HR Management Mid-term

Human Resource Management

• The policies practices, & systems that influence employee's’ behavior, attitudes, and performance

Ethics

• fundamental principles of right and wrong

- ethics can often be in the eye of the beholder

Ethical Behavior: Behavior that is consistent with those principles

Causes of Unethical Behavior

• pressure from a supervisor

• overvaluing outcomes

• reward systems that incentivize bad behavior

• Perceptions of no consequences for ‘crossing the line’

• A personal motivation to perform

Dealing with Unethical behavior

•It’s business, treat it that way – provide data to present a convincing argument against the unethical conduct

•Accept that confronting ethical concerns is part of your job.

•Challenge the rationale.

•Use your lack of seniority or status as an asset.

•Consider and explain long-term consequences.

•Provide an alternative course of solution, not just a complaint

Standards for Identifying Ethical Practices

• Greatest good for the greatest number of people

• Fair and Equitable

• Respect for basic human rights 

Ethical Behavior and Organizational Behavior

• written code of ethics and standards of conduct 

• employee training on ethical behavior 

• advice to employees on ethical situations 

• Confidential reporting of ethical problems 

Example of Ethical behavior

• Enron Corporation

- in 2001 Accounting fraud uncovered 

- filed for bankruptcy; by 2006 had sold off all assets

Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX)

• Reduce the likelihood of illegal and unethical behaviors by:

- Having a written code of ethics and conduct standards

- Providing ethical behavior training and advice

- Establishing confidential reporting systems for ethical misconduct

- Providing whistle-blower protection

- Supporting HR’s role as “keeper and voice” of organizational ethics

A point of clarity for laws

•First: Against the law = Punishable

- Against the law =/ Not Done

- Laws are for deterrence and justice

•Second: Punishable =/ Always Punished

- Someone has to say something, do something, and others have to agree

•Third: There is a Surprising Amount of Gray Area

Wording and Timing Matter

What does Illegal mean? 

• for most jobs, excluding the voluntary demographic data that some organizations may collect for non-hiring purposes, it would be illegal for them to make a hiring decision based on this criterion

Equal Employment Opportunity

• Makes it illegal to discriminate against a job applicant or an employee because of the protected category 

• The condition in which all individuals have an equal chance for employment, regardless of their race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, or national origin

- sex includes sex assigned at birth (biological sex), gender identity, transgender status, or sexual orientation

Protected Category

• A group identified for protection under various state and federal laws and regulations 

•Race, ethnic origin, color

•Sex/gender 

•Age

•Disability 

•Military experience

•Religion

•Marital status

•Sexual orientation

Disparate Treatment happens when: 

• Different standards are used to judge different individuals, or the same standard is used, but it is not related to the individuals’ jobs

Unlawful retaliation

•In addition, It is unlawful to retaliate for…

- communicating with a supervisor or manager about employment discrimination, including harassment

- answering questions during an employer investigation of alleged harassment

- filing or being a witness in an EEO charge, complaint, investigation, or lawsuit

- resisting sexual advances, or intervening to protect others

- refusing to follow orders that would result in discrimination

- Requesting accommodations related to EEOC protected categories

Social Security number 

• Most likely just in bad taste – often common during a background check or second part of the application process

Sometimes applications ask for protected categories

• •In theory then, the optional reporting demographic data is never seen on an individual basis with a specific application

  •So in theory, they are trying to reduce the likelihood that discrimination occurs. Up to you to decide how you feel about this information now that I’ve given it to you.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

• Title VII ensures that employment opportunities would be based on character or ability rather than on race

• prohibits employers from discriminating against individuals because of their race, color, religion, sex, or national origin

The Civil Rights Act of 1991

—Requires employers to show that an employment practice is job related for the position and is consistent with business necessity

—Allows people who have been targets of intentional discrimination based on sex, religion, or disability to receive both compensatory and punitive damages.

Pertinent Laws/Acts

•The Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) of 1978

- Requires that any employer with 15 or more employees treat maternity leave the same as other personal or medical leaves.

•Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) of 1993

- Requires that individuals be given up to 12 weeks of family leave without pay and also requires that those taking family leave be allowed to return to jobs.

Equal Pay Act 1963

•The Equal Pay Act requires that men and women in the same workplace be given equal pay for equal work. The jobs need not be identical, but they must be substantially equal. Job content (not job titles) determines whether jobs are substantially equal

•Allowable differences in pay:

1.Differences in seniority

2.Differences in performance

3.Differences in quality and/or quantity
of production

4.Factors other than sex, such as skill, effort, and working conditions

• Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 evolved out of a lack of teeth on this law / loophole / poor wording. 2009!

