RMT 11100

Chapter 1:

HRM: the leadership & management of people within an organization using systems, methods,
processes & procedures that identify, select, and motivate and enable employees to achieve outcomes
that enhance their contribution to the organization

 HRM supports long term economic, social and environmental goals.

Human resource Management Vs Human Resource Department

Human resource management: focuses on what leaders & managers should do when organizing proper
procedures, policies and human resource systems.

Human Resource Department: a group ensuring that the most effective use of human resource systems
across an organization is used.

Interconnectivity of Human Resource Management Activities

 When change is made within the link, it often has impact on another part of the link.

Strategic Human Resource Management

• The process of integrating the strategic nexeds of an organization into the choice of HR systems
and practices to support the overall mission, strategies, and performance
 • The choice of HR tools will depend on what the organization is trying to achieve

• HR activities must align with and contribute to the organization’s strategies

• Each HR practice should generate value for the organization

• Strategic management focuses on how to integrate the various sub-fields of human resource
management to achieve an organizations goal.

A Model of Strategic Human Resource Management

1. Organizational Mission, Goals, and Strategy Analysis

2. Environmental Scan

3. Analysis of Organizational Character and Culture

4. Choice and Implementation of Human Resource Strategies

5. Review, Education and Audit of Human Resource Strategies

 Step 1: Organizational Mission, Vision, and Strategy Analysis

Mission statement: specifies what an organization intends to pursue in the presence and in the
future.

• The organization’s goals outline what specifically the organization seeks to achieve in a given
time period, which impacts its HR practices

• The organization’s strategies determine the appropriate array of HR practices

• HR strategies enable the successful completion of the organization’s strategies

Step 2: Environmental Scanning

Continuous monitoring of economic, technological, demographic, and cultural forces

The major forces:

1. Economic

2. Technological
 3. Demographic

4. Cultural

5. Legal

Four Critical Economic Forces

1. Economic cycles

2. Global trade

3. Productivity and innovation improvement

4. Knowledge workers

Economic Force: Economic Cycles

Canadian economy goes through boom and bust cycles

• Often linked to other economies

During recessionary periods, HR faces challenges

• Layoffs, wage concessions, lower morale

During boom cycles, HR must consider

 • How to recruit and develop talent

Economic Force: Global Trade

• International trade has always been crucial to Canada’s prosperity and growth

• Canada ranks high among exporting nations

• Canadian jobs and economic prosperity depend upon international trade

• Canada accepts over 341,000 immigrants per year, 58% percent of them are economic
immigrants.

Economic Force: Productivity and Innovation Improvement

• Productivity: Ratio of an organization’s outputs to its inputs

• Productivity improvement is essential for long-term success

• For over a decade, U.S. productivity has been consistently outpacing Canada

• Without innovation, productivity differences tend to increase

Economic Force: Knowledge Workers

• Extractive industries (e.g., mining and fishing) have decreased

• Industries relying on knowledge workers (workers who hold knowledge with their career paths)
(e.g., education, health care, tourism, trade, public administration) have increased

Three Critical Technological Forces

1. Connectivity and work design

2. Automation

3. Data and analytics

Technological Force:
Connectivity and Work Design

Connectivity influences organizations and the way people work

 • Changed the way we work, play, study, and entertain ourselves

• Access to information has affected the way organizations conduct business

Technology has brought flexibility

• When and where work is carried out (e.g., telecommuting)

• Increased cybersecurity concerns

Technological Force: Automation

Organizations automate to:

• Increase speed

• Provide better service

• Increase flexibility

• Increase predictability in operations

• Achieve higher standards of quality

May use robots to replace boring or hazardous jobs

Technological Force: Data and analytics

• The role of data and analytics have shifted due to AI/ML and rapidly increasing computing power

• Knowledge management: process of capturing organizational knowledge and making it available

to others and building new knowledge.

• Intranets and integrated information systems help store and access information quickly and
accurately

• Information management systems capturing digital information about employees give rise to
human resource data analytics

• Ultimate Software: is producing an artificial intelligence-based technology to assess employee

engagement in real time

Four Critical Demographic Forces

 1. Gender balance

2. Educational attainment of workers

3. Aging population

4. Generational shift

Demographic Force:
Gender Balance

• 47% of the workforce assigned female at birth (2020)

• Participation rate of biologically female in health care and professional, scientific, and technical
services continues to grow

• More women than men work part-time

Demographic Force: Aging Population:

Average age of the workforce is increasing

• Impending “old age crisis”

Demographic Force: Generational Shift:

• Although the differences within groups may be wider than the differences between groups,
some managers find benefit through understanding that not all generations view the world
through the same lens that they do

• Baby Boomers, Generation X, Generation Y (Millennials), and Generation Z and soon Generation
Alpha, are all in the workforce

• Different people have different expectations from their workplaces

• Generational diversity creates an interpersonal dynamic for all leaders

Two Critical Cultural Forces

1. Diversity and social justice

2. Ethics

Cultural Force: Diversity and Social Justice

• Canadian society is a cultural mosaic

• Canada encourages maintaining unique culture and heritage vs. U.S. “melting pot”

• Continued inequalities articulated by social justice advocates for Indigenous, Black, and other
racialized people of colour attributed to systemic bias

• Social justice has become central to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in the workplace
Cultural Force: Ethics

• Ethical conduct of business is becoming an increasingly important issue

• Managers should understand ethical perspectives and consider ethical implications

Step 3: Analysis of Organizational

Structure and Culture

Human resource strategies should be formulated only after a careful look at the organization’s structure
which consists of:

• Employees, objectives, technology, size, age, unions, policies, successes, failures

Structure reflects the past and shapes the future

Each organization has a unique culture

• Core beliefs and assumptions that are widely shared by all organizational members

Step 4: Choice and Implementation of Human Resource Strategies

HR must continuously focus on the following activities:

1. Identifying opportunities, risks, and challenges

2. Making data-informed decisions aligned to strategy

-Appropriate human resources practices or procedures put in place to fill in the gaps in
the first stage.

3. Optimizing for high performance

Step 5: Review, Evaluation, and Audit of Human Resource Strategies

• HR Strategies should be examined periodically in consideration of changing factors (e.g.,

technology, environment)

• A holistic review of HR strategies with the intention of identifying and correcting deficiencies is
called a human resource audit

• Human resource activities aimed at productivity improvement, succession planning, and cultural
change are critical to competitive survival

The Organization of HRM

HR Department in a small organization

 • Separate HR department emerges when HR activities becomes a burden

• Often emerges as a small department or individual reporting to a middle-level manager

Large HR Department

• As the organization grows, the HR department usually grows in impact/complexity

• Specialists are added

• Vice President title

The Service Role of the HR Department

Staff authority

• HR departments are service departments

• Authority to advise, not direct

Line authority

• Possessed by managers of operating departments (i.e., authority to make decisions)

Functional authority

• HR department may be provided authority to make decisions (e.g., deciding type of

benefits)

Today’s HR Professional

Enormous growth in the number of HR managers

• HR had been slow to evolve into a profession

Competencies for HR Managers:

• Strategy; engagement; labour and employee relations; learning and development;

human resource metrics, reporting, and financial management; professional practice,
workforce planning, and talent management; health, wellness, and safe workplaces; and
total rewards

The nationally recognized designation in HR is called the CPHR (Chartered Professional in Human
Resources) for all Canadians except in Ontario, which has the Certified Human Resources Professional
(CHRP) designation

Chapter 2

Job Analysis

Systematic study of a job to discover its specifications and skill requirements.

