Assembly Format

SCHOOL ATTENTION, STAND AT EASE, ATTENTION. Good Morning to one and all present here. I am Shivangi Goswami of Class 8 A standing before you to conduct today’s assembly. One man with courage is a majority. This famous quote was said by Thomas Jeffery, meaning one man who has courage can do anything and is capable enough to do any task at hand. So friends today the theme of our assembly is courage. The one who has the made the world, the one who has made us and the one who has blessed us with all our abilities is none other than our Almighty Father.So to acknowledge him for his deeds and blessings, I would like to call some of the boys of our class. Thank you for your acknowledging world. The love, affection, respect and devotion for god cannot be expressed only through words. To thank god in a wonderful way I present my class with the choir. That was indeed melodious. A class without a teacher, a flower without petals and a day without a thought is incomplete. So Nabin and Nih arika are here with a charming and delightful thought on courage. Thank you Nabin and Niharika.N for north, E for east, W for west and s for south. All these letters together makes the news. So to update us with the latest happenings around the globe, I call upon our young reporters Harpal, __________and____________ with the news. Thank you Harpal, ___________ and __________. Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the judgment that something else is important than fear. To through some more light on the assembly’s theme Courage, may I call upon Swaraj for the special assembly speech.Thank you Swaraj. Birthdays come once in a year. So we should celebrate it enthusiastically. May I call upon all the birthday students at the center stage as it is time to wish them a very happy birthday. On behalf of Class 8 A, I wish all the birthday students a very happy birthday. May I call upon our class teacher for making some announcements. Thank you madam. SCHOOL ATTENTION, STAND AT EASE, ATTENTION Now it’s time for the national anthem and the national anthem begins.

Nursing Opportunities in NYU Downtown Hospital

Nurses are indispensable members of the work force unit division in health care system whose main role is to provide for doctor’s assistance and cater to the health status and palliative care of the patients. Technically though, the nurses have higher specialized forms or masteral degrees which elevates them to a higher position in hospital departments (e.g. perioperative nurse). The NYU Downtown Hospital is the only hospital in Manhattan that caters to the healthcare of the Lower Manhattan Community specifically that of the Chinese community. The hospital employs wide and diverse medical professionals to provide for quality healthcare of the community and amongst the members of the workforce are the nurses. In NYU Downtown, the hospital’s selection of nurses for a specific job requires a basic New York Registered Nurse qualification and related experiences. The nursing opportunities for the hospital vary from jobs descriptive of leadership, staffs and per diem positions. Vacancies in leadership positions are on the following types: Nurse Manager for the peri-operative division, clinical nurse specialist in the Maternal Child Health Division, Nursing Administrative Supervisors for morning and evening shifts, and Registered Nurse Case Manager. For the staff positions, there are vacancies in the following departments and the corresponding time table: Emergency Room, Operating Room and Labor and Delivery for 12 hr duty day or night and Licensed Practical Nurses (LPNs) positions for 7.5 hr per day. Per diems are available for all units in the hospital on all shifts. The workplace is suitable for nurse employment because aside from sufficient wages and benefits, the hospital meets the standards of the healthcare system in terms of management and services rendered. The salary of registered nurses in the district is $53, 065 as of 2002 with an annual increase rate of 1% per year. Benefits include health,   dental , liability insurance, disability and   compensation programs, refunds and   annuity plans. Subsidies for houses, parkings and discounts are also available for employees. NYU Downtown Hospital’s vacancies for nursing positions mirror one of the stigmas of the New York medical profession nowadays — nursing shortage. As previously mentioned the singularity of the hospital in the area implies a huge demand for medical practitioners including the nurses. Unfortunately, in the entire New York, the supply of nurses does not meet the high rate of nurse demand. Although there are more than 234,000 Registered Nurses and 68,900 LPNs in 2001, the prediction for nurse sustainability is bad since there was an overall drop for the 1999 to 2001. Slow growth rate for Registered Nurses may indicate problems for the quality healthcare and     according to he National Sample Survey of registered Nurses, the state ranked second to the last in terms of RN percentage employment. The nursing shortage in New York are caused by several factors: aging workforce, increased job opportunities for women, low wages and benefits and other related factors which caused a decreased in the supply. Manhattan’s Downtown Hospital is aggravated, because as the lone hospital they must cater to both the resident and the non-resident community. (Non-residents are approximated at almost 400,000 per day.) The general trend for nursing shortage creates opportunities for work in the nursing arena in the New York Downtown Hospital. Although, the workplace and the salaries are sufficient enough for nursing occupation, NYU Downtown’s nursing problems may be fueled by a larger economic workforce crisis in the nursing arena. References Beu, B. â€Å"The nursing shortage and the nurse reinvestment act.† AORN Journ., 79(2004):1061-1063. Downtown Hospital. (2008). New York Downtown Hospital. Retrieved February 14, 2008, from New York Downtown Hospital database. Mitchell, G. J â€Å"Nursing shortage or nursing famine: Looking beyond numbers?† Nursing Science Quarterly, 16(2003), 219-24. The Registered Nurse Population. National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses- March 2000. Preliminary Findings, February 2001. Bureau of Health Professions, Division of Nursing.   

The Impact of Internships on Graduate Employability Essay

The Impact of Internships on Graduate Employability - Essay Example Thereby, employers will be able to employ people who are qualified and knowledgeable. However, some employers mistreat interns. Some organizations may not set aside budget for internship programs. By not having this program, employers are not able to teach potential employees on the competencies and skills the company wants. Introduction Internship is the period of time when students are attached to organizations where they are supervised to gain firsthand experience to the professions that they are studying. This normally comes after they have been taught about the profession in class before they are allowed to participate as interns in different organizations. While working as interns, the students are evaluated by supervisors and a report on the students’ performance is sent to their school after completion of the internship. The report combined with the course work contributes to the final score for the students (Sweitzer and King 2009). Students can either get internships through applying for the position in organizations or their college might partner with organizations in order for them to offer internship programs to their students. Internships normally vary depending on the organizations policy. Many organizations pay students who are interns in their organization. On the other hand, some organizations don’t pay interns, but rather they have incentives such as transport or lunch to motivate them. Internship period also varies on how students and the organization agree to work together. However, being an intern in a certain organization does not automatically qualify the student to get a job in the organization. However, depending on the students’ hard work, they can be considered should any vacancy arise in the organization. Students can attend internships locally or internationally so long as it is in relation to the profession that they are undertaking. In some cases, students may decide to take internship programs while they are on vacation to increase their experience on the profession (Sweitzer and King 2009). Most companies normally hire interns to equip them with the necessary skills required to perform the profession that they have specialized in. Companies also hire interns to minimize the costs required to finish some tasks. This is because companies know that when they hire interns certain tasks will be able to be accomplished with minimum expenses or with no expense at all. It is upon an individual to work hard during the internship period to acquire a range of skills and knowledge. This paper will critically analyze both the positive as well as the negative impacts of internships on graduate employability. Positive impacts of internships Internships help students to acquire knowledge. Through internships, participants get to interact with professions who guide them on how to go about the profession. During class lessons on professions that students undertake, the teaching is mostly theoretical. B ut once students are working as interns, they get to learn the practical bit of the profession thereby gaining knowledge from the different professionals they engage with. This also makes the student to gain professional knowledge on the profession that they are studying (Hergert 2009).   Internships provide students with an insight on what is required of them in order to become successful in the field.

Global Enterprise and Innovation Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Global Enterprise and Innovation - Assignment Example op employer in France and Europe and hence selecting Saint Gobain-India was an easy decision based on the excellent company record and long term vision of the company (Saint Gobain, 2014) With innovation at its core, Saint Gobain has made products such as its automotive glass, construction materials and performance plastics. The automotive glass range comprises of cutting edge products in automotive glazing, laminated wind shields and tempered glasses. It also has special features such as acoustic control and enhanced security. The performance plastics range is the world’s leading range of high performance polymer products which are used for construction and various other purposes (Saint Gobain, 2014). These products have been made keeping the current Indian market in mind. The construction industry in India has been growing at an average 9-11% year on year (EC Haris Research, 2011). This is due to a marked increase in manufacturing activities and industrial growth. Growth rates for the construction industry are expected to bypass the overall GDP growth over the next two years. The booming construction industry is the perfect market for the Saint Gobain construction materials (EC Haris Research, 2011). Same is the case with the automotive industry. In March 2012, production of auto motives grew at the rate of 6.83% (ACMA, 2013). The domestic sales of auto motive domestic sales great at 10.11% as compared to 2011 (SIAM, 2013). The automobile market is booming and Saint Gobain India made the right choice by specializing in these products so it can cater to the growing demand of these markets. As a company Saint Gobain has adapted to the Indian market and introduced products which are suitable for the growing industries and can cater to their need. The products are also high quality with innovative features (SIAM, 2013). The poster highlights the core feature of Saint Gobain which is Innovation. The innovation strategy of Saint Gobain has been shown and how

