Failure of Accord Hybrid

The Prince

The Prince had no actual characters, but instead discussed and analyzed the political policies of political leaders, highlighting their faults and strengths. The setting was 1513 Europe. This is the same time when major areas were having power struggles and religious conflict was rampant. His tone is that of the ambitious leader. It conveys the thoughts of one who knows how to gain and maintain power. Though this is true, the thoughts are built upon principalities probably learned by way of many mistakes made by one who will never again be in the position to imply his theorems and strategies. Machiavelli's own ruthless mind probably served as the bases for him knowing the ways of the corrupt. The thesis seems to be that the ends justify the means. Chapters such as the one describing "How one should govern cities or principalities that, before being conquered, used to live under their own laws" show Machiavelli's thirst for power and highlights a stressed point of his. This point is that one must learn how to maintain power before gaining it for it can be as easily lost as gained. It was conveyed in his writings that even minor power is more useful if it can be maintained, where major power that cannot be maintained is a mere missed opportunity. This dissertation stressed the maintaining of power because it was written from Machiavelli to His Magnificence Lorenzo de' Medici, a figure whom was already holding power. "It is better to be feared than loved," is a popular extraction from Machiavelli's dissertation. He stated, "Men are less hesitant about offending or harming a ruler who makes himself loved than one who inspires fear. For love is sustained by a bond of gratitude which, because men are excessively self-interested, is broken whenever they see a chance to benefit themselves. But fear is sustained by a dread of punishment that is always effective." Machiavelli went on to discuss the strategies of r

The Listening Skills Yeah Whatever Video and The Out of Office Reply Essay

The Listening Skills Yeah Whatever Video and The Out of Office Reply Video - Essay Example Pilar tells Miguel that he needs to have a system in place that tracks spending or tell his assistant to take over this responsibility. She even looks at the possibility of their having a meeting once a week. Miguel appears over the moon at his success and is not looking at Pilar, twiddling with his pen, taking a phone call and appearing generally disrespectful and self-absorbed. In the second part of the video, taken three weeks later, Miguel is seen coming to Pilar’s office and asking for a meeting with her. He has just heard that he has been taken off Jezebel’s account and seems shocked and unbelieving that this has happened. Pilar tells him that they had already had a meeting on his weaknesses the last time but he did not seem to acknowledge or want to understand the reality of the situation. In the second meeting, however, Miguel appeared to have come down to earth and is more attentive to Pilar’s instructions. Pilar tells him that it was Jezebel’s de cision to themselves replace him with Jack for the remainder of their campaign. She is, however, willing to give him another chance to make amends and tells him that he has to send in a report every Friday on the spending position of every account under him and that they could meet every Tuesday at 2.00 pm to discuss the issues that appear. This time clearly Miguel is more receptive and even notes the time of the Tuesday meeting in his appointment book or diary and tells Pilar that he will definitely send the spending report in by Friday as needed. On her part, Pilar says that she did not want to lose the Jezebel account and had no choice but to go with the client’s suggestion. Once the situation has settled down, however, Pilar tells Miguel that she will try to give him back the Jezebel account. In the Out of Office Reply video, we have the meeting between Ralph Ramos, the Senior Claims Manager and Angela Zanoni, a Claims Investigator. Angela has been working from home but i t seems that performance issues are cropping up. She is piqued that Bob Simmons has told her that he is getting better accounts to deal with while she feels that she is being sidelined because she is working from home and therefore not visible to Ralph. Ralph assures her that this is not the case and that both she and Bob have different skill sets and that he gives the employees the accounts to be handled based on their past relationships with the client. While he would not feel comfortable handling Angela the accounts that Bob had been handling in the past, he would also not give Bob her accounts so she is misinformed. At the end of the first meeting they set up and appointment to meet again, but in the second video recorded two weeks later, it appears that Angela has failed to keep her appointment. Always the gentleman, Ralph first tries to put Angela at ease by asking her a personal question about how she is and how things are at home, but it seems that Angela misreads him becaus e she is preoccupied. On probing into the matter further because it is not like Angela to miss a deadline-she has not done so in the four years they have worked together- Ralph finds out that Angela had missed the deadline because she felt that nothing fruitful would have come out of it.

Web Content Outlier Mining Through Using Web Datasets Research Paper

Web Content Outlier Mining Through Using Web Datasets - Research Paper Example The amount of knowledge sought by an individual is always very specific. Search of specific knowledge from the huge databases and data warehouses has become an essential need. Knowledge seekers while surfing web content on internet, come across large amount of information which is irrelevant to the subject of search and it is generally referred as web content outlier. This research investigates different methods of extracting outliers from web contents. Using web contents as data sets, it is aimed to find an algorithm which extract and mine varying contents of web documents of same category. Structure of HTML is used in this paper with various available techniques to model for mining web content outliers. Web content outlier’s mining using web datasets and finding outlier in them. In this modern time, the information is overloaded with huge databases, data warehouses and websites. The growth of internet and uploading and storing of information in bulk on websites is exponentia l. Accessibility of information is also made very easy for common man through internet and web-browser technology. The structure of web is global, dynamic, and enormous which has made it necessary to have tools for automated tracking and efficient analyzing of web data. This necessity of automated tools has started the development of systems for mining web contents. Extracting data is also referred as knowledge discovery in datasets. The process of discovering patterns which are interesting and useful and the procedures for analyzing and establishing their relationships are described as data mining. Most of the algorithms used today in data mining technology find patterns that are frequent and eliminate those which are rare. These rare patterns are described as noise, nuisance or outliers. (Data mining, 2011) The process of mining data involves three key steps of computation. First step is the process of model-learning. Second step is the model evaluation and the third step is the u se of the model. To clearly understand this division, it is necessary to classify data. (Data mining, 2011) The first step in data mining is the model learning. It is the process in which unique attributes are found about a group of data. The attributes classify the group and based on it an algorithm is built which defines the class of the group and establishes its relationship. Dataset with their attributes known are used to test this algorithm, generally called classifier. Results produced by the classifier assist in determining minimum requirements for accepting data of the known class. It gives the amount of accuracy of the model and if the accuracy is acceptable, the model is used to determine the similarity of each document or data in a dataset. (Data mining, 2011) The second step in data mining is the model evaluation. Techniques used for evaluating the model depend largely on the known attributes of data and knowledge types. The objectives of data users determine the tasks f or data mining and types of analysis. These tasks include Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA), Descriptive Modeling, Predictive Modeling, Discovering Patterns and Rules, and Retrieval by Content. Outliers are generally found through anomaly detection, which is to find instances of data that are unusual and unfit to the established pattern. (Data mining, 2011) Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) show small data sets interactively and visually in the form of a pie chart or coxcomb plot. Descriptive Modeling is the technique that shows overall data distribution such as density estimation, cluster analysis and segmentation, and dependency modeling. Predictive Modeling uses variables having known values to predict the value of a single unknown variable. Classification

Paraphrasing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Paraphrasing - Essay Example The bony structure of the lumbar spine, unlike the body’s thoracic spine, lacks lateral support but is a specialized structure designed to distribute the weight of heavy loads throughout the back. It consists primarily of trabeculae, a highly vascularized cancellous bone, which is organized in a fashion to redistribute stress throughout the spine. The size of these vertebral bodies progressively increases in direct relation to the augmentation of gravitational loads from the cephalic to the caudal segments of the spine. These segments are connected with ligaments and muscular tissue to each concurring segment located above or below the bony structure. The composition of the body’s intervertebral disc consists primarily of outer annulus fibrosis, which holds the transmitting nociceptors and proprioceptive nerve endings, and the inner nucleus pulposus. Nociception is the process whereby chemical responses to interpret pain or sensation and illicit physical reactions from the brain to the central nervous system, including basic movement. The signals are sent through peripheral neural pathways and are received by the outer annulus fibrosis, posterior longitudinal ligament, facet capsule and the associated muscle groups located in the particular segment of the spine. The composition of the inner annulus, which holds the nucleus, provides the spinal disc with supplemental support during instances of compression. A healthy nucleus pulposus consists of the majority of the surface area of each spinal disc, supporting seven-tenths of the compression against each disc. During the course of adolescence, bone growth balances the proportionate decrease of disc height and loading pressure shifts posteriorly. Over the course of an individual’s development, the overgrowth of bone structures and the inherent hypertrophy of facets lead to the narrowing of central canals and progressive foraminal.

