Sunday, January 26, 2020

Elements Of Quality Culture Management Essay

Elements Of Quality Culture Management Essay Indeed, quality culture starts with top management. There need to be top management leadership to drive this culture of quality across the organisation. For this to happen, business leaders and managers must have the commitment in setting up quality control programmes, strategic planning for quality and provide resources for quality. In addition, top management leadership role is also a distinguishing element of a quality culture. Adopting a democratic leadership style where workers are not punished for errors and failures and that continuous learning is what prevails in the organisation. Management attitudes should be towards treating employees as members and remove barriers of superiors or subordinates. This suggests to everyone that the work of all members of the company is important and adds value to the final outputs. Members of the organisation should focus on the purpose for which they are all here: To get better and better at creating that mutually beneficial relationship bet ween them and their customers. Therefore, the authority of the top management is to support the mutual interests of its team openly and conscientiously. Employee focus Understanding employee Employee, being the most prominent factor of production, needs to be given consistent attention by management. Their current skills and competencies (both technical and interpersonal) need to be assessed continuously through performance management programmes, the SERVE model for service competencies among others and training should be given as and when needed. Alternatively, managers must be attentive on the needs of employees with proper rewards and incentives programmes being conducted. For sustaining a quality culture, it is also vital to consider the non-work aspect of employees such as marital or family problems, financial or other social problems. Employee empowerment Management cannot on its own make quality a driving force of the organisation. Employees are those who are involved in processing and marketing the companys product. As such, employees should be empowered to make timely, accurate and valuable decision with regards to improving the quality of the companys product or service. Moreover, in some cases, empowerment may also in circumstances where the employee has to delegate some powers and authority to his/her colleagues with the sole aim of improving quality of service. However, effective empowerment involves appropriate training given to employees, management monitoring of the decision and review and feedback given to management. Involvement and participation of the employee Employee involvement programmes (EIPs) can take a variety of forms including: job participation, consisting of permanent programmes in which employees take a formal, direct role in decisions relating to quality issues; consultative participation with top management to improve their production lines, including long-term interventions like quality circles, employee suggestion schemes, brainstorming sessions, in which employees opinions are sought as managers engage in decision making regarding quality issues over the long term. On the other hand, employee participation will be at the board where discussions are held between managers and/or employees over issues that requires employees and/or management ideas and suggestions. Customer focus The impetus for quality improvement begins with the customer. Customers are drawn to products and services of a particular organisation because they feel their needs and expectations are met or exceeded by these products and services. The bottom line for the customer has always been whether he or she obtains the products and services desired. For this reason, a focus on customer needs and expectations is recognised as the key to quality improvement by Demming, Juran, Crosby, and other pioneers of TQM. Therefore, customer driven values would be firstly to adopt a user based quality approach whereby the quality is based on what the customer wants since he/she has always reason. Furthermore, there should be a change in management/employee attitudes as well; the door should always be left open for maintenance and advice. Continuous improvement and Innovation A quality culture requires organisations to embrace continuous improvement and kaizen throughout their processes. This approach assumes that employees are the best people to identify room for improvement, since they see the processes in action all the time. A firm that uses this approach therefore has to have a culture that encourages and rewards employees for their contribution to the process but to meet the highest standard possible at any time. In line with this continuous mechanism, management should allow room for innovation and creativity, work alongside the research and development, and invest massively in the development and new products based on customer requirements. Partnering with suppliers Suppliers are probably among the most important stakeholders for businesses in quest for a sustainable quality culture. This is because, the essence of quality starts with the inputs of production which normally constitute of a greater proportion of raw materials and components. The values that the organisation needs to holds vis-a-vis its suppliers are not as stakeholder but as partner for the longer term. Clear emphasis should be laid on the quality of raw materials. The organisation could make an agreement by having quality control officers at the warehouse of the supplier. In addition, quality is also about the delivery of inputs which requires the principle of just-in-time where raw materials and components arrives at the factory as and when needed therefore reducing the cost of storage but also keep the materials at the standard required for production. Performance measures Quality standards are imperatives if quality is to be consistent in an organisation. However, using quality standards as performance measures will give employees room for continuous improvement in their skills and competencies. The culture that needs to prevail in the organisation is that performance of employees needs to be assessed with regards to quality standards and not based on the quantities of output produced. Communication In order to have a dominant quality culture prevailing in the organisation, open, honest communication is vital. Dishonest communication is the kind of communication that leads to misunderstandings which frequently create problems on the job. In an environment where open communication is a stated value, such dishonesty in how people interact with each other makes little sense and therefore quality is reached in terms of conversations, discussion and sharing of ideas. Another essential element of a quality culture is empathy which is to do with proactively seeing the world from the perspective of others-other members of the company, customers, suppliers, the community. It is having a sense and appreciation of their problems, their abilities, and their behaviours. Finally, in connection with empathy, members of the organisation need to have active listening skills by suspending judgements. Team building Individual success depends on how everyone in the company works together, and the companys success depends on all individuals doing their work well. This crucial element of quality culture encourages the development of teams and teamwork when collaboration is appropriate to execute work. In organisations with this value, people examine the tasks that need to be done. They then look at the interdependencies among people involved and organised teams around these tasks. The commitment and inclination to teamwork in a culture with this value will indeed be naturally extended to suppliers and customers. Ultimately, the teambuilding exercise will help remove barriers and class differences among people and work towards implementing total quality across the organisation.

