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aPHR Certification Study Guides 2024
Human Resource Managment (HRM) ✔ HRM consists of an organization's "people practices" - the policies, practices, and systems that influence employees' behavior, attitudes, and performance. Explain how HRM contributes to an organization's performance ✔ Through its practices or process, The HRM influences who works for the organization and how those people work. These human resources, if well managed, have the potential to be a source of sustainable competitive advantage, contributing to basic objectives such as quality, profits, and customer satisfaction. HRM Process/ practices ✔ 1) Analysis and Design of work
- HR planning
- Recruitment
- Selection 5)Training and development 6)Compensation 7)Performance Management
- Employee Relations Human Capital ✔ An Organization's employees, described in terms of their training, experience, judgement, intelligence, relationships, and insight. Human Resources qualities valuable to the success of organizations ✔ 1) Human Resources are VALUABLE- high-quality employees provide a needed service as they perform many critical functions.
- Human Resources are RARE- a person with high levels of the needed skills and knowledge is not common
- Human Resources CANNOT BE IMITATED -
- Human Resources have NO GOOD SUBSTITUTES High Performance Work System ✔ An organization in which technology, organizational structure, people, and processes work seamlessly to give an organization an advantage in the competitive environment. Maintaining a High-Performance Work System may include: ✔ -Development of training programs -Recruitment of people with new skill sets
- Establishment of rewards for such behaviors as team work, flexibility, and learning Ratio of HR employees to total employees ✔ 2 full time HR staff persons for every 100 employees on payroll.
In small organizations the ratio is much higher Administrative role of HRM ✔ Handling administrative tasks ( hiring employees, answering questions about benefits) efficiently and with a commitment to quality. This requires expertise in the particular task Business Partner role of HRM ✔ Developing effective HR systems that help the org meet its goals attracting, keeping, and developing people with the skill it needs. For the systems to be effective, HR people must understand the business so it can understand what the business needs Strategic partner role ✔ Contributing to the company's strategies through an understanding of its existing and needed HR and ways HR practices can give the company a competitive advantage. For strategic ideas to be effective, HR people must understand the business, it's industry, and its competitors Job Analysis ✔ The process of getting detailed information about jobs Work Flow Design ✔ The process of analyzing the tasks necessary for the production of a product or service Job ✔ A set of related duties Position ✔ A set of duties performed by a particular person Job Description ✔ A list of the tasks, duties, and responsibilities (TDRs) that a particular job entails Job Specification ✔ A list if the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics that an individual must have to perform a particular job Job Design ✔ The process of defining the way work will be performed and the tasks that a given job requires Industrial Engineering ✔ The study of jobs to find the simplest way to structure work in order to maximize efficiency
✔ The process by which the organization attempts to identify applicants with the necessary knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics that will help the organization achieve its goals Top 5 qualities employers look for in employees ✔ 1)- Teamwork Skills 2)- Verbal Communications Skills 3)- Decision Making, Problem Solving 4)- Gathering / Processing information 5)- Planning/ Prioritizing Tasks Training ✔ A planned effort to enable employees to learn job-related knowledge, skills, and behavior Development ✔ The acquisition of knowledge, skills, and behaviors that improve an employees ability to meet changes in job requirements and in customer demands Performance Management ✔ The process of ensuring that employees' activities and output match the organization's goals. Compensation and benefits ✔ This function includes Wage and salary administration, incentive pay, insurance, vacation leave administration, retirement plans, profit sharing, stock plans Employee Relations ✔ Preparing and distributing employee handbooks, company publications, answer questions about benefits and company policy, address problems between employees and supervisors, communication with union representatives Workforce analytics ✔ The use of quantitative tools and scientific methods to analyze data from human resource databases and other sources to make evidence-based decisions that support business goals. Organizational Strategy ✔ Organization's plan for meeting broad goals such as profitability , quality, and market share How HR supports the organization's strategy ✔ Understanding the organization's business operations, projecting how business trends might affect the business,reinforcing positive aspects of the organization's culture, developing talent for present and future needs, crafting effective HR strategies, effective human resource planning
