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string(53) " parts of our arguments in the rest of this article\." ‘No place to hide’? The realities of leadership in UK supermarkets SKOPE Research Paper No. 91 May 2010 * Irena Grugulis, **Odul Bozkurt and ***Jeremy Clegg * Bradford University School of Management, **Lancaster University Management School, ***Leeds University Business School Editor’s Foreword SKOPE Publications This series publishes the work of the members and associates of SKOPE. A formal editorial process ensures that standards of quality and objectivity are maintained. We will write a custom essay sample on No Place to Hide or any similar topic only for you Order Now Orders for publications should be addressed to the SKOPE Secretary, School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Glamorgan Building, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3WT Research papers can be downloaded from the website: www. skope. ox. ac. uk ISSN 1466-1535 Abstract This article explores the realities of managerial work in two major British supermarket chains. While the prescriptive literature welcomes the displacement of bureaucratic management by rote with leadership, empirical accounts of what managers actually do underscore how the purported tenets of leadership tend to disappear upon closer inspection, even at the discursive level. This study observes and discusses the discrepancy between the rhetoric of leadership articulated by executives at the corporate head offices and the actual roles and responsibilities of managers in stores. Work was tightly controlled and managers had little real freedom. We draw on empirical evidence to argue both that while leadership in practice secured only trivial freedoms such freedoms were highly valued and that academic analysis should follow these managers in their ability to distinguish between rhetorical flourishes and reallife job design. Leadership in practice is mundane and local. Keywords: leadership, leaders, managers, control, deskilling, supermarkets, retail Introduction This article explores the realities of managerial work in two major British supermarkets chains. While the prescriptive literature welcomes the displacement of bureaucratic management by rote with leadership (see for example Zaleznik 1992), empirical accounts of what managers and leaders actually do underscore how the purported tenets of ‘leadership’ tend to disappear upon closer inspection, even at the discursive level (Meindl et al. 1985, Alvesson and Sveningsson 2003a, 2003b, Tengblad 2004). Kelly (2008) has taken issue with the tendency in the leadership literature of discounting the ordinary everyday work activity of managers in lieu of a continued effort to theoretically pin down how leadership really ought to be conceptualised. He argues that the common terminology used by various writers conceals a wide diversity of practice and that leadership is locally produced. We join Kelly’s contention that ‘the apparently mundane practices that are made accountable and therefore observable remain unexplicated and actively ignored’ (2008:774) and that this is regrettable. We diverge from his emphasis on the reification of leadership through language games, however, and focus instead on the dissonance between the salience of leadership in the popular and practitioner representations of management jobs and the actual limits to the discretion, initiative and control that managers are able to exercise in the concrete, routine and core practices associated with their roles. This dissonance was actively exploited by the supermarkets’ business models. Celebratory accounts of leadership were cascaded down the managerial hierarchy, from the corporate head office to the departmental managers, to spur managerial staff to greater efforts in routine work. The empirical material we use to support these claims comes from a study of managers and managerial work in the stores of two of Britain’s largest supermarkets. In the four store sites where research was carried out, the work of managers was heavily prescribed, with ordering, product ranges, stock levels, store layouts, pricing, special offers and staffing policies all set out by respective functional divisions at head ffice. Their work was also closely monitored, and their personal performance assessed, through the constant and close inspection of the sales, profit and customer service performance scores of the stores and departments they were responsible for. In line with Hales’ (2005) observations, these managers were not entrepreneurial visionaries, but links in a cha in with little real influence over policies and procedures. 1 Their work was generally confined to striving to meet a range of very demanding performance targets over which they themselves had little, if any, control. In both supermarket chains, leadership by managers in stores was considered vital for company performance, with ‘the importance of people’ to competing with rival chains and ‘keeping customers satisfied’ repeatedly stressed by the full range of interviewees. Yet this leadership was to be exercised in specific and specified ways. Both managers in charge of stores and those in charge of departments had little power over most aspects of their work but were expected to lead, inspire, motivate and monitor staff on customer service (in the widest sense). Head office executives and store-level managers themselves in both chains repeatedly stressed the charismatic and inspirational elements of leadership. In particular, this depiction of leadership required managers to mediate between the dual pressures of much service sector work, to minimise costs but maximise customer service (Taylor and Bain 1999, Korczynski 2001, 2002). In this context, leadership appeared to be a euphemism for the demand that managers mobilise their personal physical, emotional and social resources to make up for the discrepancies between targets and resources and be ardent pursuers of the employer’s end of the wage-effort bargain. This type of contained leadership bears little resemblance to the celebratory accounts but it is probably a far closer reflection of the realities of workplace practice. While the article stresses the mundane nature of managerial jobs in supermarket stores, it also highlights the way both individual managers and shopfloor workers use the leadership rhetoric. This rhetoric was valued by the managers largely because of its unreality; while they ostensibly ‘bought in’ to the rhetoric, in practice, most were adept at negotiating the dissonance between it and real work and none sought to put its wider tenets into practice. On the shopfloor, the dramatic language of leadership and transformation was used to legitimise managerial freedoms; these were trivial but they nevertheless proved an escape from scripting for people management and were deeply valued by the managers themselves. We elaborate on the constitutive parts of our arguments in the rest of this article. You read "No Place to Hide" in category "Essay examples" First, we provide a critical review of the popular ways of conceptualising leadership in the literature and the way these are problematic in relation to managerial work in practice. Then we introduce the specific context of retail work and of our study to highlight the significance of both to an inquiry into the discrepancy between leadership rhetoric and managerial practice. This is followed by a discussion of the contradictions inherent in 2 eadership on the supermarket shopfloor and the nature of the spaces that remain for initiative and freedom. Managers, Leaders and ‘Real Work’ It is popular to claim that managerial work is changing, that hidebound and bureaucratic managers who impede workplace performance are being (or should be) replaced with charismatic and visionary leaders who know when to subvert rules, inspire enthusias m in their followers and contribute to corporate dynamism (Zaleznik 1992, Alimo-Metcalfe and Alban-Metcalfe 2005). Such claims, clearly, need to be tempered with caution (Storey 2004a, 2004b). Students of business and management have long suffered from those thrills of novelty, which set critical descriptions of the existing and unfashionable against enthusiastic predictions of what an ideal type of the latest fad might look like. An unfair but recurrent practice which, as Storey (2004a) notes, is being repeated for leadership. This advocacy is rendered possible, at least in part, by the paucity of empirical accounts of who leaders are and what it is they actually do (see for example Jackson and Parry 2008). When data is available, authors rarely write about transformational activities. Rather, they stress how ordinary leaders are and how mundane their work is (Carlson 1951, Meindl et al. 1985, Alvesson and Sveningsson 2003a, 2003b, Tengblad 2004). Even charismatic leaders are not unfettered (Robinson and Kerr 2009). Empirical enquiry strips leadership of its universal grandeur and helps depict a practice that is both contested (Collinson 2005) and locally defined (Kelly 2008). Bureaucratic forms of control are still going strong (Power 1997, Hales 2002, Protherough and Pick 002) and old-fashioned supervision rather than inspirational leadership is at the heart of most jobs (Delbridge and Lowe 1997, Hales 2005). Kelly (2008), in his analysis of the nature of leadership and the various discourses that surround it, has argued that leadership as a practice is locally defined and here we propose one example of such local definition:. In this study, the requirements of customer service did in deed shape the demand for leadership skills, but not quite in the way that the proponents of the spread of transformational leadership suggest. What was at stake was not an entrepreneurial transformation. On the contrary, managers’ actions were tightly controlled and those controls were increasing. As well as following orders from head office, store and department managers were simultaneously required to inspire, enthuse and motivate the front-line 3 staff they were responsible for. The positive connotations of the word leadership helped to motivate individual managers, as they in turn sought to motivate others (Etzioni 1961). Here the dissonance between the leadership rhetoric and workplace realities was not an analytical lacuna but an important part of the process since images of leaders needed to be inspirational rather than accurate. Retail Work Retail work accounts for a significant proportion of the working population, with 12 per cent of UK workers employed in retail (Burt and Sparks 2003). While this work can be skilled, from the glamour of the ‘style labour markets’ (Nickson et al. 2001), to the product knowledge of expert assistants in France (McGauran 2000, 2001), the wide-ranging skills of apprentice-trained workers in Germany (Kirsch et al. 000) or the impressive educational achievements of Chinese retail workers (Gamble 2006), most British jobs are not. For the majority of British supermarkets, the main skills policy pursued is one that is ‘tantamount to a personnel strategy based on zero competence’, zero qualifications, zero training and zero career (Gadrey 2000). Margins are tight and the extensive centralisation and standardisation of supply chains and products (Baron et al. 2001) extends to work and work processes (Felstead et al. 2009). Workers are valued for their presence and their temporal flexibility, not their skills, and presence and temporal flexibility are seldom highly paid. The retail sector accounts for 26 per cent of British low paid workers (Mason et al. 2008) with 75 per cent of sales assistants and 80 per cent of checkout operators compensated at rates below the low pay threshold (Mason and Osborne 2008). Part-time and women workers, who dominate the sector (Arrowsmith and Sisson 1999, Burt and Sparks 2003) are particularly badly affected. Some stores deploy sophisticated human resource anagement techniques such as psychometric tests (Freathy and Sparks 2000) and merit-based pay but these are set against generally low wage rates, rigid control mechanisms and limited discretion (Arrowsmith and Sisson 1999, Broadbridge 2002, Burt and Sparks 2003). Against this backdrop, recent writing on retail employment from a strategic perspective has increasingly emphasised the role of management and managers in the overall performance of companies (Booth and Hamer 2006, Hart et al. 2006). It argues that the link between managers’ work and store (or firm) performance is 4 hrough ‘lay’ workers, in one example, asserting that ‘without strong management and leadership skills, store and employee productivity suffers together with lower staff motivation, ultimately leading to lower profits’ (Hart et al. 2006:281-282). However, lists of actions such