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Solution Manual For
Fundamentals of Human Resource Management 1e Mary Gowan
Chapter 1-
Chapter 1 Managing Employees for Competitive Advantage
Preparing to Teach this Chapter
Our primary goal in writing this book is to provide students with an understanding of how to attract, develop, motivate, and retain employees and equip them with the knowledge and skills needed to successfully perform their jobs. Ultimately, employees are the key to how well an organization achieves its goals. This first chapter, the introduction to the course, presents a variety of key terms that are referenced throughout the text. In addition, this chapter outlines the key framework for the book – the Framework for the Strategic Management of Employees. This framework provides an organizing logic for understanding how all of the HR practices work together, and the challenges and opportunities organizations may face when managing their workforce for competitive advantage.
Additional Resources for Teaching this Chapter:
This chapter provides explicit company and case examples that can be used for discussion. These examples will help students understand how the primary HR challenges are interrelated and how they impact employee management and employee outcomes.
Zappos has a reputation as a very innovative organization and receives a lot of attention for how it manages its employees. Some interesting examples of how Zappos approaches management can be found in the following links. A good example of how they approach alignment can be found at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axlWBn7YQA4 (The Zappos Family – How They Work). This second link discusses a new direction for managing employees at Zappos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DYigfNJQlg (How Zappos Will Run with No Job Titles)
The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) Foundation provides at no charge for faculty an excellent video series highlighting managerial successes. The following video highlights HR alignment at Sysco. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15kS-330k_A
Objectives
- Discuss the potential costs and benefits associated with managing employees.
- Explain what it means to manage employees strategically.
- Identify and explain the three primary human resource (HR) activities.
- Discuss the management practices associated with each primary HR activity.
- Explain the importance of HR activity alignment.
- Discuss how organizational demands influence the management of employees.
- Describe how the external environment influences the management of employees.
- Understand the importance of regulatory issues in establishing HR practices.
Managing Employees The goal of this chapter is to provide students with an understanding of how to attract, develop, motivate and retain employees (^) = It is also about how to equip managers with the knowledge and skills to perform these activities
What’s in a Name? Key terms to emphasize: o Employees – individuals who work for a company o Human resource (HR) practices – the practices that a company has put in place to manage employees o Line manager – individuals who are responsible for supervising and directing the efforts of a group of employees to perform tasks that are directly related to the creation and delivery of a company’s products or services o Human resources (HR) department – a support function within companies that serves a vital role in designing and implementing company policies for employees
The Costs and Benefits of Managing HR Competitive advantage is a company’s ability to create more economic value than its competitors Competitive advantage is achieved by providing greater value to a customer relative to the cost of making a product or providing a service Increasingly companies recognize that employees, and how they are managed, may prove important to competitive success
Teaching Suggestion: Ask students in small groups to brainstorm the different ways that an employee can have an effect on a company’s success. Ask them to think about how employees can have an effect on an organization’s failures. What can organizations do to encourage the positive outcomes and discourage the negative ones?
Framework for the Strategic Management of Employees (Exhibit 1: Strategic Human Resources Framework) The framework shows the relationship between the organization’s context, both external and internal, and the HR activities that the organization requires to effectively manage employees to achieve a competitive advantage The framework introduces the primary HR activities and HR challenges that serve as the foundation for the course
Primary HR Activities (Exhibit 1.2: Primary HR Activities) There are three primary HR activities: work design and workforce planning, managing employee competencies, and managing employee attitudes and behaviors.
Teaching Suggestion: At its heart, this framework is based on the Abilities (A), Motivation (M) and Opportunities (O) framework in HR research. It is translated in a more accessible manner for students, but it is important to make sure they understand the key points of the framework (and their relationships).
As you begin to discuss the Framework for the Strategic Management of Employees woven throughout the text, it will be helpful to ask the students what it takes to be successful in a job or in a sport or even in the classroom. Ask students what happens when a student has one or the other attribute (competencies or motivation). How successful will they be in class? You can then ask the students how that logic translates into organizations. Last, ask the students how the alignment of managing competencies, managing
o Which tests are most effective for identifying employees with high potential? o What questions should you ask candidates during an interview? o Who makes the ultimate hiring decision?
