Chapter 1

Employees

Contributes labor and expertise to an endeavour Environmental influences- labor force trends, technology, globalization, and ethics and social responsibility

Competencies

Measurable or observable knowledge, skills, abilities, and behaviors critical to job performance

Primary HR activities

The stargety management of employees centers around three categories of HR avtivities: 1- Work design and workforce planning; 2- managing employee competencies; and 3- managing employee attitudes and behaviors

HR department

Support function that designs and implements company policies for managing employees

Organizational culture

the set of underlying values and beliefs that employees of a company share

Competitive advantage

A company's ability to create more economic value than its competitors

Alignment

An arrangement or positioning of players

Strategy

Broad set of organizational plans for implementing the decisions made for achieving organizational goals

HR challenges

Challenges that managers must consider in the management of employees that relate to; 1- organizational demands; 2- environmental influences; and 3- regulatory issues

External alignment

Practices work in concert with one another as well as with external challenges companies face

Organizational demands

Strategy, culture, employee concerns

Globalization

The extending of work to other parts of the globe

Internal alignment

The extent to which specific practices used within each HR activity are consistent with one another as well as aligned across the primary HR activities

Line manager

The 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 ans delivery of a companys products or services

HR practices

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