Employee Empowerment...

Last semester in Organizational behavior and Theory, I remember we spoke about self-managing teams. I think self-managing teams give individuals that power to make decisions and be apart of the company process by making a difference and being involved. The  This is the total opposite of being in a workplace that has lots of micromanaging, which I think can hinder productivity and employees belief that their managers trust them. Sometimes I think teams may struggle with the boundaries of its authority and trouble with developing methods to manage its performance. I see it as having "too many cooks in the kitchen". Self-management for teams involves a team assuming a set of new roles and responsibilities; roles and responsibilities that have traditionally been the exclusive duties of managers.
Everyone in the group is encouraged to contribute by communicating and promoting their ideas, by adding on to the ideas of others and by exercising judgment to narrow down ideas or options.  Everyone recognizes that since the group makes decisions and develops action plans, the group will also be held accountable for the outcomes of their management actions. I think giving individuals this type of empowerment can help with productivity and progress of the individuals and the company itself.

This article is about the 10 principles of employee empowerment...It goes step by step giving examples to management.

http://humanresources.about.com/od/managementandleadership/tp/empowerment.htm

Performance Appraisal...

Performance appraisal is an interesting concept. I think that the reports are can be helpful and eye-opening to employees. They can figure out what their strengths and weaknesses are and what type of skills and knowledge they would need to obtain in order to become better and more productive part of the company. But having a performance appraisal/ performance management should be a constant thing, there should be open and comfortable communication between management, HR and employees. Showing someone a piece of paper just doesnt cut it, most people need explanations and situations where something as occurred and how they handled it properly or how they can learn how to perform better. Every employees should have goals either daily, weekly, monthly etc. on what they should accomplish, then measures of those goals, future advancement, commission, raise in pay, etc. Last assessment, regular appraisals lets employees/teams know where they stand, what is expected and this helps with progress and building communication between management and employees.

This link is to a website giving a definition for performance appraisal, why companies should consider them, and how to construct a performance pay structure. There are also additional resources such as SMART goals...
http://www.wpi.edu/Admin/HR/performance-appraisal.html

Training...

Training for employees is important for any type of business. If the people that are running the day to day sales, services, and purchases do not know what they are doing, or how to properly do their job by being effective and efficient how is a company going to stay profitable and productive. There has to be training of the job, not just a job description; a hands on guide and physical training session to show new hires and current employees how to be successful at their jobs and involved in company. With this the individual and the company interests are parallel to each other.

Individual training and team building are both important within a workplace. A team strongly depends on the expertise of each of its members, if one link in the chain is rusty or is loose this causes a weak bond and loss of productivity, time, and profitability.  I think cross-training is the most important, it provides exposure and practice with other teammates' tasks, roles, and responsibilities. This training is an effort to increase shares understanding and knowledge among team members. Training in the end should help increase employees' desire to perform well and management should always provide feedback whether positive or negative, so employees can see their strengths and weaknesses.

This link is to an article that explains the importance of job training and how different departments i.e. HR needs to look at different skills and qualities than another department.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Importance-of-Job-Training-For-Businesses&id=2750384

Recruitment/Selection...

Employee selection is an important process for any organization, but particularly for small businesses. Small businesses feel pressured and challenged to compete with larger employers. Effective employee selection involves matching the requirements of a job to the skills of job applicants. The better organizations can clarify the specific job-related criteria required in job candidates, the more likely they will be to find qualified, competent employees and avoid potential claims of discrimination or hiring based on reasons other than job competencies. Recruitment can involve external or internal labor markets; internal relies on successions plans, employee referrals, etc. External relies on employment agencies and online job searches, etc. Also tests can be administered to the job candidates, but low score results can be seen negatively by protected groups/classes. Reference checking represents significant challenges during the employee selection process. Previous employers may be hesitant on the part of the references to be entirely forthcoming in their responses for fear of legal liability. These are all ways where companies/ HR can focus on, to strengthen their processes and talent pool. This selection process can help small businesses find, recruit and retain high caliber employees.

This link is to an article that shows the benefits of job postings and the 10 tips for hiring the right employees.

 http://humanresources.about.com/od/recruiting/Recruiting_Employee_Recruitment_Recruiting_Talented_Employees.htm

Social Media

Social media is the "form of communicating, collaborating, and connecting with anyone, anywhere, anytime." The constant flow of information and the advance development in technology creates a more complex business environment (Jue, et.al 5). This new way of using social media has applied to alternative workforces, "work can now be performed by a larger community that will contribute via the internet, concept of mass collaboration. Traditional ideas of the typical career life cycle are becoming obsolete."(Jue 6). These issues opens up the workforce not only do employees have to worry about people within their geographic area they have to worry about people all over the world being able to perform duties and tasks for a company. People change their careers because long-term placement or vision of the company no longer exists as things constantly changes. These 3 issues are what makes the intergration of social media hard for employees to come to grasp with, even though it opens lots of oppotunities for companies to become better and more successful it still has advantages and disadvantages. This article is a link to an article about the issues a business can have with social media:
http://ezinearticles.com/?Disadvantages-of-Social-Media&id=3026858