Archives for the Month of October 2006 on Christopher Lambert's Online Journal
For a class teaching about Human Resource skills and management...
I don't understand how we can take the HR simulation seriously when those in charge of it have made so many egregious mistakes. Two of the biggest problems are that communication has only been consistent in the fact that it's last-minute, and the decisions handed down to us seem arbitrary and of the tone "deal with it".
The late announcement of teams and team leaders, that there was no time set aside in class for initial team discussion, and the confusion on how to pick up our results are three more serious lapses in communication.
Fall break was handled poorly; no one said results weren't being e-mailed and that a hard copy was available in PBL. Even if the information was made available, many students had already left campus for fall break. The explanation e-mail from Professor Poonamalle came Monday the 23rd. Not to be overlooked, the only reason for the e-mail was because someone took the time to e-mail her and ask what was going on. I'm afraid there wouldn't have been any contact if an initial query hadn't been sent out.
It took until Saturday to receive an e-mail that results could not be picked up on Friday the 27th.
I've heard horror stories from several teams about how severe errors have been made in data entry.
Here's an e-mail one of my team members sent to Professor Poonamallee explaining the errors in our 4th quarter results:
"Professor Poonamallee,
I picked up the results for our team today, and they are completely
wrong as there were several errors when the data was inputted. Here are
the highlights:
- Our budget planning form states that we have raised costs for the
safety program to $22,000. The output states that they are $15,000.
- Our promotion training was $1,000, but the output says they are $15,000.
- Our management training was $15,000, but the output says they are
$25,000.
- Our decision form states that we are keeping fringe benefits the same,
at 22.3, but the output shows us as increasing them to 23.1
- The incident expense of $10,000 was not charged to our budget.
- Our wage increase was calculated as $169,485, but the output says they
are $122,000. I don't know if the problem is on our end or yours, but I
would like an explanation for this large discrepancy.
- Along the same line, I would to see how our hiring costs were
calculated for the output results, as there is an $18,000 discrepancy.
- The output states that the CEO is very unhappy that we exceeded our
budget, but clearly this is a result of the copious amount of errors in
data entry. Our budget form shows us as being under budget.
- The same goes for the CEO being upset about our decision for Incident
D - but of course we didn't follow Incident D.
I believe those are all the errors, although there may be more. Our
results need to be re-entered into the system so we can go forward with
our annual report and decisions for the next quarter."
I don't understand how that happens. If it was a mistake on our part, why is there no explanation for what we did wrong that warrants a complete change in our decisions? Why should we spend the time and effort of making decisions if they're going to be skewed with no way to correct the mistake?
Why do we put together a decision form, a budget form, a simulation journal and an incident report if they, and us in the "HR department", are not taken seriously?
Maybe the better question is this: if what we do is a joke to the administration, why should we take this class seriously?
What I have learned in class related to the blog assignment
Basically, my boss assigned me something due at midnight on Oct. 13th. And basically, I waited until 11:30pm Oct. 11th to begin.
What I have learned about getting work done in business:
-Do it early so there is time to review.
-Make it good.
-Ask for others' opinions to get an outside perspective.
-Do not wait until the last minute because you can't:
1. Review
2. Do your best
3. Ask for others' opinions
What I did for the blog:
-Did it late
-It is not as good as it could be
-There is no way I can ask someone to look over everything
According to the rubric of what I have learned about doing a good job, I did a bad job. I said I hoped to learn, and I did not. Now is my chance though.
Learning Plan
The learning plan assignment was interesting. While I hated it, I liked it. But the hate wins out.
While it is provoking and intriguing, it is annoying. (I would write annoying in capital letters, but I do not think that that is blog-assignment appropriate. Know, though, that I want to write "annoying" in capital letters.)
The double-edged sword analogy works for this.
The double-edged sword analogy: both sides of the blade can cut which is a problem when blocking an overhead slash because a hand is needed to support the upper-edge of the blade. Hence, in order to stop from being killed, the warrior has to injure himself.
Because each person has arrived at different conclusions from all the self-analysis work we have done, the learning plan has to target a wide variety of topics in order to draw out emotion from each student. This way everyone has a topic that really hit home for them. But, because there is so much, it is almost too much. I wanted to talk about my strengths and weaknesses a lot more, but I couldn't because I had 4930850928 other things to touch upon. For me, the assigment ended up uneven. Half of it I wrote really well, the other half, I did not care. I already had written so much, I lost interest.
I understand why it is how it is, but I still hated doing it. It does its job, though.
HR Simulation
My opinion on the HR Simulation is very simple: I like it. I like how it is a long-run experiment. I like that the decisions matter. And I like my team.
Everyone on the team communicates well. And instead of only referring to them as "the team", out of respect, I should name them.
Team Wyndham:
Pete Berke
Vitaliy Neyman
Vignesh Raghunath
Robert Skuski
When we pick our own teams for 2nd semester, I recommend trying to get any of the four on your team. All of them have a fantastic ethic and are not only timely but turn in quality work. Everything we talk about in class when it comes to working well as a team (such as communication and praise and respecting each other) is there.
We all believe our team will be the best. The best part: we should be.
About that whole time-management thing
Here I am again back at the "Last Minute Theatre". Today, I, Chris Lambert, am going to perform for all you fine spectators, four, count 'em, four blogs. And, as a bonus because I love it here so much, two comments. Or is it three?
Note to Meredith--this doesn't count for anything. It's for me to laugh at. And anyone else if they happen to find it more funny than sad.