Timber has been used as a construction material since the beginning of recorded history. Over the past 100 years its use as a structural element in large scale commercial or industrial buildings has fallen dramatically when compared to steel or concrete. An investigation into the properties and physical characteristics of timber has shown that with careful detailing and specification it can be used in almost any situation that steel or concrete is currently used in. It has also been demonstrated that timber is the most sustainable of the main construction materials provided it is produced under the auspices of the accredited certification schemes. This has led the researcher to question why it is not specified more often in the UK construction industry. A questionnaire was sent out to determine the attitudes to practitioners from several disciplines towards the use of timber as a structural element.
Timber Construction Structural Element
The results showed that timber is used less often than steel or concrete and the results show that in theory timber is suitable for most structural elements of a building; in practice it is rarely used due to the perceived difficulty in design and on site construction of the timber elements compared to similar steel or concrete designs. It is suggested that further research be conducted to establish if the actual difficulties in design and construction match the perceptions of the designers and contractors expressed in this research. It is further suggested that detailed research into the relative costs of timber, steel and concrete would identify whether the perception that ‘timber is an expensive option’ is true. The overall aim of the research is to compare timber with steel and concrete when used as a structural element. It is anticipated that the research will demonstrate that timber can replace steel or concrete as a structural element under certain circumstances and will attempt to establish why it is not more commonly used.
Dissertation Objectives
Evaluate the physical characteristics of timber, focusing particularly on its use as a main structural element, comparing the properties to similar steel and concrete elements
Identify whether the perception that timber is rarely used in commercial or industrial buildings is correct
After establishing whether objective 2) is true, identify a trend which indicates why timber use is rare or, if 2) is false, the reason why there is the perception
Establish whether the results of the research would have an influence on the choice of materials in the future
I do hope enjoyed reading this post on the use of timber as a structural element in construction projects. There are many other titles available in the construction dissertation collection that should be of interest to construction management students and building professional. There are many dissertation titles that relate to other aspects of construction such as project management techniques, environmental management, building and construction methods to name a few. It took a lot of time to write this post and I would be grateful if you could share this post via Facebook and Twitter. Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments section. Thank you.
In my point of view every debate has to sides, and “what born an entrepreneur” but according to the arguments from previous many decades neither side capable to finally prove their case. According to many people entrepreneur must possess personality traits like vision, drive and passion that are inborn and cannot be taught. Others discuss that skills of operating a business, motivating a people and evaluating opportunities are easily passed on to excited or eager students to be entrepreneurs. The fact is that both types of arguments are right and it is time for compromise, “entrepreneurs are born and can be trained”. Some people immediately start a business due to their inherent entrepreneur qualities, others will have trained and studied hard and long before doing so, and both enjoy success.
The need to comprehend entrepreneurship has been gained a great importance to get success in corporate business (Dess et.all,2003). Entrepreneurs pursue and identify solutions among problems, opportunities among challenges and possibilities among needs (Byers, Dorf, and Nelson, 2001). The entrepreneur is an imaginative, bold deviator from commenced business practices and methods who regularly tries the opportunity to introduce new technologies, products, arrangements and processes in the entire world. Successful entrepreneur must have the basic internal capabilities to cope with challenges that are aroused during a startup. The most vital personal characteristics of entrepreneurs are reasonable intelligence, optimistic disposition, good health, perseverance, lengthy attention span and love of people.
Entrepreneurship has critical importance with respect to change in entire aspects of society. It empowers individuals to attempt opportunities to resolve insurmountable problems and issues. From previous century, the role of entrepreneurs have been increased in the creation of enterprises that lead to improved productivity, job creation, higher quality of life and increased prosperity. Now it is contributing to solutions of society’s huge challenges like environment, energy, health, education and security. They use technology and innovation to foster activity and positive impact in entire facets of life. The capable and successful entrepreneur learns to select, identify, describe and communicate the essence of opportunity that has a great potential or role to become a successful venture. The entrepreneur is capable to explain the potential contributions of a venture and develop the business design that leads to sustainability and competitive advantage (Byers, Dorf, and Nelson, 2001).
