3.6.1 - Setting Human Resource Objectives

Question 1

What is human resource management?

Answer 1

The design, implementation and maintenance of strategies to manage people for optimum business performance.

Question 2

What type of approach is human resource management?

Answer 2

A strategic approach

Question 3

What are six key tools used in human resource management to help meet the strategic needs of the business?

Answer 3

1. Workforce planning
2. Recruitment & selection
3. Training & development
4. Rewarding and motivating staff
5. Communication
6. Roles and responsibilities (organisational structures)

Question 4

What are the 6 human resource objectives?

Answer 4

• Employee engagement
• Talent development
• Training
• Diversity
• Alignment of employee and employer values
• Number, skills and location of employees

Question 5

What are human resource objectives?

Answer 5

The quantifiable goals that a business’s HR department seeks to achieve.

Question 6

What is employee involvement?

Answer 6

Where people in a business are able to have an impact on decisions and actions that affect their working lives.

Question 7

What is employee engagement?

Answer 7

Describes the connection between a business’s employees and its mission, goals and objectives.

Question 8

What is training?

Answer 8

The process of increasing the knowledge and skills of the workforce to enable them to perform their jobs effectively.

Question 9

What is diversity?

Answer 9

The process of a business recognising the differences between individual employees and the differences between different groups of employees.

Question 10

What is talent development?

Answer 10

The process of a business developing their current employees so that they can support the business’s future success.

Question 11

What is alignment of employee and employer values?

Answer 11

Ensuring employees have similar values and beliefs to a business.

Question 12

What might the objective talent development focus on?

Answer 12

1. Investment in employees training
2. Staff retention rates
3. Percentage of job vacancies filled by internal candidates

Question 13

What might the objective of training focus on?

Answer 13

1. Spend in total and per employee on training
2. Measures of training effectiveness

Question 14

What might the objective diversity focus on?

Answer 14

1. Diversity in senior management positions (gender, experience, ethnicity etc)
2. Diversity in external recruitment (gender, ethnicity etc)

Question 15

What might the objective alignment of values focus on?

Answer 15

• Recruitment & induction training

Question 16

What might the objective number, skills and location of employees focus on?

Answer 16

1. Labour turnover
2. Staff retention
3. Recruitment targets
4. Training budgets
5. Extent of skills gaps in the workforce

Question 17

What is hard human resource management (Hard HRM)?

Answer 17

Employees are viewed like any resource available to to a business.

Question 18

What is soft human resource management (Soft HRM)?

Answer 18

Employees are viewed as the most important resource in the business and a source of competitive advantage.