18.EMPLOYEE COMMUNICATION AND INVOLVEMENT

Nowadays the employees’ involvement and participation in company’s matters take place more often than years ago. Along with development of management techniques, employees are more appreciated as a source of useful ideas how to improve the performance within the organisation. There can be distinguish two way of workers’ anticipating in company’s matter. They are participation and involvement.

Employee participation is based on pluralist approach, lets employee to say their opinion. Participation is supported by legislation and there are different Workers Councils to ensure employees’ rights. They are allowed to propose changes and their consultation is likely to affect company.

Involvement on the other hand is a bit contrast approach. Management encourages employees to engage in organisational matters. Based on unitarist approach.




Employees can be involved in decision making process in many different ways (Hyman & Mason, 1995):
• Suggestion box – employees can suggest ideas and say their opinions by writing them on the page and putting it to the box. This way can encourage employees to get involved, for they could give their ideas without being asked as to their motives.
• Brainstorming – it is valuable tool, for all ideas are welcome and the group is encouraged to send ideas what helps to put their thoughts into writing.
• Group decisions – are always better and more accurate than individual ones. Especially effective when complex matters and problems need to be solved.




REFERENCES

Hyman, J. & Mason, B., (1995) Managing Employee Involvement and Participation. London: Sage Publications.

Heller, F. & Pusic, E., (1998) Organizational Participation: Myth and Reality. USA: Oxford University Press.

17.REWARD

Different organisations use various methods to reward their employees. As the reward is very important factor to motivate people and increase their performance, companies try to reward employees with very attractive prizes, not necessarily financial ones. The company I work for at the moment has got several different ways to reward employees for their high performance and devotion to work. The company is called Pizza Express and it is very well prospering chain of Italian pizzeria. There are over 500 branches spread over the UK. Pizza Express group has got different ways of rewarding for different job’s position holders.




The managers of each branch are to get financial prizes. These are assigned to them when they make expected savings in current month. The rules for allocating rewards to managers are based on the percentage factor and managers from all branches are competing with each other to get the reward. The system used to evaluate waiters is similar – also based on percentage factor of performance in sales, for they should not only serve to people but in addition to encourage them to spend more money. The prize however is different, for the best ones get ipods.

Should Chief Executives get large financial bonuses in case when the organisations they led has underperformed?
This issue needs to be considered in depth. There are factors for and against rewarding them in such situations.

Reasons for:
• Giving the reward to managers even if their leadership and management have caused inefficiency of the organisation may motivate them to achieve much better performance for next tasks.

Reasons against:
• On the other hand, some of manager are intent only on the reward, so in situation when they would get the reward in spite of failure, they are likely to do not care about improving the performance.

What could be the 3 financial and 3 non-financial ways of rewarding a teacher at a primary school for his better performance?
For financial ways could be listed single bonus to wage, permanent raise in salary or other prize like electronic equipment. To non-financial rewards could be included extra day-off, public praise from principle of school or sending a teacher for free training or course to improve his or her skills and gain better diploma.

From these listed above, one which would motivate me the most is free course, for self development is rather the most important factor and indirectly leads to higher salary in the future.

16.TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

15.MANAGING PERFORMANCE

Improving performance of employee is the Best way to improve overall performance of organisation. That is why constant feedback should be delivered to employees from their seniors. Recently I had an feedback with appraisal referred to first month of my employment in Pizza Express. I have been given complex feedback about my performance and approach to work. The manager was very happy about how I perform and gave me advice how to improve my skills. She said to me that only what I need to improve is the speed of delivering services. This type of consultation with a manager is very helpful, for allows to notice the most important matters which need to be considered and enhanced.

There was one person who I could call my mentor. It is one of my best friends. I met him when I was 13 years old and he was 25. Thanks to him I started my adventure and favourite hobby – keeping and breeding arachnids (spider, scorpions) and different insects and reptiles. He has changed my life completely. After I met him I fell in love with these creatures and some time after that he gave me my first spider – Brachypelma Albopilosum and taught all important matters, how to take care of it, how to breed and so forth . Since then I had tens of different species of spiders, scorpions, praying mantises, even ants, cockroaches and lizards. Today I am really glad that I met him. He made my life more interesting and odd. Thanks to him I gathered high level of knowledge about these animals and had great experience in my life.

