 Strategies in HR management

Leadership Style
 Refers to ways that managers communicate with their employees to inspire and
motivate them to work together to achieve an organisation’s goals 
 Considered to be along a spectrum from autocratic (management makes decision,
little staff input) to democratic or participative (management and staff work together
to make decisions)
 Auto - inflexibility can lead to decreased staff morale and autonomy but is suited to
businesses where there needs to be little consultation in decisions where workers are
highly organised/controlled
 Demo/participative - gives workers greater sense of ownership over final decisions
which = high job satisfaction and productivity, better addresses
motivation/conflict/relationship but may lead to issues w disengaged or inexperienced
workers
 Traits of styles of leadership:
o Directive - emphasis on immediate compliance from employees
o Visionary - emphasis on long term leadership and vision (gives clear direction
following changes)
o Affiliative - emphasis on relationships and workplace harmony
o Participative - democratic - emphasis on group consensus and generating
new ideas
o Pace setting - emphasis on accomplishments of tasks and high standards
(gets results from highly skilled/motivated team)
o Coaching - emphasis on professional growth of employees (helps employees
improve and develop long-term strengths)

Job design – General or specific tasks

 The number, kind and variety of tasks that a worker is expected to carry out in the
course of performing their job
 Specific tasks = scientific management approach and based on specialisation and is
an efficient process that often uses low-skilled, cheap labour
 General task = approach with a greater variety of task to be performed by workers,
sometimes referred as job enlargement (horizontal expansion of the job by adding
similar level responsibilities), this improves worker engagement, satisfaction and
ultimately productivity

Recruitment – internal or external, general or specific skills

 Internal - employees, former applicants invited through email, staff records,
promotion lists etc. Useful for attracting a staff member for the right 'cultural' fit
 External - employees obtained through traditional methods eg newspaper,online ads,
referrals through recruitment agencies
Internal recruitment External recruitment
Advantage o Motivational for staff  Wider applicant
o Builds commitment and loyalty pool
o Employees know culture,  New ideas,
operations – productivity perspectives and skills
maintained (little disruptions)  Get specific skills
o Recognises and rewards staff needed and save on
o Cheaper and less chance of training
failure
Disadvantag o Can lead to rivalry or negative  Disruptive and
e culture initial loss productivity
 o Little value add and no new skills  Employee may not
fit culture

 General skills = Include flexibility and versatility, social confidence, positive attitude,
motivation and the ability to work as a team and/or independently. Important because
many jobs require individuals to work independently and undertake many different
task
 Specific skills = highly specialised and are required for some jobs within science,
technology and engineering sectors. Needed when jobs are highly specific 
 Employee poaching is the practice of enticing employees to work for another
business

Training and development – Current or future skills

 Training = aims to develop skills knowledge and attitudes to lead to better
performance 
 Development = refers to enhancing the skills of the employee in line with the
changing and future needs of the organisation. 
 In choosing the nature of training and development a business needs to use a
systematic process to evaluate the needs of the business, the supply of these skills
in the economy, the demand of these skills and the changing nature of work and the
general pattern of employment

Performance management – Development or administrative 

 Addresses both individual and business performance and is a strategy which
involves evaluating and managing skills and abilities of employees to ensure the best
outcome are achieved for all in business. 
 Identifies opportunities for improvement, assess legal compliance, identifies training
and development needs and provides feedback and recognition
 Development = focuses on using data to develop the individual skills and abilites of
employees to improve their effectiveness in their roles, overcome weakness and are
prepared for promotion. Best done through year round feedback and shared
discussion (goal focused)
 Administrative = provides information used to plan HR functions such as training,
development, rewards, pay, benefits and performance improvement. The focus is on
collecting data to manage the HRM efficiently and ensure individuals and business
goals are aligned and met
Development Administrative
Benefit - plan to overcome gaps or - High productivity
s weaknesses found in performance  - Better financial performance
- shows the effectiveness of current - Identifies opportunities for mentoring
selection processes  and coaching
- identifies training/development or - Gives employee opportunity to
legal compliance needs provide feedback
- Evaluate rewards and benefit - Employee focus aligns with
programs organisational strategy - important in
- Communicates expectations, helps motivation and retention
build organisational trust
- Identifies, retain and motivates
talented staff for leadership/promo
succession

 Effective performance management involves:

 o Provide feedback to staff to assist w continued learning and improvement and
allows them to be recognised for their achievements
o Bus assess candidates for promotion and also give feedback to assist
planning for future needs
Rewards – monetary and non-monetary, individual or group, performance pay
 Strategy in attracting, motivating and retaining employees and can reinforce
strategies to facilitate change or support desirable corporate values
 Remuneration systems refers to both the financial and non-financial benefits 

