Performance Management at Vitality Health Enterprises, Inc. Essay

Vitality Health Enterprises is a large beauty products and nutraceuticals company offering a full range of health, wellness, and beauty products around the globe. The company was originally founded in 1987 in Ames, Iowa, by Hikaaru â€Å"Fred† Kikuchi who is an experienced serial entrepreneur. His inspiration for Vitality came when his wife was continually dissatisfied with the quality of beauty products she was finding here in the U.S., since they emigrated from Japan. Kikuchi saw a business opportunity and used his relationships from back home to import beauty products and the rest is history. Vitality has gone through numerations of growth that has included: moving company headquarters to Des Moines – thought to be a better location for growth, establishing its own manufacturing facility with its own chemists – to develop its own unique products specifically targeting the U.S. marketplace, purchasing HerbaPure Nutraceuticals to offer a broader range of products, and establishing an IPO to raise capital for further expansion – which now includes nine global offices representing markets in Asia, Southeast Asia, and Europe. Vitality has grown far beyond selling products out of Kikucki’s garage to a large scale enterprise in the personal care products sector. Beth Williams is the current CEO who was recruited in mid-2008 to replace Kikuchi over concerns for his health, and to infuse Vitality with fresh blood and new ideas in the highly competitive marketplace. The board liked her no-nonsense approach and hoped she could turn Vitality around after a period of stagnation. James Hoffman is the newly appointed vice president of Human Resources at Vitality Health Enterprises and shares concerns with Beth that Vitality is not maintaining its edge on innovation, and has a large employee turnover rate among the highly talented research scientists. His first assignment is to take the lead on the new Performance Management Evaluation Team, constructed to evaluate the success of the system, and present the findings and recommendations to the board. Hoffman’s evaluation can either provide him with a great career opportunity, or be the catalyst for his departure. His concern is they do not have all the data to present and having been with Vitality for two months, he needs to be certain of his analysis – not to mention his boss, Beth, is the one who implemented the program several years earlier. The main problem in this entire case is how Vitality can maintain being the industry leader in innovation. There is a high turnover rate with high performing employees, especially those who are the innovators in product development. The high turnover is attributed to the poor incentive structure. Innovation is vital at maintaining the competitive edge, in any rapidly changing industry. For other employees, the structure encourages complacency and a culture of ineffective performance, not easily identifying poor performers. There is a problem with the evaluation process required of the managers, in the performance evaluations. They are not properly trained on how to evaluate the teams and don’t like the structure because it alienates team members. There might also be legal issues with discrimination and how the evaluation is designed. Company wide motivation has been declining due to the performance management system. Managers don’t feel thorough evaluations are, â€Å"worth their time†, and they are concerned the force- rank system incorrectly ranks individual performance. Employees can be placed in the lower tier, comp structure, if they are part of a high performing team and the opposite can be true for employees ranked in the higher tier, if they are part of a lower performing team. The system’s â€Å"fairness† has been questioned throughout the organization, and no clear standards are understood on what dictates your placement in the tier system. If employees are not clear on the system, it is challenging to make corrections in their performance. In addition, management feels employees are less likely to take additional initiative, outside their roles, to better the team’s performance – since there is no real incentive to do so. These issues negatively affect the culture, and have led to increased turnover in top-tier talent, which has left Vitality struggling to maintain its hold as industry leader. Performance management systems primary goal should be to stimulate behaviors that improve performance within a company. It appears as Hoffman suggested – Vitality has, â€Å"missed the mark† and is not fostering the type of behavior it originally set out to accomplish. The question for Vitality and Hoffman is: does the performance management system need correction, or should they start from scratch? We believe they can modify the current system they have in place and make it successful. They have already taken the appropriate measures to find where the system is lacking, which is in motivating the employees. This demonstrates that Vitality is moving in the right direction by being proactive on improving the working environment and culture of the company. One system will never be a perfect fit for all, but we believe we’ve identified a few key suggestions, based off the organizational feedback, that would enable Vitality to â€Å"hit the mark† with their performance management system. First we would address the time constraints the managers have in preparing the evaluations, by allowing the process to be extended by three months. Teamwork is central to turning out new products, yet the evaluation removes the motivation and encouragement for individual initiative that would benefit team performance. We recommend a piece of the individual performance, perhaps 20-30 % of the evaluation, be based off team accomplishments; similar to a NFL football team winning the Super Bowl and earning bonuses for the team. It’s well known that some players contribute more than others due to ability, yet the entire team contributes and receives additional compensation based off the accomplishment. The force-rank component would be based off the employee achieving key individual milestones, that would be determined by the manager and employee, at the beginning of the year. We would also remove the required number of rankings for top achievers, achievers, low achievers, unacceptable and not rated. We would leave these up to the discretion of the manager. The manager would then have a pool of money to distribute throughout his team contingent on the performance evaluations. In order to entice innovation, within the organization, a specific bonus/kicker structure should be incorporated into the plan that rewards individuals and teams that bring new product development to market. It’s clear that Vitality has made the right moves to maintain its market leader perception. We applaud Beth Williams for identifying a problem within the company, and being proactive to change course in order to maintain continued high performance.

