MGMT 453 Blog Posts – Ivan Ochoa

Based on this week’s learning materials and from what I researched about labor unions I have developed a list of pros and cons. Some of the pros for labor unions are that they can provide employees with power/protection that they wouldn’t have otherwise, allows for promotion for higher wages and better benefits, and allows for an organization of employees to create policy change within their workplace a lot more efficiently. Though, some negatives to labor unions are that they require fees which are taken from the employees check every pay period, individuality for employees can be discouraged, difficult for employers to promote or terminate employees, and unions can drive up costs for the company. 

In relation to what we learned this week, I believe that I would want to join a union if it was an option for me. I had some union experience from when I was younger, but I only really understood the fees part of it. After reviewing sources online and from the lecture materials, there were some combatting arguments. In the lecture materials, a reason given that employers resist unions is because it creates rules regarding seniority and work schedules. This was something that I hadn’t seen researching online, but also thought it was important to mention because unions reward loyalty. It also seems as though being in a union provides less consequences for the employee, than it does for the employer. There are many reasons given for employers to not want to enter unions, but the majority of the pros are in support of employees so I can see how that makes sense. While paying fees is an added cost that some employees may not like, I think that this fee provides substantial benefits to the employees that makes it worth it. Unions overall help the labor force and are still prevalent to this day! 

References:

Bivens, R. • B. J. (n.d.). How today’s unions help working people: Giving workers the power to improve their jobs and unrig the economy. Economic Policy Institute. Retrieved June 3, 2022, from https://www.epi.org/publication/how-todays-unions-help-working-people-giving-workers-the-power-to-improve-their-jobs-and-unrig-the-economy/

Tavernise, S., Nguyen, D., Novetsky, R., Zadie, M., Chaturvedi, A., Szypko, R., Chow, L., Ketchum, J., Ittoop, E., Powell, D., Lozano, M., & Niemisto, R. (2022, May 2). Are unions making a comeback? The New York Times. Retrieved June 3, 2022, from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/02/podcasts/the-daily/unions-amazon-starbucks.html

Week 10 – Learning Materials: Outline – Labor Relations

After taking the  Take the Life Stress Inventory, Coping and Stress Management Skills Test ,and Type A Personality Survey I learned a lot about myself. One of my biggest takeaways from these tests was that I can be impatient at times and focus on my problems when coping with stress. I can get easily overwhelmed, making me stressed and impatient. This is something that I will have to work on for future careers where I can easily become impatient. I like to get things done in a timely manner, so whenever something doesnt follow a schedule I can get a bit irritated and become impatient.

I reviewed an article that researxhed on what organizations were doing to help their employees mental health, what I most predominantly saw was that implementing an employee assistance program that provided a no-cost therapy session, and putting an emphasis on employee work flexibility. With most companies pusing to get employees back in offices, the emotional change can have detrimental impacts on employees mental health. After working virtually for so long some employees are going to need support to fully transition to their new work environment. It’s important for companies to see the importance of making sure their employees’ health is okay. Current concerns, other than emotional, that organizations are currently worried about are the work-life balance and amount of family time an employee is able to get. These two factors can influence a lot of stress behaviors that may inhibit an employee’s ability to get work done. Employees are stressed out when taking on new tasks that are cutting into their personal life. To combat this, some organizations are taking employee flexibility feedback seriously to help support employees mental health, and especially help manage their stress.

References:

Goldberg, E. (2022, March 30). Everyone is not ok, but back at work anyway. The New York Times. Retrieved May 27, 2022, from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/30/business/return-to-office-mental-health.html

Decreasing effort is a behavior I exhbitied from a past job that was based on compensation. Working at a restaurant that is family owned was a new experience for me. I was a server, but when I had first started working there I was essentially doing many different jobs. Cooking, cleaning, greeting, seating, and ultimately serving were some job duties of mine. Being at a younger age, I assumed I was being a great worker and would love the extra work. My paycheck was based on the hours I put it in, but I was earning minimum wage at the time so it wasn’t very much. Talking about job pay in the workplace can be very awkward, especially when you find out that some employees are making considerably more than you and they don’t work as hard. Ultimately, this led me to believe I was being underpaid but with my experience level there wasn’t much advocating I could do for myself. Learning that a new employee was being hired, who was also closer in age to me, was exciting because it meant I got to train someone. After the first shift together, I learned that he had a higher starting wage than me and it saddened me. I felt I was being undercompensated, while performing many job duties that are essentially for a manager, I started obtaining a behavior of decreased effort. 

Outlined in this week’s lecture notes, compensation has an effect on employee fairness perception. Pay transparency is important because it allows for employees to know if they are being paid fairly among other employees, based on experience level. Compensation motivated this behavior because I valued extrinsic rewards over intrinsic. At the beginning, I was motivated to work harder and more for what I thought would be greater compensation. After learning that newer employees were earning more than a current employee, I developed a behavior that reduced my effort. Ultimately, this behavior contributed to me leaving the company but compensation was the root of it. 

