Public Policy and Response to Social Change

/in /by

 

Public Policy and Response to Social Change

Discuss three models for the development of public policy (public choice, group theory, and elite theory) and the suitability of each model for human services. Recognizing that community opinion, informed small groups, or the political elite may be the dominant source of social problem identification, make a judgement about the best source on which to rely, depending on the subject matter. Draw on your reading of Simon’s Public Policy text, Chapter 2 when considering your analysis of whether one or another of the models is most suitable.

Human Resource

/in /by

 

HR Headline: Pay for Performance Remains Controversial

“Pay for Performance” has made inroads in business, but has remained a hard sell in public school systems. There are some successful examples where teacher pay has been linked to student test scores. For example, in Minnesota, some districts have stopped giving automatic raises for seniority and base 60% of all pay increases on performance. In Denver, unions and school districts designed an incentive program where teachers receive bonuses for student achievement and for earning national teaching certificates. However, some plans have not worked. For example, Cincinnati teachers voted against a merit pay proposal and Philadelphia teachers gave their bonus checks to charity rather than cashing them. It appears that having teachers involved in planning the incentive system is one key factor to success. The same can be said for all incentive plans – if employees don’t buy into them, they will not work.

Your paper may be based on a business entity of your choosing from the public or private sector and must answer the following Research Questions:

1. How could an organization measure the effectiveness of its pay-for-performance plan(s)?

2. From an employee’s perspective, what are the advantages and disadvantages of using a pay-for-performance plan?

3. From an employer’s perspective, what are the advantages and disadvantages of using a pay-for-performance plan?

Understanding Social Change

/in /by

 

Understanding Social Change

As Weinstein explains in our text on Social Change, our contemporary understanding regarding social change is that it may be intentional or it may be unintentional. In other words, individuals or social movements can intentionally cause social change (either progressive or regressive). It is equally true that unintended changes in society can result from environmental changes, migrations of people responding to war, climate change, cultural clashes, and urbanization.

  1. Drawing from your readings, discuss one example of intended or unintended progressive social change and one example of intended or unintended regressive social change.
  2. In light of the probability that there will always be proponents of change as well as persons seeking to maintain the status quo, discuss how human services professionals may play a role in advancing progressive social change or regressive social change.

Performance Appraisal System

/in /by

The evaluation of performance should be a process that assists in achieving individual and organizational goals and serves as a catalyst for overcoming challenges. The assignment connects the dots between the initial position questionnaire, the resulting job analysis, the job design, and finally, the intent of the performance appraisal process.

For this assignment, you will

Evaluate the importance of the initial position questionnaire/interview, the resulting job analysis, the job design, and the performance appraisal process.

Explain how each step is connected and why each is important to the next, ensuring consistency in employee job performance.

Explain the elements that you consider to be important and appropriate for an appraisal system for an individual and the organization based on your evaluation.

Support your decisions with examples and scholarly resources.

The Performance Appraisal System paper

Must be three to four double-spaced pages in length (not including title and references pages) and formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center’s APA Style (Links to an external site.) resource.

Must include a separate title page with the following:

Title of paper

Student’s name

Course name and number

Instructor’s name

Date submitted

Must use at least three scholarly sources in addition to the course text.

Must document any information used from sources in APA Style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center’s APA: Citing Within Your Paper (Links to an external site.) guide.

Must include a separate references page that is formatted according to APA Style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center. 

human resource management

/in /by

Job Offer Negotiations

you are the applicant in this case

The Applicant

You are considering a job offer from a highly respected consulting firm and have requested a meeting with the person who would become your future boss, a partner at the firm, to negotiate the terms of the offer. The proceedings have come to a point at which you must make a decision to accept or reject the offer during this meeting or at the end of the day at the latest. You are quickly approaching the conclusion of your MBA degree and would like to make a decision as to where you will be working afterwards.

The Recruiter

You are a partner at a multinational consulting firm. During the recent financial crisis, the demand for strategy consulting services decreased significantly and a hiring freeze swept your firm, paired with isolated lay-offs. However, the past three years have been favorable to the industry. Your firm has performed particularly well during this period, and the resulting promotions and firm retention has left your firm in need of human capital. You are looking to hire another consultant to alleviate some of the overwhelming workload.

A student assigned as “the Applicant” and a student assigned as “the Recruiter” shall negotiate an employment contract within the parameters defined in the respective case studies.  The areas that need to be negotiated are: Base Salary, Signing Bonus, Performance Bonus, Pension, Health Coverage, Paid Vacation, Moving Expenses and Start Date.

In order to complete this project, students will need to purchase the case at Harvard Business Publishing by following this link:   https://hbsp.harvard.edu/import/743068

Students must present a one-page paper that lists the negotiated terms.  Additionally, each student must submit a paper, describing each of the following:

  1. What were the easiest terms to negotiate?  Why do you believe they were easier to negotiate, and did it surprise you that these terms would be among the easiest terms?
  2. What were the hardest terms to negotiate?  Why do you believe they were harder to negotiate, and did it surprise you that these terms would be among the hardest terms?
  3. Describe the negotiation process that took place.  For example, but not limited to, how many sessions, how long were the sessions, how did the parties separate the topics to be negotiated.
  4. What strengths and weaknesses did you observe about yourself in the negotiating process.

