🏷️ LIMITED TIME OFFER: GET 20% OFF GRADE+ YEARLY SUBSCRIPTION →
Log in
HomeTextbook Notes300,000CA170,000

HRM1040 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Edmonton Police Service, Organization Development, American Management Association

136 views7 pages
School
Conestoga College
Department
HRM
Course
HRM1040
Professor
Jane Doe

For unlimited access to Textbook Notes, a Class+ subscription is required.

Document Summary

Edmonton police service: were given mental health training on how to better deal with individuals with mental illness. In the long run it saved almost 000 for the police force in the first 6 months: this program is a good example of the role and importance of training and development in organizations. Should involves consequences for behaviour such as rewards for employees accomplishing their goals: employee training and development. At the core of these functions are learning. Benefits to organizations: strategy, the goal of all organizations is to survive and prosper, organizations can be successful by training employees so they have the knowledge and skills necessary to help achieve goals and objectives. Chapter 1 - the training and development process: effectiveness, trained employees can do more and better work, make fewer errors, require less supervision, have more positive attitudes and have lower rates of attrition.

Get access

Grade+20% off
$8 USD/m$10 USD/m
Billed $96 USD annually
Grade+
Homework Help
Study Guides
Textbook Solutions
Class Notes
Textbook Notes
Booster Class
40 Verified Answers
Class+
$8 USD/m
Billed $96 USD annually
Class+
Homework Help
Study Guides
Textbook Solutions
Class Notes
Textbook Notes
Booster Class
30 Verified Answers

Related Documents

Management and Organizational Studies 3343A/B Chapter 1: chapter1
ceruleanprairie-dog916
ADMS 3410 Chapter 1: chapter 1.docx
tanchinchilla678
Management and Organizational Studies 3343A/B Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Organization Development, Problem Solving, Society For Human Resource Management
grayherring338

Related Questions

Read the article below and write a brief (1-2 paragraph) summary. This assignment should be approximately 250 words . Complete this assignment as a Word document.

Time to Scrap Performance Appraisals

Times have changed. More and more companies have decided to radically change (read “scrap” or “re-engineer”) their performance appraisal process.

Last week at our research conference we spoke with Adobe, Juniper, Kelly Services, and a variety of other companies who have decided to do away with traditional performance ratings and dramatically change the annual appraisal process.

Our research shows that this is a strong and positive trend.

Why the process must change.

Why do companies have annual reviews in the first place? They are an artifact from traditional top-down organizations where we had to “weed out” the bottom performers every year. By forcing managers to rate people once per year we can have annual talent reviews and decide who gets more money, who to promote, and who to let go.

Coupled with the performance rating is the “potential” rating, which tries to capture an individual’s potential to move up two levels in the organization (the traditional definition).

This approach is based on a philosophy that “ we cant totally trust managers” so we’re going to force them to fit people into these rating scales. And in many companies (around 20%) there are forced distributions, which mandate that some percent of employees are rated at the bottom and only a limited percent can be rated at the top.

The well publicized problems with this process abound. These include:

Employees need and want regular feedback (daily, weekly), so a once-a-year review is not only too late but it’s often a surprise. Regular coaching is the key to alignment and performance.

Managers cannot typically “judge” an entire year of work from an individual at one time (imagine if your spouse gave you an annual review!), so the annual review is awkward and uncomfortable for both manager and employee.

Manager-employee relationships are not 1:1 like they used to be. We work with many leaders and peers during the year, so one person cannot adequately rate you without lots of peer input.

While some employees are a poor fit and likely are poor performers, these issues should be addressed immediately, not at the end of the year.

Some companies really do have a lot of high performers, so forced ranking eliminates great people and damages the culture.

People are inspired and motivated by positive, constructive feedback – and the “appraisal” process almost always works against this.

The most valuable part of an appraisal is the “development planning” conversation – what can one do to improve performance and engagement – and this is often left to a small box on the review form.

Companies are nervous about eliminating this process because:

We need a fair and validated way to distribute compensation increases (don’t we?)

We need a record of low performance when we let someone go

We need to capture performance data in an employee’s profile for future promotion and other talent reviews, development plans, and career migration

We need a way to make sure managers are doing their jobs well.

Well, I’ve probably discussed these issues with 100+ companies over the last five years and our research shows more and more that companies are ready to let this process go.

Organization structures have changed and companies need to be more agile. We have a shortage of key talent and the keys to success now focus on regular alignment, coaching, creating passion and engagement, and continuous employee development.