Used for all HR functions:

• Wage-setting, recruitment, training, performance management, job redesign

Job Analysis Terminology

Job

• Group of related activities and duties

• May be held by one or several employees

Position

• Collection of tasks and responsibilities performed by an individual

Example: In a department with one supervisor, three animators, and 12 programmers, there are 16
positions, but only three jobs.
HRM Activities That Rely on Job Analysis

Steps in Job Analysis

Phase 1: Preparation for Job Analysis

Phase 2: Collection of Job Analysis Information

Phase 3: Use of Job Analysis Information

Step 1

• Become familiar with the organization and its jobs

 Unionized organizations, job analysis steps have to meet the provisions of the
collective agreement between the management and the union.
 Intent is to collect information about jobs and factors determining job success

Step 2

• Determine uses of job analysis information

Step 3

• Identify jobs to be analysed

• Jobs analysed should be critical to the success of the company, which are:

• Hard performing or learning jobs

• Jobs in which the firm continuously hires new employees

 • Jobs that exclude members of the protected classes

Phase 2: Collection of Job

Analysis Information

Step 4

• Determine sources of job data

• Human and nonhuman sources

Step 5

• Identify the data required, which may include:

• Job Identification (e.g., job title)

• Information in this section includes job title, division, and title of

supervisors, and a job identification number, such as an NOC Code.

• Duties (e.g., the job tasks)

• Explains the purpose of the job, what the job accomplishes, and how
the job is performed

• Responsibilities (e.g., equipment operation, supervisory responsibility)

• Responsibility expands as you are promoted

• Human Characteristics (e.g., lifting, hearing)

• Need to uncover the particular skills, abilities, training, education,

experience, and other characteristics that jobholders need

• Working Conditions (e.g., exposure to hot or cold/describe safety & health

features)

• Working conditions define the need for particular skills, training,

knowledge or even a particular job design

• Performance Standards (e.g., how well the job needs to be performed)

• Describes the level an employee needs to be doing the job to be a good
performer versus an average or poor performer

Step 6:

• Choose the method for data collection

• Interviews

 An effective way to gather information

  A slow process that explains unclear questions and probe into uncertain
answers.

• Focus groups

 Five to seven jobholders that are brought together to discuss job duties
and responsibilities

• Questionnaires

 Used to collect information from human sources

 Depending on sources could have issues associated with

misunderstood questions, incomplete responses, and low response
rates.

• Types of Questionaries

1. Occupational Information Network

2. Position Analysis Questionnaire

3. Functional Job Analysis Questionnaire

4. Critical Incident Method

• Employee logs

 A log that summarizes employee tasks and activities

• Observation

 Accuracy may be questioned as workers may perform differently when

under watch.

• Combinations

 Two methods might be used, especially if locations are geographically

dispersed

Phase 3: Use of Job Analysis

Information

• Job Descriptions

• Job Specifications

• Job Standards

• Competency Models
Contents of a Typical Job
Description

The key parts of a job description:

• Job identity

• Includes job title, job location, job code (uses number, letters, or both to provide
a summary of the job and to provide comparisons between job), job grade, and
except from overtime laws

• National Occupational Classification (NOC) < job code

• Job title, job location, job code

• Skill level (type of education and training) and skill type (type of work
performed) are used as criteria in developing the NOC

• Industry and occupational mobility

• Job summary

• Describes what the job is and how it is done and why it is done.

• Lists the job duties, responsibilities and what it requires

• Duties and responsibilities

• Working conditions

• Can go further into detail like hours of work, safety and health hazards, travel
requirements, and other features of the job expand the meaning of this section

• Approvals

• Job description accuracy should be reviewed by selected job-holders and

supervisors

Job Specifications

• A written statement that explains the human knowledge, skills, abilities, and other
characteristics (KSAOs) needed to do a job

• Includes experience, specific tools, actions, education and training required

• Includes physical and mental demands on jobholders

 Job Performance Standards

The performance level expected from an employee

• Objectives or targets for employee efforts

• Criteria for measuring job success

Sources of standards come from:

• Job analysis information

• If performance stray from the standard requirements of the organization,

corrective action is taken whether that be a change in standards or feedback is
given to improve.

• Alternative sources (e.g. industry standards may be used as benchmarks for

performance in certain jobs)
• Job Analysis information is usually sufficient for jobs that have the following
features:
• Performance is required
• Performance is easily measurable
• Performance standards are understood by workers and supervisors
• Performance requires little interperation

Competency Models

Competency

• Knowledge, skills, ability, or behaviour associated with success on the job

• Broader in scope than KSAOs (e.g. communication)

Competency Model (competency framework)

• Describes a group of competencies required in a particular job

Competency Matrix

• A list of the level of each competency required for several jobs at an organization
Job Design: Key Considerations

Job Design

• Competition, complex technology, and increasing worker expectations

necessitate the redesign of many jobs
• Poorly designed jobs lead to low productivity which can cause employee
turnover, absenteeism, complaints, sabotage, unionization, and other problems.

Organizational Considerations

Efficiency

• Achieving maximal output with minimal input

• Scientific management & industrial engineering principles (task specialization: workers

limited to a few repetitive tasks, output is usually higher because specialized jobs lead to
short job cycles)

• Stresses efficiency in effort, time, labour costs, training, and employee learning time

Work flow

• Sequence of and balance between jobs in an organization needed to produce the firm’s
goods or services (eg: doors placed on a car, then the fenders)

• Strongly influenced by the nature of the product or service

Ergonomic Considerations

-How human beings physically interface with their work

Uses principles drawn from biology (especially anatomy and physiology), the
behavioral sciences (psychology and sociology), and physics and engineering.

Considers the physical relationship between the worker and the work

Fitting the task to the worker rather than forcing employees to adapt to the task

Can lead to significant improvements:

• Efficiency and productivity

• Workplace safety

Employee consideration

• Jobs are not designed to maximize productivity but also to help employee’s achieve
work-life balance

Employee Considerations: Job Characteristics Model

Employee Considerations

Autonomy: having control over one’s work and response to work environment

o Jobs that give the authority to make decisions tend to increase employees’ sense of
recognition, self-esteem, job satisfaction, and performance
Variety: Opportunity to use different skills or perform different activities

o Lack of variety may cause boredom which results in fatigue caused errors

Task Identity: a feeling of responsibility or pride from doing an entire piece of work

Feedback: information that helps evaluate success or failure

Task Significance: Knowing that one’s work is important

Job Specialization: routine jobs such as assembly-line positions hold less of an appeal for many people
Increase Quality of Work Life

• Job Rotation: moves employees from job to job

• Workers become competent in many jobs rather than one.

• Job Enlargement: expands the number of related tasks in the job

• Job Enrichment: adds new sources of needs satisfaction to jobs

• Increases responsibility, autonomy, and control, when these elements are added to
jobs its called vertical loading.

• Enrichment views jobs are consisting of three elements: plan, do, and control.

• Employee Involvement and Work Teams

• Increases employee involvement

• Employee empowerment: granting employees the power to initiate change and take
charge of what they do

Use of Job Families in HR Decisions

o Job families are groups of jobs that are closely related by similar duties, responsibilities,
skills, or job element (e.g., barber, hairdresser, hairstylist, and cosmetologist)
o Allow hr to plan job rotation programs and make employee transfer decisions

Environmental Considerations

Workforce Availability

• Abilities and availability of the people who will do the work

Social Expectations
 • Expectations of larger society and workers

Work Practices

• Set ways of performing work

Job Analysis in the Gig Economy

-Global competition, fast technological obsolescence, changing worker profiles and rapid increases in
knowledge requirements for various jobs have made timely job descriptions difficult.

-Employees work short term contracts rather than work at permanent jobs.

Another trend is job crafting, where employees are allowed to customize the work they do for an
organization according to their preferences and strengths.

• Adopt a future-oriented style when describing job activities and specifications

• Focus on new competencies required

• Will continue to be relevant for legal compliance and defensibility

Chapter 3

Human Resource Planning

 Human Resource Planning is often referred to as Strategic Human Resource Planning

Forecasts an organization’s future demand for and supply of employees, and matches supply with
demand

HR department contributes to success:

• Proper staffing is critical

• Different strategies require varying HR plans

• HR planning facilitates proactive responses

• (short term plans) Successful tactical plans require HR plans (long term plans)

• HR planning can vary from capturing basic information to live-time predictive analytics
 • One major objective of human resource planning is ensuring the organization has the
right people with the right skills at the right time in order for organizational objectives to
be reached.

• Including the right practices in place to create the right environment to motivate
people to do the right things in the organization.

Human Resource Planning

Human resource planning can vary in sophistication across organizations:

-larger companies are heavy on human resource practices as it has a significant impact on labor
costs.

