...The Effects of Global Warming Global Warming: Fact or Fiction I. Description: Global Warming In plain terms, global warming is a phenomenon where the average temperature of the earth’s atmosphere has increased, and is causing a green house effect. The temperature is raised due to increased levels of carbon dioxide (Balaguer, 2010). On average, in America we annually release an estimated 20 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere through driving to work, the use of heating and cooling appliances, and turning on lights (Ecologic Development Fund, 2010). The increased temperature is depleting our ozone, causing severe hurricanes, major flooding, and intensifying desertification, meaning “reduction or destruction of the biological potential of the earth which can create the conditions analogous to a natural desert" (Desertification and Hazard Assessment, 2010). Although human activity is commonly blamed for the problem, there is some debate among experts regarding the severity of global warming, and whether the cause is a natural phenomenon or in fact a result of mankind’s environmental negligence. A. Impetus discussion: 1. Global warming is fiction: Although it is agreed that an increase of Co2 levels are causing a green house effect, according to Brown, there is no consensus among scientists to explain the true cause of global warming (2010). Some scientists believe the warming temperatures and rising sea levels is a natural...
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...Impact of flexible scheduling on employee performance regarding stress and work-family conflict Abstract Stress, work-family conflicts and flexible scheduling are three of the most important elements in organizational studies. The focus of current study is to understand the effect of Stress, work-family conflicts and flexible scheduling on employee’s performance and also to understand whether flexible scheduling helps in reducing stress and work-family conflicts or not. A survey has also been conducted to strengthen the idea comprising of a sample of 70 employees from different organizations. 53 of them responded and the respond rate was 75%. Descriptive statistics is used to analyze the data. Results show that stress and work family conflict negatively affect the employee performance and flexible scheduling has a positive effect on employee performance. Primary study as well as literature review showed that flexible scheduling also helps in reducing stress and work-family conflicts. However, results are strongly based on the literature review i.e. secondary data. Introduction Work family balance is one of the most emerging concepts in the field of business and in the corporate world. Organizations are trying to reduce this conflict for the betterment of organization as well as for the employees. Western researchers have done a considerable work on this concept of work-family balance (Berg et al., 2003; Frone, 2003; Rossi, 2001; Marcinkus et al., 2007; Young, 1999). Actually...
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...Base Line Intro Job satisfaction enhancement programs are widely researched and implemented in business of all sizes today. Job satisfaction has direct correlations to both performance and retention in the workplace resulting in a need for employees to seek ways to improve employee satisfaction. There exists many factors that affect employee satisfaction including working conditions, opportunity for advancement, stress level, respect from co-workers, and relationships with supervisors however implementing these factors can prove challenging. While creating a respectful work environment is expected in most professions programs to enhance or establish are difficult to baseline. In contrast there exist several established methods and programs designed to enhance employee satisfaction that are widely used in business. Programs such as increased promotions, flexible work schedules, mentoring programs, formal recognition and rewards, training and skills training, and other low-no cost programs exist. These programs typically have a cost associated with both establishment and maintaining the program however in many cases the benefits far outweigh these costs. In addition to these higher cost programs low-no cost programs exist such as allowing customized work areas, relaxing the dress code, open door policies, contests, and even the occasional free lunch. Increasing promotions Increasing promotions would be a direct response to an employee’s dissatisfaction with pay, opportunity...
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...organization through efficiency and effectiveness. Being that a business in any market is competitive, it is important for companies to embrace diverse employees who can provide the company with different perspectives, cultures, and solutions. Sodexo manages diversity through conducting mentoring programs, diversity training, various encouragement, and interaction. Different groups are constructed by managers that consisted of those unlike themselves to provide a place for people who share similar feelings and beliefs to come together. Employees can interact through these affinity groups that will increase cohesiveness, trust, and performance. Though Sodexo encourages managers to construct mentor groups they are also trained to assess the groups in regards to effectiveness (George & Jones, 2012, Chapter 4). “ twenty-five percent of top managers’ bonuses are based on how well they do on diversity initiatives such as the hiring and training of diverse employees” (George & Jones, 2012, Chapter 4) Companies who do not encourage diversity whether through training or environment can be affected negatively. There are companies that have received bad publicity because of their working conditions in regards to discrimination. The effectiveness of diversity management at Sodexo is rewarded to those in management and other employees...
