Constructive Feedback…From Employee Point of View

Communication within an organization is essential in the sense that it brings out information which is analyzed and a feedback provided. Information flow is essential in creating an understanding between the workers and managers, investors and management and between an organization and its customers or business associates. Feedback is the cornerstone to putting in full picture how issues pertaining to the workers, customers, and employers and are being handled.

The management has to assess and evaluate the workers performance and prepare a conclusive report, which is presented to the employees for their actions. Investors demand that they be updated on key performance aspects including the financial performance and this means that the management has to prepare performance reports and present them to the investors.

The customers have to be informed of upcoming products and how their complaints regarding products and services are being solved. Employees also have a role to present their views, opinions, and performance reports to the management. It is perhaps thought that managers are the people concerned with giving information.

Whereas this is true, it must be appreciated that workers have also a great role in creating, preparing, and disseminating information. Employees have to prepare their performance reports and present them to the management. These reports are mainly based on their performance or the outcomes. This information is used by the management to analyze and prepare the final conclusive reports presented to the management team and the board of directors.

Workers interact greatly with the customers. They are furnished with information regarding the products and services which must be presented to the management. Whereas customers can address their problems to the management directly, workers are better positioned to receive these details. In workshops, exhibitions and trainings, the employees get the chance to meet the customers.

Workers also interact with customers in the process of selling products or when carrying out product surveys and research activities and they are able to get hands on information on the customer satisfaction. Employees are confronted with problems in the course of their duty execution and this need to be presented to the management.

Workers perform their duties as a team and when problems arise, the team leaders are mandated to present them to the management for actions. Similarly, workers are involved and participated in key problem solving and decision making forums where their contribution is highly appreciated. They give their views, opinions, suggestions, decisions, and methods, which are then analyzed by the management to come up with the right decisions and solutions to the underlying problems.

All these are but helpful platforms through which information is communicated from one point to another. Communication is essential and helps create an understanding between the parties involved and this enhances a mutual relationship bond. Conflicts of interest are minimized and performance is enhanced. Working blindfolded without being highlighted on key issues can create problems that affect the business growth.  

When Is Autocratic Management Style Good for Your Business

What is autocratic management style? Autocratic management system is that which assumes a hard-lined, authoritarian, centrally instituted form of people's management skills. All the management functions are initiated from one central point, which is the management. The top management is manifested with too much authority. Even the other down-line managers are not empowered to effectively and efficiently test their attributes. 

There is a lot of control and confinement of power to one individual or the management. Other people's input in terms of ideas, opinions, views, and strategies is not welcomed. There is disconnection between the workers and the management. The most affected are the subordinates who do not have any say in the management initiatives of the organization. 

The associate workers are compelled, enforced and inflicted to deliver to expectations even when the work environment is not conducive and the targets set are unrealistic, unattainable and not measurable.  Employees feel enslaved to their duties. There is frustration, intimidation, and fear created in the efforts of influencing the workers to accomplish set goals. Nonetheless, this kind of management style has its own benefits.

One of the key advantages of autocratic form of people's management is that set goals can be achieved even in situations where they have previously failed due to lenient and non compelling efforts of the management. Although the results are attained, this is usually out of fear. In fact, this form of management forced the workers to deliver to expectations without failure as there is fear of victimization. 

But the main question is that; should employees be forced to execute their duties? Another importance of authoritative form of management is that decisions are made and implemented without interference from other employees. There is no objection as to why such decisions are being implemented without the consent and involvement of the employees. 

It must be said that, this system of management views employees as just mere tools of production and they are not valued and respected. The management is not presented with a lot of problems as the workers fear that when they present their complaints they will be victimized. Workers shy off from airing out their views from the repercussions that may befall them. 

However, this is extremely dangerous since when workers fail to express their frustrations, they develop ill emotions that may accumulate to reach a threshold level. When this point is reached, the results are unimpressive as they can confront the management showing anger and violent actions. In authoritarian system, the manager controls every management aspect and there are no overlaps in duty performance. 

There is also a no nonsense approach which instills discipline among the workers. It must be appreciated that employees can be difficult to handle especially when it comes to adhering to rules and regulations or accomplishing set targets. When workers have intentionally failed to play their part, they can be influenced by putting in forceful actions to manipulate them perform to expectations. 

Employees do not have to over think and indulge in aspects such as problem solving and decision making. This makes their role in the workplace simple and easy to handle. However, it must be said that this is not the best approach in career development as the workers lack the experience, knowledge, and skills to solve core problems in the workplace. They are unable to test their abilities. 

This negatively implicates on their performance. The management is also confronted with a lot of problems to solve and decisions to make which would otherwise be accomplished by the subordinates. In a nutshell, there is lack of self initiation and responsibility within the workforce when authoritative management style is used inappropriately.

Annual Salary verses Hourly Salary… Which Is Better?

Salaries are the returns that a worker gains in exchange of offering his or her skills, efforts, talents, willpower, expertise, time, and energy in a task or job performance. What is annual salary? Annual salary is that form of wage, which is paid once for a period of twelve-months. On the other hand, hourly salary is that form of wage, which is paid on hourly basis. Annual salaries are mainly accustomed for tasks that are to be undertaken for a long period.

