The jargon also known as hiring rate means the number of employees that are added to a payroll during a given time period. It is ordinarily expressed as a percentage of total employment. The accession rate is an important indicator of economic growth. An increase in accession rate indicates economic recovery whereas decrease in such rate indicates an economic recession. Accession rates can be calculated using the following formula:
Total accessions * 100
Accession rate = -----------------------------
Total number of workers
This is a type of clause contained in certain life insurance policies, which provides for payment of additional amounts to the beneficiary if the insured party dies as a result of an accident. There is also a type of provision, which allows an accident death benefit in which twice the normal value of the policy is payable and this provision is known as "double-indemnity" provision.
These are various types of regular payments made to employees who lose time from work owing to off-the job dis-abilities that are occasioned by accident or sickness.
It is kind of counseling technique in which the counselor listens to both the facts and the feelings of the speaker. It is called "active" listening because the counselor has the specific responsibilities of showing interest, of not passing judgement, and of helping the speaker to work out his problems.
He is an arbitrator selected by the parties involved to serve on one case. Nothing prevents the arbitrator from being used again if both parties agree. Ad hoc or temporary, single-case arbitration is different from ‘permanent’ arbitration where arbitrators are named in an agreement to help resolve disputes about the agreement that may arise during the life of the agreement.
Administrative law is the law about the power and procedures of administrative agencies, including especially the law governing judicial review of administrative action. An administrative agency is a governmental authority, other than a court and other than a legislative body, which affects the right of private parties through adjudication, rulemaking, investigating, prosecuting, negotiating, settling, or informally acting. An administrative agency may be called a commission, board, authority, bureau, office, officer, administrator, department, corporation, administration, division or agency. Nothing of substance hinges on the choice of name, and usually the choices have been entirely haphazard. When the President, or a governor, or a municipal governing body exercises powers of adjudication or rulemaking, he or it is to that extent an administrative agency.
These are wages or salaries that are drawn in advance of work performance or earned commissions. The term also applies to payments in advance of the regular payday for sums already earned.
It is the differential rate of selection for purposes such as hire, promotion, etc. Such discrimination works to the disadvantages of an applicant subgroup, particularly subgroups classified by race, sex, and other characteristics on the basis of which discrimination is prohibited by law.
When a selection process for a particular job or group of jobs result in the selection of members of any racial, ethnic, or sex group at a lower rate than members of other groups, this process is said to have adverse impact.
He is one who continues to suffer the present effects of past discrimination. An employee or group of employees may be members of an affected class when they continue to suffer adverse effects because of certain past discrimination that were based on race, religion, sex, or national origin.
In a formal and legal sense, affirmative action connotes specific efforts to recruit, hire, and promote disadvantaged groups in order to eliminate the present effects of past discrimination.
Affirmative action groups also termed as protected groups are segments of the population that are recognized by federal, state or local laws to be specifically protected from any employment discrimination. Such groups include women, identified minorities, the elderly, and the handicapped.
He is an individual in an establishment having the fundamental responsibility for the development, installation, and maintenance of the establishment’s affirmative action program.
This is a written plan of an organization to redress past discrimination against, or underutilization of, women and minorities. The plan consists of a statement of goals, timetables for achieving milestones, and specific program efforts.
It is a formal course of action undertaken by employers to hire and promote women and minorities in order to correct past abuses or maintain present equity. The most basic tool of an affirmative action program is the affirmative action plain.
Affirmative order is an order issued by the state agency which demands that an employer or union to take specific action to cease performing and/or under the effects of an unfair labor practice.
It signifies the recruiting efforts undertaken to assure that sufficient numbers of women and minorities are represented in applicant pools for positions in which they have been underutilized in past.
It is a union security provision in certain collective bargaining agreements according to which the non-union employees of the bargaining unit are required to pay the union of the sum equal to union dues as a condition of continuing employment.
He is an individual by an organization to cause problems for a rival organization by inducing its members to perform acts that the best interest of the opposition.
The method also called aggregate method is projected funding technique that computers pension benefits and costs for an entire plan rather than for its individual participants.
It is any of two or more versions of a test that are the same with respect to the nature, number, and difficulty of the test items and that are designed to yield essentially the same scores and measures of variability for a given group. Such form is also called equivalent form or comparable form.
This is a sort of technique used in job evaluation and performance appraisal in which ranks for the highest and the lowest are assigned then ranks for the next highest and the next lowest, etc., until all jobs have been ranked.
Literal meaning of the jargon is "friend of the court". It is any person or organization who is allowed to participate in a lawsuit who would not otherwise have a right to do so. Participation is usually limited to filing a brief on behalf of one side or the other.
Cost of anything for a 12-month period is called annualized cost. Twelve-month period may be for a calendar year, fiscal year, or the date on which a contract becomes effective, etc.
It is any law at any level of government that organized perceives to be to its disadvantage and to the disadvantage of prime union interests- better hours, wages, and working conditions. Examples would be "right-to-work" laws and "anti-strike" laws.
This is a Russian word for a bureaucrat but is now used colloquially to refer to any administrative functionary. The word as used in English seems to have no political connotations. It merely implies that the individual referred to mindlessly follows orders.
This is the set of individuals within a geographical area, with identifiable characteristics or a mix of such characteristics, from which applicants for employment are obtained. Changes in recruiting practices may change certain characteristics of those that apply for work and therefore may change the nature of the applicant population.
It is a tally system by which the EEO status of applicants is recorded at the time of application or interview. By periodically comparing applicant tally rates with rates of appointment and/or rejection, the progress of affirmative action recruitment effort can be measured.
It is the first phase of the selection processes. If the application blank is properly completed it can serve three purposes which are as follows. Firstly, it is a formal request for employment. Secondly, it provides information that indicates the applicants fitness for the position. And lastly, it can become the basic personnel record for those applicants who are hired.
Appointing officer also called appointing authority it the person having power by law, or by law-fully-delegated authority, to make an appointment to positions in an organization.
This is a provision of a collective bargaining agreement, which stipulates that disputes arising during the life of the contract over its interpretation are subject to arbitration. The clause may be broad enough to conclude "any dispute" or restricted to specific concerns.
These are physical barriers or the physical aspects of a building that might hinder or prevent the employment of a physically handicapped person. The lack of a ramp, for example, may prevent a person in a wheelchair from entering a building having only stairways for access.
These are geographic areas within which all candidates that meet the basic requirements for promotion to a position are given the opportunity to be considered.
It is a training program designed to aid less assertive people communicate and express their ideas and feelings more effectively. The ideal level of assertiveness lies midway between passivity and aggressiveness.
The term "assessment center" does not refer to a particular place. Rather, it is a process consisting of the intense observation of a subject undergoing a variety of stimulation and stress situations over a period of several days. Assessment centers have proven to be an increasingly popular way of identifying individuals having future executive potential so that they may be given the appropriate training and development assignments.
It denotes the amount paid by union members in addition to their regular dues when a union needs funds urgently in order to support a strike or some other union endorsed cause. The amount of these assessments is usually limited by a union’s constitution and/or by laws.
It is a procedure by which an employer, upon the authorization of the employee, automatically deducts a portion of the employee’s wages and pays it to a third party, usually a creditor. Such a procedure is also called as attachment of wages. However when a court orders this, the process is known as garnishment.
