This text was adapted by The Saylor Foundation under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 0 License
Download 2.98 Mb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- 3.6 Exercises
- INDIVIDUAL EXERCISE
- GROUP EXERCISE
3.5 ConclusionIn conclusion, in this chapter we have reviewed major individual differences that affect employee attitudes and behaviors. Our values and personality explain our preferences and the situations we feel comfortable with. Personality may influence our behavior, but the importance of the context in which behavior occurs should not be neglected. Many organizations use personality tests in employee selection, but the use of such tests is controversial because of problems such as faking and low predictive value of personality for job performance. Perception is how we interpret our environment. It is a major influence over our behavior, but many systematic biases color our perception and lead to misunderstandings. 3.6 ExercisesETHICAL DILEMMAYou are applying for the job of sales associate. You have just found out that you will be given a personality assessment as part of the application process. You feel that this job requires someone who is very high in extraversion, and someone who can handle stress well. You are relatively sociable and can cope with some stress but honestly you are not very high in either trait. The job pays well and it is a great stepping-stone to better jobs. How are you going to respond when completing the personality questions? Are you going to make an effort to represent yourself as how you truly are? If so, there is a chance that you may not get the job. How about answering the questions to fit the salesperson profile? Isn’t everyone doing this to some extent anyway? Discussion Questions
INDIVIDUAL EXERCISEChanging Others’ Perceptions of You How do other people perceive you? Identify one element of how others perceive you that you are interested in changing. It could be a positive perception (maybe they think you are more helpful than you really are) or a negative perception (maybe they think you don’t take your studies seriously).
GROUP EXERCISESelecting an Expatriate Using Personality Tests Your department has over 50 expatriates working around the globe. One of the problems you encounter is that the people you send to other cultures for long-term (2- to 5-year) assignments have a high failure rate. They either want to return home before their assignment is complete, or they are not very successful in building relationships with the local employees. You suspect that this is because you have been sending people overseas solely because of their technical skills, which does not seem to be effective in predicting whether these people will make a successful adjustment to the local culture. Now you have decided that when selecting people to go on these assignments, personality traits should be given some weight.
Chapter 4 Individual Attitudes and Behaviors LEARNING OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, you should be able to do the following:
People Come First at SAS Institute Who are your best customers? Which customers are bringing you the most profits and which are the least profitable? Companies are increasingly relying on complicated data mining software to answer these and other questions. More than 90% of the top 100 companies on the Fortune Global 500 list are using software developed by SAS Institute Inc. for their business intelligence and analytics needs. The Cary, North Carolina, company is doing extremely well by any measure. They are the biggest privately owned software company in the world. They have over 10,000 employees worldwide, operate in over 100 countries, and reported $2.15 billion in revenue in 2007 (their 31st consecutive year of growth and profitability). The company is quick to attribute their success to the performance and loyalty of its workforce. This is directly correlated with how they treat their employees. SAS has perfected the art of employee management. It has been ranked on Fortune Magazine’s best places to work list every year since the list was first published. Employees seem to genuinely enjoy working at SAS and are unusually attached to the company, resulting in a turnover rate that is less than 5% in an industry where 20% is the norm. In fact, when Google designed its own legendary campus in California, they visited the SAS campus to get ideas. One thing SAS does well is giving its employees opportunities to work on interesting and challenging projects. The software developers have the opportunity to create cutting-edge software to be used around the world. The company makes an effort to concentrate its business in the areas of analytics, which add the most value and help organizations best analyze disparate data for decision making, creating opportunities for SAS workers to be challenged. Plus, the company removes obstacles for employees. Equipment, policies, rules, and meetings that could impede productivity are eliminated. The company has a reputation as a pioneer when it comes to the perks it offers employees, but these perks are not given with a mentality of “offer everything but the kitchen sink.” There is careful thinking and planning behind the choice of perks the company offers. SAS conducts regular employee satisfaction surveys, and any future benefits and perks offered are planned in response to the results. The company wants to eliminate stressors and dissatisfiers from people’s lives. To keep employees healthy and fit, there are athletic fields, a full gym and swimming pool, and tennis, basketball, and racquetball courts on campus. Plus, the company offers free onsite health care for employees and covered dependents at their fully staffed primary medical care center, and unlimited sick leave. The company understands that employees have a life and encourages employees to work reasonable hours and then go home to their families. In fact, a famous motto in the company is, “If you are working for more than 8 hours, you are just adding bugs.” SAS is truly one of the industry leaders in leveraging its treatment of people for continued business success. Sources: Based on information from Anonymous. (2007, December 1). Doing well by being rather nice. Economist, 385(8557), 84; Cakebread, C. (2005, July). SAS…not SOS. Benefits Canada, 29(7), 18; Florida, R., & Goodnight, J. (2005, July–August). Managing for creativity. Harvard Business Review, 83(7/8), 124–131; Karlgaard, R. (2006, October 16). Who wants to be public? Forbes Asia, 2(17), 22. Directory: site -> textbooks textbooks -> This text was adapted by The Saylor Foundation under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 0 License without attribution as requested by the work’s original creator or licensee. Preface textbooks -> This text was adapted by The Saylor Foundation under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 0 License without attribution as requested by the work’s original creator or licensee. Preface Introduction and Background textbooks -> Chapter 1 Introduction to Law textbooks -> 1. 1 Why Launch! textbooks -> This text was adapted by The Saylor Foundation under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 0 License without attribution as requested by the work’s original creator or licensee textbooks -> This text was adapted by The Saylor Foundation under a textbooks -> This text was adapted by The Saylor Foundation under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 0 License without attribution as requested by the work’s original creator or licensee. Preface textbooks -> This text was adapted by The Saylor Foundation under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 0 License textbooks -> Chapter 1 What Is Economics? textbooks -> This text was adapted by The Saylor Foundation under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 0 License Download 2.98 Mb. Share with your friends:
|