details Essay question Critically discuss the importance of work-life balance in the effective management of people at work in contemporary organisations.
there are many articles on work-life balance that have been published in scholarly journals over the last decade. Examples include:
Eikhof, D., Warhurst, C. and Haunschild, A. (2007) ?Introduction: What work? What life? What balance? Critical reflections on the work-life balance debate?, Employee Relations, 29(4), 325-333. (note: this is an introduction to a special edition on work-life balance ? therefore, all of the articles in this edition are relevant to the assignment)
Metz, I. (2011) ?Women leave work because of family responsibilities: Fact or Fiction??, Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, 49(3), 285-307.
Moore, T., Johns, R. and Johnson, C. (2006) ?Work-Life Balance Experiences of Women in the Construction Industry?, International Employment Relations Review, 12(2), 67-78.
Pedersen, V. And Lewis, S. (2012) ?Flexible friends? Flexible working time arrangements, blurred work-life boundaries and friendship?, Work, Employment & Society, 26(3), 464-480.
Academic textbooks can help with definitions and many of the issues in managing people at work are found in a range of areas, including:
??Human Resource Management and Human Resource Development
??Industrial Relations
??Organisational Behaviour
??Psychology and Sociology

.
Guidelines for the essay
??Your essay should have a clear introduction, body and conclusion. Headings should only be used sparingly (if at all).
??Assignments should be in Ariel, 11 font, 1.5 spacing with appropriate margins;
??All students must use Harvard referencing;
??The 1500 word limit must be adhered to within the acceptable range of + or ? 10%.
??All essays must cite at least six academic sources.
??You must distinguish clearly between your own words and analysis and those of your sources. You must do this by providing appropriate citations, preferably using the Harvard method

My research will be on " How businesses/ managers should deal with the work- life-balance issues of their employees". the research sould be a varity of opinions by those indentified as authorities on the subject( peer reviwed). the research should also include a precedent study. anayze the opinios and ideas indentified and finally express your opinions. Use of MLA is reqiured along with in text citations.

Please provide me with some powerpoit materials

?Offering work-life balance programmes will result in positive outcomes for organizations and for employees.? Critically evaluate this statement using theory and evidence from the research literature.

Evidence and Expert Interview Paper

DIRECTIONS
1. Study the feedback that your instructor provided on Milestone #1 regarding your SMART goals.
2. Evidence: Peer-Reviewed Articles: You must have at least 2 peer-reviewed journals that support your SMART goals and your plan. You are expected to find ONE article for EACH SMART goal. As you search, enter key words that reflect the topic you have chosen for each SMART goal. You must select a different article for each goal.
3. Evidence: Internet Sites: Perform a search of the Internet to locate a credible website that pertains to EACH of your two SMART goals. The website should offer a tool or best practice, not just another article. You must identify at least one website for each goal; however, you may use the same website for both goals.
4. Expert Interview: Identify an expert, or experts, who can offer information or ideas on how you can attain each of your SMART goals and conduct an interview. If the expert can offer guidance on both of your SMART goals, you may interview the expert for both of them. If you cannot find an expert for both goals, you may choose a different expert for each one. The expert should help you acquire knowledge and provide guidance on how to achieve your goals. This person may or may not be a nurse, depending on the nature of your goals. You must report on the interview with the expert for each goal.
5. Organize and describe the relevance of your findings from each of your sources, indicating what information and insights you have gleaned.

6. Write a scholarly paper of your search and findings using APA format based on the 6th edition of the Publication manual of the APA (2010). You may find an APA template and an APA formatted sample paper in Doc Sharing.
Components of your paper should include the following: (Please follow the Milestone 2 Outline located in Doc Sharing)

a. Title page: Include your name, course, date, and instructor.
b. Introduction: Introduce the two SMART goals, and briefly describe why you chose these two goals for yourself.
c. Peer-Reviewed Articles: Identify a peer-reviewed article for each SMART goal. Analyze the article and its importance to each SMART goal. Provide a brief evaluation of each article, describing how the article applies to the specific SMART goal.
d. Credible Websites: Analyze one or more credible websites associated with each SMART goal. Provide a brief evaluation of website(s) describing how it applies to the specific SMART goal(s).
e. Informational Expert: Identify and recruit an informational expert to discuss your goals, offer information and/or ideas on how you can attain each of your SMART goals. Conduct an interview with each informational expert for each of the two SMART goals. The expert should facilitate the acquisition of knowledge and provide guidance as needed. This person may or may not be a nurse, depending on the nature of the goal. You may choose the same expert for more than one goal. Identify the expert?s qualifications (i.e. Nurse Manager, Vice President?). Provide an evaluation of the interview with the expert for each goal, and list any additional recommendations the expert provided to you pertaining to your goals.
f. Summary: Provide a summary of the findings gained through the peer-reviewed articles and websites. Additionally, summarize the insights gleaned from your informational expert.
In addition, this assignment should conform to the following requirements:
a. Written communication: Writing is free of errors that detract from the overall message.
b. APA formatting: Resources and citations are formatted according to APA (6th edition) style and formatting.
c. Number of resources: Minimum of three resources.

Here is Milestone 1..... (See Number 1 in directions)


SMART Goal 1: Leadership Development
S: specific
Who is involved in the goal, what is the goal, where will it take place? As a nurse administrator of a home health agency, my goal is to increase the communication between field staff and case managers regarding patient care to increase goals met.
M: measurable
(How are you going to achieve the goal? Currently, around 30% of patients are meeting their goals outlined in their plan of care. Additionally, only 40% of staff members currently attend weekly case conference to discuss patient care, and only call in reports to case managers when they feels it is needed, I want to increase communication among staff in order to increase patient meeting their nursing goals to 80% by July 2014.
A: attainable
What resources/expert available to assist you with attaining your goal? I can consult with staff individually and access resources, which is available to staff to improve communication and discuss roadblocks staff are encountering in communicating patient care. I will be seeking assistance from Fields Jackson from Kinnser software to discuss upgrading the current software used by the clinicians, and Arlene Maxim from A.D. Maxim Consulting to discuss professional training for all staff members.
R: realistic
Is this goal something that is realistically obtainable in a professional practice? It is an expectation of my job to evaluate staff members are able to effectively communicate with case managers and other nurses and meeting nursing goals set for the patient.
T: time bound
What specific dates or weeks will you accomplish each task of your project goal? By April 2014, I will meet with staff members to discuss ideas to improve communication between the field staff and case managers. By May 2014, I will create a process for increasing communication between staff members. And by July 2014, I will measure the improvements in the amount of communication among staff members by assessing the percentage of goals met in recertification and discharge summaries.
Smart Goal
Written in a complete sentence My completed goal statement: To implement a process of increasing communication between field staff and case managers to increase patient meeting nursing goals to 80% by July 2014.
Plan of Action
Attributes needed to achieve the goal; timeline of when you plan on doing what; explain how, when, and where you are going to meet or talk with your expert; and identify specific resources you plan on using to help you achieve your goals. Ineffective communication among healthcare providers can contribute to medical errors, patient harm, and financial harm to the facility (The Victorian Quality Control Safety and Quality in Health, 2010). Ensuring the management team is strong, cohesive, and working towards the same goal is imperative when drawing a team together. On March 17, 2014 I will hold a meeting in the conference room with the management team which includes case managers, business operations manager, and clinical service director to discuss current communication issues, how it is affecting patient outcomes, and teambuilding strategies to correct the problem. On March 17, 2014 at 3:30 I will meet with the scheduler in my office to discuss clearing all clinicians schedules as much as possible where they can attend case conference every Thursday morning from 9:00 to 10:00. March 18 through March 21, 2014, I will meet with field staff individually in the conference room to discuss roadblocks they are encountering with communicating patient needs and care to case manager and other members of management. March 24, 2014 hold a meeting in the conference room with case managers, business operations managers, and clinical service director to discuss findings from field staff interviews. March 26, 2014 I have a lunch meeting at Katz 21 with Fields Jackson from Kinnser software to discuss upgrading clinical software. Kinnser allows real-time access to all notes, schedules and communications including past visit episodes; with the feature of immediate submission of documents, including clinical notes, wound pictures, and communications case managers are able to instantly review and give feedback to field staff members (Kinnser, 2014). March 28, 2014, I have a telephone conference with Arlene Maxim from A.D. Maxim Consulting. The consulting firm offers in-services and in-agency training which analyzes key metrics to assure excellence in clinical outcomes, rapid program development and improved financial performances, programs include clinical management, working with administrative and office staff, and care plans & case management (A.D. Maxim Consulting, 2014). April 1-15, 2014 I will analyze data collected and formulate a proposal to governing board for plan of correction. The proposal will include implementing the new software and bringing in the consultant team to provide additional training to all staff. On April 18, 2014 I will have a meeting with governing board at 3:00 to discuss proposal and submit to board for approval. May 1, 2014 the new plan will be implemented for all staff to begin using new computer software and going through on-going training. The administrator, case managers, and clinical service director will meet every Tuesday, review clinical outcome data, and will make recommendations and implement changes as needed to ensure success by July 2014.

SMART Goal 2: Organizational Planning
S: specific
Who is involved in the goal, what is the goal, where will it take place? As a nurse administrator of a home health agency, it is my goal to incorporate a time management-mentoring project for all nurses to balance a healthy work-life balance by March 1, 2015.
M: measurable
How are you going to achieve the goal? Currently, only about 25% of the nurses are seeing all of their patients during the agency working hours of operation Monday thru Friday 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Additionally, only 10% of the nursing staff are turning in all required nursing documentation per the agency policy of three times per week. I want to increase time management awareness and techniques among the nursing staff in order for 75% of the nurses to finish all work during working hours and spend quality time with their families by March 2015.
A: attainable
What resources/expert available to assist you with attaining your goal? I can consult with the staff individually to assess difficulties they are encountering with time management and access resources that is available to the nursing staff to improve their time management skills.
R: realistic
Is this goal something that is realistically obtainable in a professional practice? It is an expectation of my job to assist the nursing staff in being successful in their job duties of turning in all required nursing documentation 3 times per week and to see all assigned patients during the agency working hours.
T: time bound
What specific dates or weeks will you accomplish each task of your project goal? By May 1, 2014, I will meet with the nursing staff to discuss ideas to improve time management skills. By June 2, 2014, I will create a process for improving time management. And by September 1, 2014, I will measure the improvement of time management by reviewing time sheets and the percentage of required nursing documentation is being turned in a required. I will again meet with the nurses on October 1, 2014 individually to discuss any other areas of improvement needed to reach the goal of each nurse having a healthy work-life balance by March 1, 2015.
Smart Goal
Written in a complete sentence To implement a process of increasing time management skills in 75% of the nursing staff where they finish all work during working hours, turn in required nursing documentation three times per week, and spend quality time with their families by March 1, 2015.
Plan of Action
Attributes needed to achieve the goal; timeline of when you plan on doing what; explain how, when, and where you are going to meet or talk with your expert; and identify specific resources you plan on using to help you achieve your goals. Employees face the challenge of balancing work and life throughout the work week; it is up to the employer to aide in creating a flexible, supportive environment that allows employees to maximize organizational performance while maintaining their health and wellness (United States Office of Personnel Management, n.d). On April 15, 2014 I will meet with the nursing staff individually in the conference room to discuss the problems they are encountering on turning in nursing documentation three times per week and the challenges they are facing on seeing their patients between normal business hours of 8 to 5 Monday thru Friday. On April 21, 2014 I will meet with business operation manager, clinical service director, and case manager to discuss findings and discuss challenges that they are encountering. April 28, 2014 telephone conference with Selman Holman & Associates to discuss in-service for staff on being efficient and assistance on problem solving in the field. On May 1, 2014 I will meet with the nursing staff in the conference room to discuss ideas for time management skills and summary of current findings and receive the nurses feedback. By June 2, 2014 I will have the plan created and will present to the staff in the conference room on June 5, 2014 after case conference. Starting September 1, 2014 I will analyze all time sheets from June to present to see the percentage of nurses which are still working after hours to complete scheduled visits and continuing to have difficulties turning in required nursing documentation three times per week. I will meet with the staff on October 1, 2014 in the conference room to discuss findings, and inquire about other or new areas of concern they are facing enabling them from completing their work in a timely manner. I will then meet with the management team on October 2, 2014 to discuss necessary changes need for the goal to become successful. The new changes will be implemented by October 20, 2014. I will continue to monitor time sheets and speak with nursing staff monthly during case conferences to ensure the goal that 75% of the nursing staff will see all visits between regular working hours and turn in the required documentation by March 1, 2015. The time cards will then be examined quarterly to ensure that the agency continues to meet or exceed the goal.