It is a common-law concept which states that an employer should not be held responsible for an accident to an employee if the employer can show that the injured employee had voluntarily accepted the hazards associated with a given job.
It is a questionnaire, usually anonymous, that elicits the opinion of employees. After completion they are summarized and analyzed to determine compliance with and attitudes towards current personnel management policies.
It indicates decrease in the size of a workforce through normal processes, such as voluntary resignations, retirements, discharges for cause, transfers, and deaths.
This is an illegal procedure whereby the employer deducts union dues and assessments from the pay of all employees in the bargaining unit without the prior consent of each individual employee. It is also called automatic checkout.
Raising or reducing wage rates in direct response to previously determined factors such as an increase/decrease in the Consumer Price Index or the company’s profits is known as automatic wage adjustment.
Person acting mechanically in a monotonous routine without the need to use any intellectual capacities is called an automaton. The thrust of the scientific management movement was to make workers the most efficient possible automations. A significant portion of modern industrial unrest is directly related to the workforce’s resentment at being treated in such a manner.
Also called housekeeping agency or overhead agency, an auxiliary agency is an administrative unit whose prime responsibility is to serve other agencies of the greater organization. Personnel agencies are usually auxiliary, housekeeping, or overhead agencies.
These are the wages earned by an employee per hour of work during a specific time period. The average hourly earnings are computed by dividing total pay received by the total hours worked.
It is the average workforce strength figure found by adding the workforce strengths at the beginning and end of a specified report period and dividing this sum by two. This type of computation is widely used in turnover analysis.
It is the union organization and not an individual that is the exclusive representative of all the workers, union as well as non-union, in a bargaining unit. Employers may voluntarily agree that a particular union will serve as the bargaining agent for their employees, or the decision on representation can be settled by secret ballot election.
Bargaining strength represents the relative powers that each of the parties hold during the negotiating process. The final settlements often reflect the bargaining power of each side.
It is a theory of wage which states that wages are used on the supply and demand for labor, that wages can never be higher than a company’s break-even point or lower than bare subsistence for the workers, and that the actual "price" of labor is determined by the relative strengths i.e., the bargaining power of employers and workers.
The number of hours in a normal workday established by collective bargaining agreements or statutory law. Premium payments must usually be paid for time worked in excess of the basic workday. The eight-hour day is widely accepted as the standard basic workday.
The number of hours in a normal workweek established by collective bargaining agreements or statutory law. Premium payments must usually be paid for time worked in excess of the basic workweek. The 40-hours week is widely accepted as the standards basic workweek.
The jargon signifies two or more tests administered together and standardized on the sample population so that the result on the various tests is comparable. The term battery is also used to refer to any tests administered as a group.
It is a training technique for first or second line supervisors in which videotapes and/or role-playing sessions are adopted to give supervisors an opportunity to improve their supervisory abilities by imitating "models" also who have already mastered such skills.
Behavioral technology is an emerging discipline that seeks to blend together both the technical and human aspects of the workplace. Equal emphasis is placed on the social as well as the technological science in order to foster the individual’s fullest use as both a human and technical resource.
It refers to any standard that is identified with sufficient detail so that other similar classification can be compared as being above, below, or comparable to the "bench-mark" standard.
These are welfare programs managed by a union for its members. Payment for such welfare programs is made from dues, voluntary contributions, or special assessments.
It represents the personality inventory commonly used in business and industry to measure six personality traits, which are neurotic tendency, self-sufficiency, intro-extroversion, dominance/submission, self-confidence, and sociability.
The labor management committee established as part of a grievance process in order to resolve a dispute short of arbitration is known as a bi-partite board.
It is a chronic and disabling occupational disease found mostly in miners, which results from the inhalation of dusts over a long period of time. Its popular name results from the tendency of the inhaled dusts to blacken lung tissue. Scientific name of this disease is pneumoconiosis.
Blue cross is the nonprofit group health insurance plan for hospital fees whereas blue shield is the nonprofit group health insurance plan for physician’s fees.
It refers to unreasonable and unrealistic negotiating demands by either side, made usually at the beginning of the negotiating process. The only "useful" purpose of such bargaining are to (1) satisfy an outside audience that their concerns are being attended to, (2) delay the ‘real’ negotiations because such a delay is thought to hold a tactical advantage, and (3) provide a basis for compromise as the negotiations progress.
It is the nebulous concept that refers to the fact that strangers, upon, meeting, react to a variety of irrational and subliminal signals, which in turn, determine whether they like each other or not.
These are wages above union scale that an employer might pay in a tight labor market in order to retain and attract employees, as well as wages below union scale that an employee might accept in lieu of unemployment.
In the context of equal employment opportunity, the bottom-line concept suggest that an employer whose total selection process has no adverse impact can be assured that EEO enforcement agencies will not examine the individual components of that process for evidence of adverse impact.
It is a catch-phrase describing a philosophy of participative management designed "to release the thinking and encourage the initiative of all those down from the bottom up."
It is a collective bargaining approach in which management makes a final "take-it-or-leave it" offer that it believes is both fair and is the best it can do.
In the context of labor relations, a boycott is any refusal to deal with or buy the products of a business as a means of exerting pressure in a labor dispute.
The term is frequently used to describe any group effort to generate ideas. It can also be defined as a creative conference for the sole purpose of producing suggestions or ideas that can serve as leads to problem solving.
It is the position specifically designed to facilitate the movement of individuals from one classification and/or job category to another classification and/or category. Such bridge jobs are an integral part of many career ladders and upward mobility programs.
It is a nonprofit organization attached to research, education, and publication in economics, government, foreign policy, and the social sciences generally.
It refers to the daily work schedule divided by a length of time considerably in excess of the time required for a normal meal break. For example, a school bus driver may work from 6 to 10 a.m. and then from 2 to 6 p.m.
It is a form of on-the-job training technique whereby a trainee is assigned to work closely with an experienced worker until the trainee gains enough experience to work alone.
It is a layoff procedure that gives an employee with greater seniority the right to displace or "bump" another employee. Sometimes bumping rights are restricted to one plant, office, or department. Because of legally guaranteed bumping rights, the laying off of a single worker can lead to the sequential transfers of a dozen others.
He is a full-time officer of a local union, elected or appointed, who handles grievances, help enforce agreements, and otherwise deals with the union’s financial, administrative, or labor-management problems.
Also called bread-and-butter Unions, as they tend to concentrate on gaining better wages and working conditions for their members rather than devote significant efforts on political action.
Buzz group is a device that seeks to give all the individuals at a large meeting an equal opportunity to participate. It does so by breaking the larger meeting into small groups of from six to eight each. The "buzz groups’ then designate one person each to report on their consensus (and dissents if any) when the total group reconvenes.
Cafeteria benefits plan also called smorgasbord benefits plan is any program that permit employees to choose their fringe benefits within the limits of the total benefits dollars for which they are eligible. This helps each employee to have, in effect, his own individualized benefit program.
It refers to a compensation, may be at premium rates, that is paid to workers who are called back on the job after completing their normal shift. It is often provided in the contract deeds to pay for a minimum number of hours of callback irrespective of the number of hours actually worked.
It represents the wages or hours of pay which is guaranteed to workers even if they don’t find any work to do after reporting to work. Such an assurance is given in the contract provision.
