CHAPTER 12 PERSONNEL TRAINING

CHAPTER 12 PERSONNEL TRAINING

Personnel Training is the process of orienting and educating employees in the workplace.  They bring with them their own assortment of previously learned behaviors, including physical skills, acquired knowledge, language skills, temperament and interest, motivation, attitudes, habits and other types of behavior.  The additional learning that people acquire after they become employees or undertake a new type of work can be taken place in either of two ways; (1) through everyday work experience or (2) as the consequence of systematic training.  The training of personnel may be directed toward: (1) development of actual job knowledge and skills; (2) the transmission of information, as in orientation training; of (3) the modification of attitudes.  For whatever its purposes, a training program should be established on sound principles and practices that helps human learning.

Compensation & Benefits

Compensation & Benefits (abbreviated “C&B”) is a sub-discipline of Human-Resources, focused on employee compensation and benefits policy making.

It is also known in the UK as “Total Reward” and as “Remuneration” in Australia and New Zealand.

The Basic Components of Employee Compensation & Benefits

Employee compensation and benefits are basically divided into four categories:

1. Guaranteed Pay – monetary (cash) paid by an employer to an employee based on employee/employer relations. The most common form of guaranteed pay is the base salary.

2. Variable Pay – monetary (cash) reward paid by an employer to an employee that is contingent on discretion, performance or results achieved. The most common forms are bonuses and sales incentives.

3. Benefits – programs an employer uses to supplement employees’ compensation, such as paid time-off, medical insurance, company car, and more.

4. Equity Based Compensation – a plan using the employer’s share as compensation. The most common examples are stock options.

Guaranteed Pay

Guaranteed pay is a monetary (cash) reward.

The basic element of the guaranteed pay is the base salary, paid based on an hourly, daily, weekly, bi-weekly or a monthly rate. The base salary is typically used by employees for ongoing consumption. Many countries dictate the minimum base salary defining a minimum wage.
Individual skills and level of experience of employees leave room for differentiation of income-levels within the job-based pay structure.

In addition to base salary, there are other pay elements which are paid based solely on employee/employer relations, such as 13th salary, seniority allowance, and more.

Variable Pay

Variable pay is a monetary (cash) reward that is contingent on discretion, performance or results achieved. There are different types of variable pay plans, such as bonus schemes, sales incentives (commission), overtime pay, and more.

An example where this type of compensation plan is prevalent is the real estate industry and real estate agents. A common variable pay plan might be the sales person receives 50% of every dollar they bring in up to a level of revenue at which they then bump up to 85% for every dollar they bring in going forward. Typically, this type of plan is based on an annual period of time requiring a "resetting" each year back to the starting point of 50%. Sometimes this type of plan is administered so that the sales person never resets and never falls down to a lower level.

Benefits

There is a wide variety of employee benefits, such as paid time-off, insurances (life insurance, medical/dental insurance, and work disability insurance), pension plan, company car, and more.

A benefit plan is designed to address a specific need and is often provided not in the form of cash.

Many countries dictate different minimum benefits, such as minimum paid time-off, employer’s pension contribution, sick pay, and more.

Equity Based Compensation

Equity based compensation is an employer compensation plan using the employer’s shares as employee compensation. The most common form is stock options, yet employers use additional vehicles such as Restricted Stock, Restricted Stock Units (RSU), Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP), and Stock Appreciation Rights (SAR).

The classic objectives of equity based compensation plans are retention, attraction of new hires and aligning employees’ and shareholders’ interests.

C&B Organizational Place

In most companies, compensation & benefits (C&B) is a sub-function of the Human-Resources (HR) function.

HR organizations in big companies are typically divided into three: HR Business Partners (HRBPs), HR Centers of Excellence, and HR Shared Services. C&B is an HR center of excellence, like Staffing and Organizational Development (OD).

C&B Main Influencers

Employee compensation and benefits main influencers can be divided into two: internal (company) and external influencers.

The most important internal influencers are the business objectives, labor unions, internal equity (the idea of compensating employees in similar jobs and similar performance in a similar way), organizational culture and organizational structure.

The most important external influencers are the state of the economy, inflation, unemployment rate, the relevant labor market, labor law, tax law, and the relevant industry habits and trends.

