Reflective report


 


Efficiency


For me efficiency is an important characteristic for everyone and for everything that they do. Whenever I cannot provide services to the clients because of the restrictions and the limitations  I feel inefficient but I believe that it is vital for me to find a way to improve the query system that is why I opted to conduct a job shadowing. The success of the job shadowing and the improvement of the query system will depend on the participation of the investigations team. By the efficiency of a production unit people mean a comparison between observed and optimal values of its output and input (Wilkinson 1999). The comparison can take the form of the ratio of observed to maximum potential output obtainable from the given input, or the ratio of minimum potential to observed input required to produce the given output, or some combination of the two. In these two comparisons the optimum is defined in terms of production possibilities, and efficiency is technical. It is also possible to define the optimum in terms of the behavioral goal of the production unit. In this event efficiency is economic and is measured by comparing observed and optimum cost, revenue, profit, or whatever the production unit is assumed to pursue, subject, of course, to the appropriate constraints on quantities and prices. The partial productivity and efficiency measures are sometimes useful and sometimes necessary (Fried, Lovell & Schmidt 1993).


 


They are useful when the objectives of producers, or the constraints facing producers, are either unknown or unconventional or subject to debate. In this case a popular research strategy has been to model producers as unconstrained optimizers of some conventional objective and to test the hypothesis that inefficiency in this environment is consistent with efficiency in the constrained environment. The use of such partial measures has proved necessary in a number of contexts for lack of relevant data. One example of considerable policy import occurs when the production of desirable outputs is recorded but the generation of undesirable byproducts is not. Another occurs when the use of government capital services is unrecorded. In each case the measure of efficiency or productivity that is obtained may be very different from the measure one would like to have (Chichilnisky & Heal 2000). Even when all relevant outputs and inputs are included, there remains the difficulty that market prices may not exist, and if they do exist they may not provide an appropriate measure of usefulness. This complicates the problem of determining what is meant by relevant. The ability to quantify efficiency and productivity provides management with a control mechanism with which to monitor the performance of production units under its control. The economics, management science, and administration literatures contain numerous examples of the use of efficiency/productivity measurement for this purpose. In each of these applications interesting issues concerning relevant variables and variable measurement arise. These applications also illustrate the rich variety of analytical techniques that can be used in making efficiency and productivity comparisons. Productive efficiency has two components (Kalecki, Jung & Osiatynski 1993).


 


The purely technical, or physical, component refers to the ability to avoid waste by producing as much output as input usage allows, or by using as little input as output production allows. Thus the analysis of technical efficiency can have an output augmenting orientation or an input-conserving orientation. The allocative, or price, component refers to the ability to combine inputs and outputs in optimal proportions in light of prevailing prices. Within the capitalist firm, work incentives are provided by a hierarchy of principals and agents, where employees act as principals in relation to their subordinates, and as agents in relation to their own supervisors. From the lowest level upwards an additional agency rent is offered on each level of the hierarchy, which can be secured by proper performance (Quinzii 1992).  As a consequence, labor supply is rationed on each level. The best-known consequence of rationing in the labor market by efficiency rents is a certain amount of equilibrium unemployment. The analysis suggests that this kind of unemployment may be far less severe in a liberal economy. Hierarchical efficiency rents may entail further negative social effects which are absent or less important in a liberal economy. Where there are rents, there is rent-seeking and there are influence costs. A hierarchy of rents offers a career ladder on which individuals try to get as high as possible. However, on the way to and up this ladder, one has to make investments to outperform competitors because positions with higher rents are scarce and in equilibrium always less than demand. Investments in economic status range from the formation of human capital in the education sector to building up promising connections, etc. But not all of these investments pay off because only part of the applicants will be selected. Therefore, there is some waste of resources. In addition to the waste of resources there may also be some more indirect externalities of capitalist hierarchies. It has often been observed that individual utilities depend not only on individualistic arguments but also on the relative position of individuals. In that case, hierarchic utility differentials generate externalities which cannot be internalized, because they are introduced to secure economic efficiency (Pagano & Rowthorn 1996).


