Human Resourse Management free essay sample

Compensation surveys provide snap-shots of competitors’ pay practices. Survey information provides the reference points for establishing pay level policies. In this chapter we also learn statistical analysis of compensation surveys, integrating the internal job structure with external market pay rates, compensation policies and strategic mandates. These practices require compensation professionals sound judgments for making recommendations that fit well with competitive strategies. Careful thought about the meaning underlying the facts and statistics is the key to successfully building market-competitive pay systems. Introduction Market competitive pay systems play an important part in attracting and keeping the most qualified employees. Based on market and compensation surveys, compensation professionals build a market competitive compensation system. Strategic analysis is used which is an examination of the external market context and internal factors of a company. External market context is the â€Å"industry profile, information about competitors, and long-term growth prospects†. Internal factors consist of the â€Å"company’s financial condition, their functional capabilities†. We will write a custom essay sample on Human Resourse Management or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page A strategic analysis lets professionals see where they stand against other professionals. Compensation surveys collect and analyze competitor’s information, mainly focused on wages and salary practices. Benefits are also surveyed because a company’s benefit package is a key part of an employee’s salary package. Compensation surveys play an important part because they are used to get a good view of competitions wage practices which can help a company attract and keep an employee. Pay rate differences for jobs and the differences in employee contributions are represented by pay structures. An existing analysis of your current compensation system should be a starting point and balancing internal equity to the external market considered, if appropriate. Determining what your compensation philosophy and how to align with your business strategy and goals will guide the type of compensation design such as a pure market approach, a blended approach or perhaps a broad banding approach to enhance or totally update your current compensation system. The Basics of Market competitive pay system Market-competitive pay systems represent companies compensation policy should be developed to fit in with the competitive advantage of a company. It has a role in attracting and retaining the most qualified employees. A well designed pay system should promote the attainment of competitive strategies. But paying more than necessary can undermine low cost strategies as it is an undue burden. It also restricts the company’s ability to invest in other strategic activities. Hence companies that pursue differentiation strategy must strike a balance between offering sufficiently high salaries to attract and retain talented people and providing sufficient resources to enable them to be productively creative. Major activities for market competitive pay system Compensation professionals create market competitive pay system based on four activities those are as follows: ? Conducting strategic system. ? Assessing competitors’ pay practices with compensation surveys ? Integrating the internal job structure with external market pay rates and ? Determining compensation policies. Strategic analysis: Strategic analysis entails an examination of a company’s external market context and internal factors. External factors could include industry profile, information about competitors, growth prospects (short and long-term). Internal factors encompass financial conditions, marketing capabilities, available human resources etc. Compensation surveys: Entails collection and subsequent analysis of competitors’ compensation data. Compensation surveys traditionally focused on wage and salary practices. These days all benefits, allowances, perks etc. are collected and analyzed as these are key elements in market competitive pay systems. Surveys enable companies to obtain realistic view of competitors’ pay practices. In the absence of surveys professionals would have to use guess work to build market competitive pay systems leading to wrong guesses resulting in noncompetitive pay. Data is usually collected on base pay levels, incentive award structures and mix and levels of discretionary benefits. Integrating the internal job structure with external market pay rate: Compensation professionals integrate the internal job structural with the external market pay rates identified through compensation surveys. This integration result in pay rates that reflect both the company’s and the external market’s valuations of job. Most often compensation professionals rely on regression analysis, a statistical method, to achieve this integration. Compensation policies: Compensation professionals recommend pay policies that fit with their companies standing a competitive strategy. Compensation professionals must strike a balance between managing costs and attracting and retaining the best qualified employees. Top management ultimately makes compensation policy decisions after careful consideration of compensation professional’s interpretation of the data. Compensation surveys: Preliminary Consideration There are two important preliminary consideration compensation professionals take under advisement before investing time and money into compensation surveys: ? What companies hope to gain from compensation surveys ? Custom development versus use of an existing compensation surveys. Compensation surveys: Strategic Consideration Defining the relevant labor market: The relevant labor market represents the fields of potentially qualified candidates for particular jobs. Relevant markets are defined on the basis of occupational classification, geography and product or service market competitors. Companies collect compensation survey data from the appropriate relevant labor market. Choosing Benchmark Jobs: Benchmark jobs are key to conducting effective job evaluation as they play an important role in compensation surveys. HR professional determine pay levels for jobs based on typical market pay rates for similar jobs. Benchmark jobs have four characteristics those are: ? The contents are well known, stable over time, and agreed upon by employees involved. ? The jobs are common across different employers. ? The jobs represent the entire range of jobs that are being evaluated within a company. ? These jobs are generally accepted in the labor market for the purpose of setting pay levels. Integrating internal job structures with external market pay rates The compensation professionals use job evaluation methods to establish internally consistent job structure. Companies value jobs that possess higher degrees of compensable factors (10 years of experience) than jobs with fewer degrees of compensable factors (1 year of experience). These valuation differences ultimately should correspond to pay differences based on compensation survey data. It is important that companies set pay rates by using market pay rates as reference points as paying well below or well above the typical market rates can create competitive disadvantage for companies. Determination of compensation policy Normally companies can choose from three pay level policies: Market lead: The market lead policy distinguishes a company from the competitors by compensating employees more highly than most competitors. Pay levels are above market pay lines. It is clearly most appropriate for company that pursue differentiation strategies. Market lag: This also distinguishes a company but by compensating employees less than competitors. Pay levels fall below the market pay line. This policy appears to fit well with lowest-cost strategies because companies realize cost saving by paying lower than the market pay line. Market match policy: The market match policy most closely follows the typical market pay rates as companies pay as per the market pay. Pay rates fall along the market pay lines. The market match policy represent a safe approach for companies because they generally are spending no more or less on compensation than competitors. This policy does not fit with the lowest-cost strategy for obvious reasons. It does fit better with differentiation strategies.

