PROFESSIONAL WOMEN LIFE CHALLENGES/ ESTABLISHING PRIORITIES

Monthly meeting for (HPWA) Hispanic Professional Women Association in Florida.

         Good morning! My name is Maria Rodriguez and I am currently a Professor as well as the Assistant to the Director of Faculty and Curriculum at Ana G. Mendez University System. This is an institution dedicated to educate with excellence in a Dual Immersion Program teaching both in English and Spanish. You can tell this is my passion.

     I am delighted to be here today and share my experiences with you. I am originally from Puerto Rico and have lived in Tampa for 20 years. I have a Master in Business Administration with a Certification in Human Resources, and I teach all Management and HR courses. Since this is not going to be a lecture but a life experience testimony, please write down any questions or comments you may have for a Q&A session we will have once I finish my talk.   

        The topic for today is Professional Women Life Challenges/Establishing Priorities.

         

          Let’s define what a challenge is. We want to understand what the meaning of this is before decipher and act on it. The best definition for the word is “a call to engage in a contest”. There are challenges if you think they are there, they are not challenges if you work without thinking about them.

          I want to talk about my experience as a Hispanic woman and how different situations I’ve endured through my life have changed my way of thinking.  Sharing these experiences I feel will help you to relate to many stories you know of other women that have accomplished something big in their lives. For example starting and operating their own businesses. Who here is that entrepreneur? Great!  I believe you can be whatever you want to be in life, if you really want to.  Who here is a professional woman? Applause please!

          It takes a decision, courage, self determination and perseverance to accomplish goals.  You also have to be realistic and sacrifice if that is what it takes to get to where you want to be. You may think wow! Maria is a go getter.  Yes you are right, I am now, but that was not the case 11 years ago. I developed this as a skill, as I tried to survive and support my family when I became a widow exactly 11 years ago. I had to retrain my brain, and change my attitude, like any woman can. There is hope. I have to say that there is a Supreme Power that also keeps me going every day. That is God. Without Him I would not be here standing and talking to you today.

          Let’s take a look at some of those so called challenges that society has imposed to women which may make a difference in the way they grow and behave in the business community compare to men.

          One is the so called male dominant industries.

          Let’ take a look at the Military, the Mine industry and the Trucking Companies. Decades ago there was no possibility for a woman to fly a fighter jet, or for a woman to be a coal miner, or a woman to drive an 18 wheeler truck. That started to change as women started to realize that they were not only created to be a housewife, cook and have children. During WW II, and when industries were short of manpower men had gone to war, women substituted them and did perform well if not better than men.

          Women were needed to fill many traditionally male jobs and roles during the war and various advertisements were used to encourage and empower women to take on these duties. This was a big awakening for the predominantly male workforce.

         

Another challenge women face is companies or businesses with the gender specific jobs. Women have achieved a lot in the workforce over the past century, but we’re still a long way from reaching equality. Men occupy the vast majority of leadership positions – in both the private and public sectors – and, at nearly every step on the career ladder, they get paid more too.

  

           Gender stereotyping in the workplace often leads to discrimination. Gender discrimination has many severe consequences ranging from unequal pay for women for equal work, to the lack of promotions, to sexual harassment. These negative effects are still very prevalent in the workplace despite the many laws that have been implemented to prevent the discriminatory effects of gender stereotyping, and despite the court system that is supposed to uphold those laws. Accordingly, other measures need to take place in order to rectify the problem.

           Family, (demand from husbands, children and elderly parents)

          At home, things are also changing. Men are taking more responsibility for cooking; cleaning and child care, but many women still do more than their fair share. Back in the 50’s and 60’s most women stayed home and raised their children. That is no longer the case. More and more women go to college and beyond, and enter the workforce to support their families whether they are married or not.  They try to accomplish their professional goals and move up in their career ladder as well as to balance work and life, which is something men are starting to understand and accept.

          In addition, there are women that once they reach 45 years or older, start to see how our elder family members pass away or we encounter the situation of having to be the caregiver for our elderly parents. Some go through the decision on where their parents are going to live and deal with the so common Alzheimer’s disease or any other type of dementia. I tried to be my mother’s caregiver for 35 days. She has vascular dementia and when we moved her here from Puerto Rico, she did not know day from night, so I did not sleep for those 35 nights and ended having to make the decision of taking her to an Assisted Living Facility. Thank God she is stable but the disease progresses every day.

          Stereotyping us as:

1.     The weak sex,

2.     lack of confidence,

3.     too emotional,

4.     physical appearance/not taken seriously,  

5.     we put lifestyle first rather than business,

6.     don’t know how to generate constant new business,

7.     Glass ceiling.

          How can we overcome these challenges?

