Equal opportunities for all in employment Essay

1. Do you think that legislation is useful in ensuring that there are equal opportunities for all in employment? There has been a gradual reduction in discrimination through the last century, legislation past by the government in numerous acts have acted to reduce discrimination in the work place. The Equal pay Act 1970, The Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and the Race Relation Act 1976 are the main legislation that reduce discrimination. The Equal Pay Act 1970 ensured that men and women get the same terms and conditions for working a comparable job. Previous to this there were many employers paying women less for doing the same amount of work as a man. The Sex discrimination Act 1975, made it illegal to discriminate in employment on the grounds of sex and martial status. This act also brought to light direct discrimination; where someone is treated less favourably than a member of the opposite sex; and indirect discrimination; where a particular requirement apparently treats everyone equally but has a disproportionate effect on a particular group; the required must also not be justifiable (Bratton & Jones 1994). The Race Relations Act 1976 made it unlawful for employers to discriminate on grounds of race, colour, nationality and ethnic or national background. This was in an effort to reduce racism especially in the work place. These pieces of legislation are in an attempt to provide ‘equal opportunities’. Employer should only make decisions based upon the person’s ability to do the job. Though the government tries to ensure equal opportunities by giving out legislation that is encouraging, equal opportunities relies on good working practice. This is highlighted in job analysis where a person specification must not be more favourable to men than women. Advertising must not discriminate on grounds of sex or martial status, ‘sales person’ as appose to ‘salesman’. Interviews and selection must not ask discriminating questions such as whether a woman intends to have children. In conclusion legislation goes a long way to helping equal opportunities, and some cases (Grieg V Community Industry (1979), Gubala V Crompton Parkinson Ltd (1979)) have been brought against employers for discrimination. But real equal opportunity relies on the employer’s good practice of this legislation (Pendlebury 1996). 2. Is positive discrimination a worthwhile policy for an organisation and for society in general? Is there an overriding justification for positive discrimination? Positive discrimination is only worthwhile when used to dismiss preconceptions. Ethnic groups do not go into the police force generally for fear of racism and discrimination. UK police have a policy of encouraging recruitment from ethnic groups. This is to help represent society, which is multi-cultural; therefore enforcement officers should also be multi-cultural for an equal representation. Though positive discrimination must not be confused with or lead to preferential treatment on the basis of tokenism e.g. everyone past the recruitment test except for the woman, therefore we re-test or just allow her in anyway, as we need a woman. In politics, the House of Parliament is meant to be a representation of Great Britain’s society this is not the case. The majority of the House of Parliament is middle-aged, white and male. Steps have been made to positively discriminate to attain a more un-biased representation of the population. In this case there is an overriding justification for discrimination to help the young, women, ethnic groups into the House of Parliament. 3. Why is the interview such a popular method of selection, and what are its advantages and disadvantages? The interview is the most popular method of selection because it allows much more detail than any other form. Questions can be posed and the responses gauged as they are given. The advantages of the interview are that it has direct face-to-face communication. A rapport can be built up between candidate an interviewer; giving a relaxed atmosphere and more natural answers. The interview can be used to find out specific details crucial to the job and the candidates ability in this area. The candidate is less likely to exaggerate face-to-face than they might on an application form. An interview generally outlines what the candidate wrote on an application form. It is the best method of getting an accurate prediction of work performance. The disadvantages of a interview is that the candidate can deceive the interviewer in specialist areas that the interviewer knows nothing about e.g. the candidates knowledge of internal computer circuit boards, the interviewer might not know enough information about them to tell if the candidate is really the right person for the job. The interviewer’s perception may be selective, s/he may be racist, and this lack of objectivity may go unnoticed. A rapport with the candidate might cloud the interviewers objective judgement. An interviewer might dismiss a candidate on first impressions or stereotyping and then spend the rest of the interview confirming their decision. Or the halo effect where a smart dressed candidate distorts later judgements. The interviewer can make a logical error just because the candidate has not held down a job for more than six months doesn’t mean they won’t this time. Interviews place more emphasis on the negatives rather than the positives. Inexperienced interviewers might make errors of judgement and bias the results (Chambers 1997). 