Managing People

Question 1

What is a Hard approach HRM?

Answer 1

Treating employees as a cost of the business. Eg. Amazon

Question 2

What is a soft approach HRM?

Answer 2

Treating employees as the most important asset in the business and a source of competitive advantage. Eg.

Question 3

What are the characteristics of a hard approach HRM?

Answer 3

-Pay at a minimum
- Use of temporary/ zero hours contract
- Lack of job security
- minimum investment in training
- minimum additional benefits
-Financial incentive such as commission
- imposing penalties on employees who don’t meet their targets

Question 4

What are the characteristics of a soft approach HRM?

Answer 4

• Competitive pay structure and benefits with suitable performance related rewards
• Effective recruitment processes eg. Using assessment centres
• Investment in training and development programs
• Permanent contracts providing job security
• The use of non-financial motivators eg. Team working
• Effective two-way communication
• Employees are given responsibility for their work

Question 5

What are the advantages of treating staff as a cost?

Answer 5

• Easy to adapt the size of the workforce in response to changing business needs.
• Can result in lower costs (especially in the short run)
• Enables managers tight control over employees

Question 6

What are advantages of treating staff as an assets?

Answer 6

• More skilled, adaptable employees
• Higher levels of staff retention. Reduce recruitment and training costs in the long run
• Reputation for being a good employer (attracts good people)
• a more motivated workforce

Question 7

What is recruitment?

Answer 7

The process of finding people to work for a company or become a new member of an organisation

Question 8

What is decentralisation?

Answer 8

Where a business divides up the organisation of its business into areas and have separate budgets for each area eg. North, South, East, West

Question 9

What is centralisation?

Answer 9

Where a business has its organisation of management and administration at one central head office. The business has one central budget

Question 10

What are the different types of organisational structure?

Answer 10

Tall structure, Flat structure, Matrix structure

Question 11

What is a tall structure?

Answer 11

has many leaders and layers of management, and businesses with this structure often use a ‘top-down’ approach with a long chain of command

Question 12

What are the advantages of a tall hierarchical?

Answer 12

• Supervisors normally have a small span of control so they can get to know their subordinates really well
• Knowing subordinates means they can delegate the right tasks and make sure their team is well trained

Question 13

What are the disadvantages of a tall hierarchical?

Answer 13

• Lots of layers and a long chain of command can mean that the business is very inflexible
• It can also mean that communications within the organisation are slow
• This is expensive as there are more managers and supervisors

Question 14

What is the chain of command?

Answer 14

the flow of information power and authority through the organisation

Question 15

What is the span of control?

Answer 15

the number of people that a manager is responsible for

Question 16

What is a flat structure?

Answer 16

They have a wide span of control and a short chain of command so information flows quickly throughout the organisation

Question 17

What are the advantages of a flat structure?

Answer 17

• Fewer layers of hierarchy between the bottom and the top of the organisation may mean that communication is fast
• Lots of delegation means that staff are given greater responsibility, which might mean more opportunities to use their abilities

Question 18

What are the disadvantages of a flat structure?

Answer 18

• Staff can be overstretched or overworked in a flat structure as there is less supervision, this can cause stress and demotivation
• Can create a power struggle if the manager is rarely around as subordinates jostle for roles and responsibilities
• Wide span of control means managers have too many staff to manage and may lose touch with them

Question 19

What is a matrix structure?

Answer 19

a combination of two or more types of organisational structures

Question 20

What are the disadvantages of a matrix structure?

Answer 20

• Possible co-ordination problems between departments
• Conflict of interest across projects
• Staff stretched across different projects, not spending time in their own departments

Question 21

What are staff?

Answer 21

The employees in a business

Question 22

What is staffing?

Answer 22

The process of hiring, training and supervising employees in a business

Question 23

How do staff add value to a product as an asset?

Answer 23

• supporting the manufacturing process
  -give great customer service

Question 24

What are the 6 main costs of staff

Answer 24

• Recruitment
• Training
• Paying minimum wages
• paying staff salaries and wages
• staff welfare
• redundancy

Question 25

Why can cost of recruitment be high?

Answer 25

• if a business carries out recruitment themselves, they have to pay for an advert, the employee time away from their job to carry out the interview
• if a business use an agency it can cost up to £2000 per employee

Question 26

What are the advantages of training?

Answer 26

Companies with innovative learning and development programmes are increasing sales revenue and retaining their staff for longer