Important business key terms before unit 2 Flashcards
(130 cards)
1
Q
Internal factors that influence human resource planning?(6)
A
Size of the organization
Strategicdirection of the organization
Organizational structure
Financesof the organization
Motivationin the workplace
Corporate cultureof the organization
2
Q
External factors that influence human resource planning (5)
A
- Demographic change
- Change in labour mobility
- Immigration
- Flexi-time
- Gig economy
3
Q
What is demographic change?
A
Demographic change refers to variations in the structure of the population that influence human resource planning.
4
Q
What is human resource managment
A
refers to the role of managers in planning and developing the organization’s people. This is done through interrelated functions such as the recruitment, selection, dismissal and training and development of workers.
5
Q
What is labour mobility ?
A
Labour mobilitymeasures the extent to which workers have the ability and willingness to move between geographical locations and/or occupations for their employment
6
Q
What is flexi-time?
A
Flexi-timeis a form of flexible work practice that enables employees to work a set number of core hours per week
7
Q
What is the gig economy?
A
gig economy refers to labour markets in which workers are given short-term or one-off contracts, such as freelance work, rather than long-term or permanent jobs.
8
Q
Reasons for resistance to change in the workplace (4)
A
Self-interest
Misinformation and misunderstandning
Low tolerance
Interpretations of circumstances
9
Q
Human resource strategies for reducing the impact of change and resistance to change (6)
A
- Education and communication
- Participation and involvement
- Facilitation and support
- Negotiation and agreement
- Manipulation and co-option
- Explicit and implicit coercion
10
Q
What are the different types of organisational structure(9)
A
Delegation
Span of control
Levels of the hierarchy
Chain of command
Bureaucracy
Centralisation
Decentralisation
Delayering
Matrix structure
11
Q
Delegation
A
empowerment of authority to a person lower down the organizational structure
12
Q
Span of control
A
refers to how many workers are directly accountable to (or under the authority of) a particular line manager
13
Q
What are the factors that a business adopt a wide or narrow span of control (3)
A
Employee competencies
Managerial competencies
The business context
14
Q
Levels of the hierarchy
A
refers to the number of layers of formal authority. It is represented in an organizational chart
15
Q
Chain of command
A
the formal line of authority through which the orders are passed down
16
Q
Bureaucracy
A
official administrative and formal rules of an organisation that govern business activity
17
Q
Centralisation
A
where decision-making is predominantly made by a small group of senior managers at the top of the organisational hierarchy.
18
Q
Decentralisation
A
where decision-making authority is delegated throughout, rather from a central authoritative group.
19
Q
Delayering
A
the process of removing levels in the hierarchy to flatten the organisational structure
20
Q
Two reasons for delayering
A
(i) to cut costs
(ii) to remove or reduce bureaucratic inefficiencies in the organizatio
21
Q
Matrix structure
A
Amatrix structureis a flexible organizational structure based on the specific needs of a particular business to meet the changing needs of the organization.
22
Q
How does the matrix structure work
A
involves assigning individuals to multiple roles, so they are placed in multiple reporting lines.
23
Q
Flat/Horizontal organisation chart
A
A flat organisation only has a few layers of managment
- Wide span of control
- Short chain of command
24
Q
Tall/Vertical organisation chart
A
Atall organisationhas many layers in its organisational hierarchy.
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Characteristics of a tall/vertical organisation chart
- highly formal, inflexible, and bureaucratic in structure,
- long chains of command.
- The organisational structure is well established and rigid, so changes do not happen frequently or easily.
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Organisation by product
structuring a workforce according to the goods and services sold by Each department
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Advantages of organisation by product (3)
- Enables specialisation (workers focus on a specific market segment
- helps to ensure the business meets the needs of its customers more effectively e.g improved knowdlege and marketing activities
- encourage healthy internal competition between departments to produce ever-more appealing products.
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Disadvantages of organisation by product
- Duplication of work done by each department
- associated with decentralised decision-making, (difficult or the senior executives to maintain overall control of the various separate divisions of the business.)
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Organisation by function
structuring a workforce according business functions, i.e. specialised roles or tasks
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Organisation by region
structuring a workforce according to different geographical areas based on where the firm’s operations are.
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what is project-based organisation
Flexible organisational structure based on the needs of a particular project/business venture.
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What is Handys Shamrocks theory
Handy argued that organizations must adapt to changes in the business environment in order to survive and thrive.