Human Resource Planning ✔ Identifying the numbers and types of employees the organization will require to meet its objectives. Forecasting ✔ The attempts to determine the supply of and demand for various types of human resources to predict areas within the organization where there will be labor shortages or surpluses Trend analysis ✔ Constructing and applying statistical models that predict labor demand for the next year, given relatively objectives statistics from the previous year Leading indicators ✔ Objective measures that accurately predict future labor demand Transitional Matrix ✔ Statistical procedure to determine labor supply A chart that lists job categories held in one period and shows the proportion of employees in each of those job categories in a future period Core Competency ✔ A set of knowledge and skills that make the organization superior to competitors and create value for customers Options for reducing a surplus ✔ Downsizing, pay reductions, demotions, transfers, work sharing, hiring freeze, natural attrition, early retirement, retraining Options for avoiding a shortage ✔ Overtime, temporary employees, outsourcing, retrained transfers, turnover reductions, new external hires, technological innovations Workforce Utilization Review ✔ A comparison of the proportion of employees in protected groups with the proportion that each group represents in the relevant labor market Talent Management ✔ A systematic, planned effort to attract, retain, develop, and motivate highly skilled employees and managers Evidence-based HR ✔ Collecting and using data to show that human resources practices have a positive influence on the company's bottom line or key stakeholders (employees, customers, community, and shareholders)
Standards for ethical HR practices ✔ 1) HRM practices must result in the greatest good for the largest number of people
- employment practices must respect basic human rights of privacy, due process, consent and free speech
- managers must treat employees and customers equitable and fairly Labor Force ✔ Is a general way to refer to all the people willing and able to work Internal Labor Force ✔ An organization's workers ( it's employees and the people who have contracts to work at the organization) External Labor Market ✔ Individuals who are actively seeking employment High Performance Work Systems ✔ Organizations that have the best possible fit between their social system ( people and how they interact) and technical system (equipment and processes ) Summarize Areas in which HRM can support the goal of creating a high performance work system ✔ Reliance on knowledge workers, empowerment of employees to make decisions, and use of teamwork. Recruiting and selection decisions are especially important for organization's that rely on knowledge workers. Job design and appropriate systems for assessment and rewards have a central role in supporting employee empowerment and teamwork Knowledge workers ✔ Employees whose main contribution to the organization is specialized knowledge, such as knowledge of customers, a process, or a profession Employee Empowerment ✔ Giving employees responsibility and authority to make decisions regarding all aspects of product development or customer sevice Employee Engagement ✔ Full involvement in one's work and commitment to one's job and company. Is associated with higher productivity, better customer service, and lower turnover Teamwork ✔ The assignment of work to groups of employees with various skills who interact to assemble a product or provide a service Business strategy: issues affecting HRM
✔ Total Quality Management Mergers and Acquisitions Reengineering International Expansion Downsizing Outsourcing Total Quality Management TQM ✔ A company wide effort to continually improve the ways people, machines, and systems accomplish work Outsourcing ✔ The practice of having another company ( a vendor, third-party provider, or consultant) provide services Human Resource Information System (HRIS) ✔ A computer system used to acquire, store, manipulate, analyze, retrieve, and distribute information related to an organization's human resources HRIS purpose ✔ Large quantities of employee data ( including training records, skills, compensation rates, and benefits usage and costs) can easily be stored. Electronic Human Resource Management (e-HRM) ✔ The processing and transmission of digitized HR information, especially using computer networking and the Internet how eHRM affects traditional HRM functions ✔ Electronic HRM applications let employees enroll in and participate in training programs online. Employees can go online and select from items in a benefits package and enroll in the benefits they choose. They can look up answers to HR related questions and read company's news, perhaps downloading it as a podcast. Employees in different geographic areas can work together Companies can search for talent without geographic limitations Recruiting can include online job postings, applications, and candidate screening from the company's website or the websites of companies that specialize in online recruiting. Employees from different geographic locations can all receive the same training over the company's computer network HRM applications for Social networking ✔ Creative organizations are applying social networking tools to HRM Foe example: --Sites for capturing, sharing, storing knowledge are good for preserving knowledge that otherwise could be lost when employees retire.
