Communication and Involvement

Employee participation is when the workers take part in the tasks at hand without having much of a say, on the other hand employee involvement is when they are included in decision making this motivates them more because they have a say in the task that they are working towards.
Organisations are now using social networking sites such as facebook to make employees get involved. such as one organisation using facebook to allow graduates to get to know each other before starting new jobs within the organisation, this is a good thing because it means that they are able to know each other before working together, meaning they are more comfortable at work as soon as they start. it also means they are involved in the knowledge of the company because the websites also may include information of the company, also websites such as twitter may broadcast what the company is doing and give employees updates without being at work. this makes the staff feel more involved with the company and keeps them motivated knowing more about the company they work for through the simplicity of where they speak to their friends online.

Reward

John Lewis reward its worker each year by giving them a percentage of their pay as a bonus from the profits. this differs from other organisations because its a public limited company. it wants to reward its employees to keep them motivated year after year. this ensures that it is fair by giving all employees the same percentage of bonus.
if the company underperformed then less of a bonus would be given to everyone even the chief exectutive meaning its always fair.
its an advantage to give higher bonuses to higher people in the hierarchy because they need to stay motivated in order for the company to perform better the next year. although i think giving them a larger bonus in comparison to the rest of the employees may be seen as unfair and demotivate other employees.

Performance Management

The university measures my performance by marking me though my assignments throughout the year, my lecturers are there to help learn the necessary information in order to pass effectively. my personal tutor is here for me to feel comfortable and able to have someone to talk to if uncomfortable with my lecturers.
I think what makes an effective mentor is someone that challenges what the person being mentored offers to insure they are constantly questioning for the best solution, also someone with a lot of knowledge in a certain area. it is important to also realise that they are mentoring.
Someone who has mentored me in my life is an old teacher at my sixth form, she was my tutor and teacher, which meant i spent a lot of time with her a week, she noticed they i occasionally struggled with tasks and so helped a lot with guiding me through my entire time at sixth form. she really affected my life because i began to learn from her a lot me and questioned ehr constantly to gain more knowledge.

Selection

A panel interview is when you have people on the board interview the potential employee, these are good because you are able to learn quickly what you need to in order to select the right candidate. the bad thing is that the person being interviewed may feel under pressure and may not be able to express why they are a good choice for the job because they may feel interrogated. Selection tests are when an organisation analyse potential employees by asking them to complete a test, these are good because they are easier than the interview process and learn more about someone more quickly. their bad though because its a lot of paperwork, and the candidate may not be able to express themselves well over pen and paper. portfolios are a good way to hire someone in more of a graphic company, this shows the employers what the candidate is capable of and if it is the good taste of the company. the bad things is you may not be able to see the full potential of some ones work through just a few work samples.

I once had a group interview for a job in a jewlery shop, having a group interview means that everyone feels more relaxed and so are more likely to feel comfortable answering questions. the negative thing about this type of interview means that everyone is constantly being compared to each other, one girl was constantly talking meaning the quieter few were less able to contribute to the interview. i dont think it was an effective job interview although it may have been a good social gathering.

RECRUITMENT

Internet recruitment has become a popular way to recruit new staff for business websites like www.monster.co.uk are some of the most popular. this sites layout is simple and easily accessible. its easy to use and find your way around it to job opportunities that the user may be looking for. 
A campaign on the website that caught my eye was a sales account manager, the reason it caught my eye was because it expressed the yearly amount the person who applied may earn. this interested me because i think its a great motivator for someone looking to earn money.
the advantages of online recruitment is its easier for people to search for a wide range of jobs, also for the recruiter to see a whole profile of each person more easily. its a quicker way to apply for different jobs with easier ways to offer your CV, this means its easier for the selection process to go through applicants, and offer options an interview after the selection process on-line.
the drawbacks are that someone may be exaggerating because they think on-line recruitment isn't as formal as normal recruitment selection processes. also the company may not have a clear image of who they are selecting and some people may be given un equal opportunities because they haven't been interviewed properly face to face.