Accountability, Representation and Control and the Euro crisis Essay

Accountability, Representation and Control and the Euro crisis - Essay Example Some of the common perspectives on the crisis suggest that the weaknesses in the accountability processes, compromised systems of control, and poor representation are at the core of the Euro crisis (Hopwood, 2009, p. 797). Those who hold onto this view contend that revamping the structural basis of the three features is fundamental to resolving the crisis. The banking sector, the government spending practices, and the corporate world remain some of the areas that have received significant focus by analysts of the Euro crisis. Poor controls feature in the manner in which governments have failed to put in place regulatory systems to stem bad spending practices, which lead to increased deficits that imperil economic growth. Weak accountability systems encouraged unethical accounting practices that threatened the collapse of the banking sector in the region attracting large amounts of bailouts that burdened the taxpayers. The genesis of the Euro crisis stems from failure of some member s tates to regulate their sovereign debt. The sovereign debt, which had been capped at the 60 percent of the gross domestic product GDP, determines the state of stability of the economic stability of the member states (Arnold, 2012). Proposals for austerity measures, which have been suggested by countries like Germany have incurred the displeasure of some of the most affected countries such as Greece and Poland. The central thinking of the affected countries is that austerity measures will stunt economic growth and leading to states of economic instability, which would expose the affected countries to more damage from the systems. It is important to consider some of the reasons of the economic crisis in terms of the structural germ of their causes. At the bottom of the debt crisis is the need for stronger and reliable regulatory frameworks that would enable accountability, control, and representation in order to shield the Eurozone from the adverse consequences of the crisis. Pursuit of economic self-interest among the Eurozone member states remains one of the challenges facing efforts of addressing the Euro crisis (Lynn, 2011, p. 31). Entry into the Eurozone necessarily required member countries to cede some control of their economic structures to a centralized operational framework without mortgaging their sense of autonomy. Further, the challenge also involves the question of competition, which drove some countries to practice subjective accounting practices with the intention of protecting certain self-interests. According to some economic policies, the Euro crisis would have been averted had the member countries adjusted their accounting policies and operations in ways that embrace the aspect of representation as understood within the framework of fair trading practices (Arestis, 2012). Such structures would have provided the necessary points of economic convergence, which would have shielded the countries from the threats posed by the crisis. Much of the f ocus of the Euro crisis has involved unqualified accounting practices in the corporate world (Knight, 2012, p. 13). A number of banks, for instance, presented unqualified audit reports, which gave hints of growth based on misrepresentation of certain disclosures on assets and mortgages. Such banks later encountered numerous operational challenges that led to their being declared bankrupt. On this account, many banking institutions led to massive government expenditure in terms of bailouts, which were necessitated by the fact that failure to put in place appropriate regulatory mechanisms would expose the banking sector to the threat of collapse, which would then touch of a series of economic challenges that

Change management Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Change management - Assignment Example Based on my personal reflection on the group case study, relevant change management theories and class discussion I intend to reflect on my personal perspective of managing change. My discussions will comprehensively indicate lessons learned from group case study, how my perspective on change management had been altered in the course of the semester and the implications of my current perspective of change management on my approach to future organisational change. I tend to regard Prosci’s ADKAR model of change as my personal perspective of managing change. According to Zimmermann (2011), ADKAR is a goal oriented change management model that is focused on individual level in an organisation. This model enables change management committee or relevant authority to focus their objectives on specific organization related results. I am of the opinion that organizational change entails adoption of new mindsets, internal and external policies, practices and organizational behaviours that are primarily pegged on the framework of individual’s culture and organizational culture. Therefore, ADKAR’s model in my perspective effectively enables individual and further organizational adjustment of prevailing culture and subsequently the behaviour. My analysis of the model indicated that it highly emphasized on employees’ transition into the new organizational status as opposed to other models of organizational change that are proc ess oriented. Surprisingly, I observed that all models of organizational change implement ADKAR’s elements of change either directly or indirectly since all organizational change entails behavioural and psychological transition of employees. With reference to the case study of my group, pay@pump of Caltex, creation of awareness that is an aspect of ADKAR model was instrumental in the implementation of Caltex’s operational changes. Consequently, my adoption of ADKAR’s model was informed by its universal practicality

Obesity and its many health concerns Research Paper

Obesity and its many health concerns - Research Paper Example This was owing to the alarming increase in the number of people suffering from this problem as well as the serious health risks that an individual is exposed to owing to this health condition. Obesity is a life hampering condition which tends to affect the living of an individual and this issue needs to be dealt with in the best possible manner to control the rise in the number of people suffering from this problem (McCambridge 2006). . The statistics of obesity have been increasing at a very fast pace in the United States of America. The situation has become very grave owing to the fact that it has been analyzed that United States has the highest rates of obesity in comparison to the other countries across the globe. In the year 2010, it was seen that one out of every five people in the United States suffered from the problem of increased weight. This showed a substantial increase in comparison to the year 1991 when one out of every eight individuals had weight above the normal limi ts. Furthermore, it has been highlighted that the rate of obesity has increased by more than three times in comparison to the year 1961. Dr. ... According to the similar report the number of adults who have weight above normal limits and are obese ranges to about 130 million (Bass III 2011; Huber 2010; McCambridge 2006). It has been highlighted that obesity is a pathological condition that poses many risks for the human health. The Department of Health and Human Services indicated the fact that the obese individuals laid a greater burden on the healthcare system of the country and hundred billion dollars have to be diverted every year towards the healthcare costs on the obese individuals. It has also been analyzed that obesity related pathologies are responsible for the death of 300,000 people in the United States (Bass III 2011; Huber 2010). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have set standards to check for the individuals who suffer from obesity. The Body Mass Index is the widely used calculation for checking obesity. This index utilizes the height and the weight of the person to calculate the results of the amo unt of fat present in a person’s body. The result is compared with a standard chart which has the different BMI values according to the sex and the age of the individuals. This indicates the fact that the BMI values differ from one person to owing to different BMI values for different ages and sexes. The CDC has laid guidelines that all individuals who have a BMI ranging from 25 to 29.9 suffer from increased weight and those individuals who have a BMI above 30 suffer from obesity (Bass III 2011; McCambridge 2006). There has been great emphasis laid upon childhood obesity and obesity amongst the younger age groups. This is owing to the fact that forty percent of

The marketing strategies of louis vuitton Research Paper

The marketing strategies of louis vuitton - Research Paper Example In addition, the motivation of its employees can be considered a marketing strategy of this company because of the fact that these employees provide such great services to the customers that the latter are encouraged to return to the Vuitton stores (Christensen et al 38). The management at Louis Vuitton has created a relaxed environment and it is a fact that most of the time, the managers are indistinguishable from the other employees because they do not simply give orders to their subordinates, but they also accept feedback from them and are ready to get alternatives to their decisions. This helps to show that although they have managers, the employee teams at Louis Vuitton are obviously in their later stages of development and are very comfortable outside their predefined roles, displaying high levels of motivation. The management has come to the realization that any attempt to put any verbal barriers between themselves and their employees ensures that employees have the freedom to interact with the customers so that they can efficiently serve them. The marketing of the Louis Vuitton products is not only being done at a local level, its marketing campaigns are also conducted at a regional, national, and international level. This has been found to be the best way to ensure that these products reach a wider audience than they would normally have if marketing were done at only the local level. The professionalism of the marketing staff at Louis Vuitton has enabled it to compete against other organizations effectively attempting to market similar products and in fact, it has developed an edge over them in the market. Louis Vuitton always aims at being the best in the marketing of its products so that the relatively low level of its competitors in the marketing business has worked towards showing that this company has the top quality of work that is done within it. The marketing of the Louis Vuitton products tends to be done using all the media available, both vis ual and print, to ensure that a much wider audience is reached than anticipated (Wang and Lin 401). This has worked towards guaranteeing the success of this company’s product within the market for a long time since the marketing strategy adopted has been one that retains the attention of its audience. One of the best means through which the Louis Vuitton products are marketed is online since there are billions of users of the internet who are often a ready audience. Because the internet is a leading tool in marketing, this is where most companies and other institutions go to when they need to acquire products for the use of their clients, and Louis Vuitton has not been left out of this marketing strategy. Marketing online has ensured that the clients of this company stay up to date with the current product so that they are able to get the best out of it. One of the marketing strategies that have been adopted by Louis Vuitton has been the use of customer relationship marketing