The employee is permanently engaged in the job. They are also based on the fact that, the company is fully convinced that the worker will show a good performance throughout the year. Annual salaries are beneficial in the sense that the worker is promised to be on duty for the better part of the year. The employee is assured of work through out the period. Hourly salary is usually applied for short-term tasks and jobs.

This implies that the worker is not in that particular job for a long period and this may soon render the worker joblessness. Annual salary implies that the company has a long-term relationship and commitment with the employee. Workers benefits such as pension schemes, healthcare insurance, and retirement benefits are offered to the worker. There is a pronounced use of company resources such as cars.

The company is also mandated to enhance the training to the worker depending on the training needs and company goals and objectives. In the case of the hourly salary, the company has a limited commitment to the worker. In fact, the relationship between the employer and the employer is terminated immediately the task is complete. This is however renewable based on the needs of the services of the worker to the company.

The hourly role worker is not mandated to get any company benefits such as retirement benefits. However, based on the kind of worker being performed, the company may be required to offer benefits in form of insurance coverage for the time the employee is on duty. When a company engages in a long-term relation with an employee, it is able to benefit from any unique skills and talents from the employee for that timeframe.

This lacks in case of hourly role as the employee has a limited stay in the company. Unique skills are enjoyed for a relatively short period. On the perspective of the worker, the annual salary role creates an after-job benefit in the sense that after retirement, the employee is able to benefit from any long term schemes that were initiated by the company.

A company may set up investment schemes for its worker as part of the retirement benefits. This implies that workers are granted these benefits upon retirement and they enjoy them for the rest of their life simply due to the contributions they made to the company during their employment tenure. Hourly role workers do not benefit from these benefits.

Other benefits of annual salary include; gratuity benefits and service charge, and these miss out from the hourly salary. In a nutshell, annual salary plans are more beneficial than hourly roles as the employees are entitled to other underlying benefits due to their long-term relation with the company.

What are the Attributes of a Good Human Resource Manager

Human resource managers are concerned with the planning, organization, control, development, and maintenance of the manpower in an organization by enhancing workers performance to achieve improved productivity and profitability while meeting customer satisfaction. The human resource managers are responsible for a very dynamic and integral resource of an organization. In deed, employees are the greatest asset of a company, which has a mental ability to execute duties and apply cognitive thinking to solve problems and be creative in productivity.

A quality human resource manager should be able to understand the employees’ needs and expectations. This implies that, the manager has to listen to the staff complaints, problems, suggestion, opinions, requirements and aspects that are presented by the workers for managers' attention. The human resource manager should in fact possess good listening skills. This way they win support and confidence from the workers.

Creative problem solving techniques are ideal for a personnel manager. More often than not, human resource managers are confronted with staff challenges and problems that require the application of intellectual, intuitive and conceptual skills in order to come up with viable and sustainable solutions.   For example, employees’ absenteeism may be a backstreching problem for the human resource manager. These managers should also have training and administration skills.

The workforce need to be constantly developed through retraining to sharpen their skills, introduce new technological know-how and inform them of the market trends. It's imperative for the human resource managers to have basic financial management skills. They usually perform their duties on one of the important company resource.

This resource need to be managed financially since it can adversely implicate on the overall financial budget. They should be able to design human resource budget, prioritize on expenditures, reduce on cost of human resource and use the budgetary allocation efficiently and with accountability. HR managers should also posses counseling skills. This is because; the workers often display changes in behavior due to reasons that may be within the company or outside the company.

The human resource manager through the intellectual and conceptual skills should be able to understand the kind of problem at hand. For instance, stress is a common mental and emotional problem. Others are alcoholism, workaholic, drug abuse, absenteeism, abscondment and poor performance. The personnel manager should apply counseling skills to rehabilitate the workers with such behavioral changes in order to improve on their personal well-being and job commitment.

Human resource managers handle intelligent resource and are thus required to posses leadership skills to lead the staff community in the most profound and responsible manner. They must be able to influence the actions and thoughts of the workers. In deed, the workers should show responsiveness whenever the personnel managers are talking. 

Aptly, HR managers must possess authority execution power in order to enforce the personnel management rules and regulation as well as key decisions. It's evident that strong managerial decisions are implemented at the personnel office and this implies that they must have a strong and influential character that is highly respected and honored.

For example, disciplinary actions of the employees are communicated and effected through the human resource office. The staff redundancies and lay offs are effected through the same office. Similarly, employees’ dismissals are done via the human resource office. These are very strong and critical decisions that require composure, authority, power, and the ability to influence the people's minds.  

How Managers Can Influence the Productivity of Workers

Managers play a key role in influencing the performance of employees since they can determine how workers enhance productivity. Often managers set goals that are unrealistic and demand the workers to accomplish them without knowing the harm they are causing to the employees. Workers are inflicted with discouragement and deteriorating morale when they are put in a dead end situation by goals that are unattainable.

