[ad_1]
Page 280
9.1
Strategic Human Resource Management
MAJOR QUESTION How do effective managers view the role of people in their organization’s success?
THE BIG PICTURE
Human resource management consists of the activities managers perform to plan for, attract, develop, and retain an effective workforce. Planning the human resources needed consists of understanding current employee needs and predicting future employee needs.
How do you get hired by one of the companies on Fortune magazine’s annual “100 Best Companies to Work For” list—companies such as Google, SAS Institute, Boston Consulting Group, Edward Jones, and Genentech, which are on the 2016 list? 12
You try to get to know someone in the company, suggests one guide. 13 You play up volunteer work on your resume. You get ready to interview and interview and interview. And you do extensive research on the company—far more than just online research, as by talking to customers.
And what kinds of things does an employee of a Fortune “Best” company get? At Google (now part of Alphabet), the Mountain View, California, search engine company (ranked No. 1 Best Company seven times in the last 10 years), you’re entitled to eat in 1 of 11 free gourmet cafeterias, take your dog to work, get haircuts on-site, work out at the gym, study Mandarin or other languages, have your laundry done free, and get virtual doctor visits. You may also be a candidate for millions of dollars in compensation incentives, special bonuses, and founders’ awards. 14
The reason for this exceptional treatment? “Happy people are more productive,” says Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO, now executive chairman of Alphabet. 15 That productivity has made the company an earnings powerhouse; for 2015, for example, it reported a 14% growth in revenue and 38% growth in profits for its core Internet businesses. 16 Google has discovered, in other words, that its biggest competitive advantage lies in its human resources—its people.
Human Resource Management: Managing an Organization’s Most Important Resource
Human resource (HR) management consists of the activities managers perform to plan for, attract, develop, and retain an effective workforce. Whether it’s McKenzie looking for entry-level business consultants, the U.S. Navy trying to fill its ranks, or churches trying to recruit priests and ministers, all organizations must deal with staffing.
The fact that the old personnel department is now called the human resources department is not just a cosmetic change. It is intended to suggest the importance of staffing to a company’s success. Although talking about people as “resources” might seem to downgrade them to the same level as financial resources and material resources, in fact, people are an organization’s most important resource.
Indeed, companies ranked No.1 on Fortune magazine’s Best Companies list in the past—which, besides Google, include SAS, NetApp, Genentech, Wegmans Food Markets, J. M. Smucker, Edward Jones, and The Container Store—have discovered that putting employees first has been the foundation for their success. “If you’re not thinking all the time about making every person valuable, you don’t have a chance,” says former General Electric head Jack Welch. “What’s the alternative? Wasted minds? Uninvolved people? A labor force that’s angry or bored? That doesn’t make sense!” 17
Clearly, companies listed among the best places to work become famous by offering progressive and valued programs, policies, and procedures. 18 Are you curious to see if a current or past employer is one of these progressive companies? You can find out by taking Self-Assessment 9.1 .
Page 281
SELF-ASSESSMENT 9.1
Assessing the Quality of HR Practices
This survey is designed to assess the quality of HR practices at your current place of employment. If you are not currently working, consider a previous job when completing the survey. Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-Assessment 9.1 in Connect.
1. How did you rate the quality of the company’s HR practices?
2. Based on your responses, what advice would you give the senior HR leader about how to improve its HR practices? Be specific. What are the consequences of having poor-quality HR practices? Explain.
Human Resources as Part of Strategic Planning
Some companies—those with flat management structures, for instance—have done away with HR departments entirely, letting the regular line managers handle these tasks. But most workers say they feel the absence of an in-house HR staff, especially when it comes to resolving pay problems and mediating employee disputes. 19 So what should organizations do in regard to investing in human resources? Based on research findings, we come down on the side that people are an organization’s most important asset and it’s important to invest in human resources. All told, studies show that companies have higher levels of employee satisfaction, financial performance, and service performance when the company has high-quality human resource practices and programs. 20 At many companies, human resources has become part of the strategic planning process. Thus, HR departments deal not only with employee paperwork and legal accountability—a very important area, as we describe in Section 9.7 —but also with helping to support the organization’s overall strategy.
Example: Is it important, as Wegmans’s owners think, to have loyal, innovative, smart, passionate employees who will give their best to promote customer satisfaction (the grocery chain’s mission)? Who, then, should be recruited? How should they be trained? What’s the best way to evaluate and reward their performance? The answers to these questions should be consistent with the firm’s strategic mission.
The purpose of the strategic human resource process, then—shown in the gold shaded boxes at right—is to get the optimal work performance that will help the company’s mission and goals. 21 (See Figure 9.1 .)
FIGURE 9.1 The strategic human resource management process
Three concepts important in this view of human resource management are human capital, knowledge workers, and social capital.