“Praying with Larry Podder” Allegations Essay Example for Free

â€Å"Praying with Larry Podder† Allegations Essay As you are aware of, there are several allegations being brought upon Playing With God’s newest game on the market, â€Å"Praying with Larry Podder.† I would like to address some of these allegations and how they may affect this company’s top selling product. I believe that we some in-depth investigation, and some possible minor changes to our product, this company can minimize and possibly avoid any legal implications. This morning I was served with a lawsuit from Nintendo claiming that â€Å"Praying with Larry Podder† violates their exclusive right to market games under the â€Å"Harry Potter† label. Also, Warner Brothers is preparing a lawsuit for copyright infringement. As you may know, the storyline for the game â€Å"Praying with Larry Podder† was developed by Larry Bakker, son of corporate board member Jon Bakker. Larry Bakker claims that the storyline is a parody based upon his own life and childhood experiences. I would like to start an in-depth investigation into the possible comparisons between â€Å"Praying With Larry Podder† and â€Å"Harry Potter†. The company lawyers need to sit down with Larry Bakker and question him about his childhood experiences and if the characters and/or storyline in â€Å"Larry Podder† draw any similarities to that of â€Å"Harry Potter†. Also, Larry Bakker needs to be asked if he has received the permission of his Aunt Tammy Faye, a well-known TV Evangelist, to use her likeness as a character in the video game. Finally, it’s very important to talk to the Marketing Department to find out if the â€Å"Praying with Larry Podder† logos and market have any parallels with the â€Å"Harry Potter† trademark. In my opinion, if â€Å"Praying with Larry Podder† is truly created from the childhood experiences of Larry Bakker, an investigation of the facts of Larry Bakker’s past will disprove any similarities to that of the life of Harry Potter. Jon Bakker, father of Larry Bakker, can authenticate the story of Larry Bakker’s life, and can provide evidence nee ded to backup any of the events of Larry’s life that are depicted in the video game. As long as the characters comparison and video game trademarks are not similar  to â€Å"Harry Potter†, the only concern I have is with the possible misinterpreting of the name â€Å"Larry Podder† and â€Å"Harry Potter†, which may be a marketing strategy by the Marketing Department. The name â€Å"Larry Podder† may be considered a parody of â€Å"Harry Potter†. Since copyright law prohibits the use of a copyrighted material without permission of the copyright owner, the freedom of speech principles incorporated in the First Amendment and the fair-use defense can be used to refute any liability of copyright infringement. Even though Praying with God is a Christian organization, the First Amendment does not offer Christian organizations any special protection. My biggest concern with the â€Å"Praying with Larry Podder† is the very close comparison the character of Larry Podder’s aunt to that of Tammy Faye, a well-known TV Evangelist. If permission was not given for the use of Tammy Faye’s likeness in the video game, the company has committed the tort of unauthorized appropriation, which can lead to a future lawsuit from Tammy Faye herself. If permission has not been granted, the video game needs to be redesign such that Larry Podder’s aunt does not look like Tammy Faye. One of the features built into the â€Å"Praying with Larry Podder† video game is that online players can share prayers, sheet music for hymns, and Christian music MP3s. Currently, the file sharing aspects of the game are violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The DMCA criminalizes the production and dissemination of technology and services that circumvent measures that control access to copyrighted work such as MP3 music peer-to-peer file sharing. It is against the law to share copyright material without the permission of the copyright owner. If the file sharing in the game is limited to sharing of non-copyrighted sheet music and bible verses, then the game will not be violating the DMCA. In order to avoid legal implications, the game needs to disable the ability to file share copyrighted materials. The game can continue to function as a peer-to-peer network as long as it places a disclaimer on game stating that all users are to comply with copyright laws and the previsions of licensing agreements that apply to the software. The disclaimer will place the liability into the hands of the individuals that are performing the act of copyright infringement. All in all, my final recommendation is that the distribution of the video game â€Å"Praying with Larry Podder† may continue once all of the issues addressed above are fully investigated. The company should prepare  all evidence necessary to prove that the game is a parody of the life of Larry Bakker. The company needs to ensure that they have the permission of Tammy Faye to use her likeness as a character in the video game. If the permission is not granted, the character appearance of the aunt needs to be altered to ensure it does not reflect the likeness of Tammy Faye. Finally, the company shall disable the ability for file sharing of copyrighted material, and add a disclaimer to the game stating that only non-copyrighted materials may be shared. Once all of the facts are gathered and the problems are resolved, the company may continue to distribute â€Å"Praying with Larry Podder†.

Performance Appraisal Essay Example for Free

Performance Appraisal Essay A performance appraisal is a systematic and periodic process that assesses an individual employee’s job performance and productivity in relation to certain pre-established criteria and organizational objectives. Historically, performance Appraisal has been conducted annually (long-cycle appraisals), however many companies are moving towards shorter cycles (every six months, every quarter), and some have been moving into short-cycle (weekly, bi-weekly) appraisals. PA is often included in performance management systems. PA helps the subordinate answer two key questions; first, What are your expectations of me? second, How am I doing to meet your expectations? Performance management systems are employed â€Å"to manage and align all of an organizations resources in order to achieve highest possible performance. How performance is managed in an organization determines to a large extent the success or failure of the organization. Therefore, improving PA for everyone should be among the highest priorities of contemporary organizations. A central reason for the utilization of performance appraisals is performance improvement initially at the level of the individual employee, and ultimately at the level of the organization. Other fundamental reasons include â€Å"as a basis for employment decisions (e. g. promotions, terminations, transfers), as criteria in research (e. g. test validation), to aid with communication to establish personal objectives for training programs, for transmission of objective feedback for personal development as a means of documentation to aid in keeping track of decisions and legal requirements and in wage and salary administration. Additionally, PAs can aid in the formulation of job criteria and selection of individuals â€Å"who are best suited to perform the required organizational tasks†. A PA can be part of guiding and monitoring employee career development. PAs can also be used to aid in work motivation through the use of reward systems. The latest mantra being followed by organizations across the world being – get paid according to what you contribute – the focus of the organizations is turning to performance management and specifically to individual performance. If the process of performance appraisals is formal and properly structured, it helps the employees to clearly understand their roles and responsibilities and give direction to the individual’s performance. Potential benefits  PAs can benefit an organization’s effectiveness. One way is PAs can often lead to giving individual workers feedback about their job performance. From this may spawn several potential benefits such as the individual workers becoming more productivity. Other potential benefits include: * Facilitation of communication: communication in organizations is considered an essential function of worker motivation. It has been proposed that feedback from PAs aid in minimizing employees’ perceptions of uncertainty. Fundamentally, feedback and management-employee communication can serve as a guide in job performance. Enhancement of employee focus through promoting trust: behaviors, thoughts, or issues may distract employees from their work, and trust issues may be among these distracting factors. Such factors that consume psychological energy can lower job performance and cause workers to lose sight of organizational goals. Properly constructed and utilized PAs have the ability to lower distracting factors and encourage trust within the organization. * Goal setting and desired performance: PAs provide room for discussion in the collaboration of these individual and organizational goals. Collaboration can also be advantageous by resulting in employee acceptance and satisfaction of appraisal results. * Performance improvement: well constructed PAs can be valuable tools for communication with employees as pertaining to how their job performance stands with organizational expectations. â€Å"At the organizational level, numerous studies have reported positive relationships between human resource management (HRM) practices and performance improvement at both the individual and organizational levels. Determination of training needs: PAs can especially be instrumental for identifying training needs of new employees. Finally, PAs can help in the establishment and supervision of employees’ career goals. Potential complications Despite all the potential advantages of formal performance appraisals (PAs), there are also potential drawbacks they are: * Detrimental to quality improvement: it has been proposed that the use of PA systems in organizations adversely affect or ganizations’ pursuits of quality performance. It is believed by some scholars and practitioners that the use of PAs is more than unnecessary if there is total quality management. * Negative perceptions: â€Å"Quite often, individuals have negative perceptions of PAs†. Receiving or the anticipation of receiving a PA can be uncomfortable and distressful and potentially cause â€Å"tension between supervisors and subordinates†. If the person being appraised does not trust their employer, appraiser or believe that they will benefit from the process it may become a tick box exercise. Errors: PAs should provide accurate and relevant ratings of an employee’s performance as compared to pre-established criteria/goals Nevertheless, supervisors will sometimes rate employees more favorably than that of their true performance in order to please the employees and avoid conflict. * Legal issues: when PAs are not carried out appropriately, legal issues could result that place the organization at risk. PAs are used in organi zational disciplinary programs as well as for promotional decisions within the organization. The improper application and utilization of PAs can affect employees negatively and lead to legal action against the organization. The most significant reasons of using Performance appraisal are: * Making payroll and compensation decisions * Training and development needs * Identifying the gaps in desired and actual performance and its cause * Deciding future goals and course of action * Promotions, demotions and transfers * Other purposes (including job analysis and providing superior support, assistance and counseling) Human resource management performance management Human resource management (HRM) conducts performance management. Performance management systems consist of the activities and processes embraced by an organization in anticipation of improving employee performance, and therefore, organizational performance. Consequently, performance management is conducted at the organizational level and the individual level. At the organizational level, performance management oversees organizational performance and compares present performance with organizational performance goals. The achievement of these organizational performance goals depends on the performance of the individual organizational members. Therefore, easuring individual employee performance can prove to be a valuable performance management process for the purposes of HRM and for the organization. Many researchers would argue that â€Å"performance appraisal is one of the most important processes in Human Resource Management†. Methods of collecting data There are three main methods used to collect performance appraisal (PA) data they are Objective production The objective production method consists of direct, but limited, measures such as sales figures, production numbers, the electronic performance monitoring of data entry workers, etc. 6] The measures used to appraise performance would depend on the job and its duties. Personnel The personnel method is the recording of withdrawal behaviors (i. e. absenteeism, accidents). Most organizations consider unexcused absences to be indicators of poor job performance, even with all other factors being equal; however, this is subject to criterion deficiency. The quantity of an employee’s absences does not reflect how dedicated he/she may be to the job and its duties. Especially for blue-collar jobs, accidents can often be a useful indicator of poor job performance, but this is also subject to criterion contamination because situational factors also contribute to accidents. Judgmental evaluation Judgmental evaluation appears to be a collection of methods, and as such, could be considered a methodology. Judgmental evaluations are the most commonly used with a large variety of evaluation methods The main methods used in judgmental performance appraisal are: * Graphic Rating Scale: Graphic rating scales are the most commonly used system in PA. On several different factors, subordinates are judged on how much of that factor or trait they possess. Typically, the raters use a 5- or 7-point scale; however, there are as many as 20-point scales. * Employee-Comparison Methods: rather than subordinates being judged against pre-established criteria, they are compared with one another. This method eliminates central tendency and errors. The rank-order method has raters ranking subordinates from â€Å"best† to â€Å"worst†, but how truly good or bad one is on a performance dimension would be unknown. The paired-comparison method requires the rater to select the two best subordinates out of a group on each dimension then rank individuals according to the number of times each subordinate was selected as one of the best. * Behavioral Checklists and Scales: behaviors are more definite than traits. The critical incidents method concerns â€Å"specific behaviors indicative of good or bad job performance†. Supervisors record behaviors of what they judge to be job performance relevant, and they keep a running tally of good and bad behaviors. Performance appraisal interviews The performance appraisal (PA) interview is typically the final step of the appraisal process. The interview is held between the subordinate and supervisor. The PA interview can be considered of great significance to an organization’s PA system. It is most advantageous when both the superior and subordinate participate in the interview discussion and establish goals together. Three factors consistently contribute to effective PA interviews: the supervisor’s knowledge of the subordinate’s job and performance in it, the supervisor’s support of the subordinate, and a welcoming of the subordinate’s participation.

