Week 1-5 Flashcards
What is a psychological contract? And how does it get settled?
It is being set between the selection and training = Just before the new employee start working.
It is important for how the work will be, but it is not written.
Based largely on expectations. Both from future employee and from the company.
- What are there mutual obligations towards each other
- Management of expectations!
Important to set right expectations when posting the jobposition.
Issues happening later on can often be traced back to different expectations when the psychological contract was made.
*This contract is in ongoing transaction –> problems
The contract can be seen as a mediating factor, translating HRM policies and practices into individual performance on a day-to-day basis.
Three key elements:
- an employee’s sense of fairness in the way they are treated by employer
- the degree of trust they have in that employer
- belief that the employer will deliver on the implicit deal between them
Clear communication between employer and employee - explaining the rationale behind managerial actions, so employees can voice their opinion.
Can be useful to see if people leave the organization because it is overselling themselves.
Two definitions of HRM
- ‘HRM includes anything and everything associated with the management of employment relationships in the firm’ (Boxall and Purcell, 2003: 1)
- A specific ‘recipe’ (Storey, 2007: 7) for the management of people:
- Distinct to traditional ‘personnel management’ practices
- ‘High commitment’ or ‘high performance’ HRM
They can go hand in hand.
What are the central concerns of HRM? (the purpose)
To ensure that:
* HRM philosophies, policies and practices are supportive of wider organizational strategy
- The organisation has the right calibre or quality of employee to operationalize this strategy … through the adoption of appropriate techniques for selection and recruitment, appraisal, development and promotion
- Line managers are committed to executing these HRM policies and practices
- Employment systems are flexible enough to allow adequate adaptation to changing organizational context
What characterize a Hard HRM strategy?
Focus on the resource element in the management of labour. - the instrumental use of labour to meet business objectives.
Unitarist: the needs and interests of organization and individual is one and the same.
Associated with intensive working, low pay, low levels of job security and low level of employee commitment
‘Calculative HRM’
What characterize a Soft HRM strategy?
‘High commitment’ or ‘high performance’ HRM is associated with soft HRM.
key words: Satisfaction, human capital, well rewarded, teamwork, High employee loyalty,
Employer-employee relationship based on mutual trust. Employee participation (EP) and involvement in decision-making.
Pluralist: open for different needs for organisation and individual.
‘Collaborative HRM’
Soft practices can be used in an instrumental manner (a hard HRM setting).
Ethics and HRM: what to consider?
Ethics of prioritizing business needs over employee welfare - connected to hard and soft HRM
In soft HRM: ‘willing slaves’ employees live out the brand values that the managers and senior executives have generated.
The notion ‘human resource’ imply that employees simply are a factor of production
A company can have a ‘code of ethics’ where the employee can be aware of rules. It is a common source in an organization
- Statement of values adopted by: Company, Its employees, and Directors
- Sets official tone of top management regarding expected behavior
- Establishes rules by which organization operates
- Becomes part of organization’s corporate culture
What is CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility)?
CSR: Implied, enforced, or felt obligation of managers, acting in their official capacities, to serve or protect interests of groups other than themselves
Corporation behaves as if it has a conscience
6 parametres for: Choices in HRM Strategy Formation
• Control or commitment? • ‘Process’ or ‘outcome’? • ‘Hard’ or ‘soft’? ○ Collaborative or calculative • ‘Make’ or ‘buy’? • Stakeholders? • Unitarist or pluralist? ○ the needs and interests of organization and individual is one and the same or open for different needs for organization and individual.
What is ‘best practice HRM’? (a HR strategy)
Development of employees knowledge, skills and competencies through effective recruitment, selection and investment in training, motivating and generating desired employee behavior through financial and non-financial rewards.
The desire is to generate universally desirable organizational and employee outcomes.
key role in generating sustained competitive advantage.
What is ‘best fit’? (a HR strategy)
HR should be linked to the formulation and implementation of strategic corporate and/or business objectives.
A match between HR and business strategy. - HR practices and policies are strategically integrated with each other and with the goals of the organization.
This strategy require ‘needed role behaviours’ (e.g. teamworking, knowledge-sharing, risk-taking)
Matching employee behaviours with the company’s mission, values and goals.
* There is a need for understanding the behaviours and actions necessary to accomplish the goals.
Vertical integration (external fit): HR strategy aligned with competitive strategy and organization’s stage of development and context.
Horizontal integration (internal fit):Ensure that individual HR practices and policies are designed to fit with and support each other as a coherent set.
Explain the importance of a job description and its role
Be clear about what you need in the job description, to make sure you get candidates you want.
Job Identification – Job title, department, reporting relationship, and job number or code
Job Analysis Date – Aids in identifying job changes that make description obsolete
Job Summary – Concise overview of job
Duties Performed – Major duties of job
Legal Considerations: you are responsible for what you ask for in the description - E.g. If you ask for a person with skill in finance but instead hire a person with skills in technology and a high ranked person with finance skills asks for an explanation, you will loose the case.
5 different methods for recruitment. Where to find the person?
Could be a webside – adverticement from Intel ex.
Outsourse the recruitment to an angency, and make a profile together.
Making adds in a magazine (ex. The economist)
Useing people you know: clever employees know other clever people, and probably someone who would fit the job position.
Social networking sites: LinkdIn
Explain typical selection methods and the process
The Classic Trio:
- Application forms
- Interviewing
- References
The process:
* A process of rejection a lot of people, so it is very important to think about how you treat the persons rejected.
* Recruited individual –> preliminary screening –> review of applications and resumés –> selection tests –> employment interviews (candidates are assumed to be qualified) –> pre-employment screening: background and reference checks –> selection decision –> offer of employment.
And in every step some people are rejected.
What is important to remember in an employment interview?
Goal-oriented conversation where interviewer and applicant exchange information
Continues to be primary method used to evaluate applicants
At this point, candidates assumed to be qualified
Seek additional job-related information and examples of past job-related behaviors: *Occupational experience *Academic achievement *Interpersonal skills *Personal qualities Provide information about: * Company * Job * Expectations
Important to ask candidates the some questions.
Potential problems:
- Inappropriate questions
- Permitting non-job-related information
- Premature judgment
- Interview illusion
- Interviewer domination
- Contrast effect
- Lack of training
- Nonverbal communication
- Halo effect: pre-judgements that shouldn’t be there! Could be that a person is exactly like the interviewer.
Learnings from the case ‘Recruitment of a star’
Up-and-comer
Developing their own stars
Cultural fit - e.g. teamwork is valued.
