Hrm fainl exam answers

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Final Exam Answers

1. Griggs v. Duke Power Company

Griggs was a laborer at the Duke Power Company in North Carolina,

where for years the workforce was segregated, with African Americans doing

manual labor. In the early 1960s, Duke Power Company acknowledged that it

had discriminated in the past but argued that it had recently instituted

objective testing of applicants for selection and promotion. Griggs sued

because the tests unfairly discriminated against African Americans and were

unrelated to job performance. In a unanimous opinion, the Court established

several points that prevailed until 1989. First, regarding Congress intent, the

Act was interpreted to have remedial as well as prospective intent. That is,

an employer could not simply say," We discriminated in the past, but no

longer do so". Second, the Court said that if an employer‚ personnel practices

resulted in discrimination, lack of intent to discriminate would not constitute

a valid defense. In other words, the consequences of employment practices

were more important than their intent. Third, the Court said that once an

inference of discrimination could be drawn, the burden of proof shifted to the

employer to show that the personnel practices that had the discriminatory

effect were in fact job related. Each of these findings sent a significant

message to employers, and the case is viewed as a landmark employment

discrimination decision. The Court‚ opinion in Griggs emphasized traditional

merit system values of individual rights and efficiency. The Court would

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protect individuals from discrimination and would allow them to compete

based on competencies. It would not sacrifice job qualifications in favor of

minority origins. In fact, writing for a unanimous court in 1971, Chief Justice

Burger observed: Congress has not commanded that the less qualified be

preferred over the better qualified simply because of minority origins. Far

from disparaging job qualifications as such, Congress has made such

qualifications the controlling factor, so that race, religion, nationality and sex

become irrelevant. What Congress has commanded is that any tests used

must measure the person for the job and not the person in the abstract

(Klingner, Nalbandian & Llorens, 2010, P. 163).

2. Rank- in- person

Rank- in- person systems are an alternative to point evaluation

systems and are traditionally found in the military, in paramilitary

organizations such as police and fire departments and the U. S. Public Health

service, in the U. S. Foreign Service, and in university faculties. Rank- in-

person systems differ from traditional job classification and evaluation

(rank- in- job systems) because their focus is not on the duties of a particular

position, but on the competencies of the employee. Under a rank- in- job

system, all employees are classified by type of occupation and level of

responsibility, and these factors are tied to a job analysis, classification, and

evaluation system. In other words, the employee accepts a job and the rank is

in the job, not the person who occupies it. Under this system, employees

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qualify for promotion from one rank to another based on competencies and

education (assuming promotions are available). And the rank is carried with

the employee who moves from one job to another. Since the rank attaches to

the person rather than to the position, employees can be freely assigned or

reassigned within the organization without its affecting their pay or status.

This has the advantage of reducing the immobility and status concerns

generated by traditional job evaluation. It also enables the matching of

employees to work based on the specific skills or abilities required. This

feature offers organizations that use rank- in- person systems tremendous

flexibility, and it is much more effective at utilizing workforce diversity to

match employee talents with agency needs. For example, assume the U. S.

Public Health Service needs to respond to an increased incidence of hepatitis

among hospital workers in Phoenix. Since the agency uses a rank- in- person

system, it can search its employee data banks to come up with a list of

specialists who are experienced in hepatitis- B research and education,

bilingual, and living in or able to relocate to Phoenix. Once identified,

individuals can quickly be put to work without worrying about whether they

are in the “ right” grade level or occupational specialty. There are obviously

major disadvantages to both alternatives. Rank- in- person systems still must

control total budget allocations for personnel by personnel ceilings and

average grade levels. And employees will continue to focus on assignments

perceived as developmental or as required for advancement to the next

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highest rank (“ ticket punching”). The agency must develop relatively

sophisticated human resource management information systems if it is to

effectively match work with employees. A traditional rank- in- job system

requires only a match of the occupational code and grade level of the vacant

position with a roster of employees who meet the minimum qualifications for

that grade level. A rank- in- person system requires cataloging (and

confidentiality) of a range of employee data, detailed analysis of required

competencies, and rapid matching of skills with needs through a user-

friendly information system. Further, it requires a set of standards and

procedures to decide how a person moves from one rank to another. These

systems tend to be very career oriented with employees starting at entry

level and progressing through ranks rather than moving laterally from one

organization to another. One additional variation of rank- in- person pay is

competency- based pay, a system in which individuals are compensated

based upon their competencies, formal educational attainment, or

professional certifications. For instance, employers might compensate

professional employees for attaining advanced graduate degrees or

certifications, even though the competencies acquired may not be directly

applicable to the employee’s current position. According to the IPMA- HR, “

competency- based pay has proved to be more successful when used in a

wide cross section of non- exempt, professional, and managerial positions.”

(Klingner, Nalbandian & Llorens, 2010, P. 133-134).

