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Dealing with Dual-Career Couples

Dealing with Dual-Career Couples

Author

Institution

Policies that can be implemented to deal with Dual career employees

The number of dual career couples in many organizations has tremendously gone up in the recent times. This has presented the human resource managers in such organizations with numerous challenges. Most of the companies are torn between employing these couples and enduring the costs that come with them, or not employing them and losing some of the best employees in the industry (Hall, 2008). This has prompted companies to come up with varied policies that would allow them to deal with this issue. Some of these policies include, providing day care assistance for the employees. In order to ensure productivity of the employees, the company can provide day care services for their children. Studies have shown that most of the dual career couples are absent from work so that they can be able to attend to their families, and especially their children. By providing day care services within the company, will ensure that employees can be able to see their children regularly during the day and, therefore, reducing the cases of absenteeism

In addition, the company may resort to providing employees falling in this category with flexible time off. To ensure that employees have adequate time with their families without necessarily affecting their productivity, the company can give the employees their normal leave days, and some percentage of their sick leave days that they do not use (Parker & Arthur, 2004). In addition, employees can also be allowed to carry the annual leave days to the following year. This will ensure that that the employees have more time to spend with their loved ones. In addition, the flexible time off can be crafted in such a way that it coincides with their partners leave off. This will ensure that such a couple will achieve a good work life balance.

On the same note, companies with such employees may resolve this issue by employing both partners, which would ensure continuity in the operations of the company and safeguard the employees’ productivity. Companies can employ both partners of dual career couples so as to ensure that both employees continue working in the company (Crainer, 2011). This also ensures that, there are no difficulties in the event that any of the employees is relocated to other places. It is necessary, however, to ensure that appropriate measures are taken when employing couples so as to prevent their relationship from affecting their productivity in any way.

In addition, companies facing the problem of dual career couples can solve it by incorporating telecommuting. This is where the companies allows increased flexibility of the employees in choosing where to work, as well as the time required to accomplish a given job (Crainer, 2011). This has been made possible by the increased use of technology and specifically internet. Telecommuting allows such couples to work from their home, therefore, leaving them with more time to spend with their families.

Job sharing is another policy that a company can adopt in order to ensure that dual career couple continue being productive. Job sharing occurs when two employees in a company agrees to perform a certain job of a full time employee on a part time basis (Hall, 2008). This would allow the productivity of the organization to continue uninterrupted while also ensuring that dual career employees have enough time for their families.

Explanation/ analysis of the policies recommended

Most companies in the world have recognized the issue of increased dual career couples among their working force. This has made them to develop appropriate human resource schemes policies that can help the couples to continue working without unnecessary pressure, therefore, ensuring that such employees are productive just like any other employees. Some of the above policies can be effective in ensuring that the company overcomes the various challenges associated with this issue.

Some of the above policies can be extremely expensive to implement, but they have long lasting benefits to the companies. For instance, it might be difficult for company especially small companies to establish day care services to their employees (Crainer, 2011). However, such a policy can ensure that dual career couple work without worrying about their children. In addition, providing a day care service to employees reduces the number of days that employees are absent from their workplaces or jobs. The company can charge the employees some fees for these services from their salaries.

Dual career couples employees have extra responsibilities of ensuring that they are able to balance their parental roles, as well as professional roles. Balancing these roles may sometime prove to be extraordinarily difficult, and may sometimes result to employees suffering from stress; this subsequently affects the productivity of the employees (Parker & Arthur, 2004). The implementation of the varied policies suggested above would not only come in handy in dealing with the issue of dual career parents, but they also help the company to save on some of its resources. For instance, when a company use telecommuting as a policy to deal with this issue, the company can save the money spent on such employees in terms of office since the employee carries out the responsibilities from home.

It is, however, imperative that a company carries out comprehensive research before implementing the above policies. This is especially considering that some of them may require large sums of money to implement and sustain. In fact, there exists no one-size fits all solution to this problem, in which case an organization has to determine which policy would suit its situation. Companies also have a choice of refusing to employ dual career employees especially if they think that the company cannot accommodate them.

References

Crainer, S. (2011). Changing direction: one person can make a difference. Business Strategy

Review , 22 (2), 10-16.

Hall, F. S. (2008). Dual Careers–How do Couples and Companies Cope with the Problems?

