Marketing Principles Essays - Human Resource Management,

Marketing Principles A. Definitions 1. ABC ABC stands for activity based costing. This is defined as a method which identifies various activities needed to provide a product and determines the cost of these activities. I would say it is a method of breaking down the process of the business activity down to its root components. Then the causes of profit losses can be weeded out. For example, in a warehouse setting in which I worked, there were a few major departments which included receiving, stock dept., pick/pack, and shipping department. Merchandise traveled through the warehouse along this pathway. If say, production (boxes shipped) is down, we can specify the cause using this technique. Instead of just knowing that production is down, we may learn that the receiving dock is backed up , which leads to no merchandise for the stock dept., which results in orders being held up on the flows. Management can then find the cause of the backup in receiving and go from there. 2. ADEA Stands for the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, which, according to text, prohibits age discrimination and mandatory retirement. It was established in 1967. It pretty much explains itself. Basically, there cannot be a maximum age for employees, and termination can not be based solely on age. A good example of this would be a mother returning to the work force. They may be frowned upon due to their age. I have read somewhere that people over the age of forty are in a protected class, and cannot be discriminated against by virtue of the law. 3. BARS This stands for Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale. It is defined as a rating technique that relates an employees performance to a specific job related incident. This definition doesnt really help me. It seems that the procedure is to define certain personality traits that are essential for a certain function, then to rate the prospective employee based on a scale of these trait. For example, someone applying to be a chef would be hired on base on a number of traits, one being prior experience. A ten on the scale would be something like, 10+ years of experience in a 4 star restaurant, while a zero would be no experience. The employees worth could be determined by a composite of all these scales. 4. COBRA Stands for Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. This is defined as a policy established in 1985 which required continued health coverage (paid by employee) after job termination. This means that health insurers cannot discriminate base on a persons employment status. An example would be a victim of a downsized company, forced to work for a company which does not provide health insurance, and so must continue their current plan. 5. E P Stands for Effort yields performance, and is defined as: The degree of expectation that putting effort into a given task will lead to high performance. I would say, Is it worth all the trouble? For example, no matter how much effort I put into reading a first edition Crime and Punishment, written in Cyrillic figures, my performance in reading Russian will not improve in the least. However, if I put a good deal of effort in actually learning Russian from the beginning, taking a class or reading a how to book, there is a greater chance that my performance will increase. 6. EVA Stands for Economic Value Added system. It is defined as a control system that measures after-tax profits minus the cost of capital invested in tangible assets. This , according to text, is intended to capture all the things a company can do to add value from its activities. I would guess that this method roots out all unnecessary assets, as can be shown by increases and decreases in this figure. If a company is buying new real estate every year, this may lead to loss of net profits, if the real estate is purchased carefully. This fact could be discovered using this method. 7.ERG Theory Defined as a simplification of Maslows hierarchy of needs. This theory has three levels; existence, relatedness, and growth. This is a simplification which makes this psychological theory applicable to the business world. The achievement of these needs make for a satisfied worker. A warehouse worker first