The secret of success

During the past few years, the economic recession has enormous effect on businesses. Many big and strongly-financed corporations were suffered severe losses and had to declare bankrupt.

Automakers have also been affected badly by the spreading financial crisis which caused the sharp decrease in demand, and led to the industry’s big losses. While other big corporations like GM or Ford laid off their workers to cut costs, Toyota went the opposite way as what Toyota plans for is long-term development, it does not lay off workers when things go down, and tries to give long-term security jobs for their staff. The estimated costs of keeping their workers when sales is really significant to the company at that time, however, according to Toyota, human resources is their most valuable asset which takes times and money to build up. Instead, in order to survive through this hard time, the company chose to downsize its scale and halt all of the expanding plans. On the other hand, the company also asked their employees to share the difficulty with the company by accepting lower benefits, reduced bonus, and lower other kinds of their current interests at least until the condition get better.
In fact, the negative effect of the financial crisis is just a short-term issue whereas the investment in human resources is a long-term investment which will bring back unimaginable long-term benefits. By keeping the current well trained workforce, Toyota is always ready to return to its full production with all the well trained workers when the crisis is over. Moreover, Toyota’s move also makes its workers feel grateful and be more loyal to the company which did not turn the back on them in their most difficult time. And in return, they will devote more of their time, their skills, and knowledge to the company. With such highly trained and motivated workforce, Toyota can develop more and more.

The key to success of small businesses

Every business has its own problems, and small businesses are not an exception. The issues of small businesses normally come from two main reasons: the lack of capital and credit, as well as the weaknesses in management skills. However, it does not mean that small businesses cannot compete with larger firms. The key point is that small businesses should identify which are their strengths and weaknesses, and then use the strengths to make up for the weaknesses. One golden rule for small businesses is that never try to compete with large firms in their markets because the big corporations often have stronger financial status, have more experiences, and more human resources, moreover, they are often the market dominators in their own market. Instead, small business should focus its limited resources on the niche markets in which it has comparative advantages over large firms.
One other important advantage of small businesses is the close relationship between the firm and the customers whereas the bureaucratic of a large company tends to eliminate the link between management and customers. This kind of relationship helps small businesses have a better awareness of the customers’ needs as well as a more exact prediction of the trends in the market. By having an accurate forecast about the changes in the market, the firm will be more proactive in setting appropriate plans to deal with these fluctuations. Furthermore, the company can take advantage of this connection as an effective way to advertise for their products as mouth-to-mouth advertising is always the best advertising.

Problems that Target is facing...

The first issue is the top-down management style at Target, in which top-level management plays a vital role in the company’s operation, the company’s top 600 positions are now directly chosen by its CEO. As a result, the retirement of its CEO – Ulrich, who has led the corporation very well during his term of business, will leave Target and its new CEO with a lot of issues especially in the current gloomy economic situation.

Secondly, the fierce price competition from Wal-mart left Target no choice but find its own style to survive and to keep its market shares. While Wal-mart was and is now very successful with its everyday low-price strategy, Target finds that it cannot operate that way nor run a “bifurcated strategy” (one focus on low-price and one is its traditional strategy). Instead, Target decided to pay more attention to innovation, design, and quality, which was then Target’s motto “Expect more, pay less”, and it is exactly what customers expect when they come to Target.

Unique–designed products has become an advantage and has created Target’s brand, however, the company decided to open its SuperTarget which offers more consumable items such like food, and toilet paper in order to attract customers do their basic shopping at the stores. It would be a wrong choice of Target as it cannot compete with Wal – mart in term of food; however, Target persevered, hoping that this would even out economic cycles.

Target invests a large amount of money in marketing (from public relation like donation and sponsor activities, to advertising), and R&D activities. However, it is said to have had inconsistent merchandising, which even does not match the marketing. And despite all of Target’s efforts to offer its customers the lowest prices possible, buyers still think that Wal-mart is the cheapest. Furthermore, many of the firm’s unique products, which are considered Target’s advantages, are becoming familiar. All of these contribute to the lost of its market share to Wal-mart. In response, Target is making changes to focus more on prices, mainly in food and commodities. It also lowered the expected growth for 2008 to 2% to 3% per month. It goes against the emphasis’s of Target on design and quality, however, in the current weak economy, when people consider every dollar pay out and look for bargains, it is a reasonable decision.

