Employee’s Discipline: An important Aspect In Human Resource Management

(Journals of Education)

PRECIS

One of the most challenging areas in human resource management is employee

discipline. Mismanaging may force the organization to deal with more difficult problems

like union strikes, costly lawsuits, or demoralization. If such problems are not contained,

they may lead to bankruptcy or disintegration of the organization. A very fine example of

the disastrous consequence of lack of discipline happened during the Philippine-

American War in 1899 because some high- ranking officers of the Philippine Army

committed acts of insubordination, the army as an organization disintegrated, quickly

making it easier for the American invaders to subdue the Filipinos.

Disciplinary action is sometimes necessary but it must be done only for justifiable

reason plus the requirement that there are effective policies and procedure for its use.

Discipline is a process consisting of establishing rules and goals communicating

these rules and goals to employees designing the mechanism for assessing employees

behavior administering penalty, and motivating change in behavior.

Employee’s discipline is one of the most challenging concerns of HRM. It is

important and it cannot be compromised less the efficiency and effectiveness of the

organization is placed in jeopardy.

COMMENTS

I therefore conclude that employee’s discipline is important because in every

members of the organization, they have their ability to do something to the organization

through disciplining the members of an organization, one must be aware of the things he

must do for the good of his colleagues. There maybe rules and regulations inside the

organization and so an employee must conduct himself in accordance with the

organization’s rules and standards of acceptable behavior.

Breaches in discipline oftentimes bring necessary and sometimes expensive

activities to the organization. This could be averted if sufficient preventive measures are

undertaken. These measures will be most appropriate when applied to discipline. Thus,

any action taken to encourage employees to follow standards and rules so that infraction

does not occur is called preventive discipline.

In setting up a system of preventive discipline, employees are encouraged to

maintain self- discipline. Also referred to as positive discipline, preventive discipline is a

system of discipline that focuses on the early correction of employee misconduct, with

the employee taking total responsibility for correcting the problem.

It is also expected that some employees will be breaking some rules for one

reason or another. Nevertheless, penalties are imposed even for first offenders. To

discourage them from repeating their misdeeds, however, stronger penalties are imposed

on succeeding infractions. This method of disciplining errant employees is referred to as

progressive discipline.

Incentive Compensation:A Motivation for Employee’s Work

(Journals of Education)

PRECIS

Organizations are confronted with the concern for efficiency in operations. This is

brought about by competition or just the plain instinct for survival. A very important area

of consideration is employee’s performance in which ways must be devised to make it

happen.

Incentives are also sometimes called as a variable pay. And job evaluation is the

way used to determine the basic of employees. Although the basic pay may motivate the

employee to work, it may not push him perform beyond the minimum requirements.

When this happens, organizations, which depend on the full capacity performance of their

employees, will have to consider other means to motivate them. A solution had been

devised and it is referred to as incentive compensation.

Incentives are rewards given to employees for performing beyond the standard

requirements. In addition to the base salary, a deserving employee receives incentives.

As such not everyone gets it because not everyone is expected to perform beyond

standards.

COMMENTS

Incentives in an organization can also be considered as a motivation for them to

perform beyond standard requirements. The reason for such plan is to reward the top

performers. However, there are two requisite condition for individual incentive plans to

succeed. These are the following; Individual contribution which must be the emphasis of

the organization. And also, the job must be designed to allow the individual employees to

work independently and with autonomy and discretion.

Bonus is one kind of an incentive. It is an extra payment given to employees for

good performance. In addition to production, A bonus may also be determined on the

basis of cost reduction, quality improvement, or performance criteria established by the

organization. A bonus is often used as an incentive to executives although this may also

be applied to lower level personnel.

Merit pay is also a kind of incentive. This is defined as individual increases based

on the rated performance of individual employees in a previous time period. An

employee who is entitled to merit pay receives a higher base pay commencing on the year

following the performance evaluation. This is computed as a certain percentage of the

base salary of the employee.

Commission also is another kind of an incentive and that is usually paid to sales

employees. It is based on a percentage of sales in units or pesos.

For the mentioned incentives, I think, there’s no better as it depends on the head

of a certain organization whether the employee is worth of the merit he must receive or

not.