Organizational Dynamics , 6 (4), 57-77.

Parker, P., & Arthur, M. B. (2004). Giving voice to the dual-career couple. British Journal of

Guidance & Counselling. , 32 (1), 3-23.

a strong desire to ban all public celebrations was growing. Luckly

six young men from Mobile saved Mardi Gras. These men had been members of the Cowbellians

in carriages

and on horseback. The first documented parade in 1837 was made of a costumed revelers. The Carnival season eventually became so wild that the authorities banned street masking by the late 1830’s. This was an attempt to control the civil disorder arising from this annual celebration.

Dealing with disengaged employees

Dealing with disengaged employees

The major lessons to be learnt from this case

There are various lessons to be learnt in this case. To start with, disengaged workers are usually unproductive and often lead to loss of customer loyalty. On the other hand, engaged employees are usually highly productive and provide good services to customers. The causes of disengagement can either be behavioural or economical. Disengaged workers are costly to an organization in numerous ways. Thus, it is essential to try available ways to deal with disengaged employees but sometimes, the best choice if to fire the worker. Further, poor management practices are a major cause of workers disengagement. Also, disengaged managers have an adverse impact to the performance of workers. It is thus important for managers to establish good relationship with all workers and establish ways to respond to individual performances. More importantly, organizations should focus on preventing employee disengagement through establishing ways to discover ‘mental absence’ in workers and try to fix the problem before disengagement takes place.

How training and re-training can be used to better engage the retail employees when;

(a) They are new

Training and retraining can be used to better engage new retail employees through effective on-boarding process. This is a process in which new employees learn the culture of an organization (Macey et al, 2011, p. 1). From the first contact that an organization has with new employees, the retail organization can imbue the employees with values and goals of the organization. As Macey et al, (2011, p. 1) noted, this can be done through formal training of the employees, focusing on organizational values as well as the skills required to do the work. This process can be reinforced through offering the new employees with informal opportunities for interaction and through continuous retraining. This will enhance better perception of the new employees towards the organization, increase their focus on organizational goals and hence, increase their engagement (Macey et al, 2011, p. 1).

(b) After they have been with a retailer for a while

Training which is meant to engage employees who have stayed in the retailer for a while needs to focus on building effective communication among the employees and between employees and management, enhance trust with the management and cultivate the employees to think systematically (Champion, 2008, p. 13). For an effective training process, the management should first consider surveying the employees in order to understand the specific skills that each will need to learn. This will help to match the match the training with the preferences and requirements of each employee. It is essential to make the training sessions enjoyable through building interactivity into the training programs. More importantly, the employees need to be allowed to express themselves as unique individuals during training (Macey et al, 2011, p. 1). The training process should be made continuous. Generally, this will help to foster sense of belonging and creates meaningful opportunities to contribute, to learn and to grow for the workers and thus, increase their engagement.

Supervision style that is most likely going to motivate retail employees

The most suitable supervision style that would motivate the retail employees is the democratic style. In this style, the management includes employees in the process of decision-making and problem solving, though it retains the ultimate say in the final resolution (Pinnow, 2011, p. 51). This style increases employees’ engagement and participation, hence increasing job satisfaction, morale, efficiency and productivity. Thus, the democratic style is likely to be the most effective in motivating the retail workers.

Impact of reducing labour costs at a percentage of sales from 10% to 8 percent

It is not good for the retailer to reduce labour costs by cutting down sales commission from 10 percent to 8 percent. As Thomason et al (2001, p. 189) explains, compensation motivates employees to work hard and to strive for higher levels of productivity. As such, reduction in compensation will create mistrust of the organization among workers, decrease their morale, increase turnover rate and subsequently, reduce overall organizational productivity. Therefore, it is not advisable for the retailer to reduce labour costs by cutting down workers’ commission.

Suggestions for improving labour productivity in retailing

The productivity of the retail business can be improved in various ways. First, it can be enhanced through improved ways of worker’s motivation while focusing on gaining their engagement and loyalty United Nations, (2006, p. 126). Secondly, the retailing productivity can be improved through training of staff to improve their knowledge and skills as well as through adapting improved recruitment and selection process. Thirdly, it can be enhanced through investment in advanced equipments and technology. The fourth option is to create a system that will respond to employees’ issues effectively. This will help to reduce frustrations, increase job satisfaction, increase workers’ efficiency and increase overall productivity (United Nations, 2006, p. 126). Finally, the retail’s productivity can be enhanced by fostering open communication within the organization which will allow workers to make suggestions for updating office policies and streamlining procedures.

