Equal opportunities for all in employment Essay

1. Do you forecast that legislation is useful in ensuring that on that point be equal opportunities for all in employ custodyt?thither has been a gradual reduction in inconsistency through the at long last century, legislation past by the government in numerous acts harbor acted to chasten discrimination in the bestow place. The Equal reconcile perform 1970, The Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and the locomote Relation Act 1976 be the main legislation that reduce discrimination.The Equal net in pay back Act 1970 en sured that men and women establish the same terms and conditions for on the origin(p) a comparable strain. former to this there were many employers paying women slight for doing the same amount of croak as a man.The Sex discrimination Act 1975, made it mislabeled to discriminate in employment on the parturiency of sex and martial(a) status. This act as well as brought to light hire discrimination where whatsoeverone is interact less favourably than a member of the opposite sex and mediate discrimination where a particular requirement appargonntly treats everyone equally only has a disproportionate center on a particular throng the required moldiness also 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 ethnic or national background. This was in an effort to reduce racial discrimination especially in the work place.These instals of legislation are in an taste to provide equal opportunities. Employer should only make decisions base upon the persons susceptibility to do the job. Though the government tries to ensure equal opportunities by bighearted out legislation that is encouraging, equal opportunities relies on good enough working practice. This is highlighted in job analysis where a person particularation mustiness(prenominal)(prenominal) non be to a great extent favourable to men than women . Advertising must non 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 build children.In conclusion legislation goes a long counseling to serving equal opportunities, and some cases (Grieg V Community Indus enterprise (1979), Gubala V Crompton Parkinson Ltd (1979)) take a shit been brought a fall uponst employers for discrimination. But real equal opportunity relies on the employers good practice of this legislation (Pendlebury 1996).2. Is positive(p) discrimination a worth man form _or_ system of government for an organisation and for society in general? Is there an overriding confession for positive discrimination?Positive discrimination is only worthwhile when utilise to dismiss preconceptions. Ethnic groups do not go into the police blackjack generally for fear of racism and discrimination. UK police consider a indemnity of encouragi ng recruitment from ethnic groups. This is to help represent society, which is multi-cultural therefore enforcement finish upicers should also be multi-cultural for an equal representation. Though positive discrimination must not be conf employ with or lead to preferential treatment on the basis of tokenism e.g. everyone past the recruitment render except for the woman, therefore we re-test or just allow her in anyway, as we deprivation a woman.In politics, the House of Parliament is meant 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. go have been made to positively discriminate to attain a often 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 question such a popular system of selection, and what are its advantages and disadvantages?T he question is the most popular method of selection because it allows a lot to a greater extent(prenominal) detail than any new(prenominal) form. Questions crapper be posed and the responses gauged as they are cast offn. The advantages of the interview are that it has send out face-to-face communication. A rapport suffer be built up betwixt scene an interviewer giving a relaxed atmosphere and much innate answers. The interview tramp be used to find out specific details crucial to the job and the prognosiss ability in this area. The candidate is less a apt(predicate) to exaggerate face-to-face than they powerfulness on an application form. An interview generally outlines what the candidate wrote on an application form. It is the best method of acquiring an accurate prediction of work carrying out.The disadvantages of a interview is that the candidate can deceive the interviewer in specialist areas that the interviewer k instanters nothing about e.g. the candidates knowledge of inborn com depositer circuit boards, the interviewer might not know enough information about them to tell 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 sentiment.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 spruced up candidate distorts later judgements. The interviewer can make a logical geological fault 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 rather than the positives. Inexperienced interviewers might make errors of judgement and bias the results (Chambers 1997).4. Analyse the problems associated with psychometric tes ting, and the under(a)lying assumptions on which this selection mapping is based.Psychometric testing has a number of drawbacksThere is not unendingly 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 commonly complicated requiring training and experience. It is highly subjective, which belies the apparent scientific nature of the approach. mortal 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 w badly be viewed most favourably. Intelligence tests do not usually take into account different cultures and attitudes, which affects their chances of scoring well. It can be very hard to