Reference
A.D. Maxim Consulting, (2014). Training. Retrieved from https://www.admaximconsulting.com/consulting
Kinnser, (2014). Clinicians. Retrieved from http://www.kinnser.com/roles/clinicians/
The Victorian Quality Council Safety and Quality in Healthcare, (2010). Promoting Effective Communication Among Healthcare Professionals to Improve Patient Safety and Quality of Care. Retrieved from http://www.health.vic.gov.au/qualitycouncil/downloads/communication_paper_120710.pdf
United States Office of Personnel Management, (n.d). Work-Life. Retrieved from http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/worklife/

Weigh the relative pros and cons of current trends to expand the scope of consideration of work-life issues. Include such topics as ethics, social responsibility, and workplace spirituality. Be sure to consider this question in relation to HRM as a strategic business partner.

Key aspects that should be covered in this case study include:

1. How do organizations handles work-life balance, including pros and cons

2. How ethics, social responsibility, and workplace spirituality are expressed and "dealt with"

3. How generational issues are leveraged or coped with

4. What quality of "work-life" issues are there

5. How does leadership impact work-life balance

Please include headings on all pages

?Problem Definition?
Task: Define a problem in your organization (U.S. Army).
Areas of research: "Work-Life Balance"

The purpose of this paper is to gain clarity of the research problem and the significance of the research study.

This paper should be written in the following format (subheadings):
a. Background of Problem
b. Problem Statement
c. Purpose Statement
d. Research Questions
e. Assumptions
f. Limitations
g. Definitions

Personal note: Being a single (dad) parent is difficult in itself. Being a single parent and a Soldier increases that difficulty when it comes to early morning formations, finding childcare during the early morning hours and having a Family Care Plan in place for unplanned missions which can arrive. Late nights in the office and still making it home to make dinner, spend time and be an involved father. Paper does not have to center around this information.

PAPERS MUST BE IN APA FORMAT AND INCLUDE SUBHEADINGS FOR EACH SECTION PROVIDED ABOVE. PAPERS MUST INCLUDE CITATIONS TO THEORY (TEXTBOOK or OTHER REFERENCE) TO SUPPORT YOUR OPINIONS AND STATEMENTS.

Dear Anti Essays,
I currently work for a chemical company in the position of Quality Assurance Officer where I've been employed for 7 years. Most of my tasks are completed via computer such as entering chemical specifications into the database, completing customer paper audits on quality control, creating product information forms based on food industry standards & regulations, ensuring all supplier certifications such as ISO, GMP, Kosher and Halal are on file, valid & requesting renewals when required, calculating nutritional values using formulas, attending to customer technical enquiries & updating company procedures. Other tasks include taking product from storage, weigh up & sampling in the lab, performing monthly HACCP warehouse inspections and many more.
I've been assigned a "personal reflection" essay to complete and would really appreciate your help.
Details are as follows-
Write a personal reflection that explains how you would go about managing your work priorities and professional development.
In the personal reflection you should ask and answer these questions:
What makes a good role model and how would I ensure that I acted as a role model for employees I supervise?
What are the traits of an effective leader? Do I have these traits? How would I develop these traits?
How would I ensure that my work goals and plan reflect the organisation?s goals and plans?
How would I ensure that I meet my job responsibilities?
How would I measure and maintain my personal performance?
How would I prioritise work?
How would I use technology to organise and manage my work?
How would I ensure that I maintained a work/ life balance?
How would I ensure that my personal knowledge and skills meet required competency standards?
How would I determine my developmental needs?
What is my personal learning style (the reflector/theorist) and how would I ensure that I took advantage of learning opportunities?
How would I gather feedback from others about my personal performance and how would I use this feedback to improve my competence?
How would I use networks to increase my knowledge, gain new skills and develop relationships?
How would I ensure that I acquired new skills to maintain my competitive edge?
A personal reflection should be written in the first person. A reflection paper cites your reactions, feelings and analysis of a topic in a more personal way than in a formal research or analytical essay. Like any other paper or essay, it should be cohesive and refer directly to the content. A reflection paper should be as organised as any other type of formal essay. Include an introduction, and summarise the conclusions you came to during the process. The reflection should be approximately 3000 words in length. You should demonstrate that you have conducted your own research including references. You should also use real life examples to illustrate the points made in your reflection where possible.
If you could help me with the above, I'd really appreciate it..
Thank you so much for your assistance!

Format of the paper

Title Page,
TofC
Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 Literature Review
Chapter 3 Discusion
Chapter 4 Conclusion
Chapter 5 Future Considerations
Biography (MLA Style)

Topic for research paper,

What companies should be doing to retain there existing employees whom are now mother?

example
pre birth planning.
work life balance programs
Flex hours
telecommuting
Management training
Day care solutions
Part time or job share options.




There are faxes for this order.

Discuss in a 15-page paper with properly formatted APA citations and bibliography, how the various parts of the human resource system used in an organization you are familiar with (can be your own or another??"no need to name names, but you should talk about the types of service or products supplied by the organization) align and support each other. These parts should include the:
job design issues
training activities,
recruitment activities,
selection approaches used,
performance appraisal systems,
promotion systems implemented,
pay parts, and the other benefits, and
general supervisory styles and how they tend to support each other.
Be sure to discuss how these parts seem to be impacting employee morale, organizational efficiency and productivity, the work/life balance of the employees and the climate and culture of the organization. In the conclusion section, outline recommendations for the organization, recommendations that might make the parts fit together better, and those that might make employee morale, organizational efficiency and productivity, work/life balance, and the climate and culture of the organization match better.


Customer is requesting that (serban) completes this order.

Title: HRM's Emerging Role as Cultural Steward
History, role past, present
Developing and valuing culture in the workplace
Helping employees navigate culture (finding meaning in their work, manage work/life balance, encourage innovation)
Diversity training
Facilitating change due to diversity in workplace
HRM's role in the future (skills, knowledge needed)

Discussion instructions:

As Landy and Conte (2013) note, how much we ?like? our work and organization may affect other thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors.

What is your current level of job satisfaction?

Explain the factors, both events and agents, which are contributing or have contributed to your satisfaction level. What is the impact of this satisfaction level on your attitudes, emotions, or behaviors?

Describe your experience by relating to the terms and concepts in the text.

Utilize at least one peer-reviewed journal article, either from the Recommended Readings for this week or your own search, in your discussion.

Cite sources used in APA format.

Textbooks: https://secure.coursesmart.com/login
User:: lynneboisrond (at) yahoo.com
Pass: Rigelq93

Landy, F. J., & Conte, J. M. (2013). Work in the 21st century: An introduction to industrial and organizational psychology (4th ed.). Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons
Chapter 8: The Motivation to Work

American Psychological Association (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological
Association. ISBN: 1-4338-0561-5

Recommended Readings

1. Articles:
Christen, M., Iyer, G., & Soberman, D. (2006). Job satisfaction, job performance, and effort: A reexamination using agency theory. Journal of Marketing, 70(1), 137-
150. (EBSCOHost Accession Number: AN 19451867).

Crede, M., Chernyshenko, O. S., Stark, S., Dalal, R. S., & Bashshur, M. (2007). Job satisfaction as a mediator: An assessment of job satisfaction?s position within
the nomological network. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 80(3), 515-538. (EBSCOHost Accession Number: AN 26978346).

Golden, T. D., Veiga, J. F., & Dino, R. N. (2008). The impact of professional isolation on teleworker job performance and turnover intentions: Does time spent
teleworking, interacting face-to-face, or having access to communication-enhancing technology matter? Journal of Applied Psychology, 93(6), 1412-1421. doi:
10.1037/a0012722

Golden, T. D., Veiga, J. F., & Simsek, Z. (2006). Telecommuting?s differential impact on work-family conflict: Is there no place like home? Journal of Applied
Psychology, 91(6), 1340-1350. doi: 10.1037/0021-9010.91.6.1340

Smith, T. W. (2007). Job satisfaction in the United States. Retrieved from NORC/University of Chicago Web site:
http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/07/pdf/070417.jobs.pdf

Williams, J. (2004). Job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Retrieved from Sloan Work and Family Research Network, Boston College Web site:
http://wfnetwork.bc.edu/encyclopedia_entry.php?id=244

2. Websites:
Alliance for Work-Life Progress (AWLP) - http://www.awlp.org

Gil Gordon Associates, Telecommuting, Teleworking, and Alternative Officing ? http://www.gilgordon.com

Job Descriptive Index (JDI) - http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/psych/io/jdi/

The Telework Advisory Group of WorldatWork - http://www.workingfromanywhere.org/

Telework.gov - http://telework.gov/

You Can Work From Anywhere ? http://www.youcanworkfromanywhere.com

Multimedia

1. Videos:
Harvard Business Publishing. (Producer). (2009). Be a better leader, have a richer life. Available from
http://www.youtube.com/HarvardBusiness#p/search/0/doHNHxD0_DU

Moffitt, B. (Producer). (2009). Good Work NOW! #15: Emotional intelligence. Available from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBcthk4P574

TEDxTalks. (Producer). (2010). TEDxSydney ? Nigel Marsh ? Work Life Balance is an Ongoing Battle. Available from
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXM7MpoVAD0

Telework Consortium. (Producer). (2007). Telework Consortium Introduction. Available from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHN6sIZ18-s

i WOULD LIKE WRITERGIRRL1 TO DO THIS PAPER.

Individual career development plan paper. The purpose of this assignment is for you to apply some of the information on training and development and career development to your own career. A secondary purpose is to provide structure for you to consider and plan (or review your plan) for your career.

