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AQA A-Level Business > HR Management > Flashcards

HR Management Flashcards

1
Q

What is the formula for Labour Productivity?

A

Output per period / Number of employees per period

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2
Q

What is the formula for Labour Turnover?

A

Number of employees leaving in a given period / Average number employed over a given period x100

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3
Q

What is the formula for Absenteeism?

A

Number of staff absent / Number of staff in total x100

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4
Q

What is the formula for Labour Costs per Unit?

A

Total labour costs / Total output

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5
Q

What is the formula for Employee Costs as a Percentage of Turnover?

A

Employee costs / Sales turnover x100

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6
Q

What is the formula for Retention Rates?

A

Number of employees with one or more year’s service / Overall workforce numbers x100

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7
Q

What is the defintion of Labour Productivity?

A

It is a measure of the output per worker in a given time period.

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8
Q

What is the definition for Labour Turnover?

A

The proportion of employees leaving a business over a period of time - usually a year.

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9
Q

What is the definition for Absenteeism?

A

The proportion of employees not at work on a given day.

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10
Q

What is the definition of Employee Costs as a Percentage of Turnover?

A

It measures the percentage of sales revenue needed to cover labour costs.

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11
Q

What is the definition of Labour Costs per Unit?

A

A measure of the average labour costs involved in producing one unit of output in a given time period.

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12
Q

What is the defintion of Retention Rates?

A

The proportion of employees with a specified length of service (normally one or more years) as a proportion of the total workforce.

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13
Q

What is the definition of HR?

A

The people of a business or organisation, regarded as a significant asset in terms of skills and abilities.

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14
Q

Whats is the definition of HR Management?

A

The department of a business or organisation that deals with the hiring, administration and training of staff.

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15
Q

What is the definition of an Aim?

A

It is a long term goal that a business wants to achieve.

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16
Q

What is the definition of an Objective?

A

It is a short term step to help the business to achieve their aim.

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17
Q

What are the examples of HR Objectives?

A

-Labour Productivity
-Employee engagement and involvement
-Talent development
-Training, Diversity
-Alignment of values
-Number, skills and location of employees.

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18
Q

What is the definition of Employee Engagement?

A

The connection between a businesses employees and its mission, vision and objectives.

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19
Q

What is the deinifition of Aligning values?

A

Making sure everyone has the same values and understands how their goals help and it’s an HR objective because the very essence of the business needs to be intergrated into every department of the business.

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20
Q

What are the Internal Influences on HR objectives?

A

-Employee relations
-Overall performance of business
-Corporate culture (aligned values)
-Ogranisational structure (more controlled = less going wrong, less controlled = more motivated)
-Financial constraints

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21
Q

What are the External Influences on HR objectives?

A

-Legislation (follow laws)
-Actions of competitors
-Stucture of the population (unemployment)
-Economic factors
-Political factors (new laws mean they may have to have a more diverse workforce)
-Technological factors
-Social factors (sometimes industries aren’t popular e.g. hospitality)

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22
Q

What is a Hard HR Strategy?

A

Treats employess as just another resource of the business.

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23
Q

What is a Soft HR Strategy?

A

Treats employess as the most important resource of the business and a source of competitive advantage.

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24
Q

What are the Characteristics of a Hard HR Strategy?

A

-Short term approach
-Minimal communication
-Little empowerment and delegation
-Financial methods of motivation
-Suits autocratic leadership
-Taller organisational structure

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25
Q

What are the Characteristics of a Soft HR Strategy?

A

-Long term approach
-Two-way communication
-Non-Financial methods of motivation
-Encourages promotion/talent development
-Suits democratic leadership
-Flatter organisation structure

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26
Q

What are the Benefits of Low Retention?

A

-New staff will bring new ideas
-New staff are less skilled so won’t need to be paid as much
-More diverse workforce
-More enthusiastic
-Could lose lazy workers
-Don’t have to spend money on developing staff/ benefits
-Could recruit staff trained by competitors, reduced costs

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27
Q

What are the Drawbacks of Low Retention?

A

-Higher costs
-Time has to be spent on recruitment and training
-Staff not skilled, may effect their reputation
-May go to competitors after training them
-Poor talent development
-Lack of loyal and experienced staff impacts productivity and customer service

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28
Q

What is Empowerment?