Self- Service ✔ System in which employees have online access to information about HR issues such as training, benefits, compensation, contracts, and go online to enroll themselves in programs and provide feedback through surveys Alternative work arrangements ✔ Methods of staffing other than the traditional hiring of full-time employees. The following methods are the most common:
- Independent contractors, self employed individuals with multiple clients
- On-call workers, persons who work for an organization only when they are needed
- Temporary workers, are employed by a temporary agency; client organization's pay the agency for the services of these workers
- Contract company workers, employed directly by a company for a specific time specified in a written contract How the three branches of government regulate HRM ✔ -The Legislative branch- develops laws such as those governing equal employment opportunity and worker safety and health -The executive branch- including the many regulatory agencies that the president oversees, is responsible for enforcing the laws passes by congress ( from drawing up regulation detailing how to abide by the law, to filing suits against alleged violators. I'm addition, the president may issue executive orders
- The judicial branch- the federal court system- influences employment law by interpreting the law and holding trials concerning violations of the law Equal Employment Opportunity ( EEO) ✔ The condition in which all individuals have an equal chance for employment, regardless of their race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, or national origin. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ( EEOC) ✔ Responsible for enforcing most of the EEO laws, including Title VII,mother Equal Pay Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act. To do this, the EEOC investigates and resolves complaints about discrimination, gathers information, and issues guidelines. What Constitutional Amendments have implications for HRM ✔ Two amendments to the US Constitution, the Thirteenth and Fourteenth, have implications for HRM. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in the United States and the Fourteenth Amendment forbids the states from taking life, liberty, or property without due process of law and prevents the states from denying equal protection of the laws. This only applies to the decisions or actions of the government or of private groups whose activities are deemed government actions Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures
✔ Guidelines issued by the EEOC and other agencies to identify how an organization should develop and administer its system for selecting employees so as to not violate anti discrimination laws Where EEOC posters should be displayed by an employer? ✔ In prominent and accessible locations ( in the cafeteria or near its time clock. How long should employers keep documents related to employment decisions? ✔ Employers must keep these records for at least 6 months or until a complaint is resolved, whichever is later. Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) ✔ The agency responsible for enforcing the executive orders that cover companies doing business with the federal government Written affirmative-action plan Components ✔ 1- utilization analysis - a comparison of the race, sex, and ethnic composition of the employer's workforce with that of the available labor supply. The percentage in the employer's workforce should not be greatly lower than the percentages in the labor supply 2- goals and timetables- The percentages of women and minorities the organization seeks to employ in each job group, and the dates by which the percentages are to be attained. The only requirement is that the employer have goals and be seeking to achieve the goals 3- Action steps- a plan for how the organization will meet its goals. Besides working towards its goals of hiring women and minorities, the company must take affirmative steps to hiring Vietnam veterans and individuals with disabilities The government role in providing for Equal Employment Opportunity ✔ EEO requires that employers comply with EEO laws. To enforce those laws, the executive branch of the federal government uses the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission EEOC and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs OFCCP EEO-1 Report ✔ The EEOC also monitors organizations's hiring practices. Each year organization's that are government contractors or subcontractors or have 100 or more employees must file an Employer Information Report (EEO-1) with the EEOC. The EEO-1 Report is an online questionnaire requesting the number of employees in each job category ( such as managers, professionals, and laborers ) broken down by their status as male or female, Hispanic or non-Hispanic, and members of various racial groups Thirteenth Amendment ✔ Abolished slavery, covers all individuals, enforced by the Court System Fourteenth Amendment
Affirmative Action ✔ An organization's active effort to find opportunities to hire or promote people in a particular group Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 ✔ Treats discrimination based on pregnancy-related conditions as illegal sex discrimination. Covers all employees covered by Tittle VII EEOC enforced Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) ✔ Prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all employments practices, such as job application procedures, hiring, firing, promotions, compensation, and training. Other employment activities covered by the ADA are employment advertising, recruitment, tenure, layoff, leave, and fringe benefits The ADA require that employers take steps to accommodate individuals covered under the act Covers employers with more than 15 employees EEOC Disability ✔ The ADA defines disability as a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more mayor life activities, a record of having such an impairment,more being regarded as having such an impairment Executive Order 11246 ✔ Requires affirmative action in hiring women and minorities Covers federal contractors and subcontractors with contracts greater than $10, OFCCP Civil Rights Act of 1991(CRA 1991) ✔ Same as Title VII, prohibits discrimination with the addition of compensatory and punitive damages to employment discrimination cases EEOC Maximum punitive damages allowed under CRA 1991 ✔ 14 to 100 employees-----$50, 101 to 200 " -----———. $100, 201 to 500 —. $200, More than 500 --------- 300, Business' Role in providing for EEO ✔ Most companies recognize the importance of complying with anti-discrimination laws. Expert HR professionals can help in identifying how to comply and take steps to avoid discrimination and provide reasonable accommodation