It refers to any system, effort, or process with major objectives of strengthening the capability of elected chief executive officers, chief administrative officers, department and agency heads, and program managers in general purpose government to plan, implement, manage or evaluate policies, strategies or programs designed to impact on social conditions in the community.
Career counseling signifies the guidance furnished to employees in order to assist them in achieving occupational training, education, and career goals.
It denotes a series of classifications in which an employee may progress through training or on-the-job experience into successively higher levels of responsibility and remuneration.
Career negotiation is that aspect of career planning which has both the individual employee and the organization, in the light of their respective interests and needs, develop (negotiate) a career plan that serves both parties.
It connotes the direction of an individual’s career as indicated by career milestones. An employee who follows a career path may advance in a single career ladder and then beyond it into supervisory or executive position or an employee may move from one career ladder to another.
It indicates the series of occupations of an individuals or group of individuals. The study of career patterns explains that an individual’s future vocational behavior can be predicted from his past work history.
Career planning is the personal process of planning one’s life works. It requires evaluating abilities and interest, considering alternative career opportunities, establishing career goals and planning practical development activities. Thus the process results in decisions to enter a certain occupation, join a particular company, accept or decline job opportunities and ultimately leave a company for another job or for retirement.
It is a ruling according to which the charged party is required to stop conduct that is believed to be illegal and take specific action to remedy the unfair labor practice. Such orders are usually issued in unfair labor practice cases.
It represents a series of statistical measures, which provide a representative value for a distribution or, more simply, refer to how scores tend to cluster in a distribution.
Certification signifies a formal determination by the National Labor Relations Board or other administrative agency that a particular union is the majority choice, and thus it is the exclusive bargaining agent, for a group of employees in a given bargaining unit. Decertification is the opposite process where an administrative agency withdraws a union’s official designation as the exclusive bargaining agent. In both cases, these actions are usually preceded by a formal polling of the union membership.
It is the procedure in which those who have passed competitive civil service examinations are ranked in order of score and placed on a list of that eligible for appointment. When a government agency has a vacancy, it requests its personnel arm to furnish a list of eligible for the class, which has the vacancy. The personnel agency then "certifies" the name of the highest-ranking eligible to the appointing authority for possible selection. Usually only a limited number of the qualified eligible are certified. When a jurisdiction requires that three eligible be certified to the appointing authority, this is referred to as the "rule of three".
The process by which the National Labor Relations Board discovers whether or not the employees of an organization want a particular union to represent them is called certification proceeding.
It is a union certified by an administrative agency to be the official representative of the employees in a bargaining unit for the purpose of collective negotiations. Such certification is usually the direct result of a representation election.
It is a union security provision in the collective bargaining agreement, which entitles the employer to deduct union dues, assessments, and initiation fees from the pay of all union members. The deducted amounts are delivered to the union on a prearranged schedule.
Employment practices, government regulations, court decisions, or legislation (or the threat of these) may create an inhibiting atmosphere or chilling effect that prevent the free exercise of individual employment right. A "chilling" effect tends to keep minorities and women from seeking employment and advancement in an organization even in the absence of formal bars.
Government agency charged with the responsibility of promulgating the rules and regulations of the civilian personnel management system. Depending upon its legal mandate, a civil service commission may hear employee appeals and take a more active (or passive) role in the personnel management process.
Class indicates a unique position or a group of positions that are sufficiently similar in respect to duties and responsibilities so that the same title may be used to designate each position in the group, the same salary may be equitably applied, the same qualifications required, and the same examination used to select qualified employees.
Classification standards are descriptions of classes of positions, which distinguish one class from another in a series. They are the yardstick or benchmark against which position is measured in order to ascertain the proper level within a series of titles to which a position should be assigned.
It means to assort positions on the basis of their duties and responsibilities and to assign a class title. To reclassify is to reassign a position to a different class, based on a re-examination of the duties and responsibilities of the position
It refers to the time during the normal workday when employees are allowed to stop production in order to clean themselves, their clothing, or their workplace. Clean-up-time allowance is frequently written into union contracts.
It is a work organization that does not hire current or prospective union members. Such a tactic is illegal if the organization is engaged in interstate commerce.
Closed union is a union that formally bars new members or makes becoming a member practically impossible in order to protect the job opportunities of its present members.
When a civil service examination is announced, applications are accepted as long as the announcement is "open." The closing date is the deadline for submitting applications and is usually stated on the announcement.
It indicates the laboratory training experience for a group of people from the same organization. The group consists of several subgroups of individuals with related work in the larger organization.
Also termed as coordinated bargaining, it signifies negotiation by an employer with a group whose goal is to gain one agreement covering all or identical agreements for each.
Union participation in all aspects of management, even to the extent of having union representatives share equal membership on an organization’s board of directors.
Theory which holds that when an individual finds himself in a situation where he is expected to believe two mutually exclusive things, the subsequent tension and discomfort generates activity designed to reduce the dissonance or disharmony.
It is acronym for the classes of people for whom affirmative action data must usually be collected. It also stands for "Caucasian, Oriental, Indian, Negro, and Spanish."
Collective bargaining is a comprehensive term encompassing the negotiating process that leads to a contract between labor and management on wages, hours, and other conditions of employment as well as the subsequent administration and interpretation of the signed contract. Collective bargaining is the continuous relationship that exists between union representatives and employers. The four basic stages of collective bargaining are as follows.
(1) The establishment of organizations for bargaining.
(2) The formulations of demands.
(3) The negotiation of demands.
(4) The administration of the labor agreement.
In the public sector "collective bargaining" may sometimes be legally and/or semantically unacceptable. For that reason "collective negotiations" is available as an alternative.
Worker elected by co-workers to represent the union membership in the handling of grievances and the recruitment of new union members among other duties is known as a committeeman or committeewoman, as the case may be.
Common law is the total body of law established by judicial precedent. The common law of the shop or industrial relations common law is that portion of the common law that applies to the workplace.
It is the picketing of an entire construction site by members of a single union in order to increase their strike’s impact and to publicize a dispute with one or more contractors or subcontractors.
This is a term used for an expert brought in to save a company or organization from severe difficulties. The "doctor" could be a new chief executive, a consultant, a lawyer, an accountant, or other person with special expertise.
Company fellowship plan is a formal arrangement of a particular company for providing one or more graduate students non-repayable monetary allowances in order to help them attend universities, on a full-time basis, in pursuit of a master’s or a doctoral degree.
To a great extent, company and union negotiators make use the "comparative norm principle" in wage negotiations. The basic idea behind this concept is the presumption that the economics of a particular collective bargaining relationship should neither fall substantially behind nor be greatly superior to that of other employer-union relationships. In other words it is generally a good practice to keep up with the crowd, but not necessarily to lead it.
It is a facet of management, which is concerned with the selection, development, and direction of the programs that implement an organization’s financial reward system.
At the time of layoffs or reductions-in-force, employees of large organizations are sometimes restricted to competing for retention in their competitive area-the commuting area to which they are assigned.
Competitive level refers to all positions of the same grade within a competitive area that are sufficiently identical in certain respects. These are duties, responsibilities, pay systems, terms of appointment, requirements for experience, training, skills, and aptitudes that the incumbent of any of them could readily be shifted to any of the other positions without significant training or undue interruption to the work program.
