The HR Consultant Essay Example for Free

The HR Consultant Essay Introduction Texas Roadhouse is a chain restaurant throughout the United States. There are approximately 340 locations in over 46 states, and they are quickly expanding. Its menu specializes in steaks and ribs, as well as adding a western atmosphere for guests to enjoy. In the restaurant business, there are many different positions held by a variety of different people. There are cooks, dish washers, bus boys, hostesses, bartenders, servers, and also nightly management. On average each night, there are approximately 19 servers, 6 bus boys, 6 hostesses, 3 bartenders, and large amount of kitchen staff. All of these different positions are crucial in the nightly success of the company. Without any of these positions, the restaurant would not be able to run as smoothly. Objectives of The study In this report we are trying to find out the way to increase efficiency and effectiveness of the restaurant using five models:- 1) Self-Efficacy Model 2) LMX Model 3) Job Characteristics Model 4) Goal Setting Model Strategic Mapping Using Models Self-Efficacy Model The term self-efficacy is used to describe an individual’s perception of how competent they find themselves and their abilities to achieve complex tasks. People with strong self-efficacy are more likely to accept more responsibility and accept more challenging tasks. They also believe that no obstacles can get in the way from stopping them achieve their goals. Individuals with low self-efficacy are more apt to looking as difficult tasks as intimidating and do not believe they that are capable of achieving personal success. Overall, self-efficacy plays an important role in influencing the tasks that people perform and how well they perform them. The most important factor that is impacting through self-efficacy is persistence. This is found important because the higher the person perceives themselves on the scale, the more persistent that they will be with performing a complex task. Analysis and Recommendations as per Self Efficacy model Self-efficacy is something that is important in any organization. However, it is important at Texas Roadhouse to hire individuals who have a High level of self-efficacy so that employee perceives themselves capable of achieving many complex tasks. This could prove to be an issue within the organization because individuals could become bored or feel not challenged by the tasks designated in their position, which could lead to frustration for the employees and employer. Hence, Challenging tasks should be given to such individuals. 1) The individuals with moderate level of self-efficacy provides opportunity for the organization to designate tasks to that are challenging but also still attainable. It is good to hire large no. of employees in this category. There were three individuals who scored close to the lower end of the self-efficacy scale. 2) The individuals with low self-efficacy can pose a problem for Texas Roadhouse as they might hinder the productivity and success of the organization. Hence, in order to ensure more confident and driven individuals, Texas Roadhouse could moderately delegate more difficult tasks to these individuals in order to boost their confidence and the way they perceive themselves. Also, they could provide more positive feedback in their jobs and reinforce that the individual is doing well at their job. 2) Leader-Member Exchange The leader-member exchange (LMX) is a model that suggests that leaders develop different relationships with each of their subordinates through a series of work-related transactions. There are two important groups to consider that a subordinate may fall under depending on which phase they fit into. The in group is defined as a low number of subordinates with high LMX relationships. The second group is known as the out group in which the number of subordinates is large and contains relatively low level LMX relationships. Employees who find themselves in the out-group are likely to face high job turnover. This should be important to all management because high turnover is a very large investment for the organization. The level of LMX has a significant relationship to subordinates satisfaction with their manager. Employees with low-quality LMX are more likely to become dissatisfied, less motivated, and more prone to quitting. Whereas employees with high level LMX are likely to be satisfied with their work, more motivated, and committed to staying and contributing to the organization. LMX has three critical components which are mutual affection, contribution to work activities, and professional respect. When a subordinate has high mutual affection for a superior, the subordinate likes the superior as a person and will often come to the superior’s defense if attacked. High contribution to work activities comes into play when a subordinate goes above and beyond their job description to help the superior out. High Professional Respect is when the superior admires the subordinate’s knowledge and competence of the job. Analysis and Recommendation as per LMX 1) The Texas Roadhouse management does take steps to increase the mutual affection score of its staff else they will likely to enter the realm of the out group which could potentially lead to the employee leaving the organization because Why stay at an organization if you’re not happy with your manager? 2) One way management can increase the mutual affection is to take a more active role and listen to the complaints of the employees and to take the time to establish supportive and trusting relationships with the employees. 3) Another suggestion might be to engage the staff in team building activities and icebreakers. We can conclude that the superiors and managers of Texas Roadhouse are not providing proper support to their staff and needs to make a drastic change soon because the organization as a whole could be affected. 