MGMT 3860- Human Resource

Management
Chapter 1
The 21st Century Corporation
Many factors driving change but none more important than the internet.
- Gives anyone the ability to access info from anywhere
Its Global
Companies migrate to places of greatest advantage
- Different outposts around the world that are connected seamlessly
through the internet.
Its about speed
Competition is more intense than ever because of the rise of Asian Powerhouses
and the spread of new internet technologies and business models

The Enterprise is the People

People are most vital of resources.
Human Resource Management (HRM) practices can make a difference in 3 key
organizational outcomes:
1) Productivity
2) Quality of work life
3) Profit

Managing people: A critical role for every manager

Managers are responsible for optimizing all of the resources available to themmaterial, capital, and human.
Five Activities
Staffing Comprises the activities of (1) identifying work requirements within an
organization; (2) determining the number of people and the skills mix necessary to
do the work; (3) recruiting, selecting, and promoting qualified candidates.
Retention Comprises the activities of (1) rewarding employees for performing
their jobs effectively; (2) ensuring harmonious working relations between
employees and managers; (3) maintaining a safe, healthy work environment.
Development is a function whose objective is to preserve and enhance
employees competence in their jobs through improving their knowledge, skills,
abilities and other characteristics; HR specialists use the term competencies to
refer to these items.

Adjustment comprises activities intended to maintain compliance with the

organizations HR policies (e.g. through discipline) and business strategies (e.g. cost
leadership.)
Managing Change Is an ongoing process whose objective is to enhance the
ability of an organization to anticipate and respond to developments in its external
and internal environments, and to enable employees at all levels to cope with these
changes.
Can be carried out at the individual, work team, or larger organizational unit
(department) level.
Human Resource Management (HRM) System an overall approach to
management, compromising staffing, retention, development, adjustment, and
managing change.
To some, the activities of staffing, retention, development, and adjustment are the
special responsibilities of the HR department, but these also lie within the core of
every managers job throughout the organization. And because line managers have
authority (the organizationally granted right to influence the actions and behavior
of the workers they manage) they have considerable impact on the way workers
behave.
Broad objective of HRM is to optimize the productivity of all workers in an
organization.

Why does effective HRM Matter?

Strong connection between how firms manage their people and the economic
results
Managers in companies that are clear with employees about work expectations and
that provide honest feedback on a regular basis drive successful performance.
People work harder because of the increased involvement and commitment that
comes from having more control and say in their work.

Features of the Competitive Business Environment (4)

Globalization
The globalization of business refers to the free movement of capital, goods,
services, ideas, information, and people across national boundaries.
The backlash against globalization. Growing fear that globalization benefits big
companies instead of average citizens, as stagnating wages and growing job
insecurity in developed countries create rising disenchantment. The problem is that
workers in the West are not equipped for todays pace of change, in which jobs
come and go and skills can quickly become redundant.

Implications of Globalization for HRM. Globalization is a fact of organizational

life, as countries, companies, workers are interconnected as never before
Cheap labor and plentiful resources, combined with ease of travel and
communication, have created global labor markets.
Expect to see three more trends.
1) Increasing workforce flux, as more roles are automated or outsourced, and
more workers are contract based, are mobile, or work flexible hours.
2) Expect more diversity as workers come from a greater range of
backgrounds.
3) Technical skills, while mandatory, will be less defining of the successful
manager than the ability to work across cultures and to build relationships
with many different constituents.

Technology
Technology driven job destruction does not decrease overall employment even
while making some jobs obsolete. Workers adjust their skills and entrepreneurs
create opportunities based on the new technologies the number of jobs rebounds.
Impacts of New Technology on HRM. HR professionals will need to recognize
collaborative technology as a key component of their firms global hiring strategyleveraging social networking sites and researching which sites are most effective in
each market.
The most central use of technology in HRM is an organizations human resources
information system (HRIS) (the method used by organizations to collect, store,
analyze, report, and evaluate info and data on people, jobs, and costs.)
Todays HRIS tools help with management control and decision making.

Sustainability
Defined as the ability to meet the needs of the present without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet their needs.
Sustainability affects an organizations business model, structure, and processes in
at least three ways.
1) Organizations consider a wider set of stakeholders when setting strategy. In
addition to financial stakeholders, other stakeholders include employees,
customers, suppliers, regulators, and local communities
2) Stakeholders help with the implementation of such a strategy, as employers
partner with external organizations. These may include community
organizations, governmental and nongovernmental organizations, and
industry alliances. Such partnerships may help advance sustainable
development because the demands of global corporate sustainability often
exceed the capabilities of a single organization to respond.
3) Sustainability affects corporate practices and requires greater involvement
and accountability of boards of directors and it requires business

transparency, as illustrated in the growing number of organizations that issue

annual sustainability reports.
Implications of sustainability for HRM. Challenge is to hire and develop
managers who can deal with present as well as future sustainability issues facing
their organization.
The HRM function also has the potential to contribute important skills in areas such
as change management and cultural stewardship. Practices such as values base
recruitment use an employer branding informed by sustainability initiatives helping
employees and managers link performance targets that sustainability initiatives, in
linking variable pay to those initiatives, accomplish two objectives. They supported
the broader business approach to sustainability and they create and deliver or HRM
processes sustainability.

