Human Resources Management is introduced to manage employee skills, capacity, and knowledge. HRM practices aim to enhance, motivate, and reduce employee turnover so as to ensure the effective implementation and the success of the firm and its employees (Halbast and Tarik, 2019 ). 

The essential factor that will lead an organization to have a competitive advantage is human capital (human resources). Human capital refers to the stock of employee skills that exist within a firm at any given point in time. Human resource and human capital are almost the same, however, human capital concerns more about human talent (Wright et al., 2001).

Intellectual capital is composed of three forms of intellectual capital – human capital, customer capital (or relation capital), and structure capital which can be divided into innovation capital and process capital. Among the elements of intellectual capital, human capital is the most fundamental. Human capital affects innovation capital and process capital. Innovation capital affects process capital, which in turn influences customer capital. Finally, customer capital contributes to performance. When a company has a $1 increase in R&D expenditure, it has a $2 increase in earnings and $5 increase in market value over the next seven years (Wen-Ying Wang and Chingfu Chang, 2005).

Resource is ‘anything which could be thought of as a strength or weakness of a given firm (all assets, capabilities, organizational processes, firm attributes, information, knowledge, etc). In the resource-based view of the firm, resources are the sources of competitive advantage (Wright et al., 2006).

HRM Practices refer to the pattern of planned human resource deployments and activities intended to enable an organization to achieve its goals. The results show that HRMP had a positive impact on EP, as well as job satisfaction and its components (job stability and job enrichment) (Yousef Alsafadi, and Shadi Altahat, 2021). Human Resource Management practices include job analysis/job design, recruitment, selection, training and development, incentive compensation, other compensation, (self-managed) teams, participation/autonomy, (results-oriented) performance appraisal/ management, job security, employee voice/grievance, promotion from within/career development/internal labor market, information sharing/communication, HR planning, flexible work/family-friendly practices, and other practices (Boon et al., 2019). 

REFERENCES

. Yousef Alsafadi, Shadi Altahat (2021). Human Resource Management Practices and Employee Performance: The Role of Job Satisfaction. Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business. 8 (1): 519–529. Doi: 10.13106/jafeb.2021.vol8.no1.519.

Creativity

A company’s most important asset is creative capital, an arsenal of creative thinkers whose ideas can be turned into valuable products and services. Creative employees pioneer new technologies, birth new industries, and power economic growth Richard Florida and Jim Goodnight (2005).

Creativity is generally defined as the production of novel, useful ideas or problem solutions. It refers to both the process of idea generation or problem solving and the actual idea or solution. Weisberg’s (1988) description of creativity as both the act of novel problem solving or idea generating and the actual solution or idea (Teresa M. Amabile et al., 2005).

Creativity requires both originality and effectiveness (usefulness, fit, or appropriateness). Originality is vital for creativity but is not sufficient. Ideas and products that are merely original might very well be useless.  A truly random process will often generate something that is merely original (Mark A. Runco and Garrett J. Jaeger, 2012).

Graham Wallas drew on Poincare´’s account to develop a theory of the creative process as consisting of four stages: preparation, incubation, illumination and verification (or elaboration). But if a process of making something is creative, then one cannot know the end: for if one knows the end, one has already been creative (Berys Gaut, 2010).

The creative person has a lower threshold, or greater sensitivity, for the gaps or the lack of closure that exist in the environment (Mark A. Runco and Garrett J. Jaeger, 2012). Gregory Feist writes that creative people ‘tend to be open to new experiences, less conventional and less conscientious, more self confident, self-accepting, driven, ambitious, dominant, hostile, and impulsive’ (Berys Gaut, 2010).

REFERENCES

. Berys Gaut (2010). The Philosophy of Creativity. Philosophy Compass 5/12: 1034–1046. Doi: 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2010.00351.x.

. Mark A. Runco and Garrett J. Jaeger (2012). The Standard Definition of Creativity. Creativity Research Journal, Vol. 24, No. 1, 92–96.

.  Richard Florida and Jim Goodnight (2005). Managing Creativity. Harvard Business Review. July – August.

. Robert J. Sternberg (2006). The Nature of Creativity. Creativity Research Journal, Vol. 18, No. 1, 87–98.

.  Teresa M. Amabile, Sigal G. Barsade, Jennifer S. Mueller, Barry M. Staw (2005). Affect and Creativity at
Work. Administrative Science Quarterly, 50: 367–403.

Weisberg’s (1988) description of creativity as both the act of novel problem solving or idea generating and the actual solution or idea.

REFERENCES

I. HR managers and managers

People at the HR department manage human capital (human resources). Managers manage People’s activities. 

II. HRM’s Functions

Human resource management philosophy

Human resource philosophies, which specify the values that inform an organization’s policies and practices (Susan E. Jackson and Randall S. Schuler, 1995).

Personnel management philosophy – the whole of principles, moral, as well as administrative rules, which were developed in the organization and which equally divides each of its employees. This philosophy – this is one of the most important components of the company philosophy. The philosophy of management personnel of the organization – it is a some document, which demonstrates that the person has the right to work in safe workplace, he has the right to freely express their views, he has the right to use his abilities fully (Irina Ivanovna Saenko and Julia Pavlovna Pavlova). 

Corporate culture is a powerful determinant of employee attitudes and behaviors in general, as well as their reactions and attitudes toward specific events and practices. Thus, fit between strategies, practices, and culture is critical to success (G. Stoney Alder, 2020).  

Confucius – Chinese legend.

Confucius’ perception

In East Asia, moral justification for bureaucracy is broadly understood to be based on the work of Confucius and his followers.

Distinctive elements of Confucian ideology include rule of man versus rule of law, distinctive characteristics of good public officials, the nature of moral conventions and practices in governing, the importance of education and merit for public officials, how good officials should deal with those in political power, the logic of civil reciprocity, and the nature of order in society (H. George Frederickson, 2002). 

