Week 24 - Final Blog

Week 24 – Final Blog

From participating in this module I feel I have developed my social skills through team working, the first assignment in this module was a group report and presentation. Through carrying out this assignment with people I barely knew I definitely feel like I’ve developed my team working skills through working as part of a team to do the assignment. We had to organise to meet up and delegate the roles between us, organise how to put the work into one piece of work and how to make it read like one. So I have definitely improved some of my interpersonal skills.

The most challenging blog for me was the performance management blog, I struggled writing it because I missed that lecture and don’t feel too comfortable with the subject. It’s not as long or detailed as the others, so I definitely feel that was the most challenging blog to write.

I have enjoyed this module and met some new friends through it, I also feel like I did quite well in it. So there’s nothing that I think needs changing.

Week 23 - Reward

Week 23 – Reward

Collaborate London is my step dads company and I am particularly familiar with it. They strongly believe in rewarding employees for going the extra mile and putting in effort. Reward is a fantastic way of motivating employees and getting them to put in that extra bit of effort. Collaborate is an independent office furniture dealership, providing consultancy, expert advice, and product and service solutions tailored to meet their clients’ needs. Collaborate reward employees in a range of different ways, these are –

Financial rewards:

• ·         Bonuses – Collaborate is joint owned by three people, these three people make up the owners. They decide who deserves bonuses, if a member of the team manages to win a few big projects from competitors and manages to come up with a solution for them, they will get a bonus, the amount of the bonus given out depends how big the projects were and how much profit they yielded.
• ·         Pay rises – As collaborate grows and it hires more employees and gains a better reputation the employees pay will rise. In order to continue growing Collaborates employees will need to carry on working hard and beating their targets. If this is done and the business gets more successful, gains more assets and increases profits then the employees pay will rise.

Non-Financial Rewards

• ·         Recognition – The Collaborate office is based in London and all employees work in the same office, it’s a closely knit organisation of which most employees are well acquainted and friendly. Recognition is important, it can be used to motivate employees. When I have worked there in the past and an employee wins a project and they input it into the system, music comes on and cheers go round the office and the employee is congratulated. Although this is only a small thing, it can go a long way, it puts the employee who won the project on a high and will help motivate them to win more projects.
• ·         Opportunity to develop skills – Existing employees can become better at their jobs through developing their skills, Collaborate know this and reward employees with training. They have sent out employees all over Europe to attend furniture design shows, in which the employees can gain contacts and speak to people in the business and gain experience from talking to these people. As well as gaining new contacts they attend see ranges of different furniture which can be used as new suppliers, they also get to look round offices that have been designed by various companies. This information can be absorbed by the employee and used to pitch to potential clients back in England.
• ·         Promotion – There is also room for promotion in the office, lower level employees (mostly part time) who are mostly responsible for things like filing and answering the phones have the opportunity to learn from the design team who actually design the offices. So there is plenty of room for promotion. This definitely motivates the employees, as the designers are on a higher wage and nearly all people want jobs with higher wages.

Collaborate is a relatively small company so keeping rewards fair is fairly straight forward, they are a diverse group and always hire or reward employees based purely on performance as opposed to their race, gender or sexual orientation.

Chief executives 99% of the time get rewarded regardless of their companies performance, there are many arguments for and against this. Some are –

For –

• ·         They might be doing the best they can and putting in as much effort as required
• ·         They need motivating to carry on doing their job
• ·         It might not be their fault the company underperformed

Against –

• ·         The chief executives are in charge of the business, and if its failing its their fault
• ·         Why reward someone for doing a bad job?

Week 22 - Performace Management

Week 22 – Performance Management

At Bucks New University they keep a keen eye on your performance, every assignment or presentation is graded and then handed back to you, this is how your performance is measured. Assignments can also be handed in early and looked over by your lecturers, and feedback can be given to improve the assignment before the official hand in date. Personal tutors are also available to talk to about help for assignment and feedback on work done so far. 

