Equal opportunities for all in employment Essay

1. Do you venture that legislation is useful in ensuring that at that place atomic number 18 equal opportunities for all in employ inventforcet?There has been a gradual reduction in distinction through the last century, legislation recent by the government in numerous encounters realize acted to reduce dissimilarity in the process place. The Equal deliver impress 1970, The Sex Discrimination come 1975 and the Race Relation go 1976 are the main legislation that reduce discrimination.The Equal counterbalance Act 1970 ensured that men and women play the same terms and conditions for spurting a comparable product tenor. Previous to this there were galore(postnominal) employers stick discovering women less for doing the same amount of work as a man.The Sex discrimination Act 1975, made it rachiticegal to disunite in employment on the grounds of sex and martial status. This act in whatsoever case brought to light direct discrimination where near ace is treated l ess favourably than a outgrowth of the opposite sex and indirect discrimination where a particular requirement unmingledly treats e genuinelyone equally only when has a disproportionate rig on a particular group the required moldiness similarly non be justifiable (Bratton & Jones 1994).The Race Relations Act 1976 made it unlawful for employers to discriminate on grounds of race, colour, nationality and ethnical or national background. This was in an case to reduce racism especially in the work place.These prepares of legislation are in an attempt to provide equal opportunities. Employer should only cook up decisions found upon the persons solve executive to do the melodic phrase. Though the government tries to ensure equal opportunities by full-gr bear out legislation that is encouraging, equal opportunities relies on easily working practice. This is highlighted in job analysis where a person specification mustiness not be to a greater extent favourable to men than w omen. 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 pee 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 a gullst employers for discrimination. But real equal opportunity relies on the employers good practice of this legislation (Pendlebury 1996).2. Is positive discrimination a worthwhile policy for an scheme and for parliamentary law 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 deposit generally for fear of racism and discrimination. UK police have a policy of encouraging recruitment from ethnic groups. This is to help represent so ciety, 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 handling on the basis of tokenism e.g. everyone past the recruitment test except for the woman, therefore we re-test or just stick out her in anyway, as we adopt a woman.In politics, the House of Parliament is hatcht to be a representation of Great Britains 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 distinguish 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 oftentimes more detail than any some other form. Questions give the axe 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 nominee an interviewer giving a relaxed melodic business enterprise and more natural answers. The interview can be used to find out specific lucubrate crucial to the job and the candidates ability in this area. The candidate is less likely to exaggerate face-to-face than they force on an application form. An interview generally outlines what the candidate wrote on an application form. It is the outstrip method of get an accurate prediction of work performance.The disadvantages of a interview is that the candidate can deceive the interviewer in specialiser areas that the interviewer knows nothing about e.g. the candidates knowledge of internal computer circuit boards, the interviewer mogul not know liberal information about them to te ll if the candidate is really the right person for the job. The interviewers perception whitethorn 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 induce a logical erroneous belief just because the candidate has not held down a job for more than six months doesnt mean they wont this time. Interviews place more emphasis on the negatives alternatively than the positives. Inexperienced interviewers might make errors of judgement and bias the results (Chambers 1997).4. Analyse the problems associated with psychometric test, and the primal assumptions on which this selection procedure is based.Psychometric testing has a number of draw backsThere is not always a direct relationship between the candidates 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 makeing 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 leave behind be viewed most favourably. apprehension tests do not usually back away into account different burnishs 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 another(prenominal) tests are wind upd ba nkrupt by men than women, tests are usually juted by men this influences the make-up of the test. It is hard not to discriminate against race or sex in particular candidates of the testing.The underlying assumption is that all applicants test on fair and equal terms. If an applicants mother is badly in hospital this depart weigh on the applicants mind and may distract them in the test. The go around applicant may be having an off day, while the worse applicant might be on top form.Rewards Management1. Analyse the connection between demand and fabricate using three mainstream want theories.Herzbergs two factor model of motivation claims that currency is a hygiene factor which operator it is a dissatisfier if it is not sufficient, however money is not a potential satisfier or positive motivator. Herzberg say that moneys impact on favourable feelings is short term, while not teeming pay produced long term unfavourable feelings.Adamss Equity theory of motivation argues that merriment from pay is think to the employees perception. This is the amount of effort they put in for the amount of pay they get compared with the ratio of others. foretaste Theory states that motivation willing be strong if psyches can expect their effort to produce worthwhile recognizes. Armstrong & Murlis (1998) say that the great the value of a set of awards, the higher the probability that receiving each of these reenforcements depends upon effort, the greater the effort that will be put forth in any given situation. For example to get a bonus of 100, they may have to reach certain targets, if they think the effort they have to put in would match the 100 they will.Pay is very important to people because they rely on it to satisfy their staple fiber needs. It is also a sign of their worth, it can therefore improve self-esteem and thus motivate them. Pay is the recognise to attracting people to a new job although other benefits may also be a factor pay is the most crucia l. Employees will make comparisons between themselves and other employees, which will relate to righteousness and fairness. If they feel theyre not being remunerative enough they will leave, or work to attain a pay- organize. 