Learning and Development Ensuring that new and current employees know the ins and outs of the organization and have the skills they need to succeed Some of the important decisions in training are: o How do you know which employees need to be trained? o How do you design an effective training program? o Which training methods are most effective to meet your needs? o How do you know if your training efforts have been successful?
Teaching Suggestion: Ask students how recruitment, selection and training are related. Is one more important than the other?
Managing Employee Attitudes and Behaviors Encouraging the right employee attitudes and behaviors requires motivating workers to continually improve their performance Requires guiding their efforts on the job through compensation, incentives, performance management programs, employee benefits and health and wellness programs
Performance Management Effective performance management involves evaluating employees, providing them with constructive feedback and using employee development activities to improve current and future performance Some critical issues in performance management are: o What is the best way for you to measure employee performance? o How should you communicate that information to employees? o In addition to performance evaluation, how can managers give employees developmental feedback to improve their performance? o How should you manage poorly performing employees?
Teaching Suggestion: Ask students how effective they think performance management really is in organizations. A useful way to emphasize this point is to refer to the course syllabus. Ask the students if they would behave differently in class if the course grade was 100% based on classroom participation. What if the grade was based 100% on a team project? Or 100% on the final essay exam?
Compensation and Incentives A company’s compensation system exerts a strong influence on the attitudes and behaviors of employees and includes base pay and a rewards and incentives system Some of the key questions when designing incentive systems are: o What factors should you consider when determining the salary range for a job? o What is the best way to determine how much employees should be paid? o How much of that pay should be guaranteed, and how much should be based on incentives? o What types of incentives should you use to encourage the employee attitudes and behaviors the firm wants?
Teaching Suggestion : Ask students to explain how incentives work. How big does an incentive have to be to motivate desired behavior? What are the potential risks of extensive incentives? Ask students if they
think employees might focus only on what is rewarded and ignore other aspects of their work if the incentives are large. Would behaviors be different if incentives were smaller?.
Employee Benefits, Health and Wellness Employee benefits, health and wellness serve as a recruitment and retention tool and may help ensure the health and well-being of a company’s workforce Some critical issues when considering employee benefits, health, and wellness are: o Which benefit programs are most appropriate for your workforce? o What are the legal requirements regarding benefit programs? o How can you ensure the safety of your employees?
HR Activities Alignment (Exhibit 1.3: Internal Alignment) Each of the three primary HR activities are important, but are only effective in combination; they must be designed to achieve the goals of the organization Internal Alignment - the consistency of the specific practices within each HR activity as well as alignment across the primary HR activities External Alignment - the extent to which the HR system works to help the organization address the HR challenges it faces
HR Challenges The variety of internal forces (organizational demands) and external forces (environmental influences) affecting a company The challenges they pose, are introduced in this section
Challenge 1: Meeting Organizational Demands (Exhibit 1.4: Organizational Demands) Organizational demands are factors within a firm These factors affect decisions about how to manage employees
Strategy A strategy is a company’s plan for achieving a competitive advantage over its rivals Strategy drives the activities that a company performs to attract and retain customers relative to its competitors Companies realize a competitive advantage when they implement a strategy that has value for customers and that rival firms are unable to duplicate The strategy a company chooses influences the types of jobs that must be performed to meet objectives and influences primary HR activities
Teaching Suggestion : Ask students to get into groups and discuss how a company focusing on cost leadership might manage its employees differently from a company competing on customer service or innovation. What types of differences among the primary HR activities would they expect?
Company Characteristics Company characteristics include size and stage of development Smaller businesses often do not have the same amount and type of resources as larger companies, and they may not be in a position to provide the same level of pay, benefits, and training opportunities The challenges for managing employees in a young startup are different from those in a mature organization striving to protect market share
Teaching Suggestion : Ask students to come up with 3-5 ways that small companies are different from large companies. What are the implications of those differences for managing employees?
