Entries in the Category "MGMT 250"
MGMT250 - Final Post
This marks the end of the semester and my final post in the Management 250 blog.
I must admit, I was quite skeptical of the premise of the course at least a month into the semester; however, I have warmed up to the purpose of it. If I had to say I've only taken away one thing from the class, it would be the bragging rights that come with being involved in a very unique program that comes closer to simulating the workplace than anything I've ever seen before. Interviewers love that.
However, I'd like to say that I did learn more from the class. While my opinions on many issues have not changed about business issues, it is important to know the reasoning behind these "new-age" management techniques, such as compensation issues and performance reviews, in order to make an informed decision at the workplace. For this, I appreciate the content of the course.
MGMT250 - The Performance Review
The performance review is undoubtedly an important part of the employer-employee relationship. But which kind of performance review is the best to use?
In the HR simulation, we were given an incident where we were charged to determine exactly which performance review is the best.
There are two main formats to use: a multiple-choice type questionnaire or more free-form essay format. There are advantages and disadvantages to both formats. While an essay format may seem to be the better format since it allows for the most qualitative input, it may be impossible to compare different employees with such a format. A multiple-choice questionnaire allows for scoring each candidate objectively, but may miss certain qualities of an employee that are not covered by the questions.
In light of the options, we decided to opt for an essay-based format. While the comparison advantages of multiple-choice formats are great, we felt that the scenario did not necessarily call for the comparison between employees; rather, it is more important to evaluate the employee's performance in relation to his or her own goals.
MGMT 250 - Tom Mendola
In MGMT250 we reviewed "The Tom Mendola Case," a scenario where a young worker is not being motivated in a machine shop. He comes from a family of hardship where he must work to support them. However, while in the first few weeks he is eager to learn and works hard, after he learns the job, his productivity drops. Twice he has requested to be transferred to a different task, twice this has been granted, and twice his job productivity has dipped. When the supervisor confronts Tom, he complains about his family's situation and states that he needs the job. What should the company do?
This is a hard predicament to answer; however, in this situation I think it is important for the company to be as objective as possible in evaluating the worker and nothing else. Nowhere in the decision on whether to keep him or fire him should the fact that he needs the job come into play. With that in mind, I think that Tom needs to be taught a lesson that he needs to work harder next time, and perhaps the pain of losing his job will send a clear message.
MGMT 250 - HR Simulation Debrief
Last week in class, Professor Poonamallee came in to speak with us about the results of the HR simulation. Our company, Penguin Beverage, overall finished at least in the top 50% of all companies in our industry, and received an award for highest safety and quality metrics.
It is interesting to compare the strategies of the first year and the second, as well as their results. We had very restrained spending habits in the first year, leading to poor results. Conversely, we pulled out all the stops and spent the most we possibly could on all possible programs, and our results flourished.
Does this reflect reality? We never can be sure, but it's probably best to err on the side of caution and say that in this simulation, financial restraint was more or less punished while teams who squandered their money were rewarded. This bodes poorly for the course, since good business sense means every bit as much financial restraint as it does paying attention to employee morale.
MGMT250 - Incentive Process
Conventional wisdom states that if one pays the worker more, the worker will be more productive. Conversely, the Management 250 course teaches us that this wisdom is not necessarily true and that there are more angles to the issue. This seems to hold true when different office environments are compared; i.e., the worker in the friendly environment may produce more than the worker in the hostile environment.
On the other hand, there are some industries where the incentive process is only carried out through direct compensation. Take for example law firms. These are very fast-paced, high-stress environments where lawyers are paid well for working long, hard hours. While the attorney may not have very high morale, productivity does not necessarily suffer as a result: they are kept in check through. In other professions such as accounting, this model may not be executable because the worker with less education perhaps has more places to go than the average lawyer who gets a chance to work in a big law firm.
MGMT250: Success!
That battery of interviews I had with two of the Big Four accounting firms in September have finally paid off. I interviewed with Deloitte and PricewaterhouseCoopers at the Career Center after attending the Meet the Accountants breakfast. Spots for these interviews were extremely competitive as there were only around eight spots per company.
I first interviewed with the tax department of one of the Big Four, with a man who was a senior partner. He held a law degree, which intrigued me, because I was originally planning on attending law school after graduation. He had much advice to give me as a lawyer with an accounting degree, telling me about the doors that this combination could open. When I walked out of that interview, I felt very confident that I would receive a callback.
The day immediately following, I had to get up early for my interview with another Big Four firm. I threw on my suit, neglected to shave, and overall felt very emotionally unprepared for the interview. Thankfully, this company did not ask any nonsensical behavioral interview questions, to my great relief. The interview was restricted exclusively to things that mattered, such as my qualifications, experience and the details about the job at stake. When I left that interview room, I was not confident at all and essentially wrote off employment at that company.