MY FIRST SPIDER [IT TOOK 3 YEARS TO GROWN IT UP TO THIS SIZE]


ONE OF SCORPIONS I ALSO GROWN UP MYSELF


Good and effective mentor should have some particular characteristics. He/she must be experienced. This is essential factor, for all gathered knowledge will be passed on to trainees. Good communication and listening skills are vital to communicate successfully. Kind temper and sensitive approach to people would be very helpful to built friendly relationship between mentor and trainee. He/she should have ability to encourage trainee to figure out a solution rather than telling directly what the solution is.


RFERENCES

Times (2008) Entrepreneurs: a mentor can tune your skills [online]. Available from: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/entrepreneur/article3778514.ece
[Accessed 2 May 2010].

14.EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES AND DIVERSITY

Equality and diversity, sometimes used alternatingly, they are not the same at all. Equality is creating fair society, that allows everyone to participate and has chance to realize their potential.



Diversity, on the other hand, means difference. Used as a contrast to equality, it recognises individual and group differences. It is about treating people as individuals and giving positive value on variety in the society and in the staff.

13. SELECTION

There are many different types of selection of future candidates to be employed. Some organisations tend to use only one, but the other would rather prefer to conduct more complex way of selecting good candidates. The reasons for selection process are to gain as much information about applicant as possible, to judge whether she/he would be appropriate employee for particular job or forecast his/her future performance in work.



As an example following methods can be described:
• Short listing in accordance to cv’s information supported with interview – this is the most common method. Gives lots of information about candidate and his experience, but does not provide information about his/her actual work performance.
• Tests – personality, knowledge or skills test. Common way used when applicant got successfully through interview and cv examination. It gives some information about authentic knowledge in certain areas and the way the applicant thinks and analyses data.
• Trial shift – ultimate picture of candidate’s performance and behaviour. During trials most of uncertain issues related to particular applicant get clear. However, gathered picture of his/her performance can be distracted by stress etc.

Last interview I had was conducted on two of the ways described above. It was interview for a waiter in Pizza Express. First stage was obtaining information about me from my cv and short interview with manager. After she was happy about my experience, English language and communication skills I was straight away invited for 4 hour trial shift on Monday next week. The trial shift was nothing else than normal work and was to show my attitude and approach to the customers. After that I was presented contract details and employed. The interview appeared effective for both sides. At the beginning she decided whether it is worthy to make an appointment with me by examining my cv and during trial shifts I needed to show that I am person with appropriate manners and approach to people. Without trial shift it would be impossible to assess how useful waiter I could be.

For Pizza Express I do not have many recommendations how to improve the selection process, for it is complex and examines candidates in terms of all desired features, skills and requirements. However the trial shift might be a bit longer and conducted twice – in different situations and conditions of work. Reason for that is my trial shift was conducted during not very busy day so I could easily cope with my duties, however the future candidates could be put also in more stressful situations, when is very busy and many customers to be served.

Selection process is vital factor for employing appropriate staff and improving performance of a company. When conducted without proper effort may cause loss for company, for recruitment is expensive process and takes time, which are not to be given back once spent inefficiently.


REFERENCES

University of Oregon (2009) Guidelines for Recruitment and Selection. Available from: http://hr.uoregon.edu/recruit/guidelines.html#select
[Accessed 1 May 2010].

12. RECRUITMENT

Nowadays online recruitment has become very popular. It is now the most common way to get through this process. What are the factors for and against it?



Advantages of online recruitment:
• saves time – when the job vacancy is put on the internet, first applicants answer immediately, so till end of the day the company can have many applications to choose within. It is simple as that and sometimes takes just a day.
• inexpensive – creating job vacancy on a job board or either in newspaper, radio or TV is expensive process. On the contrary, online job add costs nothing or really small money. Considering this fact, a company is able to make big savings during a year while using online recruitment rather than normal way.
• gives broad audience – the truth is that everyone today tends to look for job online, regardless to age. It does not matter - people aged 18 or 50, all of them look for job opportunities online, because it is easy and quick not only for organisations but also for job hunters. Today, this way of looking for a job is normal procedure for everybody.
• bigger chance for success – usual printed advertisement faces limitations. They depend on people who bought that particular issue of magazine or noticed the advertisement. On the internet is different, for job vacancy stays visible and available to read all the time, constantly till time when taken off by organisation.
• it is easy – it is as straightforward as it can be. Online recruitment procedure is usually user-friendly and intuitive in use.

