Effects of Poorly Treated Employees in the Workplace

For this blog we are going to go slightly off the beaten path as I tell you a little about a recent communications project we did in our Business Administration course.

A classmate and I completed a communications project today regarding Employee Treatment and the effects that it has in the workplace.

How often do you hear a person complain about work and not being able to get adequate amounts cooperation from their employers. Our research was done through two surveys, an employee and an employer survey, and some internet research.

We found that 44% of those we surveyed said that they have at some point had a job in which they felt they were not treated "fairly". This amount to me is a little bit too high.

In today's society it takes more then money to recruit and maintain employees. A lot of how employees feel they are treated are based upon the benefits that they receive. Employees tend to want benefits of monetary value while employers tend to want to give benefits of little or no monetary value. Somewhere in the middle the two parties have to meet with a happy medium.

We compiled a few recommendations that can help with this:
    The employee should

1. Upon receiving the job inquire about the job aspects and know what to expect out of the job including benefits and wages.
2. Try to keep a civilized environment, working in a tense environment only leads to problems.
3. Keep an open path of communication with the employer.                     

    The employer should

1. Inform the employee upon receiving the job about what they can expect out of the job including          wages and benefits. This leaves no room for confusion in the future.
2. Look for some cost efficient ways to benefit your employees, though it may have little monetary value, employees still value appreciate this.
3. Keep the work fresh using things such as job rotation. A bored employee can often feel that they are not treated well or feel that they work in a pleasant work environment.

To successfully do this some types of marketing must be implemented as the business attempts to figure out the best route. Things such as surveys, which are commonly used in marketing, must be used to get an idea of what the employee wants.

This however is only a brief summary of the report! I hope you enjoyed it as it was a change from the marketing aspect of the blog.

Marketing in Our Community

This blog comes from an inspiration from a good friend and firette from the Lethbridge and Area Volunteer Fire Department. I openly asked in a Facebook status for blogging ideas and she certainly inspired me and gave me the idea for this one! 

The Lethbridge and Area Volunteer Fire Department celebrated it's 26th anniversary last week. Twenty six years of hard work and dedication from a select few members. I have personally been involved with the fire department for about ten years myself. The fire department, though quite successful today, has spent several years struggling to survive. At one point, only two years ago, the fire dept. had only nine members, not all of which were active. The department was faced with the decision to stay open or close and leave a neighboring community with the responsibility. The decision was clear that they had to put up a fight before they closed down their beloved organization that was literally built from scratch, including a wooden pumper truck.

The department resorted to a concept that we have learned in our first year business course, MARKETING! The department had to find ways, and fast, to help with the recruitment process and ensure that the department had to close. Through the distribution of posters, letters to all house holds, door-to-door campaigning and house calling the department recruited 12 new members, including the department's first female firefighter, in a very short period of time and new members continue to join. The firettes, auxiliary, continues to run strong as well, though not as plentiful as firefighters continues to run strong. Today the department continues to run successfully and be strong.

• Bingo: A weekly fundraiser for the department.

Then I came to realize that it wasn't only then that the department has to use marketing. They use it for almost everything they do. Any fundraisers, announcements, special events and more all use marketing. Not only the fire department but almost all non profit organizations have to use marketing to survive. Marketing is not only in the business product selling world but everywhere we go and within everything we do. 

Online Shopping

A new concept that I have recently been introduced to is the concept of online shopping. I was always aware that the concept does exist but, have only recently become familiar with the convenience that it does indeed have.

Online shopping is a form of direct marketing where the manufacturer or company markets directly with the customer. Online marketing allows the customer to shop from the comfort of their own home without ever having to leave the house for anything. Quite often deals are offered for online shopping whereby products can be bought for less than normal price and sometimes SUPER good deals. A lot of retails are getting into the concept of online shopping and it brings their products to a lot more consumers. Quite often people when people go shopping they go only to the store that they are familiar with and often overlook some of the great deals in other stores. With the use of online shopping people are more likely to explore for specials and look at various websites with a variety of products.

Ebay is an online shopping website where one can purchase virtually anything from clothes, to electronics to car parts and everything in between. Most of these items are bought at discount prices. Items I myself have bought have been bought at much lower prices than what would have been bought here in the area, savings as much as $60.00.

I think online shopping will become even more popular in the very near future.

The Internet and EVERYTHING!

In today's world technology is continually changing. The ways we do stuff, our ability to connect with the world, everything is changing and becoming increasingly fast and efficient.

To get and education, run a business, communicate or to shop it can all be done online. In fact it is virtually impossible to run a business or get an education without the use of a computer or internet. Many courses are offered online and most business use automatic online ordering. E-mail are also used by most business and students as there main source of communication. This blog even requires the use of the internet.

Unfortunately not everybody has the access to all of this in seconds. There are still many parts of the island that are limited to good ol' dial-up internet. Unfortunately these limitations are restricting where a business can be located and does infect the marks of students.