Human Capital: Potential of Employee Knowledge and Actions
“We are living in a time,” says one team of human resource management authors, “when a new economic paradigm—characterized by speed, innovation, short cycle times, quality, and customer satisfaction—is highlighting the importance of intangible assets, such as brand recognition, knowledge, innovation, and most particularly human capital.” 22 Human capital is the economic or productive potential of employee knowledge, experience, and actions. 23
Scripps Health, a nonprofit health care system in San Diego and 42nd on Fortune’s 2016 list of “Best Places to Work For,” helps employees develop human capital by providing career coaching and up to $7,300 per year in tuition reimbursement and scholarships. The company also offers a wide variety of internal courses that focus on employee development. 24
It’s also important to take responsibility for your own human capital. You may find this surprising, but a recent study showed that lack of sleep depletes your human capital and lowers performance. 25 To perform at their best, people need their full ration of sleep.
Page 282
Knowledge Workers: Potential of Brain Workers
A knowledge worker is someone whose occupation is principally concerned with generating or interpreting information, as opposed to manual labor. Knowledge workers add value to the organization by using their brains rather than their muscle and sweat, and as such they are the most common type of worker in 21st-century organizations. 26 Over the past three decades, automation has threatened a lot of routine jobs, but the rise of knowledge workers has been accelerating.
Social Capital: Potential of Strong and Cooperative Relationships
Social capital is the economic or productive potential of strong, trusting, and cooperative relationships. It can help you land a job. For example, a national survey of recruiters revealed that 74% had found the highest-quality job applicants came through employee referrals. Employees hired through referrals also tend to stay longer at their jobs, a result of better person–organization fit. 27
Social capital is also beneficial beyond the early stages of your career, particularly when you are developing trusting relationships with others. Trusting relationships lead to more job and business opportunities, faster advancement, greater capacity to innovate, and more status and authority. 28 All told, it pays to have a rich network of good relationships, and social capital helps makes this possible.
Planning the Human Resources Needed
When a building contractor, looking to hire someone for a few hours to dig ditches, drives by a group of idle day laborers standing on a street corner, is that a form of HR planning? Certainly it shows the contractor’s awareness that a pool of laborers usually can be found in that spot. But what if the builder needs a lot of people with specialized training—to give him or her the competitive advantage that the strategic planning process demands?
Here we are concerned with something more than simply hiring people on an “as needed” basis. Strategic human resource planning consists of developing a systematic, comprehensive strategy for (a) understanding current employee needs and (b) predicting future employee needs. Let’s consider these two parts.
Understanding Current Employee Needs
To plan for the future, you must understand the present—what today’s staffing picture looks like. This requires that you (or a trained specialist) first do a job analysis and from that write a job description and a job specification. 29
· Job analysis. The purpose of job analysis is to determine, by observation and analysis, the basic elements of a job. Specialists who do this interview job occupants about what they do, observe the flow of work, and learn how results are accomplished. For example, UPS has specialists who ride with the couriers and time how long it takes to deliver a load of packages and note what problems are encountered (traffic jams, vicious dogs, recipients not home, and so on).
· Job description and job specification. Once the fundamentals of a job are understood, then you can write a job description, which summarizes what the holder of the job does and how and why he or she does it. Next you can write a job specification, which describes the minimum qualifications a person must have to perform the job successfully.
This process can produce some surprises. Jobs that might seem to require a college degree, for example, might not after all. Thus, the process of writing job analyses, descriptions, and specifications can help you avoid hiring people who are overqualified (and presumably more expensive) or underqualified (and thus not as productive) for a particular job.
In addition, by entering a job description and specification with their attendant characteristics into a database, an organization can do computer searching for candidates by matching keywords (nouns) on their resumes with the keywords describing the job. Page 283Enterprise Rent-A-Car, for example, sorts through 50,000 candidates a month to identify those with a bachelor’s degree, good driving record, and customer-service or leadership experience who might qualify for the company’s management training program. 30
What kind of job is this? A UPS driver’s problems of driving in a big city—traffic, double parking, addressees not at home—are different from those of driving in rural areas, where there may be long stretches of boredom. Specialists in job analysis can interview drivers about their problems in order to write job descriptions that allow for varying circumstances.© McGraw-Hill Education/John Flournoy, photographer
Predicting Future Employee Needs
Job descriptions change, of course: Auto mechanics, for instance, now have to know how computer chips work in cars. (Current 7-Series BMWs and S-class Mercedes have about 100 processors apiece.) And new jobs are created: Who could have visualized the position of “e-commerce accountant” 10 years ago, for example?
As you might expect, predicting future employee needs means you have to become knowledgeable about the staffing the organization might need and the likely sources for that staffing:
· The staffing the organization might need. You could assume your organization won’t change much. In that case, you can fairly easily predict that jobs will periodically become unoccupied (because of retirement, resignations, and so on) and that you’ll need to pay the same salaries and meet the same criteria about minority hiring to fill them.
Better, however, to assume the organization will change. Thus, you need to understand the organization’s vision and strategic plan so that the proper people can be hired to meet the future strategies and work. We discussed strategic plans in Chapter 6 .
