Thursday, January 30, 2020

Documentary films Essay Example for Free

Documentary films Essay Documentary films have paved way to show the reality of life. More often than not, it provides awareness of the present situation that was not addressed accurately in films and television shows alike. Documentary, like other discourses of the real, retains a vestigial responsibility to describe and interpret the world of collective experience, a responsibility that is no small matter at all (Nichols, 1991 p. 10). In making a documentary film concerning the community life in a distant foreign country, several issues would need to be addressed. The first thing that we need to discuss is the culture of the people living in that place. It would be an important factor as it tells a lot about the people and the place itself. Its history would generally be included in determining how the culture came about. Social norms and practices should also thoroughly discuss to identify the difference and uniqueness of their society. Furthermore, the documentation should explore the different beliefs of the people and how it affects the way they live and how their society copes up with modernization. The main focus of the documentary is how the culture and beliefs would affect the health of the people in that certain area. It would thoroughly explore the different misconceptions and traditional health management that these people have. This is a critical issue to discuss because it may directly or indirectly affect their socio-economic progress and their lifestyle. If by chance, the documentary could discover the need to re-educate the people regarding their health beliefs and fallacy, then proper authority should be inform. This is to insure that people would have the opportunity and the appropriate resources to improve their knowledge as regards to their health condition. REFERENCES Nichols, B. (1991), Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary, Indiana University Press, p. 10

Wednesday, January 22, 2020

Politics and its affect on the olympics :: essays research papers

Politics is the art or science of government or governing, especially the governing of a political entity, such as a nation, and the administration and control of its internal and external affairs. The Olympic Games is an event held every 4 years, which includes a variety of sport activities in which different countries compete against one another. â€Å"Sport is frequently a tool of diplomacy. By sending delegations of athletes abroad, states can establish a first basis for diplomatic relations or can more effectively maintain such relations† (Espy 3). One might think that politics and the Olympics have nothing to do with each other, but in fact they do have a lot in common. How did politics affect the Olympic Games in 1936, 1968 and 1972?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In 1934, the death of President Hindenburg of Germany removed the last remaining obstacle for Adolf Hitler to assume power. Soon thereafter, he declared himself President and Fuehrer, which means â€Å"supreme leader†. That was just the beginning of what would almost 12 years of Jewish persecution in Germany, mainly because of Hitler’s hatred towards the Jews. It is difficult to doubt that Hitler genuinely feared and hated Jews. His whole existence was driven by an obsessive loathing of them (Hart-Davis 14). In 1935, the U.S. decided to attend the ‘36 Berlin games, even though the United States knew how Hitler was persecuting the Jews. By July 1933, at least 27,000 people had been placed in what Hitler liked to call â€Å"detention camps† (Hart-Davis 16). In early 1932 at an IOC meeting in Barcelona, the committee decided to grant Germany the right to the 1936 Olympic Games, which allowed Germany to restore their athletic reputation that they lost because of the outbreak of World War I. All over the world, there was an outcry to boycott or at least change the location of the ‘36 Olympics. The IOC’s first response was that they had granted Germany the Olympic site before the Nazis’ came to power. All over Germany before the Olympic Games were signs that read Juden Unerwunscht, or â€Å"Jews not wanted.† â€Å"The racial discrimination- so obvious and deliberate- was more than some foreign sports organizations could stomach. Apart from being offensi ve to normal human beings, the Nazi attitude was also diametrically opposed to the principle of free competition on which the Olympics were supposed to based† (Hart Davis 62). More than anywhere else, action against what was happening in Germany mounted more quickly in the United States, especially in New York, where there were almost 2 million Jews living (Hart Davis 62).