A

A series of actions designed to give employees greater control over their working lives.

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29
Q

What is Job Design?

A

The process of deciding on the content of the job in terms of its duties and responsibilites.
Job design is about the task and responsibilites that are grouped into a specific job.

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30
Q

What are the Five Job Characteristics from Hackman & Oldham’s Model?

A

-Skill variety
-Task identity
-Task significance
-Autonomy
-Job feedback

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31
Q

What is Skill Variety?

A

-A job that uses many different skills and talents for a person
-Being asked to do lots of different things, not just having a monotonous repetitive job

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32
Q

What is Task Identity?

A

-Having a clear defined beginning, middle and end to a given task
-Workers knowing what they are supposed to do and when they have successfully completed a task

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33
Q

What is Task Significance?

A

-Having a substantial impact
-The task matters to people either within the organisation or to society

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34
Q

What is Autonomy?

A

-Individuals having freedom to accomplish their tasks
-The ability to schedule work as well as figuring out how to get the tasks done

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35
Q

What is Job Feedback?

A

-Employees being kept in the loop about their performance
-Employees being told what they are doing well and what they aren’t

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36
Q

What are Organisational Charts?

A

Diagrams that show the internal structure of the business. They make it easy to identify the specific roles and responsibilities of staff.

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37
Q

What are Levels of Hierarchy?

A

They layers of authority in a business.

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38
Q

What is Span of Control?

A

How many people someone in a business directly looks after.

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39
Q

What is Chain of Command?

A

How many layers there underneath someone in a business.

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40
Q

What is Delegation?

A

The passing down of authority to more junior employees.

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41
Q

What are the Advantages of Delegation?

A

-Reduced workload for managers
-Staff feel trusted -> more motivated
-Employees gain more skills

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42
Q

What are the Disadvantages of Delegation?

A

-Wrong decisions may be made as employees don’t have the required skill set
-Less efficient or damage business reputation
-Not completed to required standard
-Could lead to ethical problems if it’s constantly happening (as they aren’t paid a managers salary)

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43
Q

What are the Advantages of a Tall Organisational Structure (narrow span and long chain)?

A

-Lots of opportunities for promotion (motivation) -> high retention rates
-More control over staff (more productive)
-Managers have a lower workload (more productive)
-Can focus more on strategic planning than the day to day business
-Closer relationships between managers and staff

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44
Q

What are the Disadvantages of a Tall Organisational Structure (narrow span and long chain)?

A

-Communication may be difficult
-Demotivating due to control
-Expensive (more management)
-Longer decision times
-Staff have less autonomy

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45
Q

What are the Advantages of a Flat Organisational Structure (wide span and short chain)?

A

-Easy to communicate (quicker)
-Motivating due to freedom
-Cheap (less management)
-Quicker decision making
-More autonomy/ more delegation
-New ideas

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46
Q

What are the Disadvantages of a Flat Organisational Structure (wide span and short chain)?

A

-Not many opportunities for promotion
-Less control over staff (less productive)
-Managers have a higher workload (less productive)
-Wider span -> less time with each employee -> demotivated or lazy -> less productive

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47
Q

What is a Matrix Structure?

A

Combines the traditional departments seen in functional structures with project teams.
Individuals work across teams and projects as well as within their own department or function. (there’s not one point of authority, work collaboratively to reach each goal).

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48
Q

What is Centralisation?

A

Decisions are made at the top of the hierarchy.

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49
Q

What is Decentralisation?

A

Decision making is spread out to include junior managers.

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50
Q

What are the Advantages of Centralisation?

A

-Easier to implement common policies and practices by the business
-Prevents other parts of the business becoming too independent
-Quicker decision making
-Avoids duplication of roles

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51
Q

What are the Disadvantages of Centralisation?

A

-More bureaucratic -> often extra layers in the hierarchy
-Lack of authority down the hierarchy may be demotivating
-Junior managers closer to customer needs

52
Q

What are the Advantages of Decentralisation?

A

-Decisions are made closer to the customer
-Better able to respond to local circumstances
-Improved level of customer service
-Can enable a flatter hierarchy
-Empowerment

53
Q

What are the Disadvantages of Decentralisation?