Saturday, January 18, 2020

Young Marriage

When I was a child, I used to play Barbie dolls with my sister. We spent hours playing and goofing around without having to think about life's difficulties and how things can be complicated by the time we were adults. At the early age of 17, I got married and it is a fact that â€Å"early marriage is not characterized only by happiness† (Lamanna & Riedmann, 2005, p. 225). I somehow overcame the obstacles and hardships in my life and I consider this as a significant accomplishment. The story of my life started when I left my parent's house when I was only 17. I lived with my boyfriend without the permission of my parents. Naturally, they disapproved of it and arranged for us to get married. It was a difficult decision to make, as I was only a high school sophomore at that time. In the beginning, everything was going as planned and I thought that being married was easy but this changed only after a couple of days. After time, we lost our jobs and had no money enough to pay our bills or even eat. We were not able to ask for support from our parents because when we first got married, they indicated that they would not give financial support. When my husband found a job, he spent his time going to bars after work and came home in the morning drunk. This became something that we argued about. I then decided to drop out of school because of the many problems at home. After six months, I got pregnant but I had a miscarriage during the third month. I believed that this happened probably because of all the problems I was encountering with my husband. By that time we moved in to a new home and our lives were starting to get better, I got pregnant again. My daughter was born premature and weighed only one pound. She had to stay in the hospital for three weeks before we were able to take her home. Overtime, she developed and grew into a very healthy and beautiful child. I decided to finish high school at home last year. At this time, I am interested in pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Criminal Justice. My husband and I have been married for eight years now and everything is going well, as he is also working for one of the largest construction companies in Chicago. We are planning to buy a new house this year. I am also pleased to report that our parents became very proud of us and the things that we have achieved. In summary, early marriage is not an easy thing especially when parents decide to let you be on your own. Couples have to work hard in order to make the marriage last. After all the obstacles that my husband and I went through, I believe that they are all worth it especially when our daughter says that we are the best parents in the whole world.