The Rise and Fall of the Automat

The Rise and Fall of the Automat It all sounds so futuristic: a restaurant without waiters, without workers behind the counter, without any visible employees whatsoever, where you simply feed your money into a glass-enclosed kiosk, remove a steaming plate of freshly made food, and carry it to your table. Welcome to  Horn Hardart, circa 1950, a restaurant chain that once boasted 40 locations in New York City and dozens more across the U.S., at a now-distant time when automats served hundreds of thousands of urban customers every day. The Origin of the Automat The automat is often considered to be an exclusively American phenomenon, but in fact, the worlds first restaurant of this kind opened in Berlin, Germany in 1895. Named Quisisana- after a company that also manufactured food-vending machinery- this high-tech eatery established itself in other northern European cities, and Quisisana soon licensed its technology to Joseph Horn and Frank Hardart, who opened the first American automat in Philadelphia in 1902. An Appealing Formula As with so many other societal trends, it was in turn-of-the-century New York that automats really took off. The first New York Horn Hardart opened in 1912, and soon the chain had hit on an appealing formula: customers exchanged dollar bills for handfuls of nickels (from attractive women behind glass booths, wearing rubber tips on their fingers), then fed their change into vending machines, turned the knobs, and extracted plates of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and cherry pie, among hundreds of other menu items. Dining was communal and cafeteria-style, to the extent that Horn Hardart automats were considered a valuable corrective to the snobbery of so many New York City restaurants. Fresh-Brewed Coffee for a Nickel a Cup Its not widely known today, but Horn Hardart was also the first New York restaurant chain to offer its customers fresh-brewed coffee, for a nickel a cup. Employees were instructed to discard any pots that had been sitting for more than twenty minutes, a level of quality control that inspired Irving Berlin to compose the song Lets Have Another Cup of Coffee (which quickly became Horn Hardarts official jingle). There wasnt much (if any) choice, but in terms of reliability, Horn Hardart could be considered the 1950s equivalent of Starbucks. Behind the Scenes Given all the  high-tech accouterments and lack of visible personnel, Horn Hardart customers could be forgiven for thinking that their food had been prepared and handled by robots. Of course, that wasnt the case, and an argument can be made that automats succeeded at the expense of their hard-working employees. The managers of these restaurants still had to hire human beings to cook, convey food to the vending machines, and wash the silverware and dishesbut since all this activity went on behind the scenes, they got away with paying below-par wages and forcing employees to work overtime. In August of 1937, the AFL-CIO picketed Horn Hardarts across the city, protesting the chains unfair labor practices. In its heyday, Horn Hardart  succeeded partly because its eponymous founders refused to rest on their laurels. Joseph Horn and Frank Hardart ordered any food uneaten at the end of the day to be delivered to cut-price, day-old outlets, and also circulated a hefty, leather-bound rule book that instructed employees on the proper cooking and handling of hundreds of menu items. Horn and Hardart (the founders, not the restaurant) also constantly tinkered with their formula, assembling as often as possible at a sample table where they and their chief executives voted thumbs up or thumbs down on new menu items. Fading in Popularity by the 1970s By the 1970s, automats like Horn Hardart were fading in popularity, and the culprits were easy to identify. First, fast-food chains like McDonalds and Kentucky Fried Chicken offered much more limited menus, but a more identifiable taste, and they also enjoyed the benefits of lower labor and food costs. Second, urban workers were less inclined to punctuate their days with leisurely lunches, complete with appetizer, main course, and dessert, and preferred to grab lighter meals on the fly; one imagines that the fiscal crisis in 1970s New York also encouraged more people to bring their meals to the office from home. Finally Went out of Business in 1991 By the end of the decade, Horn Hardart gave in to the inevitable and converted most of its New York City locations into Burger King franchises; the last Horn Hardart, on Third Avenue and 42nd Street, finally went out of business in 1991. Today, the only place you can see what Horn Hardart looked like  is in the Smithsonian Institution, which harbors a 35-foot-long chunk of the original 1902 restaurant, and this chains surviving vending machines are said to languish in a warehouse in upstate New York. Rebirth of the Concept No good idea ever truly disappears, though. Eatsa, which opened in San Francisco in 2015, seems unlike Horn Hardart in every way conceivable: every item on the menu is made with quinoa, and ordering is done via an iPad, after a brief interaction with a virtual maà ®tre d. But the basic concept is the same: with no human interaction at all, a customer can watch as her meal almost magically materializes in a small cubby flashing her name. In the food industry, it seems, the more things change, the more they stay the same!

Ethical theories Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Ethical theories - Research Paper Example Ethical theories Deontological theory is one of the best known principles of ethics. It’s sometimes referred to as â€Å"ethic of reciprocity† (Pollock, 2010). Simply put, the theory requires that â€Å"do to others as would have them do to you.† Found in many religious doctrines it’s the best and most concise general principle of ethics. On the other hand, teleological theory is an outcome based theory. The theory states that an action is not motivated by the motive, but the end that is either good or bad (Pollock, 2010). Therefore, if an action causes a satisfactory good result, it is considered to be ethical in this theory, and the motive of such an action is considered independent of the end result. The two theories are similar in that they both advocate for ethics of value to one another with the natural morality law of advocating good for others, as one would like to be treated by others. Having the knowledge and skills in these two theories would enhance ethics of virtue and morality when dealing with others. Each action by an individual is evaluated according to the term of the utility principle (Kay, 1997). This would facilitate actions that are ethical and moral that would result to promote the greatest good for others. The professional ethical dilemma I have experienced involved lying to the manager concerning a workmate that had gone to carry out his personal business. The manager questioned his whereabouts and I had to lie that he had gone for some medical checkup, and was not in a good state to go for leave permission from the manager.

Biochemistry Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Biochemistry - Assignment Example Glutamate transmits quick and precise signal in the primary significant sensory and motor tracts. It also makes numerous connections between various parts of the cerebral cortex that forms the network responsible for high mental functioning (Broda 66). Gamma- Aminobutyric acid (GABA) is an amino acid synthesized from glutamate by an enzyme known as the glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD). The dominant inhibitory transmitter exists in almost all parts of the nervous system. In addition,GABA acts as a presynaptic inhibitory transmitter in many circumstances.GABA plays a key role in the development of the nervous system, and it occurs in the early stages even before the establishment of the synapses. Once the synapses begin to occur, GABA plays a role as an excitatory transmitter as it depolarizes the postsynaptic neuron. Therefore, GABA is likely to be the first excitatory transmitter that shape neuronal networks before glutamate took over as the key excitatory transmitter (Dishman, O’Connor, &Tomporowski