as ‘providing good pay and benefits, praise and encouragement and support and training, or even at the most basic level, ensuring employees receive their correct rest periods at work’ (Booth and Hamer 2006:299) do not accurately depict the real remit of managers in large-scale retail organisations. Methods and Methodology This research was part of an EPSRC/AIM funded project on the organisation and experience of employment in retailing. Since our main interest was in the processual aspects of work, a multi-pronged, qualitative approach was adopted, as this was best suited to compare and contrast official organisational statements with real life practices and experiences. Research was conducted in two of Britain’s largest supermarket chains, here referred to as Retail 1 and Retail 2, respectively. Retail 1 had 356 stores and employed over 160,000 people. Retail 2’s portfolio of stores included the convenience store format, which brought its total number of stores to 823, but it had slightly fewer employees at around 150,000. By and large, their target clientele overlapped and they were direct competitors with similar market shares. In each supermarket, detailed interviews were conducted with head office staff who were responsible for determining strategies, setting policies and designing business processes. We were able to review a large amount and range of company material pertaining to company strategy, business models, performance indicators, human resource policies, recruitment and training programmes and change initiatives. Interviews were carried out with top executives in strategy, human resources, training, marketing, accounting, customer services and profit/productivity/performance improvement departments. In addition to this, in each chain, two locations were selected for store-level research; store A and store B at Retail 1, store C and store D at Retail 2. In the stores interviews were conducted with the (general) store managers, who would be managing anywhere between 200 and 400 employees, the secondary tier of between three and five senior managers, who had store-wide responsibility and supervised and coordinated the work of department managers, and the managers of the 12 to 15 different departments such as produce, customer service, or bakery, as well as a number of shopfloor workers. All of the managers were salaried, while all 5 of the shopfloor workers were hourly-paid. Store interviews with hourly paid workers were the most challenging. Our informants were welcoming and supportive but, owing to the tight margins and pressure on staff, few had time for interviews. The length of interviews with managers ranged from half an hour to multiple sessions of several hours, typically averaging an hour and a half to two hours. Some of the interviews with workers also lasted over an hour, but a number of them had to be interrupted after less than half an hour. All formal interviews were recorded, professionally transcribed and coded using NVivo Qualitative Data Analysis software. In total, 86 interviews were carried out, 46 in Retail 1, 34 in Retail 2, and the rest with a range of outside key informants including a top level executive of a third supermarket chain, industry experts based at the Institute of Grocery Distributors (IGD) and trade union representatives. In addition to the interviews, participant and non-participant observation was carried out by one of the research team at the Retail 1 head office and, more extensively, at one of the two Retail 1 stores included in the study (store A). In addition to observing recruitment group interviews, new employee induction sessions and a range of daily activities in the store, the researcher also worked shifts of 10 to 15 hours a week for six weeks on the delicatessen, fish, rotisserie, pizza and ready-meal counters. A research diary was kept during this part of the fieldwork and transcribed. ‘No Place to Hide’ Leadership was a ‘quality’ that was extensively referenced in the public presentations of managerial career paths in both supermarket chains. Retail 1’s literature on career prospects described the training programme for shopfloor workers who wished to become department managers as being ‘built upon’ their ‘current leadership skills’ through on-the-job training, while that for department managers with ambitions to be store managers or deputies was said to help them ‘perfect their leadership style’. Retail 2’s careers information on the company website directed those with some previous retail management experience and ‘looking to grow into a leadership role’ to the ‘fast-track to Store Manager Development Program’. Hitting the link, interested parties were informed that nobody played a more important role in the supermarket’s everyday operations (turnaround) than the managers in the stores, whose leadership ‘inspires our people to deliver a great everyday customer experience’. Retail 2’s recruitment process for senior managers included psychometric tests that were, among 6 other qualities, designed to pick up leadership skills and potential. Retail 1’s rogrammes for management development included selection hurdles such as roleplay sessions where future managers were expected to stand out from among their peers by displaying the desired abilities, with ‘leadership’ prominent among these. While leadership skills and qualities were presented as core to the work of everyone and as particularly central for progression into managerial roles, in stores almost every aspect of work for every kind of employee, from shopfloor workers during their training pe riod all the way to the general store manager, was set out, standardised and occasionally scripted by the experts at head office. Buyers sourced goods and set prices at the head offices, with computer networks monitoring sales in stores and re-ordering supplies. The corporate human resources department set wages and provided clear targets for store managers in terms of staffing, leaving stores with a balancing act between resources and targets. Checkout tills used electronic scanning, shelf-stackers followed planograms that provided detailed layout plans for displays, price guns printed out price tags, including reductions, as decided by head office software depending on the time of day. According to long-serving informants, limits on discretion were increasing. The remaining specialist departments, such as the delicatessen counter (which included meats, cheeses and fish) and the bakery, were coming under increasing levels of central control. A trained butcher (now the manager of a non-food department) revealed that most meats were now cut and packaged before arrival in store. The same was true for cheeses. In the smaller stores bakeries worked entirely from deliveries of frozen goods which they re-heated, and in larger stores there was a mix of supplier-packed, frozen, ambient and chilled products and goods baked in store. But even breads baked in store arrived ready made up with instructions on times for mixing, proving and baking. The only formally accredited staff in stores were pharmacists employed in special stand-alone units on some sites. Such a policy of standardisation was deliberate and referred to with pride. The wageplanning manager in the Business Improvement Group at Retail 1 head office summarised the challenge as ‘how lazy we can make it†¦ make the process easy for them so it becomes a natural habit’. This close prescription and standardisation of work tasks was not a surprising observation to make of hourly-paid workers, or in the context of retail employment, traditionally known for its reliance on low skills and low wages. What was unusual was that the same restrictions applied to managers. In fact, the managers were under 7 far greater surveillance in terms of observable results. Because performance and productivity measurements were taken at both department and store level, which were then linked back and traceable to individual managers, their performance evaluation was quantified and routinised. There was no comparable performance evaluation of individual shopfloor workers except for those at the tills, although Retail 2 had just introduced a new performance enhancement programme to track the performance of individual workers. Yet these practices, too, only increased the number of indicators by which managers’ performance could be monitored, as the ultimate responsibility for meeting unit-based targets, as well as ensuring that individual workers showed the head-office dictated levels of performance, still lay with the managers. An executive in the productivity improvement division of Retail 2’s head office operations, who had risen through the ranks, observed that the role of store managers had changed considerably over the last twenty years: I think what we probably lost was a bit of the entrepreneurial or tradesmanship of the store manager to say, ‘Oh next week that’s going on offer, I want 200 of them next week’. Because they were good traders and experienced. And they knew how they were going to present it. Honestly, when I joined†¦ he store manager where I trained was a bit of a wide boy I suppose, but he would do things like – well he made me do it – Saturday afternoon if we were overstocked, I remember him saying ‘We’re overstocked on lettuces. [Name] go to the front door and stand there and sell your lettuces! ’ And you’d do things like say ‘Come on, here’s your lettuce! Get one for the rabbit! Half price! ’ And you’d literally drop them in people’s baskets as they walked through the door so they almost got no choice but to have your lettuce. productivity improvement manager, Retail 2, Head Office) But in the current arrangements, because of the focus on what Pye (1968) terms the ‘workmanship of certainty’, the emphasis in store for both managers and workers was on obedience to instruction. In fact, much of a manager’s work was about ensuring such obedience. [The parent company] is very much about†¦ they use a word quite a lot called compliance and there is a lot of compliance and the phrase they used†¦ was ‘there is no place to hide’ [Was that like an official thing? No, it was kind of like – you know with all the systems, their systems monitor everything, they monitor everything. Every little thing is monitored so there is no place to hide. I am not saying in terms of hiding things that are wrong but they see everything. (senior manager, Retail 1, Store B) A policy backed up by the motto ‘comply then complain’, which had clear implications for the way work was conducted. 8 [I]f the company says to you 9am Monday morning stand on one leg in the oyer, I want you to do it, at 9am and if that’s all of you, I want you to do it but then you’ll all stand there thinking why on God’s earth are we doing this, then ask the question, why do we need to do this? What benefit am I getting from it? But do it in the first place before you even complain about it, because until you’ve tried it you don’t know what it’s going to do, but it’s driving that culture. (general store manager, Retail 1, Store A) This approach was generally greeted with enthusiasm. I love this comply and then complain. You know because you put it right, you do it the way they want you to do it and then if it is not right you feed back what is wrong with it so you complain after you have had a go at it at putting it right. And I think that is absolutely vital. You know we have a duty to feed back and give that feedback but you know we don’t have that right until we have had a go at it†¦ the right way first. (training manager, Retail 1, Training Store) Unsurprisingly, such an approach influenced the skills expected of both workers and managers as well as leaving little space for transformational leadership. Skill levels were low and product knowledge in particular was a welcome, but almost optional part of work. Several of our informants did possess expertise and boasted strong personal interests in electronics or fish or experience in bakeries, but while this might allow front-line workers to develop a personal pride in aspects of their work it was not a job requirement and was rarely shared by the senior management team in stores, whose career progression was based on obligatory movement between different departments. Head office executives spoke of promoting people with an interest in a particular area of work, a ‘passion about food’ or ‘a personal interest’, and management training did provide product information as part of the process, but the demand for and emphasis on specialist knowledge was limited. Mason and Osborne’s (2008) comparison of supermarkets with electrical retailers reveals that the (often supplier provided) training in product knowledge that characterised electrical goods had few parallels in supermarkets, while