Another problem of Target is its credit card business, especially in this hard time when people fail to pay for their loans. To reduce its exposure to credit, Target has negotiated to sell half of its credit card receivables which were about $4 billion.

How to learn vocabulary effectively?

Language is one of the biggest barriers of international students in integrating to the new environment. And vocabulary is one of the most important things in learning a new foreign language beside grammar, listening, and speaking as you cannot communicate with foreigners if you don’t know the words. In fact, there are a lot of ways to learn vocabulary.
Many people learn new words by writing them on pieces of paper and sticking them everywhere in the house. By doing it, the words appear many times in front of them, and they remember the words unconsciously.
Some other people improve their vocabulary by reading news, novels, and fictions. On one hand, they can update information as well as know more about history, economics or about other countries’ cultures depending on the kind of book they read. On the other hand, they can learn new words and the way words are put in specific context. It is more effective than just learn the words separately.
Another very interesting way to learn vocabulary is through listening to the music or watching movies. When you love the song, you can sing it and remember its words more easily and effectively than holding a notebook and studying word by word. Moreover, by listening music or watching movies, you can also improve your listening skill.
Actually, every person may have different learning methods that best suit him. Depending on your strengths, your hobbies you can choose the most effective method for you.

Internal vs External Recruiting

As we all know, human resources is one of the most important resources of an organization. In fact, the success of any businesses depends largely on the quality of the staff employed. Therefore, recruitment is a vital process that can decide the success or failure of a business. Recruiting employees with suitable skills can add value to the company.There are actually 2 main methods of recruiting: internal recruiting and external recruiting.

Internal recruiting occurs when the company looks for the new vacancy from its existing workforce, whereas External recruiting is when the company fills the vacancy from applicants outside the company.

From one point, internal recruiting is cheaper and quicker than external recruiting. Moreover, the employee is also familiar with the organization, and will be more quickly adapt to the new environment. From another point, it will limit the opportunity to find a new talent outside. Besides, it also creates another vacancy to fill in.

The advantages of internal recruiting are also disadvantages of external recruiting. If internal recruiting is known by its low cost, external recruiting requires a large amount of money for job advertisement, selection process, as well as job interview. However, it provides management with more choices; moreover, an outside person often brings in more new ideas than an internal staff who gets used to everything in the corporation.

Every method has its own strengths and weaknesses. Depends on the types of businesses, and the characteristics of the position, the management team can decide which is the best method that can maximize its strengths as well as minimize its shortages.

How can mentoring activities affect job performance?

Of many factors that affect the performance of a company, human resources is one of the most important ones. Unlike other assets which can be imitated or replicated, human power is singled out by its uniqueness, and irreplaceability. When other resources are the same, the company who possesses highly-qualified, highly-motivated staff is the winner. As a result, mentoring is an activity which equipped employees with suitable skills and knowledge in order to perform their jobs well, and to reach the organizational goals.
Mentoring will contribute to the job satisfaction as it increases the day-to-day interactions; along with improving the relationship between employees, as a result, leads to stronger social working environment. Job satisfaction, in return, will positively improve performance. Besides, mentoring activities can develop social skill, and encourage employees participate in citizenship behaviors. When an employee gets helps from another, he, in return, will be more willing to help others; it in general can strengthen the staff’s solidarity, enhance the staff’s moral, and of course, will improve job performance. In addition, the mentoring is the process of communicating and exchanging information, sharing experiences between employees; it can generally enhance the organizational learning, and increase the firm’s competitiveness.
Generally, staff is a “live” resource of an organization, so in order to keep them motivated, besides the physical factors like salary, compensation, or fringe benefits to satisfy their most basic needs, the firm also needs to focus on unphysical factors through job-related mentoring, individual recognition, performance awards, or power sharing to meet their higher needs and keep them motivated. The more a person feels he is respected and satisfied with the job, the more likely he devotes to it, and the more efficient the job performance will be.

How to improve the quality of human resources ?

