Human Resource Management PDF

What do all businesses have in common regardless of the product or service? Employees! Unless you are a sole proprietorship, you will have to navigate the process of planning for, recruiting, hiring, training, managing, and possibly firing employees. These responsibilities all fall under the heading...

What do all businesses have in common regardless of the product or service? Employees! Unless you are a sole proprietorship, you will have to navigate the process of planning for, recruiting, hiring, training, managing, and possibly firing employees. These responsibilities all fall under the heading of human resource management. Human resource management (HRM or HR) is essentially the management of human resources. It is a function in organizations designed to maximize employee performance in service of an employer’s strategic objectives. HR is primarily concerned with the management of people within organizations, focusing on policies and on systems. HR departments in organizations typically undertake a number of activities, including employee benefits design, employee recruitment, training and development, performance appraisal,and rewarding (e.g., managing pay and benefit systems). HR also concerns itself with organizational change and industrial relations, that is, the balancing of organizational practices with requirements arising from collective bargaining and from governmental laws. HR is a product of the human relations movement of the early twentieth century when researchers began documenting ways of creating business value through the strategic management of the workforce. The function was initially dominated by transactional work, such as payroll and benefits administration, but due to globalization, company consolidation, technological advances, and further research, HR today includes strategic initiatives like talent management, industrial and labor relations, and diversity and inclusion. Human Resource Management The challenges and professional rewards that certain organizations experience are important dimensions of Human Resource Management (HRM), the policies, practices, and systems that influence employees’ behavior, attitudes, and performance. Many companies refer to HRM as involving ―people's practice. Figure 1 emphasizes that there are several important HRM practices that should support the organization’s business strategy: analyzing work and designing jobs, determining how many employees with specific knowledge and skills are needed (human resource planning), attracting potential employees (recruiting), choosing employees (selection), teaching employees how to perform their jobs and preparing them for the future (training and development), evaluating their performance (performance management), rewarding employees (compensation), and creating a positive work environment (employee relations). An organization performs best when all of the practices are managed well. In companies with effective HRM, employees and customers tend to be more satisfied and the companies tend to be more innovative, have greater productivity, and develop a more favorable reputation in the community. Figure 1. Human Resource Management Practices HUMAN RESOURCES AND COMPANY PERFORMANCE Managers and economists traditionally have seen human resource management as a necessary expense, rather than as a source of value to their organization. Economic value is usually associated with capital – cash, equipment, technology, and facilities. However, research demonstrated that HRM practices can be valuable. Decisions such as whom to hire, what to pay, what training to offer, and how to evaluate employee performance directly affect employees’ motivation and ability to provide goods and services that customers value. Companies that attempt to increase their competitiveness by investing in new technology and promoting quality throughout the organization also invest in state- of–the are staffing, training, and compensation practices. The concept of ―human resource management‖ implies that employees are resources of the employer. As a type of resource, human capital means that the organization’s employees describe in terms of their training, experience, judgment, intelligence, relationships, and insight – the employee, characteristics that can add economic value to the organization. In other words, whether it manufactures automobiles or forecasts weather, for an organization to succeed at what it does, it needs employees with certain qualities, such as particular kinds of training and experience. This view means employees in today’s organization are not interchangeable, easily replaced parts of a system but the source of the company’s success or failure. By influencing who works for the organization and how those people work, human resource management, therefore, contributes to basic measures of an organization’s performance, such as quality, profitability, and customer satisfaction. Figure 2 shows this relationship. Figure 2. Impact of Human Resource Management Human resource management is critical to the success of organizations because human capital has certain qualities that make it valuable. In terms of business strategy, an organization can succeed if it has a sustainable competitive advantage (is better than competitors at something and can hold that advantage over a sustained period of time). Therefore, we can conclude that organizations need the kind of resources that will give them such an advantage. Human resources have these necessary qualities: Human resources are valuable. High-quality employees provide a needed service as they perform many critical functions. Human resources are rare in the sense that a person with high levels of the needed skills and knowledge is not common. An organization may spend months looking for a talented and experienced manager or technician Human resources cannot be imitated. To imitate human resources at a high-performing competitor, you would have to figure out which employees are providing the advantage and how. Then you would have to recruit people who can do precisely the same thing and set up the systems that enable those people to imitate your Human resources have no good substitutes. When people are well trained and highly motivated, they learn, develop their abilities, and care about customers. It is difficult to imagine another resource that can match committed and talented