Technology and Workers Rights Essay Example for Free

Technology and Workers Rights Essay Whether it is over a cup of coffee with friends at the local Starbucks, in a crowded lunch room at work, or on a coworker’s Facebook wall, employees are talking about their jobs, especially to one another. New trends in modern technology, such as the recent explosion and popularity of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, continue to constantly change the way employees can engage, share, and voice their work related concerns. According to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), an independent government agency charged with mediating disputes between management and labor unions, this new trend has become an important reminder that sometimes harsh criticism by employees is protected by federal law at work, at home, and now on the Internet. Although social media provides another forum for employees to exercise their protected collective activities, such as share complaints or address concerns to improve working conditions and pay, employers must make sure newly developed social media policies give due consideration to employees’ rights that are protected under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The New York Times recently published that under the NLRA, â€Å"employees have the right to join together, with or without a union, to exercise their protected collective activities to share complaints, address concerns with employers, and negotiation to improve their working conditions and pay.† The NLRA also protects employees’ rights to discuss work-related issues with other employees that was first made into federal law back in 1935. Basically, criticism of an employer’s practices about wages, hours and working conditions is protected no matter how it is expressed, as long as it is ‘protected, concerted activity.’ The NLRA says that â€Å"protected† is any statement about wages, hours or working conditions, and â€Å"concerted† means the employee’s statements were engaged in with or on the authority of other employees. Workers need to be aware that statements made through this type of forum have to be directed to other employees or to the company on behalf of the employees – not just personal gripes. However, employers need to understand that it doesn’t matter where or even how the employee makes these statements as long as it is â€Å"protected† and â€Å"concerted†. As popular social media sites like Facebook and Twitter continue to influence the way co-workers communicate on the job and outside the workplace, companies feel they do have the right to legally monitor their employees’ activities online, in order to ensure a most professional and lawsuit-proof workplace. â€Å"Bosses can penalize employees for what they deem as â€Å"inappropriate† post, videos and pictures on social-networking sites, even if a worker uses those sites during non-working hours†, states Lewis Maltby, author of the workplace rights book, Can They Do That? Though the most frequently cited justification for workplace monitoring is to prevent employee theft, sabotage, and violent incidents on the job, companies have also voiced concerns that they run huge risks with employees leaking â€Å"trade secrets† or other confidential and proprietary information about their people, products, and services to outside competitors online. In his book, The Naked Employee, author Frederick Lane, a workplace expert on the impact of technology and society, points out â€Å"employers are increasingly more interested in hiring employees who will not expose the company to additional costs and liability, while not hiring employees who will increase their cost through negligence, misconduct, and wrongdoing† (28). But the biggest threat companies are now beginning to fear is the line between an honest online discussion that may lead to defamation of a company, which can be blurry in certain situations, making it even more difficult to distinguish the truth. Although computers have revolutionized employees’ workplaces in ways that earlier generations could not have imagined, U. S. companies, such as retail giant Wal-Mart, may realize they are in catch-up mode with modern technology, due to new challenges brought on by the recent explosion of social media sites. The NLRB found that employers facing this growing trend need to establish social media policies that do not infringe on workers’ rights. For example, the NLRB learned that one company mandated it’s employees to stay away from controversial topics such as religion and politics, and adopt a professional tone in the use of their social media, while other companies had gone so far as to blatantly forbid their employees from posting anything potentially misleading about the company online, and even told their employees to be careful about â€Å"friending† other co-workers on Facebook. The Washington Times reported that in June of this year along, â€Å"the NLRB also found that six of the seven corporate social media policies it examined included provisions that failed to pass regulatory muster, proving to be too vague or intrusive on their workers’ rights to free expression online.