...Best Workplace Tinda Reagan MGT 415 Instructor Laird Livingston March 3, 2014 Best Workplace Each year, since 1998, Fortune magazine has published a list of firms deemed the “100 Best Companies to Work for in America” based on their superior employer-employee relations. This relationship represents an intangible asset that may significantly influence future firm performance. In 2014, three of those companies consisted of Google, SAS, and the Boston Consulting Group. These three companies find motivational ways to boost employee motivation and foster group cohesiveness. Google holds the number one spot for best workplace and for good reason. Google currently employs over 42,000 employees (Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For, 2014). Google gives employees plenty of options when it comes to choosing a team from engineering design to sales operations. Whether building products, growing businesses or helping to keep Google going, we do cool stuff that matters (Google Teams and Roles, 2014). According to Lush (2012), the group is cohesive because members like and are attracted to one another. Some major sources include member similarity and member attractiveness. The more choices an employee has about where they are placed in a company the more motivated they become. When employees are motivated it will help foster group cohesiveness. The second spot for best workplace has been granted to SAS. SAS employs a little over 6,500 employees with a growth rate of 3.6%. We believe...
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...Best Workplace Assignment Paper MGT 415 Mrs. Connie Warner August 31, 2015 Best Workplace Assignment Paper Within this paper, I will describe three work environments, and identify elements that appear to foster employee motivation and group cohesion among employees that I retrieved from Fortune's 18th year of partnering with Great Places to Work. Some qualities that make a company great to work for are having a strong supportive culture. A strong culture offers mutual support, promotes trust, rewards employees’ efforts, and ensures that employees know their work is meaningful. Professional growth is a priority. Instead of growing employees’ skills to match the company’s needs, great companies look for ways to grow the company based on employees’ passions by asking employees what they are interested in doing and how they would like to see their career unfold. As an employee, it’s important to like the people you work with. Since we spend so much time with our co-workers, it’s important to like and respect them. Working with people who are supportive and understanding fosters personal connections and professional growth. Group cohesion – or connectedness – is integral to keep things productive within a group setting. It is considered vital in group decision making, group performance, goal attainment, social identity, and member satisfaction (Losh, 2011) One company that is of the top rated companies to work for on Forbes Great Places to Work is The Container Store...
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...Analysis of “Creating the Best Workplace on Earth” By: T M In the Harvard Business Review article: “Creating the Best Workplace on Earth” by Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones, the concept of creating a perfect internal work environment is discussed. The purpose of this article was to discover what employees really required to be their most productive. With millions of difference approaches to achieve this goal, six core factors were uncovered. These core factors are the simple ideals where “individual differences are nurtured; information is not suppressed or spun; the company adds value to employees, rather than merely extracting it from them; the organization stands for something meaningful; the work itself is intrinsically rewarding; and there are no stupid rules.” The place where all these ideals correlate is referred to as the “Organization of Your Dreams.” A place based off of the principles of the employee with the directives of the organization/top management. Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones developed these concepts by asking hundreds of executives in surveys and in seminars from around the world to describe their ideal organization. They were researching the relationship between authenticity and effective leadership. Here, authenticity is referred to as the true identity of the employee. Where the employee able to display their strengths and their weaknesses without having to “act” in the way a traditional organization may expect them to. From there, an effective leader could...
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...Managing Workplace Conflicts The author of this article, Annemarie Franczyk, believes that the expectation to do more with less these days could be fostering a breeding ground of workplace conflict. Managers need to be increasingly aware of clashes between workers before the problems disrupt workflow and productivity. (Franczyk, A., 2010) Annemarie and her panel made suggestions for how to best mitigate the risks associated with workplace conflict. I chose to review this article about workplace conflicts, because I am currently in management at my job and I believe this article will help me get involved more with fellow co-workers and also help me see the things that are going on within the store that are not verbally communicated to me. This article will also help me address issues and help develop solutions to issues. The main point that is made in this article is that people lose sight of the organization’s goals while fighting for their personal goals. And there are four strategies for mitigating the damaging effects of workplace conflicts which are: (1) Recognize it and step in, (2) Meet without emotion, (3) Real solutions, and (4) Use the EAP (Employee-Assistance Program). (Franczyk, A., 2010) 1. Recognize it and step in: Managers shouldn’t avoid situations and wait for employees to do something drastic, like resigning, they should set in and help to resolve issues for them instead of letting them try to solve them for themselves. They...