4) Some possible solutions include taking the time to reassess what kind of support is needed for staff. One way to do this is anonymous comment cards. Have all the employees fill out comment cards anonymously and identify specific instances where an employee failed to receive support. This must be down anonymously by the employer because the employee might be unwilling to respond for fear of termination. 5) The manager may have a tendency to interact with other employees in an unprofessional manner. The manager can decrease this perception by keeping to policy or by adjusting his/her interactions in front of employees. 6) Management needs to do a better job of developing better relationships with its employees. Some improvement strategies include the use of assertive communication, appropriate communication openness, and constructive feedback with all of the subordinates. Job Characteristics Model The job characteristics model has to do with the idea of increasing the amounts of five job characteristics: skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy and feedback in a job. Skill variety can be defined as the degree to which a job requires an assortment of skills in order for an employee to carry out the task at hand. Task identity is the extent to which a job requires an employee to complete a task from beginning to end with a visible, tangible outcome. Task significance is the extent to which an employee perceives the job as having an impact on the lives of other individuals, if it makes a difference in society, within or outside of the organization. Autonomy is the level to which a job provides empowerment and discretion to an employee by choosing their own way to complete and schedule a task. Job feedback is the clear information about how effective an employee’s performance is. The different levels of these five job characteristics affect three important psychological states. The first, to experience meaningfulness of the tasks performed, second, to experience personal responsibility for results of the task at hand, and last is the knowledge of the results of task performance. If all three psychological states are positive, strong work motivation based on self-generated rewards is triggered. If they are in the negative zone, meaning the job is not meaningful, lacks responsibility or feedback, the job is incomplete, which does not strongly motivate an employee. This model can be related to Texas Roadhouse since it looks into how well an employee has the opportunity to be motivated to work in the restaurant. It highlights the areas that need work in the restaurant and what the employees enjoy or dislike about working there. It also demonstrates which employees are content with working there for a while and which view it as a stepping stone towards another opp ortunity that has not yet befallen upon them. Analysis and Recommendations as per Job Characteristic Model 1) The model demonstrates a need for change in the structure of Texas Roadhouse in order to increase their employee’s motivation to continue their work there. Generally, there are two main approaches recommended to superiors for designing/redesigning jobs which are vertical loading and the formation of natural work teams. Vertical loading is when tasks that were considered reserved for management level staff are delegated to all employees. It includes the power to set schedules, decide work methods, breaks, and seek solutions to their own problems. Natural work teams combines individual jobs into a unit which are logical and meaningful including geographic location, types of business, organizational, alphabetical or numerical, customer groups. If Texas Roadhouse implemented vertical loading into their structure and gave their employees the opportunity to decide their own breaks and more flexible schedules, it could aid in their desire to maintain their positions at the restaurant. Most of the employees are pretty satisfied with the way things are run at Texas Roadhouse, however, according to the data, one of the biggest issues the employees have with Texas Roadhouse is the lack of variety, out of twenty surveys; eleven scored less than a four on the scale. The employees also feel that they do not have the opportunity to see projects through to completion which affects their task identity characteristic. This can be fixed with a simple solution, which is to allow employees to complete a task before assigning them another. Goal Setting Model Goal setting is a very integral part of any job. Whether you are attempting to better yourself or complete a project, setting goals is one of the most helpful tools to assist you throughout the process. Goal setting can definitely help a business such as Texas Roadhouse in raising their standards for employees which will end up helping the bottom line. The goal setting model that we used for our survey seems to have a big impact on job performance. According to the model, if employees felt good about the goals they set, they were better at their jobs. Five essential pieces must come together in order for the managers to gain benefits of a goal setting program. The first piece is that the person must be knowledgeable about the topic of the specified goal and have the sufficient capacity to attain the goal. The second step is that the person must be committed to the goal, especially if the goal is difficult. The third step is that people need feedback on their goals. According to the text, employees will raise their performance because they are afraid they will have past performance. The forth step is that complex tasks must be broken up into simpler more short term goals so that the