The one challenge that has probably had the most direct influence on the management of employees is regulatory issues that impact the employment process Most issues related to managing employees such as staffing, compensation, and benefits have some sort of regulatory oversight
Insert new section: COVID-19 and HR
The Roadmap For This Book (Exhibit 1.6 Chapter Overview) The plan for this book is to explore the primary HR activities that companies design and managers implement to successfully do the following: build the competencies of their employees; motivate employees to work harder and smarter; design jobs and engage in workforce planning that exploit the effective development and use of skills; and, ensure that the appropriate number and types of employees are recruited and selected.
Chapters 2-3: HR Challenges These chapters focus on the three sets of HR challenges
Chapters 4-5: Work Design and Workforce Planning The focus of chapters 4-5 is on the nature of work and allocating people throughout a company to
maximize employee contributions and company success is the focus of these chapters
Chapters 6-8: Managing Employee Competencies These chapters explore how to use recruitment, selection and training to identify, choose and develop the
right people for the unique needs of the organization
Chapters 9-12: Managing Employee Attitudes and Behaviors The focus in chapters 9-12 is on how to encourage and motivate employees to target their efforts on making important contributions to achieving organizational objectives is the subject of these chapters
Chapters 13-14: Special Topics Two additional topics are covered in these chapters: unions and employee management and creating high- performing HR systems
Discussion Questions
1. How does managing employees contribute to achieving a competitive advantage?
By understanding the relationships among these components and how the HR activities build on each other, managers can equip and position employees to maximize their contribution to company performance, which in turn creates competitive advantage. Pages: 3-4.
2. Given the importance of employees for a company to sustain a competitive advantage, why do you think so many companies have engaged in layoffs, outsourcing, and offshoring of work to other countries?
Often these decisions are made to substantially lower costs. Page: 3-4.
3. What does it mean to strategically manage employees?
The strategic management of employees centers around three categories of HR activities: work design and workforce planning, managing employee competencies and managing employee attitudes and behaviors, which occur within the context of three main HR challenges: organizational demands, environmental influences and regulatory issues. Pages 6-12.
4. Identify and explain the three primary HR activities.
Work design and workforce planning. Designing jobs and planning for the workforce needed to achieve organizational goals. Managing employee competencies. Identifying, acquiring and developing employee talent and skills. Managing employee attitudes and behaviors. Encouraging and motivating employees to perform in appropriate ways to contribute to company goals. Pages: 6-12.
5. Which of the three primary HR activities is most challenging? Why?
Managing employee attitudes and behaviors is probably the most challenging of the three. We could say that the other two activities are more rote, easier to perform because they involve working within established processes and systems. Even a start-up has models to base their creation of the processes and systems involved in the work design and workforce planning and managing employee competencies. But managing employee attitudes and behaviors, especially in the case of performance management, can be more challenging because of the variable known as the employee. Motivating employees, enhancing their positive attitudes and changing their behavior is rarely rote or easy, even though there are established strategies and tactics available. Pages: 6-20.
6. Discuss the management practices associated with each primary HR activity.
Work Design and Workforce Planning Job design – decisions about: which tasks should be emphasized how simple or complex the tasks should be how many tasks employees can perform how much flexibility can be provided in terms of how and where tasks are accomplished Workforce planning – decisions to make: how to address a labor shortage or surplus when to use overtime versus hire additional staff when to outsource rather than hire new employees what can be done to minimize the negative effects of downsizing
Managing Employee Competencies Recruitment – issues to address: competencies to focus on in recruitment groups to target with the recruitment message recruit internally, externally, or both what makes a value proposition that will attract the right applicants Selection – issues to address: information necessary to make an effective, and legal, hiring decision tests which are most effective for identifying employees with high potential
to evolve. Moreover, legislation is continually introduced that broadens existing statutes and creates new ones. Pages: 20.