How Financial and Non Financial Metrics can be used for quantify the Essay - 1

How Financial and Non Financial Metrics can be used for quantify the effectiveness of marketing campaign (Marketing Analytics) - Essay Example Verhoef and Leeflang (2009) assert the idea of financial metrics and state that influence of marketing department in the organisation is positively associated with the financial performance of the firm. Importance and role of the financial metrics for the effectiveness of the marketing campaign can be clearly assessed from the B&K Distributors. The company integrated marketing and communication tool for building its access to the potential customers. The use of the financial measures revealed clear future potential. For example, the growth potential was estimated to increase at 6% as compared to the inflation rate of 3%. Similarly, increased fixed cost for the IT system integration was also justified with 1% as compared to the 3% of the other channels investment (Jeffery and Anfield, 2006). Hence, in the similar format the cost of the entire project is assessed against the revenue and cost savings. This empirical evidence provides sound basis for the decision making in alignment with the main objective of the business which revolves around profitability. However, the net and actual increase in return is not defined after discounting the investment against factors such as the cost o f capital which is 12% and has considerable impact on the return inflows. This makes the investment and the claimed benefits questionable. Also the marketing activities with long term objective are also required to reflect on other parameters such as increase in customer loyalty and image of the company etc. It is important to notice the measure to enhance the image of the company by signing contract with leading fast food chain did not fetch to B&K significant business from independent franchisees. The new plan of IT integration and respective financial metrics and growth projections are again silent on impact on above mentioned parameters. In no contradiction to this fact

