3.6.1

Question 1

What are the objectives of HR?

Answer 1

-matching the workforce to the business needs eg. If expanding into a new market HR will need to recruit staff to suit business needs
- helping employees reach their full potential eg. Investing in training so workers can improve themselves their productivity.
-supporting employee/ employer relations

Question 2

What is the difference between hard and soft HRM?

Answer 2

Hard HRM: employeee are seen as a resource like any other. Employees are hired on a short term basis. Managers believe employees are only motivated by money and think they will do as little work as possible.

Soft HRM: employees are the most important resource, managed on a long term basis and training is done to meet development needs.

Question 3

Benefits and drawbacks of SOFT HRM

Answer 3

-likely to increase staff morale because employees will feel valued. Makes it easier to retain staff
-however soft HRM involves more costs because it encourages investment in employees. Extra training is time consuming. And all that training might be useless if they just leave for a better job.

Question 4

Benefits and drawbacks of HARD HRM

Answer 4

-managers can keep control over for the workforce, less mistakes will be made. Easy to replace employees as well.
-can be demotivating -high staff turnover. Could be missing out on profits as they don’t use staff to their full potential.

Question 5

Labour productivity formula?

Answer 5

Output per period
—————————
Number of employees

Question 6

Labour cost per unit?

Answer 6

Labour cost
——————
Units of output

Question 7

Employee cost as a % of turnover?

Answer 7

Employee costs
————————. X100
Sales turnover

Question 8

Labour retention?

Answer 8

Number of staff employed
at the company me
of period -number of leavers
——————————————— x100
Number of staff employed
at start of period