Christy's Journey Through MGMT 453

Beneficial Experience: A few years ago, I was able to participate in a 3-day diversity and inclusion training with fellow employees and the entire executive council at my previous organization. This 3-day training was intense and also amazing. While I will acknowledge this type of training would not be good for everyone and is only appropriate at certain times in an organization and/or when the employees have somewhat of a relationship, I will still argue that this was an extremely beneficial training for all who had the privilege of attending and participating. This training included multiple interactive activities and multiple times where we all had to crucially think and explain our thoughts. This training was very beneficial for all that attended, and we all learned a lot about each other and the world.

Non-Beneficial Experience: I have always felt that training via online module for any topic that is crucially important to the organization and the well-being of the employees does not fully train employees on the topics. Many trainings that are thrown at employees with nothing, but an email and an online module are not taken all that seriously and do not effectively train people on most topics.

Effective Interview Tactics:

Prepare, prepare, prepare! Remember bias and snap judgements!

Ask open ended questions, establish rapport and try to put candidate at ease and listen more, talk less

Use same criteria for each candidate and have scoring criteria

Keep questions job related!

Structured interview with behavioral and situational questions – more valid and reliable than unstructured

Personality Testing/Ability Tests if appropriate and job related

Candidate should always be able to have time to ask questions and you should tell them next steps!

Ineffective Interview Tactics:

Depending on the job, unstructured interviews can be a negative

Questions that give the ability to say yes or no should be avoided, as well as obvious/leading questions and questions that have no relevance to the job being applied for

Questions that violate EEO Laws (can get you in legal trouble)

Personal Experience:

I have not personally been in charge of hiring someone in my career thus far. I have, however, been involved in the hiring process in my current position, and I have noticed there are definitely things that we do that align with the lectures. We strategically craft our interview questions and create a rubric beforehand of what a good score and a bad score would mean. This applies to all candidates. That being said, the above is speaking about my time working at OSU. In my previous career, I noticed that it didn’t always run that way. Although I worked in a large corporation, HR gave the department management control of interviews and while I don’t think this is ultimately a bad idea, I think it definitely needed more oversight and structure to truly be effective. There was definitely not uniform procedures and scoring going on in most the interviews. I hope things are changing there, as I am learning those aren’t effective ways to get the best hires!

Sources:

Week 5 MGMT 453 Lecture

Hiring Employees: Conduct an Effective Job Interview | The Hartford

Job descriptions typically include the following types of information:

• Job Identification (title, FLSA status, department, position reports to, etc.)
• Job Summary: Reason for the job to exist
• Task Statements – What you are expected to do
• Working Conditions – Outside vs. inside, etc.

Challenges/Maintenance: Keeping them up to date; especially true in dynamic environments where jobs change quickly

Usually, job descriptions aren’t viewed as living documents and many organizations don’t realize the importance of the job descriptions! According to Jill Bidwell, PHR, senior HR generalist at hydraulic manufacturer Sauer-Danfoss in Ames, says ” the job description is the mother of all HR processes. Everything from recruitment and training to performance evaluations and compensation all stems from that document.”

In my own experience, I have never seen job descriptions updated at any company I have worked for. If they were updated, I wasn’t notified. I also don’t often look at my job description document, even though I should. I do feel like I am “hitting” all the marks, but it would be good to go over my job description to ensure I am, and to also maybe advocate for an update if I notice a large discrepancy.

Development:

I have never personally been in a position where I needed to develop of job description. After reviewing the learning materials for this week, I know think of job descriptions as a different tool than I had before. If organizations take careful thought and planning to make job descriptions well, they can help drive further things such as help with recruiting, performance management and compensation.

In order to have a well-developed job description, one can take different approaches, but data analysis is key. This helps match tasks with KSAQ’s or competencies.

Overcoming Challenges:

• Annual review or some cadence of review of job descriptions to ensure accuracy
• Use the whole team to develop/update
• Keep open communication with employees to know when changes have occurred, and updates need to be made

Sources:

• Week 4 MGMT 453 Lecture
• Job Worth Doing: Update Descriptions (shrm.org)

This blog will take you through my personal deep dive into Human Resource Management. Follow along with me as I explore the tasks given to me in MGMT 453 (Human Resources Management).

Best Companies to Work For:

I was tasked with looking at a large list of companies, provided by Fortune 100, that were considered the “best” to work for. I chose the following 4 companies to examine further. What makes them so great?

Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For® 2020 | Great Place To Work®

Stryker

Rated Overall: #8

Stryker is a global leader in medical technologies and offers innovative products and services in Medical and Surgical, Neurotechnology, Orthopedics and Spine. Employees at Stryker said many great things about the company but some that stood out to me were that 95% of employees were proud to tell others that they worked there. I truly think that statistic shows a lot, especially in manufacturing industries when the production of such materials can induce internal conflict if the production creates harmful effects to the environment and community the factories reside in. In Stryker’s word cloud, which was comprised on employees’ thoughts on the company, the largest words were People and Culture. That alone says a lot!

Cisco

Rated Overall: #4

Cisco is the worldwide leader in technology that powers the Internet. Employees at Cisco said many amazing things about the company. They had extremely high ratings in making their employees feel welcomed, allowing their employees to take time off when needed and making their employees feel truly cared about. That last one, feeling cared for, is often a statistic that goes unnoticed; however, it can truly increase worker productivity. In Cisco’s word cloud, which was comprised on employees’ thoughts on the company, the largest words were People, Culture, Time, Team and Balance amongst many other large positive words.

Hilton

Rated Overall: #1

Hilton is a leading global hospitality company with a portfolio of 24 world-class brands comprising more than 7,600 properties and nearly 1.2 million rooms, in 126 countries and territories. Employees at Hilton had the best things to say, considering Hilton was rated #1 overall in 2020. 97% of employees were proud to say they worked for Hilton and 96% of employees felt they were treated as a full member of the organization regardless of their position in the company. That is a good statistic because it shows the company values are of their employees, not just the ones at the top. In Hilton’s word cloud, which was comprised on employees’ thoughts on the company, the largest words were Team, Benefits, People, Family and Members amongst many other large positive words.

Deloitte

Rated Overall: #45

Deloitte provides audit, consulting, tax, and advisory services to the majority of Fortune 500 companies. Employees at Deloitte have relatively good things to say about working there. They were rated 45th, which while isn’t great on this list, it is great considering they made the list. 93% of employees said they are given the resources they need to do their job and 93% of them also say they are given a lot of responsibilities. While this statistic wasn’t as strong as some of the other companies I looked at, 92% of Deloitte employees would be proud to tell others that they worked there. I still think that is a decently solid number of employees, considering they have over 80K employees. In Deloitte’s word cloud, which was comprised on employees’ thoughts on the company, the largest words were People, Benefits and Opportunities amongst many other large positive words.

Reflection:

The companies I selected above seem to handle HR in a mostly similar fashion. In all of the cloud words from all four companies, people were strongly included in all. All four companies clearly value their employees and make that clear in their daily work and their HR policies.

I intend to be a manager that leads with empathy. The workforce is what makes the organization successful, and they deserve to be treated with respect and their opinions matter! Depending on the environment and decision, I intend to always include my team on decision making or process improvement because, most likely, they are the experts. I will also always fight for what is fair and equitable for the employees and the company.

One of the most challenging aspects of being a manager is dealing with humans. Every human interaction is different and should be dealt with differently. An organization can have all the policies and procedures in the world, but it still won’t help you fully understand what an employee might do or not do and/or say or not say and how you should handle it appropriately. I believe that dealing with humans will always be the most challenging but always the most rewarding and fun!