiatives in place to help with this. Buba motivates their employees by:

· Promotion

· Pay rise

· Awarding letter

· Recognition

We are committed to ensuring our staff, have the best possible environment in which to work and develop. (Bupa, 2010)

3. In addition, take one of the organisations from your research above and review which motivation models they appear to use in practice. Are there any gaps( e.g. is the organisation satisfying Maslow’s physiological concentrate on providing Herzberg’s “hygiene factors” but not the 2motivators”?)

According to Maslow’s pyramid of needs Tesco went up to the much higher level of needs. The physiological needs are met at very good level, because Tesco employees have their changing room with cabinets and lockers for everyone, also they can use restaurant at store to have their free meal, the stores are located near local transport, so is very easy to get home. The environment is safe because there is lots of a Cctv camera as also the security staff is monitoring whole store 24/7.People like to work at Tesco because they there is a mixture of different people, age, religions but all of them are treating each other with respect, which leads to the self respect and confidence. Tesco employs people for different positions and if someone wants to get to self actualisation need, there is a lot of opportunity to do that, but that depends of their skills and experiences from previous employment. At the Herzberg’s factor theory all the hygiene factors are satisfied. Work at Tesco seems interesting but I do not think that everyone can be excited about their position, there is a lot of responsibility and no every one can cope with that.

It is so many ways and theories to keep employees happy and motivated. Everything depends of the size of the organisation as also of their management. If the managers are not trained enough, they will not have a idea how to motivate their employees, which is very important to develop and perform well.

REFERENCES:

1. Bupa careers, 2010-online source

Available from:

http://www.bupa.co.uk/careers

(Accessed 02 may 2010)

2. Enzine Articles, 2010, Home/Self improvement /Motivation Theory by Richard Romando-online source

Available from:

http://ezinearticles.com/?Motivation-Theory&id=410700

(Accessed 02 may 2010)

3. Tesco Plc, 2010,career-online source

Available from:

http://www.tesco-careers.com/

(Accessed 02 may 2010)

TRAINNING AND DEVELOPMENT

Training and development are the most important tools in the organisation which should be always improved and performed. Training and development is necessary to increase:

· Employees motivation

· Effectiveness in processes

· New technologies

· Methods

· Innovation in strategies. (Foot and Hook, 2009)

Introduction program for the graduates should include:

1. Day one Administration process. New employees should check the record of their personal details, such as: address, bank account, national insurance number, phone number. Very important is to sign a contract and give policy and legislation. It is helpful if that person could have shown round the company and to be introduced to everyone.

2. The next step should be to give the new employee training about:

· Health & safety

· Fire training

· Show the IT system used by the company

· Explain their responsibility

· And all trainings needed for that position. That could take three to four days, so the new employee will not be disorientated and will exactly know what to do or do not do.

3. For the rest of the week the new person should work with someone who is working in the organisation on similar position and could guide the beginner and help him/her to learn new job. There should be introduced supervision and appraisal system, so the new member of the firm will exactly know what is expected from him/her.

There should be opportunity for the employee to ask questions and to know who the line manager is, so if there are any problems and the new person will not know how to resolve them, should always have someone to help. It is very important that they feel comfortable and confident about work they do or decisions day make.

Company induction program can help an employee to settle into the organisation easy and to perform at their best. Without trainings all the development in organisation could stop. That is why it is essential to provide to new employees well organised induction program which can help them to develop, perform and achieve their goals.

HR PLANNING

Human resource planning is a process of different activities which in result shows the consequences of those activities. Human resource planning is the term used to describe how companies ensure that their staffs are the right staff to do the jobs. Sub topics include planning for staff retention, planning for candidate search, training and skills analysis and much more. (Human Resource Planning, 2002-2009)HR planning includes wide range of jobs: planning, recruitment and selection, training, career progression, retirement, strategy, competition, globalisation, legislation or development. There could be a lot of problems which companies might face if the organisation will not do HR planning. For example one of the problems could be to find skilled employees suitable for the positions inside the firm. There is also a risk that the employees will not have a proper training or their performance could be very low.

