EOC Week 10 - My Plans

In the next upcoming years, I see myself finally graduating and pursuing my career as a full time fashion blogger. This may not seem like the ideal career path to some, but it’s what truly makes me the happiest and it’s what I want to do. Las Vegas has been difficult to grow as a fashion blogger so I plan on moving to Los Angeles. The networking, community, fashion scene, and overall city of Los Angeles is so inspiring and I want to be a part of it all. After graduation, I will have to save up for the move since LA is a pretty expensive city to live in.

If fashion blogging isn’t paying the bills as I hoped that they would, then finding a part time job as a social media specialist, freelance social media for companies, or a stylist is an option and career I would like to pursue. I really enjoy being my own boss and having open creativity which is why freelance is what I want to do. 

I see myself living on the West Coast for the rest of my life. If a good job opened up on the East Coast though, I would be open to pursuing that as well. But since all of my family lives on the West Coast, this is really home for me. 

It’s hard to think about where I see myself in the next years, because life changes so much and you never know what’s going to happen next. I’ve learned that it’s good to have plans but it’s also good to know that those plans are always subject to change. I just want to continue to pursue my dreams and see where it all ends up taking me. 

EOC Week 9: The Apartment

There were so many workplace issues in this movie. The main and most obvious one was the frequent "Quid Pro Quo" situations happening. "Quid pro quo harassment occurs in the workplace when a manager or other authority figure offers or merely hints that he or she will give the employee something (a raise or a promotion) in return for that employee's satisfaction of a sexual demand." Even though in Baxter's case it wasn't for sexual favors, he was still doing favors for his manager that would help him move up. Mr. Baxter lent his apartment out many times a week to his managers and even his main boss in order to move up. They would often pressure him into lending the room out even when he didn't want to and would even threaten his job if he didn't cooperate. He also tried to bribe Baxter for his apartment key with tickets to a show. Baxter ended up taking the tickets as well. 

According to the book, "From a legal perspective, if harassment is established under the quid pro quo version, the employer automatically is liable and will be held accountable for whether or not steps were taken to correct the situation. In contrast, an employer's liability in a hostile work environment case must be established by showing not only that the harassment occurred, but also that the employer did not take appropriate action to stop it." Even though Mr. Baxter was dealing with these issues and getting harassed, it was also his responsibility to not allow it and to report it.

There were also a few instances of sexual harassment, including one of the male workers spanking the elevator operator on the butt with a newspaper. “According to the book, Sexual Harassment is any unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature.” That being said, spanking another employee on the butt with a newspaper is a form of sexual harassment. 

The employees were also victims of favoritism. Many employees were able to move up due to managers liking them, while other employees who had seniority had difficulty moving up. 

Towards the end of the film, the secretary also was using the phone for personal time and issues. There were so many employment issues in this movie. 

EOC Week 8: 9 to 5

In the movie 9 to 5, there are many issues in the work place. A few of those being many sexual comments that were said and sexual advances that the boss made with his employee. According to the book, sexual harassment is: "Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature. " This was seen quite frequently with the boss and Dolly Parton's character. He would push things off his desk and have her pick them up just so he could look down her shirt. He also bought her gifts when she told him many times that she was married and not interested. 

Sexual harassment can happen anywhere but is most common in the workplace. It involves unwelcome words, deeds, actions, gestures, symbols, or behaviors of a sexual nature that make the target feel uncomfortable. Gender and sexual orientation harassment fall into this form of harassment. All of these sorts of behaviors were happening with Dolly’s boss to her. 

Spreading rumors, playing pranks, inflicting property damage, vandalism, sabotage, armed robbery, theft, physical assaults, psychological trauma, anger-related incidents, rape, arson, and murder are all examples of workplace violence. Spreading of rumors was happening when many of Dolly’s coworkers thought that her and the boss were having an affair. 

The issues started at the beginning of the movie when the mentor was training the new employee and it was very obvious that she didn't want to train her. This behavior gives the new employee a bad impression and that this place isn't a good place to work. The mentor continues her inappropriate work behavior by talking bad about other employees behind their back. 

The manager of this place had many issues and did many inappropriate things too. He would ask his employees to do meaningless tasks in order for them to move up or get promoted. He would also give a worker a promotion just because they had a family and they were male.  

Overall, this place was a bad work environment, and nothing was being done to fix the issues.

EOC Week 7: Profile Statements

Fashion blogger with five years of social media experience. By collaborating with many brands, I have been able to optimize my online presence.