† NLRB General Counsel, Lafe Solomon, cited other companies, including DIS H Network and Target, have also maintained similar corporate social media policies that at least partially violated provisions of the NLRA. This delicate balance became strikingly apparent in a recent case filed with the NLRB by a non-union employee fired from a non-unionized emergency medical response team. The employee filed a charge with the NLRB against the company for wrongful discharge after losing her job for posting negative comments about her boss on Facebook. According to the employer, the posting violated a company policy that prohibits employees from making negative remarks on the Internet about the company or its employees. However, the employee claimed that the policy and her discharge from the company violated the NLRA by denying employees their right to engage in the protected, concerted activity of sharing complaints about working conditions with fellow workers. The case settled before an actual hearing with the company agreeing to revise its policy to eliminate any social media restrictions on its employees that could be in violation of the NLRA. In the initial complaint against the company, the NLRB cl aimed the employer’s policy was overly broad and prohibited employees from writing personal personal depictions of the company online without permission or posting any disapproving comments. Cases such as these should serve as a reminder to every employer that the NLRA applies to unionized and non-unionized workers alike. But in this increasingly technologically savvy world, the larger questions looming for both employers and employees alike should be what are the boundaries of an employee’s privacy, and who is more entitled to draw that line. â€Å"Companies should protect themselves and their employees by setting clear expectations on proper social media use in the office,† says Dean Debnam, CEO of Workplace Options, a public policy polling company that surveys American workers. â€Å"However, employers must be cautious of how far they take these regulations. While social media polices are not a problem, survey results show that employees do not support any intrusive measures, such as demanding access to passwords.† As new avenues of self expression created by social media and newly developed technologies evolve, employees should definitely be mindful as to what constitutes a legitimate basis for termination. Companies’ rights to dismiss employees at will, unless that is some statute, like the Labor Act, prohibits a particular act of retaliation, should not be taken lightly. In this tough economy where companies feel that image is still everything, even applicants who have applied for jobs may find out later they have been denied employment, due to messages communicated to their friends on social networking sites they thought were private and password protected. The bigger notion that’s scary for some employees is that once you are hired, you may find that your employer has taken drastic steps to make sure that access to your privacy extends well beyond company working hours. Lane agrees that workplace monitoring is a major problem, because â€Å"technology makes it possible for employers to gather enormous amounts of data about employees, and often goes far beyond what is necessary to satisfy safety or productivity concerns (3-4). Few rights are as deeply treasured by American citizens as their freedom of speech. As the Internet and social media sites becomes more mainstream within the workplace, employers must find better ways to draft and implement employment policies that protect the company from things such as legal disputes and charges of discrimination, while at the same time making sure employee’s rights under the NLRA and other federal employment laws are protected and preserved. Works Cited Buddenberg, Roger. â€Å"Can Workers Vent on Facebook? – Lawyers’ Tips on Social Media for Workers.† Omaha World Herald (NE) 10 Oct. 2011. Academic Search Premier. Web. 30 Oct. 2012. Devaney, Tim. â€Å"Tweeting Workers ‘Friended’ by NLRB; Memo Warns of Restricting Rights.† Washington Times 26 June 2012. Academic Search Premier. Web. 18 Sep. 2012. Kim, Susanna. â€Å"NLRB Backs Workers Fired After Facebook Post Ripping Boss.† ABC News, 10 Nov. 2010. Web. 4 Dec. 2012. Lane, Frederick S. The Naked Employee: How Technology is Compromising Workplace Privacy. New York: Amacom, 2003. Print. Petrecca, Laura. â€Å"More Employers Use Tech to Track Workers.† USA Today. USA Today, 17 March 2010. Web. 6 Sept. 2012.