Communication:A Tool for Better Understanding

In a Certain Organization

(Journals of Education)

PRECIS

Managers will find it easier to avoid the pitfalls of poor communication if they

have sufficient understanding of communication. This may lead them to identify their

weak points which are really the pre- requisites to developing communication skills.

Communication maybe defined as the transfer of information and understanding,

including the feelings and ideas, from one person to another.

Passive listening such as hearing without understanding is not considered

communication. Thus, if one is daydreaming and another person is telling him about

something, no communication is undertaken.

Intentions, no matter how good they are, will remain as just plain intentions if

they are not well communicated. Projects, programs, and any other activity would be

difficult to execute unless they are fully appreciated by the people concerned.

Appreciation and understanding, however, will depend on how effective the

communication is

Communication is an indispensable human activity. As it occurs simultaneously

with any undertaking, however, it becomes too familiar and is often neglected as an

effective means for achieving objectives of a certain organization.

COMMENTS

Organizations, including businesses, are established for certain objectives. These

objectives will be easier to achieve if every member of the organization understands them

fully. Communication is a necessary component of every aspect or human resource

management and these include staffing, training and development, motivation, and

maintenance.

It often happens that the intended meaning of the message sent is not the one

received. This may be attributed to certain barriers that affect communication. As such,

communicators must be aware of the existence of such barriers so they can be properly

managed.

A STUDY OF THE ETHICAL DECISION-MAKING OF THE PRINCIPALS

Bottery, M. (1992). The Ethics of Educational Managementl

PRECIS

This study investigates the ethical decision-making of school principals.

The project seeks to develop understanding of the nature of ethical decision-

making and values driven leadership among school principals working for the

Department of Education. The need for a project of this kind results from a

confluence of social, cultural and economic imperatives common in our

international, national and local contexts.

In the Philippines, schools are under intense pressure from at least four

sources. Firstly, there have been increasing demands for involvement by non-

educationalists in school decision-making. The effects of these demands can be

seen in three recent and influential documents on curriculum produced by

committees headed by a computer company chief executive, an insurance

executive and a retired union official and the implementation of school-based

management structures. The latter have involved the introduction of governance

by school councils with strong community representation. Secondly, revolutionary

changes in knowledge growth and in the application of new technologies to the

teaching and learning process have resulted in an incessant call for schools to

modernize. Thirdly, schools are being asked to respond to increasing and

seemingly intractable social problems such as unemployment, youth suicide, and

violence: problems that vary in their effects on different school communities but

have deeply penetrating effects on many schools. And fourthly, the liberal-

progressive, individual-centered educational philosophies that have driven

educational practices for most of the post-war years are being pressured to yield

the ideological terrain to powerfully asserted economic-rationalist and utilitarian

emphases.

  In the face of these changes, school principals have found that time for

constructive educational planning has diminished, and crisis management has

become the norm. In particular, what is of most concern is that school leaders'

understandings of the espoused values of schooling are being lost in the face of

the exigencies of crisis management. The danger is that the choices principals

make are being guided not by those values but by measures of expedience born

of the need to simply survive crises.

COMMENTS

As indicated, we are currently writing up the issues identified as case

accounts. Three examples of this work are included below to illustrate the

outcomes of the writing task.

 Issue 1. Assessment Falsification 

Towards the end of the year a principal asked how his year was going in

her second language assessment. She reported that she was doing 'pretty well'

but that she couldn't say much more because she hadn't seen feedback from her

teacher on any of the assessment tasks she had submitted. She had only

received marks. A little further investigation into this matter with other students

revealed a similar pattern sufficient for the principal to discuss the issue with the

teacher. By this time, it was near the end of the senior year. The talk with the

teacher uncovered a major problem. The teacher had been replacing the senior

students' assessment tasks with ones he had written himself. Further

investigation showed that this practice was widespread affecting all second

language students in the school from years 8 to 12. Needless to say, the

students were assessed as performing very well.

 

Issue 2. School Council Membership

  It is well known by all, including the principal, that a particular woman

seeking a place on the school council is a 'pain in the neck' (to quote the

principal). She is 'aggressive', 'single minded', and has a personal 'barrow to

push'. She is considered by most to be disruptive and potentially destabilizing for

any school body let along the council.

The principal is concerned about how to deal with the issue in the lead up

to nominations and the election for the council.

