Managing Human Resources

HR management
Human resources management (HRM)
An organization & its human resources
 The quality of an organization is the sum of the quality of people it hires and keeps
 Getting and keeping competent employees is critical to the success of every organization
Human resource management (finding the right people)
 With the organization’s structure in place, managers have to:
 Find people to fill the jobs that have been created or
 Remove people from jobs if business circumstances require it
That’s where human resource management (HRM) comes in
 It involves having the right number of the right people in the right place at the right time
Why is this important & what is the process managers use to do this?—process, tools &
techniques (have to have the knowledge & skills)
Why HRM is important?
HRM is important for three reasons:
1. Significant source of competitive advantage
 Managers must change how they think about their employees. Treat them as partners,
not as costs to be minimized or avoided
 The Human Capital Index, a comprehensive study of more than 2000 global firms,
concluded that people-oriented HR gives an organization an edge by creating superior
shareholder value
2. HRM is an important part of organizational strategies
3. The way organizations treat their people impacts organizational performance significantly
 The common thread among High-performance work practices seems to be, among
others:
 Commitment to involving employees
 Improving the knowledge, skills, and abilities of an organization’s employees
 Enhancing the retention of quality employees while encouraging low performers
to leave
 High-performance work practices: work practices that lead to both high individual and
high organizational performance
 Self-managed teams
 Decentralized decision making
 Training programs to develop knowledge, skills, and abilities
 Flexible job assignments
 Open communication
 Performance-based compensation
 Staffing based on person-job and person-organization fit
 Extensive employee involvement
 Giving employees more control over decision making
 Increasing employee access to information
Human resources knowledge for non-human resource managers
Non HR managers
Must know that employment relationship (contract) is governed by:
 Federal legislation
 Provincial legislation
 Company policies
 Be aware of basic HR principles and practices
Human Resources Management process
 HRM requires that specific activities be completed in order to ensure that the organization
has qualified people
 These activities compose the human resource management process
 Human resource management process: process that involves activities necessary for staffing
the organizing and sustaining high employee performance
 Activities in the HR process (identify/select—train/develop—retain)

 There are eight activities in this process

 The first three activities ensure that competent employee are identified and selected
 The next two involve providing employees with up-to-date knowledge and skills
 The final three ensure that the organization retains competent and high-performing
employees
External factors that affect the HRM process
 The entire HRM process is influenced by the external environment
 Those factors most directly influencing it include: the economy, employee labor unions,
governmental laws and regulations, demographic trends
a) The economy’s effect on HRM
 The ‘great recession’ has left an enduring mark on HRM practices worldwide
 Lifetime employment gone-corporate pension plans crumbling
 High unemployment rates
 Reduced work hours, which affect pay and skill upgrades
 Many jobs are temporary or contract positions
  These have fundamentally altered the way employees view their work and
leaders…workers have dramatically lowered their career and retirement
expectations for the foreseeable future
 These have profound implications for how an organization manages its human
resources
b) Labor unions
 An organization that represents employees and seeks to protect their interests
through collective bargaining
 Through bargaining, it tries to improve and have greater control over:
 Pau/benefits/working conditions
 The rules and procedures covering issues such as promotions, layoffs,
transfers, and outsourcing
 In unionized organization, many HRM decisions are regulated by the terms of a
collective agreement
 Collective agreement—a contractual agreement between an organization and a
union, covering wage, hours, and working conditions, hiring, promotions, and
layoffs, training eligibility, and disciplinary practices
c) Legislation affecting working conditions

 The Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982)

