Contemporary HRM Practices Week 5 Assgn2PLopez

           This assignment has as its focus, an unfamiliar Human Resource Management Practice (HRMP).  Not that the HRMP is foreign or totally strange, expect maybe to me, however, my task is to research, learn and report about a contemporary trend that is paving a new road and giving HR professionals tools to use when breaking from the traditional and comfortable methods used when managing HRMP.

           Cantrell and Foster (2006) stated that HR must look for ways to manage their workforce and "[i]nstead of managing a workforce as a single homogeneous entity” that the workforce should be viewed as a “…workforce of one” (p. 1).   The word that Cantrell and Foster use quite frequently to describe the workforce of one, is the “talent multiplier”, or recognizing employees as individuals, which is a way to “…empower[]” employees because the traditional way of management, or the “…one-size-fits-all management practices do not suit the realities of today’s organizations” (p. 2).

          Talent multipliers are the opposite of traditional approaches where management controls from the top down.  Rather, a contemporary approach embraces employee value, respecting individually, talent, encourages opinions and fully utilizes an employee's potential.  This is not a chaotic environment where employees run free from the establishment, but this environment teaches, trains and nurtures talented employees because the organization knows employee value.  

 

           In addition, managers are encouraged to “…harness the natural strengths of their employees by catering to individual attributes” (Cantrell and Foster, 2006, p. 3).  In fact, the United States Army is examining its traditional employee management practices by   advancing technology that links those in charge with his or her solders, giving and sharing information and new capabilities between forces.  Osborn (2011) stated that traditional tactics need to change, and these changes come from testing and feedback on how a program is working, what its weaknesses are and overall soldier feedback on the performance of what is being tested.  This is total shift from blind obedience, where opinions are not encouraged or asked for, to seeing service personnel as having valuable input into the mission and strategy. The same can be said for HRMP. 

 

          Whether it is a new way to measure performance, expand globally or when redesigning a workflow, the communication that the United States Army is utilizing can be used by private organizations as well and is really a good idea.  Managers partner with their employees and also with each other.  The days of do as you’re told and just follow the rules, may work for some managers, and is useful in select situations, however, best practices would suggest that it is an engaged partnership that will symbolically lead the team into battle or give the organization, the competitive edge is the way to encourage best practices.

 

References

Cantrell, S., & Foster, N. (2006, October). Workforce of one: A new approach to human capital management. Accenture. Retrieved from http://www.accenture.com/us-en/Pages/insight-workforce-of-one-new-approach-human-capital

 

Osborn, K. (2011, August 3). [Web log message]. Retrieved from:
           http://asc.army.mil/web/building-the-army-network-%E2%80%98a-           revolutionary-new-approach%E2%80%99

 

 

 

 

 

Unit 3

                                   Ethical Concerns in Human Resource Management

Pauline R. Lopez

Walden University

 

Ethical Concerns in Human Resource Management

 

Most if not all work environments have dissatisfied employees.  Employees that have ideas for change, but those ideas are not met with consideration.  Abraham Lincoln stated that “[y]ou can [please] some of the people some of the time, all of the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but you can never [please] all of the people all of the time.” (Monqur, 2012).  Of course, President Lincoln originally used this quote to address fooling people instead of pleasing people, however, for this assignment, the word has been changed to pleasing people, but specifically, how to manage change, in an ethical manner, in an environment that is resistant to changing the status quo. 

Human Resource (HR) as a profession has been evolving into an organization partner, but as professionals, they will have to confront the fear of change, not only in themselves, but also the fear or resistance of their stakeholders, who are their employers and herein rests the dilemma.  How does HR remain true to its values while asserting its strategic presence, without fear of job loss, verses the fine line that can occur between connecting with an organization and alienating the stakeholders that employee them. 

Patrick (2001) stated that for change to occur, there must be stakeholder and employee “…cooperation, collaboration, and co ownership of others” (p. 1).  Change is a combined effort that creates an environment that is open to best practices in creative thinking and communication. Resistance to change is manifested in those who will not agree on a plan for change, yet have no alternatives, or those that cannot visualize the change and so discredit it.