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...Organizations! Management, and the Networked Enterprise INTERACTIVE SESSION: MANAGEMENT FLEXIBLE SCHEDUUNG AT WAL-MART: GOOD OR BAD FOR EMPLOYEES? Withneady 1,4 million workers domestically, W.8},.Mart:i5 the largestprlvate employer in the ·tTnit~States, Wal-Mart is also the nation's number one~i1er in terms of sales, registering nearly $379 billi,dn insales revenue for the fiscal year ending ..Ji'JnU8ltit31, ZP08, Wal-Mart achieved its lofty status t1u:ough~ combinationoflow prices and low oper~tionaJcosts, .enabled by a superb continuous .... i~ventory replenishment system. Now Wal-Mart is. trying to lower costs further by t::hangi:rJgitsmethods for scheduling the work shifts ofitsemp16yees.. ln early 2007, Wal-Mart revealed that it was adopting a {;omputerized scheduling ~vs,tl'>:fn a move that has been roundly criticized by advocates for the impact it may have en;Lpil)Vf~s' lives. scheduling employee shifts at big as Wal-Mart was the domain of store m,,~nageJrs who arranged schedules manually. tl}eirdecisions in parton current store pl'!:mJlotilOIltS as well as on weekly sales data from the .Drt~V1lJUS Year. 'JYpically, the process requited a full d~'y ofeffort for a store manager. Multiply that labor inltenlSitv by the number of stores in a chain and you expensive task with results that are margiwllybeneficia1 to the company. . .By using a computerized scheduling system, such system from ){ronos that Wal-Mart adopted, a enterprise cali. produce...
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...com10/10/04). Vision: To have a conservative increase growth, capitalize and cutback schedules of other airlines. To continue expanding conservatively in long-haul success. The company’s mission is clearly stated and communicates its information throughout the organization and to its customers. The Mission of Southwest Airlines is dedication to the highest quality of Customer Service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and company Spirit. To our employees we are committed to provide our Employees a stable work environment with equal opportunity for learning and personal growth. Creativity and innovation are encouraged for improving the effectiveness of Southwest Airlines. Above all, Employees will be provided the same concern, respect, and caring attitude within the organization that they are expected to share externally with every southwest Customer. The Southwest set of values is not wishful thinking – on the contrary, this company’s values determine the behavior of all employees at all levels in the organization. They include:...
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...Life-Work Imbalance/ Flexible Work Schedules Barbara Hagan DeVry University Life-Work Imbalance/ Flexible Work Schedules Jessica a married woman with two small children starts her day off with a crying baby and winey demands from a three year old. She continues on with fulfilling their needs as she tries to get dressed for work and maybe spend a few minutes with her husband before he’s out the door and she’s left to get the boys ready for daycare. Everyone’s loaded and ready to go but Jessica forgot she needs to stop and get gas. Now running late she drops the kids off and is finally on her way to a long day in the office. Arriving only a few minutes late has her left with a bit of confidence but that suddenly fades as she catches sight of all the paperwork on her desk. The note on top reads “Must be done TODAY!” Jessica suddenly feels her heart sink and she sits in frustration. There’s no way this can all be done before the daycare closes at six and her husband works in the next town. He wouldn’t be able to pick up the boys either. She has already asked her boss for far too many favors and missed some days when the baby was sick. Her company doesn’t have any flexibility. If she doesn’t fulfill this task her job could be at stake (Hendrickson, 2014). Stories like Jessica’s are all too common and a flexible work schedule just might be the answer to these problems. If Jessica was able to complete work at home or on schedule a bit more flexible then she wouldn’t have to...
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...being docile and successful organizations. The tasks are multifaceted when attempting to comprehend and accomplish organizational change. Employees have to adjust rapidly and leaders have to be proficient in order to be successful. The demands for change are important in the success or failure of an organization. The globalization of markets, technology advancement, increased developments of social networks, and generational differences are the most important reasons. The cultures of organizations help determine their need for change. However, the employees have to acknowledge that there is a need for change. The resistance to change may occur, if so the causes need to be recognized. Best Buy has taken an organizational change for the improvement of its employees’ productivity. This paper will discuss Best Buy’s culture, the ROWE program implemented and the resistance to the change as a result of the ROWE program. This paper will also discuss the stress that occurred and whether or not the organizational culture has helped with the change. 3 Describe the Culture of Best Buy. An organization that practices formality, rules, standard operating procedures, and hierarchical coordination has a bureaucratic culture (Hellriegel & Slocum, 2011, p. 490.). The members of this type of this culture exhibit high values, for standardized goods and customer service. This is the type of culture displayed at Best Buy. “Like many other U.S. companies, Best Buy strives to meet the...
