A Critique of “Don’t Blame the Eater”

â€Å"I couldn't open up a magazine, you couldn't read a newspaper, you couldn't turn on the TV without hearing about the obesity epidemic in America. † is a quote by Morgan Spurlock, that acutely describes the obesity problem going on in America. Any way one can want to talk about the problem, it will always be a huge dilemma throughout the United States. For a long time now, people have been discussing who is to blame for the obesity crisis going on.Some people prefer to blame the government, several blame the restaurants, others the parents and even the schools receive criticism for obesity. People should develop their own ideas on the obesity crisis and to figure out who is to blame and how to fix the problem. The main article I want to focus on is â€Å"Don’t Blame the Eater† by David Zinczenko. Throughout this article, he refers to the few kids suing McDonalds and other fast food restaurants.According to the book, They Say, I Say, there are two major parts of an article, the They Say, and the I Say. From Zinczenko’s point of view, he was biased towards the side saying that the food restaurants is responsible for the obesity crisis, while the others he is writing against, are writing about personal responsibility and how to teach the world how to be self-empowered and control what they eat. Others write about the government flailing around, not doing anything to stop and fix the obesity crisis.Zinczenko focuses on the fast food restaurants are causing all of the problems, because their advertisements are focused to children, (The Happy Meal by McDonalds) and teenagers, by having cheap carb filled food for the average poor teenager and college student. Throughout his article, he made many valid points as to why the restaurants are to blame for obesity. The restaurants create a very difficult way to tell exactly what you are eating, mainly because there are no calorie information on the food you get in these eateries.This is mainl y because the FDA does not cover prepared found in all restaurants, especially fast food restaurants, where it is needed the most. An example he gives is that is that a website says a chicken salad contains 150 calories, the almonds and noodles it comes with is an additional 190 calories, a 280 calorie dressing, but the dressing is 2. 5 servings. That total is 1,400 but that excludes anything else you might get, like a coke or fries. (Zinczenko 393) He also gives statistics that show how Type 2 diabetes has increased 25% since 1994. (Zinczenko 392) After all of the points he has shown, he came up with a solution to solve this risis, â€Å"And I’d say the industry is vulnerable. Fast-companies are marketing to children a product with proven health hazards and no warning labels. They would do well to protect themselves, and their customers, by providing the nutrition information people need† (Zinczenko 393) This is one way that we can start to work with the restaurants t o solve this problem. Although he brought up very good points, his argument was very biased against fast food restaurants. During the article he mentioned that we should be responsible for our actions, such as â€Å"Whatever happened to personal responsibility? (Zinczenko 391) and â€Å"Shouldn’t you know better than to eat two meals a day in fast-food restaurants? † (Zinczenko 392) He did not display both sides equally, or even bring up the other side, not contributing the â€Å"They Say† of his article. Other than those two quotes, he does not talk about others to blame or any other solutions to this crisis. Another part of the article that confused me was the part where Zinczenko told his story about how in high school, he was 210lbs. with a lanky 5’10’’ body frame. According to the article, he joined the Navy Reserve in college, lost all the weight by working out, and took responsibility for himself. Zinczenko 391)Even though he uses th is story in which he took responsibility for himself, he still blames the fast food restaurants and barely scratches the surface of self-responsibility. Another article about obesity is â€Å"What You Eat is Your Business† by Radley Balko, but it has a different approach then the way Zinczenko had used. Balko believes that the government needs to leave the public be, and promote personal responsibility. He says that politicians are joining the fight, â€Å"President Bush earmarked $200 million in his budget for anti-obesity measures. (Balko 396) Those two hundred million dollars could have been spent on much more important things, like helping people with more serious problems. Throughout Balko’s article he supports the idea the people need to take responsibility for their own actions, such as becoming obese. Balko says â€Å"It only becomes a public matter when we force the public to pay for the consequences of those choices. † (Balko 397) When the people who stay fit and control their own weight have to pay for those who do not stay fit and become obese is when this becomes a large debate.He continues on to discuss how easy it is to get health benefits while obese, such as not having an extra fee for people over a certain weight and â€Å"Your heart attack drives up the cost of my premiums and office visits. And if the government is paying for my anti-cholesterol medication, what incentive is there for me to put down the cheeseburger? † (Balko 396-7) The United States do not give any sort of privilege for being in shape, so why not just get fat and enjoy life. A third author who has written about the obesity crisis is Judith Warner, with her article â€Å"Junking Junk Food. All through her article, she pokes fun at the government giving different stories about how individual people are trying to fight the ways that the government is trying to deal with the obesity crisis. She starts the article off by telling a story about Sarah Palin bring a bunch of cookies to the schoolchildren to try to stop the â€Å"high-minded anti-sugar edict. † She made a few mistakes about the whole set up, such as Pennsylvania was not in a debate against sugar in their public schools, and the school she showed up to with her cookies was a private Christian Academy. Warner 400) despite the miscommunications that happened there, Palin’s message traveled straight to the American heart, â€Å"she had come up with new and vivid imagery to make the case that the Obama ‘nanny state’ is, essentially, snatching cookies – i. e. , the pursuit of happiness – from the mouths of babes. † Suddenly, any kind of attack on sugar or some sort of healthy sweet became an attack on the American way of life. (Warner 401) Glenn Beck is also fighting the government’s intentions, by creating a compendium that includes, â€Å"Reports of government health inspectors shutting down a 7-year-old’s lemonade stand. According to Warner, the â€Å"choice architects† of the Obama Administration believe that â€Å"you’re incapable of making decisions †¦. Left to your own devices, you’re going to eat too much, you’re going to be a big fatty. † (Warner 401) According to Beck and Warner, the government has no faith in us, so it views itself as needing to intervene. My own ideas of this topic lean towards Balko’s point of view, that we must become responsible for our own bodies. I do agree with Zinczenko up to a point that the fast food restaurants are partly to blame, but not all of the blame can be sent to them.And I do agree with Warner up to a point as well, we cannot leave ourselves in the government’s hands, we have to take responsibility. We, as a country, must work together with the fast food restaurants and the government to stop obesity right in its tracks. There are other ways to stop this crisis that are not mentioned a nywhere in the article, such as teaching children to cook healthy foods and exercise using such things as a nutrition class to teach the students to be responsible for themselves.We have to try to distract the children away from computer games and television to get them to play outside and get their daily amount of exercise. Others would point blame to the parents, for if the parents put in the effort with their children, and kept an eye on what they eat, and how often they go outside to play, can make a large difference throughout a child’s life. Zinczenko argued that as a teenager, he only had four or five places for him to eat around his house, but where were his parents at the time.No parent would ever want their son or daughter to be obese, so we need to let the parents know how bad fast food can be if that is all you eat. My goal here was to help you decide which group of people do you blame for the crisis, and how do you think it can be stopped. My answer is that we mu st influence ourselves to become responsible for ourselves, to help us want to stay physically fit and healthy. We cannot rely on any power, such as the government, or lay blame on the restaurants, such as McDonald’s, but take responsibility into our own hands. Which choice would you pick, and do you think you can make a difference?Works Cited Balko, Radley. â€Å"What You Eat Is Your Business† They Say/ I Say with Readings. 2nd. Ed. Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein and Russel Durst. New York: W. W. Norton, 2012. 395- 8. Warner, Judith. â€Å"Junking Junk Foods. † They Say/ I Say with Readings. 2nd ed. Ed. Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein and Russel Durst. New York: W. W. Norton, 2012. 400-4. Zinczenko, David. â€Å"Don’t Blame the Eater. † They Say/ I Say with Readings. 2nd ed. Ed. Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein and Russel Durst. New York: W. W. Norton, 2012. 391-3.