The dilemma between adding value and confronting the resistance discussed above can cause ethical concerns for HR professionals especially with high unemployment rates and corporate downsizing.  Fear of being disconnected, people pleasing or getting so frustrated with stakeholder and employee resistance, is a sure way not to add value.  HR professionals cannot work for change if they are not educated and trained to know all the factors that occur with change, such as how to meet resistance and the fear that comes with change.  Last, without a strategy to understand resistance, HR will not achieve its goals and will try and please all of the people all of the time and this will create an ethical dilemma that will add to the resistance itself.  This translates to becoming part of the problem, and not a partner in the solution.           

References

Monqur, M. (2012). Abraham Lincoln. The Quotation Page. Retrieved from: http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/27074

Patrick, F. (2001). Taking advantage of resistance to change (and the TOC thinking processes) to improve improvements. Retrieved from http://www.focusedperformance.com/articles/resistance

Walden Strategic HRM

Hi Dr. Bill and Class: 

We are on the road to Thanksgiving. This year has gone by so quickly that I am amazed that we are almost at the end of the year. 
I welcome this class in Strategic HRM and look forward to the weeks ahead.   Pauline Lopez aka Paulina Beautovia.

A Performance Management Initiative

This blog post is to define and explain what a 360 degree performance feedback plan is. Is the 360 degree method a valid way to evaluate performance? This, and more will be answered by examining the pros and cons related to the value of multi-source evaluations and the effect on employee performance.

First, since this a blog posting and not a formal assignment, I must say that until now, I had not heard of the 360 degree multi-source evaluation and I am curious about what it is. Heathfied (n.d) stated in an article that examined the 360 degree performance plan, that it is a performance plan that allows for feedback from multiple persons instead of the traditional manager-employee, one on one evaluation.  Instead, those that manage the employee, their coworkers, and others such as clients, evaluate the employee’s performance. Those that are selected are given a set of standardized, well defined set of questions and asked to evaluate a particular employee. The employees that will rate this person are selected because they work closely together with this employee and possibly see them at their best and worst. The overall purpose of this plan according to Heathfied is that when employees evaluate each other, good things happen. Teamwork is created, training is identified based on evaluation weakness in performance and whatever is revealed, positive or negative, an employee is responsible for his or her own growth and development and the work enviroment is able to support the training and growth (p. 1). Linman (n.d.) appeared to substantiate Healthfied, when she stated that the purpose of this feedback plan is to “assess[] personal development rather than [give an] evaluation (p. 1).

Based on the above stated introduction, the 360 degree performance plan seems logical and an exciting alternative to traditional review plans, which for the industry that I work in are routine and lack purpose other than to justify raises and or bonuses. However, there are several serious concerns about this plan and one in particular is that this type of plan cannot be implemented without serious preparation. The plan “…must be connected with the overall strategic aims of your organization” (p. 2). If it is linked to compensation as traditional apprasals are, the 360 degree plan is doomed because employees will be hesitant to rate each other for fear of retribution, with the subsequent result is the creation of a culture that lacks trust and communication. Linman also stated that the 360 degree plan is popular, but for companies such as IBM, this form of evaluation was stopped due to “[r]eviews had become politically charged and were no longer reliable” (p. 4). If used in a culture that is competitive or hostile, it cannot hope to work as this type of review process takes collaboration and trust so that the evaluation is impartial and fair.

Last, I am not sure that this type of performance evaluation would work in the legal industry as this environment is highly stressed and for the most part, is not supportive of employee growth.  Paulina Beautovia.

References

Aguinis, H. (2013). Performance management (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Heathfield, S. (n.d.). 360 Degree Feedback: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. About.com-g Human Resources. Retrieved October 11, 2012, from http://human resources.about.com/od/360feedback/a/360degreefeedback_2

Linman, T. (n.d.). 360-degree Feedback: Weighing the Pros and Cons. Retrieved October 11, 2012, from http://edweb.sdsu.edu/people/arossett/pie/Interventions/360_1

MHRM6600-Week 2

Personal Blog

Pauline R. Lopez

 

September 16, 2012

 

Questions have been proposed that ask for a reflection of my past experiences working with teams, the advantages and disadvantages of doing so in an educational setting or otherwise.  In contrast, how does this compare to working individually? What about evaluating team members?