Gamble’s (2006) research into Chinese retailers showed a well educated workforce and a highly demanding customer base not reflected in our study. In these supermarkets, workers could apply for entry-level managerial posts as soon as their twelve weeks of initial training were complete (although the graduate training schemes in both supermarkets were rather different). Graduates were more noticeable in the head offices and in certain specialisms (three of the four store-based human resource (HR) managers we spoke to were graduates, compared to three of the 23 managers in Retail 1 Store A). But while one 9 of the HR managers thought that having a degree was useful for ‘the analytical side of what (managers) need to do’, in general formal qualifications were not a significant criteria for managerial posts. The vast majority of managers had come up from the ranks of hourly-paid shopfloor workers. Interestingly, the non-graduate managers all spoke of the encouragement they had received from their managers to embark on management training. In the absence of a universal demand for specialist training or knowledge, leadership, both demonstrated and potential, was presented as the key element in selection decisions for such career progression: I mean, when I interview managers to join my team, I’m not necessarily looking for ‘Do they know what baked beans and yoghurts are? ’ and ‘Have they filled them before? ’ I’m looking for attitude, I’m looking for personal resilience and I’m looking for a track record. What have they done before? What have they done in the past? But it doesn’t necessarily mean that if I’ve got a grocery manager position I want a grocery manager from another store. Because it’s about managing people, it’s about managing hearts and minds really. (general store manager, Retail 1, Store A) But while store language focused on obedience and hearts and minds, the structural features of promotion ensured that, in practice, most managers and leaders were men. Moving between departments was an integral part of career mobility in both supermarkets. Promotion, even for the first foray into managerial duties, involved a switch of departments, while subsequent expansions of responsibility meant managers would be moved to increasingly larger departments in the stores. For general store managers, and for the second tier of senior management, geographical mobility was required and managers were expected to move between different stores in the same ‘regional cluster’ (generally between 15 to 25 stores, depending on the region). Interestingly, managerial informants stressed how lenient their superiors were when imposing these travel requirements. Annual performance appraisals istinguished between preferences for a 30-minute or a one-hour commute. Retail 2 store managers were told by their regional bosses to prioritise their families and the general manager of Store B asserted proudly that he would not be despatched to the other end of the country against his will. But, while all managers seemed to accept that mobility was required, for others the geographical differences between managerial and front-line worker posts discouraged progression and helped to account for the fact that, while the lower ranks of supermarket workers were dominated by women, the managers were predominately male. 0 Many of the workers we interviewed were attracted to retail by the fact that it was part-time: women with caring responsibilities, students, young people and older workers dominated the workforce. People worked in their local stores and their limited hours often suited their other responsibilities or desire for education. Managerial posts, by contrast, were almost universally full-time despite, given the length of opening hours (24 hours for Retail 1 and 8am to 10pm for Retail 2), no one manager would be able to control their store continually (see Dalton 1966, Moss-Kanter 1977). We did meet two women managers in shared posts but these were rare and had been specifically created to accommodate these informants’ demands for job-sharing (see also Mason and Osborne 2008). Small Freedoms Unlike the transformational visionaries of the leadership literature, the freedoms enjoyed by the supermarket managers in this study were generally minor and illicit. Despite the recurrent official emphasis on ‘comply then complain’, most created their own small discretionary spaces. The most commonly cited example was in store, counter or shelf layout. Detailed specifications were sent down from head office dictating the number and placement of products. But these were based on national averages of other stores in that category with little sensitivity for local geography, tastes or customer-base. Accordingly, in practice local knowledge, personal interest and the desire to personalise space often triumphed over the formal specifications. It was, of course, possible to protest against layouts officially. The general manager of Retail 1 Store A had done so when he wished to re-site the movie and video booth in his city centre store, taking it out of the foyer where it was vulnerable to repeated thefts and switching it with a sandwich booth which would have benefited from being more readily accessible. His request involved developing a detailed business case and visits from senior management but was eventually turned down (or indefinitely postponed pending a fuller refurbishment to include a pharmacy). Others were less regulation bound. I just did it, I got told to do it. They put trust in me to change the layout in the store of Home and Leisure, to move products around if I believed it would gain sales. And for example all the Home section wasn’t together, DIY and water was with pots and pans, party ranges weren’t with disposable paper tableware, so I put a new shopfloor plan together to move it all around and we did that†¦ [A]t [names other store] I’d gone through a couple of revamps where I’d actually 11 hanged over 200 bays in [other store] because we went through revamps to get bigger and better ranges in so I’d done a lot of work in the past on how a department should flow and how it should look and how we get the best out of the ranges and stuff like that so putting that experience into here and grouping the departments together†¦ [Did you have to negotiate with Head Office? ] No, we just did it. (senior manager, Retail 1, Store B ) Occasionally re-siting compensated for inadequacies in the briefing documents. One manager liked to get experienced staff to adapt official shelving briefs to suit the store: They know if they’ve been doing that for a couple of years, they know what will sell and what won’t. Now [if] it’s a novice then they wouldn’t, so I’d need them to do it in space flexing which will tell them the quantity. The plan would tell them how many facings so, say, it was like that it wanted a capacity of 70 on four facings but you can fit that 70 on two facings I would expect you to do it to two facings. And that’s where you gain space as well on the plan if you needed to open up on something else because it wasn’t lasting on the shop. [So you’ve got to play around quite a bit? ] Yes, you’ve got to play around with it, yes. Everything’s not as easy as black and white on paper. (general merchandise manager, Retail 1 Store B) Occasionally individuals also needed to over-ride the computer systems to over-come limitations. The demand for hot dog rolls on bonfire night, more salads and fresh vegetables for barbecues on unexpectedly hot days and ensuring that local tastes were provided for through particular fish or flavours of roast chicken were matters of relative individual discretion. But most of these practices were heavily discouraged officially and many were formally denied. One manager of a Retail 2 supermarket during a first interview and guided tour of his store was enthusiastic about the way Retail 2’s head office experts designed and laid out the shelf space. An enthusiasm which lasted until one of the researchers took out a camera to photograph the excellent layout. He was immediately asked not to take photographs, since the manager had exercised his own discretion and did not want news of this individuality to get back to head office. People and Leadership Amidst the widespread use of regulation, standardisation and constraint there was one area where managers were both encouraged and expected to use their own discretion and, in the rhetoric of their head offices, exercise ‘leadership’. This was in the area of people management. The structural means for doing this was very limited. Wages, 12 staffing levels and worker tasks were all pre-set by head office, although some local adjustments were possible. Store managers who recruited staff would be told how many ‘hours’ they could hire, but it was up to them to decide how to divide this up, so, for example, twenty hours might translate into three new part-timers working distinctive shifts. This often proved difficult to implement, since computer staffing levels did not always translate into viable recruitment. The personnel manager, she cares a lot, but [for] the company [it’s] all about its process, [it’s] not really about the people. And so the process is sort of disguised as this ‘caring’ – but it’s not. So these people, they just expect you to do more and more, and we take more and more sales but we don’t necessarily get the hours. Produce was given 20 extra hours for quarter three in line with sales and things, but I can’t recruit for these 20 hours because all that’ll happen is they’ll get taken away after Christmas or the sales won’t be there so I’ll never see them anyway. You know they’re not tangible, I can’t take them and use them. (produce manager, Retail 1, Store A) Much of this was work intensification. Head office staff expected local managers to know who they could allocate to particular tasks to save a few hours on the timesheet and this was considered excellence in leadership. [S]o we’re looking for the managers to not be creative in the ways they do their processes, I want them to follow the processes exactly how the systems define them†¦ I want them to lay the store out how the system devises and I want them to fill the shelves how it says on the tin, if you like, but then absolutely be as creative as possible in the way you service the customers. More the way we would be going. (business improvement director, Retail 1, Head Office) This ‘creativity’ was also set down in systems and structures of the stores. The performance of their departments or stores in terms of customer service was assessed through monthly ‘mystery shopper’ visits, while regular staff meetings provided managers with an opportunity to motivate. The morning shifts in both supermarkets began with caucus-style meetings, held in a central location on the shopfloor in Retail 1 and in a staff area in Retail 2, between the store manager, the upper management team and all the departmental managers who were on shift. Department managers held the same sort of ‘getting the day started’ meetings with their respective department staff. News about how the store or unit was doing in terms of the performance criteria was often a major theme; good performance was usually emphasised as a reason to feel good and underperformance as grave and in need of immediate attention. In the briefing templates handed down from the head offices, spots were allocated for events to note, improve or celebrate. Managers’ motivational 13 role (whether through generating pride or alarm) was possibly most necessary during these meetings, as announcements, for example about the roll-out of new uniforms could be rendered exciting, or a letter of appreciation from a customer as emotionally touching, through their performative skills. Performance related pay was extensively used. For general store managers it could amount to as much as 40 per cent of salary and even hourly paid workers might earn over ? 100. Individual performance was supposed to be assessed separately, as one informant noted: ‘sometimes you can have a department which hasn’t performed well on paper but what that manager’s contributed to that maybe it’s a total different story’. But in practice, greatest weight was placed on store and overall company performance in a given trading year. Both supermarkets used some version of recognition schemes where small monetary awards from ? 10 to ? 