Freshman Seminar

To be honest I was not looking forward to taking this class, the way it was describe to me and the fact that it didn’t count towards any credits made think that it was going to be a waste of my time. Como to find out I was wrong about the class and way that it was describe to me wasn’t really a description. This course puts into perspective, many aspects of life that each adult has to deal with in their professional careers.  On the other hand the course helped many of us out with any questions we had about the university and especially when we reviewed the sheet will al the humanities we had to take. Just find out a week later that had change, and we were going to have to choose other courses since the career plan had change, but that was the courses fault.

One aspect I will take away from this class is all of the topics we covered about the workplace and activities related to each topic. In opinion they were great, and for some classes I wish we had a more time to discuss the different topics about the workplace. I do have to be honest, I did not real the book in full, but I promise myself that I would do it. Because the parts that I read were made up of great material that can be apply in both our personal and professional lives.  Therefore we can only take positive feedback from the lessons taught throughout the book.

Semana 13 Tema 11-13

DESARROLLO DE HABILIDADES POLITICAS POSITIVAS

Ethical behavior is crucial to a company’s success, without it a company would not be able to function as a respectful and safe environment. This personal opinion is reinforce by the fact that most companies including the one I work for, invest a lot of resources on creating a code of ethics that each employee must follow. Failure to adhere to the code of ethics in my place of work can result in disciplinary actions up to termination. Therefore we have been giving the proper tools and resources as to how to report unethical behavior in the workplace. As a result of that it’s quite easy to report unethical behavior in my place of work, but before doing so there must constructive evidences before pleading to such behavior.

            Ethical behavior is applied in the private sector much more than it is the public sector here in Costa Rica. As a country we’re constantly dealing with unethical behavior right before our eyes, from the issues with “La Trocha” to the concession of the road that intended to be build at the expense of the citizens, while other get rich. That’s the reality of this country but the government is who is responsible for inducing this type of unethical behavior which is passed on to generations. As long as our government does create a code ethics for citizens and themselves to abide by, we will continue to have problems with unethical behavior taken place among us.

CONDUCTA ETICA Y LIBERTAD PERSONAL Y RESPONSABILIDAD SOCIAL.

            In my opinion opportunities in life come after the hard work has been done, I don’t think that they just fall from the sky. The reason why in my opinion it’s simple, I’ve to work hard to get to where I ‘am right now and I can say that nothing was given to me. In fact I had to work very hard to accomplish my goals which have taken me up the ladder at each job I had and in the position I currently hold. The strategic to get to the top and get that much wanted opportunity is to work hard at it, without drifting away from the code of ethics. For example I want move the ladder at my job. I have to let my work and actions speak for themselves instead of depending on other factors to get me there. Such as inviting and bribing my superiors to get on their good side and to say the least we should always avoid cheating, doing so will not get you anywhere.

            There are norms as well as rules that we must follow to get the job we want, but most important to hold it once we have it. I have been very fortunate (because of hard work) to higher positions at jobs held in the past, but most important in the one I currently hold. At my place of work I have manage to move up the ladder not just one but two positions. How did I get there? The answer is simple… I simply try to exceed expectations set by my superiors and most important have a positive attitude towards the job, even when I’m not I don’t let my emotions get the best of me which it has pay dividends.  

            What are some of the suggestions to improve ethical behavior in Costa Rica?

DESARROLLO DE HABILIDADES PARA SATISFACER AL CLIENTE

It’s part of my job duties to provide customer with the best possible customer service held by Bank of America standards. We are talking about the biggest bank of the United States, which has over 300,000 employees and about 60 million customers worldwide. I work in the credit card department where every day we have service customers with inquiries and request about their credit cards. We want their business and appreciated as well, therefore to make sure they continue being Bank of America cardholders we must provide the best customer service we can, not only for the customer but also because our incentives and job itself depends on it.

I've had my share of positives and negative experiences while dealing with customer over the phone. As result I don’t have an specific example of call that sticks out the most, but I do have certain types of calls that can influence in a positive or negative experience for the customer. A positive experience is giving to the customer just about every time they call to get fee waived, even though I have a process to follow I always take full control of those calls to make sure that customer realizes that I’m removing the as courtesy and to make them feel special as well. On the other hand there are other types of calls in which the customer are quite stubborn, consequently it creates the conversation to become tense and most of the time the customer will leave dissatisfied. I do my best to make sure that does not happen but there’s a point in which anything I say won’t get through the customer mind set. These types of uncomfortable calls are a product of the customer not understanding how finance charges work when the account is not pay in full. Therefore they become quite stressful for both the agent and customer and most of the time the customers don’t understand it and drop the line unhappy.