Almost a month had passed when I received an email from the second company, inviting me to come downtown for an office visit. Yes, this was the fabled "second interview," and I was extremely excited and astonished. I had not received any word from the first company, the one who surely would give me an offer. Determined not to repeat my first mistakes of unpreparedness at an interview, I decided to obsess over the details of the interview, arrive excessively early, and brush up on those accursed behavior interview questions.
When I arrived, I interviewed with one of the managing partners, who was very familiar with one of my co-workers at my current job who had previously been employed at this firm. We talked about everything from tax law to golf, and had a good time. We had an enjoyable enough time that we did not realize it when the time deadline came and passed.
I also interviewed with a director of tax who was very impressed at my description of the MGMT250 concept and program. Essentially, I did nothing but detail the inner workings of the HR simulation related it to real-life work situations. I believe I impressed the man here as well.
After the interviews were complete, the interview candidates and accounting staff enjoyed some fine dining at a fancy restaurant across the street. I could not believe that they would spend such money on internship candidates; but then again, these companies believe that employees are their greatest asset.
I was informed of the deadline for their internship decisions, and called the office on that day. They offered me a summer internship position! I am excited and looking forward to working for one of the greatest accounting firms in the world over the summer.
MGMT250 - The Interview and MGMT250
When trying to battle the bane of my existence that is the behavioral interview, I often find myself using examples directly from Management class. When an interviewer hears about the unique nature of the MGMT250/251 sequence, he or she usually becomes intrigued enough to inquire further about the class, thus distracting attention away to the list of awful, awful questions in front of the interviewer.
The HR simulation is a particular favorite answer to the nonsensical behavioral questions that involve "leadership skills." The idea of a class where four students are grouped together and given an objective with no prior experience is an unprecedented one in the business school setting. While I truly despised the fact that I was not given enough background on the simulation to simply jump right in, I now realize that this kind of practice is quite an accurate simulation of the way the real-world work environment works - many times, you will be assigned to a team with an objective but with no road map to get there. That's the job of the team - to find out how to achieve the goal. Using the resources at our disposal: i.e., the textbook and the "CEO," we were able to discover on our own what we were to do to complete our assignments. Interviewers love that.
MGMT250 - The interview
In October, I interviewed with several accounting firms, seeking a summer internship. The primary focus of these interviews were largely behavioral; they asked such questions as, "Tell me about a situation where you were unable to solve a complex problem," or "Describe a leadership experience of yours where you had to overcome large differences in a group." Every time I hear one of these questions, I am reminded how much I despise behavioral interviews. They are devious, underhanded ways to test an interviewee's ability to make up nonsense and exaggerated stories on the spot. They serve no real purpose to the interviewee except to put him or her on the defensive, and serve no purpose to the interviewer but to see if the other can remain communicative and professional on the other side of the table.
When I walk into an interview, I expect nothing less than to be interviewed about my credentials and real experiences, without having to answer nonsensical questions about my problem-solving experience. Frankly, when an interviewer does not address my work and school experience directly, I am insulted. Having to communicate my experience through a series of answers to irrelevant questions is not my idea of an equitable interview experience.
MGMT250 10/30 - Ethics
We had a class discussion today about ethics. This topic has only recently begun to play a part in management education after the emergence of large corporate scandals that have shaken the public's faith in big business. Prior to the 1990s, ethics were largely unspoken guidelines that were generally accepted across all industries. While violations of this code did happen, as they always will, they only reached a breaking point in the late 1990s and the early 2000s, causing the government to step in. Correspondingly, more pressure was placed on institutions of higher education such as business schools to make a better effort to instill ethics in their students. Thus, we are taught such things in management class.
The ethical question presented to the class that was of most interest to me was this: "Would you follow your boss to another company if you were asked?" To me, this does not seem like it violates any ethical principles. I think my answer would likely be different if the position I held were more important than an internship position. I can say from personal experience that interns are not valued much by many companies since their tenures within the company are very limited.
Most companies do not invest in their interns nor do they expect much from them. There are two primary purposes of an intern position within a company: one, to provide semiskilled labor at a very reduced cost, and two, to give back to the community by allowing students to gain practical experience. The second purpose of offering an internship can often lead to a direct hire once the intern has graduated college. While it is often desirable for a company to hire an intern because he or she is automatically much more knowledgeable about the company than an outsider would be, it is certainly not required or even expected of the intern in many cases. The first purpose alone, cheap labor, makes an internship program worthwhile to the company.
In a different situation, where the company has made a significant investment into an employee's training, the answer to this question would be different. The company invests in the improvement of your skills; in return, it expects you to provide it with value-adding work. Should you not return the favor, it would be considered unethical; not giving back to the company could even be considered the theft of knowledge.
MGMT250 10/27 - The burden of leadership
What is expected from a leader? This is a question that must be asked in any team setting, especially in the business world. In the immediate situation, our HR simulation group, it is a very relevant question that I ask myself every time we meet. Since I was chosen by "upper management" to be the official team leader, I have 'divine right' to lead. However, this mandate is ambiguous at best because of the lack of guidelines and a lack of real, concrete authority given to the team leader.
