Chapter 8:
Managing Human
Resources in
Organizations
Learning Objectives
1. Describe the environmental context of human resource
management, including its strategic importance and its
relationship with legal and social factors.
2. Discuss how organizations attract human resources,
including human resource planning, recruiting, and
selecting.
3. Describe how organizations develop human resources,
including training and development, performance
appraisal, and performance feedback.
Learning Objectives
4. Discuss how organizations maintain human resources,
including the determination of compensation and
benefits and career planning.
5. Discuss the nature of diversity, including its meaning,
associated trends, impact, and management.
6. Describe labor relations, including how employees form
unions and the mechanics of collective bargaining.
7. Describe the issues associated with managing
knowledge and contingent and temporary workers
The Environmental Context of
Human Resource Management
 Human Resource Management
 The set of organizational activities directed at
attracting, developing, and maintaining an effective
workforce
Human Resource Management
 Strategic Importance of Human Resource Management
 Human Capital
o Reflects the organization’s investment in attracting, retaining,
and motivating an effective workforce
 Legal Environment
 Title V11 of the Civil Rights Act
o Outlaws discrimination on the basis of sex, race, color,
religion, or national origin
 Adverse Impact
 Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
o Age Discrimination Act
o Pregnancy Discrimination Act
Human Resource Management
 Legal Environment
 Affirmative Action
o Intentionally seeking and
hiring qualified or qualifiable
employees from racial,
sexual, and ethnic group that
are underrepresented in the
organization
 Americans with Disabilities
Act
 Civil Rights Act of 1991
Human Resource Management
Legal Environment
 Compensation
o Fair Labor Standards Act
 Sets a minimum wage and overtime
pay
o Equal Pay Act
 Requires that men and women be paid
the same amount for doing the same
job
 Benefits
o Employee Retirement Income Security
Act
o Family Medical Leave Act
Human Resource Management
Legal Environment
 Labor Relations
o National Labor Relations Act
 Employees can vote for a union
o National Labor Relations Board
o Labor Management Relations Act
 Health and Safety
o Occupational Safety and Health Act
 Mandates safe working conditions
 Emerging Legal Issues
o Sexual harassment
o Alcohol and drug dependencies
Human Resource Planning
 Job Analysis
o A systemized procedure for collecting
and recording information about jobs
within an organization
 Job Description
o A listing of the job’s duties; its working
conditions; and the tools, materials,
and equipment used to perform the job
 Job Specification
o A listing of the knowledge, skills,
abilities, and other credentials the
incumbent jobholder will need to do a
job
Recruiting Human Resources
 Recruiting
o Process of attracting individuals to apply for jobs that are open
 Internal (Promotion from Within)
o Current employees as applicants for higher-level jobs in the
organization
 External
o Getting people from outside
 Realistic Job Preview
Selecting Human Resources
 Application Blanks
o Gather information about work history, educational background,
and other job-related demographic data
 Tests
o Ability, skill, aptitude, or knowledge
 Interviews
 Assessment Centers
 Other Techniques
o Polygraph testing, physical exams, drug tests, etc.
Developing Human Resources
 Training
o Teaching operational or technical
employees how to do the job for which they
were hired
 Development
o Teaching managers and professionals the
skills needed for both present and future
jobs
 Assessing Training Needs
o Determining training needs is the first step
in developing a training plan
 Common Training Methods
o Lectures, role play, on the job
Performance Appraisal
 Performance Appraisal
o A formal assessment of how well an employee is doing his/her job
 Reasons for Performance Appraisal
o Aids in making decisions about pay raises,
promotions, and training
o Provides feedback to employees to
improve their performance and plan
future careers
 Objective Measures of Performance
o Measure actual output (that is, number of units produced), scrap
rate, dollar volume of sales, and number of claims processed
o Opportunity Bias
Performance Appraisal
 Judgmental Appraisal Methods
o Compares employees directly with each other
 Rating Method
 Compares each employee with
a fixed standard
 Behaviorally Anchored
Rating Scale (BARS)
 Rating method in which supervisors construct a rating
scale associated with behavioral anchors
Performance Appraisal
 Bias Errors
 Recency error
o Basing judgments on the subordinate’s most recent
performance because it is the most easily recalled
 Errors of Leniency and Strictness
o Being too lenient, too strict, or tending to rate all employees as
“average”
 Halo Effect
 Allowing the assessment of the employee on one dimension to
spread to that employee’s ratings on other dimensions
 Diversity as a Source of Conflict
Managing Diversity in
Organizations
 Individual Strategies
 Understanding the nature and meaning of diversity and multiculturalism
 Developing empathy in understanding the perspective of others
 Developing tolerance of fundamental cultural differences
 Having a willingness to communicate and discuss diversity and
multiculturalism issues
 Managing Diversity in Organizations
o
o
o
o
Organizational policies
Organizational practices
Diversity and multicultural training
Organizational culture
Managing Labor Relations
 Labor Relations
o The process of dealing with union employees
o The best way to avoid unionization is to practice good employee
relations by:
o Providing fair treatment with clear standards in pay, promotions,
layoffs, and discipline.
o Providing a complaint and appeal system and avoiding favoritism.
 Collective Bargaining
o The process of agreeing on a satisfactory labor contract between
management and a union
 Grievance Procedure
o The means by which a labor contract is enforced
Contingent and Contemporary
Workers
 Contingent and Temporary Workers
o Are not permanent or full-time employees
 Independent contractors, on-call workers, temporary, contract and leased
employees, and part-time workers.
 1 in every 50 employed Americans held a temporary position in 2011.
 Managing Contingent and Temporary Workers
o The strategic need to maintain flexibility in staffing levels and to
control labor costs requires:
 Careful advance HR planning.
 Understanding how to effectively utilize contingent workers.
 Assessing the real cost of using contingent workers.