One of the options we have with this blog is to upload videos. I have not uploaded any and do not plan to as dial-up internet that I have to use couldn't upload that if you wanted it to. It literally takes minutes for pictures to be uploaded, can you even imagine the time it would take for a 3-4 MB video to upload.

I do know that the college offers high speed internet but the college is not open 24/7!

Dial-up internet restriction to continual communication and file transfers on a daily basis. I can't help but feel that my education is to a certain degree being limited at home due to the internet limitations.

Coming home on Friday, listening to Back Talk, I overheard a candidate for the upcoming federal election talking about the limitations that his district has in developing due to the lack of high speed internet in his district. I could not help but relate to the issues he was bringing up.

I hope that in the very near future something can be done about this issue. 

P.S. Just as I was about to post this blog, "Beep", and the window comes onto the screen saying "Internet Connection Has Been Lost."   

Big Acts Coming To Newfoundland and The Benefits For The Island

Over this past week at least three big announcements have been made for this summer and next fall right here in Newfoundland and Labrador.

It was announced on Saturday during the Herder final in Grand-Falls Winsor that the legendary rock group KISS will be headlining The 2011 Salmon Festival in Grand-Falls Winsor on July 9. Coming along with the group will be big revenues for central Newfoundland. Kiss is an American Rock group formed in New York in January of 1973. The band has sold more than 40 million albums in the United States, of which 19 million have been certified by the RIAA, and their worldwide sales exceeds 100 million albums. Already hotels are booked up for the week in and around the central region of the island in the anticipation if what will be perhaps the most exciting event of 2011.

Also announced this Saturday was the winner of Kraft Hockeyville 2011. The winner was Conception Bay South who beat out another community in British Columbia. Kraft Hockeyville accepts nominations of hockey proud communities across Canada and works towards one. Newfoundland has had a number of finalists in the contest but this is the first year that a community from our province has won it. Conception Bay south has won $25,000 for being in the top five and an additional $100,000 for winning to go towards upgrades on their current hockey arena. Another winning that CBS received was the chance to host a pre-season hockey game early in the fall. The Ottawa Senators have already been announced as one team. This helps bring great revenues to the avalon penisula as people from all across Newfoundland and Labrador will travel to CBS to catch a glimpse of Newfoundland history being made.

Announced this morning, legendary female country singer Reba McEntire will be making an appearance at Mile One Centre on September 29th, 2011. This is considered huge news as Reba is one of the biggest acts ever to come to the island. Reba has sold 55 millions albums worldwide and was recently accepted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Her career as a singer, songwriter, actress, comedian and fashion designer have all be outstanding and makes her number six in a recent study of the worlds most wealthy women. The appearance of Reba will generate millions in revenues for St. John's as people use facilities such as hotels, restaurants, taxis and much more to accommodate the experience.

The announcement of these three big events will not only help to generate great revenues for the province but it will also help in the marketing of Newfoundland and Labrador tourism. Within recent years we find that Newfoundland is becoming an equality to the other nine provinces and we can only hope to keep our reputation going as a kind hearted province that we have always been. We find that more and more things are being offered in Newfoundland including companies, products, services, entertainment and much much more. We can only hope we keep it going.

Setting Price, Intermediaries and Newfoundland

We as Newfoundlanders often complain about the price to buy things such as clothes, groceries and some of our health care products. I admit that I complain as well, everybody wants to save a buck. However it is a small price that we pay for living in the wonderful place in which we live.

Most all of the products we buy in Newfoundland are shipped to the island by either boat or plane. I will point out that we do have some products made here. For example Purity Factories in St. John’s produces a line of biscuits, candies and syrups.  However a high percentage of what we buy has not been produced here and have to be shipped in. To do this we quite often have to use intermediaries. An intermediary is an organization that the product flows through on its way to the consumer. What an intermediary is does is help to keep a continuous flow of the product from the manufacturer to the consumer through logistics. Logistics is the buying, selling, storing and transporting of the product. With each time that the product passes from the manufacturer to a new intermediary, wholesaler, distributor and retailer the price is edged up just slightly. How this works is that each time the product passes it is bought by the intermediary. Each intermediary is in it to make money and therefore a small mark up is placed on the product to get some sort of profit.

 

Since we live on an island we have the extend cost of shipping to the island in our price. Essentially meaning one of two things; one the intermediary has an additional cost to get the product here or we have to add an extra intermediary to do the same. This is why the cost of living in Newfoundland is sometimes considered to be so high. So the next time that you look at a price and complain about it or make a note that it was a lot cheaper in another province or state remember that it is the small price you play for living in such a great province.

