Argument for the Use of Consensual Relationship Agreements (Cras) Essay Example for Free

Argument for the Use of Consensual Relationship Agreements (Cras) Essay Argument for the use of consensual relationship agreements (CRAs) in my current (or future) workplace Consensual Relationship Agreement (CRA) is a contract that both employees involved a romantic relationship sign to acknowledge that their relationship is voluntary and that they will abide by the policies of the company regarding anti-harassment and anti-discrimination. (Hellriegel Slocum ,2011). Office romance should be addressed in a more constructive and professional way just like behaviors such as attendance, dress codes, and non-disclosure agreements. If one can argue that it is perfectly acceptable for employees with personal challenges (such as death in the family, childbirth, sick family member) to receive assistance and, support in the form of personal time-off from work then it must be reasonable for other employees who become romantically involved to get some type of support from their employers. The risks of office romance can better be mitigated if the risk factors are known and managed. So, for example, lawsuits from employees who claim they were coerced into an office romance and disadvantaged by it would be avoided because employees signed the CRAs of their own volition. Allegations from other employees of real or imagined favoritism from a supervisor to a subordinate with whom he or she is romantically involved would be averted because HR would have already taken steps to ensure this does not happen. By creating a mechanism which provides specific and detailed guidelines for professional workplace behavior, HR professionals are able to educate and caution employees about appropriate or inappropriate workplace etiquettes. Privacy issues or lack thereof, as related to dating in the workplace would also be appropriately addressed with the employees involved so they cannot claim that were unfairly treated. Another compelling reason why one should argue for CRAs in their workplaces is that in light of the legal ramifications of the rights of employees in the workplace, CRAs become an expedient and prudent way to protect the interest of an organization and simultaneously provide safe and meaningful ways for employees to freely explore and express their sentiments for others who might feel the same way. Organizations spend a lot of time and resources on strategic planning and forecasting. The purpose of such planning is to position the organization to accomplish two major goals: stay abreast with, or ahead of, the competitive marketplace and change current processes and approaches that are not yielding desired, or expected results. These are proactive steps to assure progress and success. CRAs facilitate and enhance such strategic plans by staying ahead of a changing workplace in the modern age and ensuring that valuable human resources will not be lost and thereby jeopardize more important organizational goals and objectives. CRAs provide a framework for responsible behavior by employees, particularly, supervisors. It fosters a win-win work environment for employees who happen to be romantically involved with each other and for employers to provide guidance and direction for appropriate workplace behavioral expectations. By bringing the relationship into the open the employees involved would not feel pressure to go to great lengths to hide their relationship and could focus on being productive. Conversely, these employees would become pre-occupied with finding ways to hide their relationships if the company did not encourage workplace romance. Create a counter argument against the use of CRAs in your current (or future) workplace. Office romance must be forbidden in the workplace because it simply raises too many avoidable issues in the workplace. By its very nature, office romance predisposes employees involved to compromise their rational objective behaviors because their non-objective emotional senses tend to dominate their thoughts and actions. Romantic relationships are the result of spontaneous human behavior; they are not preconceived and therefore cannot be regulated or contained by contracts. Making CRAs a condition for employment is also not a good idea because, over time, the restrictions become unbearable and the parties involved find out that they are better off in different organizations where their actions and whereabouts will no longer be scrutinized by an assigned HR person. CRAs are tantamount to indirect employment agreement in that they indirectly impose restrictions on the individuals involved in the relationship and seek to protect the interest of the organization at the expense of the people who happen to be emotionally attracted to each other and choose to express those sentiments in an open and liberating way. CRAs simply become ineffective tools because the employees who even agree to sign them often find ways to secretly engage in behaviors that result in lapses in judgment because they are emotionally charged. In many respects, CRAs are intrusive and inherently designed to discourage workplace romance. By their very nature they put restrictions on a human behavior that is designed to be spontaneous and natural. Organizations are not equipped to handle issues of the heart and neither should they start now. Organizations need to focus on what they do best, increasing shareholder value and accomplishing other strategic goals and objectives. Discuss the ethical principles involved in the use of CRAs. There are many perspectives and convictions about what is, or is not ethical. However, there are no universally accepted principles and rules for resolving all ethical issues (Hellriegel Slocum ,2011). In a country with such great freedom of expression, one can only imagine the diversity of opinions and positions regarding the factors that drive people’s decisions and formulate their ethics. The range of such factors is as wide as the differences in people and this is reflected in the diversity of ethical principles. However, for the purposes of this paper only a handful of relevant ethics based principles Utilitarian, Professional Standards, Disclosure and Distributive principles will be considered: Utilitarian principle focuses on the magnitude, extent and impact of harm versus good of decisions that are made. The final decision is predicated on the weight of good versus bad – the greatest good for the greatest number (Hellriegel Slocum , 2011). On the basis of this principle, CRAs are believed to generate more good than harm for those who choose to engage in office romance. Disclosure Principle – This principle focuses on how most people in society will react to the details of a decision when it becomes public knowledge. Most organizations take social responsibility very seriously and will do their very best to garner positive public image. Consequently CRAs are viewed favorably by such organizations. Distributive Principle – This principle is predicated on fairness. The thrust of CRAs is a win-win arrangement for both the organization and the individual because most organizations generally perceive CRAs to be fair. Create at least one (1) other option besides CRAs that would address workplace romances. The only other option for workplace romances that may be plausible is for the organization to develop a set of policies based on the organization interest principle which focuses on the basis of what is good for the organization (Hellriegel Slocum , 2011). With this option, employees are expected to disclose any potential or actual conflict interest to the human resource professional within the organization. Conflict of interest covers a broad range of behaviors; however, this paper will focus on personal conflict of interest which stresses zero tolerance for discrimination and sexual harassment. This alternative approach to workplace romances would requires that an employee may not supervise someone with whom they have a close personal relationship such as anyone in their family, household or someone with whom they have or had a romantic relationship or other close personal relationship. Additionally, if one were to supervise someone even indirectly with whom they had one of the relationships described above, one must disclose the relationship promptly. Any acts of discrimination, sexual harassment or other harassment based on race, color, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation would be addressed under a zero tolerance policy.