It indicates selection for promotion made from the employers rated best-qualified in competition with others, all of whom have the minimum qualifications required by the position.
It signifies use of seniority concept in determining an employee’s right, relative to other employees, to job related "rights" that cannot be supplied equally to any two employees.
The general purpose of a complimentary interview is to positively evaluate personnel and to give them performance feedback, recognition and praise, to highlight potential, and to enhance organizational planning.
It refers to any situation where a decision that may be made (or influenced) by an office holder may (or may appear to) be to that office holder’s personal benefit.
It is an organization development technique that has an organizational group (usually the management corps) meeting for a one-day effort to assay their organizational health.
It is an approach to enforce equal employment opportunity involving a negotiated settlement that allow an employer to not admit to any acts of a discrimination yet agree to EEO efforts in the future.
If an employer makes conditions of continued employment so intolerable that it results in a "constructive discharge" whereby the employee "voluntarily" leaves, the employer may still be subject to charges that the employer violated which generally forbids employers from discharging employees because of their race, color, sex, or national origin.
It is a monthly statistical measure of the average change in prices in a fixed market basket of goods and services. It is also called cost-of-living-index.
A selection device has content validity if it measures the specific abilities needed to perform the job. Examinations that require applicants to perform an actual, representative sample of the work done on the job would obviously have content validity.
It is any management style recognizing the fact that the application of theory to practice must necessarily take into consideration, and be contingent upon, the given situation. It is also called situational management.
It is a theory of leadership effectiveness according to which the appropriate leadership style is determined by three critical elements in the leader’s situation.
(1) The power position of the leader.
(2) The task structure.
(3) The leader-member personal relationships. The nature of these three factors determines the "favorableness" of the situation for the leader, which in turn requires a particular leadership style.
The term refers to graduate or undergraduate course work undertaken on a part-time basis in order to keep up to date on new developments in one’s occupational field, learn a new field, or contribute to one’s general education.
Contracting-out signifies having work performed outside an organization’s own work force. Contracting-out has often been an area of union-management disagreement.
The federal government agencies have the right to grant convalescent leave to civilian employees on duty abroad who are injured as a result of "war, insurgency, mob violence, or other similar hostile action." Such leave with pay is completely separate from an employee’s sick leave benefits.
It is any legal provision, which postpones a strike or lockout for a specified time period in order to give the parties an additional opportunity to mediate their differences.
It is a form of educational process wherein students alternate formal studies with actual work experiences. It is different from other part-time employment in that successful completion of the off-campus experiences becomes a prerequisite for graduation.
These are efforts made by an organization in order to bring and subsume new elements into its policymaking process for preventing such elements from being a threat to the organization or its mission.
It is a reduction in a test score for wrong answers basically intended to discourage guessing and to yield more accurate ranking of examinees in terms of their true knowledge.
In the context of equal employment opportunity, the cosmic search refers to an endless search by an employer for an alternative selection procedure with less adverse impact.
These are two latent social roles that manifest themselves in organizational settings. The first role, cosmopolitan, tends to be adopted by true professionals. It assumes a small degree of loyalty to the employing organization, a high commitment be specialized skills, and an outer-reference group orientation. The second role, local, tends to be adopted by non-professionals. It assumes a high degree of loyalty to the employing organization, a low commitment to specialized skills, and an inner-reference group orientation. These role models are extremes and represent the two ends of a continuum.
Also called benefit-cost analysis, it relates to any process by which organizations seeks to determine the effectiveness of their spending, in relation to costs, in meeting policy objectives.
It is also termed as cost-of-living allowance. Cost-of-living adjustment is an increase in compensation in response to increasing inflation. A cost of-living allowance is additional compensation for accepting employment in high cost-of-living areas.
It is a labor organization that restricts it membership to skilled craft workers (such as plumbers, carpenters, etc.). It is different from an industrial union, which recruits all workers in a particular industry. It is also called horizontal union and trade union.
Criterion relevance represents the judgment of the degree to which a criterion measure reflects the important aspects of job performance. Such a judgement is based on an understanding of the measurement process itself, of the job and worker requirement which is revealed through careful job analysis, and of the needs of the organization.
Critical-incident method also called critical-incident technique, is a technique of identifying, classifying and recording significant examples i.e. critical incidents of an employee's behavior for purpose of performance evaluation. The theory behind the critical-incident approach holds that there are certain key acts of behavior that makes the difference between success and failure. After the incident are collected they can be ranked in order of frequency and importance and assigned numerical weight. Once scored, they can be useful equally both for employee development and counseling as also for formal appraisals.
This is a network- analysis technique for planning and scheduling. The "critical path" is a series of activities connecting the beginning and end of events or program accomplishments.
Cultural bias in the context of employee selection refers to the indirect and incidental, not direct and deliberate, bias of individuals and instruments making selection decisions. It also means the propensity of a test to reflect favorable or unfavorable effects of certain types of cultural backgrounds.
Culturally disadvantaged represents that group which does not have full participation in the society because of low incomes, substandard housing, poor education and other "typical" environment experiences.
Cutting score is a test score, which is used as an employment requirement. Those at or above such a score qualify for selection or promotion, whereas those below the score do not. Cutting score is also known as critical score, passing score, or passing point.
It is an act of circumventing more senior employees in order to promote a more qualified but more junior employee. However in the transportation industry, deadheading has a different meaning. It means the movement of empty vehicles to a place where they are needed and also the practice of providing free transportation for the company's employees.
It is a benefit provided under a pension plan to the survivors or estate of an employee after his or her death. Payments may be made in monthly installments or in a lump sum.
It is a technique developed for assisting senior management to forecast manpower and organizational needs. This technique is specifically designed for use on problems where the experience and judgements of top-level policymakers comprise the basic and often the only information. The leading feature of this technique is that it develops its forecasts by: (1) "decomposing" each manpower planning problem into its relevant factors, (2) quantifying subjective preferences and probability judgements for each problem factor and (3) combining the available data plus these quantified judgements into a table of predictions. The methodology draws largely on decision-analysis theory, using "decision trees" and some simple mathematics from probability theory.
It is a graphical representation of various decisional alternatives so that the various risks, information needs and courses of action are visually available to the decision-maker. The various decisional alternatives are displayed in the form of a tree with nodes and branches. Each branch of such a tree represents an alternative course of action or decision, which leads to a node which in turn represent an event. Thus, a decision tree shows both the different courses of action available as well as their possible outcomes.
It is an act of holding back a portion of current earnings usually till the time of his retirement, when the receiver would likely be in a lower income-tax bracket.
This is a type of pension plan whereby an employee is allowed to retain rights to accrued benefits if he or she is terminated after a specified age and/or after serving for a specified period of time in the organization.
It is a type of pension plan whereby an employee acquires a right to a specified percentage of accrued benefits provided he or she meets the participation requirements stipulated by the plan.
It is a sort of annuity plan that becomes effective at a specified future date. If the annuitant dies before the specified date then no benefits are paid. Once the annuity has started, it continues only for the life of the insured.
Deferred rating system is used for filling vacancies on most government position and for most scientific positions. There are no "standings" on one of these registers and no numerical score is assigned at the time of application, since applications are not rated until specific vacancies become available. Candidates are rated and referred for appointment consideration on the basis of their relative qualification for a particular position. The best- qualified applicants will be placed at the top of the list of eligible and will be referred to the agency for employment consideration on the basis of their qualification and according to the laws regarding veteran' preference and appointment. The names of all other applicants will be returned to the register for possible consideration at a later time.
