Human Resource Management (HRM)

1. Human Resource Management (HRM) What? • the functional area of an organization that is responsible for all aspects of hiring and supporting employees (e.g., providing and administering employee benefits). • all the activities related to the recruitment, hiring, training, promotion, retention, separation, and support of employees. • functions within a company that relate to people. Why? • is the effective use of human resources in order to enhance organisational performance. • the process of evaluating human resource needs, finding people to fill those needs, and getting the best work from each employee by providing the right incentives and job environment, all with the goal of meeting the needs of the firm. • applying human resources within complex systems such that people succeed, performance improves, and human error decreases. (Source: web definitions for HRM)

2. Effects of HRM • HRM-practices (especially job design and selection/ appraisal/training) better predict company performance than R&D, QM, strategy and technology (West, 2001) • Empowerment better predicts company performance than technology-based management practices (Patterson et al., 2004) • HRM-practices as cause and effect of company performance (Guest et al., 2003)

3. Task / Work process Personnel selection Satisfaction Motivation Personnel development Organization as socio-technical system Performance Performance appraisal / Pay Leadership Team Road map for both HRM classes (Work process design, Leading teams)

4. HRM: Work process designOverview

5. Organization of course • 3 ETCS points (approx. 75-90 work hours). • Besides the lecture, the prerequisite for credits points and exam participation is the completion of a semester project in groups of 4 students. • Topic of semester project: Analysis and assessment of job and organizational design in a company including a written report and feedback to the company. • The exam is written (1.5 hours; open book) and takes place the 2./3. Week of January. Overall grade: 50% project & 50% exam. • Material for the lecture at www.oat.ethz.ch.

6. Semester project • Assessment of job and organizational design in a company based on two instruments • work system analysis (focus on work processes and handling of disturbances in the processes) • job analysis (focus on criteria for humane work) • Analyses involve 2-3 interviews with managers and employees and .5 - 1 day observation of work tasks and processes • To be carried out in groups of four either in a company of your choice or in a company provided • Please send an e-mail to Jacqueline Hohermuth by Sept. 30 (jhohermuth@ethz.ch) with the names and e-mail addresses of the four people in your group, indicating also if you want us to provide a company and whether you can conduct the analyses in English and/or German

7. Required reading Copies of the texts will be availabe during the lecture on Oct. 9 (CHF 10)

8. Development, Learning Person Experience/ Behavior Situation Dispositions Perception Cognition Problem solving Emotions Motivation Action regulation Physical and social environment Psychology • Describing, explaining, predicting and changing of human experience and behavior

9. Work and organizational psychology Psychologically founded theories, methods and solutions for the effective and humane interaction between people, techologies and organization in order to reach individual and organizational goals

10. Methods: Psychology as natural and social science • Methods in natural sciences • Experiment as core paradigm = controlled variation of conditions in order to test their effects • Characteristics of social science research • Control of complexity • Constraints on manipulation of study conditions • Studying "hypothetical constructs" • Limited possibilities for reduction of complexity • Studies with humans • Effects through researcher / researched individual and social embeddedness • Ethical principles • Action research • Researchers and „researchees“ as subjects in a shared process of social change

11. HRM from a work and organizational psychology perspective • Scientific foundation for HRM tools • HRM as a function penetrating the whole organization • Focus on working conditions as influences on human competence and motivation • Systematic linking of "fit human to task" and "fit task to human"

12. HRM: Work process designOverview

13. Task / Work process Satisfaction Motivation Organization as socio-technical system Performance Road map for HRM: Work Process Design

14. Fundamentals of organizational design(Kieser & Kubicek, 1983) • Specialization: Distribution of labor, resulting in different kinds of work tasks • Coordination: management of dependencies among subtasks, resources, and people • Configuration: Structure of line of command • Delegation of decision authority: Distribution of decision authority regarding actions and decision rules • Formalization: Determination of rules and procedures, e.g. structures, flow of information, performance measurement/assessment

15. Socio-technical systems approach • The beginning - Studies by the Tavistock Institute in English coal mines:One-sided adaptation of the work organization in accordance with the demands of a new technology lead to a suboptimal work system • Three core assumptions: • Every work system comprises a social and a technical sub-system. • The social and technical sub-system have to be jointly optimized. • The main criterion for the joint optimization is the control of disturbances at their source.

