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HRM2605 Summary Notes
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HR FOR LINE MANAGERS – HRM2605Chapter 4 - Strategic HR Planning and Research
Types of HR Planning
The company can choose whether it wants to be proactive or reactive. The formality of the plan: formal or informal.
Informal route - the planning is done in the heads of managers and HR staff.
Formalised approach - the plan is clearly spelled out in writing and backed up by supporting docs and data.
Craft has identified the following possible types of linkages:
o Input linkages. HR information is made available before or during the strategic planning process through a
specialised HR unit or a committee of HR personnel.
o Decision inclusion linkages. HR personnel are either directly or indirectly involved in the strategic planning
process of the company.
o Review and reaction linkages. HR personnel can respond to a proposed or final strategic plan.
Steps in the SHRP Process
Step 1: Situation analysis
Monitor and assess the company mission & core business
Conduct environment scanning to gather info on trends in external & internal environments
Step 2: HR Demand analysis
The determination of total manpower requirements of company
Types, skills & location of employees must be determined
Analyse past trends & productivity then linking company plans to productivity levels and projecting future needs
Step 3: HR Supply analysis
Entails evaluation of future supply of labour (internal & external)
Step 4: Strategy Development
Step 5: Succession Planning
Identifying a longer-term plan for the orderly replacement of key employees
Common pitfalls in SHRP
• The Identity Crisis – HR planners must have a strong sense of direction or their existence might be tested
• Top Management Support – it must have the full support of management, not always forthcoming.
• Size of effort – programmes fails in beginning due to complex start, better to start with basic
• Coordination with Other Functions – process must be coordinated with other management & HR functions
• Integration with Company plan – HR plans must be derived company plan, isolation plans will not work
• Non-involvement of operating Managers – need coordinated efforts between Operating managers & HR staff
• The technique trap – companies must use techniques most suited to particular need
HR research
Specific uses of HR Research:
• Measurement & evaluation of present conditions
• Prediction of condition, events & behavioural problems
• Evaluation of current policies/programs/activities
• Discovery of rational bases for revising current policies/programs/activities
• Appraisal of proposed policies/programs/activities
Types of research:
○ Basic (pure research) – done to advance knowledge in particular field or to gather info on given subject
○ Applied – to solve a particular problem, its results might be put to immediate use
The researchers:
Government – many government departments, Labour & Human Science Research Council (HSRC)
Private organisations – Deloitte& KPMG
Universities – UCT Graduate School of Business
Business Firms – on going research responsibilities of HR staff include:
Evaluating T&D programmes
Conducting periodic wage and salary surveys
Conducting surveys of employee attitudes
, Requests from other departments
Investigation of extreme high employee grievances in particular department
A programme to reduce absenteeism among clerical personnel
Evaluation of changes in a labour-management agreement that may affect productivity
HR Research publications
It’s the most practical & expedient way for HR professionals to keep on top of the research is by regularly a selected
group of HR journals & magazines, or subscribing to electronic bulletin boards via the internet
Research techniques
1. Must be applied to the issue at question, inappropriate techniques can affect the validity and usefulness
2. A knowledge of techniques is needed to understand the studies reported
Surveys – employee survey most widely used (wage & job satisfaction)
Job satisfaction survey – linked with absenteeism & turn around studies.
Factors contributing to positive job satisfaction:
The job itself Good supervision
Co-worker relations Opportunity to grow
Factors contributing to negative job satisfaction:
Poor supervision Poor work environment
Interpersonal conflicts Poor pay
Specific-use questionnaire – focus on a particular problem or issue
Survey Administration - steps to be considered:
o Objective – management must identify the objectives of survey
o Top Management Commitment – must be willing to share and discuss outcomes with employees
o Survey development – developed either internal or external. External is more acceptable
o Announcing the Survey – different opinion on this, analyse locally
o Implementation – important considerations:
Allow for sufficient time to complete
Rollout survey to all employees at same time
Administer the survey on company premises
o Analysis – results can reflect total organisational results in comparison to individual groups.
o Feedback – results should be communicated. Most effective is face-to-face
o Follow-up – important to ensure good relationships maintained and implemented actions
o Caution – results gain meaning by virtue of relevant comparison. Appropriate questions to be selected
Exit interviews
When person leaves company voluntary, valuable source of information regarding reason for leaving, perceptions of
supervisor, salary, benefits, training & opportunities of advancement. Must be done by HR and not direct supervisor
Controlled Experiments
1. Define the problem
2. Evaluate alternatives & select alternatives
3. State the hypothesis
4. Select experimental & controls Groups
5. Measure experimental & Control Groups prior to experiment
6. Conduct experiment
7. Measure experimental & Control Groups after to experiment
8. Analyse Data, Draw Conclusion, report results
Cost-benefit analysis
Analysing HR activities and problems by cost, HR can evaluate proposed programmes but also costly personnel
problems requiring attention
Activities also analysed:
•Turn Over - separation, replacement & training costs
•Absenteeism –lost salaries, benefits payment, manager’s time spent on it, and incidental absenteeism cost
•Smoking –extra insurance, property damage and on-the-job time lost (smoke breaks)
•Employee Attitudes – improved job satisfaction improves performance, absenteeism, turnover and grievances
•Labour Contracts – management must know, how proposed labour contact will effect financially
,Chapter 5 - Job design and job analysis
Dividing work into jobs
Work – is effort directed toward producing and accomplishing results?
