Relationship between Instant Texting and Language Decline Essay

Relationship between Instant Texting and Language Decline - Essay Example It is common to find people busy with their phones in workplaces, in vehicles, in school, and in homes. This does not exclude streets, in which one can notice individuals walking heads down; perhaps text messaging or reading texts. With the increased use of mobile phones, a sensitive issue has emerged which concerns the over-use of text messages. According to David Crystal’s Texting, people extensively use instant messages, for their conversations, using abbreviations for most words (Crystal 15). An analysis of David Crystal’s works can establish the controversies associated with the relationship between language development and the increased use of text messages, for communication. The emerging issue of concern is whether the increased use of text messages has resulted in the decline of language, or whether it affects literacy. With respect to David Crystal’s works, text messaging makes extensive use of coded language which may be unfamiliar to non-users. Substa ntial understanding of the code language is of the essence for a mobile phone user to converse with friends using the code language. In the practice of text messaging, users condense multiple and single words via a technique which sees them replace words or syllables with digits or single letters. In the development of the coded language, used in text messaging, cell phone users may also get full of whole words within common phrases. The process of developing SMS language tends to be progressive; this has the implication that some phrases and words have been modified with time. For example, the phrase ‘Thank you’ has gone through three transitions which are ‘thanks’, ‘tnx’, and ‘tx’. The language used in text messaging is unconventional and can fall under a number of categories. G-Clippings, for instance, involves the removal of the letter g at the end of such words as ‘Going’ to read as ‘Goin’. The coded language can also fall under the shortening category in which some letters are omitted; for example, the word ‘after’ can be written as ‘aft’. In other forms, users contract the middle letters of various words while others make use of acronyms (Crystal 18). Others include the use of letter homophones, number homophones, and such non-conventional words as ‘nite’ for ‘night’. To some extent, the use of text messages results to a decline in spoken language. This is because the development of spoken language has a direct relationship with social interaction. In the era of technology, texting diminishes children’s ability to have face-to –face communication with others, a trait which affects them throughout the other developmental stages. Self-expression is a technique best acquired via practice; hence its development faces a significant degree of limitation from the mobile technology. The effect of this aspect is more pro nounced in the younger generation than the old generation. The childhood stage of an individual serves as the most appropriate time for learning; therefore, with the extensive use of text messages, children and teenagers may not develop adequate skills of spoken language. Research indicates that, with the introduction of latest technology, only a small proportion of teenagers talk face-to-face with colleagues, as opposed to the percentage of young people that sends texts several times in a day. Ideally, over-reliance on text messages, for communication, promotes social anxiety and shyness among children, a trait which extends even to the adult stage (Crystal 20). The mode of texting, stated by David Crystal, can significantly cause a decline in language with respect spelling. Ideally, individuals have

Human Resource Management in UK Hotel Industry

Human Resource Management in UK Hotel Industry 1 Introduction Human Resource Management is a consistent and productive approach towards the management of employees who are ‘valued assets to the organization. And managing resourceful humans requires a constant balancing between meeting the human aspirations of the people and meeting the strategic and financial needs of the business. Hence linking the HRM more explicitly to the strategic goals to improve the business and foster innovation and flexibility, thus serves the overall purpose. Through best possible use and application of HR policies in the organization, commitment can be encouraged thus leading to better performance, improve staff attitude and lower labour turnover, this is the ideal aim of the human resource practices which has been argued to neglect the fact that HR specialists and line managers have a major impact on how these HR policies are implemented at the hotels and whether all the HR practices are universally applicable. Human resource management is the techniques businesses incorporate to maintain an effective workforce to meet operational requirements. It is the organizational function that deals with issues related to people such as compensation, hiring, administration, organization development, employee motivation, wellness, benefits, safety, communication, performance management, and training. Human resource practices implemented in an organisation are used for recruitment, selection; training and development, reward management, performance appraisal etc. Human Resource Management strategically manages people and work place environment and culture. Effective HRM practices enable employees to contribute effectively and productively towards the attainment of the organizations goals and objectives facilitates overall company mission. HRM practices are one of the channels of communication for an organization with its employees it consists of the actual programs, processes and techniques. It conveys as to what the organization desires as valuable and appropriate behaviors. The workers on reception of such a message build up their own distinct perceptions and through a self-assessment (evaluation) process subsequently shape their attitude and behavior. For instance, if an organization implemented a training program for their workers, it will develop workers knowledge, skills and capability, and thus cultivate better employee commitment due to contented experience with the organization; however, such correlation may at times be misleading or unpredictable i.e. even though some employees may think this training as useful and recognize the implementation of organizational HRM practices, but on the contrary, other workers may see the program as non-effective and view it as a trouble that hamper their regular work timeta ble, hence this may work in an unintended way by bringing down their satisfaction with the organization and negatively effect their commitment. This is the very reason why employees individual view plays as a vital intermediary in the association between organizational HRM practices and the real disclosure of employees outlook and behaviors. Therefore, from this point of view, one can argue that HRM practices in its dominating effect alter an employees affective commitment, by first impinging upon their perception of organizational HRM practices and consequently further alter or transform their emotional commitment towards the organization. Thats why, by the means of implementation of high-commitment HRM practices, i.e. intensive training and development, high level of compensation, promotion from within, socialization, etc. convince the employees that the organizations purpose is in conformity with their insight, and it impinges upon them to reciprocate with advanced commitment and stronger deference to devote and put in for the organization. Therefore this research will try to establish a correlation between HR practices and their effects on employee commitment. The HR practices that will be examined in the research will be Selection and Recruitment Process, Training and Development programs, Performance management, Reward management and industrial labour relations. These are some of the main HR practices followed by the hotels aiming for the more committed team. But the researcher is interested in knowing whether these HR practices really result in more committed employees. And if these HR practices really result in committed employees then is it universally applicable in all countries of the world or all types of industries. These are some of the questions that have encouraged the researcher in conducting this research. 1.1 Research Aim The aim of this dissertation is to examine the HR practices implemented in UK hotels and their impact on employee commitment. 1.2 Objective The objectives of this research were to:- Examine the current HR practices prevalent in UK hotels. Evaluating these current HR practices against the existing literature to find out whether they match or not. Evaluating the factors leading to employee commitment and how many factors come by conducting HR practices in the company. 2 Literature review 2.1 Philosophy of Human Resource Management Human Resource Management is shifting its traditional stance from personnel, administration, and transactional roles, which are being increasingly outsourced. HRM is now focusing more and more towards adding quality and value to the strategic exploitation of employees and that employee development programs impact the business in tangible terms. This new approach towards revolution in HRM involves strategic direction and HRM metrics and measurements in tangible terms to gauge the effect of these practices. Some of the HRM practices studied in this project are selection, benefits, training, performance feedback, communication systems, standard operating procedures (SOPs) and employee participation. David E. Guest (1987) says that human resource management is the tool for attainment of the managerial objectives in the organizations that have accepted the need for the optimum utilization of human resource to achieve competitive advantage and stay viable in their businesses. The primary objective of HRM is amalgamation of companys mission and goal with the HR practices. David E. Guest argues that formulation of a comprehensive corporate strategy is a major factor that decides the continuing business success of any organization.For matured managers human resource planning is not just a fundamental component of strategic planning, but somewhat flows from it. This holds especially true in todays context where the accomplishment of the process of adjusting to change warrants an escalating level of individual and group participation, for the seamless integration of human resources into the strategic plans. HRM also focuses to attain employee commitment, this involves classification of the type of commitment required e.g. attitudinal, behavioral. Commitment of an employee can be at different levels it could be towards the organization, to his job, for individual career advancement and numerous such like things. Commitment in an employees context can be defined as approval of enterprise mission and goals, and could be reflected in behaviour adopted by him/her that furthers these goals. David further proposes that theoretically the combination of organizational commitment and job related behavioral commitment constitutes a high degree of employee satisfaction, motivates them for high performance, longer tenure with their organisations and prepares them to willingly accept changes. The third goal of strategic HRM is to exercise flexibility and adaptability, which basically translates into the ability to manage change and innovation and to react swiftly to transforming market demands and changes. Thus arises a need for a HRM policy which is favorable to change at all levels of the organization, an arrangement which is practical not bureaucratic, functional and adaptable, with an absence of rigid job divisions and with capable of functional flexibility i.e. flexible skills and motivation to move from one assignment to another. Promoting these is possible only according to David if the employees at all levels exhibit a high degree of organizational commitment, their trust towards the organizational policies and have high levels of intrinsic motivation. Attaining and maintaining total quality is the fourth goal of HRM. This highlights the importance of policies and practices to recruit, development and retention of skilled and flexible employees, and the formulation of established performance standards and performance procedures. This can be further subdivide into two broader goals i.e. building a integrated organizational culture and achieving and maintaining competitive advantage through the dynamic use of human resources. Guest (2002) has argued that the effect of human resource management practices on overall performance of a firm will depend upon response of the employees to the implemented HRM practices; therefore the impact will be more or less a translation of the perception of HRM practices by the employee. Wood (1999) and Guest (2002) have stressed upon the need to build a competent, committed and highly involved work force is the one required for best implementation of business strategy. Huselid (1995) discovered that the effectiveness of employees is directly related to the impact of HRM practices on behavior of the workforce. Patterson et al (1997) while arguing about the effect of human resource management practices on business performance have said that HR practices in selection and training influence performance by providing appropriate skills. HR practices have a potent impact on performance even if it just measured in terms of overall productivity. Huselid (1995) stressed that the adoption of best practices in selection will lead to inflow of best quality of skill set ultimately will result in adding to the value towards the skills inventory of the organization. He also highlighted the role of personnel training as an accompaniment of selection practices through which the organizational culture and employee behavior can be integrated with the organization goals to produce positive results. Cooke (2000) has included competence and effectiveness as the vital ingredients of performance apart from competitiveness and productivity. She further amplifies training as the tool to grow knowledge and skills and as way of improving individuals performance (efficiency and effectiveness). Singh (2004), whose interpretations are more pertinent in our cultural context, says that compensation is a mechanism that aligns the behavior of employees with the firms business strategy. William et al, have argued that Career planning is a tool that wo rks in sync with the strategy and future HR needs of the organisation and encourages employee to attain their individual goals for personal development. By encouraging employee involvement, the firm will profit from increase in efficiency of theemployee due to improved commitment of the employee. Financial participation schemes are more beneficial for the organizations than the associated cost (Summers Hyman, 2005). In high growth industry use of best HR practices result in a stronger association with firms productivity (Datta et al, 2003). Wright et al (2003) have said that if proper performance management system is in place and is complemented by a just compensation system that is linked with the performance management system an employee will exert unrestricted effort to improve his performance. Similarly to improve performance the need is to clearly define the jobs. â€Å"Job definition is combination of job description and job specification. It clearly outlines duties, responsibilities, working conditions and expected skills of an individual performing that job† (Qureshi, 2006). Ichniowski (1995) while studying productivity of steel workers have argued that harmonizing HR practice System positively effects employees performance.Sels,2006 Collins (2005) in a study of similar character targeting small business have also argued that efficient HR practices affect employee productivity to a great extent. Meyer and Allen (1997) indicated that HRM practices have been considered to be valuable and effective tools for elevating organizational commitment, especially affective commitment. However, there are some other perspectives also on this subject; De Coninsk and Stilwell (1996) argued that what directly influences employees affective commitment is not the actual practices itself, but the employee perceptions of fairness of practices that affects organizational commitment. Ogilvie (1986) found that, even with personal and work characteristics controlled, employees perceptions of two characteristics of HRM practices, namely, the accuracy of the merit rating system and the fairness of promotions, contributed to the prediction of commitment. Gaertner and Nollen (1989) also found that employees commitment was related to the perceived HRM practices, including internal promotion, training opportunities, and employment security. Ostroff and Bowen (2000) made use of â€Å"meso† theory t o explain that the implementation of HRM practices helped to amplify workers identification with their organization through employees psychological contracts. Therefore, just as what the above mentioned scholars stated, the HRM practices itself cannot have impact on employees commitment, it is after the implementation of the HRM practices that triggered employees own perceptions and then assess whether the practice is considered fair or favorable to them and consequently influence their attitudes and behaviors. Therefore, if the HRM practices that an organization implements permit the employees to acknowledge it as highly committed, consequently, this will lead to reinforced trust and concurrently generate higher emotional attachment with his/her serviced organization. Despite several experiential studies that have established a relationship between HRM practices and organizational commitment, however, such a connection seems to be a little too straightforward (Paul Anantharaman, 2004; Ulrich, 1997; Wimalasiri, 1995). Ostroff and Bowen (2000) projected that it was the psychological bond of an individual that unified how an organizational HRM practice influenced employees mind-set and behavior. This also entails that HRM practices may conjointly manipulate employees organizational commitment obliquely, and must go through by means of individuals psychological alteration system. Guzzo and Noonan (1994) said that â€Å"An organizations HRM practices influenced employee commitment since they are communications from the employer to the employee. How employees interpreted and made sense of their organizational HRM practices affected their psychological contract with their employer and, ultimately, their commitment to that employer.