Types of discrimination ✔ Disparate Treatment, Disparate Impact or Adverse Effect Disparate Treatment ✔ Treating one group different than other based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, or disability status Bona Fide Occupational Qualification BFOQ ✔ A necessary ( not merely preferred) qualification for performing a job Disparate Impact or Adverse Effect ✔ When a policy or procedure has a negative effect on a protected group. A commonly used test of disparate impact is the Four-Fifths Rule Four-fifths Rule ✔ Rule of thumb that finds evidence of potential discrimination if an organization's hiring rate ( not numbers of employees hired) for a minority group is less than four-fifths the hiring rate for the majority group
- find the rates : divide #hired by #applicants of each group
- compare the rates Difference between Disparate Treatment and Disparate Impact ✔ The role of the employer's intent. EEO Policy ✔ Employers can avoid discrimination and defend against claims of discrimination by establishing and enforcing an EEO Policy. The policy should define and prohibit unlawful behaviors, as well as provide procedures for making and investigate complaints. The policy should also require that employees at all levels engage in fair conduct and respectful language. Affirmative Action and Reverse Discrimination ✔ When organizations engaged in affirmative action allegedly discriminate white or male candidates by increasing the proportions of minorities or female candidates hired or promoted Reasonable Accommodation ✔ An employer's obligation to do something to enable an otherwise qualified person to perform a job. An accommodation is considered "reasonable" if it does not impose an undue hardship on the employer, such as an expense that is large in relation to a company's resources. Examples of Reasonable Accommodations under the ADA ✔ Making facilities accessible, modifying work schedules, Acquiring or modifying equipment, providing qualified readers or interpreters, etc...
to comply with the act. Much of the research is conducted by the NIOSH, National Institute For Occupational Safety and Health Employers Duties under the OSH Act ✔ The act's general duty clause : -Each employer has a general duty to furnish each employees place of employment free from recognized hazards that cause or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm. ( as the main provision of the OSH Act states) -Employers must keep records of work-related injuries and illnesses and post an annual summary of these records from Feb 1 to April 30 in the following year even if no injuries or illnesses occurred. ( OSHA's Form 300A) Employees rights under OSH Act ✔ Employees have the right to: -Request an inspection -Have a representative present at an inspection -Have dangerous substances identified -Be promptly informed about exposure to hazards and be given Acces to accurate records regarding exposure
- Have employer violations posted at the work site Employees Responsibilities ✔ - employees have to follow OSHA's safety rules and regulations governing employee behavior.
- employees have a duty to report hazardous conditions Occupational Safety and Health Administration ( OSHA) ✔ Labor Department agency responsible for inspecting employers, applying safety and health standards, and levying fines for violations Right-to-Know Laws ✔ State laws that require employers to provide employees with information about the health risks associated with exposure to substances considered hazardous Material Safety Data Sheets ( MSDSs) ✔ Forms on which chemical manufacturers and importers identify the hazards of their chemicals Impact of the OSH Act ✔ The OSH Act has unquestionable succeeded in raising the level of awareness of occupational safety Job Hazard Analysis Technique ✔ Safety promotion technique that involves breaking down a job into basic elements, then rating each element for its potential for harm or injury
Technique of Operations Review TOR ✔ Method of promoting safety by determining which specific element of a job led to a past accident Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ✔ Federal law that increased the responsibility of pension plan trustees to protect retirees , established certain rights related to vesting ( earning a right to receive the pension ) and portability ( being able to move retirement savings when changing employers) , and created the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation ( PBGC) ✔ Federal agency that insures retirement benefits and guarantees retirees a basic benefit if the employer experiences financial difficulties Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ✔ In 2010, Congress passed Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a health care reform law that includes incentives and penalties for employers providing health insurance as a benefit. Method to calculate turnover ✔ The generally accepted method to calculate turnover is to divide the nunber of employees who left the organization in a given month by the average number of individuals on payrool duringvthat minth National Labor Relations Act ( NLRA) ✔ Federal law that support collective bargaining and sets out the rights of employees to form unions Activities Protected By the NLRA ✔ Under the National Labor Relations Act, most private sector employees have the right to: Organize a union to negotiate with employers concerning wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment. -Form, join or assist a union.