Disadvantages of online recruitment:
• anonymity – as everyone can be anonymous while using the internet, there is a possibility of stupid jokes and lies. Some people might send fake applications, ones to make a joke, the others to lie and give good credit to themselves the CVs .
• number of applications – some people while looking for a job tend to send their CVs wherever it is possible, and often answer for vacancies without having a relevant experience and education. Dealing with many inappropriate and bad candidates is the terror of many HR managers. Applicants’ spam cause time wastage for managers who need to read all applications.
• dissatisfaction of candidates – some of them prefer traditional methods when looking for a job rather than online recruitment, that is the reason why companies which mainly use online recruiting might miss out some good and worthy to have candidates.
• extra expenditure – big companies that prefer to use generally online recruitment are necessary to employ extra staff to shortlist all received applications and choose the best ones to conduct interview with.
• limited face to face contact – prospective candidates might live far away from potential place of employment. It means that some interviews might only be conducted by phone what restricts face to face contact, which is generally the best way of interviewing.



Online based recruitment has generally the supremacy over standard ways of recruiting and its advantages exceed the drawbacks. However everyone must be aware of all inconveniences which online recruitment brings on.

There are many different websites with online recruitment purpose on the internet. Numerous of them are however neither clearly designed nor intuitive in use. To the group of the best recruitment websites, www.monster.co.uk can be included. The page layout is well designed and particular areas are well-defined. Gentle and subdued colours do not irritate. The usage of the website and procedure of searching for jobs itself are easy, so everyone, even older users should not have problems with it. It has very broad jobs’ base with appropriate division of work occupation. On the website can be found useful support like help with designing good CV, salary calculator, job interview tips or career development.

In the early 1960s the term of ‘psychological contrast’ was used first time. However, by CIPD (2009) it became popular after years in early 1990s. It can be described as an informal contract and relations between employee and employer. The view of both parts’ mutual obligations and requirements towards each other. The obligations are rather informal and inexact, on the basis of promises and expectations. All these are based on unofficial relationship between employer and employee. It is distinguishable from written contract which identifies mutual duties and responsibilities in a general outline.


REFERENCES

CIPD (2009) The psychological contract [online]. Available from: http://www.cipd.co.uk/subjects/empreltns/psycntrct/psycontr.htm
[Accessed 28 April 2010].

11. HR PLANNING

HR planning is vital process for every business to become successful. It is defined as a process by which particular organisation’s management ensures that there are proper employees within the organisation. The employees must be capable of finishing tasks which help the company to achieve its goals and reach objectives.

EMPLOYEE LIFECYCLE


Human resource planning has got many advantages:
• Offsets doubts and changes, helps to have right men in proper place and in the right time to start effective production
• Provides range for employee development through planned training and development
• Helps to satisfy employees by planned promotions and better benefits
• Supports budgeting tasks
• Provides forecast of redundancy in human resources management
• Helps in planning for working conditions and premises
• Develops variety of sources of human resources to fill organizational needs
• Helps to improve the productivity and turnover of company
• Makes control and contribution of human resources easier.

Without appropriate human resource planning the organization would become a completely unorganized workplace. There would occur lots of wastage, inefficiency in production and chaos within the organization.

HR CYCLE


University lecturer’s personality model according to Alec Roger’s seven points person specification (Hook & Foot, 2009):
1. Physical make-up – In terms of appearance the lecturer must keep himself tidy and clean. Physical appearance does not matter. Should look happy and present himself/herself as a friendly person. Clear communicative skills are essential.
2. Attainments – proper knowledge and skills in particular topics are essential. Appropriate level of education and experience to teach are crucial.
3. Intelligence – must have bright and analytical mind. Openness for new ideas and ability to learn different theories and critical thinking are essential.
4. Special aptitudes – must have appropriate specific knowledge but mainly in area which he/she would teach.
5. Interests – as a person who teaches, should have some wide interests and be socially active.
6. Disposition – age does not matter, for the most significant are mind abilities rather than physical ones. However maturity of mind is essential as well as good sense of humour.
7. Circumstances – should be available to students very often, however not necessarily all the time.

If the waitrose were considering opening a new store in High Wycombe, its management would need to reflect on some limitation factors and ask key labour questions:
• Availability of experienced and skilled staff
• Possibility of advertising job vacancies as well as a store itself
• Type of customers and demographics in this particular area
• Competition and its products, possibility of taking over the market
• Level of local transport and communication

Human resource planning is crucial and useful tool to appropriate management strategies within on organization. The more effort put in it, the better production results and company’s effectiveness will be achieved.