Out of fear to fail in their management, managers set targets way above the workers ability to achieve. This sends the employees in nightmares as they tumble around to make ends meet. The result is a total failure and waste of time and resources as the workers beat about the bush and wonder in and around, simply spending more time thinking on what they can do achieve the results rather than doing what they are supposed to do.

The situation is, in fact, aggravated when the manager is autocratic. The employees shy off in giving their opinions and suggestion. They are whirled in fear of expressing the reality that the work is just too demanding to be accomplished as per the expectations of the manager.  This leads to a retrogressive performance.

Communication is a vital element for any business organization. In order to utilize this tool of performance, the manager should enhance a communication system that is open and accountable. This way the employees are able to channel in their opinions, ideas and thoughts that best lead to a desirable performance.

Empowering the workers to nurture a communication system that brings out the willpower usually makes workers more result oriented. For instance, compelling workers to reach set targets that where devised a couple of months ago during the initial implementation plans, and have never received any reviews and assessments, can be a derailment to the management efforts to achieve the projected results.

There is need for a constant review of the goals and plans in place to ensure that they are aligned to the changing business environment. A feedback loop must be created to offer a periodical update of the performance and any changes that may deem a necessary. Aptly, managers must realize that it is not their rigidness, toughness or their amount of authority execution that will influence workers to deliver, but the ability to develop goals that are attainable and measurable.

Furthermore, the more authoritative power is applied to manipulate the workers to perform, the more they become adamant and non-productive. To emphasize, today's managers should learn to captivate within the workforce what is referred to by critics as self-propelled performance process, where the employee is the kingpin in the work performance.

What Are the Bad Reasons Why Employees Quit Their Jobs?

There are mainly two ways in which employees quit or relinquish their positions in workplace. First, is out of good will and from justifiably good reasons. An employee may be foreswearing a position to join a better paying or more senior rank in another company. It may also entail waiving a current job to pursue a more economically advanced venture such as a stable business operation. Critics term this as leaving for a better course.

Withal, there is that ceasing a job that comes out of unjustifiable treatment in the company, conflicts of interest with the management, dismissal, or dissatisfaction with the job. This is where the rubber meets the road and the friction of the job sends one of the parties (company or employee) terminating the job. Bad reasons that can be attached to renouncing a job are;

Job pressure
When the job is too remanding, this may cause daunting moments for the employee. In extreme cases, it leads to stress and anxiety, which may further transform to depression. Job pressure arises when the targets set are unrealistic and unattainable. The management fails to understand that the targets it has put forward are unachievable and keeps on pressing the employee to deliver. Such a case occurs when the management implements decisions without consulting and involving the workers.

Conflict of interest with seniors
There are times when an employee differs with the superiors. This happens especially if worker feels that is on the right side and has no fear for expression of opinion or fact. There is need for employees to express their frustrations, opinions, criticisms, and corrections when they feel it is necessary.

In some companies, the management assumes a hard-lined management system, and they do not allow the inputs in form of any expression of opinion from other employees. This is the type referred to as an authoritarian management system. This is a tyrannical form of leadership in workplace that eventually makes the employees dissatisfied with the job environment and opts to quit.

Underpayment
Poor payment is one of the most pervasive reasons why workers quit jobs and depart a company for other career or business obligations. This happens when the duties or tasks do not match the remunerations offered. As a company performance improves, there is need for successive review and adjustment of the workers' salaries and other pay packages.

Nonetheless, there are cases where an employee works for a company for several years and no tangible salary adjustment is implemented. This calls for the worker to look for greener pastures. Why would employers want to pay little when they are getting big returns from the efforts, skills, talents, and knowledge of the worker? This is quite ironical. Otherwise, employees are not slaves. They have to be satisfactorily paid for their work.

Why Key Employees Should Be Protected In Times of Recessive Growth

Key employees can be useful resource during the hard times when a company experiences recessive growth. High performing employees are an asset to the organization and they are actually becoming scarce as organizations compete to make use of them. One of the unique characteristics of key employees is that they are virtually difficult to get. 

Companies tend to cling on them and often do not want to relieve them of their duties even during the hard economic times. The businesses are afraid that in the event they lay them off, they will need them when the situation improves and they may not be available as other companies take advantage of this recession to search for the most outstanding employees. 

In fact, they approach excelling employees who have developed their career brand and ask them to join their companies. Key employees build their career brand through exceptional performance which is characterized by an enthusiasm in performance. These employees take the company through the economic twists and turns. They are the same employees whose services are needed during the recession in order to offer unique strategies on how to tackle the vise.

One of the imminent things that companies do during a recession is to relieve of their duties the non performing employees. They get the opportunity to dismiss those employees who have failed to show any tangible contribution to the success of the business even after immense investment by the company to enhance their skills.

Such employees are viewed as slow movers and non-thinkers who have to be spoon feed on every decision or duty performance. Undisciplined workers are also laid off. The high performance assumes the chance to prove their existence in the company. As an employee, this is the right time to offer the very best of all the decisions and strategies.