          Again I will say that if you encounter challenges and they are there, work around them, like if they were not there. I know, I know, you may say is easy to say it but not to do it. Let me give you an example:  Any individual that you know who sees you as a weak person or a person with lack of self-confidence is a challenge for us. Work close to them and work hard, so when you accomplish your goals and excel, they realize that you were not as weak or not confident in yourself as they thought you were. You will be internally rewarded and probably recognized by that person. That person may be a man or another woman.

          While is not always true, women often do not realize their value in the same way men do, and have a tendency to undercharge and limit their perceptions of what their business is capable of financially.

          Believe that you are a beautiful woman, that you are intelligent and you can accomplish a lot more things that the opposite sex, or some people from your same sex. Think that it takes a decision to start to change your behavior towards becoming successful in anything you do. Your self esteem is your closest ally. Love yourself to be able to love others. Be empathetic to others, and use your emotional intelligence to leverage relationships. Yes, there are going to be obstacles along the way. It would be too easy and we would not enjoy accomplishments if there were none. Take that obstacle and think like Dale Carnegie wrote in his book “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living and I quote “Ask yourself:  What is the worst that could happen? Prepare to accept the worst. Try to improve the worst. Remind yourself of the exorbitant price you can pay for worry in terms of your health”

          Whether your professional environment is a stay home business or a Fortune 500 or 1000, remember you are the CEO of your brain, your ideas and your creativity, and you must to put them to work. Never underestimate yourself for being a woman.

          One more idea I would like for you to take from his talk is that no matter what your profession is do is with a passion and special love. It will make your life so rewarding and worth living.

          I know Elizabeth Smith. She was Avon’s Vice President until 4 years ago when the Board of Directors of OSI Partners, Inc. (parent company of……) called her to become the company’s CEO. I was at their Christmas Party, and waiting in line behind her to go into the ballroom of the hotel, she turned around and greeted me. I was so tempted and I said, Elizabeth, how do you feel wearing such big shoes? Her answer was. You know Maria; I do not know anything about OSI. I am learning. All I know is who I am and what I can bring to the table. Needless to say that the company just went publicly traded again last year, and its revenues were about 3.5 billion dollars. I’m sure some of us if not all can be another Elizabeth.

          Thank you. Questions?   

 References:

NWHM (National Women’s History Museum (2012). Partners in winning the war. Women in World War   

             II Retrieved from http://www.nwhm.org

 Reynolds, M. (2012). Emotional intelligence in the workplace. How does working with emotional    

             intelligence. Help business leaders. Retrieved from http:/www.task.fm.com

JABE (Journal of Academics and Business Ethics (2012). Professional women. The problems working 

            women face.  Retrieved from http://www.aabri.com/jabe.html    

HAPPY THANKSGIVING DAY!

HEALTH & SAFETY IN THE WORKPLACE

Abstract

Health and safety are topics of interest to any organization, to create workplaces healthy and safe, we mean not only to physical and mental health of the employees, but also to a work environment which guarantees the company productivity and the quality of working life, providing the effectiveness of the company and raising worker morale.

In order to create a better working environment, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was created by The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, in which employers and employees work together to ensure the health and safety in the workplace  (Mondy, 2012).

Keywords: health, safety, OSHA

Health and Safety in the workplace

          Health is not merely the absence of disease or infirmity as defined in medieval period by Galeno; it is a dynamic condition resulting from a body’s constant adjustment and adaptation in response to stresses and changes in the environment for maintaining an inner equilibrium (WebFinance, Inc, 2012). Health must  be understood as a process, and at the same time as the result of perceptual factors of functionality, projection and unstable equilibrium in the  biological environment in the context of a particular cultural- historical society which man is born, lives and dies  (Sanchez Santos, Amaro Cano, Cruz Alvarez, & Barriuso Andino, 2001).

          On the other hand, safety is considered a state relatively free of danger, risk, or threat of harm, injury, or loss to personnel or property, whether caused deliberately or by accident  (WebFinance, Inc, 2012).

          Proper care and management of both topics, health and safety are of paramount importance for the maintenance of a healthy work environment, where managing the balance between workplace conditions and employee,  result in  productivity and prestige for the company.

          Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) created by The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 is intended to ensure work safety and health in the United States, which is dedicated to developing conditions to optimize the working environment, requiring employers to guarantee safety in the workplace, but at the same time, states that the employers have a responsibility to furnish a workplace free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm  (Mondy, 2012).

          Every year occur around 120 million occupational accidents in the world, of which at least 200,000 are fatal  (El Diario de Hoy, 2004). In developing countries occur more fatalities than in industrialized countries, which increases the need for training programs focusing on health and safety prevention, but it remains a significant problem in this latter like many diseases that are known to affect workers in different ways.

