Blog 9 - Flexible Working

Blog 9 - Flexible working

Identify 3 companies who offer flexible working. Try to include different forms of flexibility, eg part-time, zero hours, using contractors, working from home.

What is flexibility at work? It is ‘The ability of an organisation to adapt the size, composition, responsiveness and cost of the people inputs required to achieve organisational objectives’. (Corbridge, 2010)

In recent years flexibility at work has become very important. One type of working flexibility is part time hours. Part time hours are normally carried out by casual younger members of staff within a company. For example within Fusion lifestyle’s leisure centres, part time hours are contracted to young lifeguards generally studying at college and university. These hours give the lifeguards the flexibility to keep their work life balance in order, as well as providing that Fusion’s leisure centres will all ways be staffed as these non core members have signed contracts stating they will work a minimum prearranged number of working hours within a week/month. Part time work has been defined as being, “The number of hours worked is determined by (a) the needs of the job, and (b) the needs of the employee. Part-time employees can increase the flexibility of worked hours for instance if cover is only needed only at peak times.” (Council, 2011)

Companies such as Disney allow many of its staff to work from home. Disney allows some its staff to work from the comfort of their own home. This may be because the staff member has commitments to a child of theirs that may be newly born or suffer from disabilities. Despite these two options the most common job that Disney provide when working from home is to sell Disney vacations, as a Disney vacation planner. Disney provides up to 70% commission when working within this position. Working from home is also known as locational flexibility. Disney is also able to cope with the needs presented by generation Y. Generation Y employees are born after 1982 and are interested in money and possessions. They are also known for their motto that you ‘Work to live’ rather than the pre 1982 generations that ‘Lived to work’. The only real problems with Disney’s work form home sceme are that its employees could feel isolated. Prospects found that separation from work colleagues due to lack of face to face communication leads employees to feel isolated and vulnerable. (Prospects, 2012)

 

Hiring contractors is a modern scheme used by many local councils around the country as a way of increasing the profitability in certain industries and increases the flexibility of working hours that they can provide. An example of a council using contractors could be found in the borough of Hounslow. The London borough of Hounslow uses a major contractor to manage all of its leisure centres and facilities within the borough. The council employs Fusion life style to manage and run its leisure centres as fusion have signed contracts saying that they can run the centres at a lower cost and higher profitability than the council ever could. This kills two birds with one stone for the council as they are making more money from their facilities, but also and probably more importantly don’t have to worry about managing any of the sites as it is all done externally by the contractor Fusion lifestyle. The flexibility provided by hiring the contractors are that the council is able to avoid any un-necessary redundancies even in the world current economic climate. Another advantage of hiring a contractor is that an established contractor will have a low staff turnover, with strategic recruitment processes that create good staff retention of a diverse work force appealing to as many people as possible, without discriminating anyone.

Explain the different forms of flexibility. What are the advantages to the employees and the employers of these practices? Identify any challenges that may arise from these different working methods, particularly for the line manager

There are five main types of working flexibility:

1.    Numerical flexibility

2.    Functional flexibility

3.    Financial flexibility

4.    Locational flexibility

5.    Temporal flexibility

Numerical flexibility is when a company increases’ and decreases the number of working staff members to cope with customer demands and needs. A good example of this is when major retailers take on extra staff over the Christmas period to cope with demand.

Functional flexibility is when employees are asked to have multiple skills and work between differing jobs.

Finical Flexibility is when a company provides pay and rewards that differ between groups of employees, for example part time employees will receive different benefits compared to full time employees.

Locational flexibility is when a company allows its employees to work in different places such as at home to increase their comfort ability and help them manage their personal work life balance.

Temporal flexibility creates altering working hours to enable a more efficient use of labour. For example a company would make sales staff work longer hours during peak times of the year to improve profitability.

These type of flexibility cause line managers problems as, line managers stereotypically fear reorganising work and don’t like working above an unpredictable work force. These flexible working methods are also seen as some line managers as a way of the company increasing its powers of exploitation over its work force. An example of this would be the way in which some organisations make major reductions in the income and security of its employees. All of the methods hold key problems to line managers, as line managers are the first line of authority between the main work force and management. This means that they have to deal with, organise and structure all of these methods so that the staff stays happy and ready to work as well as making sure that the organisation runs as smoothly as is humanly possible while still turning a profit annually.