Reverend Ambrose and Grant Wiggins in A Lesson Before Dying Essays

Suffering through the horrors of racism, black Americans appear to have no chance of progression in society.   Generation after generation of being uneducated and treated like animals has left the black community in shambles, and thinking they are not as good as the whites.   In the 1940's it was difficult to find a black man who could read and write. The black man's illiteracy caused them to believe that they were less civilized than the whites.   In Ernest Gaines' A Lesson Before Dying, we are introduced to Jefferson, an uneducated, average black man who has been wrongly accused of a murder.   Convinced that he is an animal, Jefferson is going to be taught by Reverend Ambrose and Grant Wiggins, the plantation schoolteacher, that he is actually a man.   Because Reverend Ambrose, and Grant Wiggins have such different teaching beliefs and personalities, they approach teaching Jefferson with conflicting views.     Ã‚  Ã‚   Reverend Ambrose and Grant Wiggins have very different educational backgrounds, which causes them to become foils for each other.   Grant Wiggins is a very important man in the black community, because he is the only one with a college education.   Many whites have not received this high of an education, and are offended by his intelligence.   Reverend Ambrose, a man who has received very little formal education, is ignorant compared to Grant. Ambrose, the religious leader of the black community, has been educated in the world of faith and religion.   When reverend Ambrose says in a verbal confrontation with Grant, "I'm the one that's educated.(Gaines 215 )", we are able to see that he thinks his knowledge of faith is more important than Grant's 'reading, riting, and rithmatic'.   Grant and Reverend Ambrose represent the ... ...being like a child finally resolves Grant and Ambrose's battle, for Jefferson is perceptive to Grant's physical form of teaching, but not to Ambrose's teaching of religion.   Ã‚  Ã‚   Jefferson uses the teachings of Grant, and dies like a dignified man.   He shows the white people that blacks are humans, by living the last weeks of his life as a civilized man.   Even though this story was fictional, the racism described in it was frighteningly true, and still is evident in the world today. Only in the 1960's would the black population finally band together and say 'we've had enough'.   The problem of racism cannot be resolved by one person, it requires an entire population to see it and stop it. "I don't know if they got a heaven cause samson say they cant be an boo say they aint non fo no niger but reven ambros say they is one for all an bok don't know."(Gaines 233)