 The right to live and seek employment anywhere in Canada
 Equality rights
 The Canadian Human Rights Act (1977)
 An Act to extend the laws in Canada that proscribe discrimination
 The prohibited grounds of discrimination are race, national, or ethnic origin
color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression,
marital status, family status, genetic characteristics, disability and conviction
for an offence for which a pardon has been granted or in respect of which a
 record suspension has been ordered
 Canada Labor Code
 Part I—Industrial Relations (unions)
 Part II—Occupational Health and Safety
 Part III—employment standards legislation
 Minimum wage, overtime pay, vacation, termination pay, etc.
 Part I of the Canada labor code covers employment by the federal
government and Crown corporations and establishes the right of employees
to join labor unions if they desire
 The provinces and territories have similar legislation to cove workplaces
within their areas
 This legislation provides: a general framework for fair negotiations between
management and labor unions; provides guidelines to make sure that labor
disputes do not unduly inconvenience the public
d) Occupational health and safety
 Part II of Canada Labor Code legislation outlines the health and safety obligations
of federal employers to prevent accidents and injury to their employees
 This legislation is called the Occupational Health and Safety Act
 Each province and territory has health and safety regulations for non-federal
workplaces in its region
 There is separate legislation (Federal & Provincial) covering workplace hazards
(Hazardous Products Act):
 The Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System (WHMIS) is a
comprehensive plan for providing information on the safe use of potentially
hazardous materials in the workplace
e) Anti-Discrimination legislation
 The Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Canadian Human Rights Act & the
Employment Equity Act
 Require employers to ensure that equal employment opportunities exist for
job applicants and current employees
 The Employment Equity Act creates four ‘protected categories’
 Women
 Aboriginal people
 People with disabilities
 Visible minorities
 These groups must not be discriminated against by federally regulated employers
and all employers who receive federal contracts
f) Pay equity legislation
 The Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA) also covers discrimination in pay, under its
pay equity guidelines
 Pay equity: it is discriminatory practice for an employer to establish or
maintain differences in wages between male and female employees
employed in the same establishment who are performing work of equal value
 While it is not always easy to determine what ‘work of equal value’ means, the
 Equal Wages Guidelines of 1986 helps employers sort this out
 Skill, effort, responsibility, working conditions
g) Demographic trends
 Predicted: by 2036, 24.5% of the total population 65 or older
 Exit of current knowledge base will require the transition of organizational
knowledge to the next generation
 These and other demographic trends:
 A more educated workforce
 More women working outside the home
 Are important because of the impact they’re having on current and future
HRM practices
 With Millennials (1978 to 1994) now in the workforce, three generations are
working side by side in the workplace:
 The baby boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964 (make up 31 percent
of the workforce
 Gen Xers (those born 1965 to 1977) make up almost 31 percent of the
workforce
 Millennials (those born 1978 to 1994) make up almost 35 percent of the
workforce
Identifying and selecting competent employees
 Every organization needs people
How can they get competent, talented people?
 This first phase of HRM process involves three tasks: HR planning, Recruitment/Decruitment,
and selection
 Meet future human resource needs
 Future HR needs are determined by the organization’s mission, goals, and strategies
 Demand for employees is a result of demand for the organization’s products or services
 One the basis of its estimate of total revenue, managers can attempt to establish the
number and mix of employees needed to reach that revenue
 After assessing both current capabilities and future needs, managers can estimate
areas in which the organization will be understaffed or overstaffed
 Then they are ready to proceed to the next step in the HRM process
Human Resources planning
 Human resource planning is the process by which managers ensure that they have:
 Right number and kinds of people
 In the right places and at the right times
 Through HRP organizations can avoid sudden latent shortages and surpluses
 Human resource planning can be condensed into two steps:
 Assessing current human resources
 Assessing future HR needs
 HR planning works together with general management planning to make sure that the goals
of the organization can be met
 Expansion—HR needs to determine how to recruit more people
 Downsizing—HR determined how to lay off people in an efficient manner
  Introduce new technology—HR should exam the training needs required to make sure
the introduction of new technology will go smoothly
Assessing current human resources
 Managers begin HR planning by inventorying current employees
 HR Management Information Systems (HRMIS)
 Tracks employee information for policy and strategic needs
 Inventory usually includes information such as name, education, training, prior
employment, languages spoken, special capabilities, and specialized skills
 HR planning helps managers identify the people they need
 An important part of a current assessment is job analysis (JA), an assessment that
defines jobs and the behaviors necessary to perform them
 Requires conducting interview, engaging in direct observation, and collecting the
self-reports of employees and their managers
 Using this information from JA managers develop or revise job descriptions and job
specifications
 Job specification: a statement of the minimum qualifications that a person must
possess to perform a given job successfully
 It identifies the human traits, knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to do the job
effectively
 A job description is a written statement of what a job-holder does, how it is done, and
why it is done. It typically describes job content, environment, and conditions of
employment
 The job description and the job specification are both important documents that aid
managers in recruiting and selecting employees
Recruitment and decruitment
 Once managers know their current HR statues and their future needs, they can begin to do
something about nay shortages or excesses
 If one or more vacancies exist, they can use the information gathered through job analysis to
guide them in
 Recruitment—the process of locating, identifying, and attracting capable applicants
 On the other hand, if HR planning shows a surplus of employees, management reduces the
organization’s workforce through:
 Decruitment—Techniques for reducing the organization’s workforce
Major sources of potential job candidates
Decruitment options

