Deans are generally grateful for the confidence placed in them by their former colleagues and are highly motivated in an effort to “change the system” and remove unjust privileges and practices occurring in their departments. This stage usually takes place early in their tenure status referred to as the “honeymoon period”. However, soon this feeling of gratitude and new found appreciation of everyone within their environment becomes a faint memory of the past and the transformation is then followed by a change of attitude in taking more interests in maintaining a high profile than discussing the basis for their decisions. In this new phrase of being dean, individuals become “puffed up” with their own importance from exercising their ability to use power. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
The first reason for the dean’s disease to occur is that in the early implementation of their new position, deans find they’re able to influence faculty members due to the resource available to them and that are within their control. This form of influence then manifests as deans exercise both coercive power (punitive actions for those that are noncompliant) and reward power (salary increase for those that do comply), which validates the belief that power tends to corrupt institutions if used injudiciously.
The second reason occurs following from the first. As a result of being the target of flattery, deans create this self serving bias that they are indeed “special” and develop an overinflated sense of self that they are truly as gifted and intelligent as others tell them. This is a negative attribute of personal superiority especially when they’re challenged by others. Communication is a two-way street. Deans need to learn how to be empathetic listeners and be able to respond to the concerns of their faculty members.
A third reason is when the control of resources requires that dean to adopt ethics consistent with the power connected with their power for control. Having acquired a "taste for power," the pursuit of power becomes an end in itself and they begin to ignore commonly held values and norms. They believe that they are exempt from moral standards to justify their self-interested actions.
Safeguards can be employed to minimize its devastating effects on deans and faculties. The first step in preventing the dean's disease is to recognize its individual and organizational markers in dean applicants. One strategy for assuring due diligence is sending a subset of a dean's search committee to a prospective candidate's campus to talk with local colleagues about the candidate's background. A second strategy to look for signs of the dean's disease is by reviewing the past records of applicants for administrative positions and their annual reviews involving collegiality. Some applicants may display isolated symptoms without having the disease, but one or two symptoms may be enough to raise serious concern. Finally, reviewing a display identifiable personality characteristic can be another preventative measure. Be very cautious of candidates that appear to possess a lot of personal charm and seductiveness, qualities that may have originally been responsible for their personal attractiveness.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Evidence-Based Management
Evidence-based management entails managerial decisions and organizational practices informed by the best available scientific evidence. It’s an emerging movement to explicitly use the current, best evidence in management decision-making. Recent studies show that only about 15 percent of their decisions are evidence based. In the article Evidence-Based Management by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton, they make the comparison of business management to its counterparts in medicine and education. Managers are actually more ignorant than doctors about which prescriptions are reliable and they’re less eager to find out. If doctors were as reckless as some managers in practicing management, there would (without a question) more unnecessarily sick or dead patients. There is a lack of accountability and legal responsibility on behalf of business managers in the business realm than in the medical field. If both disciplines were unequivocally alike, then more managers would be in jail or suffering other penalties from mal-practice.
The article then takes the effort to clear up common misconceptions in the business world. One is which when people are overly influences by ideology, they often fail to question whether a practice will work. Being an effective business manger requires years of rehearsal and preparation with practical experience. Some techniques are just not listed within a textbook and would expect an individual to experience it first-hand to understand the details. Then after the occurrence, managers will be able to reflect back and hone in the weak areas to prevent the same situation to happen twice. Management is analogous to medicine as it will be a continuous process of refined practice and experience.
One factor that the article point out that complicates evidence based management is that there can be too much evidence applied to a particular situation. For instance, Business: The Ultimate Resource weighs a whopping eight pounds and includes over 2000 pages! Who in their right mind is going to purchase this oversized document, not to mention expensive, and expect their employees to read it? I’m currently reading the 5th discipline and that textbook runs over 400 pages. It’s a tough book to get through and will probably take me at least two readings for all the material covered to sink in. I don’t think most people in business to have an ample amount of time engage themselves in difficult to read book.
The article then takes the effort to clear up common misconceptions in the business world. One is which when people are overly influences by ideology, they often fail to question whether a practice will work. Being an effective business manger requires years of rehearsal and preparation with practical experience. Some techniques are just not listed within a textbook and would expect an individual to experience it first-hand to understand the details. Then after the occurrence, managers will be able to reflect back and hone in the weak areas to prevent the same situation to happen twice. Management is analogous to medicine as it will be a continuous process of refined practice and experience.
