Chapter 4
Samuel is the HR Director and will be explaining to new leaders what it means to manage human capital. Which of the following should he include in his description?
- sourcing and recruiting the best talent available - providing training and developmental opportunities - leveraging employees' current knowledge and skill set
Step 1: Strategic Planning
A company's strategic vision, mission, values, and strategy influence the type, quality, and quantity of skills and employees needed
What is a job analysis?
A job analysis is a systematic analysis of a job and the characteristics workers need in order to do the job well. Job analysis also identifies important tasks and working conditions as well as the tools and technologies used on the job. It involves making judgments about what an employee needs to do to perform a job well given the business strategy and organizational culture. The most important outcome of job analysis is a job description.
At an Amazon warehouse, workers on the package line have the option to gain skills required to do four separate jobs, all on the line.
Cross-training
To serve as the foundation of her understanding, LaKita is learning about the six functional areas of human resource management. Which of the following answers is NOT a functional area?
Customer service
Step 4: Action Planning
Develop action plans to address any gaps between expected labor supply and demand. Action plans should be consistent with the firm's talent philosophy and values and include recruiting, retention, compensation, succession management, and training and development plans as needed. For example, addressing the issues related to a workforce lacking skills that will be needed in five years when the company plans to adopt a new technology might require an action plan focused on recruiting, training, and possibly compensation to motivate employees to learn the new skills.
Step 3: Forecasting Labor Supply and Demand
Forecasting both expected labor demand and expected labor supply identifies any expected labor shortages or surpluses. It is also important to determine whether any gaps are expected to be short term or long term in duration
Maylee is the CEO of a mid-size manufacturing company is the Northeast and is explaining to shareholders HRM's relation to business strategy. Which one of the following statements is most accurate?
HRM policies and practices align with the business strategy and therefore fluctuate to adhere to the competitive environment and immediate business conditions
Job enlargement
Horizontal job expansion
Step 2: Human Resource Planning
Human resource planning aligns the organization's talent to effectively and efficiently accomplish the organization's strategic goals
An assistant in a vet clinic usually has to check in patients and complete the routine vitals screening; however, as of next Monday, the assistants will also need to check out patients leaving the clinic.
Job enlargement
An administrative assistant gets the new responsibility of providing onboarding training to new hires in his department.
Job enrichment
A group of elementary-school cafeteria workers take turns cooking the food, preparing trays in the serving line, running the register, and washing dishes.
Job rotation
"All overtime must be authorized and directed by a supervisor. Non-exempt employees are paid time and a half for authorized hours in excess of 12 hours in one day and 40 hours in one week."
Policy
"Payroll weeks begin on Sunday and end on Saturday. Employees are paid weekly on following Friday. If you turn time cards in late, you will be delayed in receiving your paycheck."
Policy
These might be considered pre-made decisions on a variety of workplace topics.
Policy
These state "what" we do, or "what" our response is.
Policy
These state workplace conduct and general safety, including job performance standards.
Policy
"To submit an acceptable timesheet, record the hours worked each day (starting and stopping times), sign as employee, and submit to your manager by 5 p.m. each Friday."
Procedure
These explain "how" we do it.
Procedure
These state processes of the task and how to complete them step by step.
Procedure
performance metrics
Standards of measurement by which efficiency, performance, progress, or quality of a plan, process, or product can be assessed.
Name at least four uses or outcomes of a job analysis
The outcomes of a job analysis are determining hiring requirements, developing a recruiting plan, selecting job applicants for employment, creating employee training plans, designing compensation systems, and developing performance evaluation tools.
job analysis
The systematic process of gathering and interpreting information about the essential duties, tasks, and responsibilities of a job.
Geraldo argues that since this law produced equal employment oppotunity and five protected classes, it is the most influential federal employment law of them all. Which law is he referring to?
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act
Job enlargement
Vertical job expansion
Next, Rebecca directs her assistant, Jasmine, to conduct a job analysis by researching information about several frontline jobs. What is the primary outcome of this process?