goals can be attained. It is stated in the text that employees are more responsive when they know about their progress. The fifth and final piece is to have a situation constraint. One of the most important aspects of a leader is to ensure that employees have the resources to attain their goals and to help eliminate any troubles that may lie in the way. Now to discuss some of the benefits that goal setting can have on performance. One of the consequences of goal setting is that it motivates individuals to achieve high performance. Some of the benefits stem from developing difficult goals. When it comes to Texas Roadhouse, such goal setting can be setting goals for a certain dollar amount each table waited on per person. The benefits can be such as encouraging people to develop action plans to reach a goal, focusing people’s attention on goal-relevant action, and encouraging people to develop action plans to reach these goals. Having such goal setting systems in place, you will have to be able to adequately reward your employees. Such reward systems could be like the high-performance work system which is used to describe a well-established method of motivation with new technology that links pay and performance. This isn’t very easy to do, especially when considering the many factors. Such factors could ask questions such as, do you reward individually or as a team. Analysis and Recommendation as per Goal Setting Model Going through a few of the steps that go into goal setting and based on the results provided from the study, we have developed some recommendations for the restaurant. The first recommendation is to put groups of waiters and hostesses into teams in order to create an atmosphere of meritocracy. When there are teams, it’s easier to have tasks done and team members will have the mentality of â€Å"if I scratch your back you scratch mine.† Going along with more of the recommendations through the analysis of the process of effective goal setting, a proper high performance work reward system must be put into place in order to motivate employees. Our recommendation for the work reward system is a system that rewards waitresses on the amount of money per person that they serve. So for example if a team earns on average $15 per customer and another team earns $20 per customer, we reward the team with the $20 per customer with a bonus on top of their normal tips. To further develop their goals, we can get input for the teams on how they would like to improve the model because it is stated that the more input the employees feel like they are giving, the more they would buy into the program. To improve on that, we would also make the goals a little bit more challenging. For example we could expect a higher dollar amount per customer over last month. For example a ten percent increase could be viable. The last of our recommendations is to give each employee a step by step plan on how to achieve their goals and to give them a monthly review. These recommendations would help Texas Roadhouse by improving their trust between one another, their individual and team goals by giving them more input which leads to more buy-in and lastly, it helps them raise their revenue by setting higher goals for each customer. Works Cited Bernardin, H. John, Joyce E. A. Russell. Human Resource Management: An Experiential Approach. McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2013.

My Last Duchess :: Robert Browning, My Last Duchess

Robert Browning is remembered for his mastery at capturing the essence and power of the dramatic monologue. Through symbolism, structure and technique, Browning creates the model of the ideal dramatic monologue in the poem, "My Last Duchess." "My Last Duchess" was published in 1845. "Ferrara" is the subtitle of the poem and assists in disclosing the design of the poem, a portrayal of Alfonso II, the fifth Duke of Ferrara. The historical life of Alfonso II fits intricately with the events and happenings within the poem. Alfonso II married Lucrezia de’ Medici who is the daughter of the Duke of Florence. The Duke’s family has a long credited name and wealth that had been around for ages. The affluence and power of the duchess’s family had been newly acquired, and when comparing the two families, the Duke’s was much more significant, at least in his eyes. The Duchess of Alfonso II died of poisoning in 1561. Three short years later the Duke arranged to marry Ba rbara, a niece of the Count of Tyrol. The speaker of the dramatic monologue is an egotistical and pompous Duke. He speaks to an envoy of the Count throughout the monologue. At the beginning of the poem, he slowly draws back the curtain and reveals a portrait. This portrait, he asserts, is his "last Duchess†¦looking as if she were alive" (lines1-2). The Duke continues by addressing the look upon her face and the many reasons for her blushing cheeks. Continuing the description, he depicts the duchess’s ways, including her virtues of innocence and unspoiled beauty. Examples are given by the Duke of how easily she is impressed by nature and the simple pleasures of life. He claims he is disgusted by her ability to see natural beauty as an equal delectation with his name and matrimony. Then very subtly he tells the envoy how he gave orders to have "all smiles stopped together" (line 46). The envoy is completely aware of the truth about the ordered killings and the Duke’ s greedy reasoning for marrying the niece of the Count. The contemptuous way of the Duke is made perfectly clear to the envoy, and the envoy begins to leave. The delegate is completely aware of the truth about the ordered killings and the Duke’s greedy reasoning for marrying the niece of the Count. The Duke elaborates his reasoning for marrying the duchess, by declaring it is only for the dowry.