The Role Of Zara As A Brand Commerce Essay

The Role Of Zara As A Brand Commerce Essay Zara is a fashion brand from the house of Inditex SA, of Spain, which is one of the leading fashion retailers of the world. Zara started its retail operations for the in 1975, with its first store opened at La Coruna in Galicia, Spain. Presently this is the head office of Zara. Zaras retail operation now extends to about 650 stores operating in 50 different countries. Over the last five years Zaras sales has increased at a steady rate of 25% and Zara as a brand contributes to about 80% of the companys total profits. There are questions that pull forward the need for this research to be undertaken. Some of these questions would be that when most fashion retailers reported negative annual profits due to the global economic recession, how has Zara been able to continuously increase its profitability? What are the strategies employed by Zara? What are the quality control checks employed by Zara? How scalable is Zaras business model and finally what does Zara follow to maintain its high market share and at the same time compete with other fashion retailers? Zara focuses on the apparel business more as a consumption market rather than being a commodity market. Hence Zara focuses on speed and thus looks at continuous reduction of response time. Hence to achieve this Zara has an effective vertically integrated supply chain which is very closely integrated with the customers. It is from here that the latest trends in fashion are identified and the garments are produced accordingly and delivered to stores within a period of 2 weeks. . 1.3 Competitive Priorities of Zara: The identifiable competitive priorities on which Zara has built up its successful business model are as follows: 1.3.1 Fast speed of production: Zara has the ability to transform a fashion concept and place finish products in the stores within a period of 2 weeks. Zara has dedicated teams at stores which allow the retailer to get designer influenced products at a very rapid pace within the stores. 1.3.2 Variation of Production: Zaras value chain comprises of members who dedicated work closely with customers in spotting new trends of demand in fashion. They have the ability to launch new trends, designs and variation of products. 1.3.3 Cost Leadership: Zara produces fashionable range of products at an affordable pricing. When compared to other competitors in the same strategic group, Zaras products are priced lower than GAP and Benetton. The main reasons due to which Zara can achieve cost leadership is because they keep a very low level of inventory in stores. Their efficient distribution system allows them to get products in the store just in time. As a result of which Zara has a high annual inventory turnover. 1.4 Applying Porters Generic Strategy: On application of Porters generic strategy it has been observed that Zara looks at the broad scope of the market. Zara uses a combination of differentiation and overall cost leadership. The ability to produce different range of fashion at a fast pace is the differentiating factor of Zara that gives them a high sustainable competitive advantage. Overall cost leadership is achieved through the vertically integrated supply chain that Zara possesses. Due to the efficient supply chain, Zara can achieve a high stock turnover and at the same time maintain a low level of inventory in stores. 1.5 The practice of Total Quality management and its implementation in Zaras vertical supply chain: 1975-1995: Since its inception in 1975 till 1995 Zara has followed the method of inspection in order to keep a check on the quality of its products. Zaras designing team has worked closely with customers and have spend their time in spotting the latest trends in demand. An instant sketch of the design has been analysed and the accordingly produced. The quality control teams at Zara inspected the designs before placing them in stores. 1995 till date: After 1995 Zara has implemented the practice of Total Quality management. In this practice Zaras vertically integrated supply chain tries to achieve Continuous Improvement of their processes, which includes spotting of the fashion trends, designing, and procurement of their materials, the CAD technology they use for designing, their improved inventory management and finally their centralised logistics and distribution system. Each of the components of the supply chain process has been explained below. From the aspect of employees, Zara invests a lot on the motivation of employees. They mainly hire young people who are creative and can understand the latest trends of fashion. Collectively these two aspects are used to achieve high level of customer satisfaction. 1.6 Supply Chain View of Zara: According to McMillan and Mullen (Operations Management Volume 2: 2002), the purpose of SCM is to integrate all tasks associated with the bi-directional flow of materials, information and finance into organized, coherent, managed processes in order to provide end-to-end management and control. One of the pivotal examples that support this view is the Supply Chain Management in Zara. 1.6.1 Design and Production: Zara uses concurrent designing process which integrates members from the entire organisation structure in creating its designs for fashion. This includes members from the procurement team, designers, market specialists and finally feedbacks obtained from sales executives and store manager. The average age of the designing team is 26 years. These designers spot the latest trends from different sources such as fashion shows, magazines and trade fairs. Then they make a sketch of the design and these designs are consulted upon by different members from the procurement and production departments. Only 25% of the total number of concepts are accepted and actually executed. Zaras business processes are integrated and cross functional teams work across all processes. Due to this there is a rapid flow of information which reduces the decision making time and in turn the lead time. 1.6.2 Procurement: 60% of the products produced by Zara are by their own factories. Zara has about 25 factories across the world and most of the plants run on a single shift basis. Thus Zara has unutilised capacity which they use for quick response to increase in seasonal demand. As a result of this Zara can transform their products quickly to the stores even when the demand is high. Although the design and automated manufacturing is done by Zara in house, most of the labour intensive activities are outsourced to reduce overall cost. 1.6.3 Information Systems: Most of the designs developed are done using CAD. This is a major reason for making the manufacturing process rapid. Apart from this ZARA invests considerably on technology in order to aid in the flow of information. Zara store managers posses hand held PDA which they use to send information such as sales figures, order placing and customer feedback to the head office in La Coruna. Based on this designing team confirms the design and sends them across to manufacturing units wherein CAD is used to manufacture the products. 1.6.4 Inventory Management: Zara replenishes its inventory from one of its 650 stores at least twice a week. However the stock quantities are limited so that they ensure not to carry excess inventory. On record Inditex has the least inventory as a percentage of annual sales as compared to Gap, which is its closest competitor. 1.6.5 Centralised Logistics and Distribution: Zara has a centralised distribution unit that operates from its head office in La Coruna. Zara uses all modes transportation for shipment namely trucks, trains and even planes in some cases. Trucks are loaded as per the specific order in the evening and they are dispatched at night at a specific time. 1.7 Employees at Zara: Employees at Zara is one of the main reasons for the effective quick response system of Zara. The HR policies revolve around high level of employee motivation. Zara believes in hiring young and creative people. Employees are Zara are given holistic training across all skill sets and they are also given high incentives. These practices motivates employees to market the brand Zara effectively. 1.8 Value Chain framework of Zara: Based on the above research a value chain frame work of Zara is given below: 2. A comparative study of Zara with Benetton: 2.1 Introduction to Benetton: The Benetton brand was established in the year 1966 by Luciano Benetton as an Italian fashion brand that produces wide array of coloured clothes. The Benetton group has 150 million garments rolling out of their stores and they have a mammoth number of 6000 contemporary stores worldwide. 2.2 Operational Control: Since its inception, until 2004 Benetton had a centralised production and distribution system. It also did inspection of its products and rapid quality checks from 1980 to the mid 2004. However in 2005 the control has become decentralized and Benetton now follows the Total Quality Management practices in its entire value chain. 2.2.1 Continuous Improvement in the Production Process: Benettons production system had undergone a major transformation in the year 2005. It evolved from an organisation based on divisions such as wool and cotton, to a structure based on service units such as planning and quality control. The new production system is flexible, and it integrates all the stake holders in the value chain. Thus it helps in reducing product delivery time and it also optimizes the quality and service levels. In this process there are three teams that work in tandem to deliver greater value to customers. These are the Logistics unit, the quality checking unit and the customer service unit. The customer service unit plays a major role in analyzing customer demands and level of satisfaction. This team has departments which keep a close track on the sales staffs and the store managers, whose inputs are taken into consideration during the production process. The quality checking unit keeps a track of the level of confirmation of specification of each design. Tagging and labeling of the units of garments are also taken care by them. The Logistics team is by far the most important team in the organisation. There is now a new Hong Kong hub that has become fully operational along with the European hub and the U.S hub. Benettons logistic system has now transformed from a centralised system to being a satellite control system. This facilitates the individual hubs to concentrate on their particular regions of distribution and supply the appropriate number of units and the appropriate design at the right time. Since 2005 till date the stores have thus reported low levels of inventory and high stock turnover rate. 2.2.2 Customer Satisfaction perspective: Since 2005, Benetton has also rejuvenated the concept of shopping experience by providing a new range of concept stores. Some of them are the Pentagram concept for glamorous clothes and the Cool concept for producing casual lines of clothing. Aspects of visual merchandising are taken better care of in order to strengthen the shopping experience of customers and developing stronger relationships with them. 2.2.3 Employees: With the implementation of TQM in 2005 the organizational functioning and structure has also been majorly transformed. Benetton now looks at hiring young individuals who takes the challenge of a fast paced environment. In 2005 a new project called the Wanna Sell? was introduced as a part of the training and development programme. In this project young and enthusiastic individuals were chosen and put into teams to attend sales workshops. During the 2008 economic meltdown Benetton continued to provide their staffs with incentives and thereby encouraging then to work with greater passion. 3.1 The Comparative Quality timeline: 4 SWOT Analysis of Zara: 4.1 Strengths: Vertically Integrated Supply Chain Quick Response System Integration of IT in the Information System Efficient Distribution Facilities Presence of Brand Globally 4.2 Weakness: Overdependence of Inditex over Zara as only one brand Lesser efficient supply chain management in U.S than Europe. (A negative effect of centralization) Location of Shops: It is often seen that Zara has too many shops in the same geographic area, thus causing canibalisation of its own sales. 4.3 Opportunity: Moving out to emerging markets such as Brazil and India where people are now more conscious of fashion. 4.4 Threats: Competitors such as HM who are also rapid innovators of fashion. In certain countries such as India, China and some of the Middle East nations there are companies that produce fashion at a high price but keeping a low cost. 5 Recommendations: 5.1 Decentralisation: Looking at the fact that Zara faces certain challenges logistically in markets such as United States and certain parts of Asia, Zara should now go for a decentralised structure in their distribution channel. As we have seen in the case of Benetton, due to the decentralised structure Benetton can efficiently manage their operation on such a large scale. For a company like Zara which is looking to penetrate the emerging markets, it should bring about a decentralised structure in the following ways: Zara should build controlling units of Distribution and Production in every geographic region where it has its operations. In this way it would help Zara to concentrate on each and every region rather than controlling the entire business from their headquarters in La Coruna. Zara should not bring about any change in the overall Supply Chain View which it now follows. 5.2 Six Sigma Practices: Being a high innovator of fashion, Zara should consider Six Sigma practice in order to mitigate the risks of innovation. It has been a proven track record that through Six Sigma companies have been able to reduce a high amount of their process costs, according to Six Sigma Academy companies save $230,000 per project by applying six sigma practices. Six Sigma practices help in improving ongoing processes of an organisation very effectively. For an organisation like Zara, at the present situation the application of Six Sigma will complement their high level of innovation that they do in order to bring in new fashion to the market continuously. Six Sigma practices can be implemented through in Zara through the application of DMAIC model. The DMAIC model can be elaborated as Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve and Control of the processes in Zara. Define: The new fashion that has to be developed should be defined properly according to the specifications, the technology to be used to manufacture and the budget required for carrying out the designing process. Also the defining process must include the tasks that individuals within the supply chain must undertake. Measure: Measure the time taken to complete the entire manufacturing process for every product line (i.e. the new fashion that has been conceptualised). It is also important to measure the extent to which the measurements of the finished garments match with that of the defined plan. Analyse: Analysis is to be made from the perspective of the product movement. The time taken to complete the entire process of shipment is to be monitored, and a continuous effort should be made in reducing the shipment time. Improve: Areas of improvement in Zara comprises of confirmation of specification of measurement, reduction in production time, reduce in transportation or shipment time, improve the quality of service at stores, improve facilities at store and the store ambience and reduce the time taken for checkouts at stores. Control: Control in the organisations processes are to be brought about through a balanced score card that is customised for Zara balancing the four stake holders perspective. These four stake holders include the learning and innovation perspective comprising of Zaras ability to innovate new lines of fashion; the level of customer satisfaction; the financial performance of the company and the operational effectiveness of the supply chain system of Zara.