Confucius management style

Education, it is assumed, brings understanding and knowledge, and with understanding and knowledge the educated person will be moral and behave properly. 

Confucian ideal type, good officials, rather than laws, are the primary instruments of governance. The power derives from moral actions and from example (H. George Frederickson, 2002).

Confucian education tends to emphasise rote learning and memorisation” and that “studying means finding a good teacher and imitating his words and deeds”. Learners are conditioned to accept and respect what the teacher presents as correct (Tan, 2015). 

Han Fei – Chinese legend.

Han’s perception

Han Fei had the opposite perception to Confucius. In his opinion, people obey the law because they are afraid of punishment. If we want to manage people, we should use bonuses and punishment.

Han Fei may well has been genuinely concerned about the urgency of brining about political order and a measure of socioeconomic security for all. Han Fei’s philosophical elaborations on the ruler’s position are largely concentrated in the “Brandishing Authority” (Yuri Pines, 2013). 

Han’s management style

First, If we want to manage people, we should use bonuses and punishment. If someone contributes meaningfully to your organisation, we should reward them. If someone breaks the rules, we should punish them. 

Second, If we want to manage people, we should do 3 important activities. We should set up rules. We should empower the managers. We should teach managerial techniques to our managers.

XY theory

From McGregor idea, Managers make assumptions about employees in work organizations, even if they are unaware of doing so. Two broad categories of managerial assumptions can be identified: a pessimistic view (Theory X), and a more optimistic view (Theory Y) (Richard E. Kopelman et al., 2012). Managerial work behaviors (or practices) ultimately reflect a manager’s fundamental assumptions about people (Lawter et al., 2015).

From the review part of (Lawter et al., 2015; Richard E. Kopelman et al., 2008), we have the following assumption. 

• Theory X

X manager Perception: (a) employees are lazy and try to avoid work whenever possible; (b) employees are inherently irresponsible, incapable of self-direction and autonomous work behaviour; (c) most employees have little to contribute intellectually to the operation of an enterprise.

Management style: closely monitor work behaviour; providing detailed instructions; and reducing the scope of work to match the limited abilities of “hired hands”. 

• Theory Y

Y manager Perception: (a) employees not inherently lazy, they can find work enjoyable, and under suitable conditions, experience motivation and fulfillment; (b) employees are capable of self-direction and self-control, they are not inherently irresponsible; and (c) employees are capable of providing important ideas/suggestions that will improve organizational effectiveness.

Management style: Managers provide objectives and rewards and the opportunity to participate in decision making, personal and organizational goals. 

Managers with a positive view of human nature will act in accordance with these beliefs, and will show higher levels of Y-type behaviors (Lawter et al., 2015). 

HR strategy and workers

Corporate level: Scope of an organization, how to run, resources allocate to different operations.

Business strategy: How to compete, which product/services should be developed, how to meet customers needs.

Operational strategy (HR strategy included): at the functional level, enables an organization to achieve the higher level strategies.

When we talk about an organizational strategy, we talk about long term orientations. Some popular organizational strategies are Price competitive, Innovation? If you choose a competitive strategy, you may hope that your products are cheaper than your competitors’ products. If you choose an Innovation strategy, you try to bring new values to your customers. Here, I do not talk about organizational strategy, I am going to explain the relationship between organizational strategy and workers.

Normally, a company with a price competitive strategy produces a popular product, and this company does not use special technology. For the reasons above, this company does not really need to hire special workers with special skills. On the other hand,  if a company chooses Innovation strategy, it needs to hire special workers.

In summary, when you choose an organizational strategy, you need workers who fit this strategy. For instance, if you choose a Price competitive strategy, your company just needs normal workers. If your company chooses an Innovation strategy, your company needs smart workers…

Fiza Amjad et al., underlied strategies for enhancing “organizational sustainability”.  The term sustainability can be defined as “the development to meet the current needs of the people effectively without compromising the future needs of the next generations”. 

The authors found significant effects of GHRM practices, i.e. (training and development, performance appraisal, and reward and compensation), on Organizational Sustainability.

The Green HRM Approach is involved in modifying HRM culture, structure, strategies, and organizational policies for protecting the environment.  

REFERENCES

. Fiza Amjad, Waseem Abbas, Muhammad Zia-UR-Rehman, Sajjad Ahmad Baig, Ayesha Khan, Hakeem-ur- Rehman (2020). Effect of green human resource management practices
on organizational sustainability: the mediating role of environmental and employee performance. Environmental Science and Pollution Research. Doi: 10.1007/s11356-020-11307-9. 

B. Theory & Practice

1. Defining human resource management

Human resources is used to describe the people who work for a company or organization.

Human resource management involves overseeing all things related to managing an organization?s human capital. HRM is concerned not only with obtaining and keeping the number and quality of staff required but also with selecting and promoting people who ?fit? the culture and the strategic requirements of the organization.

When we talk about HRM, we talk about all planned and activities of an organization to build and maintain the relation between employees and the organization in order to meet both business objectives and employees expectation.

Human resource management is therefore focused on a number of major areas, including: Job analyses, Human resource planning, Recruitment and Selection, Training and development, Performance appraisal, Reward , etc.

HR functions are concerned with the management and development of people in organizations. They are involved in the development and implementation of HR strategies and policies and some or all of the following people management activities: job analyses, planning personnel needs, recruiting the right people for the job, orienting and training, managing wages and salaries, providing benefits and incentives, evaluating performance, and communicating with all employees at all levels.

2. Job Design & Job Analysis

Jobs are what people do at work. People try to perform well simply because it felt good when they did.

