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November 05, 2005
Ethical My A**
My understanding of ethics differed from the general consensus of the class. While I agreed that ethics differed from having good morals, I disagree that ethics explored the grey areas between the white and the black. Last year, I too had a curiosity for ethics and also regarded ethics as exploring the fine line between "good" and "bad" "things".
However, after taking Philosophy 205, an ethics course, I garnered that ethics was not doing the right thing--which was what Professor Powley had said. Ethics is often a "lose-lose" situation. The best example is the case of the mob boss. Suppose a mob boss came knocking on *your* door, having managed to hack through dorm security doors and somehow bypassing the many hidden security cameras on campus. The mob boss demands to know where your friend is hiding. Do you lie to the mob boss to save your friend, or do you give your friend up, sending him to certain doom? The "right thing to do" is to save your friend...indicative of good morals, or "social norms" as Powley put it. Ethically, however, neither choice is justifiable. Lying is wrong. Sending your friend to his death is wrong. While my professor in the ethics course highly disagreed with a "lesser of two evils" approach, this is what I have come to define ethics as. While not everything is ethically justifiable, go with the lesser of two evils. I must think this way otherwise I would have gone insane long ago. My battles with darth vader are over. I have become the evil I have sought to destroy! muahahahaha ^_^
Posted by jxw115 at 09:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
HR Again - Linear Relationships will not Help You in a 3D World
My previous post explained the relative benefits of linear correlations to the ultimate decisions made in our HR simulations. There is a severe disadvantage, however. We are missing multi-dimensional [so to speak] relationships. Thus, while we can see positive correlations between two variables, we miss the "ghost" variables. In such cases, non-correlated graphs, many of which had been discarded due to lack of significance, may indeed have correlation when three or more variables are considered. Currently, the graphs are only reinforcing what the team and I have already guessed with our instincts. Yes, increasing the quality budget will increase quality. Ok, that was obvious, and we can move on...right?
The most effective graphs however, do more than simply reinforce expectations. I want to look at a graph and say "wait a minute, this variable was what was impacting our stagnation in morale...Great! let's crack open a bottle of...Martinelli's Sparkling Apple Cider...and celebrate!" In the coming quarters I want to find those hidden variables affecting relationships. I sincerely hope it is just a matter of putting more variables on the same graph and more deeply analyzing the relationships. Otherwise it is time I review my high school math and find the proper graphs to expose multiple relationships within multiple variables.
Posted by jxw115 at 08:56 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Beating the Program: HR Simulation Ain't no Thang
none of your business *shoos you away with hands*
Yeah well I was wrong, there were far more variables than I had even begun to consider...
Fortunately, the HR simulation has NOT been a roller coaster ride. There were a few bumps here and there, but surely and sometimes slowly, we were steadily progressing on all levels. Over four quarters our grievances have dropped roughly 40 points, morale increased 14 points, quality increased from 20+ points, turnover decreased from 4 percentage points, and productivity increased from 15 points. All these trends are highly encouraging. Finding a relationship among those trends was key. As the grapher for my team, I created thirteen line graphs to establish some form of correlational evidence to follow the trends. While I cannot go into detail with my findings to avoid leaking company secrets ;) or inadvertent collusion, I must say the results were both expected and unanticipated. Data was far from significant in quarters 1, 2, and even 3. By quarter 3 we could establish whether certain factors had formed positive, negative, or non correlational relationships. Quarter 4, however, proved whether those relationships could be trusted or if they were consistent. This information will certainly be used with heavy consideration for our quarter 5 inputs--we will attempt further verification of our findings and use them to achieve our company goals in hopes of higher levels of success.
Posted by jxw115 at 08:37 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Harrah's Casino Summary Reflection
While other casinos attracted customers with “must-see” properties, Harrah’s chose to revolve its casinos around becoming a market-based company. Although company objectives have been clearly outlined, proper utilization of company human capital was not.For the most part, company and HR strategies are well aligned. The company’s primary objectives were to generate higher levels of revenue, solidifying its stance as a market/customer based company, and increase share of customers’ gaming budgets. On the other hand, HR strategy entailed creating a competitive environment among employees, hiring the right people which in turn lowers the turnover rate, employee development, and lastly, at the center of the HR plan, the reward incentive program. Lower turnover rates have indicated a strong positive correlation with morale, so as the turnover rates go down, morale will undoubtedly increase. A higher level of morale will reinforce the marketing-focused, customer-obsessed mindset Harrah’s values. Similarly, hiring the right people and developing employees, aside from lowering the turnover rate, will ensure that Harrah’s is run by personnel who can understand the company objective and who can work hard to reach it. Without a strong staff, it would be extremely difficult to increase any level of customer service, regardless of the incentive program. There really is no “misaligned” strategy here—none of the HR strategy directly conflicts with overall company interests. It could be said that the turnover rate in itself has no direct relation to generating revenues, or aiding customer relations. However, it does support factors like lowered absenteeism and morale which do have a direct impact.
Posted by jxw115 at 08:25 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Learning Plan
mmm....it is always nice to have plan. However, plans are useless if redundant, and such is the case with the learning plan. There was nothing I had written that I did not already know. This was not one of those "journeys" where I "discovered myself" as I wrote my learning plan. I seriously doubt I will ever look back, 5 years from now, to re-evaluate my position in life in comparison to my learning plan. Nonetheless, while the learning plan fails to achieve its main objective as a guide, it does, however, give me a chance to become more fluent in my interviewing "vocabulary". I had written a few anecdotes in my learning plan, and such stories will undoubtedly prove useful during a job interview. The plan has helped me organize my thoughts--which is indeed what a plan is supposed to do, but it has not helped me establish or clarify my long term goals in any way. Thus, while the learning plan was ultimately useless to me as a tool for the future, it has become quite the boon for me in the status quo.
Posted by jxw115 at 05:37 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
HR Update 10/26
Quarter 4 inputs were decided today. Aside from the usual programs, we invested heavily in Quality and Safety programs—which may impact our productivity levels negatively, but with Safety as one of our objectives, it was justifiable. No budget was allocated to Fringe Benefits, as we had already done so last quarter, and to address the concern of Internal Promotions resulting in hindrance of new ideas and different viewpoints, all higher levels employees were employed from the outside. Our previous decision to study Compensation Planning gave interesting results: we now know that tying compensation to performance should increase productivity in our firm. While it is clear that we have succeeded in lowering our Grievances, from 73 to 29, it is unknown whether this low value can be attributed solely to our grievance programs or perhaps the influence of Fringe Benefits.
Posted by jxw115 at 05:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack