HRM Assignment 7: Reflection

{ Posted on 10:33 AM by Ariel Serenado }

“Human beings are the most important, potent and critical resource of any organization, and yet the least understood and the worst managed of its resources”

When refer a person to be potent it simply means effective and efficient as to the field that one is involved. Human being involvement regardless of the position has been noted a vital resource of the success of a certain company. Human has been working hand-in-hand with the upper sectors on the community; they are the most reliable resource as far as labor is concerned. Despite some facts about the effectiveness, still there appear to have weaknesses that can be associated to a person, as the line above says, “… and yet the least understood and the worst managed of its resources”.

Actually, I had the hard time comprehending the line, for I cannot sight any possibilities why it is so. For me to be able to understand the line I divided the line into two. First half, I will have to discuss why human beings are the most important, potent and critical resource in any organization. Second, I will be discussing why human beings are referred to be the least understood and the worst managed of its resources. One of the implications of the first half is human being as the important resource in any organization. This is because there are certain things that human act which serves as contributing factors to the development of the organization. It is often referred as the Planning and Strategy Formation Role in which it has created the need for people to become aggressive. This is because the access to strong distribution channels is critical for their continued popularity. This planning and strategy formation comprises the following:

  1. Decision-making Role

Upon arriving at the correct decision or choice, human now gains confidence in his/her ability to make critical decisions or choices especially when his/her integrity is in the line. Thus, this human resource professional will now search fro even more challenges and opportunities where he/she could further enhance his/her decision-making abilities regarding current human resource issues.

  1. Analytical Role

Through the exposure to various puzzling human resource issues, human along the process is able to develop holistic mindset regarding the issues surrounding him/her. In this practice it enhances a healthy and holistic mindset which makes it difficult to the detractors to give influence. Because of this holistic approach, a person is able to effectively select the right choice and continue to maximize this potential for future use.

There are also innate characteristics of human beings that if managed and honed up effectively will really contribute positively to the organization. These include the following:

  1. Mental Stability

If a person has a stable mental aspect then he is effective in the pursuit of correct decision as well as the management and development of the process accompanying it. It is therefore important to a person to be as stable as he/she must be for he/she should remain updated with the latest developments in all issues.

  1. Performance and Credibility

The production of their best human resource outputs comes as a result of a well-funded research management and development activities. The strong performance of a person and their outputs could also be linked to the effective strategic planning and human resource mobilization. Thus, human’s credibility increases as his/he performance becomes better.

Those are the things that justify how important and how a human being can be an effective or potent resource in any of the organization. Besides, JUDGMENT still remain as human’s innate trait which cannot be replaced by any form of technology regardless how efficient the innovation is. Another implication is human being referred a critical resource of any organization, this is because, human is the most flexible. It is the least constrained among the various resources to which a company has access. If we are to compare human to machines as to the state of being critical, machine has limits. One of the most common things that can be associated with the situation is a calculator; a calculator calculates operations faster but can only do what someone precisely tells it to do. It has no autonomy, or the sense of having self-government. Another thins that makes human critical is that human is extremely adaptable and is extremely pliable. If this is so then human may encounter various challenges since being pliable would mean susceptible with any unwanted constraints that may occur as one adapt to a certain environment. Despite the constraints, by being pliant human will be capable for performing well-defined and predefined planned scales but also of something more important.

Furthermore, the human resource approach focuses on the relationship between organizations and people. In this framework, people are the most critical resource in an organization exists to serve human needs instead of human existing to serve organizational needs. Topic central to self-concept of an organization include motivation, attitudes, participation, and framework. As a result, an organization is a permanent arrangement of social elements with a formal structure. The organizational members do not only pursue factual goals but also personal interests (e.g. career, power, and continuous education). If we say, “the hospital is an organization” we emphasize the fact that people in organization try to satisfy different needs and motives however there are still cases that appear in which people in an organization encounters conflict in terms of their goals—organizational goals and personal goals. This scenario really makes human as critical for there appear to have conflicts of the goals for in cannot be denied that there are a number of people in an organization who are really pursuing their personal goals such as, having promotions.

Human as the least understood resource in the organization.

Some people of the higher office of any organization still find instances that human is the least understood in their environment. In cannot be denied that human are of different characteristics, some traits can be managed along the way but some are hard to cope with. There are really cases which mislead the understanding towards human which is really visible in an organization, because not all are aware of intrinsic differences. It should be taken into account that human think differently, make distinct decisions, and differ in dispositions. In short NO TWO PEOPLE THINK OF THE SAME IDEA AT THE SAME TIME. The worst thing is that this case is often time the cause of some conflicts on labor relations, that is why people must managed to express themselves in the way that they won’t be considered as the least understood resource of an organization.

Human as the worst managed of its resources.

As stated above, people do have different decisions, disposition; hence, people probably have distinct needs in accordance to their immediate demands. Because of this scenario management of resources are being affected. This scenario is also associated by the individual differences in terms of the organizational goals; though they belong to one organization but each of them defines a lot of resources in the worst thing is that not all these defined resources will be utilized for the realization of the organizational goals set by some employees.