0 could be given out, and this was largely at managers’ discretion to ‘celebrate success’, as there was ‘a lot of pressure on everybody to perform all the time’ (bakery manager, Retail 2). But managers appreciated that the effectiveness of such schemes was limited: [A] lot is spending time with them and motivating them. You know if you motivate them they work far better than – [How can you motivate them? What do you have at your disposal to motivate them? ] You don’t really have any financial really, apart from you’ve got the yearly bonus, you know colleagues get a yearly bonus. So you’ve got the bonus to aim for. I don’t know really†¦ I think everyone is motivated by doing a good job and job satisfaction and spending time with people and I think a lot of it as well is getting to know colleagues, I know just about everyone by their first name and things like that. (senior manager, Retail 1 Store A) The financial outcomes of managers’ work were assessed through daily checks and monitoring of sales, waste, loss of products and the profits their departments or stores generated. Many were factors over which they had little control. Describing her Key Result Areas, which included absences, sales, labour turnover, waste and the customer service score, the HR manager (Retail 1, Store A) commented, ‘[s]o all my key result areas are linked with everybody else’s, so it’s my influencing skills that are really being looked at for that†¦ As a manager, you’re paid to manage; you’re not paid to fill the shop necessarily’. This confidence was widespread. But as the store managers pointed out structural conditions, including local labour markets, might be ignored in head office plans but heavily influenced how effective such work intensification could be. One, who was responsible for staffing a city centre store in a University town, spoke with 14 envy of a friend who managed a rural outlet. If workers in the city centre felt unfairly treated, they had a choice of part-time service sector jobs to move to. Their rural counterparts, in the absence of other local job opportunities, stayed in post (many had been there since the store opened). Yet this was the area over which managers were deemed to have most control and many seemed to accept this. When our informants spoke about leadership, their most common reaction was to emphasise the difference that they, as individuals, could make. A graduate departmental manager in his early 20s noted that he needed to ‘work on leadership and people skills’. It was not that these managers did not appreciate the impact that computer breakdowns, local labour markets, employee turnover, stock levels and the weather could have. They did, and dealt with such problems every day. But they also saw them as excuses for a lack of leadership. It was the managers’ job to enthuse and inspire others, even when policies and practices had not been explained to them and even if they disagreed with head office decisions (see also Smith 1990, Watson 1994). According to three of our informants: The depot might have been short of people and deliveries haven’t turned up on time. That could throw things off. Or promotional stuff hasn’t turned up. But there’s nothing in a store that we can’t fix, and it’s all about driving the right attitude in the management teams. Because if you drive that attitude well, you can fix anything. (general store manager, Retail 1, Store A) At the end of the day we’ve got to be the leader†¦ I think there’s a difference between being a manager and being a leader and we have to become leaders and†¦ e need to keep a real positive approach, because if we turn round to staff and say yes, what we may think in our heart of hearts is one thing, but when we go out there we’re out on stage, we’ve got to perform and say, ‘OK, it’s tough, but however if we all do this that and the other and get stuck in, we’re going to win thisâ₠¬â„¢. And you’ve somehow got to inspire your people out there, you know, so you’ve got to leave that at the door, because we can’t do anything about that. Somehow, what you have got to do is deal with the colleagues you have got, to ensure that they’re motivated, trained, they’re quick to do the job, and hyped up, and they’re going to go out there and deliver it. (senior manager A, Retail 2, Store C) OK, if I’m in store today and we get the [mystery shopper] man and I get 90 per cent, then that’s on my watch so was I here, was I up in the office looking at the PC or was I downstairs driving the availability, saying, ‘Where are those cauliflowers, where’s that, where’s that, where’s that? Or did I allow there to be nobody on produce because both the departments’ managers†¦ are on the same day off, and when they came in there was no cauliflower or lettuce because the person 15 down there was actually on the till and I didn’t actually know†¦ Yes, so if I’m going to be running a store tomorrow, for instance, I should really know who’s in wha t’s going on and any problems. (senior manager B, Retail 2, Store C) Leadership in these supermarkets was very specific and very detailed. Formal HR practices, meeting templates and detailed systems were in place. Informants gave examples that included monitoring work to ensure people were achieving their targets, retraining those who were not; monitoring stock levels; and being present on the shopfloor. However ultimately encounters with people, whether employees or customers, could not be scripted. The leadership rhetoric, because of its lack of links to the reality of daily work, was used as a motivational tool to persuade managers to work more intensively themselves and encourage others to extra effort. Discussion and Conclusions This article has presented an empirically based discussion of leadership in British supermarkets. The managers we observed were constrained by extensive regulation. Their experience of deskilling and discretion, consent and control bears little resemblance to the entrepreneurial visionaries described by writers on leadership. Yet despite that, most of our informants described aspects of what they did as leadership, maintaining proudly, and often in defiance of the evidence, the difference that they as individuals could make. Evidence from elsewhere confirms the impact that line managers have (Rainbird and Munro 2003) but this impact is not without limits. Here, head office systems, computerised schedules, pre-packaged and automatically ordered goods, design planograms and set hours and pay rates provided internal constraints just as location, labour market and the local economy supplied external ones. Our informants needed to accept the leadership rhetoric enough to assert that they could make a difference, but not so much that that difference was extended to questioning the constraints on them; a difference accepted in practice by most. This leads us to two conclusions. Firstly that leadership was a small freedom rather than a radical transformation (see also Rosenthal et al. 997, Edwards and Collinson 2002 on empowerment). It affected only the minutiae of the work but even this trivial level of discretion made a great deal of difference to the individual managers. The illicit freedoms of revising store layouts and adjusting stock orders, which managers engaged in to make their mark on work and improve store 16 performance, were matc hed by official and acceptable areas of freedom in the unscriptable areas of people management. These trivial freedoms lead us to our second conclusion on the implications for academic analysis. Leadership is, at least in part, what leaders do, how they do it and who they are. If, as here, mainly male managers worked to pre-set routines with tightly monitored targets then this needs to feature in our understanding of leadership. Yet to date, most accounts have neglected the mundane aspects of work, the very elements highlighted as core in this study. The leadership rhetoric, valued for its emotive qualities and its unreality, was used by managers and their superiors to value, inspire and intensify their input. Managers showed a sophistication missing from many academic writings in their ability to distinguish between rhetorical flourishes and real-world job design. Given this, we suggest that future research may wish to focus more clearly on the unexciting, hackneyed and everyday aspects of work and to consider the form the language of leadership really takes on the shopfloor. The unrealities of leadership are important but they have already absorbed too much academic attention and need to be clearly distinguished from the realities. Future studies, developed through empirical evidence, need to provide a nuanced, local and empirically based understanding of what really happens. 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Hamer (2006) ‘Labour turnover in the retail industry: predicting the role of individual, organisational and environmental factors. ’ International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management, 35, 289 – 307. Broadbridge, A. (2002) ‘Rationalising retail employment: a view from the outside looking in. ’ International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management, 30, 536 – 43. 17 Burt, S. nd L. Sparks (2003) Competitive Analysis of the Retail Sector in the UK. London: Department of Trade and Industry. Carlson, S. (1951) Executive Behaviour. Stockholm: Strombergs. Collinson, D. (2005) ‘Dialectics of leadership. ’ Human Relations, 58, 1419 – 42. Dalton, M. (1966) Men who Manage. New York and London: Wile y. Delbridge, R. and J. Lowe (1997) ‘Manufacturing control: supervisory systems on the â€Å"new† shopfloor. ’ Sociology, 31, 409 – 26. Edwards, P. and M. Collinson (2002) ‘Empowerment and managerial labour strategies: pragmatism regained. ’ Work and Occupations, 29, 272-99. 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In-company equal opportunities policies in Irish and French MNC retailing. ’ International Journal of Human Resource Management, 12, 754-71. McGauran, A-M. 2000) ‘Vive la difference: the gendering of occupational structures in a case study of Irish and French retailing. ’ Women’s Studies Internati onal Forum, 23, 613-27. Meindl, J. , S. Ehrlich and J. Dukerich (1985) ‘The romance of leadership. ’ Administrative Science Quarterly, 30, 78 – 102. Moss-Kanter, R. (1977) Men and Women of the Corporation. New York: Basic Books. Nickson, D. , C. Warhurst, A. Witz and A-M. Cullen (2001) ‘The importance of being aesthetic: work, employment and service organisation. ’ In Sturdy, A. , I. Grugulis and H. Willmott (editors) Customer Service: Empowerment and Entrapment. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Power, M. (1997) The Audit Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Protherough, R. and J. Pick (2002) Managing Britannia. Exeter: Imprint Academic. Pye, D. (1968) The Nature and Art of Workmanship. 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International Journal OF Humanities Social -Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: Discuss About The International Journal Of Humanities Social? Answer: Introduction Islam is one of the most widely followed religions in the world. The religion believes in a single God and is the second largest religion in the world with over 1.8 billion followers known as Muslims who constitute approximately 24.1% of the worlds population. About 1/5 of the population of the world is Muslim (Schum 2017). Muslims constitute the primary religion in 50 countries. The word worldview means a set of thoughts, principles and assumptions about the reality of life and the role of men in the universe. The worldview of Islam is a set of principles and assumptions about the birth of universe and mans relation to the universe from the perspective of Islam (Alam Choudhury and Nurul Alam 2013). The worldview is based on two main sources first, the Quran and second, the Sunnah or the life examples of Prophet Muhammad. The Islamic worldview guides the followers to the correct path in life. Islamic worldview as often believe, is not really a cultural product of any region as it is wrongly believed by many, but it is derived from the revealed words of Allah which is passed on to mankind through Prophet Muhammad. The Quran is considered as the divinely revealed scripture similar to the Bible. It is believed to be the actual words of Allah that were given to prophet Muhammad who is known as the final prophet of Allah who passed it on to mankind. Body The Islamic worldview is based on Allah the God, Mohammad the Prophet of Allah and the Quran which contains the words of Allah that was delivered by Mohammad. Islam believes in submission to God and Muslims are the ones that have submitted to Allah. Islam covers every aspect of the life of its followers. Islam believes in one God which is Allah, which is very similar to the Christian belief of a single God Jesus Christ. Muslims believe he is the creator, and the only master of universe and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. The practices of Quran and Muhammad constitute the foundation of Islam. The worldview of Islam started in 570 AD with the birth of Muhammad. By 650AD the Quran was formed and thereby began the important conquests