Human Relations In The Workplace Essay

Human Relations In The Workplace Essay â€Å"Human Relations at the Workplace†. The purpose of this report is to reflect on the learned experiences from the subject â€Å"Human Relations at the Workplace†. Human Relations are very important in our life as they influence our social and professional lives. When we talk about Human Relations, there are so many relationships we generally see i.e. Family, Friendship, Social, Diplomatic, Professional etc. But one thing is common in all relations is that people do behave or act differently as they really are. And our tendency should be to learn the positive points/act/behaviour from others and neglect all negative ones. During the trimester, Prof. Chris Green had taught us about Human Relations from the book Effective Human Relations and covered topics like motivation, stress-management, work-life balance, developing yourself, time management and so many other topics related to workplace environment. I am very glad that I have got a chance to discuss my experience with Human Relations at Workplace. In the past, I also read some material regarding Human Relations when I was doing my Bachelors in Commerce in third year from Guru Nanak Dev University in India. After covering these topics again in James Cook University Brisbane, now I understand all these topics much more clearly and their direct impacts on me. Through this course and the subject matter, I have been able to develop and enhance my management and motivational skills. An additional skill that I have gained is to accept beliefs from other cultures and points of view of different people. In the past most of my friends, colleagues and relatives had similar opinions about different aspects of life. This limited me in sharing my ideas and beliefs. After working within multicultural groups, I am now able to understand better, the importance of self disclosure and personal identity. Sharing your ideas and beliefs creates trust and is the key for an effective collaboration. Now I can understand and relate these two points in a way that these could help me to improve my work and life balance. One of the reputed companies in field of sales and marketing gave me an opportunity to work for them as a sales representative. We were a team of 10 people from different social, religious and financial backgrounds. There we all learnt the power of TEAMWORK. The true value, as I see it, is that people work better collaboratively rather than competitively. It had been a very different and challenging experience for me as, personally, I was not permitted to motivate my team members with cash bonuses, nor could fire them or release them out of the project. I read motivational books/stories, and learnt that there were several strategies and ways one could try to motivate the team members. These books and articles helped me in improving my understanding regarding the ways one can motivate his/her team members within the authority given to him. My supervisor, who is one of the greatest motivators in my business life, also taught me some invaluable lessons for teamwork, as he always pushed me and motivated all my team members. This will help me in future too, as I will be able to tackle situations with other team members, managers or supervisors in a more delicate, effective and constructive way. Few lessons that I learnt from my work experience was -Gracefully admit your mistake, Motivate others by saying that â€Å"You did a good job†, Ask for others opinion. Remember these two most important words â€Å"Please† and â€Å"Thank you†. Reward in Public and Criticize in person. From my past experiences, I have also learned, that how to become leaders and how good leaders develop through a never ending process of self-study, education, training, and experience. The power of the high position does not make anybody a leader; it only makes you a boss. A leader should have some leadership attributes such as beliefs, values, ethics, character, knowledge, and skills. In my belief, I will be able to do better at handling situations like motivation and team leading. During the trimester, I got a chance to give a presentation on Human Relation Challenges in the New Economy. In that presentation, we discussed topics related to Understanding new economy, communicating effectively with new technologies, managing people in virtual environment. Here I would like to share a true story based on â€Å"Rewards to improve Motivation†. â€Å"One of my friends is working as a Software Test Engineer in an IT company in USA. He is a contractor with that company and was doing his job well and working on one of the live projects. Then he was presented with an opportunity to work for a critical project that had high visibility in the organization. His manager asked him â€Å"Will you be able to work on two different projects side-by-side and give 24 hour support for 7 days a week?† My friend replied:†Ok†, but from inside he was not happy because there was no motivation for him for the extra work he had to do. After two-three days, his manager told him that for all this extra workload he will be paid $500 per week additionally from his normal salary and he will be given one week of vacation after the 2nd project goes live. In the above scenario Abraham Maslows Hierarchy of needs were present. His needs were of creativity and fulfilment which we refer to as Self-Actualisation needs. In this case five major areas affected his motivation- Variance of skills, Identification of task, Significance of task, autonomy and feedback. This motivated my friend and now he was more happy and efficient in his work than before.† Reference http://www.envisionsoftware.com/articles/Maslows_Needs_Hierarchy.html Further, while preparing this presentation, I had given nice colours and effects to slides. But when I saw these slides from audiences point of view, I found so many mistakes and also recognized that colour and effects do not help too much in making a good presentation. Good presentation includes proper arrangement of the good material with bold heading, underlining important tasks, diagrams, graphs etc. to make it more interesting for the audience as well as the presenter. I hope this presentation is going to improve my speaking, presentation and communication skills. Overall, in future, I should be able to work as a good team member, leader and able to understand the organizational structure thoroughly. Further, I can more effectively understand behavioural, social and cultural dimensions of my team members and subordinates. This will help me in providing and promoting healthy, effective and comfortable work environment.