Skilled at identifying industry trends and applying them to my work. 

Experienced fashion blogger with over five years of social media experience. My years of collaborating with many brands and optimizing my online presence, I am the ideal candidate for a social media job. Skilled at identifying industry trends and applying them to my work.

Many years of fashion blogging and social media experience make me the perfect candidate for a social media position. Collaborating with many brands has allowed me to optimize my online presence and equipped me with tools for a career. 

EOC Week 6: Job Analysis

This sounds like a great career opportunity for someone who loves fashion and also has a lot of interest in social media. Free People is a company that is owned by Urban Outfitters INC. When Free People first started, it was just a brand inside of Urban Outfitters but it's popularity grew and the brand decided to start their own line and website. Since 2004, Free People has been around and today it has many store locations and it a variety of countries.

This would be a great entry level position for someone who has a college degree and wants to get into the fashion industry. This job requires a lot of self motivation and being able to set goals for oneself. Someone who has retail experience or experience with the brand would probably be the most successful and well for the job. 

JOB DESCRIPTION:

Free People is hiring a Brand Social Media Specialist to continue to build & execute the brand’s Social Media strategy for all social channels including, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, TMBLR, YouTube, Snap Chat, Vimeo and more. This exciting role will act as a brand representative through interacting and engaging with fans. A key function of this role will be to work across multiple areas ensuring that our creative content gets the most possible mileage while keeping the brand voice consistent. Another focus is to create & facilitate a weekly calendar and report on the successes and opportunities in the social space. We’re looking for the perfect balance of creative thinking and business savvy, who also gets the customer and understands how to communicate with her.

Responsibilities

• Leverage social media to build awareness of the Free People brand, ecommerce site and blog.  Optimize social media to maximize traffic to FP owned channels.  Grow followers across key social media channels to meet business goals.
• Manage Day-to-Day Communications on all Social Channels
  • Build weekly calendar to ensure bigger marketing messages are strategically placed
  • Create captivating product driven posts to increase fan engagement and improve website traffic
  • Partner with creative and content teams to coordinate post schedule and manage all content from those areas
  • Create engaging conversations on all social channels to drive engagement and participation
  • Coordinate and increase fan/follower engagement on all social channels
  • Ability to analyze social media metrics and translate the key learning into actionable insights
  • Handle customer service issues
    • Understanding of product, corporation policies & procedures
    • Ensure customer concerns  are properly and quickly handled
  • Quickly respond to customer concerns and questions via all social channels
    • Monitor channels during off hours
• Comprehensive Understanding of Social Analytics
  • Analyze posting times & content
  • Create weekly & daily reporting based on business needs
  • Execute tagging implementation
  • Ability to adjust tactics based on analytic data
• Cross-Functional Communication & Collaboration
  • Promote social media tactics as a fundamental part of the marketing media mix
  • Work with internal teams to maximize efficiencies and maintain a fluid message to the target audience
  • Conduct weekly meetings with merchandising, sales & marketing teams to build a weekly/monthly cohesive business focus
  • Partner with the editorial team, and creative teams on content ideation
  • Manage, understand and maximize opportunities with external social enterprise solution partners
  • Partner with Digital Marketing/Analytics team for Paid Social marketing
• Social Media Expert
  • Stay well-informed of best practices and trends in the social media world
  • Monitor other general social successes & opportunities
  • Constantly ideate new tactics to improve the social media experience and processes
    • Focus on follower retention as well as new follower acquisition by expanding brand awareness to the key demographic
  • Ability to introduce the brand & expand the social media strategy internationally

Qualifications

• 2+ years experience
• Excellent creative writing and editing skills
• Highly self-motivated and results driven
• Ability to collaborate and work with cross-functional departments
• Highly organized, ability to prioritize & manage multiple tasks at once
• Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing, Advertising, or equivalent experience
• Proven track record in meeting deadlines
• Experience with online social media measurement platforms & tools
• Passion for the Free People product, lifestyle, brand & social media
• Proven understanding of how to acquire fans and expansion of brands Internationally
• Social media portfolio presentation upon interview will be required (either personal or business)

Week 4 EOC Physical Attractiveness

I don't think this should be legal when it comes to the hiring process. A company could be missing out on a great employee just because they don't like what they look like. One can't control what they look like either, they were born that way. This also goes against ethical principles. The book states that many hospitality managers have ethical principles that include: "Fairness. Treat individuals equally; be tolerant of diversity." This means that everyone should have a fair shot at the position regardless of what they look like. I do believe that the company can let the applicant know that they are required a certain style of dress/outfit or require them to wear makeup and look their best. Then the applicant can decide if the position is right for them.