† Zucker (1983) also suppose that the organization members attitudes and behaviors are subjective and are governed by organizations official communication of ‘common understandings. Term common understandings denoting what were considered the appropriate, essential and meaningful behaviors within an organization. Basically, the official organization communication of common understandings will direct its members to alter their own personal attitudes and behaviors so that they can match organizational expectations and requirements. 2.2 Human resources practices HRM propose that there is a universal ‘one best way to administer people. By assuming a best practice method it is argued that organizations will attain improved commitment from people leading to better organizational performance, top levels of service quality and eventually boost in efficiency and profitability, Usually couched in terms of ‘bundles, the HRM practices that are offered in support of a high commitment and performance model are generally fairly consistent. A range of HR practices which are suggested as being important to organizational strategies aimed at securing high-quality service are:- 2.3 Recruitment and Selection One of the main and most basic HRM practice is of Recruiting and selecting staff with the correct attitudinal and behavioral characteristics. The process of selection is AIMED at picking out the most probable candidate from a bunch of applicants who best suites the needs of the organisation. According to Vlachos the person who is most suitable is chosen based on his educational and/or professional qualifications and the focus of the whole process is to decrease the cost for the organisation and employ such employees who have merit and talent and can maximize the profits. A variety of considerations in the selection process should be employed to assess the work values, interpersonal skills, personality and problem-solving capabilities of likely employees to evaluate their ‘service orientation. To maintain the high degree of competitive advantage an organisation requires capable and skillful personnel (Liao Chu 2006). Huselid (1995) has established that organisational productivi ty and high degree of performance is dependant upon the selection of the appropriate person, which is also a way to reduce employee turnover. Michie and Sheehan-Quinn (2001) recognized a positive link between hiring employees, and the creation of the appropriate culture for organisational growth. Cho, et al. (2006) established a positive and considerable connection between HRM practices adopted by a firm and the various recruitment selection techniques implemented like the recruitment resource, screening test, behavioural tests interviews i.e. structured and unstructured to improve the fiscal performance. Therefore, it made compulsory for the organisations to attract qualified candidates and recruit them for survival and growth. 2.4 Performance Appraisal Performance appraisal has attracted an immense degree of interest. Levin (1986) identified uses of performance appraisal, like potential analysis which assesses the performance of the employee in past, need for training, remuneration expectations- salary, employee merit appraisal, suggestion for and by the employee, employee career development etc. Thang (2004) in his study has shown as to effect of suitable HRM related decision on how well employees are performing their jobs. Performance appraisal is a constant procedure rather than a once a year fatigue. It is an official arrangement where periodical assessment of an individuals or teams performance for a particular task is carried out and a feedback is given on the same. Stone (2002) said that in order to survive in a highly competitive environment a firm must focus on improving its performance. In addition, in the fast changing surroundings, tighter finances, downsizing and demands for enhanced responsibility and accountability on the part of the employees and thus result in more emphasis on performance appraisal in order to enable the management to attain the organisational objectives. To achieve optimum performance requirements performance related rewards target those who meet the expectations of the organisation (Stone 2002, Cho, et al. 2006, Chand Katou 2007). Information in regard to employee salary, training needs, compensation, promotion as well as employee development, transfer and employee fe edback is provided by performance appraisal (Huber 1983). Appraisal systems have also moved away from conventional top down approaches to appraisal in more modern and pertinent terms such as customer evaluation, team-based performance, the appraisal of managers by subordinates and peer review. Generally, all of these performance appraisal methods should focus on the quality objectives of the organization and the behaviors of employees required for maintaining these. Performance appraisal has both administrative and individual development focus and organizations sincerity towards performance appraisal goes a long way in developing commitment and trust among people. Overall attitude towards HRM department is a significant predictor of organizational commitment. This aspect of HRM practice refers to how people see their HRM department, with respect, with disdain, with indifference and so on. It refers to the fact that the acceptance of various HRM practices depend largely on the overall image of the HR department. Hospitality industry needs to rely on the commitment of a well-trained, multi-skilled workforce in order to achieve a competitive position, especially in terms of providing high quality customer service. This suggests that hotels need to adopt HRM organisational practices that enhance the motivation of employees and improve organisational effectiveness. 2.5 Reward Management Huselid (1995) asserts that compensation and employee merit are directly related and finally contribute towards the firm outcomes. Compensation by its definition means all payments in terms of money and all commodities provided in kind i.e. instead of financial to recompense employees. The reward system was organized to attract and motivate so as to keep employees. More so, employee influence was tailored on controlled authority and decision making. The expectancy theory (Vroom 1964) suggests that rewards, that can be comprehended as a form of direct and indirect recompense packages, have the ability to manipulate employee work enthusiasm. Thang (2004) suggests that to achieve concerted efforts from the employees to fulfill the organisational goals compensation and reward can be used as powerful tools. On the same lines, Wan (2008) argued that compensation should be measured depending on employees performance not on the basis of position or seniority in the organization.Pay practic e is one of the tools of human resources management practices which manage wage, salary, pay and benefits etc. for the employees. Reward management has got an important role in HRM. A high level of pay and remuneration in comparison to that of rivals ensures the attraction and retention of high-quality employee, however this may impact negatively on the companys overall labor expenditures. Also by connecting pay with performance, the company can educe desired standards of performance as well as specific task orientation from employee (Noe et al., 2006). Generally, pay practice is very significant for the organizations and firms which can attract employees to apply for the job as recruitment. Attractive pay practices play a major role in attracting talent and are very helpful during the recruitment process. Similarly for the employees this means that they are required to show a continuously high level of commitment and performance in order to keep their jobs. Pay packages also have a degree of connection with the job satisfaction of an employee. Ting (1997) asserts that the job satisfaction can be gauged by the pay structure. He further explains two different type of effect of pay practices on job satisfaction; first is the satisfaction with pay itself and second is the satisfaction with financial prospects in the future. There is a venerable interest of these two things which are correlated with job satisfaction. Thus, it is pertinent to understand the relationship between job satisfaction and pay practices which eventually materializes in terms of higher productivity. Efficiency wage theories also suggest that paying higher wages can often result in increased efficiency. There are three main channels that are addressed in these theories that improve productivity, as described by Katz, 1987. Firstly it means that the harder the employees of an organization work higher will be the punishment for someone who is caught shirking and higher w ill be the probability of losing job of the employee getting caught. Thus higher wages means an increased effort on part of the employee due to the enhanced probability of losing job in a high performance environment. In other words, wage and pay practice are directly responsible for employees productivity and turnover. Secondly, a higher wage translates directly into workers loyalty towards organization thus improving employees efforts. Also it is a pertinent deduction that higher wage structure plays considerable amount of restraint on the employees to turnover their jobs. Thirdly, in more tangible terms higher wages are responsible for reducing firm employee turnover and recruitment costs. 2.6 Training and Development ‘Training and development (TD) is a very important tool of HRM (Vlachos 2008). According to Li, et al. 2008 Training is the set of activities which prepare the employees to attain needed skill sets and to deliver more efficiently in their current jobs. In the environment of todays business an employee is needed to cope with various pressures and are required to keep their skills and knowledge current to stay competitive. Tai (2006) asserts that more adaptability, ability, flexibility, motivation, maintenance of skills and efficiency are greatly enhanced by proper training and development of employees. According to Vlachos training and firms performance are indirectly related. In most of the manufacturing industry, the prevailing training programs are mostly unstructured on the job is the most preferred mode. Bartel (1994) in her study found a positive and significant relation between training and labour productivity. Guidetti and Mazzanti (2007) found that high performance and training activities are positively associated. It is also affected by labour flexibility in various directions. Apospori, et al. (2008) in their study of southern European countries have discovered the impact of training on firms performance. Equipping of service level staff enables them towards ‘service orientation. Training is the planned effort that facilitates the acquisition of job related knowledge, updating of skill sets, and impacts the behavior of an employee. In the implementation of HRM tools training is an important factor responsible for productivity. Higher productivity observed in firms is a direct outcome of training programs. â€Å"High-Involvementpractices such as autonomy, team collaboration, and training are helpful in reducing employee turnover and enhance productivity. Untrained workers tend to change job more often. An increase in high-performance work practices converts into decrease in turnover† (Bradley, Petrescu Simmons, 2004). Training programs are particularly helpful when an employer is experiencing a high degree of employee turnover more so during the times of economic uncertainty. Even during the times when the business is flourishing an organization should proactively earmark their investment for on the job training and other training programs balancing the cost of training with the perceived benefits of productivity. On the other hand, a trained worker has got the required skills and knowledge and can be a candidate for job turnover. Therefore, job satisfaction is crucial factor to retain the employee from shifting his jobs. Bradley, Petrescu and Simmons (2004) explained that job satisfaction can be effectively imoproved by creating on-going learning as well as training in workplace; moreover their study indicates that training increases satisfaction levels of an employee which in turn enhances employee motivation and commitment. Therefore it is argued that acquisition or knowledge or training has a positive impact on job satisfaction. 2.7 Traditional and Recent HR Practices in Hospitality Industry Keep and Mayhew (1999) in their study regarding the personnel problems in the tourism and hospitality industry some of them areas follow: low pay, no fixed hours and shift. Poor career growth, seasonal employment; informal recruitment methods; lack of good HR practice; high attrition rate and retaining employees. Riley et al. (2000) to recognize the reality of traditional and poor HR practices, he said that determining factor for HR policies and practices in tourism and hospitality industry is the key economics. Riley et al. says that it carries a very important meaning in tourism and hospitality industry, as in this service sector there is every thing which is intangible. According to (ILO, 2001: 6).Employers and the organizational representatives consider employee turnover in the industry as not the major issue according to them it is the part of working they have not realized that what are its causes and reasons, retaining staff is costlier than hiring new for them. When the organizations will realize that poor HR practices like low pay benefits, lack career opportunities, work life imbalance are the main reason employee turnover. That day the organizations will be successful in real terms. The inability of the businesses and the industry to recognize the most glaring issues can be attributed to the hostility and opposition from employers associations in the industry such as British Hospitality Association (BHA), to governmental initiative such as the minimum wage and working time directive. BHA is still apprehensive of these initiatives despite support from other quarters who favor these initiatives (Lucas, 2004). It is to a great extend clear from the above researches which supports the fact that tourism and hospitality industry is a poor employing sector. Kelliher and Perrett (2001), Kelliher and Johnson (1997) have clearly said that â€Å"the dominant paradigm has tended to stress the negative aspects of working in the hospitality sector†. It is not surprising to see a long history that supports the fact that hospitality remains a poorly employing sector. Kelliher and Perrett (2001) did an analysis of a designer restaurant. These types of ventures were supposed to be implementing sophisticated HRM approaches as they aimed at building competitive advantage. Although the restaurant had adopted a more modern and sophisticated approach towards, training and development and focused on an innovative strategy ‘there was little real evidence that human resources were seen as a source of competitive advantage (p. 434). Instead, the HRM approaches adopted by the restaurant were much more reflective of immediate environmental constraints, such