The Middle Age

The Middle Age has been portrayed as a tumultuous period that started from the fall of Rome in 476 AD to the beginnings of the Protestant Reformation in 1517.   In spite of all the negative depictions of the period, the two most important contributions of this period are: (1) the rise of independent nations out of the fragmentation of the former Roman Empire; and (2) the rise of urban towns which eventually became centers of trade and sustained economic activity in Europe. Morris Bishop, in the book The Middle Ages, describes this period of European history both as â€Å"a continuation and a formation.† It is a continuation in the sense that it continued the Roman legacy and civilizations, assimilating the â€Å"barbaric† civilizations along the way (Bishop, p. 7). But more importantly, this is a formation, according to Bishop, because out of this period emerged the modern Europe of our times. Out of the ashes of the former â€Å"grandeur that was Rome† arose independent nations with a common language and tradition. The Carolingian Empire founded by Charlemagne in 800 AD was subdivided into different geographical patches because of inheritance over his grandsons and great grandsons. These geo-political subdivisions of Europe eventually defined the boundaries of modern Europe as we now know it. It gave birth to the independent nations of France, England, and the Italian city-states. Moreover, it was during the Middle Age that the masses of the different regions of the former empire developed their vernaculars (from Latin vernaculus, â€Å"out of one’s house†) that eventually became the modern languages. During the height of the Roman Empire, Latin was used as the language of nobility, politics and church. In medieval times, the Christianized â€Å"barbaric† tribes gradually developed their own version of Latin. The geo-political subdivisions mentioned earlier hastened the rise of these vernaculars that would later develop into independent languages of Italian, French, Spanish and Portuguese. With common political background and language, the independent kingdoms arose. The Crusades also helped strengthen these newly-created kingdoms by weakening the hold of the nobility and ending the feudal system, thus making the nobles swear allegiance to the king. Indeed, much of Europe’s boundaries, geographically and politically, were in essence created during the Middle Age. Economic activity during the early Middle Age was almost halted by the constant wars that plagued the boundaries of the former empire. Transferring goods from one location to another proved dangerous, and with the rise of Muslim armies controlling east of the Mediterranean, trading between the eastern and western regions of the empire declined. The latter part of the Medieval Period, however, was characterized as a period of relative peace, and even though there were political instabilities, especially within the crumbling Byzantine Empire, trading flourished within commercial districts and towns. The medieval towns laid the foundations of trading that now characterize modern economy. The system of economy shifted from the land-based feudalism to that of money-based mercantilism. Merchants emerged, and they engaged in banking, which financed economic activity. Even kings and nobles borrow money from the merchant class, and they were regarded as an important component of the society. With the rise of the merchant class, the material growth led to the fostering of the arts and literature, as these merchants became patrons of the arts and supporters of artists. Citizens engaging in the businesses or the trades established guilds to promote mutual aid and protection, the forerunners of present-day labor unions. Even the land laborers, who were then very much oppressed, were empowered during this period, as described by Barbara Rosenwein: â€Å"Peasants, like town citizens, gained a new sense of identity and solidarity as they bargained with a lord keen to increase his income at their expense† (Rosenwein, p. 224). In summary, the Middle Age created a strong and materially progressive Europe. The independent nations of modern-day Europe owes much to the events that occurred during the period between 500 and 1500 AD.   The Middle Age also created an atmosphere of active trading and economic activity, which in turn caused proliferation of the arts and culture. Bishop, Morris. The Middle Ages. Houghton Mifflin Books, 2001. Rosenwein, Barbara. A Short History of the Middle Ages. Broadway Press, 2004.

Psychological Impact Paper Essay

Cultural diversity is a bonus in the society today. The ability to interact or network with other cultures gives you an opportunity to understand different cultures and how they live their life on a daily basis. Although being culturally diverse may be a positive aspect. It may have complications depending on your race. For example, Racism, Discrimination, and Civil rights are factors that may cause a psychological development, distress, or behavior problem. In my paper I will discuss the potential impact of racism, discrimination, and civil rights on the psychological development, distress and behavior on a cultural diverse African American. Racism â€Å"Racism consists of beliefs, attitudes, institutional arrangements, and acts that tend to denigrate individuals or groups because of phenotype characteristics or ethnic group affiliation,† (Hall, 2010. Pg 88). African Americans faced racism on a daily basis in the 1900s. Lynch mobs and burnings terrorized African Americans, causing them to be skeptical or in fear of leaving their own home. They were denied industry jobs and were forced to work low end jobs. This resulted in to poor living conditions which affected their mental health. Picking cotton was their main source of income. African Americans began to question their self worth because as of minorities they were not able to express their intelligence or communication skills they used to be culturally diverse. African Americans began to think they were useless only because they could not provide more for their families. â€Å"Categorical beliefs about the biological and/or cultural inferiority of some racial groups can attack the self-worth of at least some members of stigmatized racial groups and undermine the importance of their very existence† (Williams and Morris, 2000. Pg 255). African Americans self esteem became to drop, causing them not to be able to function mentally. Racism may have decreased compared to the 1900s but it still exists in present day. Discrimination Discrimination has been known to have an impact on the  psychological development, distress and behavior on African Americans. Discrimination is (Define). â€Å"Recent qualitive studies and journalistic accounts reveal that black experience discrimination in a broad range of contexts in society and that these incidents can induce considerable distress† (Williams and Morris, 2000. Pg 251). Treated unfairly impacted the health of African Americans, causing anxiety or anger. African Americans thought that they were overly qualified for jobs that they were denied. After being denied African Americans would become angry or frustrated because of not being treated equally. African Americans were prideful of their culture and the only way to show people of other cultures is by showing they were inferior. African Americans were inferior but still suffered from mental health problems. â€Å"Racist discrimination is associated with anxiety, anger frustration, resentment, somatization, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, interpersonal hypersentivity, fear, paranoia, helplessness-hopelessness, and depression among African Americans† (Hall, 2010. Pg 91). Discrimination caused African Americans to lack interactions amongst other races in schools. â€Å"Afrocentrism espouses African ideals at the center of ones approach to problem solving† (Hall, 2010. Pg 92). This was an important factor in the multicultural research. Civil Rights African Americans struggled for years for freedom form slavery. After being free fought for equality and a voice. Movements began to form on behalf of African Americans continued to struggle mentally, only because they felt their voice was not heard. In 1875 the Civil Rights Act was passed giving them the right to equal treatment in public settings. Followed by the 1896 decision to legalize racial segregation of schools. Although the schools were segregated African Americans parents and children feared for their lives. They were afraid that European Americans would hurt their children all because they were attending schools that where made for whites. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 created the opportunity for African Americans to have constitutionals rights without discrimination or segregation. The Civil Rights Act was passed but Racism still exist, causing African Americans to feel hopeless. African Americans then began to search  for another outcome which lead to Affirmative Action. The Black Muslims created opportunities and had a goal of diversity. Goals of Black Muslims were to replace the negative effects of slavery with positive values and behavior and to develop independence from the dominant culture,†(Hall, 2010. Pg90). Hope for understanding African American identity and multicultural relation was offered by psychological theory and research despite political and legal setbacks. Although African Americans were faced with adversities, they managed to overcome them. Africans struggled mentally as well as facing distress and behavior problems all because the way they were treated. African Americans tried to form bonds amongst other cultures, giving them the opportunity to become diverse individuals. Learning other cultures was common for African Americans, like for instance adapting to the American culture after being slaved. African Americans have put the past behind them and continue to become more diverse as well teaching other cultures there values and traditions. Barnes, J. (2004). Unequal Education. U.S. News & World Report, 136(10), 66. Hall, G. C. N. (2010). Multicultural Psychology (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall

Critiques of Industrial Revolution Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Critiques of Industrial Revolution - Essay Example As we all know that organic food is not easily approachable by everyone as it is expensive. â€Å"Wal-Mart† has introduced it at comparatively cheaper price, which is good news. Here, the author criticizes that looking at cheaper organic food what can be expected. The author raises the question of the effects it will make on the industry economically and regarding fulfilling the consumer demand. Moreover, he is concerned whether the nutritional values are kept in mind or not as the milk cows are being fed on organic grain in the deserts instead of grass to cope up with the increasing demand. This results in milk with low nutritional values missing many of the important nutrients. Another example for this is that the growers of organic chicken were obliged to substitute the organic chicken feed with the conventional chicken feed if the price exceeds a certain level due to the government bill. Thus, the organic food purely rely the federal government. The question is still in the air that so called organic food is really organic or not. The author does not agree with the definition of organic food given by the government. Micheal in another article, â€Å"When Crop Become King† states that corn intake has increased hugely not even realizing it. Corn is the largest grown crop all over the world and a cheaper feed for animals2. Corns are a significant part of animals’ diet whether it is suitable for them or not. Then they are injected antibiotics when they get ill due to the indigestible feed. The meat and milk we get from those animals is not healthy and less nutritive. Besides, most of snacks and soft drinks are sweetened by the sweet corns instead of the sugars. This is because corn is the cheapest feed for the animals. Thus, corn has really become king of our land and dominating us, for its protection we have put our health at stake by

Leadership Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Leadership - Essay Example One of the major characteristics of DAC Ltd is the importance it gives to empowerment of employees. DAC leaders at all levels are trained to coach and mentor staff. Comprehensive training helps DAC to keep the employees competent all the time to meet the challenges of rapidly changing business world. DAC gives particular attention to the individual developments because of its belief that all the DAC employees are contributing to the company in one way or other. DAC is following a transparent approach in its functioning. It is not much interested in keeping company secrets. For example, everyone in DAC at all levels knows about the bid for EMMACorp. The company knows that revealing every secret to the employees may help the company to grow employee loyalty towards the company. It should be noted that employees may feel that they are essential parts of the organization and that is why the company is taking them in confidence. Relationship building is the core of every business activity and DAC knows this fact very well. This is a clearly communicated vision of the CEO and employees are expected to support this philosophy whole-heartedly. Those not committed to the company vision are encouraged to seek alternate employment. DAC knows very well that it is important for the company to keep existing customers along with finding new customers. So customer servicing at all levels has been given top priority at DAC. CHRISSIE Co One of the most common illusions among corporate world is the myth that women leaders are incapable of dealing with challenging situations. However, lessons from the latest recession show that companies with female board members done better than companies with male board... This research will begin with the definition of leadership as a highly sought- after and highly valued commodity. According to Northouse leadership is a process which occurs in groups; it involves influence and common goals†. Hackman on the other hand described leadership as the first and foremost a communication based activity whereas Mullins argued that â€Å"leadership is not about being a wonder woman or man; but it about valuing individuality†. According to Clawson, â€Å"Leadership is about managing energy first in yourself and then in those around you. Being a leader depends on one’s point of view, not on status and title†. The above definitions clearly suggest that it is difficult to accommodate leadership in few words. Leadership is a quality which is associated with lot of parameters. There are born leaders as well as developed leaders. In other words, leadership qualities are inborn as well as developed. For example, Steve Jobs was a developed le ader whereas Edward Kennedy was a leader with inborn qualities. Leaders with inborn leadership qualities may emerge out naturally while they work in groups. Others on the other hand, emerge as leaders over time after receiving enough experiences and training. Trait theory says that traits or inborn qualities such as intelligence, communication, interpersonal skills, problem solving skills, vision and charisma are inborn leadership qualities. In other words, these leadership qualities are inherited among certain people at the time of their birth itself whereas others learn such qualities from their surroundings.

