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Mentoring Makes a Difference

By: Justin Orow

Overview

Everyone learns in a different way.  Some people can hop right on to a new job or a new task at work and understand it and teach them self along the way, but on the other hand there are those who need proper training for any new task at hand.  The most elementary way in which people learn, and one of the best is through behavior modeling, or copying someone else’s behavior (Mathis & Jackson, 2010).  When I hear this I automatically think of having a personal trainee or a mentor to show you the ropes and be there for all your falls to help you be a successful employee.  Mentors can be very beneficial for employees that are not sure of their career path or future with a company.

Article Description/Connection to Text                                                          

The article highlights situations in which young employees that needed someone to help mold them in to the kind of employee there job needs.  There are many benefits to having a mentor such as answering tough questions for a young employee who is not sure of their career path or the industry they are working in, getting more familiar with company policies and procedures and some of the other normality’s on the job that the new employee might not know about, getting to know clients better, and improving their networking skills.  Some companies have formal mentoring programs that pair a young employee with a seasoned worker (Ensign, March 2012).  Mentoring helps with all the types of training such as interpersonal and problem-solving, developmental and career training.  Developmental and career training provides longer-term focus to enhance individual and organizational capabilities for the future, while interpersonal and problem solving addresses both operational and interpersonal problems and seeks to improve organizational working relationships (Mathis & Jackson, 2010).  Mentoring can aid employees in any type of training.  The improving networking skills goes hand in hand with the interpersonal and problem solving training as it seeks to improve organizational working relationships.  It meets the goal of developmental and career training as it pursues to provide longer-term focus to enhance individual and organizational capabilities for the future, mentoring can help young employees with their career path which help provide the long term focus.  Mentors will become friends, but employees must be careful to not become too personal and share particulars about their personal life, the relationship has to stay professional.  The article also suggests that maybe sometimes its best that the employee finds a mentor within the industry but outside your employer, as they can help you with a broader perspective on your profession.  

Take Away Points

Mentors can help a young nervous and anxious employee get familiar with little things like procedures and rules at work, or much bigger things like landing a new job or advancement within the company.  When searching for a mentor, young employees should be careful to pick the right mentor.  Companies should start looking in to formal mentoring programs if they already haven’t.   This will help young workers get situated in new jobs and help young workers who are looking for a mentor but don’t know how to go about it if the company will already pair them with someone through a situated program. 

Works Cited

Ensign, R. ( 2012, March 31).  Benefits of a Mentor. The Wall Street Journal.                                  Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303404704577309750220810364.html?KEYWORDS=human+resource+managment

Mathis, R. L., & Jackson, J. H. (2010). Human resource management. (13 ed.). Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.

The Power of Human Talent

By: Kelly Barnhard

Overview

Aligning human talent effectively and efficiently to achieve organizational goals is the core principle behind human resource management. Traditionally, majority of an organizations attention would be centered around economic capital, which is the financial and tangible assets. However, today’s environment requires a larger degree of flexibility, innovation and effectively developing and managing human capital in order to sustain organizational performance. In terms of strategic planning, which is defining an organizations strategy, human capital must be fully integrated in the decision making process if the organization desires to pursue their strategy.  The article I will be referencing not only emphasizes the importance of human capital, but also takes it a step further. Specifically, it goes beyond economic, social, and human capital and embraces what the articles terms as “positive psychological capital”.

Article Description/Connection to Text

The article, Positive psychological capital: Beyond human and social capital, reveals how to expand capital for greater competitive advantage. The article’s content declares that psychological capital lies beyond human and social capital and basically consists of “who you are” rather than what or who you know. Specifically, the article guides the reader through four positive psychological capacities of confidence, hope, optimism and resilience. The following paragraphs will describe how these four points pertain to the business world today and how they contribute to positive psychological capital. Particularly, how these points improve performance, productivity, customer service, and employee retention.

• Confidence: An individuals conviction of his or hers ability to perform a task is strongly linked to positive work-related performance.
• Hope: Having a positive motivational state can impact how one performs.
• Optimism: By interpreting bad events as being only temporary and making specific attributions can lead to desirable workplace outcomes, and higher performance and retention.
• Resilience: If leaders, associates, and overall organizations can bounce back from hard times then desired outcome are more attainable.

