Being a victim of extortion or threats is not a factor of size, and it’s not always connected to a perception of wealth. You can become a victim for many reasons. A small company might be an easier target than a large multinational, because the large companies are often perceived as having a very significant security force in place. And whereas a large company might be able to weather the costs stemming from a kidnapping or product recall and negative press campaign, for a smaller company, the damage could be irreparable, which makes them more likely to give in to the threat.

The first step in protecting your company from various forms of corporate terrorism is to understand that it can, indeed, happen to you. The source will likely be one of five types of perpetrators:

- Disgruntled employees, either current or former, or someone else with a grudge against you or the company;

- Criminals who are looking primarily for financial gain;

- Psychotic or mentally ill individuals;

- Terrorists; and

- Hoaksters.

Possible scenarios include an unhappy employee who threatens to release company secrets or plant a virus in your computer if you don’t take certain described actions; threats from a stranger or a fanatic to injure people or damage property if a ransom is not paid; actual or threats of product tampering; and threats to generate negative publicity if the company fails to take specific actions.

The next step is to develop a crisis management plan. Though you certainly can’t plan for all contingencies, think in advance about what steps you will take so you can react calmly and with a sense of purpose to resolve a situation. Decide who will be in charge of what, and plan for communicating with law enforcement, the media, your customers, and your employees. A good way to develop a plan is to meet with a crisis management consultant before anything happens; establishing such a relationship in advance may cost a small amount of time and money, but it will be invaluable if a real need arises.

Consider, too, how you will handle the costs associated with an incident. Some of the expenses may be covered under your regular business insurance, or you may want to investigate special policies. For example, some insurance companies offer kidnap and extortion and product tampering insurance.

The companies that survive extortion threats are usually the ones that were prepared for the “attack” well before it happened and were able to quickly and efficiently implement a crisis management plan.

The massive productivity increases and crop yields is completely astounding, unfortunately, this also causes a problem for people, workers who make their money on farms and picking crops – they just will not be needed in the future.

Today Dairy Farms have 25 to 35 head of cattle per employee, the cows rest on water bed mattresses, and robotic stainless steel equipment hooked up to a computer milks the cows. Higher milk yield, happier cows, less infection, sounds like a good life to me, and that my friends is the future of the agriculture business in a nutshell.

The modern day combine is over half-a-million dollars, runs on GPS coordinates, and looks more like the space shuttle inside than anything close to a 1940s tractor. In fact, once you put the combine in position, just hit go, like you would in a 747 cleared for take-off and it will fly the whole trip and land in zero-zero visibility at the designated airport.

So too, will a modern day combine, it can do the entire job in dense fog and tell you when it’s done, while you are merely along for the ride “just in case” as you sit in complete comfort with surround a sound music, air-conditioning and you can even watch the game. Yah, farming is hard work? Not anymore, never again will it be.

And just as the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) works on telerobotics, they have high-tech farm equipment that can do the same. Instead of a flying UAV, it’s an unmanned agricultural vehicle (UAV), the military version would be an unmanned ground vehicle or UGV, but rest assured this technology is coming to a field near you soon.

Interestingly enough, these high-tech pieces of equipment are also getting harder and harder to maintain, meaning Farmer Joe in the future might have a computer degree from MIT. Please consider all this.

The main reason your business is in existence is to highlight the requirements and expectations of your customers and other persons concerned (employees, suppliers etc) to accomplish an advantage over you competitors. In addition to this, another objective must be to gain, sustain and develop your businesses performance and resources. As a means to achieve improvements within your business you should ensure that your business employs the key principles that are fundamental to ISO 9001:2000, these are: Customer Focus, Involvement of People, Leadership, Process Approach, Factual Approach, System Approach, Continual Improvements, Mutually Beneficial Supplier Relationships.

Following the principles highlighted above ensures that your business focuses on what your customer actually requires and not what they think they require. In order for your business to move forward successfully it is essential that you run it in a methodical and well thought out manner that is highly perceptible. To achieve success from your business you must ensure that your business adopts a business management system which will ensure that continual improvement is constantly being driven by the management system. If your business is to develop and have a business management system that will allow growth and sustainability, you will have to ensure that you build a management system that is focused on your customers.

To achieve this objective your business management system must contain systems and processes that are easily understood by the individuals within your business. It is also crucial that these systems can be managed easily and improvements made if they are necessary without any detrimental affect on the day to day operation of your business. The processes within your management system must be capable of being measured to ensure they are performing as required. It does also mean that when setting these key performance indicators, intelligent thought is given to the areas that you are measuring. It is worth remembering that individuals are likely to improve in areas in which they are being measured.

Retention of employees is another large problem in the hotel service business. Since so many of the employees do not have hotel work as their ending career goals, many of them only work in a hotel for a short amount of time. Other employees may have to be let go because of poor work ethics or other issues. However, there are ways that a hotel human resources manager can curb some of the desire and likelihood that employees will move to other jobs quickly. The importance of human resources management for hotels is very large in this area. Managers can provide good training and incentive programs that will cause employees to stay longer at the hotel. Having a clear progression plan to advance to higher levels of service will also cause employees to stick around much longer.

The issue of employee progression and promotion is also another large issue for the hotel industry. The importance of human resources management for hotels is proven in this area. Hotels which provide ways for employees to advance in position, or that provide training for employees so that they can gain skills necessary for an advanced position are very important to the retention rate of employees. It is easy to implement services of this nature and the expense is negligible compared to the expense and time necessary to constantly find new employees to replace the ones that always leave shortly after being hired. One of the easiest things to implement is English lessons. Many hotel employees do not speak English very well, and so it is a great incentive for them to stay working at a hotel if they are offered English lessons.

The importance of human resources management for hotels is also important in the area of employee services. If the employees know they can come to the human resources manager whenever they have a problem or issue then it is easier for them to work in good conscience. Many human resources departments implement different games and activities to make the work environment more interesting and fun for employees. There are many different services that a human resources manager can think of to help employee morale. Maybe the hotel could implement a babysitting service, or have a park day every year. These little services go a long way towards making happy employees. Happy employees make happy companies and happy customers.

As you can see, the importance of human resources management for hotels is very great. There are thousands of ways that a human resources manager can make a hotel run more smoothly and more efficiently. There are many different areas that can benefit from the experience and guidance of a human resources manager. Therefore it is very important to not undermine the manager’s importance. Without the human resources manager a hotel is not the same or as pleasing to customers and employees.