Growth of the IT Sector in India

Growth of the IT Sector in India ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my supervisor JONATHAN C WESTLAKE for his insurmountable guidance and tremendous encouragement throughout this research. Without him I couldnt get effective results in this research. His precious inputs and valuable suggestions helped me throughout my research. I would like to thank my award leader PHILLMICKLEBURGH for his wonderful support and advice in technical and personal matters throughout my course and project work. I would like to thank the working people (in Information Technology) for their valuable time for giving me requires data. Last but not the least I would like to thank all my family and friends for helping me in so many ways and for just being there when I needed that bit of extra strength to carry on. It is pleasure to acknowledge contributions of all above people. RESEARCH OVERVIEW The whole research was divided into five chapters for the flexibility of reader to make this research meaningful and better understanding of what it explains. All these five chapters are interrelated to make this research appropriate and each chapter has its own importance in this research to make the necessary findings. The first chapter contains brief description about this research, introduction to information technology industry in India and describes attrition meaning. Then this chapter describes purpose of this research, fundamental aim, objectives, research questions to be investigated in this research and the methodology applied to get effective result and necessary findings. The second chapter contains information about literature review of this research, which contains the collection of data from researches done previously related to this topic. This data has been collected from books, journals, articles, web sources and magazines. The third chapter describes well about the research methodology and explains how the researcher used different types of methods to collect primary and secondary data. The data has been collected from employees and managers of different Information Technology organizations in India. Two different questionnaires have been prepared by the researcher to collect the data. One is for employees to collect required data and second one is for managers to investigate the depth of the problems and related solutions of this research. A good response from the employees and managers made this research process easy to get the accurate information required. The fourth chapter is the evolution part of this research. The information collected as means of primary data and secondary data, has been analysed by the researcher to find the required answers for research questions. The analysed data is presented in the form of tables and pie diagrams. Fifth chapter is the finale report of this project, which is useful for IT organizations in India to prevent and reduce the Attrition rate. The recommendations were prepared on the basis of primary data, secondary data and analysis part of this research. The management can use these suggestions as upcoming strategies to curb the attrition in their organizations. RESEARCH INTRODUCTION IT (Information Technology) industry is booming in India. The growth of IT sector in India represents the potential of IT industry to perform at world class levels. Internationally famed companies and locally self-made small-medium sized companies are competing in developing new software with in this huge industry in India. These companies function mainly in two divisions, i.e. Technical (development of software) and Support (HR, Marketing and Finance). Big giants throughout the world are competing to get their software projects done from Indian companies due to some prominent reasons, which include Cheap Labour and Technical excellence. Taking advantage of these incoming clients, Indian companies are not leaving any stone unturned to provide the top quality service. There are many reasons behind this growth of Information Technology market in India. These reasons belong to social, economical, technical and political issues. There are many Universities offering courses on science and mathematics and this kind of education system placed a great emphasis on increased number of science and engineering students. According to the NASSCOM (National Association of Software and Services Companies) of India These Universities are pumping out nearly 0.2 million engineering graduates every year. This population constitutes one of the greatest assets of Indian IT market. Even though there is shortfall of workers due to brain drain with many skilled workers interested to move overseas for better pay and living conditions. Software services sector occupied nearly seventy percent of technical industry of India and its abundant skilled man power is attracting international software companies to back end their operations in India. The advantage of Indias backend operations is geostrategic location which offers 247 services and reduction in turnaround times by leveraging time zone differences. Recently government of India set down new ministry for Information Technology which established comfortable environment for growth in IT developments and attracted many multinational companies by providing greater range of facilities with cheaper costs. According to the NASSCOM survey IT industry attained the revenue of US $17 billion in 2008 there by capturing 12% of world market and expected growth of nearly 16.5% by the end of year 2009. Though the above points are considered as positive attributes in the growth and development of Indian software industry, so also, the negative impact comes into picture in the form of ATTRITION (Loss of Employees/ Work force), which can be explained in terms of large growth of the â€Å"number† of companies attracting talent/ work force (people) which is finally leading to confusion among the work force in deciding the company to work for depending upon the offers made by them. Attrition can be defined as the out flow of employees from an organisation due to various reasons. This research will contribute to identify the reasons behind the dangerous attrition levels in IT industry with in India and will suggest possible solutions to fight this problem. The increasing growth of the industry is leading to equal opportunities for inexperienced and experienced workforce. Since the companies rely on senior and experienced workforce for the projects, there is an unhealthy competition among them to attract the so called senior and experienced workforce which is finally leading to attrition. This research paper clearly lays emphasis on the importance of considering attrition in perspective of individuals and organization because attrition destroys the value of business, causes companies to lose knowledge there by leading to never ending cycle of hiring. The researcher here emphasised on the reasons behind the attrition levels in IT industry in India and the possible solutions to curb it. Questionnaires used in this research serve as channels to understand the specific reasons behind attrition. RESEARCH TITLE: Reasons behind the increase in attrition rate in the Indian IT Industries focussing Employee Turnover and techniques to reduce the Attrition. RESEARCH AIM: The main purpose of this research is to investigate the reason behind the day to day increasing Attrition rate in the Indian subcontinent with respect to the IT industry and there- by develop a report with the factors affecting attrition and possible solutions to overcome these issues. RESEARCH QUESTIONS: The proposed research questions are as follows: What are the reasons behind high attrition rate in the IT sector of Indian sub continent? What factors determine the attrition rate? How can this attrition rate be reduced in IT organizations perspective? OBJECTIVIES: The main objective of this research paper is to determine the relationship between good human resource practices and the reasons behind the employee attrition. To analyse various factors that affect an individuals decision to leave a job for a better opportunity, including individual related, job related and organizational related. To discover various threats and issues those impact the business performance, organisational health and rise in business cost, thus emphasising the importance of attrition in perspective of IT organisations. To evaluate the issues those affect the performance of the industry and minimise the attrition rate and also to analyse the techniques of motivation those will help in reducing the same? ACTIVITIES TO ACHIVE THE OBJECTIVE: Primary data collection will be done by conducting online survey with managers and employees in the organisation; the main reason being to gather accurate information. Moreover, while collecting primary data if the researcher can get to meet any of the old staff who have retired or who have left the organisation due to some reason, researcher would collect information from them to enquire the reason behind their exit from the organisation and their experiences while they were working for the organisation, the difference between their old and new organisation they have joined, whether they are satisfied at the new work place and their expectations from the new company. Conducting a survey with employees would result in measuring the level of satisfaction they have attained in the organisation. To achieve the above task two different questionnaires aimed specifically at managers and employees respectively contribute to the collection of relevant information to understand the problem of attrition in the organisations perspective. The secondary data collection in this research will be done by reading books, journals, web sources, articles, magazines and collecting the old data which is related to human resource management etc related to the research topic. Thus, data analysis of the information gathered would bring in a clear picture of the reasons behind the increasing attrition rate. THE RESEARCH METHODOLOGY: To study the previous works done (on this research topic), making a list of them and analysing them by means of literature review. Discovering the designations where in attrition is more and creating the attrition chart by conducting organization study. Conducting a job satisfaction survey and evaluating the work environment by interviewing IT employees and spreading questionnaires. Conducting a survey with managers to have a look at recruitment process, benefits, training and motivation techniques implemented in the organization to cut down the level of attrition. Considering the reasons for attrition by the analysis of interview data. Suggesting and implementing techniques on how to reduce the attrition. LITERATURE REVIEW Attrition in Indian IT sector is rising drastically due to rapid globalisation and high economic growth. According to the researcher, the attrition is occurring mainly among technically skilled persons due to vast growth of opportunities and booming job market. This booming job market is creating enthusiasm not only among the graduates but also among the most satisfied employees. Due to this act organizations are unable to predict the start of attrition. One of the main reasons put forth for attrition is external inequity of compensation. The affect of attrition is seen in the form financial imbalances in organisations, which can be balanced by reducing attrition through retention of employees which is possible by the diligence of people in managerial positions. ATTRITION IN INDIA Almost all major business sectors in India are facing high attrition rates; these include BPO (Business Process Outsourcing), Telecom sector, Retail sector, Services sector, Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical. Attrition rates in different sectors for 2007 are shown below. Source [online]: http://www.qcin.org/nbqp/qualityindia/Vol-3-No1/retaining.htm As evidence in the figure 1, BPO sector is the worst affiliated by attrition and IT sector is at ninth place with the attrition rate of 27%. This shows attrition in India is an enormous problem with wide range of concerns. As this research is narrowed by only concentrating on IT sector, a brief introduction was given below as a table about top Indian IT organizations. SOURCE [online]: www.economictimes.indiatimes.com/photo/4835043.cms The above table provides overview about working human resources in top IT organizations. Thousands of organizations were equipped with human resources as main source of business. Arup Chowdary, CIO of Everyday Industries explains â€Å"major challenges are in terms of resources. The kind of attrition that we have in the IT industry today is one of the business challenges. It is extremely important that the resources that are given into the project actually continue for a longer period of time, which is not really the case; because the IT industry so volatile. So one is managing resources and number two is training those resources with adequate means to come to the market standards† .This statement gives clear indication of attrition affect on Indian IT industry. According to the CCI (Chambers of Commerce of India) research study in India, attrition rate for 2007 was 27% and for 2008 was 29%, and according to Hewitt Associates survey for 2009-2010 most companies continued to experience attrition rates in double digits despite economic downturn. According to the India Attrition study 2008, which was done between October 2008 and March 2009 by partnership between BT and PeopleSoft, key drivers for employees leaving their jobs are opportunity or career growth, salary, type of work, training or development, family circumstances, current job dissatisfaction, health, work load and working environment. According to this survey highest percentage of people are leaving their jobs for career growth and next for salary. Among the people who leave IT organizations, more number of people is top performers (45%) of whole employees. Figure 3: Leaver type across Indian IT industry . REASONS FOR ATTRITION According to researcher, the major reasons for attrition other than monetary reasons (high salaries) are thought to be: Ø The aspect of exploring new avenues by the employees where they get a bigger opportunity to hone their existing skills. Ø Many employees, who work in IT sector, leave behind their interests and finally when they identify the clichà ©d nature of these jobs they willingly opt out and look for something novel and exciting even if it costs their careers. According to Dr. A. Oliver Bright, causes for attrition vary from one organizational level to another. Considering at senior management level many firms chase the dearth of top talent in business, this situation results in senior managers getting new offers with more compensation than existing job. At medium level, employees seek to move from one zone to another like moving from technical role to managerial role or slower moving sector to faster one. At junior level, hike in salary and demand for employees in the market make employees to move to another job. There is a rapid development in Indian IT business sector, because many organizations from the USA and the UK outsource their work to Indian companies, thus resulting in the rise of opportunities. Hence people want to reach the top of the career at faster pace. It makes the employees to skip from one company to another. Employee as reason for attrition: An employee might get the feeling of â€Å"insecurity† regarding his job if the management neglects his career ladder. There are chances of an employee leaving the organisation if the so called training does not emphasise on his area of work and career growth. The communication gap between higher managerial personnel and the employees could be another possible reason of attrition. Another reason is the delay of intra-organisational promotions, which if offered by a different organisation will lead to the loss of employees (attrition). Employees tend to leave the organisation if they are not engaged in projects, which can be avoided by focussing on their growth. Several reasons for attrition could be due to the employee himself/herself. The employee might not have grasped the job profile at the start of his/her tenure and/or the profile was not explained in detail by the company. Poor work habits of employees from their previous job get carried over to their new jobs which dist urbs their comfort zone. As explained earlier due to insufficient knowledge about the job profile the employee might not be competitive both in his/her organizational skills and interpersonal skills. This leads to improper job handling. A poor job fit, which is explained by the inversely proportional relationship between the new job preferences and the employee attitude/interest. High female staff attrition is great problem these days in IT organizations as many number of female employees quit their jobs to give focus on their families even their salary is with six digits. WIPRO joint CEO Mr Vaswani says male to female ratio is almost same at entry level, but women employees drops to about fifteen to twenty percent at middle management levels and further about five to ten percent at senior management levels, and he continuous that it is a loss when trained and talented employee leaves. Currently Infosys employs 33.4% of women, TCS 30% and Wipro 29%. A women project manager says â€Å"I had to stretch myself and the team till late nights to fit into clients time zone. Women also quit at mid level because their priorities change. They want to show their excellence as a homemaker, which was the case with me†.To reduce this attrition organizations increased maternity leave, offering work from home policies for women, relocating them if their husbands get t ransferred, trying to be gender neutral and making easier to women for working. {Source [online]: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/News-By-Industry/Jobs/TCS-Wipro-Infosys-go-all-out-to-check-high-female-staff-attrition/articleshow/5324809.cms?curpg=2.Accessed on 13/12/2009} Ashok Arora, executive director for HR, Ashoka Leylands says â€Å"high end talent is always high on aspiration; their worry is not one of survival, but how fast they climb up the corporate ladder. Management people tend to lose them every time if they do not reasonably address their concerns. The reasons behind people changing their jobs: Employees expect more salary and more compensation than within their present position. Overseas opportunities, which may give hike in salary and position. A higher position in Indian culture means status and respect. If employees want to change their locations for personal and family reasons. Especially in India family plays a crucial role where a family decision can change the career path of a young professional and make employee to change his/her job (Dr. Elena Groznaya). People are interested in new technologies rather than working with same technology. To balance the social life and flexibility with working hours. Taking into account the company image and future growth of the organization. Employees will be self motivated to leave the company because of job insecurity, no freedom of decision making, relationship with peers, less compensation packages and lack of motivation. Management as cause of reason: It is very important for the management to meet the expectation of employees, if there is any such kind of problem or communication gap between management and employees then the persons would like to leave the organization. Another reason for attrition in organization is if management fails at satisfying employee needs and management does not follow correct policies or does not have appropriate tools to manage the employee related tasks then this situation leads to further dissatisfaction. Azim Premji (CEO, WIPRO Technologies) stated that â€Å"when talented people leave organizations despite of high salaries, they dont leave the organizations but they leave their