Frederick Herzberg’s revolutionary approach to job design which specified that, to motivate employees to do good work, jobs should be enriched rather than simplified. Work should be designed and managed to foster responsibility, achievement, growth in competence, recognition, and advancement (Greg R. Oldham and J. Richard Hackman, 2010).

Job analysis is a process for collecting and analyzing information about a job. It is A process we use to identify tasks of a job and the knowledge, skills, and abilities (can use experience) a person needs to perform the job.

– A task is a piece of work to be done or undertaken. For example, a management job has two tasks, first task is “Contract management”, second task is “Monitoring operating costs”.

– When we talk about abilities a person needs to perform a particular job, we break it down into 3 categories, knowledge, skills, and abilities. For example, if a person needs the management job above, he must have abilities below.

+ Knowledge (we may use education instead): University graduate.

+ Experience (in this case, we use experience instead of ability): At least 3-year experience in logistics.

+ Skills: Excellent Excel skills, Good problem-solving skills, Work well independently and in a team.

From job analysis, we create job description, and job description. Job description is A list of a job’s duties. Job specification is A list of requirements (education, skills, ability) a person needs to perform a particular job.

Application of job analysis:

Job analysis sits at the heart of all human resource practices. job analysis has provided an informational base for a wide variety of organizational and managerial functions, including among others, selection and staffing, training and development, performance appraisal, compensation and benefits, job descriptions and job design, and employment equity and affirmative action (Parbudyal Singh – Job analysis for a changing workplace).

Recruitment and selection

With job description, you will know what you are looking for. You know the job responsibilities as well as the skills and other characteristics required of candidates. A part of the job description is presented in the job advert, so candidates will know about the job which they are applying.

In the selection process, we need to know the knowledge, skills, and abilities that are required to each job.

Training

The job description provides the job responsibilities as well as the skills and other characteristics required of workers. We design the training program based on the job description, because the training program must provide the necessary competencies.

Performance appraisal

Performance has been defined as “the degree to which the level of productivity of an individual employee meets the firm’s performance standards”. Job description tells us about job’ contents. We should assess workers based on job’ contents.

…

The methods used by traditional job analysis are simply not applicable to many new and emerging jobs and some authors feel it may even be an obstacle to organizational success. The reasons are indicated following. Job analysis is focussed on the collection of work-related information for the job as it currently exists and/or has existed in the past. Organizations may perceive the creation of jobs that do not currently exist. The new process includes eight stages which are: 1. collect information on the current job; 2. specify job tasks and build task clusters; 3. develop and administer task surveys; 4. conduct statistical analysis of task survey responses; 5. conduct the knowledge, skills and abilities process; 6. develop and administer the KSA surveys; 7. gather information about the future; and, 8. revise tasks and/or task clusters, and KSAs and/or KSA clusters in light of future changes (Parbudyal Singh – Job analysis for a changing workplace).
(to be continued)

References

. Greg R. Oldham and J. Richard Hackman (2010). Not what it was and not what it will be: The future of job design research. Journal of Organizational Behavior. 31, 463–479. Doi: 10.1002/job.678.

3. Recruitment and selection

Recruitment: the process that provides the organization with a pool of qualified job candidates from which to choose.

Selection: the process of picking or choosing the right candidate, who is most suitable for a vacant job position in an organization.

3.1. Recruitment

Recruitment is to consider how to attract people who meet the requirements.

	Advantages	Disadvantages
Internal Candidate	– Rewards contributions of current staff – Can be cost effective, as opposed to using a traditional recruitment strategy – Can improve moraleKnowing the past performance of the candidate can assist in knowing if they meet the criteria	– Can produce inbreeding, which may reduce diversity and difference perspectives – May cause political infighting between people to obtain the promotions – Can create bad feelings if an internal candidate applies for a job and doesn’t get it
External Candidates	– Brings new talent into the company – Can help an organisation obtain diversity goals – New ideas and insight brought into the company	– Implementation of recruitment strategy can be expensive – Can cause morale problems for internal candidates – Can take longer for training and orientation

The recruitment process includes analysing the requirements of a job, attracting employees to that job?. A recruitment aim to attract potential candidates from a pool of candidates. The potential candidates should be qualified to take the job. If you do not want to think too much, in this step, you simply post a job advert.

3.2. Selection

Following the recruitment of a pool of applicants, employers need to make a choice between candidates. The most common methods used to make selection decisions are interview and test.

Selection process consists of five distinct aspects: Criteria development, Application and resume review, Interviewing, Test administration, Making the offer.

Criteria development:

Determining which sources of information will be used and how those sources will be scored during the interview. Involves discussing which skills, abilities, and personal characteristics are required to be successful at any given job. In human resources, this is called KSAOs2, or knowledge, skills, abilities, and other personal characteristics that make a person successful on the job.

For example:
1. Two years of experience
2. A bachelor?s degree in business
3. Problem-solving ability
4. Conflict-management ability
5. Score of at least a 7.0 on IELTS test

Application and resume review: Once the criteria have been developed (step one), applications can be reviewed. People have different methods of going through this process, but there are also computer programs that can search for keywords in resumes and narrow down the number of resumes that must be looked at and reviewed.

Interviewing & Test administration:

Interviewing: After the HR manager and/or manager have determined which applications meet the minimum criteria, he or she must select those people to be interviewed. Most people do not have time to review twenty or thirty candidates, so the field is sometimes narrowed even further with a phone interview.

Test administration: A variety of tests may be given upon successful completion of an interview. These employment tests can gauge a person?s KSAOs in relation to another candidate. The major categories of tests include the following: 1. Cognitive ability tests (measure reasoning skills, math skills, and verbal skills) 2. Personality tests 3. Physical ability tests 4. Job knowledge tests 5. Work sample

Making the offer:

The last step in the selection process is to offer a position to the chosen candidate. Development of an offer via email or letter is sometimes a more formal part of this process. Compensation and benefits will be defined in an offer.

