Posts Tagged: "Human Resource Concepts"

Learning Styles

Posted by admin on December 13, 2012 in Human Resource Management / No Comments

Learning style refers to the ability of an individual to learn. A manager’s long-term success depends more on the ability to learn than on the mastery of the specific skills or technical knowledge. There are four styles people use when learning: accommodation, divergence, assimilation and convergence. The four learning styles are based on dimensions: feeling versus thinking and doing versus observing.

Accommodator: An accommodator learns by doing and feeling. He tends to learn primarily from hands-on experience. He tends to act on gut feeling rather than on logical analysis. An accommodator tends to rely more heavily on people for information while making decisions. He seeks action-oriented careers such as marketing, politics, public relations and management.

Diverger: A diverger learns by observing and feeling. The diverger has the ability to view concrete situations from different angles. When solving problems, diverger enjoys brainstorming. He takes time and analyses many alternatives. Diverger is imaginative and sensitive to the needs of the other people. He seeks careers in entertainment, arts and services sector.…

Determinants of Job Satisfaction

Posted by admin on August 31, 2012 in Human Resource Management / No Comments

Job satisfaction is a psychological aspect. It is an expression of feeling about the job. Job satisfaction is an attitude. It is a permanent impression formed about the job. Employees interact with people and other resources while working with the job. In the process, they experience positive or negative feelings about the job context and content. The concept of job satisfaction has gained importance ever since the human relations approach has become popular.

Determinants of Job Satisfaction

Job satisfaction is intangible and it is multi-variable. A number of factors influence job satisfaction of employees. They can be classified into two categories. They are organizational and personal variables. They are discussed below:

Organizational Determinants:

Employees spend most of the time in organizations. Therefore, a number of organizational factors determine job satisfaction of the employees. Organizations can increase job satisfaction by organizing and managing the organizational factors. Let us learn the organization determinants of job satisfaction.

Wages: Wage is the amount of reward worker expects from the job.

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Employee Responses to Job Dissatisfaction

Posted by admin on August 31, 2012 in Human Resource Management / No Comments

Employee can express job dissatisfaction in a number of ways. For example, rather than quit, employees can complain, be insubordinate, steal organizational property, or shirk a part of their work responsibilities. Following figure offers four responses to job dissatisfaction that differ from one another along two dimensions: constructive/destructive and active/passive.

They are defined as follows:

Exit: Behavior directed toward leaving the organization, including looking for a new position as well as resigning.
Voice: Actively and constructively attempting to improve conditions, including suggesting improvements, discussing problems with superiors, and some forms of union activity.
Loyalty: Passively but optimistically waiting for conditions to improve, including speaking up for the organization in the face of external criticism and trusting the organization and its management to “do the right thing”.
Neglect: Passively allowing conditions to worsen, including chronic absenteeism or lateness, reduced effort, and increased error rate.

Exit and neglect behaviors encompass our performance variables-productivity, absenteeism, and turnover. But this model expands employee response to include voice and loyalty-constructive behaviors that allow individuals to tolerate unpleasant situations or to revive satisfactory working conditions.…

Measuring Employee Morale

Posted by admin on January 28, 2012 in Human Resource Management / No Comments

Employee morale can be measured by assessing attitudes and job satisfaction. As morale is intangible and subjective concept, it cannot be directly measured or evaluated. Employees may be unwilling to express their feelings of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their job to the management is no longer a valid assumption. Today’s employees and workplaces allow for a lot more transparency and open door philosophy seen in most organizations allow for employees to openly voice their views. Measuring employee morale ranges all the way from the “hunch” /general “feeling”, to more scientific efforts such as employee satisfaction surveys. Also the liberated employee of today feel very comfortable looking for a new job in another company rather than be unhappy and work in a company where he’s unhappy.

It is important to study the commonly used methods for measuring morale, however increasingly the ‘employee satisfaction survey’ is the most preferred method in most organizations.

1. General Impression of the Manager: Some managers may not be able to tell you how they know the morale of their men, but they enjoy such an intimate relationship with them that they do know what their attitudes are.…

Morale and Productivity

Posted by admin on January 28, 2012 in Human Resource Management / No Comments

The satisfaction and comfort an employee experiences at the workplace is termed morale. Morale is a widely used term in organizations. But in general, it refers to esprit de corps, a feeling of enthusiasm, zeal, confidence in individuals or groups that they will be able to cope with the tasks assigned to them. The result of high morale generally results in the high efficiency of the organization.

Morale directly impacts the working of an individual in a team towards the realization of common objectives. Morale therefore is individual specific as well as general. Unfortunately building of morale is not a mechanical problem that could be solved by either rewards or punishments. The best way to manage it is to proactively do a lot of employee related interventions that will together impact morale positively. Morale can also be understood as the spirit and confidence with which the employee performs his job. It is a complex psychological quality that is impossible to force on someone, difficult to measures, and easily destroyed.…

Case Study: Wal-Mart’s failure in Germany

Posted by admin on August 5, 2011 in Management Case Studies / No Comments

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is the largest retailer in the world, the world’s second-largest company and the nation’s largest nongovernmental employer. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. operates retail stores in various retailing formats in all 50 states in the United States. The Company’s mass merchandising operations serve its customers primarily through the operation of three segments. The Wal-Mart Stores segment includes its discount stores, Supercenters, and Neighborhood Markets in the United States. The Sam’s club segment includes the warehouse membership clubs in the United States. The Company’s subsidiary, McLane Company, Inc. provides products and distribution services to retail industry and institutional foodservice customers. Wal-Mart serves customers and members more than 200 million times per week at more than 8,416 retail units under 53 different banners in 15 countries. With fiscal year 2010 sales of $405 billion, Wal-Mart employs more than 2.1 million associates worldwide. Nearly 75% of its stores are in the United States (“Wal-Mart International Operations”, 2004), but Wal-Mart is expanding internationally. The Group is engaged in the operations of retail stores located in all 50 states of the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Japan, Puerto Rico and the United Kingdom, Central America, Chile, Mexico,India and China

Wal-Mart’s entry and operation in Germany

Wal-Mart’s initial entry into German market was through the acquisitions of renowned 21 store Wertkauf chain for an estimated $1.04 billion in December 1997.It was followed one year later by the acquisition of In-terspar’s 74 hypermarkets from Spar Handels AG, the German unit of the French Intermarché Group , for €560 million.…