Human Resource Management: Selection, Training, Performance, and Development Notes
Chapter 6: Selecting Employees and Placing Them in Jobs
Personnel Selection and Strategic Approach
Personnel Selection: Also known as candidate selection, it is the process through which organizations make decisions about who will or will not be allowed to join the organization. It involves finding the new hire best suited for the job.
Timeline: Selection begins with the candidates identified through recruitment and ends with the selected individuals placed in jobs within the organization.
Strategic Approach: Organizations must create a selection process supporting job descriptions. It should be designed to identify individuals with the necessary KSAOs (Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, and Other characteristics).
Criteria for Measuring Selection Tool Effectiveness:
Reliability: The extent to which a measurement is free from random error. A reliable measurement generates consistent and trustworthy scores over time. Organizations use statistical tests to compare results.
Validity: The extent to which performance on a measure (e.g., test score) relates to what it is designed to assess (e.g., job performance). It identifies the linkage between test and job performance and gives meaning to scores.
Ability to Generalize: A generalizable method applies not only to the conditions/context of its development (original job, organization, time) but also to other organizations, jobs, and applicants.
Practical Value and Utility: Utility is the degree to which information provided by the method enhances selection effectiveness. Methods must provide economic value significantly greater than the cost of implementation.
Legality: All methods must conform to existing laws and legal precedents. Examples include:
Anti-Age Discrimination in Employment Act
Equal Opportunity for Employment
Magna Carta of Women
Magna Carta for Persons with Disability
Omnibus Rules on Appointment and Other Human Resources Actions (ORA-OHRA)
Gathering Background Information
Application Forms: A low-cost method to gather standard categories of data: contact info, work experience, education, technical experience, memberships (professional/civic), seminars/trainings, and interests/hobbies.
Resumes: Formal documents created by applicants to itemize background and qualifications. Unlike a Curriculum Vitae (CV), which includes all certificates and publications, a resume is typically a summary of relevant experience. It is usually paired with a customized cover letter.
Reference Checks: Contacting former employers, supervisors, co-workers, and educators to verify employment and obtain third-party opinions on the applicant's character and KSAOs. This is often the final step before a job offer.
Background Checks: Opportunities to verify candidate information and reveal omissions (e.g., criminal records in other regions). They serve as a risk management tool to promote safety and reduce the odds of a bad hire.
7 Compelling Reasons to Run Background Checks:
To provide a safe workplace for employees and customers.
To hire qualified people who grow business rather than destroy it.
Because due diligence in hiring is a must.
To encourage honesty in applications/interviews.
To discourage applicants with something to hide.
To eliminate uncertainty in the hiring process.
Because instinct alone is insufficient.
Employment Tests and Work Samples
Employment Test: An examination given prior to hiring to determine personality traits, cognitive abilities, job knowledge, skills, and behavior. Value lies in eliminating applicants unlikely to succeed.
Aptitude Test: Assesses how well a person can learn or acquire new skills and abilities.
Achievement Test: Measures existing knowledge and skills.
Physical Ability Tests: Used when physical ability is essential to the job description and failure poses safety risks. Seven classes include:
Muscular tension
Muscular power
Muscular endurance
Cardiovascular endurance
Flexibility
Balance
Coordination
Cognitive Ability Tests: The number one predictor of job performance across all levels. These evaluate mental processes like problem-solving, verbal comprehension, and working with numbers.
Work Samples: Simulated job contexts (e.g., virtual job auditions or short-term job tryouts) to observe performance on actual tasks.
Personality Inventories: Questionnaires revealing patterns of traits that give consistency to behavior. Five Major Dimensions (The Big Five):
Extroversion: Sociable, gregarious, assertive, expressive.
Adjustment: Emotionally stable, secure, content, non-depressed.
Agreeableness: Courteous, trusting, cooperative, forgiving.
Conscientiousness: Dependable, organized, persevering, achievement-oriented.
Inquisitiveness: Curious, imaginative, broad-minded, adventurous.
Drug Tests: Technical analysis of biological specimens (urine, hair, blood, breath, etc.) for parent drugs or metabolites. Rules for administration:
Administer systematically to all applicants for the same job.