Personally I have study in depth the different types of customers that call into the bank, thus I have my own way of dealing with each type, but I have to be honest it awhile before I got the grasp of each of them. I have to deal with elderly, baby boomers, young adults, teenagers (18-21), rude, stubborn, know it all (at least they think they do) and the one’s that lied to get what they want. Many of us have hear that “the customer is always right”, well in opinion that can only apply sometimes but I do not see it as a norm. I have come up with my own way to provide quality customer service; here are the steps I take:

1.      Acknowledge the customer

2.      Understand the issue or request

3.      Paraphrase

4.      Tell the customer how I can fix and explain it

5.      Go over the resolution provide

6.      Ask the customer if there’s anything else I could assist them with

Those simple steps have resulted in positives experiences to my customers, which are reflected on the surveys they answer. For the last year I've manage to get to reach the target or exceeded it according to Bank of America standards.

            There are other techniques that can be apply to provide top notch quality service, which results in exceeding the customer expectations by going the extra mile. The techniques I use to exceed the customer expectations are simple, I like to recognize future needs the customer might have or how to prevent future inconveniences with their credit cards. For example if customer calls to make a last minute payment I go ahead and provide them not one but several other payment options to help them avoid any late fees in the future. While on the other hand if I notice the customer will be traveling, I go ahead and make them aware that it’s highly recommended to set up a travel notification to prevent their credit card being decline while they are taking their vacation. The customers are very thankful when they noticed that we are taking care of them and needs. As result we are exceeding their expectations but most important creating a deepen relationship between the largest bank in the U.S. and a single customer.

That’s my method of providing good customer service to my customers. What are some techniques use by you guys while dealing with customer face to face?  

como motivar a los demas

I believe that motivation is one of the main components any one needs to move forward. In my opinion without motivation just about all of our dreams wouldn’t be anything but a simple dream. Motivation drives our mind and body to do our best to turn our dreams into reality. Motivation can come from within but it can very well come from others trying to motivate us, our souls are not able to self motivate every day. On those days in which we lack motivation, it’s nice to receive motivation from others whether it’s in school, work, college, or with what life throws at us. Although on the other hand, sometimes we have to be the ones that have to motivates others. If we want to be leaders we need have the ability to motivate others even we ourselves lack motivation.

In the current job I hold, motivation is a quality that I must possess to interact with my trainees. I have to take individuals and trained to become specialist in a product which is quite hard to master, and they have to do so in only four weeks. This can bring a lot of pressure on employees trying to master the product, and has sometimes leaded them to quite the job. Therefore I have to make sure to do a fine job, trying to motivate them to push the limits while at the same time make them confident that will succeed within the four weeks of real training. There are many different methods used to motivate the associate, anywhere from raffles to pep talks to help motivate individuals.

Any job site without motivation can become a stressful environment for the employees and well as the employers. If I start to analyze what my job would be without motivation, the outcome would not be what it is today. During the last month the line of business had a lot work coming and it needed a bugger workforce to successfully take care of all the customers expected. Therefore they started to offer an unlimited availability for employees to do overtime. Since the respond from the employees was quite well, the line of business decided to give every employee who recorded overtime hours raffle tickets. They were offering TV’s, DVD’s, soccer balls, and a vacation package. As a result more employees were enjoying doing overtime hours to increase their odds to win the prizes. Although I logged a few hours of overtime I still didn’t win anything.

Coaching is an extremely important component to teach others how to do a task not only as good as the teacher but hopefully better so that humanity can advance. The proper coaching can pay great dividends when it’s done properly but most important with patience. A good coach must possess a quality that allows them to effectively coach others, some of those qualities are: listen carefully, pay attention to detail, confidence, caring for others, do not compete and show enthusiasm for accomplishments of others. Those characteristics put together will also help the coach deal with many types’ personalities which eventually will need coach.

What would we do if our employer did not invest any time in motivating the employee and on top of that he/she did not have good qualities as a coach?  

Mision y Vision de la Empresa

Empresa: Fresh Gums

Yo pertenezco a la empresa Fresh Gums cuya misión es brindar una pasta de diente jamás vista para consumidores y con una visión de proclamarse come pasta dental numero uno de los consumidores. Tenemos como meta poder satisfacer las necesidades de todo aquel que quiera mantener una sonrisa esplendida para que nuestro propósito sea haga realidad, el cual es que los consumidores de nuestro producto tengan una sonrisa sana.

HABILIDADES PARA LLEGAR A SER UN BUEN LIDER

Leadership is a crucial component of any job no matter what it is there’s always a need for it.  A leader must have the qualities mentioned on the chapter; at least most of them while the rest can be improve with time. I’m one of those that believes that not everyone can be leader, although we can develop the qualities in a leader I don’t think that one can be made if that individual does the not have the personality traits required. A leader must a have the availability to inspire, provide support and most important deal with different types of personalities.

