Recognition Motivates Workers

Posted in Power & Money, Theory

Even since the very first motivational theorists of management it has been proposed that workers can be motivated by recognition for the work that they do (Maslow, Herzberg). Now this can come in many forms, employee of the months, targets and rewards but in some cases it doesn’t require ‘money’ as a motivator, just the exchange of compliments between staff. It’s even more rewarding for an employee to be thanked by an upper manager or even director as you’ll see in this case.

Let me first ask if you have been watching the Undercover Boss series on channel 4? – the documentaries follow directors who spend 5 days working in different areas of their business, meeting workers and trying out the different jobs. The main purpose of this is to see what workers actually think and feel, areas for improvements with many suggestions coming from lower level workers. Of course the business benefits from money saving/making ideas but in return employees are recognised for their efforts (in some cases rewarded) but all this leads to one thing, motivated workers!

Take a look at the series online here, look at the response of employees when recognised by the director:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZiDv8veT4I

Conducting an Interview for the First Time

Posted in Power & Money, Theory

A few months ago I was put into a situation which required me and couple of others to conducts interviews where we would be responsible for putting a team together. Now I have never taken an interview before and so not wanting to get it wrong looked up different methods of recruitment for different situations. Below is what we decided to do and the reasons why, of course a different method of recruitment maybe needed.

We decided to contact each candidate that was interested in the position for the team asked them to confirm their interest once again, times/dates commitment and asked them to send us in a paragraph which best described them. This criterion wasn’t used to ‘score’ them but more of way to get to know a little bit further about each candidate before meeting them face to face.

Our method was to conduct the interview in a panel of people and not just one. We felt that this would improve the reliability of the interview as often bias can arise where the interview may not particular like the interviewee, by having more than 1 interview this will ensure a fairer process. Validity was also importance to us, often candidates may try and ‘act’ in the way they feel is best for the job and so by asking a series of questions where some are repeated and rephrased allowed us to get a more accurate answer, both questions should bring about the same answer.

As the role in question was a team role we felt that it was important for the candidates to get to know each other and so felt that a group interview would be best. We understood that it was possible for them to know one another so when the interview took place, all candidates were randomly positioned. This allowed us to monitor how well people got on with another.

The team that gets put together would be involved in quite a few presentations to important people and as this skill was key we asked candidates to firstly do a small presentation about themselves. Powerpoint and other media weren’t allowed as the presentations that they would be conducting didn’t use these. As well as getting to know candidates it was a good way for potential team members to network and see how confident they were with presenting. The idea of randomly positioning people was also important as well as individual presentations we asked for a group presentation where we would present each ‘team’ with a different scenario and they were asked to come up with a ‘solution’. Again, group presentations and team work was key. Canidates were also allowed to ask each other questions which allowed us to spectate the style of questions asked as well as the replies.

I think that if I were to be involved in something like this again that involved putting a team together I might look at sending questionnaires out before the interview and review this against Belbin’s team roles theory. Also a scoring system would help to improve the over-all reliability of the interview. In any case it was a valuable tool in my learning and development to be involved in this.

Why is Communication Important within Organisations?

Posted in Aberystwyth, Innovation, Lifestyle, Theory

Why is Communication Important within Organisations?

Communication is vital in any organisation. It doesn’t have to be profit making such as a Charity or University but still it remains important and perhaps even more so in organisations which have a high volume of activities taking place on a daily basis.

In this study I’d like to refer to ‘Aberystwyth University’ as I feel the cross-coordination between departments shows exactly why communication is key.

It should be remembered that communication forms relationships through the interaction of colleagues. We all know that you’re bound to form relationships working in the same department or building but relationships should be more than this. They should be across departments within the University. The Business School of course has a relationship with staff in the ‘main system’ which lectures and room are timetabled so that no clashes occur but cross-departmental  communication is just as important.

A failing that I remember was when I was invited (through a contact of mine) to ‘Meet the Advisor’ exhibition at the Arts Centre which looked at meeting business advisers etc and telling the Director of the Business School (Nicholas Perdikis) all about it and him saying that if he had knew about it he would have made the effort and popped in.

Why is there this lack of communication and what can be done about it?

I found out about the event because of having ‘contacts’ in other areas of the University. Mainly the Commercial Enterprise department within the Visualisation Centre. They had previously ran courses in which Sue Holder, a business advisor had presented and I had taken her business card to talk to her about future opportunities.

Although we can see the problem of the lack of cross-departmental communication it’s something that is extremely difficult to encourage and change. I know that the Communication and Public Affairs department are currently investigating this through a new project setup.

I will be finishing off this article shortly…

Optimal Scale of Production

Posted in Theory

The optimal scale of production is the level which the firm outputs at the highest profit maximisation.   (At the lowest average cost)

- In order to operate at a profit maximising output level the business will need to look at existing equipment and new equipment and see which is the best way to get the most out of them. The problem being that although you can relatively change labour quickly, i.e. get more people in. It’s quite costly for the business if they have to purchase new machinery or a larger factory in order to profit maximise.

- Likewise, the business may find the optimum output level to be higher than what the market is demanding, so even if the units are produced as cheaply as possible and for a high price, the business may end up with products it can’t sell.

Minimum efficient scale (MES) is the lowest amount the firm can produce and output to achieve all economies of scale.