Conclusion

To conclude flexibility at work is going to have to be considered by any organisation that wishes to stay afloat. The Y generation born after 1982 have become accustom to its practises therefore any business in operation now will have to consider and cater to their working needs. A Harvard study found 82% of men between ages of 20 and 39 said a “family friendly” schedule was most important work criterion.

(“On the Daddy Track”, Wall Street Journal, 11 May 2000)

This suggests that flexibility is no longer an choice it has become part and parcel with everyone’s working life. Both employees and the organisations themselves need to stay flexible to work side by side together.

Bibliography

Corbridge, P.a. (2010) 2 May.

Council, W.C. (2011) Warwickshire.gov.uk [online]. Warwickshire.gov.uk. Available from: http://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/web/corporate/pages.nsf/Links/E96824CB0794591D8025738B005F2C8B [Accessed: 2 May 2012].

Prospects (2012) Blackboard [PowerPoint]. Blackboard. Available from: https://blackboard.bucks.ac.uk/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp [Accessed: 3 may 2012].

(“On the Daddy Track”, Wall Street Journal, 11 May 2000)

Blog 8 - Corporate Social Responsibility - (CSR)

Blog 8 - Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

Provide a definition of CSR using academic sources.

CSR is how companies manage the business processes to produce an overall positive impact on society. (Zu, 2009)

Identify an organisation from the FTSE4GOOD list or from your visit to the Eden Centre which is an excellent demonstration of CSR in practice.

The best know company in the Eden centre for excellent CRS is the body shop. ‘The Body Shop’ trades health a beauty products from face creams to bath oils and crystals. The body shop is well known for good CRS as it makes sure it develops sustainable supply chains and also engages in community based developments to benefit its workers. The body shop is so proud of its CSR policies that it has its own website dedicated to shop there good practices. One of the first CSR projects the body shop engaged in was in 1987, this was the community trade. This is when supply chains are told to purchase natural ingredients from socially and or economically marginalised sections of the world. These communities are able to provide a strong commitment to the body shop allowing sustainable development and trade of the many of the body shops products. An example of this is found in Mauritius, where 40 of all the employees at the body shop factory work despite having disabilities. As well as this the body shop developed an ethical trade program as a way of improving working conditions within their many supply chains. By improving working conditions the body shop were able to make sure none of their workers human rights were being breached. Body hop supplier all around the world are made to agree and sign up to the body shop’s code of conduct. This code of conducts is a way of ensuring that the suppliers are carrying out work while abiding by internationally recognised labour standards. This is also seen as ‘Ethical trade compliance’. These practices benefit the body shop in numerous ways. As the body shop make sure that all of its workers are protected by human rights laws and are not marginalised in any way, the body shop is able to charge more for their products when selling them to the consumers. The body shop can charge more as it can show that the extra cost on their products is not profit rather it is used to improve working conditions and help build local community projects such as schools and hospitals. When any company uses profits in this way they have a higher CSR rating and therefore more customers are likely to use their services as they know their money is being well spent and is helping others around the world who had a hand in making it. (Waterwideweb, 2012)

One of the body shops greatest CSR policies is its pre tax corporate philanthropy. Corporate philanthropy is when Major Corporation makes charitable donations to people in need. The body shop set up a foundation that it would be able to give financial support to people working at the core of their organisation. This foundation helps people who would have no chance of receiving the money by any other legal means. One of the main areas of funding that the body shop invests in is to help and fund groups working to stop the breach of people’s human rights, and groups that protect the environment and the animals found init such as the WWF – world wildlife foundation. This practice is very shroud in a business sense. This is seen by any as a way of marketing through CSR, and although from the outside the body shops intentions are good. Are they just practicing this philanthropy as a way of avoiding heavy tax bills and gaining social acceptability along the way? Wither they are or they are not this CSR in most people eyes is another positive, therefore the company benefits from this imitative as it can show the good work being done under  its foundation making their shares a greener investment to any potential investors. But more importantly any investors would be safe in the knowledge that their investments are clean and have the upmost CSR surrounding them. (Bilson, 2012)

Bibliography

Bilson, J. (2012) Corporate Social Responsibility suite 101 [online]. Corporate Social Responsibility suite 101. Available from: http://jo-bilson.suite101.com/corporate-social-responsibility-at-the-body-shop-a215660 [Accessed: 30 april 2012].

Waterwideweb (2012) Water wide web [online]. Water wide web. Available from: http://www.waterwideweb.org/the-body-shops-csr.html [Accessed: 30 april 2012].

Zu, L. (2009) Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate Restructuring and Firm's performance. In: Springer (ed.) Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate Restructuring and Firm's performance., pp.18 - 19.

Blog 7 - Personality

Blog 7 – Personality

Compare and contrast the differences between the nature and nurture approaches to personality? Include the nomothetic and idiographic approaches. Summarise with your views – do you feel nature or nurture is the dominant influence.

What is personality? There is no wrong definition of personality it is all left to personal interpretation. Personality has been described as being “consistent behaviour patterns and intrapersonal processes originating within an individual”. (Burger, 2012)

When evaluating an individual’s personality two main arguments put forward their case as to wither they have affected the individual’s personality. These two arguments are Nature and Nurture. Personality is always seen as being the nature vs. nurture debate. The nature side of the debate argues that a person’s personality is inherited threw their DNA. Whereas the nurture side of the debate believes that our personalities are developed as a direct response to our environmental conditions. Our personalities include the way that we think feel and behave.

The Nomothetic debate believes that our personalities are fixed entities. Believers of the Nomothetic approach believe that statistical studies of groups and objective questionnaires have proved that our personalities are determined by the genes that make us up. They believe that you can predict a person’s personality type from their DNA. There argument is dependent on biological data accumulated by analysing people s genetic structure. This genetic research has show that certain DNA type will portray certain personality traits. These traits also stick together; this is why they would suggest for example that a person with a confident personality would also be loud as the two personality types are similar. The main for founders of this argument are (Cattell, 2004)

The Idiographic argument about personality is closely linked to the nurture argument. The Idiographic argument believes that everyone’s personality id unique and that people and their personalities should be viewed individually as separate cases. A key belief as well is that personalities are adaptable allow a certain amount of change to them; People suggest that this is a primitive survival technique as adaptability normally creates the highest chances of survival. Idiographic believers also suggest that our personalities are influenced by social and cultural processes. ‘Kelly and Skinner’ stated that an individual’s personality was a personal interaction with their surrounding environment. (Kelly, 1997)

I personally do not side with either argument whole heartedly. I am of the belief that our personalities are an amalgamation of both the nature and nurture. I believe that our DNA would affect our personality and that there is a hierarchy in the sense that you are likely to have similar personalities to your parents as they as their genetic structure resides within you. At the same time I am a firm believer that the enviroment you are brought up in shapes the way you are as a person in later life. For example I am of the belief that as a small child you do not chose your personality you are conditioned by those around you in power to act as they want you to and be what they want you to be. The nature vs. nurture debate will never be fully solved as both arguments lack the empirical data needed to conclusively suggest that one argument is more right than the other to the extent that it is the only one considered as fact. Despite this if I was pressed to pick I would say that my upbringing had the greatest affect on the person I am today. Therefore I would have to side ever so slightly with the Nurture debates argument.

Visit the BBC website and take their personality test Include a summary of your findings about your own personality in your portfolio

After taking the personality test I have found that my personality is likely to have strengths in adaptability and responding to change. This gives me a higher survival rate in comparison to other people who do not share this same personality trait. The test also concluded that I am likely to be good at creating and innovating ideas and concepts. This means that I am brad thinking and can create opportunities and alternatives when thing are not going my way. The test also suggested that I am likely to suggest ideas and initiate putting them into practice. This is my most dominant personality trait and is the most recognisable once you have met me. My ability to suggest my thoughts then act out what I believe to be true is one of my best and worst traits as it save time and shows I’m decisive, but at the same time proves I wouldn’t be a god leader as it would be run as a dictatorship whereby other people with less dominant personalities would be automatically overlooked, wither or not there ideas were good. Despite not being a good leader in that respect the personality test suggested that I would be a good leader in the respect that my personality is good at coping with stressful situations and the pressures of setbacks. This is an important character trait within my personality as it allows me to remain focused and in control even when the odds are against me, and am in a position that is not winnable, I will still keep my cool and rely on my other traits such as my strengths in inventing new solutions and putting them into practice to sort out any problems I may or may not be in.

Bibliography

Burger, J.M. (2012) Personality. In: Personality. 8th ed., pp.3-5.

Cattell, E. (2004).

Kelly, S. (1997).

