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As a first-year Human Resource Specialist at “State of Estates” estate planning firm, your boss (Will N. Trusts) presents you with the following two scenarios:

Scenario 1

Gary, an estate planner, works on a contract basis for our clients at “State of Estates”. On occasion, we contract Gary to handle a specific client for a specific estate planning job. Per our contract with Gary for these specific clients, he is paid commission on a weekly basis based on the overall fee received by the firm. When working for these specific clients, Gary is able to use our office space, equipment, and any supplies necessary to complete the job. To ensure consistent work product and regulatory compliance, Gary submits his work to a supervisor, who approves it and send it to the client on behalf of our firm. Recently, we had to lay Gary off in the middle of a job and he filed for unemployment compensation.

• What legal tests could be employed to determine whether Gary is an independent contractor or employee?
• Based on these tests, what is your conclusion as to Gary’s status: independent contractor or employee?

Scenario 2

Susan, a financial products representative in our Nebraska office, landed a major Mutual Fund client just six weeks before planning to retire. In the interim, and before her commission was paid, she was let go by our firm. We did not have a contract for employment with Susan. She is now suing us for wrongful termination.

• Would any exceptions to Susan’s at-will employment apply under these circumstances?
• Does it make a difference if Susan was employed in our Florida office?

Apply the concept of employment at-will and its various exceptions, including differences in approach to at-will among the states.

Write two 175-word memorandums based on the scenarios in one document. The memos should be written in third-person voice, and include citation of references (both in-text and at the end of the memo) in APA format.

Architecture and Infrastructure

Think about a company you know well.  

What would be an example of IT architecture at that company?  

What about IT infrastructure?

What is the difference between a decentralized architecture and a centralized architecture?

How might you apply what you learned from weeks 1-4 to your current or previous place of employment? Please be specific.

 Discuss the differences between a project mission, vision, goals, and objectives. 

Discussion 1

Prior to beginning work on this discussion, go to American Airlines (Links to an external site.)’ and Samsung Electronics (Links to an external site.)’ most recent annual reports by clicking on the “Investor Relations” link found at each company’s website. The companies and their Internet addresses are listed below.

Company Name

Website

Product

American Airlines Group Inc. (AAL)

http://www.aa.com (Links to an external site.)

Airline tickets

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (SSNLF)

https://www.samsung.com/us/ (Links to an external site.)

Electronics

American Airlines and Samsung are offering their products and services like many other companies over the internet. In an initial post of at least 200 words use the most recent annual filings for American Airlines and Samsung Electronics in Form 10-K to answer the questions below:

• Determine the following for each company:
  • A product description
  • A product price
  • A list of costs that are required to produce and sell the product selected in the product description as listed in the annual report on SEC Form 10-K
  • Whether the costs identified above are fixed costs or variable costs.
• Which of the products do you believe has the largest markup on variable cost?
• While Samsung is a hugely popular brand, holding its shares has never been easy for U.S. investors. How can an investor buy Samsung stock in the US?

Discussion 2

Prior to beginning work on this discussion, please read about the Economic Value Added® (EVA®) and the Balanced Scorecard management systems on the websites of the Corporate Finance Institute (Links to an external site.) (CFI) and the Balanced Scorecard Institute (Links to an external site.) (BSI) respectively. 

The consulting firm Stern Value Management designed the EVA® and the Palladium Group designed the Balanced Scorecard as breakthrough performance measures to rank ordering processes for investments and help clients create value.

Prepare in an initial post of at least 200 words a report describing the Balanced Scorecard and the Economic Value Added and their claimed advantages. Then compare these two systems to corporate and divisional performance measurement.

Begin by selecting a contemporary safety issue for today’s first responders. Research a specific Emergency Support Function (ESF), and locate an article from the library that focuses on the protection of first responders or receivers who support your chosen ESF. Your article should have been published within the last decade; be peer-reviewed; and be published in a credible, academic journal. 

Address the components listed below in your critique. 

• Discuss the specific ESF. 
• Describe how this function is focused on the protection of the first responders or receivers. · 
• Identify any practices or policies related to first responder safety, the role(s) of the safety officer, or first responder occupational health.    
• Explain how this article shows consideration and evidence of how the protection of first responders or receivers within a community or workplace can be strengthened. 