as the difficulties in recruiting and retaining staff. In short, any number of reasons for poor HR practices in the tourism and hospitality industry. Economic determinism, the predominance of SMEs, a low-skills base, employer antipathy to a more progressive approach to HRM, labour market characteristics, organizations ensuring best fit HRM practices to support a high volume, low-cost strategy; all are plausible reasons for a view of HRM which is not necessarily premised on high-skills, high-wages and a high-quality route to competitive advantage. That said, it would be equally wrong to paint a wholly pessimistic picture. Hoque (2000). On his work of good practice in the hotel sector, says that the hotels have started taking the issues seriously and have come up with good HR practices for the employee commitment. He further says that argues that arguments which give a picture of the industry as backward and un strategic is now outdated, hotels have started taking it seriously as there main aim is customer satisfaction which is possible only through strong employee commitment. In fact, he says that the management has become very serious regarding the practices and polices of HR .The hotels have started experimenting with innovation approaches, quality enhancement of HRM polices and practices. The hotels industry has started paying well, have revised appraisal system, proper training programs for employees skills development, schemes for proper balance between work and life, special advantages to women, job rotation, employee empowerment, performance based pay, teamwork etc. the implementation of all th ese polices and practices helps in gaining employee commitment and customer satisfaction. The focus of hospitality Human Resource Management in UK Hotel Industry Human Resource Management in UK Hotel Industry 1 Introduction Human Resource Management is a consistent and productive approach towards the management of employees who are ‘valued assets to the organization. And managing resourceful humans requires a constant balancing between meeting the human aspirations of the people and meeting the strategic and financial needs of the business. Hence linking the HRM more explicitly to the strategic goals to improve the business and foster innovation and flexibility, thus serves the overall purpose. Through best possible use and application of HR policies in the organization, commitment can be encouraged thus leading to better performance, improve staff attitude and lower labour turnover, this is the ideal aim of the human resource practices which has been argued to neglect the fact that HR specialists and line managers have a major impact on how these HR policies are implemented at the hotels and whether all the HR practices are universally applicable. Human resource management is the techniques businesses incorporate to maintain an effective workforce to meet operational requirements. It is the organizational function that deals with issues related to people such as compensation, hiring, administration, organization development, employee motivation, wellness, benefits, safety, communication, performance management, and training. Human resource practices implemented in an organisation are used for recruitment, selection; training and development, reward management, performance appraisal etc. Human Resource Management strategically manages people and work place environment and culture. Effective HRM practices enable employees to contribute effectively and productively towards the attainment of the organizations goals and objectives facilitates overall company mission. HRM practices are one of the channels of communication for an organization with its employees it consists of the actual programs, processes and techniques. It conveys as to what the organization desires as valuable and appropriate behaviors. The workers on reception of such a message build up their own distinct perceptions and through a self-assessment (evaluation) process subsequently shape their attitude and behavior. For instance, if an organization implemented a training program for their workers, it will develop workers knowledge, skills and capability, and thus cultivate better employee commitment due to contented experience with the organization; however, such correlation may at times be misleading or unpredictable i.e. even though some employees may think this training as useful and recognize the implementation of organizational HRM practices, but on the contrary, other workers may see the program as non-effective and view it as a trouble that hamper their regular work timeta ble, hence this may work in an unintended way by bringing down their satisfaction with the organization and negatively effect their commitment. This is the very reason why employees individual view plays as a vital intermediary in the association between organizational HRM practices and the real disclosure of employees outlook and behaviors. Therefore, from this point of view, one can argue that HRM practices in its dominating effect alter an employees affective commitment, by first impinging upon their perception of organizational HRM practices and consequently further alter or transform their emotional commitment towards the organization. Thats why, by the means of implementation of high-commitment HRM practices, i.e. intensive training and development, high level of compensation, promotion from within, socialization, etc. convince the employees that the organizations purpose is in conformity with their insight, and it impinges upon them to reciprocate with advanced commitment and stronger deference to devote and put in for the organization. Therefore this research will try to establish a correlation between HR practices and their effects on employee commitment. The HR practices that will be examined in the research will be Selection and Recruitment Process, Training and Development programs, Performance management, Reward management and industrial labour relations. These are some of the main HR practices followed by the hotels aiming for the more committed team. But the researcher is interested in knowing whether these HR practices really result in more committed employees. And if these HR practices really result in committed employees then is it universally applicable in all countries of the world or all types of industries. These are some of the questions that have encouraged the researcher in conducting this research. 1.1 Research Aim The aim of this dissertation is to examine the HR practices implemented in UK hotels and their impact on employee commitment. 1.2 Objective The objectives of this research were to:- Examine the current HR practices prevalent in UK hotels. Evaluating these current HR practices against the existing literature to find out whether they match or not. Evaluating the factors leading to employee commitment and how many factors come by conducting HR practices in the company. 2 Literature review 2.1 Philosophy of Human Resource Management Human Resource Management is shifting its traditional stance from personnel, administration, and transactional roles, which are being increasingly outsourced. HRM is now focusing more and more towards adding quality and value to the strategic exploitation of employees and that employee development programs impact the business in tangible terms. This new approach towards revolution in HRM involves strategic direction and HRM metrics and measurements in tangible terms to gauge the effect of these practices. Some of the HRM practices studied in this project are selection, benefits, training, performance feedback, communication systems, standard operating procedures (SOPs) and employee participation. David E. Guest (1987) says that human resource management is the tool for attainment of the managerial objectives in the organizations that have accepted the need for the optimum utilization of human resource to achieve competitive advantage and stay viable in their businesses. The primary objective of HRM is amalgamation of companys mission and goal with the HR practices. David E. Guest argues that formulation of a comprehensive corporate strategy is a major factor that decides the continuing business success of any organization.For matured managers human resource planning is not just a fundamental component of strategic planning, but somewhat flows from it. This holds especially true in todays context where the accomplishment of the process of adjusting to change warrants an escalating level of individual and group participation, for the seamless integration of human resources into the strategic plans. HRM also focuses to attain employee commitment, this involves classification of the type of commitment required e.g. attitudinal, behavioral. Commitment of an employee can be at different levels it could be towards the organization, to his job, for individual career advancement and numerous such like things. Commitment in an employees context can be defined as approval of enterprise mission and goals, and could be reflected in behaviour adopted by him/her that furthers these goals. David further proposes that theoretically the combination of organizational commitment and job related behavioral commitment constitutes a high degree of employee satisfaction, motivates them for high performance, longer tenure with their organisations and prepares them to willingly accept changes. The third goal of strategic HRM is to exercise flexibility and adaptability, which basically translates into the ability to manage change and innovation and to react swiftly to transforming market demands and changes. Thus arises a need for a HRM policy which is favorable to change at all levels of the organization, an arrangement which is practical not bureaucratic, functional and adaptable, with an absence of rigid job divisions and with capable of functional flexibility i.e. flexible skills and motivation to move from one assignment to another. Promoting these is possible only according to David if the employees at all levels exhibit a high degree of organizational commitment, their trust towards the organizational policies and have high levels of intrinsic motivation. Attaining and maintaining total quality is the fourth goal of HRM. This highlights the importance of policies and practices to recruit, development and retention of skilled and flexible employees, and the formulation of established performance standards and performance procedures. This can be further subdivide into two broader goals i.e. building a integrated organizational culture and achieving and maintaining competitive advantage through the dynamic use of human resources. Guest (2002) has argued that the effect of human resource management practices on overall performance of a firm will depend upon response of the employees to the implemented HRM practices; therefore the impact will be more or less a translation of the perception of HRM practices by the employee. Wood (1999) and Guest (2002) have stressed upon the need to build a competent, committed and highly involved work force is the one required for best implementation of business strategy. Huselid (1995) discovered that the effectiveness of employees is directly related to the impact of HRM practices on behavior of the workforce. Patterson et al (1997) while arguing about the effect of human resource management practices on business performance have said that HR practices in selection and training influence performance by providing appropriate skills. HR practices have a potent impact on performance even if it just measured in terms of overall productivity. Huselid (1995) stressed that the adoption of best practices in selection will lead to inflow of best quality of skill set ultimately will result in adding to the value towards the skills inventory of the organization. He also highlighted the role of personnel training as an accompaniment of selection practices through which the organizational culture and employee behavior can be integrated with the organization goals to produce positive results. Cooke (2000) has included competence and effectiveness as the vital ingredients of performance apart from competitiveness and productivity. She further amplifies training as the tool to grow knowledge and skills and as way of improving individuals performance (efficiency and effectiveness). Singh (2004), whose interpretations are more pertinent in our cultural context, says that compensation is a mechanism that aligns the behavior of employees with the firms business strategy. William et al, have argued that Career planning is a tool that wo rks in sync with the strategy and future HR needs of the organisation and encourages employee to attain their individual goals for personal development. By encouraging employee involvement, the firm will profit from increase in efficiency of theemployee due to improved commitment of the employee. Financial participation schemes are more beneficial for the organizations than the associated cost (Summers Hyman, 2005). In high growth industry use of best HR practices result in a stronger association with firms productivity (Datta et al, 2003). Wright et al (2003) have said that if proper performance management system is in place and is complemented by a just compensation system that is linked with the performance management system an employee will exert unrestricted effort to improve his performance. Similarly to improve performance the need is to clearly define the jobs. â€Å"Job definition is combination of job description and job specification. It clearly outlines duties, responsibilities, working conditions and expected skills of an individual performing that job† (Qureshi, 2006). Ichniowski (1995) while studying productivity of steel workers have argued that harmonizing HR practice System positively effects employees performance.Sels,2006 Collins (2005) in a study of similar character targeting small business have also argued that efficient HR practices affect employee productivity to a great extent. Meyer and Allen (1997) indicated that HRM practices have been considered to be valuable and effective tools for elevating organizational commitment, especially affective commitment. However, there are some other perspectives also on this subject; De Coninsk and Stilwell (1996) argued that what directly influences employees affective commitment is not the actual practices itself, but the employee perceptions of fairness of practices that affects organizational commitment. Ogilvie (1986) found that, even with personal and work characteristics controlled, employees perceptions of two characteristics of HRM practices, namely, the accuracy of the merit rating system and the fairness of promotions, contributed to the prediction of commitment. Gaertner and Nollen (1989) also found that employees commitment was related to the perceived HRM practices, including internal promotion, training opportunities, and employment security. Ostroff and Bowen (2000) made use of â€Å"meso† theory t o explain that the implementation of HRM practices helped to amplify workers identification with their organization through employees psychological contracts. Therefore, just as what the above mentioned scholars stated, the HRM practices itself cannot have impact on employees commitment, it is after the implementation of the HRM practices that triggered employees own perceptions and then assess whether the practice is considered fair or favorable to them and consequently influence their attitudes and behaviors. Therefore, if the HRM practices that an organization implements permit the employees to acknowledge it as highly committed, consequently, this will lead to reinforced trust and concurrently generate higher emotional attachment with his/her serviced organization. Despite several experiential studies that have established a relationship between HRM practices and organizational commitment, however, such a connection seems to be a little too straightforward (Paul Anantharaman, 2004; Ulrich, 1997; Wimalasiri, 1995). Ostroff and Bowen (2000) projected that it was the psychological bond of an individual that unified how an organizational HRM practice influenced employees mind-set and behavior. This also entails that HRM practices may conjointly manipulate employees organizational commitment obliquely, and must go through by means of individuals psychological alteration system. Guzzo and Noonan (1994) said that â€Å"An organizations HRM practices influenced employee commitment since they are communications from the employer to the employee. How employees interpreted and made sense of their organizational HRM practices affected their psychological contract with their employer and, ultimately, their commitment to that employer.