Chapter 11: Managing Human Resource Systems
232
Chapter 11: Managing Human Resource Systems
Pedagogy Map
This chapter begins with the learning outcome summaries and terms covered in the chapter, followed by a
set of lesson plans for you to use to deliver the content in Chapter 11.
• Lesson Plan for Lecture (for large sections)
• Lesson Plan for Group Work (for smaller classes)
• Assignments with Teaching Tips and Solutions
What Would You Do Case Assignment – Nick’s Pizza & Pub
Self-Assessment – Interview Anxiety
Management Decision – To Facebook or Not Facebook
Highlighted Assignments
Key Points
What Would You Do?
What steps can a local pizza chain take to improve its HR
decisions?
Management Decision
Students must decide whether employees should be allowed
to use social media at work.
Management Team Decision
How can the HR team at Nordstrom train personnel to
deliver great customer service?
Practice Being a Manager
This exercise gives students practice in navigating the
challenges of legal and effective recruitment and selection of
employees.
Develop Your Career Potential
Students participate in a 360-degree feedback process.
Guidelines and a form are provided in the text to help.
Reel to Real Video Assignment – Biz
Flix
In this clip from Played, a team of crooks makes plans to
pick up a shipment of heroin.
Chapter 11: Managing Human Resource Systems
233
Supplemental Resources
Where to Find Them
Course Pre-Assessment
IRCD
Course Post-Assessment
IRCD
Learning Outcomes
1 Describe the basic steps involved in human resource planning.
Human resource planning (HRP) uses organizational goals and strategies to determine what needs to be
done to attract, develop, and keep a qualified work force. Work force forecasts are used to predict the
number and kind of workers with specific skills and abilities that an organization needs. Work force
2 Explain how different employment laws affect human resource practice.
Human resource management is subject to numerous major federal employment laws and subject to
3 Explain how companies use recruiting to find qualified job applicants.
Recruiting is the process of finding qualified job applicants. The first step in recruiting is to conduct a job
analysis, which is used to write a job description of basic tasks, duties, and responsibilities and to write
4 Describe the selection techniques and procedures that companies use when deciding which
applicants should receive job offers.
Selection is the process of gathering information about job applicants to decide who should be offered a
job. Accurate selection procedures are valid, are legally defendable, and improve organizational
Who Wants to Be a Manager game
IRCD and online
Chapter 11: Managing Human Resource Systems
234
5 Describe how to determine training needs and select the appropriate training methods.
Training is used to give employees the job-specific skills, experience, and knowledge they need to do
6 Discuss how to use performance appraisal to give meaningful performance feedback.
The keys to successful performance appraisal are accurately measuring job performance and effectively
sharing performance feedback with employees. Organizations should develop good performance appraisal
7 Describe basic compensation strategies and explain how they affect human resource
practice.
Compensation includes both the financial and the nonfinancial rewards that organizations give employees
in exchange for their work. There are four basic kinds of compensation decisions: pay level, pay
variability, pay structure, and employment benefits. Pay-level decisions determine whether workers will
8 Discuss the four kinds of employee separations: termination, downsizing, retirements, and
turnover.
Employee separation is the loss of an employee; separation can occur voluntarily or involuntarily. Before
firing or terminating employees, managers should give employees a chance to improve. If fi ring becomes
necessary, it should be done because of job-related factors, such as violating company rules or
consistently performing poorly. Downsizing is supposed to lead to higher productivity and profits, better
Chapter 11: Managing Human Resource Systems
235
Terms
360-degree feedback
adverse impact
assessment centers
background checks
cognitive ability tests
commission
compensation
disparate treatment
downsizing
dysfunctional turnover
employment benefits
employment references
external recruiting
four-fifths (or 80 percent) rule
(HRP)
internal recruiting
interviews
job analysis
job description
job evaluation
personality tests
phased retirement
piecework
profit sharing
tests)
stock options
structured interviews
subjective performance
measures
training
Lesson Plan for Lecture
Pre-Class Prep for You:
Pre-Class Prep for Your Students:
• Review chapter and determine what points to
cover.
• Bring PPT slides.