managers†. When there is continuous process of good employees resigning their jobs then management should have a look at their immediate supervisor. Advantage of Indian IT industry is the availability of large number of human resources in market, when managers show their concern as â€Å"plenty of fish in the pond† towards their employees by not considering their personal values then there is chance of increase rate of attrition rate. When first time employees face difficulties with their managers they look forward to solve that situation, second time they will think about leaving, but third time they will look for external opportunity. Job profile as a cause of reason: Job profile may cause the increase in attrition by considering the following factors. While dealing with the outsourced projects the employees have to work according to the time zone of client place, employees have to work by travelling most of the time to reach their targets, and if the employee is not satisfied with his job profile all these factors push the employees to look for a different alternative. REFLECTING FACTORS OF ATTRITION According to the researcher high attrition level may cause the employees to feel insecure and leave the organization, while lower rate of attrition will act as a retention policy. High attrition level indicates the poor ability of organization to hold its people. â€Å"Attrition is unfortunately viewed as a management flaw when in fact it could well be a recruitment error†. (MONISHA ADVANI, CEO, EMMAY HR)[source:http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20050822/technologylife01.shtml)] Attrition level not only reflects the flaws in recruitment strategies but also training methods, retention strategies, work culture and company value in the market. CALUCULATING EMPLOYEE ATTRIRION It is very much important to concentrate on the rate of attrition in an organization which can be achieved by analysis and debate for. According to Sudiptha dev calculation of employee attrition may vary from one organization to another. Anil Naronha one of the director and HR of Novell software limited states that the standard method used to calculate the attrition of employees is dividing the number of employees who left during the year by the average number employed for that year. According to the researcher it is very important to consider the root problem while calculating the attrition level of employees by going back to the hiring stage. Fresher (newly recruited) attrition level will be calculated by considering the number of these employees left and critical level attrition will be calculated when key persons leave. Some organizations may not consider the attrition of beginners when they leave the organization for higher studies and moreover, termination of employees (whose performance is not met to the standards) is also not considered as attrition. But these exemptions depend on the policies/ methods followed by the organizations to calculate the levels of attrition. COST OF ATTRITION There are both visible and invisible costs associated with attrition. The invisible costs are low production rate which in turn creates loss in future sales, loss of customers and degradation of brand name in the market, loss of clients and contacts that person had with industry. Visible costs are the costs due to workforce leaving the organization, recruitment costs, training costs, loss of productivity costs and new hire costs etc. Costs due to loss of workforce includes the cost of the temporary recruitment to fill in while the position is vacant, compensation and benefits, administrative costs like clearing the benefits and stopping the payroll and cost of lost knowledge. Every person who leaves an organization becomes its ambassador, for better or for worse. When employees leave the organization continuously, it is important to consider the recruitment process which in turn will become a never ending cycle. Recruitment costs include cost of advertisement, employee referral costs and agency cost. Recruitment is a long-term process which consists of many stages and tasks to perform. These steps include understanding the requirements of position, advertising the vacancies, search for new talent, checking the background of applicants, preparing and conducting interviews and notify results to candidates whether they are successful or not. Training is the next aspect to consider which involves high costs. It is an important task to hire a person who conducts the orientation which includes the cost of orientation materials. Cost for training material includes cost of hardware, software and printing manuals. By considering the above factors one can lead to a conclusion that there are massive costs associated with attrition. TECHNIQUES TO REDUCE THE ATTRIRION The attrition levels can be reducedby the active input from HR people of the concerned organizations. Since they are the first line of contact for employees, they need to emphasise on the necessity to communicate with employees very often, motivating them and identifying any troubles and disturbances which if not done will gradually encourage the employee to leave the organisation. When the management neglects career ladder of an employee, that person might get the feeling of future insecurity. This can be reduced by conducting well prepared training sessions to improve employee skills and attitude. Some of the solutions that have been implemented successfully by the organisations in recent years to reduce attrition include, work-life balance, recognition and corporate brand building, healthy work environment, continuous employee learning (Subramaniam 2005). It is very important to follow the effective recruitment strategies rather than following traditional recruitment methods. This can help the company to improve the response between organization goals and individual expectations to reduce the attrition level. The type of Indian IT market can be called as people driven business, because it is a huge industry which is mainly depend on Human resources. So it is big challenge for human resource department to handle high stream of employees coming in and going out of the organizations.Padmaja Alaganandan, Principal Consultant, Mercer HR Consulting, India says â€Å"recruitment should be strategic to scale back organizations business targets because of their inability to recruit quality talent at the pace and scale called for. In such organizations with large scale of hiring, recruitment needs to be seen as a separate function with strong linkage to the business†. Compensation and rewards play vital role in IT organisations to motivate and satisfy the employees. When a company makes high profits, it should make an effort to recognise the contribution of employees in this success by releasing bonuses which will lead to a positive employee response in future endeavours. Dr Elena Groznaya(freelance researcher and consultant in the field of intercultural relations and diversity management) suggested some motivation methods, they are extrusive motivation by money (pay rises, bonus and promotion), by showing long-term perspective towards employee including the family and enabling personal development. In order to motivate staff, experts claim that it is important to recognise set of values and needs, those vary in each particular culture. According to the classical theory of Maslow the hierarchy of needs includes : Psychological, survival needs Safety and security needs Social needs of acceptance Esteem and acknowledgment needs Self-actualization and self-development needs Major impacts on the employee behaviour are organizational culture and working environment. Providing good work environment and acknowledging the employee as a customer is an effective technique to reduce the attrition level. A good employer can be differentiated from other employers by thoroughly looking at the priorities of them, while considering the goals and needs of employees. Maintaining work-life balance among the employees is the main technique to reduce the attrition level. The nature of IT industry is to upgrade its operations frequently to achieve the business requirements and for this there is a need of dynamic change in deploying and using the upgraded technologies. To achieve the above requirements the management needs to take measures to help employees to update their knowledge through training programs from time to time. It is important to identify top performers to reward and retain them, but keeping them secure and motivated becomes a key challenge. One of the best ways is to engage them by implementing strong career program for them. One of the top companies of India, National Information Technology, has implemented structured staff communication program which includes periodic sessions with business heads, skip level meeting, star performing bonus for high level performers and national or business level recognition programme. On other hand identify non performers to put on performance related exercises. To keep employees engaged there is need for staff involvement programmes like pre festive events, in-house sports activities and participation in outside activities. According to the WIPRO leaders quality survey, perfect leadership is one of the techniques to reduce attrition levels. Marcia Robinson and Ravi Kalakota (2005) suggested seven strategies for recruiting and retaining employees. Spend time developing and Bench marking incentives which include free transportation, education allowances, health related allowances, bonuses and performance based appraisals. The main problem in Indian IT industry is that most of the newly recruited students/employees are leaving the organization to pursue masters/ higher studies. This situation can be overcome by the organisations, through the provision of subsidies for the higher education of beginner employees, to improve their knowledge in their area of expertise. Change the locations of work by sending the projects to places where labour and real est Growth of the IT Sector in India Growth of the IT Sector in India ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my supervisor JONATHAN C WESTLAKE for his insurmountable guidance and tremendous encouragement throughout this research. Without him I couldnt get effective results in this research. His precious inputs and valuable suggestions helped me throughout my research. I would like to thank my award leader PHILLMICKLEBURGH for his wonderful support and advice in technical and personal matters throughout my course and project work. I would like to thank the working people (in Information Technology) for their valuable time for giving me requires data. Last but not the least I would like to thank all my family and friends for helping me in so many ways and for just being there when I needed that bit of extra strength to carry on. It is pleasure to acknowledge contributions of all above people. RESEARCH OVERVIEW The whole research was divided into five chapters for the flexibility of reader to make this research meaningful and better understanding of what it explains. All these five chapters are interrelated to make this research appropriate and each chapter has its own importance in this research to make the necessary findings. The first chapter contains brief description about this research, introduction to information technology industry in India and describes attrition meaning. Then this chapter describes purpose of this research, fundamental aim, objectives, research questions to be investigated in this research and the methodology applied to get effective result and necessary findings. The second chapter contains information about literature review of this research, which contains the collection of data from researches done previously related to this topic. This data has been collected from books, journals, articles, web sources and magazines. The third chapter describes well about the research methodology and explains how the researcher used different types of methods to collect primary and secondary data. The data has been collected from employees and managers of different Information Technology organizations in India. Two different questionnaires have been prepared by the researcher to collect the data. One is for employees to collect required data and second one is for managers to investigate the depth of the problems and related solutions of this research. A good response from the employees and managers made this research process easy to get the accurate information required. The fourth chapter is the evolution part of this research. The information collected as means of primary data and secondary data, has been analysed by the researcher to find the required answers for research questions. The analysed data is presented in the form of tables and pie diagrams. Fifth chapter is the finale report of this project, which is useful for IT organizations in India to prevent and reduce the Attrition rate. The recommendations were prepared on the basis of primary data, secondary data and analysis part of this research. The management can use these suggestions as upcoming strategies to curb the attrition in their organizations. RESEARCH INTRODUCTION IT (Information Technology) industry is booming in India. The growth of IT sector in India represents the potential of IT industry to perform at world class levels. Internationally famed companies and locally self-made small-medium sized companies are competing in developing new software with in this huge industry in India. These companies function mainly in two divisions, i.e. Technical (development of software) and Support (HR, Marketing and Finance). Big giants throughout the world are competing to get their software projects done from Indian companies due to some prominent reasons, which include Cheap Labour and Technical excellence. Taking advantage of these incoming clients, Indian companies are not leaving any stone unturned to provide the top quality service. There are many reasons behind this growth of Information Technology market in India. These reasons belong to social, economical, technical and political issues. There are many Universities offering courses on science and mathematics and this kind of education system placed a great emphasis on increased number of science and engineering students. According to the NASSCOM (National Association of Software and Services Companies) of India These Universities are pumping out nearly 0.2 million engineering graduates every year. This population constitutes one of the greatest assets of Indian IT market. Even though there is shortfall of workers due to brain drain with many skilled workers interested to move overseas for better pay and living conditions. Software services sector occupied nearly seventy percent of technical industry of India and its abundant skilled man power is attracting international software companies to back end their operations in India. The advantage of Indias backend operations is geostrategic location which offers 247 services and reduction in turnaround times by leveraging time zone differences. Recently government of India set down new ministry for Information Technology which established comfortable environment for growth in IT developments and attracted many multinational companies by providing greater range of facilities with cheaper costs. According to the NASSCOM survey IT industry attained the revenue of US $17 billion in 2008 there by capturing 12% of world market and expected growth of nearly 16.5% by the end of year 2009. Though the above points are considered as positive attributes in the growth and development of Indian software industry, so also, the negative impact comes into picture in the form of ATTRITION (Loss of Employees/ Work force), which can be explained in terms of large growth of the â€Å"number† of companies attracting talent/ work force (people) which is finally leading to confusion among the work force in deciding the company to work for depending upon the offers made by them. Attrition can be defined as the out flow of employees from an organisation due to various reasons. This research will contribute to identify the reasons behind the dangerous attrition levels in IT industry with in India and will suggest possible solutions to fight this problem. The increasing growth of the industry is leading to equal opportunities for inexperienced and experienced workforce. Since the companies rely on senior and experienced workforce for the projects, there is an unhealthy competition among them to attract the so called senior and experienced workforce which is finally leading to attrition. This research paper clearly lays emphasis on the importance of considering attrition in perspective of individuals and organization because attrition destroys the value of business, causes companies to lose knowledge there by leading to never ending cycle of hiring. The researcher here emphasised on the reasons behind the attrition levels in IT industry in India and the possible solutions to curb it. Questionnaires used in this research serve as channels to understand the specific reasons behind attrition. RESEARCH TITLE: Reasons behind the increase in attrition rate in the Indian IT Industries focussing Employee Turnover and techniques to reduce the Attrition. RESEARCH AIM: The main purpose of this research is to investigate the reason behind the day to day increasing Attrition rate in the Indian subcontinent with respect to the IT industry and there- by develop a report with the factors affecting attrition and possible solutions to overcome these issues. RESEARCH QUESTIONS: The proposed research questions are as follows: What are the reasons behind high attrition rate in the IT sector of Indian sub continent? What factors determine the attrition rate? How can this attrition rate be reduced in IT organizations perspective? OBJECTIVIES: The main objective of this research paper is to determine the relationship between good human resource practices and the reasons behind the employee attrition. To analyse various factors that affect an individuals decision to leave a job for a better opportunity, including individual related, job related and organizational related. To discover various threats and issues those impact the business performance, organisational health and rise in business cost, thus emphasising the importance of attrition in perspective of IT organisations. To evaluate the issues those affect the performance of the industry and minimise the attrition rate and also to analyse the techniques of motivation those will help in reducing the same? ACTIVITIES TO ACHIVE THE OBJECTIVE: Primary data collection will be done by conducting online survey with managers and employees in the organisation; the main reason being to gather accurate information. Moreover, while collecting primary data if the researcher can get to meet any of the old staff who have retired or who have left the organisation due to some reason, researcher would collect information from them to enquire the reason behind their exit from the organisation and their experiences while they were working for the organisation, the difference between their old and new organisation they have joined, whether they are satisfied at the new work place and their expectations from the new company. Conducting a survey with employees would result in measuring the level of satisfaction they have attained in the organisation. To achieve the above task two different questionnaires aimed specifically at managers and employees respectively contribute to the collection of relevant information to understand the problem of attrition in the organisations perspective. The secondary data collection in this research will be done by reading books, journals, web sources, articles, magazines and collecting the old data which is related to human resource management etc related to the research topic. Thus, data analysis of the information gathered would bring in a clear picture of the reasons behind the increasing attrition