Brainscape's Knowledge GenomeTM

Browse over 1 million classes created by top students, professors, publishers, and experts.


See full index

AQA A Level Business > Topic 6: Decision making to improve Human Resource Performance > Flashcards

Topic 6: Decision making to improve Human Resource Performance Flashcards

1
Q

What is human resource management?

A

it is a common term for personnel function

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
2
Q

What does human resource management involve?

A
  • staff performance
  • inductions
  • talent acquisition
  • compensation and benefits
  • rewards
  • talent development
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
3
Q

What is the overall aim of Human Resource Management?

A
  • maximise the contribution of employees to the the organisations overall objectives
  • meet specific goals
  • Human resources will be derived from the targets of the business as a whole
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
4
Q

Define Human Resource management?

A

the design, implementation and maintenance of strategies to manage people for optimum business performance

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
5
Q

What are some examples of Human Resource Objectives?

A
  • Employee engagement and involvement
  • talent development
  • training
  • diversity
  • alignment of values
  • the number, skills and location of employees
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
6
Q

What are internal influences on human resource objectives?

A
  • past experiences
  • character and ambitions of newly appointed chief executives
  • financial pressures felt by the business
  • changing market conditions
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
7
Q

What are external influences on human resource objectives?

A
  • economic factors
  • is the business a stock market quoted plc or a smaller family run business
  • social and ethical climate
  • government policy
  • improvements in technology
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
8
Q

What is the focus for hard hrm strategies?

A

identify workforce needs of the business and recruit and manage accordingly (hiring, moving and thriving)

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
9
Q

What are the key points of hard hrm?

A
  • short term changes in employee numbers
  • minimal communications, from the top down
  • pay enough to recruit and retain enough staff
  • little empowerment for delegation
  • appraisal systems focused on making judgements about taller organisational structures
  • suits autocratic leadership style
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
10
Q

What is the focus of soft hrm strategies?

A

concentrate on the needs of employees

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
11
Q

What are the key features of soft hrm strategies?

A
  • strategic focus on longer term workforce planning
  • strong and regular two way communication
  • competitive pay structure, with suitable performance related rewards
  • employees are empowered and encouraged to seek delegation and take responsibility
  • appraisal systems focused on identifying and addressing training and other employee development needs
  • flatter organisational structure
  • suits democratic leadership
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
12
Q

Is hard or soft hrm strategies better?

A
  • hard approaches can suffer from higher absenteeism and staff turnover and less successful recruitment.
  • a too sift approach can make the cost of the workforce a competitive disadvantage for the business
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
13
Q

define employee engagement?

A

Workplace approach designed to ensure that employees are committed to their organisations goals and values and are motivated to contribute to organisational success

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
14
Q

Define hard hrm?

A

treating employees as a resource which needs to be monitored for efficiency reasons and can be replaced easily

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
15
Q

Define natural wastage?

A

A reduction in the number of people who work for an organisation that is achieved by not replacing those people who leave

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
16
Q

Define soft hrm?

A

Treating employees as a valuable asset to the business and of vital importance

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
17
Q

How to analyse human resource performance?

A
  • staffing costs can be a high percentage of a firms total costs
  • firms try to measure their staff performance objectively
  • calculations can be used to do this and also measure the success of new initiatives
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
18
Q

What do managers look at when measuring performance?

A
  • is the workforce fully motivated
  • is the workforce as productive as it could be
  • are the HR policies helping the business to meet its goals
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
19
Q

What are the measures that managers have to measure?

A
  • labour productivity
  • employee costs as a percentage of turnover
  • labour costs per unit
  • labour turnover
  • employee retention rate
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
20
Q

What is labour productivity?

A

often seen as the single most important measure pg how well a firms workers are doing.
It compares the number of workers with the output of the business.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
21
Q

How to calculate labour productivity?

A

labour productivity = output per time period/ number of employees

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
22
Q

How to improve labour productivity?

A
  • better technology
  • specialisation of staff
  • motivation
  • training
  • leadership
23
Q

Why does labour productivity need to improve?

A
  • competitiveness

- profits

24
Q

What does labour productivity increase?

A
  • increases in productivity will result from improvements in efficiency
  • improved productivity will result in lower labour costs per unit
  • could allow a business to charge lower prices, leading to increased competitiveness
25
Q

How to calculate employee costs as percentage of turnover (revenue)

A

employee costs as a percentage of turnover = employee costs/ sales turnover x 100

26
Q

What does a high figure of employee costs as a percentage of turnover show?

A

the impact of inefficiency.

however, a higher percentage could be an indication of more staff/better service in a service sector organisation

27
Q

How to calculate labour cost per unit

A

labour cost per unit = labour costs/ units of output

28
Q

what does labour costs per unit suggest?

A
  • close links to profitability
  • if labour cost per unit is higher, lower profit margins will be made
  • lower labour costs per unit will allow a firm to be more competitive
29
Q

How to calculate labour turnover?

A

labour turnover (%) = number of staff leaving in the year/ average number of staff employed by the business during the year X 100

30
Q

What are High labour turnover, internal causes?