A

-Decision making is not necessarily ‘strategic’
-Harder to ensure consistent practices and policies at all locations
-May be some diseconomies of scale (duplication of roles)
-Lack of a strong leader
-Hard to control financially

54
Q

What is Delayering?

A

The removal of one or more levels of hierarchy from a businesses organisational structure.

55
Q

What are the Advantages of Delayering?

A

-Lower employee costs (usually management roles)
-Staff are given extra responsibilities (motivation)
-Easier to communicate between the layers
-It can remove departmental rivalry as departments are organised into teams
-Can encourage innovation

56
Q

What are the Disadvantages of Delayering?

A

-Higher workloads for staff
-Higher absenteeism (stress)
-Lower quality of work (tasks are spread out to more people)
-Less promotional opportunities
-Could be time consuming to implement the change (could mean lower productivity in that time of uncertainty)
-Loss of skilled workers
-Negative reputation
-Managers left are given a wider span of control

57
Q

What is Selection?

A

Choosing the right employees from among those who have applied for a job.

58
Q

What are the Benefits of Effective Selection?

A

-Highly skilled staff -> encourage innovation
-Better customer service
-Less time consuming
-Higher quality products
-Increased labour productivity -> lower unit costs

59
Q

What is Redeployment?

A

Use of employees in any aspect to achieve a particular effect. Employess may be ‘redeployed’ to another section of the business to meet short-term needs.

60
Q

What is Redundancy?

A

Business dismisses an employee because the business no longer needs anyone to do the job. It is the position which is no longer needed, it is not the person who is no longer needed.

61
Q

Why do businesses try to Avoid Redundancy?

A

-Negative publicity
-Costs involved in paying redundancy payments
-Businesses may lose skilled workers

62
Q

What is HR Flow?

A

The process by which employees pass in and out of an organisation.

63
Q

What is Recruitment?

A

The process of deciding who will fulfil a specific job role which is essential to ensure that a business has enough employees with the right skills and expenses.

64
Q

Why do businesses Recruit?

A

-Increase workforce -> physical expansion
-Increase diversity
-Fill a gap
-To gain more skills and knowledge
-Increase in demand
-Maternity/ Paternity leave

65
Q

What are the Advantages of Internal Recruitment?

A

-Already know the person/ are trusted
-Cheaper
-Less time consuming
-Alignment of values
-Promotional opportunities

66
Q

What are the Disadvantages of Internal Recruitment?

A

-Could demotivate state/ cause conflict (staff leaving)
-Have to fill other job roles

67
Q

What are the Advantages of External Recruitment?

A

-New ideas/ skills
-Competitor insight
-Encourage innovation
-Wider choice of candidates

68
Q

What are the Disadvantages of External Recruitment

A

-Costs more
-More time consuming
-Training costs
-Productivity issues
-Less aligned with corporate culture
-Demotivating due to lack of relations

69
Q

What are Contracts of Employment?

A

A legal document stating the hours of work, rate of pay, duties and other conditions under which a person is employed.

70
Q

What is Part-Time work?

A

Less than 37 1/2 hours of work a week.

71
Q

What is Full-Time work?

A

More than 37 1/2 hours of work a week.

72
Q

What are the Pro and Cons of Part-Time work?

A

+More flexible
+Less expensive
+Wider range of ideas
-Less skilled/ experienced
-Lower productivity
-Harder to plan rota

73
Q

What are the Pro and Cons of Full-Time work?

A

+Become trained/ skilled quicker
+More reliable and consistent staff
+Easy to plan rota
-More expensive
-Less flexible
-Not tailored to needs of the business

74
Q

What is a Zero Hour Contract?

A

Not set number of hours required to work each week.

75
Q

What is the Gig Economy?

A

Zero-hour contracts or short-term freelance contracts, rather than permanent jobs with a set number of hours.
->Deliveroo, Uber and Amazon use workers in the gig economy.
->Cheaper and tailored to business demand.
->Unreliable

76
Q

What is Induction Training?

A

First day training.

77
Q

What are the Advantages of Induction Training?

A

-Motivating
-Welcomes the employee so they understand their role
-Understand company ethos (what’s acceptable and what’s not)
-Employees understand expectations (more productive)

78
Q

What are the Disadvantages of Induction Training?