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

• •A person with disability is someone who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits life activities, who has a record of such impairment, or who is regarded as having such an impairment

• The law forbids discrimination when it comes to any aspect of employment, including hiring, firing, pay, job assignments, promotions, layoff, training, fringe benefits, and any other term or condition of employment

• an employer can ask whether they can perform the job and how they would perform the job, with or without a reasonable accommodation. However, you CANNOT ask if a person has a disability and the nature of that disability. Once an offer of employment is extended, employers can have applicant answer certain medical questions or pass a medical exam, but only if it is required of all new employees in the same type of job and it is reasonably job related

Reasonable Accommodation

• an employer’s obligation to do something to enable an otherwise qualified person to perform a job 

ADA and Job Requirements

Reasonable Accommodation

• Essential Job function

- fundamental job duties of the employment position that an individual with a disability holds or desires 

• Undue hardship 

- significant difficulty or expense imposed on an employer in making an accommodation for individuals with disabilities 

Common means of reasonable accommodations 

• Modified work schedules

• Special equipment

• Job restructuring 

• Job reassignment 

• Employer-Provided Assistance 

Age Discrimination in Employment (ADEA)

•Prohibits employment discrimination against all individuals age 40 or older working for employers having 20 or more workers.

- Does not apply if age is a job-related qualification (BFOQ).

Example: Some Police Departments won’t have new recruits over the age of 50 or even 45; Airline Pilots

Example: Lockheed Martin age discrimination against Robert Braden

What did companies do to get over the Age Discrimination? 

• they just lay off a large amount of employees at once and then claim it was part of an organizational restructuring

Older Workers Benefit Protection Act (OWBPA)

• An amendment to the ADEA aimed at protecting older employees

- When laying off a number of employees, employer is required to release ages of employees who were terminated as well as those that were retained

- Give older workers the same amount of benefit payments as younger workers (some specific rules on this as well beyond what you need to know)

- If they make an agreement of waiving legal rights for a severance package, have 7 days to revoke the acceptance

• Language in the waiver must be easily understood, other legal reporting restrictions

Religious Acts 

•Religious discrimination involves treating a person (an applicant or employee) unfavorably because of his or her religious beliefs.

- The law protects NOT only people who belong to traditional, organized religions, but also others who have sincerely held religious, ethical or moral beliefs

- The law requires an employer or other covered entity to reasonably accommodate an employee’s religious beliefs or practices, unless doing so would cause more than a minimal burden on the operations of the employer's business

Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008

• Employers may not use genetic information in making decision related to terms, conditions, or privileges of employment

  -Includes a person’s genetic tests, genetic test of the person’s family members, and family medical histories

  -Forbids unintentional collection of this data

  -Forbids harassment of employee because of genetic information

Military Status Laws

• Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA)

- prohibits civilian employers from discriminating against you based on your present, past, and future military service*

- *Seems to be limited coverage if dishonorable discharge

• It also entitles service members, such as National Guard members and reservists, who leave their civilian employment to perform covered military service to prompt reemployment with their pre-service employer following the completion of their duty.  

(General Advice): You can ask if someone served in the military. You can ask for dates of employment. You could choose to ask for the type of discharge BUT I’d recommend it have a valid business reason.

Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974

• Prohibits federal contractors and subcontractors from discriminating in employment against protected veterans and requires employers take affirmative action to recruit, hire, promote, and retain these individuals.  This protection against discrimination extends not only to spouses, but also to other individuals that the contractor knows have a relationship or association with a protected veteran

Affirmative Action

• An organization’s active effort to find opportunities to hire or promote people in a particular group

Felony laws

•Hawaii actually started it in 1998, though California Fair Chance Act (Ban the Box) made it famous – somewhere around 37 states or so at this point – Not Arkansas, but Little Rock and Pulaski County have for public employers in the city, and recently Pine Bluff as well – that is, that employers cannot request criminal record information until a conditional job offer has been made

Sexual Harassment

• refers to workplace conduct of a sexual nature, including sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other contact of a sexual nature, whether verbal (such as jokes) or physical (such as grabbing or kissing)

• unwelcome sexual advances as defined by the EEOC 

Quid Pro Quo harassment 

• a person makes a benefit (or punishment) contingent on an employee’s submitting to (or rejecting) sexual advances

Hostile working environment

• occurs when someone’s behavior in the workplace creates an environment in which it is difficult for someone of a particular sex to work

Job Analysis

• a systematic way of gathering and analyzing information about the content, context, and the human requirements of jobs

• the idea of figuring out exactly what someone does. This ultimately leads to things like a job description and helps us comply with EEOC considerations and assists us in selection

•That job analysis told us the key components of the jobs, the knowledge/skills/abilities we’d need that person to have.

- We used that job analysis to create our job description.