 

Issue 3. Conflict of Interest

  A highly regarded and hard working senior teacher recently came up with

the idea to put a drink machine into the covered sports area so that students

might purchase chilled soft drinks. This was approved by the outgoing principal.

The new principal, whilst examining all of the school's finances felt that there was

a conflict of interest in this arrangement since the teacher concerned was drinks

provider at the local hockey club. More than this, she suspected that the teacher

was making money out of the machine and pocketing it. With a little further

investigation she found that this was eminently possible because the teacher, as

the lease, had a key to the machine. By purchasing discount soft drinks and

placing them in the machine before the restocking date followed by the owners it

was possible to make a profit 'on the side'.

 

Once all of the case accounts are completed we will turn our attention to

the preparation of the survey instrument. This we hope to administer during

semester one, 1999. Next year we will also move to writing a series of Case

Studies from the interview data. At this stage, it seems that several will

concentrate on ethical decision making processes employed by different

principals while others will focus on the values positions implicit in particular

decision outcomes.

 

Revisions to the Hiring Guidelines for Teacher- I Positions

DEPED no. 4, s. 2007

 

PRECIS

The Department of Education (DEPED) actively implements policy reforms

called Basic Education Sector Reform Agenda (BESRA) which are expected to create

critical changes necessary to further accelerate, broaden, and deepen and sustain the

improved current educational efforts. The vision for improved school performance

propels a unified system that provides for the need for highly qualified teachers.

In order to institutionalize the objectives of BESRA, particularly the reforms in

Teacher Education and development Program (TEDP) and School Based Management

( SBM ), the revisions to the hiring guidelines for teacher –I positions in the public

elementary and secondary schools under DEPED Order No. 4,s. 2007 shall be

implemented by schools Divisions consistent with the pertinent provisions of existing

laws, rules and regulations effective School Year 2009-10.

COMMENTS

To monitor the division compliance and sanctions, the regional directors shall

regularly ensure the full implementation of the provisions of the hiring guidelines. There

must be an extent dissemination and discussion of the guidelines with teachers, school

heads, district supervisors, superintendents and other schools division’s officials. The

schools also shall prepare to receive, acknowledge and endorse applications. Then, there

must have an organization of Division Sub- committees and selection committees. The

members of the committees shall have a briefing and orientation regarding their roles and

functions. Then after that, they shall prepare a scoring sheets, interview guides and tests

of applicants and extent of briefing and information sharing with local governments and

other local stakeholders in teaching hiring.

Anyone found guilty of violating any of the provisions of these guidelines or any

part thereof shall be administratively dealt with accordingly.

Personnel Teaching Program

Walker, Keith D. (1995). Perceptions of Programs among Personnel Educational Leaders, Journal of School Leadership, 5(6), p532-64.

PRECIS

Personnel Teaching Internship is the culminating phase of the personnel

education degree program. During this period, he/she begins to metamorphose

from being a student to that of being a teacher. It is during this crucial phase that

the student teacher needs a support system that will encourage professional

development and enhance teaching performance. This support system shall come

from the collaborative efforts of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED)

through a Teacher Training Institutions (TEIS), the Department of Education and

cooperating public and private schools.

I. General Objectives:

1. To have a comprehensive view on the real world of teaching

2. To serve as a real test of what one has learned in his years of study in a

teacher training institution

3. To apply the principles, theories, precepts, methods, information skills,

attitudes and values that one has gleaned in his years of schooling

4. To determine whether or not the student teacher is ready to go out into the

actual world of teaching

COMMENTS

The College Teaching Supervisor of teaching personnel shall have the following

duties and responsibilities such as : to prepare the program of activities of the student

teachers; coordinate with the SDS in the selection of cooperating schools; prepare and

implement the MOA between the TEI and the Division Office; coordinate with the head

of the cooperating school regarding the activities and needs of the student teachers

relative to their practice teaching; prepare the student teachers for their off-campus work

through orientation, meetings, conferences, lectures, etc. conduct regular observation and

evaluation of the performance of student teachers in their practice teaching; coordinate

regularly with the principal, head teacher, and cooperating teacher regarding the

performance of the student-teacher; submit written reports to the College Dean, copy

furnished the school principal and the SDS, at least twice a month regarding the:

1.1. Progress / performance of student teachers

1.2. Problems / difficulties met by the student teachers

1.3. Solutions / actions taken to solve the problems