Management 201 Essays - Human Resource Management,

Management 201 Task: Choose a company and identify all motivational (employee-centered) programs that the company has in place. Then ascertain the significance and objectives of these programs. Next provide a critique of these programs. Finally, recommend changes that will improve on the programs and/or new programs that will better meet the objectives articulated above. Overview: The company that I have chosen as the subject of my research is the AAA Travel Agency. More specifically, I have interviewed several travel agents from the Reno, Pennsylvania location, which serves patrons from Western Pennsylvania as well as West Virginia. The bulk of the information for my analysis has come directly from the in-office interviews with Ms. Tiffany Pacior, the senior travel agent for the Reno office. She has provided me with information directly out of the AAA employee handbook as well as personal information covering the positive and negative effects she has experienced from the programs I will be discussing. There can be little doubt that the backbone of every successful business or company is its staff of employees. Employees are the vital parts of the business machine that can aid in its success or contribute to its failure. It is for this reason that it is imperative to possess the ability to acquire and maintain effective employees. The chief method by which a business or company can accomplish this task is through employee-centered motivational programs. The goal of these programs is to encourage employees to maximize their performance by targeting three specific motivational stimuli. These include morale, satisfaction, and rewards. After researching their policies and interviewing employees, I have came to the conclusion that AAA of Reno, Pennsylvania has adopted Fredrick Taylor's approach to motivating their employees. In this paper I will demonstrate how AAA applies Taylor's scientific management approach to target the three motivational stimuli stated above. I will also provide some insight from the employee's perspective as to how effective the programs are at what they are designed to achieve. The scientific management approach to motivation evolved from the work of Frederick Taylor. He believed that when highly productive people discover they are being compensated basically the same as less productive people, then the output of highly productive people will decrease. Consequently, the scientific management approach to motivation is based on the assumption that money is the primary motivator. This seems to be the ideology that AAA has adopted to produce high morale, achieve satisfaction, and reward their employees. Morale, as it applies here, may be defined as the overall feeling of the members of an organization. Generally speaking, a company with a high morale among its employees enjoys above average performance and a lower than average employee termination rate. AAA has several programs in practice, which support the scientific management approach to motivation to produce high morale. First, it is not uncommon for a travel agent to work beyond the scheduled forty-hour workday to complete the tasks of a heavy business day. It was for this reason that the company offers overtime compensation for the dedication of their employees. The company pays one and a half times their regular hourly rate of pay when an agent works more than their scheduled hours per week. Also, for those individual days when an agent works more than ten hours per day, they are entitled to overtime dinner pay. The employees stressed that this is a worthwhile program because it allows overtime workers to order dinner from l ocal delivery shops. The objective here is simple, no one likes to work on an empty stomach and so why not use a little give and take to make the employees feel like they are not being taken advantage of. It has proven to be effective from the opinions of the employees I interviewed. The final program I was made aware of designed to bolster company morale is the ?paid time off? program. This allows employees to take time off from their work for various reasons and to be regularly paid as if they were working for that period of time. Acceptable reasons for this privilege cover a wide spectrum including personal vacation, minor illness, funeral leave, jury duty, holidays, military leave, and marriage. Ms. Pacior explained that although these programs

English Essay Science Essays - Literature, Canadian Literature

English Essay Science Essays - Literature, Canadian Literature Scientific Progress and its Costs Scientific progress is undoubtedly positive, it is the driving force behind human kinds expansion. It created many of the things that have allowed humans to become the most powerful animal on earth. However as scientific progress, eventually other things need to be eased back to allow for progression to continue. In the novel Oryx and Crake By Margaret Atwood, a society is depicted where scientific progress has almost taken over every other aspect of society. The main character Jimmy is born and raised in the luxurious compounds. Where corporations create the most advanced products for consumers in the compounds and the pleeblands. Jimmy grows up seeing the complications scientific progress can create. From his poor relationship with his family to the virus he helps his childhood friend spread, it is clear that Jimmy has seen the best and worst that scientific progress has to offer. Ultimately, When scientific progress is given reign over all other aspects of society, the impact o n human culture, relationships, life, and even the earth itself are tremendous. In a society where science shrouds society's focus, humanities lose its importance. In Oryx and Crake, the corporations consistently push for progression of science and discourage people to pursue other fields of work. This can be seen from how Jimmy has to be tutored by crake so he can get passable grades. Crake shows Jimmy shows how to solve math and science problems, "but Jimmy [does] not see, and it did not all come clear." (Atwood 174) To Crake math and science problems are easy to understand, but Jimmy struggles with them and is not able to see what Crake sees. Instead of the school system allowing Jimmy to take humanities courses, where he excels, he has to take science subjects, and search for alternative methods to learn subjects. This is reflective of the society that he lives in, the corporations don't want people practicing humanities, and instead want them to focus on science, causing humanities to fade away from society. Furthermore, Jimmy and Crake grew up playing games like Blood and Roses, "a trading game [] the blood side [plays] with human atrocities for the counters [] massacres, genocides [] the roses side [plays] with human achievements, artworks, scientific breakthroughs." (78) This game reflects the society's lack of care for human history, positive and negative. The focus is purely put towards progression, and humanities, specifical history, are forgotten and only relevant in computer games. This causes people to not learn from humanity's past mistakes, and try to not repeat these mistakes. Lastly, when Jimmy graduates, he goes to Martha-Graham, a school that was, "falling apart [] surrounded [] by the tackiest kind of pleeblands." (185) meanwhile Crakes school Watson-Crick, " was a palace, at the entrance way was a bronzed statue of the institution ' s mascot [] the extensive grounds inside the security walls [was] beautifully laid out" (199) The two different states of the schools show where society's focus is. Jimmy ch ooses to pursue humanities, and because of this gets something much lesser than Crake, who goes to school for science. This shows how because of the focus put on scientific progression, humanities and people practicing it lose importance and relevance in society. In conclusion, because of the compounds pushing the limits of scientific progression, humanities are almost forgotten. People's re la tionships are ruined when society puts stress on advancing scientific progress. In the novel, many people struggle to form relationships, and when relationships are formed, they hav e often torn apart because of the society push for scientific progression. When Jimmy is growing up his father is a big scientist at OrganInc Farms, wh e re he is working on the pigoon project. When Jimmy ' s father makes a joke that upsets Jimmy, his mother says, " " Leave Daddy alone" [says] his mother "Daddy is thinking. That's what they pay him for. He do esn' t have time for you right now." (20) It is clear that because of Jimmy ' s father ' s job, and its heavy work demands, that not only Jimmy ' s relationship suffers, but so does his parent ' s marriage.