Notes

Appraisal: The formal process of evaluating the contributions and performance of an employee.

360 degree appraisal/feedback: Feedback coming from multiple people who interact with the person being appraised (manager, coworker, subordinate, customer).

Self-appraisal: A performance evaluation an employee does on himself.

Summative appraisal: Appraisal done periodically in order to evaluate whether the employee is performing on the agreed level.

Formative appraisal: Continuous appraisal done in order for employees to improve performance and effectiveness.

Demography: The statistical study of population characteristics, using data such as birth rates, death rates, ageing populations, and net migration rates.

Dismissal: The termination of a worker's contract due to incompetence or a breach of contract.

Flexible work patterns: The trend in using less core staff and more peripheral workers and subcontractors to improve the flexibility of the workforce.

Human resource management: The role of managers in developing the organization's people, such as the recruitment, selection, dismissal, and training and development of employees.

Human resource planning: The management process of forecasting an organization's current and future staffing needs.

Induction: Training aimed at introducing new staff to the business to get them familiar with the policies, practices, and culture of the organization.

Job description: A document that outlines the nature of a job, i.e., the roles, tasks, and responsibilities involved in a particular job.

Labour turnover: Measures the number of workers who leave a firm as a percentage of the workforce, per year. It is often used to gauge the level of motivation in an organization.

Positive impacts: fresh ideas, lower pay rates, avoids complacent work.
Negative impacts: lower morale, additional expenses, quality of work may not be as good.
Calculation: Number of employees leaving/number of employees in the business x 100.
Person specification: A business document that gives the profile of the ideal candidate for a job, such as their skills, qualifications, and experience.

Portfolio working: To simultaneously carry out a number of different jobs, often for various employers, usually on a part-time or temporary basis.

Redeployment: Transferring a staff member from a department or branch that no longer requires their services to other areas of the business where a vacancy exists.

Redundancies: Occur when the employer can no longer afford to hire the worker or when the job ceases to exist.

Training: The process of providing opportunities for workers to acquire employment-related skills and knowledge.

Development: Enhancing the personal skills of a worker.

Accountability: The extent to which a person is held responsible for the success or failure of a task.

Chain of command: The formal line of authority, shown in an organization chart, through which orders are passed down.

Delegation: The transfer of authority or responsibility for specific activities and tasks within a business from one individual to another.

Span of control: The number of subordinates who report directly to a manager.

Delayering: Reducing the number of levels in the organization's job structure.

Bureaucracy: A clear hierarchal structure where people are expected to follow rules and procedures.

Decentralization: Decisions are delegated to lower-level management.

Directors: People elected by the shareholders of a company to run the business on their behalf.

Flat organizational structure (horizontal): There are only a few layers in the formal hierarchy and hence managers have a relatively wide span of control.

Tall organizational structure (hierarchy): There are many layers in the hierarchy and hence managers have a narrow span of control.

Communication: The transfer of information between different people and between businesses.

Channels of communication: The methods or routes through which information is passed from the sender to the recipient.

Formal communication: Refers to the official channels of communication that are established by an organization.

Informal communication: Unofficial channels of communication naturally established by people from within an organization.

Autocratic leader: Managers and leaders who adopt an authoritarian style by making all the decisions rather than delegating any responsibility to their subordinates.

Advantage: Faster decision-making, employees understand exactly what is needed to be done.
Disadvantage: Employees can't voice their ideas (creativity isn't welcome).
Democratic leader: A decision-maker who takes into account the views of others. Decision-making can therefore be decentralized.

Advantages: Employees feel heard/ boosts motivation as employees feel involved.
Disadvantages: Takes time and some people don't have enough experience to make those decisions.
Laissez-faire leadership: A hands-off approach to leadership by devolving decision-making power to the workforce.

Advantages: Motivates employees as they will feel like they are trusted.
Disadvantages: Competent (experienced) employees are needed for this to work. Some employees may feel lost.
Paternalistic management: When a manager treats workers like a family, so managers make decisions on what's best for the workforce.