• No formal planning – small companies where HR activities may be done in a reactionary way

• Recruitment and hiring are done based on immediate needs of the organization

• Basic planning – companies recognizing the need to plan for HR activities and may engage in a
mix of proactive and reactionary planning focus on the short term (1-2 years)

• Advanced planning – direct tie between strategy and HR planning anticipating needs 3-5 years in
advance

• These organizations are supported by a functional human resource information system

(HRIS)

• Sophisticated planning – Senior HR professionals are integral to the strategic process with
planning for 5+years out relying on strong expertise and technologies to support planning

The Workforce Planning Process

The Human Resource Planning Process

  Is used to help managers plan effectively on important organizational issues to meet
organizational objectives

Step 1: Forecast Demand for Resources

 How many resources will you need?

 When will you need them?
 Where will you need them?

Step 2: Assess Supply of Resources

 Assesses the internal and external supply of labor

 What skills, resources, and competencies do we have inside the organization and in the external
environment

Step 3: Develop HR Objectives

 What you want to accomplish as an organization

Step 4: Design and Implement Workforce Systems to Balance Demand and Supply

 What human resource programs will be used to achieve objectives

 Programs will be used to balance demand and supply

Step 5: Establish and Conduct Evaluation

 Evaluate processes for their effectiveness through quantitative and qualitative measurement

Forecasting Labor Demand

 A good hr. plan reduces the risk of being out of balance when it comes to “people” resources.
(too many employees or too little employees)

Forecasting: Identifying the Causes that Drive Demand

 Human resource forecasts: predict an organizations future demand for employee’s

Strategic Plan

 A plan committing a firms long term objectives such as growth rates, new products, markets, or
services.
 Objectives determine the number and types of employees needed in the future
Demographic Impacts

 Changes such as age and gender that may have changes in the workforce (eg: capturing the
average age of employees gives an idea of future retirements)
 A key consideration in an organizations demographic profile is the role of equity, diversity, and
inclusion in HR systems

Turnover

 Turnover: the departure of employees from an organization

 Effective human resource planning needs to be prepared to predict employee departures

Legal Changes

 Changes in social, political, and legal spheres are easier to predict

Technological changes

 Technology changes are difficult to predict

 Affect the demand for and supply of human resources and appropriate hr practices.

Competitors

 Can affect organizations demand for human resources (loss of employees due to switching
companies or additional employment due to lower prices and larger markets)

Budget and Revenue Forecasts

 Increases and cuts into the budget is an influence on human resource needs/sales and
production forecast can be used as a forecast on future human resource needs.
(sharp decline in sales could impose an employment freeze)

New Ventures

 New expeditions require new human resource demands

 Ventures begun by acquisitions (a purchase of one company by another) or mergers (a
combination of a company) may require positions to be laid off due to duplication or new roles
may be created for smooth operation of merged units

Organizational and Job Design

 Changes in structure can impost new roles to be created or eliminated

Forecasting Techniques for Estimating Human Resource Demand

Expert Projection Forecasts

Informal and Instant Decisions

• Expert forecasts of future HR needs

Nominal Group Technique

• Groups of managers are asked to make forecasts and the manager’s ideas are discussed by the
group and ranked on what was most important.

Delphi Technique

• Surveys of groups of experts, summaries are shared back with the group, and they are surveyed
again until opinions converge

Trend Projection Forecasts

-projecting past trends

Extrapolation

• Extending past rates of change into the future (20 production workers were hired each month
for every two years, its safe to assume 240 productions workers will be added in the upcoming
year)

Indexation
  A method of estimating future employment needs by matching employment growth with a
selected index (ratio of production employees to sales)

Statistical Analysis

• More sophisticated statistical analyses allow for changes in the underlying causes of demand

Other Forecasting Methods

Budget and Planning Analysis

• Organizations that need HR planning generally have detailed budgets and long-range
plans

New Venture Analysis

• Planners estimate human resource needs by making comparisons with similar

operations

Simulation and Predictive Models

• More sophisticated approaches

• Use data analytic models that are a series of mathematical formulas and algorithms that
simultaneously use extrapolation, indexation, survey results, and estimates of workforce
changes to compute future human resource needs.

Converting a Forecast Into Human Resource Requirements

Staffing table: a specific number or an approximate range of needs depending on the accuracy of
underlying forecast

 Forecast the causes of demand into short range and long range statement of need

The Supply of Human Resources: Internal Supply Estimates

Two sources of supply: internal and external

Internal supply: employee’s that are promoted, transferred, or demoted to meet anticipated needs.

External supply: consists of talents from outside the organizations that can be hired or contracted

Internal Supply Estimates

 Auditing the present workforce to learn about the capabilities of present workers.
 Internal supply estimates are difficult to predict with the increase of gig workers and temporal
workers
Human Resource Audits

 Summarize employee’s knowledge, skills, and abilities.

 Generate skills, management, and leadership inventories

Skills Inventories

 Summary of worker skills and abilities (educational history, work history, extra
work experiences, core skills, knowledge, and key project accomplishments)

 Inventories must be updated every two years

 As the average length of employee term time decreases within a company,

managers may need to reconsider length of time it takes between refreshing
information

 To make the process easier, inventories are more often conducted

electronically

Management and Leadership Inventories

 Reports of management capabilities in the organization

 Must be updated periodically

 Leadership Practices Inventory is a leadership profile issued to leaders that

accumulate information on leadership behaviours that are used to identify who
in the organization can be a leader position.

Replacement Charts

Replacement Charts: a visual representation of who will replace another in an event of a job opening

 Replacement status consists of two variables

o Present performance: determined largely on supervisors and the opinions of co-
workers
o Promotability or potential: based primarily on present performance and the estimates
by immediate superiors of future success in a new job.
 Replacement summaries: list that is used to provide the next likely replacement and their
relative strengths and weaknesses.

Transition Matrices and Markov Analysis

Markov analysis: a fairly simple method predicting the internal supply of human resources in the
future

o Reflects the patterns in human resource movements using transition matrices

(describes the probabilities of a individual staying in the present job for the forecast
 time period which is one year, moving to another job position in the organization or
leaving. When this matrix is multiplied the number of employee’s that are hired at the
beginning of the year, you’ll be able to estimate how many will remain in the job at
the end.

The Supply of Human Resources: External Supply Estimates

Jungian & Myers-Briggs Types

Personality is based on an individual’s preferences regarding perceiving information

Perceiving function occurs through two competing orientations:

1. Sensing: perceiving information through our five senses

2. Intuition: relies more on insight and subjective experience to see relationship among
variables

Judging function – how people prefer to make decisions based on what they have perceived consists
of two competing processes:

1. Thinking: rely on rational cause-effect logic and systematic data collection to make decisions
2. Feeling: give an emotional response to options that are presented, as well as how those
choices affect others

Perceiving & Judging

Perceiving orientation: those with this orientation are open, curious, and flexible

Judging orientation: those with this orientation prefer order and structure and want to resolve
problems quickly

Evaluating the MBTI

Most widely used personality test.

Most widely studied measure of cognitive style.

Adopts a neutral view of score results.

Improves self-awareness and mutual understanding.

Poor at predicting job performance, effective leadership, or team development.

The Supply of Human Resources: External Supply Estimates

External Supply Estimates

 A need for looking into the external environment for employee’s based on no replacements or
when there is an opening for an entry-level job

Labour Market Analysis

• Study of the firm’s labour market to evaluate the present or future availability of
employment

• A skills market analysis: narrows the availability of those who can work based on
the appropriate skill set needed in the organization

• Difficult to acquire new employees through the increasing unemployment rate

• The current unemployment rate isn’t a measure of employment in the future

years

• Canadian Temporary Foreign Work Program: a program used to put Canadian workers first

Community Attitudes

• Affects nature of the labour market (e.g. Antibusiness or nongrowth attitudes)

Demographic Trends

• Affects the availability of external supply but planners know years in advance before
impact.

• ESDC publishes labour force projections

• Statistics Canada publishes reports on labour force conditions

• Canadian Occupational Projection System (COPS): provides a highly detailed projection

of the Canadian economy up to 10 years in the future

• All reports are used to analysis demographic trends

Job Bank: a group of products available from the ESDC that identifies trends in the world of work

 Outlines job outlooks by occupation and estimates the prospect of finding jobs in a specific
occupation or field in a specific location.

