Sunday, November 24, 2019

“Human Resource Management Practices in” Scb Essays

â€Å"Human Resource Management Practices in† Scb Essays â€Å"Human Resource Management Practices in† Scb Essay â€Å"Human Resource Management Practices in† Scb Essay HR Planning: HR Planning process consists of forecasting, goal setting and strategic planning, and program implementation and evaluation. As the Bank operates in a dynamic environment where new and advanced practices are frequently emerging resulting in changing customer’s requirements. Not only this, the demands on existing staff resources fluctuate in order to maintain the provision of services, it becomes even more critical that all managers contribute to HR planning in a structure way. Recruitment: Standard Chartered Bank recruits the most talented individuals from the external market to supplement our internal pipeline of talent. Their Human Resources department provides guidance on the use of psychometric tests and has robust recruitment criteria to ensure that all candidates are treated fairly, equally and with respect. It has a global Graduate Recruitment Program; where in the region of 150 graduates are recruited each year on a management trainee program across all businesses, functions and countries. Selection: Standard Chartered selects employees based on knowledge, skills and talent. They are committed to providing equality of opportunity to all employees, regardless of gender, race , nationality , age , disability , ethnic origin , or marital status. Training Development: Standard Chartered provides a framework within which the employee can identify the training and development needs. Such training provides a consistent standard of management learning throughout Standard Chartered. It lso enables the employees to take all of the programs or study for individual modules according to their particular development needs. Performance Appraisal: Performance management is the process through which managers ensure that employee activities and outputs are congruent with the organization’s goals. It is central to gaining competitive advantage. The key elements of a Performance Management System include the following: 1. A Formal Compensation Philosophy Statement 2. Salary Admini stration Program 3. Job Evaluation System 4. Performance Appraisal System 5. Reward Programs Purpose of Performance Appraisal: There are a number of reason for carrying out the performance appraisal of employees such as promotion, transfer etc. Therefore, the Bank makes sure that the employees clearly understand the objectives of the performance appraisal. Reliability: At Standard Chartered Bank the performance management criteria resembles test-retest reliability. According to this the employees are evaluated on annual basis and those employees who have somewhat similar ratings from year to year have greater chances of getting promotion, bonuses etc. Acceptability: Diverging opinions prevail about the acceptability of the performance appraisal. Some employees accept them to be fair while others believe them to be biased and predetermined. In addition to this the views regarding fairness are perceived differently within the three categories including: 1. Procedural 2. Interpersonal 3. Outcome Specificity: One of the major lacking in the performance appraisal method of Standard Chartered Bank is in the area of specificity. Amongst the various levels of employees the performance evaluation is believed not to provide specific guidance about what is expected of them and how they can meet these expectations. Necessary Measures: Adopting the following measures can reduce the shortcomings of the system: Employees should be involved in the appraisal process, i. e. information should be taken from them. The process should result in effective outcomes by telling the employees that how can they improve their performance. This would not only benefit the Bank, but would also help the employees in their personal development. Compensation: In getting the message out about the Bank’s products and services. How effectively the sales team markets the Bank, and in turn, how successful it is, is directly related to the sales compensation program. A sound sale compensation package enables Standard Chartered Bank to focus sales activities towards desired results, and rewards these outcomes with compensation tied directly to the level of achievement. Rewards Recognition: Standard Chartered Bank rewards the talented and high performing employees competitively. They regularly conduct salary surveys to ensure the reward package remains competitive in the market place. They encourage continuous discussion; encourage regular review of employees’ performance and development. This provides feedback to the staff about how they are doing. The management links this to both financial and non-financial recognition.

Thursday, November 21, 2019

The Welfare State Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

The Welfare State - Essay Example The government realized that the state’s duty is to look after its citizens from birth to death. After its implementation, the government tried to facilitate whatever conditions favourable for the citizens. The present essay tries to analyse the meaning of welfare state in Britain. Further the essay shows how the government had tried to eliminate the ‘five giants’, as stated by Beveridge, for the development of welfare state. Moreover an evaluation is made on the strengths and weaknesses of the welfare state in Britain. Thus the essay is an attempt to throw light on the various aspects of the welfare state in the United Kingdom. The meaning of welfare state in UK: The idea of welfare state began in the year 1942. William Beveridge proposed the suggestions for making the country a welfare state. The Clement Attlee government was favourable for implementing the project of William Beveridge. The period of the government from 1945-1951 witnessed many of the welfare pr ogrammes for the people. It aimed to reduce the social inequalities and bring up social justice to all in the British society. The Attlee government was in support of the common people and so the implementation of welfare state made many people friendly programmes for the total developments of the people. ... 2-3). As stated above the nation has a great role to play for the wellbeing of the people. It should make programmes for the security and future of the citizens. It is the duty of the state to provide maximum programmes for child developments and health care. The educational requirements of the citizens are the duty of a welfare government. The concept of welfare state in relied upon the report of Beveridge. The report demands the destruction of five giants. Ken Browne in his Introduction to Sociology pinpoints that the development of welfare services aimed at the destruction of the five giants-â€Å"of Want (poverty), Disease (ill-health and lack of healthcare), Squalor (poor housing), Ignorance (lack of educational opportunity) and Idleness (unemployment), and the creation of a society in which each individual would have the right to be cared by the state from womb to tomb† (Browne 2011, p.383). When these five giants are reduced by the government to the lowest level, the so ciety is said to be in favour of the people. In analysing the implementation of the welfare state, it can be seen that the government had tried its level best to eliminate these five giants from the land. Thus in the history of Britain anyone can understand that the government is worth enough to be called a welfare state. UK as a welfare state and the analysis of five giants: To analyse the welfare state in Great Britain, it is worthwhile to make an evaluation of the five giants and the governmental policies to eradicate the giants from the society. In the UK, the government headed by the Labour party was ready to implement some of the suggestions of Beveridge and implemented a series of laws to protect it. It had many up and downs. It remained up to Margaret

