Diffraction and Interference Essay Example for Free

Diffraction and Interference Essay Purpose: The aim of doing this experiment was to examine diffraction and interference effects of light passing through various apertures, and use the diffraction patterns obtained by single and double slit apertures to find the wavelength of the light source used. Theory: We know that light can be described by two theories, namely the particle theory and the wave theory of light, each having its own experimental proofs. In this experiment, we examine the interference and diffraction phenomena of light, both of which can be described by the wave theory of light. While interference is just the superposition of waves, diffraction is also any deviation from geometrical optics that results from the obstruction of a wavefront of light. In other words, diffraction is considering the double-slit experiment by taking into account the width of the slit openings, too. Another way of distinguishing between interference and diffraction is to consider the interfering beams in diffraction phenomena as originating from a continuous distribution of sources, whereas the interfering beams in interference phenomena as originating from a discrete number of sources. This way of treatment of interference and diffraction is a result of Huygens’ principle which states that every point of a given wavefront of light can be considered a source of secondary spherical wavelets. Hence, superposition occurs between these secondary waves emitted from different parts of the wavefront, taking into account both their amplitudes and phases. Diffraction effects can also be classified according to the mathematical approximations used in calculations. In the case of the light source and the observation screen being very far from the slit, relative to the slit width, the incident and diffracted waves are assumed to be plane and the diffraction type is called Fraunhofer, or far-field diffraction. In this case, as the viewing screen is moved relative to the aperture, the size of the diffraction pattern changes, but not the shape. We are going to use this kind of approximation in this experiment. We should keep in mind that the Huygens’ principle used to find the diffraction relations is itself an approximation. When calculating the single-slit Fraunhofer diffraction a rectangular aperture with a length much larger than its width is considered. In this case the intensity of the light reaching the screen at point P, at an angle ÃŽ ¸ is given by: Is=I0(sin2ÃŽ ±ÃŽ ±2) where ÃŽ ±=12kasinÃŽ ¸=Ï€asinÃŽ ¸ÃŽ » In the above relations I0 is the intensity at the middle of the central maxima and a is the slit width. Hence, by taking the limit as ï„Æ'→0, we observe that this pattern attains its maximum at ÃŽ ¸=0. Similarly, equating ï„Æ'=mÏ€, we obtain the minima of the pattern and we get the following relation for this case: nÃŽ »=asinÃŽ ¸ where n=1,2,3,†¦ For small angles we can make the sinÃŽ ¸=tanÃŽ ¸ approximation and, calling L the distance between the slit and the screen, we can get y=LsinÃŽ ¸, where y is the distance from the central maximum to the observation point. For this case, we conclude that on the screen, the irradiance is a maximum at ÃŽ ¸=0, hence y=0, and it drops to zero at values of y such that y=ÃŽ »La . Therefore, we can find ÃŽ » using this relation. (Here, y is the average distance between adjacent minima). When we regard the double-slit diffraction we see that we have to do with two different terms, one of which belongs to the interference pattern, and the other to the diffraction pattern. If we ignore the effect of the slit widths, we get the intensity of the pattern given by only the interference term as I=4I0cos2ÃŽ ², where ÃŽ ²=(Ï€bÃŽ »)sinÃŽ ¸. Here, ÃŽ ¸ is the angle of observation and b is the slit separation. Nevertheless, since the intensity from a single slit depends on the angle ÃŽ ¸ through diffraction, we should take into account the diffraction pattern, too. Now, the intensity is given by: I=4I0(sin2ÃŽ ±ÃŽ ±2)cos2ÃŽ ² In this case ï„Æ' is again ÃŽ ±=12kasinÃŽ ¸=Ï€asinÃŽ ¸ÃŽ ». Hence, we conclude that in double slit diffraction the intensity is the product of the interference and diffraction patterns. By analyzing the intensity relation, we observe that an interference minimum occurs whenever ÃŽ ²=(n+1/2)Ï€ for n=0,1,2,3,†¦, and an interference maxima occurs whenever ÃŽ ²=nÏ€, again for n=0,1,2,†¦ Using the approximation sinÃŽ ¸=tanÃŽ ¸, we obtain y=LsinÃŽ ¸, and y=ÃŽ »Lb, where y is the average distance between either adjacent maxima or minima. Data and Results: Part A: Single Slit Pattern| A| B| C| Width of the slit, a| 410-5m| 810-5m| 1610-5m| Distance slit-screen, L| 1m| 1m| 1m| Average dist btw minima, y| 1.67 cm| 0.75 cm| 0.45 cm| ÃŽ »=ay/L| 668 nm| 600 nm| 720 nm| Error ∆y on y| 0.08173 cm| 0.138 cm| 0.0548 cm| Error ∆Î » on ÃŽ »=a∆y/L| 32.7 nm| 110 nm| 87.7 nm| ÃŽ »=ÃŽ »Ã‚ ±Ã¢Ë†â€ ÃŽ »| 635.5 nm| 710 nm| 632.3 nm| | y1| y2| y3| y4| y5| y6| A| 1.8| 1.6| 1.7| 1.7| 1.6| 1.6| B| 0.5| 0.8| 0.8| 0.8| 0.9| 0.7| C| 0.5| 0.5| 0.5| 0.4| 0.4| 0.4| The error on y is found using the relation below: ∆y=i=1N(yi-y)N-1 Part B: Double Slit Pattern| D| E| F| Width of the slit, a| 810-5m| 810-5m| 410-5m| Slit separation, b| 510-4m| 2.510-4m| 2.510-4m| Distance slit-screen, L| 1m| 1m| 1m| Average dist btw minima, y| 0.00160 m| 0.00300 m| 0.00155 m| ÃŽ »=by/L| 800 nm| 750 nm| 387.5 nm| Error ∆y on y| 0.000342m| 0.000524m| 0.000342m| Error ∆Î » on ÃŽ »=b∆y/L| 171 nm| 131 nm| 85.5 nm| ÃŽ »=ÃŽ »Ã‚ ±Ã¢Ë†â€ ÃŽ »| 629 nm| 619 nm| 473 nm| y| D| E| F| 1| 0.138| 0.110| 0.053| 2| 0.141| 0.106| 0.051| 3| 0.143| 0.101| 0.048| 4| 0.146| 0.095| 0.045| 5| 0.148| 0.090| 0.043| 6| 0.151| 0.086| 0.040| 7| 0.154| | 0.038| 8| 0.156| | 0.035| 9| | | 0.033| We calculated the difference between each successive data to obtain the displacement. Then, we multiplied each displacement value with a factor of (21.5/34.5) because the scale of the linear translator and the interface were not equal. Having done this we calculated the average distance. The error on y is found again by using the relation ∆y=i=1N(yi-y)N-1 Discussion and Conclusion: In part A we considered interference and diffraction pattern of a single slit opening for three different slits. We measured the distance between the source and the slit to be 1m and we used the relations found in the theory part in order to find the wavelength of the light source used. We found the average distance between minima to be 1.67 cm for slit A, 0.75 cm for slit B and 0.45 cm for slit C. Hence, we found the wavelength of the light source to have values of 668 nm for slit A, 600nm for slit B and 720nm for slit C. However, after calculating the error in the average distance and using this error, the wavelengths turned out to be 635.5nm for slit A, 710nm for slit B and 632.3nm for slit C. We know that theoretically the wavelength is expected to be 650 ±10nm. Our experimental values, despite the fact they are close to, do not fit totally to the expected theoretical ones. Hence, we argue that any discrepancy in the values found is a result of the imprecise equipment used, especially the light sensor. Furthermore, we claim that these discrepancies are also a result of the fact that we had to move the linear translator with our hand slowly enough so that the detector could detect the intensity peak and the other maxima. Hence, it is very much likely that we could not carry this process out precisely enough as it is required in order to have correct data, since we are human beings and it is impossible for us to achieve such a thing. We also think that the light coming from the surrounding might have had a negative effect on our results since the room where the experiment was carried out was not evacuated well enough. Moreover, we point out that the relations between wavelength, distance between minima and slit width used to find the wavelength and the Huygens’ principle itself are all approximations, since as it was stated in the theory part, we u sed far field mathematical approximations in order to obtain these relations. In part B, we used a double slit opening in order to observe the interference and diffraction pattern. In this case both the slit width and the slit separation have an effect when finding the intensity at a certain point. However, in the relations used to find the wavelength we considered only the slit separation b. In this part, after calculating the error in displacement and using this in ÃŽ », we found the wavelength values to be of 629nm for slit D, 619nm for slit E and 473nm for slit F. We observe that, except for slit F, these values of ÃŽ » agree with the values found in part A. We claim that the discrepancies in this part are a result of the same reasons causing the discrepancies in part A. As for the case of slit F where ÃŽ » turned out to be 473nm (much smaller than the theoretical value) we think that the main reason for such a result is the change in width of the slit, which in this case, unlike the other two cases, is 0.04mm. This leads us to conclude that, as expected t heoretically, the width of the slit also affects the intensity pattern, and in these cases more precise relations should be used in order to obtain correct data. Applications: Interference and diffraction phenomena of light have found a quite large application in science and technology. Understanding these phenomena has led to understanding the world around us and being able to use it in a better way in order to fulfill our needs. Among the most important applications of diffraction for example, is the fact that it is used to obtain accurate information about the atomic scale structure of the matter around us. Since the number of atoms or molecules inside a crystal is arranged in such a way that it resembles a grating with very thin spacing, diffraction phenomena leads to understanding the insights of each crystal structure. Diffraction phenomena was also used to learn that the sodium and chloride ions are bonded in a lattice fashion and not molecules, to distinguish between different cubic lattice, to analyze all kinds of materials, even biological samples, etc. Using diffraction interesting things such as hair thickness can also be measured .The interference phenomenon, on the other hand, is used to make highly-wavelength specific mirrors for lasers. Furthermore, interference is the reason why soap bubbles appear colorful. Many other optical coatings owe their optical properties to the interference phenomena. An example of this is the antireflection coatings on lenses that we use everyday. Another application of interference is holography, which is a way of reconstructing three dimensional images with laser light. Perhaps the most fascinating application of interference is to create holograms. This is done by reflecting a coherent light source, such as a laser, off of an object onto a special film. The interference patterns created by the reflected light are what result in the holographic image, which can be viewed when it is again placed in the right sort of lighting. Moreover, diffraction and interference can be observed when an atom passes through a standard light wave and its position is localized. In this case, the localization can be thought of as the creation of virtual slits leading to the above mentioned phenomena. Diffraction is also used to understand the insights of the ionosphere. All in all, by doing this experiment we learned the importance of the phenomenon of interference and diffraction in our lives. References: http://online.physics.uiuc.edu/courses/phys214/spring09/Lectures/Lect04.pdf http://bigbro.biophys.cornell.edu/~toombes/Science_Education/Laser_Diffraction/Diffraction_Lesson.pdf http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080509124425AAyW8bl http://physics.about.com/od/mathematicsofwaves/a/interference.htm URL: http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.68.472

Employee Motivation Levels in Hospitality Industry