Advantages: Employees are more loyal as it creates a sense of belonging.
Disadvantages: Both employees and managers may not see what's best for the company.
Situational Leadership: Leadership style that requires leaders to change and adapt their approach in response to different situations and circumstances.

Advantages: Adjusts leadership style to what's best in a situation so it creates a better work environment for workers with different personalities.
Disadvantage: May create confusion/ manager requires high Emotional Intelligence in order to execute it properly.
Leadership: The art of inspiring and motivating other people towards achieving a common organizational aim or vision.

Management: The practice of achieving an organization's objectives by using the available resources of the business.

Management style: The way in which managers tend to operate, such as in an autocratic, paternalistic, democratic or laissez-faire or situational manner.

Empowerment: A non-financial motivator which involves a manager giving his/her subordinates some autonomy in their job and the authority to make various decisions.

Fringe benefits: The rewards received in addition to a worker's wages or salaries. (company car, free meals, housing).

Herzberg's two-factor theory: Looks at the factors that motivate employees, namely motivators, and maintenance (hygiene) factors that must be met to prevent dissatisfaction.

Hygiene factors: Parts of a job that Herzberg referred to that do not increase job satisfaction but help to remove dissatisfaction, such as reasonable wages and working conditions.

Job enlargement: Increasing the number of tasks that an employee performs, thereby reducing or eliminating the monotony or repetitive tasks.

Job enrichment: A form or job enlargement that involves giving workers more challenging jobs with more responsibilities.

McGregor's Theory X and Theory Y: A theory based on management perceptions of employee attitudes in the workplace.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: Outlines five levels of needs, from satisfying physiological needs to self-actualization. Maslow argued lower-order needs must be met before people progress up the hierarchy.

Motivation: The inner desire or passion to do something.

Herzberg's Motivation-Hygiene Theory:

Motivators: The work itself, responsibility, growth, achievement, recognition.
Hygiene factors: Workplace conditions, compensation, security, relationships.
Note: Hygiene factors when absent, can cause dissatisfaction but do not cause satisfaction.
Taylor's Scientific Management Theory: Getting efficiency for task involved finding the right person for the task, monitoring performance, and giving feedback.

More money = more work.
Advantages: Increased productivity, financial rewards for better efficiency motivates employees.
McClelland's Acquired Needs Theory: Three acquired needs motivate people: Achievement, power, and affiliation.

Understanding how each person weighs up to these needs is important in providing appropriate motivators for them.
Deci and Ryan Self Determination Theory:

Intrinsic motivators: Autonomy (ability to make decisions), competence (feeling of capability and sense of achievement), relatedness (feeling of connection with others).
Extrinsic motivators: Pay (these motivators can negatively affect intrinsic motivators).
Equity Theory: People are motivated by the understanding of fairness (inputs time and effort and receive compensation).

If employees see someone doing less work but are treated better they may feel demotivated.
Expectancy Theory: Behavior is motivated by the anticipation of results or consequences.

Increased efforts will result in better performance which will improve outcome.
Performance-related pay: A payment system that rewards people who meet set targets over a period of time.

Piece rate: A payment system that rewards employees based on the amount they produce or sell.

Scientific management: Developed by F.W. Taylor, this theory suggests that specialization and division of labor, linked to a piece-rate payment system, increases the level of productivity.

Shamrock structure:

Core employees: Fulfill the core requirements of the business.
Contract employees: Hired to complete a task.
Temporary employees: Hired only when needed.
Advantages: Saves money, more flexible.
Disadvantages: Temporary and contract employees may not feel as motivated as the core employees, less employees connected to the business.
Project-Based (Matrix) Structure: Employees are put into teams to complete a project but have to report to both a project manager and functional manager (i.e., finance, HR).

Advantage: Flexible.
Disadvantage: Teams can be isolated from one another.
Holacracy: Employees come together in specific teams to undertake a goal.