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Human Resources consultant Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Human Resources consultant - Case Study Example This would have helped the bosses portray that they are quite interested in the store and the employees working there. 2. According to Equity theory, workers are motivated if they perceive that the reward is equal to the input given by workers (Koontz, 1986, p.295). The workers of Flight 001 do not perceive that the reward or compensation given to them is equal to their input and hard work due to which they have been de-motivated. Due to lack of motivation, the workers might not use their knowledge, skills and abilities at the optimum level and they might under produce. To motivate employees owners shave to pay compensation according to the amount of hard work and dedication injected by the workers in the business. 3. The hygiene factors that are being met in the organization include status, work environment and supervisory procedures. In this case we can see that employees feel that they are not just employees who are being supervised and assigned tasks, they feel that they are a very important part of the organization. This shows that the environment of the organization is quite flexible, there is less supervision and workers in the organization are quite loyal as they are treated as a part of the organization. Motivational factors existing in the organization’s environment include: recognition of achievement, greater responsibility and flexible working environment. The motivational factor of greater responsibility is available because owners have not just assigned tasks to workers, but owners are viewing employees that the main reason of organization’s success and are provided higher responsibilities such as decision making and problem solving. The organizations environment is quite flexible because the organization is not using any supervisors to keep an eye on the employees and employees are making decisions on their

Monday, November 18, 2019

Select a publicly traded U.S. corporation for which you have a common Essay

Select a publicly traded U.S. corporation for which you have a common interest - Essay Example egic business decisions, the company has been able to trade in over 186 million bids, with a sum of over $840 million items being sold with an average of around 800, 000 bids per day. (Schonfeld, 2005) As a result of internet technology a lot of business sprung up, among them being Electronic commerce. The online business started to pick up in the early 1990s, and by around 2000 the business was fully embraced across the globe. Recently, e-commerce industry has experienced an immense development, mostly due to the growth of internet users across the world. More and more people are shifting their attention towards the new shopping model of doing online shopping. (Schonfeld, 2005) E-Bay incorporation provides an online platform for sellers and buyers to interact and trade in various categories of goods and services. There are three segments in eBay namely; payments, marketplaces and GSI Commerce. Since access to e-commerce is universal, and the physical assets to start up this form of business are commercially available, barriers to entry into the industry is quite lower. Now what matters here is the network externalities effect. For instance, it is extremely difficult for a competitor to acquire a bigger share of the users in market where there is relatively huge network externalities. Nonetheless, eBay has managed to secure its position among the top e-commerce websites in the world. However, just like any other industry eBay is subject to competition from companies like Yahoo and Amazon. These companies normally employ tactics such as lowering of price of their services in order to gain competitive advantage. At the moment eBay is focusing its markets abroad. It is now operating in eight of the top ten countries, by e-commerce market size outside the American nation. For example, eBay controls over 80% of e-commerce market in Asia, while it is reported to be gaining users , 45% faster in Europe continent more than in U.S.A. It is also experiencing a 135% growth

