MGMT 9700: Principles of

Human Resource
Management

1
NETA PowerPoint® Slides
to accompany

Adapted by
Ann Hrabok,
Northern Alberta
Institute of Technology

Copyright © 2020 by Nelson Education Ltd. 2

CHAPTER 1
The World of
Human Resources
Management

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 Learning Outcomes
Explain how human resources managers
and other managers can have rewarding
careers by helping their firms gain a sustainable
competitive advantage through the strategic
utilization of people.
Explain how good human resources practices
can help a firm’s globalization, corporate social
responsibility, and sustainability efforts.
Describe how technology can improve how
people perform their work and how they are
managed.

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 Learning Outcomes
Explain the dual roles human resource managers
have in terms of increasing productivity and
controlling costs.
Discuss how firms can leverage employee
differences to their strategic advantage and how
educational and cultural changes in the workforce
are affecting how human resources managers
engage employees.
Provide examples of the roles and competencies
of today’s human resources professionals.

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 Why Study Human
Resources Management?
Human Resources Management (HRM)
– The process of managing human talent to achieve an
organization’s objectives

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 Why Study Human
Resources Management?
– Establishing the strategic direction your firm should take,
attracting top-notch people to come to work for you and
your firm, determining the right people to hire so your
team and company are a success, and helping and
coaching people so they become top performers are
goals as relevant to line managers as they are to
managers in the HR department.
– Great business plans, products, and services can easily
be copied by your competitors. Great personnel cannot.

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 Human Capital and HRM
Words to describe how important people are to
organizations:
• Human Resources
• Human Capital
• Intellectual Assets
• Talent Management

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 Human Capital and HRM
• Human capital:
– knowledge, skills, and capabilities of individuals that have
economic value to an organization
– intangible
– cannot be managed the way organizations manage jobs,
products, and technologies

• Valuable
– Capital is based on company-specific skills
– Gained through long-term experience
– Can be expanded through development

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Human Capital and HRM

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 Competitive Issues and
Human Resources
Management
• Issue 1:
– Responding Strategically to Changes and Disruptions in
the Local and Global Marketplace
• Issue 2:
– Setting and Achieving Corporate Social Responsibility and
Sustainability Goals
• Issue 3:
– Advancing HRM with Technology

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 Competitive Issues and
Human Resources
Management
• Issue 4:
– Containing Costs While Retaining Top Talent
and Maximizing Productivity
• Issue 5:
– Responding to the Demographic and Diversity
Challenges of the Workforce
• Issue 6:
– Adapting to Educational and Cultural Shifts Affecting
the Workforce

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Issue 1: Responding Strategically
to Changes
and Disruptions in the Local and
Global Marketplace
HR Managers and Business Strategy
• From administrative tasks to strategic partners
• Human resources managers need an intimate
understanding of their firm’s competitive business
operations and strategies.
• “No change means chance.”

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Issue 1: Responding Strategically
to Changes
and Disruptions in the Local and
Global Marketplace
• Human resources managers need to
understand:
– Total quality improvement
– Reengineering
– Six Sigma
– Change management
– Reactive change
– Proactive change

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Issue 1: Responding Strategically to Changes
and Disruptions in the Local and
Global Marketplace
Six Sigma
• A set of principles and practices whose core ideas include
understanding customer needs, doing things right the first
time, and striving for continuous improvement

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Issue 1: Responding Strategically to Changes
and Disruptions in the Local and
Global Marketplace
Reengineering
• The fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business
processes to achieve dramatic improvements in cost, quality,
service, and speed

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Issue 1: Responding Strategically to Changes
and Disruptions in the Local and
Global Marketplace
• Downsizing
– Planned elimination of jobs (“head count”)
• Layoffs
• Outsourcing
– Contracting outside the organization to have work done
that formerly was done by internal employees
• Offshoring (Global Sourcing)
– Business practice of sending jobs to other countries

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Issue 1: Responding Strategically to Changes
and Disruptions in the Local and
Global Marketplace
• Change Management
– Systematic way of bringing about and managing
organizational changes and changes on the
individual level
• Reactive change
• Proactive change

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Issue 1: Responding Strategically to Changes
and Disruptions in the Local and
Global Marketplace
Some changes are
reactive, such as
those experienced by
Volkswagen when it
was revealed the
company had cheated
on its vehicles’
emission tests.

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Issue 1: Responding Strategically to Changes
and Disruptions in the Local and
Global Marketplace
Globalization
• Approximately 70–85 percent of the Canadian economy
today is affected by international competition.