Equal Opportunities

Equality is how a company makes sure all employees have equal opportunities and doesn't judge them on how they are different from other employees, diversity is how a company insures they are fair to employees by having a diverse work force, such as having different sexes and races throughout the employee work force.

Age legislation insures eaual opportunity is given to everyone at any age, although this may have an impact on older workers if the company want a younger approch to the objectives, this could also have an effect on younger people, as older workers are more experienced and may be seen to be more appropriate for certain jobs, search as within the management and director roles. an organisation can give younger people more of an opportunity to gain experience within the boardroom roles. the legislation may also have an effect on older people before they are ready on retiring. if a company want to replace an old employee before they are comfortable to retire, then this legislation would give them more of a chance of staying longer before retiring, instead of replacing them with someone younger when the company feel appropriate.

Teamworking

At univeristy on a group assignment me and my team worked really well to ensure we had a good quiality assignment handed in on time. using different teamworking theories such as Tuckman i think we developed well as a group.

Tuckman's Stages of Group Development

First discovered in 1965, this theory was built around the effectiveness of team building and leadership. This theory revolves around the STAR team performance model, looked at later in this report, research shows that groups have to ‘evolve’ in to a team before being able to work together well and efficiently.

 

After working on this assignment together i think tuckman really showed how we worked as a team. when we first started we felt optimistic on the task ahead, followed by the storming phase where we had disagreements and arguements about how and what we would do with the assignment. but once past that we headed up to the perfomring stage where we were able to hand in an excellent piece of work. i think this shows how a group really can follow a theory in order to work as a team.

Personality

Nature is how someone was born, their genes from their parents. making them who they are naturally. nurture is how someone may have effected themselves through their life with education and other forms of learning skills and knowledge.
Nomothetic approach is to do with what personalities we share with others, and idiographic is to do with the personalities we have of our own, what makes a person unique. these can be important in a work place to have a lot of similar personalties in order to not clash and cause less conflict, but also to have people with uniqueness. this important to keep and organisation running because it means theirs more ideas and opinions.
I took an online personality test on the BBC website, which showed that my personality is low in most of the 5 traits that best describe the human personality. My openness, conscientiousness, extroversion and agreeableness are low meaning i am not very open to new experiences, although i'm not very dependable on others, i also like my own company more than others occasionally, and shows that i'm not very sympathetic and considerate to others. lastly my neuroticism was in the medium meaning i dont respond much in stressful situations, but may worry when in unfamiliar situations.

I think this test as achieved a very good reflection on my personality, although i don't think it is completely accurate, and no one can be as simple as six traits, but for me it did well, as well as my flat mate who took the test with me, and achieved very accurate results to do with her personality.

Perception and Communication

When i first started at university my first perception on my lecturers were considered strict, as i continued my judgement appeared to be wrong. lecturers at university are as helpful as they need to be, i think my judgement was built upon my expectations of sixth form, and so hadn't had time to realise that university was about me finding my way and helping myself learn, the lecturers were just there as a starting point to help me find my way. they communicated clearly with me through lectures and helped me learn the basics for my assignments, in a way that laid out enough help to know how i should continue with studies. the article i looked at was 'How to improve staff communication'. it helped me realise that next year i will know what to expect and that i need to avoid my first judgements and just follow what i need to do.
With in university people need to be able to (3) engage the people. this is important in lectures at university in order for the students to learn as much as they can from lecturers, if the students are engaged into what the lecturer is saying then they are more likely to take in what is said, and use that on their assignments to ensure the best possible grades. (5) keep the personal touch. if students and the university are on a personal level the communication between them is much more relaxed and students will feel much more comfortable with working at the university. (7) measure your results. if the university took more time measuring the the results of the students and pushing those who struggle a little more then the communication may be increased when the students feel more comfortable and able to talk to the lecturers about help if they are struggling.