6A

/in /by

For this assignment, you will utilize the online Library to search for information about nonprofit organizations that volunteer during times of disaster. You will choose one, and write a case study that contains a review and analysis of the organization. Your paper should address, at a minimum, the following points.

  • Include the mission of the organization and the sources of its funding. 
  • Explain how the organization interacts with governments.
  • Give examples of how the organization has assisted in disasters.
  • Share your opinion on why people volunteer with this particular organization.
  • Explain the effect volunteering with this organization has on volunteers and the community.

  • Your case study should be a minimum of three pages, not including your title and reference pages. You must use at least three sources,  All sources used should be cited. Your case study and all references should be formatted in APA style.

6

/in /by

Assume that you have been asked to prepare a visual presentation for the recruitment panel for the position of chief resilience officer in your community. 

First, you will want to locate and review your community’s hazard mitigation plan. If your local jurisdiction does not have a hazard mitigation plan published online, utilize the county-level or parish-level plan, or use the hazard mitigation plan of a nearby jurisdiction. 

Next, create a PowerPoint presentation that shares key points of your evaluation of your community’s hazard mitigation plan. You are not limited to any particular approach but you might (a) compare the local plan to the checklist in the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) hazard mitigation plan review guide, (b) choose a couple of the elements in the review guide checklist for an in-depth evaluation, (c) evaluate the hazard mitigation plan against best practices or the course textbook, or (d) focus on priority hazard mitigation actions that you would take if you are appointed as the chief resilience officer. 

Your presentation must include an assessment of the plan’s strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. Support your presentation with one academic reference. 

Your PowerPoint presentation should include speaker notes to support the key concepts on each of the visuals. Include a minimum of three visuals in your presentation. The speaker notes area is where most of the text should exist, and the visual area is where you should provide photos, graphs, screenshots, and other visually interesting information to keep the panel’s attention. Ensure the notes on the title slide will provide a few sentences to frame your approach. 

Your PowerPoint presentation should be a minimum of eight slides in length, not counting the title or reference slides. The presentation must follow APA format.

Ethical Decision Making IP

/in /by

 

View this Ethical Dilemma to learn more about Bill and Joe’s relationship. 

Joe has scheduled a meeting with his management team for next week to talk about the Peninsula Hotel chain contract. He hopes that he will be able to work with them to draft a contract favorable to Peninsula that will ensure its renewal for another year. He is reasonably sure that the contract renewal will ensure his continued success and employment with UWEAR. Bill invites Joe and his family to join them on his yacht for the weekend.

Joe is relieved to get the invitation from Bill because their relationship has been strained lately due to the contract negotiations.

Joe must decide how he will answer Bill’s invitation to join him and his family on their yacht.

Using ethical principles that you have learned thus far to justify your answers, please respond to the following questions in a paper of 500–700 words:  

  • What are some reasons why Joe should turn down the invitation?
  • What are some reasons why Joe could accept the invitation?
  • Does Joe’s relationship with Bill meet the definition of a conflict of interest?

Ethical Decision Making

/in /by

 Primary Task Response: Within the Discussion Board area, write 400-600 words that respond to the following questions with your thoughts, ideas, and comments. This will be the foundation for future discussions by your classmates. Be substantive and clear, and use examples to reinforce your ideas. 

View this Ethical Dilemma to learn more about the relationship between Joe, the salesman for UWEAR, and Bill, the customer. Bill and Joe have a history of business dealings which you will analyze using ethical principles. It seems that their dealings are in the grey area of business conduct and it’s important to discuss the dilemma to understand the implications of this behavior.

Once you have read the ethical dilemma, discuss the following questions with your classmates:

  • Are Bill’s gifts a form of bribery? 
  • Which ethical theory supports your view? Why?
  • What other ethical issues might be associated with the relationship between Bill and Joe?

Compile Project

/in /by

The Fig Technologies Executive Leadership Council (ELC) has asked you to compile a report regarding the age demographics within the organization. Your findings are that employees between the ages of 18 to 25 comprise 11% of the workforce, employees 26 to 39 comprise 31%, employees 35 to 55 comprise 34%, employees 56 to 69 compose 18%, and the remainder are age 69 and above. You have been asked to compile a report regarding the advantages and disadvantages of developing a younger workforce in both professional and nonprofessional positions as well as for older employees 65 and above. Be sure to discuss age legislation and how this will affect any decisions the company may face. You must include a minimum of one outside resource for this component. This component of the report should be one to two pages included into the final report.

The second part of this assignment is to submit the comprehensive research that you have compiled throughout your consulting contract over the past seven units. You are to provide a comprehensive report of the previous studies. Please add an executive summary of the steps for improving organizational diversity to the report being submitted to the ELC. The executive summary should be approximately half of a page. The report is the compilation of the previous project assignments. Please review these assignments, making any corrections based on instructor feedback. Add any transitions along with headers and sub-headers. Specific headings and sections should include the following:

Executive Summary,

Fair Treatment of Ethnicities,

Benefits of Organizational Diversity,

Improving Organizational Culture,

Gender and Work-Life Balance, and

Age Demographics.

Your comprehensive report should include a title page and reference page. All sources used, including the textbook, must be referenced; paraphrased and quoted material must have accompanying citations. All references and citations used must be in APA style.