Monday, January 13, 2020

Retaining Customers Essay

BT is one of the largest communications companies in the world. One of the services they offer is residential or personal communications solutions. Even though they now have competition from other companies offering consumers substitutes for their service, they still hold the largest market share of providing residential customers with telephone lines. For BT to maintain this market share, they must retain the customers they have. I will be recommending how they can retain their customer base as well as winning new customers. I will be looking at several models and theories in order to do this. * Making Customers into Champions * The case of the complaining customer * The tip of the Iceberg Model From BT a customer receives a core service. Telephony. The customer expects the telephone in their home to be working when they pick it up. They are not going to be ‘wowed’ by the service if it is just working. However, when the customer makes contact with BT to enquire, change or add something they will use this opportunity to form a perception of BT’s Customer Service. Most people who move to a different telephone provider do so because they perceive indifference in the people they do business with at their current company. Customer feedback tells BT that one of the biggest drivers of dissatisfaction is the difficulty in registering their complaint with BT. A large part of this dissatisfaction stems from a lack of promised callbacks and an initial difficulty in escalating their issue. This feedback has been substantiated by OFTEL in that the number of customers contacting them to complain that they have not received a promised call back has been increasing. OFTEL have given BT a very clear indication that they expect this situation to be addressed and therefore it is paramount that the following recommendations are implemented immediately. * Own, Decide, Do – Training to be rolled out to all Customer Service Advisors. When a complaint is received in the 150 call centres the individual must own the complaint, make a decision about what to do with it and follow any promised action up with a call to the customer to let them know what happened. * Keeping the customer informed – With some complaints resolution may not be speedy. There may be some technical difficulties, which hold resolution up. The customer does not know this and will perceive any periods of silence as the indifference of BT to their complaint. Keeping the customer informed of progress or news (good or bad) will enhance the customers perception of BT> * EDCSM’s (Event Driven Customer Service Measures), the service that BT offer customers must be analysed in order to measure its success. Through BT’s sophisticated SMART datatbase, every contact with the customer is logged with the id of the advisor who took the call. This way trends can be spotted as well as training areas The barriers for the customer to successfully register their complaint are as follows: * The BT ‘shunt’ – BT is a huge business with over 20 large call centres taking in the freephone 150 (customer service) calls. It is very easy for complaints to get ‘lost’ in the system. * The call steering system. There are many different numbers to press for different departments. It is difficult to speak to a human * The Call Handling Time that advisors are encouraged to adhere to. This measure the amount of time they are talkng with each customer in order to keep the Percentage of calls answered as high as possible. * Poor training and coaching – target based coaching instead of skills based coaching In the longer term there are some other changes that should be implemented by BT over a period of time in order to instil enhanced behaviours in all employees. Traditionally employees of a company see a complaining customer as being a nuisance. BA challenged this when they introduced the Making Customers into Champions Model. This model can be directly applied to BT, who is, itself, striving to provide World Class Customer Service. This model labels different sectors of the customer base and how likely they are to contact BT with any dissatisfaction they may have and how easy it is to register this dissatisfaction. If the customer has a complaint and they cannot register this in any way, they may feel tempted to try a different provider. If the complaint is not registered then BT has not had a chance to resolve the complaint. If BT has a chance of resolving the issue, if it is resolved skilfully and well, research suggests that this could actually enhance the customer’s perception of BT. So, in short, a customer complaint can turn in to a glowing report for BT. Furthermore, if we make BT’s customers in to champions, BT can learn from the mistakes they have made that might have caused complaints in order that they do not occur again. * A dissatisfied customer will tell between 10 and 20 other people about their problem * A customer who has had a problem resolved will tell 5 people about their situation The case of the complaining customer is a valuable study that BT should already have taken heed of. The problems experienced by Mr Shelton almost mirror the experiences some BT customers have when things go wrong and customer relations are tested to the full. It may be tempting for some employees working for such a huge ‘cash cow’ as BT to believe that BT can afford to lose difficult customers. This study shows that whilst few customers actually take the time and energy that Mr Shelton did to complain, there are actually many other dissatisfied customers (Mr Shelton is just the ‘tip of the Iceberg’). These customers are the ‘missing in action’ group and will just quietly take their custom elsewhere and thus impact significantly on BT’s profit margins. The article points out that whilst it would be easy for us to read Mr Shelton’s contacts with the company as neurotic, in actual fact Mr Shelton has responded very emotionally to the way he feels his complaint has been dealt with. Customers should be allowed to vent their feelings, feel listened to and valued before their problem is resolved. They are experiencing feelings of powerlessness and this will be compounded if they feel that an advisor is not listening to them. Paraphrasing can be a useful tool here, to show empathy and check for understanding. TARP published a graphic representing the Tip of the Iceberg Principle. It indicates that consumer complaints to a third party are only a small portion of those that exist. They’re just the visible portion and reflect the much broader picture. This demonstrates how important it is for BT to be proactive in gaining feedback from customers at every possible opportunity. It was not the tip of the iceberg that sunk the Titanic, and it will not affect the business greatly if just those visible customers were dissatisfied with BT’s service. Those that leave quietly will have the greatest impact and BT will have little or no information as to why they left. BT must strive to deal with any customer requests the first time every time. Here is a list of my recommendations for BT for implementing across the board over the next 12 months in order to retain customers. * A review of the training process – all training should be underpinned with updated balance scorecard and appropriate coaching given by line managers * Quality must come before quantity. If all customers were dealt with the first time they called, there would be less calls * Approach customer complaints as a chance to ‘dazzle and delight’ customers and enhance a customers perception of BT – through a training programme * Work together with different departments and not as adversaries. Promote teamwork * Introduce an incentive scheme for teams and individuals who achieve excellent customer relations * Use customer feedback more effectively (EDCSM’s)- find out what customers want/expect then exceed this * Give staff more responsibility and authority to deal with complaints. Allow then to be flexible when it comes to procedural rules. Stop quoting ‘BT policy’. * Allow a measure of redress such as goodwill payments and compensation payments In implementing the above and re-training staff, BT will retain greater numbers of customers. Existing customers (especially those we have information about) are an ideal group to market new products to as well gain information from about how to improve on the products and services BT has.