The new keys to success:

Develop a “feedback-rich” culture and set of tools (often online, sometimes formal, often informal) that encourages all employees to give each other feedback. Tools from companies like Achievers, Globoforce, and most HR software vendors now enable and make this easy.

Separate the discussions about performance from discussions about potential and future career plans. Yes we need to evaluate people when raise time comes, but that can be a totally different conversation from.

Talk about performance regularly and let employees create their own goals on a regular basis. Force managers to provide ongoing feedback and teach them how to have honest conversations.

Assume that employees already know something about their own performance, and force them to self-assess. People tend to have a good idea of their own strengths and weaknesses – give them an open and positive opportunity to share it. That starts the dialogue about expectations and the match between their self-assessment and that of the organization.

Enable managers to assess performance regularly. Software teams now use Agile tools which evaluate code on a weekly basis. Managers should be giving people feedback regularly. If they learn to do this on a regular basis it will get easier and employees will learn to appreciate it.

Focus managers on hiring the best, so they build a team which strives for 100% high performers. This is never possible of course, but rather than assuming that 20% of your employees will perform poorly, spend more time on assessment, culture, and fit to make sure very few low performers make it into the organization in the first place.

Remember that everyone wants to succeed. If they aren’t performing well it’s not necessarily their fault – the organization should take responsibility for helping them find a better fit if possible.

Set and reset goals frequently. Companies that set performance goals quarterly generate 31% greater returns from their performance process than those who do it annually, and those who do it monthly get even better results. This means employees get feedback on a continuous basis (most sales organizations work this way). Read our research for more details.

Beware of pay for performance plans. While many companies (particularly investment banking, sales) have large pay for performance plans, research showsthat these can create perverse behavior. People focus on their own goals at the expense of the organization. In sales related roles this process works well – when you move to customer service, engineering, and other “builder” roles they can create problems.

Give your leaders a cultural framework and set of values to work from. Companies like Juniper and Deckers (Uggs shoes) focus very heavily on corporate values, forcing managers to hire and manage to these values. This makes selection easier and enables us to evaluate and coach people against higher level frameworks.

Invest in leadership development. Being a manager is a tough job. Managers at all levels struggle with selection, hiring, training, coaching, and evaluation. Give them time and tools to learn, a framework for feedback, and a continuous development process so they learn how to become better.

Reward talent “production” not talent “hoarding.” If you pay your managers to “produce output,” they will focus heavily on talent performance and evaluation. This may be a good thing, but ultimately companies thrive by building skills – so in addition to encouraging managers to produce good work, incent them to produce good talent as well.

I’ve had the opportunity to study HR and performance management for almost 15 years now, and this topic has been controversial for a long time. In today’s globalized,talent constrained workplace it’s clear to me that the traditional appraisal has to change.

Businesses thrive on agility, speed, passion, and alignment. The process of driving and measuring performance has to do the same.

1.) Using the computed financial ratios from question 1, compare Grounds Keeper’s performance from 2011 to 2012. Address what areas the company has improved and what areas it has not

a.) Liquidity

b.) Activity / turnover / efficiency

c.) Profitability

d.) Leverage / use of debt / solvency

2.) If you were the CEO of Grounds Keeper, what area(s) would you concentrate on to improve the performance of the company?

2012

2011

Current ratio

2.54404052

2.37843623

Quick ratio

0.91950568

0.81560714

Inventory turnover

3.0658051

2.37047444

Average Collection Period

37.5274142

46.9735877

Total asset turnover

1.07567837

0.82629249

Net profit margin

0.09345852

0.07608566

Operating profit margin

0.15403918

0.13639319

Times Interest Earned

26.0681373

6.25082817

Debt/Net worth Ratio

0.59903778

0.67234699

Return on Equity ratio

0.16075336

0.1051388

Below is the provided information/scenario.

Grounds Keeper is considering adding fair trade coffee to their line of products. Other larger coffee companies are now including it, at consumers’ insistence. At a recent strategic management meeting, the company’s officers identified the following points:

Fair trade coffee may attract new customers.

Fair trade coffee would allow Grounds Keeper to demonstrate its social responsibility.

Fair trade coffee would require more paperwork to meet certification and contract requirements.

The higher cost of Fair Trade Coffee would require a higher price or a reduced profit margin.

If coffee prices worldwide continue to increase, consumers may be reluctant to pay extra for Fair Trade Coffee.

Current suppliers of coffee to Grounds Keeper might be in competition with Fair Trade Coffee cooperatives.

