A. What types of organization activities and behaviors would you curtail and why? (Buckingham)
The types of organizational activities and behaviors I would restrict in order to shift a company from knowledge, skill and ability-focused to talents and strengths-focused would be: * Spend a considerable amount of time finding the right candidates in the beginning. If the appropriate time is dedicated to finding the right candidate, it will save time and money for the company trying to invest in an employee with the wrong talents or strengths. * Recruit based on talents and strengths. Focus on performance by establishing outcomes. Rather than trying to fit each employee into a certain pattern, emphasize on the amount of positive outcomes and less on policies, procedures, and capabilities. * Training should be focused on educating employees about their strengths and discovering new ways to build on these strengths. The company’s time and money should be invested in educating their employees for the benefit of the organization. * Development should be focused on growing employee’s strengths and not necessarily promoting outside their areas of strength. Avoid promoting employees that take them out of their strengths based role, there are other ways of incentivizing a job well done. B. What steps/activities would you undertake to assess the current employee base and why? (Noe) The steps I would take to assess the current employee base would be to: * First, identify and tally up the types of employees and managers the company currently employs (person analysis) * Next, evaluate employees using a general assessment testing to gauge current competency levels in each department (task analysis) * Next, reposition employees based on talents and strengths * Last, development of how to utilize each one of the employees’ talents and strengths (readiness for training) C. What steps and activities would you implement to assess where you need to be and why? (Noe)
The steps and activities that I would need to assess where the company needs to be are to perform a needs assessment. One where the company can evaluate its employees and the tasks that they perform to determine what kinds of training is required. D. What new activities and behaviors would you begin to establish a “talent and strengths” employee base and why? (Buckingham)
Some new activities and behaviors that I would initiate in order to create a talent and strengths employee base are: * Have employees work at what they are best everyday * Individualization of employees * Employee’s room for improvement will usually be in the area of their greatest strength * Measurable results based how well employee’s utilized their strengths and talents
2. The non-management employees of a mid-size manufacturing corporation have just conducted an election to determine if a union would represent the workers. While the election results were unsuccessful, the vote was very close. The Board of Directors, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Management Team has little or no experience with unions. As the HR Director, identify, describe and discuss of the actions and activities that management can undertake that might make employees to feel less of a need to unionize but are also compatible with the Wagner and Taft-Hartley Acts?
As a HR Director, the actions and activities that might make employees feel less of a need