This article explores the possibility of creating a greater competitive appeal through the use of human talent, which greatly relates to our text. In the first chapter of our text, we are informed that managing people as human resources is essential to accomplishing organizational goals. Specifically, how people in organizations can be a core competency which can differentiate them from competitors. Our text states that it is not solely the people that add value, rather it is their capabilities, knowledge, skills, and life experiences. The four positive psychological capacities discussed in the article are what the people bring and contribute to organizational success.  

Take Away Points

There is no question that an organization’s human capital and social capital have significant roles in an organizations success. However, this article goes beyond both of these types of assets and embraces positive psychological capital. What can be gained from this concept is that people should be viewed as human assets. The practical guidelines and the four psychological points discussed in this article can be used to achieve desirable performance, increase productivity, and improve customer service and retention. After reading this article, we can better recognize the importance of the human factor  and the  role it plays in an effective organization.

Works Cited

Luthans, F., Nielson, T., Grant-Vallone, E. (2004). Positive psychological capital: Beyond human and social capital. Business Horizons, 45-50. Retrieved from http://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=10&q=Human+capital+improved+performance+of+HR&hl=en&as_sdt=0,23

Mathis, R. L., & Jackson, J. H. (2010). Human resource management. (13 ed.). Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.

Gender Diversity in Deutsche Telekom

By: Erin Galloway

Overview

Over generations women have come a long way in the realm of gaining equality. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VII makes it illegal to discriminate against any individual in respect to compensation, conditions or privileges. Also, the government has put into place an affirmative action plan, that  employees are urged to hire groups of people based on their race, age, gender, or national origin to make up for historical discrimination (Mathis & Jackson, p. 80). Since, Deutsche Telekom is worldwide these laws only focus on the subsidiaries in the United States and the other subsidiaries outside of the United States are struggling, for example Germany.

Explanation of Article/Connection to the Text

The article that I chose to look into has to do with reaching a gender goal within Deutsche Telekom and how they are acquiring new techniques of recruiting. First off, Deutsche Telekom is the largest telecommunications company in Europe and is headquartered in Germany. In March of 2010 the CEO Rene Obermann announced that women are going to make up 30 percent of senior and middle executives by 2015. Obermann felt this was necessary because a study done by the German Institute for Economic Research uncovered that only 2 percent of all executive committees were women (Clark, 2011). Since Telekom is headquartered in Germany and a third of the workforce resides in Germany, this change needed to occur to acquire more diversity. Telekom in Germany only has 13 percent women in senior and middle management, much lower than the other subsidiaries within the company. Since Germany is a country that is very reluctant on having women in the top ranks, recruiting became very difficult. Deutsche Telecom initially recruited internally but now need to follow a whole different path to recruit these women to meet the quotas set by legislature. Telekom’s recruiting efforts followed what the text suggested as alternative ways of recruiting. For example, Telekom started to recruit externally to broaden their range of recruits to reach more women. Also, Telekom has offered to help women with a more flexible work schedule to make working for them more desirable. Telekom has improved their hiring of women college graduates to 53%, which Telekom puts these women into internal programs to groom them into future leaders. Even though Telekom has changed their recruiting process drastically they are still falling short in acquiring women to fill these senior and middle management positions in Germany. The culture in Germany see women as mothers and once they have children they should stay home and not come back to work. Once this became a norm it has been difficult to find women that are willing to come back to work after having children. The culture in Germany has hindered women in the workforce for many years, and it is going to be a difficult and long process to overturn this norm. However, Telekom can learn one additional recruiting technique that another organizational put into place which was creating a database of top women in the workforce. This database allowed them to have a place to look for top executive women, who were looking for jobs.

Take Away Points

There are many take away points that I gained from this article. First off, change is difficult for any organization, especially when the culture has been set for decades.  Top executives need to realize changing culture and the structure of a business will be costly and time consuming. For example, shifting the culture within an organization can anger many employees and many may quit, but diversity is a key to success and will be beneficial in the future. Diversity within the workforce allows the organization to broaden their target market and possibly increase profits. Also, by changing your recruiting aspects and hiring criteria it will allow you to target the group of individuals that you would like to hire more of. Lastly,, gender diversity or any diversity within an organization allows for the flow of different ideas which can be beneficial to improving the organization as a whole. 

Works Cited

Clark, N. (2011, October 02). Deutsche Telekom struggles with gender goal. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/03/business/global/deutsche-telekom-struggles-with-gender-goal.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&sq=Human Resource improvements&st=cse&scp=7

Mathis, R. L., & Jackson, J. H. (2010). Human resource management. (13 ed.). Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.