What I've Learned This Semester in MGM 535

I have to admit that when the semester began I had some reservations about how an online course in an MBA curriculum would go.  I had only taken one on-line course in the past, and we didn't interact with our fellow classmates at all in that course.  In fact, we really only logged on to view recordings of the professor lecturing, and to take tests and quizzes.  I was, however, pleasantly surprised with how both of my online courses went this semester here at Kutztown.

One of the best classes that I've ever taken in my college career was at West Chester, and it was called Race Relations.  I came from an incredibly small town that lacked a lot of diversity, and that class opened my eyes to other's perspectives in a way that nothing I have ever been taught out of a book did since.  We had discussions every week on various topics, and would all have a chance to ask questions and hear each other's perspectives in an honest, open, and respectful manner.  It shaped a lot of the respect that I have for those who are different than myself, regardless of the characteristic, and made me aware of how much different my experiences in this life have been than others around me.

That has been the most interesting part about this class for me this semester, as well.  We're all from different backgrounds, are different ages, and have had different work experiences to this point in our careers, and each of these perspectives is incredibly unique and can teach us all something about how we should interact better with one another.  Especially when it comes to a class like human resource management, where so much of the focus should be on how to better communicate and treat your employees, I'll definitely remember the perspectives I've heard from everyone and use them to better communicate with, and understand, co-workers of mine in the future.

Take care, everyone, and I wish you the best of luck in whatever it is you decide to do in the future.

The Keys to Successful Labor-Management Relations

The vast majority of literature, opions, experiences, etc. out there involving this topic of labor-management issues seems, unfortunately, to be overwhelmingly negative.  Many times the two sides to this relationship are at odds with one another, with both parties never fully being able to see eye to eye or meet in the middle to a degree that leaves either one feeling as if they've been understood or gotten the fairest deal possible out of their relationship.  One side always seems to be the good guy, and the other side always seems to be the bad guy.

This has been the case with recent issues that have occured between Northeast DCP, which is a trucking company owned by Dunkin' Donuts franchisees, and the Teamsters Local 25.  The issue between the two sides hinges on the Union wanting a requirement of every employee within Northeast DCP to become a Union member and also be required to pay union dues.  The two sides walked away from the bargaining table last summer, and the issues between them are still unresolved.  There are many articles on this issue, however this is the first one that I found if you're interested in learning more about the details.

The reason that I included that specific link is because a similar link to that article was actually present in another article that I found recenlty about some of the keys to successful labor management.  This article is much more positive in nature, and has a lot of very good examples of how these two groups can work together to make the workplace more enjoyable, profitable, and respectful for everyone.  Hopefully companies and the unions can use this type of advice to make it through the tough economic times that we're now in the midst of, and labor relations issues can begin to decrease in the future. 

Indirect Employee Compensation...Will it Become a Thing of the Past?

Indirect Compensation, or employee benefits, have been a major driving force in the decision making process of would be job seekers for decades.  The days are gone, however, of employers offering pension and medical benefits virtually free of charge as they did in the old days.  It used to be that you worked for one company your entire life, and they basically agreed to take care of you for the rest of it when you retired.  My Mom has told me stories multiple times about my Grandfather and the benefits that he used to receive after working at Mack Trucks for his entire career.  Not only did they pay him a hefty pension, but they also provided great health care benefits throughout his career and then into his retirement years.

As our economy continues to suffer from the current recession, and as businesses need to focus their attention more and more on benefit cost-cutting efforts to stay afloat, these life-long benefits packages are slowly becoming, if they aren't already completely, a thing of the past.  Even in the areas of education, which has historically been one of the best professions to work within in terms of level and cost of benefits provided, we have recently seen that employees are being forced to contribute more to these plans in order to keep them than they ever have in the past. 

Cost, especially in the areas of health care and pensions, is probably the main issue with implementing programs of this type, and employers of all sizes are now asking employees to contribute larger portions of their salaries in order to make up the difference.  Much attention has been paid lately to public sector employees due to the low cost, and high level, of the benefits they currently receive.  Recent proposals have called for Public Employees in this State to pay between 12 and 30% of the premiums associated with their health insurance costs, which currently account for about 9% of the State's annual budget.  You can view this article from Philly.com to find more information about the proposal.

Offering a healthy combination of benefits should still be an important focus for companies as they attempt to attract and retain the best talent possible, but the current economic conditions and the rising costs associated with programs of this type will make it increasingly difficult to maintain these programs in the future.  According to this Time magazine article, the trend of paying more but getting less may continue if serious reform of the system isn't able to take place.

Pay and Incentive Systems in Schools...Could it Fix Part of the Problem

Since this is a tough topic to get into right now, I'm going to attempt to remain as unbiased as possible throughout this entry.  The topic of Pay and Incentive Systems came up recently in the text of our Human Resources Management Class here at Kutztown University, and I thought that this would be a worthwhile topic to research, since I've thought about getting into education for years and have many friends and family who are currently, or were at one point in their past, part of the education system.

Unless you've been living under a rock lately, which as on one of the new Geico commercials suggests some people may actually do, you've seen the wars that are being waged between various states and the teachers unions.  Most notable of them all is the one going on in Wisconsin right now, which for a quick perspective on I recommend what John Stewart recently had to say about the topic on the 'Daily Show' via the Huffington Post.