Constant Balancing Act

 Oversupply

Shortage

HRM Strategies to Achieve Objectives in Supply and Demand

Human resource planners face two decision situations:

1. The available supply of human resource sources is greater than needed.

2. The available supply of human resource sources is less than needed

Strategies to Manage an Oversupply of Human Resources

When the internal supply of workers exceeds the firm’s demand, a surplus exists. There are various HR
strategies:

Headcount reduction (reduction of employees)

• Layoffs: temporal withdrawal of employees to workers

• Used in cases of short-run surplus

• Placed on a “Recall list” to then given a call when the organization needs
them again.

• Layoff may be permanent if the organization needs restricting or

rescaling

• “Furlough” meaning used for temporary layoff.

• Leave without pay

• May be reasons due to family issues or the company reducing the

number of employees on payroll

• Incentives for voluntary separation

• A “buyout” is given to an employee as a payment for leaving early in the

organization

• Given as a “voluntary severance package” which contains a cash

incentive, pension support, and outplacement services.

• Termination
 • May be due to an employee being fired or business/economic reasons.

• Must provide employees with one week in advance before termination

or a pay in lieu of notice (severance pay)

• Employee’s may be given a outplacement process which will

help find new jobs with other firms

Attrition

Attrition: the normal separation of employees from an organization as a result of resignation,

retirement or death

Two Attrition Strategies:

• Hiring freeze

• Responding to a surplus with stopping hiring from external & reassign

present employees

• Early and phased retirement officers

• Form of separation that can be controlled

• Early retirement plans are designed to encourage earlier retirement

from an organization before the age of 65

• Phased retirement gradually shorten workweeks to older workers to

phase into retirement without the loss or reduction of pension benefits.

• Phased retirement requires you to at least work five years in a

company and be the age if 55.

Alternative Work Arrangements

• Job sharing

• Dividing the duties of one job between two employees

• Benefits for employees include free time and maintaining employment

• Concerns over benefits being given are equal to other employees

• Work Sharing Programs

• Programs used to reduce work hours to spread available work around

• A major initiative is the federal work-sharing program administered by

ESDC

• Using part-time employees

 • Reduces the work hours and labour costs

• Part-time workers are given no benefits except for public sector

employees (healthcare, and municipal government)

• Advantages of Part-Time Work

• Increases flexibility with the workforce with peak demands

• Opportunity for cost cutting

• Employs 40% of individuals in the services industry

• Disadvantages of Part-Time Work

• No entitlement to government run employment insurance and disability benefits which

could be a problem if unable to work

Strategies to Manage a Shortage of Employees

Labour shortage: occurs when there is not enough qualified talent to fill the demand for labour and
the organization cannot fill any open positions

Skill Shortage: refers to specific skills that the organization requires

Hire Employees Source Service Providers Develop Employees Internally Existing Work A

 Full Time Independent Contractor Replacement Charts Overtime

 Third Party Succession planning Flexible Sched
 Part Time Outsource Career Development Flexible Time & Place
 Temporary Crowd Source Float & Transfer Flex policies

Staffing Option #1:

Hire Employees

Hire full-time employees

• Where internal transfer or promotion is not feasible, hiring full-time employees may be
required

• Results in additional fixed cost

• Probationary period is given to new full time employee’s to mitigate risk which they can
be released at any time of this period

Hire part-time workers

 • Popular strategy for meeting human resource needs

• Adds flexibility to a schedule which is good during the fluctuations in demand during
peak and peak off times

• Part-time employees reduce payroll costs due to not being eligible for benefits.

Staffing Option #2:

Contract Out the Work

Source service providers

• Contractor or contingent worker: provides goods and services to another entity under
the terms of a specific contract.
• Contract ends when the services that had been agreed to provide are complete
and delivered
• Contractors define their work hours, bring their own equipment, may hire
others to perform the work for them, and are not eligible for benefits.

• Independent contractor: freelancer (self-employed)

• Consultants: hired to provide expert advice and counsel in a particular area

• Outsource: contracting tasks to outside agencies or persons (asking a third party to

perform the work for you instead of internal

• Typically work that is required of special skills, knowledge and expertise.

• Request for proposal (RFP) is used to review potential vendors in the area
before deciding the best one

• Offshoring: transferring jobs to another country by hiring local contractors

• Crowdsource: takes a function once performed by employees and outsources it to an

undefined network of people as an open call

• Call is communicated to the public via the internet

• Co-source: a form of contracting that brings an external team to support and work with
an internal team

Staffing Option #3:

Develop Employees Internally

Promotions

• Movement of an employee from one job to another that is higher in pay,

responsibility, and/or organizational level
Succession and career plans

Training and development

Staffing Option #4:

Creating Flexible Work Arrangements

Working Arrangement: refers to a firm’s use of work hours, schedules, and location to ensure that
goals of the organization and the needs of the employees are met.

Overtime

• Employees work beyond the normal hours

• Higher employee fatigue, stress levels, accident and wastage rates, and so on.

Flexible retirement

• Target those employees close to retirement to extend their contributions (e.g., retiree
return)

• Retiree return is a program that provide retirees with the opportunity to come
back to an organization with a flexibility in work hours, what they work on, and
where.

Float and transfer

• Movement of an employee from one job to another that is relatively equal in

pay, responsibility, and organizational level (job rotation)

Program Measurement and Evaluation

The final step in the planning process is to evaluate workforce planning activities against organizational
goals

• E.g., were vacancies in key roles reduced? Was the target of internal or external recruits
achieved?

• Improvement should be measured year over year

Human Resource Information Systems

 A Human Resource Information System (HRIS) is used to collect record, store, analyse, and
retrieve data concerning an organization’s human resources
 Small firms have a simple hris system that includes employ
information such as employee name, address, emergency
contact, employment status, which position the employee
holds, how much the employee is paid, benefit coverage and
birth date
 Errors are more consistent with small firm hris systems
 Referential integrity: ensures that an organizations policies are
operationalized and implemented consistently throughout the
organization.
The major stakeholders who use the information from an HRIS are HR professionals, managers,
and employees.

HRIS Functions

There are many different systems to choose depending on organizational requirements

Key considerations:
• Size
• Information that needs to be captured
• Volume of information transmitted
• Firm’s objectives
• Technical capabilities
• Reporting capabilities

Access to HRIS Information

Access to HRIS Information

• Determining who should have access and who should have the right to change input
data with consideration for privacy

• Sensitive information is protected and offered to persons only on a need-to-

know basis

Security

• Concerns about unauthorized disclosure of information, viruses, etc.

HRIS – An Important Tool for Strategic HRM

Increased efficiency

• Enhanced service delivery

 • Just-in-time service delivery to all its stakeholders on an as needed basis

Increased effectiveness

• Helping stakeholders make better decisions

• Predictive analysis : the process of selecting, exploring, analysing, and modelling data to
create better business outcomes.

Increased contribution to organizational sustainability

• Talent management: refers to “a systematic attraction, identification, development,

engagement/retention and deployment of those individuals with high potential who are
of particular value to the organization

Increased visibility

• Enhanced HR competencies

• Able to interact at a more sophisticated level with client groups regarding their business
informational needs

Human Resource Accounting (HRA)

A process to measure the present cost and value of human resources as well as their future worth to the
organization.

HRMT 11100

Chapter 4

Grouping Canadian Employment Legislation

Enterprise wide systems: link an organizations entire software application environment into a single
enterprise solution
 • Offer web based and mobile applications linking to the employer’s intranet and
databases.
• Common feature of a web based system is to offer intranet applications such as
employee self service (ESS) (allows employees to access and view their own records)
and manager self-service (MSS).

Grouping Canadian Employment Legislation

Which Employment Laws Apply?

Hr. needs to determine which laws apply to the organization

• HR is responsible for ensuring that the organization is compliant with employment
legislation

Three questions guide HR on which employment laws apply:

• Question 1 Is the person an employee of the company or an independent contractor? 