Employee Motivation Levels in Hospitality Industry INTRODUCTION The most important intangible product in service industry is the employee itself. Losses caused due to replacing them adds up to the economic s. One of the important tools of employee management ‘Motivation has been missing out of ‘TO DO list from the organisation directors. They seems to believe that since there are less jobs outside available due to recession in todays job market, employee would not leave and we are in favour to keep them. Fewer turnovers experienced from employee side but what about the productivity of employee. Can that be tackled by forcing the employee to do whatever as the contract always says, ‘duties could vary according to business requirements, or disciplinary follow? Organizations become better places to work through improving leadership skills and corporate culture change. Businesses working on a network of hierarchies imagine a business like a triple-decker bus, the directors of the business are on the top deck, the managers are on the middle deck and the employees are on the lower deck. As the bus runs on its normal day to day business, down the normal streets picking up normal day to day people. What is happening is that the bus should be stopping at various bus stops in order to recruit new employees and managers, so that they can come on the bus and of course obviously let the team members off the bus if they decide to leave. The directors would begin to become conscious that the number of employees leaving the bus is increasing and they are not really quite sure why? So they decide what they should do is to commission an employee survey. Now the cost of the employee turnover is obviously something that is an issue or can be an issue for va rious businesses. All organizations heavily invest in the human resource department. The cost of interviewing, hiring, training, developing, maintaining and retaining employees are very high. Therefore, managers at all costs must minimize employees dissatisfaction and take every step possible to reduce it. Although, there is no standard framework for understanding the employees turnover process as whole, a wide range of factors have been found useful in interpreting employee turnover (Kevin, 2004). Therefore, there is need to develop a fuller understanding of the employee turnover, more especially, the sources. What determines employee turnover, affects and strategies that managers can put in place to minimize turnover. During this weakened economic condition and heightening competition, organizations must continue to develop tangible products and provide services which are based on strategies created by employees. These employees are extremely crucial to the organization since their value to the orga nization is essentially intangible and not easily replicated. Therefore, senior managers must recognize that employees are major contributors to the efficient achievement of the organizations success (Abbasi, 2000). Managers should control employee turnover for the benefit of the organizations success. AIM Critically analyse employee motivation level in hospitality industry with a particular focus on operations management. OBJECTIVE 1. To investigate the need of motivation in hospitality industry 2. To examine the damage caused with de-motivation 3. To critically access alternatives in reducing employee turnover 4. To provide strategic evaluation for motivating operations management whilst smooth running of the business RATIONALE Several businesses now days are easily slipping into administration; it is not only several job loses but also a huge loss of efforts made by operating team to bring the business to a certain stage to employ that many employees. Truly speaking, businesses are not built solely to provide jobs and the best comfortable environment for people within the community. They are out there to make money and progress which could be any industry. The purpose of this dissertation is to focus on hospitality industry, where we need to find the root of employee turnover. It is easy for a staff at lower level to move in and out of an organisation in relation to the operating management team. What causes that to happen at first place? Do line managers not see the importance of increasing motivation during difficult times? Are management in need of motivation themselves? Are they much more worried about there own survival? So if the upper management team is satisfied, they would certainly be in a positi on to furnish their head of departments easily. Global economic condition is struggling and has to face continues challenges with competitions growing. It cannot be right for a profit organisation to just vanish with small bumps of recession. Of course, both employee and business are affected with these downfalls. A need has aroused to look into this matter because as its a fact that turnover has always been one of the high business expenses, thus at the time of recession as the economic conditions are not stable, businesses should do something to beat this cost in hand. Motivation is the cure that spurns employees eagerness to work without pressure. To say that nobody can motivate a team employee at work is like saying there are no influential leaders, there are no effective managers, there are no motivational speakers, the psychologists in sports management teams are useless and that motivation is not achievable. Motivation has been used by effective managers to prompt ordinary people to achieve uncommon results in all fields of endeavours. LITERATURE REVIEW Vast amount of literature is available in how to motivate your employee, and it would be applicable in the real world around. Simple definition of Motivation by Lindner, J. R. (1998) can be as â€Å"the inner force that drives individuals to accomplish personal and organizational goals.† Understanding what motivated employees and how they were motivated was the focus of many researchers following the publication of the Hawthorne Study results (Terpstra, 1979). Five major approaches that have led to the understanding of motivation are Maslows need-hierarchy theory, Herzbergs two- factor theory, Vrooms expectancy theory, Adams equity theory, and Skinners reinforcement theory. According to Maslow, employees have five levels of needs (Maslow, 1943): physiological, safety, social, ego, and self- actualizing. Maslow argued that lower level needs had to be satisfied before the next higher level need would motivate employees. Herzbergs work categorized motivation into two factors: motivators and hygienes (Herzberg, Mausner, Snyderman, 1959). Motivator or intrinsic factors, such as achievement and recognition, produce job satisfaction. Hygiene or extrinsic factors, such as pay and job security, produce job dissatisfaction. Vrooms theory is based on the belief that employee effort will lead to performance and performance will lead to rewards (Vroom, 1964). Rewards may be either positive or negative. The more positive the reward the more likely the employee will be highly motivated. Conversely, the more negative the reward the less likely the employee will be motivated. Adams theory states that employees strive for equity between themselves and other workers. Equ ity is achieved when the ratio of employee outcomes over inputs is equal to other employee outcomes over inputs (Adams, 1965). Skinners theory simply states those employees behaviours that lead to positive outcomes will be repeated and behaviours that lead to negative outcomes will not be repeated (Skinner, 1953). Managers should positively reinforce employee behaviours that lead to positive outcomes. Managers should negatively reinforce employee behaviour that leads to negative outcomes. Motivation defined by some of the authors is the psychological process that gives behaviour purpose and direction (Kreitner, 1995); a predisposition to behave in a purposive manner to achieve specific, unmet needs (Buford, Bedeian, Lindner, 1995); an internal drive to satisfy an unsatisfied need (Higgins, 1994); and the will to achieve (Bedeian, 1993); and also more. Employee turnover is the rotation of workers around the labour market; between firms, jobs and occupations; and between the states of employment and unemployment (Abassi et al. 2000). Whereas the term â€Å"turnover† defined by (Price (1977) as: the ratio of the number of organizational members who have left during the period being considered divided by the average number of people in that organization during the period. Frequently, managers refer to turnover as the entire process associated with filling a vacancy: Each time a position is vacated, either voluntarily or involuntarily, a new employee must be hired and trained. This replacement cycle is known as turnover (Woods, 1995). This term is also often utilized in efforts to measure relationships of employees in an organization as they leave, regardless of reason. â€Å"Unfolding model† of voluntary turnover represents a divergence from traditional thinking (Hom and (Griffeth, 1995) by focusing more on the decisiona l aspect of employee turnover, in other words, showing instances of voluntary turnover as decisions to quit. Indeed, the model is based on a theory of decision making, image theory (Beach, 1990). The image theory describes the process of how individuals process information during decision making. The underlying premise of the model is that people leave organizations after they have analyzed the reasons for quitting. (Beach, 1990) argues that individuals seldom have the cognitive resources to systematically evaluate all incoming information, so individuals instead, simply and quickly compare incoming information to more heuristic type of decision making alternatives or a more rule of thumb type of decision making. Most researchers (Bluedorn, 1982; Kalliath and Beck, 2001; Kramer, 1995; Peters., 1981; Saks, 1996) have attempted to answer the question of what determines peoples intention to quit by investigating possible antecedents of employees intentions to quit. To date, there has been little consistency in findings, which is partly due to the diversity of employees included by the researchers and the lack of consistency in their findings. Therefore, there are several reasons why people quit from one organization to another or why people leave organization. The experience of job related stress (job stress), the range factors that lead to job related stress (Stressors), lack of commitment in the organization; and job dissatisfaction results in employees deciding to quit (Firth et al. 2004). This evidently indicates that these are individual decisions that cause employees to quit their jobs. They are other factors like personal agency refers to concepts such as a sense of powerlessness, locus o f control and personal control. Locus control refers to the extent to which people believe that the external factors such as chance and other powerful people are in control of the events which influence their lives Firth et al. (2004). (Manu (2004) argue that employees quit from organization due economic reasons. Using economic model they showed that people quit from organization due to economic reasons and these can be used to predict the labour turnover in the market. Good local labour market conditions improve organizational stability (Schervish, 1983). Large organizations can provide employees with better chances for progression and higher wages and hence ensure loyalty towards the organization (Idson and Feaster 1990). Trevor (2001) argues that local unemployment rates interact with job satisfaction to predict turnover in the market. Role stressors also lead to employees turnover. Role ambiguity refers to the difference between what people expect of us on the job and what we fe el we should do. This uncertainty is usually caused due to inadequate and blurred communication, As a result, it causes uncertainty about what our role should be. It can be a result of misunderstanding what is expected, how to meet the expectations, or the employee thinking the job should be different (Kahn et al. Muchinsky, 1990). Insufficient information on how to perform the job adequately, unclear expectations of peers and supervisors, ambiguity of performance evaluation