Human Resources Flashcards
What are two important aspects of HR planning?
- Performing job analyses
2. Forecasting the company’s people needs
Define job analysis
The process that identifies and determines the job duties and requirements and the importance of each in the organization
Define job description
The tasks and responsibilities of a job
Define job specification
A list of the skills, knowledge, and abilities a person must have to fill a job
What is the process of human resource management? (seven steps)
- Job analysis and design
- Human resource planning and forecasting
- Employee recruitment
- Employee selection
- Training and development
- Performance planning and evaluation
- Compensation and benefits
What happens if you do the human resource management process well?
You will have a high retention of employees because they will understand their job well and enjoy working for you, which also means that you will have a low turnover rate
What does it mean for your financials if you have a high turnover rate?
The human resource management process is very expensive, so if you don’t select the right people for the job and you have to start the process all over again (sometimes frequently), it can be time consuming and expensive
What are the two common types of interview questions?
- Situational
2. Behavioural/Behaviour Description Interview (BDI)
What is the question type of situational interview questions?
Hypothetical questions, based on actual critical incidents from the job. Employers can make it similar to what happens in their workplace, but it is a hypothetical situation for you
What is the general question form with situational interview questions?
What would do you do if…
What is the key assumption with situational interview questions?
That your intentions will predict your actual behaviour (what people intend to do is pretty similar to what they would actually do)
What is the question type of behavioural interview questions?
Asks about past experiences the candidate has had, based on actual performance (based on facts and on past behaviour)
What is the general question form with behavioural interview questions?
What did you do when…
What is the key assumption with behavioural interview questions?
The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour (future behaviour is most likely to mimic past behaviour). This can be difficult if you are interviewing someone who has never been in a similar role before
What is the key in asking interview questions? Explain
The key is ensuring validity. If it is a valid question, it is actually predicting success on the job
How do you tell if a question is valid?
If two different candidates answer very differently and one succeeds and the other doesn’t, it’s a valid question. If they answer very differently and they both succeed/they both don’t succeed, it was not a good indicator of success
What is the point of human resource management laws?
Prohibit discrimination, encourage diversity
Describe how the Employment Equity Act applies to big businesses and small businesses
The Employment Equity Act is only mandated for government organizations, crown corporations, and large companies who are doing multimillion dollar projects with the government. Therefore, many small ventures or even medium sized businesses don’t technically have to abide by these laws
Explain why it’s a good idea for small businesses to follow the Employment Equity Act, even if they don’t technically have to
If you can establish yourself as an employer that doesn’t discriminate, you will attract more diverse employees. Diversity leads to diverse thought, creative thinking, and better productivity
What are the 3 new management concepts in organizational structure?
- Write the Org Chart in Pencil
- Fire the Managers
- Put Customers Second
Describe why you should write the org chart in pencil
Work today is a much more dynamic environment, and is focused around projects instead of products. It is a lot more interconnection
Give an example of a company that writes their org chart in pencil
Ed McCallum is a consulting company with no consultants on permanent staff. Instead, they have a network of consultants that they know are good. They bring together the right people for each project, based on the specific skills needed for each project
Describe why you should fire the managers
Businesses should reduce the numbers of managers, or at least push down a lot of the decision making to the employees. Autonomy is powerful and motivation; when people have more control over their work and how their work is scheduled, they are more motivated and committed to their job
Give an example of a company that fired the managers
Nike tried this with some of their manufacturing facilities in Mexico. The workers organized themselves into teams and controlled their own work schedules. When that plant was compared with Nike’s other plants, the self-controlled plant was twice as productive, had lower overall costs, but much higher wages. Even though they were paying their employees more, their overall costs were much lower
Describe why you should put customers second
Businesses still want customer loyalty, but they see customer loyalty as the by product of employee satisfaction. When employees are happy working for you, they will provide better customer service and customers will enjoy purchasing your product/service
Give an example of a company that puts the customer second
Wegmans is a US retail grocery chain. They purposefully do a lot of training and investment. They end up growing slowly because it takes a lot of time to build up and grow employees
What are the 4 new management concepts in selection and exit?
