Unit 6 Flashcards

The inner desire or willingness that propels a person to take action and achieve a specific goal or outcome.

Motivation that comes from within a person, such as values, beliefs, or personal satisfaction.

Motivation that comes from external factors, such as rewards or punishments.

Motivated employees are more productive, efficient, and engaged, leading to higher output, quality, and profits.

Motivated employees are more reliable, take pride in their work, meet deadlines, and take fewer sick days.

Motivated employees are more likely to stay long-term, reducing recruitment and training costs.

A theory focusing on breaking down tasks, standardising processes, and training workers to achieve maximum efficiency.

Analyse work processes, standardise tasks, select and train workers, and provide performance incentives.

Increased efficiency, reduced errors, specialisation of labour, and improved training and development.

Overemphasis on efficiency reduces satisfaction, limited applicability, and potential for worker exploitation.

A theory outlining five tiers of human needs: physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem, and self-actualisation.

Providing necessities like a comfortable work environment, clean water, food, and adequate rest breaks.

Providing job security, fair pay, benefits, and safe working conditions.

Encouraging teamwork and fostering a sense of community within the workplace.

Providing recognition for accomplishments and creating a positive work culture.

Offering opportunities for employees to pursue passions and interests, e.g. flexible schedules for elite athletes.

Higher employee satisfaction, increased motivation, and improved performance.

One size does not fit all, expensive to implement, and time-consuming for management.

A theory suggesting that hygiene factors prevent dissatisfaction, while motivators increase satisfaction and motivation.

Elements that prevent dissatisfaction, e.g. fair wages, excellent working conditions, and job security.

Elements that increase satisfaction, e.g. recognition, growth opportunities, and challenging work.

Higher motivation and productivity, lower staff turnover, fewer disputes, improved reputation, and better change management.

Engaged employees work harder, improving labour productivity and reducing labour cost per unit.

Respected employees are less likely to leave, reducing recruitment and training costs.

Open communication addresses concerns early, avoiding escalation and maintaining productivity.

Leadership style, business size, trade unions, workforce nature, and legal requirements.

Democratic leaders involve staff more; autocratic leaders involve staff less.

Smaller firms use informal communication; larger firms require structured consultation like works councils.

Unionised workplaces formalise involvement through negotiations and collective agreements.

UK law requires consultation in situations like redundancies or health and safety.

Team briefings, staff surveys, suggestion schemes, internal newsletters, appraisals, union meetings, and works councils.

Regular meetings to update employees on goals, performance, and changes.

Collect feedback and measure morale to identify concerns early.

Channels for staff to contribute ideas and improvements.

Employee-elected representatives meet with management to discuss workplace issues, useful in non-unionised firms.

A new rota disrupted work–life balance, leading to low morale, increased absenteeism, and threat of strike action.

Emergency consultations led to revised rotas, shift bonuses, and a feedback app, improving engagement and productivity.

Strike was avoided, absenteeism fell by 18%, and engagement scores rose by 23%.

An organisation representing workers' interests in negotiations with management or owners.

General unions, industrial unions, craft unions, and white-collar unions.

Represents workers across many industries and skill levels, e.g. Unite the Union.

Represents all workers in a specific industry, e.g. Fire Brigades Union (FBU).

Represents workers with a particular trade or skill, e.g. National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT).

Represents office-based, professional or administrative staff, e.g. NASUWT.

Collective bargaining, job-specific training, legal representation, and discounts on goods/services.

Strikes, overtime bans, work to rule, and go-slows.

Collective bargaining, protecting employment, and influencing government policy.

Unemployment, wage levels, labour–capital swap, profits, economy state, union size, and productivity.

Higher unemployment weakens union power as firms can replace workers more easily.

Higher productivity strengthens union power as workers are more valuable to the firm.

A formal group of employer and employee representatives discussing workplace issues.

Discuss health and safety, working conditions, training needs, and technological changes.

Encourages communication, resolves issues early, builds trust, and involves staff in changes.

Limited influence, no legal requirement in the UK, and can slow decision-making.

The process of identifying how many and what kind of employees are needed, focusing on recruitment, training, redeployment, and redundancy.

Helps manage staff costs, monitor performance, and ensure effective financial and operational control.

HR plan → recruitment → training → redeployment → redundancy.

Labour turnover, labour productivity, employee costs as percentage of turnover, and labour cost per unit.

Business objectives, financial situation, organisational structure, labour relations, and organisational culture.

Economic conditions, labour market, technological advancements, legal environment, social factors, political factors, industry-specific factors, and competition.

Growth requires recruitment; downturns may lead to redundancies or hiring freezes.

Factors like skills shortages, labour mobility, and immigration impact workforce availability.

Automation and AI change job requirements, requiring reskilling or upskilling.

Employment laws, e.g. Flexible Working Act (2023), influence policies like hybrid working.

Workforce diversity, inclusion, work-life balance, and employee well-being affect planning.

Labour laws, tax regulations, and immigration policies impact workforce strategies.

