Reward - week 23

   The company , with which I am familiar is AMRO Logistics. It is a company providing a wide range of transport options for oversized freights. AMRO owns special sets of trucks and trailers enabling to transport oversized freights and cooperates with other companies having abilities in similar services and also owns a service station with warehouse and paint shop , where the company's equipment is serviced. AMRO is separated into two departments. The first department is office , where office staff works on finances , customer services and other formal issues. The second department is service , where specialized mechanics , painters , engineers and suppliers work both physcially and mentally as they are responsible for the right preparation and maintenance of trucks , trailers and the rest of the company's equipment.
   The rewarding system of the AMRO Logistics differs for different groups because members of different departments want different rewards. Office department members are being given money bonuses divided into three stages with different percentage depending on the task assessment. Service department members are being given salary bonuses depending on the effort they put in their work and also they are being given free qualification raising courses such as welding courses with the use of the newest machines , coordinating a work of digital milling machines etc. The rewards of AMRO employees are different. Office employees are being given money bonuses , whereas service employees are being given both money bonuses and free qualification raising courses. There are reasons why it is happening. Firstly , office employees don't want to go on courses , where they are able to learn how to weld or use the milling machine. The other reason of office employees being rewarded only with money is that most of them are working for the company from the beginning of it's existence and they have their own working systems that they developed themselves. They know how to react properly in their job and they prefer to be given more money than courses , on which they will be told how to work better mostly by younger and less experienced people than they are. On the other hand , there are also younger members of the office department but they also prefer to be given more money , because their process of raising qualifications is taking place when doing their job because they learn from the older employees. Thus fairness and equity in the AMRO Logistics is ensured as both of it's departments have been offered same rewarding options.

   When interviewed , Mr.Rostowski explained also his previous working experience in transport company working within Poland and Germany , in which he has been working as the transport manager. He knew the chief executive personally and that way he was able to learn more about the senior management in a large company. That company doesn't exist anymore nowadays , but it's chief executive used to receive large bonuses when the performance level of the company was both lower and higher. However , when the performance level of the company was low because of his mistakes , he hasn't been rewarded.

   Chief executives should receive large bonuses , even if the organisation that they have led has underperformed , but other factors have taken place.
    If the decision about an action that is vital for the company has been forced by shareholders , and chief executive knew that he can not disagree with them , he should still receive a bonus because it wasn't his fault. He might have advised the shareholders that their ideas are not good for the organisation. He could have been told that the punishment is going to be given to him if not doing what shareholders want him to. For example , the chief executive that Mr. Rostowski has been working for , was told by his shareholders to change their standard way through the border for the longer one. They thought that going through the longer road will cost less than going through the standard one , because the permission paper costs were lower. However , many mistakes were made in their calculations , and the company has been fined by the transport agency for the wrong papers. Chief executive has been given the instruction to follow. He did. He also spend more time on carrying out the project , and although he knew what is going to happen , he could not disagree with shareholders. He has been given a reward for the time and effort , because the shareholders were clearly presented with the opinion of chief executive about their plan.

   However , chief executives should not receive any bonuses if the low performance level of their companies resulted from their decisions. For example , if chief executive forced the junior managers to employ people disliked by the managers , which resulted in the lack of communication , effort or task understanding within the teams , chief executive should be blamed for it and not being rewarded. In the company described by Mr. Rostowski , chief executive knew people that used to work for the local small accounting firm. He forced the junior management of the company to employ them in the department responsible for ordering the proper permission papers for extra heavy freights. The managers predicted that they would fit better as accountants ,  but chief executive told them to put them in the department he chosen.  Although they had teamworking experience , the tasks they were presented with were totally different from the tasks they used to have in their previous jobs , so they made many mistakes when ordering papers , which resulted in another fines for the company. Chief executive has been blamed for it , and he was not rewarded.

   Another reason not to reward the chief executive with large bonuses is the undertaking the wrong actions on purpose by chief executive. The chief executive mentioned above , has been offered a better paid job position in a company being a competition to the one he worked for. Also , the shareholders changed. Chief executive didn't wanted the new shareholders to gain profits , and knowing that he will soon work for another company , put effort in undertaking the wrong decisions on purpose. He wanted to make the performance level as low as possible. However , it became to obvious for the shareholders after a single period of time , and he was fired , he was not rewarded and further investigation has been taken.