The pros and cons of cross-training a disengaged employee

There are several merits of cross-training a disengaged employee. To start with, training makes a disengaged worker experience change in routine hence reducing boredom (Sunley, et al, 2011, p. 145). Secondly, it provides a chance for a disengaged employee to raise issues affecting him or her and to make suggestions for improvement. According to (Sunley, et al, 2011, p. 145), training makes the disengaged workers to feel valued since the employer is using time and resources. The cross-training process can help to identify candidates for higher level jobs. Generally, a well designed training for disengaged employee help to increase job satisfaction, reduce employee turnover rate, increase customer loyalty and organizational productivity (Sunley, et al, 2011, p. 145).

As well, there are various demerits associated with training of a disengaged employee. First, it is costly to an organization to implement an effective cross-training program (Sunley, et al, 2011, p. 145). Secondly, there is usually less productivity during the course of training. Further, if poorly implemented, the cross-training program can have several adverse impacts on the disengaged worker. According to Sunley, et al (2011, p. 145), it can kill employee’s morale especially if they feel that he or she is likely to lose job. It can also lead to resentments if the worker feels that the training is likely to increase his or her responsibilities, but for the same pay. If poorly implemented, training can cause the disengaged worker to lose sight of key responsibilities, leading to confusion. Generally, if poorly managed, cross-training can result in less productivity, customer dissatisfaction and even possibility of costly mistakes (Sunley, et al, 2011, p. 145).

The labour related functions could be outsourced by an auto dealer

There are various labour related tasks such as handling of dealership website leads, third leads generated by advertising on TV, radio, direct mail, incoming sales calls, inbound calls, and database mining of past sales and service customers among others (Sundararajan, et al 2011, p. 18). The reasons for outsourcing include cost saving, achieving better control of the outsourced functions, need to focus on core competencies, avoiding distractions and push by company politics. An auto dealer may outsource any or all of the aforementioned functions depending on the skills and abilities of the staff.

References

Champion, M. R. & Capella University, (2008), Creating engagement: The use of

Expectancy Theory in corporate customer service teams, ProQuest, MI

Macey, W. H., Schneider, B., Barbera, K. M. & Young, S. A., (2011), Employee

Engagement: Tools for Analysis, Practice, and Competitive Advantage, John Wiley & Sons, London

Pinnow, D. F., (2011), Leadership – What Really Matters: A Handbook on Systemic

Leadership, Springer, Heidelberg

Sunley, P., Martin, R. & Nativel, C., (2011), Putting Workfare in Place: Local Labour

Markets and the New Deal, John Wiley & Sons, London

Thomason, T., Schmidle, T. P. & Burton, J. F., (2001), Workers’ compensation: benefits,costs, and safety under alternative insurance arrangements, W.E. Upjohn Institute, London

United Nations, (2006), Economic survey of Latin America and the Caribbean, United

Nations Publications, Geneva

Sundararajan, A., Wiegmann, J. & Tao, Z., (2011), Decision Making for Outsourcing and

Privatization of Vehicle and Equipment Fleet Maintenance, Transportation Research Board, Washington

Mardi Gras is not Halloween. Gore and mayhem may work for All Hallow’s Eve

but for Mardi Gras

Dealing with an Autistic Child

Dealing with an Autistic Child

Author

Tutor

Course

University

Introduction

Dealing with an autistic child can be an extremely daunting task. This is especially considering their slightly “unbecoming’ behaviour that could cause disruption especially in the classroom. This was essentially the case at a time when an autistic child had a kick-off and started disrupting the entire class. This behaviour may have emanated from his need to release some energy before settling down, or even his failure to understand the expectations in the class, as well as what he was supposed to do next. The act of walking around the classroom was, in this case, an attempt at calming himself (Peck & Scarpati, 2011, pp. 34). However, controlling the situation is difficult especially considering that it was not immediately obvious why the boy acted in that manner. The limited verbal communication made the kid incapable of expressing his feelings of discomfort, anxiety or frustration except through outbursts of unbecoming behaviour (Hannah, 2001, pp. 45). Needless to say, the result of the disruption depended on the reaction of the teacher and me as the teaching assistant.