a detailed job description for new or existing positions
talent inventories
a detailed record or database that summarizes each employee's skills, competencies, and qualifications
job enrichment
a job design approach that increases a job's complexity to give workers greater responsibility and opportunities to feel a sense of achievement
other characteristics
a miscellaneous category for worker characteristics that are not knowledge, skills or abilities including personality traits, values and work styles
business process reengineering
a more radical rethinking and redesign of business processes to achieve large improvements in speed, service, cost or quality
ability
a stable and enduring capability to perform a variety of tasks
action plan
a strategy for proactively addressing an expected talent shortage or surplus
job description
a written description of the basic tasks, duties, and responsibilities required of an employee holding a particular job
job enlargement
adding more tasks at the same level of responsibility and skill related to an employee's current position
human resource planning
aligning the organization's human resources to effectively and efficiently accomplish the organization's strategic goals
job task
an observable unit of work with a beginning and an end
scientific management
breaks work down into its simplest elements and then systematically improves the worker's performance of each element
competencies
broad worker characteristics that underlie successful job performance
gap analysis
comparing labor supply and demand forecasts to identify future talent needs
labor gap analysis
comparison of the organization's forecasted labor demand with its forecasted labor supply
centralized organization
concentrate power and decision making authority at higher levels of the organization
Esther and Fredrico have differing views on affirmative action. Fredrico thinks the equality generated from the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is sufficient, while Esther thinks there is an ongoing need for affirmative action in order to
correct areas of past discrimination
forecasting labor demand
determining organization's need for workers in anticipation of the demand for an organization's products or services
forecasting labor supply
determining the demand for an organization's products or services, which is a major influencer of the organization's need for workers
organizational chart
diagram of the chain of command and reporting relationships in a company
As part of his HR duties, Bart wants to reinforce organizational culture through each functional area of HR. Before identifying which type of culture best describes his organization, he decides to do an in0depth study of performance culture, plus these four broad types of organizational culture
entrepreneurial, bureaucratic, consensual, competitive
Kimmie developed an employee _________, which contains an overview of the organization along with expectations and guidelines. She also included dozens of ________ to explain the organization's position on a variety of topics followed by __________, which outline steps for successful task completion.
handbook, policies, procedures
business strategy
how an organization will compete in a particular market
workflow
how work is organized to meet the organization's goals
One of Rebecca's primary responsibilities as HR Director is to align the organization's talent to effectively and efficiently accomplish strategic goals. A piece of this alignment is anticipating and making provision for the movement of people into, within, and out of an organization as it relates to the work that must be done; this attention to alignment and labor supply and demand is known as
human resources planning
task statements
identify in specific behavioral terms the regular duties and responsibilities of a position
succession planning
identifying, developing, and tracking employees to enable them to eventually assume higher level positions
At the annual retreat, Janice presented how the HR department and its human resource management policies add value to the organization and influence organizational performance by ____________.
improving efficiency and contributing to revenue growth
workflow analysis
investigates how work moves through an organization to identify changes to increase efficiency and better meet customers' needs
structured interview technique
job experts provide information about the job during a structured interview
essential criteria
job holder characteristics that are vital to job performance
vision
long-term goals regarding what the organization want to become and accomplish, describing its image of an ideal future
intrinsic rewards
nonmonetary rewards derived from the work itself and from the organization's culture
job characteristics model
objective job characteristics including skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy and task feedback, lead to job satisfaction from people with a high growth need strength.
knowledge
organized factual or procedural information that can be applied to perform a task
Abigail is managing her employer's transition from one health insurance carrier to another. If she does the job well, it will require all of the following EXCEPT __________.
presenting employees with directives from leaders who are trying to control expenses
strategic planning
process for making decisions about an organization's long-term goals and how they are to be achieved
Daniel was explaining to his great-granddaughter, Emma, what things were like when he entered the workforce. Emma notices some striking differences between then and now, and she concludes that most employment laws were created to __________.
promote equal access to employment opportunities
extrinsic rewards
rewards with monetary value
organizational design
selecting and managing aspects of organizational structure to facilitate organizational goal accomplishment
rule
statements of what employees may or may not do
person specification
summarizes the characteristics of someone able to perform the job well
skill
the ability to use some sort of knowledge in performing a physical task; often refers to psychomotor activities
Total rewards
the combined intrinsic and extrinsic rewards of a job
division of labor
the degree to which employees specialize
formalization
the degree to which organizational rules, procedures and communications are documented
hierarchy
the degree to which some employees have formal authority over others
core values
the enduring beliefs and principles that guide an organization's decisions and goals
mission
the organization's basic purpose and the scope of its operations
organizational structure
the organization's formal system of task, power, and reporting relationships
Cross-training
training employees in more than one job or in multiple skills to enable them to do different jobs
As Training Director, Carol has trained all high-level managers on the five different types of standards that help us evaluate a situation and make an ethical decision. Which ethical standards are described as follows: balances doing the most good and doing the least harm, AND respects and protects the moral rights of everyone affected by the action?
utilitarian AND rights
Job rotation
workers are moved through a variety of jobs to increase their interest and motivation