Friday, January 10, 2020

Marrige vs Cohabitation

Marriage vs. Cohabitation There are many people that say that getting married before living together is the best way to go. They have many negative things to say about living together also called cohabitation. Linda J Waite is one of this people, she has many negative things to say about cohabitation. She wrote an article called â€Å"The Negative effects of Cohabitation† where she states many down sides of cohabitation which I disagree upon. The three main things that I disagree upon are domestic violence, emotional wellbeing, and wealth.When it comes to hitting, shoving and throwing things, â€Å"cohabiting couples are more than three times more likely than the married to say things get that far out of hand she says in her article. Which I disagree it doesn’t matter if your married or not your partner will still hit you. ‘According to the American association for marriage and family therapy (AAMFT)† in almost 20% of all marriage, couples slap, shove, hit, or otherwise assault each other. Emotional abuse verbal threats, humiliation, or degrading remarks, and controlling behavior are more common.Once you’re married you have to obey your husband’s rules and if we don’t there will be consequences. Married couples are more likely to be in domestic violence in my opinion because they expect more from there couples. Since there married they have to listen and do more to keep the husband happy. â€Å"Marriage is, by design and agreement for the long run. Married people, thus see their relationships as much more stable as cohabiting couples do. † I also disagree with this saying that Linda j. Waite states in her article. The reason why I disagree is because there are many divorce rates now and days.If it was true what she says then there won’t be so many divorce rates. She says states that married couples are happier than cohabitating couples. She also states that children who are in cohabitating couples ar e less likely to succeed and this is a big lie in my opinion. For example, what about if we get married and then we live together, then we realize that the person who we once dated isn’t the person we actually married. Then we realize that we don’t want to be with leading to divorce. In the other hand cohabitation helps you learn the good and bad things about your partner before we ask the question.This can lead to a healthier lovable relationship prior to the one where we get married first then get to learn the good and bad things about our partner. As prior to her statement about the children, I disagree because I have many friends that live with cohabitating families their parents are married. They still go to school and they are being successful. We can’t blame cohabitation to someone being unsuccessful. In fact many children with married families become unsuccessful do to their parent’s divorce. Married couples link their fates-including their financ es. Linda j .Waite states that married couples benefit more in income if there married which I disagree. In fact, cohabitation offers similar benefits to marriage without the potential pain of divorce. â€Å"If you're just living together and if one of you decides they want to leave†¦ † said one participant, â€Å"you can leave and it will just be OK †¦ whereas if you're married you've got to go through lawyers and attorneys, and depending on the type of situation it is it can be an ugly divorce. † So no if were married we do benefit more in wealth it will be the same benefit because couples actually decide to do cohabitation to share expenses . ttp://www. theatlantic. com/health/archive/2012/02/the-marriage-problem-why-many-are-choosing-cohabitation-instead/252505/ People get married because they’re afraid of being lonely for the rest of their lives. There not realizing that by rushing into marriage that they can end up having a divorced life. When yo u live in cohabitation you have the liberty to leave when you want no broken vows. So do we rather want to have a divorced life or be happy that’s the question to ask ourselves before getting married? http://www. gwu. edu/~ccps/rcq/rcq_negativeeffects_waite. html

Thursday, January 2, 2020

The Effects Of Prenatal Exposure On Alcohol - 1389 Words

Introduction Prenatal exposure to alcohol can cause profound amounts of birth defects and mental retardation. Drinking alcohol is composed of ethanol, a flammable liquid, which is made by fermentation. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, alcohol can affect different parts of the human body such as the brain, heart, liver, pancreas, the immune system, and plays a role in cancer (NIH, n.d.). In the brain, alcohol can intervene in communication pathways, which affects how the brain works. Alcohol can cause many different heart defects and disorders such as cardiomyopathy, irregular heartbeats, stroke, high blood pressure and in some cases heart attack. Alcohol proves to be very damaging to the liver, especially in alcoholism. In many cases, the liver turns into scar tissue causing fibrosis and cirrhosis. Other liver problems can include having a fatty liver and alcoholic hepatitis. Alcohol-induced fatty liver disease, the first stage of alcohol-induced liver disease, occurs when fat is depositing in liver cells. Alcoholic hepatitis is very similar to fatty liver disease, although it presents with inflammation and scarring of the liver. Many alcoholic’s liver becomes so scarred that it is irreversible, which is called alcoholic cirrhosis. Alcoholic cirrhosis is the most progressive form of alcohol-related liver disease and presents as severe scarring, with termination of normal liver structure. The pancreas is also affected by long-termShow MoreRelatedThe Effects Of Prenatal Alcohol Exposure On Children1388 Words   |  6 PagesThe Effects of Prenatal Alcohol Exposure On average, one in thirteen pregnant women have admitted to consuming one or more alcoholic beverage in their previous thirty days of pregnancy (â€Å"Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders†). 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