(목요모임) January 16, 2014 Thursday Meeting Topic

[747기장]

Mean people earn more

It may not pay to be nice in the workplace.

A new study finds that agreeable workers earn significantly lower incomes than less agreeable ones. The gap is especially wide for men.

The researchers examined "agreeableness" using self-reported survey data and found that men who measured below average on agreeableness earned about 18% more—or $9,772 more annually in their sample—than nicer guys. Ruder women, meanwhile, earned about 5% or $1,828 more than their agreeable counterparts.

"Nice guys are getting the shaft," says study co-author Beth A. Livingston, an assistant professor of human resource studies at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

The study "Do Nice Guys—and Gals—Really Finish Last?" by Dr. Livingston, Timothy A. Judge of the University of Notre Dame and Charlice Hurst of the University of Western Ontario, is to be presented on Monday in San Antonio, Texas, at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management, a professional organization for management scholars. The study is also forthcoming in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

The researchers analyzed data collected over nearly 20 years from three different surveys, which sampled roughly 10,000 workers comprising a wide range of professions, salaries and ages. (The three surveys measured the notion of "agreeableness" in different ways.) They also conducted a separate study of 460 business students who were asked to act as human-resource managers for a fictional company and presented with short descriptions for candidates for a consultant position. Men who were described as highly agreeable were less likely to get the job.

For men being agreeable may not conform "to expectations of 'masculine behavior,'" the researchers write in the study. People who are more agreeable may also be less willing to assert themselves in salary negotiations, Dr. Livingston adds.

Other research shows that rudeness may not always benefit employees or their firms. A paper presented earlier this month at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association found that 86% of 289 workers at three Midwestern firms in the manufacturing and health-care industries reported incivility at work, including public reprimands and making demeaning comments. Incivility was bad for the organizations as a whole, though, increasing employee turnover, found the researchers, Jeannie Trudel, a business professor at Indiana Wesleyan University-Marion, and Thomas Reio, a professor at Florida International University.

"The problem is, many managers often don't realize they reward disagreeableness," says Dr. Livingston. "You can say this is what you value as a company, but your compensation system may not really reflect that, especially if you leave compensation decisions to individual managers."

Lockerz, a 65-person Seattle, Wash., social-commerce company, has what it calls a "no jerks and divas" policy that is stressed in its employee handbook and orientation, says Chief Executive and founder Kathy Savitt. She notes, though, that there is a difference between being respectful and being agreeable. "We are not about being 'nice' or 'agreeable' or 'civil,'" she says. "We have a lot of robust debates about all kinds of things. But we do stress the notion of being respectful."

Paul Purcell, chairman, president and chief executive of Robert W. Baird & Co., a Milwaukee financial-services firm, says that his 2,700-employee company "doesn't hire or tolerate jerks. That's frankly a large percentage of people in our business. They don't get through the interview process." The firm has fired at least 25 offenders of its "no-jerk" policy, he says.

Human-resources consulting firm Development Dimensions International, of Pittsburgh, offers courses in "Interaction Management," covering interpersonal skills such as teamwork, managing conflict and giving and receiving feedback. "They are very trainable skills," says Jim Davis, DDI's vice president of work force and service development, who says that its interaction-training business is up 20% so far this year.

Questions

1) What kind of person are you in a working place?

Are you an agreeable worker or not?

2) Do you agree that mean people earn more?

3) Have you experienced working with anyone who is too agreeable or too disagreeable?

4) What kind of person do you like to work with?

5) What qualifications do you think are needed to earn more money?

Soju Is Favorite Drink for Drowning Sorrows

Koreans drink different kinds of alcohol according to how they feel at the moment, a survey suggests.

In the survey by the Korea Alcohol Research Center late last year of 2,200 people aged 19 to 59, some 85.2 percent of respondents said they drink soju when they are distressed by personal problems, and 63.5 percent said they prefer beer when they are tired. Whiskey was the preferred drink for business occasions among 63.5 percent of respondents, and 70.8 percent chose wine as the best drink for creating a friendly or romantic mood.

Location also affected people's choice of drink. In Japanese restaurants, soju was the most popular with 67.2 percent, followed by clear rice wine with 53.7 percent. Soju also ranked first in Chinese restaurants with 49.6 percent, with hard liquors at second place with 27.1 percent. In sushi restaurants and Korean restaurants, soju was the undisputed leader with 81.1 percent and 88.9 percent respectively.

When drinking at home 75.1 percent of respondents said they chose beer over any other alcohol. Some 74.4 percent considered beer the best drink for workplace events, and 79.6 percent reached for beer when drinking outdoors.

Drinking habits also varied according to gender. Men usually consume alcohol just because they like drinking or to relive stress, while women drink because they see it as a way to express their personality.

The average adult consumed seven 350 ml bottles of soju or eight 500 ml bottles of beer per month. By gender, men drank 10.5 bottles of soju on average, while the average for women was 4.1 bottles. As for beer, men consumed 10.6 bottles, and women 5 bottles.

 <Question>

1.  What do you do when you experience high levels of stress?   

2.  Do you think it is safe to drink when you are "stressed out?"
3.  What are some safer alternatives to helping relieve your stress?

4.  Some people experience major illnesses, or even have heart attacks that can be stress-related.  Have you ever experienced any sort of illness that was stress related??

[CHANMAN]

Thanks
It is easy to hate and it is difficult to love. This is how the whole scheme of things works. All good things are difficult to achieve; and bad things are very easy to get.

Confucius

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앗 이거 두개다 했던건데,ㅠㅠ2013년꺼랑 겹칩니다ㅋㅋ