Chapter 7: Recruiting, Motivating, and Keeping Quality Employees
Link to Chapter 7: Recruiting, Motivating, and Keeping Quality Employees
Course Outcomes/Goals -
Define human resources management and explain its significance.
7.1 Human Resource Management
Human Resources Management is an organizational effort to recruit, train, motivate (environment, compensation), appraising, retain, and protect quality employees.
Let's look at how this applies at Starbucks in the first part of Ch 7.1.
Recruiting
At some point our company will likely need employees and it's our job in HR to recruit the best possible people. Recruiting is the process of finding possible employees and getting them to apply. Before we can recruit, we need to perform a job analysis to, "identify the tasks, responsibilities, and skills that it entails, as well as the knowledge and abilities needed to perform it." Here are the two main parts of a job analysis from your book:
- A job description, which lists the duties and responsibilities of a position
- A job specification, which lists the qualifications—skills, knowledge, and abilities—needed to perform the job
Find a job description, which lists job specifications, that you would be interested in and add it to the collaborative page. Be ready to tell us about what you chose and why. Where should you look? Employers and employees generally look to the same places, here are just a few:
Regardless of whether we are hiring internally or externally, it is important for a company to hire the most qualified candidate and avoid any discrimination in the hiring process. We'll look to your book for a definition of discrimination and the laws we need to be aware of.
Here is a video on what the selection process would look like at T-Mobile:
One of the first steps in the hiring process is completing a job application. Use this link or another source to find a job application that looks interesting. Most non-entry level jobs will require a resume and cover letter. Resume writing would take too much time to cover in this class, but it's important to have an updated and professional resume available. As part of the selection process you may also go through:
- Employment tests (written or physical)
- Physical exam (drug tests)
- Reference checks
- The interview
Interviewing
We will talk about some best practices for interviews using the link below.
- Job Interview Preparation Strategies: What To Do And What To Skip
The Assignment - Job Application, Interview Questions, & Interview 20 pts
- Find and complete a job application (5 pts). Points will be lost for missing or incomplete information, poor grammar/spelling/punctuation/handwriting, and lack of detail.
- Prepare for your interview (12 pts). Create a list with at least five interview questions (3 pts) and send these to me. You will be asked three to five interview questions during a 'mock interview' in front of the class. You will be graded on your dress/appearance (4 pts), etiquette (3 pts), preparedness (5 pts) (answers that use examples, your own questions, knowledge of the company, etc.). You will be interviewing for a position within ________. We will choose a company using this link.
7.2 Developing/Training Employees
Orientation
You've gone through various orientations throughout school and will in college. Many businesses follow the same model and have orientation for their new employees. The goal is to give new employees important information they will need to know about the company and to make them feel welcome.
Training
We need to give employees the skills, knowledge, and abilities to be successful in their new roles. This can be accomplished through off-the-job training or on-the-job training. In either case, training can be a large expense for many companies.
What are ways you've been trained at your jobs?
Diversity
We've talked about this already, but the video on the left reviews some important reasons for having a diverse workforce. Most companies will make an effort to be diverse, partly due to legal concerns and enforcement by the EEOC.
7.3 Motivating Employees
We will watch this video (and this one) that talks about motivation. There are many motivation theories, but the one we will focus on is Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy-of-needs theory.
7.4 What Makes a Great Place to Work, 7.5 Performance Appraisal, & Protecting Employees
In this section we are looking at how to motivate our employees through their work environment & compensation.
Let's take a moment and review back to Ch 2 when we talked about a company's culture. We could have a great work environment and compensation, but still have a poor company culture. This article from Forbes talks about the importance of company culture (we'll look at the 2nd & 3rd paragraphs).
Environment
How can we create a great place to work? In this article the Harvard Business Review lists twelve qualities of a great place to work. This infographic from Adecco illustrates seven tips for creating a great place to work. Within your groups, look through the two articles and pick five items that are most important to you. Add this list to the collaborative page.
The author from the HBR article says that Google is the company that comes closest to meeting all his criteria. We'll check out the above video on what it's like for interns at Google. This not only gives us a view at their environment, but also ties in with the orientation and training we've already talked about.
Life is busy. Helping employees find a balance between work and life can help to create a positive work environment. Your book lists several ways that organizations can help:
- Flextime, eg. 7 AM - 11 AM & 2 PM - 6 PM
- Compressed Workweeks, eg. 4 days @ 10 hrs
- Part-Time Work (w/ adjusted pay & benefits)
- Job Sharing
- Telecommuting
- Dependent Care
- Paid Parental Leave
- On Site Amenities, eg. dry cleaning, fitness center, restaurants, free vending machines
Compensation & Benefits
Typically HR is responsible for determining what and how we will pay employees and which benefits will be included (as well as administering benefits). We might choose to pay based on an hourly wage, a yearly salary, or both. Your book lists a number of ways we can compensate our employees:
- Piecework - pay based on productivity
- Commission - pay based on sales
- Bonus Plans - based on company, department, or individual performance
- Profit-Sharing Plans - varies based on company profit
- Stock-Option Plans - buy direct from the company
Which compensation options appeal to you most? Discuss it for a minute within your groups.
Employee benefits are another big part of compensation. Let's look at what your book has to say (PTO?) about benefits.
Let's flip the coin and look at this from an employee perspective. How do we know if a job offer is good or not? Here are some resources to help you decide:
- Job-Offer Evaluation Checklist
- Understand All 24 Components of Your Job Offer Benefits Package
- Evaluating Job Offers & Negotiating - Law professor story
Come up with a list of the five benefits that would be most important to your group and add this to the collaborative page.
Why is being a great place to work important?
We want to retain quality employees. There are many reasons a company would want to be a great place to work, but we will focus on business success and costs. First, studies have shown that happy employees are more productive, which typically translates into business success. Second is the cost to the business due to turnover. We've talked about the high cost of recruiting and training, but there is also lost productivity from that missing employee.
Turnover may be because of an employee getting fired ("stressful life event") or downsizing. Let's look at what your book has to say about employment-at-will.
Performance Appraisal
Companies will use different methods to evaluate employees, but here is a general three step method.
Protecting Employees
Sexual harassment is a form of discrimination and an important topic that HR departments have to address. We will look at this link that talk about ways sexual harassment can occur and what steps a company should take.
The video on the left is meant to be funny, but shows that sexual harassment can be from a man or woman.
The Assignment
Complete exercise question number two from ch 7.4. You can choose another position other than a sales manager. Complete question number two from ch 7.5.
7.7 Cases and Problems
Complete the Learning on the Web case What’s Your (Emotional) IQ?
Review
Here is a link to help you study the chapter's terms. Don't just study the terms. Not all of these will be covered on the test (focus on the bold words on this page).
Extra Credit
Read the case study about diversity at Nike linked below. Summarize and reflect on the case.