          Because of the multitude of existing risks in most workplaces and the general lack of attention that many employers provide health and safety, accidents and work-related diseases remain serious problems in all parts of the world. They can  dramatically lower the effective of company  and employee moral as explained Mondy (2012), getting to be considerable expense that can occur, as huge costs to the state through social security payments, costs for medical treatment, and the loss of the employability of the worker; also costs to employer through payments to legal fees, fines, compensatory damages, investigation time, lost production, lost good will from the workforce, from customers and from the wider community  (Ewete, 2011), and no less important  the cost to the family economy.

          Health and safety, are two important fronts for the proper functioning of the work environment, in which not only must involve governments, employers and employees, but the whole society, because their negative impact will affect directly or indirectly on  entire it.     

References

El Diario de Hoy. (2004). Introduccion a la Salud y seguridad Laboral. El Diario de Hoy-elsalvador.com, http://www.elsalvador.com/riesgos/articulos/seguridad.htm.

Ewete, F. K. (2011, July 27). Slideshare.net. Retrieved from Importance of Occupational Safety: http://www.slideshare.net/IITA-CO/importance-of-occupational-safety

Mondy, R. W. (2012). Human Resources Management. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Sanchez Santos, L., Amaro Cano, M. d., Cruz Alvarez, N. M., & Barriuso Andino, A. (2001). INtroduccion a la Medicna general Integral. La Habana: ENCIMED.

WebFinance, Inc. (2012). businessdictionary.com. Retrieved from http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/health.html

ORGANIZATIONAL REDESIGN

Is organizational redesign inescapable?

            Organizational redesign as defined by ORC International (2012) is the process of redesigning an organization, also is named organization re-engineering  this process must fallowing three principles: first the entire system has an effect on each element within the system, second every element in the system has an effect on the entire system and on each other, and finally we must understand that no matter what we do the two previous point always hold true (Leadership and Motivation Training, 2012).

            All organizations have goals to be achieve or maintain that serve as requirements for their function, to achieve a goals depend on the environment of the organization, which often is dynamic, therefore the environmental circumstances impose requirements to the organization which change over the time, to adapt to this change the organizations have to change itself, this process is considered redesign, as suggested Hoogendoor, Jonker, & Treur (n.d).

            According to McKinsey & Company (2010) the most frequent reason cited for undertaking organizational redesign was for growth of the organization, also executives make it for cutting cost, moving to a best-practice model, and introducing change to a static organization.

            In my opinion the organizational redesign process is inescapable because in today's globalized world with the high level of competition, the increasing technological development, the information reaching our customers, if we want to stay in a competitive market, we should constantly review our processes, make changes to adjust to current market world, and when we are well positioned, we would have the vision to go forward.

Bibliography

Hoogendoor, M., Jonker, C. M., & Treur, J. (n.d.). Redesign of organizations as a basis for organizational chance. Retrieved from http://www.few.vu.nl/~wai/Papers/COIN06redesign.pdf

Leadership and Motivation Training. (2012). Leadership-and-Motivation-Trainig.com. Retrieved from Ready to make a dent in the universe?: http://www.leadership-and-motivation-training.com/organization-redesign-process.html

McKinsey & Company. (2010, Nov). McKinsey Global Survey. Retrieved from Taking organizational redesing from plan to practice: http://www.veruspartners.net/private/app/webroot/files/taor10.pdf

ORC International . (2012). Intota from ORC International. Retrieved from Expert Consulting & Expert Witness Services: http://www2.intota.com/experts.asp?strSearchType=all&strQuery=organization+redesigning

ETICA EN LOS NEGOCIOS

La Ética en los Negocios

La ética se le define como la ciencia del comportamiento moral, la cual determina como deben actuar los miembros de una sociedad, clasificando su comportamiento como bueno o malo (WordReference.com, 2012), de forma general se aplica a todas la esferas de la vida considerándosele como las reglas o estándares que gobiernan la conducta de los miembros de una profesión (Berube, Neely, & DeVinne, 1985), todo lo que coincide con lo explicado por Ramírez (2005) el cual la considera como una ciencia práctica y normativa, dedicada al estudio del comportamiento de los hombres, los que establecen una serie de normas con el objetivo de ordenar sus actuaciones (Ramirez, 2005).

Uno de los más antiguos relatos que la historia recoge en relación con la conducta ética está relacionado con Sócrates, filosofo griego fundador de la filosofía de la moral, el cual acusado de ateísmo y corrupción de la juventud de Atenas, fue condenado a morir; hace un llamado a la cero corrupción cuando uno de sus discípulos intenta salvarlo sobornando a sus carceleros, insistiendo en que no se debía burlar aquello convenido como justo (Yarce, 2012).  

