Contents
Management Class for Learners is a free self-directed study support resource along with free Chat Lines, Discussion Forums and Wikis and Learner Support units, designed for business, management, IT, English Language, and research students and instructors intending to enhance their managerial or professional knowledge, understanding, skills and competence by open learning.
Apart from the web-based learning material, such as our adapted versions Wikipedia, on 'public domain' - used for a seamless integration of the module to the entire curriculum, for example, the International MBA - we have also used other web sites and our own or the material created or 'acquired' from our colleagues.
Whilst we unable to accept any responsibility for the accuracy, views or opinions expressed in any of the third party material featured on our sites, please feel free to use it, and let us know if you do not find what you need or have any problems in accessing any of the relevant links on our pages.
In keeping with the ethos of the Internet, we respect the copyrights of the original owners/authors of the sites or material we have used, we also expect our users to respect our copyright and all the third party intellectual property rights when using any material found on Management Class or Finntrack sites.
For further details on all our web-based resources go here.
Strategic Human Resource Management
Rationale
Human resource management (HRM, or simply HR) is the management of an organization's workforce, or human resources. It is responsible for the attraction, selection, training, assessment, and rewarding of employees, while also overseeing organisational leadership and culture, and ensuring compliance with employment and labour laws. In circumstances where employees desire and are legally authorized to hold a collective bargaining agreement, HR will typically also serve as the company's primary liaison with the employees' representatives (usually a labour union).
HR is a product of the human relations movement of the early 20th century, when researchers began documenting ways of creating business value through the strategic management of the workforce. The function was initially dominated by transactional work such as payroll and benefits administration, but due to globalization, company consolidation, technological advancement, and further research, HR now focuses on strategic initiatives like mergers and acquisitions, talent management, succession planning, industrial and labour relations, and diversity and inclusion.
Whereas in startup companies HR's duties may be performed by a handful of trained professionals or even by non-HR personnel, larger companies typically house an entire functional group dedicated to the discipline, with staff specialising in various HR tasks and functional leadership engaging in strategic decision making across the business. To train practitioners for the profession, institutions of higher education, professional associations, and companies themselves have created programs of study dedicated explicitly to the duties of the function. Academic and practitioner organizations likewise seek to engage and further the field of HR, as evidenced by several field-specific publications.
Sustainable Competitive Advantage (SCA) Competitive advantage is a concept in business competitive analysis that is very much like the legal definition of pornography, "I know it when I see it". Michael Porter posits that a competitive advantage, sustainable or not, exists when a company makes economic rents, that is, their earnings exceed their costs, especially including cost of capital. That means that normal competitive pressures are not able to drive down the firm's earnings to the point where they cover all costs and just provide minimum sufficient additional return to keep capital invested. Most forms of competitive advantage cannot be sustained for any length of time because the promise of economic rents drives competitors to duplicate the competitive advantage held by any one firm.
A firm possesses a Sustainable Competitive Advantage when it has value-creating processes and positions that cannot be duplicated or imitated by other firms that lead to the production of above normal rents. An SCA is different from a competitive advantage (CA) in that it provides a long-term advantage that is not easily replicated. But these above-normal rents can attract new entrants who drive down economic rents. A CA is a position a firm attains that lead to above-normal rents or a superior financial performance. The processes and positions that engender such a position is not necessarily non-duplicable or inimitable. It is possible for some companies to make profits for a time above the cost of capital without sustainable competitive advantage.
A key difference between CA and SCA is that the processes and positions a firm may hold are non-duplicable and inimitable when a firm possesses a SCA. Hence a sustainable competitive advantage is one that can be maintained for a significant amount of time even in the presence of competition. This brings us to the question what is a "significant amount of time". A CA becomes SCA when all duplication and imitation efforts have ceased and the rival firms have not been able to create the same value that the said firm is creating.
Analysis of the factors of profitability is the subject of numerous theories of strategy including the five forces model pioneered by Michael Porter of the Harvard Business School.