One officer present asked the following question: Should we as a company have a good reason to try to influence actions in other parts of the world? Don’t we have governments to do that?

Fair Trade Coffee

What is fair trade certification?
Much like organic certification, fair trade certification lets you know about the origin of a product. Fair trade certified products come from all over the world, but share a common history. Farmers who grow fair trade products receive a fair price, and their communities and the environment benefit as well.

Fair trade certified coffee directly supports a better life for farming families in the developing world through fair prices, community development and environmental stewardship. Fair trade farmers market their own harvests through direct, long-term contracts with international buyers, learning how to manage their businesses and compete in the global marketplace. Receiving a fair price for their harvest allows these farmers to invest in their families' health care and education, reinvest in quality and protect the environment. This empowerment model lifts farming families from poverty through trade, not aid, creating a more equitable and sustainable model of international trade that benefits producers, consumers, industry and the Earth. The Fair for Life label is backed by IMO, one of the third-party certifiers of fair trade products for the U.S. market.

The Fair for Life label guarantees:

Fair price: Family farmers receive fair prices for their harvest, and premiums specifically earmarked for community development projects; even higher premiums are given for certified organic products. Farmer organizations are also eligible for pre-harvest credit.

Environmental sustainability: Harmful agrochemicals and GMOs are strictly prohibited in favor of environmentally sustainable farming methods that protect farmers' health and preserve valuable ecosystems for future generations. Fair trade farmers protect the land and wildlife habitat by intercropping plant species to improve soil fertility and protect against erosion. Stringent environmental management programs, including water conservation, proper waste disposal and prohibitions on planting in protected areas further encourage environmental stewardship.

Fair labor conditions: Workers on fair trade farms enjoy freedom of association, safe working conditions and fair wages. Forced child labor is strictly prohibited.

Direct trade: Importers purchase from fair trade producer groups as directly as possible, eliminating unnecessary middlemen and empowering farmers to develop the business capacity needed to compete in the global marketplace.

Democratic and transparent organizations: Fair trade farmers and farm workers decide how to invest fair trade revenues, and proof of a democratic process is required.

Community development: Fair trade farmers and workers invest fair trade premiums in social and business development projects like scholarship programs, healthcare services and quality improvement training.

Examples of community projects include:

Members of the COSURCA coffee cooperative in Colombia successfully prevented the cultivation of more than 1,600 acres of coca and poppy used to produce illicit drugs.

In the highlands of Guatemala, indigenous Tzutuhil Mayans in the La Voz cooperative are sending local kids to college for the first time.

Near Lake Titicaca, in Peru, the CECOVASA cooperative is assisting members from Quechua and Aymara indigenous groups in improving coffee quality and transitioning to certified organic production.

The CECOCAFEN cooperative in Nicaragua established a reproductive health program providing tests for the virus that causes cervical cancer.

What is IMO "Fair for Life" fair trade certification?
"Fair for Life" is a brand neutral third party certification program for social accountability and fair trade in agricultural, manufacturing and trading operations. The program complements existing fair trade certification systems. Social accountability and fair trade have become important indicators to select business partners in a global market place. The Fair for Life Social & FairTrade Certification Program offers operators of socially responsible projects a solution for objective inspection and certification by a highly qualified external verifier. It combines strict social and fair trade standards with adaptability to local conditions.

Why is fair trade certification needed today?
Throughout the global south, family farmers follow generations of tradition to cultivate food products we enjoy every day. Yet many family farmers in the developing world don't receive a fair price for their crops. These isolated rural communities lack direct market access, often selling their premium crops below the cost of production to local middlemen who misrepresent global prices. This cycle of debt forces many to abandon their land and years of agricultural heritage, destroying the social and cultural fabric of these communities. When farming communities in the developing world suffer, the whole world suffers - forced immigration, inferior-quality products and large-scale farming methods that often compromise the environment.

Who benefits from fair trade certification?

Producers: Beyond receiving a fair, stable price, fair trade also empowers producers to invest in their organizations, improve their communities and protect the environment.

Consumers: Fair trade certification enables consumers to "vote with their dollar" by providing an independent guarantee that products were produced and traded fairly. We all lead busy lives, and we want to do the right thing, but we're busy. What if we could make a positive impact just with the purchases we make every day? And not have to go out of our way to do this? That's the compelling proposition of fair trade.

The Earth: Fair trade certification requires and rewards environmentally sustainable farming practices that protect farmers' health and preserve valuable ecosystems for future generations, and provides the resources and technical assistance needed for organic certification.