One factor that the article point out that complicates evidence based management is that there can be too much evidence applied to a particular situation. For instance, Business: The Ultimate Resource weighs a whopping eight pounds and includes over 2000 pages! Who in their right mind is going to purchase this oversized document, not to mention expensive, and expect their employees to read it? I’m currently reading the 5th discipline and that textbook runs over 400 pages. It’s a tough book to get through and will probably take me at least two readings for all the material covered to sink in. I don’t think most people in business to have an ample amount of time engage themselves in difficult to read book.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Compensation and Performance Evaluation at Arrow
After reading the case, it was pretty evident that the Abandon the Employee Performance Review (EPR) system because the system is not able to effectively identify over and under achieving individuals. No one is satisfied with the outcome of the system. Employees are unhappy with the reviews they’re receiving and managers are upset to go through with the process. This ultimately is a failure in the organization’s system that needs to be addressed and replaced. Sales associates would seek for other positions at other distributors when the market was slowing down because 60-80 percent of their salary is based on commission. This behavior indicates that they’re not invested in the company and the working environment is adverse and unaccommodating to its employees. Having a high turnover rate in employees will ultimately affect the company, especially if they have to hire new people and invest training time to replace the “W-2 Hoppers” and fill the vacuum.
I disagree with Kauffman’s concept of allowing his 43 branch managers to make and learn from their own mistakes when it comes to hiring the right people. An organization should direct, instill and promote a set of objectives that all employees should follow. Certain behaviors that can lead to damage and cause the company to suffer should be avoided. The organization should establish a more successful hiring process followed by strict standards and expectations to filter out undesirable hires in an effort to prevent high turnovers. The average life span of a worker is 3-4 years before that individual is “stolen” by another company. That’s 3-4 years of training and investment that your company provided before that member jumped ship to apply their knowledge (the knowledge that your business provided) to help your competitors.
Their current strategy of college recruiting plan is obviously flawed. Hiring 90-100 graduating college students and requiring them to go through with 26 weeks of the extensive training process isn’t going to magically transform them into hard working and motivated employees. If anything else, the high transiency rate should be an indicator that the current system in place is a failure. The rating scale for employee evaluation is good idea in that it allows managers to provide necessary feedback about their performances and recommend areas for improvement. However, it does have its deficit. For example, wording of the evaluation will initiate the domino effect of employees comparing themselves with the evaluation of their colleagues, followed by questions such as “Who’s better than I am” will follow. This can create animosity among co-workers.
In the end, the rating system failed. Managers were very reluctant to have to tell their employees what they’re doing wrong, so they tend to assign everyone 4’s and 5’s which nullifies the purpose of the evaluation. In turn, employees got the impression that their performance is great when they receive 5’s and don’t think they need to improve on anything.
I disagree with Kauffman’s concept of allowing his 43 branch managers to make and learn from their own mistakes when it comes to hiring the right people. An organization should direct, instill and promote a set of objectives that all employees should follow. Certain behaviors that can lead to damage and cause the company to suffer should be avoided. The organization should establish a more successful hiring process followed by strict standards and expectations to filter out undesirable hires in an effort to prevent high turnovers. The average life span of a worker is 3-4 years before that individual is “stolen” by another company. That’s 3-4 years of training and investment that your company provided before that member jumped ship to apply their knowledge (the knowledge that your business provided) to help your competitors.
Their current strategy of college recruiting plan is obviously flawed. Hiring 90-100 graduating college students and requiring them to go through with 26 weeks of the extensive training process isn’t going to magically transform them into hard working and motivated employees. If anything else, the high transiency rate should be an indicator that the current system in place is a failure. The rating scale for employee evaluation is good idea in that it allows managers to provide necessary feedback about their performances and recommend areas for improvement. However, it does have its deficit. For example, wording of the evaluation will initiate the domino effect of employees comparing themselves with the evaluation of their colleagues, followed by questions such as “Who’s better than I am” will follow. This can create animosity among co-workers.
In the end, the rating system failed. Managers were very reluctant to have to tell their employees what they’re doing wrong, so they tend to assign everyone 4’s and 5’s which nullifies the purpose of the evaluation. In turn, employees got the impression that their performance is great when they receive 5’s and don’t think they need to improve on anything.
