HRManagementBlog

For this week’s blog assignment, I chose to dive into option 1, researching the pros and cons of labor unions. I chose this topic mainly due to the fact that I am working in the construction industry where labor unions are very common. I have had the opportunity to discuss with a couple of employees how they feel about the union, and generally there is good things to say about it. The comments they had were that there are strict rules and that work is fairly constant, however the fact that there are downtimes at work is not good, and they can fire people fairly quickly when needed. They also mentioned the fact that they feel taken care with good benefits, lots of training and paid well for their work. There is a lot of fluctuation in an industry such as construction and people suffer when things get slow, and that was clearly one of the large issues that they had with the unions. From the project manager side there are plenty of pros and cons to working with union laborers. The main pro being that you know you are employing skilled laborers and people handy with their craft, however this comes at the cost of strict rules and usually a pay increase. It is very common for general contractors to work with these labor unions despite their higher pay due to the quality of work they output. I think generally unions are great. They help provide consistent work with the common strikes and promote growth and good pay and benefits for hard working jobs. I would likely be in one if I wasn’t in college as it provides a good income and benefits.

I took all three tests and was pretty surprised at my scores. I did not score nearly as well as I had originally anticipated. It seems like coping wise I am what they label as Problem-Focused Coping. Which does well against more challenging stressors, however I don’t tend to use the strategies in order to cope. It pointed out that I tend to not cope at all when it comes to stressors. This doesn’t really surprise me as it takes a lot to really stress me out and usually, I tend to calm down by picking up another activity. However, this may change once I start working full-time and I may need to start using these strategies in order to effectively cope with stress. With the Type A Personality test it said I was fairly irritable and impatient, which I would agree with, I try my best to keep this to myself but apparently, I am not as effective as I originally thought. It mentioned how I do not seem to use people for what they can provide, and I tend to be open when discussing emotions and more sensitive information. I would like to agree with this I like to be open with people and discuss the more difficult topics when I can and generally just like to help others. I think this will be fair for me in the long run as it will help bring about new relationships. I just need to maintain my head when dealing with frustrating or irritable scenarios.  Currently a lot of companies are proving insurance packages that include mental health benefits to allow employees to participate in therapy or other forms of mental health assistance. Along with paid time off and sick leave to help deal with every day stress and allow days off.

Just recently, I have gone through the process of job hunting, looking to find a job after college. Compensation is of course an important factor when looking for a job, and I ended up interviewing with 7 companies with a vast range of compensation. I ended up not going with the highest payer. But I did go with the second highest for a multitude of reasons. First the company I signed with was a family owned business and is a family I am actually related to, this was the largest factor when considering where to work. I wanted to be sure I was going to be treated correctly and that I would fit in. I found this trait with a couple of other companies, however the compensation and benefits from the family-owned company outweighed the compensation of the other two companies. I had interned with a company for the past two years and they were one of the companies I considered treating me right and I fit in, however their compensation and benefits greatly lack than what the other family-owned company offered. Overall, there were other factors that were more important to me than compensation, although it was on the list of valuable or important factors it was not as high as benefits, culture, career progression and my envisioned future.

There are many reasons why a class to me is effective or ineffective. Personally, I’ve noticed that I have preferences with classes. Such as the way the class is taught, the type of homework and the way the professor structures a class. Some of these can be seen as just frustrating items, however it’s hard for me to act effectively if the class is just poorly structured or overwhelming me with assignments. However, I have noticed above all else that certain parts of a class can be disregarded when I find the content interesting and that is the main factor when determining weather or not it is an effective class for me. Throughout my college courses, I have taken classes to further my education in the field I am pursuing, and I have taken classes that may aid in certain aspects of my career but are mostly taken for the graduation requirements. My participation and overall effectiveness go up when taking a class I feel like it directly applies to what I will do outside of school. I also tend to pay more attention and perform better due to this. However, when I take classes that aren’t like this, I tend to not pay attention and perform worse than I would in a more applicable class regardless of the class’s difficulty. I think a lot of this stems from my perspective of how valuable a class is, and if I deem it unnecessary or less important, I don’t pay attention and in turn do not perform.

Just recently, I have gone through a couple of interviews. Setting up myself for graduation, through this process I got to see the different ways companies approach recruits and the ways they interview their recruits. I was very impressed with all the companies I talked to. However, two stood out to me. These two companies asked to meet with me in Portland and took me on job walks, showing me their projects and their day-to-day responsibilities within these projects. Immediately I was impressed by their openness to have me and others out on the job site and getting a better understanding of the way their company works. In one of these interviews, it was broken out in a round robin way. Where we were interviewing 6 different people from the company varying in jobs and time spent with the company, which I thought was a extremely effective way to interview. One of the interviewers did not come prepared with any questions for me and simply asked me to tell him about myself. Which seemed nice at first but was somewhat frustrating for me when I was prepared for some difficult questions about the job. The rest of the interviewers were well prepared and asked me the questions I was anticipating, and overall, the experience was good. It just continues to stand out to me as a sort of fluke of an interview. The only recommendation I have for that company would have the interviewers to be ready and prepared with some questions as well as maybe less interviewers as it was a solid 2 hours of interviews.

Job descriptions are used to provide people with information about the job requirements and a description of the basic responsibilities of the role. This is super important for the people applying, it can inform the person whether they are qualified for the position and what to anticipate if they are to receive the role. I expect that most of the time when reading a job application and specifically the job description/requirements, it can be discerning, especially when applying for a job outside of your comfort zone. This happened to me when  I was looking for a job while in Bend and hoping to find something to better my career and specifically get me time with a program called AutoCAD. This program is typically taught for my degree, and I was replacing the class with a different software class but thought it would be useful for me to get some experience. I ended up searching for a couple of weeks and applying for a engineering intern position at Deschutes Brewery. I was severely unequipped for this job, one of the lines that stood out to me in the job description was “proficient in AutoCAD” to which I had literally  no experience in. The first-round interview was over the phone and seemed to have gone well but I made sure to add that I had no experience with the program. About a week later I had installed the program and watched YouTube videos anticipating a quick turn around from Deschutes, they ended up emailing me and saying they’re going a different direction. This discouraged me, btu I continued to mess around with the program on my free time, looking for other jobs. About a week after the bad news, Deschutes reached out again asking for another interview, I went and we discussed how I have been practicing with the program, and I ended up getting the job. I highly suggest even if a job description seems daunting to be brave and apply and you will be surprised with the outcome.

Through my readings it was clear to me that people are most happy and feel the most valued through actions the company makes to provide additional support to their workers. Diversity, inclusion and benefits are the words used most commonly when describing their positive feedback for their companies. Hosting company-wide events and being focused on the employee are other things that stood out to me promoting the employees and their opinions on a company. For instance all of the top ten companies on the 2020 fortune best companies to work for, they all have a people first culture. This not only benefits the employees of the company but also their effectiveness when working. If I were to be a Human Resources Manager, I would take a wholistic approach. Treating each member of the company as a crucial part of the system and rewarding them for their efforts. A couple of the topics I would use to reward my employees would be paid sick time, vacation time, employee stock ownership program, paid holidays, and company parties to promote team building and working well together.  This not only improves their wages and benefits but provides them with more opportunities to grow outside of work and come back feeling and working better than when they left. I would also opt to promote work life balance by implementing flexible working hours where as long as an employee hits 40 hours a week they are able to work whenever, of course that needs to include a 30 minute unpaid lunch. Overall, I see companies that are successful implement programs that support work life balance and increase compensation through benefits.

Welcome to blogs.oregonstate.edu. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!