Information About The Relative Worth Of An Employee Commerce Essay

Information About The Relative Worth Of An Employee Commerce Essay Performance appraisal is the process of obtaining, analyzing and recording information about the relative worth of an employee. The focus of the performance appraisal is measuring and improving the actual performance of the employee and also the future potential of the employee. Its aim is to measure what an employee does. According to Flippo, a prominent personality in the field of Human resources, performance appraisal is the systematic, periodic and an impartial rating of an employees excellence in the matters pertaining to his present job and his potential for a better job. Performance appraisal is a systematic way of reviewing and assessing the performance of an employee during a given period of time and planning for his future Objectives Of Performance appraisal: To review the performance of the employees over a given period of time. To judge the gap between the actual and the desired performance. To help the management in exercising organizational control. Helps to strengthen the relationship and communication between superior subordinates and management employees. To diagnose the strengths and weaknesses of the individuals so as to identify the training and development needs of the future. To provide feedback to the employees regarding their past performance. Provide information to assist in the other personal decisions in the organization. Provide clarity of the expectations and responsibilities of the functions to be performed by the employees. To judge the effectiveness of the other human resource functions of the organization such as recruitment, selection, training and development. To reduce the grievances of the employees. Performance appraisal of employee is important in managing the human resource of an organization. With the change towards knowledge-based capitalism, maintaining talented knowledge workers is critical. However, management classification of outstanding, poor and average performance may not be an easy decision. Besides that, superior might also tend to judge the work performance of their subordinates informally and arbitrarily especially without the existence of a system of appraisal. Performance appraisal of candidates in relation to a particular position, is a key task towards managing the human resources of an organization. Supervisors are concerned with performance appraisal judgments and evaluations that they have to make on their subordinates. On the other hand, subordinates are increasingly realizing the importance of performance appraisal since it would very much affect their rewards and future career path. As the world began to shift towards knowledge based capitalism, it reminds all organizations on the importance of maintaining their talented knowledge workers. Performance appraisal is usually conducted periodically within an organization to examine and discuss the work performance of subordinate so as to identify the strengths and weaknesses as well as opportunities for improvement among employees. Following this, most of the employers use the performance appraisal result to determine if a particular staff should be terminated or reinforced; as an employee development and coaching tool; to give a practical evaluation of an employees readiness for promotion; and to serve as the foundation for giving merit bonus. Some companies do not havea formal appraisal system and as a result the company gets infected with certain drawbacks like under motivated and under committed workers. In a recent Human Resources Forum poll, 16 percent of the people responding have no performance appraisal system at all. Supervisory opinions, provided once a year, are the only appraisal process for 56 percent of respondents. Another 16 percent described their appraisals as based solely on supervisor opinions, but administered more than once a year. The improvement of performance appraisal systems is a matter of sharing a social definition of performance appraisal that is congruent with the original intent decided by the organisation. The management development professional can aid the process by being educated about appraisal systems, analysing the potential benefits to the organisation, and accepting that all appraisers need training. To help performance appraisal reach its fullest potential, management development professionals need to be political strategists, appraisal system experts, trainers, salespeople and catalysts, in combination. An organization comes across various problems and challenges Of Performance Appraisalin order to make a performance appraisal system effective and successful. The main Performance Appraisal challenges involved in the performance appraisal processare: Identification of the appraisal criteria is one of the biggest problems faced by the top management. The performance data to be considered for evaluation should be carefully selected. For the purpose of evaluation, the criteria selected should be in quantifiable or measurable terms Top management should choose the raters or the evaluators carefully. They should have the required expertise and the knowledge to decide the criteria accurately. They should have the experience and the necessary training to carry out the appraisal process objectively. Many errors based on the personal bias like stereotyping, halo effect (i.e. one trait influencing the evaluators rating for all other traits) etc. may creep in the appraisal process. Therefore the rater should exercise objectivity and fairness in evaluating and rating the performance of the employees. The appraisal process may face resistance from the employees and the trade unions for the fear of negative ratings. Therefore, the employees should be communicated and clearly explained the purpose as well the process of appraisal. The standards should be clearly communicated and every employee should be made aware that what exactly is expected from him/her.    