Unique challenges like NHS nurse shortages or STEM teacher recruitment affect planning.

Pay and benefits must align with market conditions to attract and retain staff.

The process of attracting and identifying potential job candidates who are suitable for a particular role.

To create a pool of qualified candidates who can be considered for the role.

Job advertising, job fairs, social media outreach, and referrals from current employees.

Part of the human resource flow: HR plan → recruitment → training → redeployment → redundancy.

The process of choosing the best candidate for a job role.

Reviewing CVs, conducting interviews, and assessment tasks to identify the best candidate.

Outlines the duties, responsibilities, and requirements of a particular job.

Outlines the qualifications, skills, experience, and personal qualities required for a specific job.

The process of hiring employees from within the organisation, e.g. promotion or redeployment.

Encourages employee development, builds morale, saves time and money, and candidates are familiar with the business.

Can lead to conflict, limited pool of candidates, and missed opportunity to bring in new ideas.

The process of hiring employees from outside the organisation, bringing fresh ideas and perspectives.

Introduces new skills, experiences, and ideas to the business.

More expensive, greater uncertainty, and harder to target the desired audience.

A standardised form designed by the recruiter to collect consistent details from each candidate.

A professional document compiled by the applicant detailing career experience, skills, qualifications, and referees.

A letter accompanying a CV or application form, highlighting the applicant's suitability for the role.

Interview, testing, portfolio, and references.

A structured meeting to assess a candidate's qualifications, skills, experience, and suitability for a role.

Pre-employment assessments to evaluate integrity, aptitude, or specific skills.

A selection of a candidate's best work, commonly used for creative or artistic roles.

Referees vouch for a candidate's skills, work ethic, and suitability for the position.

Training ensures staff are appropriately skilled and developed, improving productivity, motivation, and flexibility.

The teaching of new skills to employees.

The improvement of existing skills in employees.

Training follows recruitment and precedes redeployment in the HR flow.

Valuing employees, updating skills, identifying inefficiency, boosting confidence, and meeting legal needs.

Well-trained employees feel valued, work enthusiastically, and are motivated to improve quality and stay with the business.

Induction training, on-the-job training, and off-the-job training.

Training for new employees to introduce them to the company, its culture, policies, and their job roles.

Improves confidence, motivation, and productivity; introduces company culture and policies.

Time-consuming, expensive, may not cover all aspects of the job, and can lead to dissatisfaction if ineffective.

Training that takes place while employees perform their job duties, learning from colleagues.

Practical, tailored to the role, cost-effective, and occurs during working hours.

Mistakes can impact productivity, disrupt the workplace, and may lead to dissatisfaction if ineffective.

Training outside the workplace, e.g. workshops, seminars, conferences, or online courses.

Brings fresh ideas, tailored to needs, can be a reward, and cost-effective if online.

Expensive, impacts productivity due to absence, and may not directly apply to the job role.

When an employee is moved from one role or department to another within the same organisation rather than being made redundant.

Redeployment follows training and precedes redundancy in the human resource flow.

Used when a job or department is closing, during restructuring, or to balance staff levels across regions or functions.

Retains experienced staff, reduces recruitment costs, maintains morale, increases flexibility, and reduces legal risks and redundancy costs.

HSBC UK redeployed staff from head office roles into customer-facing jobs in branches and digital support teams in 2023.

British Airways redeployed staff into ground-based or training roles during times of reduced flight demand.

Sainsbury's redeployed staff from closed Argos stores into supermarket roles or online fulfilment centres.

Termination of employment by an employer due to misconduct or poor performance, often immediate or with notice.

Occurs when a job is no longer available due to workforce reduction, not the employee's fault, with legal procedures like notice and compensation.

In December 2023, Nationwide Building Society informed 470 employees of redundancy risks in retail operations and mortgages divisions.

In November 2023, Reach plc announced 450 job cuts due to declining financial health and faltering digital strategy.

Outlines the reporting relationships, roles, and responsibilities of employees in an organisation.

Helps businesses implement ideas, achieve objectives, and improve operations and communications.

Promotes clarity, efficiency, and accountability within the organisation.

Refers to the levels of authority within an organisation, ranking positions from top to bottom.

An organisation with many levels of authority, making decision-making and communication time-consuming.

The formal line of authority flowing from top management to lower-level employees, defining who reports to whom.

The number of employees a manager can effectively manage. Narrow spans have more layers; wide spans have fewer layers.

Decision-making authority is concentrated at the top, promoting consistency and control.

Decision-making authority is distributed, promoting flexibility and innovation.

Multiple levels of management, narrow spans of control, long chain of command, and centralised decision-making.

Fewer levels of management, wide spans of control, short chain of command, and decentralised decision-making.

Clear hierarchy, defined roles, specialisation, career advancement, and increased efficiency and motivation.

Communication barriers, slow decision-making, bureaucracy, and reduced efficiency and motivation.

Collaboration, faster decision-making, creativity, autonomy, and increased efficiency and motivation.

Role ambiguity, limited career advancement, burnout, and reduced efficiency and motivation.

