Definition of Stress Management

Understanding the core factors in producing stress takes you closer to eliminating it. But since the most common conception of stress takes into account something we all know, then the definition of stress management should be obvious - except that it isn't.

We define it as our conscious knowledge of things that effect stress and the methods to divest stress harmlessly out of our body system. It is also a set of techniques that professionals do to help us in coping with various kinds of stress. Furthermore, we can also say that it is an equipping of knowledge, a conditioning, or a change of a lifestyle that allows only the most minimum instances where stress can actually set in.

Management

Before we start, what is stress? Stress is a nervous system reaction of your body towards certain stimulus. This nervous system reaction could be easily viewed as an unconscious preparation of the body for a certain activity, like for instance releasing adrenaline chemicals onto your muscles whenever you feel alarmed, for example triggering auto response duck and adrenaline rush quickness on the muscles as you hear and process a gunfire shot; or else shutting down some of your pain receptors while you're in a fight.

Definition of Stress Management

The problem with stress response is that it also triggers psychologically. Anxiety of approaching deadlines, nervousness over the outcome of a completing project, surmounting unpaid bills, or the nervous anticipation of any event, any situation that's going to happen in the near future may trigger stress response. Over time, these repeated stress experiences can severely deplete energy which could be used for other health functions like digesting meals, functioning body defense system, and such.

Returning on track, the definition of stress management is a system that is aimed to reduce stress and/or facilitate the person to cope with these instances. Because stress falls into a complex assortment of emotions and sources of them are even more profuse, the definition of stress management has become so broad, but all of them are aimed to relieve stress and divert these energies elsewhere harmless, and sometimes, even productive. All in all, the definition of stress management falls into three categories: action oriented stress management, emotionally oriented stress management, and acceptance oriented stress management.

Definition of Stress Management

Milos Pesic is an expert in the field of Stress Management and runs a highly popular and comprehensive Stress Management [http://stress.need-to-know.net/] web site. For more articles and resources on Stress Management related topics, stress relief, stress tests, stress symptoms, stress reduction and much more visit his site at:

=>[http://stress.need-to-know.net/]

Total Quality Management

Introduction

Competition is getting harder and becoming global. Companies now have to be more responsive, offer a better product and keep improving. Total quality management (TQM) increases customer satisfaction by boosting quality. It does this by motivating the workforce and improving the way the company operates. In an increasingly competitive market, firms with a continuous improvement culture and external focus are more likely to survive and prosper. TQM is considered an important catalyst in this context.

Management

What is TQM?

Total Quality Management

TQM is an approach to improving the effectiveness and flexibilities of business as a whole. It is essentially a way of organising and involving the whole organisation, every department, every activity and every single person at every level. TQM ensures that the management adopts a strategic overview of the quality and focuses on prevention rather than inspection.

Objectives of TQM

o Meeting the customer's requirements is the primary objective and the key to organisational survival and growth.

o The second objective of TQM is continuous improvement of quality. The management should stimulate the employees in becoming increasingly competent and creative.

o Third, TQM aims at developing the relationship of openness and trust among the employees at all levels in the organisation.

Significance of TQM

The importance of TQM lies in the fact that it encourages innovation, makes the organisation adaptable to change, motivates people for better quality, and integrates the business arising out of a common purpose and all these provide the organisation with a valuable and distinctive competitive edge.

Elements of TQM

The various elements of TQM are

o Be customer focused

It requires the company to check customers' attitudes regularly and includes the idea of internal customers as well as external ones.

o Do it right the first time

This means avoiding rework, i.e., cutting the amount of defective work.

o Constantly improve

Continuous improvement allows the company gradually to get better.

o Quality is an attitude

Every one has to be committed to quality. That means changing the attitude of the entire workforce, and altering the way the company operates.

o Telling staff what is going on

This involves improved communication. Typically, it includes team briefing.

o Educate and train people

An unskilled workforce makes mistakes. Giving more skills to workers means they can do a wider range of jobs, and do them better. It also means educating staff in the principles of TQM, which is a whole new style of working.

o Measure the work.