· The likely sources for staffing. You can recruit employees from either inside or outside the organization. In looking at those inside, you need to consider which employees are motivated, trainable, and promotable and what kind of training your organization might have to do. A device for organizing this kind of information is a human resource inventory, a report listing your organization’s employees by name, education, training, languages, and other important information. In looking outside, you need to consider the availability of talent in your industry’s and geographical area’s labor pool, the training of people graduating from various schools, and such factors as what kinds of people are moving into your area. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau issue reports on such matters. ●
One way to attract potential employees. One of the first places companies are apt to look for potential employees is online, such as the social networking sites Facebook, LinkedIn, and Glassdoor, as well as Twitter (although sometimes searches can lead to discrimination against some candidates). Creative users also post unusual digital resumes featuring eye-catching graphics, YouTube videos, and PowerPoint slides on Pinterest, the popular online pin board for photos. As for job seekers, they can find useful job-hunting apps on Monster.com. Are you up to speed on these job-hunting advantages?© dennizn/Shutterstock RF
Page 284
9.2
Recruitment and Selection: Putting the Right People into the Right Jobs
MAJOR QUESTION How can I reduce mistakes in hiring and find great people who might work for me?
THE BIG PICTURE
Qualified applicants for jobs may be recruited from inside or outside the organization. The task of choosing the best person is enhanced by such tools as reviewing candidates’ application forms, resumes, and references; doing interviews, either structured or unstructured; and screening with ability, personality, performance, and other kinds of employment tests.
“We know that 5% of your workforce produces 26% of your output, so you need to focus on hiring people who really make the difference,” says San Francisco State University professor John Sullivan, an expert in human resources strategy. Hiring has become a science, Sullivan states, but most people doing the recruiting think it is still an art. “Most people in HR have no clue. We don’t measure failed hires. There’s no feedback loop.” 31
However difficult it may be, then, it’s important to try to get hiring right. “We’re essentially in an innovation economy where good people come up with really good ideas,” says one CEO. “Companies want to hit home runs with the next greatest product, and the imperative is making sure you have great people to do that.” 32
Recruitment: How to Attract Qualified Applicants
At some time nearly every organization has to think about how to find the right kind of people. Recruiting is the process of locating and attracting qualified applicants for jobs open in the organization. The word qualified is important: You want to find people whose skills, abilities, and characteristics are best suited to your organization. Recruiting is of two types: internal and external.
1. Internal Recruiting: Hiring from the Inside
Internal recruiting means making people already employed by the organization aware of job openings. Indeed, most vacant positions in organizations are filled through internal recruitment, mainly through job posting, placing information about job vacancies and qualifications on bulletin boards, in newsletters, and on the organization’s intranet. Companies looking to make strategic changes do better hiring CEOs from within the ranks rather than from outside, according to a recent study. 33 In one twist on recruiting from within, more firms are now rehiring former workers who had left (a tactic once frowned upon), because so many employers are having difficulty finding qualified people. 34
2. External Recruiting: Hiring from the Outside
External recruiting means attracting job applicants from outside the organization. In years past, notices of job vacancies were placed through newspapers, employment agencies, executive recruiting firms, union hiring halls, college job-placement offices, and word of mouth. Today more and more companies are also using social media to recruit. 35 For example, experts estimate that 89% of U.S. organizations use social networks to find new employees. Recent research suggests, therefore, that it’s practically mandatory for job seekers to have a presence online. 36
In one survey of 3,500 U.S. college students, 80% said they use smartphones for job hunting or see themselves doing so in the future. 37 LinkedIn, a social network with more than 1.23 billion active users, accounts for 94% of the people hired via social media, followed by Facebook and Twitter. 38 LinkedIn Students, a mobile app, helps graduating collegians find what companies might be a good fit and suggests occupations they might not have previously considered. 39 Mobile recruiting, incidentally, is reportedly poised to become a primary global recruiting strategy. 40
Page 285
Both internal and external methods have advantages and disadvantages. 41 (See Table 9.1 , below.)
TABLE 9.1 Internal and External Recruiting: Advantages and Disadvantages
| INTERNAL RECRUITING | |
| ADVANTAGES | DISADVANTAGES |
| 1. Employees tend to be inspired to greater effort and loyalty. Morale is enhanced because they realize that working hard and staying put can result in more opportunities.
2. The whole process of advertising, interviewing, and so on is cheaper. 3. There are fewer risks. Internal candidates are already known and are familiar with the organization. |
1. Internal recruitment restricts the competition for positions and limits the pool of fresh talent and fresh viewpoints.
2. It may encourage employees to assume that longevity and seniority will automatically result in promotion. 3. Whenever a job is filled, it creates a vacancy elsewhere in the organization. |
| EXTERNAL RECRUITING | |
| ADVANTAGES | DISADVANTAGES |
| 1. Applicants may have specialized knowledge and experience.
2. Applicants may have fresh viewpoints. |
1. The recruitment process is more expensive and takes longer.
2. The risks are higher because the persons hired are less well known. |
Which External Recruiting Methods Work Best?