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...Workplace Stress Stress is a factor in everyone’s life mainly during difficult times such as divorce, marriage, and even when buying a house, but the most stress seems to be related to the workplace. Employees deal with firings, change in financial status, and problems with the boss, altered responsibilities, variations in work hours, business readjustments, retirement and vacations. Stress interferes with your productivity and can reduce your physical and emotional health and affects everyone differently. Stress is a normal physical response to events that make you feel threatened or upset your balance in some way. The body’s defenses kick into high gear in a rapid, automatic process known as the “fight-or-flight” reaction, or the stress response. The stress response is the body’s way of protecting you. When it is working properly, it helps you stay focused, alert, and energetic. In certain emergency situations, stress can save your life. It goes extra strength to defend you. Stress response also helps you meet challenges. Managers should be educated and aware of the many symptoms of stress because if they go unnoticed and unattended they can lead to bigger problems. People feel overwhelmed and several signs and symptoms can occur such as: • Feeling anxious, irritable, or depressed • Apathy, loss of interest in work. • Problems sleeping • Fatigue, • Trouble concentrating • Muscle tension or headaches • Stomach problems • Social withdrawal • Loss of...
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...The Impact of Stress on Jobs and the Workplace Prepared for: Mr. Glenn Pace Webster University Truman Education Center ------------------------------------------------- Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri ------------------------------------------------- Prepared By: Mrs. Betty Downing 5 March 2012 Introduction: There is an overwhelming concern in today’s society about stress on the job and in the workplace and how that will carry over to a person’s home life. Stress has taken an immense toll on the physical and emotional health of individuals, as well as the bottom lines of organizations (Greenhaus, Callanan, Godshalk, 2010). Stress can be the number one problem for working individuals, many of whom are trying to juggle everything at one time such as home, caring for children or aging family members, and work. The human brain has an inherit response for perceived attacks, harm or threats to ourselves that is known as the “fight or flight” response. With constant stress situations at work an individual will make a decision to either fight or flee the environment. There is no getting around it stress is going to be in the workplace but the issue is determining if the stressor is a positive or negative factor for employees is the matter to be dealt with. Afterwards people need to learn how to manage the stress therefore maximizing their job performance while also being able to preserve both their mental and physical health. What organizations need to start...
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...be productive in the workforce in a high performance workplace. What increase the organizational structure within the workforce is the positive atmosphere, training, and development, benefit, competitive wages, two way communication, team effort, and good leadership. A team can help a high performance workplace resolve work-related problems so that there is progress and an increase in production, (Hunt, Osborn, Schermerhorn, 2003). A successful team in high performance workplace organization must feel motivated, feel collectively accountable, and have strong core values in order to meet their high performance objective, (Hunt, Osborn, Schermerhorn, 2003). The characteristic of a high performance workplace and organization is to embrace new innovations and change so that the financial results were increased. Organizations and workplaces need teams like self-managed teams, virtual teams, cross-functional teams, and problem solving teams to be successful, (Hunt, Osborn, Schermerhorn, 2003). Without it there wouldn’t be good performance, decrease in productivity, and no teamwork. In a high performance work places differ from traditional organizations effectiveness because of the key requirements. A traditional organization management are concerned if their employees can perform their jobs to the company standards. In a high performance workplace they have a motivated strategy. The high performance workplace motivated strategy consist of defining business goals...