† Zucker (1983) also suppose that the organization members attitudes and behaviors are subjective and are governed by organizations official communication of ‘common understandings. Term common understandings denoting what were considered the appropriate, essential and meaningful behaviors within an organization. Basically, the official organization communication of common understandings will direct its members to alter their own personal attitudes and behaviors so that they can match organizational expectations and requirements. 2.2 Human resources practices HRM propose that there is a universal ‘one best way to administer people. By assuming a best practice method it is argued that organizations will attain improved commitment from people leading to better organizational performance, top levels of service quality and eventually boost in efficiency and profitability, Usually couched in terms of ‘bundles, the HRM practices that are offered in support of a high commitment and performance model are generally fairly consistent. A range of HR practices which are suggested as being important to organizational strategies aimed at securing high-quality service are:- 2.3 Recruitment and Selection One of the main and most basic HRM practice is of Recruiting and selecting staff with the correct attitudinal and behavioral characteristics. The process of selection is AIMED at picking out the most probable candidate from a bunch of applicants who best suites the needs of the organisation. According to Vlachos the person who is most suitable is chosen based on his educational and/or professional qualifications and the focus of the whole process is to decrease the cost for the organisation and employ such employees who have merit and talent and can maximize the profits. A variety of considerations in the selection process should be employed to assess the work values, interpersonal skills, personality and problem-solving capabilities of likely employees to evaluate their ‘service orientation. To maintain the high degree of competitive advantage an organisation requires capable and skillful personnel (Liao Chu 2006). Huselid (1995) has established that organisational productivi ty and high degree of performance is dependant upon the selection of the appropriate person, which is also a way to reduce employee turnover. Michie and Sheehan-Quinn (2001) recognized a positive link between hiring employees, and the creation of the appropriate culture for organisational growth. Cho, et al. (2006) established a positive and considerable connection between HRM practices adopted by a firm and the various recruitment selection techniques implemented like the recruitment resource, screening test, behavioural tests interviews i.e. structured and unstructured to improve the fiscal performance. Therefore, it made compulsory for the organisations to attract qualified candidates and recruit them for survival and growth. 2.4 Performance Appraisal Performance appraisal has attracted an immense degree of interest. Levin (1986) identified uses of performance appraisal, like potential analysis which assesses the performance of the employee in past, need for training, remuneration expectations- salary, employee merit appraisal, suggestion for and by the employee, employee career development etc. Thang (2004) in his study has shown as to effect of suitable HRM related decision on how well employees are performing their jobs. Performance appraisal is a constant procedure rather than a once a year fatigue. It is an official arrangement where periodical assessment of an individuals or teams performance for a particular task is carried out and a feedback is given on the same. Stone (2002) said that in order to survive in a highly competitive environment a firm must focus on improving its performance. In addition, in the fast changing surroundings, tighter finances, downsizing and demands for enhanced responsibility and accountability on the part of the employees and thus result in more emphasis on performance appraisal in order to enable the management to attain the organisational objectives. To achieve optimum performance requirements performance related rewards target those who meet the expectations of the organisation (Stone 2002, Cho, et al. 2006, Chand Katou 2007). Information in regard to employee salary, training needs, compensation, promotion as well as employee development, transfer and employee fe edback is provided by performance appraisal (Huber 1983). Appraisal systems have also moved away from conventional top down approaches to appraisal in more modern and pertinent terms such as customer evaluation, team-based performance, the appraisal of managers by subordinates and peer review. Generally, all of these performance appraisal methods should focus on the quality objectives of the organization and the behaviors of employees required for maintaining these. Performance appraisal has both administrative and individual development focus and organizations sincerity towards performance appraisal goes a long way in developing commitment and trust among people. Overall attitude towards HRM department is a significant predictor of organizational commitment. This aspect of HRM practice refers to how people see their HRM department, with respect, with disdain, with indifference and so on. It refers to the fact that the acceptance of various HRM practices depend largely on the overall image of the HR department. Hospitality industry needs to rely on the commitment of a well-trained, multi-skilled workforce in order to achieve a competitive position, especially in terms of providing high quality customer service. This suggests that hotels need to adopt HRM organisational practices that enhance the motivation of employees and improve organisational effectiveness. 2.5 Reward Management Huselid (1995) asserts that compensation and employee merit are directly related and finally contribute towards the firm outcomes. Compensation by its definition means all payments in terms of money and all commodities provided in kind i.e. instead of financial to recompense employees. The reward system was organized to attract and motivate so as to keep employees. More so, employee influence was tailored on controlled authority and decision making. The expectancy theory (Vroom 1964) suggests that rewards, that can be comprehended as a form of direct and indirect recompense packages, have the ability to manipulate employee work enthusiasm. Thang (2004) suggests that to achieve concerted efforts from the employees to fulfill the organisational goals compensation and reward can be used as powerful tools. On the same lines, Wan (2008) argued that compensation should be measured depending on employees performance not on the basis of position or seniority in the organization.Pay practic e is one of the tools of human resources management practices which manage wage, salary, pay and benefits etc. for the employees. Reward management has got an important role in HRM. A high level of pay and remuneration in comparison to that of rivals ensures the attraction and retention of high-quality employee, however this may impact negatively on the companys overall labor expenditures. Also by connecting pay with performance, the company can educe desired standards of performance as well as specific task orientation from employee (Noe et al., 2006). Generally, pay practice is very significant for the organizations and firms which can attract employees to apply for the job as recruitment. Attractive pay practices play a major role in attracting talent and are very helpful during the recruitment process. Similarly for the employees this means that they are required to show a continuously high level of commitment and performance in order to keep their jobs. Pay packages also have a degree of connection with the job satisfaction of an employee. Ting (1997) asserts that the job satisfaction can be gauged by the pay structure. He further explains two different type of effect of pay practices on job satisfaction; first is the satisfaction with pay itself and second is the satisfaction with financial prospects in the future. There is a venerable interest of these two things which are correlated with job satisfaction. Thus, it is pertinent to understand the relationship between job satisfaction and pay practices which eventually materializes in terms of higher productivity. Efficiency wage theories also suggest that paying higher wages can often result in increased efficiency. There are three main channels that are addressed in these theories that improve productivity, as described by Katz, 1987. Firstly it means that the harder the employees of an organization work higher will be the punishment for someone who is caught shirking and higher w ill be the probability of losing job of the employee getting caught. Thus higher wages means an increased effort on part of the employee due to the enhanced probability of losing job in a high performance environment. In other words, wage and pay practice are directly responsible for employees productivity and turnover. Secondly, a higher wage translates directly into workers loyalty towards organization thus improving employees efforts. Also it is a pertinent deduction that higher wage structure plays considerable amount of restraint on the employees to turnover their jobs. Thirdly, in more tangible terms higher wages are responsible for reducing firm employee turnover and recruitment costs. 2.6 Training and Development ‘Training and development (TD) is a very important tool of HRM (Vlachos 2008). According to Li, et al. 2008 Training is the set of activities which prepare the employees to attain needed skill sets and to deliver more efficiently in their current jobs. In the environment of todays business an employee is needed to cope with various pressures and are required to keep their skills and knowledge current to stay competitive. Tai (2006) asserts that more adaptability, ability, flexibility, motivation, maintenance of skills and efficiency are greatly enhanced by proper training and development of employees. According to Vlachos training and firms performance are indirectly related. In most of the manufacturing industry, the prevailing training programs are mostly unstructured on the job is the most preferred mode. Bartel (1994) in her study found a positive and significant relation between training and labour productivity. Guidetti and Mazzanti (2007) found that high performance and training activities are positively associated. It is also affected by labour flexibility in various directions. Apospori, et al. (2008) in their study of southern European countries have discovered the impact of training on firms performance. Equipping of service level staff enables them towards ‘service orientation. Training is the planned effort that facilitates the acquisition of job related knowledge, updating of skill sets, and impacts the behavior of an employee. In the implementation of HRM tools training is an important factor responsible for productivity. Higher productivity observed in firms is a direct outcome of training programs. â€Å"High-Involvementpractices such as autonomy, team collaboration, and training are helpful in reducing employee turnover and enhance productivity. Untrained workers tend to change job more often. An increase in high-performance work practices converts into decrease in turnover† (Bradley, Petrescu Simmons, 2004). Training programs are particularly helpful when an employer is experiencing a high degree of employee turnover more so during the times of economic uncertainty. Even during the times when the business is flourishing an organization should proactively earmark their investment for on the job training and other training programs balancing the cost of training with the perceived benefits of productivity. On the other hand, a trained worker has got the required skills and knowledge and can be a candidate for job turnover. Therefore, job satisfaction is crucial factor to retain the employee from shifting his jobs. Bradley, Petrescu and Simmons (2004) explained that job satisfaction can be effectively imoproved by creating on-going learning as well as training in workplace; moreover their study indicates that training increases satisfaction levels of an employee which in turn enhances employee motivation and commitment. Therefore it is argued that acquisition or knowledge or training has a positive impact on job satisfaction. 2.7 Traditional and Recent HR Practices in Hospitality Industry Keep and Mayhew (1999) in their study regarding the personnel problems in the tourism and hospitality industry some of them areas follow: low pay, no fixed hours and shift. Poor career growth, seasonal employment; informal recruitment methods; lack of good HR practice; high attrition rate and retaining employees. Riley et al. (2000) to recognize the reality of traditional and poor HR practices, he said that determining factor for HR policies and practices in tourism and hospitality industry is the key economics. Riley et al. says that it carries a very important meaning in tourism and hospitality industry, as in this service sector there is every thing which is intangible. According to (ILO, 2001: 6).Employers and the organizational representatives consider employee turnover in the industry as not the major issue according to them it is the part of working they have not realized that what are its causes and reasons, retaining staff is costlier than hiring new for them. When the organizations will realize that poor HR practices like low pay benefits, lack career opportunities, work life imbalance are the main reason employee turnover. That day the organizations will be successful in real terms. The inability of the businesses and the industry to recognize the most glaring issues can be attributed to the hostility and opposition from employers associations in the industry such as British Hospitality Association (BHA), to governmental initiative such as the minimum wage and working time directive. BHA is still apprehensive of these initiatives despite support from other quarters who favor these initiatives (Lucas, 2004). It is to a great extend clear from the above researches which supports the fact that tourism and hospitality industry is a poor employing sector. Kelliher and Perrett (2001), Kelliher and Johnson (1997) have clearly said that â€Å"the dominant paradigm has tended to stress the negative aspects of working in the hospitality sector†. It is not surprising to see a long history that supports the fact that hospitality remains a poorly employing sector. Kelliher and Perrett (2001) did an analysis of a designer restaurant. These types of ventures were supposed to be implementing sophisticated HRM approaches as they aimed at building competitive advantage. Although the restaurant had adopted a more modern and sophisticated approach towards, training and development and focused on an innovative strategy ‘there was little real evidence that human resources were seen as a source of competitive advantage (p. 434). Instead, the HRM approaches adopted by the restaurant were much more reflective of immediate environmental constraints, such as the difficulties in recruiting and retaining staff. In short, any number of reasons for poor HR practices in the tourism and hospitality industry. Economic determinism, the predominance of SMEs, a low-skills base, employer antipathy to a more progressive approach to HRM, labour market characteristics, organizations ensuring best fit HRM practices to support a high volume, low-cost strategy; all are plausible reasons for a view of HRM which is not necessarily premised on high-skills, high-wages and a high-quality route to competitive advantage. That said, it would be equally wrong to paint a wholly pessimistic picture. Hoque (2000). On his work of good practice in the hotel sector, says that the hotels have started taking the issues seriously and have come up with good HR practices for the employee commitment. He further says that argues that arguments which give a picture of the industry as backward and un strategic is now outdated, hotels have started taking it seriously as there main aim is customer satisfaction which is possible only through strong employee commitment. In fact, he says that the management has become very serious regarding the practices and polices of HR .The hotels have started experimenting with innovation approaches, quality enhancement of HRM polices and practices. The hotels industry has started paying well, have revised appraisal system, proper training programs for employees skills development, schemes for proper balance between work and life, special advantages to women, job rotation, employee empowerment, performance based pay, teamwork etc. the implementation of all th ese polices and practices helps in gaining employee commitment and customer satisfaction. The focus of hospitality

Lindsay Lohan Essay -- Biography