A

-A member of staff has to be taken from their role (less productive)
-Administrative costs

79
Q

What is On-The-Job Training?

A

Instructing employees at their workplace. Being placed with another member of staff for 1 day/ 1 week.

80
Q

What are the Advantages of On-The-Job Training?

A

-Tailored to the needs of the business (more specific)
-Cheaper than off-the-job
-First hand experience from highly skilled staff
-Employee is still working in the business so helps productivity

81
Q

What are the Disadvantages of On-The-Job Training?

A

-A member of staff has to be taken out of work (lowers productivity)
-Time consuming
-Develop bad habits from the person training
-Outdated

82
Q

What is Off-The-Job Training?

A

Training at a training centre or going on a course e.g. first aid training.

83
Q

What are the Advantages of Off-The-Job Training?

A

-Not time consuming as other staff don’t have to do it
-Trained by experts (high quality)
-Feel valued/ invested in (improves motivating)
-Up to date training
-New ideas and improves business practices
-Transferable to other jobs

84
Q

What are the Disadvantages of Off-The-Job Training?

A

-Could be expensive
-Not tailored to the businesses needs
-Employee relations
-Lower productivity due to being out of their normal job role

85
Q

What is Training?

A

The process of instructing an individual about how to carry out tasks directly related to their job.

86
Q

What is Motivation at work?

A

The desire to complete a task and to do a good job.

87
Q

What is Financial Motivation?

A

Motivating employees with money and things associated with money.

88
Q

What is Remuneration (Financial motivation)?

A

The pay they decide.
If employees are paid well it motivates them.

89
Q

What are Bonuses (Financial motivation)?

A

Extra money for the business doing well -> businesses performance as a whole.
Can make employees feel recognised for the work they do.
Can make a nice working environment as everyone has to work together.

90
Q

What is Commission (Financial motivation)?

A

Not a set pay, you get paid individually for the amount of work you do e.g. a personal trainer. -> individual performance (amount of sales).
Motivates employees to want to work more to get more money.

91
Q

What is Promotion (Financial motivation)?

A

Moving up in the organisational hierarchy and getting higher pay.
Motivates employees to want to work harder so they can be promoted to earn money.

92
Q

What are Fringe Benefits (Financial motivation)?

A

Perks of working for a company e.g. a car, phone, credit car or healthcare.
Motivates employees as they feel valued.
Makes them feel grateful as competitors may not offer it -> may lead to higher retention rates.

93
Q

What are the Key Points of Taylor’s Theory of scientific management?

A

-Motivated by pay
-Science could increase efficiency -> can use science to make a standardised approach to work
-Workers should be given one task to master
-Piece rate pay (payment per item produced)

94
Q

What is a Time and Motion Study?

A

Managers analyse employees jobs by breaking down each job into tasks to see how long each task would take. Identifying the quickest way of completing tasks and replicating it across the workforce.
Workers don’t have to be highly skilled just highly productive at one job.
(Most likely in fast food, manufacturing etc)

95
Q

What are the Advantages of Tayloism?

A

-Makes employees better at their specific task which increases efficiency
-Increased productivity
-Fewer employees needed
-Consistent products and quality
-Don’t need to pay a premium for skilled workers
-Productive employees receive higher wages

96
Q

What are the Disadvantages of Tayloism?

A

-Monotonoud (stuck doing one role)
-Dehumanises the workers
-Expensive (financial only) + collecting data
-Some employees may be motivated more by non-financial methods
-Unfulfilled
-Unemployment + strike action
-Loss of individual initiative
-‘Survival of the fittest’ environment

97
Q

What is Non-Financial Motivation?

A

Motivating employees in way that don’t involve money.

98
Q

What is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs?

A

-Physiological needs (bottom tier)
-Safety needs
-Love and Belonging
-Esteem
-Self-actualisation (top tier)
->Each tier must be achieved to reach the next.

99
Q

What are the Benefits to an Employer for using Salaries?

A

-Helps cashflow
-Easier to budget
-Customer service improves
-Less conflict

100
Q

What are the Benefits to an Employee for using Salaries?

A

-Financial security
-Helps well-being
-Enables budgeting

101
Q

What are the Benefits to an Employer for using Commission?

