HR
You have been given the responsibility to develop four-six behavior-based interview questions for a customer service role within your company. Share with us three of your six questions and explain what you are looking for when you ask these questions to your applicants.
- Describe a time when you interacted with an angry customer and how you dealt with the situation. - Give an example of a time that you went over and above for a customer and how did they react to it? - Describe a time when a customer's needs where unclear and how you were able to better understand their problem. - Looking to see how they handle themselves in tricky situations and have responded to problems. Want to see how they react when things don't go the way they expected them to.
Human Resources is broken down into three basic roles within an organization. List the roles and describe them by using examples for each.
1. Administrative- Clerical administration, recordkeeping, legal paperwork, policy implementation... Major shifts: use of technology and outsourcing 2. Operational and employee advocate- cooperate with managers to ensure fair employee treatment... identify and implement needed programs and policies 3. Strategic- address business realities, focus on future business requirements, contribute to devising and implementing success strategies
A multi-rater feedback process known as a 360 degree assessment is one form of talent assessment. Describe the important elements of a 360 and two reasons why a company may choose to use them for development purposes.
A 360 assessment is a way to gather information from multiple sources upon making decisions about a job. Get evaluated by everyone around you. If you are a boss of many people you can sometimes believe everything is okay when things are not, so you use this survey to give to all employees and your boss to see what they all think. Then you get valid info from all sources involved making everything more accurate. It focuses on the use of appraisals for the development of individuals. Conflict resolution skills, decision making abilities, team effectiveness, communication skills, managerial styles are some areas that can be evaluated. So two reasons would be to provide an overview of the information to the employees to show them what they need to work on. Another reason is that these 360 degree assessments reduce the chances for unethical behavior. Development reasons not for compensation.
Netflix offered an extreme example of flexibility at work with unlimited time off and true autonomy with its performance expectations in "getting the job done". If someone does something wrong, they are told it was wrong. After that they either "get it" or they are gone. The CEO says, "We try to be fair, but the length of an employee's Netflix career is not our primary concern. If someone is not extraordinary we let them go." If a person is rated as average or mediocre during the performance review process, he or she is dismissed. The HR officer notes that really good workers get frustrated at working with average performers. They feel it is important to get rid of those who do not perform even though other companies often do not How would you go about being a manager at Netflix and dealing with poor performers? What liabilities might you be concerned with by just "firing someone?"
A+ Hire the right people, training these employees, continuous training/education, performance reviews, set goals for them to achieve and see how they rank and match up if they exceed expectations. Let them go if they don't meet standards. Liabilities are they could file a lawsuit for unlawful firing, they could have a good future but aren't there yet, they could talk bad about company. If I were a manager, I would continually be on my employees about being great. I feel like that would not be a problem right off the bat with new employees because they are new and want to make a good impression, but after a couple years you must stay on them and let them know there are others out there that want your job. You cannot let them get to comfortable. The employees may not like this but they will thank you in the end because otherwise they will be fired. Some liabilities might be that employees feel they are being treated unfairly if they are fired. But if they think doing an average job is okay then they clearly do not get it. Liability about discrimination. Liability about firing too soon if haven't met potential
Help us understand what ADDIE is and why an organization might use it?
ADDIE model is the process traditionally used by instructional design and training developers. Five phases- Analysis, design, development, implementation and evaluation. Organizations will use it when there is a problem they need to tend to. So you analyze the problem, then design something to fix it, then develop this, implement the pilot, and then evaluate whether or not the problem is indeed fixed. Examples: Recruiting and training
Discuss three advantages and three disadvantages for using an external recruiting strategy?
Advantages: New employees bring new perspectives, training new hires may be cheaper and faster because of prior external experience, new hires are likely to have fewer internal political issues/challenges in the firm, new hires may bring new industry insights and expertise, potentially larger applicant pool generated by search efforts. Disadvantages: the firm may not select someone who will fit well with the job and organization, process may cause morale problems for internal candidates, new employees may require longer adjustment periods, recruiting process may take more time and resources, recruiters often must evaluate more applications.
Why are benefits strategically important to organizations and what are some key strategic considerations?
Benefits strategy depends on many factors of a company, like size of organization, workforce competition, organizational life cycle, employee demographics, and financial circumstances. Organizations have to figure out how they want to balance compensation and the benefits. Some organizations pay employees more with less benefits and others pay less with plenty of benefits. There is a competitive advantage when it comes to benefits and employers. Considerations could be: benefits are not taxed as income to employees. Know what kind of work your employees are doing and what type of people you have working for you and offer benefits they might need/like. Blue collar physical work might want to offer more healthcare than others. Office job might want to offer more PTO.
What labor markets should be considered when recruiting to fill an opening for a housekeeping staff at a local hospital? What labor markets should be considered for staffing the chief surgeon for the local hospital. How will you adjust your strategy to be effective at both?