4. Analyse the problems associated with psychometric testing, and the underlying assumptions on which this selection procedure is based. Psychometric testing has a number of drawbacks: There is not always a direct relationship between the candidate’s performance in the test and their ability in the job. The job situation may be very different from the artificial test scenario. The interpretation of the results is usually complicated requiring training and experience. It is highly subjective, which belies the apparent scientific nature of the approach. Individual psychometric tests have their own drawbacks; an aptitude test for arithmetical ability would need to be constantly revised to ensure that later applicants would not know its content. Personality tests are often misleading as applicants try to guess which result will be viewed most favourably. Intelligence tests do not usually take into account different cultures and attitudes, which affects their chances of scoring well. It can be very hard to test for obscure traits such as maturity and creativity. It is difficult to erase bias from tests. Many tests are completed better by men than women, tests are usually designed by men this influences the make-up of the test. It is hard not to discriminate against race or sex in particular aspects of the testing. The underlying assumption is that all applicants test on fair and equal terms. If an applicant’s mother is ill in hospital this will weigh on the applicants mind and may distract them in the test. The best applicant may be having an off day, while the worse applicant might be on top form. Rewards Management 1. Analyse the connection between motivation and pay using three mainstream motivation theories. Herzberg’s two factor model of motivation claims that money is a ‘hygiene factor’ which means it is a dissatisfier if it is not sufficient, however money is not a potential satisfier or positive motivator. Herzberg said that money’s impact on favourable feelings is short term, while not enough pay produced long term unfavourable feelings. Adams’s Equity theory of motivation argues that satisfaction from pay is related to the employee’s perception. This is the amount of effort they put in for the amount of pay they get compared with the ratio of others. Expectancy Theory states that motivation will be strong if individuals can expect their effort to produce worthwhile rewards. Armstrong & Murlis (1998) say that ‘the greater the value of a set of awards, the higher the probability that receiving each of these rewards depends upon effort, the greater the effort that will be put forth in any given situation.’ For example to get a bonus of à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½100, they may have to reach certain targets, if they think the effort they have to put in would match the à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½100 they will. Pay is very important to people because they rely on it to satisfy their basic needs. It is also a sign of their worth, it can therefore improve self-esteem and thus motivate them. Pay is the key to attracting people to a new job although other benefits may also be a factor pay is the most crucial. Employees will make comparisons between themselves and other employees, which will relate to equity and fairness. If they feel they’re not being paid enough they will leave, or work to attain a pay-rise. Pay can motivate (Armstrong & Murlis 1998) but to achieve lasting motivation attention has to be paid to other non-financial motivators. 2. When considering their reward systems management and employees will have differing priorities. What might these priorities be and why do they differ? Managers want to increase productivity by motivating their staff to get as much work out of them as possible. Employees on the other hand want as much money and benefits for doing their work as they can get. This produces a common ground on which employers and employee’s can negotiate. Employees want to maximise their rewards for working which affects their standard of living and their lifestyle. The organisation wants value for money from its employees, to attract and retain staff, to gain commitment and improve performance, which affects profitability and cost-effectiveness. Employees are looking after themselves and want rewards for doing as little work as possible. Employees are concerned that for putting a certain amount of effort in they get a justified reward. Management are concerned that the employee put in enough effort to deserve the award. Sale targets are a good example, if the employee meets the managers requirements they get a bonus (Armstrong & Murlis 1998). 3. What do we mean by differentials and relatives, and why are they important? The pay structure must provide appropriate differentials between ranges to reward significant increase in job size by moving a job to a higher grade. This means that there must be a meaningful pay increase with an increase in workload. If there is not sufficient differential between ranges of pay, then some workers will become borderline and frequent re-evaluations will be required. In a chain of command the pay is highest at the top and lowest at the bottom. Before being able to move up the chain, the length of the link must be overcome. Their needs to be at least a 10% pay rise for going from one link of the chain to the next, despite small pay rises as the employee moves up the link. Internal Relatives can be monitored by looking at the differentials that exist between groups of employees. If it is felt that because of changing roles that the pay does not reflect the new job size, investigations can be conducted to rectify the situation. When looking at pay for an employee, comparisons must be made on other organisations (monitoring external relatives). This is the competitive stance it has with other organisations; this might be matching others, more or less. It is important for managers to look at the pay differences in their own staff to see whether they aren’t being treated fairly; not being paid enough for the work they do compared to another employee. If the employee’s feel there is not enough pay rises to accept extra work they will not. If there is not sufficient differentiation between stages of the chain of command they will not be so keen to advance upon it. Also if employees of McDonalds employees learn that Burger King is relatively paying an extra pound per hour more, they will try to defect to Burger King. (Armstrong & Murlis 1998) 4. What changes has the development of HRM brought to management of reward systems? Are these changes beneficial to employer and employee? Armstrong & Murlis (1998) claim that Reward Management philosophy evolved in accord with many aspects of HRM philosophy. This is emphasised by treating people as assets to be invested in, this is HRM philosophy being incorporated by rewards management. By rewarding people; putting money in; this should get greater productivity; getting more