Friday, November 15, 2019

Interpretivism Approach In The Study Of Workers Behaviour Psychology Essay

Interpretivism Approach In The Study Of Workers Behaviour Psychology Essay The study of workers behaviour is a very complex phenomenon as it involves peoples attitudes, feelings and behaviours, which characterise life in an organisation. The field of human behavior is solidly grounded by researcher such as Taylor, Maslow, Herzberg and Elton Mayo. With the pace of industrial revolution, studies are now more focused on areas such as job satisfaction and analysis, performance evaluation, employee motivation and the human factor at workplace. Hence, the interpretivism approach has gained momentum in the study of human behaviour. This literature review will introduce the different research philosophies which have been used in the field of human behaviour, firstly, providing a descriptive analysis of the Positivist approach, which focuses on quantitative methods as opposed to the Interpretivist approach, which focuses on qualitative methods and secondly how the early approach to research in human behaviour has shifted towards qualitative methods as it enhances understanding of workers behaviours in organisations and hence facilitate management decisions. For decades, the way in which research is conducted has produced arguments relating to which research philosophies, approaches and strategies are best to follow.   A research philosophy is a belief about the way in which data can be gathered, analysed and used. Galliers (1991) identified two major school of thoughts as Positivist (also called scientific) and interpretivist (also known as anti-positivist). Positivism is a belief that it is possible to obtain objective knowledge through observation and that such knowledge is verified by statements about the circumstances in which such knowledge is true. Smith (1998) provides a useful insight into positivist thinking within social sciences with this description: Positivist approaches to the social sciences . . . assume things can be studied as hard facts and the relationship between these facts can be established as scientific laws. For positivists, such laws have the status of truth and social objects can be studied in much the same way as natural objects. In other words, Positivism views the social world as the natural world in terms of how it can be studied, because human behaviour is determined by rules and developed with social groups. Positivism is considered to be an empirical testing of theories by means of experimentations before reaching a general principle. Positivism adopts a clear quantitative approach to investigating phenomena by using data that are objective, discernible and measurable. According to House (1983) evaluation of information is considered to be scientifically objective in the sense that they can be verified by logical inspection regardless of who uses the techniques. Hence, the positivist approach to research is favoured due its exactness and impartiality. (e-International Relations, 2010).   Positivist research is usually conducted with a large number of participants. The research design tend to be comparative, hence the use of surveys or experimental designs is usually preferred. The methods used are more likely to produce quantifiable and testable data such as official statistics, structured interviews and observation.   Typically, they are rigid, unchanging and free from social constraints. However, the use of these methods can sometimes be very expensive and time consuming. Thus, critics argue that the positivist approach yields useful, but limited data, which only provide a superficial view of the phenomenon under investigation (Bond, 1993; Moccia, 1988; Payle, 1995) Early positivist theorist in the field or organisational and human behaviour searched for underlying principles of what happens in organisational settings. They were concerned with efficiency, or how to economically maximise workers productivity (Denhardt, 2008; Simon, 1947a). However, Dahl (1947) rejects the idea that the study of human behaviour could be classified as a positivist approach and could be designed as true experiments that produce uniform, reliable and verifiable data. A major criticism of the positivist approach is that it does not allow a comprehensive study and examination of human beings and their behaviours. Hence, the increasing importance of the human factor in the workplace leads to the emergent to a shift towards the interpretivist paradigm. Interpretivism approach focuses on methods that examine people and their social behaviour (Gill and Johnson, 1997). This approach considers human beings as part of the social world, which exists due to the interaction and actions of human beings. It emphasises a search for meaning, understanding and social interaction as the basis for knowledge. According to Cantrell (1993, p84), the aims of interpretivist approach research are to understand phenomena, to interpret meaning within particular social and cultural contexts, and to uncover beliefs and elicit meaning from action and intention through dialogical interaction between researchers and participants. According to the interpretivist view, the social world is open and changing by ways people go about their lives. Research methods therefore, must be capable of capturing the quality of peoples interpretations and understanding the meanings to people course of actions. Hence, the utility of qualitative data is preferred as it is more acquiescent to the study of organisation and human behavior. Qualitative research is a class of research methods in which the researcher actively interacting with the participants of the particular study (Muchinsky, 2003).   In other words, the researcher gets involved with the phenomena being researched. Thus, qualitative research produces narrative descriptions of events as opposed to quantitative research which produces results in numerical data (Landy Conte, 2004; Strauss Corbin, 1990) The interpretivist approach makes use of flexible and multiple methods, the most desirable way of studying a small sample in depth over time. The favoured common methods used include interviews, observational research and focus groups.   The characteristics of these methods are extremes to those used in quantitative research as they are exploratory rather than explanatory and focus on meanings than establishing facts. The interpretivist paradigm disagrees with the notion that human beings and its behaviour can be studied with scientific methods. Interpretivist theorists are more concerned with the study of organisation from inside as they assumed that a better understanding of how the company functions can only be achieved from the perspective of the workers. The favoured research design in Ethnography with the use of qualitative method such as observation is useful in answering questions on why employees behave the way they do in organisations and what happens in the organisation (Ehigie, R.I Ehigie B.O, 2005:621-638). Ethnography study is by means of which you assess people in their day to day activities, their behaviour and culture in a natural setting. Fetterman (1998) describes it as the art and science of describing a group or a culture. The group can be categorised as work group, organisations or team of individuals where as culture can be the prevailing culture in an organisation. Ethnography can be used to gain understanding of the real world context, social as well as work settings (Hughes et al, 1995; Blomberg et al, 1993). Bret et al (2003) argues that since organisations are presently turning towards the use of work teams, ethnography studies have become an important research method in understanding the complex interactions with work teams. Hence, the use of ethnographic methods help in gathering information by mainly watching and talking with people, and by scrutinising documented reports and records (Riemer, 2008:205). Observation is one of the ethnographic methods used by researchers to observe the population of the phenomena to be studied to develop an understanding of their behaviour and culture. The personnel of an organisation who usually make use of this method are supervisors, human resource experts as by nature of their job responsibilities they are expected to observe workers behaviour on the job (Krumm, 2001). Frederick Taylor, one of the early contributors in the study of motivation and performance at work carried out series of experiments at the Bethlehem Steel Company which included non-participant observation of workers. As the workers were constantly aware that they were being observed, there was a drastic change in their work pattern and consequently resulted to improvement in work performance, organisation productivity and earnings. Taylor (1856-1915) advocated that monetary rewards were the main cause of motivation, therefore observational studies on workers did not affect their p erformance, as they were drive by the financial rewards they would achieve by their course of actions. A very good example of participant observation can be related to the Hawthorne experiments allegedly conducted by Elton Mayo. The researchers involved in the Hawthorne Experiments did not understand the impact of human values and interaction until they personally interacted with the workers (Denhardt, 2009:3). Thus, through this interaction they had a better understanding of the workers actions in relations to the working environment. However, observational studies are also criticised as only small samples can be investigated such as in the case of Taylors research which was only conducted on manual workers. It is believed that if the research was conducted on white collar workers the findings would have been different. Another criticism by (Muchinsky, 2003; Sackett Larsen, 1990), observation is not frequently used in the study of human behaviour as it relies extensively on time and energy. One criticism of Mayos research is that the population involved knew that they were being studies. The critics argued that to capture a clearer picture of the research, the participants should not be made aware that they are being studied. Despite these criticisms, it is believed that Taylors observational studies have immensely contributed to present day management and gave birth to the concept of performance related pay system. To summarise, it can be argued that qualitative methods found its way in the study of both organisational and human behaviour. However, as a researcher to understand the phenomenon being studied, the use of converging information from different sources, regardless of its form is more advisable. Although Spector (2005) argued that qualitative methods of research offer an alternative to the highly quantitative methods, it is opined that both quantitative and qualitative research methods can help researchers understand issues better than either of the two separately. The use of qualitative methods is growing in the study of organisational and human behaviour (Lee, 1999) as human element are substantially emphasised in an organisation. Although the qualitative methods have significantly contributed to our understanding of human behaviour in the organisations, many avenues for future research are still open and new ones continue to emerge.