• An employee has the right to vacation pay, statutory holidays, overtime pay, and notice
or severance pay in lieu of notice upon termination, and the right to collect employment
insurance benefits

• Question 2 Is the organization provincially or federally regulated?

 • Federal employment laws cover 10% of Canadian Employees who work in federally
regulated industries (include communications, interprovincial, or international
transportation, banks, postal service, and the federal government)

• The Canada Labour Code covers the minimum employment standards that must be
given to all employees in federally regulated industries

• 90% of employees are covered under the provincial legislation and the employment
laws in the province they work in

• Provincial employment regulations guide the minimum employment standards of work

• Question 3 Is the employee unionized or nonunionized?

Each province has its own employment standards act or code that defines minimum standards

Unionized employees are covered under each province’s labour laws

• Labour relations acts set rules for how unions and employers will organize and collectively
bargain to determine the minimum employment standards

HR Responsibilities

There are also some employees who are exempt for many employments laws

• These vary by province and may include farmers, municipal police, inmates, politicians, family
members working in a family business

HR is responsible for determining which employment laws apply to each employee, and:

• Staying abreast of the laws and interpretation of the laws by regulatory bodies and
court rulings

• Developing programs to ensure company compliance

• Pursuing their traditional roles of obtaining, maintaining, and retaining an optimal

workforce (in light of laws and societal objectives)

Human Rights Legislation

Unlike employment laws, which impact a single HR activity at a time, human rights legislation affects
nearly every HR function

Human rights legislation is about not treating any Canadians differently because of their membership
in a protected group
 • membership in a protected group is defined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is contained in the Constitution Act of 1982

• Most far-reaching legislation for HR managers

Charter provides fundamental rights to every Canadian:

• Freedom of conscience and religion

• Freedom of thought, belief, opinion, and expression, including freedom of the press and other
media of communication

• Freedom of peaceful assembly

• Freedom of association

Infringements

“Every individual is equal before the law and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and
benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race,
national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age, or mental or physical disability.” Section 15 CCHRF

• When a person challenges an infringement of their rights, the dispute may be settled by a
tribunal, or in court

• Courts interpret and apply the Constitution and legislation (federal and provincial), and develop
and apply the common law (i.e., precedents)

• Every province and territory has lower courts, which are the first to hear a case and make a
ruling

• Cases may proceed to provincial higher courts, to courts of appeal, and ultimately, to the
Supreme Court of Canada

• The SCC only hears cases of public importance or national significance and is the ultimate
interpreter of the Charter

The Canadian Human Rights Act

-The human rights act guarantees equality before the law for every Canadian.

A federal law prohibiting discrimination

Applies to all federal government departments and agencies, Crown corporations, and business and
industry falling under federal jurisdiction (e.g., banks, airlines, railways, interprovincial communication)

Each province has its own antidiscrimination law

Study Figure 4.4 For Prohibited Grounds of Discrimination in Canada

Discrimination Defined

Discrimination is defined as the practice of treating one person or group of people less
fairly than other people or groups

Prohibited Grounds of Discrimination

Pardoned Convicts
Disability
Marital Status
Age
Sex & Sexual Orientation
Gender Identity
Religion
National or Ethnic Origin
Race & Color
Family status

Direct Discrimination

Direct Discrimination

• On grounds specified in the human rights legislation—is illegal.

• Legal discrimination: bona fide occupational requirement (BFOR)

• But there is a duty to accommodate to the point of undue hardship

• Three new criteria to assess appropriate of a BFOR:

• Is the standard rationally connected to the performance of the job

• Was the standard established in an honest belief that is necessary to

accomplish the purpose identified in stage one

• Is the standard reasonably to accomplish its purpose

Indirect (Systemic) Discrimination

Systemic Discrimination
 • Company policy, practice, or action that is not openly or intentionally discriminatory, but
has a discriminatory impact or effect

 Minimum height and weight requirements

 Minimum scores on employment tests

 Promotion criteria that favour seniority

 Limited accessibility in facilities for disabled people

• The Canadian Human Rights Commission has taken specific steps to

define and the causes and sources of indirect or systemic discrimination

Harassment

Harassment

• Treating an employee in a disparate manner because of that person’s sex, race, religion,
age, or other protected classification

Sexual harassment

• Unsolicited or unwelcome sex or gender-based conduct that has adverse employment

consequences for the complainant

Employer Retaliation

• It is a criminal act to retaliate against employees who file human rights charges

Enforcement

Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) is responsible for enforcement of the Canadian Human
Rights Act

Canadian provinces and territories generally have their own human rights laws and human rights
commissions with similar discrimination criteria, regulations, and procedures

 Commission does not rule on cases, it is sent to the Canadian human rights tribunal.
 The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has several remedies at its disposal. For example, it can
order a violator to do the following:
1. Stop the discriminatory practice
2. Restore the rights, opportunities, and privileges denied to the victim
3. Compensate the victim for wages lost and any expenses incurred as a result of the
discriminatory practice.
4. Compensate the victim for pain and suffering
5. Develop and implement employment equity programs to equalize opportunity for certain
groups that have suffered from discriminatory practices in the past.
The Employment Equity Act

-intent is to remove employment barriers and promote equality of the members of four designated
groups: women, persons with a disability, members of visible minorities, and indigenous people

Employers with 100+ employees under federal jurisdiction must develop and submit annual plans for
removing employment barriers and promoting equity with members of these four groups

Virtually every HR function is affected by employment equity plans

1. Human resource plans must reflect the organization’s employment equity goals
2. Job descriptions must not contain unneeded requirements that exclude members of protected
classes
3. Recruiting must ensure that all types of applicants are sought without discriminating
4. Selection of applicants must use screening devices that are job-relevant and nondiscriminatory
5. Training and developmental opportunities must be made available for all workers, without
discrimination
6. Performance appraisal must be free of biases that discriminate
7. Compensation programs must be based on skills, performance, and/or seniority and cannot
discriminate against jobholders in other respects.

Major Steps: Employment Equity Programs

Employment Equity Programs: a mechanism for improving the opportunities of a group through the
elimination, reduction, and prevention of discrimination

HR Groups should adhere to the guidelines”

 Step 1: Exhibit Commitment: Ceo/president of the company should show support toward the
program
 Step 2: Appoint a director: one member of the organization should be responsible for equity
issues
 Step 3: Publicize commitment: program must be publicized internally and externally.
 Step 4: Survey the workforce: Hr needs to know the composition of the employer’s workforce
compares with the composition of the workforce in the labour market (eg. A vast difference of
female to male employees in your organization in comparison to others could be a sign of
discrimination)
o Underutilization: exists when a company has a smaller portion of protected class
members than is found in the labour market
o Concentration: protected class members are concentrated in a few departments

Step 5: Develop Goals and Timetables

Step 6: Design specific programs: to reach goals, hr specialists must design remedial, active, and
preventive programs.
  Remedial programs correct problems that already exist
 Active programs imply that management goes beyond instructing supervisors about new hiring
policies and waiting for things to happen
 Preventive programs: involve an assessment of HR policies and practices

Step 7: Establish Controls: used to prevent failures of the program established

Pay Equity

Equal pay for work of equal value

• Federally, and in most provinces, it is illegal to pay women less than men if their jobs are
of equal value

Major cases include:

• Federal government settled in 1999 at a cost of over $3.5 billion

• 2011 Supreme Court of Canada ruling involving Canada Post is expected to cost $250
million

The implication for HR is to be very certain wage and salary systems do not discriminate

Reverse Discrimination

Usually arises when an employer seeks to hire or promote a member of a protected group over an
equally (or better) qualified candidate who is not a member of a protected group

• Places HR departments in difficult position

• Canadian Human Rights Act declares Employment Equity Programs non-discriminatory if

they fulfil the spirit of the law

Privacy Legislation

Relatively newer legislation relating to the collection, storage, and access to personal information about
employees

Includes information about race or national or ethnic origin, religion, age or marital status, medical and
employment history, finances, DNA, identifying numbers (e.g., SIN), views and opinions about a person
as an employee, but not business info

Two sets of privacy legislation:

• Privacy Act – right to access and correct personal information the GOC holds about them
 • PIPEDA – sets rules for how many organizations collect, use and disclose personal information in
Canada

Workplace Policies

Current, ethical, and effective HR policies serve many purposes:

• Outlining expectations in the workplace (e.g., unacceptable behaviours, safe work practices)

• Meeting statutory requirements, such as having a working alone policy in Alberta or a workplace
violence policy in Ontario

• Outlining how to address complaints, problems, and grievances

• Helping to protect employees from their colleagues’ poor behavior and from misdeeds by the
organization

• Helping to train and develop employees by explaining acceptable parameters

• Outlining breaks, vacations, and statutory holidays which may meet or exceed requirements
from employment standards to eligible employees

Types of HR Policies

• Harassment (aka respectful workplace, code of conduct)

• Policy outlines desired treatment of employees in the organization and prohibits

harassment and discrimination from taking place

1. Harassment may include:

• Verbale Abuse or Threats

• Unwelcome remarks, jokes, innuendo, or taunting about a

persons body, attire, age, marital status, ethnic or national
origin, religion, and so on.

