Human Resource Management Concepts

Matching Questions Study Notes

• Matching questions cover key terms from chapters 9-16.
• Definitions are found in textbook margins and the glossary.

Chapter 9 Key Terms

• High-performance work systems: A seamless integration of technology, structure, people, and processes for competitive advantage.
• Learning organization: An organization that actively supports employee knowledge acquisition and sharing.
• Continuous learning: Ongoing efforts by individuals and groups to gather and apply information within a learning organization.
• Employee engagement: Employees' full involvement and commitment to their work and the company.
• Brand alignment: Ensuring HR practices align with the organization's brand, culture, products, and services.
• Transaction processing: Processing HRM decisions & practices; computations and calculations.
• Decision support system: Computer software aiding managers in problem-solving via data and assumption analysis.
• Expert systems: Computer systems using expert knowledge for decision support.
• HR dashboard: A visual display of HR metrics, showing their current value and progress.
• Cloud computing: Using remote servers on the internet to store, process, and manage data.
• HRM audit: Formal review of HRM function outcomes and business performance based on identified measures.
• HR analytics: Evaluating HRM program/practice impact & financial cost/benefits.

Chapter 10 Key Terms

• Performance management: Ensuring employee activities contribute to organizational goals.
• Simple ranking: Employee ranking from highest to lowest performer.
• Forced-distribution method: Assigning employees to performance categories based on pre-defined percentages.
• Paired-comparison method: Comparing each employee to every other employee to establish rankings.
• Graphic rating scale: Rating employee traits on a scale.
• Mixed-standard scales: Rating employee traits based on multiple statements about the trait.
• Critical-incident method: Performance measurement based on specific examples of effective or ineffective behavior.
• Behaviorally anchored rating scale (BARS): Rating behavior on a scale with specific behaviors defining different performance levels.
• Behavioral observation scale (BOS): A variation of BARS, rating on observed behaviors needed for effective performance.
• Organizational behavior modifications (OB Mod): Managing employee behavior through formal feedback and reinforcement.
• Management by objectives (MBO): Setting goals at all organizational levels to contribute to overall organizational goals.
• 360-degree performance appraisal: Gathering performance input from multiple sources (managers, peers, subordinates, self, customers).
• Calibration meeting: Meeting to discuss and justify performance ratings to reduce rating errors.

Chapter 11 Key Terms

• Involuntary turnover: Employee departure initiated by the employer.
• Voluntary turnover: Employee departure initiated by the employee.
• Outcome fairness: Judging the fairness of consequences given to employees.
• Procedural justice: Judging the fairness of methods used to determine employee consequences.
• Interactional justice: Judging the fairness of how actions were carried out, considering employee feelings.
• Hot-stove rule: Discipline should be like a hot stove: clear warning, consistent, objective, immediate consequences.
• Progressive discipline: A formal discipline process with escalating consequences for repeated offenses.
• Alternative dispute resolution (ADR): Solving problems through impartial outsiders (not court).
• Open-door policy: Managers available to hear complaints.
• Peer review: Resolving disputes through a panel of representatives.
• Mediation: Facilitation of negotiation with no formal authority to dictate resolution.
• Arbitration: Binding settlement determined by an arbitrator or board.
• Employee assistance program (EAP): Referral service for mental health, substance abuse, personal issues.
• Outplacement counseling: Helping dismissed employees transition to new jobs.
• Job withdrawal: Avoidance behaviors to avoid the work situation (physically, mentally, or emotionally).
• Quiet quitting: Performing job tasks but not exceeding specified duties.
• Role: Expected behaviors in a job.
• Role ambiguity: Uncertainty about job expectations.
• Role conflict: Incompatible or contradictory job demands.
• Role overload: Too many job expectations or demands.
• Job involvement: Degree of employee identification with their job.
• Organizational commitment: Employee identification with and effort towards the organization.
• Job satisfaction: Feeling of job fulfillment.
• Role analysis technique: Formally identifying role expectations.
• Stay interviews: Interviews asking why employees stay with the company.
• Exit interviews: Interviews with departing employees to understand their reasons for leaving.

Chapter 12 Key Terms

• Job structure: Relative pay for different jobs within an organization.
• Pay level: Average pay for a particular job.
• Pay structure: Pay policy resulting from job structure and pay level decisions.
• Minimum wage: Lowest legal pay per hour.
• Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA): Federal law regarding minimum wage, overtime, and child labor.
• Exempt employees: Employees not covered by FLSA overtime requirements.
• Non-exempt employees: Employees covered by FLSA overtime requirements.
• Benchmarking: Comparing organizational practices against successful competitors.
• Pay transparency: Openly communicating wage and salary information.
• Job evaluation: Measuring relative internal worth of jobs.
• Hourly wage: Pay per hour.
• Piecework rate: Pay per unit produced.
• Salary: Pay per week, month, or year.
• Pay policy line: Relationship between job evaluation points and pay rate.
• Pay grades: Similar worth jobs grouped for pay rate establishment.
• Pay range: Possible pay rates for a job or paygrade (min, max, midpoint).
• Pay differential: Pay adjustment reflecting working conditions/labor markets.
• Delayering: Reducing organizational job levels.
• Skill-based pay systems: Pay based on employee skill level and capabilities.