These qualities imply that human resources have enormous potential. An organization realizes this potential through the ways it practices human resource management. Effective management of human resources can form the foundation of a high-performance work system – an organization in which technology, organizational structure, people, and processes work together seamlessly to give an organization an advantage in the competitive environment. As technology changes the ways organizations manufacture, transport, communicate, and keep track of information, human resource management must ensure that organization has the right kinds of people to meet the new challenges. High-performance work systems also have been essential in making organizations strong enough to weather the storm of the recent recession and remain profitable as the economy slowly begins to expand again. Maintaining a high- performance work system may include developments of training programs, recruitment of people with new skill sets, and establishment of rewards for such behaviors as teamwork, flexibility, and learning. RESPONSIBILITIES OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEPARTMENTS In all but the smallest organizations, a human resource department is responsible for the function of human resource management. On average, an organization has one HR staff person for every hundred employees served by the department. One way to define the responsibilities of the HR department is to think of HR as a business within the company with three product lines: 1. Administrative services and transactions – Handling administrative tasks (for example, hiring employees, and answering questions about benefits) efficiently and with a commitment to quality. This requires expertise in particular tasks. 2. Business partner services – Developing effective HR systems that help the organization meet its goals for attracting, keeping, and developing people with the skills it For the systems to be effective, HR people must understand what the business needs. 3. Strategic partner – Contributing to the company’s strategy through an understanding of its existing and needed human resources and ways HR practices can give the company a  competitive For strategies ideas to be effective, HR people must understand the business, its industry, and its competitors. Another way to think of HR responsibilities is in terms of specific activities. Figure 3 details the responsibilities of human resource departments. These responsibilities include the practices introduced in Figure 1 plus two areas of responsibility that support those practices: (1) establishing and administering personnel policies and (2) ensuring compliance with labor laws. Figure 3 Responsibilities of HR Departments Although the human resource department has responsibility for these areas, many of the tasks may be performed by supervisors or others inside or outside the organization. No two human resource departments have precisely the same roles because of differences in organization sizes and characteristics of the workforce, the industry, and management’s values. In some companies, the HR department handles all the activities listed in figure 3. In others, it may share the roles and duties with managers of other departments such as finance, operations, or information technology. In some companies, the department actively advises top management. In other, the department responds to top-level management decisions and implements staffing, training, and compensation activities in light of company strategy and policies. And, in recent trends, some companies are doing away with their HR department altogether, preferring to flatten their organizational structure and to encourage department managers and other employees to handle HR issues as they arise. Analyzing and Designing Jobs To produce their given product or service (or set of products or services), companies require that a number of tasks are performed. The tasks are grouped together in various combinations to form jobs. Ideally, the tasks should be grouped in ways that help the organization operate efficiently and obtain people with the right qualifications to do the jobs well. This function involves the activities of job analysis and job design. Job analysis is the process of getting detailed information about the jobs. Job design is the process of defining the way work will be performed and the tasks that a given job requires. In general, jobs can vary from having a narrow range of simple tasks to having a broad array of complex tasks requiring multiple skills. At some extreme is a worker on an assembly line at a poultry-processing facility; at the other extreme is a doctor in an emergency room. In the past, many companies have emphasized the use of narrowly defined jobs to increase efficiency. With many simple jobs, a company can easily find workers who can quickly be trained to perform the jobs at relatively low pay. However, greater concern for innovation and quality has shifted to a trend using more broadly defined jobs. Some organizations assign work even more broadly, to teams instead of individuals. Recruiting and Hiring Employees Based on a job analysis and design, an organization can determine the kinds of employees it needs. With this knowledge, it carries out the function of recruiting and hiring employees, Recruitment is the process through which the organization seeks applicants for potential employment. Selection refers to the process by which the organization attempts to identify applicants with the necessary knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics that will help the organization achieve its goals. An organization makes selection decisions in order to add employees to its workforce, as well as to transfer existing employees to a new position. Approaches to recruitment and selection involve a variety of alternatives. Some organizations may actively recruit from many external sources such as Internet job postings, online social networks, and college recruitment events. Other organizations may rely heavily on promotions from within, applicants referred by current employees, and the availability of in-house people with the necessary skills. At some organizations, the selection process may focus on specific skills, as experience with a particular programming language or type of equipment. At other organizations, selection may focus on