In general, the most effective sources are employee referrals, say human resource professionals, because, to protect their own reputations, employees are fairly careful about whom they recommend, and they know the qualifications of both the job and the prospective employee. 42 HR expert John Sullivan, mentioned above, states that this method is preferred by the better companies, which ask their own top-performing employees, “Who do you learn from? Who’s better than you? Who mentors you?” 43
Other effective ways of finding good job candidates are e-recruitment tools, such as “dot-jobs” websites; membership directories for associations and trade groups; social networking sites; and industry-specific blogs, forums, and newsgroups. 44
Among some newer ideas: San Francisco–based BlueCrew is a tech-enabled employment agency focused on hiring for warehouse workers, forklift operators, and other blue-collar temporary employees. 45 Barclays, the international bank, uses a free mobile videogame called Stockfuse, a stock-trading game, to attract and evaluate job applicants. 46 A cloud-storage firm named Compose and an employment firm named Woo, both in northern California, arrange “blind dates” between job seekers and employers, using resumes that feature only a person’s work, no names. 47 Devereux Cleo Wallace, a Colorado health care organization, also avoids relying on people’s credentials, pursuing instead “competency-based selection” strategies that measure whether job applicants have the competencies—such as the soft skills of empathy and listening ability—to fill specific roles in psychiatric facilities. 48 Netflix specializes in recruiting for trustworthiness, making a point of “hiring, rewarding, and tolerating only fully formed adults”—people who will put the company’s interests first. 49
How do you feel about the job you are in now, if you have one, or the last job you had? Do you feel like you are a “good fit” for the job? That is, do you like the work and does the work match your skills? Research shows that we are happier and more productive when our needs and skills fit the job requirements. If you would like to see whether or not you fit with your current (or last) job, complete Self-Assessment 9.2 . You may find the results very interesting.
Page 286
SELF-ASSESSMENT 9.2 
Assessing Your Person–Job Fit
This survey is designed to assess your job fit. If you are not currently working, consider a previous job when completing the survey. Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-Assessment 9.2 in Connect.
1. What is your level of fit?
2. Whether you have high or low fit, what are the main causes for your level of fit? Explain.
3. What questions might you ask a future recruiter to ensure a higher level of person–job fit? Be specific.
Realistic Job Previews
A realistic job preview (RJP) gives a candidate a picture of both positive and negative features of the job and the organization before he or she is hired. This recruiting technique is very effective at reducing turnover within 30–90 days of employment. 50 For instance, hiring managers at the Hilton Baltimore demonstrate to housekeeping job applicants how to make a bed, then ask the applicants to do it themselves. With this realistic job preview, says Tishuana Hodge, regional director of HR, says, “We can see who is genuinely interested and physically up to the challenge.” 51
EXAMPLE
The Changing Job Market: Millennials, the Gig Economy, and the Episodic Career
Young adults (Millennials and Gen Z—those born between 1981 and the mid-2000s) are said to be less focused on finding jobs that nourish the wallet than those that nourish the soul, less concerned with finding financial success than on making a difference, as we said at the start of Chapter 3 . But will the economy and the job market cooperate?
“A lot of people are despairing about the future of America in different ways or about their ability to earn a good steady living,” says New York University professor and journalist Farai Chideya. “It’s a time of mixed opportunity.” 52
The Gig Economy. Most of the job growth among American workers during the past decade has been not in traditional jobs but rather among those who work as independent contractors, through temporary services or on-call, which rose 15.8% from 2005 to 2015, according to one study. 53 In this so-called gig economy, organizations contract with independent workers—usually through their smartphones—for short-term engagements, and the burden of providing workers’ compensation, health insurance, and the like falls on the workers themselves rather than on the employer. 54
More than 5% of adults younger than 35 earned some income from an online platform between October 2014 and September 2015, according to some research. 55 Regardless of age, low-earning gig workers tend to provide direct labor, such as being on-demand drivers for Uber or furniture movers for TaskRabbit. Top-income gig earners make money mostly from their assets, as by renting their vacation homes through VRBO or selling craft merchandise through Etsy.
Although the gig economy employs only 0.5% of the workforce at present, Intuit predicts that by 2020 contingent workers will exceed 40% of American workers, and traditional full-time, full-benefit jobs will be harder to find. 56
The Episodic Career. Chideya, mentioned above, is the author of The Episodic Career: How to Thrive at Work in the Age of Disruption. 57 Because of decades of wage stagnation, the effects of the Great Recession, and “an incredible sense that perhaps the future will not be better than the past,” she says, we have entered into the era of “the episodic career.” 58 Surviving this challenge will require three qualities, she suggests:
· Emotional resilience: “The reality is that we’re living in a time where there’s more and more disruption in the workplace and you absolutely have to roll with the punches,” she says.
· Understanding the job market: If the industry you’re contemplating entering or are in is starting to go downhill, you should know it. You may have to “reboot” several times.