Poverty in India Essay

With 44 percent (44%) of the global outsourcing market in the off shore sector for software and other business process currently being hosted by India, it has fast gained global recognition as the premier global destination for business process outsourcing.   With generated revenues totaling over US$ 17.2 billion and employment related to outsourcing at 1.05 million as of March 2005, India has greatly increased its economic output and per capita GDP.   This economic growth of India has been heralded as one of the most amazing success stories of the 20th century.   The growth rates that India has been posting over the past five years have made it one of the reasons why investments have risen in the area. The problem is that even with the robust economic growth of India the schism between the rich and the poor continues to grow.   Outsourcing, while creating a boon for the Indian economy, has also intensified that gap by creating new social classes and spawning new cultural changes.   Therefore, because of the weak economic fundamentals of the Indian Economy, instead of narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor, it is instead widened and fewer jobs are created thus leading to more widespread poverty. The greatest problem that these poor fundamentals present to society however is the widening of social divisions that are already existent in society.   In the Indian model the social rifts that are created deal with the differences from within the family unit in relation to the outside society.   The creation and birth of a new type of middle class society which is predominantly comprised of members of the youth sector is creating a class that is being socially and culturally alienated from the rest of society, particularly in the traditionally conservative Indian society. New work habits and consumer patterns have created a new class that enjoys the more expensive and extravagant lifestyle that is supported by the relatively high wages that receive as compared with the rest of Indian society.   There is very little time to spend in the household where more solid and fundamental values are instilled and nurtured and instead the constant exposure to western society has resulted in a degradation of whatever morals were created or instilled in the first place.   For others, the pressure of keeping the job and maintaining the accustomed lifestyle isolates them from other members of society in their efforts to generate more income. In India where the economic disparity was historically at lower levels, the introduction of higher paying jobs as a result of business process outsourcing has increased the rift between social and economic classes as well.   The newly emancipated and empowered women as well as the new rich employees of outsourcing firms are now experiencing things that their parents could never have enjoyed in their lifetimes such as televisions, ipods, cars and cellular phones.   The rift would not be so great however were the opportunity available equally to all sectors of society.    As it is however, only those with certain qualifications and training are allowed those opportunities and this has created a new resentment for those who have gained so much in so little time. While this has certainly generated more income for the Indian government to utilize in other social welfare projects, the income from taxes is not spent on decreasing the economic divide that exists but has actually been spent on infrastructure projects in IT designed to drum up more business and thus increasing the social gap even more.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Another reason for the widespread poverty in India lies in the failure of the government to enact programs to ensure that the economic developments that benefit certain sectors of society also trickle down to the masses.   The Indian Planning Commission has estimated that as of the year 2004 and 2005 nearly 27.5% of the Indian population was living below the poverty lines. Nearly 75% of all those living below the poverty line are located in the rural areas of India.   This shows that while most of the developed cities in India are beginning to grow, the rural areas of India are not able to benefit from this economic development.   With over 836 million citizens living on less than US$ 0.50 cents, it seems that the poverty problems of India are more rooted on the poor economic structure than anything else. Another reason for this is because of the different social, religious and economic groups that are in India.     The fact that the caste system was encouraged until the early 20th century has also added to the poverty rate in India because of the special rights and privileges that were given to others.   Coupled with the lack of property rights, since the right to property is not constitutionally declared in India, these barriers effectively prevent those from the lower economic classes of India from entering the middle class. There are a number of other reasons that can be cited as the cause for poverty in India.   Most of these theories are based on the poor economic fundamentals that were established during the British Regime and during the resulting political turmoil that resulted immediately after the transfer of power in 1947.   Be that as it may, such poor fundamentals have also given birth to other economic problems such as the growing divide between the different economic classes in India. The recent economic growth of India due to its growing role as a major player in the outsourcing industry has indeed granted a number of benefits to Indians but at the same time it has served to increase poverty in certain areas because of the failure of the government to ensure a more equitable distribution of income among the masses.   Lack of government infrastructure projects and rampant corruption remain to be the deterrents for India’s true economic growth.   Until India is able to address these problems, poverty will remain to be synonymous with the Indian Economic system for years to come.    References: Agrawal, A. N.: Indian Economy. Problems of Development and Planning. 18th edition, New Delhi: Wiley Eastern Limited 2002 Ahluwalia, Isher Judge: New Economic Policies. Reform of Public Sector Enterprises and Privatisation in India. mimeo, February 2004, paper presented for the Conference on Economic Liberalisation in South Asia at the Australia Singh, Ajit Kumar: Social Consequences of New Economic Policies. With Particular Reference to Levels of Living of Working Class Population. In: EPW, February 13, 1993, p. 279 – 285 Sridhan, E.: Economic Liberalisation and India’s Political Economy: Towards a Paradigm Synthesis. In: The JCCP, vol. XXXI, no. 3, November 1993, pp. 1 – 31 A overview and critical discussion on theoretical explanations of the Indian political economy Varadarajan, P.; Bharadwaj, S.; Thirunarayana, P.: Executives attitudes toward consumerism and marketing – an exploration of theoretical and empirical linkages in an industrializing country. In: Journal of Business Research, 1994, vol. 29, no 2, pp 83-100