Enterprise week

Bucks New University hosted an event over reading week called Enterprise Week in which it held speeches and talks about different business’s and ideas about business. It was extremely interesting and informative to the students who attended. Two of the events attended during the week included a talk by the owner of the baby food brand ‘Ella’s Kitchen’, and a man who built an empire in the world of radio and recording. Both had different views to how businesses should be set up and how it should work. Each event lasted no longer than two hours. The week helped a lot to see how others gained way into markets that already had strong competitors, and they helped open the students’ eyes into thinking they too could have a chance at being an entrepreneur as well known as the people that came to speak to them.

I attended two talks which were held in two separate places around the university grounds. ‘Ella’s Kitchen’ was very informative to me because it made me think that i two could come up with an amazing product that would make competitors know that i was a threat. I benefited from him because he told me and the other attendees that just being that bit more initiative and adapt to the market that bit quicker than the competitors you will grow as fast as his company did. This benefited me because it made me think that i could actually achieve my goals as he had done. The other was a man speaking about how he made his company grow from working with his competitors which benefited me because he told us about how he used his old employers to help achieve his goal in making his own company. He told us a lot about every detail of his company and i felt like i had really gotten to know about the business and that i too could build one from scratch just like how he had done.

Power and Conflict at Work

Conflict is when their is a disagreement either within a business, i.e. two managers not agreeing on the same path for the business, or externally, with competitiveness disagreement between two different businesses, i.e. a supermarket causing conflict between them and more local shops.


When i worked for a punting company in Cambridge, their was always a lot of conflict between other companies, such as vandalism to boats, and competitiveness over customers. strategies to end this conflict was to allow less people to work in areas to avoid the competitiveness, and often company's would form alliances to avoid the destruction towards the boats. although the industry is a very conflicting and competitive place, so these strategies don't completely stop the conflict but did help prevent it a little.



Power is the ability of one person influencing the behaviour and attitudes of others, meaning it isn't just leaders and managers who can use power.
Sources of power can be; Legitimate power, from a formal position. employees are influenced because they accept the authority of the position of the power holder.An example of this is managements power over the employees that work for them. This power is most common in any business. Reward power, is when an employee is influenced by power in order to be rewarded by the employer. An example of this may be when an employee is given an opportunity for a promotion and so works harder to achieve it. Coercive power, is when an employee is controlled to avoid punishment by the employer. Example could be is the worker is threatened by being fired and so tries to avoid it by working harder and reaching the expectation of the power holder. Expert power, is based on the persons skills and expertise in an area. An example could be an accountant informing management of recent transactions within the business, and sharing their knowledge to help management change certain targets.



Their are five main strategies for resolving conflict. The first one is Avoidance. this is sometimes the best strategy, often time will fix the problem, or trying to fix it yourself will make it worsen. although avoiding the problem can develop less trust in management. the second strategy is Accommodating, this is a strategy that rarely leads to the conflict being solved. although it can help solve the immediate problem, but the main issue still may remain. Next is Forcing, this is when the manager forces the other side of the conflict to accommodate. This can be a good long term solution, although it can be competitive and sometimes aggressive. the manager tries to force what they think is right onto the opposite group, but this can end in the problem worsening and cause more anger. Compromise is often the best way to help with conflict. although it leaves both sides feeling as though they lost if the manager decides the compromise.   Lastly, Problem Solving can be achieved in order for both parties to feel equal. they must agree on cooperation not competition, trust, status deferences can be minimized, and mutually acceptable solutions can be found. A mutual decision is often the best way to solve conflict as both groups will agree on it in order to work. however this can only work if both parties agree on the same interests.

Leadership

Management is a roll assigned to someone who is able and better trained than the people below him/her and is able to make decision and is more responsible than the workforce. Leadership isn't as official, someone in the workforce can feel as though they could take responsibility to help the group/team reach goals.

The Managerial Grid is based on two behavioural theories:

• Concern for People – This is in which a leader considers the needs of team members, their interests, and areas of personal development when deciding how best to complete a task.
• Concern for Production – This is in which a leader focuses on objectives, organisational efficiency and high productivity when deciding how best to complete a task.

