MOS 3383 Midterm PDF

**[Lecture 1: Introduction to Strategic Human Resources]** **CHAPTER 1: Introduction to Human Resource Management** **What is HR?** - **Human resource management (HRM):** the constellation of decisions and actions associated with managing individuals throughout the employee life cycle t...

**[Lecture 1: Introduction to Strategic Human Resources]** **CHAPTER 1: Introduction to Human Resource Management** **What is HR?** - **Human resource management (HRM):** the constellation of decisions and actions associated with managing individuals throughout the employee life cycle to maximize employee and organizational effectiveness - How are we going to manage our human capital - Employees are typically greatest and most important expense - Hr management - Decisions about people - Salary, benefits, hiring, training, experience, etc. - Organizational effectiveness - Succession planning -- how will I fill this spot when the current person leaves/retires - Explaining roles to successors, make it transparent, mentoring opportunity - Transformation leadership: demonstrate positive leadership, traits, and how to be a good leader - Transactional leadership: I'm the boss, I tell you what to do, work exchange for money - Hr management includes - Selection, diversity, job design - Matrix structure can lead to unknown and be distressing for people who like routine and similar day-to-day activities - Deals with cultural issues **Four types of culture.** - **Organizational culture:** shared, "taken for granted" assumptions that members of an organization have that affect the way they act, think, and perceive their environment - What the org believes - Values and beliefs of the company - **Climate:** how employees feel, layoff leads to harsh climate +-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+ | **Culture** | **Focus** | **Values** | **Characteristi | | | | | cs** | +=================+=================+=================+=================+ | Clan | Collaboration | - Cohesivenes | - Working | | | | s | like a | | | | | family | | | | - People | would | | | | oriented | | | | | | - People all | | | | - Team | use their | | | | players | strengths | | | | | to | | | | - Empowering | contribute | | | | employees | | | | | | - Typically, | | | | | in small | | | | | organizatio | | | | | ns | | | | | or smaller | | | | | units | | | | | within an | | | | | organizatio | | | | | n | +-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+ | Adhocracy | Creativity | - Entrepreneu | - Creative | | | | rship | group | | | | | | | | | - Flexibility | - Very | | | | | competitive | | | | - Risk taking | | | | | | - Pressure | | | | - Creativity | | | | | | - Everyone's | | | | | competing | | | | | to be the | | | | | best | | | | | | | | | | - Feed off | | | | | each other | +-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+ | Hierarchy | Controlling | - Efficient | - Positional | | | | | power | | | | - Timely | | | | | | - Military | | | | - Consistent | like system | | | | | | | | | | - Recognizes | | | | | authority | | | | | | | | | | - Assumption | | | | | that | | | | | followers | | | | | don't want | | | | | to do their | | | | | job and | | | | | must be | | | | | forced in | +-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+ | Market | Competitive | - Aggressiven | - Trying to | | | | ess | become | | | | | competitive | | | | - Competition | | | | | | - Changing to | | | | - Customer | meet market | | | | oriented | demands | +-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+ **HR issues (i.e., changing people and nature of work).** - Changing workforce context and working conditions - Changing demographics - Key demographic shift -- aging workforce - Diversity -- changing demographic landscape - Increasing globalization - Importance of international presence - Challenges include culture and laws - Regulations and more diversity - New classes of employment - Gig economy -- side hustles, contract jobs, precarious employment - new issues of ethical and corporate responsibility - Sustainability - pandemic work impacts - Shifted to remote work - Frontline workers experience difficulties **Competency:** cluster of knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAOs) necessary to be efficient at one's job - *Interpersonal competencies;* relationship management, communication, and global mindset - *Business competencies;* business acumen, consultation, and analytical aptitude - *Leadership competencies;* leadership and navigation, ethical practices, and EDI **HR Positions** **HR Specialist** Attends to all aspects of one specific HRM function, such as recruitment, compensation or training ------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- **HR Generalist** Spans the multiple HR functions **HR Business Partner** Refers to someone who serves as a consultant to management on HR-related issues **Definitions** - **Big data:** data that are large in volume, variety, and velocity - **Gig economy:** characterized by the prevalence of temporary employment positions, and individuals are employed as independent workers rather than actual employees of an organization - **Business ethics:** a system of principles that govern how businesses operate, how decisions are made, and how people are treated; includes individual employees and the organization - **Benchmarking:** measurement of the quality of an organization's practices in comparison with those of a peer organization - **A-S-A Framework:** standing for attraction-selection-attrition in organizations; variation in human capital based on who companies attract, hire, and retain **CHAPTER 2: Strategic HRM, Data-Informed Decision Making, and HR Analytics** **Strategic human resource management:** the