The appraisal process might also be influenced by the following factors relating to the forms that are used by raters: The rating scale may be quite vague and unclear The rating form may ignore important aspects of job performance. The rating form may contain additional, irrelevant performance dimensions. The forms may be too long and complex. The raters may not be adequately trained to carry out performance management activities. This becomes a serious limitation when the technical competence of a ratee is going to be evaluated by a rater who has limited functional specialization in that area. The raters may not have sufficient time to carry out appraisals systematically and conduct thorough feedback sessions. Sometimes the raters may not be competent to do the evaluations owing to a poor self-image and lack of self-confidence. They may also get confused when the objectives of appraisal are somewhat vague and unclear. If the sincere appraisal effort put in by a rater is not suitably rewarded, the motivation to do the job thoroughly finishes off. Sometimes, low ratings given by raters are viewed negatively by management as a sign of failure on the part of rater or as an indication of employee discontent. So, most employees receive satisfactory ratings, despite poor performance. Normally, the raters immediate supervisor must approve the ratings. However, in actual practice, this does not happen. As a result the rater goes off the hook and causes considerable damage to the rating process. If the rater dislikes any employee, he may rate them at the lower end and this may distort the rating purpose and affect the career of these employees. A person outstanding in one area tends to receive outstanding or better than average ratings in other areas as well, even when such a rating is undeserved. To minimizing the halo effect, you should appraise all the employees by one trait before going to rate on the basis of another trait. In general, raters remember the recent appraisal of the employee and they usually follow appraisal results last time. Some of the biases all managers should refrain from while conducting the performance evaluation are as follows:- (i)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   First impressions (primacy effect): The appraisers first impressions of a candidate may color his evaluation of all subsequent behavior. In the case of negative primacy effect, the employee may seem to do nothing right; in the case of a positive primacy effect, the employee can do no wrong (Harris, p.192). (ii)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Halo: The Halo error occurs when one aspect of the subordinates performance affects the raters evaluation of other performance dimensions. If a worker has few absences, his supervisor might give the worker a high rating in all other areas of work. Similarly an employee might be rated high on performance simply because he had a good dress sense and comes to office punctually!. (iii)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Horn effect: The raters bias is in the other direction, where one negative quality of the employee is being rated harshly. For example, the ratee does not smile normally, so he cannot get along with people! (iv)  Ã‚   Leniency: Depending on raters own mental make-up at the time of appraisal, raters may be rated very strictly or very leniently. Appraisers generally find evaluating others difficult, especially where negative ratings have to be given. A professor might hesitate to fail a candidate when all other students have cleared the examination. The Leniency error can render an appraisal system ineffective. If everyone is to be rated high, the system has not done anything to differentiate among employees. (v)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Central tendency: An alternative to the leniency effect is the central tendency, which occurs when appraisers rate all employees as average performers. For example, a professor, with a view to play it safe, might give a class  grades nearly equal to B, regardless of the differences in individual performance. (vi)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Stereotyping: Stereotyping is a mental picture that an individual holds about a person because of that persons sex, age, religion, caste, etc. By generalizing behavior on the basis of such blurred images, the rater grossly overestimates or underestimates a persons performance. For example, employees from rural areas might be rated poorly by raters having a sophisticated urban background if they view rural background negatively. (vii)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Recency effect: In this case the rater gives greater weightage to recent occurrences than earlier performance. For example, an excellent performance that may be six or seven months old is conveniently forgotten while giving a poor rating to an employees performance which is not so good in recent weeks. Alternatively, the appraisal process may suffer due to a spill over effect which takes place when past performance influences present ratings. In conclusion I would state that performance appraisals are important to any organization. The procedure should be carried out effectively. The reward and point system for human capital is vital for the employee development and also for the organization to reach its corporate goals. Some of the topics discussed aboce should be avoided and the above written issues should be catered to while a manager conducts a performance appraisal system within the organization.