MIS Assignment 7: SONA

{ Posted on 9:03 AM by Ariel Serenado }

In the recent State of the Nation Address of Her Excellency Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, some portion of her speech was note worth noting. Some of those worth noting issues tackled the recent SONA was her take on Information and Communication Technology.

1. “Sa telecommunications naman, inatasan ko ang Telecommunications Commission na kumilos na tungkol sa mga sumbong na dropped calls at mga nawawalang load sa cellphone. We need to amend the Commonwealth-era Public Service Law. And we need to do it now... ”

Good for the president that she was able to tackle a bit form this issue on her SONA. There has been a million people with access on mobile technology discussing and appealing their concerns and complains regarding this issue. The main issue was on a sudden load deduction without service being availed or used by the user. This problem was quite a big deal for the people hence, almost all the Filipino has an access and on the use of mobile technology. As far as the development of this issue is concern, the congress had made the action to investigate this issue with the telecommunications company. To date, the bill was made into reality; it is clear then with Telecommunications Company and to the people how there services will cope up and respond to the trend of the issue.

2. “Let us have a Department of ICT”

This means initiating another department which is Department of Information and Communication Technology that would take the chance to hold on the concerns with regards to ICT that associate’s additional growth engines. For me, it is good for a government to initiate this certain department because issues and concerns with ICT will be centralized and to that there will be an immediate organization that will respond to the issues.

3. “Today we are creating wealth by developing the BPO and tourism sectors as additional engines of growth. Electronics and other manufactured exports rise and fall in accordance with the state of the world economy. But BPO remains resilient. With earnings of $6 billion and employment of 600,000, the BPO phenomenon speaks eloquently of our competitiveness and productivity.”

BPO is distinct from information technology (IT) outsourcing, which focuses on hiring a third-party company or service provider to do IT-related activities, such as application management and application development, data center operations, or testing and quality assurance. Frequently, BPO is also referred to as ITES -- information technology-enabled services. Since most business processes include some form of automation, IT "enables" these services to be performed.

Activities that can be outsourced are seen as a cost-saving measure for the company. Payroll and call center operations are long considered as the main contributors to BPO but lately, the trend in outsourcing has moved a notch higher towards skill quality and competence. Here, legal services, software development and web designing, animation, medical transcription and shared services are now being outsourced as well. What this means to the Philippines is that this shift will contribute to strengthening the country's position as an emerging global leader in the BPO industry. This can be a resilient plan of the government in case of sudden negative break in the economy, moreover it helps the unemployment rate in the Philippines to decline hence, and outsourced services are really generating additional employment in the country.

PGMA’s SONA 2009 (full text): http://ikuwaderno.com/transcript-of-arroyos-sona-july-27-2009.html

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_process_outsourcing

MIS Assignment 6: IT Consultant

{ Posted on 12:54 PM by Ariel Serenado }
If I were asked by the University to be an IT Consultant, I would rather suggest to pursue with the Infrastructure, specifically Internet Infrastructure to enhance the internet connectivity.

One of the greatest things about the Internet is that nobody really owns it. It is a global collection of networks, both big and small. These networks connect together in many different ways to form the single entity that we know as the Internet. In fact, the very name comes from this idea of interconnected networks. With the growth of the Internet for personal use and business purposes, it would be useful to talk about what actually powers all these things. People all over the world are accessing the Internet and corporate intranets via multiple desktop PCs, laptops, handheld computers, and cell phones. Organizations are exchanging critical information via increasingly sophisticated collaborative systems, and consumers are demanding immediate access to richer and richer content, including applications, games, music, videos, and images. To serve this growing demand, enterprises, operators, publishing companies, and other organizations are relying on Internet Infrastructure such as cross-platform mobile-content delivery platforms, multiple-credential authentication solutions, and real-time publishing tools, to mitigate the complexities of delivering digital services while garnering the greatest possible returns. Internet Infrastructure enables important transactions, establishes connections, protects data, and safely distributes critical information across myriad protocols and devices.

What is Infrastructure?

Infrastructure is actually the he basic physical systems. These systems are considered essential for enabling productivity in the economy. Developing infrastructure often requires large initial investment, but the economies of scale tend to be significant.

What is Internet Infrastructure?

In information technology and on the Internet, infrastructure is the physical hardware used to interconnect computers and users. Infrastructure includes the transmission media, including telephone lines, cable television lines, and satellites and antennas, and also the routers, aggregators, repeaters, and other devices that control transmission paths. Infrastructure also includes the software used to send, receive, and manage the signals that are transmitted.
In some usages, infrastructure refers to interconnecting hardware and software and not to computers and other devices that are interconnected. However, to some information technology users, infrastructure is viewed as everything that supports the flow and processing of information.
Infrastructure companies play a significant part in evolving the Internet, both in terms of where the interconnections are placed and made accessible and in terms of how much information can be carried how quickly.

Internet Infrastructure consisting of a ‘Top 5′ areas :
• Data Centers
• Network Connectivity
• Computer Equipment
• Storage Services
• Server Applications

Data Centre


A Data Centre is basically a specialist building that has the ability to power (and cool) massive amounts of computer equipment. Typically a Data Centre would also have a very large amount of network bandwidth to accommodate data transfer in and out of it. Data Centers are built as highly redundant and resilient facilities. The Data Centre is the home for Internet Infrastructure. It is the central point of aggregation and distribution of data and network services. The unit of measurement for a Data Centre is space and power. How much space will the equipment require and how much power will it draw (which is effectively double that, as cooling a server takes about as much power as just having the device operating).