 


Improving time management


For me time management is an important endeavor in everything we do. It is just to make sure that I manage the allotment of the activities I indulge in. In borrowing the job description I was able to determine the things that I could do faster and things I need to do with more time as possible. The division of duties would help me determine which should be done first. I believe that time management will help in making me more efficient since I can reduce the waiting time for the clients. I feel that customer queries improve me further and it developed characteristics that I was not able to bring out. The time and information resource proved vital to achieving goals and making sure that I will be an efficient member of the organization. Along with its great potential to help managers learn and develop, intensive management training can, under certain conditions, lead to harm. Intensive training creates a powerful situation that enables managers to take a fresh look at themselves but may also expose them to attack and rejection. The potential for harm resides primarily in the power relationship between trainer and participants, in the make-up of the trainer, and in the injury-prone characteristics of some participants. Done competently and responsibly, intensive management training need not hurt anyone (Golembiewski 2000).


 


Managers can benefit from intensive training, but they can also be hurt by it. Although negative outcomes seem to be far more the exception than the rule in intensive management training, it is important to recognize what potential for harm there is and to do what people can to minimize it (Shell 2003). Intensive management training has a potential for harm because the goal of the training is to foster self-insight and self-improvement in individual managers. Subject matter includes anything from conflict management to time management to interpersonal competence, but the training mounts in intensity as it focuses on the individual (Adair & Allen 2003). The individual gets in-depth attention via a data-and feedback sequence in which participants generate data on themselves, either in live exercises or with paper-and-pencil tests, and then receive feedback from staff and/or fellow participants. It is interesting that with so many people spending zero minutes on time management, some of these people think that overshooting and spending an hour per day is required. Five minutes is plenty of time to plan tomorrow. Most people’s days are so fragmented that any more time spent on planning the next day’s activities is useless-and a waste of time. Some people try to plan each day in the morning rather than at the end of the previous day. Such an approach tends to drag on, minimizes the feedback and retrospection aspects related to planning on the afternoon of the previous day, and seems to involve a different thinking process than executing. In short, some people get stuck on planning in the morning and never get going, with discipline it is easy to complete a few simple tasks at the end of today rather than planning to do these small tasks tomorrow. In order to reduce procrastination, a time management hint is to use the most advanced technique, which is to utilize a list of tasks to be done, with realistic times for each, which adds to a realistic total. Another consideration is that most people find it impossible to plan exactly when they will be working on a particular task. It is important to recognize that one has to hustle in the time that is available. If the work is not completed during the windows, it certainly won’t get completed some other time (Cooper, Schabracq & Winnubst 2003).


 


References


Adair, J & Allen, M 2003, Time management and personal


development, Thorogood, London.


 


Chichilnisky, G & Heal, G (eds.) 2000, Environmental markets:


equity and efficiency, Columbia University Press, New York.


 


Cooper, CL, Schabracq, MJ & Winnubst, JA (eds.) 2003, The


handbook of work and health psychology, John Wiley & Sons,


Chichester, England.


 


Fried, HO, Lovell, K & Schmidt, SS 1993, The measurement of


productive efficiency: Techniques and applications, Oxford


University Press, New York.


 


Golembiewski, RT 2000, Handbook of organizational consultation,


Marcel Dekker, New York.


 


Kalecki, M, Jung, B & Osiatynski, J 1993, Socialism: Economic


growth and efficiency of investment, Clarendon Press, New York.


 


Pagano, U & Rowthorn, R 1996, Democracy and efficiency in the


economic enterprise, Routledge, New York.


 


Quinzii, M 1992, Increasing returns and efficiency, Oxford


University Press, New York.


 


Shell, RL 2003, Management of professionals, Marcel Dekker,  


New York.


 


Wilkinson, TM 1999, Freedom, efficiency and equality, Macmillan,


Basingstoke, England.


 



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