Topic 4

INFORMATION FOR MAKING

HUMAN RESOURCE
DECISIONS

Copyright © 2012 by Cengage Learning. All rights

reserved.
What Is Human Resource Planning?

HR planning is the process of

forecasting the supply and demand for
human resources within an organization
and developing action plans for aligning
the two.

Copyright © 2012 by Cengage Learning. All rights

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 Information Systems
A human resource
information system is
an integrated and
increasingly automated
system for maintaining a
database regarding the
employees in an
organization.

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Labor Force Trends and Issues

Currently the workforce is diverse in

numerous ways.
The average age of the U. S. workforce
is gradually increasing and will continue
to do so.
Gender differences with more and more
women entering the workforce
Changing ethnicity

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 Strategy as a Source of
Information
Implications of a growth strategy:
 Need to hire new employees
Implications of a stability strategy:
 Implement training to upgrade employee skills
 Implement programs to help reduce turnover
Implications of a reduction strategy:
 Find ways to reduce workforce
 Normal attrition processes
 Retirement (including early retirement)
 Layoffs

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 Economic Conditions as a
Source of Information
Rate of unemployment is calculated by the
Bureau of Labor Statistics as the percentage of
individuals looking for and available for work
who are not presently employed.
Market wage rate is the prevailing wage
rate for a given job in a given labor market.

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 What Does a Job Analysis
Provide?
It provides fundamental input to the HR manager
such as knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA)
which are the fundamental requirements necessary
to perform a job.
Job families are groups of jobs with similar task
and KSA requirements.

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 The Job Analysis Process

Job Analyst: the individual who performs job

analysis in an organization
Subject matter experts (SMEs): An
individual presumed to be highly knowledgeable
about a job and who provides data for job
analysis.
 S/he may be an existing job incumbent, supervisor,
or other knowledgeable employee.

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 Specific Job Analysis Techniques
Narrative job analysis: the most commonly
used method is to have one or more SMEs
prepare a written narrative or text description
of the job.
The Fleishman job-analysis system:
procedure that defines abilities as the enduring
attributes of individuals that account for
differences in performance; it relies on the
taxonomy of abilities that presumably
represents all the dimensions relevant to work.

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 Specific Job Analysis Techniques
(con’t)
Task Analysis Inventory: a family of job
analysis methods, each with unique
characteristics; each focuses on analyzing all
the tasks performed in the focal job.
Functional job analysis: attempt to have a
single job analysis instrument that can be used
with a wide variety of jobs.

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 Specific Job Analysis Techniques
(con’t)
The Position Analysis Questionnaire:
standardized job analysis instrument consisting of
194 items reflecting work behavior, working
conditions, or job characteristics that are assumed to
be generalizable across jobs
Management Position Description
Questionnaire (MPDQ): a standardized job
analysis instrument, similar in approach to the PAQ,
which also contains 197 items. The focus is on
managerial jobs and the analysis is done in terms of
13 essential components of all managerial jobs.

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 Specific Job Analysis Techniques
(con’t)

Critical Incidents
Approach: focus is on
critical behaviors that
distinguish between
effective and ineffective
performers

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 Job Description
A job description lists the tasks, duties, and
responsibilities for a particular job and specifies
the major job elements, provides examples of
job tasks, and provides some indication of the
relative importance of the effective conduct on
the job.

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 Job Specification

Job specification
focuses on the individual
who will perform the job
and indicates the
knowledge, abilities,
skills, and other
characteristics that an
individual must have to be
able to perform the job.

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