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3. At Will Public Employment

In addition to public– private partnerships (PPP), another initiative

that is being taken especially at the state level is to create at- will

employment. This is done legislatively by removing positions from the

permanent civil service and reallocating them to an unclassified or at- will

position. According to Hays and Sowa’s 2005 survey of state human

resources directors, this action is commonly occurring. Driven by the same

kind of dissatisfaction with the way that employee protections have hindered

management prerogatives and in the name of efficiency coupled with

market- based solutions, at- will employment strips employees of many of

their rights, including job security. At the same time, even if positions have

not been reclassified to at- will status, statutory action is being taken

throughout state personnel systems to restrict employee ability to grieve

supervisory decisions and to streamline appeal procedures. This is very

similar to private sector practice. It is easy to dramatize the effect of this kind

of change, but the fact of the matter is that no complex organization— public

or private— can survive without some measure of employee rights if

employee commitment and retention are valued. Who would remain working

for an organization where a supervisor could fire an employee because the

super-visor did not like the color of the employee’s hair, or for some other

ridiculous claim? In effect, the organization would be conveying a message to

its employees: “ Do not rock the boat; do not take risks; figure out your

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supervisor, and say and do what he/ she likes.” This, of course, is exactly the

fear that public administration scholars voice, especially if it sends the

message that politics— message, loyalty, and agenda— is more important

than competence, experience, and professional/ technical analysis. The

question is not whether employees will have rights, it is the extent of their

applicability, their effect on managerial prerogatives, and the behavioral cues

that employees receive when those prerogatives are exercised. Hays and

Sowa’s research also shows that activist governors pushing an

antibureaucratic agenda are behind this movement to restrict employee

rights and replace them with supervisory and managerial prerogatives.

These initiatives, coupled with legislative term limits, can negatively affect

long- standing relationships between legislative and executive branches,

which can lead to relationships of respect and trust (Klingner, Nalbandian &

Llorens, 2010, P. 309-310).

4. Scientific management

In the United States, the period between 1883 and 1937 is important

in the development of public personnel administration based on merit

principles. With increased pressures for rational and transparent

government and increased demands for more effective delivery of public

services to meet the needs of an industrializing economy came increased

dissatisfaction with patronage- based personnel systems. First, in

progressive state governments like New York and then in the federal

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government, voters and reform organizations such as the National Civic

League demanded merit- based HRM. The assassination of newly

inaugurated President Garfield by an unsuccessful office- seeker in 1881 was

a defining event that led Congress to approve the Pendleton Act ( 1883),

marking a fundamental shift from patronage to merit systems. ideal— the

belief that a competent, committed workforce of career civil servants is

essen-tial to the professional conduct of the public’s business. While the

Pendleton Act affirmed that merit principles were the basis for making public

personnel decisions, the tools to achieve these in reality did not emerge until

the application of scientific management principles to administration during

the 1920s. The cornerstone of public personnel management was position

classification— grouping jobs by occupational type and skill level and paying

them equitably based on the competencies needed to perform the job. It

translates labor costs ( for pay and benefits) into impersonal grades that can

be added, subtracted, averaged, and moved about to create organizational

charts. The legislature or the chief executive can limit personnel expenses to

the total pay and benefits for all positions. They can set personnel ceilings to

limit or preclude hiring. They may assign units an average allowable position

grade, thus ensuring that they will not become top heavy. It clarifies career

ladders and aids in the recruitment, selection, training, and assessment

processes by specifying duties and qualifications for each position. More than

any other personnel function, it epitomizes the connection between

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efficiency and the elimination of politics from administration, and suggests

that public personnel management can be conducted in a routine and

politically neutral fashion. At the same time, it can minimize political or

administrative abuse and protect individual rights. Each employee’s job

duties are specified in his or her job description. Pay rates are tied to

positions so individual favorites cannot be paid more than others can. Thus,

hiring people at a high salary and asking them to assume few if any

responsibilities something that occurs frequently in political patronage

systems is minimized (Klingner, Nalbandian & Llorens, 2010, P. 5-7).

6. Interview as Selection Method

Interviews are a popular selection or promotion method. Most

organizations will not hire an employee without one because they

believe the interview gives them the opportunity to observe an

applicant’s appearance and interpersonal skills and to ask questions

about subjects not adequately covered on the application form.

