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PART II The Contexts of Human Resource Management

CHAPTER 2 Managing Work Flows and Conducting Job Analysis

CHALLENGES

After reading this chapter, you should be able to deal more effectively with the following challenges:

1 Understand the organizational perspective of work.
2 Understand the group perspective of work.
3 Understand the individual perspective of work.
4 Develop competence in designing jobs and conducting job analysis.
5 Have familiarity with the flexible workforce.
6 Maintain human resource information systems.

The powerful forces of technology and global competition are forcing managers to rethink all aspects of business. Work is in a state of flux as companies change basic work processes, job requirements and expectations, and organizational structures to focus more on customers’ needs.

One important change is the practice of using work teams instead of individual workers as the basic work unit. Today, many workers spend much of their time on a team established to satisfy customers’ needs. For example:

▪ At Whole Foods Market, a large purveyor of organic foods, teams are the basic unit of organization. Typically, each store has eight teams that run departments such as produce, seafood, and checkout. Teams are given wide latitude with regard to what foods to stock on shelves and how to manage themselves, including the right to hire and fire team members. Information on team performance is transparent, and pay is linked to team, rather than individual, performance.1
▪ General Motors slashed the development time it takes to produce a full mock-up of a car from 12 weeks to only 2 weeks by using collaborative engineering teams that share design information between auto parts suppliers and engineering units within the company. The time saved frees up workers to think more creatively and to develop three or four more alternative designs per car.2
▪ SAP, the German software firm, reduced the time required to produce new, usable application software upgrades from years to 90 days with the use of project teams staffed by some of the company’s top software programmers. The increased speed of software development provided by its teams lets SAP compete in more competitive market segments that provide new opportunities for growth, such as database and analytics.3

The Managerial Perspective

This chapter is about managing work, which is a highly dynamic process. Managers design structures to organize work into departments, teams, and jobs so that work is performed efficiently and provides a valuable product or service for a customer. Human resource specialists assist managers by keeping track of and documenting the changes for the content of each job through a process called job analysis. In this chapter, we explore why job analysis is important to managers and why it is the bedrock of most human resource programs.

Like work teams, organizations are fundamentally groups of people. The relationships among these people can be structured in different ways. In this chapter, we describe how top managers decide on the most appropriate structure for the organization as a whole and for the flow of work within the organization. Although you may never be asked to redesign your organization, it is likely that your company will eventually undergo structural change, because such change is necessary for survival. It is important that you understand structural issues so that you can see the big picture and take an active role in implementing changes.

Work can be viewed from three different perspectives: the entire organization, work groups, and individual employees. We examine each of these perspectives and their implications for human resource management. We also discuss job analysis (a critical HR activity) and the use of contingent workers and alternative work schedules to create a flexible workforce. An understanding of job analysis gives managers a tool to measure how much and what types of work are necessary to achieve organizational objectives. We conclude the chapter with a discussion of human resource information systems.

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Table of Contents for PART II The Contexts of Human Resource Management

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Table of Contents for
PART II The Contexts of Human Resource Management