Job – grouping of tasks, duties and responsibilities, that constitute the total work assignment for employees
Workflow Analysis
↘Studies the way work moves though organisation. Can establish if too many steps are involved with too many
different jobs. The process can be redesigned requiring redefined tasks, duties& responsibilities of several jobs.
Re-engineering business processes
Generates the needed changes in the business process – this is done to improve activities like product development,
CS and service delivery
External organisation factors
Environmental uncertainty, available technology and the profile of the labour market within which the company
Internal organisational factors
The management and leadership style with technology available within the company
Designing Jobs
Job design: the manipulation of the content, functions & relationships of jobs in a way that both accomplishes
organisational goals and satisfies the personal needs of individual job holders.
• The content of the job encompasses:
Variety of tasks performed
The autonomy of job holder
The extend the whole job is performed by person
• The functions of a job encompasses:
The work methods used
Responsibilities
Authority of the job
• The relationship of the job encompasses:
The work activities shards by job holder and other individuals
3 approaches to job design:
Specialisation-intensive jobs
Management’s role in job design in 3-step process: 1) Manager determines the best way of performing the job; 2)
Manager hires individuals according to their abilities; 3) Management trains workers in the best way
The problem of overspecialisation – Jobs designed to achieve standardisation, simplification &
division of labour. Hampers people is several ways:
• Repetition – become quickly bored. People need stimulation and challenges
• Mechanical pacing – restricted to assembly line. Line is automatically paced
• No end product – cannot identify with end product, have little pride or enthusiasm
• Little social interaction – related to assembly lines. Requires constant attention
• No input – have little chance to influence how they perform jobs, tools to use and work procedures
• Job dimensions – The job scope – how long it takes a worker to complete the total task (job cycle)
The job depth –how much planning, decision-making & controlling done in total job
Motivation-intensive jobs:
The challenge to balance the human needs (employee) and the economic goals (employer)
Advantages to this approach – less absenteeism, higher productivity, less turnover, higher product quality, more
employee involvement, greater job satisfaction
Job rotation: the process of shifting an employee from job to job
Job enlargement: a change in the scope of a job so as to provide greater variety to a worker
Job enrichment: enhancing a job by adding more meaningful tasks & duties to make work more satisfactory
The “Sociotechnical” approach
Based on 2 premises:
The organisation is a combined, social-plus-technical system
This system is open in relation to its environment
Most popular application found in self-managed work teams (self-directed, self-regulating / high-performance work
teams
Members expected to perform/ rotate to more than 1 job for the team – multiskilling
, Being paid for variety of skills mastered rather than for the job actually being performed
Employees are more committed, have a sense of ownership
2 other types of teams:
The problem solving team – consists of volunteers who meet 1 or 2 hours per week to discuss quality
improvement or improvement of work environment
Special-purpose team – consist of employees who span functional or organisational boundaries. Their
purpose is examine complex issues
New Organisational approaches
Total Quality Management (TQM)
TQM is an organisation-wide approach that focuses on the quality of all the processes that in the belief that quality is
a key part of every employee's job.
The office environment
The work environment - space, workstations, light, furnishings, and so on - affects employee morale, productivity
and quality, absenteeism and turnover.
Robotics
Industrial robots are often divided into two classes: anthropomorphic robots, approximate the appearance and
functions of humans, and non-anthropomorphic robots are machine-like and have limited functions
Ergonomics
• Posture – enough movement to prevent long rigidity in the same position, causing fatigue and discomfort.
• The back – to reduce back injuries, design lifting tasks carefully.
• The hand – Excessive back-and-forth movement can cause inflammation of the hand.
• The environment – Noise can be distracting and harmful when it is higher than routine background noise.
Productivity measures
Productivity: A measure of the output of goods and services relative to the input of labour, material and equipment
Productivity has 3 major components:
1. Utilisation – is the extent to which businesses use their resources (labour, materials & capital)
2. Efficiency – is the rate of conversion while resources are being used.
3. Effectiveness – is measured in terms of “doing the right things” e.g. satisfying customer needs
Requirements for sound productivity:
o Measurement should be understood or at least trusted by those being measured
o All resources & operation within the business must be included
o Ideally the results should indicate who or what is being measured
o The results must give clear signals to management for action to improve profits
The nature of job analysis
Job analysis: systematic way to gather and analyse information about the content, context and the human
requirements of jobs
The process includes investigating the level of decision-making by employees within a job category, the skills
employees need to do a job adequately, the autonomy of the job in question and the mental effort required to
perform the job. Machines operated, reports completed and specific financial or other responsibilities must be
included in an analysis of a job.
Importance of Job Analysis
Organisational restructuring due to downsizing that calls for basic changes in “who does what, where and with what”
Need to motivate and reward people (managers& professionals) on basis of what they know, along with traditional
job objectives
The impact of technology, information systems technology, on jobs throughout organisation
Labour legislation pertaining to employment equity & general discriminatory practices
Components of a job
Job family – A category in which similar occupations are grouped together.
Occupation –combined across organisations based upon skills, efforts and responsibilities required
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