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Strategic HR 431 > Exam 2 Material > Flashcards

Exam 2 Material Flashcards

1
Q

When do HR Strategies qualify as strategic?

A
  • When the strategies has relevance to the organization’s success
  • when the strategies enable an organization to achieve it’s goals
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2
Q

What to HR strategies set out?

A
  1. What the organization intends to do with it’s Hr policies/practices and how they should be integrated into business strategy
  2. Aspirations, which have to converted into actions
  3. Intentions and provide sense of purpose and direction
  4. Provide a sense of direction and are dynamic
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3
Q

What is the difference between HR strategy and HR policy?

A
  • Policies define “how things are done are here” and focus on the here and now.
  • Strategies are formulated when a deliberate decision has been made to change policies to achieve a specific change
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4
Q

When are strategies formulated?

A

It is when a deliberate decision is made to change policies that a strategy for achieving this change has to be formulated

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5
Q

What are the three types of HR strategy?

A
  1. broad statements of intent
  2. Overall strategy approaches (high commitment, high performance, high involvement)
  3. Specific HR strategies ( talent management, learning, and development, reward)
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6
Q

Name three concentrations of overall strategy approaches

A
  1. high commitment
  2. high involvement
  3. high performance
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7
Q

Name the three concentrations of specific stratey

A
  1. talent management
  2. learning and development
  3. reward
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8
Q

Describe ‘Broad Statements of Intent’

A
  • provides framework for more specific strategic plans in individual HR areas
  • ‘umbrella strategy’ = senior mgt sets out broad guidelines, lower mgt determine specifics to get there
  • overall objects such as “building performance culture, leadership capabilities, attracting and retaining talen”
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9
Q

What are some characteristics of high performance management?

A
  • aims to make an impact on performance of an organization

- objective is to achieve this by rigorous recruitment/selection, training, incentive pay systems

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10
Q

What are some characteristics of high involvement management?

A

-teamwork, flexible job descriptions, information sharing,

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11
Q

What are some characteristics of high commitment management?

A
  • employees have broader responsibilities, employees are encouraged to contribute, employees receive aid in helping them achieve job satisfaction,
  • behavior is self-regulated
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12
Q

What are some characteristics of specific HR strategies? [12]

A
  • set out what the organization intends to do in regards to:
    1. design/development
    2. Human capital management
    3. knowledge management,
    4. corporate social responsibility,
    5. diversity
    6 engagement
    7 performance
    8 resources
    9 talent management
    10 learning/development
    11 reward
    12 employment relationships
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13
Q

How is HR strategy evaluated? [4]

A
  • compare achievements against goals
  • can be evaluated based on extent to which they:
    1. satisfy business needs/employees
    2. founded on study not wishful thinking
    3. can be turned into action
    4. are integrated and support each other
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14
Q

How is strategy interactive?

A

It involves a linkage between business strategy and HR strategy

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15
Q

How is it advisable to treat HR strategy?

A

As a perspective rather than a rigorous procedure for mapping the future
Strategic management is a learning process

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16
Q

What 3 factors should characterize the choice of HR Strategy?

A
  1. organization’s business and production strategies
  2. support of HR polices
  3. cooperative labor relations
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17
Q

What are the two approaches to strategic development?

A

The inside-out approach, and the outside-in apporach

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18
Q

Describe the inside-out approach

A

Views what is currently being done and then look at plan and try to link what is already being done to the strategic plan, making a few modifications, not the most affective, but not a terrible way to start

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19
Q

Describe the outside-in approach

A

Starts with issues/vision that business has then HR strategy is developed to help attain the vision
-illustrates how HR can help you get there

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20
Q

What are the steps in formulating HR Strategy? (6)

A
  1. Scan internal/external environment, usually already done
  2. Analyze effectiveness of existing HR strategies
  3. Look at strategies and see how current environment will affect them
  4. Look at business strategy and try to link the HR strategy to it (vertical integration)
  5. look at how HR strategies can be integrated/bundles (horizontal integration)
  6. There will far too much, so now must prioritize!
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21
Q

What is vertical integration?

A

Linking the HR strategy to the business strategy, hard to vertically integrate if business strategy is not clearly defined

22
Q

What is horizontal integration?

A

Bundling HR approaches in which they are mutually supporting

23
Q

Why is vertical integration sometimes difficult to achieve?