rate. THE RESEARCH METHODOLOGY: To study the previous works done (on this research topic), making a list of them and analysing them by means of literature review. Discovering the designations where in attrition is more and creating the attrition chart by conducting organization study. Conducting a job satisfaction survey and evaluating the work environment by interviewing IT employees and spreading questionnaires. Conducting a survey with managers to have a look at recruitment process, benefits, training and motivation techniques implemented in the organization to cut down the level of attrition. Considering the reasons for attrition by the analysis of interview data. Suggesting and implementing techniques on how to reduce the attrition. LITERATURE REVIEW Attrition in Indian IT sector is rising drastically due to rapid globalisation and high economic growth. According to the researcher, the attrition is occurring mainly among technically skilled persons due to vast growth of opportunities and booming job market. This booming job market is creating enthusiasm not only among the graduates but also among the most satisfied employees. Due to this act organizations are unable to predict the start of attrition. One of the main reasons put forth for attrition is external inequity of compensation. The affect of attrition is seen in the form financial imbalances in organisations, which can be balanced by reducing attrition through retention of employees which is possible by the diligence of people in managerial positions. ATTRITION IN INDIA Almost all major business sectors in India are facing high attrition rates; these include BPO (Business Process Outsourcing), Telecom sector, Retail sector, Services sector, Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical. Attrition rates in different sectors for 2007 are shown below. Source [online]: http://www.qcin.org/nbqp/qualityindia/Vol-3-No1/retaining.htm As evidence in the figure 1, BPO sector is the worst affiliated by attrition and IT sector is at ninth place with the attrition rate of 27%. This shows attrition in India is an enormous problem with wide range of concerns. As this research is narrowed by only concentrating on IT sector, a brief introduction was given below as a table about top Indian IT organizations. SOURCE [online]: www.economictimes.indiatimes.com/photo/4835043.cms The above table provides overview about working human resources in top IT organizations. Thousands of organizations were equipped with human resources as main source of business. Arup Chowdary, CIO of Everyday Industries explains â€Å"major challenges are in terms of resources. The kind of attrition that we have in the IT industry today is one of the business challenges. It is extremely important that the resources that are given into the project actually continue for a longer period of time, which is not really the case; because the IT industry so volatile. So one is managing resources and number two is training those resources with adequate means to come to the market standards† .This statement gives clear indication of attrition affect on Indian IT industry. According to the CCI (Chambers of Commerce of India) research study in India, attrition rate for 2007 was 27% and for 2008 was 29%, and according to Hewitt Associates survey for 2009-2010 most companies continued to experience attrition rates in double digits despite economic downturn. According to the India Attrition study 2008, which was done between October 2008 and March 2009 by partnership between BT and PeopleSoft, key drivers for employees leaving their jobs are opportunity or career growth, salary, type of work, training or development, family circumstances, current job dissatisfaction, health, work load and working environment. According to this survey highest percentage of people are leaving their jobs for career growth and next for salary. Among the people who leave IT organizations, more number of people is top performers (45%) of whole employees. Figure 3: Leaver type across Indian IT industry . REASONS FOR ATTRITION According to researcher, the major reasons for attrition other than monetary reasons (high salaries) are thought to be: Ø The aspect of exploring new avenues by the employees where they get a bigger opportunity to hone their existing skills. Ø Many employees, who work in IT sector, leave behind their interests and finally when they identify the clichà ©d nature of these jobs they willingly opt out and look for something novel and exciting even if it costs their careers. According to Dr. A. Oliver Bright, causes for attrition vary from one organizational level to another. Considering at senior management level many firms chase the dearth of top talent in business, this situation results in senior managers getting new offers with more compensation than existing job. At medium level, employees seek to move from one zone to another like moving from technical role to managerial role or slower moving sector to faster one. At junior level, hike in salary and demand for employees in the market make employees to move to another job. There is a rapid development in Indian IT business sector, because many organizations from the USA and the UK outsource their work to Indian companies, thus resulting in the rise of opportunities. Hence people want to reach the top of the career at faster pace. It makes the employees to skip from one company to another. Employee as reason for attrition: An employee might get the feeling of â€Å"insecurity† regarding his job if the management neglects his career ladder. There are chances of an employee leaving the organisation if the so called training does not emphasise on his area of work and career growth. The communication gap between higher managerial personnel and the employees could be another possible reason of attrition. Another reason is the delay of intra-organisational promotions, which if offered by a different organisation will lead to the loss of employees (attrition). Employees tend to leave the organisation if they are not engaged in projects, which can be avoided by focussing on their growth. Several reasons for attrition could be due to the employee himself/herself. The employee might not have grasped the job profile at the start of his/her tenure and/or the profile was not explained in detail by the company. Poor work habits of employees from their previous job get carried over to their new jobs which dist urbs their comfort zone. As explained earlier due to insufficient knowledge about the job profile the employee might not be competitive both in his/her organizational skills and interpersonal skills. This leads to improper job handling. A poor job fit, which is explained by the inversely proportional relationship between the new job preferences and the employee attitude/interest. High female staff attrition is great problem these days in IT organizations as many number of female employees quit their jobs to give focus on their families even their salary is with six digits. WIPRO joint CEO Mr Vaswani says male to female ratio is almost same at entry level, but women employees drops to about fifteen to twenty percent at middle management levels and further about five to ten percent at senior management levels, and he continuous that it is a loss when trained and talented employee leaves. Currently Infosys employs 33.4% of women, TCS 30% and Wipro 29%. A women project manager says â€Å"I had to stretch myself and the team till late nights to fit into clients time zone. Women also quit at mid level because their priorities change. They want to show their excellence as a homemaker, which was the case with me†.To reduce this attrition organizations increased maternity leave, offering work from home policies for women, relocating them if their husbands get t ransferred, trying to be gender neutral and making easier to women for working. {Source [online]: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/News-By-Industry/Jobs/TCS-Wipro-Infosys-go-all-out-to-check-high-female-staff-attrition/articleshow/5324809.cms?curpg=2.Accessed on 13/12/2009} Ashok Arora, executive director for HR, Ashoka Leylands says â€Å"high end talent is always high on aspiration; their worry is not one of survival, but how fast they climb up the corporate ladder. Management people tend to lose them every time if they do not reasonably address their concerns. The reasons behind people changing their jobs: Employees expect more salary and more compensation than within their present position. Overseas opportunities, which may give hike in salary and position. A higher position in Indian culture means status and respect. If employees want to change their locations for personal and family reasons. Especially in India family plays a crucial role where a family decision can change the career path of a young professional and make employee to change his/her job (Dr. Elena Groznaya). People are interested in new technologies rather than working with same technology. To balance the social life and flexibility with working hours. Taking into account the company image and future growth of the organization. Employees will be self motivated to leave the company because of job insecurity, no freedom of decision making, relationship with peers, less compensation packages and lack of motivation. Management as cause of reason: It is very important for the management to meet the expectation of employees, if there is any such kind of problem or communication gap between management and employees then the persons would like to leave the organization. Another reason for attrition in organization is if management fails at satisfying employee needs and management does not follow correct policies or does not have appropriate tools to manage the employee related tasks then this situation leads to further dissatisfaction. Azim Premji (CEO, WIPRO Technologies) stated that â€Å"when talented people leave organizations despite of high salaries, they dont leave the organizations but they leave their managers†. When there is continuous process of good employees resigning their jobs then management should have a look at their immediate supervisor. Advantage of Indian IT industry is the availability of large number of human resources in market, when managers show their concern as â€Å"plenty of fish in the pond† towards their employees by not considering their personal values then there is chance of increase rate of attrition rate. When first time employees face difficulties with their managers they look forward to solve that situation, second time they will think about leaving, but third time they will look for external opportunity. Job profile as a cause of reason: Job profile may cause the increase in attrition by considering the following factors. While dealing with the outsourced projects the employees have to work according to the time zone of client place, employees have to work by travelling most of the time to reach their targets, and if the employee is not satisfied with his job profile all these factors push the employees to look for a different alternative. REFLECTING FACTORS OF ATTRITION According to the researcher high attrition level may cause the employees to feel insecure and leave the organization, while lower rate of attrition will act as a retention policy. High attrition level indicates the poor ability of organization to hold its people. â€Å"Attrition is unfortunately viewed as a management flaw when in fact it could well be a recruitment error†. (MONISHA ADVANI, CEO, EMMAY HR)[source:http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20050822/technologylife01.shtml)] Attrition level not only reflects the flaws in recruitment strategies but also training methods, retention strategies, work culture and company value in the market. CALUCULATING EMPLOYEE ATTRIRION It is very much important to concentrate on the rate of attrition in an organization which can be achieved by analysis and debate for. According to Sudiptha dev calculation of employee attrition may vary from one organization to another. Anil Naronha one of the director and HR of Novell software limited states that the standard method used to calculate the attrition of employees is dividing the number of employees who left during the year by the average number employed for that year. According to the researcher it is very important to consider the root problem while calculating the attrition level of employees by going back to the hiring stage. Fresher (newly recruited) attrition level will be calculated by considering the number of these employees left and critical level attrition will be calculated when key persons leave. Some organizations may not consider the attrition of beginners when they leave the organization for higher studies and moreover, termination of employees (whose performance is not met to the standards) is also not considered as attrition. But these exemptions depend on the policies/ methods followed by the organizations to calculate the levels of attrition. COST OF ATTRITION There are both visible and invisible costs associated with attrition. The invisible costs are low production rate which in turn creates loss in future sales, loss of customers and degradation of brand name in the market, loss of clients and contacts that person had with industry. Visible costs are the costs due to workforce leaving the organization, recruitment costs, training costs, loss of productivity costs and new hire costs etc. Costs due to loss of workforce includes the cost of the temporary recruitment to fill in while the position is vacant, compensation and benefits, administrative costs like clearing the benefits and stopping the payroll and cost of lost knowledge. Every person who leaves an organization becomes its ambassador, for better or for worse. When employees leave the organization continuously, it is important to consider the recruitment process which in turn will become a never ending cycle. Recruitment costs include cost of advertisement, employee referral costs and agency cost. Recruitment is a long-term process which consists of many stages and tasks to perform. These steps include understanding the requirements of position, advertising the vacancies, search for new talent, checking the background of applicants, preparing and conducting interviews and notify results to candidates whether they are successful or not. Training is the next aspect to consider which involves high costs. It is an important task to hire a person who conducts the orientation which includes the cost of orientation materials. Cost for training material includes cost of hardware, software and printing manuals. By considering the above factors one can lead to a conclusion that there are massive costs associated with attrition. TECHNIQUES TO REDUCE THE ATTRIRION The attrition levels can be reducedby the active input from HR people of the concerned organizations. Since they are the first line of contact for employees, they need to emphasise on the necessity to communicate with employees very often, motivating them and identifying any troubles and disturbances which if not done will gradually encourage the employee to leave the organisation. When the management neglects career ladder of an employee, that person might get the feeling of future insecurity. This can be reduced by conducting well prepared training sessions to improve employee skills and attitude. Some of the solutions that have been implemented successfully by the organisations in recent years to reduce attrition include, work-life balance, recognition and corporate brand building, healthy work environment, continuous employee learning (Subramaniam 2005). It is very important to follow the effective recruitment strategies rather than following traditional recruitment methods. This can help the company to improve the response between organization goals and individual expectations to reduce the attrition level. The type of Indian IT market can be called as people driven business, because it is a huge industry which is mainly depend on Human resources. So it is big challenge for human resource department to handle high stream of employees coming in and going out of the organizations.Padmaja Alaganandan, Principal Consultant, Mercer HR Consulting, India says â€Å"recruitment should be strategic to scale back organizations business targets because of their inability to recruit quality talent at the pace and scale called for. In such organizations with large scale of hiring, recruitment needs to be seen as a separate function with strong linkage to the business†. Compensation and rewards play vital role in IT organisations to motivate and satisfy the employees. When a company makes high profits, it should make an effort to recognise the contribution of employees in this success by releasing bonuses which will lead to a positive employee response in future endeavours. Dr Elena Groznaya(freelance researcher and consultant in the field of intercultural relations and diversity management) suggested some motivation methods, they are extrusive motivation by money (pay rises, bonus and promotion), by showing long-term perspective towards employee including the family and enabling personal development. In order to motivate staff, experts claim that it is important to recognise set of values and needs, those vary in each particular culture. According to the classical theory of Maslow the hierarchy of needs includes : Psychological, survival needs Safety and security needs Social needs of acceptance Esteem and acknowledgment needs Self-actualization and self-development needs Major impacts on the employee behaviour are organizational culture and working environment. Providing good work environment and acknowledging the employee as a customer is an effective technique to reduce the attrition level. A good employer can be differentiated from other employers by thoroughly looking at the priorities of them, while considering the goals and needs of employees. Maintaining work-life balance among the employees is the main technique to reduce the attrition level. The nature of IT industry is to upgrade its operations frequently to achieve the business requirements and for this there is a need of dynamic change in deploying and using the upgraded technologies. To achieve the above requirements the management needs to take measures to help employees to update their knowledge through training programs from time to time. It is important to identify top performers to reward and retain them, but keeping them secure and motivated becomes a key challenge. One of the best ways is to engage them by implementing strong career program for them. One of the top companies of India, National Information Technology, has implemented structured staff communication program which includes periodic sessions with business heads, skip level meeting, star performing bonus for high level performers and national or business level recognition programme. On other hand identify non performers to put on performance related exercises. To keep employees engaged there is need for staff involvement programmes like pre festive events, in-house sports activities and participation in outside activities. According to the WIPRO leaders quality survey, perfect leadership is one of the techniques to reduce attrition levels. Marcia Robinson and Ravi Kalakota (2005) suggested seven strategies for recruiting and retaining employees. Spend time developing and Bench marking incentives which include free transportation, education allowances, health related allowances, bonuses and performance based appraisals. The main problem in Indian IT industry is that most of the newly recruited students/employees are leaving the organization to pursue masters/ higher studies. This situation can be overcome by the organisations, through the provision of subsidies for the higher education of beginner employees, to improve their knowledge in their area of expertise. Change the locations of work by sending the projects to places where labour and real est

