University of Wollongong BUS 800 Florist Excel Activity Assignment

This document provides a solution to the Florist Excel Activity assignment from the Excel in Business course, BUS 800, at the University of Wollongong. The assignment requires students to use Excel to track the monthly profits of a Wollongong florist business. The florist sells single roses, bouquets, and simple flower arrangements. Students are tasked with calculating income, expenses, and profit using the provided spreadsheet template. The solution includes sections for income from sales, other revenue, and various expenses such as cost of sales, rent, salaries, travel, and utilities. The student also needs to include their student ID and a submission statement. The assignment emphasizes practical application of Excel in a business context, focusing on financial tracking and analysis for a small business.

Assessment 2: Weaving evidence into a paragraph
For instance, an employee can be motivated to act towards a particular goal or objective if he or
she can be made to assume that the attainment of the same will lead to a certain desirable
outcome. Therefore, if an employee ascribes high value to a particular outcome then his or her
motivation to achieve the goal leading to the attainment of the outcome would also be high.
However, the objective needs to be carefully designed. If the objective is unachievable or
unreasonable then it can have a negative impact on self efficacy or goal responsibility of the
employees. In such cases, the employees might make unsuccessful attempts towards the goal
which can have negative impact on job morale or job satisfaction. In certain cases the employees
can even turn down an unreasonable or an unachievable objective.
Similarly, there are several other factors that need to be considered to encourage the productivity
and efficiency of the employees.
Assessment 2: Critical reading
The current research paper by Phil Gardner is an extension of an earlier research done by the
faculty at Johnson and Wales University. The faculty at Johnson and Wales University while
trying to understand factors that could get a new college graduate hire fired had narrowed down
to five points. These are being late to assignments or work, infectiveness in team, failure to
communicate effectively, failure to abide by instructions and failure to take initiative. These
points have since been used in talks to students (Gardner, 2007). Gardner however argues that
the field of work has undergone tremendous change in the meanwhile owing to the boom of
technology and computing. Gardner argues that fueled by the .com boom risky and questionable
practices that stretch the boundaries of ethics have found their place. So, Gardner decided to
conduct a new research to find the list of actions that could lead to disciplinary actions by the
organizations (Gardner, 2007). It was found that among ten different habits that could result in a
disciplinary action by the employer on the employee the top two were lack of work commitment
or ethics and engaging in unethical behavior. A study of the employer characteristics to reflect on
the difference in disciplining behavior revealed that the companies engaged in utilities, retail,
financial services, etc. reported higher frequencies of disciplinary behavior. However,

researchers opined that all disciplinary actions did not lead to termination. As such unethical
behavior and inappropriate use of technology were the top reasons that could lead to termination.
Similarly, self management, leadership ability, team effectiveness, taking initiative, perspective,
networking, etc. were some of the traits that could lead to promotion or new responsibilities at
the work place (Gardner, 2007).
The study was based upon data collected through annual college hiring survey conducted by the
researchers. Several data points have been collected and analyzed well. The findings also
corroborate with the previous research study done in this area. However, a more detailed
literature review and larger sample size would have given more validity to the research results.
For the students, however, the research findings are of immense value. The research findings do
seem to suggest that the students should cultivate communication and team working capability
amongst themselves. The students should also dissuade from unethical or inappropriate use of
the network available at the workplace.

References
Gardner, P., 2007. Moving up or moving out of the company? Factors that influence the
promoting or firing of new college hires. Collegiate Employment Research Institute.