A
  • poor recruitment
  • ineffective motivation or leadership
  • wage level lower than other firms
31
Q

What are high labour turnover external causes?

A
  • more local vacancies

- better transport

32
Q

Would a business want 0 labour turnover and why?

A

no because staff leaving isnt always bad new skills, experience that isnt already in the business

33
Q

What are the negatives of a high labour turnover?

A
  • cost of recruitment
  • cost of training
  • time taken for staff to settle
  • loss of productivity whilst new workers learn
34
Q

What are the positives of a high labour turnover?

A
  • new workers with new ideas and enthusiasm
  • workers bring new skill
  • new ways to solve problems
35
Q

How to calculate employee retention?

A

employee retention rate (%) for a particular time period = number of employees at end of period - number of leavers/ number of employees at end of period X 100

36
Q

How to use data for decision making?

A

poor productivity and labour turnover can suggest poor management of the workplace

37
Q

What do good managers analyse to assess the performance?

A
  • changes over time
  • comparisons with similar firms
  • performance against targets
38
Q

What is the need for organisational design?

A
  • as organisations grow they become more complex and require a more formal structure
  • management thinkers such as Taylor considered how to structure an organisation
  • they saw the function of organisations as converting inputs into outputs in order to make profit
  • they viewed organisation design as being similar to designing a machine with the objective being efficiency
  • their key considerations included breaking an organisation into functions, every employee reporting to a line manager, no manager being overloaded with too many subordinates, requiring more layers of management
39
Q

What is an organisational structure?

A
  • shows the roles, responsibilities and relationships of each member of the business
  • often illustrated in an organisation chart
  • chart shows links between people and departments
  • shows communication flow, lines of authority and layers of hierarchy
40
Q

What are the levels in the hierarchy?

A
  • the number of levels of supervisors/managers/workers shown from the top to the bottom of the chart
  • the more levels there are, the slower and less reliable communication may become
  • the more levels there are, the more difficult it is for people at the top to see the work faced by those at the bottom
41
Q

What is span of control?

A
  • the number of people directly under the supervision of one manager
  • narrow span of control: a smaller number of staff reporting to one manger
  • wide span of control: a large number of staff reporting to one manager
  • communication/control/help/support
  • depends on nature of tasks/skills and attitudes of workers and managers
42
Q

Advantages of narrow span of control

A
  • allows close management supervision
  • communication may be excellent within small, immediate teams
  • many layers of hierarchy means many rungs on the career ladder
43
Q

Disadvantages of narrow span of control

A
  • workers may feel over supervised and therefore not trusted, this may cause better staff to leave in search of more personal responsibility
  • communication may suffer within the business as a whole, as a narrow span of control means more layers of hierarchy, which makes vertical communications harder
  • The narrow span usually leads to restricted scope for initiative and experiment, the boss is always looking over your shoulder, this will alienate enterprising staff
44
Q

What is chain of command?

A
  • the reporting system from the top to the bottom of the hierarchy; the route through which information and orders are carried
  • the more levels in the hierarchy, the longer the chain of command and the bigger the gap between workers at the bottom and managers at the top
  • the longer the chain, the more chance there is of information becoming distorted
45
Q

What is delegation?

A
  • passing authority down the hierarchy
  • giving responsibility to junior managers or staff, empowering and motivating them
  • passing on dull or difficult tasks should not be confused with delegation
  • the attitudes of managers towards staff will influence delegation
  • delegation of power requires training, knowledge and confidence
46
Q

Define centralisation

A

decision making power remains in the hands of the top management

47
Q

Define decentralisation

A

decision making power is delegated to workers lower down the hierarchy away from the centre

48
Q

What is delayering?

A
  • removing a management layer from the organisational structure
49
Q

What are the advantages of delayering?

A
  • improve efficiency
  • improved communication
  • more responsibility
  • better motivation
  • reduced costs
50
Q

What are the disadvantages of delayering?

A
  • natural wastage
  • voluntary redundancies
  • demotivated
  • loss of knowledge
  • affects customer relationships
51
Q

What is matrix design/management?

A

where staff work in project teams in addition to their responsibilities within their own department. Staff can therefore be answerable to more than one boss.

52
Q

What are the advantages of the matrix design/management?

A
  • can help to break down traditional department barriers, improving communication across the entire organisations
  • can allow individuals to use particular skills within a variety of contexts
  • avoid the need for several departments to meet regularly, so reduces costs and improving conditions
  • likely to result in greater motivation amongst the team members
  • encourage cross fertilisation of ideas across departments
  • a good way of sharing resources across departments
53
Q

What are the disadvantages of the matrix design/management?

A
  • members of project teams may have divided loyalties as they report to two line managers
  • there may not be clear line of accountability for project teams given the complex nature of matrix structures
  • difficult to co ordinate
  • it takes time for matrix team members to get used to working in this kind of structure
  • team member may neglect their functional responsibilities

AQA A Level Business (3 decks)

Brainscape helps you reach your goals faster, through stronger study habits.
© 2024 Bold Learning Solutions. Terms and Conditions