Chapter 9: Human Resource Management

What is the 360-Degree assestment?

A 360-degree feedback appraisal, is an assessment in which employees are *appraised not only by their managerial superiors but also by peers, subordinates, and sometimes clients, thus providing several perspectives*. Using multiple sources makes it more difficult for managers to unfairly favor or punish particular employees, it also highlights any biases or perceptual errors occuring, and enhances employees' ability and knowledge sharing.

What is a realistic job preview (RJP)?

A realistic job preview (RJP) gives a candidate a picture of both positive and negative features of the job and the organization before he or she is hired. This recruiting technique is very effective at reducing turnover within 30-90 days of employment. Example: Hiring managers at HIlton Baltimore demonstrate to housekeeping applicants how to make a bed, then ask the applicants to do it themselves.

What is onboarding?

After a hire is made, companies typically offer what is known as *onboarding*, which are programs designed to help employees to integrate and transition to new jobs by making them familiar with corporate policies, procedures, cultures, and politics by clarifying work-role expectations and responsibilities. This process is also referred to as "employee socialization."

What are exit interviews and non-disparagement agreements?

An *exit interview* is a formal conversation between a manager and a departing employee to find out why they are leaving and to learn about potential problems within the organization. A *non-disparagement agreement* is a contract between two parties that prohibits one party from criticizing the other; it is often used in severance agreements to prohibit former employees from criticizing their former employers.

Money is only one form of compensation. What does *compensation* consist of?

Compensation has three parts: 1) wages or salaries, 2) incentives, and 3) benefits. 1) Wages or salaries. *Base pay* consists of the basic wage or salary paid employees in exchange for doing their jobs. 2) Incentives. To attract high-performing employees and to induce those already employed to be more productive, many orgs offer incentives, such as *commissions, bonuses, profit-sharing plans, and stock options*. 3) *Benefits*, or fringe benefits, are additional non-monetary forms of compensation designed to enrich the lives of all employees in the organization. Many examples include health/dental/life insurance, disability protection, holidays off, accumulated sick/vacation days, discounts, etc.

What is disciplining and demotion?

Disciplining and Demotion: The Threat of Moving Downward Poorly performing employees may be given a warning or a reprimand and then disciplined. That is, *they may be temporarily removed from their jobs,* or an employee may be *demoted*, that is, have their current responsibilities, pay, and perquisites taken away.

What is dismissal?

Dismissal: Moving Out of the Organization Dismissals are of three sorts: layoffs, downsizing, and firings. *Exit interviews and non disparagement agreements often go along with dismissals*. Layoffs: The phrase being "laid off" suggests that a person has been dismissed temporarily. (When Ford temp lays off workers for a couple weeks.) Downsizings: A downsizing is a permanent dismissal. Firings: Self explanatory.

External Hiring: What is it and what are the advantages of it?

External recruiting means attracting job applicants from outside of the organization. *Advantages of external recruiting:* 1) Applicants may have specialized knowledge and experience. 2) Applicants may have fresh viewpoints. (Diversity of thoughts/ideas with external recruitment.)

1993, Family and Medical Leave Act.

The *Family and Medical Leave Act* requires employers to provide 12 weeks of unpaid leave for medical and family reasons, including for childbirth, adoption, or family emergency.

1970, Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA).

The *Occupational Safety and Health Act, OSHA*, establishes minimum health and safety standards in organizations.

2010, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

The *Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act* requires employers with more than 50 employees must provide health insurance.

2003, Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

The *Sarbanes-Oxley Act* prohibits employers from demoting or firing employees who raise accusations of fraud to a federal agency. (Think: Accounting.)

1990, Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

The Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA, prohibits discrimination against essentially qualified employees with physical or mental disabilities or chronic illness; requires "reasonable accommodation" be provided so they can perform duties.

1964, amended 1972, Civil Rights Act.

The Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, or sexual orientation.

1963, Equal Pay Act.

The Equal Pay Act requires that men and women be paid equally for performing equal work.

1996, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA)

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (*HIPPA*) allows employees to switch health insurance plans when changing jobs and receive new coverage regardless of preexisting health conditions and prohibits group plans from dropping ill employees.

1974, Privacy Act.

The Privacy Act gives employees legal right to examine letters of reference concerning them.

What are the legal requirements of HRM?

The four areas of human resource management law that any manager needs to be aware of are: *Labor Relations, Compensation and Benefits, Health and Safety, and Equal Employment Opportunity*.

What is affirmative action?

*Affirmative action* focuses on achieving equality of opportunity within an organization. It tries to make up for past discrimination in employment by actively seeking, hiring, and developing the talents of people from groups traditionally discriminated against.

What is bullying?

*Bullying* is the repeated mistreatment of one or more persons by one or more perpetrators; it is abusive physical, psychological, verbal, or nonverbal behavior that is threatening, humiliating, or intimidating.

What is a labor union?