Attend an online religious service and describe prior misconceptions Assignment

Attend an online religious service and describe prior misconceptions - Assignment Example The teacher did indeed wear traditional robes, but I was surprised to note that not a single attendee wore anything even resembling a saffron colored robe. Jeans, sweatshirts and western dress was the norm. I learned from watching this that there is no proscribed dress code for attending a Buddhist teaching service, at least not with this teacher. The setting looked like a conference room that was equipped with a microphone so the teacher’s voice filled the room. The room was bright and airy without a single candle. A second misconception I had about Buddhist teaching was that it was more interactive. For some reason, I always pictured the teaching of The Buddha occurring as conversations under that tree. I was surprised to find that the flow of the teaching ceremony closely resembled that of other religions I have attended. In a Christian church, a rough outline of the worship service consists of an invocation, a hymn; the pastor’s message another hymn and then a bened iction. The same was true for this teaching session. The session opened with chanting, the teacher spoke for about an hour and a half on the link between common sense, philosophy and realization, and then several sessions of meditation concluded the meeting. The purposes of the meditation and chanting seemed to serve the same purposes as prayer and congregational singing in a Christian service. I was surprised to see that the two religions operated in such similar ways. A final misconception that disappeared by watching this video was the idea that Buddhist teachings were somehow delivered in riddles. I expected the instruction to be more mystical, more open to interpretation and opaque. What I witnessed was clear instruction on the link between unhappiness and want, desire and ego. The teacher clearly taught how common sense without philosophical depth leads to a shallow existence without a realization of one’s self and the world around us. The teaching was clear, even thoug h the teacher had limited English proficiency. After watching this service, I feel that I have a better grasp on how Buddhists apply the principles of their religion in the modern world. I understood the basic teaching of the Buddha, but I understood them in abstract. This teacher was very adept at using real life situation that occur in modern times to illustrate how to apply the teachings in the lesson. Following the themes of common sense, philosophy and realization, he spoke candidly about applying the teachings of The Buddha in our interpersonal relationships, our relationships with material goods and out perception of ourselves. I learned that Buddhist teachings are compatible with everyday life in a way that I did not understand before viewing this video. The teacher used humor often in his teaching, which was unexpected for me and seemed to make everything updated. I understood that The Buddha taught about how to be happy by overcoming our own desires for wealth, fame and po wer, but I don’t think I realized just how incredibly ingrained these desires are in each one of us, including myself. I gained a deeper understanding through this video of the mindset that is expected in Buddhism. The teacher taught that depending on common sense alone to get us through difficult times alone could lead us to unhappiness because we become self-satisfied and self-centered. We must also have a philosophy