Powdered Coconut Husk, Okra Mucilage, Water Hyacinth and Starch as Alternative Plastic Composites Essay

The present condition of our country regarding the use of plastics demands that people explore other means whereby proportionate products can be produced out of raw materials which are commonly disregarded. One of these is the utilization of solid wastes which could yield excellent useful results. Largely an agricultural country, Philippines provides various local raw materials, the utilization of which may lead to the country’s industrialization. Philippines provide ample farm products having great possibilities for some purposes. An example of which is the coconut husk fiber or cocos nucifera. Although some use this for making native products, this study used this for an alternative bioplastic product making it more different than the usual ones. Water hyacinth, which is commonly found almost in some rivers and considered as another solid waste is to be used also in this project study. Although it has the same function as the coconut husk fiber, this is used to lessen the number or amount of water hyacinth in our environment because of its abundance and bad effects. To improve the quality of the bioplastic product,the researchers used okra wherein mucilage can be found which lessens the brittleness of the said product because of the so called, glycirin. Another concerned material in the study is cornstarch. It is the source of polymer which is said to be the building blocks of the eco-friendly plastic product. What makes this study different is that the researchers used raw materials which are seldomly used in a more different way and utilize it to make a new product which could yield useful results. Moreover, the main purpose of this study, is to make plastic that can be decomposed easily since it uses raw materials, to use starch instead of chemicals and to utilize some of the solid wastes in our society. Plastic is a versatile and potentially indestructible material, which makes it ideal for a number of commercial and household uses. Indeed, plastic has become a substitute for many items which used to be made from other substances, such as plastic bottles for drinks, condiments and many other more. In many cases, this is extremely useful and convenient. However, usage of plastic has caused many environmental downsides. This is because, plastic is so resilient that even burying it deep within the Earth doesn’t keep it from impacting the environment. Although plastics can be recycled, many people still burn them and we all know that it is harmful to the environment. It may also affect people’s health because plastics contain many chemical additives which causes illnesses like endocrine disruption which can lead to cancers, birth defects, immune system suppression and developmental problems in children. And worse it can also lead to toxicity of living organisms and marine animals. This ecological problem impelled the development of new materials that can be substitutes in producing biodegradable plastic which led us to think the utilization of eco- friendly materials that can be an alternative in making bioplastic. Scopes and Limitations The research study was concerned with utilizing coconut husk fibers or cocus nucifera and water hyacinth in producing a bioplastic product. The research focused not only on the simple production but also the quality of the said product in terms of brittleness and flexibility. Mucilage was obtained from okra where glycirin is found and improves the brittleness of the product. Furthermore, this study is also concerned in using cornstarch as the source of polymer considered as the building blocks of the product. Statement of the Problem The purpose of this study is to produce an alternative plastic made up of organic materials. Another purpose of this study is to answer the following questions: 1. What will be the organic material used in making the plastic? 2. What content(s) is/are most effective in making the bioplastic more efficient than than Plastics- any of a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic organic solids that are moldable. Plastics are typically organic polymers of high molecular mass, but they often contain other substances. They are usually synthetic, most commonly derived from petrochemicals, but many are partially natural. Biodegradable Plastics- plastics that will decompose in natural aerobic (composting) and anaerobic (landfill) environments. Biodegradation of plastics occurs when microorganisms metabolize the plastics to either ssimilable compounds or to humus-like materials that are less harmful to the environment. They may be composed of either bioplastics, which are plastics whose components are derived from renewable raw materials, or petroleum-based plastics which contain additives. Glycerol- (or glycerine, glycerin) is a simple polyol compound. It is a colorless, odorless, viscous liquid that is widely used in pharmaceutical formulations. Glycerol has three hydroxyl groups that are responsible for its solubility in water and its hygroscopic nature. The glycerol backbone is central to all lipids known as triglycerides. Glycerol is sweet-tasting and of low toxicity. Polymer- is the main building block of all plastics. It is a large molecule (macromolecule) composed of repeating structural units. These sub-units are typically connected by covalent chemical bonds. Although the term polymer is sometimes taken to refer to plastics, it actually encompasses a large class of compounds comprising both natural and synthetic materials with a wide variety of properties. Mucilage- a thick, gluey substance produced by nearly all plants and some microorganisms. It is a polar glycoprotein and an exopolysaccharide. Mucilage in plants plays a role in the storage of water and food, seed germination, and thickening membranes. Starch- or amylum is a carbohydrate consisting of a large number of glucose units joined by glycosidic bonds. This polysaccharide is produced by all green plants as an energy store. It is the most common carbohydrate in the human diet and is contained in large amounts in such staple foods as potatoes, wheat, maize (corn), rice, and cassava. Starch is made of two basic components: amylose and amylopectin. Amylose- is a very long and straight polymer like we want to have in our study. Amylopectin- on the other hand is a branched and short polymer meaning it will yield brittle and weak plastic which is not good. Vinegar- a liquid substance consisting mainly of acetic acid (CH3CO2H) and water, the acetic acid being produced through the fermentation of ethanol by acetic acid bacteria. By adding a small amount of vinegar to the plastic, we can break up some of the branches of the amylopectin which otherwise would make it brittle. Water hyacinth- is a free-floating perennial aquatic plant native to tropical and sub-tropical South America. With broad, thick, glossy, ovate leaves, water hyacinth may rise above the surface of the water as much as 1 meter in height. The leaves are 10–20 cm across, and float above the water surface. They have long, spongy and bulbous stalks. The feathery, freely hanging roots are purple-black. An erect stalk supports a single spike of 8-15 conspicuously attractive flowers, mostly lavender to pink in colour with six petals.