Using the graph to plot leadership ‘concerns for production’ versus ‘concerns for people’, Blake and Mouton defined the following five leadership styles:

Source: http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/apple.html an archive of the Apple founders/inventors.
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak co-founded apple in 1976 and since have been considered revolutionary in the in the computing industry. they are strong leaders with their approaches to dominate markets. they were able to run successful businesses through out their careers and became multimillionaires through their leadership skills. together they became two of the most influencial inventors and leaders of the home entertainment/computing industry. the article discusses how they were able to overcome many obstacles in order to maintain a reputation for their successes.


Leadership is extremely important within the business environment in order to run businesses smoothly and successfully high up people must be good leaders, knowing their customers and their products well in order to stay afloat in the competitive environment of running a business.

Organisation Culture

Culture is all about how a company can create an atmosphere using different management techniques to create a personality for a business. It is to do with how employees share values in the workplace. Such as punting in Cambridge, we use culture to make customers feel welcomed and happy, by trying to stay traditional to Cambridge and its history we make an atmosphere for people visiting the city wanting to see its architecture. If we were not enthusiastic about the job, the culture of the business would not attract customers.


Handy's view on culture is split into four main groups, which he explains to be how different a company can be using the different cultures.

A power culture in his theory is described as a 'web'. this culture is normally found in small familly business's, reflecting concentration of power in a family orientated operation. strict responsiblitys given to personalities rather than expertise creating the power structure, or 'web'. for example, a corner shop.

Role culture is sometimes stereotyped as portraying bureaucracy. the triangle at the top is when decision making takes place. the pillars represent the workers who put decisions into actions. the strength of the business will be shown in how strong the employees are in the pillar area of a company. Handy states that your job description will be more important than your skills and abilities in this culture type. performance past the job description is not needed. for example, a large enterprise.

This culture is seen a lot in research and development activities as they are much more dynamic. they are always changing and creating temporary task teams to keep future needs maintained. expertise and information is very important in this culture. their is close connections between each department shown by its 'net' like representation. this means that the organisation can see change occurring quickly and are able to adapt to these changes.

this culture isn't really used for business's, but more for self-help groups or communities, etc. it has rejected the idea of a managerial heirachy. organisations that use this culture collectively make decision together as a group. it is more for meeting needs of the members, and not for a 'getting the job done' culture.

it is difficult to suggest what type of culture an organisation may be using as all managerial roles may have completely different values, and ideas on how to get a business to flow.


In conclusion i think that these four cultures are a good outline of how a business can function and use values to work.

Improving Staff Performance

The different motivation theories are content, and process. The difference between them are the internal and external factors affecting how well workers do their jobs. Content theories look at the surroundings of the staff and what motivates them and keeps them happy. Process looks more at what staff can do for themselves, and how HRM can assure the workers are self motivated.

I chose to look at the John Lewis organisation because they seem to be able to motivate staff strongly. primary research shows that they treat staff really well, by giving them good breaks and lunches. a friend of mine work for them, and they seem to really enjoy working their, which means they are well motivated. John Lewis is a partnership company which means they give their staff the shares in the business. this means the general public can not buy shares into the company, and means the staff earn bonuses through shareholding.

John Lewis motivate their staff by including them in decision making to give them a sense of responsibility in the business. They also receive a bonus throughout their year, this is because John Lewis considers all staff shareholders, and so gives back some profits to its staff in the form of a bonus. This keeps staff motivated because these bonuses are increased on different aspects.

The first thing that is made clear is their views on motivation and happiness of the staff:

(taken from the JLP Jobs website)

The website also states that the company is unique in its Human Resources approach, and i couldn’t agree more.

John Lewis also uses Goal Setting as a way of motivating people, first used by Locke and Latham.  By setting targets and goals for the staff they feel like they have something to work towards to keep them motivated. Such as in John Lewis, their goals may to be to earn a certain amount each day. And if staff are able to reach the goals (which should be a challenge yet reachable) they will see their work more important to the company and be well motivated.

I found that if staff are well motivated more work will get done, and i think process and content theories have a good range of ways to do so. I found it interesting reading about them in my books, because i think i could use them myself in real life to keep myself motivated.