Contemporary Issues in HRM Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words

Contemporary Issues in HRM - Essay Example When this happens organizations remain satisfied with single-loop learning or adaptive learning but unless this is supported by double-loop learning or generative learning, no growth can take place. Organizational culture plays a vital role in organization learning towards improvement and growth. Organizations must provide an environment of empowerment, encouragement and flexibility for the individual employee to take risks and be creative. Failures too have to be celebrated. The environment should not stifle the employees. The organizational environment at Starbucks, the specialty coffee retailer, was looked into and it has been found that while they do encourage contributions from their employees, learning is stagnant. The workers are trained for 25 hours once they join but the same procedures and training is imparted. Growth and success of an organization is not measured by low staff turnover or high sales figures. Innovation and creativity ensures a long-term strategy whereas foc us on sales is a short-term strategy. While the origin of the company lies in cognitive learning but no further innovation has taken place. The company has not yet been able to find a solution to the single-use paper cups in which coffee is served to those who do not wish to consume coffee in-store. The company has not provided an environment in which employees can find ways to develop a solution. There is reliance on legislation and government support but learning has to come from within. The employees have stock options and which most exercise. Hence, they should also be responsible for finding a solution for the cups. This can come through when the organization engages in double-loop learning and when personal mastery and team work is applied as organizational discipline. Suggestions for improving the organizational learning have been provided. These include training the front-line staff in convincing the customers and making it mandatory for the corporate executives to serve one shift at the counter every now and then. It is expected that these suggestion would bring about a change in the learning environment. When managers started facing competitive pressures and declining productivity, the traditional management practices were threatened. While the situation warranted new strategies and structure, the traditional habits, norms and assumptions became hindering blocks (Senge & Sterman, 1992). Change in strategy must be preceded by change in thinking. Managers and academics then recognized organizational learning as a process that could change shared understandings, and as a key to competitive advantage. Organizational learning can enhance the competencies of both employees and entire organizations. Learning has also been recognized as a route to achieve competitive advantage (Chaston, Badger, Mangles & Sadler-Smith, 2001). This is the reason that there have been contributions on the subject from the perspectives of psychology, management science, strategic management, production management, sociology and cultural anthropology (Chaston, Badger & Sadler-Smith, 1999). However, while all agree that organizational learning is a good thing there is little consensus on what organizational learning really is (Teare & Pantin, 2003). Being a complex concept, there is yet no widely accepted definition of organizational le

The Concept of Open Kitchen Design Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The Concept of Open Kitchen Design - Essay Example Among the range of advancements however, of particular interest is the concept of Open Kitchen Design. This concept has been attractive to many restaurateurs for not only its entertaining factor, but also because customers can be able to see exactly how food is being prepared and as such they are more likely to prefer it as opposed to situations where they cannot tell what is being put into their plate. This increases the level of hygiene that is involved and lowers the chances of occurrence of food poisoning. So what exactly are the views of customers on the Open Kitchen design? This paper analyzes the work of Alonso and O’neill, Exploring Consumers’ Images of Open Restaurant Kitchen Design, where a research has been conducted on this area so as to find out what the customers really want and as such give them exactly that in this era where customer satisfaction is the recipe to the success of every business. The Background Research has revealed that consumers in the Un ited States have a preference for food prepared outside the home setting, (Alonso et al, 2). On average, a consumer will take five meals in a week in a restaurant as opposed to home. On the same note, it has been noted that consumers obviously attach a lot of importance to the hygiene and safety of the food they eat though this is something that most restaurants ignore. Further, hygiene and cleanliness of food is closely related to the design of the kitchen that a restaurant decides to have thus the design of a kitchen can play a big role in ensuring food safety, reduced number of accidents as well as efficiency in operations. This idea in itself will attract customers as it gives them the satisfaction that they are having a meal that is properly prepared by merely looking at the physical setting of the kitchen. An attractive kitchen design will also encourage employees to carry out their duties with utmost care in providing high quality food. Reports indicate that more and more res taurants are embracing the open kitchen design and it has been responsible for booming business for small enterprises despite meager materials through research, (Alonso et al, 4). Thus the work of Alonso and O’neill aims at bringing more light on the subject. Methodology Used Consumer data was obtained through questionnaires distributed within duration of four months at a university in the United States from individuals attending a baseball sport during the season. The reasons for choosing a university for the collection of this data was the convenience of collecting data from a large number of individuals composed of different groups in terms of gender and age and then making comparisons. The success of the research was also facilitated by the fact that the researchers also belonged to the university in question and therefore it was easy for the respondents to identify themselves with them. The content and design of the questionnaire was prepared according to the little avai lable data from research previously conducted on the image of consumers on the idea of Open Kitchen Design. The research also took into consideration the demographic factors of the respondents, experience and frequency of consumers, type of restaurant visited, factors affecting consumers’ tastes and preferences and to what extent the design of the restaurant affected their choices. Instructions on how to go about the research questions were also provided. The potential respondents were