of Islam in mecca, Egypt, Persia and Jerusalem. Belief and faith in God and submission and accountability to him is the fundamental principal of the Islam (Al-Jayyousi 2016). Every action of a believer revolves around this faith that he is answerable to Allah and he will be rewarded and punished for his actions by God. The primary objective of Islam worldview is to enlighten the Muslims with the real knowledge of the world as it is explained in Quran by Allah. The Islamic worldview is simple yet profound. It teaches the followers the way to conduct themselves in the world. Constant check on oneself by living on the righteous way by avoiding all corruptions and greed is important. The Islam teachings are equal for all. There is no distinction between rich, poor, weak and strong the teachings are equal for all. The Islamic worldview believes that mans deeds should be based on their success both in this world and the world after life. That success can be achieved by following the words of God. It says that all the human problems are caused due to mans disobedience to God (Goplen and Plant 2015). The Quran mentions that God created men as his Khalifa or representative on earth. The Islam worldview says that God created men as their representative on Earth and He has endowed humans with intelligence so that men can prosper and do well to mankind. They believe a man is accountable to Allah for his every action that their every action in their worldly life is being recorded by God and it will be presented to him on the Day of Judgment. If the person is judged well by God then he will enjoy eternal happiness in paradise. However, if he fails, he will be condemned to hell and be punished for his sins. . Islamic worldview states that every human must be treated with respect and dignity irrespective of their rank and status. The Islamic worldview therefore is a supporter of democracy that ensures a place for everyone. Another important part of Islamic worldview is the sacredness of life and tolerance and kindness towards others. Knowledge, science and reason is an important part of Islam worldview. The Quran invites the followers to look into the two springs of knowledge which are the macrocosmic physical universe and the microcosmic inner reality of humans. The Islamic worldview consists of three principles which are tawhid (theism), Khilafah (vicegenrency) and adalah (justice) (Qutb 2015). The worldview considers Allah as the omnipotent supreme creator and controller of universe. Muslims hold this God is the same as Christians and jews. Islamic worldview focuses on the term Khilafah or vicegerency instead of sovereignty. It means that man cannot exercise any power except of the power that is delegated to him. It further says there is no reservation for any class or family. No man is inferior to others. Every believer is the caliph of Allah. The Khilafah is responsible to Allah and is answerable to Him. The Quran states that man is a vicegerent of Allah on Earth and all the resources of the world are provided to men with trust. Every living creation including men owes their existence to Allah alone. The universe is created and maintained by Allah in accordance to the law of nature (Hafez 2017). Life of man on Earth is a trial on which depends his life after Earth. Islam worldview gives sovereignty to only Allah and not to any man. This prohibits mens superiority and puts every man on the same level. Every human being is equal in the eyes of Islam. Every man enjoys equal rights and can ask for help through the legal s ystem. The honor, property and life of each man are protected by Islam. The philosophy of Quran emphasizes on Wahi, which says that Muslims must have balance between the requirement of their body and soul and work for the larger interest of mankind. Justice is important according to every modern theory. In the Islam worldview it means keeping things to their rightful place and give equal treatment to others. Islam considers justice as a moral virtue and an important aspect of human personality (Rafiki and Wahab 2014). The prophet had said a just leader who will always get shelter from God. Justice is considered as a supreme virtue. Justice is also referred to in the context of polygamy. The Quran demands that all wives in case of polygamy must be treated with equality and justice. The verse talks about polygamy in details referring to orphan poor girls of marriageable age who should be married off even if that is a polygamous relationship. Morality is another important aspect of Islam. It deals with the relationship between man and Allah, man with other man, man with other elements of nature and man with his inner self. It is moral duty of a Muslim to guard his inner behavior, thoughts, words, intentions and feelings. A mans duty is to understand the difference between right and wrong, fight against the wrong, seek the truth and discard the wrong (Hanapi 2013). Virtue and truth should be the ultimate goal. Humility, courtesy, simplicity and compassion should be pursued. Arrogance, harshness, self-importance must be abandoned. Compassion as a moral value would lead to reward in the afterlife. It is a source of achieving spirituality and of maintaining socio economic harmony. Muslims are instructed to cooperate with one another. Forgiveness is another moral aspect of Islam. Humans are bound to make mistakes and at the same time, forgiveness is important. It is regarded as a high social value in Islam that leads to harmon y and peace. Hard work and labor is appreciated in Islam and the consequence of not following it is mentioned in Quran and Sunnah (van der Kooij et al. 2013.). Modesty and chastity are very high values in Islam which has relation with social, economic and religious system. Any activity that disrupts the moral fiber in the society is avoided and discarded. Reconciliation is an important moral value of Islam which means solving conflicts and renewing friendly ties. Responsibility is another moral value. A Muslim is responsible and accountable for his social, political and economic actions as well as to Allah on the Day of Judgment. Second part Being a teacher by profession, my most vital role is to spread the light of education and knowledge among my students and shape not just their minds but their life. The discussion about Islam worldview has been extremely enlightening and informative. Being completely new to this topic, it has made me understand various beautiful aspects of the Islamic philosophy and worldview which I was completely unaware of before. As per my worldview and the Islam worldview the role and importance of a teacher in the life of the students is vital. A teacher is a very influential person both in school and in society according to Muslim and he plays one of the key roles in developing child. The Islamic philosophy and worldview is a wide all-encompassing set of principles that the Quran asks its followers to abide by for attaining Allahs mercy and love and reward in the life after earth. After studying the worldview I came to understand various aspects of the Quran which I found suitable and necessary to follow in todays world as well. The Quran teaches how to lead a just and fruitful life.. Islam gives tremendous importance to teacher much like every other religion. A story goes that Prophet Muhammad came across two groups, one praying another was learning from a teacher and he joined the second group. This shows the importance of a teacher in the Islam religion. However most religion only appreciates a teacher who is teaching academics. Islam says we must appreciate every person who teaches us anything in life. Be that our guide, be that our family or be that a friend. This is something my own worldview needs to learn from Islam. In our everyday life we meet so many pe ople that some way or the other teaches us something about ourselves. We must be thankful to every person who helps us in learning something. Every individual has thoughts and views of their own. If I follow Christian worldview and my colleague does not there is no point in questioning his view or trying to prove him wrong. It will only lead to further problems and conflict. Therefore we should try to resolve it simply by trying to understand and analyze the fact that both of us have different set of concepts in our mind thereby instead of trying to prove the other one wrong we must be sound enough to avoid problems. We should always hear the other side of the debate and try to analyze my own worldview and see whether the person is speaking facts for not. There are several misconceptions regarding various religions in the minds of lame man. Very few among us really know what our scriptures say what our gods want. The Islamic notion of life after earth is very much similar to Hindu concept of rebirth and their notion of Judgment day when every soul will be judged as per his deeds on earth is similar to the Christian concept of the day of Judgment when every man will be rewarded for their good deeds in paradise and every evil deeds will be punished eternally. What I believe is that God is one. He is Allah, he is Christ and he is Rama. The names are multiple but the teachings and the gospels the religions preach are not starkly different from each other. A lot of the preaching of the religions is similar. The clashes between the religions are futile. My worldview has taught me several things that are in my mind. They automatically arise in mind whenever a situation like that arises. What I have always maintained in life is that I never do anything which my conscience does not permit. Being a very rational person I always analyze and judge everything around me. I do not follow my worldviews blindly without understanding their real importance and at the same time if I am convinced about a certain thing in my worldview that I would want to follow, nothing can make me break it. There have been various moments when I have been in situations that are hostile to my worldviews, but I always found a way to avoid and ignore them. I cannot expect every situation to be as per my views so when a contradictory environment arises I simply avoid that situation. That helps to keep my worldview as well as not get into any conflicts with the environment. Conclusion Islamic worldview is a very comprehensive and definite set of principles and conceptions in the world of Islam. Muslims are asked to follow them to lead life on the path of virtue and righteousness. Walking on the path of this virtue man can attain a good life not only on earth but the life after earth. Islam worldview puts god in the center of creation and man as worshipper of Allah. Allah is the creator and controller of every life on earth. The worldview contains not just spirituality but every aspect of the life of man right from economy to the society he lives in to the culture he follows (Valk, Albayrak and Seluk 2017). Islam considers the entire universe as a tool for man to perform his duty that is allocated to him by Allah. This world is just a temporary place for Muslims that puts them into trials and tests to. The real life is the life after earth where man is rewarded or punished as per their actions. Islam worldview covers every aspect of life like the political, social, cultural and economic. It is not formed merely by historical connections or values. It is well established framework which has been studied by scholars throughout centuries. References Alam Choudhury, M. and Nurul Alam, M., 2013. Corporate governance in Islamic perspective.International journal of Islamic and Middle Eastern finance and management,6(3), pp.180-199. Al-Jayyousi, O.R., 2016.Islam and sustainable development: New worldviews. Routledge. Goplen, J. and Plant, E.A., 2015. A religious worldview: Protecting ones meaning system through religious prejudice.Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin,41(11), pp.1474-1487. Hafez, Z., 2017. The Islamic worldview, Islamic jurisprudence: An American Muslim perspective, Vol. 1. Hanapi, M.S., 2013. From Jahiliyyah to Islamic worldview: In a search of an Islamic educational philosophy.International Journal of Humanities and Social Science,3(2), pp.213-221. JC van der Kooij, J.C., de Ruyter, D.J. and Miedema, S., 2013. Worldview: The meaning of the concept and the impact on religious education.Religious Education,108(2), pp.210-228. Qutb, S., 2015.Basic principles of the Islamic worldview. BookBaby. Rafiki, A. and Wahab, K.A., 2014. Islamic values and principles in the organization: A review of literature.Asian Social Science,10(9), p.1. Schum, T., 2017. God Is Beautiful: The Aesthetic Experience of the Quran. Valk, J., Albayrak, H. and Seluk, M., 2017.An Islamic Worldview from Turkey: Religion in a Modern, Secular and Democratic State. Springer.

