Strategic Management Of Human Capital - 1719 Words

Strategic Management of Human Capital Strategic Management requires the top management to establish goals and initiatives taking into consideration internal and external resources and data from the competition. These decisions and actions define the long performance of the organization. It includes internal and external environmental scanning, strategy formulation, implementation, evaluation and control. (Wheelen, Hunger, Hoffman, Bamford, 2015) This paper will discuss how strategic management can be used to recruit and retain the best employees to support strategic management. For a company to attain significant cultural changes the institution needs to make changes on the way they manage the human capital. Also, â€Å"changing the criteria†¦show more content†¦Hiring the right employees and creating strategies to train to help them grow and develop skills and increase knowledge gives the company a competitive advantage. Miles and Snow (1978, 1980) are among the few researchers who provide a conceptual foundation to link staffing and training practices with business strategy. Exploring how firms adapt to their environments; they develop a typology of business strategies that captures the extent to which firms are proactive. This business strategy typology provides strategic challenges that are translatable into specific job and skill requirements. Based on their study of organizations Miles and Snow (1978) identified three generic strategic types - defenders, prospectors and analyzers. â€Å"Defenders have a relatively stable product market doma in and therefore a narrow focus. Defender characteristics include: (1) a limited product line; (2) single capital intensive technology; (3) a functional structure; and (4) skills in production efficiency, process engineering, and cost control. (Ragburam Arvey, n.d.) Prospectors continually search for new product and market opportunities, and regularly experiment with emerging environmental trends. These organizations often create change to which their competitors must respond. However, because of their strong

The Enigmatic Persistence Of Anorexia Nervosa Essay

Assessment 1: Summary of Previous Responses through an Annotated Bibliography Walsh, B. (2013). The Enigmatic Persistence of Anorexia Nervosa. American Journal of Psychiatry, 170(5), 477-484. a) Define: Anorexia Nervosa is the pathological thoughts and behaviours regarding food and weight, and it also includes emotions about appearance, eating and food. These feelings and behaviours lead to changes in body composition and functioning which is the result of starvation. In adolescents, anorexia nervosa affects physical, emotion and social development therefore it is an important mental health issue to address in order to improve the wellbeing of those who suffer from this mental and chronic illness. Reputability of the source: This source is reputable as it is written by a Doctor of Medicine and published in the American Journal of Psychiatry which is a reputable collection of academic papers. It was also published in 2013 which means that it is a relevant source and is not outdated. Reflection: Risk factors such as being a female adolescent and having an obsessional style only make up a small portion of the variance in occurrence of Anorexia nervosa. There is a very large amount of female adolescents who tend to be obsessional and do not develop anorexia nervosa. Also those who diet do not necessarily develop anorexia nervosa. In most circumstances, it begins unremarkably therefore it is difficult to pinpoint the exact causes of anorexia nervosa in individuals. Early

Design Methods for Delivering Services Basics for Interior Design

Question: Discuss about theDesign Methods for Delivering Servicesfor Basics for Interior Design. Answer: Introduction Design can be defined as the process of deploying creativity and linking it with innovation to bring ideas into reality. A designer takes the ideas of the users of products and services and transforms them into reality to match the intended purpose(s). The designer uses prototypes during the early stages of design to cut on cost and to get real world feedbacks before designing on larger scale. Collaboration is important between the partners or users with the designer to ensure that the design process is successful. Service design involves making the usual services that we use to be easier, usable and even desirable through establishing touch points with the end user of a service. The process involves close coordination between the staff, customers and the designer in order to have a better understanding of the behaviors such as likes and dislikes. Service design may also involve re-designing the whole service to come up with a better one can satisfy the customers needs better. To bring uniformity in design the design council came up with Double Diamond model. The model has four phases that is: Discover, Define, Develop and Deliver (Wilson 5). The first phase is the discovery phase where the designer gets to identify the needs of the user and come up with fresh ideas. At this phase they determine what seems interesting and what might inspire new ideas such as user research, design research groups and market research. In the second phase the designer tries to make clear ideas of what is required and define goals arranging them in order of priority. The challenges are highlighted and solutions are suggested. The process basically entails project development and management. In the third phase solutions are created and the prototypes tested. This process helps the designer to refine the ideas. The objectives of this phase are coming up with working prototypes through brainstorming and coming up with clear methods and testing them. In the fourth phase the final product or service is launched with final tests being done and seeking feedback from the end users. There are several tools in the design process. First is User Journey Mapping is important as it involves the observation of the end user, like how the user interacts with the new service. This process makes it possible to understand which parts of a service are good for the user or which part does the user define as pain moments. This feedback is important in knowing which areas to improve and which ones are strong holds to the new service. On the other hand user diaries help a designer to understand the end user through gathering more user background information. Conducting the research over time gives qualitative results that can be depended upon which can help identify the user needs and inspire a designer. Service Safari helps in understanding the experience of the new service in the real world first hand. As a designer get firsthand experience provides insights on areas to improve especially during the first stage of design. To get a better understanding of the user experience u ser shadowing can be an effective method. Through observing how the users interact with the new service it becomes easy to identify the barriers and discover innovative opportunities. User persona helps in creating virtual character with attributes and characteristics of several users to get a clear and understandable mental picture of the user needs. Through the user persona method it can become easier for the design team to come up with ideas and evaluate them against the user needs at the developing phase of design. The design team can come up with quick ideas and solution to a problem through brain storming. The team can be able to identify the user needs and come up with designs and be able to arrange them in order priority according to the user needs especially in the developing phase. A design brief helps the designing team to understand the problems that they will be dealing with in the design process. Here the goals are set as guidelines, the budget and the timeline(Wilson 20). The possible risks that may arise are identified and are avoided to ensure smooth flow of activities. A service blueprint helps create clear visual representations of the users journey and interactions hence bringing the concepts into development through a rounded understanding of the service elements. Experience prototyping helps in testing the new services through specific user touch points. The Business model canvas on the other hand accesses how a service meets user needs and highlights areas of improvement. Design scenario ends the entire process of design be identifying possible areas of design in the future. References Wilson, Travis K. Drafting and Design: Basics for Interior Design. , 2011. Print.