Blog 6 - Communication

Perception and Communication

Describe a situation from your own experience where your initial perception of someone was incorrect. What led you to make that initial judgement and what did you discover later which indicated that this perception was incorrect? What would you do differently to avoid making this judgement again?

In the first two years of secondary school I personally took a disliking towards a boy named Alex. When we initially meet I found it difficult to get along with him for various reasons. My initial impression of him was that he was ‘sly’, and that he was not the kind of person I would normally associate myself with as I found him untrustworthy and un-loyal. The main turning point in me making my judgment around him was based on an incident involving myself Alex and another boy. Without going into detail an incident happened whereby I felt aggrieved by both of the boys so I chose not to associate myself with them. This was a bad judgement call as I later found out that Alex had taken no part in the incident that had previously offended me and that in fact he had defended me. I also found out that he is a very shy person, which is why he finds it hard to speak up against more dominant personalities. Upon finding out all of this information fate put us together on a school trip ware by I had to room with him, since that holiday we have been close friends and even though we attend different university’s remain close and still see each other on a regular basis and go away on holidays together with other mates in our summer holidays. My initial judgements we similar to how Robbins defined our perceptions of people. Robbins stated “Perception was the process by which individuals organise and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment” (Robbins, 2010). To avoid making misjudgements like this in the future I will make sure that I am as fully informed as I can be when assessing a person’s character before making any final judgments about them. I will have to properly perceive the situation at hand and not jump to any conclusions if possible to allow a fairer representation of the situation under judgment.

Read the article below on “How to Improve Staff Communication. Using the recommendations from the article, identify 3 ways in which the university can improve communication with the students.

Reading through the article about Unilever was very useful in deciding three ways in which Buck’s University could also improve it communication skills, with regards of dealing with students.

Firstly Bucks new University could set a similar challenge to Unilever’s ware by lectures are given the challenge of performing a presentation to a group of school children, and then let the children rate the lectures performance and their overall understanding of what was taught to them. This would enable lectures to prove that any one new to the subject will be able to understand what is taught to them despite having a smaller background knowledge. It will also test at it did in the Unilever case wither or not university staff are able to explain them self’s clearly, concisely and most importantly in a simple manor that students will be able to understand and apply when asked to. By asking lectures to break down there thought process in to bite sized chunk’s the university is making sure that anyone can learn in their education establishment. Although upon attending university you are normally required to have previously achieved a base academic level allowing your entry to carry on studying, this method would help new students to break into the course and its subject matter far easier. Instead of worrying that student are not able to understand what is being taught to them, the university would be safe in the knowledge that all communications between lectures and student is clear and concise avoiding situations of little understanding. This communication development would help everyone in the respect that students will feel more comfortable and learn more increasing their happiness and intern hopefully improving their grade averages. This help the university as is gain higher status and ranking.

Another way in which Buck’s university can learn from Unilever’s experiment would be to follow in Unilever’s footsteps with regards to PowerPoint presentations. Getting rid of them completely as Unilever did would not work, as they are so commonly associated with teaching. To note there isn’t one student or lecturer that hasn’t come across Microsoft’s PowerPoint within the classroom setting. To stop using it would be very short sited and would most probably cause more harm than good. On the other hand if teachers were encouraged to use PowerPoint less this would increase communication skills no end, and would hopefully put an end to the student saying “Death by PowerPoint” after attending lectures that are completely dependent on the program. PowerPoint lower’s communications between students, as they are asked to focus on one board for hours on end. It also stops the need for any discussion between class members as the lessons are pre written and structured. But by lessening the use of PowerPoint the university creates more flexible lessons ware group discussions can be encouraged and the teacher has more of a chance to interact with the students on a human more personal level.

The final thing the university should do to improve communications between students and itself is totally stop the practice of unimportant blanket email. Not only are these emails annoying and unconstructive, they give the impression that the university does not care enough about the student to recognise that they are an individual part of a larger group. Blanket email’s are very impersonal and normally are seen by the student body as spam and so are marked as that in the email accounts. This is a major problem as some blanket emails are very important to everyone they were sent to, this ambiguity cause numerous problems. By stopping this practice the university would be able to seem more caring and have better communications with its students.

Conclusion

In conclusion humans perception is very important in decided the outcome of initial relationships with other people. People perceptions can change as quickly as they are decided, and are affected by all manner of external factors such as the environment and time of the situation. As well as this it is important for university’s to stay in contact with its student body and have clear channels of communication. These channels can be improved by stop sending blanket email, testing lectures communication skills and by cutting down the use of PowerPoint’s that don’t get to the point and boar many students.

