Recruitment Strategies That Work

How are you going to attrcat talented employees? Is there any way you can cope with big boys in the industry? Read the article at workforce.

Recruitment Strategies

Arul
www.CreativityAsia

How HR practices are connected to Business Strategy?

Read the article titled 'Manage Tomorrow Today'.

How and why should we manage the people in the organisation? What should we do when managing human capital? Read the article using the link below.


Manage Tomorrow Today

How ro Write a great assignment?

All academic essays/assignments should adopt Hravard Referencing.Visit the following site for details:

Harvard Referencing

Get your punctuation and grammar right. Try the following site:

Grammar

Grammar Exercises

Academic writing & critical thinking
Learn how to write a good essay. Visit:
Writing an essay

Work-Life Programme

The following site offers information about work-life programme and practices.

CSR Singapore

Work Life practices at ABN AMRO

Visit the following link and read the documents on Work-life strategies.

Work-life Strategies

Self Improvement

We need to aacquire the right habits to keep growing. Without self improvement it would be impossible to grow and experience success in our life. The blogLifeskills4success offers a number of links and articles aimed at self improvement. Click here for details: Lifeskills4success

Harvard Style Referencing

All assignments should adopt the Harvard style referencing. Please read the document at the following link:

Harvard Referencing - Audio Presentation from USQ


Harvard Referencing

Customer Service -Getting it Right

Every business organisation knows the importance of customer service standards. Some simply stay with a practical but a powerful GST approach - Ask their employees to Greet, Smile and say Thank You. When every business start incorporating GST in their service standards, you no longer enjoys a competitive advantage. Is there a way to stand out from the rest of crowd? You have to make sure every employee at all levels are actively involved in making their service speacial and unique. Employees at all levels with differing abilities can actively participate in proving customer service. If you want your employees at all level to go for the extra mile, then ask each one to watch this video in the link provided below.

If you are keen to get a in-house customer service excellence workshop for your organisation then: Send E-Mail to Centre for Creatve Thinking. Clients from Malaysia may call: 012-3479113 as well as email for details.

Customer Service Excellence - An Inspiring Video

PBM: Total Quality Management

The TQM is seen as a competitive advantage. When organisations are unable to compete on pricing, the only option is gain a competitive advantage based on quality. What is TQM and their principles? Try the following links:

TQM

Understanding TQM

Leadership Development Plan

Is it possible to develop the leadership potential within you? First you must belief that you have the potential for becoming a leader. It is that belief that becomes the basis when unfolding the leadership potentrial within you.

A thorough self awareness of your strengths and weaknesses is the first step if you are keen to develop the leadership skills. Seeking feedback form your friends, colleagues and close family members is one way to assess your strengths and weaknesses. If you are not so comfortable seeking feedback from thes egroup, then stepping aside and learning to self relflect is another option. You should be able to identify a number of assessment tools you can use to identify your areas of expertise, strengths and weaknesses.

Complete the assessment tool below to gain a better understanding about yourself:

Know yourself

Understanding Leadership

Then start with the ledaership development plan referred in the following document:

Developing The Leadership Within You

Managing Organizational Culture

Why should anyone be bothered about organisational culture? What is organizational culture? A common shared meaning right across the organisation is generally seen as the culture of the firm. In other words that is their way doing things in that place. There seems to be a common understanding among the employees, even though not everyone understand the reasons for doing them. The rituals and work processes are simply adopted as the norm.

Read the following articles at the three links for a better understanding of the topics:

Culture and Chrysler

Understanding Culture

Comprehensive view on Organizational Culture

Relevance of Performance Appraisal

Almost all the organizations carry out employee evaluation on a regular basis. The exercise carried right across the organisation attempts to document the employees' performance using certain standard forms. Though there are some valid reasons for conducting staff performance evaluation, there are people who argues that the annual exercise simply waste valuable time. Citing the various shortcomings of the HR functions they argue that the activity be dropped completly.