- Bargain collectively through representatives of employees' own choosing for a contract setting wages, benefits, hours, and other working conditions.
- Discuss terms and conditions of employment or union organizing with co-workers or a union. -Engage in protected concerted activities with one or more co-workers to improve wages, benefits and other working conditions. -Choose not to do any of these activities, including joining or remaining a member of a union. Employees not covered by the NLRA ✔ Most employees in the private sector are covered by the NLRA. However, workers employed under the following conditions are not covered:
"Third Shift" ✔ The hours between 12:00 midnight to 8:00 AM beacuse these are the hours that the majority of people are at home sleeping, organizations frequentlyvoffer additional pay ( known as " shift diferential" ) to attract employees to work these non-standard hours. Glass-ceiling effect ✔ Refers to an invisible barrier which appears to limit the growth of women above a certain level within the organization "Glass ceiling Initiatives ✔ Efforts to address the "glass ceiling effect" Elements included in The Metrics for assessing a program ✔ 1-Quantity ( volume) 2-Quality ( error or success rate) 3-Time (on time or the time to complete) 4- Money ( cost or revenue generated) 5- Satisfaction ( of the users) The three levels of metrics ✔ Impact, effectiveness, efficiency Metrics you can collect and track ✔ 1-Output ( unites produced, items sold, forms processed, productivity, tasks completed, new accounts generated) 2- Cost ( unit costs, variable costs, project cost savings, sales expenses, accident costs, operating costs, ) 3- Time ( processing time, learning time, meeting schedules, hiring for a position, time to project completion) 4- Quality ( error rates, shortages, product defects, scrap, waste, rejects, product failures, time card corrections , % of tasks completed properly, # of accidents) 5- Work Habits ( absenteeism, tardiness, visits to the dispensary, first aid treatments, violations of safety rules, excessive breaks, follow-up) 6- Work Climate/ Satisfaction ( # of grievances, # of discrimination charges, employee complaints, job satisfaction, employee turnover, litigation, organization commitment, employee loyalty,increased confidence) 7- Customer Service ( complaints, satisfaction, dissatisfaction, impressions, loyalty, retention, customer value, lost customer) 8- Employee Development/Advancement ( # of promotions, # of pay increases, # of learning programs , attended, requests for transfer, performance appraisal ratings, increases in job effectiveness) 9- Initiative/ Innovation ( implementation of new ideas, successful completion of projects, number of suggestions implemented, new products and services, developed, new patents and copyrights ) initiative/innovation
Recruiting ✔ Any activity carried on by the organization with the primary purpose of identifying and attracting potential employees Goals of recruiting ✔ Encouraging qualified people to apply for jobs Goals of Selection ✔ Deciding which candidates would be the best fit Three aspects of Recruiting ✔ Personnel policies (,influences the characteristics of the position to be filled) Recruiter nature and behaviors( affect the characteristics of both the vacancies and the applicants) Recruitment sources ( influence the kinds of job applicants an organization reaches) Personnel Policies ✔ An organization's Personnel Policies are its decisions about how it will carry out human resource management, including how it will fill job vacancies. These policies influence the nature of the positions that are vacant. The characteristics of the job vacancy are more important for predicting job choice than recruiting sources or recruiters Personnel Policies relevant to recruitment ✔ -Internal vs external recruiting -Lead-the- Market Pay Strategies
- Employment-at-Will policies
- Image advertising Internal vs external recruiting ✔ :organization's with policies to "promote from within " try to fill upper-level vacancies by recruiting ca dictates internally. Opportunities for advancement make a job more attractive to applicants and employees. Decisions about internal vs external recruiting affect the nature of jobs, recruitment sources, and the nature of applicants Lead-the-Market Pay Strategies ✔ Organizations have a recruiting advantage if their policy is to take a "lead-the- market" approach to pay , that is pay more than the current market wages for a job. Higher pay can also make up for a job's less desirable features , such as working on a night shift or in dangerous conditions. Organizations that compete for applicants based on pay may use other forms of pay besides wages and salary like bonuses, stock options, etc Employment-at-will