Advantages: Flexibility of roles allows business to react to external changes in environment, distributed authority increases motivation.
Disadvantages: Not appropriate for businesses with well-established and traditional hierarchies.
Reasons for resistance to change:

Self-interest: Employees may think this change will affect them.
Low tolerance: Prefers stability.
Misinformation: Not communicated clearly.
Dealing with resistance to change:

Communication: Communicate the change clearly to everyone so there is no misinformation.
Coercion: Force employees to accept the change.
Manipulation: Convince employees.
Planning: Plan the change so the stakeholders can feel more comfortable.
Negotiation: Provide incentives.
Participation: Include employees in the decisions for change.
Salary (financial reward): Employee being paid a set amount of money after an agreed period.

Wage (financial reward):

By time: Weekly sum employees are paid by the number of hours they work.
Piece work: Employees are paid by the number of 'units' or pieces they make.
Commission (financial reward): The employee gets a percentage of the total amount which they sell.

Performance related pay (financial reward): Employees receive a bonus as well as their original pay (if they are performing well).

Profit related pay (financial reward): Employees receive a percentage of the profits which the company generates on top of their usual pay.

Employee share ownership (financial reward): Employees are given shares in the company as a reward or the option to buy at a discounted price.

Fringe payments (financial reward): Rewards given to employees on top of their usual pay such as gym membership, company car, housing, free meals.

Job enrichment (non-financial reward): Employees' jobs are designed to be more complex (also improves skill and motivation).

Job rotation (non-financial reward): Employees change jobs for a period of time to learn a new task within the work process or broader business (improve skills and motivation, employees are more flexible).

Job enlargement (non-financial reward): Additional tasks are added to an employee's job description.

Empowerment (non-financial reward): Giving employees more responsibility by having them decide how to complete a task and in making decisions in the workplace.

Purpose (non-financial reward): When the employee seeks to make a positive contribution with their work for the greater good.

Teamwork (non-financial reward): Collaborating in a team to solve a particular problem can motivate employees, improve the community, and increase productivity.

On the job training: Employee training while they are at their job.

Induction: For new employees (introduces business...).
Coaching: Supervisor guiding the employee on how to do something.
Mentor: Employee paired with more experienced worker.
Job rotation: Employee performing another job that involves another process at work or in the business for a period of time.
Apprenticeship: Employee works under a supervisor to acquire the required skills.
In-house courses: Internally staffed or external trainers.
Off the job training: Training that takes place away from the workplace.

Lectures and conferences.
Vestibule training: Training in a prototype environment to acquire necessary skills (usually done for factories).
Simulators: Simulates the working environment as closely as possible.
Formal communication: Follows defined channels of communication (confidential, time-consuming, documented).

Spoken: Telephone communication, meetings, presentation, interview.
Written: Business letters, reports.
Electronic: Emails, website, social media, text message, video conference.
Vertical communication: Different organizational levels.
Horizontal communication: Employees in different departments.
Diagonal: Different department and organizational level.

Advantages: Efficient, fewer mistakes, documented.
Disadvantages: Slow, reduced creativity.

Informal communication: No defined channels (flows freely).

Single strand chain: One says to another who says to another.
Cluster chain: A group of people discusses mutual interest.
Probability chain: One person tells a random person who tells someone else.
Gossip chain: One person says to a group who says to another group.
Advantages: Faster, improve employee relationships.
Disadvantages: Lack of confidentiality, misinterpreted, rumors.

Barriers to communication: Cultural barrier, linguistic barrier, emotional barrier, organizational barrier, attitudinal and personality barrier, physical barrier, communication skills.

Causes of conflict in the workplace: Values, communication, insufficient resources, power, change, redundancies.

Approaches to conflict in the workplace: Collective bargaining, overtime ban, work to rule, strike.

Approaches to conflict resolution: Employee participations, no strike agreement, getting a third party to decide (arbitration).