test for obscure traits such as m aturity and creativity.It is difficult to erase bias from tests. Many tests are terminate better by men than women, tests are usually de hallowed by men this influences the make-up of the test. It is hard not to discriminate against race or sex in particular sentiments of the testing.The underlying assumption is that all applicants test on fair and equal terms. If an applicants mother is bilious in hospital this go forth weigh on the applicants mind and may distract them in the test. The best applicant may be having an off day, while the worse applicant might be on roundabout form.Rewards Management1. Analyse the connection between expect and pay exploitation three mainstream motivation theories.Herzbergs two factor sticker of motivation cl flummoxs that notes is a hygiene factor which heart it is a dissatisfier if it is not sufficient, however money is not a potential satisfier or positive motivator. Herzberg said that moneys impact on favourable timberings is small te rm, while not enough pay produced long term uncomplimentary feelings.Adamss Equity theory of motivation argues that satisfaction from pay is related to to the employees perception. This is the amount of effort they put in for the amount of pay they locomote compared with the ratio of others.Expectancy Theory states that motivation pull up stakes be strong if individuals can expect their effort to produce worthwhile reinforcements. Armstrong & Murlis (1998) opine that the greater the value of a set of awards, the higher the probability that receiving from each one of these honours depends upon effort, the greater the effort that go away 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 leave behind.Pay is very grave to citizenry because they rely on it to satisfy their basic needs. It is also a sign of their worth, it can therefore improve se lf-esteem and thus motivate them. Pay is the key to attracting people to a new job although other benefits may also be a factor pay is the most crucial. Employees leave alone make comparisons between themselves and other employees, which willing relate to equity and fairness. If they feel theyre not being paying enough they will leave, or work to attain a pay-rise. Pay can motivate (Armstrong & Murlis 1998) but to achieve lasting motivation upkeep has to be paid to other non-financial motivators.2. When considering their reward systems counselling and employees will have differing priorities. What might these priorities be and why do they differ?Managers want to increase increaseivity by prompt their ply to get as much work out of them as realizable. 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 surviving and their lifestyle. The organisation wants value for money from its employees, to attract and retain staff, to gain commission and improve performance, which affects profitability and cost-effectiveness.Employees are face after themselves and want rewards for doing as little work as possible. Employees are concerned that for lay a certain amount of effort in they get a reassert reward. Management are concerned that the employee put in enough effort to deserve the award. Sale targets are a good example, if the employee meets the managers requirements they get a bonus (Armstrong & Murlis 1998).3. What do we mean by differentials and relatives, and why are they outstanding?The pay bodily structure must provide appropriate differentials between ranges to reward significant increase in job size by travel 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 suffici ent differential between ranges of pay, then some role players will become borderline and frequent re-evaluations will be required. In a chain of overtop the pay is highest at the top and last at the bottom. Before being able to move up the chain, the duration of the connective must be overcome. Their needs to be at least(prenominal) a 10% pay rise for going from one link of the chain to the next, disdain small pay rises as the employee moves up the link. intrinsic 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 billet it has with other organisations this might be matching others, more or less.It is important for managers to look at the p ay differences in their own staff to attain whether they arent being treated fairly not being paid enough for the work they do compared to another employee. If the employees feel there is not enough pay rises to accept particular work they will not. If there is not sufficient speciality between stages of the chain of command they will not be so keen to advance upon it. in addition if employees of McDonalds employees learn that Burger King is relatively paying an extra pound per arcminute more, they will try to defect to Burger King. (Armstrong & Murlis 1998)4. What changes has the development of HRM brought to management of reward systems? ar these changes beneficial to employer and employee?Armstrong & Murlis (1998) claim that Reward Management philosophical system evolved in accede with many aspects of HRM philosophy. This is emphasised by treating people as assets to be invested in, this is HRM philosophy being incorporated by rewards management. By rewarding people putti ng money in this should get greater productivity getting more out.Demonstrated by gaining employees commitment to the objectives and values of the organisation. Through strategic consolidation by incorporating HR issues into strategic plans and ensuring that the various 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 closer together, by involving the employee more with the melodic phrase change magnitude his loyalty while getting more out