Vivimos en un mundo totalmente globalizado, en el cual la diversidad cultural, racial, o geográfica, para citar algunas, se ha convertido en una característica cada día más imponente en nuestra organización, empresa y la sociedad a la que pertenecemos; por lo cual profundizar en el estudio de los valores, su entendimiento y comprensión justa, nos hace una demanda imperiosa para el funcionamiento de la interacción entre cada uno de los que componemos nuestros grupos.

Aplicando la ética a los negocios, comenzaremos estableciendo que una organización, una empresa o negocio en particular, no surge como consecuencia de la generación espontánea, todo lo contrario, como nos explica Socorro (2009), estas son creadas con un finalidad y propósito determinado, por lo tanto son responsables de crear sus códigos y valores, su propia ética empresarial; insistiendo en que son las personas las que deben adaptarse a estos patrones de ética establecidos, con los cuales deben identificarse al pasar a formar parte de esta organización (Socorro, 2009). De la misma forma nos puntualiza que es la organización la responsable de seleccionar sus integrantes teniendo en cuenta la coincidencia o similitud entre sus principios éticos y los valores de estos para garantizar un adecuado funcionamiento.

Después de que cada sociedad con el trascurso de su desarrollo establezca sus patrones morales, exigirá a sus organizaciones, sus empresas, negocios y profesionales, el cumplimiento de las normas de conducta moral que se han establecido, y además que se establezcan normas particulares en el ejercicio de cada profesión; como ejemplo tomaremos la ética relacionada con los servicios médicos, en el cual por su grado de vinculación directa con el valor fundamental de la sociedad, que es el propio hombre, la exigencia será aun mayor requiriéndose normas de conducta moral profesional creándose códigos especiales denominados “juramentos “capaces de  sostener el prestigio moral de estos grupos en la sociedad. (Sanchez Santos, Amaro Cano, Cruz Alvarez, & Barriuso Andino, 2001).

Todos los negocios alrededor del mundo deben de aplicar sus códigos de éticas dirigidos a hacer frente a todo problema no solo ético, sino legal y social en el medio en que se desarrollen, que  según nos apunta Abramov & Johnson (2003) no existe una sola forma de diseñar e implementar estos programas éticos, pero que al ejercerlo de forma sistemática se ha podido ver como se puede mejorar el desempeño del negocio, ampliando oportunidades para el crecimiento, contribuyendo al desarrollo del capital social de los mercados.

Concluyendo mencionaremos a Kidder Fiske (1914) el cual ratifico desde su época que la honestidad, el buen trato y  la buena fe son mejores como política de negocio, no solo como virtud moral, buena para el alma o necesaria para la salvación, reconociéndolo además de   principio ético para una buena reputación en las relaciones personales y necesario para la cohesión del bien en la sociedad, lo considera un “principio económico dominante, la base de la confianza, el fundamento para el éxito y la prosperidad material”. (Kidder Fiske, 1914).

Referencias

Abramov, I. Y., & Johnson, J. W. (2003). Business Ethics. Managing a Responsible Business. News From Commerce, Dec: 8-9.

Berube, M. S., Neely, D. J., & DeVinne, P. B. (1985). The American Heritage Dictionary. Boston, MA: Houghton Miffin Company.

Kidder Fiske, A. (1914). Honest Business. New York: The KnicKerbocker press.

Ramirez, J. (2005, July 1). monografias.com. Retrieved from Etica, Moral y Valores: http://www.monografias.com/trabajos23/etica/etica.shtml

Sanchez Santos, L., Amaro Cano, M. d., Cruz Alvarez, N. M., & Barriuso Andino, A. (2001). INtroduccion a la Medicina General Integral. La Habana: Ecimed.

Socorro, F. (2009, 12 28). deGerencia.com. Retrieved from Etica, Etica Empresarial y Responsabilidad Social: un punto de vista: http://www.degerencia.com/articulo/etica-etica-empresarial-y-responsabilidad-social

WordReference.com. (2012). WordReference.com. Retrieved from Online language dictionaries: http://www.wordreference.com/definicion/etico

Yarce, J. (2012, 05 22). deGerencia.com. Retrieved from Socrates: no a la corrpcion: http://www.degerencia.com/articulo/socrates-no-a-la-corrupcion

HACER EJERCICIOS MEJORA LA CAPACIDAD CEREBRAL

http://es.tendencias.yahoo.com/video/hacer-ejercicio-mejora-la-capacidad-170400377.html