Network

Possibly to most important foundation block of Internet Infrastructure is the Network. Without a network connection no data can pass between Data Centers, over the Internet, and ultimately onto your Desktop, Laptop or Mobile Handset. For the purpose of this post, let’s talk about the network infrastructure in a Data Centre, where data passed in to computer equipment, is processed and/or stored, and passed back out of the DC.
Next you would expect redundant switch gear in the Data Centre in separate racks so again if the switch gear failed, the other set of it would simply take over and no service interruption would be experienced.

The unit of measurement for network connectivity is megabits per second and available megabits on the carrier connection. The ability to meet peak demand is important though, so Data Centres will have a lot more connectivity available than is required for daily operations.
Computer Equipment Now that the two basics of Internet Infrastructure are in place - the ability to power your equipment, and the ability to connect it to the Internet, the next thing is the computer hardware that uses this to process and store the applications and data.
Servers. A Server is a more complex and high-end version of a desktop PC. Servers are housed in Racks in a DC which are typically 42u in height. (1U is 1-unit and a low-end server takes up just 1 of these units, other servers scale within these racks to multiple ‘U’). Racks are normally powered by 2 PDU (Power Distribution Units) which connect to (if available) multiple power supply units in the server.

A low-end installation may be only a single server, which is the simplest form of Internet Infrastructure. The server would be connected to the DC Power, the Network, an OS and other required applications installed on it. Then it is ready to ‘power and push’ data on the Internet. More complex deployments would include pools of servers, with different applications on each one, or clusters of pools for multiple clusters with dedicated application requirements.
The unit of measure for Servers is Processor Power and RAM. Although there is a lot more to selecting a server such as expandability, reliability, network ports, BUS speed, Cache size and speed. Personally I would like the unit of measure in Servers to change, I think for buyers and users it should be rated in ‘MIPS’ - which is ‘Millions of Instructions Per Second’ which is effectively all that matters, and how today’s Mainframe computers (IBM BlueGene is a high end Mainframe) are measured.

Storage Services

Data Storage is a huge part of Internet Infrastructure. All those emails accessible online, all the web pages on your favorite web site are all stored on a hard drive in a DC somewhere. The basic level of storage is on-server storage, which means the hard drives in the computer server. This can cause not just performance and capacity issues, but also redundancy ones - local storage is inherently as prone to failure as the server it is in.

It is common to use specific storage devices - such as Direct Attached Storage (a dedicated and dumb storage appliance connected direct to your server), Network Attached Storage (a storage device that can be accessed by multiple machines over a network connection, and independent of the server itself) and Storage Area Networks, which are high-end, resilient and redundant set-ups that give high performance levels and are very scalable. A Storage Area Network may be shared among many services, applications, servers and customers. The unit of measure in storage is gigabytes (getting to be more commonly terabytes now) and IO’s per second (input-output read/writes the device can perform per second).

Server Applications

The final piece of underlying Internet Infrastructure is the server applications themselves. In order for an web application to be delivered from a server, that server requires an Operation System (typically Windows or Linux), a Web Server application (like Apache or Microsoft IIS), and a Database (such as MySQL, MS-SQL or Oracle). There any many more variations here, but the basic web server has these 3 things. From here you can install blog software, an ecommerce site, your new web 2.0 application, or any Internet capable piece of software (more include - Instant Messaging Server, File Storage Server, Message Board)

More complex applications tend to have dedicated servers, or pools or servers, for specific things - like a cluster of Database Servers, or a pool of Web Server to serve those ‘www.’ page requests. These may also have more complex network setup such as dedicated routers, load balancing and firewall devices (for traffic management and security respectively).

Billions of times each day, companies and consumers rely on our Internet Infrastructure to communicate and conduct commerce with confidence. With a strong heritage in operating Internet Infrastructure, providing industry-proven security services, and delivering a full spectrum of communications solutions. Moreover, it provides interoperability, scalability, and security to meet today’s unprecedented demand for
Information.

Internet Infrastructure Services

Businesses and consumers depend more than ever on the Internet to generate, consume and distribute content—boosting demand for hosted services. To manage increased data volumes and more complex applications amid rising energy costs, Internet infrastructure companies must operate with maximum efficiency while meeting customer expectations for capacity, performance and uninterrupted service availability.

This requires simplifying their own infrastructure to reduce power, boost performance and streamline operations. As strategic partners to Internet infrastructure customers, systems integrators can make storage a key enabler of success, thereby promoting lasting customer loyalty and strong growth for their own businesses.

sources:

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet-infrastructure.htm
http://edbyrnehq.com/what-is-internet-infrastructure/
http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:2DZoO0RRZz8J:www.verisign.com/corporate/internet-infrastructure-overview.pdf+internet+infrastructure&cd=21&hl=tl&ct=clnk&gl=ph&client=firefox-a



MIS Assignment 5: IT/IS Barriers

{ Posted on 3:22 AM by Ariel Serenado }


Assignment 5:


Based on your adopted organization(s), identify and discuss barriers in their IS/IT implementations....