Prepare your own five-year career development plan. Incorporate the following elements:

Identify your goals and objectives. How will you measure your objectives? How will your plan affect your work/life balance? What trends in the workplace, economy, and marketplace do you need to be aware of that could influence your plan?
Examine the critical skills and competencies required to achieve success. What transferable skills do you have and how can these skills be leveraged if you decide to take a different career or life path? How can your professional experience help you plan for the next 5 years of your career?
What career-related training, formal education, and/or certifications do you need to help meet your career goals? Would it be helpful to join and participate in a professional association? Would it be useful to you to have a mentor?
List job satisfaction attributes. What specific work environment attributes would provide satisfaction?

While not a research paper, your paper should include at least THREE ACADEMIC REFERENCES. As always, ideas and information that are not your own must be cited in the body of the paper.

I just wanted to let you know that I am just starting out with my career. I went from undergrad straight into graduate school. I am getting my masters in Human Resources and I am currently looking for jobs. I will be starting off in an entry level HR position and will work my way up. I wanted to let you know that so it might be easier to write this. You can email me if you have any questions. Thanks!

designing elements of an employee relations program from an organization of your choice. Identify policy implications, the goals of the program, how these goals support corporate goals, and the cost and benefits of implementing and maintaining the plan. Include these topics at minimum:
a.Employee rights and employee relations
b.Federal, state, and foreign regulatory compliance
c.Wellness programs, including employee assistance programs
d.Benefits (other than wellness programs)
e.Health and safety
f.Work/life balance issues

This paper has to be integrate the answer from my interview with an assistant nurse manager and identify what kind of leadership style he is using such as authoritarian (autocratic), Delegative (free design) or Participative (democratic). Also, I need the resources within 5 years, from 1995-2010. Thank you.

Leadership/Management Style Analysis

Interview a nursing leader who is at or above the level of clinical manager/head nurse. Be sure that the leader is in a position that will allow you to answer all of the questions below. The leader may be a nurse on a unit where you are currently assigned for clinical, a manager on a floor where you previously had clinical, a nurse where you are currently employed or you may use someone you know personally. Clinical faculty are not ideal for this assignment, however persons such as the Dean, Associate or Assistant Deans, Chairs, Directors (such as Dr. Foster, Ms. Kathy Moore), meet the criteria.

THE PAPER
Leadership/Management Style Analysis N588
a. What is your educational preparation, including any professional certifications?
I have a Bachelor of Business Administration, a BSN, and I am currently working on my Masters of Science with a concentration in Nursing Administration.
b. What is the exact title of your position?
My current position is a part of the clinical ladder of the hospital so I am a Clinical Nurse IV which is top of the clinical ladder. I function as the assistant nurse manager for the Neuroscience ICU.
c. How long have you been in your position?
I have been the assistant nurse manager for a year.
d. Describe how you lead and how you motivate others
I am a transformative leader. I use praise, charisma, optimism to motivate the staff. I really try to zero in on what motivates a particular staff member and provide that to them. Thats not to say that I walk around always smiling because being a leader is also delivering bad news or making the tough decisions, but I really try to lead by example. My focus even in those tough conversations are always about whats good for the patient.
e. What qualities would you identify as necessary to be a successful leader? Why?
A leader has to be able to communicate a vision for the organization. A manager then carries out that vision. So a leader needs to be able to look at the current health care environment, legislation, market forecasts, etc. and come up with a plan to lead the organization so that we remain fiscally responsible to all stakeholders. To this end communication is key. There is no amount of education that can overcome the inability to communicate.
f. What is the biggest challenge you face in your leadership position? Why?
I am leader on the same unit that I was a secretary and a staff member on. So many of my preceptors are still there as well as all the other RNs, NAs, secretaries. It was hard for them to accept me in my new role. So I had to manage and lead them in the face of this. At this point I would say its better.
g. What are the most gratifying aspects of your leadership position? Why?
The most gratifying aspect for me is taking care of the nurses on my floor. I really enjoy taking care of my nurses. Being their voice to upper leadership and making sure that they have to do their job. By doing this I am doing whats best for the patient. Work-Life balance is important in our highly stressful profession, so I am always willing to adjust schedules within reason, go to my manager about staff issues, and listen. My door is always open.
h. How does diversity (ethnic) of workers or patients impact your workplace? Give me an example of how you address issues related to ethnic diversity?
We are lucky in the fact that we have nurses from all over the world. This is awesome for our unit because we serve people from all over the world. Neuroscience ICU is able to deliver culturally competent care because we recruit and hire a diverse workforce. The hospital has a diversity council that puts on a cultural fair every year along with a yearly conference. We have unit representative on the hospital council so that we have representation. The council member also serves in this capacity on the unit.

2. Analysis: (50 points)
a. Identify and summarize the management/motivation theory or theories that best describes the person you interviewed. Discuss how this theory applies.
b. Identify and summarize the leadership style of the person interviewed and discuss its advantages and disadvantages.
c. Using the data obtained from the interview and information in a and b above analyze the leaders leadership style, supporting your analysis with research and other nursing management literature.
3. Format and style for paper: (20 points)
a. The paper should be written in a style that is concise, clear and scholarly
b. Correct spelling and grammar are an expectation
c. All references used are cited in the text and in a reference list at the end of the paper and are to be cited using APA format


d. There should be a minimum of 5 current references (books or journals no older than 5 years) from nursing management/leadership literature or business literature, but 3 must be from nursing. The references should not include the Sullivan and Decker textbook.
e. The length of the paper should be from 6-8 pages, excluding the title page and reference page. The grade for the paper will be penalized if all questions in items 1-3 are not addressed, the minimum number of pages is not achieved or if the paper exceeds 10 pages. Papers are to be typed and the format for cover pages should also follow APA format
f. Please submit copies of the articles utilized for the paper. If a book is used please xerox the pages cited in the paper along with the title page of the book.

Research Essay
Area of research : Management / HRM
Length/Duration: 2,500 words
Using theoretical material of Employment Relation write a research essay on this topic:
(Emotional Labour)
The research on emotion work is mixed in terms of the long-term implications for workers. Using theoretical material, explore work in telephone call centres and determine whether the emotional work involved is benign or has serious negative consequences for worker.
In answering the question you should ensure:
? That you develop a stated argument (point of view or stance) about the issue in question
? That as you work through the paper the question is actually answered providing another point of argument + evidence to support the view.
? It is also important to provide contrary or opposing points of view and defend your position against these.
? You will need sufficient references to create the argument, support your evidence and provide contrary viewpoints.
? Examples to demonstrate your ideas are also useful.

General requirements

? Well developed research skills are evident ? extensive range of appropriate academic discipline related sources used.
? Excellent examples of appropriate actions, policies, legislation or social and industrial movements are accurately used to highlight theoretical issues
? Excellent use is made of extensive reference sources to discuss, critique, compare and contrast a wide range of relevant theoretical ideas before applying them accurately to the topic
? Argument is systematically developed throughout paper
? Argument is supported by evidence and is cohesive throughout paper
? Extensive consideration of appropriate social, political, economic, industrial, ethnic, gender or other relevant issues and their implications for ER in this context
? Sources are all correctly acknowledge, both in-text and in reference list
? mmunication is clear, concise & easily understood, using an extensive range of suitable vocabulary with no errors.
? Grammar & spelling are error free.
? Key terms defined using academic sources & applied consistently.
? Thesis statement and structure of paper are clearly articulated in introduction.
? Key elements of argument are summed up in conclusion
? Conforms to required presentation format and word length.


Below is a range of general employment relations material that you can use as references. However, you are encouraged to research beyond these items.

Noon, M and Blyton, P (2007) The realities of work, 3rd edition, Palgrave Macmillan, Bastingstoke, UK.
(main source)
Bray, Mark; Waring, Peter and Cooper, Rae. (2009). Chapter 8 : Employee Representation : Non-union in Bray, Mark; Waring, Peter and Cooper, Rae, Employment relations theory and practice, Sydney: McGraw-Hill, pp.235-261

CR Littler. (1990). The labour process debate: a theoretical review in Knights, David and Willmott, Hugh, Labour process theory, London: Macmillan, pp.46-94.


De Cieri et al. (2008). Chapter 9 : Managing Diversity and Work-life Balance in De Cieri, H. et al, Human resource management in Australia: strategy/people/performance, Sydney: McGraw-Hill, pp.302-349.


Deery, Stephen; Plowman, David; Walsh, Janet and Brown, M. (2001). Chapter 9: Conflict and Cooperation in the Workplace in Deery, Stephen; Plowman, David; Walsh, Janet and Brown, M, Industrial relations : a contemporary analysis, Roseville, NSW: Irwin/McGraw-Hill, pp.297-327.

Dessler, G.; Griffiths, J. and Lloyd-Walker, B. (2007). Chapter 13 : Occupational Health and Safety in Dessler, G.; Griffiths, J. and Lloyd-Walker, B, HRM : theory, skills, application, Frenchs Forest NSW: Pearson, pp.554-595.

Heery, Edmund and Salmon, John. (2000). Chapter 1 : The Insecurity Thesis in Heery, Edmund and Salmon, John (Eds), The insecure workforce, London, UK: Routledge : Taylor and Francis Group, pp.1-24.


Holley, Jr. W H; Jennings, Kenneth M. and Wolters, Roger, S. (2009). Chapter 14 : Labor Relations in Multinational Corporations and in Other Countries in Holley, Jr. W H; Jennings, Kenneth M. and Wolters, Roger, S, The labor relations process, Mason, Ohio: South-Western Cengage Learning, pp.619-665.

Lewis, Philip; Thornhill, Adrian and Saunders, Mark. (2003). Chapter 1: What is the Employment Relationship? in Lewis, Philip; Thornhill, Adrian and Saunders, Mark,Employee relations : understanding the employment relationship, Harlow, Essex: Prentice Hall, pp.3-31.


Nicholls, Peter. (2003). Chapter 1 : Context and Theory in Employee Relations in Holinshead, Graham; Nicholls, Peter and Tailby, Stephanie, Employee relations, Harlow, UK: Pearson Education Limited, pp.3-47.

Petzall, S and Bennett, L. (2003). Chapter 11: Equity in Industrial Relations in Petzall, S., Abbott, K. and Timo, N, Australian industrial relations : in an Asian context, Melbourne: Eruditions Publishing, pp.351-374.


Quinlan, Michael. (2004). Flexible Work and Organisational Arrangements in Bluff, Elizabeth (ed.), et. al., OHS regulation for a changing world of work, Leichhardt NSW: Federation Press, pp.120-145.

Rose, Ed. (2004). Chapter 7: Union absence and marginalisation in Rose, Ed,Employment Relations, Harlow, Essex: Prentice Hall, pp.337-384.


Rubery, Jill and Grimshaw, Damian. (2003). Chapter 3 : The Development of Employment and Production Regimes in Rubery, Jill and Grimshaw, Damian, The organization of employment : an international perspective, Hampshire, U.K.: Palgrave : Macmillan, pp.51-76.

Sappey et al. (2009). chapter 3: Managing workforce equity in Sappey et al, Industrial relations in Australia, Frenchs Forest NSW: Pearson, pp.54-86.

Strachan, Glenda; French, Erica and Burgess, John. (2010). Chapter 3 : Approaches to Equity and Diversity in Strachan, Glenda; French, Erica and Burgess, John,Managing diversity in Australia : theory and practice, Sydney: McGraw-Hill, pp.41-56.