Toyota PR Crisis Review Thesis Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 6250 words

Toyota PR Crisis Review - Thesis Example The case chosen for the study has been that of Toyota Motors Corporation which was hit badly by a spate of unprecedented issues regarding the aspect of communications with regards to a manufacturing defect in the product and the strategies adopted by the firm to address the issue. The study would analyze how an organization can use a crisis situation and effectively handle it out to extract benefits out of a negative situation. The study would consider the various theories related to the aspect of communications in crisis management and would also discuss how an effective handling of the issue can lead to prospective advantage of the organization. Various theoretical models would be used to analyze the shortcomings in the actual strategy of the firm. It would suggest better possible strategies that could have been adopted by the organization so as to generate loyalty among the existing and prospective customers. Introduction Communications form a vital aspect in the business prospect s of an organization. Communications can be both internal as well as external. Internal communication refers to the communication of an organization with its internal stakeholders like suppliers and employees. External communication involves communication between the organization and the external entities which include customers, press, media etc. This is especially important in the modern day business environment of business which is governed by globalization and internet. Media and press have a large influence with regards to the spread of information. The advent of internet has widened the reach of these players to a wide variety of audience. Media and press also enjoy a good rapport with the general public which even accentuates their importance for business organizations as any news about a firm can have both positive as well as negative effects on the positioning as well as the brand image of the firm. The present study would analyze the role of media and press in affecting th e policy making of the organizations. The organization selected for the study is Toyota motors. The choice of the organization assumes significance considering the fact that the organization is one of the largest car makers of the world and was also hit by a series of major scams involving the press releases of the organization. The concept of public relations has been one of the most important aspects that govern the influence of media in a business organization. The role of the public relations departments involves handling the aspect of external communication in a manner that the message to be communicated brings about a positive development for the organization. The main aim of the public relations office is to filter out and sent message that help in not only improving the brand image of the firm but also to ensure a better relationship with its suppliers, shareholders, suppliers and other stakeholders. The growth of internet has made the spread of information assumes lightenin g speeds. Social networking and various blog sites have enabled access to information to millions of users across the world. The channel of public relations has also been used by business organiza

Evaluate the importance of routine in a child's devlopment Essay

Evaluate the importance of routine in a child's devlopment - Essay Example Too much waiting begets wiggle, giggle, squirm and poke.† (p. 187). These routines are set periods that come one after the other that children learn to expect as they go about their day. â€Å"Routines are the backbone of classroom life. They facilitate teaching and learning† (Shalaway, 1997, p. 25). It structures the activities and help students know what to expect and how to behave during transitions. Scheduling routines is not just listing the activities one after the other just to fill the school day. It requires careful planning and consideration of the children’s developmental needs, attention span, the variety and balance of activities and even the time of day. Planning should include transition activities from one routine to another, as it is in transition times when children may slip into rowdy behavior if they are not managed well enough. The following routines observed in a class of 4-5 year olds shall be carefully analyzed and critiqued: At first glance, the routines seem to serve only the teacher’s understanding of what happens in her day, with knowledge of what goes on in each routine. The time blocks for â€Å"taught lesson† give the impression that it is much too long for the attention span of four and five year old children, because the lesson periods are assumed to be passive, â€Å"sit-down† time for children while they listened to the teacher deliver the lessons. The time allotted for playtime, which is only for fifteen minutes reflect that this class does not value play as much as lesson time. The routine at hand does not give enough information on what the children do the whole time. It is important for a schedule of routines to be more specific in its information, and cutting down the time to budget all planned activities that goes in each routine. For example, in the first part of the day, the first forty-five minutes may include more information on what goes on during the Assembly time. Are the

A Story of Forgiveness Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

A Story of Forgiveness - Essay Example From this paper it is clear that in the solution-centered approach provided by Charles Alan Kollar in his book, he focuses on counseling to take off the attention from the problems thereby helping the counselee to focus on the solution leading to emotional and psychological well-being. This type of counseling will allow Bruce to come out of the hard situation he is going through to realize further needs to educate drag drivers and other young individuals about safety. In such a way, he can recover from the problem he is going through and at the same time, it will provide inspiration for other individuals who have gone through a similar situation. In addition, this will help promote safety among young individuals who might risk their safety of themselves or others while acting rashly.This discussion outlines that  Bruce shows characteristics of a D type in the DISC relational style and hence he likes to lead and take charge. This quality can prove to be positive during his treatment according to the approach mentioned in Johnson and Johnson's book as he is suffering from an anxiety disorder after the loss of his daughter and his wife.  A very important challenge to deal with will be Bruce's involvement and his progress during the treatment. A result-oriented or solution-oriented approach is appropriate for Bruce's current behavioral position.

Tutorial work Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Tutorial work - Essay Example In the case of a hotel employee who suffers due to the facilities or as a result of the assault by another employee of the same hotel, the plaintiff is, therefore, justified to file a case accusing the hotel of negligence. This is because the law identifies the duty of care as a responsibility of organizations on their clients, customers and employees. In this case, the hotel should have protected the injured employee from harm by the virtue of being an employee in the organization (Stewart & Stuhmcke 2009, p. 260). For there to be negligence, there are four elements that must be present. First, there must be an identifiable duty of care that the defendant owed the plaintiff. For this case, there should be proof that the plaintiff at the time of the said harm was covered by the duty of care imposed on the organization. This means that the plaintiff, in this case of hotel injury, must have been within the hotel premises and an employee of the organization. If, for instance, the harm happened elsewhere or at this time the plaintiff had ceased to be an employee at the hotel, the duty will not be owed (Lanham 2006, p.123). The second condition is that this duty of care owed must be evidently breached. The breach must not be intentional, and unintentional negligence is also regarded as a tort. The third condition is that there must be harm or damage that is caused directly by the neglect. This however must be proved to ensure that there is a direct link between the alleged negligence and the harm. Harm resulting from anything else is not considered. The fourth consideration is if there are any defendants in the case (Bar & Drobnig 2004, p.24). In our case, the hotel patron is injured by the security personnel at the hotel. The hotel is bound by the law to protect or care for the employees and customers. This, therefore, means that the hotel owes the

Finance and Strategy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words - 1

Finance and Strategy - Essay Example Working capital management is a keystone that determines the short term solvency position of the company. It shows the ability of the firm to meet its short term obligations with its short term resources. Usually it is required to pay off the suppliers, purchase raw materials, wages and other direct expenses related to the core business operations. It ensures the business perpetuity and sustainability (Matz, 2011). It is the difference between short term assets/ current assets and short term liabilities/ current liabilities. Working capital means net current assets i.e. when the current assets exceed current liabilities. A company is expected to have sufficient working capital to meet its current obligations; else it signifies a weak short term solvency position. Working capital includes the following items (Spurga, 2004): It is the time taken to convert the short term assets into cash to meet its short term liabilities. A longer cycle time means that a company takes long time to convert its current assets. For example, company X has a supplier payment period of 30 days and collection period of 60 days. Its working capital cycle is 30 days, resulting in a deficit of 30 days that needs to be financed through short term loans. Companies should aim to reduce its working capital cycle in order to reduce its cost of short term borrowing that impacts the income statement and balance sheet (Periasamy, 2009). The cash conversion cycle measures the cash to cash cycle. Business’ use cash to buy inventory, and produces goods which are sold in the market to earn cash. The measure of the time taken for employment of cash to earn cash is the cash conversion cycle. A longer cycle is significant of longer collection periods, which implies a slow cash conversion cycle. It is calculated by adding the days inventory outstanding to the days sales outstanding and subtracting the days payable outstanding. Each of the mentioned metrics has got

The Editing in Farewell My Concubine Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The Editing in Farewell My Concubine - Essay Example When characterizing the film in regards to its technical elements one notes that despite its elaborate mise-en-scene and epic subject matter, the film is shot and edited in a very straight-forward and direct manner. This essay specifically examines elements of editing in Farewell My Concubine and considers the means by which they contributed to the film’s meaning and overriding style. As the film opens the camera follows Dieyi and Xiaolou, in full opera garb, as they enter the vacant auditorium. The film cuts to a shot situated from high in the crowd and the viewer is put in the place of the audience. The juxtaposition of these shots has the effect of first giving the viewer the impression of an upcoming grand performance, and then subverting their expectations with the shot from a distance. It immediately creates a sense of isolation and emotional impoverishment; this is further enforced as the viewer soon discovers that the two performers haven’t performed together since the Cultural Revolution. During this opening scene director, Kaige largely refrains from editing shots together, instead of allowing the scene to develop. Some viewers might immediately be disrupted by this more ‘art film’ style approach, but by not cutting with the frequency the director situates the viewer as an actual member of the audience. The long scenes also establish the film overarching tone as somber and slightly cerebral. Farewell, My Concubine also makes notable uses of montage editing to condense time. While it’s become clichà © for many films to develop an entire sequence of shots that are spliced together to give the viewer the impression of time’s passage, director Kaige has a subtle technique that adds considerable poignancy to the film. After Xiaolou has been forced to sit outside in the snow with a board on his head, the film cuts to the troupe of boys standing outside in the cold reciting  lines.  