Economic and Political Changes During the Medieval Ages Essay

Before becoming what it is today Europe went through a lot of changes. After the fall of Rome, Europe was in chaos. This is until Charlemagne helped to restore it, after his death though, Europe was back into chaos. Chaos ended in the High Middle Ages when Europe prospered politically and economically. In the Early Middle Ages, also known as the â€Å"Dark ages† which was after the fall of Rome which was caused because of lack of a centralized government, lack of trade, and lack of formal learning, there was a period of great disorder. Because of Europe’s many natural resources such as their seas which were great for fighting and farming, many Germanic tribes, Viking, and other people tried to attack it. When Charlemagne became Emperor the chaos stopped but after his death it continued again. The High Middle Ages were times of economic and political prosperity for Europe. Europe started using a feudal system, which is a system of government based on control of land. In feudal society everybody had a place. For example, vassals pledged their loyalty to their lords and they helped each other out. Another example is serfs farmed and did other labor work for the lords and kings in exchange for land and food. The feudal system provided Europe with a centralized government. Economically Europe also changed, During the Agricultural Revolution they made new technologies such as the wind mill and iron plow which greatly helped with farming. They also started using the three-field system. Because of their change there was more food and the population grew. Trade routes, trade fairs and towns were also created. Another big change was the Commercial Revolution. Money reappeared and was used to buy and sell goods. Europeans developed new ways of doing business. They created partnerships and an insurance system. This greatly helped business in Europe. In order for Europe to get out of its â€Å"Dark Ages† it had to go through change. By changing politically and economically, it prospered. Even now other civilizations are influenced by this. For example we have an insurance system and use windmills. In order for Europe to prosper it had to go through change.

The Hypocrisy of American Slavery, Through the Eyes of...

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself is a powerful book in many respects. Douglass invites you to vicariously witness the monstrous atrocities he experienced during the antebellum period; a time when said atrocities were not only encouraged, but looked highly upon. Throughout his narrative, Douglass expresses his exponentially growing anger and fortitude. When the reader arrives at The Appendix, it soon becomes that much more apparent that the vice of slavery that is most troublesome to him, is the curtain of pseudo-Christianity surrounding it. Why did Douglass, against the advice of his publisher, decide to include this radical piece? Douglass was adamant about including The Appendix†¦show more content†¦From this it is apparent that the separation of church and state is vital. It was a widely accepted view to hold Jesus as divine; to view him as human was extreme and looked down upon. One can see this by the fall of Thomas Paine, a believer in Jesus as being human, after writing The Age of Reason. Paine and Douglass are not a far cry from one another: though their publications were around sixty years apart, both desired to detoxify religion in America. So how did an ideal such as Christianity in America become so convoluted, so manipulated, that the human conscience would allow something as horrific as slavery to endure? Acts in the name of Jesus are not new thought processes and their longevity is unparalleled. The manipulation of these acts, however, has been one of the most heavily relied upon validations of human barbarism in history. American Christianity reigned over slavery as the British once did over the colonies. â€Å"For the first time Christ was assuming the mantle of social advocate in addition to that of ethical teacher or holy redeemer† (Fox 204, 205). It can be said that Eli Whitney’s cotton gin added to the predomination of slavery in the south (Moynahan 55 0). Due to supply and demand, it was easy for slaveholders to fall into the evil mental trap of rationalizing slavery. The words of the Bible were manipulated by southern evangelicals to substantiate Christian slaveholding on theseShow MoreRelatedThe Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave1093 Words   |  5 Pagespossible difference.† -Frederick Douglass. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, by Frederick Douglass, shares the story of the struggles of an American slave during the eighteenth-century. Fredrick Douglass was born in Tuckahoe, Maryland in approximately 1818. While being raised by his grandmother, Betsey Bailey, he snuck around at night to meet his mother nearby, assuming that his slaveholder, Captain Anthony, was his father. 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