Chapter 9 Flashcards
What is the role of the human resource management function in organizations?
- The human resource management (HRM) role in an organization is to design and apply formal systems to ensure the effective and efficient use of human talent to accomplish organizational goals.
What is human capital?
- Human capital refers to the economic value of the combined knowledge, experience, skills, and capabilities of employees.
What are the three broad strategic human resource management activities?
- finding the right people
- managing talent
- maintaining an effective workforce
What human resource management practices are involved in finding the right people?
- hrm planning
- job analysis
- forecasting
- recruiting
- selecting
What human resource management practices are involved in managing talent?
- training
- development
- appraisal
What human resource management practices are involved in maintaining an effective workforce?
- wages and salary administration
- benefits administration
- labor relations
- terminations
What is illegal discrimination?
- Illegal discrimination occurs when hiring and promotion decisions are made based on criteria that are not job-relevant; for example, refusing to hire a black applicant for a job he is qualified to fill and paying a woman a lower wage than a man for the same work are discriminatory acts.
- It is illegal to discriminate in employment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, or disability.
What is affirmative action?
- Affirmative action requires that an employer take positive steps to guarantee equal employment opportunities for people within protected groups.
What is the difference for employees between the old social contract and the new social contract between an employer and an employee?
- Old Contract
Job security
A cog in the machine
Knowing
- New Contract
Employability; personal responsibility
Partner in business improvement
Learning; skill development
What is an employer brand?
- An employer brand is similar to a product brand except that rather than promoting a specific product, its aim is to make the organization seem like a highly desirable place to work.
Contingent workers are becoming a larger part of the U.S. workforce. What are they?
- _Contingent workers _are people who work for an organization, but not on a permanent or full-time basis.
What is telecommuting?
- _Telecommuting _means using computers and telecommunications equipment to do work without going to an office.
Underlying the organization’s effort to attract employees is a matching model. What is matched in this model?
- With the matching model, the organization and the individual attempt to match the needs, interests, and values that they offer each other.
What is human resource planning?
- Human resource planning is the forecasting of HR needs and the projected matching of individuals with expected vacancies.
What is involved in recruiting employees?
- _Recruiting _is activities or practices that define the characteristics of applicants to whom selection procedures are ultimately applied.
What is job analysis?
- _Job analysis _is a systematic process of gathering and interpreting information about the essential duties, tasks, and responsibilities of a job, as well as about the context within which the job is performed.
What is the difference between a job description and a job specification?
- A _job description _is a clear and concise summary of the specific tasks, duties, and responsibilities.
- A _job specification _outlines the knowledge, skills, education, physical abilities, and other characteristics needed to perform the job adequately.
What is the difference between a traditional “flypaper” approach to recruiting and a realistic job preview?
- In a traditional “flypaper” approach to recruiting, the goal is to generate the maximum number of applicants by presenting only the positive aspects of the job.
- A realistic job preview (RJP) gives applicants all pertinent and realistic information—positive and negative—about the job and the organization.
What activities are involved in the selection process in organizations?
- In the selection process, employers assess applicants’ characteristics in an attempt to determine the “fit” between the job and applicant characteristics.
What information does the application form typically collect from job applicants?
- The application form is used to collect information about the applicant’s education, previous job experience, and other background characteristics.
Why are traditional job interview questions not particularly helpful in making accurate hiring decisions.
- They frequently ask non job-related questions.
- They are unreliable. Different interviewers may judge the same applicant differently on the same criteria.
- Answers can be faked/rehearsed thereby not providing accurate information about the applicant.
- Otherwise good applicants who don’t rehearse or provide the “right answers” may be excluded resulting in a missed hiring opportunity.
What types of job interview questions are better for making good selection decisions? Why are they better?
- situational questions
- behavior description questions
- better because
job-related
standardized
scored
more difficult to fake answers
What are the four possible outcomes of a selection decision?
- True Positive: you hired an applicant who turned out to be a good employee
- True Negative: you didn’t hire an applicant who would have been a poor employee had you hired him/her
- False Positive: you hired an applicant who turned out to be a poor employee
- False Negative: you failed to hire an applicant who would have been a good employee had you hired him/her
What is the difference between training and development?
- Training is typically used to refer to teaching people how to perform tasks related to their present jobs.
- Development means teaching people broader skills that are not only useful in their present jobs but also prepare them for greater responsibilities in future jobs.
What is on-the-job training (OJT)?
- In on-the-job training (OJT), an experienced employee is asked to take a new employee “under his or her wing” and show the newcomer how to perform job duties.
What is involved in a performance appraisal?
- observing and assessing employee performance
- recording the assessment
- providing feedback to the employee
What is 360-degree feedback?
- It is a process that uses multiple raters, including self-rating, as a way to increase awareness of strengths and weaknesses and guide employee development.
What is included in compensation?
- all monetary payments
- all goods or commodities used in lieu of money to reward employees.
What is job evaluation and how is it different from performance appraisal?
- Job evaluation refers to the process of determining the value or worth of jobs within an organization through an examination of job content.
- Performance appraisal refers to the process of assessing iindividual employees’ job performance within the organization.
What are wage and salary surveys?
- Wage and salary surveys show what other organizations pay incumbents in jobs that match a sample of key jobs selected by the organization.
What is pay-for-performance?
What are examples of pay-for-performance?
- Pay-for-performance, also called incentive pay, means tying at least a portion of compensation to employee effort and performance. Examples:
merit-based pay
bonuses
team incentives
gain sharing plans
profit sharing plans
What does diversity mean in a business context?
- Today, companies are embracing a more inclusive definition of diversity that recognizes a spectrum of differences that influence how employees approach work, interact with each other, derive satisfaction from their work, and define who they are as people in the workplace.
One way to assess the effectiveness of diversity management is to measure employees perceptions of inclusion. What is inclusion?
- _Inclusion _is the degree to which an employee feels like an esteemed member of a group in which his or her uniqueness is highly appreciated.
What does it mean to manage diversity?
- It means creating a climate in which the potential advantages of diversity for organizational or group performance are maximized, while the potential disadvantages are minimized.
Why would an organization want to have diversity of perspective?
- _Diversity of perspective _is achieved when a manager creates a heterogeneous team made up of individuals with diverse backgrounds and skill sets.
- By tapping into the strengths of diversity, teams are more likely to experience the following: higher efficiency, better quality, less duplication of effort among team members, and increased innovation and creativity.
Leveraging differences can help build a stronger corporate culture and improve performance. What are the reasons for adopting a leveraging differences mindset?
- greater collective intelligence
- greater creativity
- broader perspectives
- preventing groupthink
What are the dividends of managing diversity effectively?
- better use of employee talent
- increased understanding of the marketplace
- enhanced breadth of understanding in leadership positions
- increased quality of team problem-solving
- reduced costs associated with high turnover, absenteeism, and lawsuits
What is the glass-ceiling?
- The glass ceiling is an invisible barrier that exists for women and minorities that limits their upward mobility in organizations.
- They can look up through the ceiling and see top management, but prevailing attitudes and stereotypes are invisible obstacles to their own advancement.