Barriers are actually circumstances particular to a given industry that create disadvantages for new competitors attempting to enter the market. These may include government regulations, economic factors, and marketing conditions.

As I review over the internet I have come to this list of common IT/IS barriers:

  • Studying the problem too long without acting
  • Trying to get everyone's agreement first
  • Educating without changing structures or expectations
  • Tackling everything at once
  • Measuring nothing or everything
  • Failing to build support for replication

More Barriers to Change

  • Lack of such resources as time and commitment
  • Resistance to change
  • Lack of senior leadership support or physician champion
  • Lack of cooperation from other agencies, providers, departments, and facilities
  • Ineffective teams
  • Burdensome data collection

In our adopted company there were also barriers of IT/IS implementation that has been identified by Hubport Interactive. Two of these barriers are:

  • Risk of loosing records

Since Hubport cater services related to Information System, within the organization they can implement systems as the case may be. Since implementing systems needs migration from the older system to the newest system there is a risk on loosing data, thus record retention of the organization is greatly affected.

  • Personnel problems

By the time the organization will implement new systems, they have to take into account the task personnel being designated to the implemented system, and they consider expertise of the personnel. Meaning to say, by the time the company changes another system another person will be designated considering the expertise of the person. With this problem also it associates rejection of the employees which generates labor relations problems.

  • Cost

Since implementing company is cost generating, it is therefore a barrier to the company on implementing information systems.

In some other sources barriers are divided into four principal barriers:

1) Legal and institutional barriers

These include lack of legal powers to implement a particular instrument, and legal responsibilities which are split between agencies, limiting the ability of the city authority to implement the affected instrument

2) Financial barriers

These include budget restrictions limiting the overall expenditure on the strategy, financial restrictions on specific instruments, and limitations on the flexibility with which revenues can be used to finance the full range of instruments.

3) Political and cultural barriers

These involve lack of political or public acceptance of an instrument, restrictions imposed bypressure groups, and cultural attributes, such as attitudes to enforcement, which influence the effectiveness of instruments.

4) Practical and technological barriers

While cities view legal, financial and political barriers as the most serious which they face in implementing land use and transport policy instruments, there may also be practical limitations. For land use and infrastructure these may well include land acquisition. For management and pricing, enforcement and administration are key issues. For infrastructure, management and information systems, engineering design and availability of technology may limit progress. Generally, lack of key skills and expertise can be a significant barrier to progress, and is aggravated by the rapid changes in the types of policy being considered.


HRM Assignment 6: 21st Century Corporations

{ Posted on 12:46 AM by Ariel Serenado }

Before discussing my thoughts on the subject matter, I would like to define some terms.

Corporation

- A corporation is a legal entity separate from the persons who own it or the persons who manage or operate it. In British tradition it is the term designating a body corporate, where it can be either a corporation sole (an office held by an individual natural person, which is a legal entity separate from that person) or a corporation aggregate (involving more persons). In American and, increasingly, international usage, the term denotes a body corporate formed to conduct business. Corporations exist in a product of corporate law, and their rules balance the interests of the management w2ho operate the corporation. People work together in corporations to produce value and generate income. In modern times, corporations have become an increasingly dominant part of economic life. People rely on corporations for various reasons such as for employment, for their goods and services, for the value of the benefits that these people may acquire as they get involve in the corporations, for economic growth and academic advantage, and for social involvement and development.

The term 21st Century Corporation (21CC) refers to any corporate, professional service, an organization may be cultural, social or membership driven, or any type of organization that:

  1. Has a mission to fulfill.
  2. Must operate in the midst of a global economy, rapid technological changes, economic uncertainty, cultural and demographic transitions.
  3. Is impacted by external factors – social, technological, environmental, economics and technological. Specifically, increasing government regulations, social trends or competition.
  4. Is consistently seeking new innovative ideas to cultivate opportunities to increase market share, number of customers, profits or value for its stakeholders.
  5. Needs to learn how to learn and how to manage knowledge.

Though I am not really into that business but as a student I have those foresights on the status of the 21st century companies, and as to how they will look like. For me, with the 21st century corporations, Innovation is really the no. 1 priority especially that everyone is resorting to any least possible way just to fend for themselves.

Corporations today, no matter how they are structured and organized, must find ways to internalize and manage both sets of concerns simultaneously. In essence, they must simultaneously build internally contradictory and inconsistent structures, competencies and cultures: fostering more efficient and reliable processes while encouraging the experiments and explorations needed to re-create the future. The challenge is that such innovative activities are all too often seen by those running the organization as a threat to its current priorities, practices and basis of success.

