Should organisations always try to hire employees with high levels of Essay

Should organisations always try to hire employees with high levels of Agreeableness - Essay Example In a real work environment, employees have unique character traits that in one way of the other influence teamwork, cooperation, innovation and problem solving abilities that affect their adaptation to the work environment. Management of organizational behaviour has identified five giant characters that including openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism (OCEAN), all which contribute to the development of the organization. However, they have recognized that all these characters have their dark and light side to the organization. Agreeableness, just like any other organizational behaviour, has its positive and negative sides to the firm. All in all, organizations should strive to obtain employees with the highest level of agreeableness. Agreeableness is a trait that has generated mixed reactions among many organizational behaviour analysts with some expressing a high regard for it and other pin pointing the weaknesses of this trait. Slocum and Hellriegel l defined agreeableness as the virtue of an employee to be warm, tactful, cooperative, tolerable and humble and portraying minimal coldness and rudeness1. In the general, these traits are advantageous to an organization although at times they are accompanied by elements that may be consequential to organizations. 1D., Hellriegel, and W. Slocum, Organizational Behaviour. Mason, OH, South-Western Cengage Learning. 2009. P. 45 The advocates of this trait argue that agreeableness is the source of harmony, peace, excellent team work, accommodating leadership and loyalty in a business system. On the other hand, critics have criticized this trait on the ground that employees with these traits show weakness in exercising confidence, criticizing wrong organization behaviour and conflict resolution in times that demand critical decision making. Teamwork is one of the valuable elements of an organization that binds employees to the collective goals and objectives of an organization that define its end task. Team work ensures that employees remain cohesive and cooperative during the project implementation process to execute all the designated roles. An agreeable person is friendly, sociable and warm while associating with their colleagues in the organization2. Consequently, an agreeable person will find it easy to get along with the other employees and will form part of a concrete team that will ensure a smooth progress of the business operations, hence the success of the organization. For instance, an agreeable person will avoid conflicts that arise during the period of work preferring peaceful situations rather than aggravating the conflicting. Conflicts are sources of tensions in the workplace, which slows the progress of the work and misaligns the employees from the organizational goals. From this point of view, the ability of management to select agreeable employees will form part of the role of team building. In leadership, agreeable people create a conducive work e nvironment that motivates employees to remain active and focussed in their duties in the organization. Competent leaders have a role to maintain a peaceful working environment by engaging employees in a constructive exchange of ideas. 2A., Neal, G., Yeo, A. Koy, T. and Xiao. Predicting the Form and Direction of Work Role Performance from the Big 5 Model of Personality Traits. Journal or Organizational Behaviour, vol. 33 , 2012. Pp. 175-192 Agreeable persons will encourage employees to contribute and raise their concerns more

Teaching ESL through Culture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Teaching ESL through Culture - Essay Example The complexity was actually compounded when the aspect of culture comes into play. With the growth of technology that contributed to breaking barriers of time and distance, people from various cultures felt the most eminent need to learn ESL, considering English as the universal language. In this regard, the objective of the essay is to review six pertinent literatures that delve into the subject of teaching ESL with culture seen as playing a crucial role in learning and reinforcing literacy and proficiency. Defining Culture From evaluating the contents of the six articles, one observed that in discussing the role that culture plays in teaching ESL, several authors acknowledged that defining the term ‘culture’ proffered challenges due to its broad perspectives. Lafayette acknowledged that â€Å"because culture can be defined so broadly, it is often difficult for teachers to select those aspects that should be included in the curriculum at various levels of instructionâ €  (6). ... omprises a set of symbolic systems, including knowledge, norms, values, beliefs, language, art, customs, as well as habits and skills learned by members of a given society† (Young, Sachdev, & Seedhouse, 2009, p. 149). From among the definitions noted, Young, et al. included language as part of the definition acknowledging the important role it plays in the communication process. Problems in Incorporating Culture in Teaching ESL Aside from the dilemma in defining the term, most authors have revealed that there were apparent apprehensions for incorporating teaching culture in the ESL curriculum (Lafayette, 1978, p. 6). Sauve have enumerated seven problems with teaching culture in the Canadian ESL classroom, to wit: (1) naming â€Å"a Canadian culture† (Sauve, 1996, p. 17); (2) unprepared academic programs for teaching cultural aspects; (3) a conceptual dilemma of defining ESL; (4) perceived decline in valuing the ESL professional; (5) the role of immigrant educators as ESL staffs; (6) biased society in favor of white, Anglo-Saxon, Christian and of middle class tradition and values (Sauve, 1996, p. 22); and (7) time context and priorities. The article written by Young, et al. highlighted concerns that included ambiguity in determining â€Å"whose culture should be a focus for study on English language program† (Young, Sachdev, & Seedhouse, 2009, p. 151) and how effective an identified approach would be after taking into account the increasing predominance of nonnative speaking (NNS) teachers of a language and their acknowledged difficulty in teaching culture with the ESL realm. Finally, Byram and Kramsch (2008) disclosed the problem of cultural translation by citing Geertz’s words as: â€Å"Translation is not a simple recasting of others' ways of putting things in terms of