Landmarks in social welfare provision Essay Example

Landmarks in social welfare provision Essay SOCIAL POLICY Introduction Social Policy is a term which refers to some kinds of regulations, statute law, rules and operations that get into the life position helpful to human public assistance. It is the survey of societal issues that has a important relationship for human well-being. And the systems should be promoted for the well-being of human being. The Department of Social Policy at the London School of Economics defines societal policy as an interdisciplinary and applied topic concerned with the analysis of societies responses to societal demand. It involves in recognizing the theories and some rules of societal subjects. The societal policy covers psychological science, geographics, jurisprudence, sociology, environment, political relations, economic sciences etc. It affects our mundane life that we can populate by. Basically societal policy is concerned with critical demands as in instruction, health care, H2O, nutrient, shelter that can do a life worth to populate. The publicity of intervention of ill, giving support to physically disable individual is the portion of societal policy. In short, societal policy is the survey of human well-being and intends to extinguish those jobs which are obstructions for human well-being. We will write a custom essay sample on Landmarks in social welfare provision specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Landmarks in social welfare provision specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Landmarks in social welfare provision specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Undertaking 1 Explore the historical and modern-day landmarks in societal public assistance proviso In the clip of 1901 to 1945 there was some of import landmarks for societal public assistance in united land. The authorities of united land introduced some public assistance plans to guarantee human well-being and to increase the living criterion. The important landmarks of societal public assistance are- 1901Seebohm Rowntree’s foremost survey of poorness in York, Poverty: a survey of town life. 1908Old Age Pensions Act: means-tested pensions from age 70. 1911National Insurance Act: illness insurance and limited commissariats for unemployment 1920 Unemployment Insurance Act: non-manual workers included. 1940Old Age and Widows’ Pensions Act: pension age for adult females reduced from 65 to 60. 1945Family Allowances Act: ?0.25 a hebdomad for each kid after the first. 1948National Assistance Act: Poor Law abolished. 1959National Insurance Act: calibrated pensions introduced. 1966Supplementary Benefit replaces National Assistance. 1971National insurance invalidness benefit introduced. 1975Social Security Pensions Act: province earnings-related pensions ( SERPS ) . Earnings-related national insurance parts introduced at 5.75 % . 1976One-parent benefit introduced 1977-79 Tax-exempt kid benefit phased in, replacing nonexempt household allowance and child revenue enhancement allowances. 1986Social Security Act: three major Bills in one. 1988Tax cuts and benefit cuts Top rate of income revenue enhancement down from 60 % to 40 % . Standard rate of income revenue enhancement down from 27 % to 25 % . 1994 Budget introduces ‘welfare to work’ steps to ease passage into paid work and promote full-time work. Assorted steps piloted Introduction of kid attention allowance for certain parents claiming household recognition and related benefits. 1996 Jobseeker’s allowance replaces unemployment benefit and income support for the unemployed. Contributory benefit is paid for 6 months alternatively of 12 and the degree is reduced for 18-24 twelvemonth olds ; jobseeker’s understanding is introduced. 2001Children’s Tax Credit introduced – a revenue enhancement allowance for those with kids. 2006The Government’s White Paper Security in Retirement proposes an increasing retirement age, personal nest eggs histories, and a basic province pension uprated in line with net incomes from 2012. 2008Welfare Reform Act 2007 comes into force. Equally good as doing minor alterations to profit statute law, it introduces a Local Housing Allowance to simplify Housing Benefit for in private rented renters. Analysis the quality of life for the service users have improved over clip The authorities has recognized the positive part of service users in societal attention planning and development of society. Service users are taking active and effectual portion in societal attention and wellness attention services. The societal theoretical account of disablement was made cardinal for service users by the authorities. It became the demand of independent life. Service users are interested in what work can assist them to carry through their intents and better their life. Examination of the past and current societal policies related to the wellness and public assistance demands of the population of United Kingdom during the period of political alterations and passage during and after the World War 2. The authorities took back the authorization of the local authorities board and national wellness insurance committee in 1919 under the accoucheuses act. There was some issues that roses by some groups interested in wellness and societal public assistance which affected their life as in Unemployment Poverty Health insurance Mental wellness Maternal and infant mortality Nowadays the authorities has taken some major public assistance plans for human well-being. Some of them are as Social Insurance Programs- It is concerned with the anterior net incomes and paysheet part which is based on pecuniary demand of a human being. Unemployment insurance- It provides fiscal support to an person when they are unemployed. Workers’s compensation- this is the 3rdof import plan. It says workers should be compensated if they are affected by fatal hurt from work or for other relevant standards. They besides should acquire medical aid. Explanation of the alterations in ideological attack since 1945 have impacted on modern-day societal policies After 1945 there had been a extremist alterations in assorted facets as in adult females rights. The authorities gave adult females the equality in the society. Children were being abused before 1945. The authorities had passed a jurisprudence that prevents it. Nowadays these kind of Torahs are practiced across the universe. Designation and application schemes to happen appropriate solutions Very specific regulations should be developed to happen a more accurate solution Heavy brainstorming to recognize the nucleus jobs Develop a long term program to increase societal consciousness Contemplation of work and justification of decisions Prior to the 1945 societal policy rules and patterns in the society was obscure. After 1945 societal policy was acquiring into form which is contributing for human public assistance. The society is acquiring the good impact of societal policy by recognizing and back up those policies. Undertaking 2 Key wellness and societal policy legalisation and short treatment about how the political leaders managed the station war societal public assistance policies Parliament is the lone house in where jurisprudence can be passed by the parliament members. This procedure starts with a measure of act base on balls through in the parliament. This act can originate from the parliament member or civil society or any other beginnings. If the authorities agree these proposal so it will set before the parliament. It will come up in the treatment on the footing of importance and dependencies.by formal regulations this should undergo with audience procedure. If the maximal parliament member supports the act, they will give their consent. And they set a class of action about wellness policies. After this the act can merely come in the whole system and the people should obey this act. There are some factors that affects wellness including biological factor, populating criterion and nutrition factor. Very important factors impacting United kingdom’s people wellness are smoking, association for intoxicant, bad diets and deficiency of exercising. If people are willing to alter their attitudes toward wellness so it is really easy to extinguish those factors to harm people. The modern-day political relations is a influential factors that can act upon the policy shapers to develop policy for their ain involvement. After the 2nd universe war the authorities of United Kingdom had introduced a station war consensus which covered the mix economic system, Bolshevism, unemployment, foreign personal businesss etc. after 11945 the authorities had launched some lodging policies to rehabilitate people. They opened a window to construct up educational centres, lodging undertakings, medical centre etc. the chief aims of lodging policies is that construct a friendly vicinity. The authorities intentionally extinguish the restrictions and reconstruct a free economic system to stabilise the state. B. Measure the impact of these policies and results Basically wellness attention and societal attention is the fact which is related to ‘care services’ . But it should be segregated from political relations and the current authorities. The UK authorities is profoundly focused on the separation of societal and wellness attention. If these two organic structures separated so it causes a major job in the society. It affects the society severely. It increases the medical intervention charge and other societal installations. The UK authorities intends to bind these Ts: two entities together. The authorities ensures that service users benefited by holding: Schemes for wellness publicity Health and safety Manual handling Data protection Food handling Care pattern Mental wellness Children Disability Design and use appropriate methods To do a successful design of societal policy some elements are to be considered. They are depicted below- Finding out factors that can impact the policy Analyze the environment in where the policy will follow Choose appropriate people doing policy To use policies the authorities should develop a proper system so that the policy can convey the proper result. There would be some drawbacks in the system. If the policy shaper take those drawbacks under consideration so it is expected to bring a better result. Duty for pull offing and forming activities Basically policy makes for the improvement of people. Each and every policy is a undertaking. It includes a immense undertaking to be done to convey outcomes. At first the responsible authorization should do a proper policy that can cut down obstructions from society. The authorization should take the duty to pull off the undertaking. To implement policy the authorization must form activities to follow the policy. Undertaking 3 Analysis the modern-day policy developments in Health and Social Care in the UK By and large, The UK government’s societal and wellness attention section works to plan a policy that delivers a societal attention system which enhances their self-respect and position, for all categories of people. The Government attempt to supply this installation in a broad scope as possible they can. They wanted to supply medical aid in wide scope for each people. Public wellness spheres and complementary wellness scenes are the current enterprises taken by the authorities. Besides those there are few policy that act every bit initiatives as wellness attention such as gender, cultural issues, disablement etc. for keeping that sort of policies, they has imposed some kind of ordinances. They were besides advancing their enterprises through local telecasting webs. They have besides taken enterprises in educational sector and nutrition sector. They did some educational runs and supply good diet charts for all. In those enterprises there is a opportunity to be linked up with a multi-agency partnership which creates 1000s and assorted sorts of occupation chance that can assist extinguish unemployment job. Evaluation the impact of the current policy enterprises on wellness and societal attention service users The United Kingdom’s authorities possesses a really impressive methods to guarantee that the policies, events and plans are practiced and delivered in broad scope in an efficient and effectual mode to peoples. The UK authorities committed to do grounds based policy. It is enrolled to UK authorities to possess a high quality policy rating. This procedure requires policy shapers and those individuals who will implement these policy to utilize the best available resources and grounds. Which is available in national statistics, national achieve, regulating agents etc. the authorities took over some scheme that includes public disbursement and revenue enhancement in the policy rating procedure. How can these policies to better quality of life of service users? The United Kingdom’s authorities tried to heighten the quality of life of their service users. For this purposes they took over assorted public assistance policy for their service users. Though it is a really hard undertaking to bind together these two entities, the authorities still making the occupation really expeditiously. If these entities breaks loose so many systems will be broken down. If those entities separated so those entities will be segregated and operated