Argument92 【六人作文小组】第1周第3次作业

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TOPIC: ARGUMENT92 - The following is a recommendation from the human resources department at Techforce Computer Company.

"Many working parents report that problems related to their childcare arrangements are a major reason for absenteeism from their jobs. Bridgewell Corporation, a tele-communications company, implemented an on-site childcare program and after one year, the company reported that unscheduled absences had declined by 25 percent. Since Techforce has had an increase in unscheduled employee absences over the past year, we should therefore implement our own on-site childcare program. The program will undoubtedly reduce our unscheduled employee absences, resulting in significantly increased productivity."
WORDS: 428          TIME: 1:31:06          DATE: 2009-1-8

提纲：
1.unscheduled absence的增加不一定由childcare造成
2.两个公司情况不一样
3.减少缺勤就能显著生产率？

This recommendation of Techforce Computer Company claims that implementing their own on-site childcare program will reduce the unscheduled absences and increase productivity significantly. To support this claim the recommendation cites the example of another company whose unscheduled absences fell by 25 percent one year after their childcare program was implemented. As it stands the recommendation rests on a series of dubious assumptions, and is therefore unconvincing.

In the first place, the recommendation relies on the unsubstantiated assumption that unscheduled absences of the company is totally due to the problems related to childcare arrangements. That assumption is arbitrary. Perhaps working parents only account for a small portion of all staff of the company, and the high unscheduled absenc rate is mainly attributed to the single young people. Or employees do absent themselves from their jobs mainly for their children, but they have all asked for a leave. There is no further detailed data to show the relationship of unscheduled absences and total absences. Similarly, it is not sure that the decrease in unscheduled absences of Bridgewell Corporation must be the result of childcare program, if this assumption does not exist.

Even if the assumption mentioned above is true, the recommendation unfairly assumes that the method used by Bridgewell Corporation must have the same effect to Techforce Company as well. There may be a great many huge differences between the two companies, which make the effects totally different if Techforce simply copies the program. The staff's age, gender, distance of living from the company, and their children's age, and so on, all these important details which will help to assess the effect of childcare program for the company is lacked in the recommendation.

And even if the childcare program really works for reducing the employee absences, there is no evidence to assert that the productivity of the company will significantly increase. No research has been done to show the present productivity is low, let alone to prove the low productivity is the result of high absence rate. Even if that are all true, it is entirely possible that the program has other negative influence to the productivity that we don't know, and the productivity remains the same after implementing the childcare program.

In sum, this recommendation fails to provide key evidences needed to support its claims. To strengthen that claim the human resources department must do more job to verify the relationship between unscheduled absences and childcare, to analyse the similarity of Techforce and Bridgewell, and to discuss the possible elements affecting the company's productivity.

声明：这篇Argu就是照着北美范文抄的，实在惭愧……