How to be a successful mentor – 

• ·         A mentor has to know the people he is mentoring, he/she needs to know a person’s capabilities and weaknesses, how to motivate them and stop them getting distracted. The mentor needs to be clear about the person’s goals.
•         Mentors/team leaders are normally very busy, but a good mentor needs to make sure they have time when their team needs help or suggestion. They will need to listen to their teams problems and suggestions and give appropriate feedback.
• ·         Mentors need to make sure their people are passionate about their work. Workers will try harder if they are passionate about their work as opposed to working just for the sake of earning money.
• ·         A good mentor is usually experienced in their field and has learned from their mistakes.
• ·         A mentor must be patient with its team. They will need to handle lots of queries and deal with lots of varying problems from the team.

There has been one main mentor in my life, my uncle. He has always been there for me through everything. He would always be there if I needed help with any school work for my GCSE’s, A-Levels and even uni work. I greatly look up to him being an extremely successful business man, he always knows how to motivate me in times that I really need it. From seeing him prevail in the industry I want to go into makes me want to try harder so I can be as successful as him.

Week 20 - Selection

Week 20 – Selection

There are various selection methods used by businesses in order to select the right candidate for the job, my step dads company Collaborate London is a company that I am particularly familiar with. I have experienced the selection process and have been told about it by my step dad. Selection is extremely important and has to be done properly, to be done successfully a company will have to gather as much information about the candidates as possible, organise and evaluate this information and compare and contrast this information between candidates. Collaborate London is a growing business, it is only three years old and has over 10 employees and some part time staff. Because it’s a relatively small business every employee has to be able to perform well and do the job assigned to them. The selection process they use is to first short list from the information on CV’s and application forms, then carry out interviews on the candidates that have the best suited skills for the job based on the information from the CV’s. The final process is work simulation, the tasks the candidates will be asked to perform on a day to day basis are explained to them and the Collaborate interviewer overlooks them carrying out this task and judges how well they do. 

Shortlisting information from CV’s and application forms is often most businesses first step of the selection process, it is crucial to examine all CV’s and application forms and wean out the ones that don’t meet the company’s expectations and shortlist the ones that stick out from the rest. There are massive advantages of carrying out this process as it is the first step to choosing a possible candidate.

The next step is to interview the candidates left from the first stage of the selection process. There are many advantages and disadvantages of interviewing. These are –

Advantages:

The interviewer can obtain detailed information about the candidate, including feelings towards the company, perceptions and opinions. Detailed questions can be asked to clarify ambiguities and pressing on for full answers and following up on incomplete answers. Questions can be created by the interviewer to suit each candidate, blank spots on the cv or application form can be filled in. Face to face interviews mean that the interviewer can observe the candidates facial expressions and body language which will give the interviewer an indication of the candidate’s honest feelings. 

Disadvantages:

Interviews give only the interviewer the chance to assess the candidate, other employees at the company may prefer other candidates, but it’s only the choice of one employee of the company to make the choice. So no other members of the company have a say in which candidate they think is the best suited to the role. Some possible candidates may not excel in one to one situations, shyer candidates may not put their skills and experience forward, and although they might perform best at the job required of them, they might find it hard to convince the interviewer.  Interviews are also very time consuming, and time costs money. The interviewer will have to put aside projects and work that they are currently working on to interview potential candidates.

Work simulations, realistic job simulations is the last part of the selection process that Collaborate use. The advantages of this process are that if two or three possible candidates from the interview process it can help a company to decide. Putting the remaining candidates into realistic job simulations is the best way to separate the candidates, if one of the candidates excels and completes the task well before the others then it can be clear that he or she is the person to hire. A disadvantage of this could be that the candidates could crumble under the pressure, a pressure that on a normal day to day basis at work they wouldn’t be under, so it can be a bit biased if one of the candidates struggles under pressure. 