To His Coy Mistress Essay Example for Free

To His Coy Mistress Essay The poem is a deductive poem written by a much older person to the little mistress. The 46 line poem can be said to be divided into three different parts where the author tries to make a point. The first part, lines 1- 20, introduces the limitation of time in for the poet to sing of the mistresses’ beauty and shyness. This is seen in line 1 where the poet says â€Å"Had we enough time† and â€Å"†¦an hundred years should go to praise†¦Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze†. Generally, the poem is an argument that follows procession of the poet’s thought. In the second part of the poem, lines 21-32, poet says that with the poet arguing that time is indeed short and unfavorable to lovers as they can not enjoy their love for long as â€Å"†¦time is winged† â€Å"†¦And you quaint honor turn to dust, And into ashes all my lust†. In the third part, lines 33-46, the poet draws a conclusion that due to the fact that life is short and time unlimited, they should throw away any care and tear their pleasure with rough strife. The tone of the poet used a flirty and seductive tone in conveying his message to his beloved mistress. The setting of the poem is in medieval times when it was socially unacceptable for ladies to express their desire for a man even though they are in love with him. They are to show some â€Å"coyness† at first so feign indifference to the romantic advances of men. He used seductive words like â€Å"†¦two hundred to adore each breast† (line 15), â€Å"†¦and your quaint honor turns to dust†¦ and into ashes all my lust† (lines 29 and 30). The poet uses rhyme scheme that follows the aa, bb, cc pattern. He also uses metaphorical expression in the poem. This can be seen in lines 11, 22, 35 and 36. In addition to this, the poet used imagery as a tool in the poem. This can be seen in lines 6, 12, 16, 24, 27, 29, 30, 36, 38, 39. He also used simile in lines 34 â€Å"†¦like morning dew†, and lines 38 â€Å"†¦like amorous birds of prey†. He also used allusion in line 11 where he said â€Å"†¦vegetable love†.

