Midterm Flashcards
What is HR planning
HR planning involves forecasting the number and types of workers the organization will need in the future, analyzing (forecasting in a future sense) the future workforce supply, developing (and implementing) policies and programs that will help the organization achieve its goals, and evaluating their effectiveness.
What are the 7 steps to the HR planning process
- Understand the organization’s strategies, from a business perspective
- Analyze the environment – external and internal, not the environment of today, but of the future environment, look for the environment you’re planning for what’s going to be happening in the environment
- Know the HR department’s “position”, like how some HR departments are more tactical than others (e.g they do the recruiting) vs more consulting, strategic high level hands off vs tactical, how does the organization see the HR department
- Forecast future HR demand and analyze future HR supply
- Develop HR policies and programs (HR practices) that will increase the likelihood of achieving organizational goals, policies to make sure our workforce for tomorrow can do what the org. wants them to acheive
- Implement these – put into practice
- Evaluate the effectiveness of the HR policies and programs implemented
What is the 4 criteria to strategic HR management
- Vertical integration – understanding the organization and its context, what they’re doing in HR is working to achieve the organizations bigger goals, the context is important (patient care vs making money)
- Horizontal integration – creating coherent HRM systems. HR departments have diff functions within them, strategic HR has cohesiveness with these functions so they are working together
- Partnership – HR Professionals work cooperatively with line managers and non-management employees. Rather than HR professionals being order takers, they’re partners with operations
- use of metrics for regular evaluation
What does vertical integration mean for strategic HRM
When HR policies and practices are aligned with an organization’s strategic objectives
What does horizontal integration mean for strategic HRM
occurs when there is a cohesive system among HR policies and practices.
To achieve both vertical and horizontal integration HR professional need to…
work in partnership with line managers, employees, and their representatives.
What are either ends of the continuum of HRM staffing choices?
internal sources (narrow career paths, explicit selection criteria, closed hiring procedures) and external sources (broad career paths, implicit selection criteria, open hiring procedures)
What are either ends of the continuum of compensation choices?
low base salaries (internal equity, few perks, fixed pay, no incentives, hierarchical, no employment security)
and high base salaries (external equity, many perks, few levels or grades, high employment security)
What are either ends of the continuum of HRM training and development?
short term goals (productivity emphasis, unplanned, individual focus) and long term goals (quality of work emphasis, planned, group focused)
What are either ends of the continuum of HRM performance evaluation?
Behavioural criteria (remedial purpose, low employee participation) and results criteria (development purpose, high employee participation)
What are the 5 principles of strategic HR planning
- HR mgt is aware of & interacts with political, social, economic and technical environment of the organization. They understand more than just the HR environment and what the organization is about. Example, people who come to HR from the operations side of the business
- HR strategy is congruent with business strategy
- HR strategy is explicit, its written down, published out there, not hidden
- HR initiatives are consistent, not just pivoting all the time
5 Process and indicators to measure the effectiveness of HRM are provided
What is the difference between corporate strategy and business strategy
corporate: The formulation of organizational mission, goals, objectives and action plans for an entire organization. Focus is on long term survival and growth
business: like the corporate strategy but for one division or unit of an organization. focus is on how to build a strong competitive position.
What are the 3 overarching common strategies
stability maintenance, restructuring, and growth
what does the stability maintenance strategy mean
we want our organization to be the same, maintain presence, clients etc. for next 5 years
What are the 4 ways a company can restructure
- Turnaround - increase the viability of an organization
- Divestiture - sale or removal of a business
- Liquidation - termination of a business and the sale of its assets
- Bankruptcy
What are the 3 different ways an organization can grow
- Incremental:
- Increase products and/or services
- Seek additional customers; change the distribution networks; use technology
- Expand internationally:
- Seek new markets or customers in another area
- Increase size:
- Acquire another organization
- Merge - Combine resources with another organization and become one
What are the 4 main miles and snow strategy typologies?
- Defender
- Mature company in mature industry
- Protects market position through efficient production, strong control mechanisms, continuity & reliability
- Prospector
- Seeks opportunities to exploit, create new markets, develop new products and services
- Core skills in R&D, marketing
- Broad range of technologies & product types
- Analyzer
- Excels in delivery of new products and services but avoids excessive risks
- Seeks to outperform other companies on basis of quality improvement
- Concentrates on limited range of products and technologies
- Reactor
- Company has little control over external environment
- Lacks ability to adapt to competition
Poor internal control mechanisms, no systematic design or plans
What are 2 variables in the porter model and what the 5 competitive strategies in the porter model?