Metamorphosis A Novella By Franz Kafka English Literature Essay

Metamorphosis A Novella By Franz Kafka English Literature Essay Metamorphosis is a novella by Franz Kafka and deals with the travelling salesman Gregor Samsa, who is the familys sole earner, waking up one morning finding himself transformed into a bug. In the following Kafka describes how Gregors position within the family as well as the family itself change. The story is divided into three parts. Each of them ends with Gregor attempting to break out off his room but being refused and hurt by his family. The first part begins with Gregor awaking and finding himself transformed into a bug. Curiously he is rather worried about being late for work than about being not human anymore. Even on the first page evidence for Todorovs theme of The Self can be found. This Theme deals with his interest in the self and the world around this self in relation to the fantastic and the supernatural. The reader does not know if Gregor really transformed into a bug. This ambiguity, according to Todorov, is the reason for the reader hesitating between different possible explanations of events, the realistic and the supernatural. When the reader decides whether an event was real or imaginary, the story is either uncanny or marvelous.  [1]  Metamorphosis therefore is rather a marvelous narrative considering that the reader is not explicitly told why Gregor has transformed into a bug. To Todorov every word in the novella is a description of the fantastic universe and that there is no reality or truth outside this language used.  [2]  When Kafka writes that It was no dream  [3]  and that his family cannot understand him anymore because his voice altered,  [4]  this is evidence enough for Todorov to accept that Gregor really transformed into a bug. Furthermore he argues that Metamorphoses constitute a transgression of the separation between matter and mind  [5]  and that transition from mind to matter [] become possible.  [6]  Gregor is very unhappy with his life working very hard to gain acceptance and having no time for having a relationship. Feeling like a bug eventually transformed him into a bug. Todorov also wrote about the theme of The Other dealing with the relation of man and his desire and repressed desires. This is a very interesting theme which can be found in Metamorphosis as well. Right on the first page we learn about Gregor having a picture of a lady in a fur hat and stole [] bolding in the direction of the onlooker a heavy fur muff into which she had thrust the whole of her forearm.  [7]  Freud argues that fur is used as a fetich on account of its association with the hairness of the mons veneris.  [8]  Gregor has to work very hard to earn enough money for the whole family. Therefore he has no time to have a relationship. According to Freud, sexual desire is an impulse that is made analougous to the impulse of taking nourishment, and to hunger.  [9]  Gregor repressed this desire for a long time and it has to be satisfied. When Gregor does not come to work the chief clerk comes to his house to see him. Gregor manages to open the door but his family and the chief clerk are frightened. His father tries to force him to go back and eventually kicks and he is thrown back into his room. The second part shows explicitly Gregors relationship to his family and how this changes. His sister is looking after him twice a day and cleans his room regularly.  [10]  Gregor loves his sister and even planned to send her to expensive school.  [11]  He is always pleased about when she enters the room and feels sad about not being able to thank her for what she does for him.  [12]  He knows that she sickens at him but still does not hesitate to feed him.  [13]  She even brings him a range of food to choose from when she recognizes that he has not drunk the milk.  [14]  In this scene Grete enters the room, how Gregor describes, almost completely dressed  [15]  to him this must be a detail, important enough to mention. Due to his sexual repressed desire he even seems to see his sister as possible sexual object. Freud argues that an excessive need for affection a boy may [cling] for the infantile attraction for [] sisters which has been repressed in puberty.  [16]   At the end of part two it is the sister who argues that Gregors furniture should be removed which hits him very hard knowing them to be the only things that made him not feel like he was not human anymore. Nevertheless he is certain that his sister only wants to create space in his room to give him the chance to crawl.  [17]  Still he wants to save the picture of the lady as very last relation to his personhood and so he crawled hurriedly up to it and pressed himself against the glass, which stuck to him and impartet a pleasant coolness to his hot belly.  [18]  This underlines that his sexual desire is strong and that this is the most important thing to him. According to Todorov, there is no longer any frontier between the object [] and the observer.  [19]  It makes no difference to Gregor that this is no real woman but only a picture. When his sister enters the room her eyes encountered those of Gregor, up on the wall.  [20]  Here again, Gregor relates his sexual desire to his sister in a very obvious way. Gregor desperately protects this picture and, by that, frightens his family again. His father shies apples at him until one of them pierced his back and Gregor collapses with pain. In the third part Kafka describes how Gregor is now able to listen to his family through the open door to the living room. All family members have a job now but they still have money problems which force them to let room to tenants. When his sister plays the violin one night, Gregor, drawn by the music, decides to crawl closer to her.  [21]  He recognizes that, apart from him, no one really appreciates her play.  [22]  He crawls even closer meet her gaze.  [23]  Todorov argues that sexual desire gains an exceptional mastery over hero.  [24]  Although Gregor knows that there are people around who are not supposed to see him, he cannot resist getting closer to her. In the following Gregor describes explicitly how he desires his sister, he sensed a way to the unknown sustenance he longed for. He was determined to go right up to his sister, to pluck at her skirt and so let her know she was to come into his room.  [25]  He wants her to sit next to him and to be with him until he dies.  [26]  Furthermore he wants to kiss her on the throat.  [27]  He obviously desires his own sister and has sexual phantasies of her. According to Todorov, the literature of the fantastic illustrates several transformations of desire.  [28]  Most of them belonged to a social form of the uncanny.  [29]  So does incest. Gregors sexual desire takes over and he cannot think of anything else but to be close to his sister. When the tenants spot him when he crawls closer to Grete they immediately move out. Now Grete is really angry, locks him into his room and claims that they have to get rid of Gregor  [30]  who dies the next day. His family is rather relieved than in mourning about his death. They plan to move into a cheaper flat and to marry Grete. Now I am going to compare Kafkas novella to Brother and Sister, a fairytale by the Brothers Grimm. The story deals with the lives of two siblings, running away from home because they are mistreated by an old witch who is their stepmother. The action can be divided into three parts, as well. In the first part the children depart from home. Meanwhile their stepmother has cast[ed] her spells over all the streams in the forest.  [31]  Eventually brother gets thirsty and wants to drink from a stream but sister can hold him off doing so because she can hear it murmuring: Who drinks of me will be a tiger!.  [32]  Although the brother is very thirsty he does not drink. When they come to the next stream, brother is eager to drink but sister can hold him off again, hearing it murmuring: Who drinks me will be a wolf!.  [33]  At the next stream she can hear that brother is going to be a roe, if he drinks the water but she cannot stop him who is already drinking and immediately falls on the grass transformed into a little Roebuck.  [34]   The transformation in this fairytale is, unlike Gregors transformation, introduced by two streams until brother eventually cannot resist any longer. Gregors transformation, in contrast, is not introduced at all. The whole novella starts with this transformation that, due to that point, lacks of surprise in comparison to the fairytale. Furthermore the fairytale is definitely a marvelous one. The reader accepts the fantastic, the fact that the witch can curse all streams, which makes her, as Todorov calls it, a supernatural being,  [35]  having power over human destiny,  [36]  and the fact that brother transforms into a deer, as part of the world. Hence both of Todorovs supernatural elements can be found in this story. Brother and sister are very sad about the situation but sister promises: Never mind, dear little fawn, I will never forsake you, and she [takes] off her golden garter and tie[s] it round the Roes neck.  [37]  Then she fastens a rope to the collar. This shows the symbolic connection between the two siblings. She promises never to leave him and even connects himself to him. They have a very close relationship which is expressed even in the first sentence, Brother took sister by the hand.  [38]  This indicates that brother desires his sister in a way Gregor desires Grete. He wants so be near her and he needs her to look after him and to be with him. Gregor and brother both depend on their sisters. They now live in a small house in the forest and if brother had but kept his natural form, really it would have been a most delightful kind of life.  [39]  This explicitly tells the reader that they would have lived together like couples do. Here the second part begins. The king has a hunt through the wood. When the deer hears about that it wants to join and after begging his sister she lets him go. The hunt lasts three days and the hunters are eager to shoot the beautiful deer which can always run away though it gets hurt once. On the last day the king follows the deer to the house and finds sister. He asks her who has grown to a lovely maiden  [40]  to marry her. She answers: Oh yes! [] But you must let my Roe come, too. I could not possibly forsake it.  [41]  Sister even takes brother into her marriage with the king and keeps her promise. Here the last part begins. The stepmother watches all this with envy and when sister gives birth to a baby, the witch traps her by leading her into the bathroom and locking the door. She and her hideous daughter make a blazing hot fire under the bath, so that the lovely young Queen might be suffocated.  [42]  Then she lays her daughter in the queens bed and makes her look alike her. The king never notices. Every night the real queens ghost comes to see after her baby and the deer. When she decides to come only for three more nights, the nurse, who watches her every night, tells the king. In the last night of her visit the king cries out that she has to be his wife. She answers: Yes, I am your dear wife! and in the same moment she was restored to life, and was as fresh and well and rosy as ever.  [43]  The witch and her daughter are put to death and the spell was taken off the little Roe, and he was restored to his natural shape.  [44]   These are two transformations. The queen in restored to life by the kings love and the brother is retransformed into a human being by the witchs death. The fairytales last sentence is again evidence for the assumption that brother desires his sister, and so brother and sister lived happily ever after.  [45]  Sister obviously does not share her live with her husband, the king whose love restored her, but with her brother. This seems to be the only way for them to be happy. To sum it all up, Metamorphosis and Brother and Sister doubtlessly deal with transformations and are fantastic narratives in Todorovs sense. Especially the fairytale applies to that having the witch as a fantastic character who controls human destiny. Dealing with the theme of sexual desire, Metamorphosis conforms to that more explicitly although there are several textual evidences in Brother and Sister that indicate an incestuous relationship between the siblings, too. (2207 words)

How My Cousin Manuel Brought Home A Wife :: essays papers

How My Cousin Manuel Brought Home A Wife Manuel Arguilla and Charlson Ong’s stories may have an almost similar title, with each of the main characters bringing home a wife who is different from the local people. However, the newer version addresses a much more serious issue. In Charlson Ong’s â€Å"How My Cousin Manuel Brought Home A Wife†, the writer used contrast of characters(particularly Consuelo and Mei Lu) and contemporary language to show that even in the modern age, racial discrimination still exists and destroys one’s happiness. Hearing about his son’s return with a Brazilian wife, Mei Lu is devastated. Her agony clearly worsens to the extreme upon seeing her daughter-in-law: Consuelo, a huge and black woman whom she describes as â€Å"bigger than the great wall and blacker than the pit of her kettle†. â€Å"She might learn to live with the fact of a foreign daughter-in-law, Spanish-speaking and all. But Consuelo? The woman simply failed to strike me as being in the universe of possibilities Aunt Mei Lu could imagine.† It is made clear by the writer in these lines that a foreign daughter-in-law of a skin color other than black would be bearable for Mei Lu. Mother says Carlos should not have brought Consuelo to the house. But did they not send Carlos to the airport to bring the couple back home? Apparently, they were expecting a white Brazilian. At 70 and being â€Å"from an age where the word beauty conjured a fairness often described as being edible and where petite, teen-age, virgin brides were tucked neatly into fragile sedan chairs fit for babes†, Mei Lu can not accept the fact of having Consuelo, who has just the opposite qualities, as the wife of her only son. She regards Consuelo as subhuman. This she reveals by her wailing: â€Å"You call that a daughter-in-law?† Furthermore, she associates Consuelo’s black skin color with evil. Eventhough she has not spoken a word to Consuelo, except for the words â€Å"O kui† she called to her face, Mei Lu automatically as sumes that she tried to kill Manuel, who was actually saved through Consuelo’s psychic abilities, and is only after Manuel’s money, which is not as much as Mei Lu thinks at all.