For example, if you were to choose firefighting as your ESF, you might conduct a search in the CSU Online Library by using key terms such as firefighter safety. As a result, the article below may be produced. Although you cannot use the following article for your critique, the resource merely works as an example to represent the type of article that would be appropriate for this assignment. Notice that the article is current and has been published in a peer-reviewed academic journal.

Campbell, M. J., Dennison, P. E., & Butler, B. W. (2017). Safe separation distance score: a new metric for evaluating wildland firefighter safety zones using lidar.  International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 31(7), 1448–1466. 

Focus of the Final Paper- I want my topic to be leadership

Select a topic of interest in organizational behavior that you would like to explore with additional research (must use at least five references + the textbook). Some suggested topics for your paper are:

Personality
Organizational Culture
Stress
Attitudes
Motivation
Attribution
Performance Management
Conflict Resolution
Team building
Leadership
Decision Making Process
Communication
Organizational Goals

In your paper,

Apply the research to your personal working environment, or an environment you have previously experienced.
Describe how will you use the knowledge you have gained in this course to change the way you interact and do business in the future?

The Final Paper

Must be six to eight double-spaced pages in length (not including Appendix, References, Exhibits, title and references pages), and formatted according to APA Style (Links to an external site.) as outlined in the Writing Center’s APA Formatting for Microsoft Word (Links to an external site.) resource.
Must include a separate title page with the following:
Title of paper in bold font
Space should be between title and the rest of the information on the title page.
Student’s name
Name of institution (Ashford University)
Course name and number
Instructor’s name
Due date
Must include an introduction and conclusion paragraph. Your introduction paragraph needs to end with a clear thesis statement that indicates the purpose of your paper.
For assistance on writing Introductions & Conclusions (Links to an external site.) as well as Writing a Thesis Statement (Links to an external site.), refer to the Writing Center resources.
Must use at least five scholarly sources in addition to the course text.
The Scholarly, Peer-Reviewed, and Other Credible Sources (Links to an external site.) table offers additional guidance on appropriate source types. If you have questions about whether a specific source is appropriate for this assignment, please contact your instructor. Your instructor has the final say about the appropriateness of a specific source for a particular assignment.
To assist you in completing the research required for this assignment, view this Ashford University Library Quick ‘n’ Dirty (Links to an external site.) tutorial, which introduces the Ashford University Library and the research process, and provides some library search tips.
Must document any information used from sources in APA Style as outlined in the Writing Center’s APA: Citing Within Your Paper (Links to an external site.) guide.
Must include a separate references page that is formatted according to APA Style as outlined in the Writing Center. See the APA: Formatting Your References List (Links to an external site.) resource in the Writing Center for specifications.

 This is the book you have to use to get some quotation from

Uhl-Bien, M., Piccolo, R. F., & Schermerhorn, J.R. (2020). Organizational behavior (2nd ed.). Wiley.

• The full-text version of this e-book is available in your online classroom through the RedShelf platform.

 The purpose of the HR current event exercise is to analyze the student’s articulation of key HR activities (CLOs/ULOs Unit 4). The project is due on Sunday of each of the following units: 3,4,5,6, and 7. The assignment is worth 20 points each week. 

Directions

Each student develops a presentation (Power Point Presentation). The presentation will summarize the HR business case of a current event. The current event can be from the news, the employee’s organization, or other current event. The presentation must clearly articulate how the Human Resource Management functions represented in the source provides a link between the organization’s employee development and organizational outcomes. Source citing in APA format is required both in the body of the presentation as well as in the final presentation slide.

As a healthcare leader, how would you react to a situation involving one of the ethical dilemmas? How would you advise your staff to react? 200-word minimum w/cited references.

Ledlow, G. R., & Stephens, J. H. (2018). Leadership for health professionals: Theory, skills, and applications (3rd ed.)

400 words total, 100 each response

This is a REQUIRED assignment and is DUE by the date indicated in the Calendar of Activities.

Directions

This assignment is structured to evidence your personal resourcefulness. Locating a mental health agency to visit is a major component of the assignment. To complete this assignment, you are going to do the legwork to find a local mental health agency and you must make an actual in-person visit to the agency. There are two caveats: 1) If you are currently completing an internship, or 2) have already completed an internship, you are not allowed to use that agency for this assignment.