Organizations have experienced a significant transformation in the last decade. Progressive organizations have led this change: others have reached to the change; and the remaining ones continue to do business as usual. The market will be dominated by organizations that lead change and are able to adapt to change. Those entities that function in a reactive state will become second tier players in the market. Organizations refusing or unable to rapidly adapt to change will cease to exist. The 21CC embodies a mindset that future growth will rely on being adept at identifying opportunities and thwarting threats. Organizational flexibility will be the objective for the 21CC allowing it to meet these challenges. Continuity will be achieved not from having a massive size of the traditional 20th Century organizational infrastructure, but on an infrastructure this is adaptable to the environment. Sustain growth and evolution will be realized by developing what TSC refers to as “pliable adaptability” which is the ability to change with change. The ability to change with change is fundamental to any evolutionary process. Pliable adaptability will be at the root of every winning organization’s competitive advantage. This ability to adapt primes an organization or identifying and exploiting opportunities for growth, finding new revenue the sources and creating value for customers and other stakeholders.

In a 21CC, corporations will shift from satisfying existing needs to anticipating needs, will not only serve customers but will lead them, will shift from a product-focus to a benefit or value-added-focus, and will shift from focusing on core businesses to focusing on core competencies.

The organizational areas that will experience major changes in this transformation are: leadership, the organization, assets and resources, operations, personnel, future creation, interpersonal. These characteristics are independent. Transformation in these areas is revolutionizing how businesses perform. It does not matter whether the business is a small retail outlet; all organizations will have to concentrate on these areas in order to effectively in the market. Creative strategies and tactics are essential to accessing new markets, amazing customers, inspiring employees, and ultimately delivering more value to all stakeholders.

What will drive that continuous organizational evolution allowing an organization to achieve pliable adaptability? Pliable adaptability will be achieved from having a well formulated and executable strategy; superior operational effectiveness; understanding of corporate competencies and capabilities; innovation framework for delivering breakthrough ideas and concepts, knowledge of customer needs – now and in the future; capable of learning; willingness to change.

An organization will not be able to succeed in the 21st century without being flexible and an organization cannot be flexible without focusing. Having a strategic management process is the core of being able to achieve pliable adaptability.

Since 21st century corporations will achieve pliable adaptability, this thing associates the following changes that will incorporate the global imperatives--economic, environmental, and social idea of how is the 21st century be look like:

  1. Satisfy existing needs to anticipating needs.
  1. Serving the people at the same time leading them.

Since leadership is being stressed out, there has been many reflections released on how the leadership needs of 21st century corporations be managed. Some of these reflections are as follows:

1. Listen to the Cry for Accountability.

Across the world of business, there is a blood cry for 'accountability'. With the most revered role models run aground--and more being bailed out--it is high time we open our windows to let the feedback in, even though we know it will not be pretty. Leadership is accountable to customers, investors, shareholders, regulators - but most of all, to our own people. As navigators, we are accountable for keeping the ship on course - more so in stormy weather. So rather than blot out the questions, we need to put into place systems and processes that foster transparency and make leaders more accountable.

2. Get into the trenches.

Emerging leaders are moving up to the top floors. To corner suites. Away from the shop floors and the real action. We need to roll up our sleeves and get back into the trenches. I cannot repeat myself often enough - we need to demolish the 'CEO office'. We need to break down the walls of hierarchy, for our future role as leaders is not about leading from the top, but co-innovating at the front lines.

3. Get emotional.

Have we perhaps forgotten the price of Marie Antoinette's statement "If they don't have bread, let them eat cake?" With the increasing commoditization of people as "resources selling time," we risk not seeing people as individuals any more. And these individuals - employees and customers alike - are hurting and wary of the future. As leaders, we need to feel their pain and find the right solution. Its no longer about improving the top-line by simply reminding our sales force to up sell and say: "Will you have fries with that?" We need to understand the real pain points of our customers and help them find real solutions to their business problems.

4. Chase the rainbow.

As everyone watches the thunder, emerging leaders are the ones who will look hard into the dark and spot the light at the end of the tunnel. There is a rainbow waiting to break out, and abundant opportunities beyond. The sooner you spot it the greater the advantage your organization can reap.

5. From Me to We.

Collaboration is the need of the hour. In the US, President-Elect Barack Obama has proven just that by co-opting the strength of his former arch rival, Hillary Clinton. History has shown us that, be it the thawing of the Cold War or the formation of the European Union, dealing with cross border terrorism or cross border recession, the power of collaboration is our only answer. The world needs the collective strength of all countries, organizations and individuals to pull together today.

6. Nimble feet.

The world will continue to flirt with unpredictability for a while ahead. As leaders, we need to stay agile, alert and nimble footed to change tactics mid-course with our eyes unwavering from the goal.

7. Keep it Simple.

The sub-prime crisis has made the world wary of complex financial instruments and foggy conditions. Somewhere along the way, complexity has gained respect in the world of business. It is time to wipe the mist off the glass and master the art of converting complexity into simplicity.

8. Ask the right questions.

Leadership today has changed from providing all the answers to asking the right questions. Keep an open mind and let fresh minds provide you with fresh ideas. The battle between grey hair and grey matter has never been fiercer, as Generation Y stakes its claim to leadership. Innovation is the passport to success and 'Green' might just be the color that pulls businesses out of the red.