1) type of competitive advantage being pursued and 2) market target
overall low cost provider: broad spectrum of buyer, lower cost
broad differentiator: differentiation and broad spectrum of buyer
focused low cost: lower cost, narrow segment of buyers
focused differentiator: differentiation and narrow segment of the market
best-cost provider: emphasizing a low cost product and an upscale differentiation
What are the 2 variables in the BCG matrix analysis, and what are the 4 categories
market growth % and market share
star: high market growth% and high market share
cash cow: low market growth% and high market share
?/wildcat: high market growth% and low market share
dog: low market growth % and low market share
What are the 5 steps the HR forecasting process
- Analyze HR impact of strategic plans, external environment
a. Know what org plans to do what are the timeline for it
b. Looking at trends in the future that will impact the organization - Forecast Future HR needs (demand)
a. Calculate future HR needs, how many positions you’ll need - Analyze future internal and external workers
- Develop options to balance supply and demand
a. There is often always an in balance between how many you need and how many there are available, this is how to deal with this
Implement and evaluate results - Implement and evaluate results
What is forecasting?
- Process for determining the requirements (demand) for and the supply of the workers (doesn’t matter if paid, full time, temp, etc.)
- Proactive and future orientated process
- Requires both quantitative (the #s) and qualitative (the type of the work being done for example) data
What is HR demand
HR demand: the number of positions required for (to design, produce, deliver manage, etc.) an organization products or services
What is HR supply
HR supply: the number of people available inside the org. or outside the org, who could fill org. positions. Always separate internal and outside supply.
What is net HR demand
Net Hr demand: the difference between the number of positions required and the number of people available to fill them internally.
Why is important for an organization to identify their future requirements for staff and the future supply?
- Its practical and strategic to do so
- they end up being reactive rather than proactive if they don’t plan for how many positions they will need
What happens If forecasting does not happen?
- If the org. doesn’t plan how many emplyoees they need in the future, and don’t plan ahead, they might lose business and revenue from unfulfillment.
They might ask the current employees to work overtime, it will cost them and can lead to worker fatigue, burnout, decrease productivity, turnover.
Could also have a downcycle come along, you might have to quickly lay off people or pay people who don’t have work to do
What are the 2 main things forecasting is used to do?
developing option for HR policies and programs
and support efficient and effective service delivery such as knowing how many positions to recruit for and choosing training and development programs and which employees to train
what is a scenario
a proposed sequence of events with its own set of assumptions and program details. If this happens, then this will happen, then this will happed.
what is a contingency plan
a plan to deal with severe changes in the organization or environment that completely wipe out forecasting of labour needs. Essentially something you don’t think would ever happen but just in case it does you have a plan for it.
What is a prediction
an estimate of labour needs w specific time horizon and assumptions (2% increase in enrollment is assumption, 109 positions is labour needs, and next fall is time)
what is a Projection
several estimate of labour needs based on different assumptions (several predictions put together). Example, a 2% increase in enrollment will need 109, a 4% next fall will need 112 full time positions.
- OR
what is forecast envelope?
an estimate with upper and lower limits of the projection extending into the future
What are the 4 types of key workforce categories?
1.specialist technical and professional employees: positions that are key to carrying out your business
- managers and executives: take longer to fill, drives the organization have hire salary cost
- Employment equity: forecasting for designated groups
- new employees
what are 4 different times for planning horizons
Current: 6 months - year from now.
Short run: 1-2 year
Medium 2-5 years
Long run: 5+, usually large org.
What are the 3 types of forecasting?
transaction based forecasting
event based forecasting
process based forecasting
what is transaction based forecasting?
looks at the effects of changes made by managers on the number and type of staff.
what is event based forecasting
looks at the effect of changes in the environment on type and number of staff. E.g demographic, legislation, economy.
what is process based forecasting
looks at the flow of work activities and changes in the activities to estimate number and types of staff. e.g if they change the process of a job by automating it does it lower the number of positions we need
what is environmental scanning?
Systematically monitoring the major factors influencing the organization from HR planning perspective.
What are 3 reasons for monitoring the environment?
- Organizational success or failure is strongly related to the context it exists within
- The outside world is constantly changing
- The HR practitioner who understand the implications of the environmental changes for their organization can proactively develop policies and programs to help their organization achieve its goals.
