Chapter 1 - The Employment Relationships 1. What are the goals of employers and employees when entering into an employment relationship? ● Employers provide money for labour (skills and time) that employees are hired to perform ● Duties and obligations - Employers order, employees obey ● Employees wish to maximize wages while employers’ goals are to maximize profit ● Employers must profit or fail; cheapen & intensify labour = profitability 2. What is a labour market and how does it work? ● Labour Market: Supply and demand of workers and jobs, where employment relationships begin ● Employers advertise and hire workers. Workers negotiate wage-rate as they are selling their abilities ● Multiple labour markets (by occupation, industry, region) 3. What is purchased when an employee is hired? What challenges does this entail for employers? ● When an employee is hired, their ability to work is being purchased ● Can be difficult for employers to fully utilize an employee to their full capacity ○ Labour Process: It is up to the employer to turn this capacity into actual work ● Wage-Rate: The price employers pay to buy workers’ capacity to work ○ The “wage-effort bargain”, being how productively an employee is going to work given the terms of their employment contract. Often in line with workplace norms of what is accepted in the workplace ○ Informal resistance to changes in the norms often leads to high costs for the employer (absenteeism, quitting, slowing down). These reflect the conflicting interests of employee and employer ○ Employers = maximize output and minimize costs (in the pursuit of profit). ○ Employees = maximize their wages while minimizing their workload. 4. How can recruitment and selection be used to advance an employer’s interest? ● Employers advance their interests sometimes at the expense of employees’ interests ● Using good R&S practices can ensure that the employer finds a good match for the job and organization’s needs. To effectively utilize employees capacity to work, employers need to accurately define the nature of the job, match the employee to the job, and regulate the performance and behaviour of the employee on the job. Chapter 2 - The Economic and Social Environment Why Recruitment & Selection Matters: Helps organizations meet goals & objectives by producing competent, committed and effective personnel ● Effective R&S identify job applicants with appropriate level of KSAOs (knowledge, skills, abilities, and other requirements) needed for successful performance in a job or organization ● Reduce employee turnover & increase productivity, establish employee trust ● Responsible for up to 15% of firms relative profit ● Correlate with organization long-term profitability & productivity ratios ● Improve knowledge, skills, and abilities of organization current & future employees, increase motivation, retain high quality employees while encouraging poor performers to leave 1. What is recruitment? ● Generation of applicant pool for a position or job in order to provide required number of candidates for a subsequent selection or promotion program 2. What is selection? ● Choice of job candidates form previously generated applicant pool in a way that will meet goals & objectives, as well as meeting legal requirements 3. How do they fit into the overall HRM function? ● Proper R&S practices are aligned with the legislative environment (legal/human rights), the social/economic environment (globalization, labour market, demographics, marketplace), as well as the organization’s mission, vision, and values. ● This information is used to create strategic objectives and organizational requirements which is then translated into R&S processes. Suitable HR requirements are decided on for the R&S process, and joined by other factors such as retention efforts and the work environments. All of these factors lead to qualified, competent and loyal personnel who can be placed and developed through performance management. 4. What are the most important social and economic factors that affect R&S? ● Global Competition: Having more competitors on the market places pressures to reduce operating one element where efficiencies can be created by following best practices. ● Advances in Technology & Internet: Lower costs, larger candidate pool, eliminating printing, immediate results ● Changing Workforce Demographics: Mandatory retirement at age 65 has been abolished. HR practices and fair, defensible evaluations will have to be set for older workers. There is higher cultural diversity in the workforce. The workforce is more educated. There is a growing population with physical or mental challenges. Best practices followed have to be legally defensible – R&S has to be based on job capabilities only. ● Economic Context: Economic booms create skilled labour shortages while recessions lead to job & pay cutbacks ● Type of Organization: Public sector often uses structured and acceptable practices for hiring, however smaller firms or family run businesses often do not. They rely on current workers family friends, and often do not have formal interview processes. Goal is to have best practices applied regardless of industry or business size ● Organizational Restructuring: Technology leads to less need for labour. Many baby boomers are nearing retirement. Many organizations have given early retirement incentives, downsized, and restructured. There may not be adequate labour supply as boomers retire ● Redefining jobs: Employees no longer expect to spend their career with one organization. Employers often expect employees to know tasks of multiple roles. Should employers be recruiting based on a wider set of competencies, for multiple jobs? ● Unionized Work Environment: Collective agreements have to be followed. Typically a position needs to be posted for 10 days in order for internal applicants to have a chance to apply. 