out. Demonstrated by gaining employees commitment to the objectives and values of the organisation. Through strategic integration by incorporating HR issues into strategic plans and ensuring that the various aspects of HRM cohere and are mutually supportive. Lastly HRM has enabled employees to fulfil their full potential and to deliver their maximum contribution to the achievement of organisational goals. These changes really benefit both the employee and the employer, the employee gets more out of rewards management, while the employer recognises the employee as an asset. HRM tries to bring the goals of employers and employees closer together, by involving the employee more with the business increasing his loyalty while getting more out for he employer (Armstrong & Murlis 1998). Restructuring of Work 1. Why might the structure or design of work be important for the individual worker and for the organisation? The structure or hierarchy of work may help aid communications from the top level of management down to the lowest worker. An organisation with many layers of hierarchy or along chain of command will have difficulty in communications between top and bottom men. Communications from the top will go through many layers and tend to distort as the message is past on like Chinese whispers. Communications from the bottom will take ages to reach the top if they ever do. This is why a process of delayering has been happening in many UK businesses to reduce the levels of hierarchy to around four. Clearly defined aims and objectives help to ease systems of communication between different parts of the organisation. Rolex want to be perceived as a luxury brand, this is their aim and objective. Knowing this their marketing department is not going to do a cheap and tacky advert e.g. Pot Noodle. A good structure will help to keep all aspects of the organisation working in the same direction, for the organisations goals. To have a good structure is important to eliminate mistakes and therefore not waste time and money. 2. Explain the limits of taylorism as a job design strategy. Fredrick Taylor’s technique of scientific management is based upon the division of labour. This was done by taking a complex job and splitting it into its component parts, then train employees to carry out a single task in the most efficient way. This is in effect a production line with each worker doing a bit more to the product. The drawbacks of job design by task fragmentation are that workers experience extreme repetitiveness. Doing a task with little mental stimulation will result in daydreaming and not paying attention as a result of social interactions and diversions. This can lead to accidents and errors in the task. Stress is related specifically to high-workload, low discretion jobs. Symptoms include nervous tension, withdrawal and low morale; this will tend to affect performance. Motivation will suffer as a result of dissatisfaction with the work and extra efforts will need to be made by the managers. The simple tasks will also build walls between workers and management, as the workers tasks are perceived theirs and under the control of the manager (Mullins 1999)(Marcouse 1999) 3. â€Å"Job rotation, job enlargement and job enrichment are simply attempts by managers to control individuals at work†. Discuss. Job rotation involves workers changing jobs from time to time. This could mean moving down a production line or from one department to another. This should reduce boredom and give the employee a wider variety of skills and understanding of the business. An employer will also gain from a more widely trained staff, as it allows for staff being ill and having trained employees who can take over. Although rotation might keep the worker interested, the time spent for the worker to learn new skills in each department would counter balance the gains in productivity. In addition moving workers from one boring job to another equally repetitive is unlikely to motivate them. (Hall, 1997) Job enlargement gives employees a chance to do a number of small-related tasks as appose to just one repetitively. For example they might be able to construct the whole bicycle, not just the handlebars. This is meant to reduce boredom as the employees have a wider variety of tasks to do and encourage satisfaction with a sense of closure. However in contrast it is argued that it reduces efficiency because of a fall in productivity from carrying out a greater number of tasks. Many workers also resent this because they prefer doing a singularly boring repetitive job so they do not need to concentrate as much. Job enlargement works better within a group situation, where each worker has specific jobs and job rotation can take place. (Hall, 1997) Job enrichment is designed to give individuals a greater freedom and feeling of responsibility. It focuses on intrinsic satisfaction; by giving employees authority over planning and execution of a task they should gain a greater sense of achievement upon completing the task. It is a more complex and challenging job that should develop their unused skills and encourage them to be more productive. Job enrichment isn’t without its problems though, workers who feel they are unable to complete the required tasks will not react positively to it feeling they have been forced in to it. Also not all employees will react in the same way feeling they should be paid more for the extra responsibility. (Mullins, 1999)(Hall, 1997) All these techniques of increasing productivity are designed not to cost the organisation any more money. In some ways it is managers just manipulating the workers, by changing their work patterns in a way to increase output. Job enrichment however gives the employee a sense of responsibility, lessening direct managerial supervision. But ultimately these techniques are used by managers to get the workers motivated and as productive as possible. 