Thomas a Kempiions, The Imitation of Christ(Book2) Essay

Thomas a Kempiions, The Imitation of Christ(Book2) - Essay Example The book had been written at much more troubled time than our own and makes a soulful reading. Book 2 touches meditation, humility in life, the need of goodness and peace in man to live life on this earth, necessity of purity of mind and heard and unity of purpose etc. It mainly focuses on self of the reader and the resultant happiness by having a good conscience. It reminds the necessity of loving Jesus, friendship with Jesus, and not desiring to have a share in comfort. It teaches how to appreciate God's grace and his blessings. It preaches the need to love the cross as the symbol of sacrifice and suffering and choose the path on the 'Royal Road' of the Holy Cross. The main point of the book is "God is within you" and the necessity of despising external things. "He who follows me, walks not in darkness" The Treatise says that by devoting self and making the inner kingdom ready for Christ, an individual can invite God to himself2. The first chapter calls for the renouncement of all external worldly belongings to devote time and energy for the spiritual devotion and heavenly thoughts3. The second chapter is about its humility and its uses4 and how much God loves a humble individual. It says that the humble man keeps his conscience clear, suffers in silence, and finds the protection of the God5. The third chapter mainly talks about the goodness and peace in man. ... It says how important it is to be good even to bad people, because it is easy to be nice to the good and difficult to tolerate the bad. Unless one has inner peace, it is impossible to achieve peace for others. It needs great mental strength to treat both kinds of people with the same understanding7. The fourth chapter is about the purity of mind and unity of purpose and it brings forth the importance of simplicity and purity and the need to be free from ill-ordered affection. If the heart is pure any deed could be achieved and anything could be perceived with great clarity8. With pure heart, it is possible to achieve all the joy in the world. Fear of toil, welcoming external comfort, and growing lax will make the individual more sluggish. Instead, he should welcome suffering to attain inner light9. Chapter 5 is about self and the about the need to put our inner house in order, hold tongues about others10, and avoid relying too much on self. It is it is necessary to free self from all temporal cares and treat everything on equal footing11 and regard only God as the superlative of all. The sixth chapter is about the joy of a good conscience12, which is the glory of a good man. Sinners can never rejoice and there is no peace for the wicked and this shows how important it is to maintain a clear, non-reproaching conscience13. It is necessary for the man to think inwardly with good motives, without caring for praise or blame, to do good and think little about it14. The seventh chapter is mainly about loving the God, who is the ultimate true friend, and it is necessary to cling to him till the final breath because Jesus needs your pure heart15. All other outward appearances in which we trust will show one day that they are deceitful and untrustworthy. Chapter 8 once

Final Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 3

Final - Essay Example se has helped me to garner information on syntax, diction, style and grammatical concerns which are very important to portray my thoughts into scripts. I was aware of the theoretical nitty-gritty of all these but lacked the proper synchronization of all these rules in order to organize my planning and create something in letters. I have found my writings are grammatically and stylistically correct because I can communicate with my readers in an effective way. I can respond to different writing assignments in ways that do not only streamline my time but also produces better finished writings. I do not have to struggle with the topics as the sentences flow spontaneously in my mind and I simply need to place them in papers. The course has helped me to address my thoughts in such a way that invokes a spirit in me always when I sit with pen and papers. This serves as a great support to harmonize the feelings that were somehow lost in the maze of numerous manuscripts I often studied. Durin g my reading of any book, if any sentence captures my interest I always underline that part and try to recollect and reproduce the same in some of my writings in a similar situation. The course has taught me how to recreate those ideas in my thesis. Above all I have learnt to write with confidence and I know myself as a writer. I would also like to bring certain things to your notice that there are some difficulties which haunt me always whenever I write. First of all, I lack a sense of coherence and cannot string the right words together to produce the insightful content. I am sometimes unable to find those thought provoking phrases which might otherwise result into a marvelous piece of writing. Another potential drawback of my writing is that I cannot illustrate my ideas with simple examples or in trying to do so, I get lost in the labyrinth of winding sentences in which the main thought loses its track. My writings are not always devoid of jargons and this creates some

