Human Relations and Development


 


1.      What is emotional intelligence and why is it so important for success in business?


Answer


Emotional Intelligence is defined as the personal, social and emotional skills that influence your ability to succeed with increased demands and pressure at work & home. Increasingly, Emotional Intelligence is being recognized as the critical success factor in career and life effectiveness.


EI is important especially in having successful business. Accordingly, EI skills provide a set of core abilities which affects many business issues essential to individual and organizational success.  For example, through EI, employees and staffs will get along better and won’t let frustrations and anxieties get in the way of having effective solutions for problems. In this manner, the organization is being benefited of people who can work under pressure. EI is of significant importance in business as it helps managers in the decision-process of hiring potential employees, promoting present employees or transferring them.


Therefore, in today’s environment, corporations and non-profit organizations are finding that to recruit and retain successful managers, IQ is not sufficient; a successful manager needs to develop EI to work effectively with others ( 2000). According to (2000), superior managers that tend to manage relationships well are those that are self-aware, self-regulators, and are empathetic to others (). EI is very important especially at the senior management level because as one
goes up the corporate ladder, technical skills diminish in importance, and EI becomes vital to the effectiveness and efficiency of a good manager. Hence, with good leaders, business is being directed to having competitive performance within and outside the business environment.


           


2.      What are the steps in the Communication Process and how can knowing these steps help a person become a more effective communicator?


Answer:


            Communication is an important aspect of work organizations. Through effective interaction, colleagues are able to share insights and learn from each other’s strengths and expertise. Indeed, as other authors have stated, effective communication must always be practiced as it is significant to individual health as well as for the creation of positive relationships. Specifically, the ability to communicate directly affects an individual’s stress levels, self-esteem and relationship quality ( 1998).


            Featuring what is called a transmission paradigm, it is said that communication is “the process or act of transmitting a message from a sender to a receiver,  through a channel and with the interference of noise; the actual message or messages sent and received; the study of the processes involved in the sending and receiving of messages. In an organization, the communication process leads the company toward realizing effective communication. The communication process has four major components which include encoding, medium of transmission, decoding and feedback.


            Knowing the steps of communication process is important to become an effective communicator. When this process is being followed properly, the process can usually ensure that the sender’s message will be understood by the receiver. Effective and successful communication utilized within an organization can be attributed from the implementation of the communication process. All individuals within an organization can be an effective communicator if they will enhance their communication skills by merely following/applying communication process. It has been proven that people who understand the process will blossom into more effective communicator.


 


 


3.      What are the implications of gender differences in communication for conducting meetings?


Answer:


Gender differences have been one of the hotly debated topics throughout the years. Research shows that gender differences affect different aspects of life, such as communication. In an organization, it is said that gender differences may have negative and positive implications to communication especially when the staffs or conducting a meeting.


One of the positive effects is having different perspectives or ideologies from men and women. Since, men and women have different thoughts regarding different matters; the issue may be seen in different levels which may lead to a more concise and effective decisions. Further, the different ideologies of men and women may compliment each other to meet the agenda of the meeting.


Another positive implication of gender differences is in terms of establishing team members which have different capabilities and skills needed to have a more effective team to meet the demands of the meeting.


On the other hand, gender differences may also have negative implications to communication in a meeting. One of which is it may be the cause of conflict between two different perspectives and ideologies. The conflict may affect the purpose of the meeting. In addition, this conflict may be the cause of other arguments which is not relevant to the objective of the meeting. In addition, other deeper issue may occur because of such argument.


All in all, it can be said that gender differences should be given enough attention in understanding how an organization may have effective communication especially during the times of discussing important matters.


 


4.      Part of being a good team player is helping other members. How can members of a workplace team help each other? How can a person achieve individual recognition yet still be a team player?


Answer


Members of team may help each other may having a common goal and doing things to together to achieve such goal. This can be done by having effective communication throughout the process. Each member should be opening minded in everything that might occur in the project.  


The team may also help each other by knowing the different skills of each member and doing things to improve such skills so as to be more effective in achieving the purpose of the project. They can also share with each other all the skills and knowledge that they have learned from their previous trainings which is related to the tasks that they will handle.