Learning Exercise 1
Now that you have read about how companies differ and how those differences can affect employee management practices, here's a chance for you to begin applying those concepts. Lockheed Martin and Panera Bread are two very different, and very successful, companies. Lockheed Martin is an advanced technology company and a major defense contractor. Panera Bread is a fast-expanding bakery-café chain. Lockheed Martin was formed in 1995 when two major defense contractors, Lockheed Corporation and Martin Marietta Corporation, merged. The corporation reported net sales of $51 billion in 2017. Net income from continuing operations (excluding the impact of the Tax Cut and Jobs Act) were $3.9 billion, and cash from operations amounted to $6.5 billion. Clearly, the corporation is doing well. Lockheed's vision is to “Be the global leader in supporting our customers’ missions, strengthening security, and advancing scientific discovery.” Panera was founded in 1981 as Au Bon Pain, Inc. In 1993, the company bought St. Louis Bread Co., and in time changed the name from St. Louis Bread to Panera Bread. Because of the success of Panera, in May 1991, the company sold all the Au Bon Pain, Inc., business units except Panera Bread and then changed the name of the company itself to Panera Bread. The rest, as they say, is history. Annual sales now exceed $5 billion. Panera Bread's mission statement is simple: “A loaf of bread in every arm.” Visit the websites of Lockheed Martin Corporation (www.lockheedmartin.com) and Panera Bread (www.panerabread.com). Use the information provided in the “About Us” section and other parts of each company's website to answer the following questions.
1. Prepare a chart comparing the two companies based on the organizational demand characteristics _discussed in this chapter.
- Discuss two or three of the key environmental influences that each company would likely face. Why would_ _there be different key environmental influences for each company?
- Describe how the organizational demands and environmental influences identified for each company_ would differentially affect work flow, employee competencies, and employee attitudes and behaviors for each company.
Notes for Grading: Students should identify information that relates to the strategy, characteristics, organizational culture and employee concerns. They will be able to find this information by consulting the respective company web sites or articles published about these companies in credible periodicals such as The Wall Street Journal. Students should also consider the mission and type of operations for each company. This information will suggest that certain environmental influences are probably more relevant than others for the companies. Their exploration may show that a case could be made that Lockheed Martin would likely have to deal mostly with technology and globalization; labor trends and technology might be more relevant to Panera Bread. Students should be able to distinguish the differences between both companies – Lockheed is a large, high-tech, global corporation; Panera Bread is a food-based, people- oriented moderate-sized, primarily U.S. company. From this distinction, discuss how the respective demands and influences will have varying effects on job design, recruitment, compensation and incentives, for example.
Teaching Suggestion : Sometimes it is helpful to identify companies that compete but are not necessarily that similar. One useful comparison is a fast food restaurant and an upscale restaurant. Have the students consider the challenges for each restaurant. If time allows, have the students compare and contrast the roles and types of employees who prepare the food in each type of establishment. This could lead to an interesting discussion of how similar roles are managed differently due to different forces.
Learning Exercise 2
What exactly does it mean to be a manager? This may seem like an innocent question. But do you really know? Throughout this chapter, we have discussed many of the tools that managers have at their disposal for managing their employees. For this exercise, interview three managers and ask them how they spend their time. Then answer the following questions.
_1. What does it mean to manage employees?
- What aspects of each manager’s job create the most challenges?
- Compare the responses you get from the three managers with the primary HR activities discussed in this_ chapter. What role do these managers play in work design and workforce planning? Managing employee competencies? Managing employees’ attitudes and behaviors?
Notes for Grading: Encourage students to interview three different types of managers and/or managers in three different types of organizations or companies to get a broader view of a manager’s job. Students may be surprised about what they learn from the managers they interview. Depending on the nature and size of the company, they may discover that the managers they interview have limited or no experience in work design and workforce planning. Also, they may not actually be cognizant of managing employee competencies and skills; rather, they may be more focused on getting the productivity and results they seek. On the other hand, they (the interviewees) may be very sensitive to their employees’ professional development and do what they can to be sure their employees grow.
Teaching Suggestion : Consider inviting several different type of managers to class to discuss the similarities and differences in their roles in different organizations and different settings.