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what are the three component of handys shamrocks theory
The professional core (or core workers)
The contingent workforce(or peripheral workers)
outsourced vendors (or outsourced workers)
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The professional core (or core workers)
Group of workers that consist of full-time and multi-skilled professional workers who handle the daily operations of the business
e.g: Managers and professional technicians
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The contingent workforce(or peripheral workers)
Consist of temporary staff hired by the organisation
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outsourced vendors (or outsourced workers)
Consists of individuals/businesses that are not employed by the organisation but are paid to complete specific tasks
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Scientific thinking/management
Refers to decision making/ problem solving based on gathering the necessary information and data and then analysing this, in order to make well-informed decisions.
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Intuitive thinking/management
refers to decision making and problem solving that are based on instinct and experiences, rather than scientific methods such as logic, empirical evidence, and data.
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What is a manager?
A manager is the person responsible for setting objectives, organising resources and motivating staff in order to meet the organisations aims.
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Three levels of managment
Senior management
Middle management
Supervisory management (or junior management)
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Roles and function of a management (5)
Planning
Organising
Commanding
coordinating
controlling
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Leadership
Leadership is about influencing other people to achieve a vision or goal.
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Factors influencing management style(5)
- The task(s) being performed
- The subordinates
- Organizational culture
- The managers themselves
- Time constraints –
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autocratic leader
An autocratic leader is one who makes all the decisions and prefers not to delegate any responsibility. so centralises decision-making without consulting others or listening to their points of view.
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paternalistic leader
A paternalistic leader sees employees as family members, making decisions they believe are in the best interest of the workforce (or family)
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When is autocratic leadership style suitable(2)
- When employees are unskilled and need to be told specifically what to do.
- quick decision-making or when critical decisions have to be made e.g emergency services (police, fire and ambulance services)
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Negative paternalistic style
occurs when the leader perceives the workers as less than capable, so leads by supervision, guidance and control
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Positive paternalistic style
occurs when the leader perceives the workers as highly capable, so nurtures. supports and develops the workers
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democratic leader
A democratic leader is one who involves employees in the decision-making process. They consult staff and consider their views before making any decision
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laissez-faire leadership
A laissez-faire leadership style is one where the leader delegates a significant amount of authority to subordinates and provides them with the freedom to carry out tasks in their own way, with minimal direction or supervision.
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situational leadership
A situational leadership involves the leader or manager adjusting their leadership style to fit the task, circumstance or situation that they find themselves in.
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What is motivation
Motivation refers to the desire, effort and passion to achieve something. It is the intrinsic desire to do something, so has a direct impact on how workers behave, and how efficient (productive) they are.
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What is taylors theory? (Scientific management theory of motivation)
Theory states that employees are primarily motivated by money and the productivity could be improved by setting output and efficiency targets related to pay
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Limitations to taylors theory (2)
-Difficult to measure physical output in some professions
-Not all people are motivated by money (theory does not include non-financial factors)
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What is Maslows theory? (hierarchy of needs)
needs are people’s unfulfilled physiological and/or psychological desires. The model suggests that only when one level of needs is met is it then possible for the next level to be addressed.
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What are the 5 hierarchy of needs (Maslow)
Self-actualization
Esteem
love and belonging (social needs)
safety needs (security needs)
physiological needs (basic needs)
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Self-actualization
Refers to the forces that drive people to become the best that they can be. i.e., fulfilling their full potential
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Limitation of maslows theory
- People are not motivated in the same way (levels of needs do not apply to everyone in all contexts.)
- Not feasible for a business to motivate all workers up the hierarchy of needs
- levels of needs are difficult to measure
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What is Herzberg (motivation-hygiene theory)
Herzberg argued that in order to create any motivation in the workplace, it was essential to first remove the factors that cause dissatisfaction. He named these influences hygiene factors
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What are hygiene factors
aspects of work that do not motivate but must be met to prevent diassitisfaction. These are lower level needs of people in order to meet their physiological needs. e.g: company policies, work conditions, job secuiry etc
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What are motivators (growth factors)
factors that can lead to the psychological growth of workers and hence increase satisfaction and performance at work. Higher level needs of people in order to meet their psychological needs.
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McClelland’s acquired needs theory (HL)
Theory states that three types of extrinsic needs must be satisfied in order to boost morale
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what are the three needs of McClellands need theory
Need for achievement (n-Ach)
Need for power (n-Pow)
Need for affiliation (n-Aff)
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Need for achievement (n-Ach)
achievement-motivated people are moderate risk takers
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Need for power (n-Pow)
Power-motivated people like to influence the behaviour of others so tend to be very strong-willed
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Need for affiliation (n-Aff)
People who need affiliation seek to have a good social and working relationship with colleagues and the management team
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Deci and Ryan’s self-determination theory (HL)
Self-determination refers to a person’s ability to think and act independently as well as to self-manage when it comes to decision making
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two interrelated key assumptions of self-determination theory:
- Individuals are keen to grow, i.e., the desire for growth drives our behaviours (no one intentionally seeks to fail).
