Chapter 9
Human Resource Management
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The Nature of Human Resource
Management
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Human resource management forecasts the number and
type of employees an organization needs and then finds
and develops employees with necessary skills.
The primary tasks of human resource management
include human resource planning, recruiting, selection,
orientation and training, performance appraisal,
compensation, promotion, transfer, and termination.
To make job-related decisions about individuals, most HR
programs use three types of information: job
characteristics, worker qualifications, and job
performance.
© 2015 YOLO Learning Solutions
© 2015 YOLO Learning Solutions
Human Resource Planning
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Human resource planning involves forecasting the
organization’s future demand for employees,
forecasting the future supply of employees within the
organization, and designing programs to correct the
discrepancy between the two.
Quantitative methods of forecasting include the
productivity index and regression analysis.
Qualitative methods of forecasting rely on experts’
opinions and judgment to estimate the appropriate
numbers.
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Recruiting
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Recruiting is the process of attracting potential new
employees to the organization.
Recruiting serves three purposes:
◦ To provide enough applicants from which to select future
employees
◦ To attract at least minimally qualified applicants
◦ To attract a demographically and culturally diverse applicant pool
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The company controls three ways of fulfilling these
purposes of recruiting:
◦ The sources through which potential applicants are contacted
◦ The information given to applicants
◦ The contacts between the applicants and the company
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Selecting Employees
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Selection is the process of collecting systematic
information about applicants and using that
information to decide which applicants to hire.
Application forms, interviews, and tests should be
designed so that they employ questions that gather
information actually related to the behaviors that
comprise the available job.
© 2015 YOLO Learning Solutions
© 2015 YOLO Learning Solutions
The Application
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Traditional application forms have limited space, and
some respondents falsify their information.
Online applications easily gather more information
about applicants than traditional applications can.
A training and experience form is an application device
that presents a small number of the important tasks of
a job and asks the applicants whether they have ever
performed or been trained in each of the activities.
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The Interview
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Perhaps the most often used selection device, the
interview allows at least one member of the organization
to interact with each applicant and assess that applicant’s
job-related KSAs (knowledge, skills, and abilities).
Two aspects of the interview format are especially
important:
◦ The structure of the interview, meaning that the interviewer
should ask the same set of job-related questions of each
candidate
◦ The nature of the questions―for example, questions about jobrelated behaviors have proven to be quite useful
© 2015 YOLO Learning Solutions
© 2015 YOLO Learning Solutions
Tests
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Human resource managers can use many kinds of tests
to identify qualified applicants:
◦ Ability tests―Measure an applicant’s knowledge of specific
work content or cognitive ability
◦ Performance or work-sample tests―Verify an applicant’s
ability to perform actual job behaviors
◦ Assessment center tests―Simulate managerial tasks
◦ Integrity tests―Measure an applicant’s attitudes and opinions
about dysfunctional behaviors
◦ Personality inventories―Determine the person’s pattern of
interaction with the environment
◦ Physical examinations―Qualify an individual’s placement in
manually and physically demanding jobs
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Reference Checks
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Reference checks can be handled by:
◦ Contacting previous supervisors by phone, in-person visits,
mail inquiries, and emails
◦ Checking online networking sites
◦ Obtaining reference information from investigative agencies,
credit bureaus, and public documents
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Very little evidence support the use of checking
references in selection.
Because of the risks involved with checking references
or searching online, many human resource
departments will only verify factual data of
employment when contacting a reference.
© 2015 YOLO Learning Solutions
© 2015 YOLO Learning Solutions
Orientation and Training
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Orientation is the process of familiarizing newly hired
employees with fellow workers, company procedures, and
the physical properties of the organization.
Training is the process of instructing employees in their
job tasks as well as socializing them into the organization’s
values, attitudes, and other aspects of its culture.
Two basic types of information are needed to determine
training needs and to design training programs:
◦ The first is a description of the tasks and the necessary
knowledge, skills, and abilities of the job.
◦ The second is information about how well the employee can
currently perform the job.
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Orientation and Training (continued)
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A number of techniques are used in training:
◦ On-the-job training
◦ Off-job educational programs
◦ Online instruction
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Training methods used primarily for training managers
include coaching, committee assignments, job
rotation, role-playing, and case study.
Training should be directly measured to determine
how well employees have, in fact, learned the
material.
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Appraising Performance
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Performance appraisal is a formal measurement of the
quantity and quality of an employee’s work within a
specific time period.
Objective measures of appraisal count tangible
products of work performance, such as dollar amount
of sales, the number of garments sewn, or the amount
of scrap produced.
Subjective measures are judgments, generally by a
supervisor, about how an employee is performing.
Judgments can be made about the worker’s traits or
specific job behaviors.
© 2015 YOLO Learning Solutions
© 2015 YOLO Learning Solutions
Compensating Employees
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Compensation systems are the basis on which an
organization gives money, goods, or services to its
employees in exchange for their work. They attract,
motivate, and retain employees.
To set up a compensation system, a company must
determine, through wage and salary surveys, what
comparable firms pay for specific jobs.
Job evaluation methods determine the value of an
organization’s jobs and arrange these jobs in order of
pay according to their value.
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Compensating Employees (continued)
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The pay range for a group of jobs defines the upper
and lower limits of how much every employee who has
one of those jobs can earn.
Individuals are compensated according to how well or
how long they have done that job.
Among the fastest-rising costs in organizations are
those associated with benefits for employees, such as:
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Pay for time not worked
Mandatory protection programs
Optional protection programs
Private retirement plans
© 2015 YOLO Learning Solutions
© 2015 YOLO Learning Solutions
Promoting, Transferring,
and Terminating Employees
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Promotion is the advancement of a current employee to
a higher-level job within the organization.
A transfer is the reassignment of a current employee to
another job at the same level as the original job.
Termination is the separation of an employee from the
organization. There are two major types of termination:
◦ For-cause termination
◦ Layoffs
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Equal employment laws provide protection for a number
of demographic groups against disproportionate
termination.
© 2015 YOLO Learning Solutions
The Legal Environment of Human
Resource Management
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Over the last several decades, regulation of human
resource activities has increased in terms of both areas
covered and the number of laws passed.
Equal employment opportunity laws are designed to
protect individuals from unfair discrimination in
employment decisions based on race, sex, age,
national origin, religion, disability, and pregnancy.
The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 established
the right of workers to organize unions and bargain
collectively with employers over wages, hours, and
terms and conditions of employment.
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The Legal Environment of Human
Resource Management (continued)
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Unions are employee organizations that work with
employers to achieve better pay, hours, and working
conditions.
Unions and employers engage in collective bargaining,
a process of negotiation through which management
and unions reach an agreement regarding employee
pay, work conditions, and hours.
Other major issues today include employment health
and safety, health care benefits, labor laws, and
discrimination based on sexual orientation.
© 2015 YOLO Learning Solutions
© 2015 YOLO Learning Solutions
© 2015 YOLO Learning Solutions
Importance of Diversity
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Employees from different cultures have unique insights
that can help the organization succeed.
Diversity in the workforce helps companies to
understand their customers better and create
improved ways of developing relationships with them.
Diversity also helps to create better tolerance among
employees as they continually interact with co-workers
from different backgrounds.
Affirmative action programs are legally mandated
plans that attempt to increase job opportunities for
traditionally underrepresented areas of the workforce.
© 2015 YOLO Learning Solutions