- Hire as a Team
- Ban Non-Competes
- Celebrate Departures
- Pay People to Quit
Describe why you should hire as a team
Businesses are brining the whole team into the interview process; companies are allows many members of the team to meet potential candidates. The team can help management with their hiring decisions by seeing if there’s a good connection with the rest of the team, and if they will work well together
Give an example of a company that hires as a team
- Whole Foods: uses a team approach in the hiring and afterwards
- Google: the interviewees meet a lot of different people as they’re going through the hiring process
Describe why you should ban non-competes
Non-competes are clauses in contracts that prevents employees who leave the company to work for competitors, or to start up their own company in the same industry. It’s not good for the employees because then they can’t find personal growth anywhere because they can’t work anywhere where they can use the skills they’ve learned, and it’s not good for employers because then they don’t get to use those skills when they hire new employees
Give an example of a company that doesn’t use non-competes
- IBM: hires young innovative people and encourages them to come work for IBM for a few years before going out into the professional world
- P&G: decided to start learning from their competitors, which allowed them more flexibility. Since then, their financial performance has been much better
Describe why businesses would want to celebrate departures
Most businesses understand that people are not going to stay at one company for life, and that they should not shun them for doing so. Instead, they can stay connected with those employees so they have a strong network of people outside of their company
Give an example of a company that celebrates departures
- LinkedIn: if you leave a job at LinkedIn, you join their alumni group and stay in touch with them
- Microsoft: has an alumni group which gets together several times a year
Describe why companies would pay their employees to quit
Companies would do this for employees who don’t really fit with the company, who are not doing good work, or people who are just going through the motions of their job. Instead of continuing to pay these employees, let them quit and hire people who are engaged and invested. It is better for them to quit now instead of two years from now, and risk doing more damage to the company
Give an example of a company that pays people to quit
- Zappos: they are very big on customer service. At the end of week three (of four) of training, they offer you $4000 to quit then instead of taking the job. That way the keep the employees who are really passionate about what they are doing
- Amazon: at the end of each year they have a quit day (with an extra $1000 every year; if you quit after year 1 you get $1000, after year 2 you get $2000, etc. to a max of $5000)
What are the 3 new management concepts in compensation and benefits?
- Make salaries transparent
- Lose standard vacation policy
- Take sabbaticals
Describe why companies would make salaries transparent
Pay is often complicated and messy, so it is usually ignored. However, pay secrecy lowers overall employee performance and produces more strife and distress in the workplace as people make assumptions about how much their coworkers are paid and how much effort they put into their job
Give an example of a company that makes salaries transparent
Whole Foods: they publish all the data about each department in their company, including salaries
Describe why companies would lose the standard vacation policy
Companies have discovered that people are more productive and invested in their job when they can decide when/how much vacation time they received
Give an example of a company that lost the standard vacation policy
Windsor Regional Hospital; found that their staff were burning out because they weren’t getting enough vacation. When they allowed their employees to choose their own vacation time, their employees were more motivated and they faced less burnout
Describe why companies would want their employees to take sabbaticals
Their employees become more productive when they have take time away from work intentionally. These employees often come back to work refreshed and with better ideas on how to manage the company / do their job
Give an example of a company that requires their employees to take sabbaticals
QuickTrip: after a certain number of years of work, their employees have to take a four-week sabbatical
What is the 1 new management concept in performance evaluation?
Ditch Performance Appraisals
Describe why companies would want to ditch performance appraisals
Companies don’t want to ditch performance evaluations altogether, but they are changing the formatting. In the past, performance evaluations were very formal, but it didn’t help employees to figure out how they were doing on a daily basis. People were afraid to take on risks in case they got a bad review on their performance evaluation. Now many companies are adopting a much more informal approach to performance evaluations
Give an example of a company that is ditching performance appraisals
Microsoft: Microsoft employees often have check-ins with their boss, where they talk about where they can continue to improve, instead of formal sit-downs
What are the 2 new management concepts in work environment?
- Close Open Offices
2. Outlaw Email
Describe why companies would want to close open offices
While open offices can encourage collaboration, they can also be very distracting to employees (especially those who prefer to work alone). Instead, companies are coming up with office designs that have many different types of rooms in which people can work
Give an example of a company that has closed open offices
Gerson Lehrman Group: They designed a building with a big open living room type of space for collaborative moments, but there are also group meeting rooms and individual offices for other purposes. Letting their employees have control over their workspace improved their productivity
Describe why companies would want to outlaw email
Email makes people less productive; it’s very hard to focus on your work when you’re constantly answering emails or getting notifications about your email
Give an example of a company that has outlawed email
- Volkswagen decided to open their email half an hour before the start of the work day, and close it half an hour after the end of the workday
- Atos: banned email altogether. They replaced it with a different system where the messages don’t get pushed to you; instead, you decide when you want to go into the platform where communications are open. The system is organized around projects/products