REFERENCES

Hook, C. & Foot, M. (2009). Introducing Human Resource Management. 5th ed. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.

10. ROLE OF THE LINE MANAGER

The line manager is involved in human resources management quite often. There is sort of cooperation between these two departments. What are the advantages and drawbacks of this relation?

Advantages:
• as he is close to own staff and well oriented in his work department, he better knows what kind of new employee is needed, what are desire characteristics for particular role. According to this knowledge he can instruct HRM in reference to new staff hiring.
• line manager reacts more immediately and appropriately for any issues related to people development than HRM (Whittaker & Marchington, 2003).
• by shifting more responsibility onto the line managers and giving them wider duties to carry out – these related to HRM, the actual HRM department could have less work and duties to take care of.
• broadening line manager’s duties leads to his own development, while he needs to have more responsibility and tasks to take care of (Larsen and Brewster, 2003).
• greater involvement of line manager in HR matters results with higher performance through commitment, not control like in case of HRM. Line managers taking role of leader are more successful in managing of a motivated work team (Hales, 2005).

Drawbacks:
• broader duties of line managers may cause increase in workload importantly. Too much workload leads to fear of new responsibilities and feel of incompetence among line managers.
• skills of line managers can be restricted and deficiency in appropriate HR training will affect their general effectiveness.
• Inability in understanding of HR management could restrict company to develop a strong learning culture (McCracken and Wallace, 2000)
• pressure put on line managers to finish short-term plans and lack of appropriate specialist experience restrict line managers’ HR involvement, that means that long-term projects are the first to neglect and put aside.
• bigger involvement of line managers in HR performance decreases the importance of HR as a specialist discipline.

By CIPD (2009) front line managers hold significant responsibility of company’s performance. There are particular skills desired, which line managers should have. As they are direct link between employees and human resources management, their communication skills need to be at high level. Good relations with workers are necessary to deliver good communication skills. They need to lead and listen to staff, help with solving problems, which may occur. Help and support are significant to improve staff’s performance in work. Building effectively working teams, coaching and guiding employees are crucial skills for every line manager. To top up these skills, fill all requirements and deliver appropriate support to workers - line managers must be self-confident and feel secure about their position at work.

The line manager in Pizza Express – the place of my employment is very social person with good communicative skills. Every day we start work she instructs us, says how could it be that day, what we can expect. Every time it gets busy or her help is needed she is always there to help us, no matter what the problem would be she guides us how to cope with it and shows right direction.
In terms of matching my skills to human resources manager or line managers, I feel I would become better human resource manager. Reason for it is that I feel to have better skills in terms of choosing, analysing and developing creative recruitment solutions than coping with writing reports and developing and maintaining production techniques.


REFERENCES

Hales, C. (2005): “Rooted in Supervision, Branching into Management: Continuity and Change in the Role of First-Line Manager”, Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 42, No. 3, p. 471-506.

Larsen, H.H. & Brewster, C. (2003): “Line Management Responsibility for HRM: What is Happening in Europe”, Employee Relations, Vol. 25, No. 3, p. 228-244.

McCracken, M. & Wallace, M. (2000): “Towards a redefinition of strategic HRD”, Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 24, No. 5, p. 281-290.

Whittaker, S. & Marchington, M. (2003): “Devolving HR Responsibility to the Line: Threat, Opportunity or Partnership?”, Employee Relations, Vol. 25, No. 3, p. 245-261.

CIPD (2009) The role of front line managers in HR [online]. Available from: http://www.cipd.co.uk/subjects/maneco/general/rolefrntlinemngers.htm
[Accessed 3 May 2010].

9. TEAMWORK

The first assignment from People & Organisations was group work including preparation of power point presentation about motivation in work, presenting it to lecturer and later on generating report about it. For presentation there was actually not much real group work. Presentation’s tasks were split and given out to members. Everyone took care of his part himself and team work was unsettled. When the time for conducting presentation came one member did not show up, which was lack of respect to others. There could be more teamwork, agreement and common contribution, however given work results were not that bad at all. After presentation there was some time for preparing report, what in my opinion went much better than presentation. Meeting after meeting members shared their experiences about the topic. Contribution of members was fairly equal.
Summarizing, the teamwork of the group could be better. It would give greater results, because in fact the piece of work was marked around 50%, which is acceptable but there should be more attention paid to details and accuracy of realization.
For next group tasks there must be more accuracy in tasks division and understanding of the topic as well as understanding of each other and given roles. Everyone’s contribution must be equal and every member must have respect to others in order to keep atmosphere of being good team, where members understand each other very well.