- Intrinsic motivation drives our actions, i.e., we have a desire to achieve internal goals, rather than external goals.
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Labour turnover (HL)
Labour turnover measures the percentage of the workforce that leaves the organisation in a given time (usually one year)
70
Labour turnover equation
(Number of people who leave/Number of employees in the firm) x 100
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What does a low labour turnover rate suggest(2)
- Organisation has recruited the right people for the job
- existing employees are content and motivated at work
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What does a high labour turnover rate suggest(2)
- uggests staff are incompetent or lack job satisfaction
- better job opportunities/ renumeration packaged offered by other employers.
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What are the costs of high labour turnover rate(6)
- Recruiting new (replacement) workers.
- Inducting and training new staff.
- Management time during the recruitment process.
- Lost productivity during the time between the loss of employees and hiring replacement workers.
- Getting workers familiarised with the operations and corporate culture of the organization, such as adjustment to the new working environment, and company policies, procedures and processes.
- Negative impact on remaining workforce, e.g. overburdening existing staff, poor morale, and lower productivity.
- Negative publicity if the organization struggles to retain its workers.
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What is employee retention (opposite of labour turnover)
measures the ability of an organisation to keep its employees at the firm, rather than leave.
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Why is a zero rate of labour turnover not desirable
This is because there can be benefits of some people leaving the organization (or new staff joining the firm). In particular, with new employees there are potential benefits of:
- New ideas from those joining from outside of the organization
- Skills and experiences from the new recruits, which may not currently exist (or would be too expensive and time consuming to upskill internal recruits).
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What is an appraisal
Formal assessment of an employee’s performance in fulfilling their job based on the tasks and responsibilities set out in their job description.
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the four types of appraisal
-Formative appraisal
-Summative appraisal
-360-degree feedback appraisal
-self- appraisal
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what is formative apprisal
Formative appraisal is the planned and ongoing process in which data and evidence are used to inform employees about what to do to improve their work practices.
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Goals of formative appraisal
- Monitor the learning performance of employees
- help employees identify their strengths and weaknesses
- help managers to recognise areas where staff are struggling so that any problems can be addressed promptly.
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Summative appraisal
Summative appraisal is a written description of an employees performance at work, summarising what they have done and achieved during the year
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Goals of summative appraisal
- evaluate the performance or contribution of workers by comparing this with a pre-determined standard/benchmark
- comprehensive and professional judgement of an employees’ core competencies and to identify and specific areas in need of improvement
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360-degree feedback
360-degree appraisal involves collecting evidence about the appraisee’s job performance from a range of stakeholders who work with the employee e.g line manager, co-workers, subordinates and even customers.
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Disadvantages of 360-feedback (3)
- relies heavily on opinions rather than factual evidence
- not suitable for all businesses
- managers have to consider group norms and sub cultures
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Advantage of 360-feedback
provides multiple perspectives of the employee’s effectiveness and performance at work.
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self-appraisal
Self-appraisal involves employees appraising themselves based on a set of pre-determined criteria.
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Internal recruitment
Internal recruitment involves hiring people who already work for the business to fill a vacant spot.
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Why might internal recruitment happen?
- changing needs of an organisation e.g: as redeploying staff between different departments or locations, or due to promoting employees to certain positions in the business.
- internal candidates are successful in applying for promotion posts within the firm
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Advantages of internal recruitment (5)
Less uncertainty (lower risks)
Saves money
Saves time
Improves motivation
Smoother transition
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Disadvantages of internal recruitment(4)
Limited pool of suitable workers
No new ideas
An internal vacancy is created
Potential conflict
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External recruitment
External recruitment is the process of hiring people from outside the organization, i.e. people who do not currently work for the organization.
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Methods of external recruitment (5)
- Newspaper advertising
- recruitment agencies
- online recruitment platforms
- headhunters
- government agencies to attract external recruits
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Advantages of external recruitment (3)
A larger pool of workers to choose from
New ideas
Motivational impacts
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Disadvantages of external recruitment (4)
Greater risks
More expensive
More time consuming
Demotivating to the existing workforce
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Financial rewards
refer to the various methods that businesses use to motivate workers that involve some form of payment
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Salary
Financial rewards set at a fixed annual rate but paid on a regular basis
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Advantages of salary
- Improve firms cash flow as workers are paid at a fixed amount
- safer and more convenient (no need to pay workers in cash)
- Salaries provide stability (sense of security)
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Disadvantages of salary
- salaried workers may feel aggrieved during busier periods when extra work is not remunerated with extra pay.
