Approaches to Staffing Flashcards
Staff as an asset?
These are employers who value employees and a concern for their welfare. Staff are recognised because their efforts are beneficial and crucial to the productive efficiency. Employers will concern for them with giving them sick pay/reasonable holidays, acceptable remuneration, job security, opportunities to interact with colleagues, training and chances for promotion.
Staff as a cost?
The employer will minimise costs and pay wherever possible. They will the legal national minimum wage, offer zero-hour contracts, use financial incentives to raise productivity, have penalties for employees who are late or don’t work their schedule properly, use cheap and inferior recruitment methods.
What is multi-skilling in a flexible workforce?
It helps enhance the skills of employees. It’s argued that giving individuals the skills and responsibilities to deal with a greater variety of issues will allow a business to respond more quickly and effectively to problems improving an employee’s work performance.
What are part-time and temporary workers?
Part-time workers are employees who don’t work every day of the week. This could be because it suits their lifestyle or because they don’t have the flexibility and energy to work 24/7. Temporary workers are those who are employed for a limited time only. This could be a period of 2 weeks. These are actually very important because it helps Mail companies deliver lots of extra post during celebration periods like Christmas and farmers can have support with producing crops and vegetables during harvest periods.
How do flexible hours help a workforce?
Staff could work a number of hours in a particular time period e.g one week, but they have the choice of when to work during that time period. Another option would be to work a reduced number of days, but longer hours each day. For example a factory open 24 hours a day will likely operate in 3 eight-hour shifts. Some UK businesses have started to offer their workers zero-hour contracts. This means employees only work when the employers need them. This allows businesses to be flexible with employees’ arrangements and job rotation.
How does outsourcing help introduce flexibility in a workforce?
This involves getting other people or businesses to carry out tasks that were originally carried out by the business’ employees. This allows businesses owners and managers to focus on the core capabilities of the business whilst employees do the peripheral work. The key advantage to outsourcing is that costs are low and capacity can increase. But there can sometimes be a loss of control and the reliance put on suppliers from other businesses can be too much.
Why might an employee be dismissed out of work?
It could be for an unfair reason such as joining a trade union. But employees can be dismissed because of lawful reasons such as misconduct, the incapability of doing a task and not working their schedule properly.
What might redundancy be a cause of an employee getting dismissed?
They can be dismissed for redundancy because there’s no work or insufficient work for the employee to do. Employees are entitled to redundancy or service payments by law but they must meet other criteria which includes a contract of employment. Workers are likely to be made redundant during a period of recession or when a business is struggling due to external factors.