Case Study 1 – The New Job
After graduating from school, you are fortunate to receive an offer as an assistant manager of a marketing department in a company located in New York City, working for a fast-growing company that provides marketing support for companies. Your department specializes in marketing strategies for the Internet and currently consists of 10 people – you, your direct supervisor (the manager of the department), and 8 marketing associates. Your job is to help the manager lead the unit to develop long-term strategies for your unit, to maintain excellent customer service with your clients and to strive to build future business opportunities. The marketing associates in your department work a very flexible schedule and are often offsite, working with the clients at their location to help develop marketing campaigns to improve their business presence, and performance, via the Internet. After being on the job a short while, you realize that you really need to create another position to help make sure all the necessary work gets completed on time. Essentially, while you and your manager are focusing on the long-term interests of the department and the associates are working very hard to help the clients, many of the administrative aspects of the work are falling by the wayside. For example, no one is currently tracking accounts payable from clients or handling accounts payable to your service providers. As a result, you are spending time on these tasks that are beyond your job expectations. In addition, you are spending an increasing amount of time making travel arrangements such as booking hotels and arranging transportation for your staff. After you talk with the manager of your unit, she agrees that something needs to change to allow you to devote your time to more of the strategic issues in the unit, and she permits you to create a new position to help out in your department. Your challenge now is to determine what this position will be.
_1. What job would you create? Why?
- What are the key tasks and responsibilities that this new employee would be expected to perform?_
Notes for Grading: Based on information presented in the case, students should acknowledge that Wegmans’ policies and practices show they care about their employees’ personal and professional success, and the company understands that when basic employee needs are met, they will continue to work for the employer who provides for these needs. Students should recognize and discuss how these activities play a critical role in achieving employee loyalty and financial success. They should see that the more productive and effective employees are, the greater the potential for Wegmans’ financial success. A strong case can be made that their approach could work and realize similar benefits in any company that values people as its most important assets. This question should raise the issue of “costs” that are perceived to be too great (i.e. time, money) with results that are not instantaneous, and how companies can be intolerant of long-term strategies.
Teaching Suggestion : Have the students visit the full list of Best Companies to Work For. What is it about those companies that make them so great as places to work?
Preparing to Teach this Chapter
The chapter provides a very important framing of context for the topics presented in the book. While the book focuses on human resource management, a key theme emphasized throughout the book and in the course is that we are trying to help students understand that effectively managing employees requires consideration of context. The primary contexts are internal to the organization – organizational demands and those outside the organization
- environmental and regulatory concerns.
Be sure to emphasize that context shapes many managerial decisions. You can begin by asking the students to think about all the different situations that they need to keep in mind when managing employees.
There are many excellent examples to use to highlight the importance of context. In terms of understanding the internal environment, students enjoy talking about what culture means and how different cultures encourage and discourage different types of behaviors. With regard to the external environment, understanding the legal issues regarding managing employees is typically pretty obvious for employees. But brainstorming how the demographics, globalization, ethics, and technology impact organizations can lead to some very rich discussions. It is possible that many, if not most, of the students in the course cannot remember life before email, texting, online shopping, online banking, telecommuting, and virtual teams. The world is always changing and it is helpful to compare and contrast different situations to really emphasize the importance of context for managing employees.
Additional Resources for Teaching this Chapter:
The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) is a leading professional organization for HR professionals. Their organizational website provides a wealth of information and is a useful source of information online regarding various HR topics. These links are available at: https://shrm.org
There is a wealth of information regarding demographic trends that can be found at the Bureau of Labor Statistics: https://bls.gov
Another resource to explore current events related to HR topics is provided by HR Dive: https://www.hrdive.com/ This resource provides news and analysis of relevance for human resource executives and provides an opportunity for students to understand how the topics covered in this textbook are playing out in the workplace. Students can sign up for a news feed to receive up-to-date information about HR issues on a regular basis.
Objectives
- Describe how differences in company strategies shape the primary human resources (HR) activities.
- Explain how company characteristics influence the way employees are managed.
- Discuss the role of organizational culture in effective employee management.
- Explain how employee concerns influence employees’ interpretation and response to different HR activities.
- Discuss the impact of labor force trends on how companies manage employees.