Sins of Commission
I have never worked in an environment that commission was the basis of salary (luckily) because that shouldn’t be the driving force for customer service. After reading the article on Sins of Commission, it is very evident that individuals working in the incentive-pay organizations are not there to assist customers because they take pride in there work. Customers are seen a walking paycheck and sucking-up is a must in order to gain the commission. For example in the reading, when the author told the salesperson at the Toyota car sale’s lot that he would probably not make a purchase that afternoon, the sales rep brushed him off. This seems like a common behavior that most sales associate would do, at least the one’s that I have encountered shopping in a high priced department store. Disregarded the presence of unlikely buyers and focus their attention on other customers who were more willing to make a purchase.
I see this type of behavior to be very prevalent in high-class boutique shops in California where most sales associates earn their income on meeting sales quotas. The first thing that comes out of their mouth is “Is there anything that I can help you with?” and if the customer says “no,” they usually ignore them, thinking “I’m not going to gain anything from this browsers” and find other potential consumer. A general flaw these associates overlook is the fact that customers who go to these stores browsing, shopping, looking around are doing that for a reason. They might selective in the decision making process, but eventually they will make a purchase and when that time comes around, friendly customer service is what they’ll remembers. For those associates that consider choosy buyers to be unworthy of their time and effort, they are losing prospective sales when they turn their backs on customers that don’t buy on site.
The article also includes a section on employees’ regard to salary. People are motivated by more important factors such as job satisfaction than money. In fact, people in most surveys rank salary at the bottom of the list as one of many reasons why they remain at a company. I would agree with Maslow’s hierarchy of need that people would require an adequate salary in order to live comfortably. According to Maslow, after acquiring the initial lower of physiological, safety and security needs, job satisfaction would provide fulfillment for social and esteem needs.
I found the quote given by George Zimmerman, founder and CEO of Men’s Warehouse to be very effective in accurately describing the focal point for incentive pay: “you want incentives to be just large enough but not too large…you want the reward to be large enough to be notice…but not so large that they begin to drive distort behavior.” When presented with a raise, people will feel the significant advantage for the first 30 days, and then after that feel disappears and working is back to normal. Money is a temporary motivator at best.
I see this type of behavior to be very prevalent in high-class boutique shops in California where most sales associates earn their income on meeting sales quotas. The first thing that comes out of their mouth is “Is there anything that I can help you with?” and if the customer says “no,” they usually ignore them, thinking “I’m not going to gain anything from this browsers” and find other potential consumer. A general flaw these associates overlook is the fact that customers who go to these stores browsing, shopping, looking around are doing that for a reason. They might selective in the decision making process, but eventually they will make a purchase and when that time comes around, friendly customer service is what they’ll remembers. For those associates that consider choosy buyers to be unworthy of their time and effort, they are losing prospective sales when they turn their backs on customers that don’t buy on site.
The article also includes a section on employees’ regard to salary. People are motivated by more important factors such as job satisfaction than money. In fact, people in most surveys rank salary at the bottom of the list as one of many reasons why they remain at a company. I would agree with Maslow’s hierarchy of need that people would require an adequate salary in order to live comfortably. According to Maslow, after acquiring the initial lower of physiological, safety and security needs, job satisfaction would provide fulfillment for social and esteem needs.
I found the quote given by George Zimmerman, founder and CEO of Men’s Warehouse to be very effective in accurately describing the focal point for incentive pay: “you want incentives to be just large enough but not too large…you want the reward to be large enough to be notice…but not so large that they begin to drive distort behavior.” When presented with a raise, people will feel the significant advantage for the first 30 days, and then after that feel disappears and working is back to normal. Money is a temporary motivator at best.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Nordstrom
After reading the article on Nordstrom, I was taken aback by their disrespectful behavior towards employees. Being a longtime dedicate shopper myself, it was difficult to accept the fact that I directly contributed to an organization that is discourteous and outright rude to their employees. Within the reading, the article stated that employees discovered subsequently that on Saturday’s the clock was always broken or the time cards were not assessable. When hours of overtime are hand written on the time cards, managers took the initiative to white out the hours (is that even legal? Can't the employees complain to the Union?) and accused them of “not being a team player.” I’m assuming by that they are referring to working overtime at the employees’ expenses rather than the company. Upper management lying to their workers and manipulating the situation in an unethical manner establishes the precedent that employees are allowed to do the same without facing the consequences.