 Individual rewards:
o All individuals in workplace are dependent on others and on efficient
workplace systems to achieve high-quality performance
 Group reward:
o Increasing use of group and team based structures have increased need for
cooperation and made it difficult to distinguish performance of individuals
within team so collaborative groups are kept small as no one wants to let
others down and increases productivity of all members
o Equitable, encourages all to do their best. However does not ensure all
members contribute and doesn’t promote individual development
o Gain sharing plans (group incentive schemes) - involves benefits of
improvements and success eg productivity, cost savings or increase
sales/profit reflected in rewards for teams eg group bonuses/shares/annual
bonuses - used to support team based culture
 Performance pay
o Remuneration based on distributing rewards according to individual employee
performance

Global – costs, skills, supply

 Globalisation, technological development and telecommunications has significantly
increased competition and the complexity of managing HR through issues such as
high domestic labour costs, a skills shortage and relatively small labour pool
 Some business outsource functions to lower labour cost countries or establish
subsidiaries off-shore to take advantage of the opportunity to reduce production costs
and gain access to new markets e.g. outsourcing to china
  Cost - where most efficient to produce goods. Eg. cheaper compliance costs (no
super, no min wage)
 Skill - where bus will have best access to necessary goods. Eg workforce in
particular region may be better able to manufacture specific goods eg textiles
 Supply - where bus will find adequate number of workers. More dense population of
workers means workers cannot charge as much so it is cheaper for bus to outsource
HR to decrease costs

Workplace disputes 
 Disputes: conflicts, disagreements or dissatisfaction between individuals and/or
groups.
 They are inevitable in workplace situations due to a conflicting interests with
stakeholders
 Disputes can be very costly to businesses at the time of the dispute, but also to its
reputation and to its employees
 Disputes may be:
o Informal: not formally noted or discussed
o formal: formally reporting
o overt: legal actions such as formal (and overt)
o covert: conflicts that are only recognised by the business itself.
 informal and covert are hidden and can peak informal overt consequences that
embellish the overall problem
 Workplace conflicts may also lead to other problems/costs in the workplace, such as:
o higher levels of absenteeism
o low productivity
o legal claims and high stage turnover
o remuneration: wages, allowances, entitlements
o job security
o employment conditions
 Industrial Disputes: a disagreement over an issue or group of issues between an
employer and its employees, which results in employees ceasing work.
 Strikes: refer to situations in which workers withdraw their labour
o Lightening strikes: occurs without an employer being notified
o General strikes: large number of workers in different industries going on strike
Simultaneously
o Political strikes: employees taking strike acton over political issues
 Lockouts: occur when employers close the entrance to a workplace and refuse
admission to the workers.
 Pickets: protests that take place outside the workplace, generally associated with a
strike.
 Unionists: stops the delivery of goods and try to stop the entry of non-union labour
into the workplace.
Resolution
 Negotiation: a method of resolving disputes when discussions between the parties
result in a compromise and a formal or informal agreement.
 Mediation: the confidential discussion of issues in a non-threatening environment in
the presence of a neutral, objective third party.
 Grievance procedures: formal procedures, generally written into an award or
agreement, that state agreed processes to resolve disputes in the workplace.
 Involvement of courts and tribunals
 Conciliation or arbitration:
o The Fair Work Commission has the power to resolve industrial disputes
through conciliation or arbitration. Orders are decisions that require
 employees or employers to carry out a direction from the tribunal. They may
be inserted in awards or agreements.
o Common law action: Common law action is open to any party involved in or
affected by industrial action.

Effectiveness of HR management
Indicators 
 Performance measures that are used to evaluate organismal or individual
effectiveness
 Can be compared to those of best practice businesses or internal divistions to
determine strengths and weaknesses (This is called Benchmarking)
 Indicators are gathered and collated in human resources audits which is a diagnostic
tool used to evaluate HR polices and performance and strategies are modified for
further organizational development 

Corporate culture
 The values, ideas, expectations and beliefs shared by members of the business
 Develop a cooperative and effective corpatrate culture and positive working
relationships by creating dedication, trained and motivated employees
 Indicators include:
o High staff turnover
o Poor customer service
o High levels of absenteeism
o Accidents
o Disputes and internal conflict
 Good workplace culture = 
o high quality relationships
o flexible and family friendly practices
o high levels of training/mentoring
o Culture trust (equality)
o Collaboration involving decision making
o Creative perks for things in health and training
o Pay more than basic rates
o Fun atmosphere 