process of the aligning HR policies and practices with hr objectives of the organization, including employee, operational, stakeholder, and financial outcomes; interrelated practices, policies, and philosophies that facilitate the attainment of organizational strategy **Strategy:** a well-devised and thoughtful plan for achieving an objective; future oriented and is intended to provide a road map toward completion of an objective - Aligns HR with organizations plans to achieve objectives - Where are strengths and weaknesses **Strategy formulation:** involves planning what to do to achieve organizational objectives; the development or refinement of a strategy 1. **Top-down:** CEO and executive team formulates the strategy - Start with organizational strategy and then create HR strategy - Top says here's mission get it done 2. **Bottom-up**: employees formulate the strategy - Start with HR competencies and then craft corporate strategies based on these competencies - Top asks bottom how to improve 3. **Patterns:** strategy emerges from many organizational decisions made over time 4. **Top-down & bottom-up:** - Do a combination of both HR strategy and corporate strategy - Top and bottom work together to improve **Steps for strategy formulation** 1. Create mission, vision, and values - **Mission:** a core need that an organization strives to fulfill and thus represents the organization's overarching purpose; an organizations reason for existing - **Vision:** extension of the mission and describes what the organization will be, do, or look like at some point in the future - **Value:** provide the organization with parameters and guidelines for decision making and brining its vision to fruition 2. Analyze internal and external environments - SWOT analysis; strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats - Internal environment: plan to leverage strengths and improve weaknesses - External environment: identify opportunities and threats with respect to the state of its industry and competitors 3. Pick a strategy type - **Differentiation:** An organization creates a product, service, or customer experience that is different from those provided by competitors, thus warranting a higher price or more attention from consumers - Beat competitors by being different, offering something different - **Cost leadership:** The organization identifies ways to create a product or service at a lower cost compared with competitors; can help the organization increase its margin or sell the product or service at a cheaper price than competitors - Beat competitors on price - Eg. Dollarama, Walmart, Food Basics, No-frills - **Focus:** The organization uses differentiation or cost leadership but identifies a narrow consumer base to appeal to a specific product or service type that might not be produced or sold by competitors - Only certain people are interested in what you are offering - Eg. art galleries, sports memorabilia, music stores 4. Define specific objectives to satisfy stakeholders - **Stakeholders:** customers, investors & shareholders, employees, and communities 5. Finalize strategy - Create a clear plan before progressing to strategy implementation **Characteristics of an effective HRM strategy** - **External fit:** make sure the strategy is accessible and works to those outside of the organization - **Internal fit:** make sure employees within the company are on board with your strategy **Human resource analytics:** a systematic process of applying quantitative or qualitative methods to derive insights that shape and inform people-related business decisions and strategy - **Descriptive analytics:** focuses on understanding what has happened already, providing a "snapshot" of the past; operational reporting and includes summary statistics, such as sums, means, and percentages - **Predictive analytics:** focuses on predicting what is likely to happen in the future given what is already known; involves validating and evaluating the accuracy of those predictions, building statistical and computational models **HR analytics and the scientific process** 1. Identifying the problem - What specifically will you try to describe, predict, explain, or understand using analytics 2. Background research - Unlikely the problem you've identified is entirely unique to your organization - Look for prior research to help you understand the phenomenon you wish to investigate 3. Forming a hypothesis - Statement of what you believe or predict to be true 4. Testing the hypothesis via experiment (observational design) - Experiment is challenging for HR - Observational design is more useful for HR (surveys) - **Quantitative data:** are numeric and can be counted or measured in some way - **Qualitative data:** are nonnumeric and include text or narrative data, such as interview transcripts or responses to open ended survey questions - **Big data:** refer to large (or massive) amounts of unstructured, messy, and/or quickly streaming data - **Little data:** structured data that are gathered in smaller volumes, usually for previously planned purposes - Levels of data - **Nominal:** most basic, assigning a number with no meaning - Eg. isle numbers, jersey numbers - **Ordinal:** putting numbers based on rank, having an order, not overly informative other than order - Eg. ranking courses, friends - **Interval:** has the distance between ranks - Eg. measurement, temperature - **Ratio:** highest level, meaningful zero - Eg. money (zero dollars and zero cents), grades 5. Analyzing the data - Analyze the data to formally test your hypothesis 6. Communicating the results - **Data visualizations:** refer to pictorial and graphical representation or quantitative or qualitative data - Eg. Bar charts, line charts, pie charts, and