Automation in insurance underwriting processes

Automation in insurance underwriting processes Abstract Underwriting is one of the important processes in insurance operations. The applicants information, including various kinds of medical information, must be evaluated before the insurance company can decide to accept the application. These activities are usually supported by process automation facility. However, the support of exception handling mechanism and the monitoring of turnaround time in those process automation solutions are usually inadequate. This results in a low efficiency of the underwriting operations or even loss of business opportunities. To address the problem, this paper presents an Alert-enhanced Underwriting System (AUS), which handles the exception events and monitors the turnaround time with the concept of alerts. We further illustrate how Web services facilitate workflow integration and process communications. 1. Introduction Life insurance provides protection against the economic loss caused by the death of the person whose life is insured [1]. Because of its popularity, it is a business where many insurance companies allocate many resources in order to gain more market share. A life insurance policy defines the terms and conditions for the prospective client, particularly the situations under which the insurance company promises to pay a benefit upon death [2]. Since life insurance products can provide a stable cash inflow for an insurance company, there is a trend that insurance companies market various life products, such as investment-linked life products, savings life products and critical illness protection, in order to attract more customers with different needs. Although life insurance business can generate financial benefits to the insurance company, the company still needs to bear financial responsibility to pay the insured under some agreed conditions, e.g., the insured dies during a specified period. The insurance will face the consequence of financial loss if the company accepts prospective clients, who present extremely high risks and when some of these insured persons die soon after policy issuance. High quality processes are necessary to assess the degree of risks associated with each application of life insurance. Underwriting (which is also known as new business) is a process of assessing and classifying the degree of risk represented by a prospective client and making a decision to accept or decline the insured. The world of electronic collaboration is developing rapidly, introducing new technology and new ways of collaboration. The success of collaboration often depends on the ability of a corporation not only to make sure that their applications are dynamic, but also to maintain a high degree of interoperability with collaboration partners. In this paper, we present an Alert-enhanced Underwriting System (AUS) as a collaboration platform for streamlining the workflow of insurance underwriting processes. AUS makes use of an Event-Condition-Action (ECA) collaboration model [13] to manage event handling, process integration, and alert/exception management for the process flow of the underwriting operations. The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 discusses some related work and background requirements. Section 3 describes system design and implementation for our AUS. Section 4 concludes our paper with our continue research work that look forwards to possible enhancements. 2. Background and Related Work Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) essentially defined the technology of electronic collaboration in the past. However, EDI is an expensive solution, due to its high cost of network infrastructure and system integration. In addition, security issues of EDI also limited corporations from directly accessing the computing resources of its trading partners, which used firewall-unfriendly protocols. Therefore, developers start to find other technologies which have a low cost, flexible software solution that allows corporations to build new applications in response to changing business needs while adhering to a defined electronic business standard [10]. Recently, numerous vendors have offered solutions to support both XML (eXtensible Markup Language) and EDI formats for collaboration. One of the solutions is the transformation of information between companies: XML-to-EDI. Transformation is critical to an edge integration strategy that brings together B2B collaboration and enterprise application at the boundary of an enterprise in order to enable the back-end connectivity and workflow required to support a complete business process [11]. In the XML world, e-Business XML (ebXML) [12] is a modular suite of specifications which are initiatively designed for electronic interoperability. The strength of the ebXML architecture is that it provides a framework for electronic business collaboration. The architecture enables businesses to work together to specify business process, discover one another, negotiate collaboration agreements, and execute business processes. However, although ebXML implementations are already being announced, the rate of deployment of ebXML is not quickly accelerated. Many companies are taking a wait-and-see approach until ebXML becomes a mainstream in the market. 2.1. Key Processes and Integration Figure 1 illustrates a typical underwriting process, which usually consists of the following four key activities: Performing field underwriting, Reviewing the application for insurance, Gathering additional information to make a sound decision, and Making an underwriting decision on the case [3] However, before a new case is sent to an underwriter for processing, there are other activities involved: Packing application forms and other documents from the agent Initial premium payment through the cashier entry system Data entry of new application in a branch or zone office Scanning documents into images for workflow processing Quality Check (QC) and Indexing on the scanned documents Release of the validated and scanned documents images into workflow engine for further processing In the traditional way of performing the activities 1 to 5 without any automation processes, it incurs high cost in human resource, storage cost, and paper work, together with a high turnaround time. That means it causes the underwriter to spend a long time to handle a new application. This affects the insurance companys reputation and may further induces financial losses or even legal penalties. With the advent of information technology, most of the above activities are linked together to streamline the workflow for processing a new business, starting from receiving documents from an agent, ending at the underwriter getting the case from workflow system and issuing new policy if approved. Some benefits accrued to the business for automating the entire underwriting processes: Improvement of the service quality (such as turnaround time) Reduce of the risk of losing submitted documents during delivery Transfer of applications to the next step of the process immediately Better control of risk management such that some cases (i.e., excess of coverage limit) can only be approved by senior underwriters The key integration of the processes between the agents and the underwriters are as follows. Images and Data Transfer Process This activity is an automated process and does not involve any manual operation unless the sub-system is down or errors / inconsistency occurred during the transfer. The purpose of this process is to transfer the scanned images and indexed data from a branch or zone office to the central office for importing into the workflow system. If the network linkage between a branch or zone office and the central office is a private connection (i.e., leased line), the operation is just a simple transfer of document images into the file server in the central office with an XML file including all the indexed data. If the network connection between both sides is public (i.e., the Internet) and it is not a Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection, then the interactions require other security measures as described in later sections. Import Robot and Workflow Engine They are located at the central office of an insurance company. The engine waits for the image files and XML data to be uploaded from the branch or zone office and verify the XML data integrity with the appropriate XML Schema. The imported document images and indexed data are installed into the existing workflow routing engine for case assignment to appropriate underwriters for further case approval. 2.2. Requirements Overview of Stakeholders In automated underwriting processes architecture, a workflow engine (e.g., eistream [9]) is deployed at the central office. This engine can efficiently route job assignments to appropriate underwriters. The processing performed with the workflow engine is usually referred to as post-processing of the workflow. There are many pre-processing activities, which must be completed before those new insurance applications can be imported into the workflow engine for further underwriting. Figure 2 depicts a use case diagram of the underwriting process. The key stakeholders involved are discussed as follows. Agent He/she is an authorized representative to sell insurance products on behalf of an insurance company. The agents have the responsibilities to perform a simple check first by gathering initial information about prospective clients and screening applications who have requested coverage [4]. They have to gather required documents (such as health certificate) from the prospective client in order to speed up the underwriting process. Email access or Internet portal are the prompt means for agents to communicate with an insurance company. Cashier Entry For a new application of life insurance, the prospect client is required to pay the initial premium in the form of cash or check. The amount of premium is also dependent on the payment mode of the proposed policy. The agent has to submit the initial premium with the application. The cashier entry will collect the initial premium and put a premium receipt record in a Premium Collection System. The Cashier Entry also files the application forms and documents for data entry. Data Entry A user in branch/zone office enters the information recorded on the application form, such as the policy owner information, proposed insured information or medical information, etc., into the underwriting front-end input system. Scanning Officer When a scanning officer receives the documents, including application form, from an agent, he/she will try to sort and classify the documents into different document types (such as health certificates, identity proofs), and then scan them into images for auditable backup as well as indexing and quality check (QC). The application form is scanned just for auditable backup because the data has already been entered. Index and QC Officer After the submitted documents have been scanned into images, the index and QC officers (it may involve two individuals) will try to index the fields on several regions of a scanned image and save the indexed data into the database, so that the indexed data can be adhered with the corresponding images and imported into the workflow system. If the index officer discovers that the image quality of scanned document is not good, the document must be rescanned until the image quality of the document is acceptable for indexing. Underwriter An underwriter is assigned with a case (new or pending case) by the workflow engine. The underwriter carries out an assessment process by considering the submitted documentations, medical information, other personal factors like age, driving history, tobacco use, career nature, and financial factors of the potential client, etc. Then, the underwriter will determine whether the application is approved, pended for additional proofs or documentation, counter-offered to the applicant, or rejected. 2.3. Alert and Exception Handling Although most of the activities starting from submitting documents in branch or zone office to the back-end underwriting processes are automated, there are still many events, both business-oriented and technology-oriented, must be handled in order to streamline and speed up the entire underwriting process. Exceptions are events that can drive not only reactions performed by business parties [6], but also information exchanged within an organization, across physical boundaries (e.g., departments located in different geographical areas) or within (e.g., underwriting department and printing service department located in the same building) individual organizational boundary. In order to handle the exceptions and monitor the exception handling process, (especially those important and / or with urgency requirements), Chiu et al. [6] proposed the use of alerts to model and implement this. The key differences between alerts and exceptions are that alerts represents messages sent to a target, usually with time and urgency constraints, and that alerts are monitored and tracked. That means, to handle an exception, an Alert Management System (AMS) sends an alert message to a handler (human or system) and keeps track of the process until the handling job is finished. In this application, the main objective of applying alerts is the concern about the turnaround time in the insurance application process. Some key exceptions and alerts generated by the main stakeholders are listed as follows. Agent Cancellation of an insurance application can trigger an alert to the central office so that the workflow system can change the application status (if it has been imported into workflow engine) into pending status and no more human resource will be wasted on this application. The application will ultimately be cancelled after the cancellation form is scanned and imported into the workflow system. The AMS can therefore make sure that the case is closed within a reasonable time limit. Cashier Entry An alert can be generated when the agent submits an initial premium payment for the new applicant but only part of initial premium has been settled. The alert can notify the central office underwriter to solve the application case if the case has been pended for the reason of insufficient premium. Scanning Officer Exceptions can be generated if the agent submits unknown type of documents or forms. If the workflow automation system does not know how to handle the unknown type documents or forms, then unknown document alert can notify the corresponding agent about this issue and urge him/her to fix this within a certain period. Index and QC Officer A Document Rescan alert can be generated to the scanning officer if the index officer finds the document image quality is too poor to be indexed. A QC officer can also generate a Reindex alert if he/she found that an index officer did not correctly index the fields on document images. QC officer can also trigger Document Rescan alert if he/she found the quality of document image is unacceptable even the index officer has accepted the quality of document image. Underwriter An Insufficient Initial Premium alert can be generated so that the agent can be notified that the initial premium must be settled before the policy can be issued even all the underwriting checks are passed for the case. This situation may occur when the client paid the initial premium with check but the check could not be cleared. On the other hand, exceptions and alerts can be generated by automated processes, such as the following: Images and Data Transfer Process A Transfer exception can be triggered if the transfer process of images and XML data to the central office file server is not completed or failed/aborted at some points (because of the stability of network connection). An alert can then notify the MIS staff in the branch or zone office to investigate the root cause of transfer failure and resume the transfer process as soon as possible. An alert can be triggered after the transfer process of the branch or zone office is completed successfully, so that the import robot resided on the workflow engine can start the data verification process and import the images and data into workflow system. This helps to shorten the total time for processing of new applications and monitor pending cases. Import Robot and Workflow Engine A Data Inconsistency alert is sent to the agent if the import robot checks that the XML data uploaded from the branch or zone office contains inconsistency after validating with XML schema. This alert urges the agent to repeat or fix the images and data upload process. Workflow Engine An Application Pending alert is triggered to the agent who submitted an application for his/her client when the underwriter changes the new application status to pending because additional documentation is required. This alert urges the agent to contact its customer for the relevant documents before he receives an official document request letter from the insurance company, as applicants may need time to present documents, like health certificates or financial statements issued by banks. 