Ch 3 - Janine *done*

Question 1

What is environmental scanning?

Answer 1

The systematic monitoring of the major factors influencing the organization. Identify trends and influences arising from the external environment.

Question 2

What are the sources of information that can help HR develop an environmental scanning strategy?

Answer 2

Publications
On-line resources
Professional associations
Conferences/seminars
Professional consultants

Question 3

What are the methods for HR forecasting?

Answer 3

Trend Analysis
Delphi Technique
Impact Analysis
Scenario Planning

Question 4

What are the stages of external environment analysis

Answer 4

Scanning - identify early signals
Monitoring - follow some key indicators
Forecasting - project possible impact
Assessing - describe impact and identify the probability of each outcome.

Question 5

What are the top ten trends in HR that will have a strategic impact on the workplace?

Answer 5

Continued high cost of health care in the US
Federal health care legislation
Increase in global competition for jobs, markets, and talent
Complexity of legal compliance for employers
Changes in employee rights from legislation and/or court rulings
Retirement of baby boomers
Economic growth of emerging markets ie. India, China, Brazil
Growing national deficit
Greater economic uncertainty and market volatility
Need for cross-cutural understanding of business cultures

Question 6

What is Competitive Advantage?

Answer 6

A formal approach to obtain information about competitors.

Question 7

What are the three important questions when assessing the integrity of an information source?

Answer 7

Is the source reliable?
What is the likelihood of the information being correct? ie. not sabotaged
Is the method legal & ethical?

Question 8

What are some ways to gather competitive intelligence data?

Answer 8

Study competitor’s website
Have employees ask suppliers about competitors
Hire employees who have worked for competitors
Trade shows

Question 9

What are the challenges to environmental scanning?

Answer 9

Inability to accurately predict the future
inability to isolate what really is important to HR
Few trends exist in isolation (ie ripple effect)
There is a counter-trend for every trend ie. globalization, localization.

Question 10

What are four criteria for identifying significant trends?

Answer 10

1. Are there ripple effects associated with the trend
2. How profound are the impacts on people’s priorities, roles, and expectations
3. How large is the impact scope
4. will the changes endure over time

Question 11

What are the major environmental factors that HR strategists monitor?

Answer 11

Economic climate
Globalization
Political and legislative factors
Technological factors
Demographic factors
Social/cultural factors

Question 12

What were some actions taken by HR departments to deal with Economic climate

Answer 12

Link employee performance with org goals.
increasing expectations of productivity
putting emphasis on succession planning 
investing in leadership development
non cash rewards
learning opportunities
retraining for new jobs
Replace permanent jobs with contingent jobs
Outsourcing managers

Question 13

What is an indicator from firms of economic downturn?

Answer 13

Drop in demand for contingent, temporary and contract employees.

Question 14

What is globalization?

Answer 14

The growth in flows of trade and financial capital across boarders.

Question 15

What is the implication of NAFTA on HR?

Answer 15

Estimated 1 in 5 jobs in Canada is related to international trade. Implications for recruiting and managing international HR. Makes workforce more mobile across borders.

Question 16

What are the demographic factors HR needs to monitor?

Answer 16

Labour Market
Diversity
Generational differences

Question 17

What are some areas where data can be collected on HR demographic trends?

Answer 17

Unemployment rate
geographic migration
graduation rates
local, provincial, federal regions

Question 18

What is a growing concern in the labour market and how is the Canadian government trying to address it?

Answer 18

Shortage of skilled labour.

Govt encouraging companies to increase training budgets by 1/3, requiring 65% of immigrants to have post-sec education.

Question 19

Why will organizations who exploit diversity gain a competitive advantage?

Answer 19

They will have employees with critical skills that other companies don’t.

Question 20

What are some of the HR areas that need to be tailored for different generations?

Answer 20

Communication
Development and job design
Recruitment
Retention

Question 21

What are the social and cultural factors that effect HR strategy?

Answer 21

Right to privacy
Work-life balance
Contingent workers
Violence at work

Question 22

Who are the internal stakeholders to HR strategy?

Answer 22

The board of directors
Senior management
Supervisors
Employees
Unions

Question 23

What are some of the social-economic trends facing HR?

Answer 23

Increasing environmental awareness
Low fertility rates
More households without children than with
expanding seniors’ market for goods and services.

Question 24

Who are the external stakeholders to HR strategy?

Answer 24

Customers
Suppliers
Governments
Regulatory agencies
The public
NGOs
any who can be influenced by or affect the management decision-making process

Question 25

What is the issues priority matrix?

Answer 25

Probable impact on organization (high/med/low)/ Probability of occurrence(high/med/low) tells the priority of addressing the issue.

Question 26

What is the BCG model?

Answer 26

The Boston Consulting Group model is a portfolio management toll used in product life cycle theory and planning. Stars/?/Cows/dogs measured on a grid for market growth and Market share.