One of the problems of many members in a team is in terms of being recognized by a superior. Since the recognition is given mostly to a team or team leader, team members are being left behind most of the times. In this manner, there are things in which a team member may do in order to be recognized. One of which is by doing his or her best in the specific task given. For example, in a project each member are given specific tasks to be accomplished, if the member of the team has done their work properly and accurately there is a greater possibility that the member will be recognized immediately.  Giving your best and ensuring efficient work is a stepping stone for being remarkable member of a team.


5.      What is the group decision-making technique described in this Unit? Which group decision-making techniques do you think members of management are most likely to use?


Making-decision can be difficult for a number of reasons such as the organizational structure, human behavioral, organizational culture, uncertainties, incomplete information, multiple objectives, complexity of the problem and anxiety, which directly influence the decision making process. Regardless of the constraints, managers have to make decisions. Under any circumstances, decisions made cannot and must not be wrong because decisions are the mechanisms by which decision-makers try to accomplish the goals of the organization; they are the means to an end.


In this particular unit, the decision making approach that can be used is the decision making model which is concerned with the development and application of standard decision rules based on formal logic derived from data, which is called the programmed decision. The utmost concern of the manager the decision making process is to ensure that the decision yields optimal results and the same is expected for all the decisions made. In addition, the rational approach can also be used.  The rational approach tends to underline a normative view of decision making. According to  (2002), rational decision making model involves (a) defining the problem; (b) identifying the decision criteria; (c) weigh the criteria; (d) generate alternatives; (e) rate each alternative on each criterion; and (f) compute the optimal decision. Based on the steps, the decision-maker identifies the problems or organizational goals and then defines alternatives in terms of the potential outcomes for each of the alternatives.


 


6.      How can a team leader apply groupware to help the group become more productive?


Answer


The term groupware is known as software products that support groups of people engage in a common task or goal. It can also be regarded as: Software which is exclusively designed to enable teams or groups of people work together.  It is an evolving concept that is more than multi-user software, which permits access to the same data. This software provides a mechanism that helps users coordinate and keep track of on-going projects.


The team leader may apply or use groupware by integrating information technology with the business process. Since groupware is designed to help team members coordinate and track joint projects and access the same data, it would make the work become easier for all the team members.  Groupware is application software that integrates work on a single project by several simultaneous users at separated workstations. Or in other words, groupware is any one of plentiful software packages that helps facilitate groups to work better as a group and become more productive. Groupware supplies this type of capability by offering features such as: email, fax, voicemail, data conferencing, electronic calendars and social software, just to name a few. By implementing the software it is the hope of the groupware industry that employees will be able to communicate better with one another whether it is on a cooperative project or just simply scheduling initiatives. Through the capabilities given by groupware with the team, the team can work harmoniously and productively.


 


7.      A major purpose of diversity programs is to help people celebrate differences. Why should people celebrate a difference such as an attention deficit disorder?


Answer


            It is said that individual differs in so many ways, however, there are some individual who are different without them knowing the reasons. In this manner, to be able to solve this issue, different diversity programs are being established. Attention deficit disorder is known as a mental disorder in which an individual tends to behave differently and hyperactively than other people. This kind of condition should not be discriminated, but should be celebrated. We must celebrate ADD by seeing the gift in each person as God delights in that person. People with ADD often are highly creative and personable. In addition, they are frequently risk takers and take on tasks which daunt ordinary people. In this manner, we must see their potentials and let this potentialities become a tool for making other people believe in their capabilities.


            The church can be a powerful instrument in speaking up for those who cannot advocate for themselves. ADD should be celebrated in order to let other people become more aware of their potentialities in becoming a more productive individual. Let us make them feel that they belong in the society and that they can do things that other people cant. Further, we must be able to discover the unique needs of each individual with ADD.


 


8.      Studies have shown that women working in male-dominated positions, such as a female construction supervisor or bulldozer operator, are more likely to experience sexual harassment than women in other fields. What explanation can you offer for this finding?