- Identify how advances in technology affect employee management.
- Explain the challenges of managing employees in a global context.
- Understand how ethics and social responsibility influence managerial decisions. The Importance of Context (Exhibit 2.1: Framework for the Strategic Management of Employees)
- No two companies are the same
- There is no one best way to manage employees
- Using the wrong practice, or using the right practice poorly, can cause more harm than good
Culture is shaped by many factors such as values and beliefs of a founder, past decisions, and company history
Employee Concerns Taking into consideration the employees’ needs and concerns will help companies be more successful in getting employees to work toward company goals. A major consideration is the psychological contract – an employee’s perceived obligations that employees believe they owe their company and that their company owes them This is often shaped through pay, benefits, and training as incentives for employees
Work/Life Balance o Refers to the balance between the demands of work and the demands of employees’ personal lives o A 2016 national study indicated that 81% of companies allow some employees to change starting and quitting time, 66% allow employees to work some of their work hours at home, and 81% allow employees to take time off during the workday o Work life balance programs often also consider child care and elder care
Teaching Suggestion: Have students interview friends and family with jobs and ask them to share how much work/life balance considerations matter to them. Do these employees have flexible work schedules and/or the opportunity to work from home? Have the students share with the class what they learned. Are certain types of work/life balance programs more helpful for different situations?
Justice (Exhibit 2.5: Understanding Procedural Justice) The issues of justice focus primarily on the expectations of employees about how they should be treated while at work. Three types of justice are presented:
- Distributive – fairness of what individuals receive in return for their efforts
- Procedural – considering whether the processes used to make the decision, allocate rewards, or resolve disputes are fair
- Interactional – how employees feel they are treated by their managers and supervisors in everyday situations
Teaching Suggestion: One useful way to demonstrate justice is to use the class grading system as an example. Ask the students how they would feel if at the end of the course they were told that the weights for the course materials were changed and the entire grade was based on in-class participation? In this discussion, be sure to highlight both the process for making the change (and the fairness or lack of fairness in the process), as well as the actual change (the distributive justice perspective).
Environmental Influences (Exhibit 2.6: Environmental Influences) Pressures that exist outside of a company that influence how employees are managed
Labor Force Trends (Exhibit 2.7 – Percent Distribution of Civilian Labor Force, by Age) The future labor force will be markedly different from the past The workforce is becoming older and more diverse
The Aging Workforce o The percentage of individuals in the 55 and older age group will continue to grow significantly compared to the age of the rest of the workforce o This trend is not limited to the US; countries such as Greece, Sweden, Japan, and Spain are dealing with the same issue
o As baby boomers approach retirement, companies are facing a situation in which a considerable number of their employees may leave the workforce; there is a limited supply of workers to replace them
Demographic Diversity o Trends in migration, coupled with differences in birth rates across demographic groups, continue to shape the racial composition of the workforce o The fastest growing groups in the labor force are Hispanics and Asians o By 2050, Hispanics will make up 24% of the U.S. labor force, Blacks 14% and Asians 11% o Foreign-born workers live in every state and half of all foreign born workers live in California, New York, Texas, and Florida
Teaching Suggestion: Ask the students to brainstorm the many ways in which diversity within an organization might impact workers in the organization. How can that prove to be an asset to a group? a challenge? A key point is that diversity provides benefits to groups, including diversity of perspective for better decision making. However, diversity can also slow down decision making and introduce barriers to communication.
Technology Technology continues to shape the nature of competition and how companies conduct business The prominence of the Internet and information technology has considerable implications for how employees function within companies Information technologies have also created new avenues for how employees interact, share information, and learn from one another Many companies are experimenting with telecommuting – allowing workers to work outside of the traditional office setting and connect via technology
Teaching Suggestion: Technology has introduced many changes in the workplace. One that is particularly interesting to discuss with the students is telecommuting. Ask the student to discuss whether they would want to telecommute or not. What are the pros and cons for them personally? Then ask the students to pretend to be a manager whose staff wants to telecommute. What would be their concerns as the manager and what would be the benefits?