Lindsay Lohan was born on July 2, 1986. She is the oldest of 4 kids and her parents are divorced. Her dad was not very much a part of her life growing up and to this day she does not have anything to do with him. Lohan was a rising child star who started her acting career at the age of three. She starred in many commercials before showcasing her fabulous acting ability when she appeared in the remake of Parent Trap in 1998. She took a little time off after this showcase to be a â€Å"normal† child. After dropping out of high school, she had a few bigger screen acting jobs and some extra shots in daytime television (Current Biography, 2005). Lohan had a desire to make sure she set a good image because she knew the audience in which she was most desired by was the younger â€Å"tween† crowd. Also, her younger sister looked up to her so Lohan wanted to make sure she was setting a good example; all while she wanted to be normal and not set off a fake image (Current Biography, 2005). Lindsay Lohan has had a lot of attention from her drinking and driving issues and her party lifestyle. Many people will focus on those things, but what is the underlying cause? From a Psychodynamic perspective, Lohan’s addiction to drugs and alcohol stem all the way back to childhood. Lohan had both parents, mother Dina Lohan and father Michael Lohan. Dina Lohan was very present in Lindsay’s young life and is still very much a part of her life now. Michael on the other hand was very absent. Although he was able to give his family a life of comfort from selling a profitable pasta business, he was very consumed by his position on Wall Street (Current Biography, 2005). Lohan has been dealing with â€Å"deep rooted issues with her father† stated a member of her inner c... ...take to really work through her problems. She also does not have a very stable support group to keep her grounded so she may end up falling off because they do not help to support her. She may also not want to leave the party scene so this may be a big struggle. She has the need to be around people, which in turn gets filled by the party scene. This would be hard for her to fill that need if she did not go out. On another note, these treatments would be highly successful if she actually participated. If she was truly committed to getting better and she fully participated in the therapy and stopped going to areas in which stimulated her substance abuse problem, she would be fine in life. She may need continual therapy and support, but she would become the successful actress she has so long desired to be; and the community has so long desired for her to be also. Lindsay Lohan Essay -- Biography Lindsay Lohan was born on July 2, 1986. She is the oldest of 4 kids and her parents are divorced. Her dad was not very much a part of her life growing up and to this day she does not have anything to do with him. Lohan was a rising child star who started her acting career at the age of three. She starred in many commercials before showcasing her fabulous acting ability when she appeared in the remake of Parent Trap in 1998. She took a little time off after this showcase to be a â€Å"normal† child. After dropping out of high school, she had a few bigger screen acting jobs and some extra shots in daytime television (Current Biography, 2005). Lohan had a desire to make sure she set a good image because she knew the audience in which she was most desired by was the younger â€Å"tween† crowd. Also, her younger sister looked up to her so Lohan wanted to make sure she was setting a good example; all while she wanted to be normal and not set off a fake image (Current Biography, 2005). Lindsay Lohan has had a lot of attention from her drinking and driving issues and her party lifestyle. Many people will focus on those things, but what is the underlying cause? From a Psychodynamic perspective, Lohan’s addiction to drugs and alcohol stem all the way back to childhood. Lohan had both parents, mother Dina Lohan and father Michael Lohan. Dina Lohan was very present in Lindsay’s young life and is still very much a part of her life now. Michael on the other hand was very absent. Although he was able to give his family a life of comfort from selling a profitable pasta business, he was very consumed by his position on Wall Street (Current Biography, 2005). Lohan has been dealing with â€Å"deep rooted issues with her father† stated a member of her inner c... ...take to really work through her problems. She also does not have a very stable support group to keep her grounded so she may end up falling off because they do not help to support her. She may also not want to leave the party scene so this may be a big struggle. She has the need to be around people, which in turn gets filled by the party scene. This would be hard for her to fill that need if she did not go out. On another note, these treatments would be highly successful if she actually participated. If she was truly committed to getting better and she fully participated in the therapy and stopped going to areas in which stimulated her substance abuse problem, she would be fine in life. She may need continual therapy and support, but she would become the successful actress she has so long desired to be; and the community has so long desired for her to be also.

Research Study Paper

Article two by Grainiest & Colliers (2012) â€Å"Fellowship's experiences of organizational leadership: A systems psychodrama perspective† was chosen for leadership and article three was carefully chosen for this paper. â€Å"Followers' Personality and the Perception of Transformational Leadership: Further Evidence for the Similarity Hypothesis† by the authors Flee, J. , & Synchs, B. (2010) came from the reference list of article one. These articles titles in comparison all are related to followers' in an organization and show how followers' personality, preferences, and experiences affect how hey perceive leadership.The purpose of the study in article one, the authors wanted the findings built upon the â€Å"Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness Research Program (GLOBE study)† by analyzing the personalities Of the participants and the impact on implicit leadership views. Article two's purpose for the study is to describe follower-ship exper iences of organizational leadership from a systems psychodrama perspective and the aim of article three's study is to extend previous research on the relationship between follower's personality and the perception and acceptance of ramifications leadership.The comparison of the studies show how followers' personality, preferences, and experiences affect how they perceive leadership in organizations. The authors rational for the topic in article one is â€Å"the primary focus of the GLOBE study and to analyze how cultural preferences predicted leadership preferences. † (Palmer, et al. , 2013, peg. 56) This study added significantly to the body of literature related to implicit leadership and the study did not report how participants' personalities impacted their views of leadership.In article two, the authors' build a strong ease that has given them motivation for the study and their rationale for the topic is because â€Å"the research was important in its rich comment on org anizational leadership as expressed by fellowship in a contained space and interpreting the views from below the surface† (Grainiest, et al. 201 2, peg. 6) which are not expressed in organizations generally and easily. The authors' also commented on how there is no previous research on the topic.Finally in article three, the author's build a plausible case that provide evidence that followers personality influences the perceptions of ramifications leadership and commitment to the leader. For the author's to do their study, they reversed the order of variables in which the leaders affect their followers' attitudes and behaviors to the followers' reactions to leaders as the independent variables and the leaders as the dependent variable. The comparison of the rational in each article provides the prediction of followers' personality whether through the GLOBE study or as one particular leadership style.Research Questions The research questions in each of the articles provide the researcher the tools needed to test their theories. In article one, Palmer along with the other authors provided the following hypotheses to be tested in their study. 1 . DO followers' personality in neurotics correlate with Charismatic Leadership and Directive Leadership? 2. Does Extroversion correlate how followers perceive with preferences to Directive Leadership, Bureaucratic Leadership, or Self Serving Leadership? 3. Does Agreeableness correlate with followers' personality for Charismatic Leadership, Directive Leadership, and Self Serving Leadership? . Do Openness correlate with Directive Leadership, Bureaucratic, and Self Serving Leadership? These hypotheses of followers' neurotics, extroversion, agreeableness, and openness may be positively correlated to Charismatic and Directive leadership but my impact Bureaucratic and Self Serving leadership negatively. Article two state â€Å"given the aforementioned complexity on the macro, mess, and micro leadership levels (Greenest, e t al. , 201 2, peg. 3); the authors wanted to know whether leadership is an anxiety for followers. Also, followers' experiences and how they perceive race and gender in leadership.The following hypotheses are tested: 1) What is fellowship's systems psychodrama experience of organization leadership? 2) Is leadership an anxiety for followers that is an object split between a â€Å"good parent and a bad parent' theory? 3) How does followers experience of organizational leadership denigrating the present and hoping for a good future like â€Å"good bread with bad butter in between'? 4) Do followers perceive race and gender play a part in leadership? 5) Do followers believe leadership is experiencing an adolescent type of identity crises? ) Why do followers perceive leadership as a bad object containing unsolvable shame and haunting organizations? 7) Do coping with existential anxiety round leadership based on trusting the systemic and unconscious life forces towards equilibrium, linke d with an inner strength to survive? Article three tests the hypotheses for followers â€Å"high in extroversion, agreeableness and openness are assumed to perceive or attributed more transformational leadership and to show more affective commitment to their supervisors† (Flee, et al. , 2010, peg. 98) in relation to followers' perceptions of transformational leadership and the affective commitment to the supervisor and the personalities of leaders. The authors' hypotheses mentioned are: 1) Followers extroversion is positively related to the perception Of transformational leadership and to the affective commitment to the supervisor, whereas the relationship with continuance commitment is negative. 2) Followers' agreeableness is positively related to the perception of transformation leadership and to the affective commitment to the supervisor, whereas the relationship with continuance commitment is negative. ) Followers' openness is positively related to the affective commitmen t to the negative. 4) Followers' neurotics is negatively related to the perception of prevision, whereas the relationship with continuance commitment is positive. 5) Followers' perception of leaders' personality (high extroversion, high agreeableness, high openness and low neurotics) is related to the perception of transformational leadership and to affective commitment to the supervisor. ) Relationship between follower personality and the perception of transformational leadership and commitment to the supervision are mediated by the perception of one's leader's personality. A comparison of the research questions show article one with four hypotheses, article two with seven, and article three with six hypotheses Sample Population The sample population in each of these articles show a comparison that mostly women were used in the studies. The first article shows that it used 132 college educated, full time managers or leaders in an organizations with there being 81 females and 48 mal es within these groups.Out of the 1 32 participant, 75 were Hispanic, 30 Blacks, 12 White and 15 who were of other ethnicities and their age average of 40 years. There are 8 newly identified cases on leaders of large organizations in article two with 64 participants insisting of 52% White, 33% Black, 9% Indian, and 6% other with 58% participants being female and 42% male between the ages of 28 and 61 years. Article three participants in the study are 1 53 clerical volunteers and women being 75% of the workers with the average mean of 36. 5 in their ages.A comparison shows that show women were mostly interviewed. What does not compare, is that article two did not have as many participants as one and three. Article three did not mention ethnicity or race as did articles one and two. Results Examining the results of each study, the authors in their perspective articles how that their hypotheses are mostly positive and correlate to the given research questions. In article one, the curre nt study found the personality trait of followers' on agreeableness as being a predictor high on leadership.New experiences for followers openness is incongruent with Bureaucratic Leadership, but personality traits related to â€Å"Charismatic, Value-Based Team dervish and Directive Leadership, and negatively related to Bureaucratic Leadership and Self-Serving Leadership. † (Farmer, et al. , 201 3, peg. 62) Neurotics was positively correlated with preferences for Charismatic Leadership and Directive Leadership. Extroversion was positively correlated with preferences for Directive Leadership and negatively correlated with tolerance for Bureaucratic and Self-serving Leadership.Agreeableness was positively correlated with preferences for Charismatic Leadership and Directive Leadership and negatively correlated with tolerance for Self-Serving dervish. Openness was positively correlated with preferences for Directive leadership and negatively correlated with tolerance for Bureaucr atic and Self- Serving Leadership. Whereas in article two, leadership is seen from followers' experience is torn between the rational and mechanistic task and leaders avoiding how followers as people are being cared for. Followers perceive leaders as adults who treat them as children.Although article three states â€Å"followers' extroversion and agreeableness were positively related to the perception of overall transformational leadership and to affective commitment to the supervisor, the relationship between followers' extroversion and continuance commitment to the supervisor was negative and agreeableness was not related to continuance commitment. † (Grainiest, et al. , 201 2 peg. 01) Openness, transformational leadership, and commitment are correlated in a direction that is positive, with continuance commitment showing only a significance to leaders.Neurotics is negatively related to followers' perception of affective commitment and transformational leadership. The percep tions of transformational leadership was positively related to perceived leaders' extroversion, openness, and agreeableness and negatively related to perceived leaders' neurotics. â€Å"There is support for the mediation effect Of extroversion and agreeableness, a tentative support for neurotics but no support for openness. (Flee, et al. , 201 0, peg. 93) Therefore, the comparison of the hypotheses is that follower's perceptions of leadership through followers' personality traits see leadership as not caring and followers' are agreeable to prevent conflict and the perception of transformational leadership is the leadership that followers perceive their leaders to be. Conclusion The limitations of article one are the use of the GLOBE questionnaire using two empirical pilot studies. Article two mentioned a limitation that leadership was included in the study therefore, no interpretation about the other's view an be made.Article three's data is cross-sectional and they cannot rule out that transformational leadership influences followers' self-perception and their influence of personality characteristics examined in this study is limited. The comparison of the limitations is that the authors' were not able to provide enough data using data from previous studies. In conclusion, Palmer and the other authors from article one in their findings found that extroversion in leadership is strongly correlated to effective leadership and their study found the personality trait of followers in agreeableness is insistent in regards to leadership.From article 2, leadership is by followers' views is seen as a relationship that Sees followers as immature. The authors also suggested future research should be done to include the leadership experiences of fellowship and to conclude with article three, the findings the authors found suggests that leaders influence strongly the behaviors and attitudes of followers in commitment, performance, and satisfaction. Elevating followers' mo tives and values, the transformational leadership sets leaders' behaviors as a proven effect in organizations.