5. What implications has globalization had for R&S? ● Globalization is NOT homogeneous - effects are more profound in certain regions and industries ○ More sensitive to highly mobile production (manufacturing, financial services) than to the localized industry (tourism, human services) ● Economic globalization, governments are adjusting (and perhaps must adjust) domestic economies to meet the demands of transnational capital or risk capital flight and the resulting economic and political instability ● Private-sector companies - globalization is often asserted to mean that increased economic competition has forced companies to become leaner and more efficient in order to attract and retain investment. (result in worker layoffs, flatter organizational structures, and increased hiring of part-time workers & contract workers) ● HR Policies: Economic globalization manifests itself in worker layoffs, flatter organizational structures, increased hiring of part-time workers and contract workers Approaches of management: ● Autocratic/exploitative: Close supervision, arbitrary treatment and little trust of employees. ○ Employers resist workers' attempts to form unions or take steps to break or weaken unions that have already been established by using technological change, flexible employment arrangements, hardline bargaining and strikebreaking, and shutdowns and relocations. ○ Prevalent in smaller firms and sweatshops in developing nations ● Bureaucratic/accommodative: Accommodative relationship between workers and supervisors with moderate degree of adverseness and workers tending to distrust or resent their supervisors ○ Typical for large manufacturing and public-sector employers Organizational Responses Low-road: Emphasis on cost minimization. ● Instead of developing workforce skills or innovating to increase workplace flexibility and employee participation, organizations seek new ways to sweat more work out of the minimum of resources ● Using technology over labour force is another way to reduce labour costs and gain competitive advantage ● HR SEEKS INEXPENSIVE AND SUBMISSIVE EMPLOYEES High-road: “High-performance” model seeks to establish advantage by using product innovation, quality, and specialization to command the higher prices needed to support high wages and other costs ● Depends on the development of highly skilled, trained, and motivated workforce to strengthen firm’s competitive strategy ● MAY REQUIRE ELABORATE R&S WORK IN ORDER TO FIND CANDIDATES WITH REQUIRED SKILLS The trend over the past 15 years has been to reduce the size and cost of the workforce, both by increasing the workload and hiring temporary employees. Chapter 3 - The Legal Environment 1. What types of law regulate employment and how are they different? The Common Law and Employment Law ● Contract is a legally enforceable promise made between two parties. Common law contract of employment ● Common law is a body of law based on a judge’s decision based on doctrine of precedent (previous decisions) ● If answer cannot be found in the written employment contract, the courts turn to the common law to determine the rights and obligations of the employer and employee ● Statutory laws extend portions of common law and may create new rights and obligations for employers and employees (E.g. employment standards or labour standards act - minimums around human rights, occupational health and safety, and the compensation of workplace injuries) 2. What are the major categories of legislation that affect R&S? Labour Legislation and Collective Agreements ● L abour laws substantially alter the common law by making a trade union the bargaining agent for a group of employees (hence, “collective bargaining”). ● Under these laws, the common law contract of employment is replaced by a collective agreement negotiated between the union and the employer. Substantive and Procedural Rights ● Common law, employment and labour law, and collective agreements create substantive and procedural rights ● Substantive rights: minimum wage rates, annual vacations, and seniority - senior EE laid off after junior EE ● Procedural rights: employee enforces those rights or seeks redress for their violation. This might include filing a civil suit in court, complaining to a human rights tribunal, or filing a grievance under a collective agreement. Chapter 4 - Recruitment and Selection Preparation 1. How does organizational planning affect R&S? ● Organizational strategy affects and is affected by HR strategy, which shapes R&S strategies ● Identifying staffing requirements and developing a plan to ensure that an adequate supply of qualified job applicants is available ● Role of R&S professionals to consider both specific tasks and broader organizational goals when performing jobs ● HR practices need to be consistent with strategic initiatives that revolve around growth ● Align business strategy with HR strategy: 1) Start with organizational strategy, then create a supporting HR strategy (assume workers will adapt by adopting new goals, learn new skills, and/or leaving organization) 2) Start by determining existing HR competencies, and then craft corporate strategies based on them. (use existing capabilities of workforce to guide corporate strategy 3) A combination of (1) and (2). (Achieve balance between internal capability & external conditions HRM both ensures consistency between business and human resources strategies and provides input into the strategy based on HR strengths and weaknesses.) 