ACTIVATING
Activating background knowledge
1. Think and then talk to your partner about the company you would like to work for. How many sites does the company have? How many employees does it have? Is it better to have everyone on one site or to have different sites with different activities? Do people have their own offices or are there open-plan offices?
2. Give your opinion on the issues. Are business leaders born or made? What is the role of women in business?
Activating language
1. Make sure you can explain the meaning of each word below in your own words.
Administrative adj., employee, head office, headquarters, human resources, human resources department, human resources management, labour union, management, office, open-plan (office), payroll, personnel, personnel department, site, staff, support adj., trade union, worker, workforce
2. Fill in the spaces in the following grid where possible.
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Noun |
Adjective |
Verb |
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retirement |
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promote |
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efficiency |
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outsource |
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freelance |
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security |
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perform |
3. Fill in the gaps in the text with the words from the box.
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human resources department, workforce[1], technical support, headquarters, sites, open-plan offices, payroll, administrative staff, human resources, head office, human resource management, support staff, personnel department, management, offices |
The people who work for a company, all the people on its _____ (1), are its _____ (2). But these are just the people carrying out the work of a company, rather than those leading it and organizing it – the _____ (3).
A company’s activities may be spread over different _____ (4). A company’s most senior managers usually work in its _____ (5) or _____ (6) – HQ. Some managers have their own individual _____ (7), but in many businesses, most employees work in _____ (8): large areas where many people work together. Administration or, informally, admin, the everyday work supporting a company’s activities, is often done in offices like these by _____ (9) or _____ (10). For example, those giving technical help to buyers of the company’s products are in _____ (11).
In larger organizations there is a _____ (12) – HRD that deals with pay, recruitment, etc. This area is called _____ (13) – HR or _____ (14) – HRM. Another name for this department is the _____ (15).
4. Match the words in A to their descriptions in B. One word in A is odd.
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A |
B |
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1. white collar |
a. Stopping work to complain. |
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2. employee |
b. All the people working for a company. |
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3. manual labour |
c. Workers seen as a group. |
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4. staff |
d. Someone working for an organization. |
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5. blue collar |
e. Another name for human resources. |
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6. go slow |
f. Labour when workers use their hands. |
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7. workforce |
g. Everyone working for a company is on this. |
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8. payroll |
h. Everyone or everyone except top managers. |
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9. union |
i. Manual workers may wear this. |
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10. stoppage |
j. Office workers may wear this. |
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11. personnel |
k. Trade in the UK and labor in the US. |
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12. labour 13. shop floor |
l. The place in a factory where the production lines are. |
5. Manuel Ortiz is the founder of a Spanish computer sales company. Use the words in the box in activity 3 to complete what he says about it.
I founded “Computadoras Creativas” 20 years ago. We started with a small _____ (1) in Madrid. Our _____ (2), our _____ (3) is still here, but now we have sites all over Spain, with about 500 employees. Many of the offices are ____ (4): everyone works together, from managers to _____ (5), as well as people selling over the phone, and people in technical _____ (6) giving help to customers over the phone.
Recruitment is taken care of in Madrid, by the _____ (7) or _____ (8).
6. Render the words in bold letters in Russian.
All the directors together are the board. They meet in the boardroom.
Non-executive directors are not managers of the company; they are outsiders, often directors of other companies who have particular knowledge of the industry or of particular areas.
The marketing director is the head of marketing, the IT director is the head of IT, etc. These people head or head up their departments. Informally, the head of an activity, a department or an organization is its boss.
An executive or, informally, an exec, is usually a manager at quite a high level (for example, a senior executive). But “executive” can be used in other contexts to suggest luxury, as in “executive coach” and “executive home”, even for things that are not actually used by executives.
In the US, the top position may be that of chairman, chairwoman or president. This job is often combined with the position of chief executive officer or CEO. Some companies have a chief operating officer to take care of the day-to-day running of the company. The finance director may be called the chief financial officer or CFO. Senior managers in charge of particular areas are often called vice presidents (VPs).
7. Match the words in A to the categories in B.
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A |
B |
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1. president |
a. top positions b. senior executives (top executives or executive directors) ________________________ |
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2. vice president (VP) marketing |
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3. chief executive officer (CEO) |
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4. vice president (VP) human resources |
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5. vice president (VP) research |
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6. chief operating officer (COO) |
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7. chief financial officer (CFO) 8. non-executive directors |
8. Which manager is most likely to be responsible for doing the following tasks?
1. Meet with advertising agency to discuss new advertisements for the company’s holidays. 2. Study possible new holiday destinations in detail. 3. See the research director to discuss new holiday destinations. 4. Discuss sales figures with sales team. 5. Contact newspapers to advertise new jobs. 6. Deal with complaints from customers.