general abilities, such as the ability to work as part of a team or find creative solutions. The focus an organization favors will affect many choices, from the way the organization measures ability to the questions it asks in interviews, to places in recruits. Figure 4 lists the top five qualities that employers say they are looking for in job candidates. Figure 4. Top Qualities Employers Look for in Employees Training and Developing Employees Although organizations base hiring decisions on candidates’ existing qualifications, most organizations provide ways for their employees to broaden or deepen their knowledge, skills, and abilities. To do this, organizations provide for employees' training and development. Training is a planned effort to enable employees to learn job-related knowledge, skills, and behavior. For example, many organizations offer safety training to teach employees safe work habits. Development involves acquiring knowledge, skills, and behaviors that improve an employee’s ability to meet the challenges of a variety of new or existing, including the client and customer demands of those jobs. Development programs often focus on preparing employees for management responsibility. Likewise, if a company plans to set up teams to manufacture products, it might offer a development program to help employees learn the ins and outs of effective teamwork. Decisions related to training and development include whether the organization will emphasize enabling employees to perform their current jobs, preparing them for future jobs, or both. An organization may offer programs to a few employees in whom the organization wants to invest, or it may have a philosophy of investing in the training of all its workers. Some organizations, especially large ones, may have extensive formal training programs, including classroom sessions and training programs online. Other organizations may prefer a simpler, more flexible approach of encouraging employees to participate in outside training and development programs as needs are identified. Managing Performance Managing human resources includes keeping track of how well employees are performing relative to objectives such as job descriptions and goals for a particular position. The process of ensuring that employees’ activities and outputs match the organization’s goals is called performance management. The activities of performance management include specifying the tasks and outcomes of a job that contribute to the organization’s success. Then various measures are used to compare the employee’s performance over some time period with the desired performance. Often, rewards are developed to encourage good performance. The human resource department may be responsible for developing or obtaining questionnaires and other devices for measuring performance. The performance measures may emphasize observable behaviors (for example, answering the phone by the second ring), outcomes (number of customer complaints and compliments), or both. When the person evaluating the performance is not familiar with the details of the job, the outcome tends to be easier to evaluate than specific behaviors. The evaluation may focus on the short term or long term and on individual employees or groups. Typically, the person who completes the evaluation is the employee’s supervisor. Often employees also evaluate their own performance, and in some organizations, peers, and subordinates participate too. Planning and Administering Pay and Benefits The pay and benefits that employees earn play an important role in motivating them. This is especially true when a reward such as bonuses is linked to the individual’s or group’s achievements. Decisions about pay and benefits can also support other aspects of an organization’s strategy. For example, a company that wants to provide an exceptional level of service or be exceptionally innovative might pay significantly more than competitors in order to attract and keep the best employees. At the other companies, a low-cost strategy requires knowledge if industry norms, so that the company does not spend more than it must. Planning pay and benefits involve many decisions, often complex and based on knowledge of a multitude of legal requirements. An important decision is how much to offer in salary or wages, as opposed to bonuses, commissions, and other performance-related pay. Other decisions involve which benefits to offer from retirement plans to various kinds of insurance to time off with pay. All such decisions have implications for the organization’s bottom line, as well as for employee motivation. Administering pay and benefits is another big responsibility. Organizations need systems for keeping track of each employee’s earnings and benefits. Employees need information about their health plan, retirement plan, and other benefits. Keeping the track of this involves extensive record-keeping and reporting to management, employees, the government, and others. Managing Positive Employee Relations Organizations often depend on human resource professionals to help them maintain positive relations with employees. This function includes preparing and distributing employee handbooks that detail company policies and, in large organizations, company publications such as a monthly newsletter or a website on the organization’s intranet. Preparing these communications may be a regular task for the human resource department. The human resource department can also expect to handle certain kinds of communications from individual employees. Employees turn to the HR department for answers to questions about benefits and company policy. If employees feel they have been discriminated against, see safety hazards or other problems, and are dissatisfied with their supervisor’s response, they may turn to the HR department for help. Members of the department should be prepared to address such problems. In organizations where employees belong to a union, employee relations entail additional responsibilities. The organization periodically conducts collective bargaining to negotiate an employment contract with union members. The HR department maintains communication with union representatives to ensure that problems are resolved as they arise. Establishing and Administering Personnel Policies All the human resource activities described so far require fair and consistent decisions, and most require substantial