3. AOS 2 Flashcards
What is Human Resource Management?
Human resource management is the organisation of employee’s roles, pay, and working conditions.
How does HR connect to ‘Making a Profit’?
HR can increase job satisfaction in employees.
How does HR connect to ‘Increasing Market Share’?
High employee morale can increase quality of products.
How does HR connect to ‘Meeting Shareholder Expectations?
Employees who feel satisfied at work may work harder at a higher standard.
How does HR connect to ‘Fulfilling a Market Need’?
Satisfied employees are more likely to contribute innovative ideas.
How does HR connect to ‘Fulfilling a Social Need’?
Satisfied employees are, more likely to support business initiatives.
How does HR connect to ‘Improving Efficiency’?
Employees that are satisfied with their job are more likely to be productive, focused and error free.
How does HR connect to ‘Improving Effectiveness’?
Motivated employees are more likely to achieve business objectives.
What is Motivation?
Motivation is the willingness of an individual to expend energy and effort in completing a task.
What is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs?
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a motivational theory that suggests people have five fundamental needs, and their sequential attainment of each need acts as a source of motivation.
The order of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs:
- Self Actualisation Needs
- Esteem Needs
- Social Needs
- Safety and Security Needs
- Physiological Needs
What are Physiological needs?
Physiological needs are the basic requirements for human survival, such as food water and shelter.
- Job
- Income
What are Safety and Security needs?
Safety and Security needs are the desires for protection from dangerous or threatening environments.
- Pay
- Occupation Health and Safety
- Job Security
What are Social needs?
Social needs are the desires for a sense of belonging and friendship among groups, both inside and outside the workplace.
- Teamwork
- Social Activities (i.e. staff functions)
What are Esteem Needs?
Esteem needs are an individual’s desires to feel important, valuable, and respected.
- Recognition
- Delegation
- Empowerment (i.e. Employee of the month)
What are Self-Actualisation needs?
Self-Actualisation needs are the desires of an individual to reach their full potential through creativity and personal growth.
- Opportunity for Advancement (i.e. promotion)
What is Job Security?
Job security is the likelihood of an employee keeping their job.
What is a Living Wage?
Living wage is the minimum income an employee needs to afford basic shelter, food and other necessities.
What are OH&S Regulations?
OH&S regulations are the occupational health and safety rules and laws that aim to protect the wellbeing of employees and the public.
What is Intrinsic Motivation?
Intrinsic motivation is a drive that comes from within an individual.
What is the Four Drive Theory?
The Four Drive Theory suggests that people strive to balance four fundamental desires.
Who created the Four Drive Theory?
Lawrence and Nohria
What is the Drive to Aquire?
The drive to acquire is the desire to achieve rewards and high status.
What is the Drive to Bond?
The drive to bond is the desire to participate in social interactions and feel a sense of belonging.
What is the Drive to Learn?
The drive to learn is the desire to gain knowledge, skills and experience.
What is the Drive to Defend?
The drive to defend is the desire to protect personal security as well as the values of the business.
What are Financial Rewards?
Financial rewards are monetary payments given to employees to recognise their high performance.
What are Non-Financial rewards?
Non-financial rewards are non-monetary benefits given to employees to recognise their high performance.
What are the advantages of the Four Drive Theory?
- Simple and easy to implement.
- All four drives can be attained simultaneously.
- Engages employees by motivating them.
- Can improve employee performance.
What are the disadvantages of the Four Drive Theory?
- May find it difficult to manage all four drives simultaneously.
- Drives may be overlooked and therefore full potential may not be achieved.
- Employees may not value all drives equally and balance between drive may not be achieved.
- Rewarding individuals may lead to unhealthy competition.
- Takes time to motivate all employees.
- Training programs and sponsoring educating can increase business expenses.
- Financial rewards can increase business expenses.
What is the Goal Setting Theory?
The Goal Setting Theory is a motivation theory that states that employees are motivated by clearly defined goals that fulfil five key principles.
Who created the Goal Setting Theory?
Locke and Latham
What are the key principals of the Goal Setting Theory?
- Clarity
- Commitment
- Challenge
- Task Complexity
- Feedback
What are the five steps of the Goal Setting Theory?
- Employees discuss personal goals with a manager. The manager aligns employee goals with business objectives.
- Manager and employee set a clear achievable goal together. The goals should be challenging and complex.
- Manager regularly checks employee process and provides support.
