CHAPTER 17 – HR POLICIES & PRACTICES

SELECTION PRACTICES
The objective of effective selection is to figure out who is the right people, by matching individual
characteristics with the requirement of the job.

SELECTION PROCESS

Initial Selection – the first information applicants summit and are used for preliminary rough cuts to decide
whether the applicant meets the basic qualifications for a job
Device:
 Application forms
 Background checks
Substantive Selection - these are the heart of the selection process, and include written tests, performance
tests, and interviews.
 Written Tests
 Applicants tend to view this less valid and fair than interviews or performance tests.
 Include :
1. Intelligence or cognitive ability tests
2. Personality tests
3. Integrity tests
4. Interest inventories
 Tests must show a valid connection to job-related performance requirements.
 Performance-simulation Tests
 Based on job-related performance requirements.
 Yield validities (correlation with job performance) superior to written aptitude and personality
tests.
 2 best known:
1. Work sample tests - Creating a miniature replica of a job to evaluate the performance
abilities of job candidates.
2. Assessment centers - A set of performance-simulation tests designed to evaluate a
candidate’s managerial potential
 Interviews
 Are the most frequently used selection tool.
 Carry a great deal of weight in the selection process.
 Can be biased toward those who “interview well.”
  Should be structured to ensure against distortion due to interviewers’ biases.
 Are better for assessing applied mental skills, conscientiousness, interpersonal skills, and
person-organization fit of the applicant.
Contingent Selection - if application pass the substantive selection methods, they are ready to be hired,
contingent on a final check.

One common contingent method is: a drug test.

TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS
 Types of Training
Four general skill categories:
1. Basic literacy – organizations have to teach employees basic reading and math skills. Including
writing and reading charts, graphs, and bulletin boards, increased abilities to use fractions and
decimals, better overall communication, and a significant increase in confidence.
2. Technical skills – for two reasons: new technology and new structural designs in the
organization.
3. Interpersonal skills – employees’ work performance depends on their ability to effectively
interact with their co-workers and boss, so they require training to improve listening,
communicating, and team-building skills.
4. Problem-solving skills – include activities to sharpen employees’ logic, reasoning, and problem
defining skills as well as their abilities to assess causation, develop, and analyze alternatives,
and select solutions.
What about Ethics Training?
 Argument against ethics training: Personal values and value systems are fixed at an early age
 Arguments for ethics training:
 Values can be learned and changed after early childhood.
 Training helps employees recognize ethical dilemmas and become aware of ethical issues
related to their actions.
 Training reaffirms the organization’s expectation that members will act ethically.

 Training Method
1.
Formal Training = planned in advance and having a structured format.
2.
Informal Training = unstructure, unplanned, and easily adapted to situations and
individual.
3.
On-the-Job Training = include job rotation, apprenticeships, understudy assignments,
and formal mentoring programs.
4.
Off-the-Job Training = by using classrom lectures, videotapes, public seminars, self-study
programs, internet courses, and group activities that use role-plays and case-studies.
5.
E-training = online courses covering everything from products to policies
Individualizing Formal Training to Fit the Employee’s Learning Style

Readings

Lectures

Participation and Experiential Exercises

Visual Aids
Performance Evaluation
3 major types of behavior that constitute performance at work:
1.
Task Performance – performing the duties and responsibilities that contribute to the production
of a good or service or to administrative tasks
2.
Citizenship – actions that contribute to the psychological environment of the organization, such
as helping others when not required
3.
Counterproductivity – actions that actively damage the organization, including stealing,
behaving, aggresively toward co-workers, or being late or absent
Purposes of Performance Evaluation:
1.
Making general human resource decisions.
 Promotions, transfers, and terminations
2.
Identifying training and development needs.Improvement Is A Proof!
Copyrighted by Studev MSS FEUI 2013
 Employee skills and competencies
3.
Validating selection and development programs.
 Employee performance compared to selection evaluation and anticipated performance
results of participation in training
4.
Providing feedback to employees.
 The organization’s view of their current performance
5.
Supplying the basis for rewards allocation decisions.
 Merit pay increases and other rewards
What Do We Evaluate?
a)
Individual task outcomes, such as quantity produces, scrap generated, and cost per unit of
production for a plant manager or on overall sales volume in the territory, dollar increase sales,
etc
b)
Behaviors – we may readily evaluate the group’s performance, but it is hard to identify the
contribution of each group member
c)
Traits – the weekest criteria. Having a good attitude, showing confidence, being dependable,
looking busy, etc may or may not be highly correlated with postive task outcomes
What should do the Evaluating?

Managers

Peers and subordinates

360-degree evaluation 
How to evaluate an employee performance?

Written Essay
A narrative describing an employee’s strengths, weaknesses, past performances, potential, and
suggestions for improvement

Critical Incidents
Evaluating the behaviors that are key in making the difference between executing a job
effectively and executing it ineffectivelyImprovement Is A Proof!
Copyrighted by Studev MSS FEUI 2013

Graphic Rating Scales
An evaluation method in which the evaluator rates performance factors on an incremental
scale.

Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales (BARS)
Scales that combine major elements from the critical incident and graphic rating scale
approaches: The appraiser rates the employees based on items along a continuum, but the
points are examples of actual behavior on a given job rather than general descriptions or traits.
Forced Comparisons -- Evaluating one individual’s performance relative to the performance of
another individual or others.

Group Order Ranking
An evaluation method that places employees into a particular classification, such as
quartiles.

Individual Ranking
An evaluation method that rank-orders employees from best to worse.
Suggestions for Improving Performance Evaluations

Use multiple evaluators to overcome rater biases.

Evaluate selectively based on evaluator competence.

Train evaluators to improve rater accuracy.

Provide employees with due process.
Providing Performance Feedback

Why Managers Are Reluctant to Give Feedback
–
Uncomfortable discussing performance weaknesses directly with employees.
–
Employees tend to become defensive when their weaknesses are discussed.
–
Employees tend to have an inflated assessment of their own performance.

Solutions to Improving Feedback
– Train managers in giving effective feedback.Improvement Is A Proof!
Copyrighted by Studev MSS FEUI 2013
– Use performance review as counseling activity than as a judgment process.
Managing Work-Life Conflicts
Managing Diversity in Organizations
 Diversity Training -- Participants learn to value individual differences, increase cross-cultural
understanding, and confront stereotypes.