Use for jobs involving safety hazards.
Send results to applicants with information on how to appeal.
Respect privacy and keep results confidential.
Interviews
Non-Directive Interview: Uses open-ended questions (e.g., "Tell me about yourself"). Reliability is low as interviewers have wide latitude; questions may be invalid or illegal.
Structured Interview: Uses a set list of questions related to job requirements (KSAs). More valid and reliable than non-directive interviews.
Situational Interview: A type of structured interview describing hypothetical scenarios (e.g., "What would you do if you made a mistake no one else saw?").
Behavior Description Interview (BDI): A situational interview asking for past behavior (e.g., "Tell me about a time you demonstrated leadership").
Increasing Interview Utility:
Interface should be structured and standardized.
Use quantitative ratings for observable dimensions (interpersonal skills).
Use structured note-taking.
Wait until the end for overall judgments to avoid first-impression bias.
Use multiple trained interviewers.
Selection Decisions and Communication
Multiple-Hurdle Model: Candidates are eliminated at each stage of the selection process.
Compensatory Model: A high score in one assessment can make up for a low score in another.
Communicating the Decision: Selection combines objective ranking and subjective judgment. Offers should include:
Job responsibilities
Work schedule
Rate of pay
Starting date
RSP Definitions Recap:
Recruitment: Identifying and encouraging perspective employees to apply.
Selection: Choosing the right candidates from the pool.
Placement: Assigning a specific job to the selected candidates.
Chapter 7: Training Employees
Introduction to Training
Significance: Rapid technological change and teamwork reliance necessitate continuous learning. Organizations use training to ensure employment security and cultural innovation.
Pressure Points for Training: Legislation, lack of basic skills, poor performance, new technology, customer requests, new products, higher performance standards, new jobs, business growth/contraction, and global expansion.
Definition: An organization's planned effort to help employees acquire job-related knowledge, skills, abilities, and behaviors for application in day-to-day activities.
Continuous Learning: A system where employees understand the entire work system, acquire and apply new skills, and share knowledge.
Formal vs. Informal Training:
Formal: Organized by the company; attendance usually required (e.g., courses).
Informal: Learner-initiated; occurs on an as-needed basis without a formal setting or instructor.
The Training Process Stages
Needs Assessment: Evaluating the organization, person, and task.
Organization: Context and business strategy appropriateness.
Person: Who needs training? Is it a performance or motivational issue?
Task: Identifying specific subjects/behaviors to cover.
Readiness for Training: Combination of employee characteristics (ability to learn, positive attitude, motivation) and a positive work environment.
Creating a Learning Environment: Includes meaningful content, practice opportunities, feedback, observation, and program coordination.
Ensuring Transfer of Training: On-the-job use of knowledge. Influenced by peer/manager support, technological support, and self-management skills.
Selecting Training Methods:
Presentation: Passive recipients (classroom, distance learning, audiovisual). Ideal for facts and philosophies.
Hands-on: Active involvement (OJT, simulations, business games, behavior modeling). Ideal for specific procedures and interpersonal issues.
Group/Team-building: Improves effectiveness via shared ideas. Categories: Experiential programs, Adventure learning (outdoor), and Team training (coordinated performance).
Evaluating Training Outcomes:
Cognitive: Knowledge acquisition (measured by tests).
Skill-based: Behavior/skills (measured by observation).
Affective: Motivation and attitudes (measured by surveys).
Results: Company payoff (accidents, productivity).
ROI: Economic value ().
Specific Training Applications
Diversity Training: Changing attitudes about diversity; addressing unconscious bias (judgments outside consciousness based on background).
Managing Diversity: Creating an environment where all employees contribute and experience growth. May require cultural change regarding treatment, innovation, and risk-taking.
Onboarding (Socialization): Helping new hires adjust to social and performance aspects. Four steps:
Compliance: Understanding policies and rules.
Culture: History, traditions, and values.
Clarification: Job and performance expectations.
Connection: Working and interpersonal relations.
Chapter 8: Managing Employees' Performance
Purposes and Criteria of Performance Management
Performance Management: Process ensuring employee activities and outputs contribute to organizational goals. Requires desired outputs, observation, and feedback.
