The decision that is going to be investigated – second job in Perth according to Simon's normative model (Bell, Raiffa, & Tversky, 1988).
Description: as an international
student I can work only 40 hours per fortnight, but during the study break I am
allowed to work unlimited amount of hours. So in June this year I was making a
decision – whether I need or do not need to find the second job.
Intelligence stage - collecting appropriate information and data in order to find the solution.
Australian job websites (www.seek.com.au, www.jobseeker.com.au, www.gumtree.com.au and others) have been
monitored on the daily basis 2 weeks in advance before the study break. I have
a job (sales assistant in L’Occitane) where I am working 20 hour per week.
After analysing different
information and talking to friends I came up to the following alternatives:
1) Conversation
with the manager at work – the goal to ask for more hours.
+
The same job,
no additional expenses to get to the job, familiar atmosphere, practice of
communication skills
|
_
It was a quiet
time in terms of sales so additional shifts were quite unlikely
|
2) Finding a new
job with the similar type of functions:
- - Everyone was looking for a permanent position, so here otherwise I had to lie that I will be staying with them (which I did not want to do) or change the job and really stay with them (which I also did not want to do because I am happy with my job).
3) Finding a job to
cover someone who is on leave – this option is also an unlikely one as the
chances to find a job when the person is on leave exactly during the study
break dates are quite low.
Design – making a
model to compare alternatives
Second job decision
Stay at the
current job
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Find the
second job
|
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No increase
in hours
|
Ask for
additional shifts in other stores
|
More hours
in my store
|
Cannot fit
the new schedule into the old one
|
Can fit the
new schedule into the old one
|
|
stop
|
Risk not to
get anything more as it is the low season - stop
|
stop
|
Tell the
employer that it will be a short-term job
|
Not to tell
the employer about the length of the job
|
|
The employer
is not happy
|
I am not
happy (not fair)
|
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stop
|
stop
|
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Or I was thinking about the other design:
I am happy
|
I am not happy
|
|
The company is
happy
|
Company provides me with more hours, I have more
money
|
The hours stay the same
|
The company is not happy
|
Not telling the current employer about the second
job
|
The hours at the second job interfere with the
current job
|
Choice – I have
decided to increase the amount of shifts at my current job.
Still during my
days-off I went to interviews to other jobs trying to find something that was
appropriate for me.
When I have
received a negative answer about the current store where I am working I came up
with a new solution – to ask about shifts in the other stores. This tactics
seemed to work as I have got 1 shift weekly in another store (totally 4) and my
hours in the current store went up from 20 to 25 hours per week.
Implementation – so the
decision was made and after evaluating it
My evaluation – although you
can theoretically assume and predict all the possible alternative (in my case,
probably there would be much more options, it was not a strategic decision,
more a tactical one) still you face the reality and then you need to adapt your
model basing on the current lifetime experience (Kahneman & Tversky, 1982).
Analysing the outcomes of my
decision I can state that my hours in the current store increased from 20 to 25
per week (that is because of the good relationship with my manager and
tactically and diplomatically right way of the negotiations concerning this
topic) and I had 1 shift each week (totally four) in another store (because I
had a conversation with the state manager where I have explained the situation
and asked to contact me in case they need someone for another store, which also
can be referred as successful application of the communication skills).
Overall, my weekly amount of
hours during the study break went from 20 to 32 which I consider to be a
success because of the following factors:
- · I followed the business ethics (did not lie to another company about my intentions to work with them);
- I proved to myself that I can handle a conversation with my employers where in a diplomatic way can reach my intended goal (to the certain extent);
- I demonstrated myself as a motivated employee who is not afraid to go to another store and has courage to ask about something that she needs.
References:
- Bell, D.E., Raiffa, H., & Tversky, A. (1988). Decision making: Descriptive, normative and prescriptive interactions. New York: Cambridge University Press.
- Kahneman, D. & Tversky, A. (1982). The psychology of preferences. Scientific American, 246, pp. 160-73.