Measurement allows the company to make decisions based on facts, not opinion. It helps to maintain standards and keep processes within the agreed tolerances.

o Top management must be involved

If senior management is not involved, the programme will fail.

o Make it a good place to work

Many companies are full of fear. Staffs are afraid of the sack, their boss and making mistakes. There is no point in running a TQM programme unless the company drives out fear.

o Introduce team work

Team work boosts employees' morale. It reduces conflict and solves problem by hitting them with a wider range of skills. It pushes authority and responsibility downwards and provides better, more balanced solutions.

o Organise by process, not by function

This element of TQM seeks to reduce the barriers that exist between different departments, and concentrates on getting the product to the customer.

Reasons for failure

TQM fails because:

o Top management sees no reason for change.

o Top management is not concerned for its staff.

o Top management is not committed to the TQM programme.

o The company loses interest in the programme after six months.

o The workforce and the management do not agree on what needs to happen.

o Urgent problems intervene.

o TQM is imposed on the workforce, which does not inwardly accept it.

o No performance measure or targets are set, so progress cannot be measured.

o Processes are not analysed, systems are weak and procedures are not written down.

Conclusion

In today's globally competitive market, the situation is to buy whichever is of good quality and low cost. The organisations have started with a rigour to have an edge over the global competition and in the process some have become successful. The quality movement, which drives every organisation towards the global market, seems to increase its competitive advantage for better market acceptance.

Total Quality Management

How Management Evolved?

Management has kept on redefining itself over the years. It has been on a continuously reinventing spree. There are not enough literatures available to throw light on evolution of management before 18th century. But it is assumed that, given the magnitude of earlier era's construction and hugely spread kingdom, there must have been elements of planning, organizing and delegating authorities, all of which are essential elements of management. In fact, management from being a personalized solitary concept to the boardrooms of corporate houses has travelled long distance.

It all started with industrial revolution when businesses started growing in gargantuan proportions. Industrial revolution signaled the arrival of increased scale of operations, growing size and emergence of various elements within an organization. This also prompted recruitment of managers for day to day activities who can handle planning and controlling part on their own. With increasing global trade and requirements of efficient man power, management, which was merely an art of getting things done through people, started encompassing other aspects of business as well. Its functions were defined and new scientific aspects were added to management's overall meaning. apart from existing factors like economies of scale, increased productivity and effective, efficient utilization of resources, technical aspects like quality control, cost accounting etc were also included in its broadening perspective. Later on eminent management thinkers like Henri Fayol, Elton Mayo, Chester Bernard, Peter Drucker added new elements of psychological and sociological approaches.

Management

In the last century, the biggest contribution from management's evolution point of view came from de facto humanization of management. From merely being a managing concept which was concerned with rationale side of mind, management started ingraining emotional intelligence as well. The concept of leadership gave itself a big push, working in collaboration with management. Human Resource which was just one of the production tools started being taken as the most important element of organization. More personalized relationships were started between the management and employees. In fact, with changing times, we can safely say that the evolution of management is still in process.

How Management Evolved?

How Management Evolved?

Management has kept on redefining itself over the years. If you want to know more about management and related resources, check our websites on MBA colleges, India MBA [http://www.indiamba.net] and homework help.

What is Strategic Human Resource Management?

In Human Resource (HR) and management circles nowadays there is much talk about Strategic Human Resource Management and many expensive books can be seen on the shelves of bookshops. But what exactly is SHRM (Strategic Human Resource Development), what are its key features and how does it differ from traditional human resource management?

SHRM or Strategic human resource management is a branch of Human resource management or HRM. It is a fairly new field, which has emerged out of the parent discipline of human resource management. Much of the early or so called traditional HRM literature treated the notion of strategy superficially, rather as a purely operational matter, the results of which cascade down throughout the organisation. There was a kind of unsaid division of territory between people-centred values of HR and harder business values where corporate strategies really belonged. HR practitioners felt uncomfortable in the war cabinet like atmosphere where corporate strategies were formulated.