The Decade Changing Realism Of A Common Man From The 50’s :: Essays Papers

The Decade Changing Realism Of A Common Man From The 50’s When all literature is written, the author or poet is influenced by the happenings of the time or era in which they live. What this does is give the reader a sense of how the author or poet perceives the time. In particular the poem entitled, â€Å"Life Cycle of Common Man† by Howard Stanley Nemerov shows a direct connection between the poem itself, and the time in which it was written. Nemerov uses his thoughts and experiences from the 50’s and 60’s to write a poem, which shows a brief overview of the life of a common man of the 50’s. The interesting thing about this particular piece is that it was written in 1960, which means that it was written when the changes of the two very different decades started to occur; furthermore, when the two very different types of thinking started to occur. The poem’s structure fits perfectly with this as well. Nemerov’s view of the 50’s is seen in the perspective view of his 60’s way of t hinking, possibly even being somewhat responsible for the change in mindset from change in decade. Howard Nemerov was a very different type of poet than the rest of the poets during the time when this piece was written. Nemerov had himself been in the war, and come back home to a new country of consumerism and routine. When the 50’s ways of anti-communism and conservative thoughts were on the outs and the more liberal/revolutionary ways of thinking and acting came around, Nemerov did not follow the path of most of writers then. Most writers of the time thought of themselves as artist making a social stand, Nemerov was not very keen on protests or big on writing about social class values. He more or less stood back and wrote from a more sarcastic, paradoxical way. Being known as a â€Å"satirist filled with compassion,† Nemerov wrote on his observations and gave his opinion of them in the tone in which he wrote each piece (Labrie 145). This is quite evident in his poetry from around this time frame especially in the piece â€Å"Life Cycle of Common Man.† â€Å"Life Cycle of Common Man† is broken up into three major parts. The first is a recap of the typical 50’s man.

Cause and Effects of Propaganda Essay

Throughout history you find that many techniques of propaganda have affected today’s society. Whether it affects it in a good way or a bad way, propaganda is efficacious and does influence the way we think and act. You probably aren’t aware of what sort of propaganda is circling its way around, but once you are, you’ll think â€Å"wow did I really fall for that†? Propaganda is â€Å"information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc† (Dictionary. Com). There are several techniques of propaganda. It can go to anywhere from a glittering generalities commercial with enough colors galore for you to actually purchase it, to a name calling ad saying that your choice of candidate is not the word you’d like him or her to be called. All of these propaganda techniques leave some sort of impact on your mind. There are three types of different messages your mind could classify propaganda underneath, one is being Ethos. An ethos message can be a message from propaganda ads advertising some one or something in your favor. In that case you might just be convinced that the product or message the advertiser is trying to tell to you about is worth it or correct. In commercials using ethos you’ll find that most of the ads are basically a testimonial ad. Advertisers take in mind that there is a chance that a famous star or person is someone you would admire and in that case you’d believe what the commercial advertisers want you to believe. The next message there is to look at is a pathos message. That being a message that is sent to you arousing your emotions to think differently. The American Cancer Society could put up an ad with a child hooked up to what seems like a million IV’s. This would affect people with a sympathetic mind who actually will look at the piteous sight and will be willing to donate those ten dollars because some advertiser knew he could get you with that little child. The final & third message is a Logos Message. When you hear or look at a logos type message you will find yourself come to reasoning. You’ll find yourself doing that because propaganda plus a logos message behind it will make sense and be clear and it will be seem realistic at the time. A logos message will send your mind the message â€Å"that’s a good reason to get that/ believe that†. Now knowing these three types of propaganda you are more aware of how to recognize propaganda and what it is classified as. How much can propaganda affect you and those around you? Looking at the three kinds of propaganda messages, you realize how easy it is for you and others to fall into a propaganda trap. A propagandist wants to do three things. One, they want to modify the content of our opinion, two, change most of society’s views, and three they want to destroy the moral of an enemy (259 Ellul). Sounds pretty