Wednesday, November 13, 2019

Website Analysis Essay -- Computers Internet Essays

Website Analysis Sometimes it seems like the computer game industry is dying, crushed to death by its own bulk. Every year more and more gaming companies get gobbled up into huge conglomerates like Electronic Arts, companies that mostly put out trash that is technically and visually impressive, but devoid of concept and content. However, there are some small gaming companies that buck the trend. While mostly just small groups of programmers and artists, some are huge unions of fans who, irritated with the dropping quality of computer games, have decided to use the power of the internet to get together and to produce games tailor-made to their personal preferences. For the sake of comparison, Electronic Arts' website (http://www.eagames.com/) was examined. Like many company websites, it is very pretty, with pictures of the games everywhere. The dark backgrounds and light text are easy on the eyes, and the site is well organized. Tabs on the left let the viewer select the desired gaming platform; pull-down menus and a search bar on the top allow for easy access to the game titles. Each gaming title has a sub-webpage which provides a vignette of the game: a short synopsis, pictures of game play, system requirements, a link to the official webpage of the game (which usually has a separate layout and more diverse information, along with reviews, etc), and of course a â€Å"Buy Now† link. The EA Games website does a very good job of providing information about its products to someone who knows nothing of its games, giving enough of a description to pique the viewer's interests; it is primarily in place for advertisement, and would not make a good nexus for a fan community of its games-- it provides no forums, lists of clan matches ... ...his broadband connection to play multiplayer games over the internet (and therefore has the bandwidth to spare to load a site with many large, connection-clogging features), the games produced by Moonpod and Hero6 are older in style, and therefore appeal more to gamers who prefer traditional, offline games, games best enjoyed in single-player mode. Traditional gamers don’t need a fast connection for the sort of games they play, and may be more likely to use the cheaper 56K dialup. They can't be bothered to go to a website that would take the better part of an hour to load, so Moonpod and Hero6 program their pages accordingly. Depending on what one was looking for, I could confidently recommend any one of these sites, or all of them. All are well done, and I know that I for one am the target audience of all three, as I play games displayed on each of the websites.