9. Adapt to the new work order.

Business today works across geographical borders on the back of a cross-culture, cross-currency, cross-product, cross-time zones workforce. Markets too have transformed, with the West no longer the only or even predominant market. So in 2009, emerging leaders will have to adapt to the reality of time zones, to multiple cultures, multiple currencies, multiple pricing. We in India, and particularly in the IT services industry, have learned this lesson very quickly. In fact, insights into how to run a global corporation will come out of the Indian multinationals.

10. Yes we can I think we have all realized by now that there are no question marks about this.

Change comes to those who believe in it. As leaders, our greatest responsibility is to bring back confidence and the forward momentum and catalyze the positive energy of our people today to light the way to a brighter tomorrow.

  1. Shift from a product-focus to a benefit or value-added-focus.

Diverting the manner of giving much focus on the product as to its components to a manner of giving much importance on the values and positive response of the products towards consumers.

  1. Shift from focusing on core businesses to focusing on core competencies.

A business that sells investment consulting services didn't get into business because they were good at marketing, because they were good at sales, or because they knew how to write software. They got into business because they felt they had a compelling opportunity to offer investors. That's why the business might choose to outsource marketing to an agency, outsource sales, and call on a software development firm to set up their systems. This allows them to focus on what they are best at, and allow experts to handle the other functions of their business.

Sources:

http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation
http://www.globalissues.org/issue/50/corporations
http://www.ezinearticles.com/?Becoming-Successful-21st-Century-Corporations&id=584009
http://www.articlesbase.com/outsourcing-articles/outsource-your-business-focus-on-core-competencies-783742.html
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=57552533176&topic=7310
http://www.jussemper.org/Resources/Corporate Activity/corporation2020.html

HRM Assignment 5: HR Downsizing

{ Posted on 12:18 PM by Ariel Serenado }


For this assignment we are tasked to visit a company website that has undergone HR downsizing.

Human resource downsizing for me implies massive employee’s left to fend for themselves. It is a systematic reduction of a workforce by an employer, usually as a result of financial losses, cash flow difficulties, and loss of government contracts, technological changes, or international competition. Companies downsize by terminating or transferring employees, offering early retirements, or imposing hiring freezes, to name a few approaches. Even though unemployment rates have been dropped in recent years, companies still are dealing with the scenario of human resource downsizing. When a certain company is on the scenario of downsizing of course it is never a good thing for the employees for each and every employee has its initiative to protect the job he/she is holding. The least that these employees can do is to seek another position vacancy for them to cover up the lost job. First of all an employee may hurt and angry after being downsized. Remember that there are some companies who have its resiliency plan to offer some assistance in helping the employee move on.

For this entire scenario I think that the most common advantage that one should acquire is job security. HR downsizing is never an option to the employees but in recent cases many companies are choosing the option of downsizing its employees these days. Everywhere you look big companies are letting go of hundreds of people. In my own opinion I think that amidst the scenario there’s a bit intervention of the innovation of technology why there is downsizing of human resources. Consider this example; years ago you had experience people answer some telephone calls asking your significant queries, now all you get is an answering machine, an automated computer prompting voice in the other end. This is just an instance or maybe one of a million reasons why there appear to have Human Resource downsizing.

However as I review over the internet, I have come to browsed some companies who had undergone massive human resource downsizing. Also, articles discussing the downsizing of the companies.

General Motors (GM)
Website link: http://www.gm.com

Some experts predicted that the company might choose to restructure and eliminate nine factories with 30,000 employees over three years.

Just this April 2009 General Motors has laid off close to 3,400 salaried employee, moving individual employees from their desks and out of the door in a half-hour’s time. May 1 marked the soft deadline for accomplishing the first round of layoffs. It also marked the beginning of a pay cut 3 to 10 percent, depending on a person’s rank for many of the remaining 26,250 salaried workers in the U.S. GM also noted in their statement that it is expected to add manpower reductions among its salaried workforce. The company also said it would trim its hourly workforce by 7,000 more than it had outlined in its first restructuring plan submitted in February 17. These layoffs are being done as part of the cost cutting exercise. In some reports, that the latest reports that GM needs to eliminate about 31,500 hourly and salaried employee as part of the restructuring.

Telecommunication and high technology companies are also facing downsizing these days. Three companies, the Newark Telecommunications and Entertainment Company (IDT), British cable giant NTL Incorporated and AOL one after another, they shutdown their call centers and laid off thousands of employees. The main reason was to cut and move call center jobs to sites in South Africa and India.

MCI Incorporated
Website link:
http://www.mci.com

MCI, Inc. is an American telecommunications subsidiary of Verizon Communications that is headquartered in Ashburn, Virginia. The corporation was originally formed as a result of the merger of WorldCom (formerly known as LDDS followed by LDDS WorldCom). In the year 2004 MCI announced it is cutting 4,000 jobs—cutting pressures and fallout from the national Do-Not-Call registry. The company had announced in January 2004 that it was expecting to reduce overall costs by 15 to 20 percent, but did not mention specifically that jobs would be cut. Company officials said increased use of cell phones; industry competition and effects from the national Do-Not-Call legislation have all contributed to the decline.