Love: An Inexpressible and Indescribable Feeling

Love is an indescribable and inexpressible feeling. It can affect a person to the point of recklessness. Once a soul has realized its counterpart in another, the effects can cause one to surrender themselves completely. Judgment becomes clouded and rationality no longer exists. In the end, all that remains is pure, indefinable emotion. This emotion is what fuels the person. Love is why almost everybody on Earth looks forward to tomorrow. Those who lack it will try to look for it. Those who have it, will work themselves to the bone Just for the ones they love.It is the best possible feeling Christopher Final Essay Love is an inexpressible and indescribable feeling. It can affect a person to the point of recklessness. Once a soul has recognized its counterpart in another, the effects can cause one to surrender themselves completely. Judgment becomes clouded and rationality no longer exists. In the end, all that remains is pure, indefinable emotion. This indefinable emotion is what fuel s the person. Love is the reason why almost everybody on Earth looks forward to tomorrow. Those who do not have it, tries to look for it.Those who have it, will work themselves to the bone Just for the ones they love. It is the best possible feeling one could ever feel. While love seems like a splendid thing, it also has its flaws. The most well-known negative thing that comes along with love is Jealousy. Jealousy is a special form of emotive Kim k unemotional anxiety, which occurs due to the lack of a sense of security in relation to the one who is loved. The Jealousy directed to a third party, I. E. , the competitor who is perceived as the rival for the affection of the person who is loved.Jealousy is n emotion having components of both anger and fear commonly found in children. It originates from the lack of a sense of security for the affections of one who is loved and more attended to. The play, A Midnight Summer's Dream is about several couples in love and the problems that ca use relationships to crumble like dominoes, one after another. Shakespeare is mainly focusing on the crazy things that people do when they are in love. People tend to break the shackles of normalcy and common sense and do things for their own madness.In the play, A Midnight Summer's Dream, Shakespeare uses the shifting of the peoples' personalities to emphasize what love could do to people. As a person falls deeper in love, he or she becomes blind to things that happen around them and could care less about anything else except their own love affairs. Shakespeare portrays this in A Midsummer Night's Dream when Helena accuses Demerits of killing Lessened and asks him if he has killed Lessened. The shift in her personality reveals the interference of love since she starts blaming others groundlessly.Shakespeare uses this to show how people react to problems hat involve love and how foolish their actions are. Another major problem caused by love is rivalry and how easily friendship can be crumbled when it comes to the issue of love. When Hermit enters the scene while Demerits and Lessened are with Helena, Hermit blindly enters and is questioned by Helena because Demerits and Lessened both originally liked Hermit. Therefore, she thinks it is a trick and they are when her close friend is involved. Thus, Helena starts the argument which causes her friendship with Hermit to crumble.Shakespeare is clearly showing the message of owe the common nature of people causes them to make rash decisions and change personalities because of love. People in love will see the world in a different perspective, they become so obsessed with their love to the extent that their world revolves around the person they love. This type of love can cause trouble, especially when deep and intense. This is seen almost every day in real life. For example, heartbroken girlfriends throwing pots down the window and locking their boyfriends out is the first image that comes to mind when thinking of J ealousy.

Emerging International Issues Within The Business Environment

Emerging International Issues Within The Business Environment SummaryIn order for companies to stay competitive in the global marketplace they need to understand the issues and differences in the international business environment. As businesses become more international they are faced with challenges such as cultural, legal, political, and economic differences within the countries they operate in. However, there are a few key emerging issues within the international business environment that go beyond the standard fundamental business practices which businesses should not ignore.The following paper will discuss some of those key issues within the international business environment. These issues include natural resource shortages, raising oil prices, and emerging violence activities. I chose these particular issues after examining some of current events and trends in the world and felt they will have a large impact on the way business is conducted internationally if they continue in the current trend. I will briefly explain each of these issues then tie them together to how it relates to the international business environment.English: Waterfalls are example for natural resour...Environment and Natural ResourcesThe world's ongoing population explosion has placed great strain on the world environment. This rapidly growing population, along with a move toward urbanization and industrialization, has placed significant pressure on natural resources. Deforestation, soil erosion, water pollution and land degradation continue to worsen and will begin hindering economic development in rural areas, while the rapid industrialization and urbanization in booming metropolises are straining the limits of municipal services and causing serious air pollution problems. (globalissues.org)Any comprehensive strategy for change in human demands on global resources must also address the ethical dilemma of our failure to meet the basic needs of more than a quarter of the Earth's present population. Shortage of natural goods will affect weaker me mbers of society, leading to social disorder. Although post-Cold War conflicts such as in Haiti, Somalia, Sudan,

How to Get 800 on SAT Writing 9 Strategies From a Perfect Scorer

How to Get 800 on SAT Writing 9 Strategies From a Perfect Scorer SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Are you scoring in the 600–750 range on SAT Writing? Do you want to raise that score as high as possible- to a perfect 800? Getting to an 800 SAT Writing score isn't easy. It'll require near perfection and a mastery of both grammar rules and essay writing. But with hard work and my SAT writing strategies below, you'll be able to do it. I've consistently scored 800 on Writing on my real SATs, and I know what it takes. Follow my advice, and you'll get a perfect score- or get very close. Brief note: This article is suited for students already scoring a 600 on SAT Writing or above (this equates to a Writing Test Score of 30+ out of 40 on the New SAT). If you're below this range, my "How to Improve your SAT Writing Score to a 600" article is more appropriate for you. Follow the advice in that article, then come back to this one once you've reached a 600. Also, the New 2016 SAT now has a single 800 Reading + Writing score, combining the individual Reading and Writing test scores. Technically, when I mention a perfect Writing test score, I'm referring to a perfect 40/40 test score, which is essential to getting an 800 Reading and Writing score. In this guide, I'll use800 and 40 interchangeably to mean a perfect Writing score. We won't talk about Reading here, but if you want to improve your Reading score too, check out my Perfect SAT Reading score guide. Overview Most guides on the internet on how to get an 800 on SAT Writing are pretty low quality. They're often written by people who never scored an 800 themselves. You can tell because their advice is usually vague and not very pragmatic. In contrast, I've written what I believe to be the best guide on getting an 800 available anywhere. I have confidence that these strategies work because I used them myself to score 800 on SAT Writing consistently. They've also worked for thousands of my students at PrepScholar. In this article, I'm going to discuss why scoring an 800 is a good idea, what it takes to score an 800, and then go into the nine key SAT Writing strategies so you know how to get an 800. Stick with me- as an advanced student, you probably already know that scoring high is good. But it's important to know why an 800 Writing score is useful, since this will fuel your motivation to get a high score. This guide has been updated for the New 2016 SAT Writing and Language section, so you can be sure my advice works for the test you're about to take. Final note: In this guide, I talk mainly about getting to an 800. But if your goal is a 700, these strategies still equally apply. Understand the Stakes: Why an 800 SAT Writing? Let's make something clear: for all intents and purposes, a 1540+ on an SAT is equivalent to a perfect 1600. No top college is going to give you more credit for a 1600 than a 1540. You've already crossed their score threshold, and whether you get in now depends on the rest of your application. So if you're already scoring a 1560, don't waste your time studying trying to get a 1600. You're already set for the top colleges, and your time is better spent working on the rest of your application. But if you're scoring a 1520 or below AND you want to go to a top 10 college, it's worth your time to push your score up to a 1530 or above. There's a big difference between a 1460 and a 1560, largely because it's easy to get a 1460 (and a lot more applicants do) and a lot harder to get a 1560. A 1540 places you right around average at Harvard and Princeton, and being average is bad in terms of admissions, since the admissions rate is typically below 10%. So why get an 800 in SAT Reading+Writing? Because it helps you compensate for weaknesses in other sections. By and large, schools consider your composite score moreso than your individual section scores. If you can get a perfect 40 in SAT Writing and a perfect 40 in SAT Reading, that means you only need a 750 in SAT Math. This gives you a lot more flexibility. Princeton's 75th percentile for Writing is 800. There's another scenario where an 800 in SAT Writing is really important: if you're planning to apply as a humanities or social science major (like English, political science, communications) to a top school. Here's the reason: college admissions is all about comparisons between applicants. The school wants to admit the best, and you're competing with other people in the same "bucket" as you. By applying as a humanities/social science major, you're competing against other humanities/social science folks: people for whom SAT Writing is easy. Really easy. Here are a few examples from schools. For Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Dartmouth, the 75th percentile SAT Reading+Writing score is an 800. That means at least 25% of all students at these schools have an 800 in SAT Writing. But if you can work your way to an 800, you show that you're at an equal level (at least on this metric). Even if it takes you a ton of work, all that matters is the score you achieve at the end. Know That You Can Do It! This isn't just some fuzzy feel-good message you see on the back of a milk carton. I mean, literally, you and every other reasonably intelligent student can score an 800 on SAT Writing. The reason most people don't is they don't try hard enough or they don't study the right way. Even if language isn't your strongest suit, or you got a B+ in AP English, you're capable of this. Because I know that more than anything else, your SAT score is a reflection ofhow hard you work and how smartly you study. SAT Writing is Designed to Trick You - You Need to Learn How Here's why: the SAT is a weird test. When you take it, don't you get the sense that the questions are nothing like what you've seen in school? You've learned grammar before in school. You know some basic grammar rules. But the SAT questions just seem so much weirder. It's purposely designed this way. The SAT can't test difficult concepts because this would be unfair for students who never took AP English. It can't ask you to decompose Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. The SAT is a national test, which means it needs a level playing field for all students around the country. So it HAS to test concepts that all high school students will cover. Subject verb agreement, run-on sentences, pronoun choice, etc. You've learned all of this throughout school. But the SAT still has to make the test difficult, so it needs to test these concepts in strange ways. This trips up students who don't prepare, but it rewards students who understand the test well. Example Question Here's an example: find the grammar error in this sentence: The commissioner, along with his 20 staff members, run a tight campaign against the incumbent. This is a classic SAT Writing question. The error is in subject/verb agreement. The subject of the sentence is commissioner, which is singular. The verb is "run," but because the subject is singular, it should really be "runs." At your level, you probably saw the error. But if you didn't, you fell for a classic SAT Writing trap. It purposely confused you with the interrupting phrase, "along with his 20 staff members." You're now picturing 20 people in a campaign- which suggests a plural verb! The SAT Writing section is full of examples like this, and they get trickier. Nearly every grammar rule is tested in specific ways, and if you don't prepare for these, you're going to do a lot worse than you should. Here's the good news: this might have been confusing the first time, but the next time you see a question like this, you'll know exactly what to do: find the subject and the verb, and get rid of the interrupting phrase. So to improve your SAT Writing score, you just need to: Learn the grammar rules that the SAT tests. Study how the SAT tests these grammar rules and learn how to detect which grammar rule you need in a question. Practice on a lot of questions so you learn from your mistakes. I'll go into more detail about exactly how to do this. First, let's see how many questions you need to get right to get a perfect score. What It Takes to Get An 800 in Writing If we have a target score in mind, it helps to understand what you need to get that score on the actual test. On the Writing section, there are 44 multiple-choice questions. How many questions you get right determines your scaled score out of 40. From theOfficial SAT Practice Tests, I've taken the raw score to scaled score conversion tables from the first four tests.