Entrepreneurs born or made:The initial concept is that entrepreneurs are born and also they can be trained. Now I want to explain my views with the arguments of various researchers and scholars. Various researchers and scholars have various views about the current topic but all has emphasized the importance of entrepreneurship. According to author entrepreneurs are born and cannot be made or trained. They differentiated on the basis of insatiable desire for an inherent love and success of entire things entrepreneurial. They have built in qualities for developing long lasting business by dealing with various risks, challenges and hazardous issues. They have strong positive behavior toward initiation of new things or innovations (Ericksen, 2002). Ericksen had strong hard views regarding the current topic. In 2001, three authors gave contrast views regarding entrepreneurs. They said entrepreneurs can be trained. According to author attitude of entrepreneur impacts the initial success of venture and the same attitude require to show with employees of organization to continue the power of entrepreneur that develops competitive advantage. Authors say “you can hire attitude, and everything can be trained to get a success(Byers, Dorf, and Nelson, 2001).
Professor of psychology, Alan Jacobowitz did interview over 500 entrepreneurs and concluded that entrepreneurs are innate and cannot be trained. He tells the common personality traits of entrepreneurs like independence, restlessness, high self-confidence and tendency to be a loner. Professor was adopted static approach and many other researchers were also support the view of professor (McFadzean, O’Loughlin, and Shaw, 2005). Further authors said that tells the motivation, desires, ability to project their schemes or ideas into future, turn their ideas into reality and backing their judgments into persistence and action are some basis and unique qualities of entrepreneurs. They are also opportunity seekers. There is no any difficulty to find the entrepreneurs because two are not the same so it is easy to point out who is entrepreneur. Some entrepreneurs are introverts and some are extroverts, some have family background of entrepreneurship while other do not have, some start from wealth and other begins with poverty, some are old and some are young.
Entrepreneurs Are Born and Not Nurtured
The question regarding “entrepreneurs are born no can be trained” is main point of focus for many researchers and academic scholars. Regarding this issue many scholars have divergent views. Frakes, author of instinct believe that entrepreneurs are born and DNA of entrepreneurs, their genetics and personality play a pivotal role in whether they become a good entrepreneur or not. To become a successful entrepreneurs five big personality traits are required that include emotional stability, extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness and openness to change. These traits cannot be created through training. But in the contrary, Professor Neal Thornberry said that entrepreneurs are not only born but can be trained to become successful through creating and learning the specific inherits characteristics. Thornberry also give the examples of Fred smith (founder of Fedral Express) and Herb Kelleher (southwest Airlines co-founder) and said both entrepreneurs got success after long term commitment and many years of diligent preparation (Thornberry, 2003).
Herb Kelleher replied in his interview taken by Thornberry on the issue of whether entrepreneurs are born or not. He said six inborn traits cannot be trained into entrepreneurs include good health, reasonable intelligence, lengthy attention, optimistic disposition, love of people and perseverance. These six traits further classified into three basic points of health, attitude and intelligence. Herb gave the more importance to attitude from all personal characteristics and it only the one that cannot be trained or made. He reflects the right attitude to be crucial and it cannot be trained. On the other hand, several teachable capabilities that can increase chances of success like ability to set goals and listening (Thornberry, 2003).
Herb tell that other than innate skills there are many skills that can be learnt and taught, that better contribute for entrepreneur’s success. These skills include broad education and knowledge, capability to play enthusiastic advocate, listening skills, capability to focus on goals and set priorities, capability to screen out the vital ideas and things from unimportant and pleasant skepticism. According to herb, lucid vision and ability to communicate it deliberately to others are most vital skills and capabilities required by successful entrepreneurs. Therefore, entrepreneurs are trained and born, and need a blend of these two to become successful. The entrepreneur’s natural born characteristics are foundations or building blocks on which they can build upon (Thornberry, 2003). Modern entrepreneurs require range of various skills like strong ability to communicate in complex and abstract situations effectively (Ericksen, 2002).