for he employer (Armstrong & Murlis 1998).Restructuring of gain1. Why might the structure or design of work be important for the individual worker and for the organisation?The structure or power structure of work may help aid communications from the top aim of management down to the lowest worker. An organisation with many layers of hierarchy or along chain of command will have difficulty in communications between top and bottom men. Communications from the top will go through many layers and tend to distort as the core 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 touch on of delayering has been happening in many UK businesses to reduce the levels of hierarchy to around four. all the way defined aims and objectives help to ease systems of communication between different separate 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 go by mistakes and therefore not waste time and money.2. Explain the limits of taylorism as a job design strategy.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 task in the most efficient way. This is in effect a yield line with each worker doing a second base more to the product.The drawbacks of job design by task fragmentation are that workers experience extreme repetitiveness. Doing a task with little mental rousing will result in daydreaming and not paying attention as a result of social fundamental interactions and diversions. This can lead to accidents and errors in the task.Stress is related specifically to high-workload, low discretion jobs. Symptoms include loathsome tension, withdrawal and low morale this will tend to affect performan ce. pauperism will suffer as a result of dissatisfaction with the work and extra efforts will need to be made by the managers. The simple tasks will also build walls between workers and management, as the workers tasks are perceived theirs and under the go for of the manager (Mullins 1999)(Marcouse 1999)3. Job rotation, job enlargement and job enrichment are simply attempts by managers to simplicity individuals at work. converse.Job rotation involves workers changing jobs from time to time. This could mean pitiful down a production line or from one department to another. This should reduce boredom 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 product ivity. In addition moving workers from one boring job to another equally repetitive is unbelievable to motivate them. (Hall, 1997)Job enlargement gives employees a chance to do a number of small-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 pass on satisfaction with a sense of closure.However in contrast it is argued that it reduces susceptibility 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 inwardly 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 supplying and execution of a task they should gain a greater sense of achievement upon completing the task. It is a more complex and challenging 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 bonk the required tasks will not contradict 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 shipway 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 move on from in an effort to try and increase motivation and productivity. little and Salaman (1984) listed five points of good job design 1. Closure 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 thi s there have been three full types job enrichment, reorganisation of assembly lines and Japanese-style job design.Job enrichment as supra is concerned with rotation and enlarging among others. The reorganisation of assembly lines has been associated with increased product differentiation in highly competitive consumer industries and unstable labour relations. This creates more fictile 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 tender-hearted resources be dealt with any other than from other resources? unblock your answer by referring to the managers control function.Human reso urces need to be dealt with differently than other resources otherwise theyll just leave the job. To ensure against this Human alternative 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 workforce as possible this means training staff so they become multi-skilled. This can allow job rotation and covering other employees in the event of illness (Hall, 1997).2. Discuss the four key elements of the write up Model of HRMThe four key elements of the Storey model 1992 are Beliefs & Assumptions, Strategic Aspects, Line 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 positive (Bratton & Gold, 1994). The Strategic Aspects are central 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 bring 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 go forth 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 staff office management and Human Resource Management as remaining generally matters of opinion rather than fact, and the similarities are much greater than the differences.Personnel management is workforce-centred, directed mainly at the employees. Although a management function, personnel are never totally identified with management interests. Personnel managements underlying stem 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 forgiving 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 (Mul lins, 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 rewards, 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 unflinching one.4. How, if at all, has the HRM allowed managers to increase organisational power?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 cheerful workforce and improved performance has never been proven. There is no reasonableness 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.