2. Why is it important to establish performance criteria and sound job analysis when preparing an HR plan? Performance Criteria: Organizational goals need to be translated to specific performance goals down the organizational hierarchy, culminating in performance criteria for individual positions. ● Evaluating performance, Planning for future R&S ● Criteria selected must reflect organizational goals and quality of work and the nature of the work performed ● Poorly constructed performance criteria = inaccurate evaluation of performance, upset employees, and failure to meet organizational goals ● Performing a job analysis can aid in correctly identifying the components of the job, thus allowing for more accurate establishment of criteria. ○ The basic goal of job analysis is to match the right number of people with the required skills, competencies and more broadly defined attributes to the right jobs in the organization (taylorist) 3. How does supply and demand forecasting assist R&S? Supply and Demand: Need to fully tap internal labour markets (current employees who can be retrained and/or transferred to fill HR requirements) before proceeding to external markets. ● Rewards employees (thus building loyalty) ● Reduces the cost of orienting and socializing new employees ● Reduces the potential for unpleasant surprises that can occur when hiring external candidates ● Often seen in unionized, blue-collar work where the collective agreement contains seniority-based hiring requirements, although many other workplaces choose to hire from within. A skills management inventory maps out employee skills and potential future needs (retirement, turnover) and gives insight into where employees can be moved within the organization to fill vacancies. This information is used for supply forecasting, and allows the organization to know how much it has to rely on external hiring. ● Forecasting supply and demand helps identify the internal labour market (employees who can be transferred or retained) before proceeding to external labour market. It allows utilization of internal labour supply, rewards employees, reduce cost of orienting and socializing with new employees. Chapter 5 - The Impact of Unions on HR Planning ● Unitarists assert that the only agenda that matters in the workplace is the employer’s and employers ought to be able to run their workplaces as they see fit, whether or not it satisfies the needs of employees ○ Explains conflict or resistance (i.e., lack of cooperation) as the result of improper management, lack of communication, or uneducated approaches to problem solving ○ Problems can be resolved through process engineering and using psychology and sociology to better manage the workplace. This perspective dominates the minds and workplaces. ● HRM (unitarist strategy) is ultimately about maximizing employer profitability and minimizing worker resistance to employer initiatives. ○ Although worker interests are recognized, when they conflict with employer goals, they are managed rather than accommodated ○ HRM is a means by which employers seek to avoid unionization or reduce the support for unions 1. Why do employees join unions? ● Employees join unions in order to achieve substantive and procedural rights, and to be protected by negotiated collective agreements. Often times these agreements ensure that seniority is rewarded, appeal processes are in place, and that rate of pay are transparent and pre-determined. 2. What impact do trade unions have on the employment relationship? Collective agreements are most often perceived as wage-setting tools ● Trade unions exert an enormous influence on HRM and R&S, affecting not only the rules in unionized workplaces but also policy and practice in non-union environments. ● Impact both R&S and employee retention. Employees seek to advance their interests and participate in decision making about matters that are relevant to their daily lives ● Changes the master-and-servant relationship because employees can apply sanctions to achieve substantive and procedural rights that they would otherwise not have. Substantive and procedural rules that affect R&S: ○ Posting of new positions, Process of recruitment and the questions that can be asked ○ Weighting of criteria (seniority), Right of appeal, Obligation for employers to act in good faith ● Trade unions create a sense of solidarity among employees which may make them more aware of how Hr plans affect them and more likely to resist HR plans ● Trade unions take away employer’s right to be the sole decision maker of who to hire and fire, and introduce joint decision making via collective agreements The most common collective agreement clause (or section) affecting R&S is the seniority clause ● Preferential treatment when better jobs become available and when layoffs occur. ● Entitle the employee to a longer vacation period, additional sick leave, pension benefits, health and welfare insurance, or the opportunity to work overtime at a premium 3. Do you believe that employees ought to be allowed to constrain management decision making? Why or why not? Why might someone else disagree with your answer? ● To some extent, yes. I believe that employees should be able to place constraints on management decision making. Having collective agreements in place ensures that there is equity and transparency in wages and benefits across the board. Employees can rest assured that they won’t have to fight for a raise or fight for the right to be considered for a promotion within the organization. Although some organizations are undoubtedly responsible in responding to employee needs, having these restrictions in place