evil right? If the finale of a propagandists â€Å"show† happens, it is thanks to society, the people who purchased the tickets to see that the moral enemy is destroyed. Not only will it affect the person being destroyed but it will affect us. Propaganda doesn’t simply leave an effect on ones thoughts it can adjust our attitude for life. â€Å"The way in which an individual reacts to a stimulus depends on the entire pattern of his attitudes†¦ Therefore propaganda must base itself on existing tendencies to have the greatest effect (279 Ellul). Jacques Ellul endorses that a propagandist will do anything to change our attitude because our attitude is the way we react to things and fulfill our life. Ponder about your attitude towards life. It probably has been influenced by propaganda without you even knowing. For instance you could be a teenager reading a magazine, you probably feel a little under pressure because you’ll never be like Taylor Swift. You’ll just spend long years caring about something that’s not going to happen and you don’t even recognize that the magazine you looked at for ten minutes switched your attitude towards yourself for many long years. Its time to take charge, and time for society to realize our own genuine beliefs. We as a group need to come out of the media and look at we really believe deep down inside. (16 Hibbert) Think before you share your opinions and make sure they aren’t lead by beliefs you as a person would actually never believe if it wasn’t for propaganda. We need to never let propaganda get a hold of us because once we do it will set off a trend if it already hasn’t. As shown in the past, propaganda has killed a whole nation; it has been sinner’s best friend. Propaganda can go a long way. Many leaders have gained power and authority through it. Stalin in the Russian revolution had propaganda as his oxygen basically. It is what kept him running. Within the revolutionary war people, wanted the Tsar, the leader at the time, to be thrown out and within time he was killed. Momentarily Stalin was in for leader. At the time of the circumstance, the communist controlled the paper company making Stalin seem like a really good guy, also history books were rewritten so it would show the â€Å"importance† of Stalin. It can be quite amusing to see how far people will go for a disaster waiting to happen. While kissing up to society and making sure his image looked great, Stalin was able to organize 10 million independent farmers to form a communist collective farm. And when they didn’t cooperate, he went and organized troops to kill them. Realizing the ammo was a little bit too much out of his selfish pocket he managed to remove most sources of food and cause the farmers to starve to death. But society thought Stalin was good. It doesn’t take that much brain power to realize that propaganda had a lot to do with this. If people in the first place would’ve just stood up and said Stalin was doing bad pernicious things, no one would’ve believed the propaganda communist were sending around (756 Bullock). Stalin was not the only man in history that used propaganda to his advantage. Adolf Hitler hit home base being able to convince part of the European Nation that all Jews were bad and weren’t human whatsoever. He then hit second base being able to form a group of Nazis to help him with his dream. Getting to third base, basically was making sure all the propaganda he needed to be spread got into the human mind. He made home base by killing around 6 million Jews; unfortunately he won his game. Yet again I don’t know why people couldn’t catch his teams’ ball by standing up and saying it was wrong in the first place. Did anyone ever stop to look at the propaganda being exposed and say what the heck?. No instead they just looked at the ball and let it go because what good could they do? In today’s society we can find propaganda being used all the time. 694 Bullock) Right now Obama is taking the word â€Å"hope† and using it as his own. He is giving it a new meaning. He is using pathos and making you feel better about choosing him as your president. Meanwhile he doesn’t show all the mishaps along the road that are soon to come. Don’t be the person to let propaganda affect someone else’s WHOLE life because you looked at it for three seconds. Because if one man can start only god knows what one person influenced can do. Now you may wonder how in the world you can ever make sure you’re not falling for a propagandists trap. The first thing you should do is form a belief system, and examine it to make sure that what you say you believe is actually what you believe. Then you should really just be careful before you judge. When you say something that might possibly cause controversy, don’t let thoughts influenced by propaganda get in the way. If you have even the slightest care for humanity, you won’t permit propaganda to cause or provoke someone again, and if you don’t have the slightest care, maybe should find somewhere in your heart to fit it. Because propaganda is powerful and will influence the way you think and act.