9. Fill in the gaps in the text below with the words from the box.
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entrepreneur, founder, leadership skills, magnates, business leaders, empire, entrepreneurs, businesswoman, grow, moguls, founds, start-ups, captains, charge, tycoons |
A businessman, _____ (1) or businessperson[2] is someone who works in their own business or as a manager in an organization.
A(n) _____ (2) is someone who starts or _____ (3) or establishes their own company. Someone who starts a company is its _____ (4). An entrepreneur may found a series of companies or_____ (5). Entrepreneurial is used in a positive way to describe the risk-taking people who do this, and their activities. Some _____ (6) leave the companies they found[3], perhaps going on to found more companies. Others may stay to develop and _____ (7) their businesses.
A large company mainly owned by one person or family is a business _____ (8). Successful businesspeople, especially heads of large organizations, are _____ (9) or, in journalistic terms, _____ (10) of industry.
There is a lot of discussion about whether people like this are born with _____ (11), or whether such skills can be learned.
People in _____ (12) of big business empires may be referred to, especially by journalists, as _____ (13) – owning media, press, shipping, oil; _____ (14) – owning movie, media, shipping; or _____ (15) – those owning property and software businesses.
10. For a long time, hard skills, for example skills in technical subjects, were considered the most important thing in business. But more and more, people are realizing the importance of soft skills – the skills you need to work with other people, and in the case of managers, to manage people in tactful and non-authoritarian, non-dictatorial ways. Say what soft skills are required for the job which you would like to do?
11. Read the text below and render the words in bold letters in Russian.
YOU’VE GOT THE BRAINS BUT HAVE YOU GOT THE TOUCH?
While IQ has traditionally been the means by which we judge someone’s abilities and potential, EQ – the E stands for emotional – is the new benchmark for a new world. If you’ve got it, you’re more likely to be powerful, successful and have fulfilling relationships than if you haven’t. Emotional intelligence – the ability to understand and control your emotions, and recognize and respond to those of others – is emerging as the single most important and effective business and personal skill of the new century. At American Express, financial advisers who’d been through emotional intelligence training improved sales by up to 20 per cent, significantly more than the company average. A ten-year study by Sheffield University of over 100 small- and medium-sized UK businesses found that people management was three times as important as research and development in improving productivity and profitability and six times as important as business strategy.
Daniel Goleman, a US science journalist-turned-consultant with a background in psychology, first popularized the notion of emotional intelligence in the mid-nineties. Goleman defines five elements of emotional intelligence: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills. Skeptics argue that this sounds suspiciously like the old soft skills, in management-course speak, dressed up in new clothing. But Tim Sparrow, of human performance consultants Buckholdt Associates, points out a crucial difference. ‘Soft skills training was only about interpersonal intelligence – relating to others. Emotional intelligence involves intrapersonal skills – knowing yourself – as well. You can’t be interpersonally intelligent if you don’t recognize feelings in yourself.’
12. Were (a) hard skills or (b) soft skills mainly required at each of the following stages of a project to design insurance products? The project manager...
1) employed someone with a doctorate in mathematics to work on risk probabilities; 2) gave three days off to a team member who said they had family problems at home; 3) analyzed her own feelings of frustration that the project was going too slowly; 4) dealt politely but firmly with a request by her boss to finish the project a month early; 5) did market testing of the product with a number of potential consumers of the product and analyzed the results on computer; 6) did careful research on the Internet to find the best advertising agency to launch the product.
13. Complete the sentences with appropriate forms of expressions from the text in activity 11.
1. If someone is good at persuading employees to do things without making them annoyed, they are good at _____ (1). 2. More generally, getting along with people and avoiding tactless remarks are examples of _____ (2). 3. Knowing your own emotions and feelings is _____ (3): this is an _____ (4) skill. Contrast this with the ability to get along with other people: _____ (5) skills. 4. If you are able to control your own emotions, you have good _____ (6). 5. If you are able to understand how other people feel, you have _____ (7) with them. 6. The whole area is referred to by Daniel Goleman as _____ (8). The abbreviation for the way this is measured is _____ (9).
14. Match the words and phrases from the article (1–6) to their meanings (a–f).
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1. benchmark 2. fulfilling 3. emerging as 4. skeptics 5. management-course speak 6. dressed up in new clothing |
a. (gradually) becoming b. a reference point by which you judge smth. c. terminology from a management course d. given a new image e. making you feel happy and satisfied f. people who doubt the truth of an idea |
[1] workforce, work-force and work force are all possible
[2] The plural of businessperson is businesspeople.
Businessperson and businesspeople can also be spelled as two words: business person, business people.
[3] Found is a regular verb. Past tense and past participle: founded.