I need a research proposal for the following thesis research topic:

“Operating in the time of Covid 19: a study of employee engagement and productivity levels in the virtual workplace.”

please see attached file for guidelines. 

To Build a Fire

Perception of backcountry and wilderness are not exclusive to minority groups. The notion of ‘Man versus Nature’ is a common theme in history, urban development, and literature. This ideology was probably first made apparent to you during High School English/Literature courses. This ideology pervaded human thought, development and culture milieu for the majority of human history. Rivers were dammed, landscapes changed, 

Even in Outdoor Recreation, this line of thinking is still around. Survival Skills like shelter building, fending off wild animals and battling to survive the harsh elements away from indoor spaces. One of American author, Jack London’s most famous short stories ‘To Build a Fire’ wonderfully conveys the physical and psychological frailty of man in the face of a harsh, ambivalent ‘nature’. 

After reading and taking notes, please answer the following questions below the links. 

Jack London- To Build a Fire
https://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/to-build-a-fire.pdf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=zUyVMNShdAc&feature=emb_logo

Questions: No definite word count. Just answer the questions

1. Why do you think the protagonist is referred to as “the man” as opposed to being given a name?

2. London writes, “He was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things, and not in the significances”. What does this tell us about the man?  What is his character like?

3. How are the man and the dog similar?  How are they different?

4. Why does London point out that the dog acts from instinct?

5. What do you think London means when he says, “This man did not know cold”?

Alternative Readings

Earnest Hemingway- The Old Man and the Sea
http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/oldmansea.pdf

John Krakauer- Into the Wild
http://www.metropolitancollege.com/Into%20The%20Wild.pdf

Describe a mental model and provide an example of one that you might have about leaders or leadership.

What are group norms and how are they connected to organizational culture?

Please review the DQ forum for this week. Select 2-3 postings from your peers to analyze in your personal assignment response. For your personal assignment this week:

Write a 3 page summary on your analysis of the discussion comments and how you believe this content has increased your ethical self-awareness. Please include alternatives, analysis, application, and action.

The assignment should be submitted as a Word document and APA format is required. The title page and reference page are not counted in the 3 page requirement.

This is an essay. attached is what needs to be done.

Your initial discussion thread is due on Day 3 (Thursday) and you have until Day 7 (Monday) to respond to your classmates. Your grade will reflect both the quality of your initial post and the depth of your responses. Refer to the Discussion Forum Grading Rubric under the Settings icon above for guidance on how your discussion will be evaluated.

Developing Your Own Career Goal

Prior to beginning work on this interactive assignment, read Chapters 5 and 6 and Gleeson’s article How Values-Based Leadership Transforms Organizational Cultures (Links to an external site.). After completing your career goal using the process below, you will attach it to your first post by Day 3.

My Goal Sheet

Many individuals may not know how to develop a career goal; follow the steps below to help you determine where to start. There are a few steps that can be helpful in determining your career goal, which include conducting a self-assessment, exploring industries and careers, and determining factors that are non-negotiable (e.g., geographic location, salary requirements, health care benefits, etc.). The final step of goal setting is writing the first draft of your goal.               

Step 1: Self-Assessment

• What do you do well?
• What energizes you?
• If you knew you could not fail, what would you do?
• What high school subjects did you do well in?
• What issues do family and friends come to you for help?
• What do you receive praise for at work or home?
• What are some of your greatest accomplishments?
• What is something you do where you lose track of time when you are doing it?

Step 2: Career Exploration

Explore job industries by researching the type of careers that use your interests and skillset. O*Net OnLine (Links to an external site.), the Occupational Outlook Handbook (Links to an external site.), and Bureau of Labor Statistics (Links to an external site.) are great web resources for career exploration, job analysis, and education requirements.

While deciding on a goal, consider your current lifestyle and where you would like to be in the future. Some helpful questions to consider are listed below.

• Does the career you want pay a salary that meets your needs?
• Will it offer you opportunities to advance?
• Are you comfortable sitting at a desk all day, or do you prefer to travel?
• Is the career you are considering likely to exist when you are ready for a job?

Step 3: Determining Your Non-Negotiable Items

Although we may not speak them aloud, we each have things we are not willing to compromise on. During this step, write out your must-haves for your future career.

To help get you started, think about the minimum salary you need to have, where you want to live, and desired work hours.

Must Have
Do Not Want
1.1.2.2.3.3.4.4.5.5.

Step 4: Pulling It All Together—Write the First Draft of Your Goal

Now that you have conducted a self-assessment, explored industries and occupations, and written down your non-negotiable items, what are your future career goals? Be as specific as possible.

Example Career Goal

I would like to become a project manager within a large organization (5000+ employees) utilizing my organizational skills, education in organization development, my ability to plan strategically, and my detail-oriented nature. Since I have a family, I must have a salary of $50,000 or more, work within 25 miles of Houston, Texas, and work a 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. traditional work schedule.

Attach your paper as part of your first discussion post.

Submissions should be double spaced, 12 pt font, 1 inch margins, and 5-7 pages in length. All should be properly formatted in MLA style. 

Write a synopsis (a brief overview) of the case. Please prepare your synopsis as if I (and your colleagues) do not have the whole case study. Your synopsis should be concise, complete, and fully describe the situation “as you see it.” The synopsis should not exceed 4-5 paragraphs.

Identify three (3) problems (Stop 1) and utilizing the material (Stop 2) we have covered in the course and make three (3) recommendations (Stop 3) to solve the problems. Each problem will require a justified recommended solution.

Support your recommended solutions with rational thought learned from the course material, other courses, online resources provided for this course, and real-life experiences.

The Importance of Reflection

As we look back on 15 weeks of this course, I hope we remember that nearly all our early Experiential Education Champions (from the week 2 reading) identified Critical Reflection as a key element to Outdoor Education and broader Experiential Education. 