methods, extensive job pressures, and lack of consensus on job functions or duties may cause employees to feel less involved and less satisfied with their jobs and careers, less committed to their organizations, and eventually display a propensity to leave the organization. If roles of employees are not clearly spelled out by management and supervisors, it would accelerate the degree of employees quitting their jobs due to lack of role clarity. And that is what happens at the lower level of the Bus organisation. Voluntarily vs. involuntary turnover There are some factors that are, in part, beyond the control of management, such as the unforeseen event of death of an employee or incapacity of a member of staff. Other factors have been classed as involuntary turnover in the past such as the need to provide care for children or aged relatives. Today such factors should not be seen as involuntary turnover as both government regulation and company policies create the chance for such staff to come back to work, or to continue to work on a more flexible basis (Simon, 2007). Organizational factors Organizational instability is one of the leading factors of a high degree of employee turnover. Indications are that employees are more likely to stay when there is a predictable work environment and vice versa (Zuber, 2001). Moreover, In organizations where there was a high level of inefficiency there was also a high level of staff turnover (Alexander 1994). Therefore, in situations where organizations are not stable employees tend to quit and look for stable organizations because stable organizations enable the employees to predict their career advancement. The imposition of a quantitative approach to managing the employees led to disenchantment of staff and hence it leads to labour turnover. Therefore senior management should not use quantitative approach in managing its employees. Adopting a cost oriented approach to employment costs increases labour turnover (Simon, 2007). All these approaches should be avoided if managers want to minimize employee turnover an increase organizational competitiveness in this environment of economic downturn. Employees have a strong need to be informed. Organization with strong communication systems enjoyed lower turnover of staff (Labov, 1997). Employees feel comfortable to stay longer, in positions where they are involved in some level of the decision-making process. That is employees should fully understand about issues that affect their working atmosphere (Magner, 1996). But in the absence of sharing information, employee empowerment the chances of continuity of employees are minimal. (Costly, 1987) points out that a high labour turnover may mean poor personnel policies, poor recruitment policies, poor supervisory practices, poor grievance procedures, or lack of motivation. All these factors contribute to high employee turnover in the sense that there is no proper management practices and policies on personnel matter s hence employees are not recruited scientifically, promotions of employees are not based on spelled out policies, no grievance procedures are in place and thus employees decides to quit. (Griffeth, 2000) noted that pay and pay-related variables have a modest effect on turnover. Their analysis also included studies that examined the relationship between pay, a persons performance and turnover. They concluded that when high performers are insufficiently rewarded, they quit. If jobs provide adequate financial incentives the more likely employees remain with organization and vice versa. There are also other factors which make employees to quit from organizations and these are poor hiring practices, managerial style and lack of recognition, lack of competitive compensation system in the organization (Abassi, 2000). Effects of employee turnover Employee turnover could be very expensive from the organizations point of view, and affects could be more during the hard-hitting period of recession. There are mainly two factors that effect employee turnover. Voluntary quits which represents a mass departure of human capital investment from organizations and the following replacement process entails manifold costs to the organizations (Fair, 1992). The replacement costs would include, search of the external labour market for a possible substitute, selection between competing substitutes, induction of the chosen substitute, and formal and informal training of the substitute until he or she attains performance levels equivalent to the individual who quit (John, 2000). In addition to these replacement costs, output would be affected to some extend or output would be maintained at the cost of overtime payment. The reason so much attention has been paid to the issue of turnover is because turnover has very significant effects on organiz ations (DeMicco and Giridharan, 1987; Dyke and Strick, 1990; Cantrell and Saranakhsh, 1991; Denvir and Mcmahon, 1992).Many researchers argue that high turnover rates might have negative effects on the profitability of organizations if not managed properly. Moreover, turnover can play a key role in de-motivating employees, resulting in low productivity, inefficient output and therefore loss. Turnover has many hidden or invisible costs (Philips, 1990) and these invisible costs are result of incoming employees, co-workers closely associated with incoming employees, co-workers closely associated with departing employees and position being filled while vacant. And all these affect the profitability of the organization. On the other hand turnover also affects customer service and satisfaction (Kemal, 2002).Catherine (2002) argue that turnover include other costs, such as lost productivity, lost sales, and managements time, estimate the turnover costs of an hourly employee to be US $3,000 to $10,000 each. This clearly demonstrates that turnover affects the profitability of the organization and if its not managed properly it would have the negative effect on the profit. Research estimates indicate that hiring and training a replacement worker for a lost employee costs approximately 50 percent of the workers annual salary (Johnson, 2000) but the costs do not break off there. Eac h time an employee leaves the firm, we presume that productivity drops due to the learning curve involved in understanding the job and the organization. Furthermore, the loss of intellectual capital adds to this cost, since not only do organizations lose the human capital and relational capital of the departing employee, but also competitors are potentially gaining these assets (Meaghan, 2002). Therefore, if employee turnover is not managed properly it would affect the organization adversely in terms of personnel costs and in the long run it would affect its liquidity position. However, voluntary turnover incurs significant cost, both in terms of direct costs (replacement, recruitment and selection, temporary staff, management time), and also and perhaps more significantly in terms of indirect costs (morale, pressure on remaining staff, costs of learning, product/service quality, and the loss of social capital (Dess, 2001). Cost of turnover One simple method to calculate the turnover rate of any business is to divide the number of employees who have left the organization within a year, by the total number of employees who work for that company in the same year. Lets say there were 100 employees at the beginning of the year, and 100 employees at the end of the year, and at the end of the year, 84 of those employees were the same ones as were there the previous year. You might say that the turnover rate was 16%. = 16% But suppose one of those 16 who left was actually replaced three times. The employee quit in January, the replacement quit in April, and another person was hired who lasted only until November. Then you might want to count every time an employee left the company and another one was hired in this case youd get 18%. Another complication: suppose the work force is 100 at the beginning and 90 at the end of the year. Perhaps 16 people have left, but only 6 have been hired during the year, while 2 more were hired and retired within the same year. You might define turnover as 18/100 or as 18/90, or as 18/95, since 95 is the average of 90 and 100. Instead of 95, you might want to do a fancier average, where you actually add up the number of employees on each day of the year, and divide the total by 365. Strategies to minimize employee turnover Strategies on how to minimize employee turnover, confronted with problems of employee turnover, management has several policy options like changing (or improving existing) policies towards recruitment, selection, induction, training, job design and wage payment. Policy choice, however, must be appropriate to the precise diagnosis of the problem. Employee turnover attributable to poor selection procedures, for example, is unlikely to improve were the policy modification to focus exclusively on the induction process. Equally, employee turnover attributable to wage rates which produce earnings that are not competitive with other firms in the local labour market is unlikely to decrease were the policy adjustment merely to enhance the organizations provision of on-the job training opportunities. Given that there is increase in direct and indirect costs of labour turnover, therefore, management are frequently exhorted to identify the reasons why people leave organizations so that appropria te action is taken by the management. Hence, accurate analysis of the cause of turnover is vital to implement the necessary strategy. Extensive research has shown that the following categories of human capital management factors provides a core set of measures that senior management can use to increase the effectiveness of their investment in people and improve overall corporate performance of business: Employee engagement, the organizations capacity to engage, retain, and optimize the value of its employees hinges on how well jobs are designed, how employees time is used, and the commitment and support that is shown to employees by the management would motivate employees to stay in organizations. Knowledge accessibility, the extent of the organizations collaboration and its capacity for making knowledge and ideas widely available to employees, would motivate employees to stay in the organization. Sharing of information should be made at all levels of management. This accessibility of information would lead to strong performance from the employees and creating strong corporate culture (Meaghan, 2002). Therefore; in formation accessibility would make employees feel that they are appreciated for their effort and chances of leaving the organization are minimal. Workforce optimization, the organizations success in optimizing the performance of the employees by establishing essential processes for getting work done, providing good working conditions, establishing accountability and making good hiring choices would retain employees in their organization. The importance of gaining better understanding of the factors related to recruitment, motivation and retention of employees is further underscored by rising personnel costs and high rates of employee turnover (Badawy, 1988; Basta and Johnson, 1989; Garden, 1989; Parden, 1981; Sherman, 1986). With increased competitiveness during recession, managers in many organizations are experiencing greater pressure from top management to improve recruitment, selection, training, and retention of good employees and in the long run would encourage employees to st ay in organizations. Job involvement describes an individuals ego involvement with work and indicates the extent to which an individual identifies psychologically with his/her job (Kanungo, 1982). Involvement in terms of internalizing values about the goodness or the importance of work motivated employees not to quit their jobs and these involvements are related to task characteristics. Workers who have a greater variety of tasks tend to stay with the job. Task characteristics have been found to be potential determinants of turnover among employees (Couger, 1988; Couger and Kawasaki, 1980; Garden, 1989; Goldstein and Rockart, 1984). These include the five core job characteristics identified by (Hackman and Oldham (1975, 1980): skill variety, which refers to the opportunity to utilize a variety of valued skills and talents on the job; task identity, or the extent to which a job requires completion of a whole and identifiable piece of work that is, doing a job from beginning to end, with visible results; task significance, which reflects the extent to which the job has a substantial impact on the lives or work of other people, whether within or outside the organization; job autonomy, or the extent to which the job provides freedom, independence, and discretion in scheduling work and determining procedures that the job provides; and job feedback, which refers to the extent to which the job provides information about the effectiveness of ones performance (Tor, 1997). Involvement would influence job satisfaction and increase organizational commitment of the employees. Employees who are more involved in their jobs are more satisfied with their jobs and more committed to their organization (Blau and Boal, 1989; Brooke and Price, 1989; Brooke et al., 1988; Kanungo, 1982). Job involvement has also been found to be negatively related to turnover intentions (Blat and Boal, 1989). Job satisfaction, career satisfaction, and organizational commitment reflect a positive attitude towards the organization, thus having a direct influence on employee turnover intentions. Job satisfaction, job involvement and organizational commitment are considered to be related but distinguishable attitudes (Brooke and Price, 1989). Satisfaction represents an effective response to specific aspects of the job or career and denotes the pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from an appraisal of ones job or career (Locke, 1976; Porter, 1974; Williams and Hazer, 1986).Organizational commitment is an effective response to the whole organization and the degree of attachme nt or loyalty employees feel towards the organization. Job involvement represents the extent to which employees are absorbed in or preoccupied with their jobs and the extent to which an individual identifies with his/her job (Brooke, 1988).The degree of commitment and loyalty can be achieved if management they enrich the jobs, empower and compensate employees properly. Empowerment of employees could help to enhance the continuity of employees in organizations. Empowered employees where managers supervise more people than in a traditional hierarchy and delegate more decisions to their subordinates (Malone, 1997). Managers act like coaches and help employees solve problems. Employees, he concludes, have increased responsibility. Superiors empowering subordinates by delegating responsibilities to them leads to subordinates who are more satisfied with their leaders and consider them to be fair and in turn to perform up to the superiors expectations (Keller and Dansereau, 1995). All thes e factors ensure employees commitment towards the organization and chances of quitting are minimal. Strategic guidelines for motivating staff whilst smooth running of the business When the economy is on a slippery slope and when spirits are down, how do managers pick themselves and others up, so that they can meet the ongoing challenges? Hotels still have to operate, and services still need to be provided by employees who are working harder than ever before just so that their organization can survive. Therefore companies need to have some strategic policies to deal with employee motivation during hard times. Lend a listening ear Now, more than ever before, the manager needs to listen to what employees are saying, not only to what may seem to be the surface issues, but also to the underlying issues. Roxanne Emmerich, President of The Emmerich Group, stated in an article for the Indiana Bankers Association that, â€Å"Guilt, fear, paranoia—as well as a few other destructive emotions—can freeze peoples performance during tough times. The natural response is for a leader to click his or her heels with the hopes of ending up in Kansas. Denial is the natural response when things get tough, but many leaders never move beyond that. The thought of talking about feelings openly sends shivers down the spines of many managers, and ignoring these emotions only causes greater challenges.† In the November 7, 2008, issue of The Wall Street Journal, Jim Harter co-author of â€Å"72; The Elements of Great Managing† and a researcher with Gallup, stated in an interview about motivation that, â€Å"O rganizations have to put more attention into it. They have to communicate more.† Hence if we wish to motivate the staff during tough times, managers need to communicate more, not less. Be an advocate rather than an adversary Brian Mclvor, author of â€Å"Career Detection: Funding and Managing Your Career† stated in an interview published in the The Irish Times, on February 9, 2009, â€Å"You need to be honest and realistic with people organizations are changing all bets are off.† However, while discussions with employees may have to be framed against that background, news doesnt have to be all gloom and doom. Managers need to be advocates for their organizations and realistic about opportunities within the organization. The manager should be an advocate for the future rather than an adversary against the future, which can be an un-stabilizing influence in the organization. Emmerich states, â€Å"Lead your people to the understanding that even during the darkest of times, many do well, and you intend to be one of those. Your team needs to shift out of their doomsday story and into one of possibilities. When people say We cant because, the broken record response needs to be, Well, how CAN we ?â€Å" Therefore, be an advocate for the vision rather than an adversary against the vision. Look for the silver lining In the February 27, 2009 issue of Business Week, there is an interesting article by Patricia OConnell. The article discusses a first look at a recent Accenture survey that reveals that women and men feel they have more to offer their employers. OConnell states, â€Å"Managers looking for an edge amid a dismal economy, likely hiring freezes, and even staff cuts may have a hidden resource—their own underutilized staff. According to a winter 2008 Accenture survey, 46 percent of women and 49 percent of men worldwide believe they are insufficiently challenged in their jobs.† This affords unique opportunities to organizations that will reap possible benefits for employees as well as employers. This may be a time to review the opportunities and challenges of an organization and how the skill sets of individual employees may be used to enrich jobs and the workplace. Armelle Carminati, Managing Director of Human Capital and Diversity at Accenture, stated, â€Å"Companies should shy away from the one size- fits-all approach with workers The art of tailoring a career offering is the new space where employers have to go and will be the key to both employees and employers success.† As time gets tighter and the work force slimmer, this presents a unique opportunity for employers and employees to sit down as a team and evaluate the possibilities for the future. It is amazing the skill sets and aptitudes that may be uncovered when people are challenged to rise to the occasion. When things go downhill, up-skill â€Å"Up-skill† is a term used in The Irish Times article cited earlier that basically encourages coordinated training during tight economic times. For companies to survive and for employees to retain their jobs, it Employee Motivation Levels in Hospitality Industry Employee Motivation Levels in Hospitality Industry INTRODUCTION The most important intangible product in service industry is the employee itself. Losses caused due to replacing them adds up to the economic s. One of the important tools of employee management ‘Motivation has been missing out of ‘TO DO list from the organisation directors. They seems to believe that since there are less jobs outside available due to recession in todays job market, employee would not leave and we are in favour to keep them. Fewer turnovers experienced from employee side but what about the productivity of employee. Can that be tackled by forcing the employee to do whatever as the contract always says, ‘duties could vary according to business requirements, or disciplinary follow? Organizations become better places to work through improving leadership skills and corporate culture change. Businesses working on a network of hierarchies imagine a business like a triple-decker bus, the directors of the business are on the top deck, the managers are on the middle deck and the employees are on the lower deck. As the bus runs on its normal day to day business, down the normal streets picking up normal day to day people. What is happening is that the bus should be stopping at various bus stops in order to recruit new employees and managers, so that they can come on the bus and of course obviously let the team members off the bus if they decide to leave. The directors would begin to become conscious that the number of employees leaving the bus is increasing and they are not really quite sure why? So they decide what they should do is to commission an employee survey. Now the cost of the employee turnover is obviously something that is an issue or can be an issue for va rious businesses. All organizations heavily invest in the human resource department. The cost of interviewing, hiring, training, developing, maintaining and retaining employees are very high. Therefore, managers at all costs must minimize employees dissatisfaction and take every step possible to reduce it. Although, there is no standard framework for understanding the employees turnover process as whole, a wide range of factors have been found useful in interpreting employee turnover (Kevin, 2004). Therefore, there is need to develop a fuller understanding of the employee turnover, more especially, the sources. What determines employee turnover, affects and strategies that managers can put in place to minimize turnover. During this weakened economic condition and heightening competition, organizations must continue to develop tangible products and provide services which are based on strategies created by employees. These employees are extremely crucial to the organization since their value to the orga nization is essentially intangible and not easily replicated. Therefore, senior managers must recognize that employees are major contributors to the efficient achievement of the organizations success (Abbasi, 2000). Managers should control employee turnover for the benefit of the organizations success. AIM Critically analyse employee motivation level in hospitality industry with a particular focus on operations management. OBJECTIVE 1. To investigate the need of motivation in hospitality industry 2. To examine the damage caused with de-motivation 3. To critically access alternatives in reducing employee turnover 4. To provide strategic evaluation for motivating operations management whilst smooth running of the business RATIONALE Several businesses now days are easily slipping into administration; it is not only several job loses but also a huge loss of efforts made by operating team to bring the business to a certain stage to employ that many employees. Truly speaking, businesses are not built solely to provide jobs and the best comfortable environment for people within the community. They are out there to make money and progress which could be any industry. The purpose of this dissertation is to focus on hospitality industry, where we need to find the root of employee turnover. It is easy for a staff at lower level to move in and out of an organisation in relation to the operating management team. What causes that to happen at first place? Do line managers not see the importance of increasing motivation during difficult times? Are management in need of motivation themselves? Are they much more worried about there own survival? So if the upper management team is satisfied, they would certainly be in a positi on to furnish their head of departments easily. Global economic condition is struggling and has to face continues challenges with competitions growing. It cannot be right for a profit organisation to just vanish with small bumps of recession. Of course, both employee and business are affected with these downfalls. A need has aroused to look into this matter because as its a fact that turnover has always been one of the high business expenses, thus at the time of recession as the economic conditions are not stable, businesses should do something to beat this cost in hand. Motivation is the cure that spurns employees eagerness to work without pressure. To say that nobody can motivate a team employee at work is like saying there are no influential leaders, there are no effective managers, there are no motivational speakers, the psychologists in sports management teams are useless and that motivation is not achievable. Motivation has been used by effective managers to prompt ordinary people to achieve uncommon results in all fields of endeavours. LITERATURE REVIEW Vast amount of literature is available in how to motivate your employee, and it would be applicable in the real world around. Simple definition of Motivation by Lindner, J. R. (1998) can be as â€Å"the inner force that drives individuals to accomplish personal and organizational goals.