Van Gramberg, B. (2006). Management of Workplace Conflict in Teicher, Holland and Gough (eds), Employee relations management : Australia in a global context, French Forest NSW: Pearson Education, pp.170-197.

Warhurst, Chris and Thompson, Paul. (1998). Chapter 1 : Hands, Hearts and Minds : Changing Work and Workers a the End of the Century in Thompson, Paul and Warhurst, Chris, Workplaces of the future, Basingstoke UK: Macmillan Press Ltd, pp.1-24.


Journal Articles

Bailey, Janis et.al. (2010). Daggy Shirts, Daggy Slogan? marketing unions to young people The Journal of industrial relations, 52 (1), 43-60.


Haley-Lock, Anna and Ewert, Stephanie. (2011). Waiting for the minimum: US State wage laws, firm strategy and chain-restaurant job quality Journal of industrial relations, 53 (1), 31-48.


Healy, Joshua. (2011). The quest for fairness in Australian minimum wages Jounal of industrial relations, 53 (5), 662-680.

Lambert, Rob and Webster, Edward. (2010). Searching for security: case studies of the impact of work restructuring on householders in South Korea, South Africa and Austalia Journal of industrial relations, 52 (5), 595-612.

Lee, Byoung-hoon and Kim, Jong-Sung. (2010). Is family friendly management good for firms? The diffusion and performance of family-friendly workplaces in South Korea.The Journal of industrial relations, 52 (4), 459-476.


Peetz, David. (1997). Deunionisation and union establishment : the impact of workplace change, HRM strategies and workplace unionism Labour and Industry, 8 (1), 21-36.

Ravaenswood, Katherine and Markey, Ray. (2011). The role of unions in achieving a family-friendly workplace Journal of Industrial Relations, 53 (4), 486-503.


Skinner, Natalie and Pocock, Barbara. (2011). Flexibility and work-life interference in Australia Journal of industrial relations, 53 (1), 65-82.


Smith, Meg. (2011). Gender equity: The Commission's legacy and the challenge for Fair Work Australia Journal of industrial relations, 53 (5), 647-661.



Van Den Broek, Dianne. (1997). Human resource management, cultural control and union avaoidance: an Australian case study The Journal of Industrial Relations, 39 (3), 332-348.

Waring, Peter. (2011). Keeping up appearances : aesthetic labour and discrimination law Journal of Industrial Relations, 53 (2), 193-208.

(3)recent peer-reviewed sources.Five year career development plan.Identify goals and objectives.How will you measure your objectives?How will your plan affect your work/life balance?What trends in HRM do you need to be aware of that could influence your plan?Examine the critical skills and competencies required to achieve success.What transferable skills do you have and how can these skills be leveraged if you decide to take a different career or life path?How can your professional experiences help you plan for the next(5) years of your career? What career related training,formal education,and/or certification do you need to help meet your career goals? Would it be helpful to join and participate in a professional association? or a mentor?list job satisfaction attributes.What specific work environment attributes would provide satisfaction? analysis the elements of effective retention and career processes.What retention/related issues are important? What ideally would your manager need to do to ensure that you don't leave your company?What do you find rewarding and why?

ORGANIZATION STRUCTURE
APPLICATION CASE: BEST BUY


No schedules. No mandatory meetings. Inside Best Buy's radical reshaping of the workplace

One afternoon last year, Chap Achen, who oversees online orders at Best Buy Co. (BBY ), shut down his computer, stood up from his desk, and announced that he was leaving for the day. It was around 2 p.m., and most of Achen's staff were slumped over their keyboards, deep in a post-lunch, LCD-lit trance. "See you tomorrow," said Achen. "I'm going to a matinee."

Under normal circumstances, an early-afternoon departure would have been totally un-Achen. After all, this was a 37-year-old corporate comer whose wife laughs in his face when he utters the words "work-life balance." But at Best Buy's Minneapolis headquarters, similar incidents of strangeness were breaking out all over the ultramodern campus. In employee relations, Steve Hance had suddenly started going hunting on workdays, a Remington 12-gauge in one hand, a Verizon LG (VZ ) in the other. In the retail training department, e-learning specialist Mark Wells was spending his days bombing around the country following rocker Dave Matthews. Single mother Kelly McDevitt, an online promotions manager, started leaving at 2:30 p.m. to pick up her 11-year-old son Calvin from school. Scott Jauman, a Six Sigma black belt, began spending a third of his time at his Northwoods cabin.

At most companies, going AWOL during daylight hours would be grounds for a pink slip. Not at Best Buy. The nation's leading electronics retailer has embarked on a radical--if risky--experiment to transform a culture once known for killer hours and herd-riding bosses. The endeavor, called ROWE, for "results-only work environment," seeks to demolish decades-old business dogma that equates physical presence with productivity. The goal at Best Buy is to judge performance on output instead of hours.

Hence workers pulling into the company's amenity-packed headquarters at 2 p.m. aren't considered late. Nor are those pulling out at 2 p.m. seen as leaving early. There are no schedules. No mandatory meetings. No impression-management hustles. Work is no longer a place where you go, but something you do. It's O.K. to take conference calls while you hunt, collaborate from your lakeside cabin, or log on after dinner so you can spend the afternoon with your kid.

Best Buy did not invent the post-geographic office. Tech companies have been going bedouin for several years. At IBM (IBM ), 40% of the workforce has no official office; at AT&T, a third of managers are untethered. Sun Microsystems Inc. (SUNW ) calculates that it's saved $400 million over six years in real estate costs by allowing nearly half of all employees to work anywhere they want. And this trend seems to have legs. A recent Boston Consulting Group study found that 85% of executives expect a big rise in the number of unleashed workers over the next five years. In fact, at many companies the most innovative new product may be the structure of the workplace itself.

But arguably no big business has smashed the clock quite so resolutely as Best Buy. The official policy for this post-face-time, location-agnostic way of working is that people are free to work wherever they want, whenever they want, as long as they get their work done. "This is like TiVo (TIVO ) for your work," says the program's co-founder, Jody Thompson. By the end of 2007, all 4,000 staffers working at corporate will be on ROWE. Starting in February, the new work environment will become an official part of Best Buy's recruiting pitch as well as its orientation for new hires. And the company plans to take its clockless campaign to its stores--a high-stakes challenge that no company has tried before in a retail environment.

Another thing about this experiment: It wasn't imposed from the top down. It began as a covert guerrilla action that spread virally and eventually became a revolution. So secret was the operation that Chief Executive Brad Anderson only learned the details two years after it began transforming his company. Such bottom-up, stealth innovation is exactly the kind of thing Anderson encourages. The Best Buy chief aims to keep innovating even when something is ostensibly working. "ROWE was an idea born and nurtured by a handful of passionate employees," he says. "It wasn't created as the result of some edict."

So bullish are Anderson and his team on the idea that they have formed a subsidiary called CultureRx, set up to help other companies go clockless. CultureRx expects to sign up at least one large client in the coming months.

The CEO may have bought in, but there has been plenty of opposition inside the company. Many execs wondered if the program was simply flextime in a prettier bottle. Others felt that working off-site would lead to longer hours and destroy forever the demarcation between work and personal time. Cynics thought it was all a PR stunt dreamed up by Machiavellian operatives in human resources. And as ROWE infected one department after the other, its supporters ran into old-guard saboteurs, who continue to plot an overthrow and spread warnings of a coming paradise for slackers.

Then again, the new work structure's proponents say it's helping Best Buy overcome challenges. And thanks to early successes, some of the program's harshest critics have become true believers. With gross margins on electronics under pressure, and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT ) and Target Corp. (TGT ) shouldering into Best Buy territory, the company has been moving into services, including its Geek Squad and "customer centricity" program in which salespeople act as technology counselors. But Best Buy was afflicted by stress, burnout, and high turnover. The hope was that ROWE, by freeing employees to make their own work-life decisions, could boost morale and productivity and keep the service initiative on track.

It seems to be working. Since the program's implementation, average voluntary turnover has fallen drastically, CultureRx says. Meanwhile, Best Buy notes that productivity is up an average 35% in departments that have switched to ROWE. Employee engagement, which measures employee satisfaction and is often a barometer for retention, is way up too, according to the Gallup Organization, which audits corporate cultures.

ROWE may also help the company pay for the customer centricity campaign. The endeavor is hugely expensive because it involves tailoring stores to local markets and training employees to turn customer feedback into new business ideas. By letting people work off-campus, Best Buy figures it can reduce the need for corporate office space, perhaps rent out the empty cubicles to other companies, and plow the millions of dollars in savings into its services initiative.

Phyllis Moen, a University of Minnesota sociology professor who researches work-life issues, is studying the Best Buy experiment in a project sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. She says most companies are stuck in the 1930s when it comes to employees' and managers' relationships to time and work. "Our whole notion of paid work was developed within an assembly line culture," Moen says. "Showing up was work. Best Buy is recognizing that sitting in a chair is no longer working."

ONE GIANT WIRELESS KIBBUTZ
Jody Thompson and Cali Ressler are two HR people you actually don't hate. They groan over cultish corporate slogans like "Build Superior Organizational Capability." They disdain Outlook junkies who double-book and showboating PowerPointers. But it's flextime, or Big Business' answer to overwork, long commutes, and lack of work-family balance, that elicits the harshest verdict. "A con game," says Thompson. "A total joke," adds Ressler.

Flexible work schedules, they say, heap needless bureaucracy on managers instead of addressing the real issue: how to work more efficiently in an era of transcontinental teams and multiple time zones. They add that flextime also stigmatizes those who use it (the reason so few do) and keeps companies acting like the military (fixated on schedules) when they should behave more like MySpace (NWS ) (social networks where real-time innovation can flourish). Besides, they say, if people can virtually carry their office around in their pockets or pocketbooks, why should it matter where and when they work if they are crushing their goals?

Thompson, 49, and Ressler, 29, met three years ago. The boomer and the Gen Xer got each other right away. When they talk about their meeting, it sounds like something out of Plato for HR, or two like minds making a whole. At the time, Best Buy was still a ferociously face-time place. Workers arriving after 8 a.m. on sub-zero mornings stashed their parkas in their cars to foil detection as late arrivals. Early escapees crept down back stairwells. Cube-side, the living was equally uneasy. One manager required his MBAs to sign out for lunch, including listing their restaurant locations and ETAs. Another insisted his team track its work--every 15 minutes. As at many companies, the last one to turn out the lights won.

Outside the office, Thompson and Ressler couldn't help noticing how wireless broadband was turning the world into one giant work kibbutz. They talked about how managers were mired in analog-age inertia, often judging performance on how much they saw you, vs. how much you did. Ressler and Thompson recognized the dangerous, life-wrecking cocktail in the making: The always-on worker now also had to be always in.

The culture, not exactly Minnesota-nice, was threatening Best Buy's massive expansion plans. But Ressler and Thompson knew their solution was too radical to simply trot up to CEO Anderson. Nor, in the beginning, did they feel they could lobby their executive supervisors for official approval. Besides, they knew the usual corporate route of imposing something from the top down would bomb. So they met in private, stealthily strategizing about how to protect ROWE and then dribble it out under the radar in tiny pilot trials. Ressler and Thompson waited patiently for the right opportunity.