Is that the right thing to do? Should we discontinue the practice of conducting staff appraisal?It would be more appropriate to identify the shortcomings of the staff performance evaluation and take corrective actions to deal with the problems, instead of simply dropping it altogether. In this way one can still take full advantage of the benefits of employee performance review. The staff performance is closely tied up to the whole range of HR activities. The overall effectivenes sof the HR functions can't be harnesses without conducting employee performance review on a regular basis.

What should be the approach? The Harvard Business Week attempts to answer the related questions about performance appraisal. Enjoy the article.




Performance Appraisal

MHR: Understanding HR Functions

Read the articles using the link below for a better understanding of the various functions of HRM.


Performance Appraisal

Workforce diversity

Employee Motivation

Managing Your Job Interview

How do you cope with a job interview? Are you prepared to do well in your next job interview. Look at the link provided. read the related stories. Don't forget to search the Internet for additional information on how to manage your next job interview.


Managing Your Next Job Interview Well

What to Wear?

Men's Clothing

What to do after a Job Interview?

Changing Nature of Workplace

The 21st century business corporations are going through radical changes. This appears to be the only way to cope with the challenges facing the business firm. How can these companies continue to attract and retain the best talent. Hopefully the following article from Business week will throw some light.


New Work Place

Flexitime

Managing Meetings - Other Options

Managing Your Marketing Problems

How do you manage your marketing problems? What is 4P's? For answers to these and other marketing related questions, visit the following link

Marketing Problem Solving

Cross Cultural Misunderstanding

Misunderstanding across culture is common. In a global economy, one need to be more sensitive to the cultural differences.Be prepared at all time, so that you will not face embarassing moments.

Cross Cultural Miscommunication

Managing Conflict - Business Communication

How do we handle conflicts in our workplace? Watch both the videos. You should be able to learn something.

Conflict

Intercultural Communication

Understanding Marketing

It is crtical to understand the various aspects of marketing. This is useful, even if your studying non-marketing modules. Try the following link to gain a better understanding about the concept


Understanding Consumers

Introduction to Marketing

International Marketing

International Business

Channel Distribution

Disciplining and Terminating Employees

One can't simply fire an employee without following certain procedures. Conducting a Disciplinary Interview is an important aspect of managing people at work. How do you conduct a disciplinary interview?

The number of steps you need to adopt can be grouped under three categories - there are number of steps you should adopt before the disciplinary interview (preparation/planning elements), a number of practices one should follow during the actual face-to-face encounter (conducting/implementation) and practices one should complete at the end of the disciplinary interview (documentation/review).

One may consider the following steps when you need to conduct a disciplinary interview:

- gather all the relevant data relating to the disciplinary interview.
- Review the personnel folder of the employee for past records.
- take note of employee's contribution
- Verify the facts, so that you will be able to defend your facts.
- Conduct the interview in a private room.
- Be prepared to face 'an angry employee'.
- Explainthe purpose of the meeting.
- Be specific about the issue/incident
- Do acknowledge employee's past achievements.
- Present the facts without sounding too harsh or unreasonable.
- Ask questions to bring out the facts
- Listen actively to ensure that employee do understand what is going on.
- Encourage employee to tell his/her side of the story.
- provide ample time to let the employee defend himself/herself.
- Accept valid reasons.
- Agree on the corrective action.
- Ensure common understanding
- Document your discussions

What about firing an employee? Cascio, in his book titled 'Managing Human Resources: Productivity, Quality of Work Life, Profits', citing reseraches carried out by others recoomend that the supervisor/manager follow the 'five rules for the termination interview'.

1. Present your decision in a clear and concise manner.

2. Don't argue or debate about the issue.

3. Treat the person with respect.

4. Practice empathy.

5. Discuss the next step designed to let the employee cope with the situation.


The following video clip from Businessweek should be useful to understand the topic.

Firing an Employee

Work-Life Programme - Are they worth the money?