independently. Ex- infirmary discharge charge will be riser than old yearss if those two entities will segregate. This kind of policy can better the policy user’s life by take parting interested groups which works for their improvement. And these work as their representative in wellness attention system. They can besides take part in public hearing procedure and publically appointed councils as a member. Undertaking 4 Evaluate recent developments in Health and Social policy The authorities of United Kingdom supply a good finance to wellness and societal attention section to develop rules and guidelines to guarantee the societal public assistance for human well-being. The most recent and of import – Public wellness The authorities took some tough action against smoking. They banned smoking in public topographic points, banned tobacco advertisement in some topographic points. Under 18 elderly people could non purchase coffin nail from stationary store. They imposed baccy company to attach graphical warning about bad effects of coffin nails in coffin nail packages. By taking those actions England had the control over baccy. The bosom onslaught rate had fallen to 211 % . At last the public wellness position is in a good status due to this policy devising. Children and households The authorities launched every kid affairs project for the improvement of every kids. This undertaking introduced a new attacks for the well-being of kid, start at the clip of taking birth. Child protection After the decease of Victoria climbie the societal worker started to work on protection of child issue. They wanted a great communicating system between constabulary, instruction and children’s services. There was a positive result of their work. Social attention Social attention was so much neglected by labour authorities. Finally, the societal came into their ain way in 2005. In that clip the antediluvian system split up and the kids service section was created. They took some advanced policies that brought advantages to people. That was the twelvemonth at that place was a turning concerned issue about older people. Several politicians was profoundly concerned about older people when they were retired from occupation. Politicians brought the issue into lamplight. Then they took over some enterprises for the improvement of older people. Condemnable justness In the last decennary the universe sees the extremist alteration in the condemnable justness sector. The figure of prison officers is being increased by authorities for supplying a good care to the felon. The prison and probation installations is besides been increased. In 2000 there was around 24000 prison officers look after 65000 captives. And now there is around 29000 prison officers for looking after 85000 captives. There is crisp addition of condemnable offense, brought them to the justness. So there is monolithic additions in fixed P [ punishment mulcts. Analysis the differences in formation and acceptance of societal policy enterprises from other positions The societal and wellness attention policy has emerged in 20Thursdaycentury in United land. To do a great state the authorities provides assorted public assistance benefits to the citizen as in educational installation, communicational installations, wellness services etc. Health attention services has controlled by the private sector in USA. The authorities has launched some occupational insurance policy to command the wellness attention services. The USA authorities does non take part in those undertakings. In Japan, they are besides every bit like as USA. They besides gave these undertakings to the private sector. The private sectors operates wellness attention services and develop policies for the improvement of their citizens. There are many states like western Europe, the wellness attention system is operated by both private sector and province. The province makes policy and private bureaus comply those policies. It is a good scheme to hold control over the whole wellness attention system. In Waless, the wellness attention system is patient centre focused. The authorities is apt to reply to all citizens in this system. There is some communities responsible for doing rules, regulations and policies. In Scotland they follow a different system. There is a contract between authorities and single citizens. In England the policy ensures the betterment of wellness attention services rater t5han the policy. The system is maintained by a contract between the authorities, services and the clients. Why national Health and Social policies need altering over clip to react to the emerging social-political and economic tendencies The policy can’t be framed by some regulations or rules. It is ever a affair of alteration. The universe is altering twenty-four hours by twenty-four hours bit by bit. So the old system can’t work in the new changed universe. New policies should be developed to accommodate with the new universe. Otherwise the system will fall in down. Every twenty-four hours there are some new jobs comes into the lamplight that should be dealt with. Harmonizing to Margaret Thatcher ‘We offered a complete alteration in direction’ . Changes should be done in a way that brings the benefit to the service users and to the statute law for the accomplishing their ends. we see that there is rapid growing of population, technological revolution is taken topographic point. In this state of affairs the old policy arises a at odds issue with these. Although any policy that involves with important alterations related with major cost that will necessitate political support accomplishment s but that should be done one twenty-four hours to get by with the altering universe. Decisions Since 1945 the authorities has recognized the value of societal public assistance and policy. The people of the nation’s understood the importance of the societal public assistance for increasing their criterion of life, self-respect and opportunity of populating independently. The UK authorities made some important landmarks in assorted sector after the Second World War. They increase the adult females rights. The political leaders lead the state in the economic adversity after Second World War. They made some important act to better the parliament act. They introduced some act such as wellness act and societal attention act. In that clip the authorities was profoundly concerned about those two entities as in wellness attention and societal attention. They are intended to bind them with each other. The UK authorities ever tried to distribute out the public assistance undertaking to every citizen of the state. Besides the medical aid they besides did some educational run and t ook some societal consciousness undertaking. In the blast decennary we saw some betterment in wellness attention and societal sector. There is been alteration in public wellness, condemnable justness, protection of kid, immature and old people issues. In every state there are some kind of societal policy are possessed. Many states are in contract between citizens. Many states transferred this occupation from public to private sector. In the border of globalisation everything is altering quickly. In the age of technological revolution the policy can non be fixed in old mode. The policy should be changed with the altering universe to make better for people.

Depression and Life Satisfaction Essays

Depression and Life Satisfaction Essays Depression and Life Satisfaction Essay Depression and Life Satisfaction Essay The correlation between depression and life satisfaction for older adults was examined using questionnaires. Four hundred and one older adults (age 65 and above) filled out two questionnaires that assessing depression and life satisfaction, as well as two irrelevant questionnaires that were used to prevent from guessing the hypothesis. As hypothesized, significant negative correlation was found between depression and life satisfaction for older adults. However, the strength of the correlation was quite low. This might due to the inadequate use of questionnaires or participants’ characteristics. Keywords: depression, life satisfaction, older adults Effect of Depression on Life Satisfaction for Elderly Population People who are suffering from depression tend to have a negative view of life. Consequently, they generally have lower level of life satisfaction as well. Previous research has suggested a strong negative correlation between depression and life satisfaction. That is, as one gets more severe in his depression symptoms, his overall life satisfaction will decrease dramatically. For example, in one study conducted by Headey, Kelley and Wearing (1991), the participants completed a series of questionnaires assessing their general life satisfaction, positive affect, anxiety and depression. They found that â€Å"one of the well-being (psychological) dimension, life satisfaction, is quite strongly and negatively correlated with a distress (psychological) dimension, depression; life satisfaction and depression are near opposites† (p. 63). This result was not only limited to one study. In the early studies, Frisch, Cornell, and Villanueva (1989) also obtained significant negative correlations between life satisfaction and depression. Furthermore, Frisch et al. explored the underlying process of the relationship between depression and life satisfaction. They suggested that depression was a combination of negative self-evaluation and hopelessness, which in turn were â€Å"based on repeated failures to fulfill aspirations and meet personal standards in highly valued areas of life (life dissatisfaction)† (p. 92). Recent research suggested that one of the most susceptible groups to depression was the elderly population. According to Socio-emotional Selective Theory (Carstensen, 1992), as individuals age, they desire less social stimulation and novelty, and tend to select close, reliable relationships to meet their emotional needs. However, since access to close relationships was not always readily available for elderly people, loneliness might be a result. Consequently, there was a potential risk of developing depression. Additional research supported this theory. In his study of elderly and depression, Alexopoulos (2005) argued â€Å"psychosocial adversity, including economic impoverishment, isolation, caregiving, and relocation, tended to contribute in psychological changes, thereby further increasing susceptibility to depression or triggering depression in already vulnerable elderly individuals† (p. 1961). Both arguments were plausible in explaining the reason why older adults were the easy target of depression, and they also led us to a question – was the correlation between depression and life satisfaction for elderly population just as strong and negative as the general population? We have to recognize that the elderly population is somewhat different from the general population. Most people who comprise this group have accomplished their careers and start enjoying the relaxing later years of their lives. After all, it is time to taste the fruit of their labor. Therefore overall, elderly individuals should have more sense of achievement and therefore a higher level of life satisfaction than general population. However, as discussed before, the elderly group is also more likely to be vulnerable to depression. The deterioration in health, loss of established interpersonal relationships, and a sense of weakened control over one’s life, all could be the contributions to depression (Chao et al. , 2006). In addition, the decrease in energy and slow-paced life style may also make some elderly people feel hard to cope with. Under these unique circumstances, will depression still exert a strong influence on the perception of life satisfaction, or the feeling of achievement will override the feeling of loneliness? The current study explores possible relationship between depression and life satisfaction for older adults. Specifically, it is hypothesized that for older adults, higher level of depression is strongly associated with decreased life satisfaction. Method Participants Four hundred and one older adults (177 males, 224 females, Mage = 72. 98 years, age rage: 65. 23 – 94. 24 years) were recruited from doctor’s offices during their routine physicals in Ontario, Canada. The participants were predominantly White (92. 3%), with some Black (7. 7%) patients as well. One percent of the participants were disabled either physically, visually or audibly. In this case, the surrogate of the disabled participant could assist him to complete the study. The rest of the participants were relatively healthy and no participant was having a major health concern. Almost all of the participants (99. 1%) lived either in a house or an apartment, with only 0. 9% lived in board and care home, or other arrangements. A majority of the participants (87. 1%) were retired or were homemakers. Nonetheless, there was still a considerable proportion of participants (12. 0%) working at either a full or part time job. The participants and their surrogates were both compensated with 10 dollars for their participation. Materials and Procedure Center of Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) Short form developed by Andresen et al. , (1994) was used in assessing depression in this study. The original CES-D comprised 20 items measuring the current level of depressive symptomatology, with emphasis on the affective component, depressed mood. The scale demonstrated a very high internal consistency for general population (? = . 