Work Organisation and Stress - Personal Statement Example

I am Wang YiFei, born on January 21st 1993 ID No. 61030319930121381X. I would like to apply for a placement in your establishment after having gained substantial expertise and experience in my current working environment. I believe that I am going to deliver the best at the workplace and will always work towards steering the organization towards achieving its goals and objectives. Currently, I am working for Baoji MeiSong electric appliance company ltd. I have been an employee at the organization since September 10th, 2012 until now. At the firm, I work as a sales assistant. While at the organisation, I have gained substantial experience in handling customer orders and responding to customer needs. I have learnt that the serving the customer and attaining customer satisfaction should be the first priority of any organisation that intends to attain competitive advantage in any industry. Apparently, the customer always has the final say when it comes to making the decision regarding whether to purchase a product or not. At the organisation, I have gained significant experience pertaining the handling of customers. It is evident that having all the knowledge regarding the functioning of a product is imperative to any sales assistant that intends to sell the goods. Since I have been handling electronic goods, the first step towards ensuring that I offered good services to customers entailed understanding the functioning and operation of the electrical appliances. From my experience, I have realised that customers find it difficult to operate an electrical appliance soon after making its purchase. Therefore, they seek advice on a regular basis regarding the proper handling of the appliances. Even though there are manuals that provide the guidelines for operating the appliances, most of the customers find it really difficult to peruse through and understand their manuals. They have the urge of using the product immediately following its purchase. Consequently, they require constant guidance from the sales personnel at the retail store. Handling payments is one of the areas that I have gained significant experience at my current workplace. Apparently, there are numerous challenges that sales personnel encounter in matters regarding the handling of payments. There are situations whereby customers either produce fake notes or order for items at a certain price then end up producing a less than agreed-upon price. As a solution to the challenge, the organisation recommended the handling of payments by card or cash since there was a scenario whereby one customer handed an open cheque that ended up bouncing. However, it is important to be careful while handling cash payments by understanding the originality signs embedded within the notes to avoid incidences of exchanging electrical goods with fake notes. Helping customers to find the goods that they want is the other important aspect that I have learnt during my stay at the organisation. It is evident that an employee would opt to leave without purchasing the product if the customer is unable to find the exact product that she/he wants. In most cases, customers approach the store with a fixed mind regarding the type of the product that they intend to purchase. It is unfortunate that the store does not have some of the products in some cases. However, depending on the patience of the customer, I would request him/her to wait for a little while as I make proper arrangements for the delivery of the product in question. However, in cases whereby the company does not have the product, I would recommend the customer to an alternative electrical appliance that performs better than the required product. In order to achieve the objective, it is imperative that the sales person should have the contacts of all the other stores and distributors of the product so as to request them immediately after receiving a request from the customer. As a sales person, I also learnt that some manufacturers of the electrical appliances attach discounts and promotions on some of their products. Therefore, my role entails advising customers about the existence of such products to relieve the customers off the additional spending burden that they could have spent had they not had the knowledge. By so doing, customers develop a positive attitude towards the organisation since they develop the feeling that the employees are concerned about their financial wellbeing. As a sales person, I also learnt that the display of goods speaks a lot about the products that the store intends to sell to customers. For instance, it is proper to use an attractive display for the highly-reputed products so that customers can feel that the products delivered by the firm are of good quality. The arrangement of deliveries and customer orders is the final experience that I gained while at the workplace. I learnt that it is proper to arrange for the deliveries based on the customer orders so as to ensure that the delivery of the products depends on the position of the customer requests. Based on the significant experience that I have gained from the company as a sales assistant, I believe that I will play a pivotal role in your organisation when you consider me for the placement. I will work to improve the performance of the organisation in several ways. The experience that I have gained at the establishment has made me to understand that managing employee stress at the organisation is pivotal towards improving the performance of the company. Apparently, there are different causes of stress. However, on the part of the employees, stress arises when the employee engages in an act that is contrary to the expectations or objectives of the organisation (Leka et al. 2003). A good example is a situation whereby the employee does not provide the required customer service in process of handling a customer order. Stress arises when the customer presents the complaint to the sales manager. In the event that the latter individual