4. Compensation and Benefits

Most of us, no matter how much we like our jobs, would not do them without a compensation package. A compensation package can include pay, health-care benefits, and other benefits. “Pay is important both in its effect on employees and on account of its cost, organizations need to plan what they will pay employees in each job”.

Employees realize that pay will lead to some security in living, recognition by peers, and status in his or her professional group (Abdelghafour Al-Zawahreh, Faisal Al-Madi, 2012). 

4.1. Goals of a Compensation Plan

First, the compensation package should be positive enough to attract the best people for the job. An organization that does not pay as well as others within the same industry will likely not be able to attract the best candidates, resulting in a poorer overall company performance.

Second, once the best employees and talent come to work for your organization, you want the compensation to be competitive enough to motivate people to stay with your organization.

Third, compensation can be used to improve morale, motivation, and satisfaction among employees. If employees are not satisfied, this can result not only in higher turnover but also in poor quality of work for those employees who do stay. A proper compensation plan can also increase loyalty in the organization.

Finally, pay systems can also be used to reward individual or team performance and encourage employees to work at their own peak performance.

4.2. Types of PayWe can divide our total pay system into three categories: pay, incentives, and other types of compensation. Pay is the hourly, weekly, or monthly salary an employee earns. An incentive, often called a pay-for-performance incentive, is given for meeting certain performance standards, such as meeting sales targets.

4.3. Pay Theories: equity theory

According to Abdelghafour Al-Zawahreh and Faisal Al-Madi (2012), what motivates people to work? According to equity theory, it is the perception of equitability and in equitability. Equity theory focuses on two sides: the input and the outcome. An employee compares his or her job’s inputs with an outcomes ratio. If the employee perceives inequality, he or she he will act to 
correct the inequity. The employee may lower productivity or reduce the quality of their job.

Inputs: Education, intelligence, experience, training,Skills, seniority, age, sex, ethnic background, Social status, job effort, personal appearance, health,spouse’s characteristics.

Outcomes: Pay, intrinsic rewards, satisfying supervision, Seniority benefits, fringe benefits, job status, Status symbols, job perquisites, poor working conditions, monotony, fate, uncertainty. 

In summary, equity theory concerned with the relational satisfaction employees get from pay and inputs they provide to the organization. People will evaluate their own compensation by comparing their compensation to others compensation and their inputs to others inputs.

For example:

Your monthly salary is 15 million Dollars (maybe Zimbabwe dollar). You receive this amount because you can make 15 products per hour. When you compare your salary with your coworker, you realize that your coworker salary is 20M. What do you think about your coworker’s salary? Actually, you may face several cases below.

Case 1

You	Your Coworker
15M (your Outcome) Make 15 products per hour (your Input)	20M (coworker Outcome) Make 20 products per hour

Case 2

You	Your Coworker
15M (your Outcome) Make 15 products per hour (your Input)	20M (coworker Outcome) Make 25 products per hour

Case 3

You	Your Coworker
15M (your Outcome)  Make 15 products per hour (your Input)	20M (coworker Outcome) Make 15 products per hour

What do you think about each case?

Normally, people will look at their own compensation packages and at their own inputs (the work performed) and compare that with others. If they perceive this to be unfair, in that another person is paid more but they believe that person is doing less work, motivational issues can occur. In HR, we need to look at two factors related to pay equity: internal pay equity and external pay equity.

Internal equity theory: Internal pay equity focuses on employees within the same organization. Within the same organization, employees may look at higher level jobs, lower-level jobs, and years with the organization to make their decision on pay equity.

People first think  about their own Outcome and Input,  and then they think about their coworkers’ Outcome and Input. Outcome means something you get from your organization, and Input means something you give to your organization. Normally, people are happy if their own ratio between outcome and input is almost the same as the coworker ratio.

External pay equity: External pay equity refers to what other people in similar organizations are being paid for a similar job. From this theory, people compare the ratio between outcome and input with other people in similar organizations.

When we make pay decision, we must do something so we can achieve both Internal equity and External pay equity

4.4. Job Evaluation Systems

The value of the job is a major factor when determining pay. Job evaluation is defined as the process of determining the relative worth of jobs to determine pay structure.

One of the simplest methods, used by smaller companies or within individual departments, is a job ranking system. In this type of evaluation, job titles are listed and ranked in order of importance to the organization.

In a job classification system, every job is classified and grouped based on the knowledge and skills required for the job, years of experience, and amount of authority for that job.

Sometimes we can not directly compare our inputs, we must use Job Evaluation Systems. From this system, we can calculate the value of jobs.

For example: We can calculate a job’s value based on job requirements.

Sale representative	Head of marketing department
Do not need experience            50	Need at least 3 years experience  150
Need BSC                                100	MBA                                     200
Simple job                                100	Complicated job                            200

After conducting job evaluation, we can make a pay decision. Sales representative worth 250 points, head of marketing department worth 550 points. If each point is worth 2 Dollars per month, the sales representative will receive 500 Dollars per month, and the head of the marketing department will receive 1100 Dollars per month.

Play the game below, and you will learn more about Job Evaluation.

4.5. Pay Systems

Once you have performed a job evaluation, you can move to the last step, which we call pay grading. This is the process of setting the pay scale for specific jobs or types of jobs. The popular method to pay grade is to develop a variety of pay grade levels.

REFERENCES

.  Abdelghafour Al-Zawahreh, Faisal Al-Madi (2012). The Utility of Equity Theory in Enhancing 
Organizational Effectiveness. European Journal of Economics, Finance and Administrative Sciences, 46.

5a. Training

Human resources and organizational knowledge are two of the main sources of sustainable competitive advantages for the company (Antonio Arago ́n-Sa ́nchez et al., 2003). 