Answer:


It can be concluded that when women is working a male-dominated position she is more exposed to sexual harassment. Sexual harassment is referred to as any unwanted attention of a sexual nature, such as remarks about physical appearance or personal life, offensive written or visual acts such as graffiti or degrading pictures, physical contact of any kind or sexual demands. For me, one of the reasons why women are being sexually harassed by men in this kind of working environment, because she is the different from them that they capture all the attention of a male coworker. Furthermore, men see women with weaker personality that they thought of doing things that pleases them. In addition, there are men who get easily attracted with women who looks stronger and who can do the work of a man with them. Male workers tend to see the indifference in terms of genders that is why they are caught with situations of liking their female coworker.  Furthermore, it is said that in this kind of working environment there is a greater probability of having consistent talk about sex, display of pornographic materials. The crude conversations and jokes and sexual innuendos which may trigger or start sexual urges among men.


 


9.      How might a student use cognitive restructuring to get over the anger of having received a low grade in a course?


Accordingly, cognitive restructuring is a useful tool for understanding and turning around negative or stressful thinking. This process can help people set aside unhappy, negative thoughts and approach situations in a positive mode. This tool is obviously important since it does not help us manage negative mood but also reduce the quality of out performance and undermine the social relationships with other people.


Hence, if a student is being angry because he got low grades, then he can use this tool to lessen up his anger and put positive things in his mind.  A student may use cognitive restructuring by controlling his anger by things positive things out of the negative situation. Through cognitive restructuring, the student may think of studying harder to achieve the grades that he wants. In addition, he can also think of other important matters which will make him happier and forget his anger because of the low grades that he received.


He may also think of approaching his teacher and know his shortcomings and the things that he would improve to help him enhance his grades. Cognitive restructuring may also helps the student in changing his moods by thinking of other topics like the sports that he wants or the things that he wanted to have. Using cognitive restructuring changes the way people handle emotions which may affect our positive perspectives in life.


10.  In what ways do the concepts of charismatic leadership and participative leadership differ substantially from each other?


Answer


Leadership is a process of social influence in which one person is able to enlist the aid and support of other individuals in the achievement of a common task (1997). The major points of this definition are that leadership is a group activity, is based on social influence, and revolves around a common task. There are many leadership styles that can be used by leaders; these may include charismatic and participative leadership. These two styles differ in many ways; the two may differ in terms of the leader’s behavior or personality or by the relationship with the subordinates.


For example, charismatic and participative style may differ in terms of relationship among follower. A charismatic leader is one whose power is legitimized with the basis of a leader’s exceptional personal qualities which inspire loyalty and obedience from followers.


On the other hand, the participative style refers to the kind of leadership wherein the followers are permitted to be involved in the decision making process.  The leader implements minimal control or manipulation on their followers.  However, the leader is still accountable for the final decision to be made.  Herein, the opinion and ideas of the followers are being valued by the leader and each follower encompasses different tasks set by the leader.


 


11. How might an instructor use negative reinforcement (avoidance motivation) to improve a student’s performance?


Answer


Negative reinforcement refers to the manner of ignoring or discouraging undesirable behavior. Negative reinforcement plays a major role in the regulation of everyday human behavior. In this manner, an instructor may use negative reinforcement by having a negative or aversive stimulus.


The principle of negative reinforcement may be summed up as follows: If a mild aversive situation is terminated by a given behavior then that behavior will tend to be continued or repeated. In a teaching and learning process, the aversive condition may be having low grades among students. The teacher may use this to let the student know the consequence of having low grades and having high grades. Timing is important; the relief from the aversive condition must occur immediately following the desired behavior. In some respects, this procedure may seem to be punitive, but there are several significant differences.


Although negative reinforcement is a viable alternative and may be useful under selected circumstances, it is risky if the teacher is the source of the aversive condition. Escape and avoidance behaviors may not always be desirable, but may be learned because they reduce the discomfort. Examples of escape behaviors include daydreaming, cheating, dropping out of school, or passively sitting in class as a non-participant. Furthermore, the aversive feeling can easily be generalized to schooling, authority, or subject matter. Aversive conditions turn people off.