Advertisements On The Street With Advertising - 969 Words

†¢ I do feel bombarded by advertising in my daily life, because advertising is everywhere. In my daily life, I take a bus and go to school, and go to work, and use my phone and computer. I mostly see many ads on the side and back of every bus I take. Also, I can see many advertisements on the street with many advertising boards. Even when I log in to Facebook, I can see many ads on the side of my screen or in the middle of my friends’ posts. One that bothers me most is the ad that suddenly pops up during using my computer. Also, I really don’t like to see ads before seeing any YouTube videos. It is okay to watch movie trailers before watching actual movie in the theater. However, I think some ads don’t respect people’s thoughts. For example, I can’t watch any scary movies, and YouTube allows showing people scary movie trailer that I can’t even skip. Another thing that bothers me is that some people put ads in my mailbox and on the doorkn ob. 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What Does Endangered Species Mean

An endangered species is a species of wild animal or plant that is in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range.  A species is considered threatened if it is likely to become endangered within the foreseeable future. What Is the Difference Between Threatened and Endangered Species? According to the U.S.  Endangered Species Act: Endangered refers to a species that is in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range.Threatened refers to a species that is likely to become endangered within the foreseeable future throughout all or a significant portion of its range. On the IUCN Red List, threatened is a grouping of 3 categories: Critically EndangeredEndangeredVulnerable What Factors Cause a Species to Become Endangered? Destruction, modification, or restriction of habitat resulting from human activity such as agriculture, urban development, mining, deforestation, and pollutionHuman exploitation of a species for commercial, recreational, scientific, educational, or other purposes that results in critically diminished population numbersCompetition and/or displacement by invasive speciesDisease or predation by other animals to the extent that populations decline significantly Who Decides That a Species Is Endangered? The International Union for the Conservation of Nature is the global authority on endangered species determination. The IUCN compiles information from a network of conservation organizations to rate which species are most endangered, and this information is published in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.IUCN Regional Red Lists assess the risk of extinction to species in over 100 countries and regions around the world.In the United States, the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service work together to identify species that are in the greatest need of the protection provided by the Endangered Species Act. How Does a Species Become Listed as Endangered? The IUCN Red List conducts a detailed Assessment Process to evaluate extinction risk based on criteria such as rate of decline, population size, area of geographic distribution, and degree of population and distribution fragmentation. Information included in the IUCN assessment is obtained and evaluated in coordination with IUCN Species Survival Commission Specialist Groups (authorities responsible for a specific species, group of species, or geographic area). Species are categorized and listed as followed: Extinct (EX) - No individuals remaining.Extinct in the Wild (EW) - Known only to survive in captivity, or as a naturalized population outside its historic range.Critically Endangered (CR) - Extremely high risk of extinction in the wild.Endangered (EN) - High risk of extinction in the wild.Vulnerable (VU) - High risk of endangerment in the wild.Near Threatened (NT) - Likely to become endangered in the near future.Least Concern (LC) - Lowest risk. Does not qualify for a more at risk category. Widespread and abundant taxa are included in this category.Data Deficient (DD) - Not enough data to make an assessment of its risk of extinction.Not Evaluated (NE) - Has not yet been evaluated against the criteria. Federal Listing Process Before an animal or plant species in the United States can receive the protection from the Endangered Species Act, it must first be added to the  List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife or the List of Endangered and Threatened Plants. A species is added to one of these lists via a petition process or a candidate assessment process. By law, any person may petition the Secretary of the Interior to add a species to or remove a species from the lists of endangered and threatened species. The candidate assessment process is conducted by US Fish and Wildlife Service biologists.

Petroleum Management Services For Drill Exploratory Wells...