As a matter of fact, as a key employee, one should get down to business and carry out a research on how to pull the company from the economic trench. The company should really be able to say that; surely this is the employee of the company! One should prove to them beyond any reasonable doubt that they are not there by chance but out of excellence in duty execution. High performer can help turn around the performance of a business during the hard times and they should be protected and retained.

Should Businesses Embrace Employees Internet Monitoring in Workplace?

Employee Internet motoring is not perceived positively in workplace. Managers are often placed in awkward positions as they adapt to innovations in the workplace including internet use.  Internet is one of the most needed technological advancement for businesses however, it's versatility in application is hampered by the behavioral role displayed by the workers.  

As a major socializing tool, the internet is prone to abuse and misuse by the employees in the workplace.  Technological innovations are strategic alignments for business organizations to advance their competitive edge. When introduction of new technology is announced in workplace, the employees develop a quest to have the innovation installed. They wait for the new technology with zeal.

Internet connectivity is one of the digital edge instruments that have assumed another angle in its use in work place. As much as the importance of the Internet highly thrives, its use is looped around ethical loopholes that need to be sealed. In essence, the very innovation that is developed to benefit the company may turn out to be destructive to the employees' work initiative.

One of the importance of Internet is the ability to provide communication with other audiences all over the world. The greatest advantage and which is also the greatest threat to Internet use is the border-less access of information. Once you have logged in the websites, you entirely get into another virtual communication world. 

Internet can easily carry the emotions, mind-sets, feelings and concentrations of the audience in an immense way totally destructing the real people’s presence at the point of use of the Internet. The mental status and thinking abilities are carried away from the person’s position of work.

Internet in work place is essential as first and foremost it enhances the communication system within and outside of the organization. Information flow within the employees’ network is improved and this is reflected by the way problems are solved, tasks are delegated, and essential highlights are quickly distributed to the respective workers. 

Still of great importance is the ability to access research materials and information right from the office desk. The management can easily initiate a product survey, product and corporate research in a more accurate, convenient, and efficient manner. The list is endless as its use in the company expands with the company's need to grow.

Nonetheless, Internet use is often abused where the management does not have sound ethical guidelines to govern the use of this communication tool. The employees are easily ruined to engage in personal Internet use due to its borderless accessibility of information. 

In fact, the Internet is considered a fun and recreating activity. When workers begin to use it for fun and recreation, they fail to understand that they are doing the right thing at the wrong place and in the wrong time. Employees are in work place to undertake tasks and other assignment in form of jobs. Their time is limited. The management expects to get the optimum results of the tasks.

Internet interferes with the concentration of the employees to their jobs. It slows down productivity and affects the efficiency and effectiveness of the workers. It may also affect the quality of products, and this impacts on the buyer’s behavior. If not checked, it can result to total shift of positive performance to a retarded performance.

The management assumes the role to control the use of Internet in order to avert the workers from being swept away by the curiosity to discover fun and recreation in the Internet which affects productivity. When the use of this tool is monitored, this gets the employees alert and they are aware that somebody somewhere is monitoring their activities in the workplace.  

This way they desist from abusing the use of the Internet. They concentrate on their duties and their performance is least affected. This implies that the workers only use the net for the intended purpose and thus it saves time, energy and efforts which would be lost through nonconstructive use of the tool.

In essence, internet monitoring in workplace could help curb the abuse of technological innovations in businesses. Where Internet is used for research, survey, transactions, access to work-oriented programs and of course information flow within and out of the company, there is increased productivity and profitability. There is increase in product knowledge, understanding of the market dimensions and trends as well as an understanding of the customer needs and expectations. And what does this mean to the company?

What are the Disadvantages of Delegating Work?

Relegating work entails allocating tasks to employees with the aim of accomplishing the results within the stipulated time frame. Managers adopt work delegation so as to meet to demands posed by the pending work. When delegating, it is imperative to evaluate and establish the importance and urgency of the work. Sometimes, managers are tied up in attending to the more urgent and important assignments while other duties remain unattended.

This calls for a need to distribute the tasks to other employees in order to harmonize the productivity process in the workplace. Definitely, managers want to achieve the best results from delegated tasks. This means that the workers allocated duties should show high standards of performance to meet the manager's expectations.  

When delegating, the manager is accountable for the outcomes of the work.  Should the results be substandard, the manager is expected to respond to the cause of the poor performance. One of the setbacks of delegating work is the failure to achieve the desired results.  When duties are delegated, it is expected that the results will meet the requirements. 

However, due to the fact that the tasks are allocated to down-line employees they may lack the ability to give the desired results. This means that the results may not meet the exceptions of the manager and hence the customer. Indeed, this is one of the reasons why it's hard for some managers to relegate duties and opt to attend to them personally. 

Delegating can also create lack of commitment and laxity within the manager. This is actually abusing the role of delegation since the manager realizes that somewhere there is an employee who can attend to the tasks thus delegates even when not occupied with other duties. This promotes laziness within the manager. Delegation should only be done when it is necessary and not without a cause. 