From previous two decades many efforts has been made to establish programs to teach ambitious and eager people to realize their entrepreneur potential and start their own business effectively. This is a good notion with a long term goal. But some proficiency like find funding sources or developing a business plan can be learned or taught while basic profile of entrepreneur is imbedded in the structure of personality. There are two fundamental needs that recognized the importance of entrepreneur, they are recognition and control. Most entrepreneurs starts their own businesses because cannot do business in others control. They like to run independent business where they can show their extra ordinary efforts and abilities to gain more and more profits and productivity. They are self-sufficient and self-confident people who have courage to take initiation and deal haphazard or hazardous issues effectively for the best interest of their enterprise (Laser, 2007).
It has been long standing discussed all over the world whether entrepreneurs are born or is it mandatory for them to study and work hard to become entrepreneurs. It has been found that some people became good entrepreneurs with a single amount so it was their luck to gain the potential position. There are some characteristic which is necessary for entrepreneurs to adopt them and become a good entrepreneurs (McCubbrey, 2009): The main characteristics of entrepreneurs are depicted below:
Vision: entrepreneur must able to communicate and create a lucid vision and easily comprehend able mission for the new venture in order to launch a novel business successfully. This can be accomplished through great and extra ordinary qualities of leadership. It is necessary to extra ordinary influence people to accomplish vision and mission of enterprise. Leadership qualities have great importance for entrepreneurs. Successful entrepreneurs are good leaders. Leadership is the ability to influence other to accomplish organizational goals (Robbins and Coulter, 2007). Leaders give the clear direction to their followers toward the goals. They give the motivation to their followers so that followers can ready to accomplish the extra and targeted tasks for the best completion of organizational goals and objectives. Further, vision tells the entrepreneurs what they want to become and mission tells that what is their business or what they want to accomplish in the larger business environment.
Creativity: It refers to the ability to inject uniqueness and imagination into a novel business venture. It also the ability of entrepreneur to create new products, ideas, processes, techniques to become a good and successful entrepreneur in the world. It enables the entrepreneur to offer new venture in the market with novel strategies to cope with stronger competition. Further, creativity leads to enhance the profitability of enterprise through offering and developing novel products or ideas. This profitability and productivity leads to get the competitive advantage in the market to maintain the position of sustainable market leadership. Leaders or entrepreneurs shape the culture of organization through their creative abilities. Therefore, creative mind entrepreneurs cannot get success for their enterprises.
Focus: It is the ability of entrepreneur to sustain the vision of enterprise with steadfast diligence and passion. So it is necessary for entrepreneurs to emphasis on their vision and mission to maintain the sustainable competitive advantage of their enterprises. It is easy for entrepreneurs to get diverted especially in case to accomplish their original vision. Paradoxically, many entrepreneurs get bored easily. Therefore, it is the need of current competitive era; entrepreneurs should emphasis on their goals and remain focus on them for long term basis instead the completion of single task. Passion: Desire to get success under their own initiation for business venture is also the quality of every entrepreneur. It is mandatory for leaders to maintain extra ordinary enthusiasm and passion to accomplish their goals and objectives. Leaders have the ability to create thrill and passion in their followers to accomplish the organizational goals with great zeal and enthusiasm. In this regard motivation has great role. Leaders give motivation to their followers which create the sense of accomplishment in followers toward their goals. Overall motivation has positive impact throughout organizational setting.
Drive: Entrepreneurs have an intrinsic energy to attain the goals of business even in the situation of adversity. They work through showing extra ordinary drive in the larger competitive environment to maintain the sustainability of their enterprises. Strong drive to get success enables the entrepreneurs to cope with unique problems and situations which ultimately support for organizational success. Perseverance: It is the ability of entrepreneurs to remain faced or keep going when faced with insurmountable obstacles. This tendency of entrepreneurs shows their great commitment and zeal toward organizational goals. Opportunistic nature: Ability to see the possibilities before their occurrence or existence. It enables the entrepreneurs to take the advantage of upcoming trends or combine unrelated processes to develop an innovative business venture. This quality can lead to get competitive advantage in the market with comparative innovations related to products, ideas, processes and methods. Today there is era of global competition so it is mandatory for entrepreneurs to create the competitive advantage for their enterprises in the market with their great nature to find the new opportunities. Ability to solve problems: Successful entrepreneurs have thrives on going on exact solutions to complex or abstract problems or issues. It is very necessary ability to cope with haphazard situations.