Selection
 What is selection? Selection process—the process of screening job applicants to ensure that
the most appropriate candidates are hired
 Once the recruitment effort has developed a pool of candidates
 Screen candidates to determine who the best qualified for the job is
 Errors in hiring can have far-reaching implications. However, hiring the right people pays off

Selection device validity and reliability

 Any selection device that a manager uses should demonstrate validity & reliability
 A new measure of recruitment effectiveness is called ‘quality of fill’
 This measure looks at the contributions of good hires versus those who have failed
 Five key factors are considered in defining this quality measure
 Employee retention
 Performance evaluations
 Number of first-year hires who make it into high-potential training programs
  Number of employees who are promoted
 What surveys of new hires indicate
 Such measures help an organization assess whether its selection process is working
well
 Validity—the proven relationship that exists between the selection device and some
relevant job criterion (results satisfy objectives)
 Reliability—the ability of a selection device to measure the same thing consistently (results
are consistent)
Types of selection devices
 Managers can use a number of selection devices to reduce accept and reject errors
 Application forms
 Written tests
 Performance-simulation tests
 Interviews
 Background investigations, and, in some cases
 Physical examinations
 What works best and when?
 Managers should use those devices that effectively predict success for a given job

 One thing managers need to carefully watch is how they portray their organization
 To increase employee job satisfaction and reduce turnover, manages should
consider Realistic Job Preview (RJP)
 RJP—a preview of a job that included both positive and negative information
about the job and the company
Providing employees with needed skills and knowledge
 New hires must be acclimated to the organization’s culture and be trained and given the
knowledge to do the job in a manner consistent with the organization’s goals
 For these acclimation and skill improvement tasks, HRM uses:
 Orientation
 Training
Employee orientation
 A person starting a new job needs to be introduced to his/her job and the organization
 This introduction is called orientation—the introduction of a new employee to his or her job
and the organization
 There are two types of orientation
 Work unit orientation
 Familiarizes the employee with the goals of the work unit
 Clarifies how his or her job contributes to the unit’s goals
 Includes an introduction to his or her new coworkers
 Organization orientation informs the new employee about the organization’s
 Objectives, history
 Philosophy
 Procedures
 Rules
 It should also include relevant HR policies and maybe even a tour of the facilities
Employee training
 The amazing “landing” of US Airways Flight  1549 in the Hudson River in January 2009 
with no loss of life. 
 Pilot Captain Chesley Sullenberger attributed the positive outcome to the extensive and
intensive training that all pilots and flight crews undergo.
 Employee training is an important HRM activity.
 As job demands change, employee skills have to be altered and updated.
 Types of training
 Some of the most popular types of training include:
 Sexual harassment
 Safety
 Management skills and development
 Supervisory skills
 For many organizations, employee interpersonal skills training is a high priority
 Communication
 Conflict resolution
 Team building
 Customer service
Training methods
 Many organizations are relying on technology-based training methods because of:
 Accessibility
 Cost
 Ability to deliver information
 It is predicted that massive open online courses will continue to increase enrollments and
will be a globally disruptive force in education and training