(If you could use a refresher on how the SAT is scored and how raw scores are calculated,read this.) Raw Score Test 1 Test 2 Test 3 Test 4 44 40 40 40 40 43 39 39 39 39 42 38 38 38 38 41 37 37 37 37 40 36 36 36 37 39 35 35 35 36 38 34 34 35 35 37 34 33 34 34 These grading scales are harsh.For every test, if you miss just ONE question, you get dropped down to a 39. This means your maximum Reading + Writing score becomes a 790, in the best case. The exact score conversion chart depends on the difficulty of this test. This particular score chart is as strict as it gets- sometimes, you can miss one question and still get a 40. But I've never seen a test allow missing two questions and getting a 40. Sometimes, if you miss two questions, you drop down to a 37. So the safest thing to do is to aim for perfection. On every practice test, you need to aim for a perfect raw score for an 800, and an essay score of at least 10. It's pretty clear then that you need to try to answer every question. You can't leave any questions blank and expect to get an 800 reliably, which means you need to get to a level of mastery where you're confident answering each question. Whatever you're scoring now, take note of the difference you need to get to a 800. For example, if you're scoring a 38 raw score now, you need to answer six more questions right to get to a perfect 40. As a final example, here's a screenshot from my exact score report from March 2014, showing that I missed 0 questions and earned an 800. (This was from the older 2400 version of the SAT, but the grading scale was similarly tough back then.) OK- so we've covered why scoring a higher Writing score is important, why you specifically are capable of improving your score, and the raw score you need to get to your target. Now we'll get into the meat of the article: actionable strategies that you should use in your own studying to maximize your score improvement. 9 Strategies to Get an 800 on SAT Writing What's your greatest weakness? Strategy 1: Understand Your High-Level Weakness: Time Management, Content, or Essay Score We're deliberately starting high level, before diving into grammar rules, because you need to know what type of game you're playing before you practice. Every student has different flaws in SAT Writing. Some people don't have full mastery of the grammar rules. Others run out of time on the test. Yet others aren't fluent in their essay writing. Here's how you can figure out which one applies more to you: Find an official SAT practice test, and take only the Writing section. We have the complete list of free practice SATs here. For each section, use a timer and have it count down the 35 minutes for the Writing section. Treat it like a real test. If time runs out and you're 100% ready to score your exam, then do so. If you're not ready to move on, keep on working for as long as you need. For every new answer or answer that you change, mark it with a special note as "Extra Time." Grade your test using the answer key and score chart, but we want two scores: 1) The Realistic score you got under normal timing conditions, 2) The Extra Time score. This is why you marked the questions you answered or changed during Extra Time. See what we're doing here? By marking which questions you did under Extra Time, we can figure out what score you would get if you were given all the time you needed. This will help us figure out where your weaknesses lie. If you didn't take any extra time, then your Extra Time score is the same as your Realistic score. Here's a flowchart to help you figure this out: Was your Extra Time scaled score a 35 or above? If NO (Extra Time score 35), then you have strategy and content weaknesses. All the extra time in the world couldn't get you above a 35, so your first angle of attack will be to find your weaknesses and attack them (We'll cover this later). If YES (Extra Time score 35), then: Was your Realistic raw score a 43 or above? If NO (Extra Time score 35, Realistic 35), then that means you have a difference between your Extra Time score and your Realistic score. If this difference is more than three points, then you have some big problems with time management. We need to figure out why this is. Are you taking too much time for each question? Or are particular types of questions slowing you down? More on this later. If YES (both Extra Time and Realistic scores 35), then you have a really good shot at getting an 800. Compare your Extra Time and Realistic score- if they differed by more than two points, then you would benefit from learning how to solve questions more quickly. If not, then you likely can benefit from shoring up on your last content weaknesses and avoiding careless mistakes (more on this strategy later). Hopefully that makes sense. Typically I see that students have both timing and content issues, but you might find that one is much more dominant for you than the other. For example, if you can get a 40 with extra time, but score a 35 in regular time, you know with certainty that you need to work on time management to get a 40. Strategy 2: Comprehensively Learn the Grammar Rules There's just no way around it. You need to know all the grammar rules tested on the test and how they work. Certain grammar rules, like punctuation usage, appear far more often than other rules. But because we're going for perfection, you'll need to know even the less-common rules. In our PrepScholar program, we've identified the following as the most to least important grammar rules: Punctuation Sentence Structure Conventional Expression (aka idioms) Possessives Agreement Parallel Structure Modifiers Verb Tense Pronouns Within these general categories, there are a lot of rules, but they differ from each other in how often they appear on the test and how hard they are to study. For example, Punctuation is by far the most common grammar rule on SAT Writing, but it only uses a few separate concepts. The Idioms skill is slightly less common, but it uses a wide range of idioms (like "as a means of" or the use of "whereby" vs "from which"), such that each unique idiom appears no more than once on each test. As another example, Punctuation appears 4.12 times as often on SAT Writing as the least common concept, Pronouns. So, assuming you're equally weak across all skills, you get more bang for your buck by studying Punctuation and nailing it. It's therefore important for you to focus your time on studying the highest impact grammar rules. Our PrepScholar program, for example, quizzes you in relation to how common each grammar rule is, so that you focus your efforts on the rules that make the biggest difference to your score. Strategy 3: Get Intimately Familiar With the Rhetoric Question Types Aside from grammar rules, the other major category of questions in SAT Writing is what we call Rhetoric. These questions concern how to make persuasive arguments and construct logical sentences, paragraphs, and essays. The College Board also calls this "Command of Evidence" and "Expression of Ideas." Unlike sentences with incorrect grammar, sentences in rhetoric questions don't usually have anything technically wrong with them. Instead, the SAT is testing you to find more effective ways to construct the sentence or passage. Here's a rundown of the types, from most common to least: Sentence Function "At this point, the writer is considering adding the following sentence...Should the writer make this addition here?" Concision "Which choice most effectively combines the two sentences at the underlined portion?" Transition These questions underline a key transition word in between sentences or phrases. You need to pick the transition that makes the most sense. Example: "This assertion is not supported by scientific research. For instance, one review published in..." Logical sequence "To make this paragraph most logical, sentence 2 should be placed..." These questions require you to order the sentences to get the most logical flow. Precision These questions underline a word or phrase and ask you to pick the best replacement for them. This is as close to a vocab test as the SAT gets. Example: "The reason for Siqueiros's secrecy became clear when the mural was confided." Answer choices: A) NO CHANGE, B) promulgated, C) imparted, D) unveiled. Quantitative These questions are the only ones in SAT writing that deal with graphs and data. You're usually asked to make sense of figures in the context of the text. Note - if you don't consider yourself a math person, don't be scared - the graphs are never super complex. But you do need to be able to read graphs and charts quickly. "Which choice offers an accurate interpretation of the data in the chart?" Style and tone These questions deal with maintaining the tone of the article - if it's a professional science article, it shouldn't use words like "icky" or "okay." Example: "The writer wants to convey an attitude of ___. Which choice best accomplishes the goal?" Even though questions of a single type look the same, they do vary significantly in difficulty. The difficulty depends on how subtle the answer choices are and the passage context. Once again, inour PrepScholar program,we break down every single Rhetoric skill and have thousands of practice questions to drill them to perfection. Which brings us to: Strategy 4: Do a Ton of Practice, and Understand Every Single Mistake On the path to perfection, you need to make sure every single one of your weak points is covered. Even one mistake on all of SAT Writing can knock you down from an 800. The first step is simply to do a ton of practice. If you're studying from free materials or from books, you have access to a lot of practice questions in bulk. As part of our PrepScholar program, we have over 4,500+ SAT questions customized to each skill. The second step- and the more important part- is to be ruthless about understanding your mistakes. Every mistake you make on a test happens for a reason. If you don't understand exactly why you missed that question, you will make that mistake over and over again. I've seen students who did 20 practice tests. They've solved over 3,000 questions, but they're still nowhere near an 800 on SAT Writing. Why? They never understood their mistakes. They just hit their heads against the wall over and over again. Think of yourself as an exterminator, and your mistakes are cockroaches. You need to eliminate every single one- and find the source of each one- or else the restaurant you work for will be shut down. Here'swhat you need to do: On every practice test or question set that you take, mark every question that you're even 20% unsure about. When you grade your test or quiz, review every single question that you marked, and every incorrect question. This way, even if you answered a question correctly by guessing, you'll make sure to review it. In a notebook, write down the gist of the question, why you missed it, and what you'll do to avoid that mistake in the future. Have separate sections by grammar skill (e.g. Number Agreement, Idioms, Sentence Fragments). It's not enough to just think about it and move on. It's not enough to just read the answer explanation. You have to think hard about why you specifically failed on this question. By taking this structured approach to your mistakes,you'll now have a running log of every question you missed, and your reflection on why. No excuses when it comes to your mistakes. Always Go Deeper- WHY Did You Miss a Writing Question? Now, what are some common reasons that you missed a question? Don't just say, "I didn't get this question right." That's a cop out. Always take it one step further- what specifically did you miss, and what do you have to improve in the future? Take the Subject/Verb Agreement example I gave above (with the Interrupting Phrase trick). You likely already know how Subject/Verb Agreement works. But if you missed that question, you'd need to think about why you missed it (because the interrupting phrase made you confuse the subject and verb). Then you need to write down a strategy for noticing this in the future. Here are some examples of common reasons you miss a Writing question and how you should take the analysis one step further: Content:I didn't learn the grammar rule needed to answer this question. One step further:What specific rule do I need to learn, and what resources will I use to learn this grammar rule? Overlooked Rule:I knew the grammar rule, but the SAT question was written in a way that made me miss it. One step further:How do I solve the question now? Is there a strategy I can use to notice this grammar rule in the future? Careless Error:I knew the grammar rule and normally would get this right, but I slipped up for some reason. One step further:Why did I make this careless mistake? Was I rushing? Did I misread the question? What should I do in the future to avoid this? Get the idea? You're really digging into understanding why you're missing questions. Yes, this is hard, and it's draining, and it takes work. That's why most students who study ineffectively don't improve. But you're different. Just by reading this guide, you're already proving that you care more than other students. And if you apply these principles and analyze your mistakes, you'll improve more than other students too. Bonus: If all of this is making sense to you, you'd love our SAT prep program, PrepScholar. We designed our program around the concepts in this article, because they actually work.When you start with PrepScholar, you’ll take a diagnostic that will determine your weaknesses in over forty SAT skills. PrepScholar then creates a study program specifically customized for you. To improve each skill, you’ll take focused lessons dedicated to each skill, with over 20 practice questions per skill. This will train you for your specific area weaknesses, so your time is always spent most effectively to raise your score. We also force you to focus on understanding your mistakes and learning from them. If you make the same mistake over and over again, we'll call you out on it. There’s no other prep system out there that does it this way, which is why we get better score results than any other program on the market. Check it out today with a 5-day free trial: Strategy 5: Justify Every Answer. Point Out Specific Grammar Errors. Justify the Rhetoric Choice. Many top students take a "soft approach" to SAT Writing. They learn the grammar rules when studying, but on the test they go "by ear": if a sentence sounds off, they'll assume it's wrong without thinking too hard about why. When you've mastered grammar rules, this can serve you well. For example, if I said "The bee fly to the hive." You know this is wrong instantly- it just feels wrong. You know simple subject/verb agreement so well that you can tell something is wrong before you can articulate what exactly it is. However, most students never get to this level of familiarity with all SAT grammar rules. This makes trusting your ear unreliable for many rules. What's the strategy to counter this? Point out the specific error, and justify it to yourself. This isespeciallytrue in rhetoric questions, where the answer choices can be vague and subtly different. Youhaveto understand why one answer is definitely the right answer, and the other three answers are definitely the wrong answers.This is a standardized test. Let's take one of the more difficult questions in an SAT practice test: Try to solve it yourself if you like. Here's what I'm thinking as I read the question (a "stream of consciousness"): " 'Likewise, anyone considering a career as a video game designer must be skilled writers and speakers,' and 'skilled writers and speakers' is underlined. There's no clear glaring problem, but the end of the sentence is funky. 