References:

Week 8: Compensation Lecture Outline (Lectures 1-3)

In the past, I have had several different types of training. Whether it be learned from a class, or from a position I applied for, I have had beneficial and not so beneficial experiences. Training for a position at a fulfillment warehouse was an experience that I considered beneficial. The training was one-on-one, which allowed me to fully grasp the position and ask questions where needed. The trainer was also very professional, they provided a realistic daily routine for the position and allowed me to watch them perform specific job duties. I am a visual learner, so watching someone perform the job while explaining everything they were doing was beneficial for me. Safety and technical terms related to the position were also tested regularly. This was beneficial as it allowed us to always keep in mind the safety rules needed for the job. These types of training are important for employee performance! They allowed me to succeed in the position, while also allowing me to develop into different roles and being able to relay the same type of training I had to new hires. 

These experiences are important for employee development. A bad training experience will affect employee performance, work relationships, and further development related to the position. I have had a bad training experience which was not beneficial to me. It was not interactive, hands on, not meaningful, and was not coordinated well. I was to watch a series of training videos, for hours, in which I was staring at a computer screen for the majority of a shift. I could not take the training videos seriously, they were outdated, presentation wise was not appropriate, and did not help me understand the importance of my role within the organization. It left me with many questions, with no one to answer them. The system the videos were on was very slow, whenever there was a technical difficulty, there was just myself waiting for the video to resume. I was uncomfortable to ask someone for help and I did not learn the basic aspects of my role effectively. This was not an experience I found beneficial. 

Each company has a different method of conducting interviews to fill a position. Interview experiences are important not only for the employer, but also for the applicant. It’s important for these experiences to have effective interviewing skills that show reliability and validity. An interview experience that I recall, was for my first job at a fast food restaurant. Even though I ended up taking the job, now that I can look back I believe that this company failed to optimize the interviewing process. The interview was moreover focusing on my resume, but was filled with yes/no questions and questions that were not very job related. It was a one-on-one interview, and despite being very nervous, was very straight forward. Though it was unstructured, there still was some set of expectations they wanted to make sure of the position. There were moments of silence at times, kind of if the interviewer hadn’t looked over my application/resume beforehand.

If I could go back and advise this employer on how to improve the effectiveness of their interviews, I would first recommend constructing a structured interview filled with questions on behavioral and situational scenarios. Fast food jobs are very fast paced, it could help to include some sort of open-ended questions of situational dilemmas that may arise during the job. I think this would help provide the applicant additional insight to what the job is truly going to entail, and would help choosing the applicants that can truly handle this specific job situation. 

Well written job descriptions are a tool used for recruiting, performance management, and compensation for a company. Employers have to focus on a variety of things when writing a job description, ensuring that it thoroughly and accurately outlines the duties of the job. The importance of a well written description is heavily related to the fact that it tells an applicant what the position will require. In my experience, good job descriptions have assured me that I have the necessary skills the employer is looking for while also listing the qualities they are looking for within an applicant. I have also run across out-dated looking job descriptions. This not only causes confusion in me, but I begin to wonder if I have all the skills the employer is looking for. Thorough job descriptions make the job hunting process a lot easier, but it also helps keep the applicant aware of all the possible duties the job may entail. Definitely keeps you prepared. 

There are a lot of challenges that companies face when developing and maintaining updated job descriptions. In order to overcome these challenges, some companies can externally hire a company that would perform a job analysis. This analysis would help determine what job descriptions need updating, as well as further develop other job descriptions within the company. At a minimum, these analyses would allow for companies to review their descriptions accurately while ensuring that the necessary components for a thorough job description are added. These necessary components should include what are called KSAOs; Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, and Other Characteristics. Additional information on job identification, job summary, task statements, physical demand, and working conditions should be specified in thorough job descriptions. Companies that have good job descriptions also protect themselves as applicants are able to better assess if they are a good fit for the job.

Sources:

Week 4: Job Analysis and Job Design Outline

After looking at Fortune’s list of the 100 best companies to work for, from 2020, I was able to learn about great feedback employees gave to their workplace. Ensuring your employees have a great work atmosphere seemed to be very important, while many also mentioned that support from the company and its managers helped bring happiness to the team. There are many other factors that could influence a great work culture, and many of them aid in company performance! Though, there are some factors that are essential for a great workplace. 

I wanted to look more in-depth at Hilton, Delta Air Lines, Bank of America, and CarMax. I chose these four companies because of their placements on Fortune’s list, they are in different industries, and because of how prevalent they are in my life. The main similarities I noticed from each company were that the employees appreciated flexibility, support, and most importantly feeling like a family. Delta Air Lines, being the lowest placed among these 4 companies, mentioned how the company is of people of all ethnic groups and how they strive to bring people together. This was something that the other 3 companies had not mentioned and I thought it was interesting. More interestingly, what was most common was that they were proud to tell others they work for that company and be a part of great organizations! 

After reading what employees were saying about the companies I looked into, the kind of manager I want to be is someone who strives to give employees pride in their work, while also being flexible and treating the workplace like a family. I feel that providing support, as a manager, gives a sense of trust that employees appreciate. I would also want to be a manager that conducts business ethically to accomplish goals. Having a diverse group of individuals as a team would be important for me as a manager, as “there is no one type of culture that leads to happy and productive employees’ ‘ (Importance of HR Management). I want to embrace a positive work culture that consists of diverse individuals and values that shape the company. I believe that the most challenging aspects of being a manager would be dealing with conflicts related to productivity. I think it can be difficult to come up with solutions that would raise productivity, without damaging employee engagement and work relationships.