Building Your Own Legacy: A Retirement Speech

It was 1966 when a young [man/woman] entered this company immature and raw, with an overall purpose of doing nothing but being able to exit it with the accomplishment that only the best employees could have done.This [man/woman] who is now about to exit the door of this company, now proudly declares that the best thing that an employee could have done in [his/her] working career is being able to leave behind a legacy that is unique to [his/her] characteristic and ability, receptive to all obtainable opportunities, passionate to all types of toil or hustle, and commendable to as many colleagues as the situation can.On this day, we commemorate the celebration of this [man/woman]’s retirement in a profession where only the striving is able to reach the end of the road, with a pen in the right hand and a pad on the left, regardless of our company’s opportunities, objectives, and general mission. This [man/woman] was able to contribute a great deal to us.It was the year 1973 when [he/she] was given an integrity award for being able to write a forty-two-paged report on the MA Hub Jetliner Crash in Boston on July of that same year. By 1979, [he/she] was declared as The Most Valuable Employee of the Year for having been driven public contribution that reached $2. 3 million in totality for the Give a Gift on Christmas. It was an award that repeated again in 1983 for our Share a Lot Project that gave the company recognition award from the U.  S. Department of Labor.There were also awards, recognitions and special accolades in the years 1987, 1991, 1995, 2000, 2003, and 2008 for achievements, which told us that this [man/woman] born in [name of city] is one that redefined the true meaning of what a real employee is: one that is built in true service of his department and the company for the betterment of the public and the country.It appears that the self is worthless without the passion to serve other people for a future that is bright, bountiful, and boo ming. Reference Events that touched our ancestors’ lives. (2008). Retrieved November 25, 2008, from http://www3. gendisasters. com/taxonomy_menu/4/239.