Frugality: Ability to know about how to stretch every single dollar so that expenditures keep as low as possible. Empathy: It is the capability to put you in front of others and so able to show understanding and sensitivity of what other are communicating or wants in the beginning environment. Social Responsibility: The today’s entrepreneur’s common characteristics are caring, ethics and humanitarianism. Spirituality: It has been found that all successful entrepreneurs devote their time to develop spirituality. Positive affirmations and meditation are two basic examples of spirituality. Good Timing: Ability to identify a better market opportunity and knowledge about the optimum time to introduce a novel venture or expand existing enterprise. This quality has great importance in today’s business environment. The last characteristic entrepreneurs are luck which has great contribution in their success. In the world, luck has vital role in every field of life. If there is no luck, there is no success.
Examples of Entrepreneurs: Bill Gates, a founder of Microsoft is an innate or inborn entrepreneur of the world and also he is the richest person of the world. He became entrepreneurs in the age of 13 years by developing software. Bill Gates change world of computer. He is the most teen ager billionaire of the world.
Another example of inborn entrepreneur is Mark Zukurburg, a founder of Facebook. He also got the position of billionaire from the age of 20 as Bill Gates. Zukerburg change the world of internet and provide a platform for people through largest social media.
Owner of Chick N’ Friends Inc., Rhodney Lloyd, done MBS from U.C. Berkeley. It was initial step for him to become a trained entrepreneur. After education he started his advertising agency in Oakland, Calif. He got entrepreneurships after got training.
Entrepreneur’s challenges: The problems and needs of entire population are enormous. From organizational inadequacies to corruption, environmental sustainability to security, transportation to communication and overloaded information to disease, the opportunities for people to develop a positive differential impact are vast. But entrepreneurs are persons who pursue and identify tremendous possibilities among needs, viable solutions among problems, and creative opportunities among challenges (Byers, Dorf, and Nelson, 2001). It is the quality of entrepreneurs to better cope with potential challenges for the long term success of their enterprises.
In concussion, entrepreneurs struggle to show a difference in entire world and support to its wellbeing. They mobilize resources, identify opportunities, and relentlessly committed on their visions and missions. Further, it is concluded from above discussion that good and successful entrepreneurs have both composition, innate qualities of entrepreneurship that help them to drive the any process to success, also they can learned these qualities through experience and training. For this reason it is concluded that “entrepreneurs are born and can be trained”. Many entrepreneurs have God gifted qualities to become good entrepreneurs while others enhance their qualities and skills through various types of learning and training. To develop experimental knowledge in entrepreneurs has great importance as incremental process during the entire working life. It means that tries to stimulate “actual life” experience via various modes of training and education are have a strong impact or influence on the creation or development of entrepreneurs (Higgins and Elliott, 2011)
Further, to learn the qualities of successful entrepreneur it is necessary for them to have good leadership qualities. These qualities support the entrepreneurs to accomplish the various difficult tasks and mission of enterprise. It is a challenge for entrepreneur to respond various difficult tasks and remain committed to undertake the needed enterprise. Therefore, I strongly recommended that training and formal education for entrepreneurs create positive differential impact in the field of entrepreneurship.
References
Byers, T. H., Dorf, R. C., and Nelson, A. J. (2001), “Technology Ventures from Idea to Enterprise”, New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Dess, G. G., Ireland, R. D., Zahra, S. A., Floyd, S. W., Janney, J. J., and Lane, P. J. (2003), “Emerging issues in corporate entrepreneurship”, Journal of Management, 29(3), pp. 351-378.
