Diploma in Business Administration Study Manual Human Resource Management The Association of Business Executives William House • 14 Worple Road • Wimbledon • London • SW19 4DD • United Kingdom Tel: + 44(0)20 8879 1973 • Fax: + 44(0)20 8946 7153 E-mail: info@abeuk.com • www.abeuk.com © Copyright RRC Business Training © Copyright under licence to ABE from RRC Business Training All rights reserved N o part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, mechanical, photocopied or otherwise, without the express permission in writing from The Association of Business Executives. ab c ABE Diploma in Business Administration Study Manual Human Resource Management Contents Study Unit Title Page Syllabus i 1 Management and Leadership 1 What is Management? 2 Leadership in the Context of Management 11 Action-Centred Leadership 14 Leadership Styles 17 Contingency Theories of Leadership 20 2 Management Accountability and Responsibility 25 The Breadth of Accountability 26 Management and Social Responsibility 32 Equal Opportunities 36 The Ethics of Managers 44 3 Management and the Changing Organisation 51 Organisational Culture 53 The Learning Organisation 58 The Culture of Quality 60 The Culture of Enterprise 62 Business Process Re-Engineering 63 The Impact of Globalisation 66 Current Trends in Organisations 69 4 Management and Motivation 77 What is Motivation? 78 People at Work 78 Needs Theories of Motivation 85 Models of Behaviour and Motivation 89 Process Theories of Motivation 92 Excellence Theory and Motivation 95 5 Organising and Motivating 97 Delegation 99 Empowerment 105 Centralisation/Decentralisation 110 Gaining Commitment to Organisational Objectives 116 Jobs 120 Rewards 125 6 Management Control 133 The Basic Elements of the Control Process 135 Setting Standards 136 Measuring and Comparing Performance 138 Tackling Deviations from Standard 140 Control Systems 144 Human Behaviour and Control Systems 147 Performance Management 150 Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures 153 7 Managing and Enhancing Performance 159 Performance Appraisal Systems 161 The Appraisal Process 165 Management by Objectives 170 The Manager as Facilitator 176 Coaching 179 Counselling 181 Mentoring 183 Dealing with Problem Performers 184 8 Human Resource Planning 187 What is Human Resource Planning? 188 The Process of Human Resource Planning 189 Trends in Employment 195 Changing Patterns of Work 198 9 Recruitment and Selection 205 The Recruitment and Selection Process 206 Defining the Vacancy 207 Casting the Net 215 Selection Procedures 220 Employee Induction 229 10 Employee Development 233 Organisations, Individuals and Development 234 Identifying Training and Development Needs 239 The Learning Process 241 Training Methods 248 11 Communication 253 Communication in Organisations 254 The Communication Process 261 Methods of Communication 265 Effective Communication 269 Working in Committees 279 i © Copyright ABE Diploma in Business Administration – Part 2 Human Resource Management Syllabus Introduction It is a truism to claim that people are an organisational resource – indeed for some organisations, they are the key resource, without which the organisation would be unable to deliver any meaningful product or service to its customers. Like any resource, however, people may be used wastefully: they may be employed at well below their potential, performing tasks which do not stretch their capabilities and which are ultimately alienating in their psychological impact on the employees involved. Alternatively, people may be managed and led in ways which inspire them to be highly motivated and to demonstrate long-term commitment to both their roles and the organisation which employs them. When this is achieved, the performance of its people becomes a major differentiator for the organisation and a source of long-term competitive strength. Human Resource Management is about the managerial and leadership processes which enable people to give of their best in today’s turbulent working scenarios. To that end, the syllabus content is less concerned with the academic study of human and organisational behaviour, but concentrates more on the development of effective, pragmatic, yet innovative solutions to the issues surrounding the need to maximise people’s productivity, efficiency and effectiveness. Aims Again this conceptual background, the aims for the module are as follows: To develop the student’s knowledge and understanding of: 1. Individual differences, especially in such fields as learning, personality, motivation and attitudes, with particular reference to the relevance of such differences for recruitment, selection, deployment, development, and employee performance in an organisational setting. 2. The changing nature of the “psychological contact” between organisations and their employees, together with the implications for employability, flexible working, commitment, and managerial leadership. 3. Each major dimension of human resource management in practice, i. e. human resource planning, recruitment, selection, induction, training/development, reward systems, and people review/appraisal. 4. Techniques for effective communication in all work-related situations, i. e. with subordinates, with seniors, through collective representational procedures, and with teams. Programme Content and Learning Objectives N ote that all the following objectives are concerned principally with practical application rather than academic theory. Students will be expected to familiarise themselves with all relevant underpinning theories, but the emphasis in the tuition process and in the examination will and should concentrate on specific techniques for resolving human resource issues and for improving people performance across all types of organisation. ii © Copyright ABE After completing the programme, the student should be able to: 1. Differentiate the fundamental characteristics of people, with particular regard to such factors as culture, gender, ethnicity, personality, attitudes, and motivation, and assess the implications of such differences for the purposes of effective human resource management. 2. Clarify the mechanisms for individual and organisational learning, including ways of enhancing the effectiveness of deliberate learning processes and of overcoming the barriers to productive learning, again with a focus on the significance of learning from the viewpoint of enhancing organisational effectiveness. 3. Recognise the significance of the emergent “psychological contract” in terms of new employer expectations about “added value”, employability, and the factors which will continue to influence the nature of employment in the vast majority of organisations. 4. Apply alternative systems of flexible working to meet fluctuating corporate needs. 5. Accept the obligations of ethicality in governing the actions of managers, employees, and corporate entities. 