Providing the Right Hours to Provide the Right Service

As part of Chapter 12 in our Marketing II course we discuss service. One aspect of service that we touch on is the providing of the service. For example:

A city bus can sit anywhere from 24 - 48 people. Does that bus only run when there are 2 people on it and what happens if there are more people wanting to use the bus? What does the bus company do?
Answers:
The bus will run with only one person on it. The cost to run that bus is the same with one person on it as it is with 48 people on it. However the bus will make more money with more people using it.
During peak times the bus company will run extra buses to keep up with the demand.

When providing a service the company must have enough equipment and staff to effectively provide the -service. Peak times for a city  bus is usually 7-9AM 11-1 PM and 4-6PM. Still that bus runs 24 hours a day seven days a week.

Newfoundland Power's equipment provides electricity 24/7. Health care is available 24/7.


WHY IS THIS NOT THE CASE WITH OTHER SERVICE PROVIDERS!?

A restaurant usually opens to cover off peak hours. A restaurant is usually open from 8AM - 8PM, give or take a few hours. This usually covers breakfast, dinner/lunch and supper. However, just like people travel 24/7, people also eat 24/7. It is clear that business during non-peak times would be slow and perhaps the business would not make any money some nights. But should a restaurant that provides a necessary service, that is food, be operating the same as other service providers. Many people who travel long distances rely on restaurants to get their meals and snacks. For 12 hours of the day these people may have to go without eating because no restaurants are open during the night hours in their area.

This is a sign for a real restaurant. As you can see they do not open until late in the morning. They completely overlook breakfast.

McDonalds and Tim Horton's in Clarenville are about the only places to get food between the hours of 12AM and 5AM. Even then only their drive thru is open. They may only see one or two customers between those hours but still they are available to public.

The same applies to things such as gas stations, speaking from personal experience. You never know when somebody might take sick in the night and you find yourself driving to the hospital at 2 in the morning. When you get to the hospital the gas light comes on and you know that you do not have enough gas to get home. You find yourself sitting next to a gas pump at 5 in the morning waiting for the gas station to open at 7.

People are always traveling and very few services such as food and gas is available to them 24 hours a day. Often these are needed. There are always people traveling and on the go. By opening these business, with reduced staff, they could potentially make money and have increased customer satisfaction. I think other select services should be providing better hours to their customers.

"I could dig through and get you another one, but I don't really want to!"

Within our marketing course one of the things we have discussed throughout the course is customer service. Customer service is key in a business to ensure that they receive continued business from its customers. The employees are told to treat their customers with care and compassion in most organizations. However in one particular Clarenville business I wonder if the employees have ever been told such a thing.

On Friday, February 4, 2011 myself and some friends decided to go bowling to pass the night away. We have attended Caribou Lanes on several occasions and have always found the service to be near satisfactory.  This particular night I was so shocked to get the attitude that I received from the staff. When she gave me my bowling shoes I noticed a tear in the side of the shoe about an inch long. I was not particular and did not ask for another shoe to replace it. I only picked the shoe up and looked at it. The worker looked at me and said "Is there a defect in the shoe?". I replied that there was but I was okay with it as the tear was only in the first layer. The worker replied "I COULD DIG THROUGH AND FIND YOU ANOTHER ONE, BUT I DON'T REALLY WANT TO!" I was absolutely shocked that has an employee they would present such a negative attitude to a customer. I could not believe it.

Are there no guidelines that this worker must follow? Even if she was having a bad day she can not have that kind of attitude at work. It makes a great community business look bad.

The benefits offered by the Tim Horton's Tim Card!

Almost everywhere you go these days they offer gift cards. Gift cards are fairly new to the marketing industry. Previously gift certificates were implemented as the way for the store to generate revenues. Though certificates are still available in some places they are slowly being replaced by the magnetic strip on a small plastic card.

Something that the market has only seen over the past few years are reloadable gift cards. An idea that Tim Horton's has taken and run with.

The Tim Horton's gift card is a pre-paid, reloadable cash card that you can use to pay for purchases at participating Tim Hortons restaurants. It is the convenient and easy way to pay! Once your card is loaded, you can swipe it to pay for purchases both in-store and at the drive thru at participating locations. Each time you use the Tim Card, the amount of your purchase will be deducted from the balance remaining. The new balance will be displayed on the reader.

One thing that the Tim's Card has that many other reloadable cards does not have is the ability to be interacted with over the internet.  Some of the options available with the Tim's Card online are:

• Protect your balance if your card is lost or stolen
• Reloading your card using a credit card
• Multiple card balance merge
• View your most recent transaction history

One interesting thing with Tim Cards is that they can be reloaded with a credit card. Bu using a credit card to reload the card you can set the card to be reloaded once a week, once a month or when the balance gets below a certain amount. 

The Tim's Card is a great way for Tim Horton's to increase their revenue. How often do you wish for that coffee and you never have any change on you or you don't want to break that twenty. The Tim's Card solves all those problems.