· Self-knowledge: You need to make a list of all the skills you have, including those you don’t use for work. “You’re not just the job you have now or the job you had five years ago,” says Chideya, “you’re a compilation of skills and assets, which can be used in many contexts.”
YOUR CALL
What kind of good skills inventory could you bring to the job market? What networks are you keeping alive, including “the weaker ties and links in your network, … people on the fringes of your circle who live in completely different worlds,” who can be the most important in a job search?
Page 287
Selection: How to Choose the Best Person for the Job
Whether the recruitment process turns up a handful of job applicants or thousands, now you turn to the selection process, the screening of job applicants to hire the best candidate. Essentially, this becomes an exercise in prediction: How well will the candidate perform the job and how long will he or she stay?
Three types of selection tools are background information, interviewing, and employment tests.
1. Background Information: Application Forms, Resumes, and Reference Checks
Application forms and resumes provide basic background information about job applicants, such as citizenship, education, work history, and certifications.
Unfortunately, a lot of resume information consists of mild puffery and even outrageous fairy tales—as many as 35% of resumes, by one estimate. 59 It is risky to lie about your background information because it can be used later as a reason for terminating your employment. Nevertheless, lots of people try it. A 2015 survey of 2,500 hiring professionals reported that the most common lies found on resumes are about skill sets (62%), responsibilities (54%), employment dates (39%), job titles (31%), and academic degrees (28%). 60 No wonder the business of background checks is booming. 61
PRACTICAL ACTION
Would You Lie Like This on Your Resume?
What kind of lies do people put on their resumes? Consider the following examples.
Lying about Education. Lying about education may be the most prevalent distortion (such as pretending to hold a degree or an advanced degree). 62 A few years ago, RadioShack CEO David Edmondson achieved some notoriety and had to resign after a newspaper discovered he had falsely claimed on his resume to hold degrees in psychology and theology. 63 In 2012, Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson was revealed to not have earned a college degree in computer science, as claimed on his resume and on the company’s website. 64 Automatic Data Processing of Roseland, New Jersey, which has studied employee background verification, reported that 41% of education records showed a difference between the information provided by an applicant and that provided by the educational institution. 65
Lying about Employment Histories, Ages, Salaries, and Job Titles. Another common fabrication includes creative attempts to cover gaps in employment history (although there are straightforward ways an applicant can deal with this, such as highlighting length of service instead of employment dates). 66 Some people try to cover up taking years off from work to do child care, but it is better to explain than to hide these dates. 67 People also lie about their ages for fear of seeming to be too experienced (hence expensive) or too old. 68 As you might expect, people also embellish their salary histories, job titles, and achievements on projects.
Lying about Criminal Background or Immigration Status. In 2007, it came out that the foundation that runs online encyclopedia Wikipedia had neglected to do a basic background check before hiring Carolyn Doran as its chief operating officer; she had been convicted of drunken driving and fleeing the scene of a car accident. 69 Now, more and more job seekers are seeking to legally clear their criminal records—to have their arrests or convictions expunged, when possible. 70 Public efforts are also being made to remove hiring hurdles faced by felons trying to restart their lives, such as the National Reentry Resource Center. 71
In addition, as the number of illegal (undocumented) workers has risen, it has become incumbent on human resource officers to verify U.S. citizenship. 72 Use of E-Verify, the federal program that allows employers to quickly check the legal status of potential employees, has taken a big jump. 73 Still, perhaps half of illegal workers slip by the system. 74
YOUR CALL
What past events are you most worried potential employers will find out about you? What can you do to put them in a better light?
Many companies are finding conventional resumes not all that useful (because they don’t quantify an applicant’s accomplishments or are too full of fluff descriptors such as “outstanding” or “energetic”) and are increasingly relying on social networks such as LinkedIn, video profiles, or online quizzes to assess candidates. 75 The federal government, for instance, now scans security-clearance applicants’ posts on social media. 76 Other firms are so inundated with resumes that they now have to use resume-filteringPage 288 software, causing applicants to learn to game the system by loading their resumes with keywords from the job description. 77 Some applicants try “stunt resumes,” such as those delivered by a stuffed carrier pigeon. 78 College students often assemble e-portfolios, giant Web-based dossiers that showcase writing samples, class presentations, and other evidence of skills attractive to employers; unfortunately, says The Wall Street Journal, “few employers are actually looking at them.” 79
References are also a problem. Many employers don’t give honest assessments of former employees, for two reasons: (1) They fear that if they say anything negative, they can be sued by the former employee. (2) They fear if they say anything positive, and the job candidate doesn’t pan out, they can be sued by the new employer. 80 Despite liability worries, HR recruiters know that if they get a former supervisor on the phone, they can find out a lot—such as the way he or she answers the question “Can you enthusiastically recommend this person?” or “What were this person’s strengths and weaknesses?” 81
Many employers also like to check applicants’ credit references, although there is no evidence that people with weak credit scores are apt to be unqualified or dishonest employees. 82 (Note: Prospective employers need to get written consent to run credit checks on job applicants.) 83
PRACTICAL ACTION
Applying for a Job? Here Are Some Mistakes to Avoid
There are several mistakes that job candidates often make in initial interviews. Here are some tips. 84
Be Prepared—Very Prepared. Can you pronounce the name of the company with whom you’re interviewing? Of the person or people interviewing you? Do you understand the company and the position you’re interviewing for? Do you know the company’s competition? What new products or services are being offered? How about your reasons for leaving your present employer (or why you’re now unemployed)? What are your greatest strengths? Your weaknesses? What do you need to improve on to move ahead? Where do you want to be in five years, careerwise?
