Human Resource Management Blog

Understanding the importance of labor unions is an essential part of being a part of the workforce. Whether you are for or against unions, not knowing the pros and cons of being a part of one can be detrimental to your position as an employee.

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The Pros

In cities that have higher union densities, there is a 19% higher wage than the national average (Klawans, 2025). Being in a union usually means better working conditions as they have been pushed and fought for by said union. Protections such as protected wages, safer working conditions, and stricter regulations when it comes to employee health.

The Cons

That being said, unions might also come with less autonomy for an employee. Union rules must be followed and not following might lead to “scabbing” which is the act of undermining the efforts of the union’s work. In addition, unions cost money to run, so there are fees associated with joining.

Key Takeaways

Joining a union is not for every person. However, unions do a lot to ensure the safety of certain workplaces. While they might strike often, it is all in the name of trying to make work environments more beneficial for the majority. Most unions try to go against the potential abuse from corporations.

In my opinion, I believe unionization can be an essential part of the life of an employee. Unions can bring about great benefits such as increased productivity and morale (Kristof, 2015). Being someone who wants to work in food service management, I can see why the idea of unionization can be scary to some in superior positions. However, I think that unionization itself is not something to be scared of as a lot of the issues can be fixed through better human resource practices. Taking away the issues that unions strike against is the best way to work with the employees instead of against them.

Refernces

Klawans J. (2025). The pros and cons of labor unions. The Week US. https://theweek.com/business/labor-unions-pros-cons

Kristof N. (2015). The Cost of a Decline in Unions. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/opinion/nicholas-kristof-the-cost-of-a-decline-in-unions.html?smid=pl-share&_r=0

Dealing with stress in the workplace is not uncommon. Many people will feel stress associated with work. Jobs are usually what keep people preoccupied for a majority of their week, so it is inevitable that stress will seep into their life.

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Stress Scores

From my own tests, I can say that I am a stressed person. I scored a 260 on the Life Stress Inventory which suggests that I have a 50:50 chance of accident or illness. In addition, I only scored a 58 on the Stress Management Test. This shows that I can sometimes deal with stress using problem-solving strategies, but other times I do not. I can use these strategies to try to help myself control the issues that I do have, which should push me to try to learn more about them.

I have known for a while now that I am not the greatest person when it comes to dealing with stress. I tend to bottle things up and let them build until it gets overwhelming. That being said, I know there are strategies I can put into place to help myself deal with all that I go through, especially in professional settings.

What to Do?

For one, I personally think that it is super important to learn when to separate work and life. There needs to be a genuine balance so that things that impact you in life aren’t dragged into work. Of course, life happens and you can’t always separate the two. However, it is important to try and to create hobbies and things to do outside of work that let you relax so that you can go into new days with a better feeling.

I know my own job has us do fun team builders each term where we are able to just learn more about our peers in a low-stakes environment. It allows us to calm down and remove ourselves from the hectic work environment so that we can reground ourselves.

When it comes to deciding what behaviors to perpetuate, the question of, “how does it benefit me?” comes up a lot. People are inherently motivated by rewards. Financial compensation for doing a job is a huge motivator for many people.

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My Experience

My own personal experience where compensation might have influenced my own behaviors starts with my first food service job with tips. I was a barista who worked the front register a good amount of the time. Pretty quickly, I learned that the way you talk to certain people really does impact how much they tip you. Some people are silent customers who don’t like to interact, while others love to hold long conversations. Knowing how to interact with all types of customers and adapting to how they want to move forward is essential.

In addition, compensation sometimes just makes the harder jobs easier to cope with. During my kitchen’s deep clean, which takes place every term, most employees agree that the thing that gets them through the difficult shifts is the paycheck. Deep clean is 5 days filled with long shifts where nothing besides cleaning happens. It is not an easy or fun shift, but the paycheck at the end of all of it makes it worth it for a lot of people.

Although jobs can be great places to flourish and stimulate growth, there is also no doubt that they are what people do to make a living. Compensation and the appropriate wages for completing said jobs is an important part of life that pushes a lot of people to work hard. Matching the proper wages to the amount of effort needed is a balance that individuals have to figure out for themselves when they are thinking about the jobs they want to do in the future.

What makes a training effective versus ineffective?

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The process of onboarding can seem very daunting at first. Since you are getting familiarized with the organization, there is a lot to learn. In the “Your New Hires Won’t Succeed Unless You Onboard
Them Properly” article, the importance of onboarding is emphasized. You need to onboard new hires properly so that they can get accustomed to the work culture being built. This lends itself to socialization where an individual learns the proper behaviors to become a member of the organization.

From my own experiences, I have had onboarding experiences where I felt like I was not at all ready for what was to come and some where I felt perfectly adapted. The difference between the two was the introduction.

In the experience where I felt like the onboarding was ineffective was during an onboarding where I was lectured about the job for 4 hours a day for 3 days. While I felt like I learned a lot of new information, I did not get to connect to my peers at all, and I couldn’t absorb everything. It was a stressful process, and I felt overwhelmed.

However, my most effective training was one where the periods of learning were broken up a lot more. We had onboarding the included talking to coworkers, teambuilders, the basic information about the job, and what to expect. Though there was a lot less information being communicated, it made it a lot easier to remember what I needed. In addition, it made me learn a lot of information on the job which was more beneficial to me personally as I remembered it better.

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References:

Ellis, A., Nifadkar, S., Bauer, T., and Erdogan, B. (2017). Your New Hires Won’t Succeed Unless You Onboard Them Properly. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2017/06/your-new-hires-wont-succeed-unless-you-onboard-them-properly

How to make sure that your subconscious thoughts aren’t clouding your judgement.