Alec Roger psychologist from Australia had created in 1952 seven point person specification (Foot and Hook, 2009) The seven points are:

1. Physical make-up	health, physique, appearance, bearing, speech (exclude discriminatory features such as accent)
2. Attainments	education, training, experience, achievements
3. Intelligence	Cognitive ability, learning capacity, analytical ability, ability to synthesise
4. Special aptitudes	e.g. construction, equipment, dexterity, mathematical, IT ability etc
5. Interests	intellectual, practical, active, social
6. Disposition	maturity, self-reliance, compassion, humour
7. Circumstances	geographical mobility (excluding discriminatory factors such as age, children, marital status etc - unless specifically relevant to job)

(Bola.biz, 2010)

Person specification for a university lecturer:

· Good honours degree

· Appropriate IT skills

· Smart looking person

· Adaptable to change

· Demonstrate team working and interpersonal skills

· Commitment to working within university procedures

· Passionate about teaching

· Intelligent

· Good in psychology

· Experienced in teaching

· Qualified for the position

· Believe in people

If the Waitrose were considering opening new store in High Wycombe the HR person will need to ask:

1. Who are the main competitors in this area.

2. People‘s income in the area, Waitrose is more expensive then Asda.

3. Population and demographic.

4. Amount of training might be required.

5. Availability of labour in the area.

REFERENCES:

1. Bola.biz, 2010,Business learning achieve, Alec Rodger, Seven point plan-online source

Available from:

http://www.bola.biz/recruitment/rodger.html

(Accessed 01 May 2010)

2. Human Resource Planning (2002-2009) Strategic and business planning, free resource centre-online source

Available from:

http://work911.com/planningmaster/Human_Resource_Planning/

(Accessed 01 may 2010)

SELECTION

Selection is the next process of recruitment. Once the company receives all Cvs from people who are interested in the job vacancies, it is the time to choose relevant candidates for an interview.

Three methods used in an organisation are:

1. Interviews, because they are the most known and common selection method used by the companies. Face to face conversation gives an opportunity to the applicants to talk about their skills and previous experiences which might impress the potential employer to help to get the job. That depends on the applicant if he/she has excellent communication skills or if they had a good day.(Businessballs,2010)

2. Assessment centres is the second well known method of the selection which includes different types of team work such as doing presentations or written activities, which could help decide if the person is suitable for the specific position. That may only be effective when used in large firms, where managers are too busy to take care of whole selection in recruitment. It is better for them to actually eliminate candidates, so there will be fewer candidates for an interview.(CIPD,2009)

3. The third known method is a psychometric test used mainly when an organisation has a group of people which have similar skills. The test can measure their ability to problem solving, decision making or if the person is suitable for the position. It is a good method to compare people with the same skills and that selection could help to choose the best candidate. The only problem is that this method could be an expensive, and sometimes a waste of money.(Skills arena, 2010)

Recently I was invited for an interview. I applied for the position as a bar staff in one of the local pub. First of all I was dressed smart and had prepared myself by collecting all the information about that pub, so when I was asked of anything I was sure that my answer is going to be correct. My interview did not take a long time. I had an opportunity to talk about everything face to face and that helped me to talk about my previous experience, skills or simply show the owner that I am cheerful and always happy and that the position is suitable for me and also that he will not be disappointed. The next day, I had a phone call from the owner saying that I have the job.

I had interviewed my cousin Marta and her opinion about personality test was negative ,because she felt that this test is unnecessary , better option for her would be to talk to the potential employer and talk about job opportunity .She said that if she would apply for the position of catering assistant, what the personality test will used for? Will that improve hers washing up? She was not kin on those types of tests.

Personally I prefer the selection I had with my last employer, when people can call straight away to the companies and book the interview over the phone or receive application form by post or email and then through that selection can be invited for an interview as far as the Cv is going to be interested enough for the potential employer. I could recommend my current employer to do selection through the jobcentre. That idea could give him the opportunity to learn how the new system in recruitment works.

To conclude there is many ways to find the right people for the jobs. Everything depends of the skills and experiences of the recruiter or even of the type of method they are using.

REFERENCES:

1. Businessballs.com,2010, Job interviews –online source

Available from:

http://www.businessballs.com/interviews.htm

(Accessed 01 May 2010)

2. CIPD,2009,Assessments centres for recruitment and selection-online source

Available from:

http://www.cipd.co.uk/subjects/recruitmen/selectn/asscentre.htm

(Accessed 01 May 2010)

3. Skills arena, 2009,Solutions:Psychometric Evaluation, Psychometric assessments-online source

Available from:

http://www.skillsarenacorporate.com/psychometric-testing?gclid=CLvUobjhsaECFQ6Y2Aod7EKb9Q

(Accessed 01 May 2010)