It is any means of encouraging a marginal or unsatisfactory employee to vacate as an alternative to being fired. This face-saving technique allows an organization to:
(1) avoid the distasteful aftereffect of firing an employee,
(2) avoid the implication that someone made a mistake in hiring the employee,
(3) avoid the adverse effect of the public thinking that the company is not a secure place in which to be employed, and
(4) protect the feelings of the employer involved.
It is a type of group insurance program that is either contributory or non contributory and which typically pays for some portion of the following dental services for an employee and his or her family. Services include diagnostic and preventive services (oral examinations and prophylaxis), oral survey, restorative services (fillings and inlays), endodontic treatment (root canal therapy), periodontic treatment (treatment of gums), prosthodontic services (dentures and bridgework), and orthodontic services (straightening of teeth). This plan is also called dental insurance.
It is seniority based on years of service in a particular subsection of a larger organization as against seniority based simply on total years of service to the larger organization, company, or governmental jurisdiction. It is often called unit seniority.
The jargon also called job audit, is the review of duties and responsibilities of a position through an interview with the incumbent and/or the incumbent's supervisor. It is made at the employee's desk or regular place of work.
It signifies temporary assignment of an employee to a different position for a certain period of time with the assumption that the employee will return to "normal" duties at the end of the detail.
Ordinarily dicta is that portion of the opinion of a judge that is not the essence of the judge's decisions. However, in the context of arbitration, dicta becomes any opinion or recommendation that an arbitrator expresses in making an award which is not necessarily essential to the resolution of the dispute.
It is a kind of wage-incentive plan that provides for normal day rates, plus an increase of 0.05 percent for each one percentage of production above the standard, with a 10 percent bonus.
Also called differential piece rate, it denotes a wage program in which the money rate per piece is determined by the total number of pieces produced over a time period-usually a day.
The underlying assumption of differential validation/prediction holds that different tests or test scores might predict differently for different groups. Some social groups, because of a variety of sociological factors, tend to score lower (higher) than other groups on the same test. It is also termed as differential prediction.
Also nondirective interview, the directed interview has the interviewer in full control of the interview content, typically soliciting answers to a variety of specific questions. In the nondirective interview, in contrast, it is more the responsibility of the interviewee to determine the subject to be discussed.
Also indirect labor, direct labor consists of work performed on a product that is a specific contribution to its completion. Indirect labor consists of all over-head and support activities that do not contribute directly to the completion of a product.
These are usually unemployed or underemployed workers who tend to have lower education rates and higher criminal-arrest rates than rest of the population. They are either a member of a minority groups, handicapped, or are over 45 years of age.
It connotes withdrawal of a local union from its national or international union membership or the withdrawal of a national or international union from its federation membership. When a federation or national union initiates disaffiliation, the process is more properly called suspension or expulsion.
It is a stipulation contained in a collective bargaining agreement, which states the means for disciplining workers who violate management or union rules.
Discouraged workers also called hidden unemployed are persons who want to work but do not seek employment as they believe that such an effort would be fruitless.
The term discrimination in the context of employment means the failure to treat equals equally. Any action whether deliberate or unintentional that has the effect of limiting employment and advancement opportunities because of an individual's sex, race, color, age, national origin, religion, physical impairment or other irrelevant criteria is discrimination.
Discrimination index is any of the various indexes that is used to indicate the extent to which a test item differentiates among examinees with respect to some criterion (such as the test as a whole).
It is the tendency of an employment screening device or criteria to restrict the appointment opportunities of women and minorities at a greater rate than for nonminority males.
Displaced homemaker is a term used to indicate, usually, a woman who has been caring for a family and has lost her means of support through divorce, separation, death, or the disabling of a spouse and has only the briefest work experience outside the home.
It is the compensation available only for a limited time period and which is equal to the difference between an employee's regular pay and the rate of a temporary assignment caused by layoff or technological displacement.
It is a level of labor organization below the national union but above the locals. The district council is composed of local unions in a particular industry within a limited geographic area.
Doctrine of labor mutuality basically contends that whenever a legal burden or restriction is imposed by a legislative act on a party to industrial relations, either the same burden or restriction should be imposed upon the other party or the restriction should be removed from the first party, too. The doctrine also implies that whenever a right or privilege is conferred by a legislative act on one of the parties, the same right or privilege should be conferred on the other party or be withdrawn from the first party, too.
It suggests an adjustment made to expatriate workers to compensate for the loss of purchasing power in the host country which is a direct result of a lower rate of exchange between the dollar and the host currency.
It signifies combining of two or more seniority lists into a master seniority list. Each employee retains his previously earned seniority even though a new employer may thereafter employ him.
It is the payment for time spent idle because of equipment failures (or routine maintenance) that are already beyond the responsibility of the employee.
Dramaturgy signifies the manner in which an individual acts or theatrically stages his organizational role. All organizational members are involved in such impression management.
This is a fixed sum of amount that is advanced to sales personnel at regular time intervals or a limited amount against which the sales person can withdraw as required during a predetermined time period so long as the outstanding balance does not reach a predetermined limit. Amount so drawn must be reimbursed to the company from the commission earnings during the same time period. Such accounts may be guaranteed or non-guaranteed.
Dual ladder that is also called a parallel ladder is a variant of a career ladder as it provides dual or parallel career hierarchies so that both professional and managerial employees will be afforded appropriate career advancement.
Dues are fees to be paid periodically by union members in order to remain in good standing with their union. These fees are used to finance the activities of the union and its affiliates.
This was a common union practice before the checkout was in widespread use was to have the union officers and their close supporters form a dues picket line at the factory gate on pay days in order to encourage union members to pay their dues.
The interpersonal encounter or relationship between two people or two groups is termed as dyad. Dyads are frequently artificially (as opposed to spontaneously) created for sensitivity training purposes.
Dynamic system refers to any system which has its parts interrelated in such a way that a change in one part necessarily affects other parts of the system.
Earmark also termed as red circle is a term used to designate a position for restudy when such a position is vacant in order to determine its proper classification before being refilled.
It is a concept, which finds humans motivated solely by economic factors-always seeking the greatest reward at the least possible cost. Any management philosophy assuming that workers are motivated by money and can be further motivated only by more money is premised on the "economic man" concept.
It refers to a strike undertaken basically for economic gain. In other words strike for better wages, hours, and working conditions is called economic strike.
Educable retarded person is an individual who is only moderately retarded and who can be thus employed in many simple jobs that require repetitive tasks.
Effective labor market is a labor market from which an employer actually draws applicants, as opposed to the labor market from which an employer only attempts to draw applicants.
Also termed as efficiency ratio productive efficiency is usually determined by seeking the ratio of output to input, which is called the efficiency ratio.
This is the smallest unit into which a job can be divided without analyzing the physical and mental processes necessarily involved. It is also called job element.
Eligible list that is also called eligible roster and eligible register is a list of qualified applicants in rank order. Such ranks are established from the test score results of competitive examinations.
It signifies validity of a test according to how well the test actually measures what it was designed to measure. Most other kinds of validity are efforts to achieve empirical validity.