† Understanding what motivated employees and how they were motivated was the focus of many researchers following the publication of the Hawthorne Study results (Terpstra, 1979). Five major approaches that have led to the understanding of motivation are Maslows need-hierarchy theory, Herzbergs two- factor theory, Vrooms expectancy theory, Adams equity theory, and Skinners reinforcement theory. According to Maslow, employees have five levels of needs (Maslow, 1943): physiological, safety, social, ego, and self- actualizing. Maslow argued that lower level needs had to be satisfied before the next higher level need would motivate employees. Herzbergs work categorized motivation into two factors: motivators and hygienes (Herzberg, Mausner, Snyderman, 1959). Motivator or intrinsic factors, such as achievement and recognition, produce job satisfaction. Hygiene or extrinsic factors, such as pay and job security, produce job dissatisfaction. Vrooms theory is based on the belief that employee effort will lead to performance and performance will lead to rewards (Vroom, 1964). Rewards may be either positive or negative. The more positive the reward the more likely the employee will be highly motivated. Conversely, the more negative the reward the less likely the employee will be motivated. Adams theory states that employees strive for equity between themselves and other workers. Equ ity is achieved when the ratio of employee outcomes over inputs is equal to other employee outcomes over inputs (Adams, 1965). Skinners theory simply states those employees behaviours that lead to positive outcomes will be repeated and behaviours that lead to negative outcomes will not be repeated (Skinner, 1953). Managers should positively reinforce employee behaviours that lead to positive outcomes. Managers should negatively reinforce employee behaviour that leads to negative outcomes. Motivation defined by some of the authors is the psychological process that gives behaviour purpose and direction (Kreitner, 1995); a predisposition to behave in a purposive manner to achieve specific, unmet needs (Buford, Bedeian, Lindner, 1995); an internal drive to satisfy an unsatisfied need (Higgins, 1994); and the will to achieve (Bedeian, 1993); and also more. Employee turnover is the rotation of workers around the labour market; between firms, jobs and occupations; and between the states of employment and unemployment (Abassi et al. 2000). Whereas the term â€Å"turnover† defined by (Price (1977) as: the ratio of the number of organizational members who have left during the period being considered divided by the average number of people in that organization during the period. Frequently, managers refer to turnover as the entire process associated with filling a vacancy: Each time a position is vacated, either voluntarily or involuntarily, a new employee must be hired and trained. This replacement cycle is known as turnover (Woods, 1995). This term is also often utilized in efforts to measure relationships of employees in an organization as they leave, regardless of reason. â€Å"Unfolding model† of voluntary turnover represents a divergence from traditional thinking (Hom and (Griffeth, 1995) by focusing more on the decisiona l aspect of employee turnover, in other words, showing instances of voluntary turnover as decisions to quit. Indeed, the model is based on a theory of decision making, image theory (Beach, 1990). The image theory describes the process of how individuals process information during decision making. The underlying premise of the model is that people leave organizations after they have analyzed the reasons for quitting. (Beach, 1990) argues that individuals seldom have the cognitive resources to systematically evaluate all incoming information, so individuals instead, simply and quickly compare incoming information to more heuristic type of decision making alternatives or a more rule of thumb type of decision making. Most researchers (Bluedorn, 1982; Kalliath and Beck, 2001; Kramer, 1995; Peters., 1981; Saks, 1996) have attempted to answer the question of what determines peoples intention to quit by investigating possible antecedents of employees intentions to quit. To date, there has been little consistency in findings, which is partly due to the diversity of employees included by the researchers and the lack of consistency in their findings. Therefore, there are several reasons why people quit from one organization to another or why people leave organization. The experience of job related stress (job stress), the range factors that lead to job related stress (Stressors), lack of commitment in the organization; and job dissatisfaction results in employees deciding to quit (Firth et al. 2004). This evidently indicates that these are individual decisions that cause employees to quit their jobs. They are other factors like personal agency refers to concepts such as a sense of powerlessness, locus o f control and personal control. Locus control refers to the extent to which people believe that the external factors such as chance and other powerful people are in control of the events which influence their lives Firth et al. (2004). (Manu (2004) argue that employees quit from organization due economic reasons. Using economic model they showed that people quit from organization due to economic reasons and these can be used to predict the labour turnover in the market. Good local labour market conditions improve organizational stability (Schervish, 1983). Large organizations can provide employees with better chances for progression and higher wages and hence ensure loyalty towards the organization (Idson and Feaster 1990). Trevor (2001) argues that local unemployment rates interact with job satisfaction to predict turnover in the market. Role stressors also lead to employees turnover. Role ambiguity refers to the difference between what people expect of us on the job and what we fe el we should do. This uncertainty is usually caused due to inadequate and blurred communication, As a result, it causes uncertainty about what our role should be. It can be a result of misunderstanding what is expected, how to meet the expectations, or the employee thinking the job should be different (Kahn et al. Muchinsky, 1990). Insufficient information on how to perform the job adequately, unclear expectations of peers and supervisors, ambiguity of performance evaluation methods, extensive job pressures, and lack of consensus on job functions or duties may cause employees to feel less involved and less satisfied with their jobs and careers, less committed to their organizations, and eventually display a propensity to leave the organization. If roles of employees are not clearly spelled out by management and supervisors, it would accelerate the degree of employees quitting their jobs due to lack of role clarity. And that is what happens at the lower level of the Bus organisation. Voluntarily vs. involuntary turnover There are some factors that are, in part, beyond the control of management, such as the unforeseen event of death of an employee or incapacity of a member of staff. Other factors have been classed as involuntary turnover in the past such as the need to provide care for children or aged relatives. Today such factors should not be seen as involuntary turnover as both government regulation and company policies create the chance for such staff to come back to work, or to continue to work on a more flexible basis (Simon, 2007). Organizational factors Organizational instability is one of the leading factors of a high degree of employee turnover. Indications are that employees are more likely to stay when there is a predictable work environment and vice versa (Zuber, 2001). Moreover, In organizations where there was a high level of inefficiency there was also a high level of staff turnover (Alexander 1994). Therefore, in situations where organizations are not stable employees tend to quit and look for stable organizations because stable organizations enable the employees to predict their career advancement. The imposition of a quantitative approach to managing the employees led to disenchantment of staff and hence it leads to labour turnover. Therefore senior management should not use quantitative approach in managing its employees. Adopting a cost oriented approach to employment costs increases labour turnover (Simon, 2007). All these approaches should be avoided if managers want to minimize employee turnover an increase organizational competitiveness in this environment of economic downturn. Employees have a strong need to be informed. Organization with strong communication systems enjoyed lower turnover of staff (Labov, 1997). Employees feel comfortable to stay longer, in positions where they are involved in some level of the decision-making process. That is employees should fully understand about issues that affect their working atmosphere (Magner, 1996). But in the absence of sharing information, employee empowerment the chances of continuity of employees are minimal. (Costly, 1987) points out that a high labour turnover may mean poor personnel policies, poor recruitment policies, poor supervisory practices, poor grievance procedures, or lack of motivation. All these factors contribute to high employee turnover in the sense that there is no proper management practices and policies on personnel matter s hence employees are not recruited scientifically, promotions of employees are not based on spelled out policies, no grievance procedures are in place and thus employees decides to quit. (Griffeth, 2000) noted that pay and pay-related variables have a modest effect on turnover. Their analysis also included studies that examined the relationship between pay, a persons performance and turnover. They concluded that when high performers are insufficiently rewarded, they quit. If jobs provide adequate financial incentives the more likely employees remain with organization and vice versa. There are also other factors which make employees to quit from organizations and these are poor hiring practices, managerial style and lack of recognition, lack of competitive compensation system in the organization (Abassi, 2000). Effects of employee turnover Employee turnover could be very expensive from the organizations point of view, and affects could be more during the hard-hitting period of recession. There are mainly two factors that effect employee turnover. Voluntary quits which represents a mass departure of human capital investment from organizations and the following replacement process entails manifold costs to the organizations (Fair, 1992). The replacement costs would include, search of the external labour market for