2.4. Relationship management requirements Alerts and exceptions are not only dedicated to handling abnormal or unexpected events. These can be used to enhance the relationship between insurance company and potential customers (B2C). For example: Applicants can be notified by email with the progress of its life insurance application. On the other hand, the agent can contact his applicants promptly after he receives an acknowledgement email. Reminder alerts can be sent to the agent in the form of SMS to remind him/her to contact his/her applicant to collect required additional documents to process a pending application. This helps reduce the risk of insurance application being cancelled after an application has been pending for some time. This is because the customer may not know that insurance company requests more additional documents from him in case the agent does not contact him. This also reduces the chance of giving a negative image to the potential customers of poor services. 3. System Design and Implementation In this section, we present the system design and implementation for our AUS, which includes the system architecture, various system components, Web services security, and an example scenario. 3.1. System Architecture Figure 3 shows the overall system architecture for our AUS. We add on top of the existing enterprise information systems four main components in the backend AUS: Web Services Agent, Message Server, Alert Management System (AMS), and Event-Condition-Action (ECA) rules database that defines the actions to be triggered under some predefined conditions. We discuss the functionalities of these components in the following subsections. One of the main problems in the current process automation is the effectiveness of communication among different stakeholders and systems involved in the entire process of underwriting. Based on the above discussions, we design an AUS based on exceptions and alerts as the unifying communication platform within the entire underwriting processes. On this platform, we choose to use Web Services with SOAP protocol for the communication and Message Server (such as Microsoft MSMQ [8]) for the underlying message (exceptions and alerts) processing. The reasons why we choose Web services with SOAP protocol in our platform are as follows: Web services can be invoked over the Internet or intranet, within or outside the firewall. For example, some processes like document scanning or image indexing may be located in the central office or outsourced to other service providers. Less development time is required to deploy Web service features from existing application, especially with the tools and libraries provided. It supports synchronous (RPC) and asynchronous messaging. SOAP has been implemented on many different hardware and software platforms. SOAP can be protected under the Web Service security [7] standard. 3.2. Web Services Agent In our system, Web services technology is chosen to support the communication between the AUS backend systems and other front-end, sub-systems in branches and zone offices, as well as external agents and clients. The Web Services Agent transforms the incoming messages, which are in the form of XML data embedded in SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) [14], into native message formats that can be sent into the queues of the central message server. The Web Services Agent also transforms the alerts and exceptions from the form of native message format into the XML/SOAP format and uses HTTP protocol to send the XML message to the branch/zone offices systems through respective Web services. A sample SOAP messages from a client system is shown in Figure 4. This message describes the indexed data and images to be uploaded to the file server in the insurance headquarter after scanning operations have been performed on the submitted documents in branch and zone offices. Figure 5 shows a response message from the AUS that describes an alert from the Transfer Module in a branch or zone office and notifies the MIS staff to handle the exception. 3.3. Message Server The message server comprises of application queues and system queues and the server manages the received data (i.e., incoming XML/SOAP messages, internal MSMQ messages from other enterprise systems, and alert messages from the AMS and routes the messages to the target (subscribed) parties. For example, when the Transfer Module sends a Web service message to the AUS, the message is put into two waiting queues: one for the Import Robot and another for the AMS (so that the AMS can monitor the progress of the Import Robot). When the Import Robot has verified the integrity of uploaded data and images, it sends a message to inform the AMS of job completion, or a Data Inconsistency alert in case of data inconsistency. These messages triggers events so that the AMS issues new alert/exception messages upon on the conditions in the event repository database to related parties for further actions (as discussed in Section 2.3) based on the ECA rules defined by the administrators. The reasons why we choose the Message Server as a core component in managing data communication are as follows: Most of the message servers support Web service functionality. Message servers support guaranteed message delivery. Asynchronous message communication as well as publish-and-subscribe can be supported. 3.4. Alert Management System (AMS) The main role of the AMS is to manage the alerts. It also captures the events and exceptions (i.e., MSMQ native message format) submitted by other parties. Alerts are generated based on the ECA rules specified in database to the appropriate parties. It further transforms the alerts into a MSMQ message and put it on the waiting queue for Web Services Agent for the delivery. Further details of the mechanism of the AMS, including descriptions of the ECA rules, can be found in our earlier paper [6]. We apply the same AMS module except that we include a message server component to further increase the messaging reliability. 3.5. Example Scenario In this subsection, we use a scenario to illustrate the system flow in our AUS. Figure 6 depicts the process flow for this scenario. First, a Scan Station prepares a XML data file which contains the policy number and other indexed data for the scanned documents. When the XML file is ready, the Transfer Module uploads the XML file and document image files into the central file server. Upon completion, the Transfer Module generates a SOAP message, which details the uploaded data to Web Services Agent in order to notify the Import Robot to verify the integrity of uploaded data and images. After the verification, the Import Robot generates the verification result event and the AMS captures the data uploaded event from the Transfer Module together with the event generated by the Import Robot, and returns the appropriate events back to the Scan Station and Scan Officer based on ECA rules processing. 3.6. Web Service Security Web services integrate applications inside and outside the organization. However, distributed computing always has a challenging set of security issues. Identities and messages are two of the greatest security challenges brought on by Web services. Web services transport potential unknown entities into your organization and messages are transported from one place to another place through an unsecured channel, the Internet. Therefore, actions must be taken to safeguard the information exchanged among the authenticated parties. XML Encryption and XML Signature are used to address the protection of sensitive data and the identification of identity of data sender respectively [15]. Figure 7 shows an unprotected SOAP message that contains payment information for an insurance policy. Figure 8 shows how encrypted messages and signature are put in a SOAP envelop. The element block contains the encrypted form of payment information. The element contains the XML signature for payment data. In general, a shared key must be provided so that receiver of the messages can decrypt the protected data. However, it is a bad idea to include the key in the SOAP message (i.e., the element block) because unauthorized parties could just get the key and decrypt the protected data. AgreementMethod is a protocol for safely communicating a secret key. This key agreement protocol, like the SSL secret key agreement protocol, is used to generate the encryption key along with the key material necessary to repeat the encryption key generation on the recipients side [15]. 4. Discussion and Summary Process automation by integrating existing enterprise information systems with workflow software has proved to increase the staff productivity, thus turns out to generate more business values in terms of more revenue and less expenditure. However, if the process flow within a business workflow from one step to next step is not smoothly executed (e.g., failure of transferring complete XML data to workflow engine and servers but no further resend action is done), then the next step may not be able to proceed until the problem is detected and fixed. This kind of situations significantly wastes human resource and time and should are not expected to occur in automated processes. Therefore, by integrating the AUS with the existing workflow infra-structures can bring the workflow automation into full play because the errors or unexpected events can be detected and relevant parties or processes are notified with alerts to rectify the problems. The following tangible benefits can be achieved with the AUS, mainly through the enhanced monitoring and tracking through the AMS with a service-oriented architecture. For example, the turnaround time taken to rescan documents, which have been identified as poorly scanned, is shortened. If the scanning officer is not notified properly, the poorly scanned document will probably be rescanned after the scanning officer triggers to print out a report on listing those document rescan requests, thus resulting in longer processing time in some cases. This benefit is also applicable to the process of Document Reindex for the index officers. Moreover, the AUS helps maintain data integrity in uploading data into the centralized file server. If the XML data is inconsistent and the import robot still proceeds to import the inconsistent data into workflow engine, it will result in unexpected or serious consequences. The consequences may be a delay in processing applications or even a wrongly underwritten insurance application that could put financial risk to insurance company. On the other hand, more attributes can be added to measure staff performance. Since the alerts generated to officers and agents are monitored by the AMS, the time spent on handling the exceptions and alerts can be calculated based on the time recorded in database. For example, if a scanning officer receives a document rescan alert, then he must rescan the requested documents and relevant records within the document update time. The performance is logged into database and reports for staff can include this kind of attributes to measure the staff performance. So, the workload on investigating problems related to the entire operation flow can be reduced as detailed information about the problems can be found from the exceptions and alerts well managed by the AMS of the AUS. In addition, the following intangible benefit can be achieved with the AUS. Customer satisfaction can be improved. The document processing and flow are smoothly controlled and executed. This can shorten the entire processing time for new case applications and thus result in issuing and sending policy to policy owner within a shorter period of time. This can enhance the insurance companys professional image as well because the short processing time of new insurance application can impress its customers and improve the customers confidence in insurance company. This might led to more business opportunities in the future. This paper has presented an overview of underwriting process in an insurance company and the automated facilities incorporated into the underwriting process to drive the entire underwriting. A Web-service based alert-enhanced underwriting system has been presented in this paper to overcome most of the existing problems of the underwriting process workflow implementation. We expect this approach is suitable to other business processes that involve human approval together with the need for maintaining documents for auditing and legal purposes, such as loan and credit card approval. After finishing the AUS platform prototype, we shall then proceed to study the benefits of adopting the platform in existing workflow infra-structures in the insurance companys perspective through questionnaires to collect user feedback. Although the proposed platform obviously facilitates the handling of most problems or events in the process flow of underwriting, there are still some unexpected events that are hardly to be detected or tracked. Further studies should be carried out on this topic. Future works include the extension of AUS platform to support artificial intelligence in handling the exception events as well as agent-based assistance to internal staff and external users. We are also interested in empirical measurements of the improvement of staff performance and customer satisfaction. References Miriam Orsina, Gene Stone, Insurance Company Operations (2nd Ed), pp.3, LOMA, 1999 Harriett E. Jones, Dani L. Long, Principles of Insurance: Life, Health and Annuities (2nd Ed), pp. 8, LOMA, 1999 Jane Lightcap Brown, Kristen L. Falk, Insurance Administration, (2nd Ed), pp. 22, LOMA, 2002 Jane Lightcap Brown, Kristen L. Falk, Insurance Administration, (2nd Ed), pp. 67, LOMA, 2002 Miriam Orsina, Gene Stone, Insurance Company Operations (2nd Ed), pp.243