• Bring book.
• Complete Self-Assessment on page 444 of
textbook.
Warm Up
Content
Delivery
Topics
PowerPoint Slides and
Acetates
Activities
DETERMINING
1 HR Planning
1: Managing Human
“Today–after 500 years or
1.1 Forecasting
Demand & Supply
1.2 HR Information
Management Process
4: Determining Human
Resource Needs
9: Forecast Methods
10: Human Resource
Information Systems
11: Human Resource
Information Systems
financial capital. It’s talent.
If you doubt that, just watch
how hard companies are
2 Employment
Legislation
12: Employment
Legislation
FINDING QUALIFIED
WORKERS
3 Recruiting
3.1 Job Analysis &
Recruiting
3.2 Internal Recruiting
3.3 External
18: Finding Qualified
Workers
19: Recruiting
20: Job Analysis
Information
21: Job Analysis and
Recruiting
22: Job Analysis and
Ask students when a com-
pany should use external
recruiting instead of
internal recruiting. Men-
tion that GE fills nearly
80% of all open positions
with internal talent. Cisco
requires at least 40% of
4 Selection
4.1 Application Forms
& Résumés
4.2 References &
Background
Checks
26: Selection
27: Topics Employers
Should Avoid
28: References and
Background Checks
29: Selection Tests
Chapter 11: Managing Human Resource Systems
237
33: Conducting the
Interview
34: After the Interview
Launch the clip from
Played in the Biz Flix slide.
DEVELOPING
QUALIFIED WORKERS
5 Training
35: Developing Qualified
Workers
36: Training
To supplement your lecture
on this section, use
examples of well-known
others.
6 Performance Appraisal
6.1 Accurately
Measuring Job
Performance
6.2 Sharing
Performance
41: Performance
Appraisal
42: Measuring Job
Performance – Common
Rating Errors
43: Measuring Job
Sessions
KEEPING QUALIFIED
WORKERS
7 Compensation
7.1 Compensation
50: Keeping Qualified
Workers
51: Compensation
52: Compensation
Chapter 11: Managing Human Resource Systems
238
55: Pay-Structure
Decisions
56: Employment Benefits
8 Employee Separations
57: Employee
Separations
Special
Items
Conclusion
and
Preview
Lesson Plan for Group Work
Pre-Class Prep for You:
Pre-Class Prep for Your Students:
• Review material to cover and modify the
lesson plan to meet your needs.
• Depending on the activities you select and
how contextual you want them to be, you
will need to bring roughly one dozen wanted
• Bring book.
Chapter 11: Managing Human Resource Systems
239
ads or Internet job postings.
Content
Delivery
“FMLA”
Divide students into teams of 3-4 students and give them the following scenario: a
middle-aged employee at a retail store is responsible for her disabled child and
elderly mother. She often takes time off to manage driving them to doctor’s and other
Night manager at Blockbuster
Entry-level party planner
Senior mechanic at BMW dealer
Bank teller or manager
“Job Descriptions”
Divide your class into groups of 2-3 students each. Have each group write a job
description and job specifications for one of the following positions:
Barista at Starbucks
Plant manager for a DaimlerChrysler factory
Assistant manager for a Gap store
Marketing manager for a gym
Warehouse employee for Amazon
“Work Samples”
A January 2006 article in the Wall Street Journal reported that work sample tests are
growing in popularity and complexity. (E. White, “Employers Gauge Candidates’
Skills at ‘Real–World’ Tasks,” WSJ, 16 January 2006, B3.) For this activity, divide
Chapter 11: Managing Human Resource Systems
240
To make the activity more contextual, you can also scan the newspaper or Internet for
current job postings and use those as the basis of the exercise
“Cost–Benefit of Benefits”
The text states that benefits cost companies $15,000 per employee, and account for
roughly 30% of payroll costs. Divide students into groups of 2-3 students assign each
Conclusion
and
Chapter 11: Managing Human Resource Systems
241
Assignment with Teaching Tips and Solutions
Case Assignment – What Would You Do?