Cats As Carnivorous Predators :: essays research papers

Cats as Carnivorous Predators   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Throughout the course of evolution the cat’s ability to survive in the wild has become extremely dependent upon its hunting ability. In order for feral, or undomesticated, cats to survive on their own in the wild they have developed hereditary traits and instincts from their ancestors throughout time. Though these hereditary traits that they have inherited are helpful for undomesticated cats, they can often cause problems when domesticated house cats revert back to the ways of their ancestors, often influencing the ways that cats kept as pets are managed. Cats are carnivorous predators and pet owners must accommodate this lifestyle by feeding them a meat-based diet with high protein, providing them with a play outlet to avoid predatory aggression, as well as keeping them inside or monitoring their activities while outside to avoid the unnecessary killing of birds or any other type of animal.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  As carnivorous predators, cats require a high protein, meat-based diet. The need for a meat-based diet is essential because the meat is often high in not only proteins and calories, but it also has a great deal of amino acids, especially taurine, which is important in the development of eye sight. Pet owners must be aware that â€Å"the protein requirement for maximal growth for kittens is 24 % when the diet exceeds all of the essential amino acid requirements† (Journal of Nutrition, High Dietary Protein and Taurine†¦ pg.2228). Carnivores need this amount of protein at a young age to build muscle for hunting and to keep them well nourished. The diet of the cat is based on development and they should be fed according to their stage of development towards an adult cat. In the wild, cats eat just about anything they can get their paws on; rats, mice, birds, and reptiles. Kittens have a need for higher levels of protein and calories for proper development until they reach the age of 18 months, when the levels of protein drop to just the right amount of protein to sustain themselves. Another reason why cats need to have a healthy meat-based diet is because they have a shorter digestive system than most omnivores and herbivores. They have to absorb more nutrients in a shorter amount of time, thus the need for a lot of protein because they have a very short time to digest it. Being a carnivorous predator, the cat needs some sort of play outlet besides its usual habitat or the owner may become the object of play predatory aggression.

The Knight in Rusty Armor :: essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Knight in Rusty Armor The Knight in rusty armor depicts our mental processes, or cognition that plays a complex and dramatic role in my life. I have learned that our cognition makes us human. I can cope only by first sensing and understanding my environment, just like the knight. sometimes I misperceive and wrongly interpret certain situations, causing problems for myself. My expectations and response partly determine how I see the world. My attitudes, suspicions, and conclusions about others also determine how I relate to people. like the knight my hopes, dreams, and/or fears become self-fulfilling prophesies and determine the future to some extent. As we saw in chapter 2, our values and goals determine the directions our lives take. The knowledge of human behavior, including self-help skills, and our rational planning partly determine our success in achieving our life goals. Our motivation also determines how far we go in the directions set by our needs and values. The discrepancies between reality and our ideals will determine how satisfied we are with ourselves and our lives. The knight from an early age viewed himself as unattractive because his nurse told him that he had a face only a mother could love, this early feed back encouraged him to where a face mask that did serve the purpose of protection from dragons and battles but also helped him to hide his unattractive face. I feel that this prompted him to pursue being a knight which gave him positive feed back as a defender and hero. This was a seemingly good idea on the outside but in reality he was hiding who he really was, he neglected his role as husband and father by ignoring his wife, and son. His wife Juliet tried to tell him that he was not rescuing damsels in distress and slaying dragons because he was such a good knight, but that he was doing it for himself, it made him feel good about himself and not so much for the good of others. Juliet made at good point when she told the knight that he did not love her but that he loved the idea of her loving him, meaning that he did not give love but took love. I believe this to be a mistake many people make in relationships they do not have love for themselves, and cannot give love, so they seek out The Knight in Rusty Armor :: essays research papers   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Knight in Rusty Armor The Knight in rusty armor depicts our mental processes, or cognition that plays a complex and dramatic role in my life. I have learned that our cognition makes us human. I can cope only by first sensing and understanding my environment, just like the knight. sometimes I misperceive and wrongly interpret certain situations, causing problems for myself. My expectations and response partly determine how I see the world. My attitudes, suspicions, and conclusions about others also determine how I relate to people. like the knight my hopes, dreams, and/or fears become self-fulfilling prophesies and determine the future to some extent. As we saw in chapter 2, our values and goals determine the directions our lives take. The knowledge of human behavior, including self-help skills, and our rational planning partly determine our success in achieving our life goals. Our motivation also determines how far we go in the directions set by our needs and values. The discrepancies between reality and our ideals will determine how satisfied we are with ourselves and our lives. The knight from an early age viewed himself as unattractive because his nurse told him that he had a face only a mother could love, this early feed back encouraged him to where a face mask that did serve the purpose of protection from dragons and battles but also helped him to hide his unattractive face. I feel that this prompted him to pursue being a knight which gave him positive feed back as a defender and hero. This was a seemingly good idea on the outside but in reality he was hiding who he really was, he neglected his role as husband and father by ignoring his wife, and son. His wife Juliet tried to tell him that he was not rescuing damsels in distress and slaying dragons because he was such a good knight, but that he was doing it for himself, it made him feel good about himself and not so much for the good of others. Juliet made at good point when she told the knight that he did not love her but that he loved the idea of her loving him, meaning that he did not give love but took love. I believe this to be a mistake many people make in relationships they do not have love for themselves, and cannot give love, so they seek out