A

Because business strategy is not clearly defined

24
Q

What are the typical areas that should be covered in a written HR strategy? [5]

A
  1. environmental and business factors affecting strategy
  2. How strategy will meet business needs
  3. content, details of proposed strategy
  4. implementation of plan (action program, responsibilities, resources)
  5. Cost/benefit analysis
25
Q

Characteristics of Personal Strategy

A 
DIS:  basic transactions, traditional approach, reactive
SIZ: small/medium, 1 person HR
ADV: low HR cost, high interactions
DADV: no value HR, HR silos
* Low strategic impact
26
Q

Characteristics of Generalist

A

DIS: hands on, decentralized, puts someone at each location
SIZ: medium large, have to be geographically dispersed,
ADV: high customer interaction, solutions tolocal,
DIS: not connected between units, expensive
* Medium because lack of connection between units

27
Q

Characteristics of Business partner

A

DIS: HR and other business functions partner
SIZ: medium, large, used to move away from transactional,
ADV: strong relationships, faster to id problems
DADV: minimize employee interactions some employees don’t have strategic capabilities
* moderate, may not have impact on profit/productivity

28
Q

Characteristics of call center

A

DIS: free up times to work on more strategic work
SIZ: large
ADV: quick, cheaper answers
DADV: doesn’t solve complicated problems, employees may resist
* often used with others
* call center= no direct impact, free time = impact

29
Q

Characteristics of Outsourcing

A

DIS: outsource transactional HR functions so can concentrate on strategic, areas without competitive advantage gets outsourced
SIZ: any
ADV: using experts, economies of scale
DADV: vendors make profit so may be costly, not all vendors are good at complex needs, reduces HR interaction with employees
* moderate/high if staff is engaged/involved in strategy

30
Q

Characteristics of Centers of Excellence

A 
DIS: external consultants
SIZ: large, global firms, 
ADV: major issues addressed, HR becomes experts
DADV: high cost, often fails
* high if consultants are good
31
Q

Characteristics of Self-Service Transactions

A

DIS: Employees self serve such as picking benefits, ues technology
SIZ: global, large
ADV: Frees up HR, available 24/7
DADV: need strong IT, hard for employees and HR relations, set up costs high
* minimal to moderate impact

32
Q

Characteristics of fact-based decisions

A

DIS: metrics, analytics, data to make decisions
continous improvement,
SIZ: medium/large firms w/expertise software
ADV: illustrates what does/doesn’t work, gets managers involved in HR decisions
DADV: need erp software, staff must be experts in analytics
* high

33
Q

Characteristics of high-involvement

A

DIS: employees involved in decision making, takes forever to agree on,
SIZ: any
ADV: engaged employees, more perspectives
DIS: long, complex communication
* moderate

34
Q

Characteristics of High committment

A

DIS: one big happy family, mutual beneficial employment relationship, employees regulate behavior
SIZ: any
ADV: positive environment, lowers turnover, loyal
DIS: some employees are better off leaving
* moderate impact

35
Q

Characteristics of High performance

A

DES: Results matters, incentive pay, productivity
SIZ: Firms who are competitive want to lead
ADV: productivity increases, hr becomes function
DIS: resistant to change, ranking system/ pressure, HR
* high

36
Q

What is the definition of a high performance strategy?

A

integrated set of management processes that are all focussed on high productivity

37
Q

What are the goals of a high performance strategy?

A

increase productivity, innovation, risk taking, and to dominate the industry

38
Q

What are common features of high performance strategy?

A

continuous improvement, rapid learning, differentiated rewards,

39
Q

What are the 9 principles of high performance?

A
  1. exclude those who don’t fit (fire)
  2. outrageous expectations
  3. emphasis on rewards (pay at risk)
  4. individual accountability (teams but indv. resp)
  5. Sense of urgency (no relaxing)
  6. unequal allocation of resources
  7. internal competition (public meetings/ranks)
  8. focus on top performers
  9. free flow of information
40
Q

What is the definition of fact-based decision making?

A

Making decisions using data and evidence rather than emotion, guess, opinions

41
Q

What are common factors of fact based decision making?

A
  • improving employee productivity
  • positive cost-benefit ratio
  • reasonable roi
42
Q

4 places to get facts needed for a decision:

A
  1. scientific literature
  2. metrics/analytics
  3. practitioner judgement
  4. Stakeholder concerns
43
Q

What are metrics?

A

Numbers that indicate how well an organization is performing a specific task, using numbers to describe a situation

44
Q

What is benchmarking?

A

comparison between companies on various dimensions

45
Q

What is dashboards?

A

visual representation of HR metrics you chose to fit on one computer screen

46
Q

3 important reasons to use measurements

A
  1. You don’t accurately measure ‘it’ you don’t know what’s happening
  2. you don’t know what’s happening you can’t control it
  3. you can’t control it, you can’t improve it
47
Q

What are the three types of metrics?

A
  • efficiency
  • effectiveness
  • impact
48
Q

What is efficiency?

A

What is spent and what is produced

49
Q

What is effectiveness?

A

Relationship between practice/program and effect on target audience

50
Q

What is impact?

A

final level, relationships between effects of what I did and ultimate success of organization

Strategic HR 431 (2 decks)

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