KEY: Bloom's: Comprehension
10. Briefly describe the role of a human resources specialist.
ANS:
The human resource (HR) specialist is a person who has in-depth knowledge and expertise in a limited area of HR. The most common areas of HR specialty, in order of frequency, are benefits, employment and recruitment, and compensation.
PTS: 1 DIF: Easy OBJ: LO: 01-06 NAT: BUSPROG: Analytic
TOP: Human Resources Management Competencies and Careers
KEY: Bloom's: Knowledge
ESSAY
1. Describe the four types of assets that organizations must manage to be successful.
ANS:
Organizations must manage four types of assets to be successful:
(a) Physical assets: Buildings, land, furniture, computers, vehicles, equipment, and so on.
(b) Financial assets: Cash, financial resources, stocks, bonds or debt, and so on.
(c) Intellectual property assets: Specialized research capabilities, patents, information systems, designs, operating processes, copyrights, and so on.
(d) Human assets: Individuals with their talents, capabilities, experience, professional expertise, relationships, and so on.
All these assets are important to varying degrees in different organizations. But the human assets are the “glue” that holds all the other assets together and guides their use to achieve results. Effective use of a firm’s human capital may explain a significant part of the difference in higher market value between one company and another.
PTS: 1 DIF: Moderate OBJ: LO: 01-01 NAT: BUSPROG: Analytic
TOP: What is Human Resource Management? KEY: Bloom's: Comprehension
2. Describe the major ways of increasing employee productivity.
ANS:
The major ways to increase employee productivity are:
(1) Organizational restructuring: It involves eliminating layers of management and changing reporting relationships, as well as cutting staff through downsizing, layoffs, and early retirement buyout programs.
(2) Redesigning work: This often involves having fewer employees who perform multiple job tasks. It may also involve replacing workers with capital equipment or making them more efficient by use of technology or new processes.
(3) Aligning HR activities: This means making human resource (HR) efforts consistent with organizational efforts to improve productivity. This alignment includes ensuring that staffing, training and development, performance management, compensation, and other HR activities are not working to offset productivity.
(4) Outsourcing analyses: These involve HR in conducting cost-benefit analyses to examine the impact of outsourcing. Additional factors may include negotiating with outsourcing vendors, ensuring that contractors domestically or internationally are operating legally and appropriately, and linking organizational employees to the outsourcing firm’s employees.
PTS: 1 DIF: Moderate OBJ: LO: 01-02 NAT: BUSPROG: Analytic
TOP: Where Employees Can Be a Core Competency KEY: Bloom's: Knowledge
3. Describe the different functions of human resource management.
ANS:
The functions of human resource (HR) management are:
(1) HR Strategy and Planning: As a part of maintaining organizational competitiveness, strategic planning for the organization and HR’s role in those strategic plans are a good starting place. Dealing with workforce surpluses and shortages and predicting human capital needs and availabilities are challenges here.