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.