85) and psychiatric patient population (? = . 90), as well as adequate test-retest reliability (correlation range: . 45 . 70). CES-D Short form consisted 10 out of 20 items from the original scale that was aimed to test for reliability and validity among well older adults. Items without high correlation to the total score or items deemed redundant by high correlations to each other were eliminated to form the 10-item version. The response to the CES-D ranged from 1 (rarely or none of the time) to 4 (most or all of the time), and the total was calculated by summing across items and dividing by the total number of items (10). Patients who had a total of 10 or higher on the CES-D were classified as possessing a high number of depressive symptoms. Life Task Participation/Satisfaction Questionnaire developed by Harlow Cantor (1996) was used in assessing participants’ level of life satisfaction. The first part of the questionnaire, Participation, comprised 33 activities that fit into 8 clusters: social activities (e. g. informal visiting with friends or neighbors); mass communication use (e. g. reading books); building knowledge (e. g. reading professional publications); home activities and hobbies (e. g. home repair or maintenance); artistic activities (e. g. playing or singing with musical group); activities outside home (e. g. ttending sporting events); service activities (e. g. community service); and games (e. g. board games with others). Participants indicated the extent to which the participated in these activities on a four point scale ranging from 1 (never) to 4 (frequently). In the second part of the questionnaire entitled Life Satisfaction. Participants indicated their level of satisfaction on a five point sca le in the following eight areas: paid work, hobbies and recreation, marriage, children, friendships, community service activities, participation in cultural activities and religion, where 1 = extremely satisfying and 5 = not at all satisfying. Finally, in the last part of the questionnaire, Prior Life Satisfaction, participants indicated how satisfied and important they felt with each of the following domains: occupational success, family life, friendships, richness of cultural life, and service to society. The response was recorded a five point scale, where 5 = Extremely satisfied / Extremely important and 1 = Not at all satisfied / Not at all important. Procedure CES-D and Life Task Participation/Satisfaction Questionnaire, along with two other irrelevant questionnaires were administered to the patient and his surrogate at the same time in the doctor’s office after the patient finished the physical examination. The purpose of the irrelevant questionnaires was to prevent the participants from guessing the real hypothesis. If the surrogate was absent, a copy of the questionnaires would be mailed to him with detailed instructions (e. g. how to fill out the questionnaire and how to mail it back). If the patient was unable to physically complete the questionnaires, his surrogate could record his response for him, but could not complete the questionnaire for the patient. There was no time limit on completing the questionnaires and the patient and his surrogate were not allowed to communicate. At the end of the study, both patient and his surrogate received a compensation of 10 dollars. Results Six participants’ partial data were missing and therefore excluded from the analysis tests for those variables of CES-D. The dimensionality of the 10 items from the CES-D short form was analyzed using principal axis factoring analysis. The scree plot indicated that the CES-D short form was one-dimensional. This result was consisted with what CES-D designed to emphasis on – depressed mood. All the correlations were greater than . 30 except for one item: â€Å"sleep was restless† (r = . 189). This item differed in content from the other nine items in that sleeplessness was not exactly a depressive mood, but more of an outcome of depressed mood. Based on the result, this one item assessing the outcome of depression was eliminated from the scale. All the item-total correlations for the revised nine-item scale were greater than . 0. The revised scale was retained the name â€Å"Depressive Mood† to reflect the content of the items. The internal consistency estimates of reliability were computed for Depressive Mood scale using coefficient alpha. Value for coefficient alpha was . 78, indicating satisfactory reliability. Similarly, the dimensionality of the eight items from the Life Satisfaction part of Life Task Participation/Satisfaction Questionnaire was analyzed using principal axis factoring analysis. Based on the scree plot, two factors were rotated using Direct Oblimin rotation procedure. The rotated solution yielded two interpretable factors, satisfaction with personal life and satisfaction with interpersonal groups. No items loaded on both factors. The internal consistency estimates of reliability were computed for Life Satisfaction scale using split-half coefficient. For the split-half coefficient, the scale was split into two halves such that the two halves would be as equivalent as possible. In splitting the items, we took into account whether items assessing the satisfaction of personal life or the satisfaction of interpersonal groups. One of the halves included items â€Å"how satisfying is paid work,† â€Å"how satisfying is community service, â€Å"how satisfying is culture,† and â€Å"how satisfying is religion,† while the other half included items â€Å"how satisfying are hobbies,† â€Å"how satisfying is marriage,† â€Å"how satisfying are children,† and â€Å"how satisfying are friendships. † Values for split-half coefficient was . 52, indicating a low internal consistency. Note that for Life Satisfaction scale, eight indicated â€Å"not applicable. † Therefore in factor analysis and reliability test for Life Satisfaction scale, the data of the participants who indicated â€Å"not applicable† were excluded. The reason why they were excluded was because an indication of eight could be a large influence on the mean and therefore the results would be misleading. More than half (68. 1%) of the participants’ data were excluded for this reason. The results shown above were based on 128 (31. 9%) valid cases. Pearson Correlation coefficients were computed between two items: CES-D total for patients and total life satisfaction for patients. The test was based on 393 participants, with eight participants excluded from the analysis due to their missing data. The result of the correlation analyses was significant, r(391) = -. 1, p = . 0125. This result suggests that there is a negative correlation between depression and life satisfaction. However, the relationship between these two variables is weak. Discussion The finding from the current study indicated that for older adults, there was a significant negative correlation between depression and life satisfaction, despite the relationship was weak. It supported the hypothesis of higher level of depression would be associated with decreased life satisfaction. However, the finding failed to support the hypothesized strength of the relationship. This result was consistent with the findings of Headey et al. (1991) in terms of direction, but not strength. This might indicate that the questionnaires used in this study were not fine enough to discover a high correlation between the two variables in reality. A replacement of one or both of the questionnaires could be taken into account in future studies exploring the relationship between depression and life satisfaction. The low correlation might also due to the characteristics of the participants. For example, the participants were predominantly (92. 3%) White and almost all of them were living independently. Consequently, a replication of the study to other ethic groups was necessary before generalizing the finding to other populations. Similarly, almost all the participants (99. 1%) lived independently in a house or an apartment. Therefore, a replication of different living arrangements could be conducted as well. The result of the current study supported that an increase in life satisfaction could result in a decrease in depression. This might gain some insight into the treatment for depression for older adults. That is, the treatment for depression could be directed towards increasing in life satisfaction. For example, engaging in extensive social interactions or employment could make one feel fulfilled and satisfied, and therefore decreased the likelihood of developing depression. Previous research supported this implication. A study conducted by Aquino, Cutrona, and Altmaier (1996) suggested that social support, as well as participation in paid and volunteer work, were significantly and positively related to life satisfaction within elderly populations, with volunteering activities â€Å"significantly related to higher levels of social support. In summary, the current study yielded partially similar results to previous research. That is, there was a negative correlation between depression and life satisfaction for older adults, but the relationship was weak. Therefore in general, life satisfaction seemed to be a good indicator of signs of depression for both general population and elderly population. Furthermore, future research could explore whether gender difference will affect th e direction or strength of the relationship.

Colgan Air flight crash Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Colgan Air flight crash - Essay Example Based on the investigations from the National Transport Safety Board (NTSB), the accident was as a result of the pilot not being able to respond to stall warnings in a proper manner. There is high probability that the plain crush was as a result of improper training of the captain. It is the families of the victims that brought about a significant improvement in American flights; â€Å"Due to a tireless campaign from the families of the victims on that flight, the Federal Aviation Administration, or FAA, announced [†¦] it would increase the qualification requirements and training standards for pilots...† (Johanson, 2013).As a result of the Colgan air crash investigation, the major change that was made involved issuing of a new rule that outlines enhanced pilot training measures (Schaal, 2013). According to the rule, should any pilot fail to satisfy any form of performance milestone then the commercial airline for which the pilot is working should track their remedial trai ning. According to the new FAA pilot training standards, enhanced pilot training, training on runway safety procedures and dealing with crosswinds must be put in place to prevent faults such as poor response to flight stall warnings (Schaal, 2013). Adjustments have also been made on co-pilot qualification standards. The co-pilots must complete not less 1500 hours of their training in order to qualify for the Airline Transport Pilot Certificate. It is only until then that they can be allowed to fly a commercial plain.

Writer's selection Personal Statement Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Writer's selection - Personal Statement Example She reminded me that I would become a resourceful person that everyone in the society would be looking for if I By inculcating good virtues into my lifestyle if I would inculcate good virtues into my lifestyle. As far as picking ‘Communications’ as my major is concerned, I have to admit that I had considered reasons in my mind at the time I was joining Seattle community College. In this respect, I have to mention that my very first reason was to be able to interact with all the diversified persons living in Hong Kong. Fundamentally, Hong Kong is a metropolitan with diverse cultures that are autonomous hence ‘communications’ will play a major role when it comes to meeting new people from various backgrounds. The second reason as to why I chose communications as my major is the fact that I like to get out of the comfort zone. This was particularly evident when visited Los Angeles for 3 weeks in July 2010 as an exchange student. I deemed it essential to learn certain skills of communicating with various personalities. Lastly but more importantly, I picked communications as my major is because I like communicating with people and discovering new things. When it comes to my professional experience, I find it worthy to mention that I have participated in quite a number of initiatives that have added significant value to my personal and professional life. For instance, between January 2013 and March 2013, I volunteered as a teaching assistant at ACRS (Asian Counseling and Referral Services). In that capacity and organization, I acquired excellent interpersonal and interpersonal skills. Moreover, I carried on with the volunteering work from April 2013 to June 2013 Arts Corps. I gained invaluable knowledge during the two-month period that I still hold dear to date. My third place where I gained invaluable experience was at CJR where held the position of an Education Consultant. In this position, I played several roles including