In marketing and strategic management, sustainable competitive advantage is an advantage that one firm has relative to competing firms. The source of the advantage can be something the company does that is distinctive and difficult to replicate, also known as a core competency - for example Procter & Gamble's ability to derive superior consumer insights and implement them in managing its brand portfolio. It can also be an asset such as a brand (e.g. Coca Cola) or a patent, such as Viagra. It can also simply be a result of the industry's cost structure - for example, the large fixed costs that tend to create natural monopolies in utility industries. To be sustainable, the advantage must be:
- distinctive, and
- proprietary
See also
Learning Objectives and Outcomes
This is a non-taught unit designed for self-directed study by those planning to start or grow their own business.
Knowledge
After completing the module, student will:
1. The HR role in formulating business and human resource strategies
2. Understand theories, practices and regulations affecting human resource management processes
3. Consider the role of company culture in building and supporting adaptable organisations
4. Understand the role of diversity at workplace and its positive effects on productivity
Skills
After completing the module, student will be able to:
1. Align the human resource functions to the organisation's business objectives.
2. Participate in the planning of a human resource management strategy for and organisation
3. Implement an integrated human resource strategy that manages change successfully
Today's Videos
- Connect with us on http://www.youtube.com/finntrack
- Google's Playlists
Teaching and Learning Resources
The Human Resource Environment
- Theories, Issues and Influences in Human Resource Management
- Strategic Human Resource Management
- The Legal Environment: Equal Employment Opportunity and Safety
- Management in a Diverse Workplace
- Job Requirements in a Changing Workplace
- The Analysis and Design of Work
Change management is a structured approach to shifting/transitioning individuals, teams, and organizations from a current state to a desired future state. It is an organisational process aimed at helping employees to accept and embrace changes in their current business environment. In project management, change management refers to a project management process where changes to a project are formally introduced and approved.[1]
Kotter [2] defines change management as the utilization of basic structures and tools to control any organisational change effort. Change management's goals is to minimize the change impacts on workers and avoid distractions.
Strategic Human resources planning is a process that identifies current and future human resources needs for an organization to achieve it goals. Human resources planning should serve as a link between human resources management and the overall strategic plan of an organization. Aging worker populations in most western countries and growing demands for qualified workers in developing economies have underscored the importance of effective Human Resources Planning.
- Best Practices
- Implementation Stages
- Overarching Policy, Process & Tools
- Process Implementation Stages
External links
The term Equal Opportunity Employment was created by President Lyndon Baines Johnson when he signed Executive Order 11246 which was created to prohibit federal contractors from discriminating against employees on the basis of race, sex, creed, religion, colour, or national origin.
The Executive Order also required contractors to implement affirmative action plans to increase the participation of minorities and women in the workplace. Pursuant to federal regulations, affirmative action plans must consist of an equal opportunity policy statement, an analysis of the current work force, identification of problem areas, the establishment of goals and timetables for increasing employment opportunities, specific action-oriented programs to address problem areas, support for community action programs, and the establishment of an internal audit and reporting system. See also |
 |
Job Analysis refers to various methodologies for analysing the requirements of a job.
In organisational development (OD), Work Design is the application of Socio-Technical Systems principles and techniques to the humanization of work.
The aims of work design:
1. Improved job satisfaction
Job Enrichment in organisational development, human resources management, and organisational behaviour, is the process of improving work processes and environments so they are more satisfying for employees. Many jobs are monotonous and unrewarding. Workers can feel dissatisfied in their position due to a lack of a challenge, repetitive procedures, or an over-controlled authority structure. Job enrichment tries to eliminate these dysfunctional elements, and bring better performance to the workplace.
Job enrichment, as a managerial activity includes a three steps technique:
Turn employees' effort into performance:
1. Ensuring that objectives are well-defined and understood by everyone. The overall corporate mission statement should be communicated to all. Individual's goals should also be clear. Each employee should know exactly how she fits into the overall process and be aware of how important her contributions are to the organization and its customers.
2, Providing adequate resources for each employee to perform well. This includes support functions like information technology, communication technology, and personnel training and development.
3. Creating a supportive corporate culture. This includes peer support networks, supportive management, and removing elements that foster mistrust and politicking.
4. Free flow of information. Eliminate secrecy.
5. Provide enough freedom to facilitate job excellence. Encourage and reward employee initiative. Flextime or compressed hours could be offered.
