Strategic Human Resource Management - Chapter 1

Question 1

What is Human Resource Management?

Answer 1

This is the leadership and management of people within an organization using systems, methods, processes, and procedures that identify, select, motivate, and enable employees to achieve outcomes individually and collectively that enhance their contribution to the organization’s goals .

HRM supports and enables organizations to meet short and long term economic, social, and environmental goals.

Question 2

Strategic Human Resource Management

Answer 2

This is the process of integrating the strategic needs of an organization into the choice into the choice of HR systems and practices to support the overall mission, strategies, and performance

• The choice of HR tools will depend on what the organization is trying to achieve
• HR activities must align with and contribute to the organization’s strategies
• Each HR practice should generate value for the organization

Question 3

Five Steps of Human Resource Strategy Formulation and Implementation Process

Answer 3

• Organizational mission, goals, and strategy analysis
• Environmental Scan
• Analysis of Organizational character and culture
• Choice and implementation of Human Resource strategies
• Review. Education and Audit of Human Resource Strategies

Question 4

Step 1: Organizational Mission, Goals, and Strategy Analysis

Answer 4

Mission Statement: Statement outlining the purpose, long term objectives, and activities the organization will pursue and the course for the future

• The organization’s goals outline what specifically the organization seeks to achieve in a given time period, which impacts its HR practices
• The organization’s strategies determine the appropriate array of HR practices
• Hr strategies enable the successful completion of the organization’s strategies.

Question 5

Step 2: Environmental Scan

Answer 5

Continuous monitoring of economic, technological, demographic, and cultural forces. The major forces:

1. Economic: What is unemployment? are people suffering right now? do they have enough money to make food and rent?
2. Technological: Keeping up with new Tech. watching out for AI
3. Demographic: Do we have a high number of people retiring very quickly? in terms of agreement, are we going to need to have people in the roles we fill regularly ready to go?
4. Cultural: What is the culture like? Does it need improvement? is it healthy? if it is not healthy, it needs to get worked on. There are policies and procedures in place to train people so that they understand we do not tolerate violence, racism, sexism, homophobia in the workplace
5. Legal: Everything we do has to be legally defensible.

Question 6

Four Critical Economic Forces

Answer 6

1. Economic Cycles: are trade plans shutting down? Is gas getting incredibly expensive? - meaning that organizations that build trucks are suffering due to not being able to afford the gas that goes in trucks.
2. Global Trade: Are we being competitive with what’s happening with our product or service?
3. Productivity and innovation improvement: What is it that we need to do with our products or service to keep it competitive and innovative and to be moving with the times?
4. Knowledge workers: we need to look at who is out there. Where are the people who have the knowledge that we need to hire.

Question 7

Economic Force: Economic Cycles

Answer 7

Canadian economy goes through boom and bust cycles
- Often linked to other economies: Like the US and China - what happens with them impacts us.

During recessionary periods. HR faces challenges
- Layoffs, wage concessions, lower morale : People are in fear of losing their jobs

During boom cycles, HR must consider:
- How to recruit and develop talent:

Question 8

Economic Force: Global Trade

Answer 8

• International trade has always been crucial to Canada’s prosperity and growth
• Canada ranks high among exporting nations
• Canadian jobs and economic prosperity depend upon international trade

Question 9

Economic Force: Productivity and Innovation Improvement

Answer 9

It is part of the job of HR professionals to ensure there’s a healthy productive workplace and employees have what they need to be productive.

• Productivity: Ratio of an organization’s outputs to its inputs - in terms of recruitment, we are talking about what he have done during a certain time span over the whole thing.
• Productivity improvement is essential for long term success: We have to continue the push to do better to generate more revenues and results . We have to have diversity and inclusion to be able to be innovative. Example: Take a company like Blackberry owned by RIM. RIM was famous for generating the blackberry, and that created a lot of innovation for Canada and quite a bit of revenues and made a big difference in our economy because the blackberry came from RIM. RIM wasn’t able to keep up with the innovation as Apple had taken over and it became a horrible place to work.
• For over a decades, U.S. productivity has been consistently outpacing Canada
• Without innovation, productivity differences tend to increase

Question 10

Economic Force: Knowledge Workers

Answer 10

• Extractive industries (e.g., mining and fishing) have decreased
• Industries relying on knowledge workers (e.g., education, health care, tourism, trade, public administration) have increased

We are relying on knowledge workers where as, we used to rely much more on natural resource organizations. So natural resources in Canada have really decreased because the fishers in many ways decrease because we had enormous boats from other companies come in and take too much and we have taken too much. It is the same with mining, it has really decreased. The mines are gone. So our relying on natural resources has incredibly decreased and we are more focused on knowledge workers.

Question 11

Three Critical Technological Forces

Answer 11

1) Connectivity and Work Design: Not everybody in the world has the same resources in terms of the same level of connectivity.