On March 2008, BP submitted a request to The Mineral Management Service requesting to drill exploratory wells in the Mississippi Canyon Block 252 located in the Gulf of Mexico. By the following March, BP set forth plans to begin drilling the Macondo well, and was approved by the MMS on April 6, 2009. BP then leased a semisubmersible rig, named the Marianas, from Transocean and began drilling the well in earlier October of 2009. However, on November 9, 2009 the Marianas rig was damaged by Hurricane Ida and unfortunately had to be removed for repairs. Therefore, Marianas was replaced with the Deepwater Horizon rig in February 2010, to continue drilling exploratory wells. With the completion of the exploratory well, the Deepwater Horizon†¦show more content†¦BP’s officials inform the Schlumberger team that the cementing process went flawlessly. In the Deep Water report, â€Å"BP Wells Team Leader John Guide noted, â€Å"Everyone involved with the job on the rig site wa s completely satisfied with the job†Ã¢â‚¬  (National Commission, 4). With BP’s representatives heads held high on their supposed success of pouring the cement, they decide that they could omit the Schlumberger cement evaluation. In an effort to save time and money BP decided to fly the Schlumberger team back home via a helicopter later that same day. The rest of the afternoon would then be dedicated to positively and negatively-pressure testing the well for leaks. The Transocean crew began to perform the negative-pressure tests around 5 p.m., to test for leaks throughout the pipes. The negative-pressure test was performed to simulate the conductions the well would be faced with after the departure of the Deepwater Horizon. The crew begins by releasing the pressure in the well, and then they observe well to determine if the pressure changes inside the pipes indicating there are leaks. Unfortunately, the pressure in the well built back up, meaning there was a leak somew here. BP then chose to ignore this first sign of terror, one witness, reported he had seen this sort of thing happened before and he called it a â€Å"bladder effect† (National Commission, 6). BP deemed the

Structure and Culture of Small Medium Enterprises Free Essays

‘The category of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is made up of enterprises which employ fewer than 250 persons and which have an annual turnover not exceeding 50 million euro, and/or an annual balance sheet total not exceeding 43 million euro.’ (Definition, 2011) Above explained is the new definition reconstructed by European Commission based on the developments to business environment. This was published in the year 2005 in their website further talking about the importance of SME’s to the European community in the report they issued. We will write a custom essay sample on Structure and Culture of Small Medium Enterprises or any similar topic only for you Order Now Looking further into how and why SMEs plays a major role in the business environment the report explains that, the 25 million SMEs provides 75 million jobs covering 99% enterprises in 25 European union countries. Nonetheless, SMEs has to face difficulties in capital and other important factors such as investment loans especially during the early stage which makes it less stable and short period existence for these types of businesses. (Introduction, 2011) However, some determined minds working through this field tend to survive the obstacles faced in the early stage and carry on with the other phases. Usually SMEs have less than 250 employees. This small community also has to have an intranet among them to be updated and connected to each another. One of the most common tools is paper based communication. Paper based communication requires plenty of paper, more procedure, and more time, which is less reliable and difficult to manage. It also has its advantage of having long time proof of records. But that is not the basic factor highly prioritized in today’s business world. As alternatives keeps the place tidy and stores the record internally in any hard disk or any software. Most importantly, company records are much safer where there is more IT involved. Though, communication is a basic factor in every business organization, not every company has established the latest technology of communication. Different industries or companies have communication process based on their level. Like, huge companies use modern and efficient and/or costly ways of communication whereas; small and medium enterprises (SMEs) use alternative modes which are cheaper and more procedure involved means of communication. This report is based on SME’s highlighting their ways of communication with their stake holders and most importantly, upon how they can improve the method of communication with lower cost. Instead of complicated communication systems these SMEs also could rely on more efficient ways which is more IT related. Among every possible upgrade the key factor for SMEs would be to analyze and go with the minimal cost plan. Executive Summary The introduction of the report explains about what exactly are SMEs. This highlights upon the business culture and structure also the methods they could apply in order to upgrade the existing techniques for an easier method of communication. Alongside, coming up with low cost upgrades as SMEs would not have huge amount in their turnover, moreover it would not be valuable for them for spend abundantly on communication within the organization. Hence, I have shared some opinions which they could rely on and at the same time which would fix into their budget. The report further gives explanations on how the SMEs could grow in its scale by following some method to aware the customers of its existence. And what other IT related yet cheaper ways in which they could keep records