Fuzzy Logic Algorithms for Minor Edge Detection

IntroductionThe early stages of vision fixing distinguish includes in images that are important to measuring the construction and belongingss of points in a scene. Edges are one such highlighted characteristics. Edges are notable nearby alterations in the image and are indispensable high spots for look intoing images. Edges normally occurs between two distinguishable boundary in a image. Edge location is much of the clip the initial stage in retrieving informations from images or images. Because of its significance, border find keeps on being a dynamic geographic expedition zone. Edge find refers to the process of distinguishing and happening crisp discontinuities in a image. The discontinuities are sudden alterations in pel power which characterize the bounds of objects in a scene. The indispensable border find system is to concentrate the degree of fluctuation between diverse pels by put to deathing edge-location operators for every small matrix country.Edges obtained from non-triv ial images are often hampered by discontinuity, connoting that the border decompression sicknesss are non associated, losing border subdivisions and false borders non associating to intriguing phenomena in the image, therefore perplexing the attendant undertaking of interpreting the image information. Edge location is one of the cardinal paces in image or image handling, image scrutiny, image design recognition, and PC vision systems. In Digital Image Processing there are typical schemes for border location like First Order Derivative ( gradiant method ) , Second-Order Derivative and Optimal Edge Detection to separate the border. The gradiant methods are utilised for image ascent or to better the inside informations shown in the image and these derivative operations can be utilized for location of borders present in the image.In our proposed work, Sobel border sensor and enhanced border sensor algorithm utilizing fuzzed logic is utilised to place borders of a given image. The pick o f Sobel border sensor algorithm is propelled by the echt actuality that it consolidates each border location moreover goes about as smoothing decision maker belongings.Fuzzy image processing is the assemblage of all methodological analysiss that comprehend, speak to and treat the images, their fragments and high spots as fuzzed sets. The representation and fixing rely on upon the fuzzed method and on the issue to be tackled. Fluzzy sets, so, are competent to bespeak imprecise constructs.1.1 LITERATURE SURVEYTo transport out any undertaking work it is really indispensable to understand the current scenario and the engineering virtues and demerits of the subject. In this context, literature study has been carried out to explicate the job and to take the aims of the undertaking work.Different border sensing techniques have been studied from the paper [ 1 ] .The writer G.T. Shrivakshan presents virtues and demerits of different border sensing methods like Sobel, Prewitt and Robert’s, Canny operator. From this treatment it is apparent that sobel border sensor is advantageous than other techniques. The execution of sobel border sensor in Xilinx is presented by writer Ravi.S et.al [ 2 ] . FPGA based design and execution of country efficient Sobel Edge sensing filter is presented utilizing a combination of hardware and package constituents Rajesh Mehra et.al [ 3 ] and in this paper pipelined method is used to implement the border sensing filter. This attack is utile to better the system public presentation. The execution of Sobel border sensor is presented by writers R. Vincent et.al [ 4 ] . Here a brace of3Ten3whirl masks is used, one gauging gradient in the x-direction and the other gauging gradient inY–direction in Matlab. And states that Sobel sensor is improbably sensitive to resound in images, it efficaciously highlights them as borders. Hence, Sobel operator is recommended in monolithic informations communicating found in informations transportation. The writers Kiranpreet Kaur et.al [ 5 ] studies the execution of fuzzy border sensing in MATLAB environment to observe the borders of an input image by scanning it throughout utilizing a 2X2 pel window. The consequences of the implemented algorithm has been compared with the criterion border sensing algorithm such as ‘Canny’ , ‘Sobel’ , ‘Prewit’ and ‘Roberts’ . The fuzzy regulation based image processing algorithm for observing the borders in the image, based on the alterations in the grey values is presented by writers C. Kavitha et.al [ 6 ] . Gray values of the image are taken as the input of the fuzzy system and a floating mask of 3Ãâ€"3 is applied on the image to observe border pel utilizing the preset fuzzy regulations. The execution of fuzzed logic to observe the borders in MATLAB is presented by writers Er.Mandeep Singh Sandhu et.al [ 7 ] .Edges are detected in horizontal, perpendicular and in diagonal waies utilizing 5X5 pel window. And it besides presents different advantages and disadvantages of fuzzed logic. The consequences of the implemented algorithm has been compared with the criterion border sensing algorithm such as ‘Sobel’ and ‘Roberts’ . 