Nokia Siemens Networks
Website link: http://nokiasiemensnetwors.com

20 November 2008, Telecommunications solution provider Nokia Siemens Networks said it will slash around 1,800 jobs as part of its restructuring efforts. The company is a 50:50 joint venture of Finish cell phone maker Nokia and German firm Siemens. Nokia Siemens plans to cut about 750 jobs in Finland. It will also close its site in Munich, Germany which will affect nearly 750 jobs in Finland. In addition, the company has planned reduction of headcount by about 50 in Egypt and by 20 in the United States.

The Volvo group
Website link: http://www.volvo.com

20 November 2008, Swedish truck and bus maker Volvo AB has said it will lay off 1,000 staff at its power train unit in Sweden and the United States as the global financial crisis continues to affect the demand for heavy vehicles. The Volvo group has previously announced layoffs of 2,000 workers at their truck plants in Belgium and Sweden and 1,350 workers at its subsidiaries Renault Trucks, Mack Trucks and Nissan Diesel.

Deutsche Post
Website link: http://www.dh-dhl.com

Deutsche Post, Germany’s only universal provider of postal services is part of Deutsche Post DHL, the world’s leading mail and logistics Group. This german logistic giant announced it would slash 9,500 jobs at its DHL US Express business and shut all service centres following the economic downturn. DHL US Express will also close all ground hubs and reduce the number of stations from 412 to 103, said a company statement.

Some other companies in the technology and communication sector also experience the same scenario as experienced by General Motors, MCI Incorporated, Nokia Siemens, The Volvo group and Deutsche Post. Some of these giants in communication sector that undergone workforce reduction includes the following:

1. Lucent
2. Nortel
3. Motorola
4. Xerox
5. Compaq
6. Cisco
7. Dell.

In addition, other companies outside of the high-tech industry that have recently announced their workforce cutbacks, such as the following:

1. Ford
2. Air
3. Canada
4. Bombardier

In times of this economic slowdown and uncertainty, many companies are quick to respond by scaling their operations. Workforce reduction can have both negative and positive consequences for an organization and the economy in general. As noticed in the companies mentioned above, the common thing that serves as the reason why these companies resort to downsizing is that the RESTRUCTURING of the whole business model that associates internet facilities to make transactions faster and easily be managed under less supervision.

There are two circumstances why there appear to have downsizing. 1.) when a company need to increase its profits by generating the same revenue with a smaller number of employees and 2.) when the company faces a situation where workers cannot produce goods profitable at current markets prices. The result of downsizing is the vast loss of intellectual capital that was built for many years, intellectual capital brought by the constant lending of hands by the employees and the supervision of the heads. When layoffs are repeated without a thoughtful and strategic approach it may destroy the company’s effectiveness in holding the job security. News of frequent HR downsizing is much alarming for it will rally destroy the motivation and harm the productivity as employees who are much effected of the downsizing. What makes it alarming also is that when there are massive downsizing it’s not the company that is affected but also the community and the economic status of the country as well. Especially here in the Philippines which unemployment rate is very high the more layoffs would occur the more the economy fails to cover up. Moreover, the scenario is also bad for the organizational structure of the company. After downsizing, the surviving employees will talk about what was happened and furthermore, it will dramatically increase mistrust of management for they know for the fact they will experience same thing as experienced with the laid off workers.

Above all this negative things brought by HR downsizing there is still economic impact on having workforce reduction. Today, regardless of the economic slowdown, consumer spending remains high, indicating that consumers continue to be optimistic.

In terms of the process, dealing with problem on downsizing is the right way to manage your workforce during a recession. One of the key factors to your success will be how you handle the people who work for you- especially if you are considering laying off staff. Here are some of the processes how to handle the scenario of downsizing:

1. Increase communication. Share both what you know and what you don’t know about the economy is affecting your business.
2. Invest in training. Continuing to plan for the future, take advantage of the opportunities. Encourage employees to join trade sessions.
3. Involve your employees in decision-making. Involve your employees in major decisions like layoffs or salary cuts.
4. Staying positive. A good attitude is infectious. Try to maintain a positive outlook and remember to share good news widely.
5. Try to keep the little things. When budgets get tight, the first impulse is to cut everything that seems non-essential.

As mentioned above, that some of the causes of downsizing are as follows:

1. financial losses
2. cash flow difficulties, and;
3. loss of government contracts

As a result of these major causes, massive workforce reduction or downsizing is experienced.

In conducting layoffs it should be planned well to make sure that laying off of employees is in a manner that reflects well on the planner and the company. It comes down into four basic principles:

1. Plan layoffs carefully. Take the time to ensure your layoff plan and your business plans are in synchronized manner.
2. Be prepared. You will make things easier to both for yourself and the people you are laying off if you are well prepared.
3. Know the law. There are also certain rules that apply when laying off groups of individuals, but again, the laws are different depending on the province.
4. Treat people with dignity and respect. Be kind and compassionate. Losing ones job can be humiliating experience, so give people the respect.


References:

http://www.servicecanada.gc.ca/eng/work sharing/index.shtml
http://www.councils.org/resources-and-publications/trends-and-issues-articles/Dealing with downsizing/
http://www.workforce.com/section/00/article/26/39/95.php
http://www.invest-n-trade.blogspot.com/2009/03/gm-general-motors-layoffs-
http://www.allbusiness.com/sales/customer-service/157031-1.html
http://www.commentoanything.blogspot.com/2008 11 01 archive.html


HRM Assignment 1: HR Best Practices of DLPC...