There are many factors that affect the success of a company, among these are the external factors which the company cannot control like the economic condition, inflation, or rivals’ competition, and the internal factors which are under the management of the company like production process, technology, or personnel. One of the latter, human resources is the most valuable factor of the company. A successful company is the one, which has highly - qualified and highly - motivated staff. As a result, improving the staff quality is considered one of the most important missions of each company.
People are the most valuable asset, which can create the core value of an organization. Unlike other lifeless assets which can be imitated or replicated, human power is singled out by its creativeness, uniqueness and irreplaceability. The great industrial leader of General Motors has once said, “Take my assets, leave my people, and in five years I’ll have it all back.” Two companies can have the same scope of business with the same material and technology; however, they cannot have the same workforce with the exact skills and quality. With a large degree of assurance, we can say that the people make the business.
Research shows that 46% of business failures were due to wrong assignment and low spirit employees. As a result, every business has its own policy to recruit as well as to retain and promote the top – level talents. Basically, increasing the quality of personnel resources bases on hiring the right person for the right position, keeping them highly motivated, as well as getting the best from them. In order to reach these targets, on one hand, the recruiting process goes through many steps from short listing, quality testing, interviewing to professional training; on the other hand, a clear policy of benefits as well as promotion is drafted to satisfy the employees’ needs and desires.
In fact, there are many departments, with different kind of positions in an organization, which require people with specific skills, education as well as personality. The quality of workers 50% depends on the qualification of the people recruited, thus the selecting process has to go through very strict steps. First of all, it is the CV screening to drop out unqualified candidates. Secondly, a competence test should be carried out to check the real ability of the remaining applicants. A short-listed is then interviewed by the department heads to ensure that they are the most suitable person for the position. This is to minimize the probability of wrong hiring which is the main reason of dissatisfaction and layoff in the future.
Once hiring the best people, the issue moves to how to understand employees’ needs and desire as well as how to match their needs with the goal of the company. We all agree that company operates for profit, so the less money is paid out for compensation, the more profit it may earn. However, in the long-term view, the staff’s loyalty as well as the real value they create also contribute much to the company’s return. The most effective way is to reward workers based on the result of work. The company can design a performance appraisal for their staff that is the process of evaluating the work result, the behavior of the employee as well as setting up a plan for improvement after that. Besides, organizations can also encourage the competition between staff by giving special prizes for the most productive or the most creative people of the month. It is one good method to improve the working moral as well as to push everybody work harder as once the basic needs are satisfied; people can totally concentrate on working.
Besides the physical needs, unphysical needs, such as the working environment, the relationship between the supervisors and subordinates, also have big impact on the working spirit. Most people in an unofficial survey think that their managers are unfriendly, unwilling to neither share their power, nor give their supporters the right to make decisions as they are afraid of the risk of losing their positions. Actually, nobody can handle everything by himself but work should be shared and so is the power. Giving rights to employees not just reduces the burden of management team but also make people at lower levels involved in the decision making process. That is the reason why decentralization is now a growing tendency in almost every big organization.
With today increasing trend of globalization, companies have to compete in the more challenging business environment in which things change and new technologies are introduced every single minute. As a result, to survive and to succeed in this fierce international market, companies must have world-class employees who are highly qualified and who can adapt quickly to the changes. Thus, continuous training is an essential part of a good human resources policy to help the workers acquire new skills, new attitude as well as the latest concepts in the industry. There are two main methods of training - on the job training and professional education. The first one is a kind of informal training in which the worker learns and gets experience through the process of work; it does not cost much as the employees learn when they are working, there is no need to hire a trainer or to organize a class. The second type is a more expensive one that requires a teacher and a number of people to form a classroom, the knowledge given is then more theoretical. These two methods should be carried on at the same time to substitute for each other, and to give people both theoretical knowledge as well as hands-on experiences.
Another reason that leads to the low effective work result is the boring routine work that repeats again and again every day, it will kill the creativity as well as the enthusiasm. Rotation is one of the good ways to solve this problem. After a specific time working at one department, a person has a chance to move to try other different positions in the company. It is a good opportunity to test people in different kinds of work, and a good way to refresh their feeling after a long time doing the same tedious work. The changes not only help worker realize which department is the best appropriate one for them but also make employees get used to the work of different departments, so that they can support to each other when needed. Some experiments carried out at many organizations shows that after the test, productivity increases by more than 30%; the number of innovations also grows sharply.
In conclusion, as human capital is one of the most important factors that creates the competitive advantage of a company, setting up and promoting a strong, skillful, and enthusiastic staff are vital goals of every firm. Depending on its scope of business, the typical characteristics, as well as the causes that lead to the low quality of personnel resources, each company should design a specific strategy that best suits its situation. Once the company can control this valuable asset well, it can easily succeed and get profit on the international market.