The World of Human Resources
Management
Week 1 (Ch. 1)
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Learning Outcomes – 1
LO1 Explain how human resources managers
and other managers have rewarding careers through the strategic management of people.
LO2 Explain how good human resources practices can help a firm gain a sustainable competitive advantage and how
COVID-19 may impact this relationship.
LO3 Describe how technology can improve how people perform their work and how they are managed.
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Learning Outcomes – 2
LO4 Explain the dual goals human resources managers have in terms of increasing productivity and controlling costs.
LO5 Discuss how firms can leverage employee differences to their strategic advantage and how educational and cultural
changes in the workforce are affecting how human resources managers engage employees.
LO6 Provide examples of the roles and competencies
of today’s human resources professionals.
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Why Study Human Resources Management? – 1
• Human Resources Management (HRM)
o The process of managing human talent to achieve an
organization’s objectives
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Why Study Human Resources Management? – 2
• Work with people to help solve organizational issues
• Attract top-notch people to come to work with you and your firm
• Determine the right people to hire so your team and company are a success
• Help and coach people so they become top performers
• Make pay and reward decisions that may influence peoples’ lives
• Establish the strategic direction your firm should take
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Human Capital and HRM
• Human capital – knowledge, skills, and capabilities of individuals that have economic value to an organization
o Intangible
o Cannot be managed the way organizations manage jobs, products, and technologies
• Organizations must find ways to better use the knowledge of their workers.
o Managers of all types must carry out the specific activities for a company to effectively do so.
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Overall Framework for HRM
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Competitive Issues and
Human Resources Management – 1
• Issue 1:
o Responding Strategically to Crisis, Changes, and Disruptions in the Local and Global Marketplace
• Issue 2:
o Setting and Achieving Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability Goals
• Issue 3:
o Advancing HRM with Technology
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Competitive Issues and
Human Resources Management – 2
• Issue 4:
o Containing Costs While Retaining Top Talent and Maximizing Productivity
• Issue 5:
o Responding to the Demographic and Diversity Challenges of the Workforce
• Issue 6:
o Adapting to Educational and Cultural Shifts Affecting the Workforce
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Issue 1: Responding Strategically to Crisis, Changes,
and Disruptions – 1
• COVID-19 and HRM
o COVID-19 has resulted in one of the most extreme organizational changes in the past century and strategic
planning has become even more important.
o It has highlighted the need for a feeling of community and common objectives.
• HR Managers and Business Strategies
o HR managers need an intimate understanding of their firm’s competitive business operations and strategies.
o “No change means chance”
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Issue 1: Responding Strategically to Crisis, Changes,
and Disruptions – 2
• Human resources managers need to understand the following:
o Six Sigma
o Reengineering
o Downsizing
o Outsourcing
o Change management
o Reactive change
o Proactive change
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Issue 1: Responding Strategically to Crisis, Changes,
and Disruptions – 2
• Change Management
o Systematic way of bringing about and managing organizational
changes and changes on the
individual level
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COVID-19 has placed new restrictions at work.
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Issue 1: Responding Strategically to Crisis, Changes,
and Disruptions – 3
• Competing, Recruiting, and Staffing Globally
o Globalization: the trend to opening up foreign markets to international trade and investment
o About 70–85 percent of the Canadian economy today is affected by international competition.
o China may overtake the U.S as the world's largest economy by 2041
• Impact of Globalization
o “Anything, anytime, anywhere” markets
o Partnerships with foreign firms
o Lower trade and tariff barriers
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Issue 2: Corporate Social Responsibility and
Sustainability Goals
• HR's responsibilities include the development and implementation of corporate citizenship and good environmental
management
• Corporate Social Responsibility
o The responsibility of the firm to act in the best interests of the people and communities affected by its activities
• Sustainability
o Closely related to corporate social responsibility
o Doing business in a way that does as little harm to the environment and depletes as few natural resources as possible
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Issue 3: Advancing HRM with Technology – 1
• Computer networks and “cloud computing”
o Unlimited amounts of data can be stored, retrieved, and used in a wide variety of ways.
• Collaborative software–allows workers anywhere, anytime to interface and share information with one another has
changed how and where people and companies do business.