Management

Definition of SHRM

What is Strategic Human Resource Management?

Strategic human resource management can be defined as the linking of human resources with strategic goals and objectives in order to improve business performance and develop organizational culture that foster innovation, flexibility and competitive advantage. In an organisation SHRM means accepting and involving the HR function as a strategic partner in the formulation and implementation of the company's strategies through HR activities such as recruiting, selecting, training and rewarding personnel.

How SHRM differs from HRM

In the last two decades there has been an increasing awareness that HR functions were like an island unto itself with softer people-centred values far away from the hard world of real business. In order to justify its own existence HR functions had to be seen as more intimately connected with the strategy and day to day running of the business side of the enterprise. Many writers in the late 1980s, started clamoring for a more strategic approach to the management of people than the standard practices of traditional management of people or industrial relations models. Strategic human resource management focuses on human resource programs with long-term objectives. Instead of focusing on internal human resource issues, the focus is on addressing and solving problems that effect people management programs in the long run and often globally. Therefore the primary goal of strategic human resources is to increase employee productivity by focusing on business obstacles that occur outside of human resources. The primary actions of a strategic human resource manager are to identify key HR areas where strategies can be implemented in the long run to improve the overall employee motivation and productivity. Communication between HR and top management of the company is vital as without active participation no cooperation is possible.

Key Features of Strategic Human Resource Management

The key features of SHRM are

• There is an explicit linkage between HR policy and practices and overall organizational strategic aims and the organizational environment
• There is some organizing schema linking individual HR interventions so that they are mutually supportive
• Much of the responsibility for the management of human resources is devolved down the line

Trends in Strategic Human Resource Management

Human Resource Management professionals are increasingly faced with the issues of employee participation, human resource flow, performance management, reward systems and high commitment work systems in the context of globalization. Older solutions and recipes that worked in a local context do not work in an international context. Cross-cultural issues play a major role here. These are some of the major issues that HR professionals and top management involved in SHRM are grappling with in the first decade of the 21st century:

• Internationalization of market integration.
• Increased competition, which may not be local or even national through free market ideology
• Rapid technological change.
• New concepts of line and general management.
• Constantly changing ownership and resultant corporate climates.
• Cross-cultural issues
• The economic gravity shifting from 'developed' to 'developing' countries

SHRM also reflects some of the main contemporary challenges faced by Human Resource Management: Aligning HR with core business strategy, demographic trends on employment and the labour market, integrating soft skills in HRD and finally Knowledge Management.

References

1. Armstrong, M (ed.) 192a) Strategies for Human Resource Management: A Total Business Approach. London:Kogan Page
2. Beer, M and Spector,B (eds) (1985) Readings in Human Resource Management. New York: Free Press
3. Boxall, P (1992) 'Strategic Human Resource Management: Beginnings of a New Theoretical Sophistication?' Human Resource Management Journal, Vol.2 No.3 Spring.
4. Fombrun, C.J., Tichy, N,M, and Devanna, M.A. (1984) Strategic Human Resource Management. New York:Wiley
5. Mintzberg, H, Quinn, J B, Ghoshal, S (198) The Strategy Process, Prentice Hall.
6. Truss, C and Gratton, L (1994) 'Strategic Human Resource Management: A Conceptual Approach', International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol.5 No.3

What is Strategic Human Resource Management?

Rana Sinha is a cross-cultural trainer and author. He was born in India, studied and lived in many places and traveled in over 80 countries, acquiring cross-cultural knowledge and building an extensive network of professionals. He has spent many years developing and delivering Cross-cultural Training, Professional Communications skills, Personal Development and Management solutions to all types of organizations and businesses in many countries. He now lives in Helsinki, Finland and runs http://www.dot-connect.com, which specializes in human resource development as well as communication and management skills training with cross-cultural emphasis. Read his cross-cultural blog http://originalwavelength.blogspot.com