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...Stress Management in the Workplace What I Learned about Stress Management and How to Manage the Stress in the Workplace Jonathon Redone MGT 301 – CL01 Theodore Finney April 24, 2010 It is three o’clock on a Friday, and it will be three-day weekend and you plan on going to a vacation resort with your family when your supervisor comes into your office and tells you that they have an emergency project and that you and your team need to come in over the weekend and work on this project that is due first thing when the weekend is over. As the supervisor, it is your job to take that news to your team and tell them that information. Obviously this will cause stress on you, your family, and team. It will cause stress on your family because this was a planned tripped and they were looking forward to going on the trip. It will cause stress on your team because this is a last minute notice and your team may have plans for the three-day weekend. It will cause stress for you because you have to tell the bad news to your family and your team. Hopefully that stress will not over take you and cause any hardship on your physical and mental being. People spend a lot of time at work, whether it is to do the normal day-to-day work, overtime, or just spending some extra time just to catch up. The time that is spent at work is not normally care-free or easy, but can cause some work anxiety which in turn can cause stress. Stress can be mentally or emotionally disruptive or upsetting...
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...The workplace is meant for employees to do his or her job in a positive environment. Employees will converse and interact amongst each other to help time pass while working. Sometimes such actions become too aggressive and make workers feel uncomfortable. harassment is an issue that many business encounter because of violations done by employees. The following information will demonstrate the act of sexual harassment, what classifies acts as sexual harassment, how its prevalent in the workplace, and ramifications that stem from sexual harassment. Background of Case The case involving Koko the gorilla and the Gorilla Foundation involves two former employees and gorilla caretakers (Nancy Alperin and Kendra Keller) who made claims that the foundation’s handlers and supervisor forced them to expose body parts (breast) to Koko to indulge her “fetish” (HRWorld, 2011). After working for the foundation for a length of time, Nancy and Kendra chose not to expose their breasts which according to them was the cause for their termination. Nancy and Kendra were with the company for approximately four months and are suing for over $1 million dollars in damages (HRWorld, 2011). Eventually both parties came to a settlement (HRWorld, 2011). The legal and morale issues that occur within this case are those of feasibility. The Gorilla Foundation has obligations to ensure employees have a safe work environment. This case illustrates that the work environment was not conducive to such a requirement...
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...life. While some stress is a normal part of life, extreme stress can interfere with productivity and reduce physical and emotional health in a person. “Layoffs” and “Budget cuts”, have become dreaded words in organizations and people fear the uncertainty of job security. Because of these worries employees will push themselves to the extreme to avoid losing their jobs. Some organizations know that their employees will do whatever it takes to keep their jobs and use that to their advantage. Common causes of work place stress * Fear of layoffs * Staff cut backs * Increased demand of overtime * rising expectations but with no increase in pay * unreasonable demands * workplace bullying * Not caring or realizing that when their employees feel overwhelmed they lose confidence and become less productive in their job performance. Some signs of work place stress are * Anxiety * Indecisiveness * Irritability * Loss of interest in work * Forgetfulness * Loss of self confidence * Argumentativeness...
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...satisfaction. In 2015, Aflac made the list of 100 best companies to work for as it has done for the past ___years. The team examined the benefits provided to the employees and the workplace culture at Aflac in order to determine why the organization enjoyed a low-rate of employee turnover and why surveys showed that its employees were highly satisfied with working at Aflac. Aflac “strives to deliver quality services to its 4,500 employees while staying competitive in the insurance market” (Reed, 2015). The team determined that part of the employee satisfaction resulted from Aflac’s decision to not lay off its employees during economic downturns. Furthermore, employees are provided with growth opportunities because Aflac promotes from within. We also explored the salary structure and opportunities to earn a higher income Employees are positively impacted by policies that helps them balance their personal and work lives. Aflac has made it very easy for its employees to have a growing professional life while at the same time, enjoy their personal life. Aflac understands the importance of keeping its employees happy and has implemented policies that pushes the company towards those goals. In return, it has an employee base that considers it a great place to work and who works hard to maintain the company’s positive image to its customers. Introduction For 17 consecutive years, Aflac has made the list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For (“Accolades”, 2015). It has...