1.2 PROBLEM FORMULATION From the literature study it has been observed that there are issues of false border find, losing genuine borders, making slender or thick lines and issues because of noise and so on. So fuzzed logic has been used for minor border sensing in the image and besides fuzzed logic algorithm helps to get the better of the false border detected by the sobel border operator.The MATLAB executing of typical border locater has been done before nevertheless from literature study it has been observed that there is drawback of immense computation clip. So to suppress the issue the proposed algorithm is implemented in XILINX.1.3 AimThe chief aims of the undertaking work that are to be carried out are as followsTo plan and implement the sobel border sensor and enhanced border sensor algorithm utilizing fuzzed logic in Matlab.To plan and implement the sobel border sensor and enhanced border sensor algorithm utilizing fuzzed logic in Xilinx.To cipher the SNR, PSNR, RMSE of sobel border sensor and enha nced border sensor algorithm utilizing fuzzed logic.To cipher the country and hold of sobel border sensor and enhanced border sensor algorithm.1.4MethodologyLiterature Survey to be carried out on border sensor algorithm in Xilinx. Survey includes surveies on different border sensing techniques and different algorithms.To develop the sobel border sensor and enhanced border sensor algorithm utilizing fuzzed logic in Matlab and Xilinx.Using Xilinx package calculates the country and hold of sobel border sensor and enhanced border sensor algorithm to be implemented.Comparing the border images of Sobel and implemented enhanced border sensor algorithm utilizing fuzzed logic.Calculating the SNR, PSNR, RMSE of sobel border sensor and enhanced border sensor algorithm utilizing fuzzed logic.1.5 TOOLS REQUIRED1.5.1 Software Requirementsi‚ · Matlab ( 7.10 )Xilinx1.5.2 Hardware RequirementSpartan 3E1.6ApplicationsUsed in satellite images edge sensing. Satellite images consist of many char acteristics and objects with different forms and size. Edge sensing helps to pull out utilize full information.Used in medical images edge sensing for object acknowledgment of the human variety meats.Grape leaf disease sensing and analysis.Bettering image quality.Egg shell defects sensing on white eggs.1.7 ADVANTAGESAn advantage of using a bigger size sobel mask is that the mistake because of the impacts of noise are decreased by vicinity averaging inside of the country of the mask.An favourable place of using a mask of uneven size is that the operators are focused and hence can supply an rating that is based on Centre pel.Fuzzy techniques can cover with the ambiguity and vagueness proficiently.Fuzzy logic is tolerant of unsure informations.1.8 DISADVANTAGESMinor strength fluctuations in grey scale images can non be detected utilizing sobel operators.Sobel operator detects false borders along with true borders.1.9 ORGANIZATION OF REPORT This study consists of 5 chapters and mentions. Chapter 1:Presents the Introduction, Literature study, Problem preparation, Objectives, Tools required, Methodology, Applications, Advantages, Disadvantages and eventually the Project study organisation. Chapter 2:Provides brief theory about the undertaking. Chapter 3:Presents the inside informations about execution of sobel operator in matlab. Chapter 4:Provides the consequences and treatments of undertaking. Chapter 5:Provides the decisions and future work about the undertaking. Mentions:Provides sufficient mentions relevant to the undertaking for easy apprehension of the capable affair and some of the beginnings used in development.

Coordinating Words, Phrases and Clauses in English

When we coordinate things, whether were talking about our schedules or our clothing, we make connections -- or, as the dictionary says in a more fanciful way, bring things together in a common and harmonious action. The same idea applies when we talk about coordination in grammar. A common way to connect related words, phrases, and even entire clauses is to coordinate them -- that is, connect them with a coordinating conjunction such as and or but.  The following short paragraph from Ernest Hemingways Another Country contains several coordinated words, phrases, and clauses. We were all at the hospital every afternoon, and there were different ways of walking across the town through the dusk to the hospital. Two of the ways were alongside canals, but they were long. Always, though, you crossed a bridge across a canal to enter the hospital. There was a choice of three bridges. On one of them a woman sold roasted chestnuts. It was warm, standing in front of her charcoal fire, and the chestnuts were warm afterward in your pocket. The hospital was very old and very beautiful, and you entered through a gate and walked across a courtyard and out a gate on the other side. In most of his novels and short stories, Hemingway relies heavily (some readers might say too heavily) on such basic conjunctions as and and but. The other coordinating conjunctions are yet, or, nor, for, and so. Paired Conjunctions Similar to these basic conjunctions are the following paired conjunctions (sometimes called correlative conjunctions): both . . . andeither . . . orneither . . . nornot . . . butnot . . . nornot only . . . but (also)whether . . . or The paired conjunctions serve to emphasize the words being connected. Lets see how these correlative conjunctions work. First, consider the following simple sentence, which contains two nouns joined by and: Martha and Gus have gone to Buffalo. We can rewrite this sentence with paired conjunctions to emphasize the two nouns: Both Martha and Gus have gone to Buffalo. We often use the basic coordinating conjunctions and paired conjunctions in our writing to connect related ideas. Punctuation Tips: Using Commas with Conjunctions When just two words or phrases are joined by a conjunction, no comma is needed: Nurses in uniforms and in peasant costumes walked under the trees with the children. However, when two or more items are listed before a conjunction, those items should be separated by commas: Nurses in uniforms, peasant costumes, and worn frocks walked under the trees with the children.* Similarly, when two complete sentences (called main clauses) are joined by a conjunction, we should generally place a comma before the conjunction: The tides advance and retreat in their eternal rhythms, and the level of the sea itself is never at rest. Although no comma is needed before the and that joins the verbs advance and retreat, we do need to place a comma before the second and, which joins two main clauses. * Note that the comma after the second item in the series (costumes) is optional. This use of the comma is called the serial comma.