(2) Equal Employment Opportunity: Compliance with federal, state, and local equal employment opportunity (EEO) laws and regulations affects all other HR activities.
(3) Staffing: The aim of staffing is to provide a sufficient supply of qualified individuals to fill jobs in an organization. The nature of the workforce job design and job analysis lays the foundation for staffing by identifying what people do in their jobs and how they are affected by them. Relationships between individuals and the employing organization affect performance and retention of employees. Turnover helps determine how many employees will be needed, an important bit of information when recruiting applicants for job openings.
(4) Talent Management and Development: Beginning with the orientation of new employees, talent management and development includes different types of training. HR development and succession planning for employees and managers is necessary to prepare for future challenges.
(5) Rewards: Compensation in the form of pay, incentives, and benefits rewards people for performing organizational work. To be competitive, employers develop and refine their basic compensation systems and may use variable programs as incentive rewards. The rapid increase in the cost of benefits, especially healthcare benefits, will continue to be a major issue for most employers.
(6) Risk Management and Worker Protection: Employers must address various workplace risks to ensure protection of workers, meet legal requirements, and be responsive to concerns for workplace health and safety.
(7) Employee and Labor Relations: The relationship between managers and their employees must be handled legally and effectively. Employer and employee rights must be addressed. It is important to develop, communicate, and update HR policies and procedures so that managers and employees alike know what is expected.
PTS: 1 DIF: Moderate OBJ: LO: 01-03 NAT: BUSPROG: Analytic
TOP: HR Management Functions KEY: Bloom's: Comprehension
4. Describe the different roles played by the human resource department in an organization.
ANS:
If an organization has a formal human resource (HR) group there are typically three different roles that the group might play in the organization. Which of the roles predominates or whether all three roles are performed depends on what management wants HR to do and what competencies the HR staff have demonstrated. The roles are:
(1) Administrative: Focusing on clerical administration and recordkeeping, including essential legal paperwork and policy implementation
(2) Operational and employee advocate: Managing most HR activities in keeping with the strategies and operations that have been identified by management and serving as employee “champion ” for employee issues and concerns
(3) Strategic: Helping to define the strategy relative to human capital and its contribution to organizational results
While the administrative role traditionally has been the dominant role for HR, the emphasis on the operational and employee advocate role is growing in most organizations. The strategic role requires the ability and orientation to contribute to strategic decisions and a recognition by upper management of those skills. This practice is less common but growing.
PTS: 1 DIF: Moderate OBJ: LO: 01-03 NAT: BUSPROG: Analytic
TOP: Roles for Human Resource Departments KEY: Bloom's: Comprehension
5. Describe the administrative role of human resource management.
ANS:
The administrative role of human resource (HR) management has been heavily oriented to processing information and recordkeeping. This role has given HR management in some organizations the reputation of being staffed by people who primarily tell managers and employees what cannot be done usually because of some policy or problem from the past. If limited to the administrative role, HR staff are primarily clerical and lower-level administrative aides to the organization. Two major shifts driving the transformation of the administrative role are greater use of technology and outsourcing.