Posts Tagged ‘amount’

The Legal Aspect of an Employment Contract Agreement

August 25th, 2011

An employment contract agreement serves as a contract between the employer and employee, for which, as long as the employment subsists is binding to both parties. This is because of the nature of a contract being a law between the contracting parties.

An employment contract agreement could contain a number of things. First of all, it must clearly indicate who the contracting parties are and a statement that both parties entered into the contract with capacity and full consent. Consent and capacity are essential elements of a contract and without it nothing in the agreement will be valid. The agreement is void ab initio or void from the beginning. The agreement must also contain the date when it was perfected and sign. This will be the basis of the commencement of the agreement and the benefits, responsibilities and liabilities that come with it.

This agreement must have terms or stipulations. If the employment is only a 5-year contract, such should be expressly included in the agreement. What happens after 5 years, whether the employment automatically ends or if it is subject for renewal or if it is not should also be in the agreement. Compensation is one of basic things that have to be stated in the agreement. An employee’s motive to joining a company is almost always the remuneration. Thus, the amount of monthly salary, the bonus, the paid leaves, etc. must be carefully expressed.

The agreement must also contain what happens upon the termination of the employment. There will always be an option to leave anytime an employee wants because of the constitutional prohibition on involuntary servitude but what the consequences are for early termination on the part of the employee and also if the employer terminates the same must be included in the agreement. There are a number of reasons for leaving the company, and for each reason, the consequence may differ. It must not be forgotten also that if such thing happens, the employer or employee may, aside from violating the agreement, be violating federal laws as well. The punishment for that need not be included in this agreement.

Other inclusion in this agreement are a non-compete clause, the how and when performance may be evaluated, the overall responsibility of the employee, the hours required to render by the same, and so many more. An employment contract agreement may contain any type of stipulation. But none of which is valid if it be contrary to law, morals, customs public order and public policy.

Posted in Business Management

The Modern Rules of Project Management Best Practices

August 11th, 2011

According to WikiPedia, a best practice is a technique, method, process, activity, incentive, or reward that is believed to be more effective at delivering a particular outcome than any other technique, method, process, etc. when applied to a particular condition or circumstance. Best practice can also be defined as the most efficient (least amount of effort) and effective (best results) way of accomplishing a task, based on repeatable procedures that have proven themselves over time for large numbers of people. Best practices can and should evolve to become better as improvements are discovered. It is about developing and following a standard way of doing things. Best practice is a standard approach to follow, that has been proven to work within a business industry or environment and then gets adopted by most people within that specific context.

My work experience has exposed me to working in organizations that have too few specialist resources, lack of sufficient time for projects and inadequate project budget planning or allocation. I have also worked in highly controlled, standardized approach organizations with expert resources where everything in a project is set up to succeed. This means that planning is based on previous similar projects and expert judgement estimates, resources are dedicated to the project for periods when needed, adequate budget is allocated and proper scope and quality management is applied. Even though normal risks and issues were experienced in both type of organization’s projects, the organizations where best practices are applied consistently, have shown more successful projects and satisfied customers, meaning that these projects always had a better chance of being on time, to budget and with the desired quality.

Here you would refer to a person’s natural abilities or talents, learned skills and project management knowledge. In the Project Management Paper: “Still more Art than Science” by Kate Belzer, it has been stated that project management is both an art and a science. Understanding processes, tools, and techniques are the hard skills, also referred to as the science of project management. For successful project delivery,you also need soft skills, referred to as the art of project management. Soft skills help to define the business value, clarify the vision, determine requirements, provide direction, build teams, resolve issues, and mitigate risk. Communication is quite simply the most important soft skill. The ability to apply soft skills effectively throughout the life cycle of a project will enhance the success of a project exponentially!

Often projects fail because of a project manager’s inability to communicate effectively, work within the organization’s culture, motivate the project team, manage stakeholder expectations, understand the business objectives, solve problems effectively, and make clear and knowledgeable decisions. These are the skills that take time to acquire through experience, coaching, and mentoring. In my opinion the art and science of project management requires the intuitive application of your talents, your hard and soft skills, your knowledge and experience in the right combination that is applicable to a specific project situation. To find that kind of balance is an art in itself.

Posted in Project Management