record keeping. Organizations depend on their HR department to help establish policies related to hiring, discipline, promotions, and benefits. For example, with a policy in place that an intoxicated worker will be immediately terminated, the company can handle such a situation more fairly and objectively than if it addressed such incidents on a case- by-case basis. The company depends on its HR professional to help develop and then communicate the policy to every employee, so that everyone knows its importance, if anyone violates the rue, a supervisor can quickly intervene – confident that the employee knew the consequences and that any other employee would be treated the same way. Not only do such policies promote fair decision-making, but they also promote other objectives, such as workplace safety and customer service. Developing fast and effective policies requires strong decision-making skills, the ability to think ethically, and a broad understanding of business activities that will be covered by the policies. For more ideas on writing HR policies, see Figure 5 below. In addition, for employees to comply with policies, they have to know and understand the policies. Therefore, human resource management requires the ability to communicate through a variety of channels. Human resource personnel may teach policies by giving presentations at meetings, posting documents online, writing email messages, setting up social media pages for employees, and in many other ways. Figure 5 Writing Effective HR Policies Managing and Using Human Resource Data All aspects of human resource management require careful and discreet record-keeping, from processing job applications to performance appraisal, benefits enrolment, and government- mandated reports. Handling records about employees requires accuracy as well as sensitivity to employee privacy. Whether the organization keeps records in file cabinets or on a sophisticated computer information system, it must have methods for ensuring accuracy and for balancing privacy concerns with easy access for those who need information and are authorized to see it. Thanks to computer tools, employee-related information is not just an administrative responsibility; it also can be the basis for knowledge that gives an organization an edge over its competitors. Data about employees can show, for example, which of the company’s talents has the most promise for future leadership, what kinds of employees tend to perform best in particular positions, and in which departments the need for hiring will be most pressing. To use the data for answering questions such as these, many organizations have set up human resource information systems. They may engage in workplace analytics, which is the use of quantitative tools and scientific methods to analyze data from human resource databases and other sources to make evidence-based decisions that support business goals. Ensuring compliance with Labor Laws The government has many laws and regulations concerning the treatment of employees. These laws govern such as equal employment opportunity, employee safety, and health, employee pay and benefits, employee privacy, and job security. Government requirements include filing reports and displaying posters, as well as avoiding unlawful behavior. Most managers depend on human resource professionals to help them keep track of these requirements. Ensuring compliance with laws requires that human resource personnel keep watch over the rapidly changing legal landscape. For example, the increased use of and access to electronic databases by employees and employers suggest that in the near future legislation will be needed to protect employee privacy rights. Lawsuits that will continue to influence HRM practices concern job security. Because companies are forced to close facilities and lay off employees because of economic or competitive conditions, cases dealing with the illegal discharge of employees have increased. The issue of ―employment at will‖ – that is, the principle that an employer may terminate employment at any time without notice – will be debated. As the age of the overall workforce increases, the number of cases dealing with age discrimination in layoffs, promotions, and benefits will likely rise. Employers will need to review work rules, recruitment practices, and performance evaluation systems, revising them if necessary to ensure that they do not falsely communicate employment agreements the company does not intend to honor (such as lifetime employment) or discriminate on the basis of age. Supporting the Organization’s Strategy At one time, human resource management was primarily an administrative function. The HR department focused on filling out forms and processing paperwork. As more organizations have come to appreciate the significance of highly skilled human resources, however, many HR departments have taken in a more active role in supporting the organization’s strategy. As a result, today’s HR professional need to understand the organization’s business operation, project how business trends might affect the business, reinforce positive aspects of the organization’s culture, develop talent for present and future needs, craft effective HR strategies, and make a case for them to top management. Evidence for greater involvement in strategy comes from interviews with finance and HR executives who say they are more interested than ever in collaborating to strengthen their companies. Finance leaders can see that employees are a major budget item, so they want to make sure they are getting the best value for that expense. HR leaders, for their part, are learning to appreciate the importance of using quantitative tools to measure performance. An important element of this responsibility is human resource planning, identifying the number of types of employees the organization will require in order to meet its objectives. Using these estimates, the human resource department helps the organization forecasts its needs for hiring, training, and reassigning employees. Planning also may show that the organization will need fewer employees to meet anticipated needs. In that situation, human resource planning provides important information for talent management – a systematic, planned effort to attract, retain, develop, and motivate highly skilled employees and managers. When managers are clear about the kinds of people they