Flexible Work Schedule and its Impact on Private Company Employee Research Proposal

Flexible Work Schedule and its Impact on Private Company Employee Performance in Saudi Arabia - Research Proposal Example In the 21st Century though, there is the need for some kind of departure from the normal 8-hour working day in a five working day need for several reasons. Bohlander & Snell (2009 p173) identifies that the departure from the normal schedule might be necessary to keep the organizational productivity high and enhance the morale of workers by giving them control over their work schedule. This is because people now have a wide array of needs and desires at different times of their lives. The typical expectations of a worker might be the need to attend to family commitments, need for leisure and pleasure to enjoy earnings and the need for social commitments like maintaining religious and extended family ties (Segev, 2005 p78). Additionally, deviation from the normal 8 to 5 work schedule allows businesses to maintain the stature of an attractive employer. This enables a business to attract the best employees on the open market. Collectively, the recruitment and selection of the best employees allows a business to attain long-term benefits for the business. Bohlander & Snell (2009 p174) identifies the concept of flexible work schedule as an attempt by a business to maintain high productivity levels whilst deviating from the traditional working-hour requirements of their employees. In other words, flexible work schedule (FWS) allows a business to set up a system which enables employees to continue working and meeting high levels of results without necessarily having to work from 8am to 5pm for five days in a week.... Bohlander & Snell (2009 p174) identify four main types of flexible work schedule. They include: 1. Compressed Workweek: This entails reducing the number of days in the workweek by lengthening the hours of work each week. Thus for example, a person might be required to work for ten hours a day and for four days in a week instead of eight hours a day for five days a week. The 4/10 work week will enable the worker to take a day off to attend to other things. 2. Flexitime: This is a system where the worker will be allowed to choose daily starting and quitting hours. Typically, the flexitime system might give the employee a range of possibilities which are negotiable, leaving peak hours or crucial hours as non-negotiable times (Liff, 2007 p74). Thus a worker can choose to start work at 6am and close at 2pm or start at 10am and close at 6pm, with each covering an 8-hour period. 3. Job sharing: This is where two part-time employees take one full time job. In this case, each of the employee might have to work for three days a week and from the synergistic efforts of the combined employees, the business would stand to gain more in terms of productivity. 4. Telecommuting: With telecommuting, an employee might be allowed to work from home. This can be attained by the use of modern real-time equipment and gadgets like computers, Internet and telephones. Through telecommuting, an employee can avoid the traffic of traditional commuting, save time and get to handle other social activities effectively. The human ecology theory of motivation suggests that individuals are affected by the external environment they operate within and this enables them to shape their inner thoughts and emotions to attain various results (Bubolz & Sontag, 1993 p2). This indicates that there

Discuss the importance of the Sahara and the Indian Ocean in ancient Essay - 2

Discuss the importance of the Sahara and the Indian Ocean in ancient African history - Essay Example Sahara region connected people from eastern, southern, central, north and some parts of western Africa. Among the countries that were touched are Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Congo, Egypt, and Nigeria among others. These countries contributed different commodities for trade according to their daily activities. For example, the southern Sahara region was a famous area in production of minerals, Egypt was well known for production of sorghum and Nigeria provided yams to the trading interaction (Giblin 10-13). These areas that were well known in production of agricultural products were part of the great hinterland that was served by the Indian Ocean. The areas were, therefore, linked to the outside world by the Indian Ocean that opened trade with Arabs and other people in the world. However, the trading interactions were not involving Africans and Arabs but Africans contributed a lot to the trade among themselves. The trading activities in that area involved exchange through barter trade of commodities that included foodstuffs and minerals as per different needs of different people in those regions. This is an evaluation of the activities that prevailed in the ancient Africa involving the Sahara Region and the Indian Ocean to inform the importance of these two features of African geography. The influence it brought to the people that lived in those areas as well as the benefits they reaped from these interactions discussed. There are things that informed the interactions between the people in these parts of Africa and were aimed at benefiting the people that engaged in them. For example, noting that most of the Sahara region is characterized by unreliable precipitation, there was serious need to get ways to acquire food that was not sufficient in those areas. For Egypt, sorghum was produced only after major floods that used to come in rare occasions. In other places, growing