Generational Differences in an Aging Workforce - Essay Example

Journal entry Chapter 4 - Generational differences in an aging workforce. My personal thought on this about generational differences is that it is very theoretical no longer reflect current reality. Theoretical because it only tells the events for a specific time span such as the 1980-2001 period, its population and key events and does not really hold much significance now. Also, its hypothesis that the workforce may eventually be composed of elderly people no longer reflects reality considering the influx of young immigrants in America. These immigrants composed of both highly skilled and low skilled who are eager to work in the US. This people could fill in any labor shortage in the future thus defeating the hypothesis the text of the book that in the future, our workforce may be composed of old people. There are just a lot of people who do not have a job that it will no longer be necessary to employ the aged in the future. Journal entry 2: Chapter 5 - Big Five profile To put my reaction in perspective, I need to mention my scores when I took the Big Five Assessment. The result was quite accurate. I score a nine in Extraversion which meant that I am basically a sociable person. I also scored an eight in Emotional Stability which suggests that I am emotionally competent to get a job done. I also scored a nine in Agreeableness which meant that I can work well with others and lastly, I scored well in Openness with a nine to cap the assessment. I only scored an eight in Conscientiousness. The Big Five profile assessment is simple and straightforward and somehow gives us a ballpark of our personality. My initial reaction after taking the assessment was curiosity and was quite glad with the result because it somehow matches what I think my personality is. But when I took a hard look at the method of assessment, I also became cautious because I just find it too simple to be able to determine my personality traits are. I am not dismissing it but I just find it too simplistic. I thought that this could be more “convincing” if the Big Five profiling could be complemented by other psychometric tests to validate and cross-check its result. Still, the assessment provided me an immediate insight of what my personality could be. Journal entry 3: Chapter 6 In this exercise, I scored 32 which hovered in the category of Moderate engagement. Again, I find the questions were too generalized and do not really tell my real level of engagement in my studies. For example, what does moderate engagement exactly mean? That I am partially interested and partially not? Or only give my half-best in my studies? The assessment is asking the wrong questions about what my exact feelings and thoughts about studies. It is because there are subjects that I am really interested in that I enjoy studying them even if I am not in class. These subjects seems effortless to me and thus, “time flies when I am studying”. But there are also subjects that I am not interested in. These subjects are quite a drag and effort for me to study and it takes tremendous amount of effort for me just to study. And even when I study them, it is just for compliance and to pass the subject. The factors that makes a subject engaging or not were also not factored in. That could include a myriad of factors such as how they are taught, aptitude of the student, tools using in teaching them etch that could really tell the student’s engagement in his or her studies. Also, I find the questions in the assessment repetitive. They are basically asking the same questions ony that they are rephrased to confirm answers. Journal entry 4: Chapter 7 In the exercise of Measuring Perceived Fair Interpersonal Treatment, I scored 36 which suggest that I was in hovered in as a moderately fair organization. It was an internship job so I cannot complain and I had a pretty good experience working in that organization. And perhaps this perception is influenced by my expectation of the organization that I will have a good experience working there which I had. Victor Vroom’s Expectancy theory of motivation is more popularly known in modern management as “carrot and yardstick” motivation. This motivational theory posits that employees performance is based on assumption that employees elect a certain behavior in an organisation with the expectation of maximising pleasure and minimising pain. According to this theory, employees generally elect a course of action that will yield the greatest reward for the employee. If the expectancy of a certain employee is predisposed to a belief that a certain job can be done or in my case a pleasant one, the theory posits that such employee will be more motivated to work which happened to me because I enjoyed my stay there. If the job requires a high level of performance whose result can be gratifying to the employee, it is expected that the employee will put a premium on doing a good job and will act accordingly. I think in my case, it was a neophyte enthusiasm because it was my first time to work in a formal organization so I have to do my best. Relating this theory to my experience, I believe that this theory is sound and actually reflects real world situations. Journal entry 5: Chapter 8 Of all the assessment I took in this exercise, it is the Performance Feedback that I scored a high of a desire for feedback. It is perhaps reflective of my internal desire to get better both as person and in all things that I do. I also do not get onion skinned when people provide me with honest to goodness feedback with my performance and I also equally appreciate when people tell me that I did a good job when I really did well. I also believe that Performance Feedback is used in the real work setting where employees are provided feedback on how they did on their jobs that includes their areas of improvement and on their areas of strength. If done properly, Performance Feedback can raise the productivity of employees as it could facilitate high achievement among employees. It would also enable the people in an organization to perform their work to the best of their ability, meeting and perhaps exceeding targets and standards. I believe this is even done in school when teachers coaches us how to do better on our subjects. I believe that for Performance feedback to be more effective, it has be an on-going process between employee and manager where information is exchanged concerning the performance expected and the performance exhibited. Constructive feedback can praise good performance or correct poor performance and should always be tied to the performance standards. Read More