Aflac

Table of Contents I. Executive Summary†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. 3 II. Company History†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦3-4 III. Company Financials†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. 5 IV. Internal Factors & External Industry Analysis. 6-11 V. House of Quality & DMAIC†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. 11-19 VI. Tree Diagram & PDPC†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. 19-22 VII. Flowchart & Check Sheet†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦22-26 VIII. Consultants Conclusion†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. 26 IX. Works Cited†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ 27 ? I. Executive Summary AFLAC, incorporated offers all different types of insurance including life, health, and accident insurance as being their top sellers. The insurance industry can often be a competitive one. There are many insurance companies, in the past few years, that have been greatly effected by the current recession in the United States. Some insurance companies needed government intervention to help them through this. AFLAC, just like other big companies out there, have gone through many problems. Building the House of Quality and using Deming’s five points will help this company succeed and train their employees better. Using flow charts, check sheets, and tree diagrams will show the employees the right way to do their work and can continuously improve at their work. Consultants will be overall most satisfied with these types of practices. II. Company History Aflac, also known as American Family Life Assurance Company, was founded in Columbus, Georgia in the year 1955. It was discovered by brothers John, Paul, and William Amos to sell life, health, and accident insurance (â€Å"Aflac Incorporated History). † Competition was very fierce back then and the little company did poorly. In the 1940s and 1950s, there were many cases of polio scares and had spawned insurance coverage written specifically for this disease. It was then that Aflac decided to sell cancer insurance (â€Å"Aflac Incorporated History). † In the year 1958, they introduced the world’s first cancer insurance policy. This wound up being a big hit for this company and had written over a million dollars in premiums and had expanded over state lines. This company grew very quickly. It grew very quickly in the decade of the 1960s. They developed a selling approach that was much clustered. This approach worked as employees were willing to make payroll deduction for premiums (â€Å"Aflac Incorporated History). † By the year 1971, this company was booming in over 42 states. In the 1970s, John Amos then decided to expand his company outside the United States. This started by Amos visiting the World Fair in Osaka and he then decided to market this idea to the Japanese (â€Å"Aflac Incorporated History). † The Japanese healthcare plan left them exposed to considerable expense from cancer treatments. After four years, the company finally got approved to sell health insurance overseas to the Japanese (â€Å"Aflac Incorporated History). † It was basically approved because after research, it would have not threatened existing markets and the Amos’s found notable backers in the insurance and medical industries. Aflac became one of the first insurance companies to enter the Japanese market, and it had an eight year monopoly with the Japanese (â€Å"Aflac Incorporated History). † Aflac has sought to supplement its cancer insurance by introducing new products and improving old ones to encourage the policyholders to add on or trade up (â€Å"Aflac Incorporated History). † The company boosted its name recognition in the United States from two percent to fifty six percent primarily through advertising, including the slots throughout the 1998 Winter Olympic Games and NASCAR races (â€Å"Aflac Incorporated History). Accident and disability premiums surpassed cancer premiums in the United States for the first time in the company’s history in the year 2000. The popular Aflac duck made its first appearance on television in the year 2001 for a commercial for accident insurance (â€Å"Aflac Incorporated History). † III. Company Financials With every company, the financial po rtion of the company will vary from year to year. AFLAC, which is one of the most trusted insurance companies and has the most popular commercials, has been doing very well over the years as an insurance company. This company has annual sales presently at over eighteen million dollars (â€Å"Aflac Financial Reports†). Ten million dollars of the eighteen million dollars in revenues were solely from the sales of the employees that worked for this company. This company is a publicly traded company located on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Over the years, this stock price has gone up and up every single year. It is now priced at fifty five dollars per share, which shows how successful this company has been over the years. Below, is a chart that shows Aflac’s stock price from June of 2009 to April of 2010 (Business Source Complete). It shows that in June of 2009, it was price at thirty three dollars per share. It had a significant setback right before September where it dropped under thirty dollars per share (Aflac’s Financial Reports. )† It has since resurged in the past ten months to be up to fifty five dollars per share. It shows that Aflac has not been affected by the recession, which is ongoing in the United States. IV. Internal Factors & External Industry Analysis The insurance industry is a very competitive industry. AFLAC’s main concern is the customer service problems and that the agents are not trained enough to help out the various customers the company deals with. AFLAC specializes in accident and health insurance mostly, with the option of life insurance as well (Business Wire). The industry as a whole is very successful. The most popular aspect that most people will recognize about this company is their memorable commercials featuring the AFLAC duck (Price 1). The duck’s familiar quack and voiceover by Gilbert Godfrey immediately shows that it provides worker’s compensation to its employees (Price 1). There are definitely way more strengths than weaknesses in this particular company. The strengths of this advertisement are its catchiness and cleverness of the advertisements design rather than its theme. The main theme of the advertisement should have gone in a more interesting way of the necessity of the worker’s compensation as part of one’s health insurance package (Price 1). However, the nature of the duck in AFLAC’s commercials makes the surface theme of the duck recognizable and that’s why AFLAC’s commercials with the duck are so popular and has been a big reason why AFLAC has been a solid company over the years. Moreover, in the strengths of this company, it also has to do with the sole person that the customer is dealing with (Wiki wealth). The main strength of this company is the agents that are hired to work with the various customers. If a customer has a great representative, it has come apparent that they would recommend the company to all their friends and family. Personally, having a good representative will keep the customer more calm and know that their insurance claims will be paid in a more efficient time period. In addition, having an agent that can answer all of the customer’s questions and concerns is a big thing as well. If the agent is intelligent enough to answer all of the inquiries the customer may have, the customer will overall have a great experience and would feel that dealing with a company like this would be overall a great experience for that individual. Many believe that the insurance industry can be a profitable one. The industry in itself can be a very successful one, but also can be risky at times. As many might already know, insurance involves pooling different funds from many uninsured entities in order to pay for relatively uncommon, but severely devastating losses which can occur to these entities (â€Å"Industry Handbook). In the United States, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 was put into legislation. It stated that banks, brokerages, and insurance firms can come together to offer the customers a range of services (â€Å"Industry Handbook. )† In the insurance industry, this had led to an outrage of â€Å"Merger and Acquisition† activity. In addition, a majority o f liability insurance companies underwritten in the United States has been through big firms, which has been scooping up all different insurance industries (â€Å"Industry Handbook†). Insurance can also have some positive and negative effects on society and the economy as well. These are effects that are important and have to be monitored closely (â€Å"Insurance†). One negative about it is that it can increase fraudulent acts by individuals (â€Å"Insurance†). People will try to use insurance companies to try to get money out of them even if nothing extraordinary happens when they need money. On the other hand, it can help many families and individuals prepare for catastrophes and the effects of this on households and societies (â€Å"Insurance†). As one can see, the risk of insurance companies is that there can be access to fraud by individuals trying to exploit these companies for money. On the other end, this is a great way just in case a catastrophe happens in a family such as a deadly car accident, untimely death, or anything of that circumstance. Other factors need to be considered as well when talking about the internal and external aspects of this industry. Demographics is an important factor that needs to be considered. It can affect the sales for insurance, particularly the life insurance aspect (â€Å"Industry Handbook†). As people become older, they tend to rely more on life insurance products for their retirement. In more recent years, the insurance industry has made great headway in offering investments and savings type insurance products for their benefit (â€Å"Industry Handbook†). The Global Insurance Industry is also an important factor when it comes to insurance companies. The industry has to deal with the many fluctuations of the interest rates established. Global insurance premiums grew by 3. 4% to reach 4. 3 trillion dollars (â€Å"Reuters†). Insurance companies do invest in much of the collected premiums, so the income generated through these premiums is highly dependent on these interest rates (â€Å"Reuters†). For the first time in the past three decades, premium income has declined in inflation adjusted terms, with non life premiums falling by 0. 8% and life premiums falling near 3. 5% (â€Å"Reuters†). It has become apparent that this industry (insurance) is exposed to the global economic turndown on the assets side by the decline in return on investments and on the liabilities side by a rise in insurance claims (â€Å"Insurance†). It shows that AIG, a similar insurance company just likes AFLAC, was bailed out in September of 2008 and has had an enormous effect on AFLAC’s business and the insurance industry as a whole. The recession and the financial crisis that has gone on throughout the United States the past few years have shown that the insurance industry is sufficiently capitalized (â€Å"Insurance†). The vast majority of the insurance companies have had enough capital to survive, with only a few insurance companies asking the government for help. AFLAC was one of the companies that did not to have the government intervene into their company. The Five Forces Model, which originated from Michael E. Porter’s book, â€Å"Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors,† has become a frequently used tool for analyzing a company industry structure and corporate strategy (â€Å"Porter’s Five Forces Analysis†). These five aspects include Threat of New Entrants, Power of Suppliers, Power of Buyers, Availability of Substitutes, and Competitive Rivalry. First, the threat of new entrants is the first aspect in Porter’s Five Forces Model. In explaining this, it most nearly means that the easier it is for new companies to enter the industry, the more cutthroat the competition will be (â€Å"Porter’s Five Forces Analysis†). Barriers to entry can limit the threat of new entrants. When it comes to the insurance industry, it is not like any type of person or entrepreneur cannot come along and start an insurance company. The threat of new entrants lies within the insurance industry itself. AFLAC has been fearful in the past of being squeezed out by the big players (â€Å"Industry Handbook†). Another threat for AFLAC may be the other financial services companies entering the market (â€Å"Industry Handbook†). This might cause a direct threat to AFLAC and often hurt them in the long run. If a bank or investment company offered insurance products, it would directly hurt the success of AFLAC. The second aspect of this model is the Power of Suppliers. This most nearly means how much pressure suppliers can place on a business (â€Å"Porters Five Forces Analysis†). In the insurance industry, there can be an immense amount of pressure. The suppliers of capital might not pose a big threat initially, but the threat of suppliers luring away human capital does pose a big threat (â€Å"Industry Handbook†). In AFLAC’s case, they do not want suppliers luring away their human capital because they would lose a lot of business. Also, if this had happened, government intervention might have to happen if they were not doing well financially. For example, if a talented insurance agent is working for a smaller insurance company, there is a legitimate chance that they will be enticed away from the smaller company moving to a larger one. In AFLAC’s case, there have been a few individuals that have gone from smaller insurance companies to the more, popular large ones to move into a particular market that they are comfortable in. The power of suppliers has a huge effect on AFLAC and needs to be monitored closely. The third aspect of this model is the Power of Buyers. This is just the opposite of the Power of Suppliers. In this case, this most nearly means how much pressure customers place on a business (â€Å"Porter’s Five Forces Analysis†). The customer can hold substantial power when it comes to insurance companies such as AFLAC. A regular individual does not pose a threat to AFLAC when it comes to the power of customers. But, what do pose a threat to AFLAC, is the large corporate clients that have more bargaining power than AFLAC (â€Å"Industry Handbook†). Just like airlines and pharmaceutical companies pay lots of money in premiums every year and insurance companies try hard to get high corporate clients (â€Å"Industry Handbook†). AFLAC tries this approach so they can get more for their dollar and be successful in different ways of the insurance industry. The fourth aspect of this model is the availability of substitutes. If someone who uses AFLAC as an insurance possibility and the cost of switching is low, this could cause a potential serious threat to AFLAC (â€Å"Industry Handbook†). This aspect is a pretty straightforward one as there are various substitutes in the insurance industry. Most large insurance companies, such as AFLAC being one of them, offer similar services. Whether it be automobile, life, home, and health insurance, chances are that the competitors can offer similar services. Companies focusing on niche areas usually have a competitive advantage, but this advantage depends on the size and whether there are barriers of entry available (â€Å"Industry Handbook†). AFLAC is one of these companies that do focus on the niche areas of the industry and have the competitive advantage. It seems that they are going to be fine when it comes to other companies offering substitutes. The fifth and final aspect of this model is the competitive rivalry. This is the most important part of the model. This describes the intensity of the various companies in the insurance industry (â€Å"Porter’s Five Forces Analysis†). It is becoming a very highly competitive industry. The difference between one insurance company and another is not all that different (â€Å"Industry Handbook†). As a result, it seems that insurance has become a commodity, which means an area in which the insurance company with a low cost structure, greater efficiency, and good customer service will beat out the competitors (â€Å"Industry Handbook†). AFLAC has the historical characteristics of having a low cost structure and good efficiency, but the customer service is still â€Å"Up in the air. † In the long run, I believe we may see more consolidation in the insurance industry. Other companies may prefer to take over or merge with smaller companies, but AFLAC’s approach is to advertise and market with the AFLAC duck and so far it