Ch 1 Flashcards
Human Resource Management
the process of managing human talent to achieve an organization’s objectives
Human Capital
the knowledge, skills, and capabilities of individuals that have economic value to an organizations
- intangible and can’t be managed the way organizations manage tangible things → if employees leave, they take their human capital with them
Corporate Social Responsibility
the responsibility of the firm to act in the best interests of the people and communities affected by its activities
- companies learned that being socially responsible can help them avoid lawsuits, improve earnings, and attract new talent
Sustainability
doing business in a way that does as little harm to the environment and depletes as few natural resources as possible
Knowledge Workers
workers whose responsibilities extend beyond the physical execution of work to include planning, decision making, and problem solving
- advanced tech reduced jobs that require little skill and increase jobs that require considerable skill
Human Resources Information System
a computerized system that provides current and accurate data for purposes of control and decision making
- lowers admin costs, increases productivity, speeding up responses times, improving decision making, and tracking a company’s talent
Workforce (HR) analytics
The process of gathering and analyzing data to improve a firm’s human resources management
- employment history, skills, education, demographics, hours worked, compensation, performance, training, and disciplinary actions can be collected with “bigger data” (email content, social network communication)
Downsizing
the permanent reduction of a company’s labor force by removing unproductive workers or divisions
Hidden Costs from downsizing
- severance and rehiring costs
- accrued vacation and sick-day payouts
- pension and benefit payoffs
- potential lawsuits from aggrieved workers
companies that avoid downsizing get some benefits:
- a fiercely loyal, more productive workforce
- higher customer satisfaction
- readiness to snap back with the economy
- a recruiting edge
Furloughing
A situation in which an organization asks or requires employees to take time off for either no pay or reduced pay
An example of furloughing
flexleave - Employees received 20 percent of their salaries and continued benefits for 6 to 12 months, and their stock options remained in place. The workers could take other jobs during their sabbaticals, as long as they did not work for a competitor
Drawbacks of furloughing
- Costs are not cut as significantly as they would be with downsizing because employees generally retain their benefits
- Employees who are not furloughed often end up with more work and feel resentful
- product and service quality, as well as innovation, suffer as a result of the higher workloads
- can hurt a company’s recruiting efforts
Outsourcing
hiring a party outside a company to perform services or create goods that were traditionally performed in-house by the company’s own employees and staff
Offshoring
The business practice of sending jobs to other countries
- Cost reduction is among the key motivators for these decisions
Nearshoring
The process of moving jobs closer to one’s home country
- rising labour costs in China are now making it attractive for North American firms to offshore work to Mexico and Central America
Homeshoring
The process of moving jobs to work-from home domestic independent contractors
- When a company homeshores call centre jobs, it outsources the work to domestic independent contractors who work out of their homes
Employee Leasing
The process of dismissing employees who are then hired by a leasing company (which handles all HR-related activities) and contracting with that company to lease back the employees
- alternative to downsizing, outsourcing, offshoring, and furloughing
Explain how Employee Leasing works
- PEO takes over the management of a smaller company’s HR tasks and becomes a coemployer to its employee
- PEO performs all the HR duties of an employer
- can coemploy a large number of people working at many different companies, they can provide employees with benefits that small companies cannot afford, such as vision care plans
- many PEOs offer their employees flextime, job sharing, part-time employment, consulting arrangements, seasonal work, and on-call
Line managers
non-hr managers who are responsible for overseeing the work of other employees