a possible substitute, selection between competing substitutes, induction of the chosen substitute, and formal and informal training of the substitute until he or she attains performance levels equivalent to the individual who quit (John, 2000). In addition to these replacement costs, output would be affected to some extend or output would be maintained at the cost of overtime payment. The reason so much attention has been paid to the issue of turnover is because turnover has very significant effects on organiz ations (DeMicco and Giridharan, 1987; Dyke and Strick, 1990; Cantrell and Saranakhsh, 1991; Denvir and Mcmahon, 1992).Many researchers argue that high turnover rates might have negative effects on the profitability of organizations if not managed properly. Moreover, turnover can play a key role in de-motivating employees, resulting in low productivity, inefficient output and therefore loss. Turnover has many hidden or invisible costs (Philips, 1990) and these invisible costs are result of incoming employees, co-workers closely associated with incoming employees, co-workers closely associated with departing employees and position being filled while vacant. And all these affect the profitability of the organization. On the other hand turnover also affects customer service and satisfaction (Kemal, 2002).Catherine (2002) argue that turnover include other costs, such as lost productivity, lost sales, and managements time, estimate the turnover costs of an hourly employee to be US $3,000 to $10,000 each. This clearly demonstrates that turnover affects the profitability of the organization and if its not managed properly it would have the negative effect on the profit. Research estimates indicate that hiring and training a replacement worker for a lost employee costs approximately 50 percent of the workers annual salary (Johnson, 2000) but the costs do not break off there. Eac h time an employee leaves the firm, we presume that productivity drops due to the learning curve involved in understanding the job and the organization. Furthermore, the loss of intellectual capital adds to this cost, since not only do organizations lose the human capital and relational capital of the departing employee, but also competitors are potentially gaining these assets (Meaghan, 2002). Therefore, if employee turnover is not managed properly it would affect the organization adversely in terms of personnel costs and in the long run it would affect its liquidity position. However, voluntary turnover incurs significant cost, both in terms of direct costs (replacement, recruitment and selection, temporary staff, management time), and also and perhaps more significantly in terms of indirect costs (morale, pressure on remaining staff, costs of learning, product/service quality, and the loss of social capital (Dess, 2001). Cost of turnover One simple method to calculate the turnover rate of any business is to divide the number of employees who have left the organization within a year, by the total number of employees who work for that company in the same year. Lets say there were 100 employees at the beginning of the year, and 100 employees at the end of the year, and at the end of the year, 84 of those employees were the same ones as were there the previous year. You might say that the turnover rate was 16%. = 16% But suppose one of those 16 who left was actually replaced three times. The employee quit in January, the replacement quit in April, and another person was hired who lasted only until November. Then you might want to count every time an employee left the company and another one was hired in this case youd get 18%. Another complication: suppose the work force is 100 at the beginning and 90 at the end of the year. Perhaps 16 people have left, but only 6 have been hired during the year, while 2 more were hired and retired within the same year. You might define turnover as 18/100 or as 18/90, or as 18/95, since 95 is the average of 90 and 100. Instead of 95, you might want to do a fancier average, where you actually add up the number of employees on each day of the year, and divide the total by 365. Strategies to minimize employee turnover Strategies on how to minimize employee turnover, confronted with problems of employee turnover, management has several policy options like changing (or improving existing) policies towards recruitment, selection, induction, training, job design and wage payment. Policy choice, however, must be appropriate to the precise diagnosis of the problem. Employee turnover attributable to poor selection procedures, for example, is unlikely to improve were the policy modification to focus exclusively on the induction process. Equally, employee turnover attributable to wage rates which produce earnings that are not competitive with other firms in the local labour market is unlikely to decrease were the policy adjustment merely to enhance the organizations provision of on-the job training opportunities. Given that there is increase in direct and indirect costs of labour turnover, therefore, management are frequently exhorted to identify the reasons why people leave organizations so that appropria te action is taken by the management. Hence, accurate analysis of the cause of turnover is vital to implement the necessary strategy. Extensive research has shown that the following categories of human capital management factors provides a core set of measures that senior management can use to increase the effectiveness of their investment in people and improve overall corporate performance of business: Employee engagement, the organizations capacity to engage, retain, and optimize the value of its employees hinges on how well jobs are designed, how employees time is used, and the commitment and support that is shown to employees by the management would motivate employees to stay in organizations. Knowledge accessibility, the extent of the organizations collaboration and its capacity for making knowledge and ideas widely available to employees, would motivate employees to stay in the organization. Sharing of information should be made at all levels of management. This accessibility of information would lead to strong performance from the employees and creating strong corporate culture (Meaghan, 2002). Therefore; in formation accessibility would make employees feel that they are appreciated for their effort and chances of leaving the organization are minimal. Workforce optimization, the organizations success in optimizing the performance of the employees by establishing essential processes for getting work done, providing good working conditions, establishing accountability and making good hiring choices would retain employees in their organization. The importance of gaining better understanding of the factors related to recruitment, motivation and retention of employees is further underscored by rising personnel costs and high rates of employee turnover (Badawy, 1988; Basta and Johnson, 1989; Garden, 1989; Parden, 1981; Sherman, 1986). With increased competitiveness during recession, managers in many organizations are experiencing greater pressure from top management to improve recruitment, selection, training, and retention of good employees and in the long run would encourage employees to st ay in organizations. Job involvement describes an individuals ego involvement with work and indicates the extent to which an individual identifies psychologically with his/her job (Kanungo, 1982). Involvement in terms of internalizing values about the goodness or the importance of work motivated employees not to quit their jobs and these involvements are related to task characteristics. Workers who have a greater variety of tasks tend to stay with the job. Task characteristics have been found to be potential determinants of turnover among employees (Couger, 1988; Couger and Kawasaki, 1980; Garden, 1989; Goldstein and Rockart, 1984). These include the five core job characteristics identified by (Hackman and Oldham (1975, 1980): skill variety, which refers to the opportunity to utilize a variety of valued skills and talents on the job; task identity, or the extent to which a job requires completion of a whole and identifiable piece of work that is, doing a job from beginning to end, with visible results; task significance, which reflects the extent to which the job has a substantial impact on the lives or work of other people, whether within or outside the organization; job autonomy, or the extent to which the job provides freedom, independence, and discretion in scheduling work and determining procedures that the job provides; and job feedback, which refers to the extent to which the job provides information about the effectiveness of ones performance (Tor, 1997). Involvement would influence job satisfaction and increase organizational commitment of the employees. Employees who are more involved in their jobs are more satisfied with their jobs and more committed to their organization (Blau and Boal, 1989; Brooke and Price, 1989; Brooke et al., 1988; Kanungo, 1982). Job involvement has also been found to be negatively related to turnover intentions (Blat and Boal, 1989). Job satisfaction, career satisfaction, and organizational commitment reflect a positive attitude towards the organization, thus having a direct influence on employee turnover intentions. Job satisfaction, job involvement and organizational commitment are considered to be related but distinguishable attitudes (Brooke and Price, 1989). Satisfaction represents an effective response to specific aspects of the job or career and denotes the pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from an appraisal of ones job or career (Locke, 1976; Porter, 1974; Williams and Hazer, 1986).Organizational commitment is an effective response to the whole organization and the degree of attachme nt or loyalty employees feel towards the organization. Job involvement represents the extent to which employees are absorbed in or preoccupied with their jobs and the extent to which an individual identifies with his/her job (Brooke, 1988).The degree of commitment and loyalty can be achieved if management they enrich the jobs, empower and compensate employees properly. Empowerment of employees could help to enhance the continuity of employees in organizations. Empowered employees where managers supervise more people than in a traditional hierarchy and delegate more decisions to their subordinates (Malone, 1997). Managers act like coaches and help employees solve problems. Employees, he concludes, have increased responsibility. Superiors empowering subordinates by delegating responsibilities to them leads to subordinates who are more satisfied with their leaders and consider them to be fair and in turn to perform up to the superiors expectations (Keller and Dansereau, 1995). All thes e factors ensure employees commitment towards the organization and chances of quitting are minimal. Strategic guidelines for motivating staff whilst smooth running of the business When the economy is on a slippery slope and when spirits are down, how do managers pick themselves and others up, so that they can meet the ongoing challenges? Hotels still have to operate, and services still need to be provided by employees who are working harder than ever before just so that their organization can survive. Therefore companies need to have some strategic policies to deal with employee motivation during hard times. Lend a listening ear Now, more than ever before, the manager needs to listen to what employees are saying, not only to what may seem to be the surface issues, but also to the underlying issues. Roxanne Emmerich, President of The Emmerich Group, stated in an article for the Indiana Bankers Association that, â€Å"Guilt, fear, paranoia—as well as a few other destructive emotions—can freeze peoples performance during tough times. The natural response is for a leader to click his or her heels with the hopes of ending up in Kansas. Denial is the natural response when things get tough, but many leaders never move beyond that. The thought of talking about feelings openly sends shivers down the spines of many managers, and ignoring these emotions only causes greater challenges.