4. We are said to be living in a post Fordist era. What does this mean and how, do you think this came about? With so much hostility to Taylor’s scientific management, despite its benefits for employers, it had to be dropped. However the principles have evolved into a more acceptable model mainly incorporating job enrichment. The development of mass assembly line work was invented by Henry Ford in 1913 (Fordism); this took many of Taylor’s principles. This has been moved on from in an effort to try and increase motivation and productivity. Littler and Salaman (1984) listed five points of good job design: – 1. Closure – finishing a product or process 2. Assuming responsibility for quality control 3. Job flexibility is enabled by allowing training in different skills 4. Self regulation of the speed of work 5. The job structure allows social interaction and a degree of co-operation among workers. (Bratton & Gold 1994) Since this there have been three broad types: job enrichment, reorganisation of assembly lines and Japanese-style job design. Job enrichment as above is concerned with rotation and enlarging among others. The reorganisation of assembly lines has been associated with increased product differentiation in highly competitive consumer industries and unstable labour relations. This creates more flexible work structures in order to accommodate more rapid product changes. Japanese-style job design has three main elements: flexibility, quality control, and minimum waste. Businesses now tend to use one of these three techniques in the post-fordist era this has come about as an evolution of techniques and trial and error. Scientific Management didn’t work but lessons were learnt from it and are still applied today. The Concept of HRM in Transition 1. Should human resources be dealt with any differently from other resources? Justify your answer by referring to the managers control function. Human resources need to be dealt with differently than other resources; otherwise they’ll just leave the job. To ensure against this Human Resource Planning is carried out, this will include how to motivate staff, how to develop an organisational culture and planning how to support or develop employees e.g. training. Human resources are not like raw materials where they are purchased and used, a constant understanding is needed. The management want to have as flexible workforce as possible; this means training staff so they become multi-skilled. This can allow job rotation and covering other employees in the event of illness (Hall, 1997). 2. Discuss the four key elements of the Storey Model of HRM The four key elements of the Storey model 1992 are: Beliefs & Assumptions, Strategic Aspects, Line Management and Key Levers. The Beliefs & Assumptions of HRM are Unitarist, the differences between PIR and HRM are that HRM tries to instil commitment and trust in the employee looking to go ‘beyond the contract’. Therefore employees should be carefully selected and developed (Bratton & Gold, 1994). The Strategic Aspects are central to HRM, always trying to think of the business and the consumer. HR policies should be integrated into the business strategy – stemming from it and even contributing to it (Storey, 1999). The Line management is concerned with the critical role of managers. This is because HR decisions are crucial to a business and too important to be left to specialists alone (Storey, 1999). As appose to needing specialist key managers HRM allows the general managers as key players in HR issues. The Key Levers according to Storey (1999) are that: managing culture is more important than managing procedures and systems; integrated action on selection, communication, training, reward and development; and restructuring and job redesign to allow devolved responsibility and empowerment. 3. Evaluate the possible experience of working in an HRM environment, as opposed to a Personnel environment. Torrington and Hall state that the nature and degree of difference between personnel management and Human Resource Management as remaining ‘largely matters of opinion rather than fact, and the similarities are much greater than the differences’. Personnel management is ‘workforce-centred’, directed mainly at the employees. Although a management function, personnel are never totally identified with management interests. Personnel managements underlying theme is that workers have a right to proper treatment and to make sure this is the case in manager-worker relationships. HRM is ‘resource centred’; the main aim is to plan, monitor and control rather than mediation as in personnel. HRM is directed mainly at management needs for human resources to be provided and deployed. The underlying theme is that human resource management is much like any other aspect of management and an integral part. This means that it should not be separated, and only handled by specialists (Mullins, 1999) In a Personnel management organisation there can be tension between managers and workers, despite the personnel management intervening. The worker seeks to maximise his wages and rewards, while the employer wants to reduce costs, as they are a drain on profits. In a HRM organisation the employee should feel more involved and therefore be aware of the consequences. HRM also allows a more flexible workforce, which can be deployed more cost effectively than an inflexible one. 4. How, if at all, has the HRM allowed managers to increase organisational efficiency? If managers get better motivate their staff then they will work more efficiently and productivity will rise. Alternatively they might produce a higher quality piece of work. Storey (1999) says that it has become widely accepted that motivation is beneficial to the organisation. If human resource management encourages motivation of employees, if this is successful then efficiency will rise. However a definite link between a satisfied workforce and improved performance has never been proven. There is no reason for a workforce to be satisfied if it isn’t relevant to organisational efficiency or effectiveness other than for human reasons. HRM managers who train their staff get a much more flexible workforce allowing them to be deployed in the best way to reduce costs. HRM managers are much more likely to train their employees as a workforce gaining skills which can be used in a greater cross-section of the business. If last minute orders come-in it is much easier for HRM managers to deal with as they are more flexible than Personnel in contrast who couldn’t make last minute alterations. This makes HRM a much more effective and efficient style of management.