This is a formal program formulated for assisting employees with personal problem. Such program accomplishes its target through internal counseling and aid as well as a referral service to outside counseling resources. The thrust of such programs is to increase productivity by correcting distracting outside personal problems.
Employee counseling is the formal effort on the part of an organization to make their employees more effective in both their personal and organizational lives. Helping its members to deal with their personal and professional problems and concerns is the tool of employee counseling.
This is a voluntary organization of employers established with the purpose dealing with problems common to the group. Such associations have frequently been formed primarily with the objective of presenting a united front to deal with the representatives of their respective organized workers.
Employment agency is a private employment agency that in return for fees or commission provide brokerage services between employers and individuals seeking work.
It is a ratio of employment to working-age population, which is also called employment ratio. Some economists think that the E-P ratio is more useful for diagnosing the severity of an economic slowdown than is the unemployment rate.
In the context of equal employment opportunity, an employment practice is any screening device operating at any point in the employment cycle. If an employment practice is not related to job performance, it will not be able to withstand a court challenge.
It is a form of group psychotherapy in which body contact and/or emotional expression are the primary forms of interaction as opposed to traditional verbal interaction. Encounter groups seek to produce experiences, which force individuals to examine themselves in new and different ways, aided by others.
End-testing is a mode of examining individuals who have just completed a course of training on the subject in which they were trained. End-testing is undertaken in order to measure the individual’s attainments and/or the effectiveness of the training.
It is a concept fraught with political, cultural, and emotional overtones. Usually, it applies to a set of employment procedures and practices that effectively prevent any individual from being adversely excluded from employment opportunities on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, age, national origin, or other factors that cannot lawfully be used in employment efforts.
EEO counselor is a specifically designated individual within an organization entrusted with the task of providing an open and systematic channel through which employees may raise questions, discuss real and imagined grievances, and obtain information on their procedural rights.
EEO officer is the official within an organization assigned the responsibility for monitoring EEO programs and assuring that both organizational and national EEO policies are being implemented.
It is a process of adjusting the raw statistics obtained from a particular sample to corresponding statistics obtained for a base group or reference population.
Equipercentile equating is the process that treats as equivalent those raw scores that fall at the same percentile in different samples although the raw scores themselves may be different.
Escalator clause is a provision of a collective bargaining agreement that allows for periodic wage adjustments in response to change in the cost of living usually as determined by the Consumer Price Index of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The clause is also called cost-of-living index.
In a maintenance-of-membership shop, a union contract may provide for a period of time during which union members may withdraw (escape) from the union without affecting their employment. This provision is escape clause.
Estate planning also known as estate building is concerned with the distribution of one's assets or one's estate at death. However estate building usually being part of an executive compensation program is concerned with turning portions of an executive's salary and fringe benefits into assets that will benefit his heirs after the executive's death.
Also called exempted positions, excepted positions refers to the U.S.civil service positions that have been excepted or exempted from merit system requirements.
Exclusionary clause is a provision in a contract that tries to restrict the legal remedies available to one side in the event of nonperformance of the contract.
Exclusive recognition is also called exclusive bargaining rights it is the only form of recognition available to a union representing a specific bargaining unit in a private sector. An employer is required to negotiate in good faith, to give exclusive bargaining rights, to a union holding such recognition.
It is any rule or regulation issued by a chief administrative authority and that has the effect of law. Such issuance of rule is with due precedent and existing legislative authorization.
This is a type of non-production bonus based upon an estimate of an executive's contribution to the profitability of the company over a given time period.
Exempt employees are employees who because of their administrative, professional or executive status, are not covered by the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act. In consequence, their employing organizations are not legally required to pay them for overtime work.
Exit interview is a tool to monitor employee terminations. Also called separation interview, it seeks information on why the employee is leaving and what he or she liked or disliked about his or her job, working conditions, company policy, etc.
Many individuals hold positions on boards, commissions, councils, etc., because of an office that they temporarily occupy. For example, the major of a city may be an ex officio member of the board of trustees of a university in his city.
It is the probability of success on the job in terms of a specific criterion and associated with a known fact about an individual such as a test score, level of education, etc.
Expectancy theory also called valence, holds that individuals have cognitive "expectancies" regarding outcomes that are likely to occur as a result of what they do, and that individuals have preferences among these various outcomes. Consequently, motivation occurs on the basis of what the individual expects to occur as a result of what he chooses to do. An "expectancy" in this context refers to an employee's perceived probability that a given level of effort will result in a given outcome, such as promotion or raise in salary. The value that an employee places on this outcome, the strength of the employee's preference for it, has been termed valence.
Expedited arbitration is a procedure that is incorporated into union contracts with the objective to cut down the backlog of complaints. It is a new streamlined process that is increasingly incorporated in place of expensive and time-consuming conventional arbitration.
Also internal equity, external equity is a measure of the justice of an employee's wages when the compensation for his position is compared to the labor market as a whole within a region, profession, or industry. Internal equity is a measure of the justice of an employee's wages when the compensation for his position is compared to similar positions within the same organization.
It is a motivation that is not an inherent part of the work itself. When one works solely for the monetary rewards, he is said to be extrinsically motivated.
Measure of the degree to which a test appears to be valid.While this is the most superficial kind of validity, it may contribute significantly to the legitimacy of the test in the eyes of the candidates (an important consideration in avoiding legal challenges). Also called faith validity.
A fair review of the issues in a labor dispute by a specially appointed third party, whether it is a single individual, panel, or board. The fact finder holds formal or informal hearings and submits a report to the administrative agency and/ or the parties involved. The factfinder’s report, usually considered advisory, may contain specific recommendations.
Agreement whereby both the employer and the union agree that employees are not obligated to join the union, but that all employees must pay the union a prorated share of bargaining costs as a condition of employment.
Term, meaning an easy or superfluous job, which originated in the U.S.Army in the 1850s. Those frontier soldiers who had easy jobs at headquarter and could sleep in comfortable featherbeds were called "featherbed soldiers." So featherbedding grew to mean any job that required little or no work.
Common-law concept that an employer should not be held responsible for an accident to an employee if the accident resulted from the negligence of another employee.
Method of employee appraisal whereby a representative of the personnel department visits an employee’s work site in order to gather the information necessary for a written evaluation.
Discharge from employment. The word has such a rude connotation that it is hardly ever used for formal purposes. It seems too much more genteel and antiseptic to terminate, discharge, dismiss, sever or lay off an employee.
Raw score on a multiple-choice test after a correction for guessing has been applied. With five-choice items, for example, the formula score is the number of correct answers minus one-fourth the number of wrong answers. This makes zero the score that would most likely be obtained by random guessing.
Technique used in psychological testing that places no restriction on the kind of response an individual is to make (so long as it relates to the situation presented).
The derogatory term for a person working in a bargaining unit and receiving substantially all of the benefits of union representation without belonging to the union.
Also called employee benefits, general term used to describe any of a variety of supplemental benefits (such as pensions, insurance, paid holidays, etc) that employees receive in addition to their regular wages.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, full-time workers are those employed at least 35 hours a week a part-time workers are those who work fewer hours.
Individual whose reading and writing skills are so poor that he/she is incapable of functioning effectively in the most basic business, office, or factory situations. Because many functional illiterates are high school graduates, the value of such diplomas is being increasingly discounted by personnel offices.