For this assignment, you are to complete the following process to locate an agency to visit:

A. Begin this assignment by thinking about what kind of mental health agency you would like to visit. For example, if you are interested in dual diagnosis agencies be sure to include this in your search. Additionally, research local agencies that provide mental health services of any description for any age group. These can include mental health counseling agencies, community agencies that provide services for mental health clients, hospitals, clinics, and drug treatment facilities that treat patients with dual diagnosis–mental health conditions in combination with substance abuse problems. (If you live in the FSCJ vicinity, you will research Duval, Clay, St. Johns and Nassau Counties. If you live in another area, search for the agencies in your area.) Look up the UNITED WAY website and search for agencies serving community members in Duval, Clay, St. Johns and Nassau Counties. If you live in a different area, search for your local UNITED WAY website. Also, complete a web search to locate additional agencies.

1. Once you find a minimum of three agencies you would like to visit that provide mental health and/or mental health/dual diagnosis treatment for any age group, search for each agency website and locate the phone number. You must call all three of these agencies directly to request an on-site visit. In the assignment, you will discuss the outcome of the phone calls and how you made your decision to visit a specific agency
2. For local FSCJ students, visit the FSCJ student services/student activities office at any campus and request the list of service learning agencies available in the area. This list should include agencies that work with community members who struggle with mental health issues and or mental health/dual diagnosis issues. You may also be able to get a copy of local agencies from the HUS Academic Director.

B. Make an in-person visit to one of the local agencies that you contacted. As a reminder, the agency you visit can include a counseling agency or counseling office, free standing hospital, or other agency that works with clients/community members who struggle with a mental health challenge or mental health/dual diagnosis challenge (mental health and substance use/addiction challenge). The agency can work with any age group.

1. When you call the agency, inform the person who answers the phone that you are a student at FSCJ who is completing an assignment for a Human Services class on diagnosis and treatment planning and mention that the assignment requires that you make an in-person visit to an agency that works with clients who have a mental health/ dual diagnosis issue.
2. Set up an appointment with the agency that you want to visit. Please note, not all agencies will agree to a visit. That is not an issue because you are contacting a minimum of three agencies. If you have to call four to get permission to visit, then you have to call four, and so forth. If you are a local student, show your FSCJ student ID when you visit the agency and take a copy of the assignment with you. If you are not a local student and do not have a student ID, be sure to bring your driver’s license as well as a copy of this assignment.
3. As a refresher, the agency: 
   1. must have a mental health component, including services such as counseling, support, referral, case management, medication management, detox, in-patient treatment, day treatment, etc.
   2. can be a public or private agency
   3. can work with any age group
   4. can be outpatient only, or can offer in-patient and out-patient services, counseling, medication management, case management
   5. can take insurance, and/or be self-pay
   6. You must actually make an in-person site visit. This means you will need to call the agency and ask if they allow visitors to the facility
   7. You must ask if you need to make an appointment to visit the agency
   8. You must ask if you can have blank copies of any agency paperwork that you can submit with the assignment. Any paperwork that is provided by the agency will be submitted as part of the PowerPoint, along with the reflection paper required for the assignment.

C. If possible, attempt to set up a short interview with any person staff member who works with clients at the agency. If possible, ask to speak to the agency director, explain the assignment and ask if there is a possibility to spend 10-15 minutes with a staff member who works directly with clients so you can ask questions about the agency purpose, who their clientele are, and what kind of services they offer. All of this information will be written about anonymously because you will not provide names of any staff members.

This assignment has two separate components: A PowerPoint presentation and a paper.

Part A: PowerPoint Presentation

The PowerPoint presentation must have a minimum of 10 slides, must be designed using a pleasing color format and type face, and must include the information below. The information for SLIDE 1 is specifically designated and it is recommended that students use the order outlined below to create the presentation. (Please note: if the staff declines to provide any information, just make a note of this. Hopefully this information is easily gathered from your visit, and that much of it can be obtained from the front office staff/website.)