Being a leader is not easy by any means, it’s crucial that a leader poses the arsenal of qualities to successfully carry personnel out. There are nine crucial characteristics a leader must pose, but in my opinion some are more important than others because in my team at work we focus on certain traits for our manager to have. We look for confidence, enthusiasm, encouragement, sense of humor and trust. Our manager is our direct leader and we have to make sure he can help us out whenever a conflict presents or we have to get guidance from him. Sometimes the whole team gets stressed out or we just have our head down. In these situations is when those characteristics come into play, thankfully most of the time he has been able to turn our negatives though into positive thoughts.

There are several leaders I have worked with, and most of them have made a positive impact on my professional career. I admired my current Unit manager, I believe he has all of the qualities the book mentions although a few a more well develop than others. He possesses a great sense of humor, self confidence, intelligence, passion, enthusiasm and most important a great deal of knowledge about the job. An important he has is that his social skills are well develop, I personally have the confidence to approach him at any time, and he will always pay attention and work with no matter what’s brought to him. I have been a leader in every job I’ve had, as result I believe I have the potential to be a great leader whenever my name gets called up. I do admit I also have my fair share of qualities to work on, but nothing that can’t be develop.

I always look for the good and bad qualities a manager has, in fact I’m sort of a leader with in my team. I have gained the trust of my teammates; therefore when they have a problem and my manager is not there or they simply don’t feel comfortable with something that my manager is not doing they approached me to give me feedback. I take mental notes about what they tell me, because I can the times my manager is gone I’m the one who has to take on the role. Doing so helped a lot for the last three months in which we had a manager sent to a different department, and we had to wait of manager to go through the training phase of the job. I was able to get good feedback from team when they were asked about my performance. I was also given feedback on different aspects of my leadership which I had to improve on, which I go to work on them right away. 

SOLUCION DE CONFLICTOS CON ASERTIVIDAD

In every job eventually conflict takes place, it’s inevitable that it won’t take place even if we try not to create it. No one wants to have to deal with conflict in a place where we spent the majority of our time.  Therefore we need to aware of how to deal and react properly when conflict appears at our job, whether it’s with co-workers or even our superiors. There are different types of conflict we can come up across, such as:  interpersonal, competition, conflict between functions, request made by employees, and types of personalities. The importance of being well educated on how to deal with different conflicts can pay dividends to any employee. Doing so will help that individual succeed and stand out above the rest, for the ability to get along well with just about everything.

In my current job I’ve notice that we do have all if not more of the conflicts previously mentioned. Although there’s one conflict that stand above the rest, competition is a crucial component of what we do. My peers and I are aware that whichever can obtain the best metrics at the end of each month and year will have the best odds to not only get a pretty raised on their pay but also will have chance to grow within the company. I have been blessed while at the same time worked very hard and beat my competition to the top. While doing so there were obstacles, that needed to cleared. I used previous job experience to overcome those obstacles, but one important trait about me during that process was the fact that I was never selfish with my knowledge or to help others.

I was aware that I was sharing information and tips as to how to do a job better, that could potentially make others competing with me at the top knowledgeable and put it into practice. Although I was sharing information I was also crating bonds with others, trying to avoid conflict of interest among ourselves. Thankfully I played my cards that way I was supposed to and it paid off. I was choose for the two positions which I applied for, while managing conflict the way I supposed, but there were some areas of opportunity for myself which have worked on ever since.

Pregunta:

Al ir a realizar una gestión en otro servicio encuentra a un compañero irritado y tenso. La cosa no se debe a su presencia sino que ya se encontraba en este estado, usted le dice:

First of all it’s important to identify why the co-worker is upset. Once we have recognized the he actually tense and upset with some else on their mind we have to be careful to not say anything that might trigger them to go off. What I have done in those situations is asked if there’s anything I could do or if they want to talk about it. If the person does not want to share what’s bothering them, then I go ahead and cautiously tell them whatever I need to. If everything goes well after words I may offer some encouraging words depending on how have the conversation went.

Although no one wants to experience conflict, we all know that eventually we’ll have to deal with it. When we have to experience conflict to have to think with a settle mind and do our best to turn the negatives to positives. We have to put out thoughts together and choose them wisely, as a result we would be working on turning them into positives. Instead of focusing on the problem, it’s more important to focus and come up with a solution. I believe that in our costarican culture we focus too much on the problem but less on the solutions. Think where we could be if we were to focus more on solutions than the conflicts?