- Manager celebrates and rewards the employee for reaching a goal.
- Manager and employee set a new, more difficult goal together.
What is a Production Quota?
A production quota is a goal for how many products are to be made within a specific time period.
What are the advantages of the Goal Setting Theory?
- Aligning employee goals to business objectives will likely improve business performance.
- Can improve relationships and trust between employees and managers.
- Employees can better understand expectations, and be motivated to complete tasks that align with their interests.
- Specific goals are quick for managers to assess.
- Increases likelihood of business objectives success.
What are the disadvantages to the Goal Setting Theory?
- May be difficult to align employee goals with business objectives.
- Too many goals may stress out and demotivate employees, as well as failure to meet a goal.
- Setting goals and providing feedback can be time-consuming for management.
What are the Motivation Strategies?
- Performance Related Pay
- Career Advancement
- Investment in Training
- Support Strategies
- Sanction Strategies
What is Performance Related Pay?
Performance related pay is a financial reward that employees receive for reaching or exceeding a set business goal.
What is Career Advancement?
Career advancement is the upwards progression of an employee’s job position.
What is Investment in Training?
Investment in training is allocating resources to improve employee skills, and knowledge.
What are Support Strategies?
Support strategies involve providing employees with any assistance that improves their satisfaction at work.
- Checking in on health and wellbeing.
- Praising and encouraging good performance.
What are Sanction Strategies?
Sanction strategies involve penalising employees for poor performance or breaching business policies.
- Written and verbal warnings.
What is Remuneration?
Remuneration is the money paid to an employee by an employer in exchange for completing work tasks.
What is a Pay Rise?
A pay rise is a permanent increase in an employee’s salary or hourly wage rate.
What is a Bonus?
A bonus is a one-off payment made for meeting a set objective. It is provided in addition to an employee’s regular salary.
What is a Commission?
Commission is a payment provided to an employee for selling a good or service. It is usually paid as a percentage of the price of the good or service being sold.
What is Job Enlargement?
Job enlargement involves combining various duties within an existing role.
What is Job Enrichment?
Job enrichment involves an increase in the level of responsibility and complexity in an existing role.
What is Mentoring?
Mentoring is a senior employee assisting a junior employee in developing the skills and knowledge needed for their work.
What are the Positive SHORT Term effects of motivation strategies?
- Improve performance, quickly.
- May be motivated by taking on more responsibility.
- Motivated by opportunity to learn.
- Feel valued and supported wellbeing.
- Motivated to follow instructions.
What are the Negative SHORT Term effects of motivation strategies?
- May be demotivated by competing with colleagues.
- May become resentful if they believe they are not considered for a promotion.
- Taking time off for training programs may cause employees to lose momentum.
- Employees may become resentful of management.
What are the Positive LONG Term effects of motivation strategies?
- A history of performance related pay may increase employee motivation as the believe it will continue to happen.
- May be motivated by ongoing opportunities to advance.
What are the Negative LONG Term effects of motivation strategies?
- May be demotivated by colleague competition.
- May be demotivated if rewards do not increase in value.
- Limited number of advancement opportunities.
What is On-The-Job Training?
On-the-job training involves employees improving their knowledge and skills within the workplace
What is Job Shadowing?
Job shadowing is following and observing an experienced employee for a period of time to understand how they perform their role.
What are the advantages of On-The-Job Training?
- Employees can work while training (productivity).
- Trainers can build interpersonal relationships.
- Employees training during work can avoid additional hours.
- Quickly become familiar with equipment (time-saving).
- Less expensive, no travel costs.
What are the disadvantages of On-The-Job Training?
- Staff may not be experience enough to train others.
- Training may disturb other workers, lowering productivity.
- Workplace may be distracting.
- Employees may learn bad habits from existing staff.
- Staff may be taken away from work to train new employees.
What is Off-The-Job Training?
Off-the-job training involves employees improving their knowledge and skills in a location external to the business.
What are the advantages of Off-The-Job Training?
- Provides new perspective on how to perform their tole.
- Distraction free environment.
- More likely to be employed when trained/qualified.
- Errors are not made on-site, decreasing expenses.
What are the disadvantages of Off-The-Job Training?
- Employees leaving for training takes them away from work.
- Employees may try to find work elsewhere after being trained.
- Solely information based knowledge may be hard to apply/transfer new skills.
- Travel takes time/money.
What are the Performance Management Strategies?