What Really Happened? – Solution
NICK’S PIZZA & PUB
In the opening case, you learned that Nick’s Pizza & Pubs, a 2-restaurant business in northern Illinois,
wanted to grow 5 restaurants in the next five years. But, expansion wasn’t to be. Expenses were high
because of an inability to control food and beverage costs. And, an economic downturn saw guest counts
Sensing that she was on to something, you pulled together the staffs in both restaurants to make a
financial presentation which showed in detail how and where Nick’s was earning revenue and incurring
expenses. After answering their questions, you asked for their help on three key issues, pay, hiring, and
training. Of course everyone wants to be paid more, but with costs an issue, were there ways to pay
people more, but link those increases to the company’s profitability and workers doing their jobs better
and staying longer (restaurants typically experience 200% turnover each year)? If so, how?
Effective compensation is critical to getting, developing, and then keeping talented employees, which
is the goal of any human resource management system. There are four basic kinds of compensation
Of the four kinds of compensation decisions, pay-level typically has the strongest link to employee
turnover. Pay-level decisions are about whether to pay workers at a level that is below, above, or at
current market wages. After conducting a job evaluation, most companies try to pay the “going rate,”
On top of higher pay levels, Nick’s offers employment benefits. If employees work at least 30 hours
Chapter 11: Managing Human Resource Systems
242
It’s with pay variability, however, that Nick’s further distinguishes itself as a highly attractive place to
The last way in which Nick’s uses pay variability is skill-based pay. As you learned in Chapter 10 on
Next, since hiring talented workers is a key in the restaurant business, how should Nick’s redesign its
interview and selection process to do a better job of finding and keeping the best kitchen, wait, and bar
staff? What about interviews doesn’t work and should be abandoned? If so, what should be done
instead, and why?
External recruiting is the process of developing a pool of qualified job applicants from outside the
Once the recruitment process has produced a pool of qualified applicants, the selection process is
used to determine which applicants have the best chance of performing well on the job. At most
At Nick’s, before completing an application, applicants are asked to read the company’s “purpose and
values” statement shown below.
Pizza on Purpose!
Nick’s Pizza & Pubs is a Purpose and values-driven company. We honor the people we work
with and the communities in which we do business. This allows us to maintain extremely low
team turnover, provide profit sharing for every member of our team, and create a fun, open work
environment.
Nick’s Pizza & Pub Values
• We treat everyone with dignity and respect.
Chapter 11: Managing Human Resource Systems
243
• We honor individual passions, and creativity at work and at home.
• We communicate openly, clearly and honestly.
• We honor the relationships that connect our team, our guests and community.
Applicants are instructed to: “Please read this cover sheet because it’s important to us—and after you read
it, if this still feels like a place you want to be a part of, go ahead and fill out the application on the next
page. If this doesn’t feel like a place for you, that’s ok—go ahead and bring the application back—no
problem!”
While most recruiting and selection techniques are used to increase the number of applicants, the goal
At this point, almost everyone who completes an application will interview with a manager. From the
start of the interview process, managers are looking for signs of personal accountability. Nick Sarillo
says, “When a new applicant hands in an application and we say yes to an interview, the applicant
The 20% of applicants who make it out of the first round of interviews then complete two more
Nick’s further increases the validity of the interview by avoiding unstructured interviews, where
applicants are free to ask anything they want, and studies show that they do. For instance, because
interviewers often disagree about which questions should be asked during interviews, different
Nick’s relies on structured interviews where standardized interview questions are prepared ahead of time
so that all applicants are asked the same job-related questions. The primary advantage of structured
Chapter 11: Managing Human Resource Systems
244
Finally, at most restaurants, training is simply shadowing experienced workers to see what they do. So,
what could be done at Nick’s to improve training that would help them do their jobs better and to
continue learning and improving over time?
Training is used to give employees the job-specific skills, experience, and knowledge they need to do
At Nick’s, all employees go through two days of orientation training where they learn about the
After the initial 2-day orientation, every employee, no matter what they were hired to do, takes Nick’s
101 where they spend 4 hours in the kitchen learning how to make pizza.