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...was formed in 1991 and is a global plastics manufacturer. The manufacturer’s locations are in Albany, GA, Pontiac, MI, Hangzhou China and the company’s headquarters is in San Jose, GA. The manufacturer has over 550 employees and it is owned by Riordan industries. Major customers are automotive part manufacturer, aircraft manufacturer, the Department of Defense, beverage makers and appliance manufacturers. Riordan’s Manufacturing Strategy Riordan Manufacturing uses a level strategy in production planning and scheduling. They use this kind of strategy because there are a lot of benefits. Employees have stable work hours, therefore scheduling become easier to compute. The stable workforce strategy varies the output by changing the number of hours worked through flexible work schedules or overtime (Jacob and Chase, 2011). Employees learn their specific work in standardized processes therefore the production is easy to forecast at any given time. Riordan Manufacturing makes products based on an average continued sales forecast of three years. (Riordan Mgf. Operations - Supply Chain (Hangzhou, China), 2014). This keeps a small inventory for the demand fluctuation. Other components of a level strategy are consistent scheduling which arranges a predicted amount of goods for production based on the total demand for products and maintaining stable workforce surpluses that can accumulate where there is a low demand and used when there is a high demand. The addition of a short...
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...further information. Alternative Work Arrangements In today’s work environment employers are willing to make flexible working schedules to meet the needs of their workforce. These alternative work arrangements can be flextime, telecommuting and job sharing. With having options like these it makes work life a whole easier. As with all things, with the good comes the bad. We will explore these work options and analyze the advantages and disadvantages of these programs that are offered. Alternative work schedules can be a great way for a company to offer great benefits to their work environment. One advantage of these alternatives is the improved morale of their work force. An increase in employee recruitment can also be an advantage to the employer. An amount of reduced stress can lead to low absenteeism providing another advantage. An advantage to the employee can be a better balance of their work and family. These advantages can be a great recruitment strategy for an employer and also giving benefits to the employee. As I said before there can also be disadvantages to these attractive benefits. One disadvantage can be a breakdown in communication due to flexible work schedules. Some positions and/or individuals might not work well with these arrangements with the lack of supervision and too much freedom. Policies that might work in favor for some employees but not others might bring about low morale. Another disadvantage could be that some...
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...operation: • Quality • Speed • Dependability • Flexibility • Cost (Slack, N. et al, 2001). These operations performance objectives are analysed here in accordance to TMC. 1) Doing things right by providing error free goods and services, which will satisfy the customers, is known as ‘quality’. According to the case study, Toyota’s vehicles consistently rank near the top in third-party customer-satisfaction surveys. Being voted by many market research and surveys as the car of the year for several years it shows that, Toyota has a successful record worldwide. Because of the good quality Toyota’s success kept going, where in 1995, Toyota was the best car in the Middle East. Also, TMC has produce a good quality cars that are quit and do not emit unpleasant fumes, such as more than 40 emission-control systems and dozens of technologies that have improved passenger-car safety (Ahmed, A., 2003, Coursework). 2) An other performance objective is speed, which means by doing things fast, to minimise the time between the order and the availability of the product or service that gives the customer e speed advantage. The TMC’s techniques are focussed operations that reduce complexity by using simple and small machines, which are robust and flexible. By rearranging layout and flow to enhance simplicity improves speed of production. On the coursework, statistics show that in the late 1980s, the output per worker was as much as two or three times higher than US or European...