• Slide 1: The name of the agency with a complete address/location of the agency, hours of operation, website link, and mission statement of the agency (this may be on the website)
• A slide/or slides are dedicated to:
  • A description of why you chose this particular agency to visit.
  • This/these slide(s) includes the reasons this particular area of mental health is of interest to you.
  • This/these slide(s) also includes a description of how you went about the process of locating the agency you visited, as well as how you located the two other agencies you did not visit.
• An image/picture or pictures of the outside of the agency (if allowed, also include pictures of the inside. Some agencies will allow this, many will not). Additionally, you may include brochures and other paperwork that you obtain at the agency. Provided documents can be placed on additional slide(s) or submitted as separate pdf documents.
• The services the agency offers, outlined in detail (this may require multiple slides). Is there currently a wait-list for services?
• The population and age group(s) they serve
• Payment options (Insurance and types accepted, private pay, self/pay, sliding scale)
• Titles/qualifications/roles of agency staff and number of staff. Set this up in a way that makes the most sense (this may require multiple slides)
  • For example: Agency XX has 20 staff members who interact with agency clients. The staff members include:
    • 1 Psychiatrist: MD/in patient client care, medication management
    • 1 Nurse/ARNP/medication management
    • 3 Nurses: RN, AS/BS degree/in-patient client care
    • 3 Case Managers: Bachelors degree/housing and job placement
    • 2 Clinical Social Workers, LSCW: Masters degree, licensure required/counseling
    • 3 Mental Health Counselors, LMHC: Masters degree, licensure required/Counseling
    • Agency Director, Masters degree
    • Front desk staff member/checks-in clients/sets appointments/supports staff
• The average number of clients served in one year and the number of years the agency has been in existence. Also include the number of offices and locations– if there is more than one office.
• Detailed information about the other two agencies contacted, including:
  • the name of each agency with a complete address/location of the agency
  • hours of operation
  • population served
  • website link
  • mission statement of the agency (if available on the website)

Part B: Mental Health Agency Paper

Along with use of APA 6th edition guidelines, including running head, title page, abstract, reference page, in-text citations, the written component of the assignment requires 3 scholarly references. You may use your textbook as one reference.  The paper must be a MINIMUM of 750 words, double spaced, Times New Roman, size 12 font, and including what is noted on the rubric, must include ALL of the information below for an exemplary score.

Important: Present your information in the same order as outlined below.

A. (Minimum 250 words) Begin your paper by discussing the overall significance of mental health agencies in local communities and the value of the services they provide to mental health, dual diagnosis clients and their families. This should include the types of services they offer. Then outline, in detail, the reasons that it is important and necessary for HUS professionals to be able to locate and have direct experience making site visits at local mental health agencies—experience that is separate from their internship. Discuss the value of an agency like the one you visited and how this agency evidenced that they provide meaningful and important services to the community. Be sure to utilize your 3 scholarly references in this first component of the assignment. As 250 words is about one page, you may find that you need more than one page to discuss all of this information.

B. (Minimum 250 words) Describe in detail what you experienced as you walked into the agency and what kinds of experiences you had while there by:

1. Describing the front office, including the shape of the furniture (looks clean and neat or is messy and unkempt?
2. Did the waiting area feel inviting or uninviting?
3. Was it clean and neat or not clean and neat?
4. Did you feel comfortable or uncomfortable?
5. Did you feel comfortable or uncomfortable with your interactions with staff?
6. Describe the interactions you had with any staff members (remember you ARE NOT to provide any names. Note: front office staff, etc.)
7. Explain if you would refer a friend, family member, or client to the agency and explain why or why not.
8. Discuss in detail the reasons this is or is not an agency you would like to volunteer for, intern with, work for.

C. (Minimum 250 words) Discuss the value of in-person agency visit and what an HUS student/professional can learn from engaging in the process of:

1. Locating agencies that provide mental health services.
2. Calling three agencies to discuss making an in-person visit.
3. Describe in detail the aspects were most challenging about engaging in this process.
4. Describe in detail what aspects were most enlightening about this process.
5. Provide at least three detailed reasons HUS students/professionals need to make site visits to understand the kinds of agencies located in the community and that they may be working for, and the reasons they need to be cognizant of the kinds of mental health services that are available in their community.
6. Discuss three important things you learned from engaging in this assignment.

A detailed rubric will be used to score this assignment. Students must fully address all aspects of the instructions, along with meeting the rubric requirements.