How a Good Business Process Management Can Turn Around the Growth of a Company

Business process management can turn around the performance of a business through strategic use of resources and manipulation of manpower to achieve the intended results. The lifeline of a business organization is the ability to make huge profits. Whereas business profitability can be achieved through good assets' management such as finance, human resource, and capital assets including machinery and equipments, it is certain that a holistic approach may lack in achieving the desired results. For instance, the productivity may be improved but the costs of production are enormously high. Similarly, the customers’ response may be good but the employees are unhappy. Also in other cases, the workers may produce quality products but the sales volumes are low.

It is only an integrated and ad-hoc approach that clearly addresses these disparities in company performance. The business process management puts together the subjects of effectiveness and efficiency in a more concrete manner while promoting customer and employee satisfaction.  In order to create one of the most pervasive, effective and efficient production team that is customer-oriented, the company has to apply the process of BPM. This entails a design of the strategies that promote effective and efficient production.

This is achieved by building a strong employee team with the necessary skills, know-how, talents, exposure, and knowledge. The employee should also be induced to perform. This is enhanced through creating morale, re-training them, involving them in decisions, handling their problems with apathy, as well as incorporating them in corporate research. The technological innovations in place should be cost effective to reduce the costs of operations.

When the employees are provided with such technological developments, and are stimulated to produce, the results are commendable. The employees should be equipped with the know-how to produce quality products that meet customer expectations. The company must connect the employee with the consumer so as to nurture a mutual understanding between the two subjects. This helps in producing products that match the needs and wants of the customers.

This significantly magnifies sales volumes. The company has to analyze the existing production strategies and have a parallel comparison with the new approaches to see if there are changes that need to be implemented. The implementation process is the most important as any misinterpretation may lead to the wrong results and conclusions. For instance, if the employees are unsatisfied, the otherwise good and valuable strategies may be rendered ineffective because of lack of wholesome commitment by the employees.

The workers do not utilize their efforts, time, skills, talents, know-how, willpower, and energy to give their best exceptional performance. This is viewed as a retrogressive approach, which is not ad-hoc. In BPM, all the 'loopholes' are sealed that can prompt an unsustainable, inefficient and ineffective performance. The monitoring of the strategies put in place should be consistent and often detailed to observe any abnormalities.

Test parameters must be actively utilized so that any shortcomings are identified in advance and feed-backed for a review. The strategies that are identified as suitable and result-oriented are put on a long-term practice through a continual improvement plan. This ensures that the good is not achieved today and lost tomorrow. In a nutshell, from a good business process management a business assumes increased sustainable growth through enhancing quality production, happy employees’ team, cost effective technological innovations, increased sales volumes, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and an eventual competitive edge.

What Is Project Management?

What is project management? Project management can be defined as the initiation, planning, execution, control, and completion of a temporally activity that has a predefined beginning and end. Projects are usually impermanent undertakings that are aimed at achieving particular results. In the context of business organizations, project management may entail a product improvement process, defining ways to enhance good customer relations, devising ways to improve employees’ morale, streamlining business administration and upgrading an IT infrastructure in a company.

Other projects may encompass handling a legal case set against a business organization or mitigating business risk occurrence and severity. For instance, a management step to add value to a product or increase employees wages and salaries are typical cases of project management. Similarly, integrating a resource planning software product in a company may be viewed as an IT project management.  A project management process may be pegged on different stages, which include the initiation stage, planning process, execution part, assessment and evaluation as well as project completion.

Project initiation is the first stage in project management. However, depending on the type of project, this may be preceded by a feasibility study. In the initiation stage, the project scope, range and outputs are defined. The beneficiaries, required personnel and project goals are established. If required, the IT software to be used is also identified as part of the IT project management.

The project planning process establishes how resources are to be utilized to achieve the set targets. Project team is identified and the financial allocations are done. In the planning process, the time schedules are drafted. Budgeting is also carried out based on the financial needs. Perceived project risks are assessed and mitigation measures planned for in advance. In essence, proper planning is called for in order to accomplish the project’s results as desired.

Project execution part entails the actual mobilization, coordination, and directing of the project team to utilize the available resources to achieve the set targets. The project manager must win the support of the team. Workers should realize that the success of the project lies on their hands. The manager should identify the personnel weakness and strengths and model out a project team that is result oriented.  Efficiency and effectiveness are core aspects that must be instilled in this stage.

Assessment and evaluation are critical measurement aspects in any project endeavor. The actual results need to be measured and compared with the projected results. Project control ascertains that the plan is executed as earlier intended. The assessment and evaluation is the trouble shooting stage where any stumbling blocks to achieving the desired results are established and corrective measures put in place. A feedback is carried through to the stakeholders and workers. The stakeholders are updated on how the project is fairing. Workers on the other hand are informed of their achievements.

Project completion is the last part of the management process before handing over the results to the respective interested parties. During this stage, the workers are appreciated of their good performance.  A report is prepared and presented to the stakeholders. 