- Management by Objectives
- Performance Appraisals
- Self-Evaluation
- Employee Observation
What is Management by Objectives?
Management by objectivs involves both managers and employees collaboratively setting individual employee goals that contribute to the achievement of broader business objectives.
What are the steps involved in Managing by Objectives?
- Define business objectives.
- Manager and employee collaboratively.
- Evaluate employee performance in terms of the achievement of each goal.
- Provide feedback to employees to help them improve their performance, and determine whether further training is required.
What are the advantages of Management by Objectives?
- Working towards business goals improves business performance.
- Collaboration when setting objectives can foster positives relationships.
- Achievement of objectives can strengthen corporate culture.
- Sense of achievement.
- Clear steps towards objectives can clarify an employees role.
- Consistently achieving goals may open promotional opportunities.
- Quick performance reviews.
What are the disadvantages of Management by Objectives?
- Employees may take harmful shortcuts to achieve objectives.
- Failure to achieve goals may demotivate employees.
- Too many goals may overwhelm employees.
- Developing goals takes time.
- Employees may expect monetary rewards.
- Training courses costs money.
What are Performance Appraisals?
Performance appraisals involve a manager assessing the performance of an employee.
What are the advantages of Performance Appraisals?
- Communication between managers and employees can improve relationships.
- Results can assist struggling employees.
- Extreme Results can determine staff dismissal.
- Increased employee performance.
- Opportunity for promotion.
What are the disadvantages of Performance Appraisals?
- May be demotivating if feedback is negative.
- Time consuming (done for every employee).
- Well performing staff may desire promotion or financial rewards.
- Training courses to address employee weakness are costly.
What is Self-Evaluation?
Self-evaluation involves an employee assessing their individual performance against a set of criteria.
What are the advantages of Self-Evaluation?
- Employer can better understand the employees understanding of their strengths and weaknesses.
- Employees can highlight their weaknesses to managers, in order to get skill development opportunities.
- Motivated to improve performance.
- Saves managers time.
What are the disadvantages of Self-Evaluation?
- May be biased or dishonest.
- May under or over-exaggerate skills.
- Criteria needs to be developed which takes time.
- Training is costly.
What is Employee Observation?
Employee observation involves a range of employees from difficult levels of authority assessing another employee’s performance against a set of criteria.
What are the advantages of Employee Observation?
- Connects participating employees.
- Multiple perspectives.
- Unaware employees will be accurately evaluated.
- Feedback may be better accepted by fellow employees.
- Positive evaluations may lead to promotions.
What are the disadvantages of Employee Observation?
- Employees may perform better when knowing they are being assessed.
- Relationships may cause bias.
- May overwhelm/stress out employees.
- Disrupts workflow.
- Developing criteria takes time.
What is Termination?
Termination is the process whereby a business ends its employment contract with an employee.
What is retirement?
Retirement involves an individual deciding to leave the workforce permanently as they no longer wish to work.
What is Redundancy?
Redundancy involves an employee no longer working for a business because there is insufficient work or their job no longer exists.
What is Resignation?
Resignation involves an employee voluntarily terminating their own employment, usually to take another job position elsewhere.
What is dismissal?
Dismissal involves the involuntary termination of an employee who fails to meet required work standards or displays unacceptable or unlawful behaviour.
What are Exit Interviews?
Exit interviews are discussions held between an employer and the leaving employee which are used to identify the reasons for an employee deciding to no longer work at the business.
What is Unfair Dismissal?
Unfair dismissal is an employee being dismissed for harsh, unreasonable or unjust reasons.
What are Entitlement Considerations?
Entitlement considerations are legal obligations an employer owes to its employees following the termination of their employment contract.
- Redundancy pay.
- Annual/Long service leave.
- Notice of termination.
- Justifiable reasons for employment termination.
What are Transition Considerations?
Transition consideration are social and ethical practices that a manager can consider implementing when terminating employment.
What are Human Resource Managers?
Human resource managers are individuals who coordinate the relationship between employees and management within a business.
What do HR Managers do?
- Recruit, hire, train and terminate employees.
- Negotiate with employees and their representatives.
- Act as a mediating party.
- Ensure that minimum legal requirements are met.
What are Workplace Relations?
Workplace relations are the interactions that occur between employers and employees, or their representative, within a business’s internal environment.
What are Employees?
Employees are individuals who are hired by a business to complete work tasks and support the achievements of it’s objectives.
What do Employees do?