16. Organization as socio-technical system

18. * Uncertainties may stem from the system environment and/or from the transformation processes within the system. Managing uncertainty in organizations(Grote, 2004)

19. Mechanistic vs. organismic organisation(Burns & Stalker, 1960) Contingencies: Minimizing of uncertainty possible with few uncertainties Coping with uncertainty necessary with many uncertainties

20. HRM: Work process designOverview

21. Methods for the psychological analysis of work processes • Different goals • Determination of pay schemes • Determination of requirments/qualification profiles • Asessment of job and organizational design during/after technological/organizational change • Humane work design • Different levels of analysis • Human-technology interaction • Individual work tasks • Organization unit / work system • Firm • Interfirm processes • Different perspectives • "objective" situational demands - Assessment by external experts • "subjective" personal perception - Assessment by workers themselves

22. Need to combine "objective" and "subjective" perspective • Expert for the assessment of a work situation – external observer and/or workers themselves ? • Objective conditions and subjective re-interpretation of these conditions are relevant determinants of action • Compensation of different kinds of biases (stemming from norms, needs, social context, different uses for data etc.)

23. Empirical methods • Analysis of documents • Advantages: non-reactive, "condensed organizational knowledge" Disadvantages: not aligned with purpose of the investigation • Written survey • Advantages: objective, applicable for large samples • Disadvantages: no control over the actual data collection, response biases • Interview • Advantages: control over data collection, complex issues possible • Disadvantages: resource-intensive, interviewer influences • Observation • Advantages: access to implicit knowledge, natural situation • Disadvantages: subjective meaning of the observed unknown, no control over the occurrence of the events under study

24. Work system analysis • Description and evaluation of work processes in work systems based on analysis of variance handling and criteria such as independence of work system • Data collection method: Interview and observation based on guidelines • Support for assessment through scales with anchor descriptions or with lists of relevant characteristics

25. Work system analysis: Examples

26. Method for job analysis • Description and evaluation of work processes on the level of the individual task based on criteria such as learning opportunities and task completeness • Data collection method: Observation with integrated interview • Support for assessment through scales with anchor descriptions

27. HRM: Work process designOverview

28. Arbeit ist einmal Mühe, Last, Kraftauf-wand. Wer nicht durch Renten oder Herrschaft oder Liebe versorgt ist, muss notgedrungen arbeiten, um seinen Lebensunterhalt zu verdienen. Arbeit ist unentbehrliche Voraus-setzung zum Leben, aber sie ist selbst noch nicht wirkliches Leben. Darum Arbeit so kurz und so bequem wie möglich! Wenn die Arbeit dazu gleich-förmiger und einseitiger werden muss, so schadet dies nichts, solange es ihrer Produktivität keinen Abbruch tut. Denn aller positiver Wert kommt dieser Arbeit nur indirekt zu, nur durch die wirtschaftlichen Vorteile, die sie dem Arbeitenden bietet. Die Arbeit ist dem Menschen unentbehr-lich in ganz anderem Sinn. Nicht weil die Notdurft des Lebens sie erzwingt, sondern weil das Leben ohne Arbeit hohl und halb ist. Dieses Bedürfnis nach Arbeit, die Flucht vor dauernden Müssiggang, die bei zu kurzer Arbeitszeit zur Arbeit ausserhalb des Berufs treibt, beruht nicht auf blosser Gewohnheit zu arbeiten, sondern gründet sich auf den 'Lebenswert' der Arbeit. Weil die Arbeit selbst Leben ist, darum will man auch alle Kräfte des Lebens an sie heran-bringen und in ihr auswirken können. Darum will man die Arbeit reich und weit, vielgestaltig und nicht krüppelhaft beengt. Der Fortschritt der Arbeitsweise gehe also nicht auf mögliche Verkürzung der Arbeits-zeit, sondern auf Steigerung des Lebens-werts der Arbeit, mache sie reicher und menschenwürdiger. Zwei Gesichter der Arbeit(Lewin, 1920)

29. Psychosocial functions of work (Jahoda, 1984) • material means of existence • activity / competence • structuring of time • cooperation / social contact • social approval • sense of personal identity

30. Job design as crucial measure for personnel development • Design of humane work tasks in order to further • health • competencies • personality • based on the psychosocial functions of work

