BUAD 336 Contribution

Effectively Managing Layoff Survivors

            During times of economic downturn, many companies are forced to layoff many of their employees.  While it’s hard on those who have been laid off, it is also hard on those who have not been laid off.  The survivors are often affected very severely by the loss of their co-workers. They are worried that they themselves will be laid off.  They also mourn the disappearance of their friends.  It makes them wary of team projects and further relationship building in the workplace because they don’t want to risk losing another friend.  In order to combat this, managers need to do several things.  For one thing, they need to communicate quickly and effectively with their employees and let them know if there will be more layoffs or not.  They should also be told why there are layoffs.  They also need to reassure their employees that feeling depressed and solitary is normal.  Also, managers need to be keeping up with employee concerns with the increased workload associated with the loss of part of the workforce.  Increased work can lead to increased frustration and dissatisfaction.  Another thing managers should do is instill long-term interest in the future careers of the survivors of the layoffs.  Finally, managers need to be assessing the results of the layoffs.  If it isn’t working, then they need to find out why and how to fix it.

BUAD 336 Contribution

Technological Privacy

                With all sorts of new social networking websites being created, employers, employees, and human resource professionals are coming across new challenges.  One of these challenges is whether or not what a person does online is the company’s business or not.  In an age where everyone wants complete privacy, but at the same time want to know what everyone else is up to, the internet is becoming both a terror and a tool.  One thing employees should always keep in mind is that employers do not want anyone tarnishing the company’s reputation or image.  When dissatisfied employees turn to the internet to vent any irritations or frustrations with their jobs, the appropriate responsorial action turns into a gray area.  Is it legal to fire an employee for a lack of professionalism and positive attitude outside of the workplace?  This is one question that is still in debate.

                At Houston’s restaurant in New Jersey, a bartender and a waitress set up a myspace site designated for employees to talk about their frustrations at work without fear of reproach.  On this webpage, the two creators made fun of restaurant patrons, décor, and management.  At a small social gathering, one of the waitresses showed the website to one of the supervisors. This supervisor later took down her e-mail log-in and password in order to access the page and show it to all the other managers.  Later, the waitress and bartender who created the page were fired because their online posts violated the company policies on professionalism and a positive attitude.  The waitress and bartender are claiming the managers illegally accessed their webpage and violated their privacy rights as defined by New Jersey. This becomes an argument of what is deemed private communication and what is not.  Personally, I think if you post anything in a public forum or on a page that can be looked at by multiple people, it isn’t private.  If it is a private e-mail message, then it is private.  Therefore, if you’re feeling angry or upset by something going on at work, don’t post about it online. Talk it out with maybe one person in a private communication such as an e-mail or phone call.

Contribution for BUAD 336

Globalization and its Effect on HR

                Many companies are finding that if they are going to compete with other companies in their market, then they must eventually compete through globalization.  The most common way of doing this is through mergers and acquisitions of foreign companies that seem to share common ground.  There are things that must be taken into consideration concerning human resources when going through such a change.  One of these things is the corporate culture of both the parent company and the company that is being acquired or merged with.  Producing items of a like nature or similar industry is not enough to hold two companies together.  Two different cultures can really throw a wrench into the works.  One example of an acquisition with different cultures is Merck and Serono.  Separately, they were both in the pharmaceutical industry.  It seemed like a good match, but their cultures and business models were very different.  This could have turned into a very messy acquisition.  However, they worked to find the best of both companies’ values to combine them and thus keep everyone happy.  It turned out to be a very successful acquisition due to the establishment of a central integration office and the HR integration team.  They made sure to stay in strong communication and revamped the two different performance management systems into one.  They also hade change management workshops to help employees with any difficulties they might be coming across during the changes being made to make the acquisition a success.  While in surveys, employees of both original companies thought the cultures were very different, they both emphasized quality, innovation, teamwork, customer service, and a common vocabulary.  Through good communication and strong efforts to respond to the needs of everyone in the organization as much as possible, the Merck-Serono acquisition was an extremely successful one.