However, interviews are not recommended as a primary selection

method. Not only do they take a good deal of the supervisor’s time,

but they also require interviewing skills on the part of the supervisor

or interviewing panel. Since interviews are a prime method of

rejecting candidates who look good on paper but might not fit into an

organization, they are subject to scrutiny as potentially invalid

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selection criteria. What, then, are some good guidelines to follow

concerning interviews? Behavioral interviewing is a method that has

become popular in achieving the desire to understand an applicant’s

competencies including personal attributes. Interview questions are

open- ended and the applicant is requested to provide actual

occurrences of past employment that address the topic of the

question. As an example, “ provide a time when you found yourself

confronted with an angry customer and explain how you handled this

situation.” These types of questions allow the reviewer to see how the

applicant views a situation, what priorities were held, and what they

consider effective actions. Behavioral interviewing relies on

predefined questions but is less structured in that questions may be

expanded upon based on the response given by the applicant. Panel

interviews (those involving more than one interviewer) are more

reliable than individual interviews, and can use either style,

structured or less structured, though they also increase the cost of this

already expensive selection method (Klingner, Nalbandian & Llorens,

2010, P. 187-188).

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10.The equal employment opportunity, affirmative action, and workforce

diversity in terms of the major cases, laws, philosophies and values.

Given that EEO and AA are often referred to in the same breath and

are almost invariably enforced by the same agencies, it is

understandable that people confuse them. It may help to remember

that both are designed to promote social equity, though through

different methods. Equal employment opportunity refers to the policy

of treating all individuals in the employ-ment process fair and

equitably, regardless of race or gender. In many instances, employers

communicate their commitment to EEO to prospective applicants in

the form of an EEO policy statement. For example, the State of Kansas

posts the following statement on all appli-cable employment

literature, “ The State of Kansas is an Equal Opportunity Employer.”

The key point to take from this statement is that the employer does

not discriminate against applicants and employees. Affirmative action,

on the other hand, is distinct from EEO in that it refers to proactive

efforts on the part of an employer to address the effects of past

discrimi-nation when EEO efforts alone will not suffice. As expected,

these efforts have received the most attention in the debate over

social equity because they force employers to temporarily abandon

race/ gender- neutral policies and to think in terms of group

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characteristics rather than individual attributes. Diversity

Management, the most recent development in the challenge to achieve

social equity, is distinct from EEO and AA in that its primary goal is to

ensure that individuals of all backgrounds work harmoniously in the

workplace and to take advantage of diverse points of view. It expands

the concept of equity to include issues like religion, ethnicity, socio-

economic background and is enabled in large measure by immigra-

tion, which has increased the likelihood that applicant pools have

become more diverse over the years, especially in larger regional

areas. In addition, it has moved the discussion in this broad area from

the value of equity to one that incorporates the value of efficiency.

Although there are a myriad of laws and policies concerning social

equity in the United States, the most important law is the Civil Rights

Act of 1964.3 Title VII of the Act prohibits employers and employment

agencies from making employee or appli-cant personnel decisions

based on race, color, religion, gender, or national origin and tasks the

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ( EEOC) with enforcing

the provisions of the Act. Originally, the Act did not apply to the public

sector, but the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972 mandated

that state, local, and federal agencies adhere to the Act. Additionally,

federal agencies and state and local governments are required to

provide the EEOC with data on the employment of women and

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minorities within their organizations to ensure that they are meeting

the spirit of the Act. As previously stated, AA policies are those that

take proactive steps to reduce under-representation through the

preparation and implementation of affirmative action plans ( AAPs).

Underrepresentation is generally said to exist when a particular

group’s employment levels within an organization are not on par with

that group’s presence in the relevant labor force. For example,

Hispanics represented approximately 7.8 percent of the federal labor

force in 2007 while representing 13.3 percent of the civilian labor

force. 5 Given this disparity, the federal government has recognized

that it needs to take “ affirmative action” to recruit Hispanics into the

federal labor force. The first government AA efforts were authorized

by President John F. Kennedy, when he directed federal agencies to

target their recruitment efforts in minority communities to address

their low representation rates within the federal workforce. Among

the efforts advocated by this approach to increasing diversity were

visits by federal recruiters to colleges and universities with

substantial minority student populations and advertisements in

mainstream minority press outlets. However, it is important to note

that these original efforts did not include any numerical goals or

hiring quotas for women and minorities. In 1965, President Lyndon

Johnson issued Executive Order 11246, which gave the Department of

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Labor the authority to enforce antidiscrimination policies among

federal contractors under the Department’s Office of Federal Contract

Compliance Programs ( OFCCP). The Executive Order specifically

prohibited discrimination by most employers providing goods or

services to the federal government. Furthermore, it required those

with fifty or more employees and government contracts of $ 10,000 or

more annually to prepare a written plan identifying any

underutilization ( underrepresentation) of women and minorities and

establishing goals and timetables to correct it. The OFCCP’s use of

numerical goals and timetables expanded during the Nixon

administration, and in 1971, the federal government decided to apply

the same strategy to federal agencies. (Klingner, Nalbandian &

Llorens, 2010, P. 160-161).

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References

Klingner, D. E., Nalbandian, J., & Llorens, J. (2010). Public Personnel Management.

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Hrm fainl exam answers