Reflection (also referred to as Debriefing) helps us create connections between seemingly disconnected experiences and across gaps in time. By purposely pausing, during/after an experience, we can reorient our current thoughts, knowledge and emotions to the beginning of the experience, to another situation in our lives, and/or toward the future. 

We can reflect on any element of the experience and gain some new understanding(s) that we can apply to future experiences. 

http://meganmcmillan.weebly.com/uploads/3/1/7/9/31791771/the_importance_of_reflection_outside_of_outdoor__environmental_education_settings.pdf (Links to an external site.)

Kolbs Reflective Cycle- (remove the narrators use of ‘teach

Please answer three guided reflection questions, and two questions that you create for yourself. 

*Reflections do not have to relate directly to subject material. Review your work from the entire course, and any reading that were meaningful to you and draw any conclusions that are readily available on a personal level. 

1. How did your understanding of Outdoor Education change from the first week of this course? How did your concept/perception of the Back Country change? (review your introduction from Week 1 if you need a reminder)

2. Reflecting on your academic career, would you like to see more Outdoor Education strategies practiced; in the elementary setting, in the secondary setting, in the collegiate setting? In what ways could Outdoor Educational practices be implemented at these levels? What might be the effects (positive or negative)?

3. Now What? How can you apply something that you learned to any of the following spheres-

1. Your social life

1. Family

2. Friends

2. Your Academic self

3. Your professional environment

4. Personally/Internally

4 and 5. Create two additional Reflection Questions and answer them. 

bibliography assignments: you are required to read two articles and complete an annotated bibliography for each article (scholarly/peer-reviewed journal articles) 

Discussion

Lesson 5 Discussion Forum 2:

Based on your experiences, as well as the chapter information, what are some good “rules of thumb” for conducting successful performance appraisal interviews?

Your discussion is to be submitted in 12-point Times New Roman font using APA format with a minimum of two sources

Students are required to post their primary response (200 word minimum)  by Thursday midnight. Students will respond to at least 2 other  postings (150 words minimum each) by Sunday midnight.

Reply to post 1:

Rules of thumb in conducting appraisal interviews

Rules of thumb mean a set of guidelines that provides simplified advice on a particular subject. During the successful appraisal interviews,         the evaluation of the particular candidate during the process is important. Managing the workforce and developing their skills according to global development is a high priority for many companies. It is difficult to know about the employees through performance reviews. Because some reviews might create a negative impact as the employees not satisfied with the reviews. A strategic interview-based session should conduct between the employees and the manager for appraisals (Almond, 2014). 

Managers should treat this review meeting seriously and it is more formal. It directs the employees to climb one more step in their career. So it is mandatory for the managers to evaluate all the work done by the employees before starting the interviews. By creating separate folders about the employees according to their names in order to get through their projects and targets completion becomes easy. This makes the employees that you are well prepared for the interview with kinds of background work (Lai & Kwok, 2015). 

The performance meeting is all about the facts but not opinions. It may be hard to differentiate but it is about the proper facts done by the employee throughout the annual year and the outcomes he gave to the organization. By making proper notes regarding the employee’s work can make a more easy way to analyze the candidate.  The main thing in this performance interview is mangers should leave the personal elements with the employees outside the room itself. Be straight forward to the employees on giving raise and tell him the situations and communicate according to that. No favoritism should be shown during the performance appraisal meetings (Gu & Nolan, 2017).

Reply to post 2:

Discussion on the experience on the good “rules of thumb”

It is one of the, most important aspect for a human being, an adult is not just blowing candles or cutting cake on a birthday. It is much more than that; it is about building good habits and carrying responsibilities for all life. There are 11 rules of thumb, which will help us in life. Here are a few essential and ethical rules listed. It is effortless to leave things and leave our work or task for being piled up, and thus it becomes a burden for us when all the small tasks or works get piled up. So we should do our tasks on time. If it takes less than two minutes, then we must complete it right away this characteristic or the rule is applied to any work or situation which comes in our life such as doing the household works to responding to emails or working with emails as it is seen in the studies that sticking at one particular work results in being more productive (Barnum, 2020). Whatever task we have, we must complete it on the desired time that is right now. We should not leave it for the future, keeping your essential document safe and organized. Documents are one of the essential parts of one life; it is a very precious data that needs to be protected, or we can help we should keep our relevant data and documents safe. It should be appropriately organized nowadays. Data is like a very precious or fundamental property that needs proper care, so we should keep our data and essential document safe and secure both physically and digitally. 

The ways for conduction successful performance appraisal interviews 

Appraisal interviews are the interviews that are taken by the supervisors or the managers of the employee, where they discuss the performance of the employees, increment, and setting goals for the next appraisal interview (Clark et al., 2019). These interviews are critical as they help to track the employee’s performance and identify the employees who are not working correctly and not to provide anything to the company. There can be many ethical “rules of thumb” for successful performance appraisal interviews like having the full data and the record of the employee’s whole year to know his or her performance as it is essential to know every work record in the employee. The other rule is only putting up the facts regarding the employee’s work to avoid irrelevant discussions and not being emotional. At the same time, an appraisal interview is an essential rule because it can harm if you become emotional regarding the employee’s incompetency, which is essential to deal with. Being mere formal can impact the other meetings, so it is important to be formal with the employee to put up your points that need to be improved. These rules of thumb can help for making a successful performance appraisal interviews (Simonson, Zvacek&Smaldino, 2019). Every year, the managers or supervisors interview the employees regarding their work for performances of the whole year, discuss it, and set goals for them of the next appraisal interview. The excellent “rules of thumb” while taking a successful performance appraisal interviews are having full records of the employee’s work and performance based on which they can identify how well the employee is doing.