Any effective company has training in place to make sure employees can perform his or her job.

During the recruitment and selection process, the right person should be hired to begin with. But even the right person may need training in how your company does things.

Lack of training can result in lost productivity, lost customers, and poor relationships between employees and managers. It can also result in dissatisfaction, which means retention problems and high turnover. All these end up being direct costs to the organization.

5.1. Steps to take in training an employee

There are four steps that generally occur: First, the new employee goes through an orientation, And then he or she will receive in-house training on job-specific areas, Next, the employee should be assigned a mentor, And then, as comfort with the job duties grows, he or she may engage in external training.

The research results show that “Training performed inside the company with outside trainers affects several results measurements positively, but on-the-job training influences an even higher number of results positively” (Antonio Arago ́n-Sa ́nchez et al., 2003).

5.1.1. Orientation

Process used for welcoming a new employee into the organization.

Starting a new job can be stressful. One goal of an orientation is to reduce the stress and anxiety people feel when going into an unknown situation. If employees know from the start what the expectations are, they tend to perform better. Likewise, if employees learn the values and attitudes of the organization from the beginning, there is a higher chance of a successful tenure at the company.

A well-done orientation makes for a better prepared employee, which means less time having to teach the employee.

If an orientation is done right, it can help get the employee up to speed on various policies and procedures, so the employee can start working right away. It can also be a way to ensure all hiring paperwork is filled out correctly, so the employee is paid on time.

Employee turnover tends to be higher when employees don?t feel valued or are not given the tools to perform. An employee orientation can show that the organization values the employee and provides tools necessary for a successful entry.

5.1.2. In-house training

In-house training programs are learning opportunities developed by the organization in which they are used. This is usually the second step in the training process and often is ongoing. In-house training programs can be training related to a specific job, such as how to use a particular kind of software. In a manufacturing setting, in-house training might include an employee learning how to use a particular kind of machinery.

5.1.3. Mentoring

A mentor is a trusted, experienced advisor who has direct investment in the development of an employee. A mentor may be a supervisor, but often a mentor is a colleague who has the experience and personality to help guide someone through processes. While mentoring may occur informally, a mentorship program can help ensure the new employee not only feels welcomed but is paired up with someone who already knows the ropes and can help guide the new employee through any on-the-job challenges.

5.1.4. External training

External training includes any type of training that is not performed in-house. This is usually the last step in training, and it can be ongoing. It can include sending an employee to a seminar to help further develop leadership skills or helping pay tuition for an employee who wants to take a marketing class. To be a Ford automotive technician, for example, you must attend the Ford ASSET Program, which is a partnership between Ford Motor Company, Ford dealers, and select technical schools.

5.2. Types of training

These types are usually used in all steps in a training process (orientation, in-house, mentorship, and external training).

5.2.1. Technical training

Type of training meant to teach the new employee the technological aspects of the job. In a retail environment, technical training might include teaching someone how to use the computer system to ring up customers. In a sales position, it might include showing someone how to use the customer relationship management (CRM) system to find new prospects.

5.2.2. Quality training

Quality training refers to familiarizing employees with the means of preventing, detecting, and eliminating non quality items, usually in an organization that produces a product.
Training employees on quality standards, including ISO standards, can give them a competitive advantage. It can result in cost savings in production as well as provide an edge in marketing of the quality-controlled products.

5.2.3. Skills training

Skills training as the things you actually need to know to perform your job. A cashier needs to know not only the technology to ring someone up but what to do if something is priced wrong. This training includes proficiencies needed to actually perform the job.

For example, an administrative assistant might be trained in how to answer the phone, while a salesperson at Best Buy might be trained in assessment of customer needs and on how to offer the customer information to make a buying decision.

5.2.4. Professional training

In some jobs, professional training must be done on an ongoing basis. Professional training is a type of training required to be up to date in one?s own professional field. For example, tax laws change often, and as a result, an accountant for H&R Block must receive yearly professional training on new tax codes.

5.2.5. Team training

Team training is a process that empowers teams to improve decision making, problem solving, and team-development skills to achieve business results. Often this type of training can occur after an organization has been restructured and new people are working together or perhaps after a merger or acquisition.

5.3. Training delivery methods

5.3.1. On-the-job coaching

Refers to an approved person training an employee on the skills necessary to complete tasks. A manager or someone with experience shows the employee how to perform the actual job. The selection of an on-the-job coach can be done in a variety of ways, but usually the coach is selected based on personality, skills, and knowledge. This type of skills training is normally facilitated in-house. The disadvantage of this training revolves around the person delivering the training. If he or she is not a good communicator, the training may not work. Likewise, if this person has ?other things to do,? he or she may not spend as much time required to train the person and provide guidance.

5.3.2. Mentoring

Mentoring is a process by which an employee can be trained and developed by an experienced person. Normally, mentoring is used as a continuing method to train and develop an employee. One disadvantage of this type of training is possible communication style and personality conflict. It can also create overdependence in the mentee or micromanagement by the mentor. This is more different than on-the-job coaching, which tends to be short term and focuses on the skills needed to perform a particular job.

5.3.3. Web-Based Training Delivery

Web-based training delivery has a number of names. It could be called e-learning or Internet-based, computer-based, or technology-based learning. No matter what it is called, any web-based training involves the use of technology to facilitate training.

5.4. Designing a training program

Designing a training program includes 4 steps. Needs assessment, Make training plans, Deliver training program, Measuring effectiveness of training.

Step 1, Needs assessment and learning objectives:

This part of the framework development asks you to consider what kind of training is needed in your organization. We evaluate the organization, workers, and jobs to determine training need.

Step 2, Make training plans:

+ Consideration of learning styles. Learning styles is important to development of training programs.