has been a success over the years these commercials have aired. V. Product or Service for Improvement (House of Quality, DMAIC) There is not one company out there in the world that cannot improve. Even if you are considered a â€Å"perfect company,† there will always be room for some type of improvement on a product or service. In AFLAC’s case, they have been a successful company, but at the same time, they have many concerns within their organization. Within AFLAC, there are multiple changes that could be made to their product or service. The most important thing to fix in their system is that it seems that the company does not pay the customers claims in an efficient amount of time. This can mean a certain wide of things, but more importantly needs to be fixed before this company loses more and more customers. Paying the claims on certain individuals and families have been delayed for as long as two years, which seems to be an unreasonable amount of time. Moreover in this, it seems the customer service is lackluster and needs to be improved as well. Building an improvement plan so this company can get better reviews and even improve financially is important. I believe the first aspect of this is to build what is called a House of Quality. The House of Quality is â€Å"A set of matrices used to relate the voice of the customer to technical features and production planning and control requirements (Evans, 294). The House of Quality relates the attributes of the customer to the technical features. This requires six basic steps needed to be successful. When it comes to AFLAC, building a House of Quality will be reliable in their organization. The first step of this model is to identify the customer attributes. The manager must apply Quality Functional Deployment, which is used to ensure custo mer requirements throughout the product or improvement design process (Evans, 293). It is vastly important to use the notion of â€Å"The voice of the Customer† so it is not misinterpreted by any type of designers or engineers. For AFLAC,I have developed three customer attributes that AFLAC deals with. The first one is the basic attribute, which also can be called the â€Å"Must haves†(â€Å"AFLAC Attributes†). These are expected by the various customers. The second attribute is the â€Å"Linear Satisfiers† (â€Å"AFLAC Attributes†). If this company uses this attribute more effectively, this will increase the customer satisfaction, which at some points, is lacking. The third customer attribute is the â€Å"Energizers† (â€Å"AFLAC Attributes†). This means that it is not expected or required, but creates high customer satisfaction when present and can make the difference in choices for the consumer. For AFLAC, the different type of customers might include single individuals, families, working unions, and government officials (Evans, 295). Therefore, there are many classes that need to be considered. The second step of this model is to identify the technical features that are necessary to meet the requirements of customers (Evans, 295). These technical features expressed the language of the designer and engineer. These are the people that form the basis for design and service activities in an organization. In AFLAC, these must be measurable to track the positive or negative results and the output will be compared to the goals of AFLAC. The roof of the House of Quality (Evans 297) shows the interrelationships between any pair of technical features. These technical features can include the premiums, fees, allocated income, less claims, and less operating expenses. They are classified into either a very strong relationship, strong relationship, and a weak relationship (Evans, 296). The third step of this model is to relate the customer attributes to the technical features. The customer attributes is applied to using Quality Functional Deployment. The customer attributes is to have a better â€Å"experience† than they have had in the past with AFLAC. As set up on the House of Quality chart, the customer attributes are listed down the left hand column with the technical features listed across the top (Evans, 296). Using a relationship matrix is the most effective way to show this. AFLAC’s customer attributes must show whether the final technical features adequately address the customer attributes. These technical features can affect several of the customer attributes. â€Å"The lack of a strong relationship between a customer attribute and any of the technical feature suggests that the attributes are not being addressed and that the final service will have difficulty meeting customer needs (Evans, 296). If the technical feature does not match customer attribute, then the designer might have missed something important. † For instance, in AFLAC the â€Å"Voice of the Customer,† all input is appreciated with expert experience, customer surveys or overviews, or any type of controlled experiments (Evans 296). AFLAC should implement customer surveys and overviews to see what the customers have to say about their experience. Within many companies, especially restaurant establishments, they give out survey cards and rate the service of the waiter and restaurant staff. AFLAC should implement this and read over these surveys so at each AFLAC branch, they can see what they are excelling in and what they are struggling in. This would be beneficial to the company as a whole and to the customers as well. The next step of the House of Quality is evaluating the competitive products or services. This evaluation helps highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the problem. In AFLAC’s instance, the strengths of this company is that they have a strong financial strength within the company, the coverage it provides, the portability, the cost, and the direct payment (Hartman 1). The weaknesses include delays on paying customer’s claims, poor customer service, and more concerned about processes than progresses (Hartman 1). This step enables the designers to seek the opportunities for improvement. This links Quality Functional Deployment to a company’s strategic vision and allows priorities to be set in the design process (Evans, 297). † Some customer attributes become key selling points and help establish promotional strategies. The next step is the evaluation of the technical features of competitive aspects and development of targets. This step is usually accomplished through internal testing and translated into measurable results (Evans, 297). With AFLA C, these evaluations are compared with the competitive evaluation of customer attributes to find inconsistencies. The inconsistencies with AFLAC is their customer service. Targets for each technical feature are set on the basis of customer importance ratings and the existing products strengths and weaknesses (Evans, 298). The final step in building the House of Quality is selecting the technical features to be deployed in the remainder of the process. This means â€Å"identifying the characteristics that have strong relationships to customer needs, have poor competitive performance, or are strong selling points (Evans, 297). † The cost and direct payments with AFLAC are the proper actions and controls to maintain the voice of the customer. Also, on the negative side, the poor customer service and the delay of paying customer claims are critical as well and do need the attention. The House of Quality shows the six steps and how they are to be evaluated in sequential order. They will either be a very strong relationship, strong relationship, or weak relationship. We have to focus to make sure AFLAC improves its processes. It is important AFLAC improves as a company as a whole or could face the financial crisis as AIG did in September of 2008. They need to improve on what they have been criticized for in the past. Using a six sigma approach would be beneficial to their improvement plan. This is an approach to measuring product and service quality (Evans, 93). â€Å"The late Bill Smith, a reliability engineer at Motorola, is credited with originating the concept during the mid 1980s and selling it to Motorola’s CEO, Robert Galvin (Evans, 94). † He wanted to improve product and service quality in his organization and wanted to achieve six sigma capability by 1992. The key concepts of this was think, focus, emphasize, ensure, provide, Create highly qualified improvement experts, and set stretch objectives for improvement (Evans, 94). Today, Six sigma is used as a quality framework and in service organizations. As part of the improvement plan, AFLAC needs to implement a six sigma approach called DMAIC methodology. â€Å"This is a standard problem solving approach used in Six Sigma (Evans, 264). The DMAIC stands for define, measure, analyze, improve, and control. AFLAC can use this methodology to help solve their problem of not dealing with the insurance claims in an efficient amount of time and the customer service that goes along with it. It is explained that the six sigma project selected is dealing with the insurance claims in a sufficient amount of time without any delays. Therefore, the first step is to define the process that needs to be solved or needs â€Å"help. † The problem must be described in operational terms. As an example for AFLAC, this company has history of poor customer service and not paying the claims in time. Therefore, this six sigma project is to improve customer service reliability. Along with this problem, shows that the various insurance agents that are employed with AFLAC seem to not be motivated enough to satisfy the customer. In most organizations including this one, the main job is to satisfy the customer and make sure he or she got the experience with the company and is walking away happy with the customer service. This drills down to a more specific process which is called project scoping (Evans, 264). The customers must be identified that have the most impact on this negative performance, errors or the customer complaints. This phase also needs to address project management issues. In a more timely effort, these AFLAC agents may need some motivation whether it be more of an incentive or extensive training practices to make sure every customer walks out happy. The next phase is the measuring phase. This phase main focus is on how to measure the internal practices of the problems (Evans, 265). It does require an understanding of relationships between process performance and the value of the customer. In AFLAC, every customer is important. Once this is understood, collecting good data, observation, and careful listening should be implemented (Evans, 265). With AFLAC, the high managers and CEO should be doing this type of aspect of this cycle. They should be doing the observation part of every AFLAC branch. Hiring a team of auditors would most likely be the smartest idea. The careful listening part should be by the various AFLAC agents. The auditors and CEO should be giving the individual feedback and the agents should listen on how they can improve their working practices. The third phase is the analyze phase. A huge flaw that happens in problem solving teams and approaches is a lack of emphasis on the analysis portion (Evans, 266). A lot of the time, companies just want to jump into a solution and miss the step of understanding how serious the problem is and identifying where it is coming from. This phase focuses on why defects and errors occur in the organization. The AFLAC auditors need to conduct experiments to be one hundred percent sure that the scope of the problem is accurate. These experiments generally consist of formulating some type of hypothesis and then collecting data and analyzing it (Evans, 266). AFLAC needs to implement a statistical thinking tool. This tool is a philosophy of learning and action based on three principles. These principles include all work occurring in a system of interconnected processes, variation exists in all processes, and understanding and reducing variations are keys to success (Evans, 323). Analyzing statistical thinking in AFLAC would be an immense of help regarding not paying the claims in a timely manner. Variation must exist in this process and AFLAC does not have variation in this type of process. This is why statistics is an important part of the Six Sigma training. Also, what also needs to be analyzed in AFLAC is to see if their also is a computer problem regarding the claims not going through their system. AFLAC pays all their claims online and doing a computer simulation of all computers in the offices would scope out if there is a possible problem with the computer. Once the cause is determined, the analyst, auditors, and teams needs to generate ideas for removing or resolving the problem and improve the performance measures (Evans, 266). One of the difficulties in this section of the DMAIC phase is the natural instinct to prejudge ideas before thoroughly evaluating them in full detail. â€Å"Effective problem solvers must learn to defer judgment and develop the ability to generate a large number of ideas at this stage of the process, whether they are practical ideas or not (Evans, 266). AFLAC needs to improve their customer service and paying their claims in a timely fashion. One idea that needs to be implemented is to have an online website to file the claims to AFLAC. This would be a big convenience to all AFLAC’s clients. On the website, it should also have a spot where you can track the status of your claim. This would save AFLAC lots of money and it would cause less hassle on the customer service line of all the customers asking if their claim has been paid or not. Switching it to online would be more efficient, save money and also would be easier to keep track of every claim. It is way more efficient being on the computer and being well organized than searching through a person’s file looking for it. Implementing the websites to file claims will make the turnover be lower of the amount of complaints regarding the customer service, but there still needs to be improvements. As for the poor customer service, their needs to be extensive training for the many insurance agents that are employed with AFLAC. It has become apparent that these agents were not trained fully on the job when they were originally hired. Implementing a plan where training must exist upon hiring an agent and it should be done every two years to ensure quality in these individuals. The final phase of DMAIC is the control phase. This focuses on how to maintain the improvements AFLAC has implemented. This means putting tools in place to ensure the key variables remain within the maximum acceptable ranges under the modified process (Evans, 266-267). Controlling these plans are vastly important. AFLAC should hire an individual outside of the organization to solely work and monitor the website where claims are filed and to see the status of the claims that are filed. The company will be paying the individual, but in the end, it will save them money and turnover will have gone down significantly. The individual will control these websites and make sure there are no downturns or technical difficulties in the operation of this website. As for the training process improvement, the individual will be trained by top management on an individual basis once every two years. This might seem to be a lot of training by retraining them every two years. Technology changes from year to year and different programs will most likely be established in the near future and it is very important that the agents learn the new development in technology to help them do their jobs on the computer. Training the individual might seem like a hassle to the co-worker, but in the end they will become a more positive individual because they will know that they are doing their job in the most efficient and successful way possible. VI. Identify Management Planning Tools (Tree Diagram, Process Decision Program Chart) Planning is one of the basic functions of every manager out there. The complexity of the business environment today means that planning is not always the easiest thing to do (Evans, 302). However, many different types of tools have been developed by several Japanese companies over the last half century as part of their planning processes (Evans, 302). These tools can be used to address problems typically faced by managers in an everyday role. There are all different types of management tools that can be used to show the improvement in a chart or just explaining it in words. These help the manager understand what exactly needs to be done to improve the process it is struggling or needs â€Å"help† in. With AFLAC, showing these different management tools to management and the lower level employees will help them understand what AFLAC is trying to do as a company and is finding many ways to improve themselves in the