like, stock, daily sales and attendance. As far as record keeping is concern in a business organization, SMEs also needs to maintain daily stock report and sales report in a daily basis in order to avoid stock imbalance. If stock is not handled well as a daily/weekly, at the end of the year, missing stocks would be numerous and mysterious. This is going to be a hard task for the company to investigate specially for SMEs. The options elaborated in the report helps to identify some different techniques which help to standardize the majority of work done within the organization. The methods are been separately explained on how each can be utilized and the outcome result of it. Most of it talks about the efficient and effectiveness brought by using the methods. Like how to computerized the stock report and the result in quick search of a transaction or any stock details. Also methods on how the SMEs can reach their customers by spending the least amount on advertising. Structure and Culture of an SME SMEs are usually sole traders who have no more than 250 employees and less turnover of Rs50 million and below. (Fernando, R. 2003) The organizational behavior within the SMEs is less formal than of a larger organization. There are no specific standard followed by the employees. Where attendance maybe the only effective factor for any employee. These types of businesses are usually referred as bureaucratic organization, where the manager/owner has high authority in decision making in every aspect without any recommendation and knowledge by the staffs. For instance, owner decides how a shift would work; if/whether the interior has to be changed and to recruit more staffs and so on. Also he plays the leadership role in deciding how to contact with the customer. Like, if the purchase bills has to be made or not and if so how; printed receipts or manual. Taking a look at why smaller and medium enterprises have a less formal routine is due to cost cutting, result in manual work with cheaper materials to work and also they do not keep a record of day to day business other than the cash-flow. Cash flow records are also maintained in a log book where the cashier list down the items sold, each one separately till the end of the day. And what if a customer needs the receipt? They get a manual receipt with company stamped and purchase details hand written by the cashier, costing more time work and procedure. Meanwhile, the owner keeps a record of bulk purchase in his logbook noting it down after every purchase. This kind of record keeping is difficult to maintain if they want to find something quickly. Moreover, human errors and easy going behavior of a staff may lead to mysterious results of stock imbalance. The external communication; customer communication is preferably poor in SMEs as they do very less advertisements and direct approach to the customers are almost nil regarding its existence. Most of its customers may not know if they have a new stock or introduce a new brand and so on. To be in contact more with the customers is the only way a business can run successfully. But as I have mentioned earlier that SMEs would not prefer any expensive methods of communicating within its organization, below are some upgrades they could bring on in order to connect with the customers and have more efficient way of communicating within the organization. Additionally, some advanced system to keep record. Improved procedure within the business Method 1 Though it has been a tradition to SMEs to keep paper records, they could switch to more IT based information storage. The owner could purchase sales software which is user friendly and easy to train cashiers and/or related department like stores. The registration of the software can be made annually with an annual payment method based on the license to use it. Thus, stock can be maintained in this specific platform at the same time encoding items can result for easy access. Sales software would not be of high cost as it has to be paid annually and compared to the ease it makes in maintaining the majority of the work. Thus, the SME’s would save much time on stock maintaining in efficient way which is more effective; most importantly, with low cost. Method 2 If sales software is considered as high cost per annum simple spreadsheet documentation can be maintained by help of a Microsoft excel expert. Microsoft excel provides a solution to store and calculate the raw data by customized formulas also with the help of the in-built formulas available in the software itself helps to solve minor calculations. It has the potential to create a spreadsheet of raw data into flowcharts, tables and reports to bring a better understanding. The cells are editable which enables to reenter if any changes have to be made. A sales chart can be made in terms of a day, week, month or a year based on their preference. If a company preferred to list down the sales and the stock details in a daily basis, they could include different days tagged in different tabs. While creating different excel documents for different months. Hence, any record can be searched easily with shortcut keys. Meanwhile the SME can keep a good record also record keeping method would be more efficient. SMEs connecting with customers The reason behind low interaction between SMEs and its’ customer is also is to avoid expenses while running business. Bad assumption of SMEs is that communicating to the customers through advertisements are overheads to the company, in fact the attraction gained by the customers would only cause them to have more trade and eventually more profit. To obtain these, SMEs can integrate with modern and IT related communication system which would cost them a lower rate. Method 1 Not only internet can be used as a tool to market but also mobile advertising can be the best