31. Criteria for humane work tasks(from Ulich, 1998)

32. Core characteristics of humane work: Complete tasks • sequential completeness • Cycle of goal setting, planning, execution, control and correction • hierarchical completeness • demands on action regulation at different levels of complexity (skill-, rule- und knowledge-based actions) • Reversal of tayloristic principles

33. The five principles of Taylorism • Separation of planning and doing • Responsibility for planning at management level; implementation as sole shopfloor responsibility • "one best way" of task execution • Definition of the more efficient way of task execution based on scientific methods; every worker executes only one step in the overall task • Selection of the best person • Definition of qualification profile for each task step, selection of the appropriate person • Reduction of training • Training for the more efficient way of executing each task step, workers are easily replaced • Control • Surveillance of adherence to the prescribed work methods and of achievement of required results

34. Objectives of job design • Autonomy:Self-determination regarding goals and rules for goal achievement. • Control:Influence on situations in order to achieve goals which can be self-determined or determined by others. Prerequisite for effective use of control: Transparency and predictability of work situation.

35. Design rules regarding autonomy and control • Control should be at a maximum. But: Management and staff positions can only provide indirect control via line employees. • Control without autonomy is possible if strong identification with goals determined by others can be achieved. • Autonomy without control contains high potential for frustration (e.g. staff functions without direct influence on the line of command)

37. Effects of humane job design: Stress reduction • Stress = a situation with demands that cannot be met by personal resources • Important resources are • control (=means of influence): given (objective) and perceived (subjective) • qualification • social support

38. Stress at work: EU 2002 • 28% of employees in 15 EU member countries answer that they suffer work-related stress • Causes: • Lack of control, e.g. regarding planning (35%), work duration (55%), time pressure (29%) • Monotony • Mobbing • Job insecurity • Effects: • Heart diseases (Men:16%, women: 22%) • Absenteeism (50-60%) • Estimated costs 20 billion Euro

39. Stress at work: Switzerland 2002 (BfS, 2004) • 44% of working people state that they suffer from severe work load. • Of these 27% indicate that they suffer physical symptoms. • 11% of working people fear that they might lose their job. • Of these 37% indicate that they suffer physical symptoms.

40. Effects of humane job design: Furthering development of competencies and personality • Results of longitudinal studies on the effects of job design changes: • E.g. Baitsch (1985): Increase in technical competencies, intellectual flexibility, social competence, and moral awareness • Results of longitudinal studies in the general public • E.g. Kohn & Schooler (1982): Reciprocal interaction between intellectual demands of work andd intellectual development through processes of selection and socialization

41. Considering individual differences in job design • Participative und differential-dynamic job design: Involvement in organizational change decisions and offer of choices regarding job design options allows for consideration of indiviual needs and competencies • „Job crafting“: Opportunities for self-determined adaption of work tasks according to changing individual needs and competencies • Management by Objectives (MbO): Systematic furthering of individual motivation through tailored goals and ways for goal achievement • General objective: no fixation of individual differences, but individually tailored support

42. Fundamental objective of job design Create conditions that support people in being capable (competence) and also wanting (motivation) to do their job well

43. HRM: Work process designOverview

44. Task / Work process Satisfaction Motivation Organization as socio-technical system Performance Road map for HRM: Work Process Design

45. The less extrinsic motivation … … the more extrinsic motivation is needed … the more intrinsic motivation is needed The less intrinsic motivation … Extrinsic versus intrinsic motivation

46. Individual differences in motivation Different needs: Motivation = f (satisfaction / frustration of needs) __________________________________________________ e.g. Physiological needs Security needs Affiliation and affection needs Appreciation needs Self-actualization needs Different goals and expectations: Motivation = Valence x Instrumentality x Expectancy __________________________________________________ Decision to (not) undertake a certain action depends on the answers to three questions: Which goal do I want to achieve? Does this action lead to this goal? How likely is the success of the action?

47. How satisfied are you with your job?

48. Characteristics of the work situation Needs and expectations at work (Mis-)match Satisfaction Dissatisfaction Raising expectations Keeping expectations Lowering expectations Keeping expectations Problem solving Progressive satisfaction Stable satisfaction Resigned satisfaction Fixed dissatisfaction Constructive dissatisfaction Development of job (dis)satisfaction (Bruggemann, 1974)