 


12. If people really live by the WAIF principle, how can a leader still achieve teamwork?


Answer


What’s in it for me? (WAIF) principle is a method of knowing what is install for an individual. In this manner, by knowing what is in a leader that should be done, teamwork can still be achievable. Being a leader, a person must know his or her responsibility of upbringing the sense of unity in a team. In addition, through this principle, the leader should influence his followers and let them accept your idea of being integrated to meet your common goal.  What’s in it for me is a way of saying to a leader his obligation of keeping his team work as a team and succeed by helping each other and learning from their mistakes.  


            In addition, through this principle, the leader must know what to expect from the team and how this expectation can be met by having a unified working relationships among the members.  With the use of this principle the leader may be able to identify his responsibility not only for the project but also for his followers or team members. Knowing one’s responsibility is a helpful tool to know how well you will manage and control your team to work in achieving a common goal.


 


13. In what ways does a coach in a workforce act like an athletic coach?


Answer


Coaching can be referred to as giving technical information in an organized manner to enhance and develop a practical performance by individuals or groups. A coach in a workforce is a person who holds the responsibility of letting his player does their best to meet the organizational goal and to be more productive. In this manner, a coach in a workforce may act like an athletic coach in a way that he or she can instruct the players on what to do in order to win. This is a fairly an obvious role for a coach in a workforce, but it is essential it is done correctly in order for the players being instructed to learn. When a coach is instructing they should be clear and concise, in order for the players to understand the task set for them like in a real working environment. A coach needs to be concise, as if a coach gives out too much information, it may become too much for the players to take in, and the task maybe done incorrectly.


In addition, a coach in a workforce may also be a coach in athletics by being a role model. This is because players, particularly youngsters, will look up to the coach with great respect; therefore coaches should set a good example.


 


14. Describe how email can be used to play positive office politics, as well as used for unethical purposes


Answer


E-mail has become indispensable in the modern-day workplace, with more and
more employers realizing that E-mail communication systems can increase the efficiency of communications internally. Along with this increase in the use of E-mail come legal and ethical involving employee privacy and monitoring. Email can be used to play positive politics in a workplace because it can be viewed privately. However, because of different issues concerning email, different organization is trying to provide a policy to make email more useful in office politics. They use email to send information to respective employees and make this information confidential. In terms of unethical purposes, email can be used to spread rumors secretly about their colleagues or their employers.


Work environment must seek to raise awareness of the ethical issue of E-mail privacy by explaining both the vulnerabilities to which E-mail is subject to and by defining the privacy expectations to both employers and employees. We also must take into account the primary concerns in E-mail privacy invasion, which includes; ethical behavior, the employer’s perspective on E-mail privacy and a strategy for ethic management, which integrates ethical behavior and legal compliance on the E-mail privacy policy.


 


15. For what reason is a satisfied employee more likely to provide better customer service?


Answer


The proper management of Human Resources is significant in determining the success of a certain organization. It can be said that if an employee is satisfied, there is a tendency of being more efficient in their work especially in dealing with customers.  Employees are one of the driving-forces that generally contributes for the success or failure of any organization. Therefore the human Resource Management should be able to create an overall policy that will make the employees feel that they are being valued so that they will be encouraged and motivated to provide quality services.


It can also be concluded that in order to have a high-performing and competitive organization the company must have high performing employees which may only achieved if they are satisfied with what the company is giving to them. Employees can make or break a business. Good employees can produce extraordinary results while marginal employees can drag and keep business down. However, if they are satisfied enough, employees can be considered as an asset which may provide quality service to customers, thus helping the company become more competitive in the marketplace. Owners and managers are committed to developed employees, to enable them to achieve business objectives, as well as, generating people commitment advantage through their performance and abilities.


 


16.  How effective is the principle “the customer is always right” when dealing with dissatisfied customers


Good customer service makes customers satisfied by fulfilling their needs first. Good customer service requires all staff to place themselves in the position of their customers. All staff should be aware of how they would like to be treated if, they were a customer, and deal their customers, for that reason.


