Budget Interview

1. What is the hardest thing when managing a budget?

2. How do you assess what needs to be covered in your budget?

3. How do you develop a plan for your budget?

4. How do you implement that plan?

5. What is the process of evaluation of your planned budget and its success?

I had the opportunity of interviewing the owner of a small accountant firm. It is just him in the company so his budget planning and keeping is unique in the sense that he has only him to rely upon actually making and keeping that budget.

I first started off by asking him the question of what is the hardest thing when making a budget. He felt that due to the fact that it was only him working in the company that he had to be self disciplined with actually sticking to the budget that he sets out for himself each month. When its only him he has to be extra careful that he is actually sticking to the budget in order for him to not start losing money each month.

I next asked him the question of how does he assess what needs to be covered in his budget. His response to this question was a lot of the basic things like rent, utilities, paper supplies, gas for traveling, phone bills, and things of that nature. And then if he knows ahead of time that something extra or big needs to be bought like maybe a new printer or something like that, then he will plan a couple months in advance for those extra expenditures.

The next question that I asked was how does he develop a plan for his budget. Again a lot of the budget that he makes each month are already built in things that have already been mentioned. But what he will also do is analyze at the end of each month up coming events and situations that should occur and then he plans according to those things. It also greatly depends on the time of the year. During tax season he knows he can be a little bit more flexible with the budget because he will be bringing in much more money than at other times of the year were he needs to be more frugal and careful with his budget.

The fourth question that I asked him was how does he implement his planned budget. Again with him being the only one at his work it really is just up to him in implementing the budget. He makes sure that he has sufficient funds each month to be able to take care of his monthly bills then he tries to make sure that he has a surplus of cash as well in case unexpected things come up so he can cover them.

Finally, the last question that I asked him was what was his process of evaluation of his planned budget and its success. This as well was a pretty basic and easy thing for him to do. Really if he was able to stick to that budget and not go over it he felt it was a success. And if he went over it and it was for unnecessary reasons then he felt it was not successful and he tries to go back and figure out what he can do better in the future.

In the end I thought it was nice to be able to see the perspective of a small business owner that he was the only employee, and the things that he has to deal with instead of a large corporation. I certainly think that there are pros and cons and different things that he has to deal with that the larger companies to have to deal with.

Mock interview

I did my mock interview at the LDS distribution center were they do employment services. It was a really good experience. We had two days of intense training with how to better sell yourself during the interview process. On the second day I had a chance to do a mock interview, and during the interview they taped the interview so that we could go back a see the things that I could do better. The interviewer asked several generic questions that one might ask in an interview, and because of the video I was able to see the things that I did well and things that I did poor. The overall experience was very valuable and a I learned a whole lot of things that I never knew before.

Career development

1. I thought to learn more about staffing issues and hoe to better develop your career.

2. In class I learned about the complications of staffing and how to better staff units. 

3. In the future if I am ever a manager dealing with staffing I will better able to manage the potential problems that I am faced with.

4. I think it is good to learn about staffing and how one can better advance their careers in nursing. I think it's a good thing to do that.

Performance Appraisal Interview

Questions:

• Do you find employee appraisals an effective tool?
• Do you encourage feed back during your employee appraisals? 
• Do you find doing these appraisals once a year sufficient or would you like to do them on a more consistent basis? 
• When telling an employee they have to make changes or improvements, do you give them specific examples on what they need to improve on?
• When giving employees complements on their performances, do you give them specific examples? 

Expectations/ Preparation:

I admittedly did not have a lot of expectations going into the interview other than getting a better point of view and understanding of performance appraisals. I was hoping though to get a better perspective of the appraisals by interviewing someone who doesn't do these appraisals in the health care industry. I was hoping to gain a better understanding if there actually were differences with these or are they just about the same as those done by health care employees. 

So going into the interview I thought of questions that I thought would give me a better insight to these questions and thoughts. Finally I hoped to be able to gain a better opinion on whether these appraisals are really needed or not.  

Interview: 

I interviewed a girl who works for a house cleaning company. She goes around on a periodic basis and evaluates different employees who are doing the house cleanings. She reviews with them what things they need to improve on and also the things that they are doing well. 

• Question 1:  She feels that employee appraisals are very important for her to do. She feels that doing these appraisals helps her to see were they both are at, and to make sure that both her and the employee are on the same page. And then in the end she is able to help out the employee see better the big picture of what the company is wanting to be done. 
• Question 2: She feels that employee feed back is very important for her appraisals so that she can see were an employee is coming from and what they may or may not be thinking in certain instances. 
• Question 3: She feels that once a year is certainly not sufficient enough. She feels that employees need a consistent reminder of expectations and things that are going on in the company. She said that it might be less work for her to just do it once a year, but that the employees would suffer from a lack of feedback from her and the company. 
• Question 4: She feels that it is very important for her to be able to give her employees examples of the things that they are needing to improve upon, so that they can know that she knows what is going on with them. She said that hypothetical examples don't work because when people hear them they think they don't apply to them. Ultimately, when they have specific examples they can know the specific things that they need to improve upon.  
• Question 5: She feels that it is also important that she gives them specific examples of the good things that they are doing so that employee moral can increase, so that they can know that she sees the good things that they do, and also so that they can get rewards and recognition for the good things that they do. 

Outcomes: 

From this I was able to get a better point of view and understanding of the importance of employee appraisals from the things that she was able to talk about and describe from the questions I asked. I thought it was very true what she said about these appraisals with the importance of them being done on a more consistent basis so that everyone could be on the same page. I also like how she said employee feedback was an important thing for her so that she could know and better understand what and were the employees were coming from. She felt that made her a better manager. Finally, I liked how she said that employee appraisals helps the employees see better the big picture of the company and what is expected of them. Often times after a while of no feed back employees can start drifting from the big picture of the company and start doing there own things. Its important that they have this constant feedback of what is expected of them. 

Summary: 

In the end I very much enjoyed doing this interview. It certainly helped give me a different and better perspective of performance appraisals and their importance. It will also help me when I go into my next employee appraisal so that I can take a different approach than I have in the past, and also the importance that I come with my own questions and concerns. 

Ethics

1. I expected to learn before class the importance of ethics in terms of the nursing world and that it can be complicated and not exactly straight forward. 

2. What actually learned was that people have many different points and opinions about different ethical situations. What I might think is a cut and dry situation someone else might think its a very complex and difficult decision. 

3. I will make sure that I am more open with other people and listen to their opinions and points of views on different ethical topics. 

4. I think it was a very good topic because it's important that one creates what he or she feels are their core ethics and values then lives by them.