Impact of Globalization
• “Anything, anytime, anywhere” markets
• Partnerships with foreign firms
• Lower trade and tariff barriers

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 Issue 2: Setting and Achieving Corporate
Social Responsibility and Sustainability Goals
Corporate Social Responsibility
• The responsibility of the firm to act in the best interests
of the people and communities affected by its activities
• Sustainability is closely related to corporate social
responsibility:
– Doing business in a way that does as little harm to the
environment and depletes as few natural resources as possible

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Issue 3: Advancing HRM
with Technology
• Collaborative software that allows workers anywhere,
anytime to interface and share information with one
another has changed how and where people and
companies do business.
• From Touch Labour to Knowledge Workers
– Knowledge Workers: Workers whose responsibilities
extend beyond the physical execution of work to include
planning, decision making, and problem solving

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Issue 3: Advancing HRM
with Technology
Human Resources Information System (HRIS)
• A computerized system that provides current and accurate
data for purposes of control and decision making
• Workforce analytics is the process of gathering and
analyzing data to improve a firm’s human resources
management.

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Issue 3: Advancing HRM
with Technology
Impact of Technology on HRM
• Operational: Automation of routine tasks, lower
administrative costs, increased productivity, and faster
response times; self-service access to information and
training for managers and employees
• Relational: Online recruiting, screening, and pretesting
of applicants
• Transformational: Training, tracking, and selecting
employees based on their record of skills and abilities;
organization-wide alignment of “cascading” goals

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Issue 4: Containing Costs While Retaining
Top Talent and Maximizing Productivity
Organizations take many approaches to
lowering labour-related costs, including:
• Carefully managing employees’ benefits
• Downsizing
• Outsourcing
• Offshoring, Nearshoring, Homeshoring
• Employee Furloughing and Leasing

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 Issue 4: Containing Costs While Retaining
Top Talent and Maximizing Productivity
Hidden Costs of a Layoff:
• Severance and rehiring costs
• Accrued vacation and sick-day payouts
• Pension and benefit payoffs
• Potential lawsuits from aggrieved workers
• Loss of institutional memory and trust in management
• Lack of staffers when the economy rebounds
• Survivors who are risk averse, paranoid, and political

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Issue 4: Containing Costs While Retaining
Top Talent and Maximizing Productivity
• Benefits of a No-Layoff Policy:
– A fiercely loyal, more productive workforce
– Higher customer satisfaction
– Readiness to snap back with the economy
– A recruiting edge
– Workers who aren’t afraid to innovate, knowing their
jobs are safe

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Issue 4: Containing Costs While Retaining
Top Talent and Maximizing Productivity
• Employee Leasing:
– The process of dismissing employees who are then
hired by a leasing company (which handles all HR-
related activities), and contracting with that company
to lease back the employees

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 Issue 5: Responding to the Demographic
and Diversity Challenges of the Workforce
• In a recent survey, almost half of the organizations
surveyed reported that the biggest investment challenge
facing them over the next 10 years is obtaining human
capital and optimizing their human capital investments.

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 Issue 5: Responding to the Demographic
and Diversity Challenges of the Workforce
Demographic Changes Managing Diversity
• More diverse workforce • Being aware of
• Aging workforce characteristics common
• More educated to employees, while also
workforce managing employees
as individuals

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 Issue 6: Adapting to Educational and
Cultural Shifts Affecting the Workforce
Educational and Cultural Factors:
• Cultural and societal changes affecting the workforce
• Employee rights
• Privacy concerns of employees
• Changing nature of the job
• Changing attitudes toward work
• Balancing work and family

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The Partnership of Line Managers and
Human Resources Departments
• Successful organizations combine the experience of
line managers with the expertise of HR managers to
develop and utilize the talents of employees.
• Line managers are non-HR managers who are
responsible for overseeing the work of other employees.
• Different types of human resources managers specialize
in different HR functions.

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The Partnership of Line Managers and
Human Resources Departments
Responsibilities of the HR Manager
1. Advice and counsel
2. Service
3. Policy formulation and implementation
4. Employee advocacy

Competencies of the HR Manager

1. Business mastery
2. HR mastery
3. Change mastery
4. Personal credibility
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HR Competency Model

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 Activity #1
Should contract employees be treated the same as
“permanent” employees?
1. Watch the video
“The Role of Human Resources Today” featuring a keynote
speech by Kelly CEO Carl Camden.
2. What does he mean by “velcro” culture?
3. How can “outside the wall” employees become engaged?

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 Activity #2
Which of the following challenges (technology, globalization,
corporate social responsibility, demographic changes) will
have the most impact on your working lives?
What other organizations have experienced the challenges
faced by Volkswagen (reactive change) and Bombardier
(downsizing)?

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