GHUM 1087 Group Assignment

GHUM 1087

GROUP ASSIGNMENT

CASE# 1A

What are the positive and negative examples of social relations in this case?

ANSWER:

Positive examples of social relations in this case are:

  1. When the lunch break ended Laura wanted to go back to training class as she didn’t want to make her instructor Sandra upset by going late for the training class.
  2. Laura was kind and wanted to start conversation with Mike even though he was being sarcastic at the beginning as he said “Go cray- cray. Enjoy yourself”.
  3. Instead of getting angry, Sandra handled every situation very patiently. She didn’t get angry with Mike for being late and giving excuses to defend himself. When Mike was interrupting the “sample call making” session, she didn’t react immediately. Instead she explained him the importance of following the script, with a positive attitude.

Negative examples of social relations in this case are:

  1. Mike didn’t apologize for being late in the first day of the training class.
  2. Instead of saying sorry or taking responsibility for his actions, Mike started to defend himself by giving lame excuses for being late. 
  3. During the lunchtime, Mike didn’t introduce himself to the other two trainees. When one of the trainees, Laura asked him if she can sit there with a smile on her face, he replied to her in a sarcastic manner. 
  4. Mike didn’t take the training session seriously. When the lunch break ended, Laura said that it’s time to go back to the training session and Mike replied saying that the instructor (Sandra) will not notice if they will go to class few minutes late.
  5. Mike was interrupting the training session by addressing the script “lame”. He wanted the script to be written according to what he wanted to say and denied following the instruction by questioning every single detail written in the script. 

Which of the negative examples is most serious and why?

ANSWER:

Out of the negative examples, the most serious is when Mike interrupted during the training session by addressing the script “lame”, since he wanted to speak according to what he wanted to say. This is most serious because not only was he wasting time and not behaving appropriately, but he is also questioning Sandra’s job in a way. By him calling it “lame” and that he’s embarrassed of reading it from the scripts, it is like he’s saying that Sandra’s job is lame and embarrassing. Even after Sandra explained to Mike that she has been working there for 25 years and knows what kind of training gets results, Mike didn’t really seem to care and continued complaining again when they practiced for the second time. On their second practice, Mike interrupted again and implied that the script wasn’t realistic and if it were up to him he would of just told the customer to “calm down”.  Behaving this way wasn’t a very good idea because he isn’t taking consideration on how the other people around him in the workplace would feel since he was so focused on himself and what he wanted.

How can concepts from ethics be applied to think through the problematic behaviours/attitudes demonstrated in this case, and to offer solutions?

ANSWER:

The concepts of ethics do not just apply to the employers but the employees as well. As much is expected out of the employers regarding managing the employees, the same is expected out of the employees to respect and understand the work place environment and the procedures.

Mike Aranjo has not been able to land a job that comes under his field of study; marketing. He has been hired that has no relations to the scope of marketing, without even applying. Already he is late for the first day of his work which shows that he doesn’t really have respect for this job as it doesn’t fall under marketing. Mike clearly shows lack of business and interpersonal ethics by depicting the act laid out below.

Mike, already being late, then just walks straight into the training session without caring about the fact that he is disrupting everything. After that he doesn’t show enough courtesy to apologize for being late and instead gives unreasonable excuses.

As well as that, Mike does not show any signs of a positive attitude and did not show any work ethic, showing that he is least bothered with this job. These signs are obvious to Sandra who, by the end of the training session comes to realize that she may have made a mistake hiring Mike.

Mike’s lack of interest and careless attitude clearly shows that he has no respect for this workplace or for his employer and so he is not motivated to learn and adapt to this work environment.

Script and shoot three improved scenes based on this case (Scene 1: Mike enters training; Scene 2: Laura and Mike talk over lunch; Scene 3: Training begins)

Scene 1: Mike enters training

Mike Aranjo is a recent graduate from a three-year business diploma program at a Toronto college. His area of specialty is marketing, but he hasn’t been successful in finding his dream job yet in marketing. It’s now eight months after graduation, and he reluctantly decides to take a call-centre job at Miratel Solutions Inc. in North York (his mother knows the manager, so he didn’t even apply for the job). On his first day at CallPro, Mike is scheduled to take a six-hour training course called “Dynamic and Effective Customer Service”. He arrives at the CallPro office about five minutes late, because the subway was having problems. His new manager Sandra Fairley has already begun the training session with two other employees.

“We’ve already begun Mike, so can you grab a seat quickly? Thanks,” Sandra says

“Sorry I am late, the subway had a delay,” Mike says, feeling apologetic and concerned that he may have created a negative impression and quickly grabs a seat that is closest to Sandra so that he can show Sandra that he’s willing to learn.

“Alright Mike, just try to maybe grab an earlier subway so that this situation doesn’t occur again?,” Sandra says. “As I was saying,” she continues, “today’s training gets you thinking about excellent customer service in the following three ways...”

Mike feels that he should fix this by making sure that he does his best when training. He knows that just because Sandra is his mom’s friend, she does not have to be lenient with him as this is a workplace where Sandra is his boss, and everyone is treated fairly.

Scene 2: Laura and Mike talk over lunch

During the lunch break, Mike went to talk to other two trainees in the lunchroom.