+ Training method. What is the best method? Is web-based training more appropriate, or should on the job training be used? Most training programs will include a variety of training methods.

+ Budget. How much money do you have to spend on this training?

+ Audience. Who will be part of this training? Do you have a mix of roles, such as accounting people and marketing people?

+ Content. What needs to be taught? How will you sequence the information?

+ Schedule, facility?

Step 3, Deliver training program:

+ Prepare Internal training: List participates, Choose and invite lecturers, Setup facilities, et cetera.

+ Prepare External training: Choose partner for training, Sign contract, et cetera.

+ Communication. How will employees know the training is available to them?

+ Deliver training program.

+ HR managers may need to follow the training process.

Step 4, Measuring effectiveness of training.

Among different models for carrying out training evaluation, Kirkpatrick’s Model can be highlighted.  

This model includes four levels that evaluate respectively four aspects of training. The first level measures workers’ opinion and the degree of satisfaction with the training activity. The second level corresponds to learning evaluation, that is, the extent to which workers have advanced in skills, knowledge or attitude after the training activity. The third level evaluates behaviour, focusing on the changes observed in performance after taking training activities. The fourth and last level evaluates the effects of training on business results: productivity increase, sales increase, cost reduction, quality improvement or decrease in absenteeism rates and labour turnover (Antonio Arago ́n-Sa ́nchez et al., 2003). 

REFERENCES

. Antonio Arago ́n-Sa ́nchez, Isabel Barba-Arago ́n and Raquel Sanz-Valle (2003). Effects of training on business results. Int. J. of Human Resource Management. 14(6) 956–980.

5b. Development

HRD is concerned with organized series of learning activities!

Succession planning is a human development technique that can develop future leaders for the organization and encourage employees to participate in learning and development opportunities. Luna (2012) defined succession planning as “a long-term systemic process of determining goals, needs, and roles within an organization and preparing individuals or employee groups for responsibilities relative to work needed within an organization”. When organizations invest in their employees, employees will focus their efforts to achieve organizational goals. Succession planning relates to employee performance (Zulqurnain Ali et al., 2019). 

REFERENCES

. Zulqurnain Ali, Babak Mahmood, Aqsa Mehreen (2019). Linking succession planning to employee performance: The mediating roles of career development and performance appraisal. Australian Journal of Career Development. 28(2): 112–121. 

6. Performance appraisal

A performance evaluation system is a systematic way to examine how well an employee is performing in his or her job. Performance evaluations can also be called performance appraisals, performance assessments, or employee appraisals.

Performance appraisal is one of the most important processes in human resource management, because it has a great effect on both the financial and program components of any organization. 

One of the basic and major needs in any organization is to evaluate its employee’s performance contiguously and continually to find out whether they improve or not and know their situation in organization. Employees want to know how well they perform on their jobs (Mostafa Jafari et al., 2009). 

Performance appraisal purpose. Ratings collected for administrative purposes would be more lenient than ratings collected for research or developmental purposes (Paul E. Levy and Jane R. Williams, 2004).

Performance appraisal refers to a formal process, which occurs infrequently, by which employees are evaluated by some judge (typically a supervisor) who assesses the employee’s performance along a given set of dimensions, assigns a score to that assessment, and then usually informs the employee of his or her formal rating. Performance management refers to the wide variety of activities, policies, procedures, and interventions designed to help employees to improve their performance. These programs begin with performance appraisals but also include feedback, goal setting, and training, as well as reward systems. Performance ratings are usually obtained from supervisors, but other sources might be used (peers, supervisors, and subordinates) (Angelo S. DeNisi, and Kevin R. Murphy, 2017).

A real effort experiment is investigated in which supervisors have to rate the performance of individual workers who in turn receive a bonus payment based on these ratings. Organizations frequently use subjective appraisals to evaluate substantial parts of an employees’ job performance. While this may strengthen the setting of incentives as more facets of job performance are evaluated, the opposite may be true when supervisors bias the evaluations according to personal preferences (Johannes Berger et al., 2010). 

6.1. Performance appraisal methods

Absolute Standards tactic: This means that employees compare to a standard, and their evaluation is independent of any other employee in a week group. The graphic rating scale is the most commonly used method. 

Relative Standards tactic: individuals are compared against other individuals. These methods are relative standards rather than absolute measuring device. The most popular of the relative method are individual ranking and paired comparison. 

6.1.1. Graphic Rating Scale

The graphic rating scale, a behavioral method, is perhaps the most popular choice for performance evaluations. This type of evaluation lists traits required for the job and asks the source to rate the individual on each attribute.

6.1.2. Essay Appraisal

In an essay appraisal, the source answers a series of questions about the employee?s performance in essay form. This can be a trait method and/or a behavioral method, depending on how the manager writes the essay. These statements may include strengths and weaknesses about the employee or statements about past performance.

6.1.3. Ranking Methods

Employees in a particular department are ranked based on their value to the manager or supervisor. This system is a comparative method for performance evaluations. The manager will have a list of all employees and will first choose the most valuable employee and put that name at the top. Then he or she will choose the least valuable employee and put that name at the bottom of the list. With the remaining employees, this process would be repeated. Obviously, there is room for bias with this method, and it may not work well in a larger organization, where managers may not interact with each employee on a day-to-day basis.

6.1.4. Management by Objectives (MBO)

First, the manager and employee sit down together and develop objectives for the time period. Then when it is time for the performance evaluation, the manager and employee sit down to review the goals that were set and determine whether they were met.

To write objectives, they should be SMART:

Specific. There should be one key result for each MBO. What is the result that should be achieved?

Measurable. At the end of the time period, it should be clear if the goal was met or not. Usually a number can be attached to an objective to make it measurable, for example ?sell $1,000,000 of new business in the third quarter.?

Attainable. The objective should not be impossible to attain. It should be challenging, but not impossible.