*Labor unions* are organizations of employees formed to protect and advance their members' interests by bargaining with management over job-related issues.

What is the order of the strategic human resource process?

1. Establish the mission and the vision. 2. Establish the grand strategy. 3. Formulate the strategic plans. 4. Plan human resources needed. 5. Recruit and select people. 6. Orient, train, and develop. 7. Perform appraisals of people. *Purpose: Get optimal work performance to help realize company's mission and vision.*

What is a performance appraisal? Performance management?

A *performance appraisal*, or performance review, is a management process that consists of 1) assessing an employee's performance and 2) providing him or her with feedback.

What is sexual harassment? What are the two types of sexual harassment?

*Sexual harassment* consists of unwanted sexual attention that creates an adverse work environment. There are two types of sexual harassment: 1) Quid pro quo harassment, and 2) Hostile environment. 1) Quid pro quo harassment occurs when the person to whom the unwanted sexual attention is directed at is put in the position of jeopardizing being hired for a job or obtaining job benefits or opportunities unless he or she implicitly or explicitly acquiesces. 2) In hostile environment harassment, the person being sexually harassed doesn't risk economic harm but experiences an offensive or intimidating work environment.

What is workplace discrimination?

*Workplace discrimination* occurs when emplloyment decisions about people are made for reasons not relevant to the job such as skin color, eye shape, gender, religion, national origin, etc. There are *two types of work place discrimination*: 1) Adverse Impact. Adverse impact occurs when an organization uses an employment practice or procedure that results in unfavorable outcomes to a protected class over another group of people. Example: Requiring workers to have a college degree can inadvertently create adverse impact on Hispanics because fewer Hispanics graduate from college than Caucasians. 2) Disparate treatment. Disparate treatment results when employees from protected groups (such as disabled individuals) are intentionally treated differently. Example: Making a decision to give all international assignments to people with no disabilities under the assumption that they won't need any special accommodations.

What are the five steps in the learning and development process?

1) Assessment: Is learning and development needed? 2) Objectives: What should learning and development achieve? 3) Selection: Which learning and development methods should be used? 4) Implementation: How should learning and development be affected? 5) Evaluation: Is the learning and development working.

Describe each of the three steps in the selection process.

1) Background Information: Application forms, Resumes, and Reference Checks. Application forms and resumes provide basic background info about job applicants, such as citizenship, education, work history, and certifications. 2) Interviews: Unstructured, Situational, and Behavioral-Description. An *unstructured interview* involves asking probing questions to find out what the applicant is like. There is no fixed set of questions and no systematic scoring procedure. While criticized for biases and subject to legal attack, compared to the structured interview, unstructured has been found to provide a more accurate assessment of a job applicant's job-related personality traits. The *structured interview: Type 1* involves asking each applicant the same questions and comparing their responses to a standardized set of answers. *Type 2* is the behavioral-description interview, in which the interviewer explores what applicants have actually done in the past. 3) Employment tests: Ability, Personality, Performance, Integrity, and Others. *Employment tests* are legally considered to consist of any procedure used in the employment selection decision process, even application forms, interviews, and educational requirements. *Ability tests* measure physical abilities, strength and stamina, mechanical ability, mental abilities, and clerical abilities. Intelligence or cognitive ability tests are also popular for predicting future executive performance. Performance tests, or skills tests, measure performance on actual job tasks, so-called job tryouts. Personality tests measure such personality traits as emotional intelligence, social intelligence, resilience, personal adaptability, and need for achievement. Integrity tests assess attitudes and experiences related to a person's honest, dependability, trustworthiness, reliability, and pro-social behavior.

What are the manager's tools for helping employees perform their jobs?

1) Orientation, 2) Employee learning, and 3) Development programs.

What are the two kinds of performance appraisals?

1. *Objective Appraisals*. Objective appraisals, also called results appraisals, are based on facts and are often numerical. They measure desired results and they are harder to challenge legally. Numbers based. 2. *Subjective Appraisals*. Subjective appraisals are based on a manager's perceptions of an employee's 1) traits, or 2) behaviors. They are based on trait and behavior appraisals. An example of a subjective-behavioral appraisal is the BARS (*behaviorally anchored rating scale), which *rates employee gradations in performance according to scales of specific behaviors.*

What are four steps to giving effective performance feedback?

1. Take a problem-solving approach, avoid criticism, and treat employees with respect. 2. Be specific and direct in describing the employee's present performance and in identifying the improvement you desire. 3. Get the employee's input. 4. Follow up. Discipline/correct in private, praise in public!

What is human capital?

Human Capital: Potential of employee knowledge and action. Human capital is the economic or productive potential of employee knowledge, experience, and actions.

What is human resource management (HRM)?

Human resource management consists of the activities managers perform to plan for, attract, develop, and retain an effective workforce. HR departments deal not only with employee paperwork and legal accountability, a very important area, but also help to support the organization's overall strategy.

What does 31.7% represent?