Prioritizing English over the Loss of Your Language

Prioritizing the English language over the possible erosion of your native language Nearly 72% of the information available on the internet is in English. How did it all start? The English language spread throughout the world because England in the late 16th century formed colonies all around the world. And until now the English language is growing and becoming more and more popular worldwide, English has official or special status in at least seventy five countries with a total population of over two billion (The Cambridge Encyclopedia).More and more people see learning English even if they might lose their native language as positive. Personally, I believe that English should be prioritized over the possibility of erosion of a native language for a number of reasons. English breaks the language barriers between different countries especially through the internet and there are more job opportunities if one is able to speak and write English fluently. In this essay I’m going t o focus mainly on these two points. [good]The internet is a system of interconnected computer networks, to serve billions of people worldwide. The internet is a place where everyone comes on from different countries to communicate with one another and to share all sort of things like what’s really happening in their community/ country. It’s a place where the people of the world come together as one. English breaks the language barrier also, by allowing people from around the world to get to know each other, work together and communicate whether it’s face-to-face, by phone, via email and most importantly via the internet. What percent of the internet is really in English? ’ this is a question asked by many. And the last time anyone made a serious attempt to answer this, was a study conducted by Excite AtHome in 1999, which looked at 600 million webpages and concluded that 72% were in English (Zukerman, 2009). With so much information mainly in English free ly available on the internet, this motivated people from different countries to learn the language so they can seize the change of getting valuable information for almost free of charge.There is only one language for airlines taking off and landing in 157 countries around the world and that’s English. English is the universal language of air traffic control. Therefore, a pilot from an Arab country for example, where English is not spoken that often, will have a better chance of being hired by any airline around the world if they can speak proper English. English is necessary also for official business that’s why companies hire their employees based on their y capability of speaking and writing English.Job opportunities worldwide in let’s say big international companies such as Ernst & Young or other large companies; look for such employees with top notch English. Meanwhile, if more people speak English in a country, potential business opportunities sky rocket be cause it’s the only way business partner, franchisers and investors can communicate, discuss, negotiate and make a deal with one another.This enhances the profit of a country and benefits the country as a whole in the long run. To sum it all up, personally, I feel that the advantages out way the disadvantage of prioritizing the English language over the possible erosion of you native language. First off, job opportunities increase when one is capable of speaking and writing English fluently because it’s one of the criteria in most major international companies.Secondly, The English language allows people from different backgrounds and mother tongues to communicate effectively and get to know about each other. References: Zukerman, M. Musing on Africa, International development and hacking the media, 2009. http://www. ethanzuckerman. com/blog/2009/06/01/what-percentage-of-the-internet-is-in-english-in-. chinese/ MacNeil, R. , McCrum, R. , & Cran. W. (Producers). (1986). The Story of English . [Documentary]. http://topdocumentaryfilms. com/story-of-english/

Enron and Corporate Ethics Essay

On December 2, 2001, Enron Corporation, then the seventh largest publicly traded corporation in the United States, declared bankruptcy. That bankruptcy saw thousands of Enron employees and shareholders losing their jobs and their investments. Enron’s fall sent shockwaves to all corners of the business world. A Fortune 400 company with all the appearances of stability and corporate soundness, the company’s collapse was unthinkable. For here was a company who grew by leaps and bounds in so short a time – a company who came from obscurity to national prominence as the world’s largest in terms of revenue. But like anything else if it is too good to be true it probably is. Unlike most bankruptcies which are caused by poor management and stiff competition, Enron’s demise appears simple enough: individual and collective greed. It was shameless greed that motivated company officials to dupe thousands of honest individuals out of their hard earned money – money that ran up to billions (Nakayama, 2002). The scam was unearthed just like any other scam – when people start getting suspicious. Enron was generating a lot of revenues – it was a smokescreen that allowed the company to attract more investors. While revenue generation was at record highs, profit was scant and minimal – a fact many people overlooked until it was too late. Enron’s mirage was selling the same things over and over and over again. The illusion was the company was generating this much sales but the reality was there was barely any profit made. Like everything else in hindsight, it is now clear that tell tale signs were all over Enron’s 2000 Annual Report. Still questions remain as to how a company that paraded its own Code of Ethics be so shamelessly unethical, a corporation that prides itself as having a reputation for â€Å"fairness and honesty† be so downright ruthless, callous and arrogant. Beyond the dollars and cents, the Enron debacle offers a new textbook example of failed ethics in business (Berenbeim, 2002). ENRON’s 2000 Annual Report – Warning signs Most of the investigation on Enron’s finances has focused on its balance sheet—it reported an otherworldly increase in revenue: Between 1996 and 2000, Enron reported an increase in sales from $13. billion to $100. 8 billion – a 57% five-year sales growth rate. The company more than doubled its reported sales between 1999 and 2000. Looking back then, this was a sign that the company appeared too good to be true. Before it declared bankruptcy, Enron said it was on track to double revenue again the next year. Had it done so, it would have become the second-largest corporation in the world in terms of sales. According to Forbes. com, Enron’s reported revenue was based on its exploitation of a loophole in accounting rules – a tactic that may have been legal, but few investors understood it (Ackman, 2002). Forbes. com goes on to say that Enron earned more than 90% of its revenue from a business it calls â€Å"wholesale services,† Enron’s euphemism for trading. Here is how its 2000 annual report describes that activity: â€Å"Enron builds wholesale businesses through the creation of networks involving selective asset ownership, contractual access to third-party assets and market-making activities. † Yet again, another warning sign. Footnotes in the annual report for 2000, also show hints of the hidden debt that pushed the company into bankruptcy. According to Businessworld, a footnote on â€Å"preferred stock† indicates that if Enron’s share price were to fall below $48. 55–which first occurred on June 14–the company would be obliged to issue stock to a partnership called Whitewing Associates (Tergesen, A. 2002). Other footnotes reveal similar arrangements. True, Enron never put a dollar value on its potential obligations, and the footnotes did not divulge the extent of the partnerships. But enough was revealed to suggest that investors were not getting a full view of the company’s finances. Enron and its Code of Ethics Enron trumpeted its own Code of Ethics, but based upon investigation by the U. S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, it willfully and shamelessly violated the very code it promised to upheld (U. S Subcommittee on Investigations, 2002). In its decision, the Subcommittee cited, among others, the following: (1) Fiduciary Failure. The Enron Board of Directors failed to safeguard Enron shareholders and contributed to the collapse of the seventh largest public company in the United States, by allowing Enron to engage in high risk accounting, inappropriate conflict f interest transactions, extensive undisclosed off-the-books activities, and excessive executive compensation. The Board witnessed numerous indications of questionable practices by Enron management over several years, but chose to ignore them to the detriment of Enron shareholders, employees and business associates. (2) High Risk Accounting. The Enron Board of Directors knowingly allowed Enron to engage in high risk accounting practices (Thomas, 2002). (3) Inappropriate Conflicts of Interest. Despite clear conflicts of interest, the Enron Board of Directors approved an unprecedented arrangement allowing Enron’s Chief Financial Officer to establish and operate the LJM private equity funds which transacted business with Enron and profited at Enron’s expense. The Board exercised inadequate oversight of LJM transaction and compensation controls and failed to protect Enron shareholders from unfair dealing. (4) Extensive Undisclosed Off-The-Books Activity. The Enron Board of Directors knowingly allowed Enron to conduct billions of dollars in off-the-books activity to make its financial condition appear better than it was and failed to ensure adequate public disclosure of material off-the-books liabilities that contributed to Enron’s collapse. 5) Excessive Compensation. The Enron Board of Directors approved excessive compensation for company executives, failed to monitor the cumulative cash drain caused by Enron’s 2000 annual bonus and performance unit plans, and failed to monitor or halt abuse by Board Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Lay of a company-financed, multi-million dollar, personal credit line. (6) Lack of Independence. The independence of the Enron Board of Directors was compromised by financial ties between the company and certain Board members. The Board lso failed to ensure the independence of the company’s auditor, allowing Andersen to provide internal audit and consulting services while serving as Enron’s outside auditor. Conclusion While Enron’s officials were caught and brought before the bars of justice, many wonder how widespread the lack of corporate ethics is in the business world. Greed they say is universal. Who knows what will be the next Enron. As long as there are CEOs, CFOs who disregard the simplest form of business decorum there will always be an Enron story. Let’s hope that people will not forget that story and profit from it.

