Cultural Differences

Today we finished talking about chapter 15. I liked talking about cultural differences because we have already talked about it in another one of my classes and I realized that I knew a lot about it from my other class. I don't think I could be one of those people who traveled to another country for work, but I think I would like working with others from those places. It was interesting to realize that for global economics, we actually need all of these cultural diversities to be successful. I think our differences can be hard to understand, but that they compliment each other.

Chapter 16, Meeting other HR Goals

I think one of the most challenging tasks, not to mention the one which is severely suffering in implementation, is transfer of knowledge. According to the chapter, only 4 percent of companies are recording the knowledge of retiring employees. I think this is a shame, but how do you record what's in someone's brain? Perhaps having a daily journal throughout their career would help, or saving their emails. One way we did it a little at my previous company was to have a database or spreadsheet of notes about each customer we worked with. That way, when someone else went to call them, they were always aware of their situation.
Aren't there a few things about knowledge sharing that can make people feel nervous? For example, if you are a little insecure about your job, or another person at your job seems to shine more than you do, then sharing your information and knowledge is not going to be very tempting to you. Furthermore, are you even going to get credit for it? I think in the workplace, we need to first make people feel secure, which is hard to do these days, and then encourage them to share things with each other. If we show them that they sharing things with each other actually benefits everyone, then maybe they'll be more likely to participate thoroughly.

Chapter 15 Review

We discussed Global HR Relations and talked about our upcoming project. I am going to do mine on the benefits of being part of a Union, vs. not being part of a Union. This will be done from an employees perspective, rather than a manager's. From a manager's perspective having a Union is usually going to be bad in the beginning.

Chapter 15, Managing HR Globally

It seems like opening an office internationally must be quite the undertaking. Every country has culture aspects that need to be learned. It seems like the United States started out as a "melting pot", and now the rest of the world is starting to mix as well, if not genetically in many cases, then culturally. Many other countries are staring to take on "American" qualities. I wonder if this was initially because they wanted to be able to understand our culture at first, or if they simply wanted to be more like us. Brazilians, for example love American music and American products. The world is growing smaller and smaller as technology expands to every country. Do you think someday all of our cultures will mesh together and you won't have to worry about offending someone by wearing white, or showing your lower leg or neck? Hundreds of years will tell...

Chapter 14 Review

We discussed Unions in class today. I was surprised at how negative people's opinions were on Unions. If we had Unions in Utah our wages would be much higher. One student stated that Unions make it so that Employees get raises and don't deserve them. Who is to say that employees in general don't deserve raises? It's on a case by case basis, but when an entire industry isn't getting paid what they deserve, then Labor Unions are necessary. We played a game in class today that represented the way Unions work. I was surprised at how chaotic the negotiation can be. I'm not sure how their negotiations work in real life, but I hope they don't stab each other in the back as much as we did in class.

Chapter 14, Labor Relations

Chapter 13 gave me several ideas for my research paper, in fact this happens to be the topic I have chosen. My biggest concern is about the reasons why Utah has not become a part of the Laborers' International Union of North America? It seems like the economy in Utah would benefit from such an organization. However, the insurance companies in Utah may not like this happening. From a 3rd party perspective, it seems like even the employers would benefit in the long run by the leverage a union can provide.

Chapter 13 Review

We discussed providing employee benefits in class. In our group we discussed health insurance benefits, specifically. We all feel that health insurance without having an employer subsidize the cost of them. It is barely worth paying the premiums for solitary health insurance. We came to the conclusion, in class and as a group that having an employer to help with this cost is hugely important to the employee. Those who don't realize the necessity of this benefit are unfortunately missing out.

Employee Benefits

It is the duty of the Human Resource personnel to find and provide benefits for their employees. Specifically, I would like to talk about Health Insurance, although my reasoning may apply to all aspects of employee benefits. When finding a good insurance plan, the HR representative can have much more leverage if their company is large and has a lot of employees, contrasting a small company that will have to take whatever plan they can get for their employees. The larger company can negotiate, and the smaller one may not be able to. Does this seem fair? I thought the laws of employers offering health insurance were created to provide everyone with a fair opportunity. This doesn't seem to be what is happening. What do you think?

Chapter 12 Review

Yesterday in class we discussed a lot about incentive pay. We discussed how CEO's make an exponential amount compared to those at the bottom of the company. Many people in the class thought this margin was fair because of the extra time and effort managers must make. I don't believe it is entirely fair. CEO's make what they do because it is the norm for our society. A more fair approach would be to have those who working more hours get paid overtime, rather than a exorbitant salary. A lot of lower level workers put in extra hours too. I realize that expertise and responsibility are worth making more money over, but not to the extent that our country has elevated it too. I think there could be a lot more balance in incentives for CEO's vs. lower level employees. They do deserve to make more, but not 500 times more!

Chapter 12, Recognizing Employee Contributions with Pay

In this chapter they discuss the various ways in which companies compensate for good performance. I think this is a necessary strategy, even when you have good hard-working employees, because it give them a way of achieving recompense. Is there one best over-all incentive plan? Maybe, or are they better determined by what the specific job is?
My father, for example, used to work for a blue-collar company who paid him by using a Straight Piecework Plan. He was very happy with this company for many years, until they began to lose business during a recession. In that case, he preferred a Standard Hour Plan. But they would not acquiesce. He ended up getting a better job and to this day the company he previously worked for laments the decisions they made that led to him quitting. When you value an employee is it important to consider changing an incentive plan to keep them satisfied? The answer to this can be better known on a case by case basis.