Bonus Plans

Bonus plans are Variable Pay plans. They have three classic objectives:
1. Adjust labor cost to financial results - the basic idea is to create a bonus plan where the company is paying more bonuses in ‘good times’ and less (or no) bonuses in ‘bad times’. By having bonus plan budget adjusted according to financial results, the company’s labor cost is automatically reduced when the company isn’t doing so well, while good company performance drives higher bonuses to employees.
2. Drive employee performance - the basic idea is that if an employee knows that his/her bonus depend on the occurrence of a specific event (or paid according to performance, or if a certain goal is achieved), then the employee will do whatever he/she can to secure this event (or improve their performance, or achieve the desired goal). In other words, the bonus is creating an incentive to improve business performance (as defined through the bonus plan).
3. Employee retention - retention is not a primary objective of bonus plans, yet bonuses are thought to bring value with employee retention as well, for three reasons: a) a well designed bonus plan is paying more money to better performers; a competitor offering a competing job-offer to these top performers is likely to face a higher hurdle, given that these employees are already paid higher due to the bonus plan. b) if the bonus is paid annually, employee is less inclined to leave the company before bonus payout; often the reason for leaving (e.g. dispute with the manager, competing job offer) 'goes away' by the time the bonus is paid. the bonus plan 'buy' more time for the company to retain the employee. c) employees paid more are more satisfied with their job (all other things being equal) thus less inclined to leave their employer.

The concept saying bonus plans can improve employee performance is based on the work of Frederic Skinner, perhaps the most influential psychologist of the 20th century. Using the concept of Operant Conditioning, Skinner claimed that an organism (animal, human being) is shaping his/her voluntary behavior based on its extrinsic environmental consequences - i.e. reinforcement or punishment.
This concept captured the heart of many, and indeed most bonus plans nowadays are designed according to it, yet since the late 1940s a growing body of empirical evidence suggested that these if-then rewards do not work in a variety of settings common to the modern workplace. Research even suggested that these type of bonus plans have the potential of damaging employee performance.

Chapter 1: (Overview)

            The Industrial Psychology is the study of human behavior in the work-related aspects of life and the application of knowledge of human behavior to the minimization of human problems in this context. The Industrial Psychology has two faces the science of psychology with an emphasis on research and the profession of psychology with an emphasis on the application of knowledge.

            In such problems related in Industrial Psychology have methods which fall into three classes, such as:

Ø  Experimental Design (methods of investigation)

Ø  Data Collection (the use of such methods are tests, questionnaires, ratings, performance appraisal, observation and job analysis).

Ø  Statistical Analysis Methods

The chapter one only focuses on giving us introduction about Industrial Psychology. This chapter explained to us on how we will properly use our resources and how we can use it in our industry. Here, also teaches on how we can solve problems related in the industry. Chapter one giving us clues in the future problems that we can probably encounter, by these it makes us well prepared in the industry that we will face in the future after we graduated.

Chapter 2: (Bases of Job-Related Behavior)

            Behaviors have two dimensions, the fist one is the Quantitative which can be measured and the Qualitative which can be evaluated.

            Aptitudes, personality characteristics, physical characteristics, interest and motivation, age and sex, education, experience and other personal variables are the list of individual variables that are suggested in coming up with criterion of workers behavior.

            This chapter explained to us how our behaviors affect our future works or jobs. All of us have different behavior, and this behavior can help us on choosing proper work that fits to our personalities. We should rely on our behavior so we can avoid job mismatch, we should follow our wants so we can be productive in our work, because the more we’re happy doing our jobs, the more we are encourage to do things much better.

Chapter 3: (Behavioral Research)

            This chapter aims to familiarize the readers with such methods to have at least brief overview of some of relatively basic research methods, statistical concepts and procedures used in behavioral research. To make this aim possible, we should know first the two types of variables in behavioral research, the criterion which is the dependent one measured variable and the predictor which is the independent or controlled variable.

            In measuring this behavioral research, there are four basic types of measurement can be use. We need these four to probably know the possible treatment that we can do in our research. The four basic types of measurements are the nominal scale, ordinal scale, interval scale and ratio scale.  