Free Worship Leader Resources Essays

Free Worship Leader Resources Essays Free Worship Leader Resources Paper Free Worship Leader Resources Paper Licensing Information This book is licensed for your personal use only. No part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form except in case of brief quotations or book reviews. Please note that much of this publication is based on personal experience and anecdotal evidence. Although the author has made every reasonable attempt to achieve complete accuracy of the content in this book, the author assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions and shall not be liable for any loss or damage if any caused either directly or indirectly by the information mentioned in this book. Any trademarks, service marks, product names or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if these terms are used anywhere in this book. All rights reserved worldwide. ISBN: 978-1-300-09862-1 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3. 0 Unported License. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION BIBLE READING AND STUDY PRAYER / DEVOTIONAL / SPIRITUAL GROWTH WORSHIP TRAINING MUSICIAN RESOURCES SONGWRITING AUDIO RECORDING amp; EDITING WORSHIP PROJECTION SOFTWARE IMAGE AND VIDEO BACKGROUNDS WORSHIP PLANNING WORSHIP MAGAZINES ABOUT THE AUTHOR Introduction Let? s face it. Worship ministry can be expensive. We buy CDs, DVDs, attend seminars, subscribe to magazines, sign-up for webinars/podcasts, pay for planning tools, training conferences etc. : All of which can burn substantial holes in our wallets. Not to forget most online resources are from the US or the UK and a „reasonable price? in these countries is way beyond the boundaries of affordability for the rest of us! I live in India and face this all the time. So it is kind of a necessity for me to keep hunting for genuinely affordable resources. This is how I came to realize the Internet is a treasure trove of free tools that can be used for personal or ministerial growth. This book is a list of many such resources that I have discovered and used, compiled in an easy-to-access manner. My prayer is that this book saves you searching time amp; effort and proves to be of practical use in taking your worship to the next level. Here we go! Gangai Victor Bible Reading and Study 1. e-Bible offers reading plans, concordances, commentaries and dictionaries apart from the facility to take notes, highlight verses and provide multiple translations. ebible. com/ 2. Bible. is is a great resource to read and listen to the entire Bible for free with features like podcasts, verses via SMS, twitter feed apart from a cool Facebook app, which facilitates group reading/study of the Word too. ttp://www. bible. is/ 3. Blue Letter Bible is a rich resource, offering a searchable Bible with study tools, multiple translations, devotionals and commentaries apart from a dedicated section of resources for women in ministry. blueletterbible. org/ 4. The Walking Bible project helps us memorize verses of the Bible by tagging them to music and pictures. Users get to select preferred verses to memorize by topic or from any book in the Bible. walkingbible. com/ 5. My Study Bible provides an online Bible packed with features like word study, video player, commentary, dictionary and more. ttp://www. mystudybible. com/ 6. USCCB Bible is an online Catholic Bible provided by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). For those who wish to read a modern translation of the deuterocanonical books, which are not found in non-Catholic Bibles, this is a must-have resource. usccb. org/bible/index. cfm 7. Biblia. com is another cool online Bible resource created by the same folks who built the greatly popular Logos Bible Software. It offers lots of different translations and facilitates the use of the Bible side-by- ide with related reference books in an extremely contemporary interface. http://biblia. com/ 8. The Complete Bible Genealogy is a resource of immense value when we want to study specific persons in the Bible. It provides details of a whopping 3087 persons in the Bible including family trees and verse links! The content is neatly organized under heads like Every Person in the Bible, Genealogy of Jesus and Kings of Judah, Israel. complete-bible-genealogy. com/ 9. Bible Study Tools is a comprehensive Scripture resource with top notch features like search from 3 9. Bible versions, online Bible reading plans, access to parallel Bibles, concordances, commentaries, dictionaries, encyclopedias, lexicons in Greek amp; Hebrew, topical studies, sermon illustrations and more! biblestudytools. com/ 10. Biblios provides parallel Bibles, concordance, dictionary, encyclopedia, devotions, commentaries, atlas, lexicon, original language tools and more. http://biblos. com/ Prayer / Devotional / Spiritual Growth 11. Go Tandem is built on the sound premise that daily engagement with the Bible is essential for spiritual growth. Once we fill up a spiritual growth assessment questionnaire and choose topics of interest or struggle, Go Tandem will send relevant Biblical text and voice content via email and SMS giving us a personalized experience of walking with God? s Word daily to become more like Jesus. The customized content is designed to help us hear/read God? s Word along with short chal enging reflections leading to a response to His Word by identifying areas of change in our lives and relationships. Go Tandem can even arrange for a one-time or weekly call to see how we are doing and pray with us! ttps://gotandem. com/ 12. The Daily Examen is a PDF published by Busted Halo. It? s a concise Ignatian Daily Examen tool that teaches us a method of daily introspective prayer that involves a 6-step process. Alternate download link: http://bit. ly/O6goLN 13. Other6 is a community dedicated to help each other find God at all times in all things. It? s a place for people to share where and how, they find and experience God? s presence beyond Sunday i. e. the other 6 days of the week. According to the site Ignatius of Loyola, the 16th-century founder of the Jesuits, devised an examination of consciousness† a prayerful review of the day intended to help people recognize where they were finding, or needing to find, God in their lives. Other6 takes the essence of this centuries-old practice of the Examen and adapts it for today’s Internet-driven world by posing two questions: â€Å"Where have you found God today? † and â€Å"Where do you need to find God today? † other6. com 14. Examen. me is a user-friendly online service providing a unique approach to personal prayer and Bible study. Each study is called an examen, which we can use to read, study, meditate and interact with God t our own pace. Also included is a handy journal, in which we can jot down notes for later reference. There are 2 types of Examens: Scripture Examens and Prayer Examens. The site also provides an export option to search for completed examens and download them in PDF for offline reading. examen. me/ 15. Prayerity is an online prayer journal for individuals, churches, and missionaries. Apart from being a private journal, it can also facilitate us to connect and pray for each other. http://prayerity. com/ 16. I am Second is a unique online video ministry that aims to inspire people to live for God and for others. You? ll find lots of video stories of different kinds of people actors, athletes, musicians, business leaders, drug addicts etc. that will provide great insights into dealing with the struggles of daily life and keeping God first and self second. iamsecond. com/ 17. Operation World has a fantastic section providing lots of free ebooks that will help enhance our prayer lives. Some of the books include â€Å"Cat amp; Dog Theology†, â€Å"The Fasting Journey†, â€Å"How to Use the Bible in Prayer†, â€Å"Praying for the Poor† and many more! operationworld. rg/free-prayer-enhancing-resources 18. X3Watch is a free accountability software, which will send an email to a person of your choice (an accountability partner) with details of the sites that you browse. This will help curb the urge to visit inappropriate sites. x3watch. com/x3watchfreebuy. html Worship Training 19. Worship Central Course is a free worship ministry training program offered by Worship Central, a ministry run by people like Tim Hughes! Material includes text of the talk, notes and PowerPoint for every session apart from a course guide. orshipcentral. org/course/ 20. Student Worship Training Package is a free training package from Church Leaders that contains tips on crafting an entire worship service to reinforce the big idea, training for emcees, promotion video links etc. churchleaders. com/? news=145332/ 21. Worship Leader Training by Samuel Lane offered via Experiencing Worship. Lots of concepts are covered in this series of articles. Topics include worship heart, prayer amp; preparation, practicalities, song lists, dynamics, leading a band and song selection. experiencingworship. om/articles/general/2005-9-Worship-Leader-Training. html 22. Worship Leading Essentials, an ebook by Scot Longyear is full of awesome reference material and tips for worship leaders. http://ebookbrowse. com/worship-leading-essentials-scot-longyear-pdf-d306330665 23. Worship Training is one of the foremost training resources available online. They offer some sessions for free. Free media includes topics like a. Drum Setup: Make The Kit Fit b. Drums In Worship c. How To Mentor Other Worship Leaders amp; Musicians (Webinar) d. How To Create A Healthy Balance Between â€Å"Structure† And â€Å"Free Flow† (Webinar) e. How To Lead A Great Worship Band Rehearsal (Webinar) f. Working Together As Vocalists g. Use Technology To Aid You As A Worship Leading h. Spontaneity In Worship and many more! http://goo. gl/1yMLt 24. A Worship Leader’s Handbook, an ebook by Josiah Oslund is a brief exploration of the personal, interpersonal and practical application of modern music ministry. It is written to be a brief and accessible reference handbook filled with thoughts, tips and technical tricks including topics like how to manage flaky artists and tech teams, how to deal with criticism, tips on getting started with songwriting, nderstanding your ministry context and much more. http://josiaho. com/book 25. Next Level Worship Leading is a worship leader e-course by David Santistevan. The course is a systematic weekly tutorial on important concepts of worship ministry. davidsantistevan. com/nlwl/ 26. Worship Workshop by Don Moen, Lenny Leblanc amp; Team: There are 2 free downloads in MP3 format: a. Qualities of a worship leader/musician a session by Don Moen on topics like being yourself off and on the stage, caring for people, encouraging participation, earning trust, avoiding redictability, submitting to authority etc. b. Worship Band Workshop the 2nd session is a demo of concepts like playing a worship song, sound-check, maintaining flow etc. breaking down the roles of the drums, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass and keyboard in worship. votivepraise. com/2012/04/don-moen. html 27. WorshipGod11 training sessions are offered as free downloads by Bob Kauflin at WorshipMatters. Sessions available are: a. Putting Songs Together – Bob Kauflin b. Making Room for the Spirit? s Leading – Pat Sczebel c. Thinking Surgically While Leading Liturgically – Jamie Brown . The Benefits and Limits of Creativity – Bob Kauflin e. Bringing Order Out of Chaos – Ken Boer f. Worshiping a Big God in a Small Church – Pat Sczebel g. Building and Caring for a Tech Team, PT1 – Dave Wilcox h. Building and Caring for a Tech Team, PT2 – Dave Wilcox 28. Worship Leader Online gives away 2 of their many worship leader training eBooks for free: a. Arranging Hymns for a Modern Church has pointers to incorporate traditional hymns into contemporary worship. b. How to Lead Worship in a Small Church offers tips on doing just that. Musician Resources 29. StrumSchool is an online guitar learning website for beginners that teaches basic guitar playing concepts using video and text tutorials. The lessons are structured in an accessible manner especially for beginners. strumschool. com/ 30. Guitar and Bass is a free desktop software for fretted instruments like Guitar, Bass, Banjo and Mandolin. It has the ability to add new instruments and tunings too. It provides scale/chord/interval references, exercises, tablature viewer/editor, ear training exercises, tuner, audio samples from real guitars, chord finder and an advanced metronome. You can plug in your instrument while practising too. guitar-and-bass-software. com 31. Justin Guitar (JUSTIN = Just Use Sound To Improve Now) is an amazing website for guitarists with over 500 free lessons including courses for beginners apart from intermediate and advanced players. Some of the topics covered are basic skills, rhythm, scales, chords, gear, recording, arpeggios and much much more! http://justinguitar. com/ 32. Guitar Praise run by Kenny Gohweizhi has tutorials for electric, bass and acoustic guitars covering many of todays popular praise and worship songs. ttp://guitarpraise. blogspot. in/ 33. For Your Glory by Graham and Daniel Choo has hundreds of worship song tutorials and more are being added regularly. Youll find a tutorial for almost any popular worship song here. http://grahamchoo. blogspot. com/2007/08/christian-music-instructional. html 34. Worship Tutorials is a song tutorial resource run by Brian Wahl containing tons of guitar tutorial videos for popular worship songs. This site also provides song videos to play along apart from chord charts. http://worshiptutorials. com/ 35. Piano in Contemporary Worship This is a 3 part series of video tutorials taught by Bob Kauflin covering just about every important concept for the modern worship keyboardist: a. The first video session covers melody, rhythm, harmony, groove, whole notes, dynamics and practise tips. b. The second session contains tips on playing with a band, fills, using the left hand and acoustic piano vs. electric keyboard. c. The third video has concepts like chord coloring, inversions, playing hymns, developing chords, vocabulary, introductions, transitions, playing behind the speaker and modulations. 