After first group work reviewed above, last group work assignment for Marketing can be called real success. We worked in the same group and it was fairly noticeable that the group took its lesson of teamworking. The Charity assignment included conducting Charity event, exhibition and generating report about it. The assignemt was difficult and much more complex than the first one when we worked in the group. This time everything was perfect. Group communications, effort and envolvement. We owe the success to our hard work and better tasks division. This time we were aware who can do what and followed this pattern. All what can be said is that if we will work in the same group once more – we can expect yet bigger success.

OUR CHARITY AUCTION WITH MUSIC PERFORMANCE


EXHIBITION STAND

The following are two examples of the companies where true spirit of teamwork helped to achieve their success. These are taken from the list of best companies to work for by Times in year 2010.

BARRHEAD TRAVEL

When the company went under just before Christmas, the real teamwork was desperately needed to recovery. In spite of quite season and low staff, all workers stayed late hours in work and even these having off came to help. Nobody asked them so, but they felt obliged and wanting to support. Most of staff cancelled their holidays and only the reason was strong relation to the company and desire to help in those hard moments. It can be said that their dedication and loyalty helped to save the company.

THE RICHMOND GROUP

The company wanted to expand their loan brokerage business, but they came out with interesting idea instead of getting more staff. They took some of their call centre agents, divided them into two groups and gave each one 10,000 pounds to set up a debt management operation, and the most successful would have right to become the firm’s new brand. Six months later Debt Line emerged the Richmond Group and now it is its second largest brand. Yet again the power of real teamwork gave fantastic results with simple idea – using the power that was already within the Richmond Group.

8. ORGANISATION AND MANAGEMENT THEORY

Scientific management by Taylor (1997) introduces new and improved processes of production and eliminations of wastage and ineffectiveness in production. Its main task is to increase a performance of production. Scientific management analyzes workflows with main aim to improve labour effectiveness. The core ideas of the theory were developed by Frederick Winslow Taylor in the 1880s.
Scientific management is essential for any type of business these days, however there are pros and cons of the theory.

Pros:
• Shifts decision making process from employees to managers and provides hierarchy in job’s positions
• Theory developed one best way to perform each type of job
• It selects appropriate workers with proper skills for each type of job, selection based on technical competence, experience and training
• It plans work for employees to avoid interruptions
• It established rules for scientific approach to business management what allowed to improve it in the future.

Cons:
• Firstly it gave production managers too high level of uncontrolled power
• Theory did not satisfy needs of workers
• Treated workers as uninformed
• Did not give the employee chance to suggest some solutions and ideas
• Did not recognise variation among individuals.

Company like Nike has the biggest factories in Asia – place of cheap labour. Thousands of workers produce shoes and clothes like robots. Sitting in huge hangars doing exactly one type of movement every several seconds – for hours a day. Every person does something different. One cuts material, the other which is behind sews and so forth. There is no time to go to toilet or have a meal, for whole production would be disturbed. In relevance to the theory it can be noticed that companies do not satisfy employees’ needs nor give them chance to make any improvement or development. Neither in production nor as an individual itself. Workers are treat as uninformed labour power only . It is all about improving performance of production but only in quantitative terms, not qualitative.

NIKE FACTORY


The other company – BMW, car manufacturer. In this case employees producing car are trained and have good skills to perform their part of work. In opposite to Adidas employees, they weld technical competence, but again every person does his small part and needs to be quick, otherwise whole production line would suffer. As this company is not placed in Europe, companies at last provide high salary and satisfy employees needs. However, whole production line is strictly organized and workers must do their part of job only.

BMW FACTORY


Concluding, the scientific management theory by Taylor has given lots of improvement in understanding the business management. However, some parts of the theory are not easy to accept by employees, for do not satisfy their needs. As the theory has been improved since its development, there are still some areas which need to be adjusted.


REFERENCES

Taylor, F. W., (1997) The Principles of Scientific Management. New York: Dover Publications.