Managers are always grilling employees about their sales quotas not meeting up to par. The constant badgering and nagging makes the employees feel as if their job is in jeopardy. This type of behaviors from management violates the esteem level of Maslow’s hierarchy of need and prevents employees from fully enjoying their job. Management also failed to realize their actions contributes to the downfall of employees. Their behavior is a factor to the fundamental attribution error. They might consider the cause of employee’s unwillingness to work as a sign of laziness, but what they fail to realize is that the system that assisted in their employees downfall has failed. The constant demands, grueling hours, and endless harassment will eventually deter employees from working at Nordstrom.
Nordstrom’s customer service is impeccable and one-of –kind, Sales reps or better referred to as ”Nordies” goes up an beyond the call of duty to ensure their customers gets everything they want, any time they want and anywhere every they want it delivered. Given the fact Nordstrom’s employees are expected to outperform within their responsibilities, and they do, should upper management do the same? After all, their sales reps are the standing in the front line all day, everyday assisting their customers with the utmost respect. It would seem unruly for management to treat them with such a deceitful manner with events like cutting employees hours or assigning them unfavorable working hours if they refuse to work off the clock. These negative reinforcements will work short term because they are executed for two main reasons: it’s an attempt to develop desirable behavior by issuing positive consequence, or strengthen negative behavior from arising by withholding negative consequence.
Managers are always grilling employees about their sales quotas not meeting up to par. The constant badgering and nagging makes the employees feel as if their job is in jeopardy. This type of behaviors from management violates the esteem level of Maslow’s hierarchy of need and prevents employees from fully enjoying their job. Management also failed to realize their actions contributes to the downfall of employees. Their behavior is a factor to the fundamental attribution error. They might consider the cause of employee’s unwillingness to work as a sign of laziness, but what they fail to realize is that the system that assisted in their employees downfall has failed. The constant demands, grueling hours, and endless harassment will eventually deter employees from working at Nordstrom.
Nordstrom’s customer service is impeccable and one-of –kind, Sales reps or better referred to as ”Nordies” goes up an beyond the call of duty to ensure their customers gets everything they want, any time they want and anywhere every they want it delivered. Given the fact Nordstrom’s employees are expected to outperform within their responsibilities, and they do, should upper management do the same? After all, their sales reps are the standing in the front line all day, everyday assisting their customers with the utmost respect. It would seem unruly for management to treat them with such a deceitful manner with events like cutting employees hours or assigning them unfavorable working hours if they refuse to work off the clock. These negative reinforcements will work short term because they are executed for two main reasons: it’s an attempt to develop desirable behavior by issuing positive consequence, or strengthen negative behavior from arising by withholding negative consequence.
SAS institute
Jim Goodnight, the company’s CEO believes the industry is moving too fast and admits that he is not much of a visionary as Bill Gates. He’s uncertain where the organization is heading towards in the future.
In an effort to understand the request of their customers, the company distributes ballots to at the end of each year asking them what features they would like to see in upcoming projects. This company is definitely attentive and responsive to their feedback. They have adopted “give them the software they want” attitude with a logically system of “there’s no reason to develop software they don’t want,” which reassures that their clients come first with an exceptionally high level of service
In addition to its courteous service to customers, the company is also considerate of their customers financially. The SAS Institute’s business model is unique in that rather than selling a product and upgrading the service several years later and require the product to be purchased again, they provide an annual licensing arrangement with free upgrades. This tells me that the organization is truly concerned with the satisfaction of their customers and not just for profit.
The SAS Institute has no single competitor in their unique design of software. In segments of their business it competes with companies that create statistical analysis packages such as SPSS, a software I often times use in my doctoral program to analyze data in my research projects. It’s nice to see that although competition isn’t a factor this company needs to consider, it however still continues to improve their associations with customers and validates the company’s high morals.
The company treats their employees just as well as their customers. In class we’ve discussed that employees are on the front line dealing with the customers and representing the company on a daily basis. It would seem relevant to make sure your employees are satisfied with their jobs in order to transfer that satisfaction when working with clienteles. The SAS institute follows four distinct principles: 1. Treat people well and things will take care of themselves (the trickle-down effect), 2. Intrinsic motivation – emphasize on coaching and mentoring rather than monitoring and controlling, 3. A long term perspective is required of all issues, and 4. Bottom-up decision making with no specific financial goal.
It’s just amazing to me how so many companies are unable to abide by principle two. They expect employees to be able to perform to a certain satisfactory level set by management (in which that set level has absolutely no merit what-so-ever and is invalid), but fails to provide the necessary guidance to ensure employees will reach that point. Frustration then ensues due to the lack of direction and eventually leads to job dissatisfaction.