Importance of Job Analysis

• As a reminder, ultimately, we use those job analyses to construct job descriptions so we can recruit…

Job Description

• List of the tasks, duties, and responsibilities (TDRs) that a job entails

Job Analysis Methods

• Observation 

- work sampling

- Employee Diary/Log

• Interviewing 

- Standardized interviews

- Panel interviews 

• Questionnaires

- PAQ (position analysis questionnaire)

- MPDQ

• Computerized Systems

What is a PAQ? What is its purpose? 

• Position Analysis Questionnaire

- A standardized job analysis questionnaire containing 195 questions about work behaviors, work conditions, and job characteristics that apply to a wide variety of jobs

• Purpose? 

- Using the PAQ provides an organization with information that helps compare jobs. Also, has the advantage that it considers the whole work process, from inputs through outputs. 

Job Enrichment

• Empowering workers by adding more decision-making authority to jobs 

How can you enrich jobs?

• might include giving employees the authority to stop production when quality standards are not being met; having each employee perform several tasks to complete a particular stage of the process; or giving employees the authority to resolve customer problems

Job Design

• the process of defining how work will be performed and what tasks will be required in a given job

Job Enlargement

• broadening the types of tasks performed in a job

Job extension

• enlarging jobs by combining several relatively simple jobs to form a job with a wider range of tasks

Ex: combining jobs of receptionist, typist, and file clerk into jobs containing all three kinds of work

Job rotation

• enlarging jobs by moving employees among several different jobs

Herzberg’s two factor theory (Motivation-Hygiene Theory) 

• Individuals are motivated more by the intrinsic aspects of work (ex: the meaningfulness of a job) than by extrinsic rewards, such as pay

Motivating jobs factors: achievement, recognition, growth, responsibility, and performance of the entire job

Legal Aspects of Job Analysis

•Job Analysis and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

•Essential job functions—fundamental duties of the job that are performed regularly, require significant amounts of time, cannot be easily assigned to another employee, and are necessary to accomplish the job.

- Percentage of time spent on tasks

- Frequency of tasks done

- Importance of tasks performed

•Marginal job functions—duties that are part of the job but are incidental or ancillary to the purpose and nature of the job.

Recruiting

• Process of generating a pool of qualified applicants for organizational jobs

- arguably the most important function of HR

Importance of Recruiting

• Seeks to improve workforce quality for competitive advantage

Cost of recruiting→ quality of recruited candidate «— cost of unfilled jobs 

Labor market components: labor force population→ applicant population → applicant pool → Individuals selected

Reputation is a key component of applicants/applications

Ex: Google receives thousands of applicants because of reputation

Recruitment Methods

• Television ads, radio ads, billboards, newspaper ads, “help wanted” posters…

  •One that is particularly interesting (and used by many) is the Internet

- So if you’re HR – what should you do? Try to ensure that your company website is easy to navigate, well-put together, etc.

- Increased efficiency / reduced costs

Key Conclusion: People can be risk-averse. We may take a subpar job because we would rather have some job than no job.

Selection

• Process of choosing individuals with qualifications needed to fill jobs in an organization

- arguably the most important function of HR

Job Specification

• The qualities or requirements the person performing the job must possess. It is a list of knowledge, skills, abilities, or other characteristics (KSAOs).

Ex: Solve Problems Quickly, Push and Pull 25 pounds, Ability to use Microsoft Office

Job Title 

•What should it be?

•Most argue that it should convey the job description.

•Example: Director of Sales

•Grant, Berg, & Cable (2014): Job Titles as Identity Badges

- Instead, allow employees to make their own job titles

Job Crafting

• The physical and cognitive change individuals make in the task or relational boundaries of their work

- Perceived opportunity to craft

- Task, Relational, Both

- Incremental/Radical, Visible/Invisible

Goal: Become more satisfied; gives sense of control

- Constantly being crafted/recrafted

Realistic Job Preview (RJP)

•A way to address inaccurate job expectations and attempt to prevent worker turnover due to dissatisfaction once hired

- Can be done through videos, booklets, word of mouth…

•The idea is that if you know what you’re getting into before you start doing it, you’re less likely to be surprised by something

•If you can’t be as surprised, it’s less likely that you’ll find a “deal breaker” – something that causes you to quit

Important: In order for RJPs to be effective, applicants need to have self-insights into their knowledge, skills, and abilities.

Do RJP’s matter?

• RJPs can decrease turnover, but are not related to other things (e.g., job satisfaction, performance)

• they also cost very little 

Alternatives to Realistic job previews

Work Simulations

• Can take a variety of forms – being present in meetings, creating something (e.g., a sample product or deliverable

• Problems: If it creates an economic value for the organization…

  •Example: If the chef that created that meal actually served it to a customer

  •Probably not a problem: Required training to get a license for that occupation

  Solutions: Don’t do them. Pay candidates for the time in the interview (can be minimum wage if agreeable). Ask candidates to complete hypothetical tasks. Hire candidates for a probationary period. Consult current state and federal laws

Tours of the work site/site visits

• Communicates physical environment, workforce demographics, degree of employment interaction, etc.