Result oriented. The objective should be tied to the company?s mission and values. Once the objective is made, it should make a difference in the organization as a whole.

Time limited. The objective should have a reasonable time to be accomplished, but not too much time.

Method for examining the effectiveness of performance appraisal systems, which consists of three main measurement criteria, i.e., utilization (purposefulness), qualitative (fairness), and quantitative (accuracy) (Iqbal MZ et al., 2019). 

REFERENCES

. Angelo S. DeNisi, Kevin R. Murphy (2017). Performance Appraisal and Performance Management: 100 Years of Progress?. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102 (3): 421–433. Doi: 10.1037/apl0000085.supp.

 . Iqbal MZ, Akbar S, Budhwar P (2019) Effectiveness of Performance Appraisal: Evidence on the Utilization Criteria. Journal of Business Research. 101: 285-299. 

. Johannes Berger, Christine Harbring, Dirk Sliwka (2010). Performance Appraisals and the Impact of Forced Distribution: An Experimental Investigation. IZA Discussion Paper No. 5020. 

. Mostafa Jafari, Atieh Bourouni, Roozbeh Hesam Amiri (2009). A New Framework for Selection of the Best Performance Appraisal Method. European Journal of Social Sciences, 7 (3). 

. Paul E. Levy, Jane R. Williams (2004). The Social Context of Performance Appraisal: A Review and Framework for the Future. Journal of Management. 30(6): 881–905. 

6.2. Designing a Performance Appraisals program

The introduction of a performance measurement system is based on a three-stage process: design, implementation and use (Panagiotis et al., 2011).

Design stage

The balanced scorecard is one of the most popular approaches developed in the field of performance measurement (Panagiotis et al., 2011). BSC is a strategic management tool, it illustrates the linkage between measures and strategies. From the research of Bruce Gurd, and Tian Gao (2008). The BSC is a conceptual tool, and the four perspectives were never considered as a “strait-jacket”. Most organizations modified the four perspectives according to their institution’s current conditions and different understanding. Most users modified the four perspectives according to their institution’s current conditions and different understanding.

Financial: How should we appear to our shareholders?

Customer: How should we appear to our customers?

Internal business processes: What processes must we excel at?

Learning and growth: How can we sustain our ability to change and improve?

Customer: retention,  contracts renewed, new contracts per period, market share, satisfaction, …
Learning and growth: training times, skills and knowledge, … Some of the measures occurred in different perspectives. For example, customer satisfaction can be used in the customer
perspective and the internal process perspective.

The measures or indicators you select should best represent the factors that lead to improved products, operational, and financial performance.

Step 1: The first step in the process is to determine how often performance appraisals should be given. The advantage to giving an evaluation twice per year, of course, is more feedback and opportunity for employee development. The downside is the time it takes for the manager to write the evaluation and discuss it with the employee. If done well, it could take several hours for just one employee. Depending on your organization?s structure, you may choose one or the other. For example, if most of your managers have five or ten people to manage (this is called span of control), it might be worthwhile to give performance evaluations more than once per year, since the time cost isn?t high.

Step 2: Determining who should evaluate the performance of the employee is the next decision. It could be their direct manager (most common method), subordinates, customers or clients, self, and/or peers.

Step 3: Choice the right method

Step 4: Set the target

6.3. Performance Appraisal Error

The ‘Halo Effect’ (Guilford,1954) is the result of an assessment which is based on one specific criterion that distorts the assessment of others. 

REFERENCES

. Bruce Gurd, and Tian Gao (2008). Lives in the balance: an analysis of the balanced scorecard (BSC) in healthcare organizations. International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management Vol. 57 No. 1, pp. 6-21.

. Robert S. Kaplan (2012). The balanced scorecard: comments on balanced scorecard commentaries. Journal of Accounting & Organizational Change Vol. 8 No. 4.

7. HR Plan

I. Definition

When you make an HR plan, you  predict our workforce demand. Simply, you are going to answer the question “How many workers do we need at a particular time?”. For example, this year you need 10 workers, next year you need 15 workers. Some HR plans may include action plans, for example, we need 10 more workers so we are going to hire 10 workers.

More example: This year we need 44 salesman and 4 managers, next year we need 50 salesman and 5 manager and so on.

	This year	Next year
Salesman	44	50
Manager	4	5

Manpower planning: How many employees should be recruited annually?

II. Process

If you want to estimate your workforce demands, you may follow the activities below.

1^st, You should know about your company goals. Your company may make goods, or provide services to customers. When you make your HR plan, you should know about the quality and quantity of your company’s product or services.

When you Quality research, you are going to answer the following question. “What kind of products will we make?”, and/or “What kind of services will we provide to your customer?”.

When you do Quantity research, you should know about your production/sale plan, and you are going to answer the following question. “How many products will we make at a particular time?”, and/or “How many customers will we serve at a particular time?”, and/or “What is our expected revenue”. For instance: You are going to make 1.2M products this month. 

2^nd, You should identify the qualifications of every worker. You should know about your workers’ abilities. Simply, you are going to answer the question “How many products a worker can make per time period (day/month/year)?”. For example, after conducting your research, you find that a worker can make 1000 products per day. 

After you conduct two activities, you can predict your workforce demand. You can use a very simple formula, it is Workload/worker’s ability.

For example, You are going to make 40 000 products this month (1.2M products/30 days = 40 000 products). Because one worker can make 1000 products/day, We need 40 workers (40 000/1000).

3rd, GAP analysis. Normally, your company has some workers. For instance, your company has 30 workers. We need 40 workers, we need 10 more workers (We need to hire 10 more workers, it does mean that we will. We may train our workers).

Sometimes, you have more workers than you need. For instance, You already have 50 workers, but you just need 40 workers (from your prediction) . Sometimes you need 40 workers, and you also have 40 workers.