Employee performance management

 Once an organization has invested on new hires, it wants to keep those employees,
especially the competent, high-performing ones
 Two HRM activities that play a role in doing this are
 Managing employee performance
 Development an appropriate compensation and benefits program
 Performance management system: a process of establishing performance standards and
evaluating performance in order to arrive at objective HR decision, as well as to provide
documentation to support those decisions
 Performance appraisal methods
Retaining competent and high performance employees
What happens when performance falls short?
 Ability
 Hiring error? (Reassign?)
 Inadequate training? (train)
 Motivation (willingness)
 Discipline
Actions taken by a manager to enforce an organization’s standards and regulations
-Verbal warning
-Written warning
-Suspension
-Termination
 Employee job counseling
A process designed to help employees overcome performance-related problems
Compensation and benefits
An effective and appropriate compensation system:
-helps to attract and retain competent and talented individuals
-impacts the strategic performance of the firm
 Organizational compensation can include many different types of rewards and benefits
 Wages and salaries
 Incentive payments
 Benefits
 Skill-based pay (more successful in manufacturing) (a pay system that rewards
employees for the job skills and competencies they can demonstrate)
 Variable pay—contingent on to performance
 Traditional approach largely determined by seniority and job level
 In Dynamic environments in which required skills change in a matter of months, the trend is
 To make pay systems more flexible
 To reduce the number of pay levels
 In general any compensation approach managers take should be
  Fair
 Equitable
 Compensation system that allows the organization to recruit and keep a productive
workforce
 Career—the sequence of positions held by a person during his or her lifetime
 Career development programs were designed to help employees advance their work lives
within a specific organization
 Career development was also a way for organizations to attract and retain highly talented
people
 Widespread organizational changes have led to uncertainty about the concept of a
traditional organizational career
 The individual—not the origination—is responsible for his or her own career
 By taking an active role in managing your career, enjoyable, and satisfying
Contemporary issues in managing human resources
Workforce diversity
 Workforce diversity is directly affected by basic HRM activities, including recruitment,
selection, and orientation and training
 Recruitment
 To improve workforce diversity, managers need to widen their recruiting net
 Employee referrals tend to produce candidates who are similar to present employees
 To increase diversity, turning to non-traditional recruitment sources such as
 Woman’s job networks
 Ove-50 clubs
 Urban job banks
 Disabled people’s training centers
 Ethnic news-papers
 Gay rights organizations
 This type of outreach should enable the organization to broaden its pool of diverse
applicants
Managing downsizing
 Downsizing (or layoffs) is the planned elimination of jobs in an organization
 The ‘cost’ associated with mass layoffs is the damage they can cause to long-term growth
prospects
 How can manager best manage downsized workplace?
 Stress, frustration, anxiety, and anger are typical reactions of both individuals being laid
off and the job survivors
 Tips for managing downsizing, ways managers can lessen the trauma both for the
employees being laid off and for the survivors
Workplace romances
 Workplace romances can potentially become big problems for organizations
 Conflict between coworkers who decide to stop dating or to end a romantic relationship
 More serious problems when it is between supervisor and subordinate
 May create a hostile work environment for others in the workplace
 It is important to educate employees about the potential for sexual harassment
 A more proactive approach is needed, when supervisor-subordinate relationships:
 Discourage such relationships
 Require supervisors to report any such relationships to HR
 An organization may even want to consider banning such relationships
Managing work-life balance
 Organizations began to recognize that employees don’t leave their families and personal
lives behind when they walk into work
 What kinds of work-life balance issues can affect an employee’s job performance?
 Crisis with child-care arrangements, is it okay to bring baby to work?
 Should an employee be given the day off to watch her child perform in a school event?
 Although managers cannot be sympathetic to every detail of an employee’s family life, we
are seeing organizations more attuned to the fact that employees can have family and other
life issues
 Family-friendly benefits: benefits that accommodate employees’ needs for work-life balance
 Summer day camps
 Flextime
 Job sharing
 Leaves for school functions
 Telecommuting
 Part-time employment
Controlling HR costs
 Organizations are looking for ways to control HR costs:
 Salaries
 Benefits
 Pension
 Canadian companies provide health benefits that supplement basic care to save cost by
 Attracting the best employees
 Making employees less likely to leave or file for disability
 The other area where organizations are looking to control costs is employee pension plans
 Pension commitments have become such an enormous burden that companies can no
longer afford them
 More and more employees are being asked to contribute