Wellness programs try to Be welcoming

AH, July: an ideal time of year for morning runs, long swims, family bike rides and picnic tables laden with seasonal produce. In short, it’s healthy time.  Unfortunately, it’s also health care time — when managers must contend with rising health insurance premiums as they plan next year’s budget.  What is a cost-conscious manager to do? The answer of the moment is to provide a wellness program, promoting healthy behavior year-round.According to a survey by the Hay Group, a consulting firm, more than half of all large companies offer some combination of services like nutrition education, weight management assistance, health risk assessments, and help with quitting smoking; more than a quarter offer things like fitness coaching and discounts on health club memberships.  Ã¢â‚¬Å"I was basically out of the business for the better part of the decade,† said Michael Carter, a vice president at Hay responsible for employee health management consulting. â€Å"Now everybody’s my new best friend.†On the surface, it is hard to see anything wrong with urging employees to tone up and trim down. A fitter work force is a happier work force, and less costly, too.  But wellness programs can be minefields. Some employees may resent the programs, viewing them as examples of father-knows-best intrusiveness. At least one program has even formed the background for a lawsuit.The biggest challenge of wellness programs is to reach the employees who would get the most out of them. Gym rats will always take advantage of benefits like discounted health club memberships — but they would probably work out anyway, and discounts may not be enough for those who are seriously overweight or out of shape.  Personalized incentives like fitness coaching and nutrition counseling are often a better way to reach employees in the middle group who just need a little encouragement. It is also crucial to make accommodations for disabled emplo yees.And the tone taken is crucial: who wants the boss telling you to eat your spinach? A program that feels coercive will probably never be as popular as one with positive incentives, like cheaper health insurance.  Employees respond best to wellness programs that are presented as a form of organizational change, rather than as a top-down imposition of new requirements, according to a study of 243 employees by Ellen Ernst Kossek, a professor of human resource management and organizational behavior at Michigan State University, and two colleagues.  Ã¢â‚¬Å"It shouldn’t be, ‘Here’s this program,’ † she said. â€Å"It should be linked to ‘How do we make a workplace that’s healthy for everyone.’ †Ã‚  Scotts Miracle-Gro has one of the most extensive wellness programs on offer. Services include personalized fitness coaching and a $5 million wellness center at its headquarters in Marysville, Ohio, with a gym and medical facili ties. The company also has a policy against hiring workers who smoke, where state law permits.Participation in Scotts’ wellness programs is high — but the company has also seen an unexpected side effect from its efforts.  Last year, Scott Rodrigues filed suit against the company in Massachusetts, saying that Scotts fired him after a drug test found nicotine in his system and that the company’s antismoking policy violated his civil rights.  Harvey Schwartz, Mr. Rodrigues’s lawyer, said the case was also an example of benefits discrimination, where a company dismisses an employee to avoid high benefits costs.  In a motion to dismiss the case, which is pending, Scotts said that Mr. Rodrigues had not actually been hired but had been offered a job on the condition that he pass a drug screen, including a test for nicotine.â€Å"When you look at controlling costs,† said Su Lok, a Scotts spokeswoman, smoking â€Å"is something that employers are rea lly taking a stand on.† The company had no comment on the specific case because it is ongoing.  Union Pacific Railroad has had a smoother ride with its longstanding wellness program. The proportion of health insurance claims related to lifestyle has dropped by 11 percentage points over 11 years, said Marcy Zauha, the company’s director for health and safety.Union Pacific, based in Omaha, offers some companywide wellness benefits, including health risk assessments and stop-smoking plans. But much of the program, including regional walking contests and group weight-loss efforts, is administered locally. Managers’ health promotion initiatives are included in their annual reviews.  Ã¢â‚¬Å"We’ve tried to build health into our existing culture,† Ms. Zauha said.Fiserv, a financial services technology company based in Brookfield Wis., created a wellness program in 2005 to better recruit and retain employees.  Fiserv employees who fill out a health risk assessment receive a sizable discount on their monthly health insurance premium. There are also companywide fitness challenges: in a recent eight-week walking contest, participants were issued pedometers, and anyone who walked 7,000 steps a day received a prize.Teams have to been known to question whether their rivals really log the number of steps claimed. But that was fine with Linda Schuessler, manager of wellness promotion.  Ã¢â‚¬Å"As long as they’re engaged,† Ms. Schuessler said, â€Å"we don’t really mind those concerns.†(this is the copyofth article from NY Times,http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/22/business/yourmoney/22mgmt.html?ex=1186113600&en=ded5f6bb661041b0&ei=5070#)Journal AssignmentThe concept at hand is about how managers and company heads would make the most out of their companies by introducing a healthy lifestyle to their employees. It is evident that today, health care costs are so high that rising health insurance premiums would surely be in the way of budgeting for the company (Holland). Obviously, these company heads and managers should not jeopardize the health of their employees, that they should provide the necessary things for their wellness. But surely, this would cost them that it wouldn’t be that easy to pull out strings and fix the budget. That is why these managers should resort to a way that would be more cost effective and keep them from harms way of these health care costs.The article discusses how managers and company heads employ human resource management in order to do away with the costly expenses of health care and health insurances that they provide to the employees. But this doesn’t mean that they neglect the health of these working people. It is true that these people are very important to the company, that these companies need them in order to be productive, which is why it is important that their every need will be given to them or will be addressed.What these company leaders and managers do is that they make sure that these employees are healthy so that they can avert the spending that they’ll have to give when any of these gets sick or has health problems. In order not to shoulder the burden of health care and health insurance premiums, they offered to keep them fit in their own ways.In order to do so, these companies offer basically every health guidance and services that they can offer to the employees. These includes educating them regarding nutrition and proper diet, weight management assistance, health risk assessments and checkups, fitness coaching and giving out memberships for fitness groups and health clubs. Through this, the company themselves are able to ensure that their employees are fit and are far from harms way, thus saving them the costs of health care for these people. Thus, the companies’ budgets will not be greatly affected.If you would relate this approach in human resource management, you could see that this is more on the incentive aspect, wherein you provide your employees something that would keep them going to work. For those who are concerned with their health and well-being, they would surely grab the opportunity of free health club memberships and nutrition education. This is positive for the company, since the employees themselves are the ones who initiate in keeping themselves healthy. Remember, the main concern of the company in this issue is how they can do away with the extra costs of health care and health insurance premiums for their employees.Regarding the effectiveness of this approach, the article states that there are already several large-scale companies who adopted this system. They have their own health clubs and offer free membership to their employees. They say that these greatly helps them in cutting costs, thus the allotted budget for healthcare would be saved. There are still some who are not that much into health stuffs, people who think that nutrition education is l ike intruding with their lives. These people are those who would most likely have health risks and should be given enough consideration in order to engage them in these health programs.Human resource management surely entails various levels of dealing with the people you are handling. This includes how you handle them, and the ways on how you are able to manage them, making them do what they’re suppose to do. This is where healthcare comes in, wherein their safety and well being is not only their concern, but should also be the company’s priority. When their wellness goes down, the company goes down as well, in terms of both manpower and monetary aspects.Reference:Holland, K. (2007). Wellness Programs Try to Be Welcoming, Too. The New York Times. Published July 22, 2007. Retrieved August 1, 2007, from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/22/business/yourmoney/22mgmt.html?ex=1186113600&en=ded5f6bb661041b0&ei=5070# Wellness Programs Try to Be Welcoming AH, July: an ideal time of year for morning runs, long swims, family bike rides and picnic tables laden with seasonal produce. In short, it’s healthy time.Unfortunately, it’s also health care time — when managers must contend with rising health insurance premiums as they plan next year’s budget.What is a cost-conscious manager to do? The answer of the moment is to provide a wellness program, promoting healthy behavior year-round.According to a survey by the Hay Group, a consulting firm, more than half of all large companies offer some combination of services like nutrition education, weight management assistance, health risk assessments, and help with quitting smoking; more than a quarter offer things like fitness coaching and discounts on health club memberships.