   In conclusion , the rewarding system in AMRO Logistics differs for the different types of the employees and the rewards have to motivate the employees as well. They are chosen fairly for both office and service department employees. Chief executives should still receive large bonuses even if the organisation that they have led has underperformed , because they might have been forced by the shareholders but they still could have put much effort and time in their tasks. However , if the bad performance of the led company resulted from their mistakes , that have been proved to them , they shouldn't be rewarded.


Bibliography:

- Rostowski, K.B. Rewarding system in AMRO Logistics and previous working expierience. [Interview] Buckinghamshire New University with K. Rostowski. 24th February 2011.

Personality - week 11

   Personality contains a pattern of features responsible for behaviour of an individual. Every person has got a different personality and behaves in different way. People's personalities may be similar at some points but they are never the same at every point.
   Nature approach to personality explains people's behaviour through their hereditary characteristics. It shows that people can inherit characteristics such as rapidity , wisdom or charisma from their ancestors. For example , if a person is intelligent and has many abilities and in future is a parent , it's child or grandchild is likely to inherit some or even all of it's personal characteristics.
   Individual can also develop it's personality through the environmental influences such as contact with it's peers , situation in it's family or it's interests. This kind of personality development is explained by the nurture approach to personality. For example , when an inteligent person gets into a group of people with lower level of inteligence , that person is likely to lose it's confidence in it's inteligence and may have problems in developing his future key skills.
   However , both nature and nurture approaches can involve the same characteristics. For example , when an individual inherits stubbornness , he or she can develop it to even higher level when being guided by that characteristic in decision-making.
   The nomothetic approach contains a fixed perspective of people with similar traits. It shows the same psychological meaning in people having unique combinations of traits. On the other hand , what makes people different in that approach is the amount of possesed traits. This approach tends to view personality as consistent , inherited and resistant to change and view environmental and social influences as minimal. It's also helpful for managers , when the selection is on in their organistations as they can use it in future when training employed individuals.
   The idiographic approach is a perspective showing that people unique structrure but their cardinal traits are more important than others because they help in understanding their structures. It explains also that some traits are possessed by only one person and sometimes it is impossible to compare some individuals as the responses of compared individuals may not be comparable. (Mullins , 2010) suggests that personality assessment is not a valid method of understanding the unique ways of individuals's behaviour as the depth of a person's personality cannot be revealed in superficial paper-and-pencil questionnaires.
   In my opinion , nature approach has got a tremendous influence on people as their inherited traits make their basic way of behaving but nowadays the nurture approach has dominant influence on people as that basic models created by inherited traits change as people develop that traits or gain new ones influenced by other people , more often in negative way. It is easy to see that many people are leaving their priorities for their friends and very often become criminals because of that.

   After taking the personality test at the BBC website , I found out my five key traits on different levels of importance. The results showed that I am conscientious , open , neurotic , extrovert and agreeable. The level of my openess found out to be high , which means that I am open for novel experiences and artistically sensitive. Conscientiousness in my example reached the border level between low and medium showing that I am not a person that plans everything and sticks to that plans every singe time but it doesn't mean that I am never making any plans and stick to them. Extroversion is linked to positive emotions and energy and explains people's  desire for social stimulation. My extroversion is on the medium level so I am a person with positive emotions and energy , but I am not making people around me feel better every time they see me as I am not reacting to everybody. My agreeableness reached medium level as well. This means that I care about feelings of others and I am likely to trust many people , but only the ones I feel I can trust. Another key trait reaching high level in my example is neuroticism. High level of that trait explains that I can manage with stress and negative emotions like anxiety and fear very well and I am also very good in perceiving threats. In my opinion it is a reliable source as after watching video , in which a psychologist explained that traits in my results I found them all to be truly presented.


Bibliography:

- Mullins , Laurie J. (2010) Management & Organisational Behaviour. Ninth edition. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.