36. Transposr is a free and handy online app providing transposing services for chord charts and MP3 files. Simply upload MP3 files, choose a key and Transposr will transpose the MP3 to that key. It can do the same thing to chord charts if you upload them as text files too. Great resource for rehearsals! http://transposr. com/ 37. MixMeister BPM Analyzer is a neat desktop tool to identify the tempo of worship songs. Once the program is installed, select the folder where you store music files, based on which BPM Analyzer will calculate extremely accurate BPM, display amp; sort files by Title, Artist, or BPM, update ID3 tags with xact BPM information, print BPM reports and export BPM counts for use in other programs. mixmeister. com/ 38. Open Metronome is an open source metronome for Windows and Windows Mobile. Its features include user definable BPM amp; measure, visual indicator, hot-keys, 40 MIDI voices, custom rhythm patterns etc. http://sourceforge. net/projects/openmetronome/ 39. Chords! Online is an online harmony recognition service. Simply upload the MP3 of the song (maximum file size limit of 8 MB), provide an email ID and thats it. An automatic email will be sent onfirming the song upload and then another one once the chords are mapped. Post the upload, it takes about 3 to 10 minutes to complete the entire process. http://chords. fm/ 40. Audio Pitch amp; Shift is a neat free program to help musicians learn difficult parts of a song such as complex guitar solos by slowing down the speed of playback without affecting the pitch. The app can also detect the BPM of a song, loop-playback a specific segment of a song etc. http://audiops. codeplex. com/ Songs, Lyrics and Chords 41. Worship Together is a ministry to discover new songs, video tutorials, chord charts by songwriters like Chris Tomlin, Hillsong UNITED, Tim Hughes, Passion, Matt Maher, Christian Stanfill, Brenton Brown etc. Songs are indexed by theme, tempo, genre etc. for easy search. http://worshiptogether. com/ 42. Kingsway? s website gives away a free new song with chord chart every week. The site also has a database of lyrics of almost all songs released under the Kingsway label (classics and new songs) searchable by title, lyrics, author and theme. kingsway. co. uk/ 43. FreeCCM is an information base of the latest Christian music happenings apart from a source of free- o-download songs every week. http://freeccm. com/ 44. Chordbook is a flash-based site that displays guitar strings with an interface to select the chord you want to play, based on which it automatically places visual circles on the guitar strings to help you learn the right placement for your fingers to play that chord. Clicking the strum button play the selected chord to get an idea of how the chord actually sounds like. Also features alternate tunings, capo mode, left and right hand playing, chord search and chord inversions. chordbook. com/ 45. Chord Chart for Keyboard / Piano from Key Sheet Music is a comprehensive PDF containing diagrams of every chord shape commonly used by keyboardists / pianists. With hundreds of the most popular chords to choose from, this book will give you the help you need to develop and progress in your piano playing skills more quickly. keysheetmusic. com/media/bookstore/pianoandkeyboardchords/pianoandkeyboardchords. pd f 46. Tabster is an easy to use simple guitar tab manager program that stores guitar tabs in a local library for easy viewing, editing, and printing. It comes with a built-in browser that enables searching of the tabs vailable in the Ultimate Guitar website, easily download them and add them to a local library. You can also create your own tabs and upload them to the Internet. nateshoffner. com/projects/ 47. Worship Archive is a simple website to find chords for all kinds of worship songs. The site also features a transpose tool to instantly get the chords of a song in your preferred key. worshiparchive. com/ 48. Worship Swap is a community of Christian musicians who share worship song chord charts. There? s a wide variety of songs available here to learn your favorite worship song. Apart from chords, members also share video tutorials. http://worshipswap. com 49. e-Chords is another cool resource to find worship song lyrics and chords. Registration as a member gives you access to all available song chords and enables you to upload songs into its database, create songbooks and receive preferred chords by email. e-chords. com/ 50. Ultimate Guitar is a fantastic site to search for bass and guitar tabs apart from chords. You? ll find multiple versions of chords/tabs for many songs, which should catch the fancy of advanced musicians. ultimate-guitar. com/ 51. The Guitar Hymn Book is yet another useful chords site with a unique feature: finger-style tabs for many hymns! Chords for tons of hymns are available here. Classical guitarists and hymn lovers should love this one. http://guitarhymnbook. com/ 52. SlowMP3 is a musician-friendly music player with 3 unique features: a. A â€Å"Speed† control er to slow down the playback speed – useful to figure out the notes of a solo. b. A â€Å"Transpose† controller to transpose the key up to 6 steps lower or 5 steps higher. c. A â€Å"Transcribe† button which highlights the notes being played on a virtual keyboard, to help igure out the chords. rinki. net/pekka/slowmp3/ Songwriting 53. VersePerfect is without doubt, the most powerful PC freeware for song/poetry writing. Includes a text editor, rhyming dictionary, Hyperbolic Thesaurus, connection to online resources and more to translate your lyric ideas to finished songs. http://bryantmcgill. com/books/rhyming-dictionary 54. Becoming a Better Songwriter is a series of teachings on songwriting provided as free MP3 downloads by Bob Kauflin. Topics covered are: a. Becoming a Better Songwriter – Mark Altrogge, Steve amp; Vikki Cook b. How to Revise Your Own Song – Steve Cook c. Principles of Songwriting – Stuart Townend d. What the Psalms Teach us About Songwriting – Mark Altrogge, Steve amp; Vikki Cook e. What Will Your Next Song Be? Writing Songs on Purpose – Mark Altrogge, Steve amp; Vikki Cook f. Why God Wants You to Write Songs – Mark Altrogge g. Writing Songs People Will Want to Sing – Craig Dunnagan h. Recording Your Song from Start to Finish, Part 1 – Sal Oliveri i. Recording Your Song from Start to Finish, Part 2 – Sal Oliveri 55. WorshipGod11 training sessions on songwriting are also available for download at Worship Matters: a. Practicing and Planning Creativity (for songwriters) – Mark Altrogge, Steve amp; Vikki Cook b. Before and After – The Evolution of a Song – Mark Altrogge, Steve amp; Vikki Cook c. What Makes These Songs Great? – Steve amp; Vikki Cook d. Worshiping God When Your World is Shaking – Craig Cabaniss 56. Songwriting Critique amp; Checklist Forms are available as PDF downloads at â€Å"My Song in the Night†, a blog by Bobby amp; Kristen Gilles of Sojourn Music. http://mysonginthenight. com/2012/07/23/get-your-free-songwriting-critique-form -checklist-form-here/ 57. Rhyme Brain claims to rhyme any word using advanced linguistics and statistics to search over 2. 6 million words! Apart from the rhyming dictionary, Rhyme Brain also provides other songwriting tools like invent-a-word, alliteration aid, an online text editor, a de-wordifier and a pronunciation helper. http://rhymebrain. com/en 58. B-Rhymes is what you need when you? re looking for false/imperfect rhymes. It helps you find near sounding words, so you don? t always have a line ending with „sing? followed by a line ending with „king? – it basically helps avoid lyrical cliches. It outputs words that sound good together even though they dont technically rhyme as well as perfect rhymes. b-rhymes. com/ 59. RhymeZone combines a regular rhyming dictionary with an option to find imperfect rhymes. It also helps find synonyms, antonyms, definitions, homophones, similar sounding words, consonants, related words, words with similar spellings, words with matching letters, etc. rhymezone. com/ Audio Recording amp; Editing 60. Audio Recording Guide is a free ebook to understand audio recording, the music business and the entire music production process. udiorecording. me/music-production-ebook-in-home-audio-recording-mixing-and- mastering. html 61. Audacity is the most famous free digital audio editor program out there. Allows recording / importing audio, post-recording processing, multi-track mixing, effects, plug-ins, pitch and tempo edits and more. Audacity is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. audacity. sourceforge. net/ 62. Linux MultiMedia Studio (LMMS) is available for the Linux, OpenBSD, and Microsoft Windows operating systems. Comes with a song editor, beat amp; baseline editor, piano roll, multiple instruments, MIDI and fruity-loops import etc. Supports LADSPA and VST plugins too. http://lmms. sourceforge. net/ 63. Wavosaur is a free sound editor, audio editor, wav editor software for editing, processing and recording sounds, wav and mp3 files. Wavosaur can edit audio (cut, copy, paste, etc. ), produce music loops, analyze, record and batch convert files. It supports VST plugins, ASIO driver, multichannel wav files and real time effect processing. The program has no installer and doesnt write in the registry. You can use it as a free mp3 editor, for mastering or sound design. wavosaur. com/ 64. Ocenaudio is a cross-platform, audio analysis and editing tool supporting VST plugins, Real-time preview of effects, Multi-selection for delicate edits, Efficient editing of large files, full-features spectrogram and more. softpedia. com/get/Multimedia/Audio/Audio-Editors Recorders/ocenaudio. shtml 65. Free Audio Editor is a comprehensive digital audio workstation that lets you record audio, edit audio tracks, apply various effects with support for a wide range of audio formats including MP3, WAC, OGG, WMA, FLAC, MP2, CDA, AIFF, AAC, AC3 etc. It can cut, crop and extract audio from video including YouTube videos (it can download videos too), apply multiple audio effects / filters, reduce noise and more. swifturn. com/audioeditor. html 66. Wave Editor is a fast and simple digital audio editing software for Windows that supports MP3, WMA and WAV. It is useful for making small adjustments to audio files like fade-in/fade-out, normalize, amplify, insert silence etc. wave-editor. com/ 67. Jokosher is a simple and feature rich multi-track studio application for recording, editing, mixing amp; exporting audio with support for Ogg Vorbis, MP3, FLAC, WAV etc. jokosher. rg 68. Free Audio Editor 2012 is a powerful audio recorder and editor with effects, real-time preview, text-to-speech synthesis and more. free-audio-editor. com 69. Soundcloud helps you make and share recordings with a selected audience or just about anyone online. It is an easy-to-use online audio distribution service which facilitates collaboration, promotion and distribution of audio recordings. There are Android and iOS apps available too. http://soundcloud. com Worship Projection Software 70. Exposong is a projection freeware sporting a clean and user-friendly interface and handles he OpenLyrics data format, thereby providing compatibility with alternative open-source lyrics applications. Supports