Sunday, January 5, 2020

The Changing Composition Of Workforce And Values - 918 Words

The Changing Composition of Workforce and Values South Florida is a very diverse region of the United States. A large part of the population consists of immigrants from all over the world. The author Stephen Covey once said â€Å"Strength lies in differences, not in similarities.† This quote summarizes the importance of diversity and how differences can strengthen an organization. This paper will review how the composition of the workforce has changed over the years. It will cover the importance of diversity in today’s current workforce, conflicts related to it, and inclusion of the same. The Composition of Today’s Workforce Today’s workforce is composed by more minorities and different cultures than in the past. According to a report published by Career Builder, women, minorities and all workers over the age of 55 have seen their employment grow considerably since 2001(Brooks, 2015). These groups have different ideals and values and represent the advancement of our society. Diversity is valued and embraced in the work place. In the past, women, minorities and older workers would not have been given the opportunities they have available today. Women’s place was the house, minorities didn’t have freedom or a voice, and elders would only be necessary if they were the only ones able to do something. Laws enforced by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission have changed the status of these groups in the workplace and opened the door to new opportunities. Christina WillkieShow MoreRelatedThe Future of Human Resource Management1104 Words   |  5 Pagesrate of change in the workplace. Globalization, changing technologies, diversity and changing workforce composition is challenging managers to utilize their employees more effectively to gain competitive advantage. Given these speeding changes occurring in today s workplace, any Humane Resource professional wishing to make a strategic contribution must look closer to the future and think ahead more than ever before. 2.) Globalization and changing technologies Globalization is inevitable. It affectsRead MoreBenefits Of Diversity And Inclusion1657 Words   |  7 Pagesbusiness. With the changing demographics of society and its affect on the American workforce, organizations must truly embrace diversity and inclusion. â€Å"For companies to succeed in the global marketplace, they must make the most of the full range of their people. Companies must attract and retain the right skills, the best minds, all the required resources – and that means diversity† (Royal Bank of Canada, n.d.). There are a number of compelling reasons companies should adopt the core values of diversityRead MoreThe Importance of Eradicating Workplace Discrimination1323 Words   |  6 PagesIn the changing business environment nowadays, organizations need to differentiate themselves to gain competitive advantages to survive. One of the most important advantages is workforce diversity. Because â€Å"A well performing team will create additional value to a company by combining individuals’ strengths and take advantage of synergies that may exist, thereby making the whole greater than the sum of its parts.† (Holtzman p.75). Hence, the requirement of workforce diversity, especially heterogeneityRead MoreManaging Workforce Training And Management For Economic Survival789 Words   |  4 Pagesmaintaining a skilled-workforce shooting up, it is crucial for organizations to adapt to the changing environments and make better informed decisions in terms of workforce training and management for economic survival (Kapp, 1999). Managing workforces involve both short-term and long-term decisions to determine the most effective practices and policies to close gaps and meet future workforce needs. While long-term decisions deal with the overall composition of the workforce and the number of workersRead MoreEssay on Organizational Behavior1070 Words   |  5 Pagesal.). Organizational behavior is increasingly emphasized in todays glob al economy, as people with diverse backgrounds and cultural values have to work together. Organizational culture is the system of shared actions, values, and beliefs that develops within an organization and guides the behavior of its members(Schermerhorn et al., 2005). Two essentialRead MoreDiversity1392 Words   |  6 Pagesespecially healthcare organizations. Despite the clear value of having a diverse workforce, like increased innovation, improved financial stats, and enhanced organizational performance, reputation, healthcare organizations are still struggling to attract and retain minorities and women in leadership roles. A multicultural workforce is always a good source of various insights and perspectives needed to continually adapt to today’s ever-changing healthcare industry. American Hospital Associations InstituteRead MoreWorkforce Planning - State of New York1405 Words   |  6 PagesPage 1 Assignment 2 Our Workforce Matters A guide to work force and succession planning for New York state agencies Orla Spetrini February 5, 2012 The Workforce Matters guide for New York State agencies is a very valuable guide and relevant in 2012. It provides insight into the agency staff by recognizing the aging workforce and upcoming retirement; it recognizes the knowledge, experience and institutional memory that will leave the company once these long term employees leave.Read MoreThe Future Of Global Work Essay1457 Words   |  6 Pagesconcept on internationalization or globalization, which has become a definitive characteristic of today’s workforce. The concept of internationalization can be described as a process through which the global presence of a firm increases. In this case, a local company expands its activities to overseas markets and develops new operational units overseas that enhance its ability to generate added value. One of the major characteristic that has characterized globalization is changes in human resourcesRead MoreThe Building Blocks Of Society Essay1708 Words   |  7 Pagesquestions t hat is asked, from sociological perspective is â€Å"What are we looking at in society. What are the building blocks?† Values are described as a shared or collective goal that you don’t usually see unless you ask. Values are used as motivators, purpose and rewards and sometimes the reason we get out of bed in the morning. The building blocks of society are the challenges, values, norms, groups and roles. When there is an awareness of these building blocks a societal group is formed. Our statusRead MoreDiversity Within The Workplace Has Become A Priority For Managers1540 Words   |  7 Pagestowards a principle that to be fair, one needs to be committed to treating everyone equally (Dike, 2013). The changing composition of the labor force, in terms of ethnicity and gender, has driven businesses and organizations to reconsider their views on diversity in the workplace. In the past, American businesses have sought a workplace uniformity of workers who shared the same values, beliefs, and attitudes about work and the organization they worked for. They also believed that individuals with