Chapter 5 HR Planning & Recruitment

Downsizing, pay reductions, demotions, transfers, work sharing, hiring freeze, natural attrition, early retirement, retraining.

Options for reducing an expected labor surplus include:

Overtime, temporary employees and outsourcing.

What are some options for avoiding an expected labor shortage that are fast and high revocability?

New external hires and technological innovation

What are some options for avoiding an expected labor shortage that are slow and have low revocability?

Retrained transfers

What are some options for avoiding an expected labor shortage that are slow and high revocability?

Turnover reductions

What are some options for avoiding an expected labor shortage that are slow and moderate revocability?

Overtime, temporary employees, outsourcing, retrained transfers, turnover reductions, new external hires and technological innovation.

What are some options for avoiding an expected labor shortage?

Transfers and work sharing

What are some options for reducing an expected labor surplus that are fast and have moderate human suffereing?

Downsizing, pay reductions and demotions

What are some options for reducing an expected labor surplus that are fast but have high human suffereing?

Hiring freeze, natural attrition, early retirement and retraining.

What are some options for reducing an expected labor surplus that are slow but have low human suffereing?

1.) It leads to a loss of talent and disrupts social networks needed for creativity and flexibility. 2.) Sometimes it results in letting go people who are irreplaceable assets. 3.) Remaining employees often become narrow-minded, self-absorbed and risk-averse and motivation drops.

What are some reasons that downsizing fails to enhance an organizations performance?

To reduce cost, because new technologies reduce the need for a large number of employees and due to firms relocating.

What are the 3 major reasons organization downsize?

Advantage: more experience and stability. Disadvantage: more costly due to higher medical costs and pension contributions, they block the advancement of younger workers,

What are the advantages and disadvantages of having an older workforce?

They increase job security and promotion opportunities for the employee and they save the company from spending money on search firms or recruiting costs.

What are the advantages of internal recruitment for both the company and employees?

Applicants are well known to the firm, applicants are knowledgeable of the firms vacancies, it is cheaper and faster fill vacancies internally and inside hires often outperform outsiders.

What are the advantages of internal sources of recruitment?

First, for entry level positions or specialized positions when there are no viable internal recruits. Second, bringing in outsiders may expose the company to new ideas. Third, it can be a good way to strengthen the company while weakening the competitors.

What are the advantages of using external recruiting methods?

What do we need to say and who do we need to say it to?

What are the two questions to ask in designing a job advertisement?

To ensure some individual is held accountable for achieving the stated goals and has necessary authority and resources to accomplish this goal. Having regular progress reports is also important.

What is a critical aspect of the program implementation and evaluation stage of the HR planning process (step 3)?

Improved health of older people, decreased physical labor in many jobs, fear that Social Security will be cut, age discrimination legislation and outlawing of mandatory retirement ages, company fear of losing the wealth of experience.

What is causing the drawing out of older workers' careers?

Avoid indiscriminant across-the-board reductions and instead perform surgical strategic cuts that not only reduce costs, but also improve the firms competitive position.

What is the key to a successful downsizing effort?

The purpose is to focus attention on the problem and provide a benchmark for determining the relative success of any programs aimed at redressing a pending labor shortage or surplus.

What is the purpose of setting specific quantitative goals in the goal setting and strategic planning phase (the 2nd step in the HR planning process)?

Personnel policies, recruitment sources and characteristics and behaviors of the recruiter.

What three areas of recruiting do all companies need to make decisions about?

"Warmth"- the degree to which recruiters seem to care about the applicant and "informativeness".

What two traits stand out when applicants' reactions to recruiters are examined?

Furlough

When a cut in hours is targeted at salaried workers rather than hourly workers.

When the firm does not have certain expertise and is not willing to invest time and effort into developing it.

When is outsourcing a logical choice for a firm?

Promote-from-within policies make it clear to applicants that there are opportunities for advancement within the company.

Why are internal recruitment policies a top consideration for those who are evaluating a company for potential employment?

Referrals

people who are prompted to apply by someone withing the organization.

What are the major ways that societal trends and events affect employers?

1.) Consumer markets: which affect the demand for goods and services. 2.) Labor markets: which affect the supply of people to produce goods and services.

Steps to an HR planning process.

1.) Forecasting 2.) goal setting and strategic planning 3.) program implementation and evaluation

What are three keys to effectively utilizing labor markets to one's competitive advantage?

1.) Know current HR configuration 2.) Know future endeavors and how their present situation relates to future HR needs. 3.) Know and address discrepancies between present and future.

Human resource recruitment

Any practice or activity carried on by the organization with the primary purpose of identifying and attracting potential employees.

Workforce utilization review

A comparison of the proportion of workers in protected subgroups with the proportion that each subgroup represents in the relevant labor market.

Personnel policies

A generic term used to refer to organizational decisions that affect the nature of the vacancies for which people are recruited.

Lead-the-market approach

A policy of paying higher than the current market wages. Companies that use this approach have a distinct advantage in recruiting.

Offshoring

A special case of outsourcing where the jobs that move actually leave one country and go to another.

Transitional matrices

A statistical procedure that can be employed to project labor supply. This matrice shows the proportion (number) of employees in different job categories at different times. It shows how people move in one year from one state (outside the organization) or job category to another.

Leading indicator

An objective measure that accurately predicts future labor demand

Outsourcing

An organizations use of an outside organization for a broad set of services.

Recruitment Sources include

Direct applicants and referrals, Newspaper advertisements, electronic recruiting, employment agencies and universities.

Company website, job search engines, linkedIn, podcasts, social networks,

How can companies use electronic recruiting?

Provide timely feedback and recruit of teams consisting of line personnel and personnel specialists.

How can recruiters enhance the impact they make on recruits?

Direct applicants

People who apply for a vacancy without prompting from the organization.

Due process policies

Policies by which a company formally lays out the steps an employee can take to appeal a termination decision.

Employment-at-will policies

Policies which state that either an employer or an employee can terminate the employment relationship at any time, regardless of cause.

Yield ration

The percentage of applicants who successfully move from one stage of the recruitment and selection process to the next.

Downsizing

The planned eliminatin of large numbers of personnel designed to enhance organizational effectiveness

Liftout

The practice of recruiting a whole team of people from another organization.

Quality control, security violation and poor customer service

What are some issues to consider when deciding to offshore?

What is the primary goal of forecasting (the first step in HR planning)?

To predict areas within the organization where there will be future labor shortages or surpluses

What is the balanced approach used to forecast labor supply and demand?

Using both statistical and judgemental methods.

It frees the firm from administrative tasks and financial burdens associated with being the "employer of record", the temp employees are tested and trained by a temp agency thus reducing the cost to the firm, the temp employee brings an objective perspective.

What are some advantages of hiring temporary workers to reduce a labor surplus?

low levels of commitment to the organization and tension between temp employees and full time employees.

What are some disadvantages of hiring temporary workers to reduce a labor surplus?