In 2017, private industry/organization spent an average of $35.64 per hour in employment compensation. Wages and salaries accounted for 68.3 percent and *benefits accounted for the remaining 31.7%*.

Internal Hiring: What is it and what are the advantages of it?

Internal recruiting means making people that are already employed within the organization aware of job openings within the same organization. *Advantages of internal recruiting:* 1) Employees tend to be inspired to greater effort and loyalty. Moral is enhanced because they realize that working hard and staying put can result in more opportunities. 2) The whole process of advertising, interviewing, and so on is cheaper. 3) There are fewer risks. Internal candidates are already known and are familiar with the organization.

1938, Fair Labor Standards Act.

The *Fair Labor Standards Act* established minimum living standards for workers engaged in interstate commerce, including provision of a federal minimum wage.

2007, Fair Minimum Wage Act.

The *Fair Minimum Wage Act* increased the federal minimum wage to $7.25 per hour on July 24, 2009.

What is a knowledge worker?

Knowledge Worker: Potential of brain workers. A knowledge worker is someone whose occupation is principally concerned with generating or interpreting information, as opposed to manual labor. Knowledge workers add value to the organization by using their brains rather than their muscle or sweat. The rise of knowledge workers is accelerating with the increase in automated manual jobs.

What is orientation?

Orientation: Helping Newcomers Learn the Ropes. Once the final candidate has been offered the job and accepts, and has started work, they begin orientation. Orientation helps the newcomer fit smoothly into the job and the organization. In large organizations this typically takes place in large group sessions conducted by a presenter. Following orientation, the employee should emerge with the following three things: 1) The job routine. 2) The organization's mission and operations. 3) The organization's work rules and employee benefits.

Within terms of strategic human resource planning, what does *predicting future employee needs* look like?

Predicting future employee needs means you have to become knowledgeable about *the staffing the organization might need* and the *likely sources for that staffing*. The staffing the organization might need. You should understand the organization's vision and strategic plan in order to know what kind of staffing the organization may need in the future. The likely sources for staffing. You can recuit employees from either *inside* or *outside* the organization. Human resource inventory is a report listing your organization's employees by name, education, training, languages, and other important information.

What is a promotion?

Promotion: Moving Upward A promotion is moving an employee to a higher-level position, and is the most obvious way to recognize that person's superior performance. There are three concerns though: 1) Fairness, the promotion must be fair, 2) Nondiscrimination, the promotion cannot discriminate on basis of race, ethnicity, gender, age, physical ability, and 3) Other's Resentments, counsel the people left behind about their performance and opportunities if they are resentful about being passed over.

1986, Immigration Reform and Control Act.

Requires employers to verify the eligibility for employment of all their new hires (including U.S. citizens).

What is social capital?

Social Capital: Potential of strong and cooperative relationships. Social capital is the economic or productive potential of strong, trusting, and cooperative relationships. Note: Employees hired through referrals also tend to stay longer at their jobs as a result of a better person-organization fit.

What are the four steps of performance management?

Step 1: Define performance. Step 2: Monitor & evaluate performance. Step 3: Review performance. Step 4: Provide consequences.

What does strategic human resource planning consist of? This falls under *planning the human resources needed*, step 4 of the strategic HR process.

Strategic human resource planning consists of developing a systematic, comprehensive strategy for a) understanding current employee needs and b) protecting future employee needs.

1967, amended 78' and 86', Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA).

The *Age Discrimination in Employment Act*, or *ADEA* prohibits discrimination in employees over 40 years old, and restricts mandatory retirement.

1985, Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA).

The *Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act,* or *COBRA*, requires an extension of health insurance benefits after termination.

What three things are involved in the *selection process*? What is the selection process?

The screening of job applicants to hire the best candidate is known as the selection process. The three types of selection tools are *background information*, *interviews*, and *employment tests*.

What are three important concepts important to HRM?

Three concepts important in this view of HRM are *human capital, knowledge workers, and social capital*.

What is a transfer?

Transfer: Moving Sideways Transfer is a movement of an employee to a different job with similar responsibility. Employees may be transferred for one of the four reasons: 1) to solve organizational problems by using their skills at another location, 2) to broaden their experience in being assigned to a different position, 3) to retain their interest and motivation by being presented with a new challenge, or 4) to solve some employee problems, such as personal differences with their bosses.

Within terms of strategic human resource planning, what does *understanding current employee needs* look like?

Understanding current employee needs requires a *job analysis* and a *job specification*. Job analysis. The purpose of a job analysis is to determine, by observation and analysis, the basic elements of a job. Individuals performing a job analysis may interview job applicants about what they do, observe the flow of work, and learn how results are accomplished. Job description and job specification. Once the fundamentals of a job are understood (job analysis), a job description can be written. A job description summarizes what the holder of the job does and how and why they do it. Afterwards, a job specification describes the minimum qualifications a person must have to perform the job successfully.