Concept holding that leadership emerges from the dynamics associated with the particular circumstances under which groups integrate and organize their activities, rather than from the personal characteristics or behavior of individuals.
Latin term that can be applied to an officer who has fulfilled the duties of an office that has expired and who, in consequence, has no further formal authority. Arbitrators are said to be functus officio concerning a particular case after they have declared their awards on it.
Verbal and numerical tests for educational and vocational placement of the disadvantaged individual. Can be used for assessment and placement into employment or training programs.
Also called bereavement leave, paid time off for an employee at the time of a death in his/her immediate family. The majority of all employers offer such time off, usually three or four days. The biggest problem with managing such a benefit is defining just what constitutes a member of the "immediate" family.
The fledgling discipline that seeks to anticipate future societal developments and present alternative course of action for the polity’s consideration. Within this discipline, there is a growing literature on the future of work.
A model of reality with dynamic parts that can be manipulated to teach the manipulator(s) how to better cope with the represented process in real life.
Any legal or equitable procedure through which earnings of any individuals are required to be withheld for the payment of any debts. Most garnishments are made by court order.
Also gerontology and industrial gerontology, that branch of medicine concerned with the special medical problems of older people. Gerontology is that branch of biology, which is concerned, with the nature of the aging process. Industrial gerontology is a far more comprehensive term that summarizes all of those areas of study concerned with the employment and retirement problems of workers who are middle-aged and beyond.
Be fired. At the dawn of the industrial revolution, factory workers have to use their own tools. When a worker was fired, he was given a sack in which to gather up his tools.
Also quotas and timetable, within the context of equal employment opportunity a goal is realistic objective which an organization endeavors to achieve through affirmative action. A quota, in contrast, restricts employment or development opportunities to members of particular groups by establishing a required number or proportionate representation which managers are obligated to attain without regard to "equal" employment opportunity.
A "goldbrick" was a slang term for something that had only a surface appearance of value well before it was adopted by the military to mean shrinking or given the appearance of working. The word has now come to imply industrial work slowdown whether they be individual initiatives (or the lack of individual initiative) or group efforts (organized or otherwise).
While this is not formally listed as a job title on anybody’s resume, many a successful manager will admit to having worked his way up from gopher-go for coffee, go for this go for that, etc.
The performance appraisal chart that lists traits (such as promptness, knowledge, helpfulness, etc.) with a range of performance to be indicated with each (unsatisfactory, satisfactory, etc).
The practice of allowing laborers to stop work during the afternoon for a drink of grog or something similar. This custom has been discontinued, except among higher paid executives.
Also called group oral examination, measurement tool that involves a group of candidates (ideally 5-7) discussing a job-related problem. The evaluators do not actively participate in the group discussion; their role is to observe and evaluate the behavior of the participants. The value of this technique is heavily dependent on the ability of the evaluators.
The psychological drive for consensus, at any cost, which tends to suppress both dissent and the appraisal of alternatives in small decision making groups. Group thinks, because it refers to a deterioration of mental efficiency and moral judgement due to in-group pressures and an invidious connotation.
Any of a variety of plans whereby an employer agrees to provides employees with a predetermined minimum (1) number of hours of work or (2) salary each year.
The provision in some union contract that an employee will be paid a full week’s wage even when there is not enough actual work available to otherwise warrant a full week’s pay.
One of the job evaluation technique that determines the value of a position in an organization not by an analysis of the position’s content, but by what the labor market says it is worth.
Also called guideposts, (1) general standards, usually expressed as a percentage, by which the federal government measures wage and price increase to determine if they are consistent with the national economic interest or (2) published outlines for action or suggested courses of conduct that many federal agencies issue for the guidance of their clients.
The political movement that advocated workers’ control of industry by vacated worker’s control of industry by means of system of national guilds. This movement had its greatest popularity in England just before and just after World War I.
Bias in ratings arising from the tendency of a rater to be influenced in his/her rating of specific traits by his general impression of the person being rated.
Frederick A. Haley’s "premium plan" was first presented to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1891. Haley intended that workers be allowed to use their individual past performance as a standard, with the value of any increased output divided between the employee and the employer.
Scientific name graphology, psychological tool sometimes used to evaluate the personality and character of employment applicants. A handwriting analyst is graphologist.
Those individuals who because of racial difference, an impoverished background, or the lacks of appropriate education have never been able to hold a job for a substantial length of time.
Additional money paid to an employee who accepts an assignment that offers difficult living conditions, physical hardships, unattractive climate, and/ or a lack of the usual amenities found in the United States.
Journal for professional managers, published bimonthly by the faculty of the Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration. The editors modestly state that, in selecting articles for publication, they "try to pick those that are timeless rather than just timely."
The most prestigious of the prestigious "B" schools. Robert Townsend, in Up the Organization (N.Y.: Knopf, 1970), suggests that you "don’t hire Harvard Business School graduates. This worthy enterprise confesses that it trains its students for only three posts executive vice-president, and board chairman. The faculty does not blush when HBS is called the West Point of capitalism."
Also called Hawthorne experiments, conducted at the Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric Company near Chicago, is probably the most important single management study yet reported. Beginning in the late 1920s, a research team led by Elton Mayo of the Harvard Business School started a decade-long series of experiments aimed at determining the relationship between work environment and productivity. The experiments, because they were initially unable to explain the results of their findings, literally stumbled upon what today seems so obvious-that factories and other work situations are first of all social situations. The Hawthorne Studies are generally considered to the genesis of the human relation’s school of management thought.
Edward N. Hay developed one of the best-known job evaluation methods. Essentially a modification of the factor-comparison technique, Hay’s Guide Chart-Profile Method is based on three factors: know-how, problem solving and accountability. Many organizations have adopted variations of the Hay System for job evaluation.
Interview that consists of a genuine dialogue between the interviewer and the interviewee; the interviewer acts as an empathic listener rather than a mere technician, recording information.
Unannounced or unconscious goals, personal needs expectations, and strategies that each individual brings with his/her participation in a group. Parallel to the group’s open agenda are the private or hidden agendas of each of its members.
Maintenance of equilibrium among bodily and systemic processes. The normal functioning of the body or system is dependent upon maintaining such internal stability.
Voluntary affirmative action plan for the construction crafts and trades developed by a local construction industry, usually in cooperation with the Department of Labor.
That period of time immediately following a major agreement between management and labor when both sides may seek to de-emphasize the normal difficulties inherent in their relationships.
Contract clauses that allow workers to refuse to work on or handle "unfair goods" or "hot cargo"- products coming from a factory where there is a labor dispute.
Also called no-commission account, account serviced by branch or home office executives. Usually credit is not given nor commissions paid when sales are made to such accounts.
Special compensation, consisting of a flat rate or a salary percentage, for the purpose of subsidizing the living expenses of an employee, usually paid only to employees sent overseas.
Also called ergonomics, designed for human use. The objective of human factors engineering, usually called ergonomics in Europe, is to increase the effective use of physical objects and facilities by people at work, while at the same time attending to concerns such as health, safety, job satisfaction, etc.
Concept that views the employees of an organization as capital assets similar to plant and equipment. While the concept is intuitively attractive calculating the value, replacement cost, and depreciation of human assets poses significant problems. Consequently manager and accountants view it with considerable skepticism.