- not easy to distinguish the effort or outputs of different workers, it can be difficult to rewards those who are more creative and productive
- No incentive to work hard as people are paid the same amount of their time. This causes slack/procrastination in the work place
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Wages
are a type of financial reward payment system based on time or output. Wages are paid as time rate (hours) or piece rate (output).
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Piece rate
payment systems reward workers with wages based on their output or productivity,
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Commission
type of financial payment system that rewards workers a certain percentage of the sales of each good or service that they are responsible for completing
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Performance related pay
is a type of financial payment system used to pay employees a bonus for reaching or exceeding a set target
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How can performance related pay be paid
-Pay rise
-Performance bonus
-gratuity
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Profit-related pay
type of financial reward system which remunerates workers a certain percentage of the annual profits that the business earns. i.e. the greater the profits the higher the pay
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Disadvantages of profit-related pay
- Proportion of profits paid to employees can be seen to small, therefore does not encourage any incentive to work harder
- Individual efforts are not explicitly recognised (hence no reason for any individual to improve their performance)
- can be demotivating if workers miss their profit targets (especially if these were unrealistically high in the first instance).
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Employee share ownership schemes
type of financial payment system that involves giving workers shares in the company they work for.
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What are the two forms of employee share ownership scheme
- The company gives employees a number of shares, freely without any charge.
- Employees are offered the opportunity to purchase shares at a discounted price.
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Fringe payments
Fringe payments are the monetary benefits to employees in addition to their wages or salaries.
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Non-financial rewards
non-monetary factors that motivate people by offering psychological and intangible benefits i.e. factors not directly linked to money
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Job enrichment
Job enrichment is about enhancing the experiences of workers, giving workers a wide range of challenging tasks and more responsibility at work.
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Job rotation
Job rotation is an operational management technique and form of non-financial motivation that involves workers switching between jobs (tasks) for a period of time.
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Job enlargement
Refers to broadening the number of tasks that an employee performs, although the nature of the job itself remains essentially unchanged
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Empowerment
Empowerment is the delegation of decision-making power to workers,It involves granting workers the autonomy and authority to be in charge of their own jobs and to execute their own ideas.
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Successful empowerment in the workplace requires effective (4)
Delegation
Autonomy
Employee participation
Continuous professional development
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Purpose
purpose is an intrinsic, non-financial type of motivation because people believe they do genuinely meaningful work
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Teamwork
Teamwork refers to the combined efforts of a group of workers to achieve of an organisational goal
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Training
Training is the process of instructing and teaching (or mentoring) employees how to perform certain tasks in their job.
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What are the three types of training
-Induction training
-On the job training
-off the job training
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Induction training
Type of training aimed at introducing new employees to the organisation
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Organisational culture
refers to an organisations set of core values and beliefs. (shapes the firms attitudes and norms)
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Factors that influence organisational culture (4)
size of the organisation
Traditions and values of the organisation
Attitudes and traits of senior managers
Societal and cultural norms in the region or country
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Factors that affect the organisational culture of a business (6)
Vision
Values
Practices
People
Traditions
Leadership syles
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What is a culture gap?
A culture gap occurs if there is a difference between an organization’s desired culture and its actual culture. This can easily cause a weak organizational culture
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What are the four Charles Handy’s “God of management”
Zeus- Power culture
Apollo- Role cultures
Athena- Task cultures
Dionysus- person culture
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Zeus- Power culture
Power cultures exist when there is a dominant individual (zeus) or group that holds decision-making power
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Apollo- Role cultures
Role cultures exist in highly structured organisations with formal rules, policies and procedures.Workers have clearly defined roles and responsibilities, and operate within clear rules and guidelines.
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Athena- Task cultures
Task cultures exist in organisation where the focus is on getting results from the work done. (no single source of decision-making power). Teamwork and cohesiveness are therefore vital in a task culture.
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Dionysus- person culture
person cultures exit in organisations where a large number of employees feel that they are more important than the organisation itself.
Effectively, this means the organisation only exists in order to help individuals to achieve their personal and professional goals. In a person culture , the business values each person as an expert, and relies on their skills and experiences for the organisation to succeed and thrive.
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Culture clash
A culture clash occurs when there are wide-ranging differences in the values and views held by different individuals within an organization, thereby causing potential conflict within the organization.
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Three reasons for culture clash
Growth
Mergers
Leadership styles
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