Month: May 2026

After i completed the Life Stress Inventory, Coping Management Skills Questionnaire and the Type A Personality Survey. It taught me many things about how i handle stress in my life. My life stress inventory score was under 15o, which shows that i have a fairly low chance of undergoing stress related health problems in the future. These results made sense to me because even though i’m very busy with school, work and athletics, I feel like i do a great job managing my responsibilities in a way that limit stress.

My Type A Personality Suvey score was 56/100, which put me in the mix of both Type A and Type B personality traits. This also made sense to me as i can see both sides of this in myself and don’t feel like i lean one side or the other. As a student athlete at Oregon State, i consider myself to b very goal orientated, competitive, and motivated to succeed. At the same time, i don’t really feel in a rush or overwhelmed and tend to remain calm when faced with challenges. The results from this test showed me that while ambition can be a great strength, it’s important to avoid letting competitiveness create unnecessary stress.

I think that as i advance into my professional career path, i can manage stress by maintaining healthy habits like exercise, sleep, and setting realistic priorities. Working out has always been a big part of my life and a stress reliever. I think by continuing to make this a priority, it will help limit stress in my life. I also believe that time management and maintaining a healthy work/life balance is key to limiting stress as my responsibilities in life continue to increase.

There are many organizations that recognize the impact stress can have on a employees health and productivity. More companies continue to add Employee Assistance Programs, mental health counseling, wellness initiatives, flexible work schedules, and stress management training. For example, the business my dad works for just implemented a program that allowed employees to work from home 2 days a week and does wellness checks. Research shows that stress can lead to anxiety, depression, heart disease, and burnout. If organizations invest in employee wellbeing, they can improve job satisfaction, reduce turnover, and create a healthier workplace. I think that these kinds of programs benefit both employees and employers, as they help workers be more productive, engaged, and physically healthy.

A situation that comes to mind for me when i think of compensation influencing a decision or behavior is when one of my friends left their financial advising job at the bank to start her own financial advising business. When she worked at the bank it was good as she had a stable salary and benefits, however she felt limited by the compensation structure and the amount of control the company had over her. She worked long hours and built great relationships with her clients, but a large chunk of the profits and commission went to the bank rather than to her. Over time this created frustration because she felt her work and performance wasn’t being rewarded.

I think that compensation played a huge factor in her decision because she realized that working independently could potentially bring a greater return on her effort and work. Starting her own business also gave her more control over her commissions, pricing, and client relationships. The possibility of higher earnings and long term financial growth was a major motivation for her to take the risk. I think this connects to the equity theory as she compared the amount of effort and value she brought to the bank with the compensation she received and felt there was an imbalance.

I think her decision also relates to the idea from the article On the Folly of Rewarding A, While Hoping for B. As the bank wanted employees to build strong relationships with clients and grow the business, however the compensation system didn’t fully reward employees for the effort. When she started her own business, she became more motivated because her pay was connected to how hard she worked and the amount of success she had.

References:

Compensation (Lectures 1-3)

Kerr, S., (1977) Folly of Rewarding A While Hoping for B

, Academy of Management Executive, 7-14 (weblink to article through OSU Library)

A training experience that i thought was very beneficial to me was when I first started working at Case Printing Solutions. When i first got there I immediately started with hands on training. Rather than watching a presentation or reading through manuals, they trained me by have me actually work with the equipment and was able to learn how to do each task on my own. Now if ran into a problem they would come over and guide me through it. In the begging, the employees who had been there a while showed me how to operate different machines and how to troubleshoot common problems, as well as what to do with each ink cartridge. I really enjoyed this training experience as it made it easier for me to understand what I was doing by allowing me to connect directly with the job I was learning. The week 6 lectures talked about how effective training should provide employees with opportunities to practice their skills and connect their training to the real task at hand. Which is exactly how my training went and why it allowed me to reach a point where they feel like i can work anytime and they can trust me to get things done proficiently.

On the other hand I have taken a couple classes throughout my time at Oregon State that I felt like weren’t very beneficial in training me to succeed in the real world. These classes focused on long heavy lectures that required a lot of memorization and incorporated very little interactions and real hands on work. The material was important, however it was very difficult to remain engaged as there wasn’t many real world examples or opportunities to apply what we learned. Looking back I think these classes truly lacked what makes training effective, like active participation, feedback, and real life application. Our lectures this week spoke on how training should be meaningful and designed around how employees or students will actually utilize the information taught. I believe this is something those classes really lacked.

Overall, I believe that these ideas connect well to what we read about in the UPS article. As it talked about how younger employees learned better though hands on simulations and realistic practices/application rather than strictly lectures. Overall, I believe that the most effective training comes when people can actively participate, practice their skills, and understand how the information they are learning applies to real life scenarios.

References:

Lecture 1: Developing Training Programs (W6 Lecture 1 – Training.pptx) 
Making of a UPS DriverLinks to an external site. (web link to the article on Fortune.com – archived)