6. Provide adequate recognition, appreciation, and other motivators.
7. Provide skill improvement opportunities. This could include paid education at universities or on the job training.
8. Provide job variety. This can be done by job sharing or job rotation programmes.
It may be necessary to re-engineer the job process. This could involve redesigning the physical facility, redesign processes, change technologies, simplification of procedures, elimination of repetitiveness, redesigning authority structures.
Link employees performance directly to reward:
- Clear definition of the reward is a must
- Explanation of the link between performance and reward is important
- Make sure the employee gets the right reward if performs well
- If reward is not given, explanation is needed
Make sure the employee wants the reward. How to find out?
- Ask them
- Use surveys( checklist, listing, questions
2. Improved through-put In economics, productivity is the amount of output created (in terms of goods produced or services rendered) per unit input used. For instance, labour productivity is typically measured as output per worker or output per labour-hour. With respect to land, the "yield" is equivalent to "land productivity".
Productivity and Costs – Bureau of Labour Statistics United States Department of Labour: contains international comparisons of productivity rates, historical and present Groningen Growth and Development Centre University of Groningencontains international comparisons of productivity per capita, per person employed and per hour for a large number of countries. |
 |
3. Improved quality
Six Sigma is a methodology to manage process variations that cause defects, defined as unacceptable deviation from the mean or target; and to systematically work towards managing variation to eliminate those defects[1]. The objective of Six Sigma is to deliver high performance, reliability, and value to the end customer. It was pioneered by Bill Smith at Motorola in 1986[2] and was originally defined[3] as a metric for measuring defects and improving quality; and a methodology to reduce defect levels below Defects Per (one) Million Opportunities (DPMO), or put another way, a methodology of controlling a process to the point of ± six sigma (standard deviations) from a centerline. Six Sigma has now grown beyond defect control.
Six Sigma is a registered service mark and trademark of Motorola, Inc[4]. Motorola has reported over US$17 billion in savings[5] from Six Sigma to date.
- Application and success
- Methodology
- Roles required for implementation
- Examples of some key tools used
- Criticisms of Six Sigma
- References
- Design for Six Sigma
- Process Improvement
- Business Process
- Business Process Improvement
- Business Process Improvement Pattern
- Lean manufacturing
- Statistical Process Control
- External links
4. Reduced employee problems, e.g., grievances, absenteeism
Presenteeism is the opposite of absenteeism. In contrast to absenteeism, when employees are absent from work illegitimately, presenteeism discusses the problems faced when employees come to work in spite of illness, which can have similar negative repercussions on business performance.
It can also refer to the expectation of employers for their employees to be present at work regardless of whether any work is available or accomplished.
Workplace Fairness is a public education and advocacy organization, originally founded in 1994 as the National Employee Rights Institute.
Workplace Fairness states its mission as follows: "Our goals are that workers and their advocates are educated about workplace rights and options for resolving workplace problems, and that the policy makers, members of the business community, and the public at large view the fair treatment of workers as both good business practice and sound public policy. "
Workplace Fairness is known for its web pages about job rights. PC Magazine named it as one of the 100 websites you can't live without. The web site has articles on dozens of employment law issues including overtime, discrimination, retaliation, privacy and whistleblower rights.
"Today's Workplace: It's Everybody's Job" is a blog by Paula Brantner, Workplace Fairness's Program Director. It features daily updates on employee rights and fairness issues. Forbes Magazine listed it as one of the "Best of the Web" in 2005.
Workplace Fairness publishes books on employee rights, the rights of federal employees in the United States, and the Employee Rights and Employment Policy Journal.
Workplace Fairness also provides information about workplace-related issues and the ability to respond to action alerts. Free daily and weekly electronic mailing lists provide the public with the latest news about employee organizing, legal developments in employment law, and trends in the labour market.
External links
- Workplace Fairness history page
- Today's Workplace: It's Everybody's Job (the Workplace Fairness blog)
- Workplace Fairness Your Rights portal
- Workplace Fairness Action Centre
- PC Magazine list of 100 web sites you can't live without
- Your Rights in the Workplace
- Federal Employees Legal Survival Guide
- Employee Rights and Employment Policy Journal
- E-Newsletter subscription page
Acquisition and Preparation of Human Resources
Tutorials
- Human Resource Planning and Recruitment
- Human Resource Planning
- Recruitment Strategies
- Selection and Placement
- Employee Selection
- Training
Readings
Recruitment refers to the process of attracting, screening, and selecting qualified people for a job at an organization or firm. For some components of the recruitment process, mid- and large-size organizations often retain professional recruiters or outsource some of the process to recruitment agencies.
