CH 12: Managing Human Talent

Mary Celeste Barnes owns Blackberry Farms and Blackberry Mountain, resorts in Tennessee. Now she is opening The Valley, a new leisure park. As a result, her strategy for the next few months will focus on finding the right people to work at her new property. Which of the following HR functions should she focus on?

Forecasting

The construction division has a highly seasonal workload, with fewer projects in the winter than in the summer. Also, different expertise is needed for different kinds of buildings. What would be the most appropriate HRM approach?

Hire temporary employees to work on specific projects.

AlphaBeta Company offers employees opportunities to move laterally, learning different skills in different areas, rather than climb a vertical career ladder.

New Social Contract

Gourd Supermarkets has an extensive training program for all new employees and then has all employees spend a day in customer service and workplace safety training each year.

Old Social Contract

Which of the following problems might occur with the new performance appraisal system at L.I.J.M.C.? Check all that apply.

Patient satisfaction ratings might be influenced by something that is not related to a particular employee. Objective ratings, such as infection rates, might be influenced by something outside of the staff's control.

The new performance management system at the Long Island Jewish Medical Center (L.I.J.M.C.) was specifically designed to address which of the following problems with traditional performance reviews?

Performance reviews are too subjective

If you wanted to find out how good an applicant was at math, which of the following tests would you use?

A cognitive abilities test

Denise offers her employees vision, dental, and life insurance. These benefits are:

not required by law

Terrence knows that his manager will give him a ___________ observing and documenting his productivity and then giving him feedback.

performance appraisal

A technology company is growing rapidly and needs to hire experienced developers and marketing professionals. The best people in these fields usually have jobs and need to be enticed to apply elsewhere. To identify individuals who are likely to be a good match, hiring managers should:

use social media platforms like LinkedIn to screen for people with the relevant experience at high-performing companies.

If Denise wants to know how much the jobs in her gym are worth in comparison to jobs in other gyms in her area, she should do a:

wage and salary survey

When it is time for Jamal's performance appraisal, his manager, several of his coworkers, his primary client, and Jamal himself fill out forms describing his effectiveness. This is an example of _________

360-degree feedback

The ranking performance appraisal system tries to improve performance ratings by forcing managers to:

Compare employees

Denise Bennett, the owner and CEO of Extreme Routes, an indoor rock-climbing gym, needed to clear her head. She wanted to do what she did best—climb a really difficult route, at least a 5.11 on the Yosemite Decimal System, preferably with a difficulty suffix of c or d. "Kitty, will you set up a new route for me? And make it hard." "Sure thing, boss. Is 5.12d okay?" Kitty, the route setter and instruction manager, had been at Extreme Routes for seven years and was one of Denise's closest friends. "Perfect!" Knowing a treat would be waiting for her that afternoon, Denise turned back to the spreadsheet in front of her. What was she going to do about these expenses? She had a good staff, and she wanted to keep them, but she wasn't sure she was spending her budget for salaries and benefits as effectively as possible.

Denise had a basic compensation plan in place. Route setters were paid the most, because without new routes, the gym's clients wouldn't keep returning. Climbing instructors had the next highest take-home pay, and front desk staff were paid the least. Everyone who worked for Denise had medical, dental, vision, and life insurance. During the last staff meeting, both Kitty and Misha, the front desk manager, mentioned that many of their employees wanted to move up in the organization. That was fine with Denise, whose strategic plan included opening a new gym within the year.

Maya is hoping to hire lifeguards to work at her community pools this summer. What is the first step she must take in this process?

Determine how many lifeguards she will need

Management in the News

In January 2011, a judge issued a verdict in a case brought by the National Coalition for Men against the Century Supper Club. The men were protesting the club's "Ladies Night" policy that charged men $20 for entry while allowing women to enter for free. This case, which went back and forth among appeals courts for many years, was interesting because it was based on reverse discrimination: Men were demanding equal treatment rather than women.

The 360-degree feedback performance appraisal system tries to improve performance ratings by forcing managers to:

Include information from a wide variety of sources in their reviews

Performance Reviews by the Numbers - Maria Giraldo is a nurse at the Long Island Jewish Medical Center (L.I.J.M.C.). In the past, her performance review was based on subjective measures such as "leadership" and "respectfulness." As Ms. Giraldo says, these factors were important, but they were open to interpretation. But today, Ms. Giraldo's review is based solely on whether she has met objective, quantifiable goals. Now Ms. Giraldo is rated on her infection rates and patient satisfaction scores, for example.

Many U.S. companies have moved to using similar, objective goals because they want to separate top performers from lower performers. Subjective evaluations can lead to situations where everyone receives a high score, but objective systems can tell you if those high scores are truly merited. In addition, having to meet objective goals focuses employee attention on tasks that are critical to an organization's health. For example, many insurers now pay medical centers based on patient satisfaction ratings. Joseph Cabral, the chief human resource officer for the L.I.J.M.C., says that he believes that having individual patient satisfaction goals saved the Center as much as $55 million annually based on insurance payments.

Evan counts on his employer to tell him what he needs to know and what to do.

Old Social Contract

Denise is planning on opening a new gym, and she wants to be sure that her employees can move to any open position and do well. What pay system will help her to achieve this goal?

Skill-based pay system

Which of the following problems might occur with the new performance appraisal system at L.I.J.M.C.? Check all that apply.

The hospital might not get a representative sample of patient satisfaction ratings. More dissatisfied than satisfied patients might fill out the surveys. Infection rates might be different in different parts of the hospital.

The new performance management system at the Long Island Jewish Medical Center (L.I.J.M.C.) was specifically designed to address which of the following problems with traditional performance reviews?

Traditional performance reviews lead to "grade inflation."

Yale University uses ________ to correct discrimination that has occurred in the past. They have prevented Asian-American and Caucasian students from attending the university while favoring African-American and Hispanic students.

affirmative action

This news event refers to a case of

discrimination

Airbnb, Bain and Company, and Guidewire ranked one, two, and three, respectively, on Glassdoor's 2016 Employees' Choice Awards list as the best large companies to work for. A firm that seeks to be recognized as a great place to work is building its _________

employer brand