BU354-Notes-Final - Lecture notes chapter 1 - 14 PDF

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Chapter 1: Strategic Human Resources Management What is Human Resources Management?         Organizations: bodies that bring people together in a co-ordinated manner to accomplish goals or objectives that couldn’t be accomplished individually2 Organizational Goals: goals of an organization t...

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Chapter 1: Strategic Human Resources Management What is Human Resources Management?  

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Organizations: bodies that bring people together in a co-ordinated manner to accomplish goals or objectives that couldn’t be accomplished individually2 Organizational Goals: goals of an organization that can be characterized as economic, social, and environmental o To achieve its goals, employees must engage in behaviour that move the organization towards those goals Human Resources Management: the leadership and management of people within an organization using methods and procedures that recruit, select, motivate and enable employees to achieve outcomes individually and collectively that enhance employees’ contribution to organizational goals o It is a means of structuring the organization to facilitate and enable it to achieve its goals Human resources management and human resource departments are different things o HRM is central to an organization, yet not all organizations have HR departments o HRM focuses on organizing HR systems, policies and procedures to create value by enabling employees to achieve individual goals o HR Department: specialized group with a focus of ensuring the most effective use of HR systems across an organization to enhance employee performance Strategy: involves large-scale, future-oriented, integrated plans to achieve organizational goals that respond to any uncertainty in the environment o Identifies how the organization creates value o Corporate strategy: involves the entire organization o Business strategy: involving a major activity, business or division o Functional strategy: involving managers or different activities, services Strategic HRM: process of integrating the strategic needs of an organization into our choice of HRM systems and practices to support the organization’s overall mission, strategies and performance o Value driven, proactive focus on how best to deploy HR practices and activities to enable an organization and its employees to achieve their goals Proactive HRM: decision makers anticipate problems or challenges both inside and outside the organization and take action Reactive HRM: decision makers respond to problems as they arise rather than anticipate them

Understanding the Strategic HRM Process: 1. The first integral part of identifying HR strategies is looking at the organizations mission o Mission Statement: states what activities the organization intends to pursue and what course is charted for the future  “Who we are, what we do, and where we’re headed” o Cost Leadership Strategy: aim to gain competitive advantage through lower cost of operations and lower prices (i.e. Wal-Mart) o Differentiation Strategy: aim to gain competitive advantage through creating a distinct product or offering a unique service o Focus Strategy: aim to gain a competitive advantage by focusing on the needs of a specific segment of the total market

 Focus on a specific target market and provide a low-price and distinct product 2. Through careful and continuous monitoring of external trends, effective HRM can identify environmental threats and opportunities o The major forces affecting companies and HRM today are: economic, technological, demographic, cultural and legal forces o Economic Forces: economic factors facing Canadian businesses today, including global trade forces and the force to increase one’s competitiveness and productivity levels o Technological Forces: the rapid growth of tech and access to high speed information has changed the way people work, study, play etc.  Provides great flexibility for work hours and locations  Knowledge Management: process of capturing organizational knowledge and making it available for sharing and building new knowledge  Mechanization: shift from working by hand to being completed by electronic devices o Demographic Forces: changes in the labour force, education levels, age levels and population characteristics  Shift from jobs in primary/extractive industries to service, technical and professional jobs  Knowledge workers: occupations generating, processing, analyzing or synthesizing ideas and information  Educational attainment: highest level of education attained by a worker, employee group or population  With an aging population, HR professionals will face an increasing trend of more people leaving the workforce than entering  There is also a generational shift, where Generation X employees place a premium on work-life balance, strong dislike for commanding cultures and prefer to play an active role in decision making o Cultural Forces: challenges facing a firm’s decision makers because of cultural differences among employees OR changes in core cultural/social values at the societal level  Canadian society is referred to as a cultural mosaic: society that encourages each ethnic, racial and social group to maintain its heritage  Greater demand for more ethical conduct in business (post-Enron, WorldComera) 3. After an external scan, it’s important to scan internally and analyze the character and culture of the organization o Organizational character: the product of all organization’s features (people, objectives, technology, size, age, policies etc.) o Organizational culture: core beliefs and attitudes that are shared among the members of an organization 4. When choosing and implementing an HR strategy, it should reflect the information collected and analyzed externally/internally and there should be a clear line of sight between the HR strategy and the organization’s missions & goals 5. In formulating an HR strategy, the HR department must focus on 5 major activities: o Planning HR: enables organization to determine the demand and supply of labour  Identifying any gaps in people or processes that need to be fulfilled  Choosing the appropriate HR practice to implement