dashboards **Definitions** - **Balanced scorecard:** the case for considering both financial and operational factors when evaluating strategic progress and organizational performance - **Ability-motivation-opportunity model:** a system of HR practices influences employee outcomes and, ultimately, operational and financial outcomes to the extent that the practice targets three different elements; *[performance = ability x motivation x opportunity]* **[Lecture 2: Data Management & Human Resource Information Systems]** **CHAPTER 3: Data Management & Human Resource Information Systems** **Data management** - **Human resource management system (HRMS)** - Used by large companies - Best matching for specific qualities; proprietary data analysis algorithms to predict important outcomes - **Human resource information system (HRIS):** electronic HRM (e-HRM) represent two closely related HRM data management topics that play an important role in that regard - Cost saving tool - Integrates people data across HR functions - **e-HRM:** internet-based information systems and technology that span across organizational levels - Essentially a database - Looks like a spreadsheet - Can rank employees - **Enterprise resource planning systems (ERPS):** integrated business management software intended to coordinate and integrate processes and data across different functional areas of a company, such as accounting, sales, finance, operation, customer service, and HRM; European standard for HRMS & HRIS +-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+ | **Opportunities** | **Challenges** | +===================================+===================================+ | - Track the employee life cycle | - Cost | | | | | - Automate HR functionality | - Traditional HR skill set | | 24/7 | | | | - Data privacy concerns | | - Data availability for metrics | | | and analytics | - Data security concerns | | | | | - Data visualizations | | +-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+ **HRMS/HRIS data usage** - Legal compliance - Salary information, cash tips, taxes, etc. - Absenteeism and turnover reports - Problems, trends, etc. - The organization's demographic composition - Composition of company - Performance appraisal rating history -- performance trends - Succession & replacement plans -- HRIS (search) HRMS (suggestions) - Compensation reviews - Compensation trends between groups - Cost of living - Equitable pay audits - Training & development/needs - Ensures training is up to date - Career counselling & planning - Employee info to plan expansions - Matching individual & organizational needs (position modules to personnel modules) - Positions modules to personnel modules - Matching skill sets to positions - Work design restructuring planning - Assessment center rating (typically MGT only) - Typically, off-site - Identifies leaders and scores them, singles out social loafers **Types of individual data** **Anonymous data** Pieces of information that cannot be linked to any information that might link those responses to an individual, thereby disclosing the individual's identity ---------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- **Confidential Data** Data for which individual identifies are known due to the linking of a name or close bust are not generally disclosed or reported **Personally Identifiable data** Data that are readily linked to specific individuals **HRIS decision steps** 1. **Initial assessment:** key question is whether the selection process is best ked by internal HR individuals or whether engaging services of an HRIS consultant to help with the process makes the most sense given time, experience, and cost factors 2. **Assessing organizational needs and project parameters:** assessing organizational needs; develop a system that meets all the current organizational needs as well as having room to expand in the future 3. **Evaluating available platforms:** needs of the specific organization HR functions and strategy will determine specific configuration; keep in mind the need for system integration; one thing to have data, completely different to access, retrieve, and merge such data 4. **Designing the system:** being as explicit and honest about these at this stage allows organizations to focus on features that are both feasible and desirable - **logical design:** translation of business requirements into improves business processes - **physical design:** determine the most effective way to translate business \[processes into the software and hardware solutions that make those processes a reality 5. **Choosing a vendor:** creating a list of what you want the HRIS to be able to accomplish, included in a request for proposal (RFP) **Three states of HRMS development** 1. Basic personnel system - Essentially, creating a spreadsheet with employee information - Barebones - Databases that may mix written records on file with other data stored in a computer database - Storing information on a server within the organization: SIN, phone \#, address, birthdate, etc. 2. Augmented HR system - Basic + added features - Relational database - looking at connections - Matching position modules with personnel modules - Enables the user to customize HR data to be investigated - Offers a wide variety of searches and analyses to be conducted 3. Comprehensive and interactive HRMS - Enables HR planning staff to run *"what if"* scenarios - Determine future policy alternatives given a range of possible outcomes **Selection & design criteria for HRMS** 1. System security & access control (PINs, SINs, etc.) 2. User-friendliness 3. Flexibility & interface with other systems 4. Meets the needs of the organization 5. System cost and service support 6. Future expansion (specialist programs, etc.) - **Integrated