Human Resource Management Exam 1 (Chapter 1)

Environmental Influences

Labor Force Trends Technology Globalization Ethics and Social Responsibility

Human Resource Management

Nowadays, the HR function includes many other practices such as recruitment & selection, training & development and performance management. Also, in addition to providing functional expertise, HR professionals are expected to contribute at the strategic level of the firm. HR practices are not the responsibility of HR professionals only; Line managers are also highly involved at the design and implementation phases of HR practices.

innovation and creativity

Nowadays, within the knowledge-economy era, organizations are competing based on ___________________

HR Challenges

Organizational Demands Environmental Influences Legal Compliance

Recruitment

Process of generating a qualified pool of potential employees or encouraging incumbents to pursue other positions within the company Recruitment influences the type and quality of candidates

Employee Concerns

Single parents Caring for aging parents Dual-career families Attractiveness of flexible scheduling, family-friendly benefits and telecommuting

The primary HR activities are

Work Design and Workforce Planning Managing Employee Competencies Managing Employee Attitudes and Behaviors

Environmental Influences

are pressures that exist outside companies that mangers must consider to strategically manage their employees. They can also be referred to as the external environment challenges.

Human Resource Practices

are the practices that a company has put in place to manage employees.

Talent

within organizations determines what companies are capable of doing and how well they do it.

Employees

-the individuals who work for a company in exchange for wages or a salary. -the ones knowledgeable of the work process, and most of that knowledge is embedded in them -many organizations are considering their talents as an investment towards achieving a competitive advantage and not merely a cost.

Business Strategy

A set of integrated and coordinated commitments and actions intended to achieve stated business goals. It is the plan that an organization set to achieve a competitive advantage over its market rivals. Companies might compete based on price or alternatively compete based on differentiating their business from competitors, for example based on Quality or customer service. Various business strategies mandate different HR practices to support each strategy.

Compensation & Incentives

Base pay, rewards, and incentive system Type and size of an incentive indicates how a firm values different particular performance dimensions

Technology

Advancements in technology contributed to the emergence of the factory system and mass production. Nowadays, technology is also changing the skills needed at various jobs. Upskilling versus Deskilling Sometimes - Requires many employees to possess basic computer proficiency Sometimes - eliminates jobs

HR Activities Alignment

Alignment Internal Alignment External Alignment

Globalization

Blurs country boundaries in business activities Enables offshoring, outsourcing, international joint ventures and partnerships...etc. For most organizations, competition is global and thus they need to account for international context. Encourages offshoring—sending work once performed domestically to other countries for lower costs.

Selection

Choosing the best person from the recruited pool Assessing employee competencies required for a particular job

Ehtics and Social Responsibility

Companies and their management are being held accountable for ethical behavior. Corporate policies and procedures spell out ethical behaviors in order to clarify and enforce them. Social Responsibility takes ethics to a new level. It focuses on the welfare of all organizational stakeholders, including customers, employees, suppliers, communities where the organization operates, the environment...etc.

Company Characteristics

Companies differ in size and stage of development The size of the organization indicates the amount of resources available. Small organizations - less resources available for compensation, benefits and training Large organizations - more resources, thus capable of providing better compensation and benefits packages and training opportunities. Also, organizational size affects the degree of autonomy, discretion and variety of tasks. Small organizations - tend to be less formalized and job tasks tend to be wider. Large organizations - tend to be more formalized with well defined and relatively narrower tasks defined for each job. Company life cycle stage Start-ups - tend to have more pressure at work with less availability of resources - similar to small organizations. Mature organizations - tend to have more formalized well-defined jobs - similar to large organizations. The effect of an individual on company success tends to be more significant within smaller organizations and start-ups.

Work Design and Workforce Planning

Design jobs in a way that ensures that employees perform tasks and responsibilities that have the most potential to add value to the company. Ensure the right people are in the right place in the company, at the right time, to meet company goals.

Employee Benefits, Health and Wellness

Employee benefits, health and wellness programs serve as a recruitment and retention tool and may help ensure the health and well-being of a company's workforce

Managing Employee Attitudes and Behaviors

Encouraging the right employee attitudes and behaviors Motivating workers to continually improve their performance

Managing Employee Competencies

Ensure employees have the necessary competencies -- knowledge, skills, abilities, and other talents -- to effectively perform their tasks and responsibilities

Training and Development

Ensuring new and current employees know the ins and outs of the organization and have the necessary skills Includes activities to develop individuals for future positions

Performance Management

Evaluating attitudes and behaviors managers expect of their employees Feedback and employee development Clear communication of performance criteria

Job Design

In this practice, we need to decide what employees will do on a day-to-day basis and how jobs are interconnected. Each job comprises a set of tasks to be achieved by the occupant and the output of those tasks act as inputs for other tasks at other jobs. Ultimately, jobs are dependent on each other and interrelated to achieve vital organizational objectives and provide competitive products and services to customers.

Labor Force Trends

Increasing diversity in race, gender and age Number of women in the labor force is expected to grow by 5.4% from 2012 and 2022 Fastest-growing groups: Hispanics and Asians Aging of the workforce - size of the group of 55 and older increasing dramatically In 2020, the baby boomers will represent 28.7% of the population. Diversity could be a source of competitive advantage - providing access to skills and perspective. Yet, to harvest the benefits of diversity, it needs to be managed well and integrated as a value within organizations. Beware of committing discrimination when it comes to employment decisions.

Workforce Planning

This practice deals with maintaining the necessary number (quantity) of employees; a very challenging task to achieve. Organizations need to ensure that they have enough occupants at each job to perform the tasks. Organizations have many options to attain its human production capacity; for example they may decide to move employees internally or recruit new employees or even outsource jobs. Strategic changes influence labor demands. (e.g. reorganization of operation, new product/service).

Personnel Management

Traditionally, the HR department and HR professionals were involved in transactional roles such as recordkeeping, processing salaries and wages and ensuring legal compliance with the federal, state and local employment laws. Also, HR professionals played a vital role in resolving employee-management disputes and bargaining with labor unions.

Internal Alignment

an alignment in which the specific practices used within each HR activity are consistent with one another as well as aligned across the primary HR activities.

External Alignment

an alignment in which three primary HR activities work in support of the HR challenges that companies face.

Organizational Demand

are factors within a firm (Strategy, Company Characteristics, Organizational Culture, Employee Concerns) that affect decisions regarding how to manage employees. They can also be referred to as the internal environment challenges.

Line Managers

are individuals who are responsible for supervising and directing the efforts of a group of employees to perform tasks that are directly related to the creation and delivery of a company's products or services.

Competitive advantage

is a company's ability to create more economic value than its competitors. Employees were mostly considered as a cost to minimize and not necessarily as a source for gaining a __________________________

Human Resource Department

is a support function within a company that serves as a vital role in designing and implementing company policies for managing employees.

Human Resource Professional

is an employee that serves a company within the Human Resources Function.

Legal Compliances

is the challenge of complying to various federal, state and local employment legislations in addition to executive orders. Laws are continuously introduced and their interpretation evolve.

Human Asset

knowledge-intensive organizations such as Google and Facebook mostly attain their competitive advantage because of their

Human Resource Management

the activities that enable an organization to attract, develop, motivate and retain its talent (employees). Should focus on both talent acquisition and talent transfer to achieve a competitive advantage for organizations over their rivals - thus achieving survival and success.

Alignment

the extent to which the three primary HR activities are designed to achieve the goals of the organization.

Company Culture

the unique pattern of shared assumptions, values, and norms that shape the socialization activities, language, symbols, and ceremonies of people in the organization