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...discusses the nature of conflicts in his article Workplace conflict: A strategic leadership imperative. According to Singleton: Conflict is a natural consequence of daily interactions. Workplace conflicts may rise because of: (1) lack of open or adequate communication between employees; (2) power struggles between departments; (3) the incompatibility of personal goals, social values, or personality characteristics; (4) role behavior required by employees’ jobs that conflict with their personal values; (5) leadership styles. (p.149) Further research into the nature of conflict scenarios finds that Myers (2005) asserts that “conflicts can be relational, process oriented and task oriented” (p. 306). As a manager of the Just Right Tire Company, the best course of action should be to have a face-to-face conservation with Jan, Sally, and Marc. This will help management in understanding their conflicts. The positives and negatives of their positions should also be considered to make an informed decision. Management should then explain to Jan, Sally, and Marc how these situations will cause negative impact on the project and on the organization. They should be reminded about the success they brought to the company in the past. It is best to explain how the current situation will break the relationship among team members and affect the team spirit. Managers should always develop trust among the team members. Therefore, the best course of action will be to try and develop trust...
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...Managing Conflict in the Workplace By LaQuita Watson Current Issues in Human Resources Dr. Overby April 9, 2008 Conflict management refers to the long-term management of intractable conflicts. It is the label for the variety of ways by which people handle grievances — standing up for what they consider to be right and against what they consider to be wrong. Those ways include such diverse phenomena as gossip, ridicule, lynching, terrorism, warfare, feuding, genocide, law, mediation, and avoidance. Some of the forms of conflict management can be used in any given situation and can be somewhat predicted and explained by the social structure — or social geometry — of the case. Conflict management is not to be confused with conflict resolution which refers to resolving the dispute to the approval of one or both parties, whereas the former — conflict management — concerns an ongoing process that may never have a resolution. For example, gossip and feuds are very common methods of conflict management, but neither entails resolution. Neither is it the same as conflict transformation which seeks to reframe the positions of the conflict parties. Basics of Conflict Management When you are clarifying confusion about conflict you are to know the definition. Conflict is when two or more values, perspectives and opinions are contradictory in nature and haven’t been aligned or agreed about yet. One of the things that...
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...makes qualitative research so important. This research method provide social workers with a better understanding of issues and situations. Qualitative research inform social workers about the best way to help people who are in need of assistance. Qualitative research is useful for social workers to obtain knowledge in complex or sensitive situations for example workplace bullying. Many issues in the social working profession fall within the area of sexuality and mental health issues, qualitative research is one of the best ways for social workers to find the help for individuals with these types of problems (Rubin, 2014). This paper will discuss a article about issues of workplace bullying of social workers, and coping responses. The article was a cross-sectional, non-experimental case study of social worker's perceptions of bullies at the workplace and the social worker's ability to create coping responses to workplace bullying. To collect quantitative information a mail questionnaire was gathered, and individual semi-structured interviews were assessed. The qualitative sample included 111 male and female social workers from Washington D.C. The final outcome results were three to five social workers reported that he or she were recipients of rude, unpleasant, and unfavorable workplace environmental interactions within a year. The bullies targets generally worked in military and mental health outpatient organizations or government agencies. 35 percent of the targets held...
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...attention to Cupid’s arrows amid the flow charts and balance sheets, they could be in for unexpected surprises. Disastrous love affairs may damage morale and productivity. Some workplace romances can lead to sexual harassment cases, which can carry serious legal – and financial - consequences. Yet few small companies have formal policies on workplace dating and even fewer ban such romances. In large part, that’s because firms believe it’s none of their business if co-workers pair up. It’s understandable why office love connections flourish: People spend much of their lives at work and end up sharing hobbies, personality quirks and intimacies. Dating co-workers seem safer, especially for many women, because they get time to know each other. Moreover, many employees share similar education, interests, attitudes, values, and income levels. And often work projects offer intellectual stimulation and emotional bonding. Far from being harmful, many romances actually improve work performances. They add a dynamism and energy that translates into enhanced morale, communication, creativity and even productivity. Should these relationships evolve into long-term commitments, as often happens, companies will generally benefit from happier and more fulfilled employees. So it appears the key issue isn’t thwarting workplace romances so much as managing them. That has special relevance for small firms, where love affairs can be especially dicey. Many workers there have overlapping responsibilities...
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