It came in 2003. Two managers--one in the properties division, the other in communications--were desperate. Top performers were complaining of unsustainable levels of stress, threatening business continuity just when Best Buy was rolling out its customer centricity campaign in hundreds of stores. They also knew from employee engagement data that workers were suffering from the classic work-life hex: jobs with high demands (always-on, transcontinental availability) and low control (always on-site, no personal life).

Ressler and Thompson saw their opening in these two vanguard managers. Would they be willing to partake in a private management experiment? The two outlined their vision. They explained how in the world of ROWE, there would be no mandatory meetings. No times when you had to physically be at work. Performance would be based on output, not hours. Managers would base assessments on data and evidence, not feelings and anecdotes. The executives liked what they heard and agreed.

The experiment quickly gained social networking heat. Waiting in line at Best Buy's on-site Caribou Coffee (CBOU ), in e-mails, and during drive-by's at friends' desks, employees in other parts of the company started hearing about this seeming antidote to megahour agita. A curious culture of haves and have-nots emerged on the Best Buy campus, with those in ROWE sporting special stickers on their laptops as though they were part of some cabal. Hance, the hunter, started taking conference calls in tree stands and exchanging e-mails from his fishing boat. When Wells wasn't following around Dave Matthews, chances were he was biking around Minneapolis' network of urban lakes, and digging into work only after night had fallen. Hourly workers were still putting in a full 40, but began doing so wherever and whenever they wanted.

At first, participants were loath to share anything about ROWE with higher-ups for fear the perk would be taken away or reversed. But by 2004, loftier and loftier levels of management began hearing about the experiment at about the time opposition to it grew more intense. Critics feared executives would lose control and co-workers would forfeit the collaboration born of proximity. If you can work anywhere, they asked, won't you always be working? Won't overbearing bosses start calling you in the middle of the night? Won't coasters see ROWE as a way to shirk work and force more dedicated colleagues to pick up the slack? And there were generational conflicts: Some boomers felt they'd been forced to choose between work and life during their careers. So everyone else should, too.

Shari Ballard, Best Buy's executive vice-president for human capital and leadership (an analog title if ever there was one), was originally skeptical, although she eventually bought in. At first she couldn't figure out why managers needed a new methodology to help solve the work-life conundrum. "It wasn't hugs and smiles," she says of Ressler's and Thompson's campaign. "Managers in the old mental model were totally irritated." In the e-learning division, many of Wells's older co-workers (read 40-year-olds; the average age at Best Buy is 36) expressed resentment over the change, insisting that work relationships are better face-to-face, not screen-to-screen. "We have people in our group who are like, `I'm not going to do it,'" says Wells, who likes to sleep in and doesn't own an alarm clock. "I'm like, `that's fine, but I'm outta here.'" In enemy circles, Ressler and Thompson are known to this day as "those two" and "the subversives."

Yet ROWE continues to spread through the company. If intrigued nonparticipants work for progressive superiors, they usually talk up the program and get their bosses to agree to trials. If they toil under clock-watchers, they form underground networks and quietly lobby for outside support until there is usually no choice but for their boss to switch. It was only this past summer that CEO Anderson got a full briefing, and total understanding, about what was happening. "We purposely waited until the tipping point before we took it to him," says Thompson. Until then he wasn't well-versed on the 13 ROWE commandments. No.1: People at all levels stop doing any activity that is a waste of their time, the customer's time, or the company's money. No.7: Nobody talks about how many hours they work. No.9: It's O.K. to take a nap on a Tuesday afternoon, grocery shop on Wednesday morning, or catch a movie on Thursday afternoon.

That's the commandment Achen was following when he took off that day to see Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Doing so felt abnormal and uncomfortable. Achen felt guilty. But Ressler and Thompson had told him to "model the behavior." So he did. It helped that Achen saw in ROWE the potential to solve a couple of nagging business problems. As the head of the unit that monitors everything that happens after someone places an order at BestBuy.com, including manually reviewing orders and flagging them for possible fraud, Achen wanted to expand the hours of operation without mandating that people show up in the office at 6 a.m. He had another issue. One of his top-performing managers lived in St. Cloud, Minn., and commuted two and a half hours each way to work. He and Achen had a gentleman's agreement that he could work from home on Fridays. But the rest of the staff didn't appreciate the favoritism. "It was creating a lot of tension on my team," says Achen.

RECORD JOB SATISFACTION
Ressler and Thompson had convinced Achen that ROWE would work. Now Achen would have to convince the general manager of BestBuy.com, senior vice-president John "J.T." Thompson. That wasn't going to be easy. Thompson, a former General Electric Co. (GE ) guy, was as old school as they come with his starched shirt, booming voice, and ramrod-straight posture. He came of age believing there were three 8-hour days in every 24 hours. He loved working in his office on weekends. At first, he pushed back hard. "I was not supportive," says Thompson, who was privately terrified about the loss of control. "He didn't want anything to do with it," says Achen. "He was all about measurement, and he kept asking me, `How are you going to measure this so you know you're getting the same productivity out of people?'"

That's where Achen's performance metrics came in handy. He could measure how many orders per hour his team was processing no matter where they were. He told Thompson he'd reel everyone back to campus the minute he noticed a dip. Within a month, Achen could see that not only was his team's productivity up, but engagement scores, or measuring job satisfaction and retention, were the highest in the dot-com division's history.

For years, engagement had been a sore spot for Thompson. "I showed J.T. these scores, and his eyes lit up," says Achen. Thompson rushed to roll out ROWE to his entire department. Voluntary turnover among men dropped from 16.11% to 0. "For years I had been focused on the wrong currency," says Thompson. "I was always looking to see if people were here. I should have been looking at what they were getting done."

Today, Achen's commuting employee usually comes in once a week. Nearly three-quarters of his staff spend most of their time out of the office. Doesn't he worry that he loses some of the interoffice magic when they don't gather together all day, every day? What about the value in riffing on one another's ideas? What about teamwork and camaraderie? "You absolutely lose some of that," he says. "But what we get back far outweighs anything we've lost."

Achen says he would never go back. Orders processed by people who are not working in the office are up 13% to 18% over those who are. ROWE'ers are posting higher metrics for quality, too. Achen says he believes that's due to the new office paradox: Given the constant distractions, it sometimes feels impossible to get any work done at work.

Ressler and Thompson say all the Best Buy groups that have switched to the freer structurereport similar results. Meanwhile, the two have other big plans for the company. Last month they launched a new pilot called Cube-Free. Ressler and Thompson believe offices encourage the wrong kinds of habits, keeping people wrapped up in a paper, prewireless mentality as opposed to pushing employees to use technology in the efficiency-enhancing way it was intended. Offices also waste space and time in an age when workers are becoming more and more place-neutral. "This also sets up Best Buy to be able to completely operate if disaster hits," says Thompson. Work groups that go cube-free will be able to redesign their spaces to better accommodate collaboration instead of working alone.

Next year Ressler and Thompson plan to pilot their boldest move yet, testing ROWE in retail stores among both managers and workers. How exactly they will do this in an environment where salespeople presumably need to put in regular hours, they won't say. And they acknowledge it won't be easy. Still, they are eager to try just about anything to help the company slash its 65% turnover rates in stores, where disgruntlement is common and workers form groups on MySpace with names like "Best Buy Losers Club!"

Best Buy has transformed its workplace culture in a remarkably short time. Isn't it also true that ROWE could unravel just as quickly? What happens if the company hits a speed bump? Competition isn't getting any less intense, after all. Best Buy sells a lot of extended warranties, an area where both Wal-Mart and Target are eager to undercut the electronics retailer on price. What's more, the current boom in flat-panel, digital TVs will peak in a few years.

If Best Buy's business goes south, human nature dictates that the people who always believed the clockless office was a flaky New Age idea will see an opportunity to try to force a hasty retreat. Some at the company complain that productivity is up only because many Best Buyers are now working longer hours. And some die-hard ROWE opponents still privately roll their eyes when they see Ressler and Thompson in the hallway.

But it's worth remembering that most big companies fail to grow at the rate of inflation. That's true in part because the bigger the company gets, the harder it is to get the best out of each and every employee. ROWE is one of Best Buy's answers to avoiding that fate. "The old way of managing and looking at work isn't going to work anymore," says Ressler. "We want to revolutionize the way work gets done." Admit it, you're rooting for them, too.


By Michelle Conlin
P.S. Answer those two questions. and also I would like the same person who did my second paper to do that one.

1-What is the driving force behind Best Buy?s shift to the new way of organizing work? Does the new structure match the strategy?

2-What effect does the new structure have on spans of control. Define the concept. What is the optimal span of control?

Learning outcomes of this report are following:

1. Describe and analyse the roles and responses of key actors
2. Identify recent changes in employee relations in a selected country
3. Analyse the role of key factors in driving these changes
4. The appropriate use of academic sources, clearly explained and accurately referenced.

The assessment criteria for this module are following:

1. Recognise the roles and responsibilities of key actors in employee relations
2. Critically evaluate recent changes in employee relations
3. Identify the reasons for changes in employee relations provision
4. Critically analyse a specific form of employee relations provision
5. Use appropriate academic sources to evaluate an academic debate


Course books

There in no one set textbook but the following are relevant.

Dundon, T and Rollinson, D (2011) Understanding Employment Relations 2nd edition McGraw- Hill

Blyton, P. and Turnbull, P. (2004) The Dynamics of Employee Relations Macmillan 3rd edition.

Hollinshead, G. Nicholls, P and Tailby S (eds) (2003) Employee Relations 2nd Edition, Prentice Hall.

Burchill, F. (2008) Labour Relations 3rd Edition. Palgrave Macmillan

Williams, S. and Adam-Smith, D. (2006) Contemporary employee Relations ; A critical introduction. Oxford University Press.

Kersley, B. et al. (2006) Inside the Workplace: Findings from the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey. Routledge

Daniels, K. (2006) Employee Relations in an Organisational Context CIPD

Gennard, J and Judge, G. (2005) Employee Relations CIPD

Bamber, G. et al (2010) International and Comparative Industrial Relations. Sage ??"

Colling, T and Terry M (eds) (2010) Industrial Relations Theory and Practice 3rd edition.

Dibben et al (2011) Employment Relations: a Critical and International Approach CIPD


The following books take a more sociological approach ??" they are interesting.

Bradley, H. et al (2000) Myths at Work, Polity Press.

Noon, M and Blyton, P. (2007) The Realities of work, 2nd Edition, Palgrave. (more basic).



You can also get a plethora of information on the web, but be warned, this is of variable quality. Some useful sites include: -

1. Most trade unions have websites.
2. The Department for Business Innovation and Skills has an employment relations site: -
http://www.berr.gov.uk/whatwedo/employment/index.html

3. Specialist topic areas/research centres/pressure groups e.g. involvement and partnership association at: -
http://www.ipa-involve.com
and the work foundation
http://www.theworkfoundation.com/

4 Funded projects such as the ESRC Future of Working Life project:-
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/esrcfutureofwork/projects/details.html

In order to make your work easier I am sending you some notes from the seminars regarding the three countries Japan, Germany and China

SEMINAR GERMANY

One debate in the academic literature concerns the extent to which the traditional German system of employee relations is changing. This seminar considers two (early) contributions to this debate and a more recent perspective.
Please read one of the three articles below.