During my A-levels at sixth form I entered an extra-curricular activity called business enterprise, in which business studies students were given the opportunity to create a product and sell it at various craft fairs. In order to get into the project each student had to go through an interview to be selected. As the project was over-subscribed there was no guaranteed place for any of the students. During the interview I was asked various questions regarding my interest in the subject and why I felt I would be good for the project. I felt the interview was particularly effective, the interviewer had a good set of questions lined up regarding the project and I felt comfortable whilst in the interview.  

As the blog said earlier I am familiar with Collaborates selection process, although I feel it is a good process there are one or two areas which could be improved. One of which, during the interview process more employees could get involved with the interviewing, although it would take up time and the employees would have to put their current work and projects on hold, it would be a worthwhile process so that all employees, or at least the management and higher level employees can make a decision together.

Conclusion – This blog has looked mainly at Collaborates selection process, and through looking at it and analysing it I have learnt that the process is good, the business is going well which is also a sign that the process is working. The blog has looked at different types of selection and which processes are good.

Week 18 - Recruitment

Week 18 – Recruitment

Monster.com – This employment website is one of the largest of its kind in the world. In 2006 Monster was one of the 20 most visited websites out of 100 million worldwide. Monster is the largest job search engine in the world, is has over a million job postings at any time, and over 63 million job seekers every month. It even employs 5,000 people in 36 countries to maintain the company. As the businesses main asset is its website allowing employers to list jobs and people to search for jobs it is extremely important that the website is effective.

The website itself doesn’t look overly appealing, it’s not as slick and innovative as other websites. And from a company of its size you would expect better. However the website itself is actually very useful, it’s straight forward to upload your cv, search for jobs in various areas and apply for them. And from the other point of view it seems relatively straight forward to advertise a job position on Monster so the accessibility is very good. It’s also straight forward to sign up to the site. So overall the website definitely serves its purpose, and more. It also has features that allow you to look at other peoples CV’s and explains how to write a good CV, there are even tips for job interviews. 

Red bull flight school – This e-recruitment campaign has been featured on websites like youtube and social network sights, the videos are all innovative in the way that they grab your attention. The videos are very light hearted and make you want to learn more about them. One of the videos - http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=te2XnI6MWq0 shows all of the existing members of the flight school singing and dancing along to a song, which shows the job has an obvious fun aspect to it. I think the campaign caught my interest because the videos funny and at the start intriguing. The video has an external link to the red bull website showing more details about the jobs, there are two types of jobs for students. One of them is to join the ‘wings team’ which involves driving around a mini covered in red bull embroidery with a huge red bull can attached to the back. The job involves driving around to various places and handing out red bull. The other job available is to become a student brands manager. http://www.redbull.co.uk/cs/Satellite/en_UK/Red-Bull-Jobs---Flight-School/001243018889772

 Aptitude tests are used to determine what kinds of careers they are suited too. They are a bit like exams and require you to answer questions designed around a specific area. I have carried out some aptitude tests in order to determine whether they would be useful in recruitment as a tool before gaining an interview. Hiring new candidates for positions is a difficult job, if the business hires someone who isn’t suited for the job it can lead to them being fired and then the company will need a replacement. Finding this replacement will be costly and take up some time, so aptitude testing could potentially wean out potential candidates if they don’t meet the mark. People lie about their qualifications and work history and an aptitude test would eliminate some of these people. Other benefits of including an aptitude test to the interview are that they can help the interviewer compare and contrast different potential candidates. If the aptitude test is standardised the test will be valid and reliable, and will meet the equal opportunity legislations. They can help pick out strong, desirable areas in candidates that they feel is suited to the role, if the job role is for something in finance and the test comes back showing they are good numerically then this can help the interviewer. The tests are also relatively easy to mark and give out.

The main disadvantage of aptitude tests is that there’s not a perfect connection between aptitude and performance. Having an aptitude for a certain skill doesn’t guarantee that a person will perform well in that area. There are more things to performance than aptitude, like different interests, a person’s motivation and their training.