Bibliography

Robbins (2010) [Powerpoint Document ]. [Accessed: 29 April 2012].

Blog 5 - Conflict

Conflict Blog 5

Define in your own words what conflict is.

Conflict within an organisation is a situation of friction or opposition between two or more employees resulting from actual or perceived differences or incompatibilities. Conflicts such as this are generally reoccurring between the same people as a means to hinder fellow employee’s progress. (Mullins, 2012)

Identify any group you have been a part of (work, social, voluntary, educational etc) that has not been able to achieve its purpose. What were the conflicts within the group and what strategies were used to deal with the conflict.

The leisure centre I work for was desperate for more staff over the summer to keep the building open. To solve their staffing issues my work hired agency staff to come in a cover shift that could not get covered by original leisure centre employees. The resulting staff that were employed caused all manner of conflicts in the short space of time working at the centre. One agency staff member in particular causes the moth aggravation. I myself was involved in a conflict situation with him ware by he was persistently rude to the other members of staff and the regular members of the public who use the swimming pool. This caused a conflict between us as I have a very good relationship with some of the more senior users of the pool as I have known them for over four year, and do not like to see them being mistreated. I took it upon myself to confront him about his mannerisms, as a senior member of staff I explained to him the consequences of his actions and that unless he changed his ways he would get sacked. My line manager also spoke with him and unfortunately he failed to change the way he behaved at work with resulted with him being sacked. This is a clear example of how Brook’s would define conflict. Brooks stated that “Conflict is apparent when at least one party perceives that it exists and where an interest or concern of that party is about to be or has been compromised or frustrated. (Brooks, 2006)

Describe French and Raven’s different ‘sources of power’ and illustrate each one with an example

French and Raven’s different sources of power surprisingly consists of five main types of power. These are:

1.    Coercive Power

2.    Reward Power

3.    Expert Power

4.     Legitimate Power

5.    Referent Power

(Raven, 1959)

Some people consider Morgan’s other sources of power in 1996. Morgan suggests that there were 6 more sources of power and these are

1.    Control of budgets

2.    Control of rewards

3.    Persuasion

4.    Rules of procedures

5.    Physical presence or threat

6.    Charisma

(Morgan, 1996)

Coercive Power “is the power to punish or recommend punishment” managers have coercive power when they criticise their staff. For example a manager has coercive power when a cleaner forgets to dust down at the end of their shift and the manager criticizes their work ethic. “Coercive power is the negative side of legitimate and reward power.” (Richard L. Daft, 2008)

Reward Power “comes from the authority to give rewards to other people”. An example of reward power would be when a supervisor gives a lower ranked member of staff a pay rise due to good performance within the workplace. (Richard L. Daft, 2008)

Expert Power is “power resulting from a leader’s special knowledge or skills regarding tasks performed by its followers.” An example of this is when a lecture passes on their knowledge of a particular subject to a student, the student then uses this knowledge to enact a previously unsolvable to them task. (Richard L. Daft, 2008)

Legitimate Power is “the authority granted from a position in a organisation.” An example of this would be when a base staff member is selected t become a higher rank such as a team leader. The other base staff members now all realise that they must adhere to the team leaders authority as they are of a higher rank within the corporate structure, giving them legitimate power. (Richard L. Daft, 2008)

Referent Power “comes from a individuals personality and characteristics. These characteristics are respect and admiration which followers follow as they try to emulate and eventually become the leader within the organisation.” (Richard L. Daft, 2008)

Conclusion

In conclusion controlling conflict is very important part of running a successful business with a happy work force. Company’s can use human resource services as a way of ensuring that employees have the chance to air grievances and have a grievance policy and procedures. As Mullins said conflict is friction between two or more member of an organisation resulting from actual or perceived differences or incompatibilities. Unless these conflicts are resolved the likely hood of work being done and targets being meet are greatly lessened. French and Raven have also written theory's on conflict determining the six different types of power within the workplace. All these types of power are legitimate and affect staff moral and motivation.

Bibliography

Brooks (2006).

Morgan (1996) New Sources of Power.

Mullins (2012) Conflict in the workplace.

Raven, F.a. (1959) Sources of power.

Richard L. Daft, P.G.L. (2008) The Leadership Experience. In: The Leadership Experience. 4th ed., pp.363 -365.