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Implicit Association Test

The Implicit Association Test, also known as IATs, is used to understand and measure how much bias an individual holds. While there are a variety of tests out there, I decided to take the Asian IAT. I know that I have grown up with a majority of my developmental years in an Asian community, so I wanted to see what my bias would be like.

I was moderately faster at sorting Asian Americans with positive words and European Americans with negative words than I was with the reverse. While I do not personally believe I associate either race with such thoughts, these tests do reveal the subconscious bias I might have.

Growing up, I did not have the best experience at my predominately white school. Having always felt home within Asian communities, I can see why I might have an implicit bias towards Asian Americans. That being said, in any sort of managerial position it is absolutely important to work through these biases to be more of an equal opportunity employer.

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Dealing with Implicit Bias

While there might not be direct ill intent, having implicit bias does a lot of harm. People who did not do anything wrong are being judged for parts of themselves they cannot change.

According to the Be Better Blog, it is important to work through these biases like breaking a bad habit. They are right when they claim that being aware of the bias is not enough.

To work through a bias, you have to be able to be uncomfortable with the fact that you are biased. Having awkward conversations about these biases will help you awknowledge they are wrong, and hopefully you will be able to steer away from them.

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References

Understanding Implicit Bias—and How to Work Through It

In a world where there are so many variables that go into a good job interview, it is important to understand what matters when it comes to hiring.

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What I Looked For

During my time in my field, I have both been someone who interviews for jobs and is the interviewer for a job. Of course, as an interviewee, what the hiring manager wants can be completely different from what I think is right. As an interviewee, I always made sure that I seemed engaged with the job. Showing genuine interest in the company’s work is always a great way to start the process as it presented me as a prospect who knows what the company was aiming for.

When I was in charge of hiring people, the same principles held true. However, the people that I chose for the jobs were also those who seemed like they could grow from the position. I wasn’t exactly looking for people who could match the job description perfectly. I wanted individuals who could fit the job requirements, but showed room for growth within the organization.

Although people can perfectly match what we want on paper, if during an interview they seem like they know everything or that they will just go through the motions, then they are less likely to want to learn. As stated in the New York Times article, some times expertise is the least important attribute for when hiring (Friedman, 2014). People can come up with similar answers if looking at the same problem because some time it really just is the obvious answer.

Refernces:

Friedman, Thomas L., 2014. How to Get a Job at Google. New York Times.https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/opinion/sunday/friedman-how-to-get-a-job-at-google.html

Why understanding job analysis and descriptions lead to better comfortability in roles and suitability of positions. 

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Experiences

At this point in my college career, I have reviewed more internship and job descriptions than I can count. After looking through to see what I believe would best suit me, I do the process of going through and seeing what skills are required to fulfill the roles.

This whole process, while very lengthy, can teach a person a lot about the fields they want to go in. Job descriptions are necessary parts of understanding what will be asked of you in any given positions. KSAO’s are a key part of the job that people must have in order to carry out the roles assigned in a job.

KSAO’s, or Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, and Other Characteristics are all ways to specify what an employee should be able to do. Using some of these, I have been able to help discover jobs, and even help write job descriptions for organizations I’ve worked at.

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Overcoming Challenges

Some of the best ways to navigate job descriptions are to understand what base level skills are needed for any given task. My job is in a kitchen. At any given time there were a lot of things that I was in charge of, but to start I listed out all the base level tasks. I was on my feet a good portion of the time so I had to let people know that this is a very physically demanding job. I was in charge of equipment and food and having an Oregon Food Handler’s Card was a requirement. From there, it was easier to narrow down what was essential parts of the job. We did catering with students so safety and sanitation was a priority. After that, branching out to what exactly we needed the employees to do got a lot easier. 

Human Resource Management can take a company from being good to great. Almost, if not all, of the top 100 Fortune Best Companies to Work for list some aspect of HR as a reason their employees love it there so much. Understanding how to create a space that promotes employees wanting to be there can ultimately make the difference between companies.

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How Do Top Companies Do HR?

After reviewing some of the top 100 Fortune Companies to work for, it is clear to see. Companies aren’t necessarily standing out for having never before seen policies with employees. At the root of it all, employees feel like they are gaining something by being at work. Whether it is transparency that makes them feel like they matter, or developmental trainings that show the company wants them to grow, these companies show up for their employees.

Take Delta for example. Employees site the reason for the airline being one of the best places to be at as career development. Their job isn’t just a job to them but it is a career where they are cared for even if they have family issues. The company invests in their employees, so they do the same in return.

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What Kind of Manager Am I? Is that the Best Choice?

Based off of all the lecture, text, and material read for this class, the manager that I want to become is one that pushes their employees to do their best. There are tales upon tales about how each manager acts, but they are never the same. No good manager is ever the same because not all employees are the same. Adapting to each employee is a key figure in understanding their needs and crafting a team that can work together while liking it.

Managers have to be someone you can trust. While not every manager has to be an open book, in fact most shouldn’t, there has to be a level of trust between employees and employer. Respect is a constant across every relationship one has with their employer. Having qualities like these are essential to becoming a manager people want to work for.

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References

Buckingham, M. & Coffman, C. 2016. First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently. 2016 edition. 7-34

Fortune 100 best companies to work for® 2025. Great Place To Work. (n.d.). https://www.greatplacetowork.com/best-workplaces/100-best/2025