Managing Human Resources

Exercises, Experiments, and Applications

Alan B. Clardy

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781317780045
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Storia e teoria della psicologia
• Index: Business

Students taking a personnel or human resources management course often do not enter the course bursting with curiosity or unbridled enthusiasm. After all, what kind of excitement can there be in studying how to process payroll, check employment references, or learn about some arcane government regulation? It is unfortunate and ultimately self-defeating if such a mindset about human resources persists, because in today's business world, organizational success and competitive advantage come from the "people" side of the business--a workforce that is highly competent and committed to the success of the organization. The key for students in this field is to learn how to use human resources management (HRM) to achieve this advantage.

It is important for students to learn to identify, develop, and manipulate policies and programs to produce desired outcomes. A wide range of critical HRM experiences are presented in this book as either exercises, applications, or experiments--all designed to help students see the choices available and experience their implications in managing the organization. They also offer examples of how HRM function must operate within a framework of rules and regulations.

More specifically, this book contains over 30 different situations that illustrate both classic and contemporary human resources problems. It covers the entire spectrum of HRM from establishing policies and goals, through job analysis and evaluation, personnel planning, selection and appraisal, to compensation and benefits, training, organizational improvement, and safety and labor relations. Most of the situations described are drawn from the real-life experiences of managing human resources, including several cases from today's headlines.

The case exercises, applications, and experiments are designed to be used as part of regular classroom instruction and can be used with any textbook. The exercises incorporate a number of different learning processes, including case discussions, self-assessments, interviews of others, data analysis, team teaching, testing, experimental observation, program creation and design, role-playing, exercise simulations, training, and participation in experiments. The teacher can use these experiential learning activities to supplement regular classroom instruction; the activities clarify, crystallize, and expand the understanding gained from the lectures.

Of special interest:
* All of the exercises can be conducted during class times or can be used as homework assignments.
* The instructor's manual is organized for easy use with a summary of each case, guidelines for administering each case, plus supplemental or background information.
* An exercise planning table links each exercise with the chapters found in a number of the most commonly used HRM textbooks.
* Most of the cases are based on actual events, drawn from the author's professional or consulting experience or from events first reported in the national media. Each case is intended to replicate and carry a high degree of fidelity to "real world" conditions as fully as possible.
* The experiments in the book are intended to serve as both discovery processes and illustrations of the procedures and rules invoked in developing human resources systems. In many of these experiments, students draw on their own background and perspectives to test out various points of view. The experiments illustrate some of the underlying research that often serves as the basis for HRM policies and procedures.

1

Human Resources Management: Orientations and Issues

Human resources management (HRM) involves the establishment and execution of policies, programs, and procedures that influence the performance, capabilities, and loyalty of the employees of an organization. Through these policies and procedures, individuals are attracted, retained, motivated, and developed to perform the work of the organization. It is through these policies and procedures that the organization seeks to mold and shape the actions of its employees to operate successfully, comply with various public policies, provide satisfactory quality of employment, and improve its position in the marketplace through strengthened ability to compete and serve.

The HRM function is of particular importance in the postindustrial economy (Bell, 1972; Schneider & Bowen, 1993). In this emerging system, the critical factor in production has shifted from machines and equipment to the “knowledge” worker (McGregor, 1991). That is, service has replaced production as the driving force in the economy, and the prominent way value is added is through the expertise of knowledge workers and the ministrations of service providers. In systems like this, it becomes even more important to obtain and use the full talents of all employees in the organization. Thus, the skillful adoption and use of HRM policies becomes a significant lever through which to move and direct the performance of the organization.

As Beer, Spector, Lawrence, Mills, and Walton (1984) noted, HRM is really a series of policy choices about how employees are to be treated, paid, and worked. These policies will in turn impact and condition the nature of the employment relationship. Different policies lead to different outcomes in employee commitment, competence, and congruence with organizational goals. Likewise, each policy choice presents the decision maker with a distinctive cost and benefit alternative. For example, compensation policy choices to pay either at the low, average, or high end of the labor market have rather dramatic implications for employee commitment to the organization and for costs to the employer. The fundamental rationale for effective management of human resources should be to identify and implement those policies, programs, and procedures that will yield the desired levels of loyalty, skill, and direction in the most cost-effective manner possible. In this sense, HRM offers to organizational decision makers a set of people investment opportunities.