† In the November 7, 2008, issue of The Wall Street Journal, Jim Harter co-author of â€Å"72; The Elements of Great Managing† and a researcher with Gallup, stated in an interview about motivation that, â€Å"O rganizations have to put more attention into it. They have to communicate more.† Hence if we wish to motivate the staff during tough times, managers need to communicate more, not less. Be an advocate rather than an adversary Brian Mclvor, author of â€Å"Career Detection: Funding and Managing Your Career† stated in an interview published in the The Irish Times, on February 9, 2009, â€Å"You need to be honest and realistic with people organizations are changing all bets are off.† However, while discussions with employees may have to be framed against that background, news doesnt have to be all gloom and doom. Managers need to be advocates for their organizations and realistic about opportunities within the organization. The manager should be an advocate for the future rather than an adversary against the future, which can be an un-stabilizing influence in the organization. Emmerich states, â€Å"Lead your people to the understanding that even during the darkest of times, many do well, and you intend to be one of those. Your team needs to shift out of their doomsday story and into one of possibilities. When people say We cant because, the broken record response needs to be, Well, how CAN we ?â€Å" Therefore, be an advocate for the vision rather than an adversary against the vision. Look for the silver lining In the February 27, 2009 issue of Business Week, there is an interesting article by Patricia OConnell. The article discusses a first look at a recent Accenture survey that reveals that women and men feel they have more to offer their employers. OConnell states, â€Å"Managers looking for an edge amid a dismal economy, likely hiring freezes, and even staff cuts may have a hidden resource—their own underutilized staff. According to a winter 2008 Accenture survey, 46 percent of women and 49 percent of men worldwide believe they are insufficiently challenged in their jobs.† This affords unique opportunities to organizations that will reap possible benefits for employees as well as employers. This may be a time to review the opportunities and challenges of an organization and how the skill sets of individual employees may be used to enrich jobs and the workplace. Armelle Carminati, Managing Director of Human Capital and Diversity at Accenture, stated, â€Å"Companies should shy away from the one size- fits-all approach with workers The art of tailoring a career offering is the new space where employers have to go and will be the key to both employees and employers success.† As time gets tighter and the work force slimmer, this presents a unique opportunity for employers and employees to sit down as a team and evaluate the possibilities for the future. It is amazing the skill sets and aptitudes that may be uncovered when people are challenged to rise to the occasion. When things go downhill, up-skill â€Å"Up-skill† is a term used in The Irish Times article cited earlier that basically encourages coordinated training during tight economic times. For companies to survive and for employees to retain their jobs, it

Recruitment Methods Used In Modern Times Commerce Essay

Recruitment Methods Used In Modern Times Commerce Essay Recruitment can be carried out in numerous ways and generally it happens via both formal and informal processes. An informal process depends on the contacts of active workers or on new applicant. Since they threat being biased, word -of -mouth recruitment is not often suitable in public sector. Within business sector, word of mouth recruitment is well known, especially in those societies rated more socialist by Hofstede. International differences in the exercise of informal are considerable. It is also common all over the globe and especially in the developing nations like as Bangladesh, Nepal, Uganda, Bhutan etc. Recruitment of Friends and Family is very easy and cheap as usually. According to Brewster et al (2008), there are four methods of particular relevance to International Human Resource management. Multinational companies follow these methods and recruiting, selecting, employing employees globally.Every recruitment process has some advantages and disadvantages. 1. Headhunting: In this method, recruitment agencies are work as service provider and they supply companies with recruits to put via their own selection procedures. This process is most common for managerial positions in developed countries like as USA, UK etc. Anecdotal data shows that almost 50% of executive searches are now cross-border. The global capability, geographical spread of individual search firms has consequently become difficult. The recruitment agencies may be preferred to internal solutions for many reasons and those reasons given below. a) The recruitment agencies have the specialist nature of recruitment activities. Similarly, its potentially rare use, sometimes mean that almost competent way to start it is to subcontract and it is to expert providers. b) Sometimes multinational companies would like to recruit in a country for the first time where they may not have human resource department to carry on this activity and simultaneously, they may not have local idea that would be essential. For this reason, they take help from the recruitment agencies. c) The recruitment agencies are expert in this section and can do recruitment of higher level or higher skill; employees may take place from a proper prospective employees file. The recruitment agencies operate their activities all over the country or industry. They usually have a list and this is mainly true in the case of multinational companies recruiting in a country where first time. Headhunters is particularly form of recruitment and agencies can be expected to charge a considerable payment for their services. b)Cross national Advertising: Now world is a global village and as part of globalisation, labour migration is more common and accepted all over the world. At present many companies seek to carry out cross border when they recruiting senior staffs. Brewster et al (2008) mentioned that the rising apply of advertising such as targeted outdoor poster sites -airport lounges, airline magazines and journey to work routes. Simultaneously, international, publications like as The Economist magazines, The wall street journals regularly represents some advertisement for high level posts in many organisations all over the world. Although that advertising should consider cultural differences, it may well be the case that the valuable targeting of such advertisement ensures that they are seen more or less totally by people. They are more used to, and accepting of, these multi-cultural messages. c) Internet Recruitment: Today internet is an important source of job and used to cheaply mass market the recruitment messages that organisations interested to forward potential applicants. The electronic recruiting facility is re-shaping the job hunting process and this facility has the likely to cut the difficulty to employment on a worldwide scale. It is proving helpful for global graduate recruitment, attracting MBAs and post graduate level candidates, similarly specific roles such as accounting professionals and IT staff. Brewster et al (2008) mentions some reasons for its popularity in recruitment. 1. Widen recruitment sourcing at relatively low cost a) Fixed cost of designing a website have been incurred, the marginal cost of further website visitor is mostly zero. b) At present internet user has grown highly, not only developed countries but also third world countries .So, now internet allows to firms reach potential applicants anywhere in the globe. c) Similarly, now it is very easy for potential employees to apply for any kind of job and first stage is to fill a web form or email a copy of CV. The main disadvantage of this is that the cheapness of applying by internet sometimes may encourage not only proper applicant but also large amount of unsuitable applicants too. 2. Attract applicant on a more specialised skill match. 3Target sources of graduate like as MBA career centres. 4. Improve on traditional advertising approaches by targeting particular life style or culture fit groups. Selection Methods: The most common forms of selection methods are given below. Interviews: The way in which interviews are continued are one factor of national culture which radically impact the conduct of the interview and cultural awareness is very essential in this respect. In a simple face to face interview, the assessors may be confronted by considerable problem. As for example can mention here that one American multinational company recruiting managers in South Korea and found that interviewers had to be trained in multicultural awareness. According to the cultural rule of Korea, when asked a good question, to keep silent is known as sign of respect and similarly the better the question ,the longer period of silence the applicant maintains.Moreover,according to the American culture, if anybody ask a good question and receive silence, it is like as ignorance. Not only that face to face interview may produce fairly warped judgements. 2.The monitoring and targeting of disadvantaged groups: In most countries negative discrimination against the interests of at least some disadvantaged group is not legal; similarly a small number of countries positive discrimination in support of interests of disadvantaged may be allowed or encouraged. Staffing practices are stoutly influenced by norms and morals, not possible by the law. As for example, many European countries do ban discrimination on the basis of age, but the application of age restrictions varies considerably by country. It is not applicable in UK but common in Germany. 3. Assessment Centres: Assessment centres are regarded as one of the most strong and suitable selection techniques and it should be expected that they would be used to assess capability for global manager. The major points of assessment centres are help to client companies to determine which candidates are appropriate to be employed. In this sense they offer their customers level of selection capability the may not take home. Assessment centres tend to use different types of tools and these tools are situational interviews, work stimulations and role -playing etc.Some effort also face that units and the successful utilization of their set of tools requires there tools to be significant for the circumstance like as legislative, cultural economic etc, in which the recruitment is taking place. Thus there cannot be one size fits all approach and this causes extensive troubles for them. 4. Psychological testing: The strength of some psychometric testing process is also uncertain. Psychologists state that variability of across settings for the equal type of work and across different of jobs is small .This testing involves asking candidates to full psychometric tests to allow their potential employer to verify the sort of person they are. Psychometric is the field of study concerned with the theory and technique of educational and psychological measurement, which includes the measurement of knowledge, abilities, attitudes and personality traits. The field is primarily concerned with the construction and validation of measurement instruments, such as questionnaires, tests and personality assessments. Those who practice psychometric are known as psychometricians and although they may also be clinical psychologists, they are not obliged to be so and could instead be (for example) human resources or learning and development professionals. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychometrics In the hand of competent professionals psychometric tests present an at times positive nearby into the individual features of prospective employees; in the hands of inexpert they are little more than a hazard to the achievement of a company. The table below represents some indications of comparative use of these selection events in diverse countries in the hiring of an employee for a cleric positions. According to the table, 69.6% of Danish companies report that they use interviews, but a small number (5%) of French companies do it. Simultaneously, 43.7% of Spanish companies like psychometric tests, but only 0.9% German firm prefers it. The uses of Psychometric test and Assessment Centre differs from country to country. A German assessment centre would use much diverse equipment to assess much different stuff than would an assessment centre in Canada. (Table)