            To come up in a very successful research we should know these basic strategies:

Ø  Most important fact to remember:

·         Research is constructed in order to answer some questions,

·         Research is that no matter what method is used there is always some possible alternative explanation foe the results contained.

Ø  Research strategy selected can be developed on the basic questions:

·         What variables need to be studied?

·         How should these variables be treated?

·         In what setting should the research be under taken?

            Chapter three is all about researching the behavior of different employees/workers of an organization. This chapter gave us tips and thought us on how the company or organization can monitor the behavior of their employees/workers. This kind of behavioral research is very useful in an organization because they can know if their employees performs well in their company and they can decide if they will going to retain their employees or not.  

Chapter 4: (Jobs and Job Analysis)

     Job is group of positions which are identical with respect to their major or significant tasks and sufficiently alike to justify their being covered by a single analysis.

            For some personnel research purposes and for carrying out certain management functions, job information is useful or even necessary. This leads us into the field of job analysis, which is the process by which one obtains information about jobs. This chapter presents an overview of the field of job analysis, with particular reference to certain recent developments in this field that provide quantification of job information.

            As we look at jobs, we might ask ourselves into two questions:

Ø  How do jobs come into being?

Ø  What factors cause jobs to be what they are (in terms of content or other characteristics)?

Job analysis has divided into four different angles: the types, the form, the method of analysis and the agent.

            Form of Job Analysis Information

Ø  Qualitative it is typically descriptive

Ø  Quantitative it is typically characterized

Methods of Collecting Job Information

Ø  Observe

Ø  Interview

Ø  Technical conferences

Ø  Review some records and works

This chapter is all about the works of the different people and how it can well contributed on using our resources to produce goods. Producing these goods needs the services of people. These people should know some sort of information about the different jobs; likewise being knowledgeable for this can help us to avoid misunderstanding between the workers or applicants and the managers or workers.

Chapter 5: (Behavioral Measurement: General Considerations)

     This chapter discussed various types of behaviors which measures might be developed and some considerations important to deciding on such measures. Although we discussed these in terms of the use of such measures as research “criteria” remember that at least some of the same measures also might be used for administrative purposes.

            There are six classes of criteria:

Ø  Performance criteria

Ø  Job attendance criteria

Ø  Accident and injury criteria

Ø  Psychological criteria

Ø  Status criteria

Ø  Subjective criteria

Three basic considerations on selection of criteria

Ø  Relevance criteria

Ø  Freedom from contamination

Ø  Reliability of the criterion

Possible treatment when two or more criteria are not correlated with each other

Ø  To select one of the criteria and use it

Ø  To use each criterion independently;

Ø  To combine the various criterion dimensions into a single “composite” criterion, using some weighing scheme;

Ø  To develop an “overall” criterion, usually ratings (such as supervisors’ ratings of overall job performances).

This chapter focuses only on the different criteria’s that the employee or applicants and the manager or owner should fulfill. These criteria’s as stated on this chapter should be come first with the different small criteria before we do it into composite.  

Chapter 13: (Work Motivation)

     Work motivation is a condition which influences the arousal, direction and maintenance of behaviors relevant in work setting.

            This chapter talks about the ability versus motivation, the differences between these two as stated are: Ability represents the individual’s capability of handling the job at a certain time, while Motivation is the individual’s desire to show behavior and might be thought of as the “will do” factors influencing the display of work-related behaviors.

            Three Major components of Motivation

Ø  Energizing

Ø  Directing

Ø  Maintaining or sustaining

Theories of Work Motivation

Ø  Need theories

Ø  Balance theories

Ø  Two-factor theories

Ø  Expectancy theories

Ability and Motivation are highly correlated with each other, because if you have ability and yet you don’t have any motivation to do such things you cannot do it perfectly or successfully and another if you’re more have motivation without any ability you cannot perform well in your organization.

CHAPTER 5 (Group Summary)

Nobody’s perfect, human has many errors that he can do to his life or work, his own purpose or not.  In this chapter, there are many criteria that measures the job related behavior of each individuals.  These criteria are very important to somehow improve the conditions of a work situation.  This teaches a different idea on how they can solve such problems that affecting their human resources.