lyrics, alerts, images, timers, set management, library import / export, compatibility with OpenSong amp; SongSelect files, songbook printing etc. No video features yet. Runs on Windows and Ubuntu-Debian. http://exposong. org/ 71. EasySlides can handle 3 monitors, so musicians on stage can have their own screen to follow the lyrics. Supports lyric display in 2 languages for multi-lingual services, video playback including live amera feed integration, chords storage, alerts, searchable Bible, songbook creation and more. Windows only. easyslides. com/ 72. Openlp is a standard and popular freeware with loads of features for managing and displaying songs, Bible verses, images, videos (not video backgrounds though) and alerts. Comes with Bible import from CSV files, CCLI / SongSelect integration, PowerPoint file import and more. It even facilitates linking songs to audio files for use as backing tracks. Openlp is available for Windows, Mac, Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch Linux and FreeBSD. http://openlp. rg/ 73. Datasoul is a cross platform (Windows, Linux and Mac) freeware that supports display of text, images and video, nice formatting options, alerts, video backgrounds (file and live feed) and separate output for the main screen and stage. It can handle lyrics, chords, transposition and even guitar tabs apart from launching PDF, PPT and OpenOffice files. Another cool feature is its ability to export a presentation to PDF. There are also tools available to import PowerPoint and OpenOffice presentations and songs from EasyWorship. http://code. google. com/p/datasoul/ 74.Quelea is a cross platform (Windows and Linux) projection program that can get you started quickly with your song library as it allows importing songs from various sources like the Kingsway online library, survivor songbooks and source songbooks. It? s also compatible with the Zefania Bible format to import a wide variety of Bibles. Supports lyrics, transposition of chords, PowerPoint, Video playback and more. http://quelea. org/ 75. Sing and Read 2 is a Windows only freeware for displaying songs, hymns, Bible passages, notices amp; orders of service with dual monitor output. Its unique feature is using MS-NetMeeting to broadcast a presentation over the Internet. softwareforworship. com/singandread2. htm 76. Songview has most of the standard features like lyrics, chords, Bible, alerts, handling PowerPoint files etc. It can also track song use history for CCLI reporting and display chords for the musicians on stage as a separate output. Songview is also portable and can be installed and run from a USB stick. Windows only. logos-solutions. org. uk/songview. php 77. Zionworx comes with integrated Bibles and a song database, great text formatting options, CCLI ompliance, service list creation, PowerPoint integration and more. It does not handle chords though. Its unique feature is the ability to connect to BibleGateway. com to download and display Bible passages on-the-fly. Windows only. zionworx. org. uk/ 78. OpenSong is a simple program that supports storing of lyrics with chords (including key transposition), searchable Bible, alerts, dual monitors, creation of printable lead sheets etc. However, two disadvantages with OpenSong are its inability to allow slide edits during the slideshow and lack of video playback. OpenSong is available for Windows, Mac and Linux. opensong. org/ 79. Power Worship is an add-on for MS-PowerPoint for those who are still stuck to PowerPoint for some weird reason. It provides a library to create and maintain lyric files. A set-list can be created by selecting songs from the library and on the click of a button, Power Worship will create a PowerPoint presentation for the set-list with user defined backgrounds, fonts etc. Power Worship is available for Windows and Mac. Apart from PowerPoint, there is an OpenOffice version also available. owerworship. com/ 80. Asaph is no longer in active development but the freeware is still available for download through CNET. It can manage song databases, publish song-sheets/booklets and generate presentations for worship. Windows only. http://download. cnet. com/Asaph/3000-2130_4-47058. html 81. Worship Extreme is a powerful church presentation program with support for HD video backgrounds, feature-rich slide editor, Bibles, alerts and more. Windows only. worship-extreme. com/ 82. PowerSong is an easy to learn presentation tool that comes with multiple databases with song ategorization, extensive text formatting, Bible support, real-time song editing, set-list building, alerts and more. Does not support video though. Windows only. powersong. org/ 83. SNAP Projection is a simple program which apart from its regular song management features also works with PowerPoint slides slides created in PowerPoint can be used in SNAP Projection to present them. Allows editing/correcting slides real-time and set management. Windows only. snapprojection. com/ 84. Open Worship is a cross-platform (Windows, Mac OS, Linux) multimedia application for presenting worship lyrics. http://open-worship. et/ Image and Video Backgrounds 85. Motion Share is an online resource that provides videos with creative commons license, meaning all available media content are free to be used as you please. There are motion backgrounds, mini movies, countdowns, film amp; animation and a category called collections a group of videos based on a theme. motionshare. com/ 86. Desktop Nexus has thousands of high quality images neatly arranged under common categories. The site has a good search function too. Only downside is each image has to be downloaded individually as theres no batch select amp; download option. esktopnexus. com 87. Free HD Motion Backgrounds is a YouTube channel that publishes HD quality motion videos that can be used in your favorite projection software. Nice collection here if video is your thing! youtube. com/user/MovingBacksProducts 88. New Life Church Creative website has a section full of stunning video backgrounds that are available for free download. http://creative. newlifechurch. tv/downloads/backgrounds 89. VLADSTUDIO has wallpapers specific to single monitor, 2 or 3 monitor setups, iPhone and iPad. So if you want customized backgrounds for these devices, this is a neat site to visit. Theres no easy search facility though, so youll have to browse the images page by page till you spot what youre looking for. vladstudio. com/wallpapers/ 90. Wallpapr is a simple search engine to find images. Like Vladstudio, wallpapr also provide images customized for iPhone and iPod. http://marcogomes. com/wallpapr/en/ 91. Wallpapers Wide provides wallpapers in a wide variety of resolutions and sizes. The images are of excellent quality and can be searched by keyword or by category. http://wallpaperswide. com 92. Wallbase is another superb site to find and download high quality wallpapers. The site also has a powerful search facility. http://wallbase. cc 93. Open Resources provides sermon audio, countdowns, promotional design graphics, documents and videos (openers, loops etc. ) that can be fit into a broad variety of themes. The content is neatly arranged under categories like Biblical Themes, Family, Finance, Personal Stories, Healing amp; Recovery, Relationships and Youth, thereby facilitating uncomplicated navigation of available material. openresources. org/ 94. Stock Photos for Free is a free database of photos and images from around the world. The free content is available for use even in commercial projects. stockphotosforfree. com/ 95. Free HD Countdowns is just what the name says: a wonderful site to download countdown videos in HD quality for free. The videos can be used at any event, no conditions attached! http://freehdcountdowns. com/ 96. Free Worship Loops is another great site to download beautiful video backgrounds for free. http://freeworshiploops. com/ Worship Planning 97. Praise Tools is a free (for now! ) online resource that helps organize songs, plan worship services each week and easily communicate it all with the team. ttp://praisetools. com/ 98. Service Builder is a free online worship planning software that facilitates you to organize teams, schedule musicians, connect and share with required people efficiently. It helps track attendance, plan songs, build the order of the service and more. It also packs tons of lyrics amp; chord sheets for thousands of worship songs and hymns. http://servicebuilder. net/ 99. Song Suggest is a one-of-a-kind PC app which comes with a database of around 600+ popular worship songs. You can search for songs, lyrics, chords amp; YouTube videos and use the results to build orship set-lists by theme. While the iOS app costs $2. 99, the desktop version is free. http://worshipapps. com/air/ 100. Google+ Hangouts is a useful tool to stay connected with your ministry team even when not physically present at the same place. Hangouts allow you video chat with up to 9 people! Its good enough to even work out new songs over video chat. It has a Hangouts On Air feature, which facilitates broadcast of live events (like your worship session for example) to any number of people. Make sure you enable an audio setting called Studio Mode, which enhances the sound to near CD-quality. ttp://www. google. com/tools/dlpage/res/talkvideo/hangouts/ 101. Service Planning Worksheet is a spreadsheet provided by Chris Gambill at JourneyofWorship, which helps plan worship services ahead of time and organize service elements like topics, songs, videos, readings etc. It is also available as a PDF document. Alternate download link: http://bit. ly/Si7IPr 102. Planning Center Online offers a free option too with most of the necessary features intact. PLO facilitates planning amp; organizing every aspect of the service in one place including times, people, songs, media, notes amp; ttachments and more. https://www. planningcenteronline. com/signup/free 103. PraiseBase is a database application for worship teams. It provides an interface to track your songs, sets amp; team members and provides a publishing feature to facilitate the creation of an intranet website to share service details with the team. praisebase. com/ 104. Google Drive is not exactly meant to be a worship planning tool, but it can easily be used for this purpose. Plan the worship service in a spreadsheet, upload media files, invite team members to collaborate and share everything seamlessly. Separate each service by creating individual folders for each of them and you have a well maintained, free, cloud based worship planning eco-system. Google Drive? s Android app is simply the icing on the cake! https://drive. google. com 105. Lifeway Worship offers a free online worship planning tool too. lifewayworship. com/worshipPlan/start 106. BOX like Google Drive, can also double up as an effective worship planning tool. You can use it to plan services, track people, assign tasks, review activity, share media and other files, integrate Google docs, stay connected and up-to-date on everything. ttps://www. box. com 107. Guidebook for Fantastic Worship Rehearsals is a free ebook by Rob Rash that is full of practical tips and suggestions for effective worship team rehearsals. http://robrash. us/guidebook/ Worship Magazines 108. Worship Musician! is a bi-monthly resource devoted to equipping congregations and individuals as they seek to lead a life of Christ-centered worship. The digital editions are available for free. scribd. com/doc/92863896/Worship-Musician-Magazine-MayJun-2012 109. Technologies for Worship Magazine (TWFM) is a magazine specifically designed to meet the technical eeds of your church. The digital edition is free. https://www. tfwm. com/intdigmagsub 110. Integrity Digital Magazine is a free digital worship magazine published by Kingsway and Integrity Hosanna. integritydigitalmagazine. com/ 111. All About Worship Digital Magazine is a monthly digital magazine available as a PDF download. Contains artist interviews, devotionals, reviews, articles and more. http://allaboutworship. com/magazine/ 112. Sunday Magazine is an online magazine aimed more at creatives, but it does contain articles on topics related to worship too. ttp://www. sundaymag. tv/ About the Author Gangai Victor is a worship leader, trainer, songwriter, technology enthusiast and founder of the blog, Votive Praise, a resource for worshipers and worship leaders. His blog has been featured on Worship Leader magazine and Worship Ministry Catalyst as a top online resource for worship ministry. Gangai also contributes content for Church Mag and Faith Village. Gangai lives in Chennai, India with his family. Blog: www. votivepraise. com Twitter: @votivepraise Google+: http://goo. gl/zSOIK Document Outline TOC