Concept And Definition Of Hrp Business Essay

Concept And Definition Of Hrp Business Essay It is very natural that, the continual positive development of any business owe to its effective planning. Making all the necessary preparations and appropriate arrangements proactively basing upon what is expected to happen in future and performing a series of tasks and activities accordingly in a systematic and organized way is one of the important functions of management, which necessitates an effective and proactive planning process. Proper planning and designing an effective organizational structure by assigning an assortment of responsibilities to the concerned employees may help the business organizations to accomplish their set of objectives. Putting the right person at the right place and at the right time is essentially much important to any business as it comprises of a wide and comprehensive range of activities in relation to the management of man. Manpower power planning, not only focuses on the effective utilization of existing human elements but also concern in fulfill ing future manpower need of the organizations at the time of need. Man power planning is the process of determining manpower needs and the means and ways to meet those needs in order to carry out the integrated organizational plan. It is very much indispensable for any organization to perform the activities efficiently and to produce desired results. It is an apparently well known fact that, the success of any business highly rest upon the competent people that a business organization posses. Man power planning is considered as crucial functions of human resource management. It gives due importance to the human element than that of material elements and strive to manage and maintain the good will of a business. It endeavours to add to the organizational development and success of the business with due recognition of knowledge, skills, competence, experiences, expertise and talent of the employees. Effective recruitment and selection process follows an effective manpower planning process in fulfilling future manpower need as and when needed by the organisation. That necessitates manpower planning process and put lot of significance to it. At the same time, it contributes significantly to the achievement of organizational objectives by avoiding overstaffing and understaffing. However, although the notion of Human Resource Planning is well established in the HRM vocabulary, in practice, it does not seem to be as key HR activity. Need for man power planning is continuously driven by many of the factors in the organizations. It is essential when labour turnover is to be determined. There are situations that compel to replace older employees, disabled personnel and people whose medical conditions cause disturbances to usual functioning of the organisation. While executing effectively, man power planning process entails analyzing the requirements of present and future vacancies. These situations usually take place at the time of retirements, transfer of employees or they are upgraded due to promotion. Similarly, manpower planning is inevitable to deal with the situations that arise at the time, when employees avail their leaves or in case of their absences. In order to carry out the assigned task in a planned or intended way business organizations need personnel having necessary qualifications and experience which can be accomplished optimally through a effective man power planning process. Manpower planning is of great importance in identifying the surplus and shortages of the employees. In case of surplus, the man power may be redeployed from one area or activity to another in case of the former, whereas shortages demand providing required personnel. Man power demand forecasting, manpower supply forecasting and manpower audit are some of the important tasks concerning the process of manpower planning. Manpower demand involves estimating total man power requirements and planning accordingly. Then, the next step in manpower planning process is man power supply forecasting. It comprises of both internal supply forecasting and external supply forecasting. Internal supply forecasting works when the employees are transferred or promoted, while the need of external supply arises from the requirement of new workers when a business expands or there is change in technology or adopts new methods of production. In addition to that the process entails man power audit. Manpower audit is carried out through Skills inventory. It provides detail information about each employee. The overall value of an employee in an organization is also determined through skills inventory. For the sustenance of the key workers, man power audit analyses the factor s that compels and propels the employees to leave the current jobs and move elsewhere. As a result of which necessary measures may be taken to curb the rate of turnover in the context maximum utilization of Human Resources. Manpower planning is significant for the best interest of employees as well as for organization. While implementing appropriate selection procedures for the right candidates, Human resource planning undertakes proper recruitment methods and thereby preserves the individual talents of the employees. It focuses on assessing the requirement and the arrangement of training and development programs for the employees in order to equip them with the prerequisites of job. Manpower planning also focuses on the promotion procedures for competent people who can be entrusted with the challenges of advanced tasks. The inefficiencies of the employees are also identified by means of manpower planning process. So that necessary training may be provided leading towards improving employee morale. In this way the manpower planning process improves productivity and efficiency of the employees and their performance may be more effective and they can contribute optimally to the total organizational develo pment. Above all, the success of any business revolves round the quantity and quality of human resources of that particular organisation. CONCEPT AND DEFINITION OF HRP HRP is supposed to be an integral part of total organizational planning. The Human Resource Planning includes managerial activities that contribute to set the companys future objectives .It also determines appropriate means and ways for achieving those objectives. Where as organizational planning facilitates the realization of the companys future objectives and determines appropriate means for achieving those objectives. HRP is a systematic effort that comprises of three key elements: Workforce forecast Manpower assessment Staffing programme According to Leon C. Megginson, Human Resource Planning is an integrated approach to perform the planning aspects of the personnel function. It ensures sufficient supply of adequately developed and motivated workforce to perform the required duties and tasks to meet organizations objectives by satisfying the individual needs and goals of organizational members. Stainer defines manpower planning as a strategy for the acquisition, utilization, improvement, and preservation of human resources of an enterprise. It is a way of dealing with people in a dynamic situation. It relates to establishing job specifications or the qualitative requirements of job determining the number of personnel required and developing sources of supply of manpower. Human resource planning determines the determinants of changing job requirement. Technological advancement that requires introduction of new equipment, product, and process and invariably resulting in changes in jobs and job structure in an organization can be dealt with proper manpower planning. It is therefore, manpower planning is essential for the organization to meet the demands of future job requirements in order to survive and remain competitive. Otherwise, the organizations experiencing the effect of rapid technological change will face the shortages of skilled employees in the absence of effective human resource planning. HRP can be defined as the task of assessing and anticipating the skill, knowledge and labour time requirements of the organization and initiating necessary action to fulfil those requirements. If the organization is declining, it may need a reduction plan or redeploys its existing labour force. On the other hand, if it is growing or diversifying, it requires finding and tapping suitable sources of skilled labour. According to Coleman HR planning is The process of determining manpower requirements and the means for meeting those requirements to carry out the integrated plan of the organization. Manpower planning is the Strategy for acquisition, utilization, improvement and preservation of an enterprises Human Resources. It is the process by which management determines the path for the organization to move from its current manpower position to its desired manpower position in order to carry out integrated plan of the organization. Vetter (1967) defines Human Resource Planning as the process by which management determines how the organization should move from its current manpower position to its desired position. Through planning, management strives to have the right number and the right kind of people, at the right places, at the right time, doing right things resulting in maximum long-run benefits both for the organization and for the individual. Human resource planning takes place within the broad framework of organizational and strategic business planning. It involves forecasting the organizations future human resource needs and planning accordingly to meet those needs. It also includes establishing objectives and then developing and implementing HR programs like staffing, appraising, compensating, and providing training in order to ensure that people with the appropriate skills are available as and when the organization needs them. It may also include developing and implementing programs to improve employee performance or to increase employee satisfaction and involvement in order to boost organizational productivity, quality, or innovation (Mills, 1985b). Finally, human resource planning includes gathering data that can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of ongoing planning programs which will be useful for the planners when revisions in their forecasts and programs are needed. Human resource planning is the process of systematically reviewing human resource requirements to ensure that the required numbers of employees with requisite skills are available at the time of need. Human resource planning encompasses four elements: Quantity: No of employees Quality : Required, skills, knowledge and abilities Space: for which department, unit and level Time: at which point of time and how long Nature and Scope of HRP HRP includes identifying both present and future needs of various types of employees in an organisation, comparing these needs with the present workforce, and determining the numbers and types of employees to be recruited. Persons can be recruited and selected from outside the organisation or selected out of the organisations potential group and fit them into the organisational set up to get the best out of them. While extracting the best out of the employees, the organisation has also a responsibility to protect the interests of employees in terms of their career prospects, adequate compensation for their work, providing the best work environment and developing a culture of interpersonal, intrapersonal, employee-employer relationship and introduce a sense of quality consciousness within everyone to produce the best. Leading Features of HRP The leading features of HRPs are listed below. It is systematic in approach. It ensures a continuous and proper staffing. It checks on occupational imbalances i.e shortages or surplus occurring in any of the department of the organization. There is a certain degree of flexibility, which is meant for modifications and alterations in accordance with the needs of the organization or to adopt with the changing circumstances. Manpower plans can be done both at micro and at the macro levels. Thus, HRP is a kind of risk management tool. It involves realistically appraising the present human resources and anticipating the future need as far as possible in order to get the right people into right jobs at the right time. Underlying Factors of HRP Undoubtedly, there are a lot many factors that contribute for the increased attention towards human resource planning. Again, environmental forces like globalization, new technologies, economic conditions, and changing characterstics of work forces create complexity and add uncertainty for organizations. Therefore, organizations typically attempt to reduce the interference of uncertainty. While attempting so, formal planning is considered as one common tactic used by organizations to buffer themselves from environmental uncertainty (Thompson, 1967). Manpower Planning vs Human Resource Planning Manpower planning or HR planning both can be used interchangeably. HR planning is more broad-based. Human Resources planning refer to planning conducted for all aspects of Human Resources. It takes care of training, employee safety, recruitment, manning levels, Performance Management and so on. But manpower planning basically tends to revolve predominantly around numbers. The number of people required to perform efficiently and productively in order to produce the best results with minimum cost is known as manpower planning. However, these concepts are always evolving and are variously called as manpower planning, personnel planning or employment planning and human resource planning. Levels of HRP Human resource planning is done at various levels. The purpose of manpower planning determines its level. However, broadly level of manpower planning falls in the following categories. National Level: At National level, government of India undertake macro human resource plans for the entire country by anticipating the demand for and supply of human requirements at the national level. Sectoral Level: Along with central government various state governments of the country also plan human resource requirements for different sectors of the economy. Sectoral level manpower planning endeavours to cater the needs of manpower requirements of some particular sectors like Agriculture Sector, Industrial Sector and Service Sector. Industry Level: To cater to the manpower needs of a particular industry such as Engineering and Heavy Industries, Paper Industries, and Consumer Goods Industries, Public Utility Industries, Textile, Cement/Chemical Industries and so on and so forth industry level manpower planning is done. Unit/ Departmental Level: To take care the manpower needs of a particular department in a company such as Marketing Department, Production Department, Finance Department, etc unit or department level manpower planning is conducted. Job Level: Man power planning at job level fulfils the human resource requirements of a particular job family within a department. For example, the requirement of number of sales executives in the marketing department or customer care people in customer care department is done by planning at the level of Job. Periods of HRP Short -Term Human Resource Planning: Short term Human resource planning primarily focuses on designing and implementing the activities like recruitment, selection systems, and training programs to serve short-term organizational needs. Generally such activities involve an element of planning that is future-oriented to some extent. Short-term human resource planning is done to achieve long term objectives of the organisation. Long-Term Human Resource Planning: Increasingly, long-term human resource planning is done minimum for the period of three years or sometimes beyond that. Long term human resource planning is critical for the effective functioning of organizations. The rapidly changing world and highly competitive marketplace is causing firms to turn their focus on human resources for survival and competitiveness. Effective long-term human resource planning demands integration of the skills and knowledge of the manpower planner and all other executives who are responsible for strategic planning. Intermediate -Term Human Resource Planning: Human resource planning is a risk averting tool and buffer organizations from future uncertainty. Since, human resource programs such as recruitment, selection, training, and motivation of employees ensures availability of required number of people with appropriate skills at all levels in the organizations and thereby it help to reduce uncertainty. Short term human resource planning is associated with very little uncertainty about which skills and how many people will be needed. For which it is relatively easy to predict supply. However, due to rapid, turbulent and ongoing changes in todays business environment, it is difficult to anticipate future by simply projecting past trends. When the focus of planning shifts from short term to intermediate term, what is the requirement of an organisation becomes dominant problem so also the uncertainty related to the question of availability. As a result of which more technical attention is required to be given to the problem of forecasting. To minimise the uncertainty in intermediate term human resource planning, interaction between the human resource planner and line managers is even more critical for making accurate demand and supply forecasts. PURPOSE, NEED AND OBJECTIVE OF HRP Purposes of HRP   The primary function of Personnel planning is to analyze and evaluate the available human resources within the organization. It also determines how to obtain the kinds of needed personnel to staff various organisational positions starting from assembly line workers to chief executives.   