Learning Reflection

This week has been interesting to see the different areas of HR that our classmates wrote about. We all are unique and have different interests that we want to find out more. I really liked all of the presentations. Everyone did a great job! I learned a ton about different aspects of Human Resources. The more I look into HR the more I find out how much a company needs a good HR to make the company run efficiently and effectively.

Learning Reflection

I feel that every company should have a corporate culture that values ethics and has an ethical backing that shows through the ways their employees work. Ethics is a very broad subject and is not really measured, but it has a large impact on everyone in the business world. A company that lacks ethics is a company that will fail for many reasons. Either no one will do business with them or they do something wrong that makes them go under. Many unethical businesses have been able to stay afloat for a little while but everything just comes down on them like a pile of bricks. Take for instance, Enron. They tried to hid all of their mistakes and were cooking the books to make it look like they were growing and their stocks were increasing. Then one day things started falling and everything came crashing down.
It is important that companies are ethical in their goals and objectives. They should be looking out for the benefit of everyone in the transaction. Businesses should not act in a way just because they are required to do it but they do it for the benefit of society.

Learning Reflection

High performance work systems all lead to higher profits. What kind of company doesn't want higher profits? I would imagine that all companies would want a high performance work system that they work with and are always changing to get the best out of what they have. Not all companies are big enough or have the resources needed to be able to have high performance, but it should be a goal for every company. Performance evaluation is key because it helps with knowing how efficiently and effectively everything is running. It is important to get the best performance out of all of your employees. You do this by being fair and equitable with everyone and having all the resources needed to get the job done. Having a rewards system will motivate employees to do their best and get the job done right. A company needs to create a culture that rewards good behavior and disciplines bad behavior. For a company to really have a high performance system they need to have information sharing with others. Communication is key, and hoarding of information will only hurt the company and everyone else involved with projects.

Learning Reflection

It is very important for a person that is working outside of their native culture that they are respective to others and their culture. A manager needs to be culturally sensitive and be aware of the different cultures there are around them and to not offend anyone. It would be very hard to learn a new culture and embrace it as your own or adapt to it. If you are working in a different culture and you are the only one who isn't from their then you need to learn and adapt to that culture and how they do things. If your family or social support is not with you in a different country then your chances of succeeding are very low. There are pros and cons with working internationally. It takes time and a lot of effort to adapt to the changes that come with working abroad.

Discussion Topic

Concept and Brief Overview:

Analyzing Programs

Analyzing the effectiveness of a program is essential in the business world because if there is no profitability in the program then the company will not use it. The programs should be able to have more value than what the dollar costs are. If they aren’t, then the program is not going very far. Efficiency is the main ingredient and HR should always be trying to become more efficient in the programs that they run. HR affects the whole company and when something is not going right with HR then something needs to be done to fix the problem. HR is in place to help the organization achieve their goals and also help individuals achieve their own goals also.

Emotional Hook:

Wouldn’t you want to work for a company that had a HR management established that was concerned about your goals in life and helping achieve those objectives? They are concerned about the well-being of the employees and hope to keep employees for the long run.

Key points to elicit in discussion:

HR Management is in place to help make the company more profitable and increase productivity while also decreasing turnover and costs. Analyzing the effect of HR is important to show that their programs are working and are in place for the benefit of the company as whole.

Facilitative Questions:

Wouldn’t the company benefit to analyze the profitability not just in the programs of HR but also the programs in place in the whole company? If all sectors of a company are efficient then the company will be even more productive on increasing revenue?

Discussion Topic

Concept and Brief Discussion:

International Employee Benefits

The benefits that employees receive depend a lot on the person and where they are from. With paid vacation, the US actually isn’t the best country to work in if you are expecting paid vacation because the work hours in the US compared to other countries is relatively high. In Germany, a worker on average works 500 hours less than a US employee. So if you value paid vacation then you might want to go to Germany and work. Also in the US employers don’t give much time off to their employees. HR really has to do their research when they employ workers in other countries. They can offer different benefits for different workers. It depends on the culture of the country and how they do things their.

Emotional Hook:

What if you came from a country that valued paid time off and worked in the US that doesn’t offer many days of paid vacation? Wouldn’t you think twice about moving jobs? If your family liked going on vacations because they were used to the paid time off then they would still want to go on those vacations. How would you be able to keep that same family tradition in a place that does not value time with family but they value hard work and getting the job done?

Key points to elicit in discussion:

Since in the US benefits are worth 30% of the total compensation of workers salary then HR can expect that benefits are worth quite a bit to US employees. In other countries they might not value certain benefits but just want to be paid money for their compensation. Foreign cultures also might expect more from the employer than the employer really wants to give out.

Facilitative Questions:

Would workers be more motivated to work for a company that values employee benefit or a company that pays out more money for the lack of benefits offered? Are workers more attracted to the larger salary or the larger amount of total compensation?

Learning Reflections

There are so many different decisions that people can choose if their employer has the options. For the larger companies it is very important to have many options for their employees because it is a good selling feature to recruit the best talent. If benefits are 30% of total compensation then I would want to get the best benefits that benefited me and my family. It is really neat that some companies offer on-site health care and they have an on-site fitness center that offers instructor classes and personal trainers. Health is very important to the employees and also to the employers. Companies want their employees in the best health so they are efficient in their production and healthy employees don't cost as much with medical expenses. Companies need to have well-being programs that use physical fitness and healthy eating practices that influence their employees to change bad habits to healthy habits.

Unions are an interesting topic. When we did the mock trial in class it was interesting to see what everyone did. I think that unions are pretty much useless now but they might have a couple of uses. I feel like they are just their to take money from the workers. Cooperation on both sides of the line would benefit everyone but it seems like the employees have more power than they need. Companies should have a lot of the say on what goes on, but there should be compromise on both sides. That is why a good HR management would be able to replace a union.