Human Resource Management Terms

Taft-Hartley Act

The Taft-Hartley Act which is also known as the Labour Management Relations Act of 1947 came about after there was a great number of large-scale strikes which had nearly disabled the steel, automobile, as well as the packaging industries. It is an amendment of the Wagner Act and was designed so as to benefit all the parties involved to a common labour agreement-the employees, the employer and the labour union. This act bases on the right of the labour force to refrain themselves from the union activities(Groves, 1951). The Human Resource Management is shaped and influenced by the law. This thus helps an organization to control the inclusion of their employees in unions that might be available for them. It can be applied in HR when preventing its employees from joining national unions by set of rules and implementation of the act.

The Act is important as it provides for an avenue to make inquiry into investigating unions’ disputes when it is believed the strike would endanger national health or safety. The act is used in areas of collective bargain approach. An interesting part of the Taft-Hartley Act is the consideration of “unfair” labor practices within different backgrounds worldwide (Abraham, 2012).

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Employee Referrals

The concept is instrumental in human resource management as it involves a recruitment strategy with all-inclusive approach for engaging the organization’s workforce and streamlining its recruitment by saving on effort, money and time (Society for Human Resource Management (U.S.), (2011). Employee referrals are used in speedy hires as the employees sell the company to the candidates even before the actual interview. The interesting aspect of this concept is the substantiality of hiring the referred versus non-referred applicants.

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Organization goal setting

This concept is significant in formulating a framework upon which the organization operates in terms of resource and human capital allocation into the company’s processes. It is used in a situation where an organization wants to meet a specific target of operation. The interesting part about organization goal setting is the involvement of the relevant stakeholders as they are critical in propelling the entire goal achievement process.

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360 Degrees

The 360 performance appraisal is an essential human resource management aspect in which the appraisal is incorporated with a feedback from every individual who are part of the organization or are affected by such performances. Generally, the tool is used for the middle and senior level category of employees. The interesting thing about 360 degrees appraisal is the broad range of stakeholders involved. This could make the process cumbersome.

Assessment centers

This another tool of human resource management which is essential in achieving more accuracy than conducting a standard recruitment process since the centers allow for a wider range of selection methods to be applied during the recruitment process. The selection centers are used as recruitment platforms in which different exercise are designed for the assessment of full range of personal attributes and skills for a job. An interesting area in assessment centers is how it helps the employer to build an employer brand because even the candidates who have been through the assessment centers but were not picked still feel impressed with the organization.

Profit Sharing

Profit sharing is important as it gets groups of employee to pursue a common goal through working together. An example of the usage of profit sharing concept at work is a situation in which a company contributes a proportion of its pre-tax profits into a pool which is distributed amongst its eligible employees. An interesting aspect of this HR management terminology is the evaluation of the common method for determining every participant’s allocation within a profit-sharing plan.

COBRA

The Convenient Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) is important to human resource management as the individual entitled to elect COBRA continuation coverage at a time when he would otherwise lose group health coverage under a group health plan has the opportunity to consider every option he/she has to get other health coverage before he/she decides. COBRA is used in all the group health plans which are maintained by the private-sector employers having an employee base of 20 and more individuals. It is an interesting area in COBRA to analyze who is a qualified beneficiary to the plan. This is because only specific individuals can be qualified beneficiaries as a result of a qualifying event, with the kind of qualification event determining who is considered a qualified beneficiary when it happens.

Job Description

Job description is an important tool for HR management which helps in increasing organizational and individual effectiveness through development of job profiles for the different key positions in terms of duties and responsibilities. This HR management tool is used in recruitment campaigns in which there is an explicit articulation of duties and qualifications for a particular position. An interesting aspect of job description is the application of the organization’s work plan and job description in monitoring the entire organizational performance.

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Workforce Diversity

Workforce diversity is important as it portrays a positive reputation of a working environment since it is evident that the organization practices no employment discrimination. Workforce diversity is used at work to inculcate a culture of nurturing creative ideas to the mix as a result of incorporating heterogeneous groups in the organizations workforce (Scott & Byrd, 2012). One interesting fact about workforce diversity is that the business world is embracing economic globalization era in which a company’s global look is an inevitable factor.

Read also Diversity, Higher Productivity, Job Satisfaction and Workforce

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Performance Evaluation

It is important for an organization to conduct a performance evaluation of its employees in order to ensure that organization’s and the individual’s needs are met through assessing and job performance status to subordinate employees and make suggestions on the needed changes in skills, attitude, job knowledge and behavior. An example of an area at work in which performance evaluation is used is where a senior personnel has the obligation to indicate strengths and weaknesses of the subordinate for an informed changes making. An interesting area in performance evaluation is the variations in the key steps involves in the preparations of conducting performance appraisal. These variation create a huge gap in having a standardized performance appraisal criterion (Grote, 2009).

Outsourcing

Outsourcing is an important aspect in business arena in a scenario where the organization wants to focus on its core, activities that are value-adding with no distraction of running support services. This is because support services can soak up the organization’s financial resources and management time as these would usually enable the business to use its resources and competences in gaining competitive advantage. Secondly, outsourcing is equally important in cost restructuring, for instance, outsourcing for component manufacturing ensure that the organization incurs lower fixed cost and higher variable costs.  Making the components in-house, ensures that they would be inevitably associated with substantial fixed overheads. Lastly, outsourcing is considerably significant in a scenario that the business wants to transfer risk. To outsource a particular process which is perceived to be risky transfers some degree of risk to another company.

Read also Outsourcing – Best Practices, Methodologies, Factors To Consider and Pitfalls

An example of where outsourcing is used is where the one seeks catering facilities. Secondly, a company would need to keep its files and documents safe by assigning a company handle its documents.

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An interesting fact about it is that usually there is no clear mechanism to compare the capabilities and services which are provided by third party organizations and the ones provided in-house. This is because, if there is no standardization of the processes, it’s difficult for the companies to make a decision on whether outsourcing  provides money and to do a comparison of the different potential suppliers.

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