Glossary Flashcards
A comparative diagram that includes appraisal and assessment data to allow managers to easily see an employee’s actual and potential performance
9-box grid
A term applied to different types of employee complaint or dispute resolution procedures. Encompasses a wide range of informal, formal, or external resolution processes.
Alternative dispute resolution (ADR)
A software application that recruiters use to post job openings, screen resumes, contact potential candidates for interviews, and track the time and costs related to hiring new people.
Applicant tracking system (ATS)
A system of training in which a worker entering the skilled trades is given thorough instruction and experience, both on and off the job, in the practical and theoretical aspects of the work.
Apprenticeship
The final and binding award issued by an arbitrator in a labour management dispute.
Arbitration award
A process by which individuals are evaluated as they participate in a series of situations that resemble what they might need to handle the job.
Assessment centre
A natural departure of employees through quits, retirements, and deaths. Internally, it refers to employees moving upwards through the company or laterally to a better suited position.
Attrition
Skills helpful in facilitating the efforts of managers working outside of their own country.
Augmented skills
A statement signed by an employee authorizing a union to act as his or her representative for the purposes of collective bargaining.
Authorization card
A measurement framework that helps managers translate strategic goals into operational objectives.
Balanced scorecard (BSC)
In this approach, employees continue to be paid their home salary, maintain the link to home benefits, and receive a series of allowances to balance host vs. home costs for income taxes, goods and services, and housing.
Balance-sheet approach
The power of labour and management to achieve their goals through economic, social, or political influence.
Bargaining power
Group of two or more employees who share common employment conditions, and may reasonably be grouped together for purposes of collective bargaining.
Bargaining unit
Area within which the union and the employer are willing to concede when bargaining.
Bargaining zone
An approach that demonstrates desired behaviour and gives trainees the chance to practise and role-play those behaviours and receive feedback.
Behaviour modelling
The principle that a behaviour that is rewarded, or positively reinforced, will be exhibited more frequently in the future, whereas behaviour that is penalized or unrewarded will decrease in frequency.
Behaviour modification
A behavioural approach to performance appraisal that measures the frequency of observed behaviour.
Behaviour observation scale (BOS)
An interview in which an applicant is asked questions about what they did in a given situation.
Behavioural description interview (BDI)
A behavioural approach to performance appraisal that consists of a series of vertical scales, one for each important dimension of job performance.
Behaviourally anchored rating scale (BARS)
The process of measuring one’s services and practice against the recognized leaders to identify areas for improvement.
Benchmarking
The use of multiple training methods to achieve optimal learning.
Blended learning
A justifiable reason for discrimination based on business reasons of safety or effectiveness.
Bona fide occupational qualification (BFOQ)
An incentive payment that is supplemental to the base wage.
Bonus
A company’s efforts to help existing and prospective workers understand why it is a desirable place to work.
Branding
The most severe stage of distress, manifesting itself in depression, frustration, and loss of productivity.
Burnout
The labour official responsible for negotiating and administering the collective agreement and working to resolve union members’ problems.
Business agent
Process by which managers meet to discuss the means of performance assessment of their employees to ensure that their employee appraisals are in line with one another.
Calibration
The process of discussing with employees their current job activities and performance, personal and career interests and goals, personal skills, and suitable career development objectives.
Career counselling
The process of establishing mutually beneficial relationships with other businesspeople, including potential clients and customers.
Networking
Lines of advancement in an occupational field within an organization.
Career paths
A situation in which, for any reason, the probability of moving up the career ladder is low.
Career plateau
Systematic way of bringing about and managing both organizational and individual changes.
Change management
a high-ranking manager directly responsible for fostering employee learning and development within an organization.
Chief ethics officer
A high-ranking manager directly responsible for fostering employee learning and development within the organization.
Chief learning officer
Representation of labour on the board of directions of a company, either through election or participation.
Codetermination
Software that allows workers to interface and share information with one another electronically.
Collaborative software
An employment contract between an employer and a union that sets out the terms of employment for the employees represented by the union.
Collective agreement
A compensation plan that includes a straight salary and a commission.
Combined salary and commission plan
The body of case law in which courts interpret employment contracts and the legal principles taken from those cases that guide the interpretation of employment contracts.
Common law of employment
A selection decison model in which a high score in one area can make up for a low score in another area.
Compensatory model
Pay based on am employee’s skill level, variety of skills possessed, or increased job knowledge.
Competence-based pay
Analysis of the skills and knowledge needed for decision-oriented and knowledge-intensive jobs; compares current abilities against job description.
Competency assessment
Binding method of resolving collective bargaining deadlocks by a neutral third party. Typically parties lose the right to sue or appeal in these cases. e.g. bargaining deadlocks for essential services can be resolved with this method so services can continue.
Compulsory binding arbitration
Term applied to designated groups whose numbers in a particular occupation or level are high relative to their numbers in the labour market.
Concentration
The extent to which the results of a particular test or measurement correspond to those of a previously established measurement for the same construct.
Concurrent validity
The extent to which a selection tool accurately measures a theoretical construct or trait
Construct validity
When an employee resigns because the employer committed a fundamental breach of contract, such as by unilaterally changing a key term of the contract.
Constructive dismissal
A measure of the average change in prices over time for goods and services.
Consumer price index (CPI)
The extent to which a selection instrument adequately samples all of the knowledge and skills being tested.
Content validity
A performance rating error in which an employee’s evaluation is biased either upward or downward because of comparison with another employee just previously rated.
Contrast error
A pension plan in which contributions are made jointly by employees and employers.
