Chapter 10 Human Resource Management (HRM):

Training, intrapreneurship & trade unions

 Intrapreneurship
The term intrapreneurship refers to a system
that allows an employee to act like an
entrepreneur within a company or other
organization. Intrapreneurs are self-
motivated, proactive, and action-oriented
people who take the initiative to pursue an
innovative product or service.

Many businesses have training and

development programmes with the specific
aim of encouraging employees to become
successful intrapreneurs.
Example of an accidental Intrapreneur
THE POST-IT NOTE
The idea: 3M Spencer Silver invented a sticky
adhesive that Art Fry, a fellow 3M employee
discovered when searching for a way to keep pages
in his books.
The result: Silver and Fry began developing the
product after realizing the potential to share
messages around the office. Fry supplied the
company with the sticky notes and they were loved
by everyone. Post-Its now generate around $1billion
annually.
How businesses promote Intrapreneurship

• Provide opportunities to mix and

work with other skilled employees
from different departments.
• Empower employees with the
authority and resources they need
to introduce innovations.
• Embrace failure as a part of the
process – intrapreneurs are meant
to take risks and some of their
ideas will not work.
• Encouraged employees to start
with small ideas and innovations –
before moving on to the bigger
issues.
Management and workforce relations
Research to find the meaning of the following:
Trade union

Industrial action

Collective bargaining

Benefits of collective bargaining

Complete the following questions on page 177

1, 3, 5, 8, 10 & 13.

E&B Engineering
E&B Engineering
‘The government’s job centre is sending some people round this afternoon,’ said Harryo, the operations manager of E&B. ‘The new
customer order was a surprise. If I had been kept informed by the marketing department about this, I could have recruited extra workers in
good time.’ As usual, Harryo was complaining to the chief executive, but this time he did have a case. The new order would stretch his
existing workforce to the limit. Labour turnover was already high. E&B employ 60 machine operators, but over the past 12 months, 15
machine operators had left the business. ‘Do we have to use the government job centre?’ said the chief executive. ‘The recruitment teams
there never really know what we are looking for. We often have to let unsuitable people start here before we find out what they are really
like.’
Harryo agreed but said, ‘We need to recruit anyone interested in the job. I will give them a quick session on the machines and then hope
they learn on the job after that. The main problem is the new computer-controlled machinery. It takes so long to train someone up on this.
Unfortunately, the supervisor I recently recruited has no support from the other workers. This is why I thought it would be a good idea to
use external recruitment – to break up the informal groups, as he seems to have no influence over them at all. To make matters worse, one
of the workers we sent on a long college training course last year has taken a better-paid job with another company.’
Harryo left the chief executive’s office and wondered how to manage the new workers being sent over by the job centre. ‘I wish I knew
more about them,’ he thought to himself. ‘If they are no good, I will have to advertise online, but this always leads to lots of applications
from people who have little experience on machines. It might be best if I just offered them a short-term employment contract to start
with.’

a i Identify one benefit of external recruitment. [1]

ii Explain the term ‘employment contract’. [3]
b i Calculate the labour turnover for E&B’s machine operators. [3]
ii Explain one reason why the rate of labour turnover is a problem for E&B. [3]
C Evaluate whether labour turnover could be reduced at E&B by more effective HR management. [12]