• Displaying pornographic, racist, or other offensive or derogatory

picture

• Practical jokes that cause embarrassment or awkwardness

• Unwelcome invitations or requests, whether indirect or explicit

or intimidation

• Leering or other gestures

• Condescension or paternalism that undermines self-respect

 • Unnecessary physical contact, such as touching, patting,
pinching or punching

• Physical assault

• Ostracism or social exclusion is a form of bullying and

can be overt or subtle

• Cyberbullying

• Sexual Harassment

• Identified by three characteristics of sexual harassment

1. The encounters must be unsolicited by the complainant , unwelcome to the

complainant, and expressly or implicitly known by the respondent to be
unwelcome

2. The conduct must continue despite the complainants protests or, if the conduct
stops, the complainant’s protests must have led to negative employment
consequences

3. The complainant cooperation must be due to employment-related threats or

promises

• Attendance, leave, and break policies

• Policies communicating to employees scheduled start times, procedures for informing

their supervisors of unscheduled absences or late arrivals, and discipline for unexcused
absences

• Leave policies outline organizations rules and procedures regarding holidays, vacation ,
sick leave, study leave, and any other time-off benefits.

• Occupational health and safety

• These policies describe an range of topics in health and safety from hazards to diseases
to ergonomics to emergency procedures.

• Outline reporting procedures for work-related injuries and processes for investigating
incidents

• Workplace violence

• Policies that define unacceptable forms of behaviour in the workplace such as

threatening behaviour, verbal or written threats, verbal abuse, physical attacks, and
workplace violence policies.

• Remote work

• A remote workers policy will outline the jobs and workers who are eligible any
limitations on remote work, and how remote workers will be monitored
 • Technology use

• May outline what is acceptable on an employee’s break time at the workplace, or during
off hours away from the work site

• Policy will outline the company owned equipment can be used for personal purposes
and describe inappropriate uses on a taboo list

• Will outline technology uses with personal devices for business

• Social media

• A policy that provides guidelines for employees who post on social media or respond to
social media using either work related social media accounts or personal accounts

• Substance use

• Policies that will make clear that substance use impairment will not be tolerated but will
encourage a supportive environment for workers afflicted by substance use issue as it
may be seen as discrimination due to addiction being viewed as a disability.

• Confidentiality

• Policies indicate the types of information that employees should keep confidential,
which may include information about trade secrets, non-public information, wages and
working conditions, as well as the consequences if going against these policies.

• Theft

Other Legal Challenges

• Canada Labor Code

It regulates union certification, the right to organize, union prosecution and mediation
and arbitration procedures.

• Dismissal

An employee or employer can terminate an employment relationship b y giving

reasonable notice

An immediate dismissal is possible if an employee is compensated with severance pay

• Minimum wages

• Occupational health and safety

Canada Labor Code regulates occupational health and safety issues

• Weekly day of rest

Employees must be given one full day of rest preferably Sunday.

 • WHMIS

Regulates the handling of dangerous materials

HR is responsible for knowing and enforcing the laws and for developing policies to advise on acceptable
behaviours and procedures to follow when issues arise

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Canadian Workplaces

Ensuring that treatment of others is equitable and just regardless of differences on diversity dimensions
is the central goal of diversity, equity, and inclusion within organizations

Diversity is recognizing the presence of difference, equity is ensuring access to the same opportunities,
and inclusion is about welcoming and valuing all people. 

Challenges for Diverse Workers

Stereotyping

• Grouping people based on commonalities without consideration of their individuality and

capabilities

Old Boy’s Network

• Informal relationships among male managers and executives for which friendships and contacts
are built through the network become the basis for assignments and promotions for which
women are excluded

Glass Ceiling

• Invisible but real obstructions to career advancement of women and visible minorities

Pet to Threat

• Shared experience by many Black women that the mentors and managers who once supported
them later undermine them because they are perceived as a threat or competition

Strategic Importance of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Diversity, equity, and inclusion recognizes that an organization is a mosaic where employees with
varying beliefs, cultures, values, and behavior patterns come together to create a whole organization
where these differences are accepted.

Changing Workforce
 Years ago, the average member of the workforce was male, white, 30 years old, and held a high
school diploma or under.
The Government of Canada is responding to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Call to
Action 92 by urging the Canadian corporate sector to adopt the United Nations Declaration on
the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as a reconciliation framework and to apply its principles,
norms, and standards to corporate policy and operational activities related to Indigenous
people, their land, and their resources. This includes but is not limited to:
Commit to meaningful consultation, building respectful relationships, and obtaining the free,
prior, and informed consent of Indigenous peoples before proceeding with economic
development projects
Ensure that Aboriginal peoples have equitable access to jobs, training, and education
opportunities in the corporate sector, and that Aboriginal communities gain long-term
sustainable benefits from economic development projects
Provide education for management and staff on the history of Indigenous peoples, including the
history and legacy of residential schools, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples, treaties and Aboriginal rights, Indigenous law, and Aboriginal–Crown
relations. This will require skills-based training in intercultural competency, conflict resolution,
human rights, and anti-racism.

Important of Human Capital

Changes in production technology have increased importance of human capital

A knowledge worker or “intellectual capitalism” is seen as a company success
Growing advancement of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and digitization need human
capital.

Diversity as a Competitive Advantage

Diverse employees can provide insight into how to meet the needs of diverse customer groups

Increasing Role of Work Teams

An effective work team requires skills to facilitate involving, understanding, embracing, and
valuing multiple perspectives.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Initiatives

o Inclusion involves establishing work practices and a work environment where everyone can be
fully themselves and make contributions

Inclusive Internal Systems

 o Current policies, systems, practices, rules and procedures have to be examined
for their appropriateness for an inclusive culture.

HR and senior mgmt. commitment to inclusion

o Inclusion efforts will fail unless all managers and employees see it as an integral part of their
business philosophy

Communication, hiring, and reward structures promote inclusion

o Diversity and inclusion audits should be used on a regular basis to uncover the underlying
dimensions, causes, and progress to date on diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Diversity and Inclusion Training Programs

awareness training

o Create an understanding of the need for managing and valuing diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Skill-building training

o Educated employees on specific cultural differences and how to respond to differences in the
workplace.

Content vs. process training

o Employees learn about diversity and process training

Alternate Work Arrangements

Non-traditional work arrangements

Provide more flexibility to employees

Apprenticeships

-involve working with prospective employees before they formally join an organization

A form of on-the-job training

Learn from an experienced person

SupportGroups

Provide emotional support to new employee who shares a common attribute with the group
Communication Standards

Formal internal protocols

Eliminate biases in communication

Chapter 5

Recruitment: The process of finding and attracting capable individuals to apply for employment and to
accept a job offer if/when one is made to them

Selection: involves identifying candidates from the pool of applicants who best meet job requirements
using tools such as tests, interviews and application blanks.

Includes both purposeful actions such as using recruitment sites and unintentional actions which could
include the length of time between an applicant that applies for the job.

Recruiting is a two-way street: matching firms with jobs to people seeking jobs

Recruiters are specialists within the HR department of large organizations

Identify job openings

Review job specifications

Examine the desired characteristics of recruits

Determine recruitment methods

Obtain pool of recruits

Maintain applicant interest during selection

Persuade chosen candidates to accept the job

Strategic Importance of Recruitment

Recruitment decisions have profound implications for strategic success:

Competitive advantage from human resources

 Presence of highly skilled and motivated workers can be seen as an advantage over poorly
qualified recruits.