The fourth principal is one that is very important, but isn’t very popular within most organizations. Financial revenue and growth is key to most companies, but it’s remarkable to see the difference in the business dynamic when the focus of business isn’t concentrated on “making more money.” That’s what distinguishes SAS from other business that money doesn’t comprise everything.
In an effort to understand the request of their customers, the company distributes ballots to at the end of each year asking them what features they would like to see in upcoming projects. This company is definitely attentive and responsive to their feedback. They have adopted “give them the software they want” attitude with a logically system of “there’s no reason to develop software they don’t want,” which reassures that their clients come first with an exceptionally high level of service
In addition to its courteous service to customers, the company is also considerate of their customers financially. The SAS Institute’s business model is unique in that rather than selling a product and upgrading the service several years later and require the product to be purchased again, they provide an annual licensing arrangement with free upgrades. This tells me that the organization is truly concerned with the satisfaction of their customers and not just for profit.
The SAS Institute has no single competitor in their unique design of software. In segments of their business it competes with companies that create statistical analysis packages such as SPSS, a software I often times use in my doctoral program to analyze data in my research projects. It’s nice to see that although competition isn’t a factor this company needs to consider, it however still continues to improve their associations with customers and validates the company’s high morals.
The company treats their employees just as well as their customers. In class we’ve discussed that employees are on the front line dealing with the customers and representing the company on a daily basis. It would seem relevant to make sure your employees are satisfied with their jobs in order to transfer that satisfaction when working with clienteles. The SAS institute follows four distinct principles: 1. Treat people well and things will take care of themselves (the trickle-down effect), 2. Intrinsic motivation – emphasize on coaching and mentoring rather than monitoring and controlling, 3. A long term perspective is required of all issues, and 4. Bottom-up decision making with no specific financial goal.
It’s just amazing to me how so many companies are unable to abide by principle two. They expect employees to be able to perform to a certain satisfactory level set by management (in which that set level has absolutely no merit what-so-ever and is invalid), but fails to provide the necessary guidance to ensure employees will reach that point. Frustration then ensues due to the lack of direction and eventually leads to job dissatisfaction.
The fourth principal is one that is very important, but isn’t very popular within most organizations. Financial revenue and growth is key to most companies, but it’s remarkable to see the difference in the business dynamic when the focus of business isn’t concentrated on “making more money.” That’s what distinguishes SAS from other business that money doesn’t comprise everything.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Specialty Medical Chemicals
This company has a few loose employees that were unable to work cooperatively with each in reaching the objectives of the company. Employees were consistently given high raises at the end of each year with inadequate annual review procedures. Their manager (Barry Tompkins – single loop learner) brought stability and maturity within the company, but failed to execute the business’ growth and progress in the industry. His heart wasn’t invested in the company’s wellbeing and lacked interest to improve. As a result, their sales growth had slowed considerably.
I feel that Laura’s presence was absolutely necessary to sustain and increase productivity. It is evident the company failed to improve their revenue in previous year and employees were granted meritless salaries accompanied by insufficient feedback from administration. Her presence in the company is not to agitate the organization, but to rekindle growth and create a comprehensive, valid view of each individual’s position. Sure, employees might be conversing at the water cooler about the security of their jobs and may feel that the company is unable to manage themselves. However, under the current situation they’re in dire need of help to refocus their goals. It certainly doesn’t hurt to pointedly nudge the employees back in place when they have continuously taken advantage of the company’s assets.
In Laura’s feedback report, she pointed out that the team is superficially running smoothly and the groups of individuals working within the company are very protective of sharing information. It seems they’re all have an unhealthy competitive nature to advance forward with individually, even if it means neglecting each other as a whole. There is clearly a lack of discussion and consensus I the decision making process. Employees also exert the power jockeying and “wait & see attitude,” which could be the result of the previous relaxed attitudes from managers. One area of concern I have about Laura is in her ability to implement broad strategies and structures within the company itself and encourage by in from employees. She needs to resiliently “rock the boat” and put people in positions that can successfully do the job.
There are obviously problems instilled in the organization. Executives in high positions are not pulling their weight and contributing to the company. There is a lack of communication and consensus among each department that needs to be reversed in order for the growth of productivity. The best method in this situation would to confront the individuals and notify them of their behaviors. Provide the opportunity for them to change. If they refuse or do so in a poor manner, then it’s probably the best time to recruit another individual to fulfill the position. Members of the company that are not willing to adapt to change when the company is clearly in dire need of change is not a team player. It only takes one executive to hold down and prevent everyone else from moving forward.