Broadworth general hospital Essay

For the past 20 years our hospital has contracted all training seminars with your company, your company has been dependable and always gets the job done. In March, we need to train 20 supervisors in the area of Sexual Harassment and Unlawful Discrimination in the workplace. We would like your company Wydade Consulting Services to complete the training for us. The training will take place on the first floor of the hospital room. We would like your trainer Ms. Deb Walker, to teach the seminar. In the past, Ms. Walker has presented a strong and powerful power point presentation followed by a question and answer session. On the day of training we will need the following. Projector Presentation Brochures/handouts Notepads Pens light refreshments Please respond to me as soon as possible with a date MS Walker will be available in March. I can be reached at (598) 597 1234 Thank you Sincerely yours, Karen Lawrence A.A. KL/xx To: Deb Walker CC: Jeremy Dittmer @ Miriam Hopkins Subject: Sexual Harassment and Unlawful Discrimination in the work force Dear Deb: I would like to confirm our arrangements as we previously discussed regarding the seminar which is to be held on March 10 ,2016 at 2:00 . Located on the first floor in room 109 of the hospital you are more than welcome to come early to set up. We will be starting promptly at 2:00, refreshments and snacks will be there at approximately 4:15 to 4:30. If you require further assistance or have any questions, please contact me at (598) 597 1234 or via email at Lawrence.lawrence@ yahoo .com To: Miriam Hopkins, Director of Human Resources From: Karen Lawrence, Administrative Assistant Dec 17, 2012 Subject: Sexual Harassment and Unlawful Discrimination in the workplace We received a confirmation from Jeremy Dittmer regarding the seminar details, the date is March 10, 2016 and the time is 2:00 and has provided the trainer with all the necessary materials. The trainer he has assigned is MS Deb Walker, the seminar will be on the first floor room 109.We will make sure that we will have all the necessary materials. Ms Walker will be providing, pens; paper; pamphlets; follow along booklets. Refreshments such as coffee; tea; water; juice, and snacks will be provided and scheduled for delivery the afternoon of March 10 between 4:15 and 4:30. If you have have questions please don’t hesitate to contact me. You can also contact Deb Walker directly by email at Deb walker@ yahoo .com or by phone at (802) 559 6315 ext. 2206. KL/AA