What are 4 techniques to monitor the environment
- Scan: identify early signs of changes in environment
- Monitor: systematically follow several key factors
- Forecast: project the potential impact of change for the organization
- Assess: make a judgement about the probability of each possible outcome
What is primary demand
The future demand for organizations products or services
What are the 5 quantitative hr demand forecasting techniques
Staffing table
Hr budget
Ratio/index
Index trend
Regression
What are the 3 qualitative techniques for forecasting
Delphi technique
Nominal group technique
Scenario modelling
what are the 2 types of barriers to workforce planning and name some examples of each
practical (multiple planning horizons, no budget, lack of time, no data) and perceptional barrier (seen as important but not urgent, resistance to change, to hard to measure success)
acquisition
The purchase of one company by another.
bankruptcy
A formal procedure in which an appointed trustee in bankruptcy takes possession of a business’s assets and disposes of them in an orderly fashion.
capabilities
A complex combination of people and processes that represent the firm’s capacity to exploit resources that have been specially integrated to achieve a desired result.
competitive advantage
The characteristics of a firm that enable it to earn higher rates of profit than its competitors.
core competencies
Resources and capabilities that serve as a firm’s competitive advantage.
divestiture
The sale of a division or part of an organization.
dynamic capabilities
The ability to adapt and renew competencies in accordance with changing business environment.
emergent strategy
The plan that changes incrementally due to environmental changes.
intended strategy
the formulated plan
liquidation
The termination of a business and the sale of its assets.
procedures
the steps required to get a job done
program
The steps or activities necessary to accomplish a goal.
realized strategy
the implemented plan
strategy implementation
The process by which a strategy is put into action.
turnaround strategy
An attempt to increase the viability of an organization
human capital
The sum of employees’ knowledge¸ skills¸ experience¸ and commitment invested in the organization
what are 4 sources of information HR professional can use for analyzing trends and making predictions about a firm’s environment
publications
professional associations
conferences
professional consultants
what are the 4 criteria for identifying significant trends
- is there a ripple affect
- how profound is the impact on people’s roles expectations
3.how large is the impact scope aka how many people impacted - will the changes endure over time
what are the environmental factors we would look at in HR
economic climate
globalization
political and legislative factors
technological factors
demographic factors
social and cultural factors
what is an issue priority matrix and what are 2 variables it looks at
used to determine which are the important trends that may affect an organization
probability it will happen and what the impact would be on the organization
what is demographics
the study of population statistics
what are the 3 types of analytical forecasting models
time-series
cause and effect
judgemental models
competitive intelligence
A formal approach to obtain information about competitors.
What is the difference between a prediction and a projection
a prediction is a single numerical estimate of HR requirements associated with a specific time horizon and set of assumptions
a projection incorporates several HR estimates based on a variety of assumptions
what does an envelope do
an envelope describes the range of plausible forecast values for an existing set of assumptions.
What type of organization would a staffing table/budget be appropriate for? How do you format it?
small organization or one department within a larger one
format: staffing table, name of company, HR demand, time period you are forecasting for
under the table put the assumption such as 8 million sales in 2024
In terms of time periods, what is the difference between ratio vs index trend analysis
ratio is only one period of time with no history, index trend shows changes of time
what 4 columns do you need to have for an index trend analysis
year, operational index (might be number of cutomers, sales, etc.), #FTEs, Ratio
What is a problem with using an index/trend analysis?
with a set ratio, it might not work all across the board in terms of time it takes for each employee to provide the service. For example, a teacher working with special needs kids vs normal kids will need to spend more time with each child, requiring more teachers
What is a staffing table?
Technique that uses a table that lists future need for each type of job by business unit and time in chart form
what is an index trend analysis
technique that uses ratio to match the number of positions with an operational index
what is a regression analysis?
Statistical technique that assumes a linear cause and effect relationship between one or more independent variables and the number of employees
when is a regression analysis useful? when is it not good to use?
useful for when you have a lot of variables
not good in emerging markets, companies making a significant transition or new organizations because you need historical data
What is the nominal group technique and when is it used?
- Technique that produces a majority opinion of a group. Experts prepare individual answers to a question, meet to discuss and cast secret vote.
used for long-range HR forecasts or when many factors are changeable
what is the Delphi technique and when is it used
Technique that solicits opinions from panel of experts until opinions agree. Each person provides answer to a question and then responds to the next question after reviewing other experts’ answers. Experts do not meet in person.
useful for long range planning horizon
What type of organizations would use nominal or Delphi technique
large organization with long-term planning horizons like health care, schools, etc. also org that doesn’t have a lot of history like spaceX
what is net hr demand?
Calculation of staff needed to replace turnover & to account for changes to derived demand
Provides number of workers required by each sub-unit and by organization in total
what are the 2 components of net hr demand
replacement demand: how many positions we will need to fill in the org. due to normal losses based off of a historical replacement or loss rate
change demand: estimated rate of future growth or reduction
What are 6 reasons knowing HR supply is useful?