7. ENTERPRISE WEEK

During Enterprise Week there were several business events conducted at our university. The event I attended and enjoyed the most took place on Wednesday 25th of November 2009. The event’s title was 5% Idea, 95% Effort. Nico Nicholas of LetterBoxChocs, a young entrepreneur talked about his business idea, how he started it and the help he has received. He explained to participants how difficult it is to establish own business and manage it properly to get satisfactory benefits.
The event was conducted as a lecture. Sitting in the lecture room and listening to the speaker appeared as a very interesting activity. He has greatly improved my knowledge about business and management topics. He also put appropriate emphasis on practical use of given learning.
The activity effectively referred to establishing of own business. The founder of LetterBoxChocs widely explained all inconveniences and efforts connected to starting it. I did not realized there was such a surprising number of matters and people involved in a venture, which can be seen as a relatively simple. The managing of the own business is difficult, but with appropriate knowledge and experience background can result with worth of it success and well-being. Nico Nicholas’ idea for sending chocolate boxes by post as a nice, simple gift was very simple, and what decided about his triumph were effort and passion he has put in it. After satisfactory start in England, Nico is spreading his product all over the world now. Everyone loves it!
He firmly handed knowledge about establishing new business gained from own experience. His event was conducted with confidence and resulted with big interest paid by listeners. That is why I perceive it as a very successful.

At the university I am doing Business and Retail Management course, therefore I put great attention on every single Nico’s word. His speech was important for me. I would also like to establishing my own business in the future so his knowledge will be useful. Nico’s case is just amazing. He should be an exemplar for everyone who thinks about opening a new business.
His example has changed my way of thinking a bit in terms of business establishing. He proved that to achieve great success there is no need for special, extraordinary ideas. The only thing is simple inspiration, little invention, which can help people and make their lives easier. This easy step supported with great devotion and passion is very likely to lead to grand business success.

6. PERSONALITY

By Ryckman (2004) personality can be described as set of dynamic and organized attributes belonging to particular individual that exceptionally influence the behaviour and motivations of the person in different situations.
Personality is divided into natural and nurture accordingly to beliefs of its origins. Natural type of personality is result of the evolution process and it is inherited in genes. Behaviour is controlled by them and individual has not got power to act differently.
On the other hand, nurture personality is not inherited and states that individual’s mind is blank sheet at birth. All surrounding factors like environment, culture or education form one’s behaviour.

The idiographic view of personality claims that every individual has his own distinctive psychological structure and that some features are owned by only one person.
The nomothetic view emphasizes comparability amid people, however perceives in them unique combination of features. It says that people differ only in the amount of these features and this is what form their individuality.

According to these theories I can distinguish nurture type of personality influencing my behaviour. I lived in many different places, countries and cultures. This experience helped to decide that my deeds and motivational behaviour, also the way I perceive the world and treat people change in some way every time when different environment surrounds me.

I took part in two personality tests on following websites:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/whatamilike/index.shtml

http://www.initforlife.com/home/tm.asp


First one BBC - gave me following results:

And these are results from second one - MindFrame:

It can be noticed that some values are exactly identical. BBC says that my openness is on high level, it equals sociability in MindFrames which is also on high level. Other factor extroversion on high level is similar to proaction which shows the same high result. However, control and order of MindFrames seems to be a bit higher than conscientiousness of BBC results, but yet quite similar. The res of results is difficult to compare, for these tests are designed differently, however some of the top results equals each other and I think a can agree with given results. They are quite real and reflect some of my features.

As a selection tool this type of tests could be used for specific jobs, where special characteristics are essential. Nevertheless in my opinion they are not good solution for every type of employment. The test always can be wrong and people must not be evaluated by software application or other kind of questionnaires.



Every single person has got different personality, but we all are similar somehow. Some theories claims that people share the same characteristics written in genes, but only the mixture of the these features differs. The others that we born as a empty book and all characteristics creates according to places where we live and our education and experience. Neither we can agree nor disagree, we can only incline to one of the existing theories and believe in it.


REFERENCES

Ryckman, R. (2004). Theories of Personality. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth.

5. POWER AND CONFLICT AT WORK

Conflicts are inseparable part of human life. Conflict can be specified as a situation when at least two individuals displayed different, clashing intentions, divergent aims or contradictory ideas in the same place and at the same time.