In dealing with the undesirable behaviours, it was imperative that each behaviour is tackled at its own time rather than rectifying all behaviours at once. First, the teacher had to slow down his movements and speech while talking, as well as use a soft voice so as to calm the autistic child. This was aimed at slowing down the physical disruptions pertaining to kicking off or moving around the classroom (Buron et al, 2008, pp. 56). While holding the child may trigger more violent reactions from him, I pushed down heavily on his shoulders using equal, as well as constant pressure. The constant nature of this pressure allowed the child to calm down (Buron et al, 2008, pp. 56). Needless to say, the child did not calm instantaneously, in which case it was imperative that I desist from rushing the child or rather be extremely patient with him. This was aimed at reducing the verbal outbursts. It is only after the child has calmed down both verbally and physically that it would be possible to model behaviour through socialisation.

Bibliography

Hannah, L. (2001). Teaching young children with autistic spectrum disorders to learn: a practical guide for parents and staff in general education classrooms and preschools. London, National Autistic Society.

Peck, A. F., & Scarpati, S. 2011. Classroom instruction and students with autism spectrum disorders: a collection of articles from Teaching Exceptional Children. Arlington, Va, Council for Exceptional Children.

Buron, K. D., Wolfberg, P. J., & Gray, C. 2008. Learners on the autism spectrum: preparing highly qualified educators. Shawnee Mission, Kan, Autism Asperger Pub. Co.

saw pre-Lenten balls and fetes in the infant New Orleans. The masked balls continued until the Spanish government took over and banned the events. The ban even continued after New Orleans became an American city in 1803. Eventually

the predominant Creole population revitalized the balls by 1823. Within the next four years

Deafness and Hearing Loss Blog

Deafness and Hearing Loss Blog

Name

Institution

Deafness and Hearing Loss

(a) What are the different types of hearing loss?

Hearing loss/deafness is a common disability that affects the ability for a child to develop communication skills. There are different types of hearing loss. The four main types are conductive hearing loss, central hearing loss, mixed hearing loss and Sensorineural hearing losses. Conductive hearing loss occurs as a result of obstructions or diseases that affect the middle or outer parts of the ear. Central hearing loss occurs as a result of impairment or damage to the nuclei or the nerves of the central nervous system. Sensorineural hearing losses occur when nerves or sensory hair cells on the pathway towards the inner year are damaged. Mixed hearing loss occurs when there is a combination of sensorineural hearing losses and conductive hearing loss (Center for Information and Resources, 2014).

(b) What are the educational implications for children who are deaf or have a hearing loss?

Although hearing loss affects the ability of an individual to communicate like typical individuals, it does not affect intellectual ability. However, individuals with this kind of disability require special education services and equipments in order to learn effectively. Firstly, they require assistive technologies, such as amplification systems and captioned videos and films. Secondly, they require a specialist to provide them with auditory, language and regular speech training (Center for Information and Resources, 2014). Further, children with hearing loss require a specialist who understands sign language to interpret information given out by tutors in class. In some cases, a note-taker may be required, who gathers information about educational development and ability of children with hearing loss to follow instructions (Center for Information and Resources, 2014). Tutors and peers can also be taught how to communicate to children with hearing loss using sign language and how to interact with them. In order to enhance effective learning of children with hearing loss, parents, specialists and teachers should work together in developing individualized education program (Center for Information and Resources, 2014).

(c) Identify at least three (3) print or web-based resources for parents who have children who are deaf or who have a hearing loss.

Resources

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2014). Hearing Loss in Children. Retrieved from HYPERLINK “http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/hearingloss/treatment.html” http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/hearingloss/treatment.html

Center for Information and Resources (2014). Deafness and Hearing Loss. Retrieved from

HYPERLINK “http://www.parentcenterhub.org/repository/hearingloss/” http://www.parentcenterhub.org/repository/hearingloss/

Lasak, J. M., Allen, P. McVay, T. Lewis, D. (2014). Hearing loss: diagnosis and management.

Primary care, 41 (1), 19–31

Smith, D. D., & Tyler, N. C. (2010). Introduction to Special Education. Columbus: Merrill.

when Jean Baptiste LeMoyne

Sieur de Bienville