Chapter 16

Discussion

This chapter is about high performance teams and what goes into them. I just want to focus on Empowerment, Knowledge Sharing, and Job Satisfaction. I want to focus on these three, because I think that they are the most important pieces to a high performance organization. Empowerment is the idea of giving more power to the individual instead of the manager micromanaging everybody and not allowing for individual growth or input. This will help create a high performance organization by the employee working harder because they are not micromanaged. It will also help the individual to be able to give more input. This knowledge sharing needs to be happening at all levels. With the empowerment and knowledge sharing going on the job satisfaction will go up and these are three main peices to a high performing organization.

Key points

Do you think that these ideas should be put into the mission statement of the company?

Questions

Have you ever been part of a high performing company? How did it feel being part of something that great? What do you think was the most important aspect to make it a high performance team?

Chapter 15 Discussion

Discussion

Many U.S. companies are out sourcing their labor. It is cheaper to outsource to other countries that have lower wage rates and don't have to give as many benefits to the employee. The average U.S. employee has it really good.

Key Points

Out sourcing all this labor is putting the money elsewhere. Businesses have to do it to keep a competitive edge on their products.

Questions

Are you worried about too many businesses putting money into other countries instead of our own?

3/11/2010

On Thursday we learned about optional benefits. These look pretty good to me I have never had any of these benefits. There is paid leave, retirement plans, group insurance, family friendly benefits and other benefits. I learned that benefits weren't popular until post WWII era. Benefits sound pretty cool I learned that there even some companies that allow their employees to bring their pets to work to help contribute to the relaxed atmosphere. I would just hate the smell in that office building and i imagine they have a high turnover rate for their janitors.

Chapter 13 Discussion

Discussion

Unemployment insurance can be collected when you become unemployed. To get unemployment insurance benefits they have to meet four requirements. They are:
1. Prove that they have been unemployed.
2. Show that they are available for work(I am assuming not leave the country on vacation and still be collecting unemployment insurance).
3. Register at local employment offices and be actively seeking work.
4. Person has to not have quit job voluntarily.

Key Points

Unemployment insurance can be a great benefit for a head of a household that has been recently laid off and just needs a little bit of money to stay a float until they find another job. Some use unemployment unlawfully by stating that they are looking for labor when they are actually just sitting at home collecting on their insurance.

Questions

Do you know someone that has been receiving the benefits of unemployment insurance? Were they legally receiving the benefits or by breaking some of theses 4 requirements?

Chapter 14 discussion

Discussion

Unions can a be a huge benefit to an individual. You do a job and then you get put at the bottom of the list of people. This way you get cycled through the list of workers and get an equal opportunity. Companies can sometimes request certain workers because they know that they do quality and efficient work. Sometimes you have to pay dues to the union that you work for. If you get caught doing side jobs other than the union jobs you get kicked of the union.

Key points

Unions cost a lot of money to use for a labor contractor because of all their coverage they have for their employees.

Question

Do you think it is wrong to not allow the person to do side jobs because it might be a while before he is cycled through the list of employees?

3/4/2010

We discussed Chapter 12 last Thursday. The characteristics of a job the the organization values is how you will be judged for pay. Some obvious things on the top of the list is education and experience. I then learned about how ridiculous the pay scale is for executive pay in the United States. The average ratio from executive pay to lowest paid employee is on average from 300:1 to 500:1. I think that this is ridiculous. This is obviously not a smart distribution of wealth in America. This is one of the reasons why the middle class is shrinking in the United States. Twenty percent of the top paid employees in the U.S. receive more than 50 percent of the total money paid to all employed people in the U.S. As the middle class shrinks the upper class will grow minimally and the lower class will explode and most people will be on the poor pay scale. We also talked about how cool incentive pay can be. I learned that I like the idea of a company having to post its employees pay amounts online for all to see. This helps keep public companies honest in their pay scales.

3/3/2010

Yesterday we had class in the library to get information about getting information. Ha ha there you go that that is how I would sum it up. The lecture was given by Christy Donaldson. I have had her lecture me before in some of my other business classes. It was beneficial to listen again. She suggested that we don't touch google to do searches because the sources we find will probably charge money. The school pays for many of the sources that we need to do research. She said that searching on the schools database is pretty much the opposite of using Google. You use the word AND to search multiple topics together and add a * at the end of search topics to search singular and plural. The database searches for the exact words so it is more picky. This information was beneficial because I found some articles while we as a class were looking for articles.

Chapter 12 Discussion

Concept

Performance bonuses are rewarded on an employees performance. The time period of performance is decided by the company. The idea is to improve performance of employees by presenting the possibility of earning a bonus by how hard the individual works. The performance bonus is added to the amount of your base pay. Extra cash basically.

Emotional Hook

Some of you have had the experience of receiving a performance bonus in your places of employment. How did it make you feel when you received a bonus? Did it make you more committed to helping your employer succeed in the business world? If you have never received a performance bonus would like to receive one?

Key Points

Did your performance bonus help you perform better? If you haven't received a performance bonus do you think that it would help you to work harder if you got one?

Facilitate Questions

Do think that if the company announces that there will be a performance bonus given to the hardest worker it can create problems; like unhealthy competition?