Housekeeping staff at a local hospital- would be industry and occupational labor markets Chief surgeon- would be educational and technical labor markets The strategy would be a little different in that the housekeeping would be strategy that affects people in the hospital but not necessarily at the same level as the chief surgeon. So you will there's a little more room for error on who you are choosing to fill the position of housekeeping, than who you are choosing to be the chief surgeon.
Explain how you would conduct a job analysis for a company who has never had a job description before? Where would you start and what process/tools would you use?
I would use the interview method to start out with the job analysis, so I could talk one on one with the person doing the job making sure I get a real feel for what it is like. I would then use the manager or supervisor as the source for information on that job to see what others have to say about it.
Training is essential in every organization. Explain to us the four distinctively different types of training that were outlined in the book and an example examples of them in business.
Legally required- safety compliance, driving skills, harassment prevention Basic and Remedial Skills- english language, Literacy, core mathematics Job and technical training- customer service, equipment operations, IT and technical Soft Skills- Interpersonal communication, ethics, team relationships, conflict management, problem solving.
Based on your experience, as well as the chapter information, what are some good "rules of thumb" for conducting successful performance appraisal interviews?
Make sure all the information on the person you are reviewing is factual, get word from other employees on what they are seeing with this employee and have them review him, because maybe they see things you don't, make sure to ask the employee how they think they are doing and maybe see if there are ways you can help them be better. Maybe ask some open ended questions, you want them to be comfortable and overall you are there help them Find out what they want to accomplish and help them create a plan
If you became the new manager at a restaurant with high employee turnover, what actions would you take to increase retention of employees? Identify how you might partner with HR for strategic talent management?
Make sure we are hiring the correct people, improve training program, proper compensation, work life balance, continuous education/training, praise for good work, and performance reviews. Partner with HR to make sure we are continuously training and growing our employees. Give them something to work for with ideas of moving up the ranks. Have them develop the training programs and education to make sure they are growing.
Improving productivity is a direct way that HR can impact the overall bottom line of the business. List and explain three of the four major strategies HR uses to impact employee productivity? Give examples possibly.
Organization restructuring: revisiting the organization structure, reducing staff, and aiding in mergers Redesigning work: changing workloads and redesigning jobs, reshaping jobs because of technology changes Aligning HR activities: attracting and retaining employees, training, developing, and evaluating employees, compensating employees.
Compensation can be tricky to manage and maintain. Tell us what red circled, green circled and pay compression are and give an example of when this might happen and how you might mitigate the issue when/if you run into it as a manager.
Red- Incumbent who is paid above the range set for the job Green- incumbent who is paid below the range set for the job Pay compression- occurs when the pay differences among individuals with different levels of experience and performance become small. With green employees you can raise their wage to the minimum budgeted for the salary, or you could gradually raise the wage over time. With red employees you can freeze salaries until cost of living pay adjustments catch up and match the overpaid employees. You can honor the current pay and allow attrition to remove employees from the system ex. Retirement. Pay compressions occur you can freeze the less experienced and gradually increase the more experienced salary transparency.
Retirement planning has shifted over the years. Explain the shift and describe the differences between defined contribution and defined benefit plans under a retirement benefit. What should new grads know about retirement benefits?
Shift is that we are moving away from defined benefit, people are delaying retiring. Defined contribution plan- is a retirement program in which the employer and/or employee makes an annual payment to an employee's retirement account. The key is the contribution rate, benefits depend on fixed contributions or portions of salary into a 401k. Defined benefit plan- is a retirement program in which employees are promised a pension amount based on age and years of service. (pension) Grads should know that employers are moving toward defined contribution plans so that their contribution liabilities are known. Also they should know that they need to start saving for retirement immediately. More and more people are stuck working until they are 70 or not knowing when they will be able to retire because they did not save early enough. Participate.
Discuss some of the protected characteristics covered by equal employment opportunity laws and why they are important in today's employment setting?
Some protected characteristics would be: Age, color, disability, race and religion... it is important because now employment is not affected by illegal discrimination
The text talked about several items that employers may not ask about on an employment application because they are unlawful per the EEOC. What is the EEOC and please share with us four unlawful items that cannot be asked on an employment application and why?
The EEOC is responsible for enforcing federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate against a job applicant or an employee because of the person's race, color, religion, sex. They cannot ask about marital status, height and weight, number and ages of dependents, information on spouse, date of high school graduation, emergency contact info, social security number.
Discuss the following statement: "Healthcare costs are out of control in the US, and increasing conflicts between employers and employees are likely as employers try to reduce healthcare benefit costs. What can be done?
You will have to start an account for yourself. HSA where you take the money out of your paycheck Talk to employer about what benefits he/she can give you for healthcare. Negotiate