Go online and read the company’s website. Search for any news articles written about the firm. Call the company and ask about pronunciation. Determine how your strengths fit directly into the context of what the prospective employer does. Also, when asked about your weaknesses, state how you recognized a weakness, overcame a dilemma, and were improved by it. Take time to practice questions and answers, so you’ll sound confident. 85
Dress Right and Pay Attention to Your Attitude. Is the company dress code “business casual”? That doesn’t mean you should dress that way (or the way you dress on campus) for the interview.
Dress professionally for the interview. Be aware of your attitude as soon as you enter the building. Be on time. (Time your commute by doing a test run a day or so before the interview, and make sure you know the exact location of the interview.) If unforeseeable circumstances arise and cause you to be late, call to inform your interviewer. Be polite to the receptionist, and greet everyone who greets you. Turn off your cell-phone ringer.
Don’t Get Too Personal with the Interviewer. Don’t be overfriendly and share too much, especially in the initial interview. Although the interviewer will try to make you feel comfortable, you should focus on the position. Rehearse questions to ask the interviewer, such as the challenges for the position in the future. Don’t make negative comments about your old company or boss. Rather, figure out the positives and convey what you learned and gained from your experience. If asked an inappropriate question (about age, marital status, whether you have children or plan to), politely state you don’t believe the question is relevant to your qualifications. Be enthusiastic; enthusiasm is contagious. Incidentally, be sure to mention any organizational citizenship behavior, which scores well with interviewers. 86 After the interview, within 24 hours, send an e-mail (with no misspellings or faulty grammar) thanking the interviewer. If you think you messed up part of the interview, use the e-mail to smooth over your mistakes. 87
Be Aware That Your Background and Social Networks Will Be Checked. Because it seems to be getting harder to distinguish honest job applicants from dishonest ones, companies now routinely check resumes or hire companies that do so. 88 Most employers conduct background checks—in fact, two-thirds conduct criminal background checks, according to one study. 89 Some may also ask for your SAT scores. 90 Some have been known to scrutinize checking accounts. 91
As mentioned earlier, if you are a Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter user, be aware that employers now frequently use search engines to do continuous and stealthy background checks on prospective employees to see if they’ve posted any racy content. “Many job hunters,” says one report, “are … continuing to overlook the dangers of posting provocative photos and other dubious content on social-media sites.” 92 Checking your Facebook page is also a way employers can make an end run around discrimination laws. 93 Indeed, you may be asked in the interview for your Facebook user name and password so the interviewer can access your private settings—a practice whose legality is questionable but nevertheless being done by more companies. 94 Page 289 (More and more people are getting savvy about privacy and pruning their friend lists and removing unwanted comments on their social networks.) 95 Some companies are slashing the time it takes to get new workers, as by skipping reference checks (which can lead to costly mistakes). 96 Most of the time, however, the process of getting hired seems to be taking longer than ever—the average is about 23 days, though it can be as long as 6–12 months—but while you’re waiting for the company’s decision you should avoid the temptation of telephoning and demanding to know your status. 97
YOUR CALL
What kind of advice do you see here that you wish you’d followed in the past?
2. Interviewing: Unstructured, Situational, and Behavioral-Description
The interview, which is the most commonly used employee-selection technique, may take place face to face, by videoconference, or—as is increasingly the case—via the Internet. (In-depth phone interviews of an hour or more are also frequently used. 98 However, face-to-face interviews have been perceived as being more fair and leading to higher job acceptance intentions than videoconferencing and telephone interviews.) 99 To help eliminate bias, interviews can be designed, conducted, and evaluated by a committee of three or more people.
The most commonly used employee-selection technique, interviewing, takes three forms: unstructured interviews and two types of structured interviews. 100
Unstructured Interview
Like an ordinary conversation, an unstructured interview involves asking probing questions to find out what the applicant is like. There is no fixed set of questions asked of all applicants and no systematic scoring procedure. As a result, the unstructured interview has been criticized as being overly subjective and apt to be influenced by the biases of the interviewer. Equally important, it is susceptible to legal attack because some questions may infringe on non-job-related matters such as privacy, diversity, or disability. 101 However, compared with the structured interview method, the unstructured interview has been found to provide a more accurate assessment of an applicant’s job-related personality traits. 102
Structured Interview Type 1: The Situational Interview
The structured interview involves asking each applicant the same questions and comparing their responses to a standardized set of answers.