Increasingly popular euphemism for the management of social welfare programs. Many jurisdictions that had Departments of Welfare have replaced them with Departments of Human Resources.
Although often used synonymously with personnel management, HRM transcends traditional personnel concerns. Instead of viewing the personnel function as simply that collection of desperate duties necessary to recruit, pay and discharge employee, a HRM approach presumes that personnel’s appropriate mission is the maximum utilization of its organization’s human resources.
Also called manpower-planning models, according to Richard C. Grinold and Kneale T. Marshall, Manpower Planning Models, personnel planning models use systems analysis to
(a) Forecast the future manpower requirements that will be satisfied by the current inventory of personnel; forecast the future manpower budget commitments represented by the current stock of personnel.
(b) Analyze the impact of proposed changes in policy, such as changes in promotion or retirement rules, changes in policy, such and changes in promotion or retirement rules, changes in salary and benefits, changes in transfers into and out of the organization, and changes in the organization’s rate of growth,
(c) Test the rationale of historical policy for consistency, and establish the relations among operating rules of thumb.
(d) Explore regions of possible policy changes and allow a planner to experiment with and perhaps discover new policies.
(e) Understand the basic flow process, and thus aid in assessing the relative operational problems.
(f) Design systems that balance the flow of manpower, requirements, and costs.
(g)Structure the manpower information system in a manner suitable for policy analysis and planning.
Also called manpower requirements analysis, analysis and projection of
(a) the personnel movements and
(b) the numbers and kinds of vacancies to be expected during each stage of management’s workforce plan. According to the office of Personnel Management, the essential steps in Manpower requirement analysis are:
1)First, to estimate what portion of the workforce present at the start of the planning period or hired during the period, will leave their positions during the period.
2)Second, to estimate how many of these position levers will move to other positions in the workforce during the period and how many will leave the service entirely.
3)Third, to estimate the position to be occupied by in-service movers at the end of the planning period.
4)Fourth, by comparison of this retained workforce with the workforce specified in management’s workforce plan, to identify the number and kinds of positions to be filled during the planning period.
Also called manpower utilization, general terms for the selection, development and placement of human resources within an economic or organizational system in order to utilise these resources in the most efficient manner.
Also called undocumented workers, individuals from other countries who are living/ working in the United States unlawfully. The U.S. Department of Labor prefers to refer to these individuals as "undocumented workers."
Strike that violates existing law. While most public sector strikes are illegal, so are strikes that violate a contract, that are not properly authorized by the union membership, and that violate a court.
The pension plan that entitles an employee to all of the retirement income-both his/her contributions as well as those of his/her company- accrued during his/her time of participation in the plan.
The concept that asserts it is the consequences of employment practices that are relevant, not their intent. Even though intent is good its consequences could foster systemic discrimination.
A condition that exists during labor-management negotiations when either party feels that no further progress can be made toward reaching a settlement. Impasses are resolved either by strikes or the helpful intervention of neutral third parties.
Training technique and type of test frequently used in management assessment centers to simulate managerial problems by presenting the subject with an array of written materials (the kind of items that might accumulate in an "in-basket") so that response to the various items and problems can be evaluated.
Also group incentive plan, wage program that has a provision for rise in wages with increase in productivity. Individual incentive plans are based on the performance of the individual employee while group incentive plans are based on the performance of the total work group.
Also called latent learning, learning that takes place without formal instruction, intent to learn, or ascertainable motive. The information obtained tends to lie dormant until an occasion for its use arises.
Also called step increase, established salary increase between steps of a given salary grade, marking a steady progression from the minimum of the grade to the maximum.
Formal agreement between a single employee and his/her employer that determines the employee’s terms and conditions of employment. Also called as individual contract.
The pension plan that creates a trust to buy and hold title to employee’s individual insurance and/or annuity contracts. The employer makes payments to the trust, which then pay the insurance premiums on its various contracts.
The periodically prepared schedule of developmental experiences, including both work assignments and formal training, planned to meet particular development objectives which are needed to improve current performance and/or to prepare the individual for positions of greater responsibility.
Also participate management, any of a variety of efforts designed to encourage employees to participate in an organization’s decision making process by identifying problem and advising solution to them in a formal manner.
Defined by the American Institute of Industrial Engineers as being concerned with the design, improvement, and installation of integrated systems of men, material and equipment; drawing upon specialized knowledge and skill in the mathematical, physical, and social science together with the principle and methods of engineering analysis and design, to specify, predict, and evaluate the results to be obtained from such systems.
These are occupations or positions for which data are collected from other employees, via salary survey, in order to serve as a basis for establishing wage rates.
Employers or third parties that extort money from employees or contractors by threatening to sever or have severed the employment relationship are soliciting kickbacks. Most kickbacks are obviously unethical if not illegal.
The jargon stands for the removal of an individual from a position where his performance is not thought satisfactory by promoting him to a higher position in the organization.
That branch of medicine that is related to protect workers from hazards in the workplace and to deal with health/problems/ emergencies that may occur during working hours.
Also called occupational psychology, industrial and organizational psychology/, and I/O psychology, industrial or occupational psychology has traditionally been concerned with those aspects of human behavior related to work organization; its focus has been on the basic relations in organizations between (1) employees and their co-workers, (2) employees and machines, and (3) employees and the organization. Because the term industrial psychology holds a restrictive connotation, the field is increasingly referred to as industrial and organizational psychology or I/O Psychology.
Collective bargaining that result in a single master agreement negotiated by all the major employers in an industry and one or more unions who represent workers throughout the industry.
Also equity theory, most fully developed by J. Stacy Adams (he premised his work upon Leon Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance), who holds that Inequity would exist if a person perceived that he/she was working much harder than another person who received the same pay. To reduce the inequity, for example, by increasing (or decreasing) one’s efforts if it is perceived to be low (or high) relative to other’s work effort.
The payments required by union of all new members and/or of employees who having once left the union wish to return. Initiation fees serve several aims: (1) they are a source of revenue, (2) they force the new member to pay for the advantages secured by those who built the union, and (3) they (when the fees are high enough) can be used as a device to restrict membership.
Also called labor injunction, court order forbidding specific individuals or group from performing acts the court considers injurious to property or other rights of an employer or community. There are two basic types of injunctions: (1) temporary restraining order, which is issued for a limited time prior to a formal hearing and (2) permanent injunction, which is issued after a full formal hearing. Once an injunction is in effect, the court has contempt power to enforce its ruling through fines and/or imprisonment.
The laboratory training experience that uses feedback from measurements taken during laboratory sessions of the behavior and feeling of the group and/or its component individuals.
Arbitration of a dispute arising during the course of contract negotiations where the arbitrator must decide what will or will not be contained in the agreement.
The questionnaire designed to measure the intensity of interest that an individual has in various objects and activities. Interest inventories are widely used in vocational guidance.
An unfair labor practice. Section 8(a) (1) of the Labor-Management Relations (Taft-Hartely) Act of 1947 makes it unlawful for an employer "to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees" who are exercising their right to organize and bargain collectively.
Collective bargaining agreement designed to avoid a strike and/or to maintain the current conditions of employment while the settlement of a dispute or the signing of a final comprehensive contract is pending.