Contributory plan
Training program that combines practical on-the-job experience with formal educational classes.
Cooperative training
Integrated knowledge sets within an organization that distinguish it from its competitors, and delivers value to its clients.
Core capabilities
Skills considered critical to an employee’s success.
Core skills/ core competencies
The strong and enduring beliefs and principles that the company uses as a foundation for its decisions.
Core values
The responsibility of the firm to act in the best interests of the people and communities affected by its activities.
Corporate social responsibility (CSR)
Unions that represent skilled craft workers.
Craft unions
The extent to which a selection tool predicts, or significantly corresponds with, the characteristic it is trying to measure.
Criterion-related validity
A performance event that denotes superior or inferior employee performance.
Critical incident
A job analysis method that focuses on the essential behaviors that determine whether a task is done well or poorly. Documentation in this case involves briefly summarizing situations (incidents) that demonstrate either successful or unsuccessful behavior and outcomes.
Critical incident method
The process of training employees to do multiple jobs within an organization.
Cross-training
Verifying the results of one assessment tool by administering the same tool to a different sample drawn from the same population.
Cross-validation
Audits of the culture and quality of work life in an organization.
Cultural audits
The communications, values and ideologies, education, and social structure of a country or organization
Cultural environment
The stress experienced by people who live overseas.
Culture shock
Injuries involving inflammation from repeated stresses and strains, typically in the tendons of the fingers, hands, and arms.
Cumulative trauma disorders
A performance appraisal that is based on total quality management concepts and seeks evaluation from external and internal customers.
Customer appraisal
A pension plan in which the amount an employee is to receive is specifically set forth.
Defined-benefit plan
A pension plan that establishes the basis on which an employer will contribute to the pension fund.
Defined-contribution plan
Women, visible, minorities, Aboriginal people, and people with disabilities who have been disadvantaged in employment.
Designated groups
A compensation rate under which employees whose production exceeds the standard amount of output receive a higher rate for all of their work than the rate paid to those who do not exceed the standard amount.
Differential piece rate
Harmful stress characterized by a loss of feelings of security and adequacy.
Distress
The optimization of an organization’s multicultural workforce.
Diversity management
The planned elimination of jobs.
Downsizing
A plan that contains step-by-step procedures for dealing with emergency situations.
Emergency action plan
Services provided by employers to help workers cope with a wide variety of problems that interfere with the way they perform their jobs.
Employee assistance programs (EAPs)
Labour organizations that represent various groups of professional and white-collar employees in labour management issues.
Employee associations
Power of employees to initiate change, thereby encouraging them to take charge of what they do.
Employee empowerment
Groups of employees who meet to resolve problems or offer suggestions for organizational improvement.
Employee involvement groups (EIs)
The process by which an organization contracts a company to provide workers for specific projects or time periods.
Employee leasing
A profile of an ideal worker developed by studying an organization’s top performers to recruit similar types of people.
Employee profile
Stock plans in which an organization contributes shares of its stock to an established trust for the purpose of stock purchases by employees.
Employee stock ownership plans (ESOPS)
The employment and compensation of individuals in a fair and nonbiased manner.
Employment equity
Systematic monitoring of the major external forces influencing the organization.
Environmental scanning
An interdisciplinary approach to designing equipment and systems that can be easily and efficiently used.
Ergonomics
A performance rating error in which all employees are rated about average.
Error of central tendency
Clauses in collective agreements that provide for cost-of-living adjustments in wages, based on changes in the consumer price index.
Escalator clauses
A trait approach to performance appraisal that requires the rater to compose a statement describing an employee’s behaviour.
Essay method
Positive stress that accompanies achievement and exhilaration.
Eustress
The percentage of employees who do not perform satisfactorily.
Failure rate
A program that encourages new manager with high potential to remain with an organization by enabling them to advance more rapidly than those with less potential.
Fast-track program
Method of resolving collective bargaining deadlocks whereby the arbitrator has no power to compromise but most select one or another of the final offers submitted by the two parties.
Final offer arbitration
Benefits plan that enables individual employees to choose the benefits that are best suited to their particular needs.
Flexible benefits plan (cafeteria plan)
Flexible working hours that permit employees the option of choosing daily starting and quitting times provided that they work a set number of hours per day or week.
Flextime
Data that provide a profile of the employment decisions affecting designated groups. Data is collected via voluntary self-identification questionnaires.
Flow data
An appraisal system in which all of an organization’s employees are reviewed at the same time of the year rather than on the anniversaries of the individual hire dates.
Focal performance appraisal
A trait approach to performance appraisal that requires the rater to choose from statements designed to distinguish between successful and unsuccessful performance.
Forced-choice method
When an organization asks or requires employees to take time off for either reduced or no pay.
Furloughing
Programs under which both employees and the organization share financial gains according to a predetermined formula that reflects improved productivity and profitability.
Gainsharing plans
A centralized pay system for international companies whereby host-country employees are offered a full range of training programs, benefits, and pay comparable to those of a firm’s domestic employees, but adjusted for local differences.
Global compensation system
A manager equipped to run an international business
Global manager
A trait approach to performance appraisal whereby each employee is rated accoridng to a set of characteristics.
Graphic rating scale method
Formal procedure that provides for the union to represent members and nonmembers in processing a grievance.
Grievance procedure
Foreign workers invited to perform needed labour.
Guest workers
A job evaluation technique using 3 factors - knowledge, mental activity, and accountability - to evaluate executive and managerial positions.
Hay profile method
A practice whereby new workers are not hired as planned or workers who have left the organization are not replaced.
Hiring freeze