Analysis of Edward Albee’s Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

According to Edward Albee, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? aims to examine whether American society was able to â€Å"live up to the principles of the American Revolution† (qtd in Bottoms 16). In another interview, he noted that the play stands as a response to O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh, a response that acknowledges that the denial of the self leads to fiction and prevents the acceptance of reality (qtd in Bottoms 46). In this sense, one might state that aforementioned play serves as a critique to the way of life led within American societies as it enables and tolerates the denial of reality through the creation of fictitious images of American culture. This is evident if one considers the similarities between the characters within the play. George and Martha stand as representations of the effects of the rapid shifts in the industrial, social, and historical climate within the United States to the individual. Nick and Honey, on the other hand represent the effects of these changes to the individuals whose existence started during this period. Within the play, George stands as the epitome of the individual whose commitment to life the self and to others has been deprecated by his career as an associate professor of history in New England. Martha, on the hand, stands as the embodiment of the angry, strong, and frustrated individual. The couple’s identities were emphasized by their counterparts Nick and Honey. Within the play, Nick represents the opportunistic superficial individual. Like George, who is also a professor, Nick is a new biologist instructor in the college. His wife, Honey, on the other hand is the daughter of a rich family who like Martha is plagued with hatred and terror which may be traced to her husband’s treatment. These feelings are veiled with a pretense of laughter. The characters, within the text, thereby portray distraught individuals who are continuously being destroyed by their pretenses and their failure to accept and realize their selves. Such a realization, however, was achieved by the protagonists (George and Martha) as they were able negotiate their identities as well as the recent failure of their marriage. Note for example that the initial part of the play portrays George and Martha as being engaged in verbal battle. Martha describes her husband as â€Å"A FLOP! A great†¦big†¦fat†¦FLOP† (Albee 84). The later part of the novel, however, shows an end to the verbal battle between the couple as the chasm between illusion and reality has finally been crossed. The question posed by George in the initial part of the play was answered. He states, â€Å"Truth and illusion. Who knows the difference? † (Albee 201). It seems, only those who can accept a life without illusions, one purely founded upon reality can know the difference and in effect can live a ‘real’ life. In the initial part of the essay, it was mentioned that Albee’s purpose for writing the play was to show the American society’s failure to live up to the ideals of the revolution. This failure lies in our failure to go beyond our pre-fabricated illusions. Our failure to face reality as is.

Methodological Issues in Educational Research A Review of...