fails to handle the employee in the right manner, his/her actions frustrate the employee thus leaving him/her to be stressed. As an employee in your organisation, I will ensure that I extend beyond the delivery of normal customer service since I have gained a lot of experience in the sector. I also understand that poor organisation of work in conjunction with an ineffective job design result in work stress (Leka et al. 2003). The improper work organisation may compel one employee to handle a lot of tasks on a single day whereas others have little to do. As an experienced sales assistant, I would provide the recommendations of work division and specialisation to avert employee stress caused by a disorganised work environment. With reference to my current working environment, I have come to learn that employee stress may emanate from an improper work content or context. With respect to the work content, some of the causes of stress include a monotonous, meaningless, under-stimulating, unpleasant and aversive tasks. Stress also arises when the tasks do not portray any variety. With respect to the workload, I have also learnt that having too little or too much to do yields stress on the part of the employee. Moreover, the decision of the employer to subject the employee to significant pressure may also cause the worker to be stressed up. Moreover, inflexible and strict working hours also do not provide a favourable working environment for the employee. Some of the stress causes pertaining working hours include unpredictable and long working hours, and poorly designed shift systems. As an employee, I feel relaxed and comfortable whenever the organisation seeks my opinions in making its decisions rather than when I feel excluded. Therefore, reduced or lack of participation in the decision-making process of the organisation may also yield stress on the employee. As a sales assistant, I have also learnt about several causes of stress that relate to the job context. The stress factors that relate to career development, pay and status encompass job insecurity and the unavailability of any prospects related to promotion. Over-promotion and under-promotion and being allocated to handle ‘low social profile’ jobs may also stress the employee. Moreover, unfair systems that evaluate the performance of the employees and situations whereby an employee is either over-skilled or under-skilled for the job may also stress the employee. Moreover, incidences whereby the employee has unclear or conflicting roles at the organisation also yield stress on the part of the employee. I have also learnt that it is not proper for the organisation to assign everyone’s responsibility to one person since the act stresses the employee (Leka et al. 2003). Stress emanates in such situations since the individual ends up dealing with other people’s problems in most cases. From the experience that I have had at the workplace as a sales assistant, I have also learnt that poor interpersonal relationships cause stress to the employees. They may arise in the form of unsupportive, inconsiderate or inadequate supervision. Situations whereby there are poor relationships between the employee and co-workers also stress the employee. Harassing the employee or allocating work in isolation also stress him/her. I have also learnt that poor communication and poor leadership also stress the employees since they result in the absence of clarity pertaining the structure and objectives of the organisation (Conrad 2014). Maintaining a balance between the work and home environment may also stress the employee thereby impacting negatively on his/her performance at the workplace. Besides gaining an in-depth understanding of the problems that employees face at the workplace, the experience that I have gained has enabled me to deal with the problems thereby boosting my morale at the workplace thus improving my performance and that of the organisation. From the expertise that I have learnt as an employee, it is proper to recommend the primary, secondary and tertiary stress prevention approaches that would prevent stress incidences among the employees. The result would be an improvement in the performance of the employees that would ultimately improve the performance of the organisation. Setting a clear organisation structure and goals is the first step towards averting stress. Therefore, I would recommend that the employer should provide a clear organisation structure and objectives to define the scope of the employees regarding their roles at the workplace. The organisation can also improve its performance by recruiting well-trained and skilled employees to avert stress caused by allocating roles to under-skilled employees. It is also imperative that there should be on-the-job training and supervision for the employees to increase their skills and prevent mistakes that lead to stress. I also recommend that the organisation should have clear job descriptions to ensure that the recruited employee understands and performs their roles based on the job descriptions. It is also imperative for the managers to communicate positively to the employees to ensure that they have heard their concerns and complaints. The final strategy of improving the organisational performance entails improving the social environment by ensuring that there is teamwork and socialising at the workplace. Based on the experience that I have, I am certain that I will fit in the position if given a chance in your workplace. I believe that I will apply and implement both the theoretical and practical skills to improve customer service and my productivity at the workplace thereby improving the performance of the organisation. Reference List Conrad, D 2014, ‘Workplace Communication Problems: Inquiries by Employees and Applicable Solutions’, Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, vol. 5, no.4, pp. 105-116. Leka, S, Griffiths, A & Cox, T 2003, ‘Work Organisation and Stress’, Protecting Workers’ Health Series No 3, World Health Organisation. Read More