In one type of structured interview, the situational interview, the interviewer focuses on hypothetical situations. Example: “What would you do if you saw two of your people arguing loudly in the work area?” The idea here is to find out if the applicant can handle difficult situations that may arise on the job.
Structured Interview Type 2: The Behavioral-Description Interview
In the second type of structured interview, the behavioral-description interview, the interviewer explores what applicants have actually done in the past. Example: “What was the best idea you ever sold to a supervisor, teacher, peer, or subordinate?” This question (the U.S. Army asked it of college students applying for its officer training program) is designed to assess the applicants’ ability to influence others.
PRACTICAL ACTION
The Right Way to Handle an Interview: What the Employer Is looking For
Because hiring people who later have to be let go is such an expensive proposition, companies are now putting a great deal of emphasis on effective interviewing. The previous Practical Action box provided a few tips for job applicants, but here let us explain how the interview process is being conducted from the interviewer’s point of view. 103
Page 290
Before the Interview: employers define their needs and review applicants’ resumes. It’s been said that looking to hire somebody is like going to the supermarket; the employer needs to have a list and know what he or she needs. Thus, the HR department will write out (or be told) what skills, traits, and qualities the job requires that the company is trying to fill. The interviewer will also look at the applicant’s resume or application form to determine relevant experience, gaps, and discrepancies.
The interviewer prepares the questions to be asked. The interviewer should use a structured approach that asks all candidates the same set of questions, so that their answers can be compared. (This helps keep the company out of legal trouble, too, as in being accused of racial or gender bias.) In general, the questions should be designed to elicit the following types of information.
· What drawbacks does the applicant’s previous work experience show? Examples: “Why are you leaving your current job, or why are you currently unemployed?”
· Does the applicant have the knowledge to do the job? Examples: “Give an example where you came up with a creative solution.” “How would you distinguish our product from competitors’?”
· Can the applicant handle difficult situations? Examples: “What is your greatest weakness?” “Tell me about a time when you dealt with an irate customer. How did you handle the situation and what was the outcome?”
· Is the applicant willing to cope with the job’s demands? Examples: “How do you feel about making unpopular decisions?” “Are you willing to travel 30% of the time?”
· Will the applicant fit in with the organization’s culture? Examples: “Where do you see yourself in five years?” “How would your last supervisor describe you?” “How much leeway did they give you in your previous job in charging travel expenses?”
Interviewers Often Follow a Three-Scene Interview Scenario. The interview itself may follow a three-scene script.
· Scene 1: The first three minutes—small talk and “compatibility” test. The first scene is really a “compatibility test.” It takes about three minutes and consists of exchanging small talk, giving the interviewer a chance to establish rapport and judge how well the candidate makes a first impression.
Note: As many as four out of five hiring decisions are made within the first 10 minutes of an interview, according to some research. Thus, be aware that if you, the job applicant, have immediately impressed the interviewer, he or she may spend more time talking than listening—perhaps even trying to sell you on the job rather than screen your qualifications. 104
· Scene 2: The next 15–60 minutes—asking questions and listening to the applicant’s “story.” In the next scene, the interviewer will ask you the questions he or she previously wrote out (and answer those that you have). A good interviewer will allow you, the interviewee, to do 70%–80% of the talking, and he or she will take notes to remember important points. Be aware that the interviewer’s intuition can play a strong role in the hiring decision.
· Scene 3: The final two minutes—closing the interview and setting up the next steps. In the final minutes, the interviewer will listen to determine whether the candidate expresses interest in taking the job.
After the Interview. After you have left, the interviewer will probably write a short report making some sort of quantitative score of your qualifications and indicating reasons for the decision. If he or she decides to invite you back for a second interview (or pass you along to another interviewer), your references will also be checked.
YOUR CALL
What additional questions would you like to be asked that would showcase you as the best candidate? How would you work what you want to say into the interview?
3. Employment Tests: Ability, Personality, Performance, Integrity, and Others
Employment selection tests used to consist of paper-and-pencil, performance, and physical-ability tests. Now, however, employment tests are legally considered to consist of any procedure used in the employment selection decision process, even application forms, interviews, and educational requirements. 105 Indeed, today applicants should expect just about anything, such as spending hours on simulated work tasks, performing role-playing exercises, or tackling a business case study. 106
Probably the most common employment tests are the following.