Benchmarking key variables

 Purpose is to compare business performance in specific areas against other
business or divisions to initiate change and foster improvement
 Informal benchmarking = any strategies such as networking through informal
discussions with colleagues, undertaken visits to other businesses and attending
conferences
 Performance benchmarking = comparing the performance levels of a process/activity
with other businesses
 Best practice benchmarking = comparing performance levels with those of another
best practice in specific areas to gain skills and knowledge and modify organsiational
processes 
 Balanced scorecard benchmarking = measuring whether the activities of a business
are meeting its objectives established in the strategic plan
 The approach for benchmarking needs to be chosen for its suitability to the
business’s needs and resources as can be costly and time-consuming
 Most businesses do not rely solely on quantitative variables or sales per employee
but also consider qualitative info such as feedback
  Care needs to be taken as it may provide useful information about the business’s
human resources, but may focus excessively on costs rather than what is actually
being achieved or may be achieved. 
 Human resource audits used to systematically analyse and evaluate human resource
activities and their effectiveness. Can be performance in multiply ways: 
o comparison of bus divisions against each other or others in industry’s
o through external consultants who analyse problems and suggest solutions
o through ‘Management by objectives’ to determine areas of poor performance
against targets established
 Quantitative measures – demonstrate effect of indicators in economic terms
e.g. variances in labour budgets, time lost/cost of injuries and sickness,
percentage of goals achieved and levels of labour turnover
 Qualitative measures – detailed feedback and research on key issues which
allows judgments to be made about changes in behaviour of quality of service
provided. Measured through levels of absenteeism, analysis of industrial
disputes, feedback from performance appraisals, feedback from supervisors

Changes in staff turnover

 Refers to the separation of employees from an employer, both voluntary and
involuntary
 Varies greatly between industries it is therefore important for businesses to
benchmark their turnover against that of other businesses in the industry and
determine the type of staff leaving and their reasons
 High rates of staff turn over indicate issues with the HR function -  Inadequate
training? Rewards? Poor promotional opportunities? Unhealthy culture has
developed?
 The cost of high labour turnover is great because of payouts for entitlements, hiring,
inducting and training new staff and Productivity and service quality, corporate skills
and knowledge are lost – Lack of a focused workplace culture in such an
environment reduces employee commitment and loyalty

Absenteeism
 Refers to a worker who neglects to turn up for work when they were scheduled to do
so
 High levels of absenteeism and/or lateness may indicate that workers are dissatisfied
or that there is conflict within the workplace
 Unofficial expressions of conflict can be costly as firms need to have much higher
staffing levels to cope with high absentee levels 🡪 revenue is lost as work is
disrupted and can lead to lower productivity and higher labour costs
 Job satisfaction, poorly designed jobs and a lack of strong relationship between
employers and employees are common reasons for absenteeism

Accidents
 Number of accidents are measured
 Companies use the ‘lost-time Injury Frequency Rates’ (LTIFRs) to get a feel for how
many hours have been lost due to workplace injuries and compare to industry
benchmarks.
 High rates of accidents in a workplace may demonstrate that workplace culture does
not value safety or that training is not sufficient enough to protect workers while at
work.
 Accidents can also be expensive with both direct and indirect costs on the business
such as compensation claims, absenteeism, lost work time and replacements costs
for damaged equipment
Levels of disputation
 If there appears to be high levels of employee disputation, there should be careful
investigation to indicate whether the issues relate to policies and processes operating
within the business or to specific individuals who may need further training and
development or formal counselling
 Ongoing grievances are likely to be reflected in higher levels of staff turnover and/or
industry disputes
 Disputation may arise from managerial policy eg decisions of line managers,
organisational restructuring, discrimination, decisions that impact on work/family life
and changing work practices such as outsourcing or contractor
 Most common forms of indicators of disputes are:
o Work bans = refusal to work 
o Work to rule = refuse to perform any duties additional to their normal work
o Go Slow = employees work at slower rate
o Sabotage = vandalism and internal theft

Worker satisfaction
 A key factor in employee commitment, job performance and staff turnover
 Surveys are useful in allowing employers to measure and understand how their staff
feel about their work, management and culture of an organization
 Employees who have good relationship with coworkers enjoy their work activities,
receive relevant training and are more likely to be loyal towards the business
 Effective leadership is a major influence on employee satisfaction as it when
management is transparent, promotion is merit based and communication is
honest/respectful, employees feel recognized and encouraged to do their best within
a bus