'Anyone' is singular, as is 'video game designer,' but it switches to plural 'skilled writers and speakers.' This is a number agreement error - it should be "a skilled writer and speaker." Let's look at the answer choices. B is exactly what I predicted. C and D both have the same issue of inappropriate plural forms, and, aside from this error, neither is that much better than A. So I'm pretty confident B is the best answer." Now, I'm not literally thinking all these words in my head, but it matches my thinking process as I go through the question and evaluate each answer choice. As you learn the different grammar skills and how they appear on the test, you'll start evaluating answer choices for common ways that the SAT tries to trick you. Is a verb underlined? I'm going to check the subject to see if it follows subject/verb agreement. Then I'll check the verb tense. Is a pronoun underlined? I'm going to check the antecedent to see if it matches. Does an underline come right after a comma? I'm going to check if there's a faulty modifier error. I can justify every one of my answers because I know the grammar rules. This makes my answering more robust, not just based on whether something 'feels' right or wrong. Let's try another example for fun. Try to solve it yourself if you like. I'll start my stream of consciousness after I read the question: "This is a classic illogical comparison error - you're comparing "organically grown crops" with "people." Crops aren't more nutritious than people! We need to compare organic crops with conventionally grown crops.So I need an answer choice that solves this: A: same as original, which is wrong B: "organic crops are safer than the purchase of their conventionally grown counterparts" - no - it's better than comparing crops to people, but it's still not comparing crops to crops C: "organic crops are safer than purchasing their conventionally grown counterparts" - no, same error. This would be fine if the sentence read "they believe purchasing organic crops is safer than purchasing conventionally grown counterparts." But it doesn't. D: "organically crops are safer than their conventionally grown counterparts" - yes! It's crops to crops, perfect. You can see how I first identified the illogical comparison error in the original sentence. That made it very clear to me how I could find an answer choice that fixed this error. Then I went through each answer choice, replacing the text and seeing if it fixed the error. Note that in these questions, the SAT often fixes the original error in an answer choice- but then introduces another error. You need to make sure the answer you choose is 100% correct, in terms of both grammar and logic. Don't be intimidated if you can't do this right now. With practice and reflection, you will get to this point. Once again, it's like "the bee fly to the hive." You want to get to a point where all SAT grammar rules automatically sound as wrong as that sentence. Find patterns to your mistakes, and make sense of the chaos. Strategy 6: Find Patterns to Your Weaknesses and Drill Them Remember Strategy 4 above, about keeping a lot of every mistake? You need to take this even one more step further. If you're like most students, you're better at some areas in SAT Writing than others. You might know pronouns really well, but you'll be weak in sentence constructions and fragments. Or maybe you really like parallel construction, but you have no idea what faulty modifiers are. If you're like most students, you also don't have an unlimited amount of time to study. You have a lot of schoolwork, you might be an athlete or have intense extracurriculars, and you have friends to hang out with. This means for every hour you study for the SAT, it needs to be the most effective hour possible. In concrete terms,you need to find your greatest areas of improvement and work on those. Too many students study the 'dumb' way. They just buy a book and read it cover to cover. When they don't improve, they're SHOCKED. I'm not. Studying effectively for the SAT isn't like painting a house. You're not trying to cover your bases with a very thin layer of understanding. What these students did wrong was they wasted time on subjects they already knew well, and they didn't spend enough time improving their weak spots. Instead, studying effectively for the SAT is like plugging up the holes of a leaky boat. You need to find the biggest hole and fill it. Then you find the next biggest hole, and you fix that. Soon you'll find that your boat isn't sinking at all. How does this relate to SAT Writing? You need to find the grammar rules that you're having most trouble in, and then do enough practice questions until they're no longer a weakness. Fixing up the biggest holes. For every question that you miss, you need to identify the type of question it is and why you missed it. When you notice patterns to the questions you miss, you then need to find extra practice for this grammar rule. Say you miss a lot of misplaced modifier questions. You need to find a way to get lesson material to teach yourself the main concepts that you're forgetting. Then you need to find more practice questions for this skill so you can drill your mistakes. This is the best way for you to improve your Writing score. Once again, this is exactly how I designed our PrepScholar online SAT prep program to work. It automatically figures out your greatest weaknesses so you don't have to. We use advanced statistics with data from our thousands of students. With PrepScholar, you don't need to worry about what to study- you just need to focus on learning. Because it's worked for thousands of students, I'm pretty sure it'll work for you too. Click here to learn more. Strategy 7: Be Careful With NO CHANGE Answers In SAT Writing, most questions have a NO CHANGE option. In Improving Sentences types, A is the answer choice that doesn't change the underlined section. The SAT loves tricking students using these answer choices, because it knows that students who don't know grammar rules won't see anything wrong with the sentence. NO CHANGEis a really easy answer to choose. NO CHANGEs are one of the most common careless mistakes- make sure you don't fall for them. Be very careful whenever you choose one of these NO CHANGEanswer choices. Typically, these are correct answers around 25% of the time- not much more. If you find that you're choosing NO CHANGE 40% of the time, you're definitely not detecting grammar errors well enough. Every time you choose NO CHANGE, try to double-check the other answer choices to make sure you're not missing a grammar error. Especially take note of grammar rules that you tend to ignore mistakenly. Like I mentioned in Strategy 2 above, if you write down your mistakes and study your weaknesses, you'll be able to know which grammar rules you're weak at and then pay special attention to them. Personally, this was my most common careless error mistake. When I could see the error, I got the question correct nearly 100% of the time. The only times I missed questions were when I accidentally ignored an error. I solved this by double-checking each of the answer choices to make sure I wasn't leaving any stone unturned. Strategy 8: Think About Grammar in Everyday Life Among all subjects, Writing on the SAT is special because it appears in your everyday life. For school, you have to read a lot and you have to write a lot. Use these experiences as opportunities to notice grammar rules and sentence constructions. This is unique to SAT Writing. SAT Math is so bizarre compared to everyday life that you won't just naturally find ways to apply the Pythagorean theorem at breakfast. SAT Reading similarly requires very specific skills when reading a passage. But you can practice your grammar skills throughout the day. Here are some ideas: Proofread your friends' essays. Challenge yourself to uncover every grammatical error. Notice common errors around you. A lot of people comma splice, for example. Read high-quality, formal publications, like the New York Times or the Economist. These articles go through editors, so they rarely have grammar errors. You'll develop that ear for language I mentioned. Note that this isn't very efficient studying, and I don't recommend this for the sake of improving reading comprehension for SAT Reading. If you read like this for fun anyway, then go for it, but don't spend 100 hours reading for the sake of SAT Reading+Writing - spend that time on practice questions instead. The more you think about grammar as a fundamental skill rather than something specialized for the SAT, the more natural it will feel to you. Strategy 9: Finish With Extra Time and Double Check Your goal at the end of all this work is to get so good at SAT Writing that you solve every question and have extra time left over at the end of the section to recheck your work. In high school and even now, I can finish a 35 minute Reading section in 20 minutes or less. I then have 15 minutes left over to recheck my answers two times over. The best way to get faster, as explained above, is to get so fluent with SAT grammar that you rapidly zero in on the grammar mistakes without having to think hard about it. And to get fluent with Rhetoric questions so you can spot the trap answers. Try to aim for a target of spending 35 seconds on each question, reliably. This gives you enough time to doublecheck comfortably. What's the best way to double-check your work? I have a reliable method that I follow: Double-check any questions you marked that you're unsure of. Try hard to eliminate those answer choices. If it's a NO CHANGEquestion, double-check that you're not missing any grammar mistakes. If I'm 100% sure I'm right on a question, I mark it as such and never look at it again. If I'm not sure, I'll come back to it on the third pass. At least two minutes before time's up, I rapidly double-check that I bubbled the answers correctly. I try to do this all at once so as not to waste time looking back and forth between the test book and the answer sheet. Go five at a time ("A D E C B") for more speed. If you notice yourself spending more than 30 seconds on a problem and aren't clear how you'll get to the answer, skip and go to the next question. Even though you need a perfect raw score for an 800, don't be afraid to skip. You can come back to it later, and for now it's more important to get as many points as possible. Quick Tip: Bubbling Answers Here's a bubbling tip that will save you three minutes per section. When I first started test taking in high school, I did what many students do: after I finished one question, I went to the bubble sheet and filled it in. Then I solved the next question. Finish question 1, bubble in answer 1. Finish question 2, bubble in answer 2. And so forth. This actually wastes a lot of time. You're distracting yourself between two distinct tasks- solving questions, and bubbling in answers. This costs you time in both mental switching costs and in physically moving your hand and eyes to different areas of the test. Here's a better method: solve all your questions first in the book, then bubble all of them in at once. This has several huge advantages: you focus on each task one at a time, rather than switching between two different tasks. You also eliminate careless entry errors, like if you skip question 7 and bubble in question 8's answer into question 7's slot. By saving just five seconds per question, you get back 100 seconds on a section that has 20 questions. This is huge. Note: If you use this strategy, you should already be finishing the section with ample extra time to spare. Otherwise, you might run out of time before you have the chance to bubble in the answer choices all at once. In Overview Those are the main strategies I have for you to improve your SAT Writing score to a perfect 40, and to a total 800. If you're scoring above a 30 right now, with hard work and smart studying, you can raise it to a perfect Writing score. Even though we covered a lot of strategies, the main point is still this: you need to understand where you're falling short and drill those weaknesses continuously. You need to be thoughtful about your mistakes and leave no mistake ignored. One last tip: try to keep a steady head while you're taking the test. It's really easy to start doubting yourself because you know you need a near-perfect raw score. Even if you're unsure about two questions in a row, try to treat every question as its own independent test. If you start doubting yourself, you'll perform worse, and the worse you perform, the more you doubt yourself. Avoid this negative spiral of doubt and concentrate on being confident. You'll have studied a lot, and you'll do great on this test. Here's a recap of all the strategies, in case you want to go back and review any: Strategy 1: Understand Your High Level Weakness: Time Management, Content, or Essay Score Strategy 2: Comprehensively Learn the Grammar Rules Strategy 3: Get Intimately Familiar with the Rhetoric Question Types Strategy 4: Do a Ton of Practice, and Understand Every Single Mistake Strategy 5: Justify Every Answer. Point Out Specific Grammar Errors. Justify the Rhetoric Choice Strategy 6: Find Patterns to Your Weaknesses and Drill Them Strategy 7: Be Careful with NO CHANGEAnswers Strategy 8: Think About Grammar in Everyday Life Strategy 9: Finish With Extra Time and Double Check Keep reading for more resources on how to boost your SAT score. What's Next? We have a lot more useful guides to raise your SAT score. Read our complete guide to a perfect 1600, written by me, a perfect scorer. Read our accompanying guides on how to get an 800 on SAT Math and how to get an 800 on SAT Reading. Learn how to write a perfect-scoring 8|8|8 SAT essay, step by step. Make sure you study SAT vocab using the most effective way possible. Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points? Check out our best-in-class online SAT prep classes. We guarantee your money back if you don't improve your SAT score by 160 points or more. Our classes are entirely online, and they're taught by SAT experts. If you liked this article, you'll love our classes. Along with expert-led classes, you'll get personalized homework with thousands of practice problems organized by individual skills so you learn most effectively. We'll also give you a step-by-step, custom program to follow so you'll never be confused about what to study next. Try it risk-free today: