The main purpose of this chapter is to provide you with an introductory overview of what
human resource management is, and of why it is important to all managers. We'll see that
human resource management activities such as hiring, training, compensating, appraising,
and developing employees are part of every manager's job. And we'll see that human
resource management is also a separate business function, usually with its own human
resource or "HR" manager. The main topics we'll cover include the manager's human
resource management jobs, global and competitive trends affecting human resource
management, and how managers use modem human resource management methods to
create high-performance companies and work systems.
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AT WORK
What is Human Resource Management?
Most experts agree that there are five basic functions all managers perform: planning,
organizing, staffing, leading, and controlling. In total, these functions represent the
management process. Some of the specific activities involved in each function include:
Planning. Establishing goals and standards; developing rules and procedures;
developing plans and forecasting.
Organizing. Giving each subordinate a specific task; establishing departments;
delegating authority to subordinates; establishing channels of authority and
communication; coordinating the work of subordinates.
Staffing. Determining what type of people should be hired; recruiting prospective
employees; selecting employees; setting performance standards; compensating
employees; evaluating performance; counseling employees; training and developing
Leading. Getting others to get the job done; maintaining morale; motivating
Controlling. Setting standards such as sales quotas, quality standards, or production
levels; checking t) see how actual performance compares with these standards; taking
corrective action as needed.
In this book, were going to focus on one of these functions-the staffing, personnel
management, or human resource management (HRM) function. Human resource
management is the process of acquiring, training, appraising, and compensating
employees, and of attending to their labor relations, health and safety, and fairness
concerns. The topics we'll discuss should therefore provide you with the concepts and
techniques you need to perform the "people" or personnel aspects of your management
job. These include:
Conducting job analyses (determining the nature of each employee's job)
Planning labor needs and recruiting job candidates
Selecting job candidates
Orienting and training new employees
Managing wages and salaries (compensating employees)
Providing incentives and benefits
Communicating interviewing, counseling, disciplining)
Training and dew loping managers
Building employee commitment
And what a manager should know about:
Equal opportunity and affirmative action
Employee health, and safety
Handling grievances and labor relations
Why Is Human Resource Management Important to All Managers?
Why are these concepts and techniques important to all managers? Perhaps it's easier to
answer this by listing some of the personnel mistakes you don't want to make while
managing. For example, you don't want to:
Hire the wrong person for the job
Experience high turnover
Have your people not doing the r best
Waste time with useless interviews
Have your company taken to court because of discriminatory actions
Have your company cited under federal occupational safety laws for unsafe
Have some employees think their salaries are unfair and inequitable relative to
others in the organization
Allow a lack of training to undermine your department's effectiveness
Commit any unfair labor practices
Carefully studying this book will help you avoid mistakes like these. And, more
important, it can help ensure that you get results-through people. Remember that you can
do everything else right as a manager-lay brilliant plans, draw clear organization charts,
set up modem assembly lines, and use sophisticated accounting controls-but still fail, by
hiring the wrong people or by not motivating subordinates. On the other hand, many
managers-presidents, generals, governors, supervisors- have been successful even with
inadequate plans, organizations, or controls. They were successful because they had the
knack of hiring the right people for the right jobs and motivating, appraising, and
developing them. Remember as you read this book that getting results is the bottom line
of managing, and that, as a manager, you will have to get those results through people. As
one company president summed up:
For many years it has been said that capital is the bottleneck for a developing industry. I
don't think this any longer holds true. I think it's the work force and the company's
inability to recruit and maintain a good work force that does constitute the bottleneck for
production. I don't know of any major project backed by good ideas, vigor, and
enthusiasm that has been stopped by a shortage of cash. I do know of industries whose
growth has been partly stopped or hampered because they can't maintain an efficient and
enthusiastic labor force, and I think this will hold true even more in the future.
We'll see in a moment that intensified global competition, technological advances, and
the changing nature of work mean that at no time in our history has that president's
statement been truer than it is today.
Line and Staff Aspects of Human Resource Management
All managers are, in a sense, hum, n resource managers, since they all get involved in
activites like recruiting, interviewing, selecting, and training. Yet most firms also have
human resource departments with heir own top managers. How do the duties of this
human resource manager and his or her staff relate to "line" managers' human resource
duties? Let's answer this question, starting with a short definition of line versus staff
Authority is the right to make decisions, to direct the work of others, and to give orders.
In management, we usually distinguish between line authority and staff authority.
Line authority gives managers the right (or authority) to issue orders to other managers
or employees. It creates a superior-subordinate relationship. Staff authority gives the
manager the right (authority) to advise other managers or employees. It creates an
advisory relationship. Line managers have line authority. Staff managers have staff
authority. The latter generally cannot issue orders down the chain of command (except in
their own departments).
In popular usage, managers associate line managers with managing functions (like sales
or production) that the company needs to exist. Staff managers generally run departments
that are advisory or supportive, like purchasing, human resource management, and
quality control. This distinction makes sense as long as the "staff' department is, in fact,
advisory. However, strictly speaking, it is not the type of department the person is in
charge of or its name that determines if the manager in charge is line or staff. It is the
nature of the relationship. The line manager can issue orders. The staff manager can
Human resource managers are staff managers. They assist and advise line managers in
areas like recruiting, hiring, and compensation. However, line managers still have human
Line Managers' Human Resource Duties
The direct handling of people has always been an integral part of every line manager's
duties, from president down to first-line supervisor. For example, one major company
out-lines its line supervisors responsibilities for effective human resource management
under these general headings:
1) Placing the right person on the right job
2) Starting new employees in the organization (orientation)
3) Training employees for jobs that are new to them
4) Improving the job performance of each person
5) Gaining creative cooperation and developing smooth working relationships
6) Interpreting the company's policies and procedures
7) Controlling labor costs
8) Developing the abilities of each person
9) Creating and maintaining department morale
10) Protecting employees' health and physical condition
In small organizations, line managers may carry out all these personnel duties unassisted.
But as the organization grows, they need the assistance, specialized knowledge, and
advice of a separate human resource staff. The human resource department provides this
Human Resource Manager's Duties
In providing this specialized assistance, the human resource manager carries out three
1. A line function. The human resource manager directs the activities of the
people in his or her own department and in related service areas (like the plant
cafeteria). In other words, he or she exerts line authority within the HR
department. While they generally can't wield line authority outside, they are likely
to exert implied authority. This is because line managers know the human
resource manager has top management's ear in areas like testing and affirmative
2. A coordinative function. Human resource managers also coordinate personnel
activities, a duty often referred to as functional authority (or functional control).
Here he or she acts as the "right arm of the top executive" to ensure that line
managers are implementing the firm's human resource policies and practices (for
example, adhering to its sexual harassment policies).
3. Staff (assist and advise) functions. Assisting and advising line managers is the
heart of the human resource manager's job. He or she advises the CEO to better
understand the personnel aspects of the company's strategic options. HR assists in
hiring, training, evaluating, rewarding, counseling, promoting, and firing
employees. It administers the various benefit programs (health and accident
insurance, retirement, vacation, and so on). It helps line managers comply with
equal employment and occupational safety laws, and plays an important role in
handling grievances and labor relations. It carries out an Innovator role, by
providing up-to-date information on current trends and new methods for better
utilizing the company's employees, or human resources. It plays an employee
advocacy role, by helping to define how management should be treating
The size of the human resource department reflects the size of the company. For a very
large company, an organization chart like the one in Figure 1-1 would be typical,
containing a full complement of specialists for each HR function. At the other extreme,
the human resource team for a small manufacturer may contain just five or six staff, and
have an organization similar to that in Figure 1-2. There is generally about one human
resource employee per 100 company employees.
Examples of human resource management specialties include:
Recruiters. Search for qualified ob applicants.
Human resource development specialists. Managing employee-development
activities in an integrated manner.
Job analysts. Collect and examine information about jobs to prepare job
Compensation managers. Develop compensation plans and handle the employee
Training specialists. Plan, organize, and direct training activities.
Employment/industrial relation, specialist. Advise management on all aspects of
Employee welfare officers. Handle welfare activities in factories, as required by
Cooperative Line and Staff HR Management: An Example
Because both line managers and human resource managers have human resource
management duties, it is useful to ask, "Exactly which HR duties are carried out by line
managers, and by staff managers?" There is no single division of responsibilities we
could apply across the board in all organizations, but we can make some generalizations.
The most important generalization is that the relationship is generally cooperative. For
example, in recruiting and hiring, the line manager describes the qualifications employees
need to fill specific positions. Then the human resource team takes over. They develop
sources of qualified applicants, and conduct initial screening interviews. They administer
the appropriate tests. Then they refer the best applicants to the line manager, who
interviews and selects the ones he or she wants. In training, the line manager again
describes what he or she expects the employee to be able to do. Then the human resource
team devises a training program, which the line manager then (usually) administers.
Some activities are usually HR's alone. In the United States for example, 60% of firms
assign to human resources the exclusive responsibility for pre-employment testing, 75%
assign it college recruiting, and 80% assign it insurance benefits administration. But
employeers split most activities, such as employment interviews, performance appraisal,
skills training, job descriptions, and disciplinary procedures, between HR and line
Figure 1-3 illustrates the typical HR-line management partnership. For example, HR
alone typically handles interviewing in about 25% of firms, but in about 60% of firms,
HR and the other hiring departments both get involved in interviewing, Sensing the
importance of line management in HRM, many Indian firms promote HR awareness
among line managers through training program;. Some firms also encourage line
managers to take HR assignments at some point of the ir careers,
In summary, human resource management is part of every 'manager's job. Whether you're
a first-line supervisor, middle manager, or president; or whether you're a production
manager or county manager (or HR manager), getting results through committed people
is the name of the game. And to do this, you will need a good working knowledge of the
human resource management concepts and techniques in this book.
From Line Manager to HR Manager
Another reason to be familiar with this book's contents is that you may well make a
planned (or unplanned) stopover some day as a human resource managers. A survey by
the Center for Effective Organizations at the University of Southern California found that
about one-fourth of large U.S. businesses appointed managers with no HR experience as
their top human resource management executives. Reasons given include the fact to these
people may find it easier to give the firms' human resource management efforts more
strategic emphasis, and the possibility that they may sometimes be better equipped
integrate the firms HR efforts with the rest of the business.3 It's not unusual at all for
companies to promote their line executives through HR on their way up the corporate:
ladder. For example, after spending about a year and a half as Wal-Mart's chief human
resource officer, the company promoted Lawrence Jackson to run its global procurement
division The trend of promoting executives without any HR experience to top HR jobs is
seen in India too. For instance, T. V. Mohandas Pai, the HR Director of Infosys, was
responsible for finance as the CFO of Infosys before being assigned to head HR.
THE CHANGING ENVIRONMENT OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Changes are occurring today that are requiring human resource managers to play an
increasingly central role in managing companies. These changes or trends include
globalization, changes in the nature of work, and technology.
Globalization is he tendency of firms to extend their sales, ownership, and/or
manufacturing to new markets abroad. Sony, Apple, Zara, Nike, and Mercedes Benz are
some firms that market all over the world. Indian firms like Infosys, Wipro, TCS, and Sat
yam serve customers around he world by developing software codes and supporting their
IT systems. Tata Steel and Mittal Steel have acquired steel plants around the world
through competitive bidding and have gained a place among global manufacturers.
Companies like GE, American Express Dell, and Google have located back-office
support operations in India and other countries from where they provide service to global
customers. Toyota produces Camrys in GeorgetJwn, Kentucky. Dell produces computers
in China. In turn, globalized markets and production mean that globalized ownership
makes more sense.
Companies expand abroad for several reasons. Sales expansion is one. Thus, Google
recently expanded its China presence by initiating its Google China instant messaging
service there. Wal-Mart is opening stores in South America. Dell, knowing that China
will soon be the world's second biggest market for PCs, is aggressively building plants
and selling there.
Firms also go abroad for other reasons. Some manufacturers seek new foreign products
and services to sell, and to cut labor costs. Thus, Florida apparel manufacturers design
and cut fabrics in Miami, and then have the actual products assembled in Central
America, where labor costs are relatively low. Sometimes, it's the prospect of forming
partnerships that drive firms to de business with firms from abroad. Several years ago,
IBM sold its PC division to the Chinese firm Lenovo, in part to cement firmer ties with
the booming China market. Whatever the reason, doing business internationally is big
business today. For example, the total value of U.S. imports rose from $799 million in
1994 to $135 billion recently; exports rose from $702 million to $88 billion in the same
Globalization's Implications For business people, globalization's essential characteristic is
this: More globalization means more competition, and more competition means more
pressure to be ' world-class" -to lower costs, to make employees more productive, and to
do things better and less expensively. As one expert puts it, "the bottom line is that the
growing integration of the world economy into a single, huge marketplace is increasing
the intensity of competition in a wide range of manufacturing and service industries."5
Because of this, globalization brings both benefits and threats. For consumers it means
lower prices and higher quality on practically everything from computers to cars to air
travel, but also the prospect of working harder, and perhaps having less secure jobs. (Job
outsourcing-having employees abroad do jobs that, say, Americans or Europeans
formerly did-is perceived as one such threat in the United States or Europe, while it
generates employment for skilled personal in countries like India and China. For
example, IBM shifted several hundred systems analysis. Jobs abroad. Figure 1-4 shows
that between 2005 and 2015, about three million U.S. jobs ranging from office support
and computer jobs to management, sales, and even legal jobs will likely move off shore.
For business owners globalizing means benefits like reaching millions of new consumers,
but also the considerable threat of facing new and powerful global competitors at home.
Both workers and companies therefore have to work harder and smarter than they did
without globalization? We'll see later in this chapter, and in this book, how human
resource management helps workers and companies do this.
The Spanish retailer Zara doesn't Heed the expensive inventories that burden competitors
like The Gap. Zara operates its own Internet-based worldwide distribution network,
linked to the checkout registers at its stores around the world. This lets it continuously
monitor store sales. When its headquarters in Spain sees a garment "flying" out of a store,
Zara's computerized manufacturing system swings into action. It dyes the required fabric,
cuts and manufactures he item, and speeds it to that store within days.
Like Zara, few people or businesses do business today like they did even three or four
years ago. We use PDAs to communicate with the office, and plan trips, manage money,
and custom-build and order new computers online. Companies use virtual online
communities to improve efficiency. For example, to win a $300 million navy ship deal,
Lockheed-Martin established a virtual design environment with about 200 global
suppliers, via a private internet existing entirely outside the firewalls of the individual
Indian Railways, the largest railway system in the world, has provided computerized
ticket booking facility to passengers who can choose tickets on any train departing from
any railway station in India. Similarly, Air Deccan (now Kingfisher Red) was a pioneer
in low-cost air travel n India and popularized e-ticketing through the Internet, which
reduced costs and made airline ticket booking easier for passengers in India.
Trends in the Nature of Work
One implication is hat technology has also had a huge impact on how people work, and
on the skills and training today's workers need.
High-Tech Jobs For example, skilled machinist Chad Toulouse illustrates the modern
blue-collar worker. After an 18-week training course, this former college student now
works as a team leader in, plant where about 40% of the machines are automated. In older
plants, machinists would manually control machines that cut chunks of metal into things
like engine parts. Today, Chad, and his team spend much of their time typing commands
into computerized machines that create precision parts for products including water
pumps. Like other modern machinists, he earns about $45,000 per year (including
overtime). More and more traditional factory jobs are going high-tech. As the U.S.
government's Occupational Outlook Quarterly put it, "knowledge-intensive high tech
manufacturing in such industries as aerospace, computers, telecommunications, home
electronics, pharmaceuticals, and medical instruments" are replacing factory jobs in steel,
auto, rubber, and textiles?
Service Jobs Technology is not the only trend driving the change from "brawn to brains."