Conserve and Preserve Essay

With today’s growing population, resource consumption is becoming a huge concern. It is important that humans realize what is best for both our present and future generation, and what is best for our planet. We must preserve certain areas from being destroyed to keep their natural beauty. We should also conserve resources, so they can continue to flourish, but also so we can continue to live our lives without depleting these resources. Every individual unit of the environment works together to maintain a balance that supports the cycle of life. Humans must co-exist in a positive way with these units. We should live in a way that does not exploit any part of nature. We should not only respect and sustain the environment for our own benefit and for future generations, but also because nature itself is good on its own. When looking at preservation and conservation, there is not one that is better the other. Like many other rules and sets of standards, there are exceptions. Preservation is the action of protecting a certain thing or area completely. Conservation is a form of preservation, where we can use a particular resource or portion of land, in this case, but it is used sparingly and sustainably. There are certain situations where preserving something is beneficial. Then there are other situations where conserving something would be better for a larger number of living things. It would be ideal to say that we should strive to preserve nature in all scenarios but that is not a practical approach because there are certain needs that we as human beings have to fulfill that we can only get from nature. Certain medicines that keep people alive can be found in nature. If for instance a plant has the ability to save someone’s life, then it would be acceptable to cut that plant down to help heal the patient. There are some exceptions to this of course. It would be wrong to cut down the plant if it was unable to be replaced. The plant should be plentiful and able to thrive as a species before we use it to help our own species. For the most part, humans are put on a higher scale than some other species. This is not to say that we should disregard those species or over-use them, but if it came down to a life or death situation for a person, using the plant would be ethical. There are other scenarios in which preservation would be a better approach. An example of this is mountaintop removal. It does not seem ethical to be destroying such a beautiful object that forms naturally just so that we can have access to coal seams. The coal extracted from the mountain is only beneficial for a certain amount of time but the negative consequences from the whole process will be felt a lot longer (Copeland). Even though the mountain itself since it is not a living, breathing organism, it is important to respect the natural beauty of the mountain. The animals and plants that may reside on the mountain are also affected by this, and that should be taken into consideration. Another example of a time when it is best to preserve is in the case of an endangered organism. Say for instance that a certain tree is being cut down at an alarming rate to make paper. The tree will cease to exist if we continue at the rate that we are going. Then we should stop all chopping down of that particular tree. We should preserve it and allow it to continue to live, not just so that in the future we still have that tree around to produce more paper, but because it is a living thing that has value on its own. Our population is growing, and we have to figure out the best way to use our resources. Garrett Hardin also recognizes this as a problem in his essay â€Å"Lifeboat Ethics†, but takes the stance that if we help the poor people; we are hurting them in the long run. He believes that the biggest factor for overpopulation is the fact that poor countries multiply and increase their population at a much faster rate than countries that are predominately rich. Because of this, the problems associated with too many people in one area will continue to grow larger. This is because rich countries have the resources to support their people more so than the poorer countries that cannot even begin to help their people (Hardin). Getting food is a major concern of many people who think that overpopulation is becoming a problem. Hardin also recognizes this as a problem, but takes the stance that if we help the poor people; we are hurting them in the long run. Conservation becomes important when taking the population into consideration. Overpopulation will have a large impact on the environment because there will obviously be more of a need for basic elements such as water, food, and shelter. With more people demanding food, more livestock will need to be bred; more fruits and vegetables will need to be grown. With more people demanding shelter, more land will need to be plowed in order to build houses. With more people on the earth demanding water, more freshwater sources will be dried up. Not only are the necessities factored into the problem but with more people, all the luxuries and small things will add up also. There will be a higher demand of medicines, paper, and other goods that we can get from nature. The increase of human life will create a huge blow for the environment. It is important that we prevent our world from becoming a commons open to everyone, where people use their resources foolishly and greedily. Since people are part of the whole equation that makes up the environment, we should care and respect others. However, in feeding the poor, they do not realize their problems and continue to reproduce, thus putting them and the country in a deeper hole. This too has an effect on the environment because in the search for food, people do things that do not support a sustainable cycle. An example of this is the fact that since there are more people and getting meat to them is a long process, factory farms have taken the place of actual farms. Animals are now bred to grow faster and jacked up with hormones in an attempt to get them to the slaughterhouse faster so that the demands of consumers can be met. Also in order to keep up with more people, that means that there must be more animals to begin with. Livestock are crowded into small cages where they are unable to turn around, they are not able to live with their young, they pick up diseases and many other problems arise from this. This affects the life of the livestock obviously, but also affects the life of the consumer who then eats the meat. It is understandable that individuals want to eat meat because they say it tastes good, it is high in protein, and it’s convenient as well. However, the way that humans do it is immoral and wrong. We do not give the animals any chance of survival or even a chance at life to begin with. It would be more justifiable for people to go out and hunt their meat like people used to do. Then the animals would be able to live a normal life up until they were killed. This would also cut down on the air pollution that comes from factory farms, reduce the amount of water that is needed to produce meat, reduce the amount of crop space that is needed to feed the livestock, and reduce the amount of drugs that the consumer also eats after the animals are fed them. This brings the argument back around to the fact that the population is growing and that there are starving people all around the world. If reduced their consumption meat, then there would not be as big of a need for livestock. Thus the crops that are grown to feed the cows could be fed to the people who need it. We could also stop cutting down trees and destroying forests that is normally needed in order to make room for all that food that needs to be produced. Around the world 756 million tons of grain is fed to livestock and almost half of the 225 million tons of soy that is produced yearly also goes to feed the animals that we eat (USDA). These crops could be used to feed people in starving countries. It could affect the lives of people right here in America. Our population is growing very quickly and resources are becoming scarcer every day. We should want to preserve and conserve the natural world around us. Whether a person believes that another living thing has rights or not, they should still treat it with respect and care. One person or a small group of people should not make the ultimate decisions on what is considered worthy of life or unworthy. If people took the time to consider the feelings and consideration of the living things in nature, the world would be a better place not just for us now, but for future generations.

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