 

In response:

I have had experience working individually and in teams and I have mixed feelings and thoughts about these experiences.

Before deciding to attend Walden, I was enrolled in a Master’s program at University of Phoenix, which is primarily team based.  Feedback about the school was that the majority of my grades would be based on team assignments and in reviews about the college, other students complained that their grade was diminished due to problems with the team experience.  I found this threatening and decided that this school was not for me.  I am a very social and friendly person, but for many years, worked individually.  Anyway, I enrolled at Walden and guess what, in my second and third course, I was asked to work in teams.

I am glad that I “had” to do this because so far it has been an enjoyable experience for me. What I discovered is that I can lead a group if need be, directing and coordinating the completion of the assignment or I can work for another team member, and relax once my part is done.  The group eases tension and I learn from other group members.

Last, in my class on budget management, we had a team member that at first, I thought he was arrogant and a know it all.  Half way through the assignment group experience, I realized that what I thought was arrogance, was competence and I changed my opinion of him completely.

 Two areas that are difficult for me are not being able to visually see my classmates during team assignments, however, if I am in my sleep clothes and without makeup or my hair is in a mess, this environment is much better.

Second, is that I struggle with evaluations in that I believe that most if not all classmates work diligently and I do not want a negative review to reflect on their evaluation.  It is not my place to have this type of influence.  Regardless, I have given positive evaluations except for one woman who did not participate in our group project, did not communicate with the professor or her teammates and those that remained and participated, had to complete her part.  Without communication by her, I could not give her a positive review. With love, Paulina Beautovia

PERFORMANCE MANAGMENT Dated: 9-5-12

This is a new Blog for this course in performance management.  My assignment is to create or begin a new blog for this class.  I have decided to continue with an existing Blog and here it is. With love and blessings from the universe to you. Paulina Beautovia

Unit 7 Response to Data Management and Ethics

Unit 7 Response to Data Management and Ethics


How would I handle being asked to be unethical by manipulating data? Well, this happened to me in my present position with a slight tweaking of the circumstances.

Here is my story. I worked for an attorney who the secretaries called “Evil Spawn”. I was not told about this attorney until my first day of employment. It was as if management was hiding something from me and this alone is not ethical or at least this is not good business practices and as a prior manager, I would not practice this form of deceptive management. However, I started working for the firm and had several other wonderful attorneys, so I dealt with having one bad one. I worked for this “bad” attorney for about three years, with very little conflict and thought his reputation was ill founded. In year four, his behavior changed and he came into the office less frequently and when he did, he was disorganized, curt in his behavior toward me and began asking me for answers to questions that he as an attorney should have known the answer to and or responded to others instead of me as go between. I could go on and on, rather, I will get to the point. He began to miss hearings and appointments and tried to blame me for not telling him, but I did and had documented when and how I told him (thank goodness). He asked me to cover for him and that “he would scratch my back, if I would scratch his.” I told him no, that I would not do this and that it was unethical for him as an attorney, nor was it ethical for me as a professional secretary and as you might imagine, he tried to retaliate against me. I refused to cover for him and told my boss that something was wrong with him and I suspected drug use or that medically he was ill.

One day, I called him at home because the court called me asking for him at a very important court appearance. He was at home sleeping and the client was waiting at the court for him. Bad, really bad.... He asked me to cover for this missed appearance and lie to the client and I couldn’t do this. Regardless of how I feel about my firm, of which I have shared about before, I had to protect its name, myself, the other attorneys in our firm, and of course we didn’t want to lose the client. This attorney was lying to the client and the client reported this to the manager. It was a very bad situation. This attorney also wanted me to sign his name on declarations under the penalty of perjury.

I was very worried that because he is an attorney and has much more clout and power then I do as a secretary that somehow he would manipulate the situations that had occurred and I would be held accountable. This occurs quite frequently in other firms I am sad to say.

My boss protected me from his retaliation and his employment with my firm was terminated.

If the situation was with a co-worker, it would depend on the situation; however, if asked to change or modify information or data, no I wouldn’t do that. I am not a saint, but don’t put me in a position that jeopardizes my job. This is an extreme form of selfishness.