Chapter 9: Human Resource Management

Summary

Chapter 9: Human Resource Management

1. A systems approach to human resource strategy views both present and future employees as human capital that needs to be developed to its fullest potential. Pfeffer’s seven people-centered practices can serve as a strategic agenda for human resource management. The seven practices are provision of job security, rigorous hiring practices, employee empowerment, performance-based compensation, comprehensive training, reduction of status differences, and sharing of key information.
2. Managers need to recruit for diversity to increase their companies’ appeal to job applicants and customers alike. The hurdle-like selection process can be summed up in the seven-step PROCEED model: (1) prepare (job analysis, job descriptions, and interview questions), (2) review (legality and fairness of questions), (3) organize (assign questions to interview team), (4) conduct (collect information from the candidate), (5) evaluate (judge candidate’s qualifications), (6) exchange (meet and discuss information about candidate), and (7) decide (extend job offer or not).
3. Federal equal employment opportunity laws require managers to make hiring and other personnel decisions on the basis of the individual’s ability to perform rather than personal prejudice. Affirmative action, i.e., making up for past discrimination, is evolving into managing diversity. Appreciation of interpersonal differences within a heterogeneous organizational culture is the goal of managing-diversity programs. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) requires employers to make reasonable accommodations so that disabled people can enter the workforce.
4. Because interviews are the most popular employee-screening device, experts recommend structured rather than traditional, informal interviews. Behavioral interviews, with situation-specific questions, are the best structured-interview technique for predicting job performance.
5. Legally defensible performance appraisals enable managers to make objective personnel decisions. Four key legal criteria are job analysis, behavior-oriented appraisals, specific written instructions, and evaluation of results with ratees. Seven common performance appraisal techniques are goal setting, written essays, critical incidents, graphic rating scales, weighted checklists, rankings/comparisons, and 360-degree reviews.
6. Training programs should be designed with an eye toward maximizing the retention of learning and its transfer to the job. Successful skill learning and factual learning both depend on goal setting, practice, and feedback. But whereas skills should be modeled, factual information should be presented in a logical and meaningful manner. A sexual harassment policy needs to define the problem behaviorally, specify penalties, be disseminated through training, and be enforced.