Should The Harris Superquarry Go Ahead? :: essays research papers

Should The Harris Superquarry Go Ahead? TABLE OF FIGURES FIGURE 1 LOCATION OF THE SUPERQUARRY  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  3 1 SUMMARY There is considerable environmental opposition to the development of the Harris superquarry. This is unlikely to stop the development on its own, but if the Scottish Office decides that the project can go ahead environmental restrictions are likely to be imposed on the operation to minimise, as far as possible, the impact. The reasons for the development centre round the need for economic development to bring jobs and prosperity to this remote area. The life of the quarry is expected to be around 60 years and provide an initial 30 jobs, rising to 80 as the quarry reaches peak production. The question is if a superquarry is the best solution to the problems of a remote rural area. What will happen when the jobs come to an end and would another form of investment not be more appropriate to their needs? Would the presence of a quarry restrict the choice for further development? Could an integrated approach be adopted and a 2nd generation quarry planned? The decision of whether or not to go ahead cannot be delayed indefinitely as Norway and Spain are looking at developing their own. If it is to go ahead then an early start will give Harris a stronger position in the market. 2 INTRODUCTION This report examines the controversy and key issues surrounding the superquarry at Rodel, Lingerbay on the southern coast of the Isle of Harris (Figure 1) and attempts to find an acceptable solution. The quarry will hollow out the heart of the mountain but leave enough of a shell to leave the skyline largely unaffected. The whole question of whether or not it should go ahead or not is the subject of the current public enquiry in Stornaway. A decision must be made soon. The market for aggregates is limited, Norway and Spain (Section 3.1, 1991) have their own sites and are also looking at the potential for developing them. FIGURE 1 LOCATION OF THE SUPERQUARRY   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  (Glasgow Herald, 20/10/94) 3 THE ISSUES SURROUNDING THE DEBATE 3.1 History 1927  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  A detailed geological survey identified the deposit of anorthosite. 1965  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Planning permission was given in principle to quarry the rock. The remit covered a larger site than is planned today. 1966  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Some small scale quarrying took place but found an on site rock crushing plant and a deep harbour were necessary for economic viability. 74-76  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Outline planning permission was given for quarrying, shipping and loading facilities but this was never acted on. 1977  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Scottish Office issued National Planning Guidelines. Harris was identified as one of 9 potential sites. (The Scotsman 18/7/93)

Sweeteners :: essays research papers fc

Sweeteners Saccharin is an organic petroleum-based compound that is three to five hundred times sweeter than sucrose. It is non-nutritive because the human body is unable to metabolize the foreign chemical. Saccharin does not contribute calories; for this reason it is commonly used in diet foods. "The obese [feel] that saccharin is their lifeline to slimdom, and diabetics [claim] it is essential to control their blood sugar" (Brody 482). The same people who consume saccharin certainly would not knowingly eat something that is classified as toxic waste; however, they do it on a daily basis. Saccharin's alias is EPA Hazardous Waste number U202. In fact, workers who handle saccharin are cautioned, "EXERCISE DUE CARE. AVOID CONTACT WITH EYES, SKIN, CLOTHING. WASH THOROUGHLY AFTER HANDLING. IF SWALLOWED, IF CONCIOUS, IMMEDIATELY INDUCE VOMITING" (MSDS). Saccharin has always been surrounded by controversy. As early as 1907, the public was concerned over its safety and proposed banning it. Theodore Roosevelt, a diabetic, fought the idea. He said, "My doctor gives it to me every day...Anybody who says saccharin is injurious to health is an idiot"(Corcoran 12). Saccharin survived the onslaught for another forty years. It wasn't until the bittersweet chemical hit the mainstream consumer market in such things as diet sodas, pharmaceuticals, and chewing gum that it came under fire again. Scientists suggested that saccharin might be a carcinogen in 1951. In 1958, however, saccharin was added to the GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) list, another paradox. In 1972, the results of a long-term study showed that rats fed saccharin had developed bladder tumors. Subsequently, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) removed saccharin from GRAS status and issued a regulation limiting the use of saccharin in foods. Then in 1974, a National Academy of Science review found that, "Saccharin itself could not be identified as the cause of the tumors because of possible impurities as well as problems with experimental design and procedures" (Kennedy 131). Therefore, the FDA decided not to ban saccharin until they received the results of a study being conducted in Canada. In March 1977, the Canadian study showed that feeding large doses of saccharin to pregnant rats and their weanlings produced bladder cancers in the male offspring. The Canadians immediately banned saccharin. When the FDA announced its intentions to follow suit, public outcry led to a Congressionally voted eighteen-month moratorium. The American people wanted more time to evaluate the results of the study. Shortly thereafter, Congress enacted the Saccharin Study and Labeling Act, which stayed the FDA's hand temporarily and ordered a warning label on all saccharin products: "Use of this product may be hazardous to your health.

Example of Cause and Effect Essay

VERTIGO Vertigo is a feeling of dizziness. Person with vertigo often feel that their body or the things around them are moving or spinning when they are standing. It can be caused by a problem with the balance mechanisms of the inner ear, a problem with the nerves that connect the brain to the middle ear, or a problem with brain cause a head injury. The most frequent cause of vertigo is there is a problem with the balance mechanisms of the inner ear.When the virus or bacterical infected the inflammation of the labyrinth (a system of canals and cavities within the inner ear which gives us our sense of balance), such as common cold or flu virus that spread to the labyrinth, or when the crystal of vestibular labyrinth, inside the ear, become dislodged and move in to the one of semicircular canal, it will make the patient suddenly get the feeling of vertigo. A problem with the nerves that connect the brain to the middle ear is also the cause of vertigo.When a person gets vestibular neuri tis (inflammation of the vestibular – the nerve running to the vestibule), it will destroy the collaboration between the semicircular canals and the brain work to control the body balance and he will get the feeling of vertigo. The other cause of vertigo is there is a problem with brain caused a head injury. Some people who get a head injury, because of an accident or a strong earth quake, most of them suddenly feel that all the things around them moving or spinning.The sudden sensation can occur many times a day. It occurs because the head injury destroys the balance nerve in their brain. Many things can cause vertigo (a dizziness feeling that makes people feel that their body or their surrounding are moving or spinning). But the three most frequent causes of vertigo are a problem with the balance mechanisms of the inner ear, a problem with the nerves that connect the brain to the middle ear, or a problem with brain cause a head injury.

Analysis of Apple Inc.

Planning is the activity of preparing a scheme, program, or method that is worked out beforehand for the accomplishment of some set objectives. There are different types of planning which include strategic, tactical, operational and contingency planning. Apple Inc. is one of the most successful and recognizable companies in the world. It was founded by the renown and celebrated Steve Jobs. It is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures and sells personal computers, consumer electronics and software, and provides related services.The business has experienced major growth over the past years. Its survival for over thirty years has been dependent on the thorough planning and organization that the can puts in place. It uses a strategic method of planning. The strategic planning is necessary for the company in that it is a technological multinational. It has seen a lot of changes in the computer industry. Competition has also proved to be stiff. Planning enables th e company to be prepared for what the future holds for the computer giant in a rapidly changing world and advancements in technology and consumer tastes and preferences.It also enables it to know how to allocate resources between its more traditional products and its newer products which include the iPhones and Apple TV, in order to improve its market position. Also, it enables the company to allocate resources and utilize its unique retail strategy to support the company’s product decisions, and by capitalizing on new and emerging trends thus further maintaining its competitive advantage over its competitors. On a regular basis, Apple Inc. conducts analyses. They conduct the SWOT analysis which puts them on the forefront in terms of performance and competition. This type of analysis focuses on the strengths,  weaknesses, opportunities and threats facing the company.The strengths of this company are plentiful. The main strength, is the customer loyalty combined with a close d ecosystem. This means that the company has developed a full range of applications, software that interlinked. Apple is also a leading innovator in mobile device technology. It has a strong financial performance and strong reputation. It has widely distributed retail stores and strong marketing and advertising terms. Its weaknesses include high prices of all its products, incompatibility of their products with other operating systems, decreasing of its market share in the industry, it is faced with patent infringements. Apple faces further changes in management, defects of new products and finally long-term gross margin decline.The opportunities of the company include, high demand for its products which include the iPhone 5 and iPad mini, iTV launch, increasing demand for cloud based services, emergence of new providers for application processors obtaining patents through acquisition, increased market for tablets and smartphones and strong growth of mobile advertising market. The t hreats faced by the company include, rapid technological changes in the industry, increments in taxes and production costs, rising pay levels for worker, price pressures posed by its competitors which include Samsung and Nokia, the growth of Android OS and also the strong dollar.This analysis enables the company to prepare for any possible outcome of the future and helps I n risk avoidance. It also helps the firm to maximize the utility of all resources and exploit all the opportunities available in the industry. Finally it assists in the planning of the company and decision making.