Personnel Management - Essay Example

Running Head: PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT Personnel Management – Unit Quizzes 2, 3 & 4 and Section # of Unit Quiz 1 Q1. What seven themes emerge from a study of human relations? Describe each one briefly. Human Relations means understanding the workforce better and developing programs to improve interpersonal interactions. There are seven themes necessary for effective human relations, which help in development of the employees as well as the organization. 1. Communication: It refers to any form of interaction among people at any level, be it verbal, non-verbal or even behavioral communication. 2. Self-awareness: It refers to knowing ourselves and implies that we understand the impact our behavior may have on other people around us. 3. Self-acceptance: It is the extent to which a person likes his own self and the level of self-confidence he possesses. It induces self-esteem in a person, necessary for effective human relations. 4. Motivation: It is one’s drive towards change, betterment and accomplishment. It may be internal or external. 5. Trust: It refers to believing in others and regarding their intentions as positive. Too little trust hampers human relations while too much of it may back fire. 6. Self-disclosure: It means sharing one’s plans, ideas and thoughts with one’s group mates. It is directly proportional to the level of trust within the team. 7. Conflict management: It is the way one approaches a conflict and tries to resolve it. Q4. List the three elements necessary for the construction of positive self-talk statements. Give three examples of such statements. Positive self-talk is a way of maintaining positivity in life and maintaining one’s self-esteem and confidence. It refers to every time we tell ourselves something good about us and try to boost our self-confidence. Whenever we face a challenge or a problem in life, no one can boost our morale better than we can ourselves. No matter how much people keep on telling us that we can do it, until our inner-voice tells us the same thing, the impact is close to zero. There are three basic elements that are necessary to make up a positive self-talk statement. Firstly, one needs to be very specific in his mind regarding the behavior that needs to be changed since the statement would be formulated accordingly. Secondly, one should use present tense and first-person pronoun, which would induce self confidence. Lastly, one should describe the positive outcomes to oneself to enhance motivation. Examples of positive self-talk are numerous. Some of the basic examples could be telling oneself “It is a very simple task and I can do it!”, “I am as capable as anyone else out there.”, “Everything might not be completely under my control, but that is perfectly OK!” Unit Quiz 2 Q2. Describe the impact your attitude has on your professional and personal relationships. Give an example. Attitudes and relationships go a long way hand in hand. It is the attitude of the person that shapes the various relationships one is in. Be it friends, family, acquaintances, co-workers or any other kind of relationship one would share with another person. Humans are social animals and they generally like to be treated nicely. The better one would behave with others, the more the relationships would prosper and vice versa. If one takes people for granted, people start disliking him and tend to stay away from him. People expect one to behave differently in personal and professional relationships. Personal relationships require more of love and care while professional relationships demand respect, objectivity and trust. For example, a person who tries to stay in touch, talks politely and remembers everybody’s birthdays is loved by more people than the one who does not do the same. Similarly, if one tends to randomly drop by at his colleagues’ desks just to say hi and spares a moment, he would be much more appreciated than the one who would not. Such simple deeds collectively shape one’s attitude and differentiate people from one another. In simple words, what goes around comes around. Q3. Identify five ways you can motivate yourself. Motivating oneself is a tricky job. Various factors work behind one’s level of motivation, including one’s self-confidence, self esteem and one’s ability to achieve that particular goal. One can achieve self motivation through many ways, some of which are discussed below. Firstly, one should set clear goals and plan ahead. It is human psyche to be motivated if things are better laid out in front of him. Secondly, one should always try to strike a balance in all aspects of life. Specially, a work-life balance is essential for a fulfilling life, which in turn fuels motivation. Thirdly, it is highly important to keep a track of your progress and to maintain a record. When one knows how much he has accomplished already, he is motivated to do more. Fourthly, one should reward himself after completing the task or a part of it, which should be pre-decided to induce motivation. E.g. a simple reward as watching one’s favorite movie on completion of task can motivate greatly. Lastly, one should think long-term. The task at hand might be difficult and uninteresting and may also seem useless but it might have immense positive effects on one’s life or career in the long-run. Unit Quiz 3 Q1. Explain your understanding of the Gerard Egan Total Person Insight. Gerard Egan Total Person Insight highlights the significance of one’s emotional balance. When a human baby is born, he is oblivious of the social norms and is fully expressive about his emotions. He cries when he has to, he smiles when he feels like; he shows anger when he is angry and laughs when he is happy. However, human society is a complex society and as a very complex set of norms. People expect one to act in a certain way in particular situations regardless of his personal feelings and