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Recruitment and retaining the best employees

38 important questions on Recruitment and retaining the best employees

What are the 5 HRM acquisition activities?

- Human resources planning (determining the firm's future human resources needs)
- Job analysis (determining the exact nature of the positions)
- Recruiting (attracting people to apply for positions)
- Selection (choosing and hiring the most qualified applicants)
- Orientation (acquainting new employees with the firm)

What are the 3 HRM maintenance activities?

- Employee relations (Increasing employee job satisfaction through e.g. satisfaction surveys and exit interviews)
- Compensation - Rewarding employee effort through monetary payments
- Benefits - Providing rewards to ensure employee well-being

What are the 2 HRM development activities?

- Training and development (Teaching employees new skills/jobs/more effective ways of doing their present job)
- Performance appraisal (assessing employees' current and potential performance levels)

What 2 techniques are useful for forecasting human resources supply?

- Replacement chart
- Skills inventory

What is the replacement chart?

A list of key personnel and their possible replacements within the firm.

What is the skills inventory?

A computerised data bank containing information on the skills and experience of all present employees.

What are the 4 ways in which you can reduce the workforce?

- laid off - being dismissed from the workforce until needed again
- Attrition - normal reduction in the workforce when employees leave the firm
- Early retirement - People who are within a few years of retirement are allowed to go into retirement early with full benefits
- Firing - Completely letting someone go

What is external recruiting?

The attempt to attract job applicants from outside an organisation

What are the advantages and disadvantages of external recruiting?

A:
- Brings in people with different perspectives and business backgrounds
- Out off college recruits might be more trainable to fit with the corporate culture and needs of the company
- Technologically savvy young people
D:
- Expensive (especially when private employment agencies are used)
- Resentment among present employees

What are the advantages and disadvantages of internal recruiting?

A:
- It provides an incentive for present employees to work hard
D:
- When a position is filled, the old position also needs to be filled, which means that instead of 1 employee, now 2 need to be trained
- Sometimes nobody in the company has the right skillset for the open position

For what 2 purposes are the data obtained from applications used?

- To identify applicants who are worthy of further scrutiny
- To familiarise interviewers with their background

What is a résumé/CV?

A one- or two-page summary of someone's background and qualifications.

What 4 qualities does an effective employee reward system need to have?

- Enable employees to satisfy basic needs
- Provide rewards comparable with those offered by other firms
- Be distributed fairly within the organisation
- Recognise that different people have different needs

What is a compensation system?

The policies and strategies that determine employee compensation.

What 3 management decisions are needed to design an effective compensation system?

- Wage level (in comparison to other jobs in the same industry and at the same level)
- Wage structure (who earns how much within the firm, based on a job evaluation)
- Individual wages (determining a rate based on qualifications, experience and expected performance)

What is a wage survey?

A collection of data on prevailing wage rates within an industry or geographic area

What is comparable worth?

A concept that seeks equal compensation for jobs requiring about the same level of education, training, and skills

What 6 types of compensation are there?

- Hourly wage
- Weekly or monthly salary
- Commissions
- Incentive payments
- Lump-sum salary increases
- Profit-sharing

What is an hourly wage?

A specific amount of money paid for each hour of work

What is a salary?

A specific amount of money paid for an employee's work during a set calendar period, regardless of the actual number of hours worked.

What is a commission?

A payment that is a percentage of sales revenue.

What is an incentive payment?

A payment in addition to wages, salary or commissions. Usually given to people who did an outstanding job.

What is gain sharing?

offering incentives to employees who exceeded sales or specific production goals.

What is a lump-sum salary increase?

An entire pay raise taken in one lump sum. This is treated as a loan that the employee must repay, should he leave the company before the end of the year.

What are employee benefits?

A reward in addition to regular compensation that is provided indirectly to employees.(e.g. health care)

What types of employee benefits are there?

- Pay for time not worked (holidays, sick days, etc.)
- Insurance packages (health, life and dental insurance, pension and retirement programmes, etc.)
- Child care, cafeterias, exercise rooms, etc.

What is a flexible benefit plan?

A compensation plan whereby an employee receives a predetermined amount of benefit money to spend on a package of benefits he or she has selected to meet individual needs.

What are the advantages of a flexible benefit plan?

- They fit the individual needs of the employees better
- In the long run they can help the company contain costs, since a specific amount is allotted to each employee
- The plans seem employee-friendly, and might attract qualified employees.

What is employee training?

The process of teaching operations and technical employees how to do their present jobs more effectively and efficiently

What is management development?

The process of preparing managers and other professionals to assume increased responsibility in both present and future positions.

What types of training methods are there?

- On-the-job methods (employee learns under supervision of experienced colleague)
- Simulations (takes away from the day-to-day pressure of actual work)
- Classroom teaching and lectures
- Conferences and seminars (experts and learners meet to exchange ideas)
- Role-playing (act out roles of others in the organisation to better understand these roles)

What are the 3 objectives of performance appraisals?

- Letting workers know how well they are doing and where they can improve
- Providing a basis on which can be determined how to distribute rewards (e.g. promotions)
- Helping the organisation monitor employee selection, training, and development activities (if many perform badly, additional training might be necessary)

What are objective evaluation methods?

Methods that use some measurable quantity as the basis for assessing performance. e.g. units of output, or euro volumes of sales.

What is the disadvantage of objective evaluation methods?

Sometimes the circumstances in which two employees doing the same job work, aren't comparable. You don't see this in the measurable numbers though, and this might give the impression that one is more motivated than the other, when in fact it has to do with circumstances they can't influence.

What are judgemental evaluation methods?

Methods that require the manager to judge or estimate the employee's performance level.

What is the disadvantage of judgemental evaluation methods?

There isn't an absolute standard, since you're ranking the employees relatively to each other.

What are the 3 major approaches to performance feedback interviews?

- Tell-and-sell (manager tells employee their evaluation and tries to persuade him into accepting it. The employee has no input, and this can therefore lead to defensiveness and resentment)
- Tell-and-listen (same as above, only now the employee has a change to respond)
- Problem-solving (employees evaluate themselves, manager is less a judge and more a colleague that provides advice and tries to help)

What is a 360-degree evaluation?

An evaluation that collects anonymous reviews about an employee from his or her peers, subordinates, and supervisors, and then compiles these in a report that is then given to the employee in question.

The question on the page originate from the summary of the following study material:

Introduction to Business: Processes and Context | 9781473754461 | Wiilliam M Stewart, et al

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