Training and Development (7) Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Training and Development (7) - Assignment Example The career development model would set specific target for employees, and therefore employees may be eager to achieve their targets as fast as possible. In order to gain better career achievements, employees necessarily need to develop improved skills and capabilities. Hence, effective career management would encourage employees to actively participate in development activities. In short, career development model would greatly assist organizations to implement their training programs and development activities successfully. Benefits of Career Development to Companies Generally, companies are very interested in helping employees to plan their career because this strategy benefits firms to achieve their short term as well as long term objectives successfully. As discussed earlier, the career development model would assist companies to keep its employees motivated (career motivation) and this situation in turn may assist organizations to reduce issues like absenteeism and staff turnover to a great extent. As Lindner (1998) points out, motivated employees would be more productive relative to others and hence an organization can improve its profitability by helping employees plan their career. Another benefit of this policy is that it would assist companies to minimize worksite conflicts to a large extent, because motivated employees will always try to contribute to team efforts. However, companies also face some challenges while helping employees to plan their career. First, organizations need to raise additional funds to finance the career development program. Secondly, a firm’s top management has to spend a considerable amount of time to operate the career development model. Components of Career Motivation Career resilience, career insight, and career identity are the three components of career motivation. Career resilience can be simply defined as the extent to which employees are capable of managing the problems that affect the efficiency of their work. â€Å"Career insight involves (1) how much employees know about their interests and their skill strengths and weaknesses and (2) their awareness of how these perceptions relate to their career goals† (Chapter 11). Finally, career identity refers to the extent to which employees are able to define their personal values in accordance with their nature of work. Career resilience is identified to be the most important component of career motivation whereas career insight appears to be the least important component. The level of career resilience is an important determinant of an employee’s commitment to the company. Hence, an employee with high level of career resilience can easily deal with his/her worksite problems and thereby contribute to the firm’s overall productivity. In contrast, an employee’s career insight does not directly influence the company’s operational efficiency as this component specifically relates to the employee’s career go als. Psychological Contract A psychological contract can be defined as â€Å"the expectations that employers and employees have about each other† (Chapter 11). The psychological contract reflects the view that the organization would provide long term employment and development opportunities to its employees if they stay with the company and maintain high level job performance. Pay increases and promotion may be the major

Summary on Review of Literature Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Summary on Review of Literature - Essay Example Even with their limited resources, they do not only produce more jobs but are also more innovative than large firms. Chia (2009) undoubtedly reckoned that Singapore’s SMEs play an important role in the country as they are a critical pillar to Singapores economy, employing 60 per cent of the workforce. There are about 160,000 SMEs, hiring 1.7 million workers and contributing 40% non-oil foreign exchange to Singapore’s GDP (MTI 2009; Shin and Soh 2009). The major problems Singapore SMEs face as a result of the recession include loss of revenues that happens because their sales volumes have drastically been reduced as they could not export many of their products to overseas; insufficient capital to fund some of their operations due to the restrain on lending from banks and other lending institutions as the financial crisis bit harder; a drop in production as industries attempt to cut cost by firing some of their workers (OECD & APEC 2008, pp.103-104). Barton (2009) found out that Asian sub-continent might have found itself in this recession mess because of its over-dependence on Western economy, coming from the crisis spearheaded by the sudden demise of Lehman Brothers and other giants Western financial powerhouses. This condition, according to Holland et al (2009) has caused contraction or shrinking of Asian economies. Even as a leader in private banking, Schuman and Chowdhury (2009) found out that all past efforts have meant little in the face of the current downturn. It is as a result of this that Singapore Government realized that prompt actions must be taken in order to salvage its SMEs while maintaining overall economy growth in the country (Chia 2009; Asia Monitor, 2009). While the recent global recession is receding (Economic Survey of Singapore Second Quarter 2009, 2009), declining GDP, competitiveness, new world order, soaring unemployment rate and long-term job losses are always the most politicized and demoralizing fa ctor which