Demographic Changes and Increasing Cultural Diversity

The number as well as the mix of people available to work is changing rapidly.
Implications for HRM. These trends in two key implications for managers.
1) The retailer supply of workers (at least in some fields) will make finding and
keeping employees a top priority
2) That is of managing a culturally diverse workforce, of harnessing the
motivation and a thirds of a wide variety of workers, will present a continuing
challenge to management.
The organizations to ban the ride will be the ones that embraces the new
demographic trends instead of fighting them.

Responses of firms to the new competitive realities

-

This year from vertically integrated hierarchies two networks of specialists

The decline of routine work (sewing machine operators telephone
operators) coupled with the expansion of complex and jobs that require
flexibility, creativity, and the ability to work well with people
The tide less to a persons position or tenure in an organization and more
into the market value of his or her skills
The change in the paradigm of doing business for making a product to
providing a service, of them but a part time or temporary employees
Outsourcing of the activities that are not core competencies of a firm (E.
G. Payroll, benefits administration, relocation services)
If redefinition of the work itself: constant learning, more higher-order
thinking, less 9 to 5 mentality

In response to these changes, many firms are doing one or more of the following:
developing new forms of organization, restructuring (including downsizing),
adopting quality management programs, and building flexibility and to work
schedules and the rules.

New forms of organization

Virtual organization, which uses specialists come together to work on projects as
in the movie industry and then disband when the project is finished.
Virtual organizations are already popular and consulting, legal defense, and in
sponsored research.
They are multisite, multi organizational, and dynamic.
Virtual workplace-in which employees operate remotely from each other and from
managers.

Restructuring including downsizing

Restructuring can assume a variety of forms, employment downsizing most
common
Downsizing, will play and elimination of positions or jobs.

Quality Management programs

Six Sigma. Originally originated at Motorola in 1986

Flexibility
Three features are the keys to making business case for increased flexibility: talent
management (specifically, the attraction and retention); human capital outcomes
(increase satisfaction and commitment, decreased the stress); if human capital
outcomes (increased satisfaction and commitment, decrease stress); and financial,
operational, and business outcomes.

Productivity: What is it and why is it important?

Productivity is a measure of the output of goods and services relative to the
inputs of labor, capital, and the equipment. The more productive an industry, the
better its competitive position because its unit costs are lower. When productivity
increases, businesses can pay higher wages without boosting inflation.
Greater productivity benefits of organizations directly (it improves their competitive
position relative to that of their rivals) and their benefits workers and directly (in
higher pay and improve purchasing power)

Quality of work life: What is it?

Two ways of looking at what quality of work life (QWL) means. One way equates
QWL with a set of objective organizational conditions and practices (promotion from
within policies, democratic supervision, employee involvement, safer working
conditions). The other way equates QWL with employees perceptions that they are
safe and relatively well satisfied, they have a reasonable work life, and theyre able
to grow and develop as human beings.

Business trends and HR Competencies

The competencies and the definitions are as follows:

1) Human resource expertise-the ability to apply the principles and practices

of human resource management contribute to the success of the business
2) Relationship management- the ability to manage interactions to provide
service and to support the organization
3) Consultation- the ability to provide guidance to organizational stakeholders
4) Leadership and navigation- the ability to direct and contribute to
initiatives and processes within the organization
5) Communication- the ability to effectively exchange with stakeholders
6) Global and cultural effectiveness- the ability to evaluate and consider the
perspectives and Brent grounds of all parties
7) Ethical practice- the ability to support and uphold the values of the
organization while mitigating risk
8) Critical evaluation- the ability to interpret information to make business
decisions and recommendations
9) Business acumen- the ability to understand and apply information to
contribute to the organizations strategic plan

The 21st Century Corporation

Management systems that produce profits through people seem to share seven
dimensions in common.
1) Employment security. Such security is fundamental to most other high
performance management practices the reason is that innovations and work
practices or other forms of work management cooperation or productivity
improvement are not likely to be sustained over time when workers fear that
by increasing productivity they will work themselves out of a job. In addition,
if the goal is to avoid layoffs, organizations will be motivated to hire sparingly
in order to keep their labor force is smaller and more productive.
2) Selective hiring. This dimension has several prerequisites, the first of
which is having a large applicant pool from which to select. Second, the
organization needs to be clear about the most critical skills and attributes in
the applicant pool.
3) Self-managed teams and decentralization are basic elements of
organization designed. Teams substitute peer based control of fur
hierarchal control of work. They also make all of the people in a firm feel
accountable and responsible for the operation and success of the enterprise,
not just a few people in senior management.
4) Comparatively high in compensation contingents on organizational
performance. It is not true that only certain industries can or should pay
high wages. Compensation and benefits are only one part of a broader
philosophy and culture that incorporates other practices such as training,
information sharing, and delegation of responsibility.
5) Extensive training. Training is an essential components of high
performance Works Systems because these systems rely on frontline
employees skills and initiatives to identify and resolve problems, to initiate
changes in work methods, and to take responsibility for quality. The

6) Reduce differences and status. Reducing the status distinctions as

separate individuals and groups distinctions that cause some to feel less
valued make all members of an organization feel important and committed.
7) Sharing of information. As sharing of information on such things as
financial performance, strategy, and operational measures to an
organizations people theyre trusted.