Ericksen, G. K. (2002), “The Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award Insights from the Winners’ Circle”, the Earnest and Young,
Higgins, D., and Elliott, C. (2011), “Learning to make sense: what works in entrepreneurial education?”, Journal of European Industrial Training, 35(4), pp.345-367
Laser, S. A. (2007), “Are Entrepreneurs Made or Born?”, Stephen A. Laser Associates 200 South Wacker Drive,
McCubbrey, D. J. (2009), “Business Fundamentals”, Zurich, Switzerland: The Global Text,
McFadzean, E., O’Loughlin, A., and Shaw, E. (2005), “Corporate entrepreneurship and innovation part 1: the missing link”, European Journal of Innovation Management, 8(3), pp.350-372
Robbins, S., and Coulter, M. (2007), “Principles of Management”, 9th edition, Prentice Hall Inc,
Thornberry, N. E. (2003), “Corporate entrepreneurship: teaching managers to be entrepreneurs”, Journal of Management Development, 22(4), pp.329-344
I hope you enjoyed reading this post on Entrepreneurs and whether they are Born and Not Nurtured. There are many other titles available in the business management and MBA Dissertation Collection that should be of interest to MBA students and academic professionals. There are many dissertation titles that relate to other aspects of business such as strategy, leadership, international business, mergers and acquisitions to name a few. It took a lot of effort to write this post and I would be grateful if you could share this post via Facebook and Twitter. Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments section. Thank you.
The dissertation focuses on the impact of innovation and technology on business management. For this purpose, the pharmaceutical industry was targeted and specifically Pfizer was selected for the purpose of conducting the research. The company has created a solid reputation within the industry and thus a systematic approach of the mentioned key ideas on this individual business entity would provide a further insight on the matter. Thus, a brief summary of this whole scenario would be that Innovation involves using an idea more efficiently.
The significance of innovation and technology cannot be denied since it has resolved number of environmental and organizational challenges. For example, use of environmental instruments, energy technologies, innovation in products, organizations and processes etc. In present era, despite of innovation and technological advancements, many organizations are still suffering from low productivity. This research aims at analyzing the impact of innovation and technology on business management by examining the Pfizer pharmaceutical case study.
Innovation and Technology Usage on Business Management
This has unfolded the findings which were helpful in generating results for the betterment of organization and formulating innovative strategies and processes. The research allows one to generate the difference between the two major aspects. Though, these two go hand in hand, yet they are dissimilar in many ways. The idea is evident from various examples such as innovative business procedures and technological advancements. Many believe that these innovative business decisions were created via technological advancements. Hence, all these aspects have been clearly mentioned in this dissertation report.
Dissertation Aims
To explore innovative strategies which are effective for pharmaceutical company (Pfizer Pharmaceutical) where, the main focus is on the pharmaceutical industry and how this particular company fosters innovation in order to become effective and efficient in its field of operations.
To formulate competitive growth strategies and find out their impact on business management which is the essential need of the moment. Many business organizations are suffering despite the fact that they are innovative and have various methodologies in order to become effective and efficient. Thus, this research aims to provide such companies with a chance to experience growth and create a perfect business environment for growth.
To analyse the impact of changing innovation and technology on business management in case of Pfizer pharmaceutical as it has been previously talked upon that technology is considered as one of the major indicators of change and allows a company to go beyond its true potential at a particular point in time.
To evaluate critically the impact of innovation and technology on business management keeping in view the Pfizer pharmaceutical so as to provide a clear idea regarding the impact of innovation keeping in mind a pharmaceutical company. This would allow others to learn the process of taming the beast which they call “Innovation” as they are eager to incorporate it to achieve a higher end.
If you enjoyed reading this post on the Impact of Innovation and Technology Usage on Business Management, I would be very grateful if you could help spread this knowledge by emailing this post to a friend, or sharing it on Twitter or Facebook. Thank you.
This essay is based on a recruitment plan for a manager trainee position in an American based company known as Enterprise Rent-A- Car. It highlights the road map for staffing a manage trainee’s position. A good plan enables a company to hire qualified employees who are committed to attain successful personal careers as well help in attaining the company’s objectives through hard work. Enterprise Rent-A- Car Company is a top car rental company in the United States of America under the management of Enterprise Holdings, Inc (Rent-A-Car Par. 1). It is the best place for management trainees to start careers as per the Business Week’s listing in the year 2006.