French and Raven (1960), two researchers, listed over 40 years ago five sources of power within organisations. First three are based on powerholder’s position in the company, the last two from powerholder’s own characteristics:
• Legitimate power – an agreement within company members that people holding particular positions can request certain behaviour form others. Eg. Some employees might have power to request customer files, when it is required.
• Reward power – person holding this power has ability to control the allocation of rewards. Eg. Managers hold formal power to distribute promotion, pay, time off or holiday for employees.
• Coercive power – ability to apply punishment. Eg. Managers can give reprimand ar fire employees.
• Expert power – ability of individual to influence the others by possessing certain knowledge and skills. Eg. Civilians working for Canada’s Department of National Defence have big power, for they are able to operate the bureaucracy.
• Referent power – it occurs when others identify with the individual, like him or her or respect. Eg. Famous nationalists or patriots have referent power.

Organisations can use five different strategies to overcome the conflict. It is important to conduct a disciplinary policy and procedures that everyone respects but at the same time all employees should have right to complain. By assuring appropriate communication and consultation and employees involvement in decision making process the company can avoid unnecessary conflicts. It is also significant that employer sets clear targets and expectations for employees and secure them with proper human resource management policies, ensuring equality in all areas.

Conflicts are common issue when group work happens. First group work for People & Organisation displayed as a “good” base to start conflict between group members. The main problem was work division, for everyone wanted to choose particular part of work for himself and that was not necessarily the hardest one. By Mullins (2007) the source of the disagreement as a role conflict. Therefore, the group needed to solve the problem in the most appropriate way – dividing the amount of work equally and matching it to skills of individuals.

The conflicts surround us through whole our life. We witness them at every step, in every area of life. Recent tragedy for Poland – unexpected plane crush with the President was source of conflict in Poland. All presidents are to be buried in Warsaw and that is how it was in the past. But this time exception had place. Government and the President’s family decided to bury him in Cracow, in Wawel Castle. That is the place where all the mightiest Polish kings rest. Decision to bury the President there provoked manifestations of citizens among whole country. People went on strike for several days in a row before funeral. The reason for that was that none of the presidents was buried there and that is how it should stay. But decision were made already and nothing has been done to amend it. All in all, the president laid in Cracow. However, this conflict between citizens and government could be avoided. People should have been given right to choose where the President would be buried. It is people who create the nation, not government after all.

All in all, the conflict are not the worst thing. They help to understand each other and improve not only individuals, but also whole nations. Sometimes conflicts are good source of knowledge about ourselves and helps to develop appropriate skills to avoid unnecessary arguments.


REFERENCES

French, J. P. R. Jr., and Raven, B. (1960). The bases of social power. New York: Harper and Row.

Mullins, L. (2007). Management and Organisation Behaviour. 8th Edition. Harlow: FT Prentice Hall.

Taylor, S. E., Peplau, A. L., & Sears, D. O. (2006). Social Psychology. 12th ed. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

4. LEADERSHIP

In a brief, leadership is considered as setting a new trend or idea. These are to be followed by a group. The leader is the head for that new direction. Management is based on controlling and directing people or resources in a group. The managers act accordingly to principles and values that have been previously established and proved useful. The fact is that both – leadership and management cannot exist or operate well separately.

Leadership is not easy task and as all people differ from each other, there are different types of leaders. Some of them are task-oriented and want to get their tasks done as quick and as good as possible. They set up tight schedules and pay attention on productivity. There are also people-oriented leaders and these would rather like people to be happy. They put people as a priority. Third type of leaders is mixture of both. Neither of these types is wrong or right, for each leadership style is good for different situations.

BLAKE AND MOUNT'S MANAGERIAL GRID


In the early 1960s Robert Blake and Jane Mouton developed theory called ‘Managerial Grid’. It is based on task versus person preference of leaders and describes five types of leadership:
• Country club leadership [high people/low production] – these think that as long people are happy, they will work productively. Friendly environment of work, however production suffers, because of inappropriate control.
• Produce or perish leadership [high production/low people] – productivity over employees’ needs. Strict work policies and procedures. Punishment as the most effective way to motivate people.
• Impoverished leadership [low production/low people] – very ineffective leadership. No regard for efficient productivity and work environment. The workplace is disorganized and there is high disharmony.
• Middle-of-the-road [medium production/medium people] – balance between both concerns. The style commonly accepted, however neither production, nor people needs are fully satisfied. Average performance and acceptable environment of work.
• Team leadership – [high production/high people] – focused fully on both concerns, this style is characterized with high satisfaction of employees and high production. The best type of leadership to meet.