5 Lessons Managers Should Learn From Change Management

The shift from the conventional employee-manager relationship in the workplace during change management signals that surely the management cannot survive without the workers support. Indeed, managers should ensure that they maintain a mutual relationship with staff in order to gain support and respect.  It must be pointed out that, it would be difficult for the 'hard-lined' and autocratic managers to initiate a process of change management in an organization. 

This is when employees show their true colors and express the feelings of resentment and disappointment that they have held within their hearts. In managing change, the employees become the 'bosses' and superiors assume the role of observation and guidance.  Workers take the center stage role and they are the 'managers' of the implementation process. This turn of events from the 'traditional' way of managing employees gives out lessons to the management. Lessons that can be learned from change management are;

Workers control the change process
If employees can display self-initiation while in the workplace, then they can as well be termed as 'managers'.  Employees are the driving force for the business performance.  They are the main assets in an organization.  Workers' decisions are equally important as managers and at times, the subordinates' decisions outweigh the managers'. 

During change management, managers have to accept what the employees are demanding and should not impose change management. This can turn to be catastrophic when staff members pretend to accept change only for the management to implement it and later on ‘down their tools'. The business incurs loses in time, money and waste of resources.


Managers should be flexible in change management
Management is not only about being authoritative and enforcing rules and regulations. The managers should have different 'faces'.  At times, they are tough and 'stone-faced' and on other times they are 'jovial' and interactive with the workers. This is because, there are times when managers need to convince but not compel employees to do a certain task. This requires the managers to bend low and listen to the views of the workers. 

Change adversely affects employees' well-being
Change creates fear within the workers and that is why they resist it.  The workers feel that they may lose their jobs; others assume that they will not be able to deliver to expectations.  There is lack of confidence and a lot of misconception about change. In fact, the greatest insecurity for the employees is withstanding change. Some employees even resign when change is announced. This is a coward and out of ill-advise.

Change should be facilitated not enforced
The secret behind implementing change successfully is to win the support of the employees. The Workers need to be left to find their way of coping with change. Enforcing change can aggravate the situation as the employees pretend to accept it only to resist later. 

Change should be properly communicated
There are two aspects to consider while communicating change.  One, it should be announced to the workers in advance to enable them have a recap and begin evaluating possible ways to cope with.  Secondly, during the planning and implementation, the managers should closely and personally interact with the workers to gain their support. This means that managers can move round the workplace explaining and elaborating the aspects of change to workers. 

A face-to-face communication is preferred. Managers are able to answer to issues posed by the staff.  Sitting in the office and using memos and notices to communicate to the subordinates is not only ineffective but also frustrating to the managers. Workers respond with disregard and out of ill-intend to make the whole process a flout.

In a nutshell, when handling workers during change management, managers should bear in mind that there comes a time when the employees take control of the workplace. It is during this time that the workers can really frustrate managers, especially those that have maintained a hard-stance and authoritarian kind of management. Manager who mistreat employees have daunting moments during this time and it would be appropriate not to 'test' how workers can respond to ill-feelings that have manifested for a long time.

What are the Common Project Management Constraints?

Project management constraints are a major stumbling block to achieving the desired results. In project management, there are uncertainties that managers, personnel and even the stakeholders go through in a bid to initiate, plan, execute, control, and complete the project. The constraints may form part of the project risks and if not checked, they can send the whole venture into turmoil.

Common project constraints are; time, finance, personnel, planning and execution.  These constraints can be categorized as resource-based and strategic setbacks. For instance, time, finance, and personnel may be termed as resource-based whereas planning and execution are regarded as strategic setbacks. 

Time limits
The time frame set for a project completion is one of the challenging aspects to the project managers.  The managers should ensure that the period proposed as the project time scale is realistic and attainable.  Underestimating the time period may greatly frustrate the manager and at the same time disappoint the stakeholders.

It must be emphasized that stakeholders put pressure on the project managers to deliver the results within the shortest time. If proper evaluation of the timescale provided is not done, the project managers can find themselves in problems. This substantiates the reason why project managers must re-evaluate the time frame demands provided by the stakeholders.

Financial constraints
The backbone of a project management is a sufficient and even provision of funds and appropriate planning and utilization of these finances. The cost of running a project should critically be established. Besides, when the funds are supplied, a stringent financial planning should be ensured.

Transparency and accountability must be promoted. The project manager must closely monitor how the funds are being used by measuring the results of the project and comparing these outcomes with the amount spend.

Personnel uncertainties
The workforce to execute a project may be faced with uncertainties ranging from lack of sufficient skilled and experienced workers to lack of staff morale resulting to poor performance. The workers are the driving force for the project's plan implementation. Insufficient finances may also affect the morale of the workers especially if they are not paid in time and there is constant delay of materials and equipments to use.

Planning
Planning is an essential part of project management. For the resources to be mobilized effectively, proper planning is required. This defines how the goals and objectives are to be achieved. It also identifies the project execution team. The finances are budgeted for to unsure that every penny is channeled to the appropriate financial use.