• Knowledge workers–responsibilities extend beyond the physical execution of work to include planning, decision
making, and problem solving
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Issue 3: Advancing HRM with Technology – 2
• Virtual learning
• Video conferencing platforms
o Zoom, Webex, Teams, and Hangouts
o COVID-19 broke down barriers and expedited the transformation process
• Automation and Artificial Intelligence
o Web robots (‘bots’) – affects blue-collar and routine jobs
o Plays a major part in the gig economy
o Platforms such as Uber and Lyft, algorithms are essential to allocate, monitor, and reward gig work
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Issue 3: Advancing HRM with Technology – 3
• Human Resources Information System (HRIS)
o A computerized system that provides current and accurate data for purposes of control and decision making
• Impact of HRIS:
o Operational
o Relational
o Transformational
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Issue 3: Advancing HRM with Technology – 4
• Operational
o Automation of routine tasks, lower administrative costs, increased productivity, and faster response times; self-service
access to information and training for managers and employees
• Relational
o Online recruiting, screening, and pretesting of applicants
• Transformational
o Training, tracking, and selecting employees based on their record of skills and abilities; organization-wide alignment of
“cascading” goals
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Issue 4: Containing Costs – 1
• Organizations can take many approaches to lowering labour-related costs:
o Downsizing
o Furloughing
o Outsourcing
o Offshoring
o Employee Leasing
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Issue 4: Containing Costs – 2
• Downsizing:
o Widespread throughout North America
o Every major corporation has undergone some cycle of downsizing
o Beginning in the 1990s, the layoffs began to affect white-collar in knowledge-intensive industries
o In 2020 and 2021, COVID-19 resulted in many industries having to resort to downsizing
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Issue 4: Containing Costs – 3
• Hidden Costs of a Layoff include:
o Severance and rehiring costs
o Accrued vacation and sick-day payouts
o Pension and benefit payoffs
o Potential lawsuits from aggrieved workers
o Loss of institutional memory and trust in management
o Lack of staffers when the economy rebounds
o Survivors who are risk averse, paranoid, and political
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Issue 4: Containing Costs – 4
• Furloughing
o An alternative to downsizing
o A situation in which an organization asks or requires employees to take time off for either no pay or reduced pay
o Gained widespread use since the COVID-19 pandemic
o When the public learns that a company has used such a tactic, it can harm its recruiting efforts
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Issue 4: Containing Costs – 5
• Outsourcing:
o Employment relationship between companies and employees has shifted from relationship-based to transactionbased
o Is one of the most prominent HR trends
• Offshoring (or global sourcing) – sending jobs to other countries
• Nearshoring – moving jobs closer to one’s home country
• Homeshoring – moving jobs to work-from home domestic independent contractors
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Issue 5: Demographic and Diversity Challenges in
the Workforce – 1
• Almost half of the organizations surveyed reported that the biggest investment challenge facing them over the next 10
years is obtaining human capital and optimizing their human capital investments.
• Significant challenges are the demographic changes in Canada:
o More diverse workforce
o Aging workforce
o Gender
o More educated workforce
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Issue 5: Demographic and Diversity Challenges in
the Workforce – 2
• Diversity/Immigration Challenge
o In 2019, India, China, the Philippines, Nigeria, and the United States made up the largest portion of new immigrants
o In the midst of COVID-19, Canada announced in 2020 that it would welcome 1.2 million new immigrants between 2021 and
2023 in order to recover economically from the pandemic
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Issue 5: Demographic and Diversity Challenges in
the Workforce – 3
• Age Distribution
o Imbalance in age distribution is having a significant
effect.
o Large portions of workforces are nearing retirement.
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Issue 5: Demographic and Diversity Challenges in
the Workforce – 4
• Gender Distribution
o Women make up nearly half of the workforce in Canada.
o Organizations must realize the value of diversity and inclusion in their workforce.
o The current gender equality efforts often overlook the approximately 1.5 million adults in the United States and Canada
who are transgender
o Initiatives should address and improve the conditions for LGBTQ people.
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Issue 6: Adapting to Educational and Cultural Shifts
Affecting the Workforce
• Education of the Workforce
o According to the 2016 Census, more than half (54.0 percent) of Canadians aged 25 to 64 had a college or university
diploma, up from 48.3 percent in 2006.
• Cultural and societal changes affecting the workforce
o Employee rights
o Privacy concerns of employees
o Changing nature of the job
o Changing attitudes toward work
o Balancing work and family
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The Partnership of Line Managers and
Human Resources Departments
• Successful organizations combine the experience of
line managers with the expertise of HR managers to develop and utilize the talents of employees.
• Line managers are non-HR managers who are responsible for overseeing the work of other employees.
• Different types of human resources managers specialize in different HR functions.
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Responsibilities of the HR Manager
• The major activities for which an HR manager is typically responsible are:
o Strategic advice and counsel
o Service
o Policy formulation and implementation
o Employee advocacy
o Business mastery
o HR mastery
o Change mastery
o Personal credibility
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Competencies of the HR Manager
• Changes are taking place in the HRM profession, both in Canada and around the world.
• Human resource professionals must become more accountable to those they serve.
• Good human resource managers assist their organizations in gaining a sustainable competitive advantage over competitors.
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Human Resource Competency Model
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Activity 1: Contract Employees
• Should contract employees be treated the same as “permanent” employees?
o Watch the video
“The Role of Human Resources Today” featuring a keynote speech by Kelly CEO Carl Camden.
o What does he mean by “velcro” culture?
o How can “outside the wall” employees become engaged?
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Activity 2:Challenges in Organizations Today
• Which of the following challenges (COVID-19, technology, globalization, corporate social responsibility, demographic changes)
will have the most impact on your working lives?
• What strategies are organizations employing to address the challenges posed by the COVID-19 crisis?
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