2) Automation: When we look at AI, that will be a critical technology force

3) Data and Analytics: It is incredibly important to inform us on what’s happening which is why we need HRIS

Question 12

Technological Force: Connectivity and Work Design

Answer 12

Connectivity influences organizations and the way people work
- Changed the way we work, play, study, and entertain ourselves
- Access to information has affected the way organizations conduct business

Technology has brought flexibility: For example, in recruitment, if you have a good tracking system, working can be done anywhere in the world

• When and where we work is carried out (e.g., telecommuting)
• Increased cybersecurity concerns

Question 13

Technological Force: Automation

Answer 13

Organizations automate to:

• Increase speed
• Provide better service: AI informing candidates of their progress in the recruitment process
• Increase flexibility: Doesn’t matter where or when somebody works
• Increase predictability in operations
• Achieve higher standards of quality

Many use robots to replace boring or hazardous jobs: some boring jobs may include admin assistant

Question 14

Technological Force: Data and Analytics

Answer 14

• The role of Data and Analytics have shifted due to AI/ML and rapidly increasing computer power
• Intranets and integrated information systems help store and access information quickly and accurately
• Information management systems capturing digital information about employees five rise to human resource data analytics

Question 15

Four Critical Demographic Forces

Answer 15

• Gender Balance
• Educational attainment of workers
• Aging population
• Generational shift

Question 16

Technological Force: Data and Analytics

Answer 16

• The role of data and analytics have shifted due to AI/ML and rapidly increasing computer power
• Intranets and integrated information systems help store and access information quickly and accurately: It used to be that we had resumes, cover letters, offer letters in paper form that needed to be shipped out in boxes to be stored in a warehouse.
• Information management systems capturing digital information about employees give rise to human resource data analytics: are we retaining people? are people training ? what’s happening with our workforce?

Question 17

Four Critical Demographic Forces

Answer 17

• Gender balance: we are trying to get diversity. we are also trying to get people paid equitably
• Educational attainment of workers: trying to get workers educated in the area where they need education. We also need to look out there In the workforce for who’s getting education.
• Aging population
• Generational shifts: As baby boomers retire, we have to look at how we can retain some of that experience so that experienced people can mentor those coming after them that don’t have the same level of experience. That’s were we look at work life balance situation - Example; Instead of somebody retiring completely after 20 years at a company, they come back two mornings a week and they can mentor those coming behind them. So that all of that experience is not lost.

Question 18

Demographic Force: Gender Balance

Answer 18

47% of the workforce assigned female at birth (2020)

• Participation rate of biologically female in health care and professional, scientific, and technical services continues to grow
• More women than men work part-time

Question 19

Demographic Force: Educational Attainment of Workers

Answer 19

• People are recognizing that post secondary certificate/diploma are valued
• people that have some high school diploma

Question 20

Demographic Force: Aging Population

Answer 20

Average age off the workforce is increasing which leads to more people retiring (Baby Boomers)

Question 21

Demographic Force: Generational Shift

Answer 21

• Although the differences within groups may be wider than the differences between groups, some managers find benefit through understanding that not all generations view the world through the same lens that they do
• Baby Boomers, Generation X, Generation Y (Millennials), and Generation Z and soon Generation Alpha, are all in the workforce
• Different people have different expectations from their workplaces: What do the different generations need
• Generational diversity creates an interpersonal dynamic for all leaders

Question 22

Two Critical Cultural Forces

Answer 22

1) Diversity and social justice

2) Ethics

Question 23

Cultural Force: Diversity and Social Justice

Answer 23

• Canadian society is a cultural mosaic
• Canada encourages maintaining unique culture and heritage vs. U.S. “melting pot”
• Continued inequalities articulated by social justice advocates for indigenous, Black, and other radicalized people of color attributed to systemic bias
• Social justice has become central to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the workplace

Question 24

Cultural Force: Ethics

Answer 24

• Ethical conduct of business is becoming an increasingly important issue
• Managers should understand ethical perspectives, and consider ethical implications

Question 25

Step 3: Analysis of Organizational Structure and Culture

Answer 25

Human resource strategies should be formulated only after a careful look at the organization’s structure
- Employees, objectives, technology, size, age, unions, policies, successes, failures

Structure reflects the past and shapes the future

Each organization has a unique culture
- Core beliefs and assumptions that are widely shared by all organizational members

Question 26

Step 4: Choice and Implementation of Human Resource Strategies

Answer 26

There should be a clear line of sight between HR strategy and corporate goals

HR must continuously focus on the following activities:
- Identifying opportunities, risks, and challenges
- Making data informed decisions aligned to strategy
- Optimizing for high performance

Question 27

Step 5: Review, Evaluation, and Audit of Human Resource Strategies

Answer 27

• HR Strategies should be examined periodically in consideration of changing factors (e.g., technology, environment)
• A holistic review of HR strategies with the intention of identifying and correcting deficiencies is called a Human Resource Audit
• Human Resources activities aimed at productivity improvement succession planning, and cultural change are critical to competitive survival

Question 28

The Organization of HRM

Answer 28

HR Department in a small organization
- Separate HR department emerges when HR activities becomes a burden

• Often emerges as a small department or individual reporting to a middle level manager

Question 29

The Human Resources Department in a Small Organization

Question 30

The Organization of HRM

Answer 30

Large HR Department
- As the organization grows, the HR department usually grows in impact/complexity

• Specialists are added
• Vice President title

Question 31

A Large Human Resource Department

Question 31

The Service Role of the HR Department

Answer 31

Staff Authority
- HR departments are service departments
- Authority to advise, not direct

Line Authority
- Possessed by managers of operating departments (i.e., authority to make decisions)

Functional Authority
- HR department may be provided authority to make decisions (e.g deciding type of benefits)

Question 32

Today’s HR Professional

Answer 32

Enormous growth in the number of HR managers
- HR had been slow to evolve into a profession

Competencies for HR Managers:
- Strategy; engagement; labour and employee relations; learning and development; human resource metrics, reporting, and financial management; professional practice, workforce planning, and talent management; health, wellness, and safe workplaces; and total rewards

The nationally recognized designation in HR is called the CPHR (Chartered Professional in Human Resources) for all Canadians except in Ontario, which has the Certified Human Resources Professional (CHRP) designation