Role Flashcards
1
Q
Strategic Role of HRM
A
Refers to the management of the total relationship between an employer and an employee in order to achieve the strategic goals of the business.
- Views an effective workforce as a way of adding value to all areas of their business perfromance with the aim of improving competitiveness and profitability
CAB CLAW.
- Corporate culture
- Absenteeism
- Benchmarking key variables
- Changes in staff turnover
- Levels of disputation
- Accidents
- Worker satisfaction
2
Q
Explain the Strategic Role
A
Strategic HRM incorporates all aspects of managing the employee-employer relationship in the workplace, including acquisition, development, maintenance and separation.
Businesses can take a strategic approach to managing employees by
- Seeing an effective workforce as a way of adding value to all areas of their business performance
- Focusing on the use of specific HRM strategies to retain, reward and motivate effective and skilled employees to achieve the businesses objectives.
Strategic challenges for HRM
- Developing and retaining talented staff
- Improving leadership development
- Managing an ageing workforce
- Increasing outsourcing of HR functions, increasing use of contractors
- Ethics and CSR in management of workforce
3
Q
Strategic role Implications
A
Effective HRM Practices will result in;
- Highly skilled workforce – Efficiency
- Lower levels of workplace disputation
- Minimise acquisition and separation costs
- Motivated workforce - productivity
Ineffective HRM practices will result in;
- Worker dissatisfaction/lower levels of workplace morale
- Unmotivated workforce – lower levels of productivity
- Increased absenteeism
- Costs associated with high levels of staff turnover, increased accidents and increased workplace disputes
4
Q
Strategic role CASESTUDY
A
5
Q
Interdependance with other key business functions
Human Resources and Marketing
A
Marketing to Human resources
- The release of a new product range may require HR to hire a new product/brand manager.
- Marketing will need to communicate with HR about the necessary skills, qualifications and experience needed for each of the positions so HR can include them in the job design and job description
- Go through the separation process - Involuntary redundancy
- Undertake Development to re-skill/up-skill the product manager so they can take on another role
Human Resources to Marketing
- Effective recruitment of skilled and experienced sales staff and brand managers will positively impact marketing process
- Training and development of sales staff
6
Q
Human Resources and Finance
A
Finance to Human Resources
- Allocates funds (via budgets after identifying financial needs) for:
- Monetary and non-monetary rewards (including incentives)
- Acquisition of new employees
- Funding training and development programs
- Enact cost controls
- Use cost centres
- High wage costs may prompt involuntary separation
- Reduce expenses to improve net profit
Human Resources to Finance
- HR needs (Acquisition, development, maintenance and separation) affect Finance’s decisions (Budgets, use of financial institutions to attain sources of finance)
- Pay rises (Rewards) affect budgeting for financial needs, impacting the income statement and cash flow statement.
7
Q
Human Resources and Operations
A
Operations to Human Resources
- Operations’ decision (New tech) may cause separation (involuntary redundancy) or need for retraining
- Creates inertia that resists change, increasing staff turnover and disputation, harming worker satisfaction and corporate culture
- Operations choosing to use global sourcing and outsourcing should consider the skills, cost and supply of global human resources
Human Resources to Operations
- HR is a transforming resources
- Speed, cost, quality of operations are affected by the efficiency, skills and capabilities of workers affected by development, acquisition and their motivation (Indicated by corporate culture) as caused by maintenance (Rewards) and leadership style
- Employees within operations may need to meet WHS legislation/requirements through training/development (HR)
8
Q
Outsourcing
A
Refers to the use of external providers to perform business activities.
- Usually specialists who can perform the activity at a lower cost and more effectively and thereby allowing the business to focus on its core activities
- Process outsourcing – Used for repetitive, easily measurable & documented work EG - Recruitment, Multi - country payroll, customer complaints, food preparation for airlines
- Project outsourcing – Commonly found in areas such as HR, marketing, design, IT and research
HR is a commonly outsourced function:
- Recruitment
- Induction
- Training
- Mediation
- Payroll
- Outplacement (support services for employees leaving the business)
9
Q
Outsourcing Advants & Disadvants
A
- Allows the business to focus its resources on core competencies
- Provides access to expertise in the areas of support or compliance-related activities, such as payroll management
- Access to new ideas and perspectives
- Can improve the quality and productivity of a business’s service
HOWEVER
- Difficulty in controlling the quality and reliability of the service
- Cultural differences, such as language issues
- Security issues such as opportunities for sharing of confidential information and client poaching
- Difficulty to remedy breach of contract under foreign legal systems
- High labour-turnover may impact the business
10
Q
Outsourcing CASESTUDY
A
Apple outsources manufacturing to Foxconn and Pegatron
- Led to a reduction in COGS
- Allows for Apple to achieve a GP ratio of 7% greater than Samsung
Apple outsources compliance training to a legal firm who has expertise in this area - E.g. sexual harassment complaints
- Non-core business activities
- In their Annual Report, Apple outlines over 3,000 outsourced contractors
- Apple uses IBM as an outsourced function as part of their sourcing of skilled and knowledgeable staff
- Recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) Gives Apple access to cost savings of 25-35%
11
Q
Outsourcing
Domestic contractors
A
Using a contractor within the nation state
- Commonly used to avoid the need to employ ‘in-house’ staff and overheads
- Lower possibility of communication/language/cultural misunderstandings which could occur with global contractors
- Familiarity with local laws
- Potential for inspections (not as easy when using global contractors)
HOWEVER
- Potential for loss of customer contact
- Loss of internal expertise
- Information security risks
- Potential for lower standards
12
Q
Outsourcing
Global contractors
A
Using a contractor outside the nation state
- Commonly used to avoid the need to employ ‘in-house’ staff and overheads
- Access to different labour standards Employment standards
- Access to specialist labourto performance outsourced HR function
- Increased speed - Access to more advanced tech for HR management
HOWEVER
- Increased complexity with coordinating activities
- Cultural differences/language/accent barriers
- Potential loss of control over standards (quality/reliability)
- Information security concerns (sharing Confidential company information)
- Lack of remedies for breach of contract or other legal matters under foreign legal systems
13
Q
Global contracting CASESTUDY
A
Apple uses firms outside the US such as Foxconn in China, India, Korea, Japan to outsource manufacturing, assembly and logistics operations.
- This has led to reduction in costs as indicated by lower COGS over time and increased GP%
- Access to low cost labour - estimate that there are more than 350,000 employees working on Apple products at Foxconn - Can produce 500,000 iPhones per day or 250 iPhones per minute.
- Access to scale - volumes
- There are disadvantages with this strategy such as loss of control,
security issues, skill of staff - Apple has tried to mitigate against these disadvantages by working closely with outsources suppliers, using strict Supplier Codes of Conduct and audits