systems:** systems that offer a variety of HR record and decision-making functions - **Specialist programs:** programs tailored to serving needs in one or two narrowly defined areas (compensation, etc.) **Criteria for data inclusion in the HRMS** - **GIGO:** if you put garbage into your HRMS, invariably, you will get garbage out **Core HRMS data entries** 1. Identification & personal record 2. Work history 3. Career competencies (uses DOT to numerically code career) 4. Accounting and compensation data **Skill inventories** - Contains information on each employee, such as: - Compensation & benefit - Education & training (language, licences, etc.) - Performance History - Jobs held & target jobs **Management inventories** - Contains supplemental information on: - Budget & staff supervisory accountabilities (span of control) - Management training received **Data privacy concerns** - **Data security:** refers to protective measures taken to precent unauthorized access to employee data and to preserve the confidentiality and integrity of the data - **Cybersecurity:** data security applied to information accessible through the internet - **Two-step authentication (multi-factor authentication): an** additional piece of information that only the user knows - **Blockchain:** a distributed incorruptible digital technology infrastructure which maintains a fully encoded database that serves as a ledger where all transactions are recorded and stored - Digitally distributed, decentralized, public ledger that exists across a network - New system - Immutable ledger(s) - High security, not ransomware-based (secured in multiple locations) - New added blocks, can't override and remove a block **Definitions** - **Data lake:** stores a vast amount of raw data in its native format - **Privacy:** individuals control the collection, storage access, reporting, and use of personal data - **Scraping & crawling tools:** include programs designed to scour and pull data from websites and other electronic sources in a systematic manner **[Lecture 3: Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI)]** **CHAPTER 4: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), and Equal Employment Laws** **DEI Definitions** - **Diversity:** compositional differences among people within a work unit, which may lead them to perceive others as similar to them or different from them - **Equity:** ensures that organizational policies and practices are impartial and fair - **Inclusion:** treatment of individuals of all backgrounds with dignity and respect, including them in decision-making, and valuing them for who they are and what they bring to the group or organization **Challenges to EDI** - **Similarity-attraction:** the tendency of individuals to prefer others who are similar to them - Stereotypes & unconscious bias - **Stereotypes:** simplified and generalized assumptions about a particular group of people - **Unconscious (or implicit) bias:** stereotypes individuals hold that reside beyond their conscious awareness **Availability bias** Tendency to rely more on information that is readily available to use, leading us to discount alternative information ------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- **Anchoring bias** The tendency to rely too much on the first piece of information given **Overconfidence bias** The tendency to seek confirmation of one's own beliefs or expectations, can shortcut the exploration of a full range of options - **Microaggressions:** subtle snubs, slights, and insults targeting marginalized populations, women, and other historically excluded groups **HR analytics** - Big data as a pathway to increasing diversity and inclusion - The examination provides an understanding of diversity - Data shared in confidentiality cannot be shared with the corporation - Analytics utilized to prevent bias - Analytics help manage existing employees - Training to understand legal obligations **Internal audits** - **Pay audits:** used to rectify past mistakes and achieve equity within the firm. - Pay audit is "discoverable" - Audit can also be used for EDI and employment laws **Overview of Canadian laws** - Human rights law - Prohibits discrimination in employment (section 8) - Race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex (including pregnancy & childbirth), marital status, family status, mental or physical disability, pardoned conviction, sexual orientation - Allowed to ask with consent - Employment equity legislation - Elimination of unequal treatment in the workplace related to membership in a designated group - \*\*distraction question -- equity & equality as options (keep in mind equity -- fairness) - [FOUR protected groups:] women, visible minorities, aboriginal people, people with disabilities - International hiring exception - Canadian citizens have hiring preference over non-Canadian citizens when they have the same qualifications **Developing an employment equity (EE) plan** 1. Obtain the support of senior management - The process can't happen without the support of management; they'll kybosh efforts 2. Survey to determine the representation of designated groups - How will employees fit in, what do they want 3. Remove systematic employment barriers - Departmental discrimination, etc. 4. Monitoring the changing composition - Encouraging protected groups to join or be involved 5. Make necessary changes - Change anything that is disliked **Definitions** - **Bona fide occupational qualification (BFOQ):** when a protected characteristic is an essential of the job - **Reverse discrimination:** discriminating against the majority to historically privileged groups such as white or male employees - **Affirmative action:** overcompensating for discrimination by favouring minorities