Poor planning may derail a project plan. For instance, if the finances are not well budgeted for, this can lead to misappropriation of cash hence resulting to funds shortage. This is quite daunting to the project managers, stakeholders and even the staff executing the plan. In essence, when you understand the common project management constraints and how to deal with them, you can successfully deliver the results as desired. This reduces conflict of interest, dissatisfaction, and failure in achieving results.  Project managers can use project management tools and templates to be able to plan, communicate, store information and collaborate the execution team effectively.

What is Employment Termination?

What is employment termination? Employment termination is simple withdraw from offering duties in a company by either through a self-decision of the employee or action of the employer to stop you from offering services. There are essentially two ways in which an employment can be terminated. First, the employee can purposely or unwillingly withdraw from duty execution. On the other hand, the organization can resort in terminating the services of an employee. In whichever case, there are procedural ways of rendering a job termination. Some of the reasons why a company would terminate the services of an employee are; out of poor and persistently unsatisfactory performance and misconduct.

A company can also arrive at the decision to terminate employment to safeguard the interests of the company such as a lay off arising from an impending economic recession. On the other hand, an employee relinquishes duties due to perceived poor workplace environment or in a bid to pursue greener pastures.

There are different ways to terminate employment and these depend on the reason for the termination. If the core reason to leave a job is, for instance, to source for a better one, this may mean that the worker renders a resignation letter. If a company carried out a lay off or dismisses employees, a job termination letter is offered. It must be noted that when terminating employment, a reason should be given to the respective party.

 A company that decides to fire an employee should give a concrete reason as to why the decision has been arrived at. At the same time, an employee who decides to relinquish duties should do so procedurally by giving rationale as to why employment is being terminated. To protect the interests of the company or the employee a notice should be given by either party (employee or employer). This is essential since it gives time for the employee or employer to prepare for the exit.

It must be said that it’s quite unethical to decide leaving a company abruptly when it would be possible to give a notice in advance. For instance, such an impromptu decision made by an employee creates a gap in the workforce and it could be detrimental to the company performance. If a company suddenly decides to dismiss an employee, this could implicate on the workers well-being resulting to stress.

Depending on the duration an employee has been working for a company, a notice is granted. In case the notice is not given, either party is expected to pay an equivalent in lieu of the notice. Should the company not give notice to an employee on an impending job termination, it should compensate the worker on terms prescribed by the State’s labour laws and as agreed upon between the Labour Union and the companies. The same applies to the employee.

Furthermore, if an employee is registered with a Labour Union organization, the Union should be served with a notification on the termination of employment. This notice is aimed at putting the labour officers in the limelight of what has happened between the company and the terminated employees.

Tapping Risk Management Practices to Promote Business Growth

Business risks are profoundly one of the worrisome aspects in business success and this is why risk management is an important aspect for any business be it large or small. Risks cause daunting moments for investors and business management.  In a bid to understand what is risk management, it is imperative to define what a risk is. Risks are consequential event occurrences that subject a business into threats that manifest in form of damages or losses. The uncertainties are either internal inceptions or originating from outside the business but pose a threat.

An enterprise risk management process entails an identification of the uncertainty events, assessment of the possibility and degree of impact, implementation of mitigation measures by minimization, control and monitoring of the probability and severity of the risks' effects. A good risk management is defined by the ability to identify the risks and edge out extenuation measures to control the possibility to occur and the extent of the impact.

The uncertainty events identification can be carried out by establishing the common known risks including such as it risk management issues presented by lack of technological developments in a business and listing them down. It can also be achieved through defining the objectives of the business and establishing any hazardous events that may trigger impacts on the efforts to realize the goals. Risks sources can also be analyzed to see how they prompt the occurrence of the uncertainties.

For example, employees may be a source of risk, and the uncertainties may be poor financial management, workers injuries due to unsafe work environments and increased employee complaints that may induce industrial strikes. IT innovations may be another source of a business risk and the uncertainties presented may include lack of adopting new technologies, adopting the wrong technologies, and using best-of-the-breed resource planning and scheduling tools that are not compatible with existing IT systems in the workplace.

In risk management plan, identification of the risks paves way for an assessment to establish the probability and severity of the risks. Prioritization of the uncertainties is done and this depends on how soon and often the risk can occur and the damage it may cause to the business. The composite risk index is one of the widely accepted forms of risk evaluation. It holds it that, the composite risks index is a function of the impact of risk event multiplied by the probability of occurrence. The impact of the risk is evaluated in scales of 0 to 5 (whereby, 0 stand for minimum impact and 5 maximum impact).

Probability on the other hand is put in to indicator measurements of 0 to 5 (whereby, 0 corresponds to zero probability and 5 represents 100% possibility of the risk even to occur). From the tabulations, the composite index is calculated and it ranges from 0 to 25 (whereby, the figures are discretionary divided into low, medium and high risks).