- Planning promotions
Organizing training/development programs
* Setting procedures for internal recruitment for vacancies
- Preparing retention initiatives
- Developing diversity plans
- Making downsizing decisions
what information is needed to do HR supply forecasting?
number and type of employees
normal losses rate by type
basic employee data like DOB and date of hire
organizations policies on promotion, retirement, etc.
what are the 5 most common HR supply forecasting techniques in order of simple to most complex
- Simple turnover analysis
- Movement analysis
- Vacancy analysis
- Markov analysis
- Linear programming
What is a simple turnover analysis
if we don’t replace our normal losses, our future hr supply will be our current hr demand - normal losses. If we do replace, then our future hr supply will = our current hr demand
when an organization fills all vacancies from external labour market, the number of new hires will…
equal the number of vacancies
what is the ripple effect
when you fill normal losses with current employees, it creates a ripple effect and you end up with more vacancies than if you filled the position externally
What is the criteria for using a movement analysis?
must have hierarchal org/ structure and must have a 100% fill from within policy but doesn’t include positions that cannot advance to level above
Explain the process for doing a movement analysis
2 tables: the fist one is your net hr demand table with how many positions will need to be filled in the org. the second is movement of the individuals who will be available
what is the criteria for using vacancy analysis
must be hierarchical but can use in organization that fill some positions internally and some externally
what does the level outflow column mean in the vacancy analysis
number of position that need to be filled (number of normal losses plus number of people who are promoted)
how do you calculate promotion rate?
divide the number of promotions (go over and up to get that number) by how many people were in the position to start
what is a shortcoming of a vacancy analysis
only accounts for movement upwards, not lateral transfers, demotions
what are the conditions to use a markov analysis
can be any type of org structure, but needs to be a medium - larger organization
what is a Markov analysis
Examines patterns of employee movements through promotions (1 or 2 or 3 levels up), transfers, demotions & exits, essentially finding patterns in whatever movement your organization could have
uses transitional probabilities
what are transitional probabilities
the likelihood that an individual in a specific job will exhibit one of the five movements one year into the future
What is linear programming
- Statistical technique that assumes linear relationships between variables that influence movement among positions
what type of organization is linear programming good for
Good for large complex organizations with lots of possible movements
what are some techniques to forecasting external HR supply
Delphi, nominal group, linear programming, regression analysi
What does it mean when you have a shortage
your net hr demand is positive, you need more people than you have in the organization
what does it mean when you have a surplus
your net hr demand is negative, means that you have more supply than demand in the organization
what are the 2 ways you can calculate a surplus or shortage?
1) check your net hr demand and determine if its positive or negative
2) future hr demand - future hr supply
if + shortage, if - surplus
what are the 4 things you need to consider when analyzing future HR imbalance?
size: how big is the shortage or surplus in relation to the size of the company/department
location: will it effect each department/geographical location equally
timing: tells you how long you have until the shortage/surplus and also how long is it going to last
worker requirements: looks at job KSAs that will be involved in imbalance
what are the 3 broad strategies for dealing with a labour shortage?
- Make better use of present employees
- Hire additional workers from outside org
- Lower requirements for labour
what are the 4 options to make better use of employees
1) transfer employees to jobs where shortages exist
2) train employees to move up to job with shortages
3) employee work overtime
4) increase productivity
what are 4 examples of ways you can increase productivity
offering monetary incentives
improve employees job skills to produce more product or same in less time
redesign work processes and method so greater outputs are achieved in same amount of time
use more efficient equipment
When would hiring additional workers from outside be a good option for dealing with a shortage?
If your shortage looks like its going to be permanent, it may be wise to create new positions
what are 3 things you can do to lower requirement for labour
-subcontract work to other firms if labour shortage expected by short
forgo increase in production
substitute capital for labour (mechanize jobs), not because it cheaper but because you can’t find people to do the work
what are 3 broad strategies for dealing with a labour surplus
- Permanent workforce reductions
- Implement workforce cost savings
- Redistribute workforce supply
what are 4 ways for permanent workforce reductions
close facilities
permanent layoffs
provide exit incentives
attrition without replacement (hiring freeze)
what are 5 ways to implement workforce cost savings
temporary shutdown
temp lay offs
reduced work weeks
work sharing
pay and benefit cut or freeze
which 2 workforce cost savings are common in recessions
reduced work week and pay/benefit cut or freeze
what are 2 ways you can redistribute workforce supply
retrain workers
redeploy workers
what is a caveat to redistributing workforce supply
you can only do it when you have a shortage in another area or location, otherwise they will have nothing to do
what is the minimum and maximum number of options for dealing with an imbalance you should have?
min 3 max 5
what 5 things do you need to describe when running through all your options to deal with imbalance
what’s involved
financial and human costs
impact to other areas of org and community
length of time required to execute
probable effectiveness in reducing surplus or shortage
which planning horizon is staffing table most appropriate for
short term, current
which planning horizon is appropriate for a medium run forecast
index/trend technique
t/f you can always apply simple turnover analysis to estimate future hr supply
t
