Hi Jim,
Can you also do one more favor ? Could you please rate this argument? I ma taking my GMAT on 24th August and I need to know where I stand.
Argument: "Workforce systems, a consulting firm specializing in workplace productivity and efficiency, reports that nearly 70% of MAXtech's employees who enrolled in workforce systems' seminar last year claim to be more content with their current jobs than prior to enrolling in the seminar. By requiring managers at all large corporations to enroll in the kinds of seminars that Workforce System offers"
The management of Maxtech/author claims that if the managers of Maxtech enroll themselves in the seminars offered by Workforce, maxtech's productivity will surely improve. Though this claim may well have merit, the author presents an unclear idea based on inappropriate correlation. The argument calls for some more evidence to support the conclusion made by author. Based on the given information, the reasoning is flawed.
Firstly, Workforce Systems claims that the Maxtech's employees were more content with their jobs after enrolling into the seminar. It does not provide any evidence whether these employees attended the seminar. It could be possible that neither or few of the employees attended the seminar. There could be some other reason for their contentment. For example, 70% of the employees got an increment or promotion just after enrolling to the seminar. The usage of the term "content" does not explain it clearly. This makes the claim made by Worforce systems vague and unreliable.
Secondly, the author correlates contentment of employees to productivity. It may be possible that the employees were more content after attending/enrolling to the seminar but this did not increase their productivity. It does not mention that the job satisfaction led to an increase in efficiency, boost in the morale, or increase in the output of employees thereby increasing the productivity of the company. it may be possible that of all the employees who were more content, few showed an increase in productivity. The author weakens his argument by making assumptions and failing to provide explication of the links between employees and managers.
Thirdly, the author assumes that if the seminar worked well on the employees, it will work on managers as well. It may be possible that the employees who attended the seminar were new joinees who lacked focus or dedication towards work. Or the employees did not enjoy the type of work they were doing. This does not conclude that all managers belong to the same category. It also mentions about private sector of the company. This opens further questionable assumptions to evaluate the argument such as Does the company have public and private sector? If yes, Did the employees who attended the seminar belong to private sector or public sector? This clearly shows lack of legitimate evidentiary support.
While the author does have several key issues in his premises and assumptions that is not to say that the entire argument is without base.
Author could have provided a count of employees who attended the seminar. A survey or feedback of those employees who attended would have presented more valid evidence. The author could have provided the details about the seminar - example context of the seminar, ratings, feedback from other companies for the seminar, etc.
Furthermore, he could have provided a percentage increase in company's productivity particularly because of the change in the attitude of employees who attended the seminar. Whether this productivity was brought by employees who attended the seminar? These evidences could have strengthened the author's claim.
Lastly, author could have justified his conclusion by giving some examples of the scenarios where it implies that the company's managers too need to attend such seminars. Author could have provided evidence to show that the company's managers were lacking in confidence, there was a performance issue in their work or there was dissatisfaction related to their jobs. Author could have given some insight on Maxtech's background as well - whether it is a private sector company or both private and public sector.
Though there are several issues with the author's reasoning at present, with research and clarification, he could improve his argument significantly.
In sum, the author's illogical argument is based on unsupported premises and unsubstantiated assumptions that render his conclusion invalid.
If the author truly hopes to change his readers' minds on the issue, he would have to largely restructure his argument, fix the flaws in his logic, clearly explicate his assumptions, and provide evidentiary support. Without these things, his poorly reasoned argument will likely convince few people.
Jim@StratusPrep wrote:Glad I could be of assistance.
This really helps !!! I can now understand the argument much easily than before.