Our particular group is very a very collegiate, collaborative group with no real hierarchical structure. Because I have no concrete authority, I choose not to portray myself as the authority figure in most cases. Since I must rely upon other group members to do their part to complete the requirements demanded of us, I must allow a certain degree of flexiblity in the methods or data sets that they use to do their jobs. My tendency to micro-manage people's activities is apparent to me every meeting, and I do my best to repress it. The drawback is that I feel as if I am not in control of the team; but one finds it hard to question the structure of a team that consistently produces results in a timely manner.
MGMT 250 - Wage Incentives
In class on Wednesday we broke up according to desired profession and discussed how incentives could benefit our individual desires. Many groups such as sales and marketing teams were able to suggest a commission program; however, other teams such as management and my own accounting group were left with more of a quandary. Our jobs are very qualitative and have no quantifiable output which can be measured. Therefore, no bonus based on output can be given. The solution to this question is a subjective bonus given out by the boss or a committee formed by the boss to the most productive employees of the year. The supervisor or the committee will determine by vote or subjective selection the employees to receive a bonus.
MGMT250 - First quarter decisions have been made.
Unfortunately, it appears that this entry never made it into the system, so I must write it again.
Our team met on Tuesday evening once again to discuss our strategy and decisions for the first quarter. The criteria to discuss largely entailed deciding which programs to enact and wage setting strategies.
We decided in the outset that promotions would be made whenever possible, and whenever an employee is promoted from levels 2 through 4, an employee from the lower level will be promoted to replace him or her. This results in greatly reduced cost, since hiring a new worker is much more expensive. We made zero hires at levels 2-5, and 63 hires at level 1.
We determined that our long-term strategy with respect to wages and fringe benefits would be a complex one with some amount of risk. Since fringe benefits only affect the HR department's budget during the first quarter of implementation, we decided that the most effective strategy for dealing with fringe benefits would be to raise them in one lump sum during the first quarter and hold them constant for the remainder of the year. Since fringe benefits are priced as a percentage of wages, we also concluded that it would be most cost-efficient to do this before raising wages at all. Therefore, we decided that in order to bring fringe benefits up to an acceptable level for the year we would incur a budget overrun of approximately $100,000, with no allocation to wage raises.
We are confident that our strategy will be a successful one and look forward to receiving the results of the first quarter.
MGMT250 - The HR Simulation saga continues...
On Wednesday, our team convened once again to determine company actions for the first quarter. It has now become clear to me that the lack of thorough introduction to this project is deliberate -- it is up to our team to determine how we complete this project. What seemed before to be a simple case of negligence seems to be a wise move when one views this project in the big picture. While our team still becomes frustrated at certain junctures, it seems that the more we work on the project, the more quickly we understand the tasks at hand and the strategy to take. The professor responds to emails in a very timely fashion; without this resource, we would surely be in a much more precarious situation.
MGMT250 9/25 - Team Assignment and HR Simulation
Last week we received our team assignments and began work on the project. I was chosen as the team leader. Overall, I am quite pleased with the team assignments; all our group members seem very capable and willing to contribute. We had our first few team meetings last week in order to complete our team plan. We did get off to a slow start while we all attempted to fully understand the task we had to do; but once we were all ready to work, things went very smoothly. In a few hours we completed our plan in full. Each member assumed a distinctive role in this process: one contributed an idea, another refined it, while the other two formulated it into words. This was a positive experience and I am looking forward to further collaboration.
MGMT250 9/17 - Meyers-Briggs
Today I took the Meyers-Briggs inventory. This is not the first time I have taken such a personality assessment; in fact, I have taken the MBTI before, though I can't remember what the result was.
It was interesting how the pattern of questions played out. No doubt the questions that were the same format directly determine the values at least one of the four categories. One of these such types asked questions about schedules - there must have been at least ten questions that more or less directly asked whether the test-taker preferred using a schedule or leaving the day unplanned. I thought multiple questions on this subject was unnecessary since I consistently answered all of them the same way. The other questions seemed to be about friendship and probes how one interacts in a social scenario. We shall see how the results pan out.
MGMT250 - First Post
Here marks the beginning of a bonanza of class-related blog posts as I begin to author the second such entry in this blog.
Management 250 is a class I have heard mixed feelings about from various aquaintances. Some find it too vague in its goals; others found it a concrete, helpful experience that truly assisted them in their interview and job-search experiences.
I hope I will be able to appreciate the material that this course has to offer despite being further along in this job process than others. I have interviewed for several positions and have obtained two internships (I am working for one such position now.) Being involved with organizations on campus such as Beta Alpha Psi encourages and often demands that resumes be critiqued and polished before attending certain functions.
Hopefully I will be able to benefit from the team-building exercises. I feel I sometimes have trouble working in a team with people, because frankly, my team-mates always seem to be the ones in the class who are least likely to work. Accordingly, I end up shouldering most of the burden in order to assure myself, and by sheer residual effect the other members of the group, a good grade. But alas, perhaps I will be able to learn to better motivate and delegate in teamwork.