As an example for one of presented above leadership styles can be used a General Manager from VBH Galro I have worked for in the past. He fits well to Middle-of-the-road type. His management was balanced between concerning production performance and people needs satisfaction. Both were fulfilled to some degree and there was not much to complain about. Environment of work was friendly and production effective enough, however both could be satisfied on higher degree.

LINK FOR USEFUL ARTICLE ABOUT EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP
http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/agdex1334

To perform effective leadership, there must be put much effort from leader. Good communication skills and understanding type of character are important. To achieve high performance of productivity, high motivating skills are also necessary. Constant improving of staff and leader as himself will lead to better results in work. Leader cannot count only on himself, that is why the employees’ potential must be used as often as possible. To perform good leadership, the teamwork is needed. Good leaders give feedback to employees about their performance, but also accept feedback from them.

Being leader comes along with high responsibility and expectations concerned with both high productivity and staff satisfaction. It is not easy to fully satisfy them, however constant work and improvement of leadership skills will result with higher performance and employees’ happiness.

3. ORGANISATION CULTURE

In current years Organisational Culture has been given great attention. As the culture includes all factors like common, shared values, ideas, the way people behave in company and communicate each other and all aspects deciding about decision making, each organisation, each company differs from the others

Charles Handy (2009) in his book Gods of Management: The Changing Work of Organisations describes four major types of organisational culture:
• power culture – culture specified as a web. The control is a deciding factor. This type is commonly found in small and medium size companies. There is an individual having power over everything what is happening in the organisation. That person influences all decision made within the organisation. For example – VBH Galro.
• role culture – the best figure to describe it is a greek temple. The most common type of organisational culture nowadays. A company with main management where decision making process takes place is split into different functions which are allocated to each individuals, where the functions are given particular roles to carry out. This model is especially common in large organisations where employees are focused on their particular tasks what increases productivity and performance of organisation. For example Majestic Wine Plc.
• task culture – to accomplish organisation’s tasks, team based approach is put into practise. Very common in companies where wide research, development and completing the tasks before deadline are needed. The team is created with particular members and chosen to finish important tasks within the organisation. The figure describing this model is made on the basis of net. As example IBM or Microsoft companies can be used.
• person culture – not suitable model for business organisations. The individual specifies the way the organisation follows. It rejects formal hierarchy. It can be found in charities or different non profit organisations. For example – Save the Children Charity.

FIGURE DISPLAYING FOUR MAJOR ORGANISATIONAL TYPES OF CULTURE


Even if there are four major types of company’s culture, it is quite difficult to allocate particular company to one specific type of culture. The reason for that is because most of the companies display complex type of culture. As nowadays the companies deal with many various tasks within one organisation, their type of culture frequently is a mixture between two different specific cultures.

PRESENTATION DESCRIBING SIX TYPES OF ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE


VBH Galro company is example of power culture organisation. It is small organisation functioning under the name of VBH group. As it is owned by one person whose decisions influence overall company’s performance. The owner has chosen direction of company’s development. It is great responsibility and risk, however he has always coped with all affairs and troubles with positive results and led company to better performance. It was easily seen he reacted immediately to any inconveniences related to his company and all decision were made by him.

An example of company having strong culture can be Microsoft. The company established by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Recent chairman of the company is Steve Ballmer. Microsoft conducts strong monopolistic practise. The company has mixture of two types of culture – role and task. The highest management making all decisions and directing the company and many different departments to finish allocated tasks. These two factors decide about the company’s culture.

http://www.microsoft.com

Organizational culture differs in various companies. Each has got different rules, types of management behaviour or approach to business. It is described by all aspects like psychology, attitude, values and beliefs of an organisation. As Hill (2001) distinguish: “the specific collection of values and norms that are shared by people and groups in an organization and that control the way they interact with each other and with stakeholders outside the organization." It is the company’s culture what makes it different from other companies.

REFERENCES

Handy, C. B., (2009) Gods of Management: The Changing Work of Organisation. London: Souvenir Press Ltd.

Handy, C. B., (1985) Understanding Organizations, 3rd Ed. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.

Hill, C. W. L. & Jones, G. R., (2001) Strategic Management. Houghton Mifflin.