December 11, 2005
Final Reflection on Mgmt 250
Looking back on the class, there are many benefits I feel that I got from the it. My favorite part of the course was all the work we did with the career center. They really helped me to prepare myself for a real interview (through the mock interview situation), and showed me that my wardrobe needs to be updated with some more professional outfits. I also really enjoyed a lot of the hands on, interactive activities we did in class. They made the class a lot more interesting and not so bad to sit through. I also really liked how the class encouraged open discussion. Even though the discussion got heated some times, it was nice to hear differing opinions and see both sides of the argument. Overall, I ended up liking the class a lot more than I thought I would. I will be interested to see what MGMT 251 is like next semester.
December 10, 2005
The Dreaded Learning Plan...
I have to admit that I complained A LOT about the Learning Plan. I didn't really see much of a purpose to it. As I was reading through the copy of the second half of the Learning Plan that I turned in to Tracey to be edited, I realized that a recurring comment was "When?" More than half of my action steps didn't have dates and times attached to them. Once I added the dates, I realized that this Learning Plan may actually be useful. Since my goals are goals that I actually plan on completing at some point, I'm probably going to feel really bad if I don't accomplish them by the time I had written in my paper. Even though it was a pain to write, I think the Learning Plan will help to motivate me to complete the goals that I have set forth for myself over the next few years.
December 09, 2005
Discipline vs. Punishment
The other day in class we talked about whether there can be a difference between punishment and discipline. Although I mentioned it in class, I believe that there can be one without the other. Discipline is more like a warning to me. If an employee does something wrong, discipline can be used as a warning not to do that action again or else there will be punishment. Punishment is much more severe, and I think it should only be used in extreme cases when the employee knows that he/she is doing something wrong but does it anyway. It's important to follow through though with the punishment once an employee has already been disciplined or else employees will never take you seriously.
December 08, 2005
HR Simulation
I have to admit that at first, I was not a big fan of the HR Simulation project. As the quarters progressed and I began to understand how the system worked, it became sort of fun. I know that it isn't possible to be completely thorough in a computer simulation, but I felt as though many of the possible incidents were so much more complex than how they were explained. In the one incident with the two women who were up for promotion, my group chose not to promote either of them based on the fact that they weren't willing to dedicate more time to the job. However, they assumed that it was discrimination because they were women. We ended up with a lawsuit that might have been avoidable in real life if we had been able to explain our decision and the rationale behind it. Overall I wish the HR Simulation could have been more interactive.
Blogging
I forgot to mention it today in class, but one aspect of the class that I was disappointed with was this blogging. Although I think it's a great idea to encouarge extra discussion outside the classroom, I wish we had gotten some kind of feedback on it. I also like that we can comment on each other's blogs. However it feels like this is pointless if it's part of our grade, but most of the time, people don't write their entries until a day or two before they are due. I think that there should have been shorter deadlines. For example, have one or two blog entries due at the end of each week instead of having five due at the end of three or four weeks. Like I said before though, I think blogging is a good idea, but the requirements for blogging could be changed to make it more effective.
November 06, 2005
Jonah Creighton Case
In class on Thursday, we discussed the Jonah Creighton case. I wrote my paper for this case and I felt that I did a fairly good job recognizing Jonah's objectives. However, when we discussed them in class, one that was mentioned was that Jonah wanted to "change Coulding-Henson's culture". I completely disagreed with any of the remarks mentioning that Jonah wanted to create change in the company. All Jonah wanted to do was let employees know that the problem of discrimination existed. It seemed to me that he was more interested in raising awareness on the issue and then letting others with more power in the company go about actually changing the atmosphere of the hiring process. Jonah did not have the necessary confidence to bring about change in the company. I thought that overall, Jonah’s objectives were about awareness, not action.
November 05, 2005
Evaluations for HR Simulation
I realized on Wednesday that the individual evaluations of our group members are due on Tuesday. What I read that really surprised me is that they are all going to be read by everyone. Can we really expect someone to express their honest opinion about how another group member is performing, knowing that he/she is going to read it and KNOW who wrote it? I think it is completely unfair for me to have to submit all of my evaluations to our group leader, have her read all of them, and then she lets us all know what they say. I am not comfortable at all with this. It is too confrontational and I think that all it will do is create tension between group members.