I feel that Laura’s presence was absolutely necessary to sustain and increase productivity. It is evident the company failed to improve their revenue in previous year and employees were granted meritless salaries accompanied by insufficient feedback from administration. Her presence in the company is not to agitate the organization, but to rekindle growth and create a comprehensive, valid view of each individual’s position. Sure, employees might be conversing at the water cooler about the security of their jobs and may feel that the company is unable to manage themselves. However, under the current situation they’re in dire need of help to refocus their goals. It certainly doesn’t hurt to pointedly nudge the employees back in place when they have continuously taken advantage of the company’s assets.
In Laura’s feedback report, she pointed out that the team is superficially running smoothly and the groups of individuals working within the company are very protective of sharing information. It seems they’re all have an unhealthy competitive nature to advance forward with individually, even if it means neglecting each other as a whole. There is clearly a lack of discussion and consensus I the decision making process. Employees also exert the power jockeying and “wait & see attitude,” which could be the result of the previous relaxed attitudes from managers. One area of concern I have about Laura is in her ability to implement broad strategies and structures within the company itself and encourage by in from employees. She needs to resiliently “rock the boat” and put people in positions that can successfully do the job.
There are obviously problems instilled in the organization. Executives in high positions are not pulling their weight and contributing to the company. There is a lack of communication and consensus among each department that needs to be reversed in order for the growth of productivity. The best method in this situation would to confront the individuals and notify them of their behaviors. Provide the opportunity for them to change. If they refuse or do so in a poor manner, then it’s probably the best time to recruit another individual to fulfill the position. Members of the company that are not willing to adapt to change when the company is clearly in dire need of change is not a team player. It only takes one executive to hold down and prevent everyone else from moving forward.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Scott's initiative
Scott’s initiation to decrease employees’ obesity rates and smoking habits should be seen as a positive move in the right direction to prevent unhealthy habits that are fatal to their livelihood. The company has taken on the effort to assist employees to their harmful habits of smoking by granting them with a 60 day probation followed by the all-paid counseling sessions, prescription drugs for Nicolette and any additional help they would need in the process to recovery.
More company needs to provide incentives for employees that maintain healthy lifestyles. In my line of work, my company provides free health insurance to anyone that qualifies for their provision. On a yearly basis, employees are asked to conduct a health screening to see if they qualify. The typical questions asked includes: smoking, cholesterol, weight, BMI index, blood pressure and among other health factor indicators. Employees that failed the screening would result in paying an extra $40.00 per month to receive the same premium coverage. In addition to my company’s willingness to convince their employees to adapt to a healthy lifestyle, they also offer a variety of Good Health Incentive Program in an effort to increase health awareness and promote responsible preventive actions. This program drives an incentive approach as its framework to prevention by developing programs and services to address key focus areas and leading health indicators. Any participants that successfully complete the task will receive monetary compensation.
More company needs to provide incentives for employees that maintain healthy lifestyles. In my line of work, my company provides free health insurance to anyone that qualifies for their provision. On a yearly basis, employees are asked to conduct a health screening to see if they qualify. The typical questions asked includes: smoking, cholesterol, weight, BMI index, blood pressure and among other health factor indicators. Employees that failed the screening would result in paying an extra $40.00 per month to receive the same premium coverage. In addition to my company’s willingness to convince their employees to adapt to a healthy lifestyle, they also offer a variety of Good Health Incentive Program in an effort to increase health awareness and promote responsible preventive actions. This program drives an incentive approach as its framework to prevention by developing programs and services to address key focus areas and leading health indicators. Any participants that successfully complete the task will receive monetary compensation.
Southwest Airline
Southwest Airline’ competitive advantages are:
1. The company’s cost structure. They concentrates on flying to airports that are underutilized and close to a metropolitan area, which recognizes that short-haul flying is inherently more costly than longer flights and in turn saves customers up to 20-30 percent in comparison to other airlines.
2. The only types of aircraft that they use those that are fuel efficient. Being green is the new black
3. consistent with their customer service motto that “customers come first” by providing with low cost fares at off peak seasons, with frequent flyers, offers only two fares, doesn’t regulate the assigned seating policy, and waive the $40.00 meal ticket in exchange for free snacks.