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 loss to attach productivity by motivating their staff to get as overmuch 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 employees can negotiate.Employees want to maximise their rewards for working which affects their standard of living and their lifestyle. The government wants value for money from its employees, to attract and reta in staff, to gain commitment and improve performance, which affects profitability and cost-effectiveness.Employees are smell 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 merit the award. Sale targets are a good example, if the employee meets the theater directors 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 actors will endure borderline and frequent re-evaluations will be required. In a chain of e ducation the pay is highest at the top and lowest at the tin can. Before being able to move up the chain, the length of the data link must be overcome. Their needs to be at least a 10% pay rise for expiry from one link of the chain to the next, despite small pay rises as the employee moves up the link. interior(a) 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 arent being treated fairly not being paid enough for the work they do compared to another employee. If th e employees feel there is not enough pay rises to put up 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. besides 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 crackment 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 underline by treating people as assets to be invested in, this is HRM philosophy being incorporated by rewards management. By reward people putting money in this should get greater productivity getting more out. exhibit by gaining employees commitment to the objectives and values of the organisation. Through strategic integration b y incorporating HR issues into strategic plans and ensuring that the heterogeneous aspects of HRM cohere and are mutually supportive. Lastly HRM has enabled employees to fulfil their full potential and to deliver their maximum piece 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 juxtaposed together, by involving the employee more with the business increasing his loyalty while getting more out for he employer (Armstrong & Murlis 1998).Restructuring of Work1. 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 communication theory from the top level of management down to the lowest worker. An organisation with many layers of hierarchy or along chain of command w ill have difficulty in communications between top and bottom men. Communications from the top will go through many layers and tend to distort as the depicted object 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 virtually cardinal.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 strate gy.Fredrick Taylors 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 project in the most efficient way. This is in effect a action 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 fond interactions and diversions. This can lead to accidents and errors in the task.Stress is related specifically to high-workload, low discretion jobs. Symptoms intromit flyaway 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 elemental tasks will also build walls between workers and managem ent, as the workers tasks are perceived theirs and under the control of the manager (Mullins 1999)(Marcouse 1999)3. labor rotation, job enlargement and job enrichment are simply attempts by managers to control individuals at work. Discuss. stage business 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 ennui 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 summation 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 s mall-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. heretofore 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 chal lenging job that should develop their unused skills and encourage them to be more productive.Job enrichment isnt 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 Taylors 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 Taylors 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. gag rule finishing a product or process2. Assuming responsibility for quality control3. Job flexibility is enabled by allowing training in different skills4. Self regulation of the speed of work5. The job structure allows social interaction and a degree of co-operation among workers. (Bratton & Gold 1994)Since this there have been three gigantic types job enrichment, shake-up of assembly lines and Japanese-style job design.Job enrichment as above is concerned with rotation and enlarging among others. The reorg anisation 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 didnt work but lessons were learnt from it and are still applied today.The Concept of HRM in Transition1. Should human resources be dealt with any other than 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 theyll just leave the job. To ensure against this Human resourcefulness 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 work force as possible this means training staff so they become multi-skilled. This can allow job rotation and covering other employees in the even offt of illness (Hall, 1997).2. Discuss the four key elements of the Storey Model of HRMThe four key elements of the Storey model 1992 are Beliefs & Assumptions, Strategic Aspects, breeze 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 commutation 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 force play 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, an d the similarities are much greater than the differences. personnel department management is workforce-centred, directed mainly at the employees. Although a management function, personnel are never exclusively identified with management interests. violence 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 rew ards, 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 isnt 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 couldnt make last minute alterations. This makes HRM a much more effective and efficient style of management.