The next step is Nick’s 201, in which employees are separated by job, kitchen, wait staff, or bar staff,
and are trained in their specific job responsibilities. And to prove that they’ve mastered their jobs, each
Finally, employees who want to become trainers themselves can take Nick’s 301. To become a
trainer, you must have achieved the top rating in each certification in your area. In addition, you’re
How well have Nick’s compensation, interview, and training methods worked? By any standard,
Nick’s Pizza & Pubs are top performing restaurants. First, employee turnover runs about 20% to 25% per
year, which is extraordinarily low compared to the industry average of 200% per year. On average, a
Chapter 11: Managing Human Resource Systems
245
But Nick’s is successful by non-financial measures, too. During the middle of the recession, his staff
Finally, Nick’s is successful as judged by his reason for getting into the business: To build a fund,
family business.
Self-Assessment
INTERVIEW ANXIETY
Even though your students will probably be aware of test-taking anxiety and public-speaking anxiety,
they are probably unaware that job-interview anxiety exists as a separate and more complex type of
performance anxiety. The researchers who developed the inventory used with this chapter see job-
interview anxiety as having five dimensions: communication anxiety, appearance anxiety, social anxiety,
performance anxiety, and behavioral anxiety.
In-Class Use
Tell your students to imagine that they have been invited to interview for an entry-level management
position at a large company (you can specify the industry as telecommunication, energy, consulting,
Scoring
Higher scores reflect greater feelings of anxiety during the interview process. If your score is high,
however, you’re not alone. The job application process is evaluative and competitive by nature and is a
Communication Anxiety
Chapter 11: Managing Human Resource Systems
246
Communication anxiety reflects feelings of nervousness or apprehension about one’s verbal
Appearance Anxiety
Appearance anxiety reflects feelings of nervousness or apprehension about one’s physical appearance. In
general, both interviewees and interviewers rate appearance as an important factor that can significantly
Social Anxiety
Social Anxiety reflects feelings of nervousness or apprehension about one’s social behavior, for example,
having an acceptable handshake. To find out your score on this subscale, add together your regular scores
Performance Anxiety
Performance Anxiety is conceptualized as “concern” over the outcome of a test, in other words, fear of
failure. Performance anxiety has generally been included in other measurements of anxiety, particularly
Behavioral Anxiety
Behavioral Anxiety is the level to which your body experiences tension while taking a test. Even though
The researchers who developed this inventory found that high levels of anxiety, as rated by the
applicant, were linked to lower interview performance, as rated by the interviewer. Furthermore, each of
the five subscales, communication anxiety, appearance anxiety, social anxiety, performance anxiety, and
behavioral anxiety, was negatively related to job interview performance. In other words, any kind of
Management Decision
TO FACEBOOK OR NOT TO FACEBOOK
Purpose
The purpose of this case is to consider whether a company should use information gained from an
applicant’s personal web site to make hiring decisions.
Chapter 11: Managing Human Resource Systems
247
Setting It Up
Ask your students: “How would you feel if you got rejected for a job because of what you posted on
Twitter last night?”
Questions
1. What decision would you make? Would you hire this person or re-open the search?
2. In your opinion, are companies justified in using an applicants Facebook or Twitter accounts
when considering them for a job?
3. Do you believe that a company should be concerned with how a potential employee spends his or
her personal time?
Students’ responses will vary. In general, though, students should offer their thoughts on the
Management Team Decision
TRAINING FOR GREAT SERVICE
Purpose
The purpose of this exercise is for students to confront a situation a manager would face and decide an
appropriate course of action. The exercise introduces issues that often come up during the process of
Setting It Up
You can use this assignment as a team exercise in class or as an individual take-home assignment. Before
beginning, you might ask students whether or not they have had trouble finding jobs for themselves. Point
out that the difficulties go both ways—managers also have trouble finding qualified employees.
Questions
1. Can a friendly, customer-oriented attitude be developed in a person? Can Nordstrom “train”
employees to prioritize making customers happy, or is it purely a matter of personality?
Many students are likely to answer that personality cannot be trained, that a person is either friendly
and approachable or is not. And though an individual’s personality may not be completely flexible,