Archives for the Month of November 2005 on Cory Rinkes's Online Journal
Training Methods
The training of new employees is a very important part of an efficient, productive company. In class we spent a lot of time in small groups talking about a new and innovative way to train new employees. While this project was fun I feel that it was time that could have been spent in a more productive way. Some of the ideas in class were fairly impossible and we're voted for simply because they sounded like fun. This wouldn't bother me if it wasn't for the fact that it was for bonus points that I could really use. I like the idea of awarding participation bonus points in class, but maybe have it done in a voting system that isn't so flawed.
Learning Plan
The Learning Plan is a huge headache. As much is I feel capable of answering all of the questions asked in the paper, it feels near possible to answer the questions in a smooth, flowing paper with our own creativity thrown in here and there. Hopefully I will be able to pull it together better in the final draft for my grades sake, but I also don't like how the initial draft is worth more points that the other two. In the original draft I didn't know really what the grader was looking for on this paper that I barely knew how to write in the first place. This is the first paper I have ever written in which I have the edit it in order to cut pages, as compared to usually have to stretch every last word to make it long enough.
Harrah's Case
Incentives in a workplace is a very touchy, complicated subject. The more I learn about it, the more i realize that employees are very fickle, and very hard to determine what they are going to do. In the Harrah's case they implented a very effective incentive plan, but nothing good lasts forever. I thought that they could keep a group incentive plan with smaller teams and biased evaluations. This is due to the fact that I feel that competition is one of mankinds best natural incentives. The discussion in class didn't really seem to go anywhere though. It seemed that it was more about thinking about new, fun incentive plans instead of worrying about plans that would actually work effectively.
Ethics Discussion
I was very interested in the ethics decision in class on November 1st. Before I thought of ethics as just not lying and being an overall good person, but the discussion added even more to that. The part that intrigued me most was how after accepting one position with a company, it very bad to quit that job for a position you wanted more. It especially hit me when they mentioned that it will make that company think again before hiring more people from my school if I would do that. I guess this fact does make sense to me, but I felt it was a good conversation to have to remind everyone that our actions affect a lot of people
HR Simulation Part 2
As our Human Resources simulation continues on I really feel that I am getting a better understanding of how our team's decisions affect the computer that the decisions are put in to. I also feel that the computer is very close to what would happen in real life. The only problem I could see is that now it feels like our budget is so high for the second year that we can do anything that we want. It almost seems unrealistic that a human resources department would be alloteed $16 million dollars. But I guess it is our job to make sure our money is put to the best use possible.