Question 1: Explain the qualities associated with human resources that help an organization gain a sustainable competitive advantage?
The most important driving force in a business operation are the 4 Ps which include product, place, promotion and price. Human resource forms a great pillar in determining the successful combination of the same. For a business to be successful, it must have favorable human resource qualities that not only drive the organization towards its mission but also participate in joint development. The following qualities of human resource can help a company to gain a sustainable competitive advantage. Employing highly skilled human capital is a priority fact that can help the firm to attain an image advantage in the market competition. Such qualities help the firm to produce superior goods and eventually charge premium prices that meet the consumers’ tastes in the market. The firm enjoys the advantage of superior goods in the market venture and has the potential to maximize profit
Operationally effective human capital is another quality that allows the firm to develop a very strong internal operation culture. For example, having employees who are time conscious, who effectively meet their deadlines and achieve their targets can help the firm to incur very low cost in internal management.
The other quality involve cost effective human capital. These are those human resources derived from the pool of independent and or the offshore sources. They serve as a first option in profit maximization. This quality helps the firm to plan in terms of minimizing the production cost to maximize their profits in a sustainable platform. This contributes directly to the profitability of a firm’s operation since they can control the cost at a lower costs at higher profits.
Moreover, creativity and innovation in human capital is the most important quality that most organizations thrive by. Innovative and creative individuals are solution providers. They develop lucrative ideas and strategic plans for the organizations in the market. These give the organization a competitive advantage of developing new products in the most sustainable way possible. This gives platform for the employees to come with their own ideas in getting things done in the perfect way possible. Every firm fights hard to achieve a workforce that work towards completion of job in the most effective. This can only be achieved by encouraging creativity and innovation among the employees.
Question 2: Explain what method an organization can employ to design jobs with a view of
Job design can be defined as the work arrangement of the employees that help to reduce or completely overcome the element of job dissatisfaction and alienation that result from repetitive work. For proper management of human resource and productive utilization of the capital at dispensation, the work design must be human friendly. Jobs should be designed efficiently and help motivate the employees. The following designs are found to be the most effective for market maximum efficiency.
Job rotation should be applied. This is the act of assigning the employees various jobs in various departments over a period of time. This helps to avoid overstretching where the work involves physical activity. It also helps educate the employees on various job duties. The shifts help the employees to understand what is involved in the duty of different job demands. It is also equally important to train the managers on different job duties through the rotations to help them familiarize with every type of work in the firm for recruitment advantage.
The other design is job enrichment. This technique involves the idea of adding tasks to employees to increase their levels of responsibility in the line of duty. It helps to attract, motivate and retain employees, especially where the work is normally repetitive and boring. The application of this technique makes the job more satisfying and motivating. For example, assigning a secretary the task of sanitary supervision will not only motivates the employee, but also satisfy them by making them feel appreciated.
In addition, companies may employ the technique of job enlargement which involve combining various activities at the same level to an existing job category. The idea here helps the firm to expand the scope of the job. It has the advantage in incorporating a variety of skills, improve earning capacities and provide a wide range of activities to the employees.
Quetsion 3: What are internal are external sources of recruitment? What are the advantages and disadvantages of using these sources?
Recruitment is the act of bringing in new employees. It is the most challenging aspect of human resource management. The search for a new candidate to feel a post may be overwhelming based on how the information is to be delivered and who is to be considered. There are several sources of recruitment that can arise from within the organization to the external sources.
Internal sources include acts of promoting an employee who is already on payroll to higher ranking. It also involves transfers from one department to another within the organization. Other sources within the organization may include demotion of employees from higher ranks to lower ranks due to perhaps performance evaluation or gross misconduct. There can also be sourced from the present employees, where a notification is done and the management looks for prospective candidate from within the present employees.
These sources have the advantage of improved morale among the employees. They also boost the loyalty in employment. Moreover, they reduced on the cost of technical training since the employee is already familiar with the work setups. In addition the sources help to minimize errors and not make hasty decisions. Lastly, they help in self-development among the employees.
However, these sources may have the following limitations. It discourages capable and competitive individuals from outside, from joining. It may also not bring forth creative and innovative candidates into the firm. Criteria used may be biased and the candidate may suit the requirements.
The other source is from the external sources. These include: advertisement, employment exchange, schools, colleges and universities, it also includes recommendations from the existing employees, casual gates, among others. These have the following advantages. The availability of a new candidate is guaranteed, it brings in new ideas and also economical.
However, external sources have the following limitations: new members normally tend to be demoralized, there is an element of lack of co-operation, the process is also expensive and there can be maladjustments.
Question 4: Define types of rating errors, and explain how to minimize them.
In the work context, individuals are likely to make mistakes whenever they rate performance. Performance is a key factor in duty execution. No work can be done when there is no performance. Performance rating is the act of understanding the level of job execution. The following errors might occur while rating employees’ performance at the workplace.
Contrast errors. This occurs where the rater tends to compare individual to other employees not based on the objective standards but on other merits. This may be biased on evaluation in performance standards
Secondly, distribution errors which include evaluation on part of the job may occur, for instance where the employee is evaluated based on final cash sales turn over without looking at the long term spread turnovers and consistency.
The third error may involve the leniency error where the rater tends to put everyone near the top rank. The topmost post is used as the reference in the scale.
Strictness is also another error that many raters commit, here they tend to favor lower ranks in the job hierarchy. Though the rater biases occurs everywhere, the most commonly committed errors involve the halo error where the rater bias is in a favorable direction, it may allow the employees to commit gross misconducts in their duty of performance. The other common bias is the horns error where the rater results is all about negatives. All these errors can be avoided through critical evaluation and job appraisal processes.
Question 5: How do employees judge the fairness of a pay structure?
Employees are the most part of an organization's success. Their compensation structure is the driving force in their code of action. They view payment in terms of wages, salaries, bonuses and other compensation as very important. The policies towards these are the main concern. Employees to be more concern with the level of compensation in comparison to others and the work done.
The main tool that most employees use is the equity of fairness. Their compensation is judged from the aspects of job structure where they look at the relative pays for different jobs and how they are paid. More paying jobs tend to be more attractive, but limited to the amount and quality of work demands. This may looked into as an advance view of fairness equity.
The other aspect is on the pay level. Employees normally judge compensation based on averages paid by different organizations based on their wage levels, salaries and bonuses. Several queries may linger in the minds of the employees based on the amounts received as compensation.
Moreover, they also look into the structure of the job done at the workplace. The relative range of jobs is looked into with the relative range of payments in different organization. This determine their internal equity in movement and attitudes at the workplace
Question 6: Explain what job withdrawal is and discuss the four types of conditions that leads up to it.
Withdrawal is the act of disengaging or losing interest or lacking incitement in the official duties assigned to an individual in the workplace. Withdrawal is a very common but undiscovered act whose origin may not be well known to the employee at any given time. It is normally manifested in both physical acts and psychological states of the employees. These syndromes can result from innocent acts of the employee in lateness, absenteeism, turnover or laziness. These are normally the four main causes of withdrawal at the work place.
The limited research in the field proves that lateness can be an important pointer to the fact that the employee has disengaged with the duties of the company. Chances are likely that the company has the potential to suffer the severe impact of the withdrawal. These individuals will tend to come late to work occasionally then it becomes a routine.
Absenteeism is the other physical cause of withdrawal. The employees get out of touch from the work environment. Whenever they come back, they always find it hard to catch up with the other colleagues. Further, the work environment may also prove not familiar to them.