Benefits of diversity

-offers a greater choice of job applicants to the firm

-offers flexibility and additional capabilities

-having a diverse organization can reflect a better image for the firm to clients and constituents

Focusing on employee development

Investing resources in recruitment

 Costs of all of recruitment such as hiring costs, and costs of a bad hire.
 Importance of the recruitment function and finding ways to recruit qualified people while
reducing recruitment costs.
 Other investing options include selecting and training recruiters
o Recruiters must have friendliness or personableness, knowledge of the job,
organization, career-related issues and enthusiasm

Internal Recruiting

Advantages

 Employee is familiar with the organization

 Employee is a “known”, fit with the organization as well as past performance as an indicator of
future success
 Improves employee morale and motivation

Weaknesses

 Internal competition can reduce cooperation

 No “new blood” so can prevent creative solutions
 Poor morale (possible turnover) of employees not promoted

External Recruiting

Advantages

 Able to acquire skills and knowledge that may not be available within
 Newer ideas and novel ways of solving problems may emerge

Weaknesses

 Newcomers may not fit in

 Newcomers may take longer to learn about the organization
 Usually more expensive
 Lowered morale and motivation of current employees

Constraints on Recruitment
5

Constraints on Recruitment (2)

Organizational polices can constrain the recruiter

• Promote-from-Within Policies

– Gives present employees the first opportunity to facilitate career

growth

– Internal candidates need less research and may have a better sence of
what the job entails

• Compensation Policies

– Must adhere to stated pay ranges

– Establish pay ranges for different jobs & aim to attract new staff

– Minimum wage requirements can impact the benefits or hours offered

• Employment Status Policies

– e.g., limitations against hiring part-time

– policies against hiring employees who have second jobs due to ensuring
a workforce is rested.

• International Hiring Policies

– Foreign jobs may need to be staffed with locals

– Foreign nationals are move involved in the local community and

understand local customs and business practices.
Human Resource Plans

– The plan outlines Which jobs should be filled by external recruiting vs.
internally?

– Diversity and Inclusion Programs

– Consider employment equity programs

– Employers can’t discriminate against disability

– Recruiter Habits

– A recruiter’s past success can lead to habits

– A recruiter may perpetrate the same mistake and obscure effect

alternatives

Environmental Conditions

-external conditions like the unemployment rate, the pace of the economy, shortages in
specific skills, the size of the labour force, labour laws, and recruiting activities of other employers.

-economic environment can change quickly after the plan is finalized

Three measures that are taken to make economic assumptions remain valid in a changing
environment:

• Leading Economic Indicators

• Publishes the direction of the leading indicators which predict the future of the
national economy

• Predicted Versus Actual Sales

• Hr plans are based on firms predicted sales

• Variations between actual and predicted sales may indicate the plan is
inaccurate

• Employment Statistics

• Statistics Canada reports employment statistics

• Employers can monitor competition from specific job groups by looking at

regional, national, or international job postings .. which can tell if vigorous
recruiting needs to be used for tighter competition.
Job Requirements

• Job analysis information is useful

• Constraints such as finding experienced workers is closely

• Constraints such as how long someone has had experience compared to others who
might not. (10 yrs of exp may not be better qualified than a 1yr exp)

Costs

• Of identifying and attracting recruits within the budget

Inducements

 Stimulates a potential recruits’ interests

 Inducements are monetary and or even tangible

Applying for a Job

1) Submit a résumé
 Resume: a brief summary of applicants background

• Application Tracking Systems for electronic applications are used to scan through paper
resumes and filter through and score resumes according to education and job
requirements

2) Job Application Form

• Designates the information the recruiters would like to have for each applicant

• May make education credentials and employment gaps more apparent

Job Application Forms

Personal Data (name and contact info)

-personal data such as place of birth, marital status, number of dependents, sex, race, religion, or
national origin may lead to discrimination

Employment Status

This information helps a recruiter match the applicants objective and organizations needs

 -type of employment (part, full, contract)

 -job position sought
 -date of availability if hired
Education and Skills

Designed to uncover the job seeker’s abilities

 -school name
 -school address

Work History

recruiters can see if applicants stayed in one position or hopped from job to job

may explore credit history, criminal record, friends and relatives who work for the employer, or previous
employment with the organization

References

Other “Reference like” information may explore criminal record, credit history, friends and relatives who
work for the company and past employment with the organization.

Signature Line

Recruitment Methods

Direct Inquiries: job seekers who arrive at an organization seeking to complete a job application form or
who submit their resume or complete job application online not in response to a specific job ad.

Employee Referrals

 Employee with hard-to-find job skills may know others who do the same work.
 New recruits already know something about the organization from those employees who
referred them
 Employees refer friends through personal networking will often have similar work habits and
work attitudes

Advertising

• Common, effective method of seeking recruits

• Highly specialized recruits, ads may be placed in professional journals

• Blind ads – the employer is not identified , interested applicants submit their resumes to
a noncorporate email account.

• Cost is determined by the size of the advertisement, modality, and location and
distribution

• Layout, design, and copy of an advertisement should reflect the image and character of
the company
 • Realistic recruitment messages portray the job and organization through the negatives
and positives.

• If attracting applicants is hard then an attractive message is likely best

Digital Recruiting

 Internet offers a cost-effective distribution of information to over 100 countries and millions of
users and its information is accessible day and night.
 Time necessary to weed out unsuitable job candidates is minimized
 Digital recruiting is inexpensive
 One disadvantage is not everyone has access to the internet

Social Media

-can be used to recruit in two ways:

 Recruiters can post their opportunities and seek applicants using tools such as linkedin
 Recruiters may seek information through sites such as Facebook, twitter, blogs, online
discussion boards, google groups, etc
o May not be unrelated and unnecessary to the job
o Information may not be verified
 Use of social media by employees of the firm may impact how candidates view an organization
(restrictions of technology may be used based on specific departments that need to use that
technology)

Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC)

-a department of the government of Canada that is responsible for developing, managing, and delivering
social programs and services

The Skills and Employment branch provides programs and initiatives that do the following

 Promote skills development, labour market participation and inclusiveness, and labour market
efficiency
 Address the employment and skills needs of those facing employment barriers, and contribute
to lifelong learning and building a skilled, inclusive labour force
 Support an efficient labour market, including the labour market integration of recent
immigrants, the entry of temporary foreign workers, the mobility of workers across Canada, and
the dissemination of labour market information
o The jobs & workplace pages: designed to help Canadians find work, explore skills and
training possibilities, make career decisions, plan for retirement, and apply for
temporary financial assistance.
 o The job bank: provides a database of thousands of job and work opportunities across
Canada
 Job openings are then posted on ESDC

Private Employment Agencies

o Placement firms take an employers request for recruits and then solicit job seekers
o Used when positions need to be filled quickly or when an employer only needs a few
people
o Private employment agencies aren’t allowed to charge a fee for placement or the fees
have to be regulated.

Professional Search Firms

o Search firms recruit only specific types of human resources for a fee paid by the
employer
o Search firms actively seek out recruits from among the employees of other companies
o Advantages of search firms:
 Search firms have an in-depth experience
 Search firms are willing to undertake actions that an employer would not (eg.
Calling competition)
 Search firms have an understanding of niche requirements, cost less per recruit,
access to specific candidates integrated into specific industries, and an overall
higher success rate in recruiting the right personnel.

Educational Institutions

o Counsellors and teachers often provide recruiters with leads to desirable candidates
o Past research indicates that students desire campus recruiters to be well informed,
honest, and skilled.
o Summer internships and cooperative education programs where students alternate
between study and work terms facilitate college and university recruitment efforts.

Professional & Labour Organizations

o -associations conduct placement activities to help new and experienced professionals

get jobs.
o -advantage of this source of applicants is that helps recruiters zero in on specific
specialities

Canadian Forces

o Canadian armed forces trains personnel in almost every profession imaginable from
trades, to medical professionals to culinary arts.