{ Posted on 12:42 AM by Ariel Serenado }
For this assignment we are tasked to visit another local organization or company to ask some related information regarding the Human Resources' Best Practices.

In line with this assignment, with my classmated we visited the Davao Light and Power Company. First let me tackle some information regarding Davao Light and Power Company (DLPC).

Davao Light and Power Company a company based in Davao City, is one of the biggest electric company in the philippines. Being one of the trusted provider in such field, there are best practices in the field of Information Technology and Information System that this company is maintaining. Also, Davao Light & Power Co., Inc. (DLPC) is the third largest electric utility in the Philippines. It was established in 1946 with a franchise area of 3,561 sq. kms. This area covers the whole of Davao City, Panabo City in Davao del Norte and Carmen, Sto. Tomas and Dujali provinces in Davao del Norte.

Furthermore, Davao Light & Power Co., Inc. (DLPC) is the third largest electric tility in the Philippines. It was established in 1946 with a franchise area of 3,561 sq. kms. This area covers the whole of Davao City, Panabo City in Davao del Norte and Carmen, Sto. Tomas and Dujali provinces in Davao del Norte. Also, DLPC saw the need to integrate its data and voice networks so that they will only maintain one communication infrastructure. And the increase in its customer base hastened the need for it to establish a call center where clients can go to and address some of their more common concerns and frequently asked questions. They needed a partner that can provide them with the right solution utilizing much of their existing equipment and at a reasonable cost. Maintaining their communication infrastructure is now easier and cheaper as it integrates both voice and data into one network,preventing duplicate infrastructure and simplifying network management.

Now, the one who entertained us when we were there was Mrs. Jane Lee, Human Resource Supervisor. According to him, he already resigned but the effectivity of the resignation will be on December of this year. Also, she is for consultancy bases. In our interview with her, our concerned was all on the Best Practices of the Human Resource Department of the said company. She asked us to specify further our questions, "in what field?", she added. With that we centered the question on the best practices of HR on the following:

1. Training
2. Career Planning
3. Counselling

And these three things are considered aspects of Human Resource Development. If a firm or a company is healthy in terms on HR, then a company should cover these identified aspects.

TRAINING


According to Ma'am Jane Lee, in the case of DLPC they have the so-called Universal Training Plans (UTP) wherein this UTP comprises the complete list of the succeeding trainings that the company will hold. The trainings that the company is involved are classified into two - In house training and Technical Training. Usually the Technical training are being outsourced, they hired groups and organizations to do the training to the old employees and to newly hired. In the case also of the newly hired ones, before they can have their hands on the offices they are admitted they are required to a rigid 40-hour training both in written and manual aspects. Training is very vital in the company like DLPC for it will help cope up the attitude of the company as competent for future advancement. Good and effecient training is always associated with effective service towards the customer.

The key aspects of training are as follows:

1. Learning and Development
2. Leadership/Management Training and Development
3. Setting training and learning at the right level
4. Training Needs Analysis
5. Blended Training
6. Train the Trainer
7. E-learning and online training
8. Training articles.

Career Planning


Career Planning provide employees with assistance to develop realistic career goals and strategies to realize them. Individulas are best placed to develop their own action plan to achieve a particular career objective. Having a master planner is considered a best practice of DLPC in terms of their Career Planning. This planner ensures that the position being designated to an employee is due to him/her. Also, this planner enures that anyone who has the priviledge to exercise his/her profession in a more effecient level by way of promotions, as long as he/she acquire the necessary requirements.



Counselling

The very first step in any effort to improve employee performance is counselling or coaching. Counselling or work coaching is part of the day-to-day interaction between supervisor and an individual who works in his or her work area. Counselling often provudes positive feedback about employee contributions. At the same time, counselling brings perfromance issues to an employee's attention when they are small, and assists the employee to correct them. The primary goal of counselling is not to make the employee bad, or to show how much the HR professional or supervisor knows. But to work with the employee to solve the performance problems and imptove the work of th employees. \

In case of the DLPC, they don't have the frequent counselling. But they usually launch an annual program which is more likely a counselling session, Ma'am Lee called it MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE which focuses on "Personal Image Enhancement Program", wherein they adopted the KAIBIGAN TEAM BUILDING PROGRAM to work hand-in-hand with the HRM department to do some counselling to the employees. They also have some recreational activities as part of the counselling which goal is to improve the socialization of the employees. Also, to enhance labor relations.


How does the company ensire that its employees receive adequate formal on-the-job training to perform their duties effectively?

To ensure that the customer receive adequate services, aside form surveying by way of giving evaluation sheets they secure an alternate source of ensuring the services. They called it "Customer Satisfactory Surveying", wherein inside and outside the office they designate team of evaluators to keep an eye on the employees as to the implementations of the "Protocol" and the rest of the SOPs or Standard Operating Procedures. They way the company ensures the services is subjective which is good. They don't stick to one source but they consider some points to have a better view on the projection of the services within the office. Also, by this way of ensuring the services the company provides a better cunstomer-employee relations which a healthy company must achieve.