ensures that potentially insensible companies follow established protocol. ● This can be argued by the fact that companies should not be forced to follow certain rules, as rarely black and white. Employees can take advantage of the protections that trade unions provide, and may be less likely to put in a fair amount of effort at work. Chapter 6 - Human Rights in R&S The Value of Employment Equity ● Broadens the pool of qualified candidates, Increase the caliber of the hire ● Blunt the impact of demographic trends such as the projected retirement of the baby boom. ● Large applicant pools reduce the labour market power of employees, can reduce wage costs. Diverse workforce ● Provide an employer with a competitive edge, allowing the employer access to new markets by virtue of the employee’s economic, social, cultural, political, & organizational knowledge as well as personal contacts ● Diverse workforce reflects the diverse customer population can help to develop marketing strategies that are suited to the needs and preferences of a diverse consumer base. 1. How does human rights legislation constrain R&S practices? ● Human rights legislation can be applied during any stage of the recruitment and selection process, such as job postings, pre-screening, interviewing, and selecting ● Prohibits discrimination against race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex (including pregnancy and childbirth), marital status, family status, mental or physical disability (including previous or present drug or alcohol dependence), pardoned convictions, and sexual orientation 2. How does employment equity legislation constrain R&S practices? ● Employment Equity Act addresses discrimination in employment systems by ensuring an equal chance to employment opportunities for disadvantaged members - women, aboriginal people, people with disabilities, and visible minorities. Ensures R&S requirements are realistic and job-related 3. Why might human resources practitioners be pressured to violate human rights during R&S? Managing Human Rights Violations ● Recruitment, hiring, and work assignments that are in violation of collective and other agreements can be costly to an employer and extremely disruptive in the workplace. ● Respecting requirements of human rights and employment equity legislation can entail costs for an employer ● Resistance behaviour places HR practitioners in a difficult situation, particularly if discrimination is difficult to see, discriminator is politically powerful, and/or discrimination is supported by organizational culture ● Strategies in managing HRV o Compliance. An HR practitioner may comply with the demands made by other organizational actors. This creates both organizational and personal risk. o Education. Providing information about organizational obligations and the risk created by the behaviour may be useful if the discrimination is caused by ignorance. Less effective against discrimination motivated by bigotry, profit seeking, or intransigence. The effectiveness of education is also lessened if the target is not able to grasp and apply abstract principles. o Risk identification. An HR practitioner can identify (usually in writing) the financial and perceptual risks created by the behaviour. This may mitigate the personal liability of the practitioner but may entail political cost and retribution. o Escalation. Referring a matter to a more senior person in the organization increases the cost to both the HR professional and the discriminator. Yet it may yield resolution if the senior person has the power to enforce a binding resolution. o Refusal. As a prelude to escalation or as an independent course of action, refusal reduces the organizational and personal risk associated with statutory violation but may create significant personal risk to HR practitioner The opportunity for such pressure to be applied can be reduced by structuring R&S activities so as to reduce the opportunity for and increase the cost of discriminatory behavior. 4. What is discrimination and how is it regulated? ● Discrimination - refusal to employ or to continue to employ any person, or to adversely affect any current employee, on the basis of that individual’s membership in a protected group. ● All Canadian jurisdictions prohibit discrimination at least on the basis of race, color, religion or creed, age, sex, marital status, and disability. Human Rights Act, Employment Standards, Employment Equity 5. How are direct discrimination, adverse effect discrimination, and adverse impact discrimination similar? How are they different? ● Direct discrimination as occuring where an employer adopts a practice or rule that on its face discriminates on a prohibited ground ● Adverse effect discrimination refers to a situation where an employer, in good faith, adopts a policy or practice that has an unintended, negative impact on memebers of a protected group. ● Adverse Impact Discrimination: Occurs when the selection rate for a protected group is lower than that for the relevant comparison group. Based on statistical evidence showing that proportionately fewer of the protected group are selected using a selection device (such as an employment test or interview) or that fewer members of the protected group pass through the selection system taken as a whole. 