4. Southwest’s travel agents consist of 55 percent of their booking agents, as compared to 90 percent of other competitive airlines, which enforces the idea that we take our business seriously, provide ownership to our company and deal with our customers directly rather than transferring them to a third party.
5. Personalized customer service. Employees are willing to treat customers like family Ex. Taking care of their dog when the airline enforces the “no pet onboard” regulation.
My assessment of Herb Kelleher’s contribution to the success of Southwest is that he leads by example and participates in all aspects of problems that show up. Ex. Staying up with a mechanic in late hours to figure out the issues. He’s willing to recognize and commemorate all employees and their families by providing a budget for parties. I would like to work for Herb (not in the airline industry) because he’s a leader that is personable and sensitive to the concerns of employees, but tough when he needs to be.
I really liked their motto “The People Department” that reflects on their dedication to their employees and sends the message that “our people are the competitive advantage.” SW also spends a lot of time identifying the key components that comprise effective performance and behavior, especially within their pilots’ ability to work as a part of the team.
I would like to see more strict recruiting policies like those listed in SW Airline. They’re extraordinarily selective in their recruiting. Out of 98,000 job applicants, less than 3 percent of all interviewees are chosen to remain in the company. They focus on specific messages the candidate convey in the interview with certain uses of “I” which reflects on their lack of team work and solidarity.
The company believes that most skills can be learned and doesn’t screen heavily except for certain specialist jobs. My profession requires individuals to fully understand their abilities and their areas of expertise. Therefore, the idea of hiring people who are not highly skilled might work in the lower sectors of the airline industry; it certainly doesn’t work in higher education. Keller expressed his decisions on hiring people with little or no experience with the basis of “we draft great attitudes. If you don’t have a good attitude, we don’t want you, no matter how skilled you are. ” He makes the valid point that attitudes can’t be changed, but as we discussed in class that attitude is a psychological tendency expressed by some degree of favor or disfavor, that perception can be changed depending on their job satisfaction.
1. The company’s cost structure. They concentrates on flying to airports that are underutilized and close to a metropolitan area, which recognizes that short-haul flying is inherently more costly than longer flights and in turn saves customers up to 20-30 percent in comparison to other airlines.
2. The only types of aircraft that they use those that are fuel efficient. Being green is the new black
3. consistent with their customer service motto that “customers come first” by providing with low cost fares at off peak seasons, with frequent flyers, offers only two fares, doesn’t regulate the assigned seating policy, and waive the $40.00 meal ticket in exchange for free snacks.
4. Southwest’s travel agents consist of 55 percent of their booking agents, as compared to 90 percent of other competitive airlines, which enforces the idea that we take our business seriously, provide ownership to our company and deal with our customers directly rather than transferring them to a third party.
5. Personalized customer service. Employees are willing to treat customers like family Ex. Taking care of their dog when the airline enforces the “no pet onboard” regulation.
My assessment of Herb Kelleher’s contribution to the success of Southwest is that he leads by example and participates in all aspects of problems that show up. Ex. Staying up with a mechanic in late hours to figure out the issues. He’s willing to recognize and commemorate all employees and their families by providing a budget for parties. I would like to work for Herb (not in the airline industry) because he’s a leader that is personable and sensitive to the concerns of employees, but tough when he needs to be.
I really liked their motto “The People Department” that reflects on their dedication to their employees and sends the message that “our people are the competitive advantage.” SW also spends a lot of time identifying the key components that comprise effective performance and behavior, especially within their pilots’ ability to work as a part of the team.
I would like to see more strict recruiting policies like those listed in SW Airline. They’re extraordinarily selective in their recruiting. Out of 98,000 job applicants, less than 3 percent of all interviewees are chosen to remain in the company. They focus on specific messages the candidate convey in the interview with certain uses of “I” which reflects on their lack of team work and solidarity.
The company believes that most skills can be learned and doesn’t screen heavily except for certain specialist jobs. My profession requires individuals to fully understand their abilities and their areas of expertise. Therefore, the idea of hiring people who are not highly skilled might work in the lower sectors of the airline industry; it certainly doesn’t work in higher education. Keller expressed his decisions on hiring people with little or no experience with the basis of “we draft great attitudes. If you don’t have a good attitude, we don’t want you, no matter how skilled you are. ” He makes the valid point that attitudes can’t be changed, but as we discussed in class that attitude is a psychological tendency expressed by some degree of favor or disfavor, that perception can be changed depending on their job satisfaction.
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