“Hi I’m Mike. Mike Aranjo. Pleasure to meet you.” Mike introduces himself with a smile on his face and shook hands to imply a friendly gesture.

After a while, Mike wants to go out to buy his lunch. He invites his two colleagues to go out with him says, “I’m going to buy my lunch, would you like to join me?” Laura agreed to go with him.

When they come back, Laura comes over, smiles and asks, “May I sit here?”. “Yes, go ahead.’ Mike says courteously, “feel free!”

“Thanks Mike. So, what’s your story?”. They talk for about five minutes- it turns out Laura went to the same college as Mike, but two years earlier.

Laura looks at her watch. “It’s time to go, Mike. Training’s starting again.”

Mike looks at his watch and says, “Yes, you’re right. Let’s go together. We shouldn’t create a bad impression to Sandra on the first day by getting late for the training session”.

Scene 3: Training begins

Back in training, Sandra is prepping her three new employees to make a sample call. In this situation, employees will be doing an outbound call to university alumni offering to sell insurance solutions. One trainee will play the part of the person receiving the call, while another trainee will play the part of the outbound call maker. Sandra asks Laura and Mike to work together, with Laura being the receiver and Mike the caller. They read from their scripts.

“Hello?” Laura says.

“Hello, my name is Mike Aranjo. I’m calling on behalf of MBNA insurance. As an alumnus of Ryerson University, we’re able to extend incredibly low rates on car and home insurance, would you be interested to hear about our exclusive deal if you have spare time right now? ...” he stops and wait for the response.

“Actually, I am running late for a class right now, can you call me back at 5 pm today?” Laura inquired.

“No problem! I will do that, you have a good day!” Mike ended the with warm greeting.

“Sandra I am so glad we are doing this training, I am feeling less nervous about the live calls already”

Mike thanked Sandra after reading the rehearsal script. Sandra smiled at Mike’s enthusiasm and liked how he is appreciative of the time spend on training.

“Mike, there’s no substitute in this business for practicing live. I’m glad you are learning and

communicating well. Your practice of making outbound and taking inbound calls, will reflect the quality

of the work you’re going to be demonstrating once you’re on the floor by yourself.”

“I agree with you, this practice is making me get to know my coworkers better too,” Mike says.

“Well, let’s go through all the possible scenarios and wrap up the training, I am sure you all will do well once you start work”. Laura smiled and resumed the training.

Research likeability/positive demeanour in today’s workplace. What can you say about this attitude/behaviour? How does it relate to this case? How does it relate to ethics? Your response should include at least one library database source, as well as sources from the Internet.

ANSWER:

In today’s workplace it’s crucial that you are able to work in a team and communicate with ease

with your team and clients. Negative attitude is the barrier to your productivity in a team and

also, it makes your peers uncomfortable around you.

According to the Author Tim Sanders of “The Like-ability Factor” by Tim Sanders, “being likable is more important than confidence because people gravitate towards others who create a

positive emotional response in them”. According to a USA Today article, being disliked disrupts

the effectiveness of cohesiveness of colleagues working together.

Like-ability is the “tie-breaker” to almost all traits including skills and knowledge. Managers

prefer to work with someone less skilled and more like-able than someone who is competent

but has a negative attitude towards his/her co-workers. Due to this “Likability “ factor many

companies have placed less focus on skills set and more on examining the like-ability of their

employees. The idea is that you can train a person to overcome the shortness in skills but the

ability to be well-liked and show positive demeanor is not a talent that can be taught.

According to a survey held by Interview4, one CEO went on to mention” he won’t hire anyone

perceived to have an attitude and now goes the extra mile to determine the candidate’s

personality”. Companies evaluate candidate’s like-ability by looking at their resume/profile or even simply listening to them on the phone. A lot of organizations consider interviewing in person is the best option. An efficient method to determine in advance if candidates owns required enthusiasm is to use pre-screening tools such as a “behavioral assessment or even a video interviewing tool”. Behavioral assessments can reflect on a person’s work behavior and a video interviewing tool will allow you to better determine the candidate’s enthusiasm and interest in the opportunity.

According to Author Authors Hod Orkibi and Yaron Ilan Brandt of Europe’s Journal of

Psychology, the positive characteristics that can help people manage their work and personal

lives and attain greater job satisfaction are stimulating increased research attention. As the

author suggests “This study presents a conceptual model to account for the association

between employees positive orientation (i.e., the tendency to evaluate self, life, and the future in a positive way) and their job satisfaction. As theorized, the results indicate that employees’ ability to manage their work-life balance fully mediates the relation between their positive orientation and job satisfaction. This suggests that a positive orientation serves as an adaptive personal resource that can facilitate employees & ability to balance work and non-work demands and hence can foster job satisfaction”.

It relates to this case as a negative attitude of Mike is making him limit his ability to learn more

and interact with his coworkers. Also, his negative comments are making him seem challenging

to work with for his manager and coworkers. He might lose his job if he keeps showing

irresponsible and agitated behavior towards his training course.

Ethically he is not being polite to people who he just meet. His attitude is cold and annoyed. He

is making it difficult for his team to have a friendly interaction with him and also his non

cooperative attitude is making others delay for the training as well.

He is not thankful for the job opportunity and is not enthusiastic about the ability to learn and

gain experience.

hihi


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