“An employer can no longer seek out preferred individuals based on non-job-related factors such as age, gender, or physical attractiveness. Those that do so may be confronted with significant legal problems.” according to the book there are legal constraints when it comes to hiring employees. So physical attraction isn’t a fair reason for someone to get a job or for someone not to get a job. 

"Questions about physical traits like height and weight have been found to violate the law because they eliminated disproportionate numbers of female, Asian-American, and Spanish-surnamed applicants." Any questions that are asked about physical appearance are not appropriate and shouldn’t matter as part of the hiring process. If questions were asked with this sort of nature, it would give me some red flags about the position and the company. 

Overall, I don’t think that physical attractiveness should ever be a reason to hire or not hire someone. 

Week 3 EOC Employee Recruitment and Selection

A.) I believe the NELA sponsors the Workplace Fairness website in case there are any employees that find something they think is happening at their work that isn't fair and they can go to the Employment Lawyers for questions or assistance. This is a great way for them to get more cases as well.

B.)  1. Resources that are available on this site include finding an employee lawyer. 
2. Information on workplace rights in many categories such as Hiring & Classifications, Termination & Unemployment, Discrimination, and more. 
3. Another resource includes the steps one can take when it comes to protecting ones rights in the workplace and answers questions one might have about the process. 

C.) Some work-related issues that one might want to seek information found on the site is any sort of harassment. Any sort of discrimination or unfair treatment might be another reason an employee would want to seek out information on the site as well. Hospitality managers can find out more information about the situation and determine whether or not they will need to terminate someone. If needed, they can turn to the HR policy book for some guidance "HR policy(ies): A course of action selected from alternatives and designed to guide future decision making."

Week 2 EOC Case Study: Human Resource Management in Action

This is a tough situation but I think I would support Donna. She has been a loyal employee and very hard working. She doesn't call in sick often and would often times cover shifts for those who did call in sick even if it was her day off. I think she deserves a little bit of slack especially since it was her only daughters' graduation. If it were any other occasion then it wouldn't be acceptable but since this is a big part of her daughter's life, I would expect her mom to be there to experience it.

I would also let Donna know that this is the only time that this is acceptable, any other no-shows and she will be terminated. 

However, there are no laws in the book stating that she would be allowed to not show up due to a family event. Donna should know that work comes first and she committed to this job. 

As a boss, I would want my employees to feel appreciated without them taking their job for granted. Since she was such a loyal employee and I would want to keep employees like her around, I would probably pass this circumstance as a warning. 

Week 1 EOC Best and Worst Jobs

I have been pretty lucky when it comes to jobs. I've worked in retail only and worked majority of my time at a boutique called Free People. Out of all of my jobs, my time as a part time manager at Free People, this was probably the best one. There were still plenty of problems and headaches but it was the job I got paid the most and felt like I somewhat mattered. I also really respected my manager which made coming to work a lot better. What I really enjoyed about this job was that I got to be creative every now and then. I was able to help with the Instagram, displays, and the mannequins. It was a cool environment to be around and be inspired by the clothing.
This job wasn't always candy and butterflies though. At one point, I had a really bad manager who was very emotional while at work, would talk badly about her bosses, and would make us stay after hours...often times without a break.
But my least favorite job was at a small local boutique. I worked there for a short amount of time and was very part time. My boss was a bit of a diva (not the good kind) and played favorites with the employees. I didn't feel like I was respected or taken seriously which really made me want to leave. I ended up moving to Portland so I had to put in my two weeks.

Week 1 My Voice

My name is Tonya Smith and I am a Fashion Marketing student at the Art Institute in Las Vegas. I grew up in he Northwest in a small town in Washington called Naches. When I turned 15 I decided to pack up my bags and move to my dad's house on the other side of Washington. During this time of my life, I really got to spread my wings and evolve into who I am today. During my senior year of high school, I decided to start a blog. I put a lot of time and energy into it and eventually the hard work payed off. From creating this blog I realized how much I really love fashion and being creative as much as possible which sparked my decision to move to Portland and enroll at the Art Institute. Portland was the one city that I really felt at home and constantly inspired but I decided just a couple of months ago to pack my bags once again and move to sunny Las Vegas. Through all of my experiences, I've realized that it's impossible to make a plan when it comes to your life. You just have to roll with the punches as best as you can. I'm excited to see what life has up it's sleeve for me.