will need to achieve the organization’s goals, talent management combines recruiting, selection, training, and motivational practices to meet those needs. Approaching these tasks in terms of talent management is one way HR managers are making the link to organizational strategy. As part of its strategic role, one of the key contributions HR can make is to engage in evidence- based HR. Evidence-based HR refers to demonstrating that human resource practices have a positive influence on the company’s profits or key stakeholders (employees, customers, community, shareholders). This practice helps show that the money invested in HR programs is justified and that HRM is a contribution to the company/s goals and objectives. For example, data collected on the relationship between HR practices and productivity, turnover, accidents, employee attitudes, and medical costs may show that HR functions are as important to the business as finance, accounting, and marketing. Often, an organization’s strategy requires some type of change – for example, adding, moving, or closing facilities; applying new technology, or entering markets in other regions or countries. Common reactions to change include fear, anger, and confusion. The organization may turn to its human resource department for help in managing the change process. Skilled human resource professionals can apply knowledge of human behavior, along with performance management tools, to help the organization manage change constructively. Another strategic challenge tackled by a growing number of companies is how to seek profits in ways to communities, customers, and suppliers will support over the long run. This concern is called sustainability – broadly defined as an organization’s ability to profit without depleting its resources, including employees, natural resources, and the support of the surrounding community. Success at sustainability comes from meeting the needs of the organization’s stakeholders, all the parties who have an interest in the organization’s success. Typically, an organization’s stakeholders include shareholders, the community, customers, and employees. Sustainable organizations meet their needs by minimizing their environmental impact, providing high-quality products and services, ensuring workplace safety, offering fair compensation, and delivering an adequate return to investors. Sustainability delivers a strategic advantage when it boosts the organization’s image with customers, opens access to new markets, and helps attract and retain talented employees. In an organization with a sustainable strategy, HR departments focus on employee development and empowerment rather than short- term costs, on long-term planning rather than smooth turnover and outsourcing, and on justice and fairness over short-term profits. Skills of HRM Professionals With such varied responsibilities, the human resource department needs to bring together a large pool of skills. These skills fall into the four basic categories shown in figure 6:Human relations skills, decision-making skills, leadership skills, and technical skills Figure 6. Skills of HRM Professionals Human Relations Skills The ability to understand and work well with other people is important to virtually any career, but human relation skills have taken on new significance for human resource management today. As organizational managers increasingly appreciate the significance of human resources, many are calling for HRM to become the "source of people expertise" on the organizations. The HR managers, therefore, need knowledge of how people can and dom to play a role in giving the organization an advantage against the completion, as well as of the policies, programs, and practices that can help the organization's people to do so. Some of the human relations skills that are particularly important for today's HR professionals are communicating, negotiating and team development. Decision-Making Skills Human resource managers must make a wide variety of decisions that affect whether employees are qualified and motivated and whether the organization is operating efficiently and complying with the law. Especially at organizations that give HRM departments a role in supporting strategy. HR decision-makers also must be able to apply decision-making skills to strategic issues. This requires knowledge of the organization's line of business and the ability to present options in terms of costs and benefits to the organization. The decision must also take into account social and ethical implications of the alternatives Leadership Skills Through their knowledge, communications skills, and other abilities, HR managers need to play a leadership role with regard to the organization's human resources. In today's environment, leadership often requires helping the organizations manage change. Fulfilling this leadership role include diagnosing problems, implementing organizational changes, and evaluating results, especially in terms of employees' skills and attitudes. Changes typically produce conflict, resistance, and confusion among the people who must implement the new plans or programs. HR professionals must oversee the change in a way that ensures success. HR provides tools for overcoming resistance to change, teaching employees to operate under new conditions, and even encouraging innovation. Technical Skills In any field, including management, "technical skills" are the specialized skills of the field. In human resource management, professionals need knowledge of state-of-the-art practices in such areas as staffing, development, rewards, organizational design, and communication. New selection techniques, performance appraisal methods, training programs, and incentive plans ate consistently being developed. These developments often include the use of new software and computer systems. New laws are passed every, and technical skills knowledge of how to comply. The Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) has defined sets of behaviors and skills associated with success; grouping these into nine categories it calls HR success competencies: relationship management, ethical practice, HR expertise, business acumen, critical evaluation, diversity and inclusion, leadership and navigation, consultation and communication. Figure 7 describes the competencies and provides example behaviors that HR professionals should demonstrate as part of their growth and development. Members of the HR department need to be: 1. Credible activists – Are so well respected in the organization that they can influence the position taken by managers. HR professionals who are competent in this area have the most influence over the organization’s success, but to build this competency, they have to gain credibility by mastering all the 2. Cultural and change steward – Understands the organization’s culture and helping to build and strengthen or change that culture by identifying and expressing its values through words and 3. Talent manager / organizational designer – Knows the ways that people join the organization and move to different positions within To do this effectively requires knowledge of how the organization I structured and how that structure might be adjusted to help it meet its goals for developing and using employee’s talents. 