and more direct way of approaching to the customer personally. The company can register corporateSMS service from a local telecommunication centre. It helps to forward the same text message with many recipients at the same time. This service can be used to notify the customers for new stock arrivals and so on. News spreads easily, thus a single text message can reach the news to a family and close friends. Overall another 5-10 people would be aware of the news. This makes the direct communication more useful and effective. Method 2 Online marketing is the leading method in modern community. It has become so common that the SMEs also could hire an UI designer to build a platform for their business on the web. This could provide their information regarding the business and products available. Updating the website helps the customers to be familiar with the present availability. There are many web hosting companies which sometimes charge less than $10 per annum. This is quite very few amounts to spend in order to collect more customer and profit to the business. Method 3 Why spend a cent when you can advertise for free? The organization can created a web page about themselves on social networking sites, most common; the Facebook. Owning a page does not require any payment. Numerous amounts of people can search and go through the page as Facebook is in fact, the top rated social networking site where over billions of active users login almost daily. Hence, the chance of more people viewing the page is high and meanwhile, they get to know about the location, service and products available in the organization. The page can be more attractive if company could share pictures of products to make it more helpful the buyers. The details like, history of the organization, mission/vision/objectives and how the customers can contact can also be also included as more details in the information tab provided. Hence this method of online marketing can help to reach more customers without costing any. Method 4 Apart from advertising to the customer, a proof of purchase is required when a customer makes a transaction. In most SMEs a receipt is not provided unless the customer request for it. Hand written slip with a seal of company is how they usually provide it. In my opinion along with sales software they would be able to link to a POS (point of Sales) centre thus a computer generated receipt can be printed through a receipt printer. This method would help both the customer and company to minimize the time of sales. Recommendation Based on the methods mentioned above, my recommendation on how the SMEs could manage their stock is by using a sales software as this is a computer programmed method the chance of mistakes are less compared to using an excel sheet to write down the records manually. Plus, the purchase bill or receipt can be automatically printed after every sales entry if required which leads to a more reliable and quick sale. Thereby, providing the customer a proof and the system detects a sale been done and automatically adjust the balance amount. In the excel sheet this could also be done using the formulas yet it is not reliable if not well maintained. And in most situations daily maintenance cannot be done since the manual work is larger than the automatic level. In case of the sales software technique the normal selling routine goes parallel with the automatic generating of the stock report. It makes the handling procedure much easier and effective. Talking about the marketing point, since Facebook requires none to create a page in the website, this can be easily done to promote its business. This method is the highest effective way because the website is a well-known platform for almost every region. Hence, people around the world will get to know the company and by chance the SMEs could also grow larger in their business according to the income and time. The second best choice I recommend is to register with corporateSMS and to directly approach for customers. This could be done by introducing a visitors’ book and recording the basic information of the customer like; name, contact and preferred item. While the company receives new stock they could text specific group of people with common interest of item, thus the same message can be delivered in bulk. This kind of advertising is more direct and effective. Conclusion Effective communication is the base of the business. If the communication process is reliable then the company can run smoothly. Running a smooth business requires sufficient ways to overcome any conflicts. Any loop holes has to be fixed; starting with the procedure within the company and how to interact with its stakeholders. If a good policy can be retained then the SMEs would also be a well-established part of the society. Rather, having to discontinue soon after starting the business. The success story comes with strong determination; the willingness of a person is all it counts. The report has been highlighted with few methods to improve the existing nature of the SMEs to produce a better procedure to them for their future. Ways in which they could rely on making more profit by spending a small amount of money. Let me conclude by saying that, in my opinion these methods to upgrade the existing techniques followed by SMEs would help them save more time and minimize errors and mistakes from sales maintaining. SMEs can develop their existing communication process within the organization for an efficient and effective system, where they could easily communicate with its customers also within the business community. The opinions mentioned are of low cost also more efficient and convenient to run a small and medium enterprise for a better communication to the organization. How to cite Structure and Culture of Small Medium Enterprises, Essay examples