Temporary-Help Agencies
 o -agencies provide a supplemental worker for which they temporarily work for the
agency and are “on loan” to the requesting employer.
o -better alternative to recruiting for temporary jobs during vacations, peak seasons,
illnesses, and so on
o -occasionally recruited as a permanent employee.

Departing and Past Employees

o -workers may stay within the business if rearranging of schedules or change of numbers
of hours worked
o -employees leave for a variety of reasons such as family responsibilities, health
conditions, another job, etc.
o -“boomerang employee” an employee who leaves the company for years and then is
rehired.

-“buy bank” occurs when an employee resigns and takes a new job for which the original
employer trys to outbid the new job offer.

Job Fairs

o is used for recruiters who are looking for specialized talents or multiple new employees.

Contract Workers

-firms can avoid fixed salary commitments with contract workers because its work that is done in a
limited duration

-Contract workers do not benefit from the statutory protections offered by various provincial
employment laws.

Recruitment Abroad

-employers are looking abroad to secure skilled, hard to find employees.

-recruits of foreign nationals are used to go against the aging domestic workforce and shortage of highly
skilled employees.

-foreign workers may be less expensive

Cost per Hire

• The dollar cost per person hired

Quality of Hires and Cost

• Quality of people hired from various sources

Offers - Applicants Ratio

• Ratio between the number of job offers and total applicants for each recruitment
method

Time Lapsed per Hire

• Time taken to fill a position

Chapter 6

Selection Process Defined

A series of specific steps used to decide which recruits should be hired

Begins when recruits apply for employment and ends with the hiring decision

• Steps involve matching the employment needs of the organization and the applicant

Strategic Significance of Selection

1. Successful execution of an organization’s strategy depends on the calibre of its employees

 Skills & qualifications of new hires need to match organization’s culture and strategic
requirements
2. Selection Decisions Must Reflect Job Requirements
 A mismatch of job requirements and selection criteria will result in poor hires that will result in
possible lawsuits of discrimination
3. Selection Strategy Must Be Well Integrated With Organizational Priorities
 An organization stage in a life cycle provides a link of organizations overall needs and its selection
strategy
4. Selection Strategy Must Recognize Organizational Constraints
 Organizations need to recognize constraint that refine the selection process
5. Selection Strategy Must Adapt To Labor Market Realities
 There are few applicants in a competitive market
i. Selection ratio: the ratio between the number of applicants hired and the
total applications available (eg. Ratio of 1:2 means that there is a large
number of applicants that you can select)
ii. Formula: Number of applicants hired divided by total number of applicants =
selection ratio
6. Selection Processes Need to Be Ethical
Relationship Between Selection Strategy and Other Organizational Variables

Steps in the Selection Process

-a series of steps that an applicant’s pass through

-steps may be combined or a sequence may be altered

-an applicant may be rejected at any step in the process

Step 1: Preliminary Reception of Applicants

Initial contact with applicants

Walk-ins may receive preliminary interview

Write-ins often receive a letter or email of acknowledgment

This step has disappeared in many organizations with the increasing use of Internet recruitment

Steps in the Selection Process

Step 2: Applicant Screening

Goal: Remove from consideration applicants who do not meet qualifications

Weighted application blanks (WAB): a technique that uses means of identifying aspects that are
satisfactory or unsatisfactory to the job.

Ensure application is useful and meets legal requirements

Biographical information blanks (BIB): a questionnaire relating to applicants’ personal history and life
experiences, hobbies, family relations, accomplishments, values, reactions to experiences, and leisure
time pursuits.

-emphasis on past behaviour being a predictor of future behaviour

Considerations when using BIB

1. Items may not affect protected groups of Canadians (eg. Unintentionally discrimination
questions)
2. Questions may turn off applicants by being seen as invasive
3. Responses can’t be easily verified and faked by applicants.
4. BIBs may not suit organizations specific needs.

Steps in the Selection Process

Step 3: Administration of Employment Tests

STEP 3

Administration of Employment Tests

 Devices that assess the match between applicants and job requirements

Types of Tests

1. Personality Test: measures personality or temperament

 Personality tests such as the “big 5 Personality Factors” is used regularly

 Potential for applicants to fake their responses

2. Ability Tests; Knowledge Tests: predict which job applicants have the skills, knowledge,
and ability to do the job.

3. Cognitive Ability Tests: based on intelligence

4. Knowledge tests: measures a persons information or knowledge about job requirements

5. Performance Tests: measure the ability of applicants to do the work they are hired for

 Situational Judgment Tests: applicants are placed in a job scenario and asked to
select a behavioral response among a list of alternative courses of action

 Behavioural Personnel Assessment Device: a series of video simulations

depicting scenarios that you may encounter on the job to which candidates are
given two minutes to explain how they would respond in that situation

 Assessment Centre’s: conducted over a period of days away from job site, to
which candidates are assessed by their strengths and weaknesses.

 Test

 Written tests

 Job simulation
  In-basket exercises

 Projective tests

 Interviews

 Personalitity inventories

 Computer-interactive Tests: tests applicants abilities such as reaction time,

ability to concentrate, ability to work under different time pressures, perceptual
speed, and spatial visualization

6. Integrity Tests: measure an applicants honesty and trustworthiness

 Interest to empolyers for two reasons

 If candidate is not honest in filling out the job application form and in
the job interview, the information collected to assess the applicant is
useless

 All employer desire employees whom they can trust

Reliability and Validity

Reliability: a measure of whether the test yields consistent results

Reliability of a test may become low due to these factors:

1. Test questions may be hard to understand or ambiguous

2. Test questions may be boring and lose the focus of the examinee
3. External factors (eg, noise, smell) events (eg. War), or personal characteristics (eg, being iill at
the time of the est)

Validity: is the test accurately measuring what it’s supposed to measure?

Empirical approaches: test validation by relating test scores with a job related criterion

 Predictive validity: a group of applicants are tested based on after they mastered the job to
which their performance is measured.
 Concurrent validity: tests current employees and correlates test scores with measures of their
performance (no delay between hiring and mastering the job)

Rational approaches: used when the number of subjects is too low to have a reasonable sample of
people to test.

 Content validity: test measures the construct under consideration and only that (eg. Testing only
one element such as intelligence)
 Construct validity: comparing outcomes of tests from outcomes of other tests and measures.
Differential validity: a test that is only valid for a large specific group (eg. Applicable to white male
applicants but not to minorities or women)

Validity generalization: applying validity results from many individual validity studies to guide test
choices for a current organization

Local validation studies: studies conducted by hr specialists to make sure a test is valid for use.

Steps in the Selection Process

Step 4: Employment Interviews

• Employment Interviews

 Supervisors should have input into the final hiring decision

• Able to answer an interviewees job-related questions

 Common (and expected) as part of the selection process:

• To be interviewed by several people of supervisory and managerial positions

Steps in the Selection Process

Step 5: Realistic Job Previews

Realistic Job Previews

 Shows the candidate the type of work, equipment & working conditions

 Highlights positive & negative

 Tends to reduce employee turnover

 Unlikely to satisfy employees anymore than those who were not told

Steps in the Selection Process

Step 6: Verification of References

Employment references

 Discuss applicant’s work history

 Former supervisors may not be candid, especially with negative information

 Reference letters
  Background checks to verify information

5 complaints of references:

1. Candidates only provide names of references likely to positive

2. Referees only provide references when they have positive things to say
3. Referees may not share negative information for fear of being sued for defamation
4. Applicants can ask friends and family to pose as fake references
5. Reliability and viability of reference information may be low

Steps in the Selection Process

Step 7: Contingent Assessments

Assessment of health, medical, and driving information,

 Questionaries is supplemented with a physical examination or physical fitness test conducted by

a physician or at a clinic to which the evaluation may:
 Entitle the employer to lower health or life insurance rates for company paid
insurance
 Be required by provincial or local health officials
 Be useful to evaluate whether the applicant can handle the physical or mental
stress of a job
 Prevent injuries to workers susceptible to disorders or diseases or reduce time
off for workers who are screened but then get hurt

May be scheduled after the hiring decision

Drug tests are increasingly used but may be found to violate employee rights