Purposes:
Strategic: Achieving business objectives.
Administrative: Informing decisions on salary, benefits, and recognition.
Developmental: Designing basis for skill improvement.
Evaluation Criteria:
Strategic Congruence: Extent to which the system elicits performance consistent with goals and culture.
Validity: Assessing all relevant (and only relevant) performance aspects.
Reliability: Consistency; specifically interrater reliability (consistency between different evaluators).
Acceptability: Whether managers and employees accept and use the measure.
Specificity: Tells employees exactly what is expected and how to meet those expectations.
Methods for Measuring Performance
A. Comparative Approach:
Simple Ranking: Highest to lowest performer.
Alternation Ranking: Crossing best and worst names off a list iteratively.
Forced Distribution: Assigning percentage categories (e.g., top, middle, bottom).
Paired Comparison: Comparing every employee against every other employee.
B. Attribute Approach: Focuses on traits like leadership.
Graphic Rating Scales: Ratings on a discrete scale or continuum (e.g., 1-5).
Mixed-Standard Scales: Uses statements of good, average, and poor performance for traits to improve reliability.
C. Behaviors Approach:
Critical-Incident Method: Record of specific effective/ineffective examples.
Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale (BARS): Anchor points with specific behavior statements.
Behavioral Observation Scale (BOS): Variation of BARS measuring the frequency of necessary behaviors.
Organizational Behavior Modification (OBM): Formal system of feedback and reinforcement.
D. Results Approach:
Management by Objectives (MBO): Top-down goal setting used as performance standards.
E. Quality Approach: Principles of TQM using subjective feedback and statistical quality control.
Performance Errors and Feedback
Sources of Info: 360-Degree Appraisal (managers, peers, subordinates, self, and customers).
Rating Errors:
Contrast errors: Comparing against other employees instead of a standard.
Distributional errors: Leniency (high), Strictness (low), Central Tendency (middle).
Rater Bias: Halo (all positive), Horns (all negative).
Political Behavior: Distorting evaluations for personal goals. Calibration meetings (multi-manager discussions) help minimize this.
Feedback Sessions:
Tell-and-Sell: Managers justify ratings to employees.
Tell-and-Listen: Employees explain their perspective.
Problem-Solving: Working together to solve issues.
Legal Defensibility: Must be based on job analysis, evaluate behaviors/results (not traits), use multiple raters, and have an appeals mechanism.
Chapter 9: Developing Employees for Future Success
Principles of Employee Development
Development vs. Training: Training focuses on current job performance; Development prepares employees for future changes, roles, and requirements.
Protean Career: A career that frequently changes based on personal interests, abilities, and values. Emphasizes self-direction and continuous adaptation.
Advantages: Satisfaction, flexibility, diverse skill set.
Drawbacks: Need for high self-awareness; possible conflict with organizational norms.
Approaches to Development
Formal Education: Workshops, degree-seeking pathways, and certifications.
Assessment:
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI): Identifying 16 personality types across energy, information gathering, decision-making, and lifestyle (e.g., ISTJ-Inspector, ENFJ-Giver, INTJ-Architect).
Assessment Centers: Offsite group exercises evaluated by multiple assessors.
Benchmarks: Tools measuring skills associated with management success.
360-Degree Feedback: Identification of strengths and development areas from multiple viewpoints.
Job Experiences: Assignments, project work, and cross-functional shadowing. Considered the most effective way to drive development.
Interpersonal Relationships: Mentorship and coaching.
Career Management Process and Challenges
Steps: Data Gathering (Self-Assessment like MBTI or Strong Interest Inventory), Feedback, Goal Setting, and Action Planning.
Responsibilities: Employees identify goals and timetables; organizations provide assessment info and resources.
Challenges:
Glass Ceiling: Invisible barriers for women and minorities reaching top jobs.
Succession Planning: Tracking high-potential employees to fill future vacancies.
Dysfunctional Managers: Competent managers with toxic behaviors (arrogance, poor conflict management). Remedies include counseling and specifically targeted training.