The company’s business strategy mainly focuses on customer satisfaction. This has contributed to the company’s fast growth over the past decades. In the Company group, there is National Car Rental, WeCar, Alamo Rent-A-Car and RideShare among others. Its business model provides a variety of vehicle classes that are available for renting. Most of its vehicle models are bought from General Motors. The culture of Enterprise Rent-A- Car Company stands on the following core values: good brand name, honesty, fun, hard work, listening to customers, community development and inclusion of globally sustainable activities.
Introduction
The company was founded in 1957; it has been ranked the best in customer satisfaction particularly in airport rentals over the past eleven years. It is the provider of vehicle on rental basis to NHL and NCAA among other big transit companies. The company is prominent as the largest fresh college graduate employers in the United States of America, Enterprise Rent-A- Car Company’s management structure is majorly informal. It allows the employees from all levels to interact freely. Enterprise Rent-A- Car Company has branches worldwide including USA, Canada, Germany, Ireland and the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) with more than 70,000 employees all over the world (Rent-A-Car Par. 3).
Enterprise Rent-A- Car Company’s global presence helps the company to access larger market share thus high revenue for the company. During the recruitment plan exercise, attention should be given on how to staff such a sensitive position due to its key roles and responsibilities as pertains to a trainee manager. There are consequences and implications of having low performers in the position. For instance, a low performer can lead the company sales revenue reducing drastically, this can be as a result of market share loss. Implications of having high performers in the position include, rise in the percentage market share due to the innovative nature of the employee, this ensures high revenues for the company. The company should have a strategic context for future proposal for recruiting and selecting for this job. This is due to the dynamic nature of the rental car business as there is more use of information technology as seen it the case where the customers book for a car through the company’s website. Such services recommend employees with substantial knowledge on the use of such eCommerce platforms.
Description of the staffing system used by the company for the job
Enterprise Rent-A- Car Company uses both external and internal recruiting systems. External recruitment planning involves news paper advertisements, recruiting on campus, referrals among others. The advantage of using this system is that it gives the Enterprise Rent-A- Car Company new and varied approaches from its employees despite such a process being so expensive to undertake. On the other hand, internal recruitment is where the current employees can be promoted or demoted to fill the positions. This has an added advantage since it is a cheaper way of recruiting employees to fill positions within a company.
Perform the job/ competency analysis on the job in present and in the near future
Job analysis is the procedure followed when analysing a job for its specification and description. This comprises a list of qualifications required to be attained by the recruits and elements of that given job respectively. Job analysis is also used to evaluate employees to determine the level of incentives to be awarded. During job analysis the recruitment teams are able to come up with recommended qualifications for the job. Here are the possible qualifications essential and desirable in new hires in the position of a manager trainee for Enterprise Rent-A- Car Company;
Bachelor’s degree with a minimum of six months sales experience, customer service, excellent supervisory skills as most of the roles involve supervising others within the company.
Good leadership experience probably as a student leader in college.
A valid driver’s license is a MUST.
No drug related conviction for the last three years while driving.
Must be above 18 years.
Must be authorized to work in the country where he/she wants to work.
Must be flexible to work anywhere when posted.
Sourcing of Potential Employees
Advertisements for job vacancies are made through mass media. College recruiting is commonly used by Enterprise Rent-A- Car Company as a source of labour, this is either done through face-to-face interviews or applications through Enterprise Rent-A- Car Company’s website. Other sources of labour are current employees, referrals from employees, former employees, former military, customers, print and radio advertisements, internet advertising and social media, employment agencies and temporary employees. The above named sources are also the future labour supplies for the position.
Recruitment Plan
Appropriate recruiters are chosen to perform the task of selecting the right candidate for the job. The reward system is essential for this group of people in order to ensure that the recruiting process is successful. Human resource planning is essential during the selection process, in order to achieve this objective the past staffing levels, change in technology, the activities involved during staffing and other similar information are essential for the planning process.
The gaps between employees’ current supply and future labour demands of an organization helps in forecasting employee competencies and behaviour needed in the organization’s future. Present sales revenue are also used in strategic human resource planning future numbers of employees and the skills needed and the source of such people. Cultural diversity affects the labour cost, ease in human resource acquisition, flexibility, innovation, and problem solving techniques in the company as it adapts multi-cultural awareness and effective interpersonal skills into the workplaces. This is essential for multinational companies like Enterprise Rent-A- Car Company.