6. What tests are used in conjunction with bona fide occupational requirements and the duty to accommodate? ● Three-part Meiorin test is the standard under which all workplace practices, including selection testing, constitute bona fide occupational requirements. It is the test that courts, tribunals, and arbitrators use ● Used to determine whether a prima facie discriminatory standard is a BFOR. An employer may justify the impugned standard by establishing on the balance of probabilities: 1) that the employer adopted the standard for a purpose rationally connected to the performance of the job; 2) that the employer adopted the particular standard in an honest and good faith belief that it was necessary to the fulfilment of that legitimate work-related purpose; and 3) that the standard is reasonably necessary to accomplish the legitimate work-related purpose. To show that the standard is reasonably necessary, it must be demonstrated that it is impossible to accommodate individual employees sharing the characteristics of the claimant without imposing undue hardship upon the employer MY NOTES Social/ economic factors that affect R&E: Global Competition, Rapid Advances in Technology and the Internet, Changing Work-Force Demographics, Redefining jobs, Economic Context, Type of Organization/ Organizational, Restructuring, Laws and regulations, Social/Economic Factors Affecting, and Recruitment and Selection. Constructs: ideas or concepts invoked to explain relationships between, observation, can be abstract and do not necessarily need to be direct, or observable. e.g., learning, intelligence, and life satisfaction. Variables: Created by developing the construct into a measurable form e.g., length in inches, intelligence as an IQ score, and learning as a grade. Reliability: The degree to which observed scores are free from random measurement errors; An indication of the stability or dependability of a set of measurements over repeated applications of the measurement procedure Reliability means that a test yields consistent results. Factors: Temporary Individual Characteristics, Lack of Standardization, Chance. Methods: 1. Test-retest reliability/ Coefficient of Stability: repeatability of scores over time and the stability of the underlying construct being measured 2. Alternate or parallel form reliability: how consistent scores are likely to be if a person completes two or more forms of the same measure 3. Internal consistency reliability (α): the extent to which items on a given measure assess the same construct 4. Inter-rater reliability: how consistent scores are likely to be if the responses are scored by two or more raters using the same item, scale, or instrument Validity means that the test measures what we think it measures. It is the legitimacy or correctness of the inferences that are drawn from a set of measurements or other specified procedures. Constitutional Law: Part of Canada’s constitution that regulates other laws Four fundamental freedoms: Conscience and religion, Thought, belief, opinion, and expression, Peaceful assembly, and Association. Several other rights Right to democracy, the right to live and work anywhere in Canada, the right to due process in a criminal proceeding, and equality rights. Prohibits discrimination in Canadian society. Canada Labour Code or Provincial Legislations: Provides minimum entitlements and maximum obligations: minimum wage, holidays and vacation, maternity/parental leave, and hours of work. Direct Discrimination: occurs where an employer adopts a practice or rule that, on its face, discriminates on a prohibited ground. Indirect /Systemic/ Adverse Effect Discrimination: No intention to discriminate but the organization’s system arrangements or policies create discrimination. Examples– minimum height and weight requirements, limited accessibility to buildings, word-of-mouth hiring. Exceptions to the discrimination rules: Bona Fide Occupational Requirements, Undue Hardship, Reasonable Accommodation, and Employers' Duty to Accommodate to the point of undue hardship. Legal Discrimination - BFOR: A justified business reason for discriminating against a member of a protected class. BFORs are those that a person must possess to perform the essential components of a job in a safe, efficient, and reliable manner. Reasonable Accommodation Duty to Accommodate: Requirement that employers adjust employment practices to avoid discrimination. Adjustment of the working conditions, duties and employment practices. Wheelchair ramps, audio devices, brail, reduced duties, unique schedules, greater tolerance for absenteeism, etc. Up to the point of “undue hardship”. Workplace Accommodation Two key elements 1. Removing workplace barriers that negatively affect job performance 2. Adjusting the workplace to respond to the needs of individual employees or applicants Workplace accommodation may include: Technical aids such as specialized software, Leaves for religious or cultural observances, Flexible work arrangements, and Information in alternative accessible formats. Do’s for non-discriminatory recruiting: Posting complete, objective, and specific information on all available jobs, Advertise job openings in media that are read, viewed, or listened to by protected or designated group members, Train employment clerical staff and recruitment officers in outreach, recruiting, Use opportunities to visually present protected or designated group members in positive employment roles. Establish networks with community groups from which protected ordesignated group members are drawn, Set & advertise objectively determined selection criteria for the job, Base selection criteria on bona fide occupational requirements. Zappos 10 Values: Deliver wow through service. Embrace and drive change. Create fun and a little weirdness. Be adventurous, creative, and open-minded. Pursue growth and learning. Build open and honest relationships with communication. Build a positive team and family spirit. Do more with less. Be passionate and determined. Be humble.