- Personality Traits. (2004) Personality Traits: Idiographic vs. Nomothetic. [Online] July 2004. Available from: http://wilderdom.com/personality/traits/PersonalityTraitsIdiographicNomothetic.html [Accessed: 22nd February 2011]

- The BBC Lab UK. (2010) The Big Personality Test. [Online] Available from: https://www.bbc.co.uk/labuk/experiments/personality/ [Accessed: 22nd February 2011]

Perception and Communication - week 9

   In April of 2007 , when taking part in the first round of the Enduro Rally Championship of Poland , I had an opportunity to meet the winner of the previous year championship. Before I meet him , I've seen articles , and interviews with that person. I thought he must be a brave man with the proper riding skills and strong personality to handle the pressure from his sponsors.

I wanted to know how to practice to develop my skills and what parts to use to improve my quad bike. Knowing that I am about to meet him made me feel exicted. After talking to him and getting to know everything I wanted him to tell me , I felt proud that I know such a good rider.

   However , after two years that person decided to take part in the Dakar Rally. After finishing it on the third place , he started a kind of campaign to show everybody how great he is. He was known to be rich , so he spend a lot of money to put himself into every newspaper about cars or motorcycles. He also paid a lot to less famous celebrities to allow him to seat with them on events known to be under the auspices of the media. Unfortunatelly to that person , one motorsport journalist didn't want his money and revealed the information that made that person look bad in eyes of his fans including me. He was said to use illegal help during the Dakar Rally on every fifteen stages. Firstly , that news was considered as gossip , but the famous Orlen Team riders competing in Dakar Rally for twelve years  that time , confirmed that information to be true as they saw him using his truck to go through the stage when he should be using his bike , so that he could take a rest when his rivals were putting effort to complete the stage.

   After that news , my opinion about that person changed completely. What is more , there have been more and more sport journalists that owned videos showing that person cheating during the events of the Championship of Poland in 2006 , 2007 and 2008.

   My initial perception of that person was totally incorrect as when getting to know that person I was looking only at achievements making him a good man without even thinking about the research on other achievements of that person.

To avoid this judgement again , I am trying to see both positive and negative sides of people I have opportunities to meet. It's also important to remember that our personal perception is different than perception of others , so when meeting new people , I am trying to make my own opinion about the person without thinking much about what other people told me about that person.


    Buckinghamshire New University has a modern software that enables students to communicate fast and easily with university employees such as lecturers or receptionists and vice versa.
    However ,  in some of the services provided by university , it takes a lot of time to get the answer about the application that has been handed in or any other queries. When asking online or researching online on job vacancies , there are information that are too general , without the essential informations. To improve that , university should either employ new managers or provide already employed managers with coaching showing them that creating a shared sense of purpose is an important starting point for a srategic approach to communication. When they do that , the managers will try to improve the work of people responsible for answering students in both electronic and personal way. Managers will show them that they are working towards the same goal as the more proper answers they will give , the more people will know what to do , for example what student job to apply for , how and when and university will benefit from that.
    Univeristy is trying to improve it's working system and wants to know how to do it. There has been several surveys available on blackboard. Students were reminded to fill them , but the way they were presented was not attracting students and if not tutors sending hundreads of e-mails asking and reminding students about it , not many people would have done that. Surveys should be advertised in extraordinary way , for example there should be lecturer or another person responsible for communication with students going to the library asking five to ten random people if they have a single idea how to improve some points of working , for example searching for books. After a short conversation that person should be given a pen , little notebook or any small gift with the logo of Buckinghamshire New University and also should be encouraged to complete surveys. In that way , communication with students through surveys would improve as well as univeristy's image.
   University should create a blog with general news. That blog should be linked with blackboard. It should be created in extraordinary way with many pictures and videos used as description of things posted on that blog. It should be known as Bucks News so that every student would know that the right use of that blog is the easiest way to find answers on any quesions. For example , if there is a vacancy in Student's Union's Bar , there should be post about it with a big comic picture of that vacancy like steward or barman to attract people. There should be also person available to chat online with on that blog for eight or twelve hours helping students in solving their problems. This is another way that would improve both communication and image of the Buckinghamshire New University.


Bibliography:

 - Clake , R. (2010). How to... improve staff comunication [Online]. Available from:

http://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/pm/articles/2010/07/how-to-improve-staff-communication.htm [Accessed: 20th February 2011]