Internal Employee Assessment Plan
Employees’ job analysis is performed to provide employees with their performance results, these results can be used to distribute compensation as well as during training activities but more importantly to find potential candidates for any vacant positions. Any feedback should be delivered to the employees through the three approaches: telling and selling, telling and listening and problem solving (Pride, Hughes and Kapoor 62). Employee assessment results are important when downsizing an organization, the reason for the layoff should be clearly defined to the worker. This should be communicated to the new employees to avoid any legal issues. Legal precautions should be considered to avoid law suits for instance there should be a termination agreement. Right sizing of the company employees should be done to improve the employees’ efficiency this will as well reflect on the future labour demands of the company.
How decision-making plan enables the company to comply with Equal Employment Opportunity and other legal requirements
Good decision making procedures enable the company to avoid lawsuits as there is a well defined selection technique that avoids discrimination in any form say in terms of sex, race, religion or nationality. Age discrimination Act of 1967 which was amended in 1986 to eliminate discrimination against older people above the age of forty can be avoided through good decision making plans. Organizations with good decision makings plan help in selecting even the candidates with disabilities thus avoiding law suits from such people under the Americans with disabilities Act of 1990. Affirmative action by the company to encourage members from the minority groups to apply for jobs and hiring of qualified candidates from such groups can be achieved through effective decision making processes. The occupation safety and health Act of 1970 to protect the employee’s working environment to prevent ill health and loss of lives can be included in the terms and conditions of a company contract during decision making (Pride, Hughes and Kapoor 102).
Socialization Plan
For effective and comfort of the new worker in Enterprise Rent-A- Car Company he/she will need information on how business is conducted in the organization. Furthermore the new employee will need information on; how daily routines are conducted within Enterprise Rent-A- Car, its history, objectives, activities and products. Lastly the new employees are given the company policies, rules and regulations not forgetting their rights and benefits (Harold and Heinz 48).
Evaluation
It helps to cross check the costs of the selection process, the costs include; time spent during the process, salaries for recruiters, advertisement costs and recruitment expenses. Evaluation of the recruitment plan process can be based on the rate of application sent out, number of shortlisted candidates, performance of the shortlisted candidates, the total cost of the process, time lapsed data and reviews on the projected on the entire process. There are a number of recruitment evaluation methods; number of successful inquiries, the number of candidates at every stage of the recruitment plan process, the final number of candidates recruited and the number of the new employees retained in the organization for more than a half a year (Aswathappa, 2007).
Barriers of effective implementation of a recruitment plan
Perception; due to the difference in the way people perceive ideas, implementation of a plan can be a problem if the involved parties have different frames of reference. This may result in disagreements hence delays in its implementation. For example the members of a recruiting committee may not rate the recruit equally. This can result in a conflict when choosing the final list of the successful candidates. What is fair to one person may seem to be unfair to the other resulting to an unfair process, when people are recruited on an added advantage of their age, religion, region, race or gender among others.
Immobility and location; the locality of labour affects the recruitment plan process, marred women hesitate taking jobs in places far away from their families. This might result to inadequate number of female recruits thus affecting implementation of a gender equity recruitment plan. (Aswathappa, 2007)
Reliability; if a method cannot provide consistent outcomes whenever it is used to recruit employees, however, this might not be the case for some plans hence inappropriate to implement them. The performance and judgments of people varies from time to time as in the case of recruits and recruiters respectively. This means that if such a plan is used repeatedly with the same people involved the results are likely to vary from time to time.
Validity; A valid recruitment plan is easily predictable, but when the predicted results do not match the real situation then implementation of the stated plan may not be recommendable. This is as a result of internal and external factors such as location, trade unions regulations and paucity of desired expertise in the available labour force.
Pressure; if compulsions are used to select candidates, then such a plan may not be used due to the pressures from friends, family and politicians to select the stated candidate (Aswathappa, 2007). This means that even if the procedures where to be followed the results are always predetermined by such factors.