4. Strategic architect – Requires awareness of business trends and an understanding of how they might affect the business, as well as opportunities and threats they might present. A person with this capability spots ways effective management of human resources can help the company seize opportunities and confront threats to the 5. Business allies – Know how the business makes money, who its customers are, and why customers buy what the company 6. Operational executors – At the most basic level carry out particular HR functions such as handling the selection, training, or compensation of employees and communicating through a variety of media. All of the other HR skills require some ability as operational executor because this is the level at which policies and transactions deliver results by legally, ethically, and efficiently acquiring, developing, motivating, and deploying human resources.  Figure 7. Six Competencies for HR Profession All of these competencies require interpersonal skills. The successful HR professional must be able to share information, build relationships, and influence persons inside and outside the company. Examples of Behaviors for HR Professionals HR Responsibilities of Supervisors Although many organizations have human resource departments, HR activities are by no means limited to the specialists who staff those departments. In large organizations, HR departments advise and support the activities of the other department. In small organizations, there is maybe an HR specialist, but many HR activities are carried out by line supervisors. Either way, non-HR managers need to be familiar with the basics of HRM and their role in managing human resources. At a start-up company, the first supervisors are the company’s founders. Not all founders recognize their HR responsibilities, but those who do not have a powerful advantage. Supervisors typically have responsibilities related to all the HR functions. Figure 7 shows some HR responsibilities that supervisors are likely to be involved in. Organizations depend on supervisors to help them determine what kinds of work need to be done (job analysis and design) and how many employees are needed (HR planning). Supervisors typically interview job candidates and participate in the decisions about which candidates to hire. Many organizations expect supervisors to train employees in some or all aspects of the employee’s job. Supervisors conduct performance appraisals and may recommend pay increases, And. Of course, supervisors play a key role in employee relations because they are most often the voice of management for their employees, representing the company on a day-to-day basis. In all these activities, supervisors can participate in HRM taking into consideration the ways that decisions and policies will affect their employees. Understanding the principles of communication, motivation, and other elements of human behavior can help supervisors inspire the best from the organization’s human resources.  Figure 7. Supervisors' Involvement in HRM: Common Areas of Involvement Ethics in Human Resource Management Whenever people’s actions affect one another ethical issues may arise, and business decisions are no exception. Ethics refers to fundamental principles of right and wrong; ethical behavior is behavior that is consistent with those principles. Employee Rights In the context of ethical human resource management, HR managers must view employees as having basic rights. Right to free consent - Pople has the right to be treated only as they knowingly and willing consent to be treated. An example of that applies to employees would be that employees should know the nature of the job they are being hired to do, the employer should not deceive them. Right of privacy - People have the right to do as they wish in their private lives, and they have the right to control what they reveal about private activities. One way an employer respects this is is by keeping employees', medical records confidential. Right of freedom of conscience - People have the right to refuse to do what violates their moral beliefs, as long as these beliefs reflect commonly accepted norms. A supervisor who demands that an employee do something unsafe or environmentally damaging may be violating this if it conflicts with the employee's values. Right of freedom of speech - People have the right to criticize an organization's ethics, if they do so in good conscience and their criticism does not violate the rights of individuals in the organization. Right to due process - If people having believe their rights are being violated, they have the due right to a fair and impartial hearing. Standards for Ethical Behavior Ethical companies act according to four principles: 1. In their relationships with customers, vendors, and clients, ethical companies emphasize mutual 2. Employees assume responsibility for the actions of the 3. The companies have a sense of purpose or vision that employee’s value and use in their day- to-day work  4. They emphasize fairness. For human resource practices to be considered ethical, they must satisfy three basic standards summarized in figure 8. First, HRM practices must results in the greatest good for the largest number of people. Second, employment practices must respect basic human rights of [privacy, due process, consent, and free speech. Third, managers must treat employees and customers equitably and fairly. theses standards are most vexing when none of the alternatives in a situation meet all three of them.