Human Resource Management Revision Flashcards

Flashcards covering key concepts from the Human Resource Management revision notes.

Economic Challenges & Competitiveness in HRM

HRM must add value to organizations and employees through finding talented people, training them cost-effectively, resolving conflict, and establishing effective service delivery processes.

Impact of Technology on the Workforce

Technology has both positive and negative impacts on the workforce, requiring HRM to adapt policies and processes.

Influence of Change on Workforce Expectations

Workforce expectations are changing, with increased emphasis on flexibility and new demands from employees.

Engaging Employees and Managers

HRM needs to integrate itself into the business and adjust policies to effectively engage both employees and managers.

Diversity in South Africa

Diversity encompasses race, gender, sexual orientation, language, and multiple intelligences, presenting both opportunities and challenges for HRM.

Skills Development

HRM must focus on developing the right skills and providing appropriate development opportunities to address skills shortages.

South Africa’s Competitiveness Challenges

South Africa faces challenges including declining government efficiency, deteriorating education, high youth unemployment, corruption, and a lack of skills.

Paradox of High Unemployment and Skills Shortage

Despite high unemployment, there is a significant skills shortage due to economic conditions, market forces, high wages from collective bargaining, and a mismatch between skills and market demands.

Strategies for Employee Retention

Retaining employees with scarce skills involves recognizing their value, acknowledging retention problems, setting goals, profiling top performers, and creating open communication and competitive compensation.

Employment Relations Landscape in SA

The employment relations landscape requires ongoing dialogue and negotiation among government, employers, trade unions, and employees, with a focus on constructive relationships and conflict resolution skills.

Contingency Employment

Contingency employment involves contract, temporary, seasonal, and casual employees. Legislation changes have been made to protect these vulnerable workers and ensure fair employment practices.

Ethics in HRM

Ethics involves a set of personal, professional, and corporate standards that guide behavior to ensure fair and just outcomes. Ethical leadership is fair, principled, and genuine.

Corporate Governance

Corporate governance is the exercise of ethical and effective leadership towards achieving an ethical culture, effective control, legitimacy, and good performance.

Creating an Ethical Organization

Creating an ethical organization involves promoting ethical leadership, developing a Code of Ethics, conducting ethics audits, providing ethics training, and offering mechanisms for whistleblowing.

Diversity in HRM

Diversity includes ethnicity, culture, age, religion, gender, disability, and background. HRM must create equity in the workplace, comply with the EE Act, and ensure fair and non-discriminatory policies.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Challenges in HRM

AI presents challenges such as ethical concerns (transparency, security, fairness), job displacement, data accuracy, and the potential for incorrect decision-making.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Opportunities in HRM

AI offers opportunities to automate repetitive tasks, enhance strategic applications, improve recruitment and onboarding, and optimize performance management and employee engagement.

COVID-19 Impact on HRM

COVID-19 led to flexible work arrangements, remote vs hybrid work models, increased focus on employee psychological stress, and ensuring employment and compensation.

Remote vs Hybrid Work

Remote work involves working from home, while hybrid work is a blend of working from the office and from home.

Organisational Structure

Organisational structure refers to the formal definition of tasks, jobs, work units, people, and resources, and the relationships between them.

Departmentalisation

Departmentalisation is the grouping of related functions into manageable units, such as by function, process, product, market, customer, or geographic area.

Business Partner Model

The business partner model involves shared services, Centers of Excellence (CoEs), HR business partners, and HR leadership teams.

Mechanistic Organisational Structure

A mechanistic organisation has centralized authority, divisions between departments, and specialized roles that work independently.

Organic Organisational Structure

An organic organisation is flexible, adapts well to changes, and has little job specialization, few layers of management, and decentralized decision-making.

Role of Professional Bodies

Professional bodies are non-profit organizations that further a particular profession and the interests of individuals and the public in general by providing CPD, publishing articles, networking, and setting a Code of Conduct.

Professional Bodies in South Africa

In South Africa, key professional bodies in HR include the Institute of People Management (IPM) and the South African Board for People Practices (SABPP).

SABPP Integrity

Integrity is promoted by SABPP through honesty, objectivity, fairness of judgement, consistency of action and loyalty to the profession.