1. Hassell, A. (1999) The Erosion of the German System of Industrial Relations British Journal of Industrial Relations 37.3.

What are the traditional advantages of the german employee relations systems?
How are these being eroded (give examples)?
Why is this erosion happening?

2. Kilkauer, T. (2002) Stability in Germany's industrial relations: a critque on Hassel's erosion thesis British Journal of Industrial Relations, 40, 2, 295-308.

On what grounds does Kilkauer challenge Hassells erosion thesis?
Why might it be unhelpful to think in terms of one model of employee relations in Germany?


3. Doellgast, V. and Greer, I (2007) vertical disintegration and the disorganisation of German industrial relations British Journal of industrial Relations 45, 1, pp55-76.

In what ways have organisations disintegrated their operations and why? -. give some examples from the automotive sector and telecommunications
What impact has this had on trade unions and works councils and how have they responded?
They comment that we argue here that vertical disintegration contributes to mpore disruptive changes in Germanys industrial relations institutions than other forms of organisational restructuring (page 58) What do they mean by this and why do they each this conclusion?

SEMINAR JAPAN

Continuity and Change in Japanese Employee Relations System

Question 1
What changes are happening to the wage system in Japan?
Why are these occurring?

S. Wataake (2000) The Japan Model and the Future of Employment and Wage Systems International Labour Review 139, 3 specifically pages 324 ??" 328

H. Shibata (2000) The Transformation of the Wage and Performance Appraisal in a Japanese firm International Journal of Human Resource Management 11, 2 specifically pages 301 - 312

E. Kyotani (1999) New Managerial Strategies of Japanese Corporations in Felstead and Jewson (eds) Global Trends in Flexible Labour specifically pages 184 - 189

K. Kubo (2008) Japan: the resilience of employment relationships and the changing condition of work in Lee and Eyraud (eds) Globalisation, Flexibilization and Working Conditions in Asia and the Pacific Oxford Chandos pp 172 ??" 180

J. Benson and P. Debroux (2003) flexible Labour Markets and Individualised Employment: the beginnings of a new Japanese HRM system Asia Pacific Business Review 9, 4, pp 62 ??" 67 and 68 - 70


Question 2
What changes are happening to the lifetime employment system?
Why are these occurring?

C. Beggren and M. Nomura (1997) The Resilience of Corporate Japan case studies on Hitachi (pp 130 ??" 132), on motor vehicles (112 ??" 116) and Okuma (pp 151 ??" 153)

E. Kyotani (1999) Mew Managerial Strategies of Japanese Corporations in Felstead and Jewson (eds) Global trends in Flexible Labour specifically 189 ??" 191

J. Salmon (2004) HRM in Japan in Budhwar (ed) Managing Human Resources in Asia Pacific pg 65

M. Pudelko (2005) Japanese Human Resource Management in Haak and Pudelko (eds) Japanese Management: the search for a new balance between continuity and change

T. Hanami (2006) The Changing Labour Market, Industrial Relations and Labour Policy in R. Haak (ed) The Changing Structure of Labour in Japan

P. Pebroux (2006) The shift towards a performance-based management system in R. Haak (ed) The Changing structure of Labour in Japan pg 28

K. Kubo (2008) Japan: the resilience of employment relationships and the changing condition of work in Lee and Eyraud (eds) Globalisation, Flexibilization and Working Conditions in Asia and the Pacific Oxford Chandos pp 160 - 166

Question 3
What changes are advocated by the Japanese Employment Federation?
What explains the demand for the changes?

Gronning (1998) Wither the Japanese employment system? The position of the Japan Employers Federation Industrial Relations Journal 29:4

Beggren & Nomura (1997) The Resilience of Corporate Japan pp 73 ??" 75

J. Salmon (2004) HRM in Japan in Budhwar (ed) Managing Human Resources in Asia Pacific pp 70 - 71

P. Debrous (2003) Human Resource Management in Japan: Changes and Uncertainties ??" 89 - 91

J. Benson and P. Debroux (2003) flexible Labour Markets and Individualised Employment: the beginnings of a new Japanese HRM system Asia Pacific Business Review 9, 4, pp 60 ??" 62



Question 4
What developments are occurring in non-standard employment (eg temporary work, agency work etc?
What explains these developments?

K. Kubo (2008) Japan: the resilience of employment relationships and the changing condition of work in Lee and Eyraud (eds) Globalisation, Flexibilization and Working Conditions in Asia and the Pacific Oxford Chandos pp 166 - 172

H. Gottfied and N. Hayoshi-Kato (1998) Gendering work and deconstructing the narrative of the Japanese economic miracle Work, Employment and Society 12, 1, 25 ??" 46

Question 5

Trade union developments

Explain te changing demands by trade unions in Shunto negotiations concerning work-life balance and non-regular workers.

Weathers, C. (2008) Shunto and the shackles of competitiveness Business History 49,2. (see pages 187-188 and 190-193)

What is the role of community unions?

Suzuki, A. (2008) Community Unions in Japan Economic and Industrial Democracy 29, 4, 492-520.


SEMINAR CHINA

1) Read the following article selectively and identify the ways that employment is changing in China. What are the reasons for these changes?

Chen, L and Hou , B. (2008) China:economic transition, employment flexibility and security in Lee, S. & Eyraud, F. (eds.) Globalization, Flexibility and Working Conditions in Asia and the Pacific (Chapter 10). This book is on restricted loan

2) Read Chapter 4 in
Nichols and Cam (2005) Labour in a Global World
This book is on restricted loan

As an alternative you can read Nichols, T (et al) 2004 Factory regimes and the dismantling of established labour in Asia: a review of cases from large manufacturing plants in China, South Korea and Taiwan Work, Employment and Society, 18, 4. 663-685. (available through SWETSWISE via Resources Online)

What are the advantages and disadvantages to employees of working for ChinaCo rather than a state owned enterprise?. Concentrate your reading on pages 106-118.

3) Read

Chan, A. (2000) Globalization, China's Free (real bonded) labour market and Chinese trade unions Asia-Pacific Business Review. Vol 6, number 3-4 Spring /Summer pages 260-281.
This journal is not available on-line but is in the journals section of the library

What have been the impacts of changing ownership patterns and regulations on workers?


Additional reading

Cook, L (2008) The dynamics of employment relations in China: An evaluation of the rising level of labour disputes Journal of Industrial Relations (you can find this via the A-Z journals list at Resources Online) read pages 127-134.

Glover and Trivedi (2007) Human Resource Management in China and India (Chapter 16) in Beardwell and Clayton (eds) Human Resource Management : A Contemporary Approach 5th edition


I AM SENDING YOU ALL THOSE BOOKS AND ARTICLES AS THUS I GUESS YOUR WORK WILL BECOME EASIER. IT WILL BE REALLY GOOD IF YOU CAN FIND RELEVANT INFORMATION IN THERE AND USE IT AFTERWARDS IN THE ASSIGNMENT AS I THINK IT IS BASED ON THOSE THREE SEMINARS. REGARDS


There are faxes for this order.

The goal of this paper is to look at telecommuting as an aspect of work/life balance, and the benefits and pitfalls to both employee and employer.

Research citations should come from academically and / or professionally rigorous journals: e.g., WorldatWork Journal, Compensation & Benefits Review, Academy of Management Review, Harvard Business Review, etc. Trade publications are generally unacceptable sources, please do not use them. The specific sources mentioned are only examples and are not required.
Customer is requesting that (brooklynwriter) completes this order.

Research assignment (500 words)

Each student will be allocated a question and a source. The answer is to be in the form of an essay of about 500 words.



Here are the four questions:

Q) Are we defined by the job we do?

And the source of information:

Web/newspaper from Australia.



Tips:
What information do I need?
Before starting ask yourself these questions:

What is the question I have been allocated asking?
The assignment requires you to construct an argument in the form of an essay after you have investigated your question. Start by asking yourself what do you think about the question? Do you agree or diagree? WHY?

What type of information is needed? - what source of information have you been allocated e.g. website, newspaper etc..?

How much information do I need?

Is current information needed?

Are we defined by the job we do?
work life, work and life, work-life relationships, work-life balance, meaning of work, importance, effects, impact
personality, sense of self, beliefs, shape beliefs
society, work in society, work impact, social impacts, individual impacts

Write 1-2 paragraphs defining the purpose of your website and 1-2 paragraphs outlining your customer service mission statement. I need a entrance statement also at the beginning. If you need a extra page you can do it and charge me, just inform me of the cost..

OUTLINE: WEB SITE PROPOSAL


?The Purpose of our Website.?

Company mission
1) To serve as a type of ?matchmaking service? to match willing employees to restaurants that need them
2) Deliver highest-quality personnel to local restaurants
3) Offer effective and good-paying employment opportunities to the community
4) Uphold the dignity of each job applicant as an individual
5) Help make sure that both potential employer and employee come away with a good match and the perfect job opportunities

Company?s beliefs
1) A diverse workforce is a strong workforce
a) Diversity means a strong employment system
b) Diversity provides many benefits for the community

2) Restaurants with high-quality staff deliver high-quality service to customers
3) Employees need to benefit as well, through flexible schedules, work-life balance and necessary time for training



Site?s Purpose
1) To find the user a great job
2) The site assists the job users with employment information
3) The site assists employers with information they need to find the right job candidate

Users can search for jobs at any time, anywhere in the world
1) Application is online
a) Easy access
b) Can be filled out 24/7
c) Easy to understand
2) Jobs can be e-mailed to the user
3) Employers can find the best candidate on the Website
a) Matching points help match qualifications to job need
b) Salary requirements also posted

4) Potential candidates can find the ideal job for their particular goals in life
a) Salary
b) Location
c) Job title/benefits
d) Work/life balance


Comprehensive information is on the site
1) Salary
2) Job descriptions
3) Location
4) Potential for employee advancement
5) Other factors
6) Quick access and functioning
a) User-friendly menu
b) Easy-to-navigate site

The site?s customer service
1) Helps make searching for jobs easy for the potential candidate
2) Helps employers better navigate the candidates that might be right for the program

For this assignment, you will continue to apply adult development issues to the workplace. Imagine that you have recently accepted a position as an organizational consultant, and you are learning on the job. You have a team you work with to advise companies on various organizational issues.
In this case study, you will describe how you would see yourself working as a consultant for the leadership team at We Make Widgets, Inc. This is a company whose leaders are each struggling with their own issues involving work-life balance. Your role will be to discuss with these leaders how best to manage their individual situations, as well as to come up with some options for how they might be proactive for the long-term health of the company, so that there are options in place that employees can utilize in the future to manage work-life balance issues that may arise. It will help to think in terms of what is in the best interest of each leader as well as of the organization (at both the individual and system levels). Remember that you are learning on the job and you are working with a team. At the corporate office of We Make Widgets, Inc., there are three executives and a shared support person:

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is Maria Visionaria, whose leadership style is inspiring for her staff. However, because of her drive for success, she works six or seven long days a week and has not made time for a vacation in several years. At age 50 she realizes she must make some changes. The stress has begun to take a toll on her physical health as well as the health of her relationships. What questions do you have for her, and what options do you suggest to her?
The Chief Operating Officer (COO) is Mujibar Delhi, a practical family-oriented man whose wisdom and expertise have been relied on over the years. Despite his tendency to resist change, he has an excellent track record for managing company operations. At age 62, he is aware that others have noticed signs of fatigue and forgetfulness, and he fears that they will think it is more than stress. He is frustrated that his hearing loss may be impacting his communications. His wife recently retired and wants him to do the same because she feels that she needs his help to care for her mother (who has Alzheimers). Mujibar is struggling with what to do, since he feels that the fulfillment he finds in his work is essential to his well-being. What questions do you have for him, and what options do you suggest to him?
The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) is Wanda Sharp, a brilliant but self-centered accountant who sees herself as the one person responsible for the success of the company. In her second marriage at age 40, she and her husband are in the process of adopting a baby. She recently learned that her 15-year-old son is struggling with substance abuse issues; her main concern with this is How could he do this to me? What questions do you have for her, and what options do you suggest to her?
The reliable 30-year-old executive assistant for this team, Roger, has been with them for years. He is someone you can consult with, in order to learn more information about the company as well the executive team. What might be some helpful questions to ask him?
How receptive or resistant is each of these three executives to the options/suggestions you present to them? Are there any actions you would recommend to them that the organization might consider in terms of future planning?
Feel free to ask questions and do the best you canyou are new at this! As a guide, this paper should be approximately five-to-seven pages (plus separate pages for cover sheet, abstract, and references--per APA style). Remember, being concise is part of being an excellent organizational consultant because it shows that you are organized in what you are presenting.

