Human Resource Management: Gaining a Competitive Advantage – Chapter 1 – Flashcards
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Competitiveness
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A company's ability to maintain and gain market share in its industry
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Human resource management (HRM)
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Policies, practices, and systems that influence employees' behavior, attitudes, and performance.
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Human Resource Management Practices
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1. Analysis and design of work 2. HR planning 3. Recruiting 4. Selection 5. Training and development 6. Compensation 7. Performance management 8. Employee relations
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Responsibilities of HR Departments
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1. Employment and recruiting 2. Training and development 3. Compensation 4. Benefits 5. Employee services 6. Employee and community relations 7. Personnel records 8.Health and safety 9.Strategic planning
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HR as a Business with Three Product Lines
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1.Administrative Services and Transactions: Compensation, hiring and staffing 2. Business Partner Services: Developing effective HR systems and helping implement business plans, talent management 3.Strategic Partner: Contributing to business strategy based on considerations of human capital, business capabilities, readiness, and developing HR practices as strategic differentiators
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Six Competencies for the HR Profession
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1. Credible Activist (most important) 2. Cultural Steward 3. Talent Manager/ Organizational Designer 4. Strategic Architect 5. Business Ally 6. Operational Executor
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Two important challenges faced by HR managers
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1. Shifting their focus from current operations to strategies for the future. This shift presents two challenges: self-service and outsourcing. 2. Preparing non-HR managers to develop and implement human resource practices
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Self-Service
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Giving employees online access to HR information
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Outsourcing
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The practice of having another company (a vendor, third-party provider, or consultant) provide services
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HR responsibilities most likely to be outsourced completely
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1. Employee assistance and counseling 2. Flexible spending account administration 3. Background and criminal background checks
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Strategic business issues that HR might help address
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1. Identifying new business opportunities 2. Assessing possible merger, acquisition, or divestiture strategies 3. Working on recruiting and developing talent
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Evidence-based HR
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Demonstrating that human resources practices have a positive influence on the company's bottom line or key stakeholders (employees, customers, community, shareholders)
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What question should you ask to evaluate the relationship between HRM and the business strategy?
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What is HR doing to ensure that the right people with the right skills are doing the right things in the jobs that are important for the execution of the business strategy?
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Why have HRM roles changed?
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Managers see HRM as the most important lever for companies to gain a competitive advantage over both domestic and foreign competitors.
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Is time spent on administrative tasks increasing or decreasing?
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Time spent on administrative tasks is decreasing.
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Which HR roles are increasing?
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HR roles as a strategic business partner, change agent and employee advocate are increasing.
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3 Competitive Challenges Influencing HRM
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1. Technology 2. Sustainability 3. Globalization
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Sustainability
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A company's ability to make a profit without sacrificing the resources of its employees, the community, or the environment.
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Knowledge workers
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Employees who contribute to the company not through manual labor, but through what they know about customers or a specialized body of knowledge.
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Intangible assets
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A type of company asset including human capital, customer capital, social capital, and intellectual capital.
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Empowering
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Giving employees responsibility and authority to make decisions regarding all aspects of product development or customer service.
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Learning organization
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A culture of lifelong learning, enabling all employees to continually acquire and share knowledge
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Psychological contract
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Expectations of employee contributions and what the company will provide in return
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Employee engagement
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The degree to which employees are fully involved in their work and the strength of their commitment to their job and the company
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Talent management
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A systematic planned strategic effort by companies to attracting, retaining, developing and motivating highly skilled employees and managers
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Alternative work arrangements
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Independent contractors, on-call workers, temporary workers, and contract company workers who are not employed full-time by the company.
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Balanced Scorecard
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A means of performance measurement that gives managers a chance to look at their company from the perspectives of internal and external customers, employees, and shareholders.
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The balanced scorecard should be used to _____?
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1. Link human resource management activities to the company's business strategy 2. Evaluate the extent to which the HRM function is helping the company meet its strategic objectives
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Total quality management
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A cooperative form of doing business that relies on the talents and capabilities of both labor and management to continually improve quality and productivity.
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Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award
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An award established in 1987 to promote quality awareness, to recognize quality achievements of U.S. companies, and to publicize successful quality strategies.
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ISO 9000:2000
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Quality standards, developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in Geneva, Switzerland, adopted worldwide
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Six Sigma Process
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System of measuring, analyzing, improving, and controlling processes once they meet quality standards.
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Lean Thinking
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A process used to determine how to use less effort, time, equipment, and space but still meet customers' requirements.
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Internal Labor Force
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Labor force of current employees
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External Labor Market
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Persons outside the firm who are actively seeking employment.
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Changing Demographics and Diversity of the Workforce
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-Aging of the workforce -Increased diversity of workforce -Influence of immigration
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Skills to successfully manage a diverse workforce
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1. Communicating effectively with employees from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds 2. Coaching and developing employees of different ages, educational backgrounds, ethnicity, physical ability, and race 3. Providing performance feedback that is based on objective outcomes rather than values and stereotypes that work against women, minorities, and handicapped persons by prejudging these persons' abilities and talents 4. Creating a work environment that makes it comfortable for employees of all backgrounds to be creative and innovative 5. Recognizing and responding to generational issues
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5 Legal Areas that Influenced HRM
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1. Equal employment opportunity legislation 2. Employee safety and health 3. Employee pay and benefits 4. Employee privacy 5. Job security
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Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002
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A congressional act passed in response to illegal and unethical behavior by managers and executives. The Act sets stricter rules for business especially accounting practices including requiring more open and consistent disclosure of financial data, CEOs' assurance that the data is completely accurate, and provisions that affect the employee-employer relationship (e.g., development of a code of conduct for senior financial officers)
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Offshoring
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Exporting jobs from developed countries to less developed countries
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Onshoring
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Exporting jobs to rural parts of the United States
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High-performance work systems
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Work systems that maximize the fit between the company's social system and technical system.
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Electronic human resource management (e-HRM)
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The processing and transmission of digitized information used in HRM, including text, sound, and visual images from one computer or electronic device to another.
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Human Resource Information System (HRIS)
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A system used to acquire, store, manipulate, analyze, retrieve, and distribute HR information.
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HR Dashboard
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HR metrics such as productivity, absenteeism that are accessible by employees and managers through the company intranet or human resource information system.