6. Acknowledge the differences between “management” and “leadership” against a background in which organisations are moving from a focus on compliance to a desire for commitment, and recommend the installation of appropriate mechanisms for generating employee commitment in all types of corporate setting. 7. Maximise individual and collective employee performance, in specific organisational, functional, departmental or managerial scenarios, through effective motivation, job design, reward/recognition processes, and “performance management”. 8. Handle difficult people-management situations through systematic grievance-handling mechanisms, directive or non-directive counselling, coaching, and ultimately by means of disciplinary action and dismissal. 9. Apply each of the procedures and skills associated with the major arenas for personnel management, viz., human resource planning, recruitment, selection, induction, training/development, reward/recognition, review/appraisal, employee relations, welfare, health and safety responsibilities, discipline, and grievance-handling, in both remedial and continuous- improvement circumstances. [Several of these themes are mentioned elsewhere in the syllabus, but are repeated here in order to ensure completeness.] 10. Communicate effectively in all relevant organisational situations, i.e., meetings, presentations, and negotiating. Method of Assessment By written examination. The pass mark is 40%. Time allowed 3 hours. The question paper will contain: Eight questions from which the candidate will be required to answer any four. All questions carry 25 marks. iii © Copyright ABE Recommended Reading Lead text ! Torrington, D. and Hall, L. (1998), Human Resource Management; 4th edition, Prentice-Hall Other recommended texts ! Armstrong, M. (1998), Managing People: A Practical Guide; Kogan Page ! White, A. (1998), The Essential Guide to Developing Your Staff; Piatkus ! Herriot, P., Hirsch, W. and Riley, P. (1998), Trust and Transition: Managing Today’s Employment Relationship; Wiley ! Goss, D. (1994), Principles of Human Resource Management; Routledge ! Cushway, B. (1994), Human Resource Management; Kogan Page Students should also read suitable quality newspapers and periodicals for articles about human resource management (covering new techniques or applications in named companies), and if possible should download up-to-date thinking via suitable search engines on the Internet. iv © Copyright ABE [...]... definition, which has been accepted by most practising managers, is given by R Falk in his book “The Business of Management He defined management simply as: “Getting things done through people” Here he is stressing the importance of people -management at the same time as stressing the difference between “doing” and “managing” The technical content of a job is not managerial For example, when the maintenance... necessary overlap with the directing process here in respect of influencing relationships and monitoring their effect on performance, and also with the role of the personnel or human resource management function Again it is worth noting the importance of the role of information and communication in the organising and directing elements of the management function These involve not only the establishment... down the main functions into their component parts, and Mullins provides an interesting framework for reviewing this, drawing the activities together and stressing their interdependence We can summarise the activities as follows and it is easy to see how these link with the processes of planning, organising, directing and controlling (a) Determining objectives All managerial work involves identification... subordinates - motivating, communicating, coaching, etc Liaison Contacts with others outside work unit, for assistance, information, etc Informational Monitor Ensuring acquisition of information necessary for work Disseminator Distributing information throughout organisation and outside Spokesperson Formal provision of information on behalf of organisation Decisional Entrepreneur Initiating, developing... conditions in order to achieve organisational goals It involves a number of related processes: ! forecasting - analysing known information (within and external to the organisation) in order to predict future conditions; ! goal setting - the determination, in the light of forecasts and other imperatives (including policy), of what the organisation wishes to achieve in the relevant time span; ! decision making... planning some things while organising, directing and controlling others Let us look at these management processes in greater detail (a) Planning Planning is the process by which the organisation, or any particular part of it, determines what is to be done It is the process of systematic thought that precedes action, during which resources in hand, or those likely to be available, are matched against... out of organising, being about ensuring that employees are appropriately engaged in working on activities to meet goals and plans This involves motivating and supervising staff towards the concerted efforts needed for effective performance © Licensed to ABE 6 Management and Leadership The two elements are grouped together here because they combine in their effect on people Organising involves both... should management be about just picking one and living with it The optimum method should be to generate a number of different ways of resolving the problems - road widening, new road construction, building a tunnel, etc or decentralising post handling, expanding the work of the central post section, etc There are obvious limits to how far management can go in searching for alternatives (particularly in. .. its roots in the 1950s and 1960s in the work of Professor John Adair, who later went on to become the first Professor of Leadership appointed in the United Kingdom Predominantly interested in military history, Adair used his research to formulate a theory which would also have valuable spin-offs as a training vehicle Adair’s ideas were adopted first by the Sandhurst Military Academy for training officer... on participation, may not be willing to allow work groups to be operated on authoritarian lines (We shall look at culture in more detail in a later study unit.) You will recall that Tannenbaum and Schmidt defined management style as a continuum In other words, none of these factors will impose a single management style on the situation Instead, each factor will define a range of styles which are acceptable . permission in writing from The Association of Business Executives. ab c ABE Diploma in Business Administration Study Manual Human Resource Management Contents Study. Diploma in Business Administration Study Manual Human Resource Management The Association of Business Executives William House •