ORIENTATIONS

However, as Schlesinger (1983) noted, the application of HRM to decision making by the organization is often reduced from review of human resources investment options to technique. For example, rather than focusing on how to build desired levels of trust through employment security arrangements, practitioners elaborate on the steps involved in a job analysis program. Or, rather than examine the impact of selection and development systems on competence levels, practitioners debate the agenda for a training program. In short, a tactical and operational view too often replaces a strategic view.

For Schlesinger (1983), there are several different kinds of value orientations that lie behind different kinds of HRM policy choices. Values in regard to human resources management are defined in terms of two fundamental questions: Who is to be considered a full “employee” of the organization? What rewards should be distributed to those employees? From these foundations, several different value positions can be erected, including: strict equality, where every member of the organization is entitled to fully share in all rewards; effort and performance, which allocates rewards to employees in terms of their contribution to the performance of the organization; and birthright, by which rewards should only go to those with certain inherited characteristics (such as ownership or gender).

The value orientation operating in an organization may not be consciously chosen or explicitly acknowledged, yet can pervasively shape the kinds of HRM policies adopted. These policies may or may not be appropriate for the longer term success of the organization.

In the Establishing a Human Resources Program case, you are asked to establish a human resources program for Widd-Jays, a manufacturing and service company. In this assignment, you put together human resources programs based on your values as the owner. As a result of this assignment, you have the opportunity to examine how value positions shape and define the kinds of HRM policies and programs adopted by the organization. From this analysis, you can consider the question of whether there is one universal set of HRM policies and programs that can be applied to any organization.

ISSUES AND CONTEXT

The nature of the employment relationship is something that affects virtually all adults and their families. Job opportunities and conditions influence the kinds of education people acquire, their income, and their ability to contribute to and participate in the well-being of society. What happens in and around the workplace is not simply an isolated, private experience for each individual but rather part of the common life of us all. Thus, there is an arguable public interest in what happens at the workplace (Bailyn, 1993; Edwards, 1993; Weller, 1990).

However, the historical foundation of the employment relationship in the United States—a doctrine called employment-at-will—has been one in which the nature of the employment experience was something between the employee and employer, with the state in a hands-off posture. The employment-at-will doctrine holds that the creation and continuation of an employment relationship is at the choice of both the employer and employee. Each is able to begin or stop the relationship at any time for any reason, and the state should not interfere in what was seen as a purely private matter between worker and employer. Beginning essentially in the Great Depression of the 1930s, the passage of various laws began to put limits on the pure and untrammeled exercise of the employment-at-will doctrine. In effect, the state adopted a view that there is a public interest in private employment matters.

The question remains to this day: What is the proper relationship between the public interest and the private nature of employment? Under the traditional employment-at-will doctrine, the employer was able to treat employees virtually any way (short of criminal conduct) he or she wanted. Historically, the results of this doctrine in areas such as labor conflict, employment discrimination, and unsafe working conditions often produced conditions judged unacceptable from the vantage point of the public interest. The limitations placed on the employment-at-will doctrine have given employees rights in the employment relationship. Employers do not have an unrestrained free hand in treating their employees in any way they see fit.

These laws and regulations create a legal context for which HRM practices can be held accountable by employees and public regulatory bodies. Employers violating these laws and regulations can be found guilty of violating employee protections and made to suffer consequences in terms of reinstatement, monetary compensations, and fines, to name a few. Thus, it is important that a human resources manager be aware of these laws and regulations in planning and administering HRM policies, programs, and procedures. Compliance with employment laws and regulations will help the employer avoid legal and regulatory interference; however, simple compliance with these laws and regulations will not automatically mean that the organization will be successful. Success in organizational performance from effective HRM practices depends on using the best practices of the field. Thus, the design and implementation of HRM policies and programs is a juggling act of keeping the organization in legal compliance and at the same time instituting the best practices in the field. In general, even though this process may be difficult at times, these twin concerns support and reinforce each other.

In Sexual Harassment: Yes or No?, you are asked to decide whether certain described actions fall in the realm of “sexually harassing” behavior. Sexual harassment is an important illustration of how public interest has been applied to private employment relationships, particularly in terms of the responsibilities imposed on employers (EEOC, 1988; Fagin & Rumeld, 1991; Woods & Flynn, 1989).

The assignment The Republic for Which Who Stands is a case simulation on another aspect of the legal context of HRM: racial discrimination. In this case, you are asked to consider whether there was any racial bias involved in an employment decision.