The recruitment industry has five main types of agencies: employment agencies, recruitment websites and job search engines, "headhunters" for executive and professional recruitment, niche agencies which specialize in a particular area of staffing, or employer branding strategy and in-house recruitment. The stages in recruitment include sourcing candidates by advertising or other methods, and screening and selecting potential candidates using tests or interviews.
|
|
 |
Personnel Selection is the process used to identify and hire individuals or groups of individuals to fill vacancies within an organization. Often based on an initial job analysis, the ultimate goal of personnel selection is to ensure an adequate return on investment - in other words, to make sure the productivity of the new hire warrants the costs spent on recruiting and training that hire.
Several screening methods exist that may be used in personnel selection. Examples include the use of minimum or desired qualifications, resume/application review, scored biodata instruments, oral interviews, work performance measures (e.g., writing samples), psychological tests (e.g., cognitive ability or personality) and traditional tests (e.g., of job knowledge).
The field of personnel selection has a long history and is associated with several fields of research and application, including human resources and industrial psychology. There are also many professional organizations (e.g, The Society for Industrial and Organisational Psychology) associated with the study of personnel selection, as well as specialized degrees offered by educational institutions.
The Canadian Forces has a Personnel Selection Branch to effectively assess, acquire, integrate, and maintain personnel for operational and support roles.
External links
- RADS Group HR Consulting group
- MacKay Edge HR Consulting group
- Ivy IQ Test HR test
- HR Professor Right Job for the Right Man at the Right Time: An HR Myth
Assessment and Development of HR
Tutorials
- Performance Management
- Training, Developing and Educating Employees
- Employee Development
- Employee Separation and Retention
A performance appraisal, employee appraisal, performance review, or (career) development discussion[1] is a method by which the job performance of an employee is evaluated (generally in terms of quality, quantity, cost, and time) typically by the corresponding manager or supervisor.[2] A performance appraisal is a part of guiding and managing career development. It is the process of obtaining, analysing, and recording information about the relative worth of an employee to the organization. Performance appraisal is an analysis of an employee's recent successes and failures, personal strengths and weaknesses, and suitability for promotion or further training. It is also the judgement of an employee's performance in a job based on considerations other than productivity alone.
One phase of the annual performance management cycle is Performance Appraisal, the process of reviewing employee performance, setting new performance objectives, documenting the review, and delivering the review verbally in a face-to-face meeting. Performance appraisal has been around for hundreds of years, as it is only human nature to evaluate fellow colleagues.
Performance appraisals are also effective and useful during the beginning period of employment at set intervals or when an employee changes job duties. Suggested time periods include three and six month appraisals during this time the employee is learning the expectations of the job and the company.
Annual performance reviews are typically intended to:
- give feedback on performance
- set new performance objectives
- justify personnel decisions such as salary actions
Good performance management assumes that the performance appraisal does not introduce new ideas to the employee. Effective management requires timely feedback to an employee - not 9 months after an event occurs. A performance appraisal should be a recap of the time period for which the review is based.
Although performance appraisal can highlight the above issues for an organisation, it can also be viewed by employees as something that may harm their position or job security. Therefore a distrustful and adverse relationship may form between manager and employee which could be detrimental to the overall performance of the organisation.
See also appraisal.
Compensation of Human Resources
Tutorials
- Pay Structure Decisions
- Strategic Remuneration Management
- Recognizing Employee Contributions with Pay
- Employee Benefits
Readings
Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. In a commercial setting, the employer conceives of a productive activity, generally with the intention of creating profits, and the employee contributes labour to the enterprise, usually in return for payment of wages.
Employment also exists in the public, non-profit and household sectors.