Globalization Many companies are actively competing on an international level through exporting products and services, sending work to foreign companies, setting up production or service facilities in other countries, or establishing international joint ventures and partnerships with foreign firms There has been a push toward globalization fueled by trade agreements such as NAFTA and APEC but more recently there has been pushback in some countries away from existing trade agreements, or past agreements have been renegotiated (e.g., Brexit and the EU, NAFTA)
Teaching Suggestion : Ask students what they believe have been the drivers for the U.S. and Britain to take a different course relative to being part of global trade agreements than had been the case prior to a few years ago. This topic would lend itself well to a short debate on the topic of the importance of trade agreements for economic (e.g., country and business) growth.
International Strategies o Companies differ in the extent to which they compete on a global level o There are a variety of international strategies: Domestic Strategy focuses primarily on serving the market within a particular country International Strategy involves expanding the markets in which organizations compete to include multiple countries
Implications of Global Factors on Managing Employees o Globalization creates unique challenges for managing employees on international assignments o Cultural differences impact what managers, and employees, view as acceptable management practices
Ethics and Social Responsibility Organizations must consider that different stakeholders have varied expectations for their performance Ethical behavior can help build a positive reputation such as that enjoyed by Bristol-Myers Squibb, Johnson & Johnson, and Microsoft—although these reputations have taken hits at times Companies need to not only set ethical standards for employees, but also take steps to show employees how to carry out ethical actions in their jobs Organizations can influence the extent to which employees behave ethically or unethically Some key steps that companies can take are to o Appoint an “ethics officer” o Constantly monitor the aspects of the company’s culture that concerns its value system, including ethics o Provide ethics training o Perform background checks on incoming employees o Devote time at regular staff meetings to talk about responsibilities
Teaching Suggestion : Ask students about ethical behavior in classes. Why do people cheat? It is helpful to separate the idea that while some people may cheat, often the circumstances influence their decisions to behave ethically or not.
Discussion Questions
1. Create a list of differentiation strategies. What implications do these strategies have for employee management?
Students should identify the seven or so differentiation strategies found in the text. The implications would include acknowledging that employees should have or be provided with skills relevant to addressing these strategies. Different sources of differentiation might also target different types of cultures to support their strategic focus. Pages: 36-
2. What are some of the unique HR challenges associated with managing employees in start-up companies versus long-established, larger companies?
Students need to acknowledge that newer businesses present more or at least different challenges than long- established and larger businesses. For example, there is typically less redundancy in terms of excess staff and resources in younger companies. There is also less institutional knowledge in younger companies and perhaps more flexible job descriptions. Much like small companies, newer companies tend to be small and often have less employee slack to cover if an employee quits or is absent from work. Pages: 39-
3. As a manager, what can you do to help instill new values and beliefs among your employees?
This response should address the importance of communicating and reinforcing organizational culture, and recognize that employees need to be recruited with these values or learn them from their manager. Pages: 40-
4. How much responsibility do companies have to help employees balance their work and personal lives? What options are available to help achieve work/life balance? Which options are available to help achieve work/life balance? Which of these options is best?
Students should grasp the concept that helping employees with work/life balance retains and attracts good employees, so this becomes an important competitive strategy. The text presents a number of options and students should realize that the best options are those that meet the particular needs of each employee. Page: 43
5. Research the benefits and challenges of having a diverse workforce? How can you help employees embrace diversity and create an inclusive environment?
Students should understand that different perspectives and talents enhance an organization, but these differences may also conflict and have complexity as well. Students should also understand that when employees see that differences lead to greater benefits for everyone, it is easier to embrace them. Pages: 47-
6. What types of managerial challenges would you expect to encounter if your employees were to telecommute to work? How would you address those issues?
Students need to think about the impact of the employee who commutes as well as the impact of that employee’s absence. Telecommuting policies can create tensions among workers who can and those who cannot telecommute. There are also challenges with perceptions of how hard someone is actually working when they are working from home. It is important to emphasize that communication among all employees will be critical in managing these challenges. Page: 49-