Smaller companies have assigned the function of HR planning to the human resource department or personnel department. Larger corporations have separate departments for this function.  Personnel planning aims at minimisation of waste in employing people, lessen uncertainty of current personnel levels and future needs, and eliminate mistakes in staffing pattern.   The purpose of Human Resource Planning aims at maintaining the required level of skill by avoiding workforce skill shortages, stopping the profit-eroding effects of being overstaffed or understaffed, preparing succession plans and shaping the optimum future work force composition by hiring the right skill in appropriate numbers. Need of HRP Manpower Planning is basically a two-phased process. It analyses the current human resources, makes manpower forecasts and thereby draw employment programmes. Manpower Planning serves organisational purpose in many ways. It ensures optimum use of manpower and capitalizes on the strength of organisations Human Resources. Talent reservoir of an organisation is maintained at any point of time. The assigned tasks can be carried out easily if people skills are readily available. All these things can be possible with the help of effective HR Planning that provide information beforehand. To forecast future requirements and provides control measures: Although planning is considered as the essential process of management, HRP becomes especially critical when organizations go for mergers, relocation of plants, downsizing, right sizing or at time of closing of operating facilities. For example, expansion of scale of operations of any business requires advance planning that can ensure a continuous supply of people with appropriate skill set who can handle the challenges of the jobs easily. To face the challenges: Human resource planning helps the business to encounter the challenges that occur due to turbulent and hostile environmental forces like technology, social, economic and political factors. To adopt with technological changes: The change in technology in production, marketing methods and management techniques have been very extensive and rapid. It has profound effect both on job contents and job contexts. These changes may cause problems relating to redundancies, demand for retraining and redeployment, In order to cope with these changes, organisations need systematic manpower planning. To face Organizational Changes: The nature and pace of changes in organizational environment marked by cyclical fluctuations and discontinuities and the changes in activities and structures affect manpower positions of the organisation and require strategic considerations which necessitate perfect HR Planning. To determine recruitment/induction levels: A readily available HR plan can provide fairly good ideas about the kind of people are recruited and at what position. This will help in determining the kind of induction the organization require and thus can help to plan induction level successfully. To determine training level: Human Resource Planning helps in determining training levels in an organisation and lays foundation for management development programmes. To know the cost of manpower: In cases of expansions or opening up a new factory or if there is a new project organisation would require more number of human resources of different skill set. In those cases, Human Resource Planning helps in estimating the manpower cost. Hence a proper budgetary allocation can be made well in advance for this type of upcoming corporate strategic move. To assist in productivity bargaining: In case of automation, Human Resource Planning Data helps in negotiating for lesser workers as required for the same amount of the job. The organisation can offer higher incentives to smoothen the process of VRS, voluntary layoffs and so on. To assess physical facilities: Physical facilities such as accommodation ,canteen, school, medical help, etc. can also be planned well in advance, because a good HRP can assist in solving many problems of the firm, from day to day ones to very strategic ones. Moreover, Human Resource Planning helps in maintaining the stability of a concern preventing it to incur several intangible costs due to inadequate, improper or lack of HRP. For example, inadequate HRP may cause unfilled vacancies and the resulting loss in efficiency cost a lot to the organisation, particularly when the lead-time is required to train replacements. There are also situations in which employees are laid off in one department on the other hand applicants are hired for similar jobs in another department due to absence of proper HRP. There may be situation of over hiring resulting in the need to lay off effective employees. These are the variety of factors which necessitate Human Resource Planning in an organisation for optimum utilisation of Human Resources. Objectives of HRP The objective of human resource planning is to ensure the best fit between employees and jobs, while avoiding manpower shortages or surpluses. Human resource planning is a sub-system of the total organizational planning. It constitutes an integral part of corporate plan and serves the very purpose of organization in many ways. The primary purpose of human resource planning is to prepare for the future by reducing organizational uncertainty in relation to the acquisition, placement, and development of employees .Human resources planning is done to achieve the optimum use of human resources and to have the right types and correct number of employees to meet organizational goals. Objectives of Human Resource Planning are: Achieve Goal: Human Resource Planning helps in achieving individual, Organizational National goals. Since Human resource planning is linked with career planning, it can able to achieve individual goal while achieving organisational and national goal. Estimates future organizational structure and Manpower Requirements: Human Resource Planning is related with number of Personnel required for the future, job-family, age distribution of employees, qualification desired experience, salary range etc and thereby determines future organisation structure. Human Resource Audit: Human resource planning process is comprised of estimating the future needs and determining the present supply of Manpower Resources. Manpower supply analysis is done through skills inventory. This helps in preventing overstaffing as well as understaffing. Job Analysis: The process of studying and collecting information relating to operations and responsibilities of a specific job is called Job analysis. Job analysis is comprised of job description and job specification. Job description describes the duties and responsibilities of a particular job in an organized factual way. Job specification specifies minimum acceptable human qualities necessary to perform a particular job properly. Other objectives of HRP are as follows: To link human resource planning with organizational planning. To ensure optimum, planned use of currently employees. To forecast future skill requirements. To provide control measures in order to ensure that necessary resources are made available as and when required. To anticipate redundancies and avoid unnecessary dismissals. To provide a basis for management development programmes. To deploy the manpower in upcoming new projects. To enable the organization to identify trouble spots. To study the cost of overheads. To decide whether certain activities need to be subcontracted. To achieve more effective and efficient use of human resources. To better recruit employees having the necessary skills and competences. To determine optimum training levels. To obtain fairly satisfied and developed workforce. To facilitate the roll-out of strategic plans and missions. To achieve more effective and equal opportunity planning. To relieve the organization of unnecessary and unneeded labour. Human resources planning are human resource administration, quite similar to that of financial planning. But unlike financial planning, there are very few organizations that engage in any form of explicit human resource planning. However, if properly used, human resources planning can increase the prospects of an organizations management and of its resources by better coping with dynamic situations. Human resource planning aims at maintaining and improving the organizations ability to attain the goals by developing strategies, purporting to magnify the contribution of human resources. Objectives of HR planning are to ensure availability of the HR needs of the organization at specified times in the future. It is a systematic approach to help the organization to reach at its business objectives. TRENDS AND BEHAVIOURAL FACTORS ON HRP Trends That Impact HRP   A Personnel planner seeking to study the trends in Human Resource planning should include the following variables:   The state of the economy of the organisation: The spectrum of economic activity of the organisation which largely depends upon the companys sphere of operations is a crucial factor that is to be considered while doing HRP.     Demographics: The present and future age and sex composition, literacy level of the population of the organisation affect HRP.   Employee losses or turnover: The retirements, deaths, promotions and resignation affect the current number of individuals employed at every level.   New skill requirements:  Obsolescence of current skills and its effects along with what new skills will be needed due to new technology markets or products affect HRP.   The availability of materials: The status of the availability of material and direction of materials prices is also considered while doing HRP.    Technological changes: Rate of change of technology along with technology adoption by the organisation affects manpower planning.   Social changes: Effect of up gradation of educational backgrounds of the people in a given society and the willingness of people to take lower level jobs affect manpower planning.   Labour costs: The direction in which the labour cost move is given due consideration while doing human resource planning. Behavioural Factors on HRP Behaviour can be defined as the observable and measurable activity of human beings. Activity of human beings under this category shows a great variety. It may include anything like decision making, a mental processor, handling a machine, a physical process. Behavioural factors of HRP include: 1. Understanding Human Behaviour 2. Controlling and directing Behaviour 3. Organisation Adaptation 1. Understanding Human Behaviour: Understanding human behaviour in the organisation encompasses the following elements. (i) Individual Behaviour: It is known as first behaviour of people and provides means for analyzing why and how an Individual behaves in a particular way. (ii) Interpersonal Behaviour: It provides means for understanding the interpersonal relationship in the organization. Analysis of reciprocal relationship, role analysis, transactional analysis falls under the umbrella of interpersonal behaviour. (iii) Group Behaviour: Group behaviour comprises of group norms, cohesion, goals, procedures, communication, and leadership. (iv) Intergroup relationship: Intergroup relationships are in the form of intergroup cooperation and intergroup co-ordination. 2. Controlling and directing behaviour: these are the different factors that need to be taken care of in while controlling and directing people behaviour at workplaces. (i) Organisational Climate: it refers to total organizational situations affecting human behaviour i.e how people of an organisation interact with each other at workplace. (ii) Communication:-free flow of both way communications is inevitable in order to control and direct human behaviour because, it is through communication people come in contact with each others. (iii) Leadership: leadership style is also very much crucial and plays vital role in order to control and direct peoples behaviour at workplace. (iv) Employee empowerment: It refers to the degree of autonomy provided to people of an organisation so that they can take certain decision on their own without waiting for the supervisor to direct and may be utilized in many ways. 3. Organisation Adaptation: Organisations have to adapt themselves to the environment changes by making suitable internal arrangements like Management of Change. INFORMATION FOR HRP Information that forms the basis of Human Resource Planning include statistics of past years data on all aspect of Human Resource programmes. It includes turnover data, recruitment costs, staff numbers both actual and forecasted, budgetary information, safety statistics, and performance appraisal statistics and so on and so forth. Basically, information is gathered taking into consideration of any objective for the year. For example, if organisations seek to reduce turnover, which thereby reduces recruitment and selection costs, need to focus man power plan on retention strategies. To strategise the retention strategies the organisation may go for benchmarking from other successful companies, may seek industry information, take the help of Human Resources Institutes and so on and so forth. After getting information and ways and me