Therefore, high indexed risks that have a high probability and more severe are accorded urgency in the risk management plan and mitigation measures need to be put in place. The implementation process is vital as it determines how the business may apply the available resources in the most economical way to achieve results. There are mainly four implementation methods in the risk management process and these are;
•    Risk avoidance
•    Reduction
•    Sharing
•    Retention

The adoption of each of the strategies is pre-defined by the composite index. Highly indexed risks such as fire damages, natural disaster occurrences and staff injuries from work-related accidents are usually perceived as expensive to retain and the business usually passes on the liability to another party. This is what is regarded as sharing and the risks liability is 'transferred' from the business to another firm such as an insurance company that covers the losses. The insurance risk management companies understand the nature of these damages and are willing to take the risks on behalf of the other companies.

Nonetheless, there is some degree of residual risk liability, for instance, in the event that the other party ascertains that the occurrence of the risk was due to negligence of the business management, then it may render the risks non compensatory and the business eventually bears the burden. The risk management program such as planning also entails a review and evaluation of the 'framework' to employ the necessary changes so as to update the previous security controls put in place.

Due to changing business environment, the mitigation measures need to be revised periodically in order to keep abreast with the threats dimensions. For instance, the business may expand its operations through injecting in an additional resource base such as personnel, working capital, physical assets including machinery, buildings and equipments. This implies that the cost of damage changes significantly and risk management assessment should be done and the changes updated and reflected in the Business Continuity Planning (BCP) in order to have the most justifiable valuations with time.

What is bullying…Workplace Bullying another Hidden Epidemic

Convincingly, bullying is one of the blusterous and intimidating aggressions that continue to be witnessed in the workplace today despite a worldwide concern and cry to curb the vise. To understand what is bullying, it is important to examine the circumstances in which this bully behaviour occurs in workplace. Bully can be defined as a deliberate and repeated action that is aimed at hurting the feelings of another person thus making the victim become hopeless and intimidated with no response. In workplace, this kind of act takes different forms such as shouting and verbally abusing another employee.

An employee may be subjected to unjustified criticisms and blaming with no apparent reason or mistake committed. Similarly, a worker may be excluded from company work-related activities or even his or her contributions ignored and not taken into consideration at all. Jokes, which hurt an employee, may also be perceived as acts of bully.

To understand more about bullying, a bullied person often suffers from stress and depression and his or her work performance deteriorates significantly. Bullying statistics show that close to one-third of workers are victims of this devastating act. Some 20 percent of workplace related bully activities turn to a point of harassment. Most of the workplace place bullies are men and these make about 60 percent of all bully activities.

It is clear-eyed that certain organizations if not governments have failed to eradicate this menace in the workplace. With the need for globalization of every sphere of development in the world, it is incredibly difficult to keep silent on a monster that continues to encroach the rights of workers. The world must really voice out its plea if not dictate on the downcast for workplace bullying. Like a fierce fire, bullying continues to rage havoc to our brothers and sisters in different parts of the world and society seems to do little about it.
 
Must the community remain quiet yet the unimaginable is taking course in the workplace? Let us all rise and blow the whistle for the respective organizations and institutions to take it to their concern that something is a miss in the workplace. For instance, in the hospitality sector and in particular, the cruiseship workplace portfolio, this anti-social and inhuman practice upholds at the expense of the suffering employee. Foreigners and female workers are the most affected.

This aggression usually demoralizes the workers and they regret why they have to go through such an antagonizing experience in spite of being in a world that calls for equality in every aspect of life. The affected employees show a state of remorseful feelings, anger, and frustrations coupled with fear and lack of confidence.

The workers are put off in their ability to execute their duties in a hassle-free environment. Employees are manipulative subjects that need to be treated in the most respectful manner possible. So as to achieve good performance, the workers should be comfortable in the workplace. A bully act usually bounds the workers in a state of confusion and ill feelings that trigger self-denial. There is fright and lack of self-assurance and the result is a retarded performance.

With the globalization in career development, employees from different parts of the world converge in those areas where there are job opportunities to explore their skills and talents. Soon after the warm welcome, things begin to turn into nightmares. They are confronted with unethical and unacceptable bullying behavior. It has been noted that despite the abused workers reporting their cases to the management and the respective government authorities, little is done concerning the matter.

In fact, workers stricken by this antagonism are given a ride with empty promises on follow-ups and possible compensations on the matter. This is quite uncalled for unethical behavior in this 21st century and the business or non-business organization that provides the jobs for the foreigners should change their attitude toward bullying in workplace. This must be treated as an unacceptable and immoral value in the society, and where it prevails, it should be rooted out forthwith.

For the nations to walk on common grounds, they must initiate respect for all in the workplace. Countries and organizations must speak in one voice as far as workplace bullying is concerned. Surely, how can one expect a bullied employee for instance, in the hospitality to create a 'home away from home' for the guests as the critics say, in such an anti-social environment?

The guests expect to be treated with authenticy and respect yet the worker does not receive the same from the fellow workmates. It is quite unexplainable! This kind of immoral practice takes place in other workplaces and not only in the hospitality sector and it is time for a more concise and hard-lined stand to be taken against the bullies. Otherwise, the world perceives bullying as just another form of discrimination in the workplace.