Managing people Flashcards
How might a business treat staff like an asset?
- Reasonable holidays, sick leave, maternity leave and pensions
- a safe and comfortable working environment
- Training
- Job security
- Chances for promotion
Why might a business want to treat staff like an asset?
To help recruit, retain and motivate high-quality staff.
How might a business treat staff like a cost?
- Paying just the legal national minimum wage
- zero-hour contracts
- neglecting investment in training
- using financial incentives to raise productivity
What might happen to staff if a business treats them like a cost?
Low productivity due to poor motivation. High levels of staff turnover and absenteeism. More conflict between staff and management.
What is a flexible workforce?
A workforce that can respond, in quantity and type, to change in market demand.
How might a business make their workforce more flexible?
- Multi-skilling
- Part-time and temporary staff (peak hours)
- Flexible hours and home working (zero-hour contracts)
- Outsourcing (others to carry out tasks originally to be carried out by people employed by the business)
What are the advantages of a flexible workforce?
- Business can expand and contract quickly in response to changes in demand
- Specialist jobs done rather than employing a permanent worker to do it
- Cheaper than permanent staff
- Outsourcing means no training costs
- More efficiency
What are the disadvantages of a flexible workforce?
- less loyalty
- poor quality, damaging reputation
- communication problems
- costly process to employ
- too many peripheral workers employed alongside core workers can cause demotivation amongst the core workers.
What is dismissal?
To dismiss an employee due to misconduct.
What is a redundancy?
To dismiss an employee due to no work or insufficient work available for the employee to do.
What does it mean to take an individual approach to employee and employer relations?
When the terms of employment and disagreements are settled through negotiation between an individual employee and representative of the employer.
What is collective bargaining as an approach to employee and employer relations?
To determine terms of employment through a negotiation process between employers and employee representatives, such as trade union representatives.
What are the advantages of collective bargaining?
- Agreements are transparent and binding
- More cost-effective to have one set of negotiations
- Rules and terms are more respected by both parties
- More equitable as power is equal on both sides
What are the disadvantages of collective bargaining?
- Views of individuals are not always reflected by unions
- high negotiation costs
- failure to agree can have serious consequences
- owners freedom to manage is compromised
Why might a business recruit internally?
- cheaper
- already familiar with the procedures and working environment, therefore, no induction training costs
- motivating to staff
Why might a business recruit externally?
- New ideas
- More choice of applicants
What types of training are there?
- Induction training (new employees settle quickly into business)
- On-the-job training (training given by an employer)
- Off-the-job training (external training provider trains)
What benefits does training provide to:
- managers
- owners
- employees
- customers
- Managers ; flexible and motivated workforce
- Owners ; high productivity and low costs
- Employees ; efficiency and feeling motivated
- Customers ; better quality products and outcomes
What is the chain of command?
The way authority and power is organised
What is centralisation?
A type of business organisation where major decisions are made at the centre or core of the organisation and then passed down the chain of command
What is decentralisation?
A type of business organisation where decision making is pushed down the chain of command and away from the centre of the organisation
What are the advantages of centralisation?
- Senior management has more control
- Procedures can be standardised throughout the organisation (economies of scale + low costs)
- Senior management can make decisions from the point of view of the business as a whole
- Communication may be improved with less decision makers
What are the advantages of decentralisation?
- Empowering and motivating for workers
- Reduces stress for senior management
- Subordinates might have better local knowledge
- Quicker solutions
What are features and implications for tall structures?
Features: Small span of control / clear management
Implications: high management costs / poor communication (long chain of command)
What are features and implication for flat structures?
Features: short chain of command
Implications: managers lose control of the workforce / coordination problems
What are features and implications for matrix structures?
Features: based on the expertise and skills of employees
Implications: problems with coordinating a team from different departments and speed of decision making
What was Taylors approach to motivation?
People are only motivated by pay
What was Mayo’s approach to motivation?
People should have personal satisfaction by working and communicating together
What was Maslow’s approach to motivation?
The hierarchy of needs:
- Self-actualisation
- Esteem Needs
- Love and belonging
- Safety Needs
- Physiological needs
What was Herzberg’s approach to motivation?
The two-factor theory:
Motivators (sense of achievement, promotion, responsibility)
Hygiene (factors which need to be met to prevent dissatisfaction.) (pay, conditions, treatment)
What kinds of financial incentives can a business use to improve staff performance?
- Piecework (payment for each unit produced)
- Commission (payment for achieving a target)
- Bonus (targets met along side wage)
- Profit sharing (profits distributed to workers)
What kinds of non-financial incentives can a business use to improve staff performance?
- Delegation
- Job enrichment (Herzberg - challenge employee)
- Job rotation (changing jobs)
- Job enlargement (do more work of a similar nature)
What are the types of leadership styles?
- Autocratic (allocated tasks and insists on obedience)
- Paternalistic (makes decisions but cares on welfare)
- Democratic (encourages participation in decision making)
- Laissez-faire (provides tools and gives freedom)
