Month: January 2025

While reading the materials for this week, I reflected back on my own experience with job descriptions while applying and working with different businesses over the years. While most were fairly straightforward and easy to follow, I also had one particular experience where my job role was very difficult to define, and because of this I ultimately left the position. To keep this business anonymous, I will say it was a small, specialized medical office, with three doctors and five other employees. When I was hired for the position, I was given a short job description as a front desk receptionist, which I was confident I could excel at based on my previous experience. However, after my training period, I felt like the goal posts moved. Once I was confident in my position, I was cross-trained for two other positions in the office in case those employees were to call out sick to keep operations running smoothly. I understood this logic and am always open to learning new skills, so I quickly agreed, but this was not the problem. The problem was, it quickly became apparent that I should be filling in for these positions at any point in time when each person was otherwise occupied with a patient, and I often was doing more than one job. Because of this, my own work suffered and I was often torn between keeping patients waiting and fulfilling my actual job duties. While reading Jobs Worth Doing: Update Job Descriptions, I thought back on this experience and realized how important a clear job description, and my input as the employee would have been to my longevity at the office. In fact, this experience made me return to school and change careers. Because of this, I would always be proactive in updating job descriptions using employee input and be upfront about job expectations upon hiring.

The fortune 500 companies whose management style I chose to focus on this week are Hilton, Cisco, American Express, and Capitol One. I chose these companies because they are large, well-known corporations, but also because of what their employees had to say about working there. At Hilton, employees talked about how they feel the company cares for them, similar to American Express, which has a strong focus on work-life balance that puts families first. Alternatively, Cisco focuses on giving their employees autonomy while providing strong support systems and diverse leadership and employees at Capitol One are encouraged to be unique, rather than conform to a company image.

All of these values stood out to me as ones that I would like to exhibit if I were to become a manager. This also ties in with Buckingham and Coffman’s text, First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently, in which they explain how great managers let people be comfortable with who they are and treat them individually. I also reflected on my personal values while reading the goals in the HRManagement Student Manual. Of the common goals listed, I found that I would be most likely to focus on being a people-oriented firm. Focusing on being people-oriented ties in with my personal values and interest in accessibility. However, because of this, I think the most challenging aspect of being a manager would be balancing company performance while putting people first, as this may sometimes conflict. Companies need to be sustainable, if not profitable and growing, and that could be hard to balance when trying to make sure people’s individual needs are being met within the company culture.