When a customer is dissatisfied with the products or services, the principle of customer is always right is still effective in line with the work and obligations of the employees. The employees must see to it that they always adhere to this principle even if this conflict occurs. In addition, this motto is effective so as to handle the situation more calmly and solving the problem efficiently. The staff may ask the dissatisfy customer what is the reason for such dissatisfaction which in return can be a basis for the employee to solve the problem by providing a more quality service to the intended customers. Quality service is essential and this is the foundation of the motto “the customer is always right.” If the employee wants to achieve the level of customer satisfaction they must always think that every action they made should satisfy their customers and that customer will always be your customer if you treated them nicely.


  •  The major business scandals in recent years have involved financial manipulations such as executives profiting from selling company stock while encouraging employees to buy stock. In what ways do these financial scandals affect people?

  • Answer


    Financial scandals are one of the major problems of different industries. Being involved in a situation like this really affects different people especially those who have been in this kind of situation. Financial scandals may affect people in many ways. For example, those who have played a major role in a scandal may live a depressing life since there is a tendency that other people would not trust him to handle tasks related to finances.


    He or she should work harder to get the trust of other people on his or her side. In addition, other people will be affected in a way that they can be terminated in their position which may lower their morale. Those people who are not really involved but have been punished will also be affected by the scandal.


    Furthermore, accountants can be considered as the mostly affected individual in a financial scandals and issues. There is a possibility that all blames will be pointed out to the accountants. In this manner, the confidence of an accountant will be affected and his or her work attitude will also be affected negatively. Employees and consumers can also be affected by these scandals and if the company will not do something about it, they might have a problem in gaining potential clients.


     


  • Why might having your stress under control improve your interpersonal relationships?

  • Answer


    Stress can be defined in many ways but in general terms, it refers to the feeling of pressure, anxiety and tension. Occupational stress refers to those organizational task/role performances, which induce stress on employees in the workplace. It can be characterized by as the harmful physical and emotional responses occurring when the job requirements, work environment or work organization does not match the worker’s capabilities, resources or needs.


    There is an increasing awareness of the effects of stress on employees0 in the workplace. One of the affected areas is in line with having interpersonal relationships among colleagues or peer.  Relationship with others is a critical part of organizational life and a potential source of stress. Good interpersonal relationships facilitate the achievement of many personal and organizational goals, and poor interpersonal relationships cause by considerable stress may affect this.  Good relationship between members of a work group is a central factor in individual and organizational health.


    When people are being pressured by different stressors, there is a tendency that their relation with their coworkers will be affected. Hence, controlling stress is an important factor so as to maintain your composure under these tensions, the individual can also managed to still have good interpersonal relation with the people around him or her.


  • Identify four situations in a career in which conducting a job campaign would be necessary.

  • Answer


                Human Resource Management is accountable for the growth and development of the organization and the employees as well.  Employees must be given a chance to develop their career in the organization, not only for the advantages that they can get for themselves but also for the organization.  There are situations in a career in which job campaign is necessary one is changing career direction, preparing opportunities for new industries, relocating to new places and getting employers to create a special job for you. These situations needs a job campaign and this may help an individual to find the most suitable job for them. These career moves are essential to an ongoing career, and a job campaign is necessary to meet the needs of this decision.


    In order to execute career development in the organization or in the working place, the Human Resource Management must be responsible for the organization and management of the program as well as the identification and development of the career development activities deemed appropriate.  The employee must find a job campaign that suits his o needs to develop his career and to achieved personal growth and objective.


    20.        In what way do political tactics assist career development?


    Answer


    Employees must be given a chance to develop their career in the organization, not only for the advantages that they can get for themselves but also for the organization.  One of the obligations of the Human Resource Management (HRM) is to be able understand that the primary of career development is to help employees analyze their abilities, skills, and interests to better match personnel needs for growth and development to the needs of the organization.


    In order to do this effectively, the consideration of using political skills and tactics is important. Political skills may include managing relationships, identifying stakeholders and communicating effectively. By having managing relationships, an employee may be enhancing their potentialities of becoming good leaders. In addition, being an effective communicator as part of political tactics may also assist an individual to develop their abilities to provide information and use this information to meet different objectives. It is noted that this political skills is needed to ensure the success of an employee in terms of dealing with office politics which they will encounter when their handling their own personnels and staffs.


    Political skills also assist career development by letting an individual become more confident to manage the tasks given and accomplished it successfully.


     



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