In the United States, the "standard" employment contract is considered to be at-will meaning that the employer and employee are both free to terminate the employment at any time and for any cause, or for no cause at all. However, if a termination of employment by the employer is deemed unjust by the employee, there can be legal recourse to challenge such a termination. In unionised work environments in particular, employees who are receiving discipline, up to and including termination of employment can ask for assistance by their shop steward to advocate on behalf of the employee. If an informal negotiation between the shop steward and the company does not resolve the issue, the shop steward may file a grievance, which can result in a resolution within the company, or mediation or arbitration, which are typically funded equally both by the union and the company. In non-union work environments, in the United States, unjust termination complaints can be brought to the United States Department of Labour In the Canadian province of Ontario, formal complaints can be brought to the Ministry of Labour (Ontario). In the province of Quebec, grievances can be filed with the Commission des norms du travail.
To the extent that employment or the economic equivalent is not universal, unemployment exists.
Employment is almost universal in capitalist societies. Opponents of capitalism such as Marxists oppose the capitalist employment system, considering it to be unfair that the people who contribute the majority of work to an organization do not receive a proportionate share of the profit. However, the surrealist and the situationist movements were among the few groups to actually oppose work, and during the partially surrealist-influenced events of May 1968 the walls of the Sorbonne were covered with anti-work graffiti.
Labourers often talk of "getting a job", or "having a job". This conceptual metaphor of a "job" as a possession has led to its use in slogans such as "money for jobs, not bombs". Similar conceptions are that of "land" as a possession (real estate) or intellectual rights as a possession (intellectual property). The Online Etymology Dictionary explains that the origin of "job" is from the obsolete phrase "jobbe of work" in the sense of "piece of work", and most dictionaries list the Middle English "gobbe" meaning "lump" (gob) as the origin of "jobbe". Attempts to link the word to the biblical character Job seem to be folk etymology.
A salary is a form of periodic payment from an employer to an employee, which is specified in an employment contract.
From
the point of view of running a business,
salary can also be viewed as the cost of acquiring human
resources for running
operations,
and is then termed personnel
expense or salary
expense. In accounting, salaries are recorded in payroll accounts.
|
|
 |
Accounting, IT and Health & Safety Issues in HRM
Tutorials
- Human resource information management systems
- Career Development
- Managing Occupational Health and Safety
- Accounting for human resource management
Readings
A Human Resource Management System (HRMS, EHRMS), Human Resource Information System (HRIS), HR Technology or also called HR modules, or simply "Payroll", refers to the systems and processes at the intersection between human resource management (HRM) and information technology. It merges HRM as a discipline and in particular its basic HR activities and processes with the information technology field, whereas the programming of data processing systems evolved into standardized routines and packages of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. On the whole, these ERP systems have their origin on software that integrates information from different applications into one universal database. The linkage of its financial and human resource modules through one database is the most important distinction to the individually and proprietary developed predecessors, which makes this software application both rigid and flexible.
See also
Occupational health and safety is a cross-disciplinary area concerned with protecting the safety, health and welfare of people engaged in work or employment. The goal of all occupational health and safety programs is to foster a safe work environment.[1] As a secondary effect, it may also protect co-workers, family members, employers, customers, suppliers, nearby communities, and other members of the public who are impacted by the workplace environment. It may involve interactions among many subject areas, including occupational medicine, occupational (or industrial) hygiene, public
health, safety engineering, chemistry, health physics.
Special Topics in Human Resources
Tutorials
- Unions and Collective Bargaining
- Collective Bargaining and Labour Relations
- International Human Resource Management
- Managing Human Resources Globally
- Strategically Managing the HR Function
Readings
A Collective agreement is a labour contract between an employer and one or more labour unions.
Collective Bargaining consists of the process of negotiation between representatives of a union and employers (represented by management, in some countries by employers' organization) in respect of the terms and conditions of employment of employees, such as wages, hours of work, working conditions and grievance-procedures, and about the rights and responsibilities of trade unions. The parties often refer to the result of the negotiation as a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) or as a Collective Employment Agreement (CEA).
Recommended Texts
 |
Human Resource Management: Gaining a Competitive Advantage Raymond
A. Noe, Ohio State University Check the availability and buy your books from our Bookshop.
|
 |
Strategic
Human Resource Management Check
the availability and buy your books from our Bookshop. |
Resources
