1.4 - managing people Flashcards
What are the 2 things employees are to a business?
- Employees are an asset to a business - the skills and abilities of staff mean that they are able to add value to a product
- Employees are also a cost to a business - employers have to pay their employees a wage or salary, as well as financial incentives such as bonus’
What is the difference between a wage and a salary?
- A wage is paid to a worker based on the amount of work they have done. Wages are often used for lower skilled or manual workers
- A salary is a fixed amount that is usually paid monthly. It’s the amount earned for doing a particular job, the worker doesn’t get paid any more for doing extra work
What is a contract of employment?
A contract of employment is a legally binding agreement between the employer and the employee about what the duties and rights of the employee and the employer are, including hours, salary etc.
What is the difference between redundancy and dismissal?
- Redundancy occurs when the employees job role is no longer required
- Dismissal occurs if an employee has breached their contract of employment
Why do modern workplaces have a flexible workforce?
It’s beneficial to a firm if its workforce is flexible, as it means it’s easier to match the work done by employees to the needs of the business.
What are the different types of contracts employees can have?
- Full time contracts - works at least 35 hours a week
- Part time contracts - works fewer than 35 hours a week
- Zero hour contracts - when a firm employs a worker but does not offer them guaranteed hours
- Permanent or temporary (fixed term) contracts - a permanent contract has no end date, whereas a temporary one does
- Shift work - when a job role needs filling for more hours in a day than can be completed for a single worker
- Home working - employees can work from home some or all days of the week
- Flexible hours (flexitime) - workers complete a set number of daily/weekly/monthly hours at times that suit them
- Outsourcing - businesses can outsource some tasks to external businesses
What does it mean to a business of having a multi skilled workforce?
Having a multi skilled workforce means that a business can employ fewer workers, as it doesn’t need to hire and train a different worker for every single different job.
This can lower a firms recruitment costs, and save them time from training employees.
Why are employer-employee relationships very important?
Employers and employees need each other. Employers need hard working staff to contribute to the production of products that can be sold for a profit.
Employees need a secure income to support themselves and their families.
A successful employer-employee relationship maximises cooperation and minimises the potential for conflict between these two groups.
What is collective bargaining?
Collective bargaining is when a group of employees is represented by workforce representatives - these negotiate with the employers on issues such as pay and working conditions.
What is recruitment?
Recruitment is the process of finding and hiring someone for a job role that needs filling
What are the different stages of recruitment?
- Identify vacancy
- Write job description and specification
- Advertise job
- Process applications
- Shortlist most suitable candidates
- asses most suitable candidates
- Appointment most suitable candidate
What is the selection process and the different stages of it?
The selection process involves assessing candidates:
- Interviews
- Assessment days - a range of activities used to test candidates
- In-tray exercises - where a candidate is given a scenario in which they play a member of staff
What are the two types of people firms can focus on recruiting?
Businesses can recruit for a positive attitude or skills.
Hiring em
What is internal and external recruitment?
- Internal recruitment - when a business recruits someone for a job role who already works for them
- External recruitment - when a business hires someone from outside the business
What are the pros and cons of internal recruitment?
Pros:
- Candidates already know the business
- Short and cheap process
- Motivates workers to go for a promotion
Cons:
- Leaves a vacancy in another department
- Can cause resentment among colleagues who arent selected
What are the pros and cons of external reecruitment?
Pros:
- Brings in fresh new ideas
- Brings in experience from other organisations
- Larger number of applicants
Cons:
- Long and expensive process
- Candidates will need a longer induction process
- Will have only seen a candidate at recruitment, might not be a representative of what theyre like at work
Why does recruitment and training have costs for a business?
Recruitment:
- The cost of advertising the vacancy
- A business might pay a specialist recruitment agency to recruit professional staff
- Shortlisting and assessing candidates may require the business to give their employees who assess extra pay
Training:
- The business needs to pay for people to deliver the training
What is induction training?
Induction training usually starts with an introduction to the business.
During induction training an employee will also be given more information about their job role, such as training on how to do their job.
Induction training needs to be effective so the employee does their work effectively, otherwise the business could have increased costs from mistakes made due to poor training.
What are the two types of training?
- Off the job training - studying to gain skills for the job not at the workplace and at a college for example
- On the job training - where the new worker is trained by an experienced worker in the workplace
What are the pros and cons of off the job training?
Pros:
- Trainers are specialists
- New ideas and brought to the business
- No job distractions during training
Cons:
- Can be expensive
- No benefit to the business while training
- Training might not be specific to their day to day job
What are the pros and cons of on the job training?
Pros:
- easy to organise
- Lower cost of training
- Training is job specific
Cons:
- Trainers are not fully productive during training
- Bad practices are passed on
- No new ideas are brought to the business
What is an organisational chart (hierarchial structure)?
An organisational chart sets out who has authority and responsibility to make decisions.
It shows who individual employees are accountable to, and who employees are responsible for.
It also shows the chain of command, which is the path of communication and authority up and down the hierarch.
It also shows how the organisation is divided up.
What are the different hierarchys in a businesses organisational chart?
- Board of directors
- Managers
- Team leaders
- Supervisors
- Shop floor workers
What is a tall organisational structure?
Organisations with lots of levels in their hierarchy are called tall, they have long chains of command.
In tall structures there are lots of layers of management o there are more opporunities for promotion, which can be motivating for employees.
Tell structures can negatively impact communication and efficiency, since communication can take a long time and decisions can take a long time to make.