- Follow and understand workplace safety procedures.
- Complete tasks with proper care and diligence.
- Obey terms in their contract.
- Avoid misusing confidential information.
- Report illegal or unethical behaviour.
What are Employer Associations?
Employer associations are advisory bodies that assist employers in understanding and upholding their legal business obligations.
What do Employer Associations do?
- Share information.
- Provide advise.
- Represent employers during negotiations with employees.
- Provide support.
What are Unions?
Unions are organisations composed of individuals who represent and speak on behalf of employees in a particular industry to protect and improve their wages and working conditions.
What do Unions do?
- Represent employees and negotiate new wages and conditions on behalf of their members.
- Seek better wages and work conditions on behalf of employees.
- Protect job security and integrity of employee contracts.
What is the Fair Work Commission (FWC)?
The fair work commission (FWC) is Australia’s independent workplace relations tribunal that has a range of responsibilities outlined by the Fair Work Act.
What does the Fair Work Commission do?
- Set national minimum working standards.
- Establish awards.
- Approve and monitor enterprise agreements.
- Act as an arbitrator.
- Act as a mediator.
- Respond to serious workplace issues.
What are Awards?
Awards are legal documents that outline the minimum wages and condition of work for employees across an entire industry.
What are Wages?
Wages are regular payments of money earned by employees in exchange for work or services they complete, typically paid on a weekly, fortnightly, or monthly basis.
What is an Employment Contract?
Employment contract is a legal document that outlines the wages and working conditions of an employee within a business.
What are National Employment Standards?
National employment standards are the minimum entitlements an employer owes its employees, which are set by the Fair Work Commission (FWC).
What are the advantages of Awards?
- Equality is maintained as all conditions are set by the award.
- FWC ensures appropriate wages and conditions.
- Minimises time to create contracts.
- Minimises labour costs, lawfully.
What are the disadvantages of Awards?
- Limited flexibility for different business models, impacting ability to meet objectives.
- Based upon predetermined standards.
- Employees may leave for a different business whose award has a higher pay rate.
- Employee may be unsatisfied by set wages or conditions.
What are Agreements?
Agreements are legal documents that outline the wages and conditions of employees and are applicable to a particular business or group of businesses.
What is Collective Bargaining?
Collective bargaining is the process of negotiation between employers and employees, or their chosen representatives, to reach an agreement regarding employee wages and conditions of employment.
What are the advantages of Agreements?
- Positive relationships may develop in negotiation processes.
- Greater flexibility in setting wages and conditions.
- Unique conditions/wages may attract skilled employees.
- Unions can ensure employees are properly paid etc.
- Improves employee satisfaction.
What are the disadvantages of Agreements?
- Inequality in wages may increase.
- Employees without unions may be exploited.
- Time consuming to negotiate entitlement.
- More costly than an award.
What is the Dispute Resolution Process?
A dispute resolution process is a series of steps that disputing parties follow in order to resolve a disagreement and reach a resolution.
What is a Dispute?
A dispute is a conflict between workplace participants as a result of a disagreement.
What is Mediation?
Mediation involves an impartial third party facilitating discussions between disputing parties to help each side of the conflict reach a resolution themselves.
What is Industrial Action?
Industrial action involves employees or employers taking relevant steps to settle a workplace dispute. During industrial action, employees can delay, limit, or refuse to work, and employers can lock employees out of a workplace.
What is a Legally Binding Decision?
A legally binding decision is a judgment that requires and prohibits certain actions of parties and is enforceable by law. Failure to follow this decision can result in legal consequences.
What is Arbitration?
Arbitration involves an independent third party hearing arguments from both disputing parties and making a legally binding decision to resolve the conflict.
What are the advantages of Mediation?
- Possible positive relationships in the future.
- Both parties are more likely to be satisfied by end result.
- Less expensive then formal disputes as it is less formal.
What are the disadvantages of Mediation?
- A decision may not always be reached.
- The decision is not legally binding, meaning it may be reversed.
- Power dynamic may be unbalanced making the decision unfair.
- A decision is not always reached, wasting time.
What are the advantages of Arbitration?
- A final decision is always made.
- The final decision is legally binding and cannot be retracted.
- Less likely to have a power imbalance.
What are the disadvantages of Arbitration?
- May harm future relationships as one party may be unhappy with final decision.
- Employees have reduced control over the final decision.
- Hearing both sides takes time.
- Conducting hearing costs a lot of money.
