Chapter 2 Trends in HRM

Question 1

What is Internal Labor Force?

Answer 1

An organizations workers.

Question 2

What is external labor force?

Answer 2

Individuals who are actively seeking employment.

Question 3

What is a High-performance work system?

Answer 3

An organization in which technology, organizational structure, people and process work together seamlessly to give an competitive advantage.

Question 4

What are knowledge workers?

Answer 4

Employees whose main contribution to the organization is specialized knowledge, such as knowledge of customers, a process or a profession.

Question 5

What is employee empowerment?

Answer 5

Giving employees responsibility and authority to make decisions regarding all aspects of product development or customer service.

Question 6

What is Teamwork?

Answer 6

the assignment of work in groups of employees who interact to assemble a product or provide a service.

Question 7

What is total quality management (TQM)?

Answer 7

A companywide effort to continuously improve the way people, machines, and systems accomplish work.

Question 8

What is reengineering?

Answer 8

a complete review of the organizations critical work processes to make them more efficient and able to deliver higher quality.

Question 9

what is outsourcing?

Answer 9

contracting with another organization to provide a service.

Question 10

What is offshoring?

Answer 10

moving operations from the country where its Headquartered to a country where pay rates are lower, but the necessary skills are available.

Question 11

what is reshoring?

Answer 11

Reestablishing operations back in the country where a company is headquartered due to quality and flexibility concerns.

Question 12

What is expatriates?

Answer 12

Employees assigned to work in another country.

Question 13

What is Human Resource Information System (HRIS)?

Answer 13

A computer system used to acquire, store, manipulate, and distribute information related to an organizations HR.

Question 14

what is Electronic HRM (e-HRM)?

Answer 14

The processing and transmission of digitalized HR information.

Question 15

what is cloud computing?

Answer 15

the practice of using a network of remote servers hosted on the internet to store, manage, and process data.

Question 16

What is self-service?

Answer 16

System in which employees have online access to information about HR issues where they go online and provide feedback through surveys.

Question 17

What is a psychological contract?

Answer 17

A description of what an employee expects to contribute and what the employer will provide the employee in exchange for those contributions.

Question 18

What is alternative work arrangements?

Answer 18

Methods of staffing other than traditional hiring of full-time employees (i.e. on call worker, contract worker, temporary worker, independent contractor).

Question 19

Describe trends in labor force composition and how they affect HRM.

Answer 19

1. Organizations labor force comes from the external labor market.
2. Labor market is aging and ethically diverse.
3. must be flexible to meet needs of older workers and establish bias free HR systems.
4. may hire employees who lack skills, but train them for their jobs.

Question 20

Summarize areas in which human resource management can support the goal of creating a high-performance work system.

Answer 20

1. HRM recruits and selects employees with broad skills and strong motivation.
2. Job design and systems for assessment and rewards help support employee empowerment and teamwork.

Question 21

Explain the role of employee empowerment in the modern organization.

Answer 21

1. Selection should provide the employees who the necessary decision making and interpersonal skills.
2. Job design should give employees latitude for decision making.
3. Employees should be trained to handle their responsibilities.
4. Feedback and rewards for work of empowered employees.
5. giving employees access to the information they need.