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Attracting HR: recruiting and selecting workers  Recruitment: process of finding and attracting capable individuals to apply for employment and to get them to accept the job offer once it is made  Selection process: series of steps used to decide which recruits should be hired, and matching job requirements to capabilities Placing, Developing, & Evaluating HR: involves training the employees and ensuring that they are well prepared for their future responsibilities in their new job Motivating Employees: compensating employees for job well done, while also consistently improving internal work procedures and climate Maintaining High Performance: HR strategy that ensures productive contribution from every member at the maximum possible level Review, Evaluate & Audit HR Strategies: external and internal factors (i.e. technology, environment, internal procedures, role definitions) change constantly  All this change necessitates the regular review and evaluation of their appropriateness  HR Audit: examination of the HR policies, practices and systems of a firm to eliminate deficiencies and improve ways to achieve goals

The Organization of HRM:    

HR Departments exist to assist employees, managers and the organization Staff Authority: authority to advise, not direct (HR dept. in relation to other depts.) Line Authority: authority to make decisions about production, performance and people (manager of a dept. in relation to their own dept.) Functional Authority: gives the department the right to make decisions usually made by line managers or senior management o Allows staff experts to make decisions usually made by line managers

Chapter 2: Job Analysis and Design What is Job Analysis? 

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Job Analysis: systematic study of a job to discover its specifications, skill requirements and duties for wage setting, recruitment, training or job-design purposes o Jobs are core to every organizations productivity, if an organization’s jobs are not well designed => productivity suffers => profits fall o Without job analysis, specialists cannot identify the impact of environmental challenges or specific job requirements on employees’ quality of work life Job: group of related activities and duties Position: collection of tasks and responsibilities performed by an individual

Steps in the Job Analysis Process 

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Preparation for Job Analysis o Familiarization with the organization and its jobs: collect relevant and accurate information about the jobs to determine job success o Determine uses of job analysis information: used in the recruitment process, designing performance appraisal, compensation systems and training  Can also be done to ensure fair treatment across all employee groups  Identifying non-traditional career paths for employees o Identify jobs to be analyzed: jobs that are critical to the success of the organization, jobs that are difficult to learn/perform, jobs with constantly new hires, or jobs that exclude members of the protected classes  Not all jobs can be analyzed due to time and resource constraints Collection of Job Analysis Information o Determine sources of job data: the jobholder, supervisors, and colleagues provide the most valid information about the way the job was performed o Data collection instrument design: job analysis questionnaires are used most  Job analysis questionnaires: checklists that collect information about jobs in a uniform manner (i.e. info about duties, responsibilities, abilities and standards)  Job analysis questionnaires are popular because they present comparable information  Most standardized forms attempt to measure the following items: o Identification: includes job title, division, title of supervisor etc. Without these entries, users of job analysis data may rely on outdated information or apply information to the wrong job o Duties & Responsibilities: explains the purpose of the job, what it accomplishes and how its performed. The summary provides an overview of the duties and responsibilities of the position o Human Characteristics & Working Conditions: skills, abilities, training, education, experience and other characteristics jobholders need. Information about the job environment improves understanding of the job and can explain the need for certain skills. Knowledge of hazards or unsafe work environments, allows the HR department to redesign jobs to protect workers

Performance Standards: information about standards which are used to evaluate performance. Demonstrate to employees the quality of their performance, and whether they need improving  Popular standardized forms include: o Occupational Information Network (O*NET): generic questions for specific domains of information (abilities, work activities) that can be customized to organizational needs o Fleishman Job Analysis System (F-JAS): based on a list of 52 cognitive, psychomotor, physical and sensory abilities o Position Analysis Questionnaire (PAQ): aims to determine the degree to which 194 different task elements in 6 divisions (information input, mental processes, work output, relationships with others, job context with environment and other job characteristics) are involved in performing a job o Critical Incident Method (CIM): involves identifying and describing specific events (incidents) when an employee performed well and when they performed poorly to create a behaviour focused description of work and related performance standards o Choice of method for data collection: use interviews, focus groups, questionnaires, employee logs, observations or a combination  Interviews: approach to collecting job & performance-related information through a face-to-face meeting with standardized questions  Focus groups: face-to-face meeting with experts on a job and a facilitator to collect job & performance-related info o Jobholders may not disclose all information  Questionnaires  Employee log: diary where workers periodically summarize tasks/activities o They are time consuming, which makes them costly  Observation: collecting job & performance-related info through direct observation of jobholder by a specialist o One being observed may act different when they know that they are being watched o Language barriers may necessitate the observation approach  Combination: use of 2 or more job analysis techniques Use of Job Analysis Information o Information collected is put into usable forms such as job descriptions, job specifications, job standards and competency models o Job description: recognized list of functions, tasks, accountabilities, working conditions and competencies for a job or occupation  Job Identity: key parts of a job description, including job title, location and status o Job codes: numbers, letters or both used to provide a quick summary of a job and its content o National Occupational Classification (NOC): occupational classification created by the federal government, using skill level and skill types of jobs  Skill level: amount and type of education/training o