thoughts and people learn to master this phenomenon with time and age. However, as Gerard Egan emphasizes in his Total Person Insight, that if people overly inhibit certain emotions while overly express the others, problems start surfacing in their life. These problems, usually emotional in nature, further lead to depression, anxiety and frustration and may lead to overly expressed anger or total seclusion. It may also affect one’s self esteem and can cause chronic effects. It is therefore suggested that one should not tend to over-do any emotion to that extent that returning back to a normal state becomes difficult or sometimes, next to impossible. Q4. Colin Powell says the day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. Do you agree or disagree with his point of view? Explain. The above statement is a very rightfully said statement by Mr. Colin Powell. It highlights some very important aspects of leadership and some extremely essential characteristics of a leader. Among many qualities of a leader, an essential characteristic is his ability to communicate with his subordinates (in this case the soldiers) effectively and efficiently. Significantly, this communication process has to be a two-way course or else it is not complete. A complete process of communication consists of following components, all of which are extremely essential for effective communication. A sender (in this case the leader) sends a message trough a medium to a receiver (in this case the soldiers). However, this is just one side of the picture or so to say one-way or half-way communication. The other, more significant half of this communication is the feedback that the sender receives back from the receiver of the initial message which tells whether the receiver has understood the original message correctly or not. One of the most important feedback in this case are the problems that the soldiers bring back to their leader, which signifies that they have enough faith in their leader that he would solve their problem (which is another crucial aspect of leadership). Therefore, if the soldiers stop brining their problems to the leaders, it does not mean that they do not have any problems any more. It would rather mean that he is not a good leader or that he is stopped leading them effectively. Unit Quiz 4 Q4. Explain the two illegal forms of sexual discrimination in the workplace, and give an example of each. Sexual discrimination is one of the common problems associated with the modern workplace. It is basically any behavior that is biased on the grounds of one’s gender. Although there are many forms of sexual discrimination, however some are so subtle and subjective that they cannot be deemed unlawful or illegal; however, there are some forms that have been declared illegal by many governments. One of them is marital discrimination. This is discriminating against a person based on one’s marital status. Many organizations prefer hiring single employees since they bear fewer responsibilities and can devote themselves to their job better. However, this creates an air of inequality and prejudice and therefore it is illegal. Another, more prevalent form of sexual discrimination is sexual harassment. Usually, the victims of this type of discrimination are women. One of its very common types is the “quid pro quo (something for something), i.e. to achieve a career goal, the person has to give in to some sexual desire of the supervisor. In case of rejection, the victim may lose the job or stay stagnant in the organization. Due to its severe consequences, it is made illegal by many governments. Q5. What are the four steps involved in breaking a negative habit or forming a positive habit? It is human nature to resist change. If the change is regarding one’s own personality, the resistance is even stronger. Forming or breaking a habit is therefore a very difficult take for anyone and it takes a lot of time and deliberation in order to do so. However, this can be made easy to various degrees if one has an action plan in mind. There are four basic steps that one must follow in order to create or change a habit. Firstly, one must clearly identify the change and gather all the required knowledge regarding the desired behavior. For example, if one needs to quit smoking, he should gather all the knowledge regarding the hazards of smoking and various ways and methods he can use to achieve his goal, etc. moreover, he needs to be completely convinced of the fact that he needs to change his habit or else he won’t be able to do so or would revert back to it soon. Once he is convince, he should start practicing the habit. He should be aware of the fact that he would encounter many problems initially but he must overcome them for the better good. Next, he should ask the people around him for their feedback about this change. If a person’s friends and family would support and encourage him to quit smoking, it would become much easier for him to do so. Lastly, he should reinforce his changed behavior. If he is successful in quitting, he should reward himself and if he failed in doing so, he should punish himself and try quitting again. References Crosby, F. J.; Stockdale, M. S.; Ropp, S. A. (2008). Sex discrimination in the workplace: multidisciplinary perspectives. Wiley-Blackwell. Northouse, P. G. (2009). Leadership: Theory and Practice. SAGE. Lauby, S. J. (2005). Motivating Employees. American Society for Training and Development. Reece, B. L.; Brandt, R.; Howie, K. F. (2010). Effective Human Relations: Interpersonal and Organizational Applications. Cengage Learning. Reddy, R. J. (2004). Personnel Management. APH Publishing. Scott, W. D. (2004). Increasing Human Efficiency in Business. Kessinger Publishing. Torrington, D.; Hall, L.; Taylor, S. (2008). Human Resource Management. Financial Times Prentice Hall. Werner, J. M.; DeSimone, R. L. (2008). Human Resource Development. Cengage Learning. Read More