One of the major aspects of this very public debate is the loss of control, or collective bargaining rights, of the unions in the future.  Various groups and individuals outside of the education system, and some inside, have, for quite some time now, called for a more effective way to evaluate, compensate, and retain the best educators in various school systems around the country and many of these unions have quite vehemently opposed any reform of the current system.

One of the aspects of educational reform that many suggest may help to end these wars in the future along with providing more accountability, potential for reward, and an increase in the perception of the professionalism of educators around the country is merit based pay for teachers.  There are many articles out there on the topic, but I'll suggest taking a quick look at two that I've read recently.  The first article is from 2001, well before the market crash of the last few years, and the other is from 2010, just months before everything began to erupt in Wisconsin.

There is still a long way to go with reforming our education system in this country, but the only way that we can make sure that our country is successful in the future is by providing the best education for our students, and rewarding those that do that providing in the best way possible.  Maybe that means that we need to make more of an effort to reform the entire system to include merit based pay?  These articles seem to suggest that it is not only possible, but that it is working in various parts of the country already.

Why Feedback Matters...Even if it's not the good kind

In my first semester as an MBA student I wrote three different double-digit page research papers for the three classes that I was taking at the time.  All of them were interesting topics to me in some way, which I think is the only way to really produce good work/content, but there was one in particular that really hit home for me.  The topic of the paper was on job satisfaction in the restaurant industry, which is the industry that I have spent most of my time being employed within over the past four years, as well as most of my college career.  It was interesting to me to study job satisfaction in the industry, because I believed from my experience that it was really an afterthought of most managers due to the statistically high turnover that has always been associated with the profession.

One article interested me in particular, and I felt that it was extremely applicable to any industry when it comes to improving employee performance.  The article is entitled "If You Don't Hear From Me You Know You Are Doing Fine": The Effects of Management Nonresponse to Employee Performance, and it talks about the impact that feedback from management can have on employee performance via a study of 243 employees of two different hospitality organizations.  The findings of the study indicated that feedback, even when it is of the negative variety, improves employee performance.  The study also found that ommission of positive commentary on good performance had a slightly negative effect on workers' effectiveness and job satisfaction. 

My Mother and Father used to tell me that 'if I didn't have anything nice to say, I shouldn't say anything at all,' but it seems that the moral of the story is that management needs to spend more time giving any kind of feedback to employees that they can.  Despite everything that is going on within an organization, and all of the other responsibilities that management of that organization will have throughout each day, one of the best ways to spend your time might just be in providing some feedback, regardless of if it's positive or negative...and especially if it's positive.

Cross Training for a More Productive Workforce

I grew up playing a lot of sports, and when I wasn't in the middle of a sports season (and even sometimes when I was), I was always playing some sort of sport or doing some sort of physical activity in my spare time.  We were always encouraged to practice other sports, lift weights, etc. (I even had a friend who's father made him join ballet to gain balance and strength for football) in order to become better athletes in whichever respective sport we played.  I actually started playing football, at that time I didn't play anything in the fall, because I was told that 'real athletes' never had an off-season.   

I think that growing up that way has made it difficult for me to pick one career that I want to do for the rest of my life, because I get bored at work if I'm not constantly challenged.  I've had a lot of different jobs thus far, and one of the things that I've noticed about each of them is that people aren't cross-trained enough in business environments.  It's not like when we were kids and a teacher took a day off and the school district would just call in a sub for the day.  When a member of a team in an organization isn't there for a day of work, the strain can be huge (especially if they are gone for extended periods of time).  If other employees are trained to handle multiple responsibilities, however, the organization can continue to function like it should, and employees can feel like they are more of a central part of its success.

Here is an article about the idea of cross training within organizations, and some of the benefits that can result from it.  It talks a bit about the difference between job enlargement and job enrichment, and, while I'm mainly for job enrichment, I think that job enlargement can go a long way with making each day of work a bit more fun and interesting as I eluded to earlier.  If you're constantly giving people a chance to improve at work, even if it is just to cover for or help out a co-worker from time to time, it can go a long way to making their experiences within the organization more meaningful.

Recruiting...with your very own job board

When the topic of recruiting came up in the text, I knew I was going to have a really hard time deciding what to write about.  I've worked in the sales departments of various companies and in restaurants for the bulk of my time as an employee, and in both of these arenas recruitment is very important because compensation is, at least somewhat, based on performance and turnover can be extremely high.  Employers often need to combine internal and external strategies for recruiting new hires as necessary, and it's often really hard to distinguish what your company has to offer from all of the others in the vast sea of job postings that one can find all over the internet on various sites.

One of the jobs that I had along the way, however, gave companies a way to distinguish themselves from the pack long before social media vehicles were available.  The company, Collegejobboard.com (that I worked for on a 100% commission basis by the way), provided an opportunity for an organization to create their own job board on their own company website.  This allowed companies to distinguish themselves from the competition by not having to post every job available on Monster, CareerBuilder, and HotJobs.  Instead, the companies that purchased these services could have one posting on each of these sites, and other sites that job-seekers might frequent, that lead them back to a fully functioning job board with all the same bells and whistles that they could customize and operate as their own. 

Of course, not every company out there can afford this type of software or service, and social media is slowly taking over as the best way to recruit, engage, and motivate your workforce internally.  If you haven't read it already, I'd encourage anyone that may be reading this blog outside of my current Human Resource Management class at KU to read "Social Media at Work" to gain some incredibly helpful insights for how to use social media to your advantage in pretty much any area of your company that you can imagine.