Chapter 13 Key Terms

• Incentive pay: Pay linked to individual, group, or organizational performance.
• Piecework rate: Pay per unit produced.
• Straight piecework plan: Same pay rate per piece, regardless of production level.
• Differential piece rates: Higher piece rate for increased production.
• Standard hour plan: Paying extra for work done faster than preset time.
• Merit pay: Pay increases linked to performance appraisal ratings.
• Commissions: Incentive pay based on a percentage of sales.
• Gainsharing: Group incentive based on productivity and effectiveness gains.
• Profit sharing: Payments based on organizational profits (not base salary).
• Stock options: Rights to buy shares at a set price.
• Employee stock ownership plan (ESOP): Distributing company stock to employees.
• Balanced scoreboard: Combining performance measures for long-term and short-term goals.

Chapter 14 Key Terms

• Employee benefits: Compensation in non-cash forms.
• Social Security: Federal program for retirement, disability, and survivors' insurance.
• Unemployment insurance: Minimizing unemployment hardship through payments and job placement assistance.
• Experience rating: Unemployment benefits costs based on prior layoffs.
• Workers' compensation: State programs for work-related injuries and illness benefits.
• Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA): Providing unpaid leave for family/medical reasons.
• Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA): Health care reform law affecting employers.
• Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA): Maintaining group health insurance after employment changes.
• Health maintenance organization (HMO): Health care plan with prepaid services.
• Preferred provider organization (PPO): Health care plan with contracted providers, incentives for using network providers.
• Flexible spending account (FSA): Pretax earnings set aside for eligible healthcare expenses.
• High-deductible health plans (HDHP): Plans incentivizing employees to reduce health care costs.
• Employee wellness program: Activities and communications promoting health behaviours.
• Short-term disability: Insurance paying a percentage of salary for temporary disability (up to 6 months).
• Long-term disability: Insurance paying a percentage of salary for extended disability.
• Contributory plan: Retirement plan funded by employer and employee contributions.
• Non-contributory plan: Retirement plan funded entirely by employer contributions.
• Defined-benefit plan: Pension plan guaranteeing a specific retirement income.
• Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA): Federal law regulating pension plans.
• Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC): Insuring retirement benefits.
• Defined-contribution plan: Retirement account with employer-specified investment amounts.
• Cash balance plan: Individual retirement account with employer contributions earning a fixed interest rate.
• Vesting rights: Guarantees employees receive pensions after working a set number of years, independent of employer relations.
• Summary plan description (SPD): Provides details of a pension plan's funding, eligibility, etc.
• Cafeteria-style plan: Benefits plan offering employees choices.

Chapter 15 Key Terms

• Unions: Employee organizations representing their members' interests to employers.
• Labor relations: Skills to minimize conflicts and achieve win-win solutions.
• Craft unions: Unions with members having a specific skill or occupation.
• Industrial unions: Unions with members from a specific industry.
• AFL-CIO: National association advancing interests of member unions.
• Union steward: Employee representing union members to enforce the labor contract terms.
• Checkoff provision: Employer deducting union dues from employee paychecks.
• Closed shop: Requires union membership before hiring. (illegal under many laws)
• Union shop: Requires union membership within a certain timeframe after employment.
• Agency shop: Requires union dues but not membership.
• Maintenance of membership: Requires continued membership for a period if initially joining.
• National Labor Relations Act (NLRA): Federal law regarding collective bargaining rights.
• Associate union membership: Alternative membership offering discounts rather than collective bargaining.
• Corporate campaigns: Applying public, financial, or political pressure on employers during negotiations.
• Collective bargaining: Negotiations between unions and management to establish employment terms.
• Strike: Collective refusal to work until demands are met.
• Lockout: Employer's exclusion of workers until conditions are met.
• Mediation: Neutral third party assisting with negotiations.
• Fact-finder: Third party reporting on a dispute and possible settlement.
• Arbitration: Binding settlement determined by an arbitrator.
• Grievance procedure: Process for resolving union-management disagreements.

Chapter 16 Key Terms

• Parent country: Country where the organization's headquarters are located.
• Host country: Country where the organization operates outside of its headquarters.
• Third country: A country that is neither the parent nor the host country.
• Expatriates: Employees assigned to work in another country.
• International organization: Organization with facilities in foreign countries.
• Multinational company (MNC): Organization with facilities in many countries to reduce production and distribution costs.
• Global organization: Facility location based on efficient/flexible production.
• Transnational HRM system: Global perspective, decisions made by managers from multiple countries.
• Culture shock: Discomfort adjusting to a new culture.
• Cross-cultural preparation: Training for foreign assignments (employees and family).
• Repatriation: Preparing expatriates for return to their home country.

Potential Short Answer and Essay Questions Study Notes

• Chapter 9: Focus on high-performance work systems, HRM contributions, technology's role, and a definition/description of three elements.
• Chapter 10: Performance management activities, information sources (advantages/disadvantages), and improving unsatisfactory performance; rating errors, how they occur/avoidance strategies.
• Chapter 11: Employee fairness perceptions, contrasting voluntary vs. involuntary turnover, legal discipline requirements, contributing to satisfaction, and retention strategies.
• Chapter 12: Legal pay policy requirements, economic influence on pay decisions, alternatives to job-based pay, decisions involved in pay structure and consideration of executive compensation.
• Chapter 13: Incentive pay connection to employee performance; ways of recognizing individual/group performance; definition and implementation of balanced scorecard incentive plan.
• Chapter 14: Required employee benefits by law, paid leave details, benefit communication importance, types of retirement plans, and expectations during one’s career.
• Chapter 15: Union organizing process, laws/regulations affecting labor relation (in union/non-union context), and impacts of these laws.
• Chapter 16: Influence factors in international HRM, impact on business and HRM (International, Global, and Multinational), managing/compensating employees across countries.

Test your knowledge on key concepts in Human Resource Management, including employee engagement, performance measurement methods, and decision support systems. This quiz will cover various HR topics and their applications in organizations.