Essay Request: I need an essay for 1- Ed Gold Scholarship and 2-Walter H. Diamond and Dorothy B. Diamond Scholarship. 250 words for each essay using information below that can be found in my bio, essay a, essay b, and writing sample.

1- Ed Gold Scholarship

The Ed Gold funds provides financial assistance to international students from developing nations who are interested pursuing a career in print journalism, and who demonstrates financial need, superior academic and journalistic achievement.

2- Walter H. Diamond and Dorothy B. Diamond International Business Journalism Fellowship

The Walter H. Diamond and Dorothy B. Diamond International Business Journalism fund provides fellowships to students who are interested pursuing a career in international business journalism, and who demonstrates financial need, superior academic and journalistic achievement.


>>Biography
Eunice Omole graduated from the University of Virginia with a bachelor's degree in economics. She then completed her master's degree in real estate at Cornell University. Eunice currently works at FactSet Research Systems as an institutional sales executive and contributing writer for Applause Africa Magazine in New York City. Soon after her appearance on The Apprentice: Africa in 2008, she met with fascinating entrepreneurs, designers, writers and politicians while touring Sub-Saharan and South Africa. Their unique stories inspired her to launch O&M Media Ltd. where she produced a new Pan-African television series, called Africa's Top 100 Entrepreneurs, through which she hoped to connect the showcased entrepreneurs with the many young men and women who aspire to be like them. Her interest in journalism stems from her desire to share the rich cultural experiences she has had while in Africa. She looks forward to attending the Journalism School at Columbia University, which will allow her to develop an effective reporting style that can be used to deliver stories that shape the public opinion of African fashion and entrepreneurship. Columbia will provide an enriching and essential testing ground where she can pursue her short- and long-term goals in fashion and entrepreneurship, and give back to Africa. After graduation, her goal is to join the staff of a large news publishing and media organization.



>>Essay A: Autobiographical essay
--
I possess an abiding entrepreneurial spirit and drive to succeed, which came naturally from being the eldest child of two Nigerian immigrants. Today, this spirit translates into a strong belief in market opportunities and willingness to accept a high level of risk.

Growing up with knowledge of my fathers arduous journey from a Nigerian village to U.S. medical school and ultimately a successful career in orthopedic surgery, determination, hard work, and a thirst for learning were instilled in me from the start. I got to test out these values as a nine year-old when I didnt make first chair during a violin audition. Instead of giving up, I pushed myself to practice harder until I was finally selected to be the concert soloist. Though many years have passed, I remember well the confidence and pride this success inspired; it is pursuit of this accomplished feeling and the certainty that hard work can make anything possible that has propelled me through the incredible journey I have taken to discover my passion for journalism.

Having made Deans List twice during my economics studies at UVA, I joined the New York Investment Banking Consulting team at FactSet Research Systems in September 2001. Hard work earned me fast promotions to Senior Consultant and Account Executive. Not wanting to miss out on any opportunities for learning, I simultaneously enrolled in evening statistics classes at NYU and joined Weichert Realtors as a real estate agent. These varied commitments forced me to quickly learn work-life balance and brought my first surprise: with the purchase of my first property, I fell in love with real estate and enrolled in the graduate program at Cornell.

The real estate program brought opportunities to study emerging real estate markets, taking me to live and work in Nigeria and China, two of the most populous countries in the world. Their rich cultures and traditions inspired me to explore my own, and I became more involved in African organizations, events, and causes at Cornell. I earned second runner-up in the Miss Nigeria in America Beauty Pageant among 50 contestants, using my newfound voice to raise positive awareness of Nigerians in America and assist organizations and causes.

I maintained my involvement in African organizations as an MBA student at Cornell. In 2008, I was selected as one of 18 contestants from across Africa and the Diaspora to compete on The Apprentice: Africa. Though it meant taking a leave of absence from business school, I knew I couldnt pass on this opportunity to gain a voice to enact change within Africa.


After placing 1st runner-up, I made a promotional tour through Sub-Saharan and South Africa and met successful African entrepreneurs who inspired me to stay in Nigeria. I was determined to utilize my status, network, and experience to produce a new television program, Africas Top 100 Entrepreneurs, to fill an entrepreneurship vacuum on the continent by highlighting the accomplishments of the founders of Africas most tenacious companies and the potential of Africas business landscape. To produce the show, I founded O&M Media Ltd., which serviced multiple television programs, including Africas Top 100 Entrepreneurs. However, the global recession bred fear in the marketplace, and I was ultimately forced to close O&M two years later.

Rather than give up, I drew upon my fathers inspiration and headed to his hometown, Ere Village, founding its first microfinance bank. I lobbied Eres elders for support, fighting to raise residents out of poverty. I worked tirelessly with the Central Bank of Nigeria and established management and operations, becoming one of five inaugural members of the Board of Directors and the Chair of the Audit committee from 2009-2011. The material benefits of microfinance took root and expanded beyond Ere, and our initiative was adopted by other states. I am extremely proud of the successful launch of eight bank projects, including a waterworks project, complete with a pipeline network and faucets for the whole village and an energy center, which will buy power in bulk from the Power Holding Company of Nigeria for distribution to every house and generate its own power during outages.

My experiences abroad brought tremendous professional and personal growth, as well as another surprise discovery: my passion for writing about the rich culture abroad as a means of effecting change there. I have begun exploring this interest as a contributor to Applause Africa Magazine, and I feel as confident and inspired as ever to pursue a career in journalism with a focus on business and fashion.


>>Essay B: Professional essay
--
My interest in journalism stems from my desire to share the rich cultural experiences I have had in Africa. Soon after my appearance on The Apprentice: Africa, I met fascinating entrepreneurs, designers, writers, and politicians during my tour across Sub-Saharan and South Africa. Their unique stories inspired me to create a platform for sharing these tales, and I launched O&M Media and produced a new Pan-African television series, called Africas Top 100 Entrepreneurs, through which I hoped to connect the showcased entrepreneurs with the many younger men and women who aspire to be like them. In preparation for the show, I co-wrote the treatment and production bible, conducted detailed interviews, and contributed stories about the entrepreneurs to local print media to attract sponsors. Despite the grueling work of launching a company and show from scratch, I found myself thoroughly enjoying every aspect of gathering inspirational stories and shaping them into a screen production.

Unfortunately, after over two years, the market downturn forced me to close O&M. Upon returnin to New York City, I found myself yearning to share the remarkable stories I had gathered abroad. It is this desire that convinced me of my passion for journalism. By cultivating my writing skills, I realized I may be able to once again establish a platform for the many inspiring stories hidden under the surface.

To explore my interest, I began contributing to Applause Africa magazine in New York, composing pieces on topics such as high-demand African fashion designers. Perhaps even more rewarding than getting to share my stories is reading the feedback from my diverse readers. My experience with O&M Media and Applause Africa magazine has not only reinforced my interest in journalism, but also made me aware of a higher purpose to my writing. Through my reporting, I want to teach readers about todays Africa, hoping to cultivate positive opinion and ultimately benefit its hard-working, inspiring entrepreneurs. Becoming a journalist means accepting both the privilege and responsibility of establishing and presenting the facts to the public.

My journalistic experiences thus far have also demonstrated that the diligence and perseverance I have applied to my prior endeavors translates to reporting. I pursue the necessary facts with unwavering determination and am not easily discouraged by seemingly inapproachable, high-profile sources. Through my previous accomplishments, I have demonstrated leadership and entrepreneurial skills which have resulted in rapid promotions at FactSet and allowed me to successfully launch a microfinance model in Nigeria that serves as an example to neighboring states in Africa. I have no doubt that these skills will continue to serve me as I pursue my passion for journalism.

I understand that pursuing a degree in journalism will challenge me in new ways. However, I have encountered challenges before. During my first two years at UVA, I struggled to find focus and develop time management and study skills. However, my strong motivation to excel drove me to overcome these challenges, and my academic performance improved significantly in the junior and senior years, when I made Deans List twice in two years. Through these experiences, I also learned about the need to take time to adjust in order to optimize my future performance; that is why, upon returning to New York City after closing O&M Media, I elected to take four months off to focus on family, friends, and networking after years of living abroad.

A degree in journalism will allow me to develop crucial skills and apply my international experience to the pertinent issues in my industry focus and my country. The Columbia Graduate School of Journalism will provide the strong foundation I need to achieve my aspirations. Having visited the campus, I am particularly impressed by the faculty, many of whose academic interests closely mirror my own, as well as the programs team-oriented, cooperative culture and sense of social responsibility. Speaking with current students has convinced me that Columbia will provide me with an enriching and challenging environment where I can transform myself into an effective journalist to pursue my broader goals in public opinion and, ultimately, give back to Africa. The part-time MS program at Columbia will allow me to balance academic success with continued achievements in the workplace and at home. I believe I will be an asset to Columbia by contributing my passion for writing and my experiences both inside and outside of the classroom. I look forward to joining Columbia and am certain that I will be a valuable member of the community.



>>Writing Sample
The first link is the promotional version of Africas Top 100 Entrepreneurs, which features as its principal subject Otunba Subomi Balogun, Group Chairman of the First City Group Limited. Balogun virtually established the model for the banking industry in Nigeria, and he continues to assert great influence over a financial institution of international repute and garner for his various companies international respect. The five-minute Its Happening segment is a fast-cut, energetic profile of young Africans who are doing things of significance throughout the continent. The program closes by featuring Deji Akinyanju, CEO of Food Concepts Limited -- a young Nigerian on the sure road to success and creating excitement already with his innovative ways of doing business. The second link is an approximately two-minute clip of the promotional version of the episode used for TV commercials and promotional purposes.