Ability Tests
Ability tests measure physical abilities, strength and stamina, mechanical ability, mental abilities, and clerical abilities. Telephone operators, for instance, need to be tested for hearing, and assembly-line workers for manual dexterity. Intelligence tests are also catching on as ways to predict future executive performance. 107 The military tests for physical qualifications, along with behavioral and educationalPage 291 abilities (71% of 17- to 24-year-olds don’t qualify for military service, a surprisingly high figure). 108 Corporate-event company Windy City Fieldhouse uses a test that measures attention to detail, asking takers to do such things as “do a count of the letter ‘l’ in a three-sentence paragraph to measure how carefully a respondent works,” according to one account. 109
Performance Tests
Performance tests, or skills tests, measure performance on actual job tasks—so-called job tryouts—as when computer programmers take a test on a particular programming language such as C++ or middle managers work on a small project. 110 Some companies have an assessment center, in which management candidates participate in activities for a few days while being assessed by evaluators. 111
Personality Tests
Personality tests measure such personality traits as adjustment, energy, sociability, independence, and need for achievement. Career-assessment tests that help workers identify suitable jobs tend to be of this type. 112 One of the most famous personality tests, in existence for 65-plus years, is the 93-question Myers–Briggs Type Indicator, with about 2.5 million tests given each year throughout the world. Myers–Briggs endures, observers say, “because it does a good job of pointing up differences between people, offers individuals a revealing glimpse of themselves, and is a valuable asset in team-building, improving communication, and resolving personality-conflict.” 113 However, this and other personality tests need to be interpreted with caution because of the difficulty of measuring personality characteristics and of making a legal defense if the results are challenged. 114
EXAMPLE
Personality Tests: How a Sporting-Goods Chain Screens Job Applicants Online
More than 80% of midsize and large companies use personality and ability assessments for entry- and mid-level jobs, according to one executive at a global human resources consulting firm. 115
Southwest Airlines, for instance, has found the Myers–Briggs test helps build trust in developing teams. 116 Hewlett-Packard uses a personality test to see if employees are temperamentally suited to working alone at home—that is, telecommuting—and can handle limited supervision. 117 At Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, personality tests are used to find employees who will be “nice people”—those with “the qualities of being nurturing, kind, and warm-hearted,” in the words of a human resources vice president. 118
Online Personality Tests. At Finish Line, a nationwide chain of sporting-goods stores, store managers use the results of web-based personality tests developed by Unicru, of Beaverton, Oregon, to screen applicants for jobs as retail sales clerks. Candidates may apply through Unicru’s kiosks or computer phones, which are installed in the stores. One Finish Line store in Chicago screens as many as 70 applicants a week during the store’s preholiday season.
Unicru’s computer scores test takers according to how strongly they agree or disagree (on a four-point scale) with statements such as “You do not fake being polite” and “You love to listen to people talk about themselves.” High scores on attributes such as sociability and initiative reward applicants with a “green” rating that allows them to move on to an interview with a human manager. Scores in the middle earn a “yellow,” and a lesser chance of landing a job; low-scoring “reds” are not considered.
Measurable Results. “The kinds of people who do well,” says Unicru psychologist David Scarborough, “obviously have to have good self-control. They have to be patient. They have to enjoy helping people. All those characteristics are quite measurable.” 119 Finish Line says that Unicru’s system has reduced turnover by 24%.
YOUR CALL
There are, by some estimates, around 2,500 cognitive and personality employment tests on the market, and it’s important that employers match the right test for the right purpose. 120 Moreover, tests aren’t supposed to have a disparate impact on a protected class of people, such as certain racial or ethnic groups. 121 What questions would you want to ask about a personality test before you submitted yourself to it? (Note: Don’t try to psych the test. You might wind up being miserable in a job that doesn’t suit you.)
Page 292
Integrity Tests
Integrity tests assess attitudes and experiences related to a person’s honesty, dependability, trustworthiness, reliability, and prosocial behavior. 122 The tests are designed to identify people likely to engage in inappropriate, antisocial, or dishonest workplace behavior. Typically, integrity tests ask direct questions about past experiences related to ethics and integrity. You might be asked, for example, “What is the most you have ever stolen? (a) $0; (b) $1–$200; (c) $201–$500; (d) more than $500.” Or interviewers may ask questions about preferences and interests from which inferences may be drawn about future behavior—so-called covert tests, where the answers give a sense of the person’s conscientiousness, emotional maturity, and so on. 123
Other Tests
The list of employment testing techniques has grown to include—in appropriate cases—drug testing, polygraph (lie detectors), genetic screening, and even (a questionable technique) handwriting analysis. 124 Human resource professionals need to be aware, incidentally, that there are a variety of products available on the Internet to help employees beat many kinds of drug tests. 125 Recently, however, the hair test (of hair follicles) has begun to find favor, since it’s said to be able to detect a pattern of repetitive drug use over a period of up to 90 days. 126 Even so, failure to pass illicit drug tests has been edging up (from 4.3% in 2013 to 4.7% in 2014), according to one compiler of employer-testing data. 127
Reliability and Validity: Are the Tests Worth It?
With any kind of test, an important legal consideration is the test’s reliability—the degree to which a test measures the same thing consistently—so that an individual’s score remains about the same over time, assuming the characteristics being measured also remain the same.
Another legal consideration is the test’s validity—the test measures what it purports to measure and is free of bias. If a test is supposed to predict performance, then the individual’s actual performance should reflect his or her score on the test. Using an invalid test to hire people can lead to poor selection decisions. It can also create legal problems if the test is ever challenged in a court of law. ●
The post Strategic Human Resource Management appeared first on Infinite Essays.
[ad_2]
Source link