Methodological Issues in Educational Research: A Review of Two Articles Article One: Qualitative Research on Educational Technology: Philosophies, Methods and Challenges Summary The author of this article claims that empirical research in education is hindered by the fact that researchers cannot produce generalizations fast enough to adapt the instructional treatments to the myriad of variables inherent in any given context of instruction (p. 2-3). Philosophical assumptions with regard to epistemology and ontology greatly influence instructional strategies and methods. Four philosophical perspectives are reviewed: objectivism and realism, idealism and rationalism, relativism, and pragmatism. The article goes on to discuss the use of three qualitative methods used in the field of educational technology research: ethnography, case study, and designed based. The author asserts that unlike other fields a rigorous qualitative study in educational technology is loosely defined. Data is often collected from a short period of time and identities of race, gender, class, and culture of both students and teachers are frequently absent. However, the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) has proposed a set of criteria conducting qualitative research in the field of educational technology in order to increase rigor, validity, and social relevance. Value of Article Regarding Educational Research Practice The inherent problems of qualitativeShow MoreRelatedTypes Of Integrative Review784 Words   |  4 Pagesthe correct studies for this integrative review, the student referenced Holly (2014) in order to develop a search strategy encompassing (a) defined concepts; (b) theoretical review and comparison; (c) methodological issue analysis; (d) accentuated knowledge gaps; (e) trend identifiers; and (f) current practices. The search strategy was inclusive of a grey literature as well as a literature search related to specific databases, keywords, and years. The two databases used were Google Scholar and CINAHL;Read MoreLiterature Review8362 Words   |  34 Pagesfirst publication to the Practical Assessment, Research Evaluation. Permission is granted to distribute this article for nonprofit, educational purposes if it is copied in its entirety and the journal is credited. Volume 14, Number 13, June 2009 ISSN 1531-7714 A Guide to Writing the Dissertation Literature Review Justus J. Randolph Walden University Writing a faulty literature review is one of many ways to derail a dissertation. This article summarizes some pivotal information on how to writeRead MoreEvidence Based Practice Proposal : Literature Support1292 Words   |  6 Pagesliterature review studies discuss the recurrent issue of higher and lower staffing ratios and how they affect patient outcomes. The studies show how several factors affect the nursing workload and the adverse results of the patients. The information is investigated under several methods that range from level one to a level five on the pyramid. The extensive research studies provide the support and the evidence on the issue needing change. Search Methods The evidence found, was focused on issues with staffingRead MoreAbstinence, Condom, And Health Promotion Related Prevention Of Stis / Aids Essay1504 Words   |  7 Pagesassumed the article would focus on abstinence, condom usage, and health promotion related to prevention of STIs. Introduction Maya A. Corneille, Raymond H. Tademy, Mitchelle C. Reid, Faye Z. Belgrave and Aashir Nasim were the authors of the article. They obtained admirable educational backgrounds, and withhold outstanding credentials. In addition, A. Nasim, M. Corneille, and F. Belgrave have their Ph.D. which determines their experienced backgrounds, which includes them writing over 28 articles. R.H TademyRead MoreMixed Methods8561 Words   |  35 PagesCross Business School 2011 Mixed method research designs: a case study of their adoption in a doctor of business administration program Peter John Miller Southern Cross University Roslyn Cameron Central Queensland University Publication details Post-print of: Miller, PJ Cameron, R 2011, Mixed method research designs: a case study of their adoption in a doctor of business administration program , International Journal of Multiple Research Approaches, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 387-402. Read MoreThe Lack Of Knowledge That Researchers Know About Public Policy Implementation1444 Words   |  6 PagesThis article focused on the lack of knowledge that researchers know about public policy implementation despite several years of research. Also, it attempts to alter the deficiencies by performing results from a comprehensive literacy review. Its main object was to: 1) challenge; 2) revises; 3) and add some conventional wisdom about implementation. In addition, provide a foundation for and start a much-needed mixture of experimental data research result. The author stated that: â€Å"The overall volumeRead MoreCritical Evidence For Professional Practice1755 Words   |  8 Pagestheir confidence and trust on their nurse based on the tested research that’s been carried out. The second part of the assignment is going to be a detailed critique from a chosen research article which is Qualitative. To do this, Cormack (2000) was used because this framework helps to evaluate research articles, also it focuses on several published research that is based on qualitative methodologies, with the aim of evaluating the article and how important it is for nursing practice as well as understandingRead Morenursing research3494 Words   |  14 PagesDemystifying nursing research terminology. Part 1 Cite this article as:  Welford C, Murphy K, Casey D (2011) Demystifying nursing research terminology. Part 1. Nurse Researcher. 18, 4, 38-43. Received February 12 2010; accepted October 29 2010 Correspondence to Claire Welford Email: claire.welford@ nuigalway.ie Claire Welford RGN, Dip NS, BNS Hons, MSc, PGC TLHE is HRB nursing research fellow Abstract Aim This article aims to provide clear explanations of the research approaches availableRead MoreEssay On Racism In America1326 Words   |  6 Pagescontroversial discussion about how racism has begun its last mile. Many question, if racism now is worse now than it was in the 1960’s and has America entered a post-racial era? If so where does America stand on the race issue and what challenges have occurred in this time. Through some research that I have done many believe that racism had not gotten worst it is only expressed more. Although, racism is being expressed more it is actually not because we had a black president. By Barack Obama becoming presidentRead MoreThe Non Technical Aspects Of Search Engines And Their Uses2302 Words   |  10 Pagesresearchers in the areas of library and information science have been interested for a long time in how people find material using various interfaces and databases, and these projects are not unrelated to the questions addressed by the articles in this collection (for a review of some of this work, see Bar-Ilan, 2003; Hsieh-Yee, 2001). However, work in this domain often only focuses on very small and non-representative samples and rarely considers the social context of searching (for a more elaborate discussion