My role as presenter was to uncover the accomplishments, hardships and lessons learned from the founders, CEOs, and presidents of some of Africas most tenacious companies. This program provides viewers with relevant insights into the African business landscape and its major movers. Instead of promoting theories, it provides real-life stories of how businessmen and women were able to become successful, highlighting the challenges and triumphs they encountered along the way. I interviewed and provided in-depth profiles of Otunba Balogun and Deji Akinyanju. As the first in the initial series of 13 episodes of Africas Top 100 Entrepreneurs, Otunba Baloguns profile indicated the standard for selection for the entire series. As the Its Happening guest, Deji Akinyanju was interviewed on location. We got to see much of his Chicken Republic and other business operations through interviews with managers, partner/directors, and other people close to him.

As part of my behind-the-scenes role in the production of the video, I researched the interviewees and wrote the treatment, script, and interview questions.

The videos purpose is to give young, upcoming African entrepreneurs insight into what informed the really great entrepreneurial successes in Africa -- what we want to know, in the Balogun example, is: how did he make it happen? What did he see as the opportunity? What were the business tactics, strategies and principles involved, including attracting of investors? What were the stepping stones or building blocks that amounted to not just success, but phenomenal success? What were the stumbling blocks along the way? How and why did he pick himself up, dust himself off, redesign his strategies and forge ahead with a redefined vision? How did timing factor in? How did he get others, including his family, to share the vision and go along with what seemed to be a hunch? Was First City a choice? Were there alternative directions he might have taken? As a manager, how did he forge uncharted territory? Was marketing acumen the key to success, or was he a banking genius?! Or was Nigerian business just ready for leadership and courage, and Otunba Balogun supplied it?

I asked those particular questions because I wanted to get to the heart and mind of the entrepreneur, hoping to understand the way he thought and felt every step of the way. What makes a good journalist is curiosity about everything. I didnt want to just regurgitate what was already documented; I wanted to be the storyteller getting the information directly from the source. It took a lot of resourcefulness to get access to these high-profile entrepreneurs; I only had one shot to make my pitch in order for them to agree to meet with me and then to agree to be part of the program. Since a lot of the subjects wouldnt take my phone calls, my letters had to be concise and clear about the advantages of participating in the show and the value the subjects would create for the program and viewers.

I started O&M Media to produce the TV show. After a year of going to friends, family, banks, and sponsors I was able to raise enough seed capital from individual investors to produce the promotional video. I spent my own money sending articles to local newspapers and scheduling promotional events to get people to listen to what I had to say and to get the company and program off the ground. I was committed to the entire process of learning and understanding what it means to do business in Africa from those entrepreneurs, all the while doing it myself. Despite thegrueling work of launching a company and show from scratch, I am proud of what I was able to accomplish. Even though the market downturn forced me to close O&M, I am still working on getting the program out there.

Journalists have to sacrifice a lot, not only in terms of time but also their personal lives. In that 2-3 year span, I sacrificed school, money, and family. I took a leave of absence from the MBA program to work on setting up O&M Media. I spent all of my savings and begged people I knew and had volunteers work for free so I could peddle the show to networks. I missed out on the births of my niece and nephew. As a journalist, you have to have thick skin and deal with stress and keep going in order to get the story you want. I have the potential to be a great journalist because I have demonstrated the strength to take that extra step.

Africas Top 100 is about showcasing the successes and achievements of the African people to the rest of the world. It is about changing lives, making dreams come true, and inspiring and motivating viewers to achieve goals and objectives within and outside Africa. It is about lasting change in the areas of mentorship, leadership, entrepreneurship, education, development and empowerment. It is about positively affecting African youth.

Human Resources & Change

1) The three major human resource management responsibilities are: attracting a quality workforce, developing a quality workforce, and maintaining a quality workforce. Research an organization that is in need of a change.

2) Address the following questions, based on the organization selected and the major human resource management responsibilities (listed above):

a) Identify the selected organization and what is needed to be changed?
b) Why does this change need to occur? What may be the consequences if this change does not occur?
c) How should this organization attract, develop, and maintain the workforce required to bring about your proposed change?

i) Choose at least one of the following in your discussion about attracting a quality workforce to support the change: human resource planning, recruitment, or selection.

ii) Choose at least one of the following in your discussion about how to develop a quality workforce to support the change: employee orientation, training and development, or performance appraisal.

iii) Choose at least one of the following in your discussion about how to maintain a quality workforce to support the change: career development, work-life balance, compensation and benefits, employee retention and turnover, or labor-management relations.

3) Include at least two academic references for this assignment to support the position. One of them should relate to the company discussed in the paper.

Customer is requesting that (superduper68) completes this order.

Instruction : Please answer 4 questions, of which Question 1 & 2 are compulsory. The layout of your answers should be in
paragraph style.

THE VALUE OF LIFE
There was a time when the made in Japan label brought a predictable smirk of superiority to the face of most Americans. The quality of most Japanese products usually was as low as their price. In fact, few imports could match their domestic counterparts, the proud products of "Yankee know-how." But by the late 1960s, an invasion of foreign-made goods chiseled a few worry lines into the countenance of
American industry. And in Detroit, worry was fast fading to panic as the Japanese, not to mention the Germans, began to gobble up more and more of the subcompact auto market.

Never one to take a back seat to the competition, Ford Motor Company decided to meet the threat from abroad head-on. In 1968, Ford executives decided to produce the Pinto. Known inside the company as "Lees car," after Ford president Lee Iacocca, the Pinto was to weigh no more than 2,000 pounds and cost no more than $2,000.

Eager to have its subcompact ready for the 1971 model year, Ford decided to compress the normal drafting-board-to-showroom time of about three-and-a-half years into two. The compressed schedule meant that any design changes typically
made before production-line tooling would have to be made during it.

Before producing the Pinto, Ford crash-tested eleven of them, in part to learn if they met the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) proposed safety standard that all autos be able to withstand a fixed-barrier impact of 20 miles per hour without fuel loss. Eight standard-design Pintos failed the tests. The three cars that
passed the test all had some kind of gas-tank modification. One had a plastic baffle between the front of the tank and the differential housing; the second had a piece of steel between the tank and the rear bumper; and the third had a rubber-lined gas tank.

Ford officials faced a tough decision. Should they go ahead with the standard design, thereby meeting the production timetable but possibly jeopardizing consumer safety?
Or should they delay production of the Pinto by redesigning the gas tank to make it safer and thus concede another year of subcompact dominance to foreign companies?

To determine whether to proceed with the original design of the Pinto fuel tank, Ford decided to use a capital-budgeting approach, examining the expected costs and the social benefits of making the change. Would the social benefits of a new tank design outweigh design costs, or would they not?

To find the answer, Ford had to assign specific values to the variables involved. For some factors in the equation, this posed no problem. The costs of design improvement,
for example, could be estimated at eleven dollars per vehicle. But what about human life? Could a dollar-and-cents figure be assigned to a human being?

NHTSA thought it could. It had estimated that society loses $200,725 every time a person is killed in an auto accident. It broke down the costs as follows:

Future productivity losses
Direct $132,000
Indirect 41,300
Medical costs
Hospital 700
Other 425
Property damage 1,500
Insurance administration 4,700
Legal and court expenses 3,000
Employer losses 1,000
Victims pain and suffering 10,000
Funeral 900
Assets (lost consumption) 5,000
Miscellaneous accident costs 200
Total per fatality $200,725

Ford used NHTSA and other statistical studies in its cost-benefit analysis, which yielded the following estimates:

Benefits
Savings: 180 burn deaths; 180 serious burn
injuries; 2,100 burned vehicles
Unit cost: $200,000 per death; $67,000 per injury;
$700 per vehicle
Total benefit: (180 x $200,000) + (180 x $67,000)
+ (2,100 x $700) = $49.5 million

Costs
Sales: 11 million cars, 1.5 million light trucks
Unit cost: $11 per car, $11 per truck
Total cost: 12.5 million x $11 = $137.5 million

Since the costs of the safety improvement outweighed its benefits, Ford decided to push ahead with the original design.

Here is what happened after Ford made this decision:
Between 700 and 2,500 persons died in accidents involving Pinto fires between 1971 and 1978. According to sworn testimony of Ford engineer Harley Copp, 95% of them
would have survived if Ford had positioned the fuel tank over the axle (as it had done on its Capri automobiles).

NHTSAs standard was adopted in 1977. The Pinto then acquired a rupture-proof fuel tank. The following year Ford was obliged to recall all 1971-1976 Pintos for fuel-tank
modifications.

Between 1971 and 1978, approximately fifty lawsuits were brought against Ford in connection with rear-end accidents involving the Pinto. In the Richard Grimshaw case,
in addition to awarding over $3 million in compensatory damages to the victims of a Pinto crash, the jury awarded a landmark $125 million in punitive damages against Ford. The judge reduced punitive damages to $3.5 million.

On August 10, 1978, 18-year-old Judy Ulrich, her 16-year-old sister Lynn, and their
18-year-old cousin Donna, in their 1973 Ford Pinto, were struck from the rear by a
van near Elkhart, Indiana. The gas tank of the Pinto exploded on impact. In the fire that resulted, the three teenagers were burned to death. Ford was charged with
criminal homicide. The judge presiding over the 20-week trial advised jurors that Ford should be convicted if it had clearly disregarded the harm that might result from
its actions, and that disregard represented a substantial deviation from acceptable standards of conduct. On March 13, 1980, the jury found Ford not guilty of criminal homicide.

For its part, Ford has always denied that the Pinto is unsafe compared with other cars
of its type and era. The company also points out that in every model year the Pinto
met or surpassed the governments own standards. But what the company does not say is that successful lobbying by it and its industry associates was responsible for delaying for 9 years the adoption of NHTSAs 20-miles-per-hour crash standard. And Fords critics claim that there were more than forty European and Japanese models in the Pinto price and weight range with safer gas-tank position. "Ford made an extremely irresponsible decision," concludes auto safety expert Byron Bloch, "when they placed such a weak tank in such a ridiculous location in such a soft rear end."

Questions 1 and 2 are based on the case study above and they are compulsory to attempt.

1. Would it have made a moral or ethical difference if the $11 savings had been passed on to Fords customers? Could a rational customer have chosen to save $11 and risk the more dangerous gas tank? Would that have been similar to
making air bags optional? What if Ford had told potential customers about its decision?

2. Should Ford have been found guilty of criminal homicide in the Ulrich case?

3. 3M Corporation offers employees seminars on financial planning and parenting; and Tires Plus offers classes on nutrition and healthy cooking, work/life balance,
weight loss, and smoking cessation. Do these programs represent a good use of company funds? Explain your answer.

4. How can organizations help raise the self-esteem of workers? How might organizations benefit if they are able to successfully implement these strategies? Discuss the answer with related theoretical concepts

5. It has been said that attitudes represent a powerful force in any organization. Support this statement with the help of relevant theoretical concepts and related examples?

6. Describe the needs present in Maslows hierarchy. How can organizations attempt to meet these needs so that employees are motivated to produce more work? Discuss the answer in detail

7. Do you think the labor union movement is dead? Why or why not? Answer this question through Hong Kongs unions perspective