A

-Increase productivity/ sales
-Could decrease staff costs

102
Q

What are the Benefits to an Employee for using Commission?

A

-Motivate you to sell more
-Higher earning potential

103
Q

What are Physiological Needs (Maslow)?

A

Basic needs of humans which are typically vital to our survival e.g. air, water, food, shelter, sleep, clothing, reproduction.

104
Q

What are Safety Needs (Maslow)?

A

How safe and secure an individual feels according to two main categories, health and wealth e.g. personal security, employment, resources, health, property.

105
Q

What is Love and Belonging/ Social Needs (Maslow)?

A

Based on our natural desire to feel loved, accepted and valued, a sense of belonging is very important e.g. friendship, intimacy, family, sense of connection.

106
Q

What is Esteem (Maslow)?

A

The feeling of being appreciated and valued, alongside having a sense of self-work and pride e.g. respect, self-esteem, status, recognition, strength, freedom.

107
Q

What is Self-actualisation (Maslow)?

A

The stage where a person achieves their full potential as a human being e.g. desire to become the most that one can be. -> rare to stay permanent in this stage as it’s an ongoing need for personal growth and discovery.

108
Q

What is Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory?

A

-Herzberg found that the causes of employee dissatisfaction were markedly different from the causes of satisfaction.
-He developed the idea of the two-factor-theory -> job satisfaction and dissactisfaction.
-The motivators were factors that can act to motivate employees.
-The hygiene factors or maintenance factors can reduce job dissatisfaction but can not motivate on their own.

109
Q

What is Fair Pay (Herzberg)?

A

-Hygiene factor
No one wants to feel they are being unfairly paid compared to others in the organisation.

110
Q

What is Growth (Herzberg)?

A

-Motivational factor
What can the company put in place to allow people to feel they are progressing their skills.

111
Q

What is Career Advancement (Herzberg)?

A

-Motivational factor
Are there promotional opportunities and paths to move forward in the organisation.

112
Q

What are Relationships (Herzberg)?

A

-Hygiene factor
Does your work allow you to build relationships or are you isolated all day.

113
Q

What are Policies (Herzberg)?

A

-Hygiene factor
Policies need to be clear, structure and not preventing you from performing well in your role.

114
Q

What is Meaningful Work (Herzberg)?

A

-Motivational factor
Knowing that their work is valuable makes them want to work harder as they feel a sense of importance and fulfillment.

115
Q

What is Recognition (Herzberg)?

A

-Motivational factor
Praise and recognition from supervisors and peers provide employees satisfaction and inturn motivated employees to work harder.

116
Q

What was Mayo’s Theory?

A

-Workers motivated by having social needs met
-Workers should work in teams
-Managers should have greater involvement in employee’s working life
-More two-way communication between managers and workers

117
Q

What was McGregors Theory of Managers?

A

McGregor realised there were 2 types of managers, he was a theory Y manager. He believed if he empowered his employees, ultimately this would allow them to be happier at work and more productive.

118
Q

What are the Characteristics of Theory X (McGregor)?

A

-Employees need close supervision
-Employees must be pushed to perform
-Employees will avoid responsibility
-Employees only desire money
-Employees will avoid work where possible

119
Q

What are the Characteristics of Theory Y (McGregor)?

A

-Employees want independence in work
-Employees naturally want to work
-Employees seek responsibilties
-Employees motivated by self-fulfilment
-Employees will drive themselves to perform

120
Q

What are Industrial Disputes?

A

They occur when there is a disgareement between the management and the trade union representatives, sometimes this is serious enough to result in industrial action.

121
Q

What is Industrial Action?

A

When employees take measure to halt or slow production; ‘work to rule’, strike or have an overtime ban.

122
Q

What is Piece Rate Pay?

A

Staff are paid a certain amount per item made.

123
Q

What is Commission?

A

Staff are paid a percentage of any sales they make on top of a basic level of pay.

124
Q

What is Perfomance Related Pay?

A

Pay levels and bonuses are linked to how well staff perform in relation to their targets and assessed in appraisals.

125
Q

What is Job Rotation?

A

Staff regulary change job roles to alleviate boredom to increase their skill level and to help cover missing colleagues.

AQA A-Level Business (6 decks)

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