HR Definitions – Grow up your knowledge

HR Definitions – Grow up your knowledge

Grow up your HR definitions knowledge and know more about HR terminology. The most HR definitions use in Interviewing Candidates, Training & Development, Performance Management and Appraisal, Managing Careers , Pay Plans and more HR definitions.

Interviewing Candidates

Unstructured and  Non-directive Interview:  an  unstructured  conversational  style interview in which the interviewer pursues point of interest as they come up in responses to questions.

Structured  and  Directive  Interview:  an  interview  following  a  set  sequence  of questions.

Situational  Interview:  a  series  of  job-related  questions  that  focus  on  how  the candidate would behave in a given situation.

Behavioral Interviews: a  series  of  job-related  questions  that  focus  on  how  the candidate reacted to actual situations in the past.

Job-related Interviews: a series of job-related questions that focus on relevant past job related behaviors.

Stress Interviews: an interview in which the applicant is made uncomfortable by a series of often rude questions. This technique helps identify hypersensitive applicants and those with high or low stress tolerance.

Unstructured sequential Interview: an interview in which each interviewer forms an independent opinion after asking different questions.

Structured sequential Interview: an interview in which the applicant is interviewed sequentially by several persons, each rates the applicant on a standard form.

Panel Interview: an interview in which a group of interviewers questions the applicant.

Mass Interview: a panel interviews several candidates simultaneously.

Candidate Order Error: an error of judgment on the part of the interviewer due to interviewing one or more very good or very bad candidates just before the interview in question.

Training and Development

Employee  Orientation:  A  procedure  for  providing  new  employees  with  basic background information about the firm.

Training: The process of teaching new and/or present employees the basic skills they need to perform their jobs.

Performance Management: The process employers use to make sure employees are working toward organizational goals.

Negligent Training: A situation where an employer fails to train adequately, and the employee subsequently harms a third party:

• Task Analysis: A detailed study of a job to identify the specific skills required.
• Performance  Analysis:   Verifying  that  there  is  a  performance  deficiency  and determining whether that deficiency should be corrected through training or through some other means, such as transferring the employee.

On the job-training: Training a person to learn a job while working on it.

Apprenticeship  Training:  A  structured  process  by  which  people  become  skilled workers through a combination of classroom instruction and on the job training.

Job Instruction Training: Listing each job’s basic tasks along with key points in order to provide a step by step training for employees.

Programmed  Learning:  A  systematic  method  for  teaching  job  skills  involving presenting questions or  facts allowing the  person to  respond and giving the  learner immediate feedback on the accuracy of his/her answers.

Simulated Training: Training employees on special off-the-job equipment as in airplane pilot training so training costs and hazards can be reduced.

Job Aid: Is a set of instructions, diagrams or similar methods available at the job site to guide the worker.

Electronic Performance Support Systems (EPSS): Sets of computerized tools and displays that automate training, documentation and phone support then integrate this automation into applications and provide support that’s faster, cheaper and more effective than traditional methods.

Management Development: Any attempt to improve current or future management performance by imparting knowledge, changing attitudes or increasing skills.

Succession Planning: A process through which senior level openings are planned for and eventually filled.

Job Rotation: A management training technique that involves moving trainees from department to department to broaden their experience and identify strong and weak points.

Action Learning: A training technique by which management trainees are allowed to work full-time analyzing and solving problems in other departments.

Case Study Method: A development method in which the manager is presented with a written description of an organizational problem to diagnose and solve.

Management Games: A development technique in which teams of managers compete by making computerized decisions regarding realistic but simulated situations.

Role  Playing:  A  training  technique  in  which  trainees  act  out  parts  in  a  realistic management situation.

Behavior Modeling:  A  training  technique in  which  trainees are  first  shown  good management techniques in a film, are asked to play roles in a simulated situation and are then given feedback and praise by their supervisor:

• In-House Development Center: A company based method for exposing prospective managers to realistic exercises to develop improved management skills.

Organizational Development: It is a special approach to organizational change in which the employees themselves formulate the change that’s required and implement it.

Controlled  Experimentation:  Formal  methods  for  testing  the  effectiveness  of  a training program preferable with before and after tests and a control group.

Performance Management and Appraisal

Performance Appraisal: is evaluating employee’s current and/or past performance relative to his/her performance standards.

Performance Management: is a process that consolidates setting goals, performance appraisal and  development into  a  single  common system which aims at  ensuring that employee’s performance supports the company’s strategic aims:

• Graphic Rating Scale:   It is a scale that lists a number of traits and a range of performance for each and the employee is rated by identifying the score the best describes the his/her level of performance for each trait.

Alternation Ranking Method: Ranking employees from best to worst on a particular trait, choosing the highest then lowest till all are ranked.

Paired Comparison Method: Ranking employees by making a chart of all possible pairs of the employees for each trait and indicating is the best employee of the pair.

Forced Distribution Method: it is like rating on a curve, predetermined percentages of ratees are placed in various performance categories.

Critical Incident Method:  It means keeping record of uncommonly good or  poor performance and reviewing it with the employee at predetermined time.

Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales BARS: It is a performance appraisal method that aims to combine the benefits of narrative critical incidents and quantitative ratings by anchoring quantified scales with specific narrative examples of good or poor performance.

Management by  Objectives (MBO):  It  is  a  performance appraisal  method  that involves setting specific measurable goals for each employee and periodically reviewing progress:

• Electronic   Performance   Monitoring   (EPM):   having   supervisors   electronically monitoring the amount of computerized data each employee enters on his computer and so monitors his/her performance.

Unclear Standards: an appraisal that’s too open for interpretation.

Halo Effect: it is a problem that arises when the supervisor’s rating of an employee’s on one trait biases the rating of that person on other traits, example most supervisor’s rate unfriendly employees low in all traits.

Central Tendency: a problem that occurs when the supervisor has a tendency to rate all employees the same, such as rating them all average.

Leniency or Strictness: a problem that occurs when the supervisor has a tendency to appraise all employees the same, either high or low.

• Bias: it means having individual differences such as race, sex, age or color influence the ratings that the employee receives.

Logrolling: When several peers tend to rate each other highly in a peers’ performance appraisal.

Appraisal  Interview:  The  appraisal  interview  is  an  interview  in  which  both  the supervisor and the subordinate review the appraisal and set plans to remedy deficiencies and reinforce strengths.

Managing Careers

Career Management: is the process for enabling employees to better understand and develop their career skills and interests and to use these skills and interests more effectively.

Career Development: is a lifelong series of activities that contribute to a person’s career exploration, establishment, success and fulfillment.

Career Planning: is the deliberate process through which someone becomes aware of personal skills, interests, knowledge and other characteristics and establishes action plans to attain specific goals.

Career Planning and Development: The process through which a person becomes aware of personal career related attributes and the lifelong series of steps that contribute to his/her career fulfillment.

Reality Shock: results when new employee’s high job expectations confront the reality of a boring, unchallenging job.

Mentoring: Formal or informal programs in which mid and senior level managers help less experienced employees, for instance, by giving them career advice and helping them navigate political pitfalls(difficulty).

Promotion: Advancements to positions of increased responsibility.

Transfers: Reassignments to similar positions in other parts of the firm.

Retirement: is the point at which one gives up one’s work usually between the ages of

60 and 65.

Pay Plans

Employee compensation: refers to all forms of pay or reward going to employees and arising from their employment.

Direct  Financial  Payments:  the  pay  in  the  form  of  wages,  salaries,  incentives, commissions and bonuses.

Indirect Payments: the pay in the form of financial benefits such as insurance and vacations.

Salary Compression: is a salary inequity problem generally caused by inflation resulting in longer-term employees in a position earning less than workers entering the firm today.

• Salary Survey: refers to a survey aimed at determining prevailing wages rates; a good salary survey provides specific wage rates for specific jobs. Formal written questionnaire surveys are the most comprehensive, but telephone surveys and newspaper ads are also sources of information.

Benchmarks jobs: jobs that are used to anchor the employer’s pay scale and around which other jobs are arranged in order of relative worth.

Job evaluation: a formal and systematic comparison done in order to determine the worth of one job relative to another.

Compensable Factors: are fundamental, compensable elements of a job such as skills, effort, responsibility and working conditions.

Ranking Method: The simplest job evaluation method to use and the easiest to explain, it ranks job relative to all other jobs, usually based on overall factor like “job difficulty”.

Job Classification or Job Grading:  A method for categorizing jobs into groups.

Classes: Grouping jobs based on a set of rules for each group or class, such as amount of independent judgment, skill or physical effort required. Classes usually contain similar jobs.

Grades: Job classification systems like the class system, although grades often contain dissimilar jobs, such as secretaries, mechanics and firefighters. Grade descriptions are written based on compensable factors listed in classification systems.

Grade Definition: Written descriptions of the level of, for example, responsibility and knowledge required by jobs in each grade. Similar jobs can be then combined into grades or classes.

Point Method: The job evaluation method in which a number of compensable factors are identified and then the degree to which each of these factors is present on the job is determined.

Factor Comparison Method: A widely used method of ranking jobs according to a variety of skill and difficulty factors, then adding up these rankings to arrive at an overall numerical rating for each given job..

Pay Grade: A pay grade is comprised of jobs of approximately equal difficulty.

Wage Curve: Shows the relationship between the value of the job and the average wage paid for this job.

Pay Range: A series of steps or levels within a pay grade usually based upon years of service.

Competency-Based Pay: is where the company pays for the employee’s range, depth and types of knowledge and skills, rather than for the job title he/she holds.

Competencies: Demonstrable characteristics of a person, including knowledge, skills and behaviors that enable performance.

Broadbanding: Consolidating salary grades and ranges into just few wide levels or bands each of which contains a relatively wide range of jobs and salary levels.

Strategic  Compensation:  means  using  the  compensation  plan  to  support  the company’s strategic aims.

Comparable Worth: The concept by which women who are usually paid less than men can claim that men in comparable rather than strictly equal jobs are paid more.

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