III. Workforce Estimate Methods

There are so many methods to calculate current and future human resources needs. Some people calculate based on worker output and marketing plan. Others calculate based on chronological data. 

a. Calculate based on worker output and marketing plan

We can predict our workforce demand based on our marketing plan. Normally, a marketing plan includes the production (or sale) plan. When we read the marketing plan we can answer the question “How many products will we make?’ or “How many customers will we serve?”.

Examples.

– You work for a production company. This year, your company is going to make 100 products per day. You know that one worker can make 10 products, so you need 100/10 = 10 workers.

– You work for a retail company. This year, your company is going to serve 200 customers per day. You know that one worker can serve 50 customers, so you need 200/50 = 4 workers.

– You work for a service company. This year, your expected revenue is 5B.

You know that revenue per employee is 500M , so you need 5B/0.5B = 10 workers

More example:

– Business demand: This year, we want to sell 660 millions.

– Worker output: Each worker can sale average 15 millions

– The human resource needs equal 660/ 15 = 44.

– The human resource need: 44 workers.

Marketing plan shows us the business demand over the years, so we can calculate the worker demands each year.

From marketing plan, we can predict future human resources needs.

Year	1	2	3	4	5
Business demand	660	759	986	1973	2565
Salesman	44	50	66	132	171

b. Calculate based on chronological data. 

We use regression to predict time series. By using a statistical model, we can estimate worker demand. 

Year	Worker
2012	7210
2013	7287
2014	7291
2015	7312
2016	7348

From the data table above, we can find the association between labor demand and time. The equation (y = 30.1x – 53332) predict the labour demand each year. 

IV. Make HR plan for Big company

From the example above, you should know that you have just made HR plans for very small companies. A small company just has the owner and worker, so the workforce planning process is very simple. If you make a HR plan for a big company, you can make your HR plan for individual departments and then combine them together.

If you make an HR plan for a big organization, you can follow the process below. 

1^st Drawing organization’s structure.

2^nd, Estimated workforce demand for individual departments.

3^rd, Drawing replacement charts.

4^th, Make an HR Plan for individual departments.

5^th, Make an HR plan.

6^th, Make an action plan (if any).

Human resource management system

Electronic performance monitoring (EPM) systems are electronic technologies used to observe, record, and analyze information on employee performance. More frequent supervisory use of EPM is associated with better task performance and OCB (Devasheesh P. Bhave, 2014). Early forms of electronic monitoring include telephone call, computer time accounting, cards to monitor locations, computer file monitoring, screen sharing, video camera (Alder et al., 1997). Since 2000, dramatic advances in information technologies have created an environment in which organizations are able to monitor employees to a greater extent and with greater intensity than was previously possible. For example, portable devices, such as smartphones, capable of collecting large amounts of personal and behavioral data about employees, are ubiquitous today but did not exist in 2000 (Daniel et al., 2020).

Electronic performance support systems (EPSS) is a method to enable human performance through just-in-time learning and task support. This system deliver relevant support information to users while they are performing tasks.The study suggests that provid- ing any kind of EPSS to support task performance is better than having none at all (Frank et al., 2005).

Balanced Scorecard: The measures are a balance between external measures for customers and shareholders and internal measures of business processes, innovation and learning and growth.  The number of software packages for scorecard on the market was growing and exceeds 100 today (Meena Chavan, 2009). Design techniques used for the development of a balanced scorecard are rather poor (Panagiotis et al., 2011).

Electronic recruitment and selection: Nikolaou, I. (2021) discuss the four stages of the recruitment and selection process. The four stages include attraction stage (on-line/internet recruitment and social networking websites), the screening stage (cyber vetting and applicant tracking systems), employee selection stage (asynchronous/digital interview and gamification/games-based assessment), on-boarding and socialization stage. 

HR Statistic

Regression analysis is a statistical tool for the investigation of relationships between variables. Multiple regression analysis deals with an arbitrarily large number of explanatory variables. 

Multiple regression analysis is a statistical tool for understanding the relationship between two or more variables. Multiple regression involves a variable to be explained (dependent variable), and additional independent variable that are thought to produce or be associated with changes in the dependent variable. Multiple regression typically uses a single dependent variable and several explanatory variables (Daniel L. Rubinfeld). 

Normally, data collect through a structured questionnaire. Likert scales are the most broadly used method for scaling responses in survey studies. 

Using the descriptive analysis, frequency and arithmetic mean of the analyzed, demographic information was analyzed after it was collected for statistical analysis. Analysis of all variables and indicators was from the data collected. After that, the researcher conducts a test of the hypotheses.

Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) is used to test how well the measured variables represent the number of constructs (Yousef Alsafadi, and Shadi Altahat, 2021). 

The reliability and validity of the model is tested. The beta values for variables show the relationship between independent and dependent variables. 

For instance, Yi-Shun Wang (2007) validates a multidimensional model for assessing e-commerce systems success. The validated model consists of six dimensions: Information Quality, System Quality, Service Quality, Perceived Value, User Satisfaction and Intention to Reuse. The author found that Reuse is affected by Perceived Value and User Satisfaction, which, in turn, are influenced by Information Quality, System Quality and Service Quality. Andreas Muller (2002) tested whether the relation between income inequality and mortality found in US states is because of different levels of formal education. 

Scatter plots and Pearson’s correlation analyses can be used to analyse bivariate relationships between the considered variables. The t-test can be used to assess the statistical significance of differences variables.

– R² statistic is a measure of the extent to which the total variation of the dependent variable is explained by the regression. A high value of R², suggesting that the regression model explains the variation in the dependent variable well (Alan, 1993). 

For instance, The analysis showed that specific factors (system quality, service quality and information quality) affected IHRM success (Duangta Duangekanong, 2020).