References
Aswathappa, K. Human Resource and Personnel Management. New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill Education, 2007.
Harold, Koontz and Weihrich Heinz. Essentials Of Management. New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill Education, 2008.
Pride, William M., Robert J. Hughes and Jack R. Kapoor. Foundations of Business. Boston: South-Western Cengage Learning, 2011.Print
Rent-A-Car, Enterprise. Enterprise Rent-A- Car. 2012. 22 November 2012
I do hope you enjoyed reading this recruitment plan blog. There are many other titles available in the HRM Dissertation Collection that should be of interest to human resource management students and CIPD professionals. There are many dissertation titles that relate to other aspects of HRM such as employee engagement, HRM Theory, absenteeism, training and development to name a few. It took a lot of effort to write this post and I would be grateful if you could share this post via Facebook and Twitter. Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments section. Thank you.
Title: HRM Dissertation Barriers to Women in the UK Construction Industry. In the 21st Century the idea of women in the workplace has become a widely accepted notion not just by society but also being enshrined in law with the introduction of the Equal Pay Act (1970), the Sex Discrimination Act (1975), and the Equality Act (2010). As a result of this, many sectors within the UK economy have seen an increase in the equal representation of men and women in the workplace with occupations such as elementary education resulting in women forming 46% of workers, in the professional sector women make up 50% and within management and senior official roles women constitute only 33%. However, in stark contrast of these progressive figures, women form only 11% of the entire construction Industry with 80% of these roles that women occupy being in fact merely support roles carrying out things like secretarial work; only 15% of women are actually part of the professional body of employees- this constitutes just 1.5% of professionals in the entire industry.
Women-Construction-Industry
In 2006, Greed went so far as to say that these secretarial roles are not contributing to, or not being part of the construction process. It appears that although the construction industry has innovated in terms of methods and practices the same old ideas of it being a male-dominated world still remains. In order for the industry to thrive and remain relevant in these modern times it must adapt itself, and let go of this man’s world culture by encouraging and recruiting more women. It is on this basis that more Investigation must be done as to why there is such a lack of female presence within the construction industry and how as an industry it can attract the young girls of today’s society so that the industry will have a more representative and diverse future.
Dissertation Aims and Objectives
The aim of this research is to look into and analyse why there is such a lack of females within the UK construction industry, what can be done to change the perception of the industry as being a man’s world and attract the future generation of women to consider the industry as a viable career choice.
To investigate and evaluate if there is an actual need for women within the professional sector of the UK construction industry.
To compare the lack of women in the construction industry with other industries in the UK, and then with other EU member countries as a whole.
To examine the reasons why there is a severe lack of women within the UK built environment profession in the modern era.
To assess how those in secondary schools view construction and ascertain if they see a future within the industry.
To evaluate how the industry is trying to tackle this issue and whether these are having a positive impact or if more needs to be done.
Dissertation Contents
1 – Introduction
Aim
Objectives
Proposed Methods
2 – Literature Review
The need for women in professional roles within construction
Benefits to more women in construction
Comparison within UK and EU
Profession comparison
Comparison with the medical profession
Comparison of UK construction industry to the of Europe
Hurdles to women in construction
The choice between career or children
Flexibility and maternity leave
The construction Industry as sexist
Lack of female role models
The views of secondary pupils
Efforts of the construction industry
Employers role
Female construction organisations
3 – Methodology
Primary research
Quantitative research
Qualitative research
Selected Methodology
The Questionnaire
Selection criteria
Structure
Structured interview
Selection criteria
Structure
Desk Research
4 – Data Analysis
Questionnaire results
Interview results
Background information
University Life
Social aspects of university
Post university
5 – Discussion of Results
Preconception about construction
Role models
Sexism in the industry
Efforts of the construction industry
Employers role
Female construction organisations
Enthusiasm of female students
6 – Results and Conclusions
Limitations
Analysis of Research Objectives
Final conclusion
If you enjoyed reading this post on Barriers to Women in the UK Construction Industry, I would be very grateful if you could help spread this knowledge by emailing this post to a friend, or sharing it on Twitter or Facebook. Thank you.