What might be different between recruitment sources (Billboard or Job fair) 

• Realistic Information Hypothesis ( Different Information)

• Individual Differences Hypothesis (Different Populations)

Employee Referrals 

• Employee referrals tend to be attractive for organizations

• Referrals are low cost (bonus of $250-$1000)

  • Part of that $ is the “inefficiency” of the system – some applicants are interviewed and considered who don’t end up being a good match. This takes time of the selection committee (or the agency outsourced)

  •Referred workers are more likely to be interviewed compared to other applicants and more likely to be hired compared to other applicants

• Greater retention and higher performance

• Return to Realistic Information Hypothesis

- Have more information about the job; better “fit”

•Return to Individual Differences Hypothesis

- More likely to come from the same applicant pool as the referrer, so more likely to have requisite knowledge, skills, abilities (and things like interests/values even)

Do referrals matter?

First Problem: Not all referrals are equal

•“Risk in Referring”– Not a “one off” like our experiment

- “Have to work with them”, “What if they aren’t good?”, “Does this reflect on me?”, Outside relationships

•Homogeneity?

- “More of the same” problem

•Equitable Treatment

•Rejection of a referral?

• So although referrals seem nice, there are still a lot of unanswered questions.

•General Advice: Don’t just use one recruitment source

Reliability

• The extent to which a measurement is from random error

- generates consistent results

• Reliability answers one important question- whether you are measuring something accurately- but ignores another question that is important- “Are you measuring something that matters?”

Validity

• The extent to which performance on a measure (such as a test score) is related to what the measure is designed to asses (such as job performance)

- one way to determine whether a measure is valid is to compare many people’s scores on that measure with their job performance

Structured Interviews

•Figuring out the questions in advance and then asking all applicants the same questions

•Ideally questions are related to the KSAO’s needed to do the job

•Benefit: Allows us to compare responses from multiple individuals; reduces the likelihood that something illegal/unethical gets asked

Key Components

- Limit prompting, follow-up questioning, and elaboration on questions

- Use neutral probes (e.g., “Please provide an example; Can you explain further?”)

- Follow-up probes are limited to clarifying confusing answers, keeping the candidates on track, and obtaining specific detailed responses

•Create a scoring guide in advance

- Rate the answer to each question

- It is better to rate each answer than it is to provide only a single, overall evaluation of the candidate

- Anchored rating scales use behavioral examples to illustrate scale points

Type of Interview Questions

1) Biographical: Tell me about yourself…What are your weaknesses?

2) Behavioral: Tell me how you handled a previous difficult situation at your last job?

3) Competency: Describe two situations where you had to work as part of a team?

4) Situational: What would you do if the work of a team member was not up to expectations

Nondirective Interviews 

• a selection interview in which the interviewer has great discretion in choosing questions to ask each candidate

- typically include open-ended questions about the candidate’s strengths, weaknesses, career goals, and work experience (not very reliable or valid)

Panel interview

• selection interview in which several members of the organization meet to interview each candidate

- gives the candidate a chance to meet more people and see how people interact in that organization 

Impression Management

• a conscious or unconscious attempt to control the images that are projected in …social interaction

- Verbal Statements, Nonverbal Statements, Modification of Appearance

Ex:

• Defensive Tactics: Designed to protect one’s image

- Excuses, Justifications, Apologies

•if we are an employer, we don’t want these emotional things to come into our decision making. We want to select people based on their KSAO’s and perceptions of fit.

Conclusion: While structured interviews didn’t eliminate the IM tactics, they reduced them

•Objectivity, Reliability, and Validity = Structured!

Exit Interview

• A meeting of the departing employee with the employee’s supervisor and/or a human resource specialist to discuss the employee’s reasons for leaving

• Idea: well-conducted exit interview can uncover reasons why employees leave and perhaps set the stage for them to return / change things for other employees

Examples of flexible work arrangements

Flextime: a scheduling policy in which full-time employees may choose starting and ending times within guidelines specified by the organization

ex: may require employees to work b/w 10 am & 3 pm

- Employees can work additional hours before or after this period

• enables workers to adjust a particular day’s hours in order to make time for doctor’s appointments, hobbies, etc.

Job Sharing: a work option in which two part-time employees carry out the tasks associated with a single job

- enables firms to attract and retain valued employees who want more time to attend school or care for family

Remote work

What kind of employment tests or conditions would be considered illegal?

• Physical Ability Tests

• Cognitive ability tests

• Genetic tests

• Medical examinations 

• Polygraph tests 

• Background checks

What are the different kinds of ethical “views” we can have on the world?

• Situationist

• Subjectivist

• Absolutist

• Exceptionalist