â€Å"I was basically out of the business for the better part of the decade,† said Michael Carter, a vice president at Hay responsible for employee health management consulting. â€Å"Now everybody’s my new best friend.†On the surface, it is hard to see anything wrong with urging employees to tone up and trim down. A fitter work force is a happier work force, and less costly, too.But wellness programs can be minefields. Some employees may resent the programs, viewing them as examples of father-knows-best intrusiveness. At least one program has even formed the background for a lawsuit.The biggest challenge of wellness programs is to reach the employees who would get the most out of them. Gym rats will always take advantage of benefits like discounted health club memberships — but they would probably work out anyway, and discounts may not be enough for those who are seriously overweight or out of shape.Personalized incentives like fitness coaching and nutrition counseling are often a better way to reach employees in the middle group who just need a little encouragement. It is also crucial to make accommodations for disabled employees.And the tone ta ken is crucial: who wants the boss telling you to eat your spinach? A program that feels coercive will probably never be as popular as one with positive incentives, like cheaper health insurance.Employees respond best to wellness programs that are presented as a form of organizational change, rather than as a top-down imposition of new requirements, according to a study of 243 employees by Ellen Ernst Kossek, a professor of human resource management and organizational behavior at Michigan State University, and two colleagues.â€Å"It shouldn’t be, ‘Here’s this program,’ † she said. â€Å"It should be linked to ‘How do we make a workplace that’s healthy for everyone.’ †Scotts Miracle-Gro has one of the most extensive wellness programs on offer. Services include personalized fitness coaching and a $5 million wellness center at its headquarters in Marysville, Ohio, with a gym and medical facilities. The company also has a pol icy against hiring workers who smoke, where state law permits.Participation in Scotts’ wellness programs is high — but the company has also seen an unexpected side effect from its efforts.Last year, Scott Rodrigues filed suit against the company in Massachusetts, saying that Scotts fired him after a drug test found nicotine in his system and that the company’s antismoking policy violated his civil rights.Harvey Schwartz, Mr. Rodrigues’s lawyer, said the case was also an example of benefits discrimination, where a company dismisses an employee to avoid high benefits costs.In a motion to dismiss the case, which is pending, Scotts said that Mr. Rodrigues had not actually been hired but had been offered a job on the condition that he pass a drug screen, including a test for nicotine.â€Å"When you look at controlling costs,† said Su Lok, a Scotts spokeswoman, smoking â€Å"is something that employers are really taking a stand on.† The company ha d no comment on the specific case because it is ongoing.Union Pacific Railroad has had a smoother ride with its longstanding wellness program. The proportion of health insurance claims related to lifestyle has dropped by 11 percentage points over 11 years, said Marcy Zauha, the company’s director for health and safety.Union Pacific, based in Omaha, offers some companywide wellness benefits, including health risk assessments and stop-smoking plans. But much of the program, including regional walking contests and group weight-loss efforts, is administered locally. Managers’ health promotion initiatives are included in their annual reviews.â€Å"We’ve tried to build health into our existing culture,† Ms. Zauha said.Fiserv, a financial services technology company based in Brookfield Wis., created a wellness program in 2005 to better recruit and retain employees.Fiserv employees who fill out a health risk assessment receive a sizable discount on their monthly health insurance premium. There are also companywide fitness challenges: in a recent eight-week walking contest, participants were issued pedometers, and anyone who walked 7,000 steps a day received a prize.Teams have to been known to question whether their rivals really log the number of steps claimed. But that was fine with Linda Schuessler, manager of wellness promotion.â€Å"As long as they’re engaged,† Ms. Schuessler said, â€Å"we don’t really mind those concerns.†(this is the copy of the article from NY Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/22/business/yourmoney/22mgmt.html?ex=1186113600&en=ded5f6bb661041b0&ei=5070#)Journal AssignmentThe concept at hand is about how managers and company heads would make the most out of their companies by introducing a healthy lifestyle to their employees. It is evident that today, health care costs are so high that rising health insurance premiums would surely be in the way of budgeting for the company (Holland). O bviously, these company heads and managers should not jeopardize the health of their employees, that they should provide the necessary things for their wellness. But surely, this would cost them that it wouldn’t be that easy to pull out strings and fix the budget. That is why these managers should resort to a way that would be more cost effective and keep them from harms way of these health care costs.The article discusses how managers and company heads employ human resource management in order to do away with the costly expenses of health care and health insurances that they provide to the employees. But this doesn’t mean that they neglect the health of these working people. It is true that these people are very important to the company, that these companies need them in order to be productive, which is why it is important that their every need will be given to them or will be addressed. What these company leaders and managers do is that they make sure that these empl oyees are healthy so that they can avert the spending that they’ll have to give when any of these gets sick or has health problems. In order not to shoulder the burden of health care and health insurance premiums, they offered to keep them fit in their own ways.In order to do so, these companies offer basically every health guidance and services that they can offer to the employees. These includes educating them regarding nutrition and proper diet, weight management assistance, health risk assessments and checkups, fitness coaching and giving out memberships for fitness groups and health clubs. Through this, the company themselves are able to ensure that their employees are fit and are far from harms way, thus saving them the costs of health care for these people. Thus, the companies’ budgets will not be greatly affected.If you would relate this approach in human resource management, you could see that this is more on the incentive aspect, wherein you provide your empl oyees something that would keep them going to work. For those who are concerned with their health and well-being, they would surely grab the opportunity of free health club memberships and nutrition education. This is positive for the company, since the employees themselves are the ones who initiate in keeping themselves healthy. Remember, the main concern of the company in this issue is how they can do away with the extra costs of health care and health insurance premiums for their employees.  Regarding the effectiveness of this approach, the article states that there are already several large-scale companies who adopted this system. They have their own health clubs and offer free membership to their employees. They say that these greatly helps them in cutting costs, thus the allotted budget for healthcare would be saved. There are still some who are not that much into health stuffs, people who think that nutrition education is like intruding with their lives. These people are th ose who would most likely have health risks and should be given enough consideration in order to engage them in these health programs.Human resource management surely entails various levels of dealing with the people you are handling. This includes how you handle them, and the ways on how you are able to manage them, making them do what they’re suppose to do. This is where healthcare comes in, wherein their safety and well being is not only their concern, but should also be the company’s priority. When their wellness goes down, the company goes down as well, in terms of both manpower and monetary aspects.Reference:Holland, K. (2007). Wellness Programs Try to Be Welcoming, Too. The New York Times. Published July 22, 2007. Retrieved August 1, 2007, from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/22/business/yourmoney/22mgmt.html?ex=1186113600&en=ded5f6bb661041b0&ei=5070#