Employees are arranged into functions like finance, HR, or marketing, based on expertise, skills, and qualifications.

Brings appropriate expertise to specific areas, promotes specialisation, and ensures efficient operations within functions.

Functional areas may focus only on their own responsibilities, losing sight of overall business objectives.

Tesco operates a functional structure at head office level, with separate teams for HR, finance, logistics, and buying.

The business is split into divisions based on individual products or product lines, each handling its own marketing, operations, and finances.

Promotes cross-functional collaboration, specialisation, efficient resource allocation, and coordination of multiple projects.

Can lead to conflicts over priorities, confusion over roles, and challenges in communication and coordination.

Unilever UK uses a product-based structure, with teams dedicated to categories like personal care, home care, and food and drink brands.

KitKat has its own team within Nestlé, combining functional areas with a specialist team for the product.

Structure separates a business hierarchy into geographical locations, allowing tailored responses to diverse customer needs.

Allows businesses to respond effectively to local customer needs and market conditions.

BT Group has a regional structure with operations split across different parts of the UK to provide tailored telecoms services.

A flexible model where employees report to both a functional manager and a project or product manager, encouraging innovation and faster problem-solving.

Encourages innovation, faster problem-solving, and coordination between functions and projects.

Can create confusion over roles, require high communication, and lead to conflicts between managers.

GSK uses a matrix structure for global drug development projects, coordinating R&D, regulatory teams, and regional market teams.

Businesses may need to reassess their structure due to changes in external factors like market conditions, technology advances, or legislation.

An organisation that can change its structure in response to external factors or build a structure that handles external changes effectively.

Delayering or streamlining removes unnecessary management levels, improving communication and cutting costs.

Structures must adapt to support increased complexity as businesses grow into new markets, regions, or product lines.

Cross-functional collaboration, e.g. matrix teams, encourages fresh ideas and agile problem-solving.

Structural changes help businesses respond to evolving technology, customer expectations, economic shifts, or competition.

A business’s structure must reflect its strategic goals to ensure staff roles and responsibilities support direction.

M&S restructured by removing management layers and shifting decision-making power to store-level staff, improving responsiveness and reducing costs.

HR data helps managers identify problems, control costs, plan ahead, and improve performance.

High labour turnover or rising costs may indicate poor working conditions, low morale, or training gaps.

Workforce data informs recruitment, training, succession planning, and budgeting.

Tracking productivity or absenteeism helps managers take action to boost efficiency.

Monitoring labour cost per unit and employee costs as a percentage of turnover helps businesses stay competitive.

Labour turnover = (Number of staff leaving ÷ Average number of staff) × 100.

Labour productivity = Output ÷ Number of workers.

Employee costs as % of turnover = (Employee costs ÷ Turnover) × 100.

Labour cost per unit = Total weekly wages ÷ Number of units produced.

Data-driven planning ensures the business has the right number of people, with the right skills, in the right roles.

NHS England improved retention schemes with flexible working, leadership development, and mentorship programmes to address high nurse turnover.

Royal Mail invested in automated parcel sorting and upskilled employees to address falling productivity during peak online shopping seasons.

Greggs introduced self-serve tills and centralised baking operations to reduce labour costs per unit across stores.

M&S closed underperforming stores and streamlined staff roles to address rising wage costs and declining revenues.

Factors include wage levels, productivity, technology, industry type, and revenue performance.

Problems: increased recruitment/training costs, lower productivity. Opportunities: recruit skilled workers, introduce new ideas, improve problem-solving.

HR objectives improve business performance, support strategic planning, enable measurement and control, and attract investment and leadership support.

Aligning employee effort with business goals increases productivity and efficiency.

Clear HR objectives guide recruitment, training, and organisational development.

Progress can be tracked using HR metrics such as staff turnover or engagement levels.

Data-backed goals reassure senior managers and investors that the business is managing its people effectively.

Boosts employees’ enthusiasm and involvement in their work, e.g. John Lewis uses staff ownership to increase engagement.

Grows employees’ skills to prepare them for senior roles, e.g. Rolls-Royce runs a graduate programme for future leaders.

Equips staff with the skills needed to perform effectively, e.g. BT offers digital skills courses through 'Skills for Tomorrow'.

Builds a workforce with varied backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences, e.g. PwC UK publishes diversity targets for leadership.

Ensures staff values match the business’s culture and mission, e.g. The Co-operative Group promotes ethical values.

Ensures the business has the right people, with the right skills, in the right places, e.g. Amazon UK locates fulfilment centres strategically.

Focuses on employees as valuable long-term assets, emphasising motivation, engagement, and development, e.g. John Lewis Partnership.

Treats employees as a resource to control costs, focusing on efficiency and short-term contracts, e.g. Sports Direct and zero-hour contracts.

Higher staff retention, job satisfaction, and long-term employee engagement.

Can be more expensive and time-consuming to implement.

Lower labour costs and greater control over workforce efficiency.

Higher labour turnover and lower employee satisfaction.