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 Skill type: type of work performed Job Summary & Duties: summarizes the job, what it is, how it’s done and why o Lists job responsibilities, or duties (what the job requires)  Working Conditions: facts about the situation in which the worker performs their duties (physical environment, hours, hazards etc.)  Approvals: job descriptions must be approved by supervisors to further check on the collection of job analysis information o Serves as a further test of the job description and a further check on the collection of job analysis information Job Specification: explains what a job demands of jobholders and the knowledge, skills, abilities and other characteristics (KSAO) required to do the job  Include experience, training, education, and physical/mental demands  Should include specific tools, actions, experiences, education, and training 

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Job Performance Standards 

Job Performance Standards: the work performance expected from an employee on a job o Provide workers with an objective/target for employee effort (motivation) o Become criteria against which job success is measured  i.e. if actual performance strays from standards, corrective action is taken

Competency Models 

Competency Models: list of competencies required for a job, with typical jobs defined with between 10-15 competencies o Competency: knowledge, skill, or ability associated with successful job performance o Competencies can contribute to success for multiple jobs o Competencies may vary in importance across job roles  Competency Matrix: list of the level of each competency required for several jobs o Competencies contribute to job performance & to the success of the organization  They support the vision, strategic direction and values of the firm

Job Design  

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Job Design: identification of job duties, characteristics, competencies, and sequences taking into consideration technology, workforce, organizational character and environment Organizational Considerations: each job should contribute to the organization’s objectives. To effectively do so, there must be focus on efficiency and workflow o Efficiency: achieving maximum output with minimum expenditure of time, effort or other resources o Work flow: sequence of and balance between jobs in an organization needed to produce the firm’s goods or services Ergonomic Considerations: focuses on how human beings physically interact with their work. The location of tools, switches, and the work product itself are evaluated and placed in a position for ease of use o “Fitting the task to the worker” o Can lead to a significant improvement in efficiency and productivity, and help maintain safe work environments Employee Considerations:

Job Characteristics Model: emphasizes the importance of autonomy, task identity, task significance, skill variety and feedback in a job design context o Job Specialization: to increase the quality of work life, HR departments use a combination of job rotation, job enlargement, job enrichment and employee involvement and work teams  Job Rotation: moving employees from one job to another to allow them more variety and to learn new skills  Job Enlargement: adding more related-tasks to a job to increase the job cycle and draw on a wider range of employee skills  Job Enrichment: adding more responsibilities and autonomy to a job, giving the worker greater powers to plan, do, and evaluate job performance  Employee Involvement and Work Teams: employee empowerment and selfmanaged and autonomous work teams are very effective  Employee empowerment: granting employees the power to initiate change and take charge of what they do  Job Families: groups of different jobs that are closely related by similar skills or job elements  Allow HR managers to plan job rotation programs and help make employee transfer decisions  HR department will look at job families to identify whether adjustments need to be made on a micro or macro level Environmental Considerations: influence of the external environment on job design, includes employee ability, availability and social expectations o Workforce availability: availability of individuals motivated to complete the work  In developing nations, jobs that are very complex cannot be completed due to most the workforce being uneducated  In developed nations, jobs that are too simple have a small available workforce present as well o Social Expectations: society’s expectations/values concerning job challenge, working conditions and quality of work life  Working conditions that would have been acceptable in the 80 -90s are no longer acceptable to present generations o Work Practices: set of ways of performing work in an organization  Methods can arise from tradition or from the collective wishes of employees o

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The Future of Jobs (a jobless world?):  

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In the future, employees will no longer be responsible for producing specific outcomes, rather they are members of teams entrusted with multiple responsibilities Adopt a future oriented style when describing job activities and specifications o What must the jobholder do to effectively carry out and further organizational strategies? Job analysis will continue to be relevant for legal compliance and defensibility

Chapter 3: HR Planning Why is HR Planning Important? 

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HR Planning: process used to determine future HR requirements by anticipating future business demands, analyzing the impacts of these demands on the organization, determining the current availability of HR, and making decisions on how to effectively acquire and utilize firms’ HR o Helps identify what HR are needed to ensure the organization can respond to change and provides plans to help the organization respond effectively o Main objective: ensure that the organization has the right people with the right skills at the right time  Equally as important to insert the right people in the right environment and enable and motivate them to do the right things The corporate strategy will largely influence the HR strategy that is implemented Adopting a strategic focus on HR enables managers to anticipate the long-term “people” needs of an organization and create an effective HR strategy o Organizational strategy defines HR objectives – which are properly implemented through a well-thought-out HR plan As organizations grow, they develop more robust planning practices (due to the significant impact of higher labor costs) There are 5 levels of Planning Activities: o Level 1: companies do not engage in any form of planning (business or HR-related)  Recruitment and training is an afterthought o Level 2: companies engage in some long-term business planning, but engage in minimal HR planning  Only focus on how many people will be needed, very minimal importance o Level 3: companies engage in moderate planning activities, creating longer-term forecasts, projecting their needs 3-5 years ahead  They do not integrate their HR planning efforts with LT business plans o Level 4 & 5: companies engage in long-range HR planni...