The Respiratory System essays

The Respiratory System essays The human respiratory system is a complex system involving the coordination of organs with different structural, functional and defensive mechanisms. The high costs and the high fatality rates associated with chronic respiratory disorders require some serious rethinking in our approach to managing the problem. It transpires that the maxim prevention is better than cure is very apt in the management of respiratory disorders. Smoking is identified as the single most important cause for most of the serious respiratory problems including COPD and lung cancer, and hence abstaining from smoking eliminates the risk for the onset of several serious respiratory disorders. The human respiratory system is a well-developed and complex system involving many different organs such as the nasal cavity, pharynx, trachea and the lungs. Though the actual physiological function of breathing begins only at birth, the development of the respiratory tract, the diaphragm and the lungs occur much earlier in the embryonic stage. Structural and functional changes continue from infancy to adulthood and into old age, as the respiratory system matures with age. There are various diseases of the respiratory system such as asthma, tuberculosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), emphysema, lung cancer, etc. While Asthma is a genetic disease, Tuberculosis, lung cancer, etc, are acquired pulmonary diseases. Life style and environmental factors are important in contributing to and increasing the susceptibility to respiratory disorders. The following discussion includes a brief overview of the structural development of the human respiratory system followed by an o verview of COPD and Tuberculosis, two of the prevalent diseases of the respiratory system, and their impact on occupational performance. The development of the Respiratory System The development of the respiratory system starts after the fourth week of gestation. The respirat...

