Why should the HR manager be interested age of employees?

Now I feel like a tooooootaaaal nerd!

Ways to remember

We, by nature always come up with ways to remember things and increase our natural mental storage space. Shopping lists, telephone numbers, roads, theories and lessons are few of the everyday matters that demand our storage capacity. I tend to share ideas about how to remember important things. But it is best that we come up with these methods by ourselves as that would certainly be more effective. I read somewhere once that one way of improving memory is to imagine elaborate visuals for words. For example the word ice-cream can be very simply imagined or you can think of your favourite flavour with chocolate topping, honey, peaches and nuts... and huge really huge!

Management theories
Now I don’t know why in the world that we should remember these but here are some easy ways of recalling which theory belongs to which guy.

Fredrick Taylor and the scientific management approach
- I always think of the tailor in terms of measurement.

Max Weber and Bureaucracy
- not taking into account the pronunciation part of it, I think of weber as spider man or the one that spins around with red tape making many levels in the management hierarchy

Henri Fayoll and the Administrative Principles
- this one I leave for you to figure out

Elton Mayo and the behavioural approach
- Association of the H in the words Human relation and Hawthorne studies
- The word “Mayo” can be broken into “May you”. Does this remind us of something?

T Burns and G M Stalker and the organic and mechanistic organization
- for you to figure out

Recalling

Economics is the study of meeting unlimited human wants with limited resources.

<sigh>

By increasing the level of income of the people in the lower income range you can increase their expenditure. If you need to increase savings for the country to trade with then you’ve got to increase the income level of the well-to-do folks.

<Sigh>

Elasticity of demand
-1..……. 0………. 1

Anything at zero is perfectly inelastic
Anything that is infinite is very highly elastic (or perfectly)
> 1 relatively inelastic
< 1 relatively elastic
and it doesn't get below 0 because that would break the demand law

Cigarettes and alcohol + necessities have 0 elasticity. While luxury good may have very high elasticity

<now I feel like a total nerd>

Bad things

• Beauty and brains are almost never found together. But having neither of these is a greater possibility.

• Every time you find out you’ve done something good, you end up doing something really bad.

• Soon after you get onto bed you realise you need to increase the fan or switch the lights off.

• Every time you want to do something there is always something stopping you

• When you feel like you need chocolates they are almost never around

• When you remember something nice to blog about you always forget it when you keep it for later.

More on Negotiation

“Negotiation is the process involving two or more people of either equal or unequal power, meeting to discuss shared/ apposed interest in relation to a particular area of mutual concern whereby they resolve dispute, agree upon courses of action, bargain for individual or collective advantage and/or attempt to craft outcomes which serve their mutual interest.”

We were asked to come up with a case from our work places which involved negotiation between more than two parties. After five hours of Economics on the previous day topped with successfully marking only one and half assignments and finally “Tears of the Sun” I was just not able to come up with any scenario. Besides, recalling objects from previous night’s dreams were even more interesting.

So the guy from SLT stated the problem - Consumers always ask for concessions on telephone connection, rental and call charges SLT however cannot make any changes due to the fact that prices changes are not approved by the TRC. The question is how does SLT make customers understand this fact and prevent them from switching to competitors.

As denoted, it was not complicated. But then we were divided into four teams. I was in the “Consumer” team. One other was TRC and the other was SLT and the fourth – eh… I don’t remember. Almost all teams had at least one guy fluent with background information on TRC and SLT.

So we made a list consisting of the “ideal”, the “must have” and the “loss leader” or what we are prepared to forego. After 15-20 mins of discussion, the presentations were a grand success. SLT was of course diplomatic. The final result was a win-loose and compromise situation where TRC and the consumers won. Strange combination.

Anyway the catchiest part was when the lecturer mentioned how we can use time as weapon for negotiation. For instance let’s take an institute which is not air-conditioned. Suppose students request for air-conditioning the management could negotiate with them that the matter would be brought to light in six months time. They could then continue this for a few more semesters until it is time for students to graduate. Then the institute sort of wins. This was now getting most of the people boiling up and after an outbreak of contrary argument the lecture was finally dismissed!

LECTURE NOTES

I am learning now to sit down quietly and I am hearing things. Yes hearing but listening - I am not sure. Here are some of the notes I took down in class

Business communication - I’m kind of bored. It’s the chapter on negotiation. Its 9:00am. Class starts at 8:30 am and I was 5 mins late. I was called out 10 minutes after arriving to be given some snacks and milk for brunch. Why do people look so involved in the lesson? Dr. “her long name” thinks I’m not paying attention so I try to be more attentive. Sorry but it’s really hot these days. Wonder what mama is cooking for lunch but before that I will have to sit through quantitative methods – ah yes now that’d be good.

It’s 9:00am from the management module. I so far have not learnt anything new except the fact that the guy who spoke on social responsibility has very good speaking skills.
At the moment now S speaks non-stop about delegation. The lecturer is now asking whether it happens in the real world.
It’s a policy level decision – can senior mangers delegate authority and responsibility to lower levels?
In practical situations bosses secretly dislike smart and dynamic subordinates. It’s an insecurity issue. (I hope I never become a ceo like that)

Skills of a good manager
1. Conceptual
2. Analytical
3. Planning and organizing
4. Human-relation
5. Communication
6. Leadership – doesn’t that cover all that?
7. Technical?

Someone at the back now says that technical skills are equally important at all all levels and the lecturer of course disagrees.

Ok this may be interesting “we are moving from the fat organization to the fit
organization”. From specialization to generalization - wow some way to loose weight!

I think I like case study based learning 

Points to ponder
Is it practically possible to measure human performance?
Are appraisal systems accurate?
Are unions helpful to organizations?

Serendipity

They tell me: leave get away

Like as if she’s Dracula or something

I know that I am not the only one who dreams of a better land.

When are we going to taste some real leadership around here?

We need help but who can help us rise from the mess that we are in?

Well if we are looking around, it’s time we looked inside us

The feeling is feeling-less!