The human resources management process cannot operate in a vacuum. It must participate in the day-to-day operations of the organization and likewise itself be managed to produce the best possible results. Further, given the sea of changes taking place in the economy, technology, and society in general, human resources management must be in a position to change and adapt along the way.

First, consider the role that human resources should play in influencing the tone and tenor of everyday life inside an organization. Certainly, one pervasive way human resources makes its presence known is by trying to ensure fair and consistent applications of rules to employees and by serving as a governor to reactive or ill-considered management actions. Unfortunately, in pursuing these goals, human resources may seem to some bureaucratic (when insisting that rules be followed) and uncooperative (when resisting unilateral management actions).

Beyond the role of enforcer and monitor, though, human resources can shape the culture of the organization by its wide-ranging attention to personnel matters of whatever sort. By drawing management or employee attention to issues or activities, human resources management sends signals and causes the employees of the organization to think, decide, and act on matters of potential importance.

In This Bud’s for You, you are given the story of Bud Watson, a very colorful character in the Martin’s SuperStores chain. Bud is in charge of security, and although he is not technically in violation of any specific human resources policies or procedures, Bud is operating on what some might see as the edge of acceptable conduct. What kinds of concerns and actions, if any, should a human resources manager take in this gray area?

The human resources function in an organization should be positioned to monitor key indicators of the firm’s human resources base (Huselid, 1994). Employee opinion surveys are one method commonly used to track such matters as satisfaction with supervision or with benefits. In addition, the human resources function can create other means for determining how employees are feeling about and reacting to their employment. Another kind of key indicator that can be monitored is why employees leave the organization.

In But Why?, you are given a situation of a high-tech company that is losing valuable employees but does not know why. Your task is to develop a means for determining why employees separate from the company so that the information can be used for management decision making.

SUMMARY

Managing human resources effectively has never been as important as it is today and will be tomorrow. In today’s service economy of knowledge-based, high-discretion jobs, the commitment and competence of employees can spell the difference between those organizations that win and those that are merely in the race. Establishing policies, programs, and practices that produce these results on a cost-effective basis and comply with laws and regulations is a complex undertaking. HRM can and should play a strategic role in the management of the organization.

Given the changes facing organizations today, a human resources function that operates as business as usual will quickly lose its value to the organization. The human resources function should be expected to introduce better systems for managing a firm’s human resources. In addition, the human resources function should continually look for ways to more closely align human resources systems and procedures with the evolving direction of the organization.

Change presents both danger and opportunity. In today’s rapidly changing world, the danger is that the human resources function will shroud itself in rules and procedures. The opportunities, though, are exciting: to design and implement human resources systems that best support the organization’s pursuit of excellence and the employees’ pursuit of an outstanding quality of work life.

Establishing a Human Resources Program

You recently inherited ownership of a 75-employee firm, Widd-Jays, Inc., that assembles, markets, and services Widd-Jays (a promotional version of “widgets“). Widd-Jays are household climate enhancers sold in retail markets. Widd-Jays competes with other firms who sell comparable products. Widd-Jays does offer a servicing component that provides something of a competitive edge.

Widd-Jays, Inc. was owned and run by a long-lost aunt with whom you lost touch many years ago. You knew nothing about the company at first but some subsequent research has turned up the following facts:

• Although the business has been profitable since it was started 20 years ago, sales have been flat and profit margins have been eroding over the past few years. The asset value of the firm has been declining slightly during this period also.

• The employees in the firm are not unionized, although there has been some increase in employee discontent. Because the firm experiences an average amount of turnover, layoffs have been avoided during this most recent recessionary period by relying on attrition.

• Widd-Jays has been subject to increasing competitive pressures for improved product quality and reliability. To help in this regard, a new, more automated system for production and management was installed last year. Many employees have been struggling to learn the new skills needed to make the system fully productive.

• Your aunt tended to run the business fairly tig...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Human Resources Management: Orientations and Issues
• 2 Human Resources Planning
• 3 Job Analysis
• 4 Staffing, Recruitment, and Selection
• 5 Appraising Employee Performance
• 6 Compensation and Benefits
• 7 Training and Career Development
• 8 Improving Organizational Performance and Quality of Worklife
• 9 Labor and Employee Relations
• References
• Author Index
• Subject Index