The present work-life programmes was originally known as the Work-family programme. Cascio in his book (Managing Human Resources: Productivity, Quality of Work Life, Profits published by McGraw-Hill) defines the work-life concept that recognizes the reality that employees do face family issues and those issues invariably affect their performance at work. The Work-life programme includes all employer sponsored benefits that assist employees to manage their work and non-work demands in a more meaningful manner.

The 21st century business firms recognise the need to manage the well-being of employees from a broader perspective. They recognise that unless the employees are well taken care of, their engagement in the work will not be a whole-hearted affair. The work-life approach and practices are seen as a win-win situation.

The Ministry of Manpower, Singapore (www.mom.gov.sg) , lists a number of benefits arising out of work-life strategies, including the following:

• Increased productivity;
• Improved recruitment and retention;
• Lower absenteeism rates;
• Improved customer experience; and
• A more motivated, satisfied and equitable workforce

Cascio, citing the researches carried by others list the work-life programs into five broad categories. They are:

• Child benefits
• Flexible working conditions
• Leave options
• HR policies
• Cultural issues

The author lists a number of benefits arising from employer sponsored child care services on site. The benefits of this practice include the following:

• Reduced employee absenteeism
• Increase in the availability of staff to get things done
• Reduced tardiness

A good work-life programme should result in financial savings to the company.

The reduction of the number of days missed by parents following the implementation of onsite child care services is the major reason as to why business firms adopt the practice. When some USA business corporations started providing elder care services, their labour turnover dropped significantly. Less employees were quitting their jobs to provide elder care responsibilities for their parents. Considering the cost of labour turnover, this is a cost saving to these business organisations.

Business corporations that provide supportive policies aimed at allowing employees to manage their stress experienced a far less employee burnout and stress. The HR policies and practices make it a little easier to manage and solve their personal problems. Cascio citing the research evidences (p.61) offers the following as the ‘drivers of retention’:

• Career development opportunities
• Confidence in the future
• Feelings of accomplishment
• Amount of joy at work
• Sense of job security

The MOM website documents the outcome of work-life program adopted by Changi General Hospital. The hospital offers the following services to its employees (source: www.mom.gov.sg) :

• Health and wellness programmes, including annual health screening, weight loss management programmes and health talks. The families of staff members are also encouraged to participate in healthy lifestyle activities such as walkathons and to make use of CGH's in-house facilities to monitor their own health.
• Convenience services such as courier pick-up services, referral services on dependent care and school holiday enrichment programmes for the children of staff members
• Organised peer support programme to provide psychological support to staff who are affected by cumulative stress in the healthcare environment, helping them to cope with emotional problems at wor.
• Workplace childcare center
• Fitness center
• Organised talks and seminars on family issues”

The site lists the following as the benefits of the above measures (source MOM website – www.mom.gov.sg) :

• “An improvement in its employee satisfaction index - its biennial Employee Opinion Survey shows scores significantly better than the Singapore norm
• Its health and wellness programmes have resulted in a drastic drop in the percentage of staff with conditions such as hypertension and high glucose levels, leading to a 25 percent decrease in medical expenses per staff between FY2002 and FY2003
• Lowered attrition rate - fell by half from 26.64% in 1997 to 13.44% in 1998
• Flexi-hour take up rate is 4.1%, higher than the national average of less than 1.5%”

Robbins and Judge in their book ‘Organizational Behavior’ (12th edition) lists a number of work-life initiatives (p.565). As part of time based strategies organizations offer flexitime, job sharing, part-time work, leave for new parents and telecommuting. Business firm, such as Lucent, Marriott, Merck and Xerox offer culture-change strategies focused work-life program with the following initiatives:

• Training for managers to manage their conflicts
• Compensation based on employee satisfaction

Despite the benefits of Work-life initiatives, Cascio do emphasize the need to be cautious in making the business case for work-life programs (p. 62).

• Understand that no one set of facts and figures will make the case for all firms.
• Don’t rely on isolated facts to make the business case.
• Don’t place work-life initiatives under an unreasonable burden of proof.