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...Nordstrom uses a sales per hour (SPH) program to rate their sales employees. The more the employee sells in the total hours they work, the more their SPH. Nordstrom management uses this SPH figures for remuneration, compensation and promotions but again this was used as a tool for identifying non-performance as well. If an employee had a low SPH, they are ought to have a bad time shift, scheduled fewer work hours, or even terminated. The integral part of the problem was also identified in poor differentiation of “non-sell” and “selling” time. In order to sustain the tradition and their competitive advantage of superior customer services, the sales team would have to write thank you notes, deliver purchases timely, participation in mandatory meetings, and the likes, on “off the clock” time, because they were coerced by the existing performance evaluation system to keep their” sales per hour” ratio high. If they booked those hours, their SPH would go down because they weren’t actively selling anything and would most likely be penalized for it in the end. But there really wasn’t a clear definition as to what was “selling time” and “non-sell” time. The employees struggled with this because they weren’t exactly sure how the types of activities they did would impact their SPH. Nordstrom intended the SPH to be an incentive and a way to reward top sellers through commission, but they were really using it as a tool to force employees to work off the clock as to not impact their SPH and would...
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...Hiring Generation Y Hiring Generation Y Francesca LaRosa Empire State College Author Note This paper was prepared for Human Resource Management taught by Professor Kathleen Stallmer Hiring Generation Y Abstract With much of the Baby Boomer Generation already retired and the others on the verge of retirement (“64 million retiring by the end of the decade”, (Ivancevich & Konopaske, pg. 59)), Generation Y has become, not only a necessity, but also mandatory for the survival of most companies. Because of this, Generation Y’s know how significant and important they will be moving forward in the business world, and they are not afraid to ensure that the companies they work for know their importance as well. With that being said, it is vital for this company to make the changes necessary to survive and prosper in this changing climate. This Case Study will provide significant evidence and solutions to dealing with this current challenge. Hiring Generation Y Understanding Generation Ys is key to the success of a business in the 21st century. If we can understand Generation Ys, we can learn what motivates them and how they can be an asset to an organization; rather than being a challenge, we can find opportunity. Unlike the Generation Xs and the Baby Boomers, the Generation Ys have developed work characteristics and tendencies from doting parents, structured lives, and contact with diverse people. They are accustomed to working in groups and enjoy combining...
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...,demand, capacityFlow of Essay We will be first introducing our topic “Managing Demand and Capacity” through papers - “Managing the Tug of War between supply and demand in services industries” by “Gabriel Bitran” and “Susana Mondschein” and “Managing Service Organizations” by John Bowen and Robert C Ford. These papers explains the general challenges faced by services firms in managing capacity, demand and also describes generalized solution to solve those issues. After introducing our topic, we will delve in to specifics of “Managing Demand” and “Managing Capacity” through different research papers. Under the topic “Managing demand”, we have discussed two research papers- “Strategies for Managing Demand in Capacity-Constrained Services Organizations” by “Christopher H. Lovelock” and “Impact of demand management on the service system performance” by “David M Rhyne”. Under capacity management, we have discussed 2 research papers – “Capacity Management in Services Organizations” by Hans Corsten and Stephan Stuhlmann and “Capacity as a Strategic Marketing Variable” by Steven M. Shugan. .After this, we have discussed papers based on the solutions to manage both demand and capacity. We reviewed research papers “Optimum service capacity and demand management with price incentives “ by Özgür Özlük, Abdelghani A. Elimam, Eduardo Interaminense, and “Demand and capacity management decisions in services”, by Kenneth J. Klassen and Thomas R. Rohlede. In the end, we have picked up a specific...
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... • Speed • Dependability • Flexibility • Cost (Slack, N. et al, 2001). These operations performance objectives are analysed here in accordance to TMC. 1) Doing things right by providing error free goods and services, which will satisfy the customers, is known as ‘quality’. According to the case study, Toyota’s vehicles consistently rank near the top in third-party customer-satisfaction surveys. Being voted by many market research and surveys as the car of the year for several years it shows that, Toyota has a successful record worldwide. Because of the good quality Toyota’s success kept going, where in 1995, Toyota was the best car in the Middle East. Also, TMC has produce a good quality cars that are quit and do not emit unpleasant fumes, such as more than 40 emission-control systems and dozens of technologies that have improved passenger-car safety (Ahmed, A., 2003, Coursework). 2) An other performance objective is speed, which means by doing things fast, to minimise the time between the order and the availability of the product or service that gives the customer e speed advantage. The TMC’s techniques are focussed operations that reduce complexity by using simple and small machines, which are robust and flexible. By rearranging layout and flow to enhance simplicity improves speed of production. On the coursework, statistics show that in the late 1980s, the output per worker was as much as two or three times...
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