The Future of Matrimony †Sociology Research Paper

The Future of Matrimony – Sociology Research Paper Free Online Research Papers The Future of Matrimony Sociology Research Paper â€Å"†¦to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness or in health, to love and to cherish till death do us part’†¦.† Wedding bells are ringing. The big day is finally here. As the soon-to-be husband and wife, bound together by love, prepare to walk down the aisle, they truly believe that this would be their first and only wedding. The two couples are bounded together by love, hope, expectations, and dreams that inspire almost all marriages. Lovers that enter marriage envision dreams of what their new life will bring them. The thought of marriage not working, never crossed their mind. They both believed marriage would be â€Å"till death do us part† and that their significant other will be there for one another through thick and thin. Unfortunately, for many young lovers who got married early, this does not hold true. Back in the 1950s, women had no choice but to marry. Women were forced to wed in order to achieve some form of economic stability – while simultaneously embarking on a lifetime of subservient bondage. Because women were viewed as inferior to men, they were to always remain at home. A woman’s main function was to produce offspring and manage household chores while their husbands tended to public affairs. This made marriage not so different from slavery and prostitution. In those days, wives were expected to be subservient to their husbands, leaving little room for romance and love to develop, even simple acts of affection was not necessary. Instead, the husbands would turn to prostitutes and concubines to satisfy their sexual needs, while the sole purpose of having sex at home was to just produce babies. Men wanted to create a legacy. At its most fundamental level, marriage was created for the purpose of raising children. Today, many of these pragmatic motivation s no longer apply. A man no longer expects a wife to devote herself full-time to his care and upkeep, and a woman no longer needs a man to pay her way. By the twentieth century, when capitalism firmly took hold and people no longer had to marry to secure their financial future, marriage changed. Divorce rates largely rose alongside the rise of capitalism, as growth and opportunity gave individuals the ability to survive financially outside the household economy. By 1924, one in seven marriages ended in a divorce. Divorce, something that was once unheard of, was now hailed as fresh alternative for the troubled women who were financially dependent and trapped. For battered women, and for the loveless couples, divorce was considered to be a healthy, rejuvenating response to marriages that were often viewed as â€Å"sick, lifeless or dead.† Divorce was believed to set them free, and finally make them happy again. It was â€Å"okay† to divorce, to be free, to listen to your heart and do what you need to for the sake of your own personal happiness because you deserve it. With the widespread introduction of the Pill, the sexual revolution, the feminist movements, plus the freedoms celebrated by the â€Å"Me Generation†, it demonstrated to women in their twenties that they did not have to marry, that is, marriage was unnecessary for a life of a happiness. Although the average age of women entering marriage has not significantly changed over the past one hundred years, what have changed though, are the attitudes surrounding marriage. In 1890 women had few options, they were forced to enter into marriage in their twenties, but today, with the benefits formed by the women’s movement and with the economy advancing, women now not only have the choice to marry but also not to nonetheless. Modern day women now have the freedom to want whatever it is they choose to want because it is their God-given right as opposed to being forced. For both sexes even, men and women today marry because they can and want – not because they must. A 1977 New York magazine â€Å"Early to Wed,† explains why young women and men today overwhelmingly believe in marriage and in marrying relatively young. One popular theory suggested that we are witnessing a search for stability in an era of instability (Sarah Bernard, â€Å"Early to Wed,† New York, 16 June 1997, P.38). â€Å"In the United States, the twenties are the picture-perfect decade for saying I do. The farther you stray from that magic era, the more freakish you start to feel. An article in a 1998 issue of the Journal of Family Issues confirms that being unmarried in your thirties can be bad for you state of mind because you feel like an outcast.†(Megan Fitzmorris McCafferty, â€Å"When Should You Marry,† Cosmopolitan, August 1999, p.238) But the younger you marry, the more likely you are to divorce. People are getting divorced as quickly as they are getting married. A 2001 survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that one in five first-marriage divorces occur within the first five years (Matthew D. Bramlett and William D. Mosher, â€Å"First Marriage Dissolution, Divorce and Remarriage: United States,† advance data, 31 May 2001, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). Research Papers on The Future of Matrimony - Sociology Research PaperInfluences of Socio-Economic Status of Married Males19 Century Society: A Deeply Divided EraPersonal Experience with Teen PregnancyThree Concepts of PsychodynamicHonest Iagos Truth through DeceptionResearch Process Part OneHip-Hop is ArtAnalysis Of A Cosmetics AdvertisementThe Hockey GameThe Fifth Horseman

If accounting is to retain any credibility-and without credibility it Essay

If accounting is to retain any credibility-and without credibility it is worthless - its guiding light must be neutrality in - Essay Example The aims of financial account have a very major influence on the way institutions operate, on certain rules and regulations of accounting and accounting practices conducted at the corporate level. The two main goals of accounting policy is to firstly focus upon the importance of accounting systems for the private sector and secondly it is to be utilized by the government sector. Different countries place different level of importance on accounting. There are two kinds of users of accounting and accounting systems, these include the macro and the micro level users. The main difference between these users is the intention of using accounting information, this means that macro level users use it for different purposes and micro level users use it for different purposes (MA, 1997, p.198). Those who are referred to as macro level users include government agencies that uses accounting information for the purpose of economic planning and development. Those who are referred to as micro users are the ones who provide the capital and are given utmost importance in society. Body The two different users and the way they use accounting in different manners is quite evident in the role played by accounting in capital markets. For example in areas such as US and Canada, the system of accounting in these nations is micro user level and the broader aim of the accounting policy is to provide financial statements that are unbiased and fair (Flesher, 2010, p.66). When the emphasis is paid to providing fair and truthful accounting information, the organizations within these nations are expected to disclose their financial transactions in a reliable and credible manner. Transaction conducted by the organizations that follow the micro user level accountancy aims at achieving economic substance rather than conforming to rules and regulations set by the country. Nations that follow the macro user level accountancy system do not operate while aim at achieving fairness in providing accou nting details and information. Traditionally the main aim of accounting has been to safeguard the loss of assets that take place in a secretive manner. This aim of accountancy was obtained by reporting less than the actually amount of assets owned and profit made by an organization. At the domestic level capital markets, the aim of accountancy is to achieve optimum level corporate governance. At the domestic level, those nations that follow micro user accounting systems, the main role of accounts and accountants is to provide reliable accounting information in order to evaluate the performance of the management. Management’s performance is measured through several means and the main way proposed is to how well they keep track of the organizations earning, dividends and cash flows. The main aim of the management is to increase the profit of the organization and for this they end up producing biased accounting reports and due to this there is a need to provide, unbiased and neu tral accounting reports to decrease the conflict between the management and the owners of the business (Wolk, 2001, p.217). There have been ample amount of debate surrounding the impact of accounting on a businesses profits and well being, this have increase the possibility that certain methods of accountancy can be utilized to obtained desired aims and objectives. The aims and objectives that can be obtained include increasing competitiveness of

Idealism versus Naturalism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Idealism versus Naturalism - Essay Example Gombrich argues that in pursuit of idealism for self-interests, the artists omitted any feature to they did not like to produce ‘†¦an idealized statue that usually lack character and vigour’ (103). Moreover, their desire to portray the true, the good, and the beauty of a real a man - ideal humanistic outlook – resulted in a quite ‘symmetrical, well-built and beautiful statue.' Due to the flawed figures of idealism, Greek artists adopted the naturalist perspective that represents the human form in its natural appearance or realistic look. The proponents of naturalism argue that the idealistic idea was only to add aesthetic value to drawings and sculptures and avoid reality. For instance, in Hermes with Dionysus, Praxiteles portrays the natural gesture of a hairy, wise, loving, caring and anxious man with human quality carrying a playful child (Gombrich 102). Moreover, he curved a younger non-stiff body leaning on a post for balance while maintaining elegance and smooth surfaces. These are realistic features that contrast the idealistic principle of calm and ever-smiling man to reflect an ideal situation of harmony and happiness. Moreover, the height of 3.5 feet tall of the idealistic approach fails to reflect the proper size of a human, 6.9 feet as depicted by Praxiteles. Despite these differences, one similarity of the two approaches is the Contrapposto where the right leg is bent while stepping forward and the left hip elevated to support body weight.