Today over two-thirds of the U.S. workforce is employed in producing and delivering
services, not products. Between 2004 and 2014, almost all the 19 million new jobs added
in the U.S. will be in services, not in goods-producing industries.
Several things account for this. With global competition, more manufacturing jobs are
shifting to low-wage countries. For example, Levi Strauss, one of the last major clothing
manufacturers in the United States, closed the last of its American plants a few years ago.
There has also been a dramatic increase in productivity that lets manufacturers produce
manufacturing schedules more precisely to customer demand, thus squeezing waste out
of the system and reducing inventory needs. As manufacturers integrate Internet-based
customer ordering with just-in-time manufacturing systems, scheduling becomes even
more precise. More manufacturers are partnering with their suppliers to create integrated
supply chains. For example, when a customer orders a Dell computer, the same Internet
message that informs Dell's assembly line to produce the order also signals the video
screen and keyboard manufacturers to prepare for UPS to pick up their parts at a
particular time. The net effect is that manufacturers have been squeezing slack and
inefficiencies out of the entire production system, allowing companies to produce more
products with fewer employees. So, in America and much of Europe, manufacturing jobs
are down and service jobs up.
Knowledge Work and Human Capital In general, the best jobs that remain require
more education and more skills for example, we saw that automation and just-in-time
manufacturing systems mean that even manufacturing jobs require more reading,
mathematics, and communication skills than before.
For managers, this means a growing emphasis on knowledge workers like skilled
machinist Chad Toulouse, and therefore on human capital. Human capital refers to the
knowledge, education, training, skills, and expertise of a firm's workers. Today, as
management guru Peter Drucker predicted several years ago, "the center of gravity in
employment is moving fast from manual and clerical workers to knowledge workers.
Nature of Work: Implications for HR Because it is the human resource function that
traditionally recruits, selects, trains, and compensates employees, changes like these
make employers highly reliant on effective human resource management. For example,
the key to effectively utilizing all that new technology is usually not the technology but
the people. One bank installed special software that made it easier for customer service
representatives to handle customers' inquiries. Seeking to capitalize on the new software,
the bank upgraded the customer service representatives' jobs. The bank gave them new
training, taught them how to sell more of the bank'; services, gave them more authority to
make decisions, and raised their wages. Here, the mw computer system dramatically
A second bank installed a similar system, but did not change the workers' jobs. Here, the
system helped the service reps handle a few more calls. But this bank saw none of the big
performance gains the first bank had gotten by turning its reps into motivated, highly
trained sales people. The moral is that today's employers need more sophisticated human
resource management selection, training, pay, and employee fairness practices than did
their predecessors, ones that focus on improving performance through motivated,
Workforce Demographic Trends
At the same time, workforce demographic trends are making finding and hiring good
employees more of a challenge around the world. India is also not immune from these
effects. NASSCOM, the industry association for IT/ITES business in India, estimates the
projected requirement for knowledge workers to be 2.3 million by 2010 and the expected
shortage of skilled knowledge professionals with relevant education is estimated at 0.5
million. This estimate has been made based on the availability of employable talent, i.e.,
people who may be capable of taking jobs in these sectors. The simultaneous growth
experienced in other sectors, including financial services, manufacturing, and retail
business, has created a huge demand for skilled labor across sectors. The experience of
the Indian fish processing industry, a large foreign exchange earner, is an example of this
problem. In recent years, the processing companies found it difficult to attract workers to
their plants. The traditional workers prefer other employment avenues like the retail
sector. Skilled labor shortage has also prompted the construction industry to source talent
from abroad, for example, hiring carpenters from Korea.
Unlike the problem of the labor force getting older, as experienced by countries like the
United States and Europe, India faces the challenge of a young workforce. The
challenges of dealing with a young workforce art: different. Demographers consider that
India is (and will remain for some time) one of the youngest countries in the world. In
2000, 33% of India's population was aged below 15 years. By 2020, the average age is
estimated to be 29.
In comparison, the average age will be 37 in China and the United States, 45 in Western
Europe, and 48 in Japan. While India has a higher population at the employable age
bracket, the employability of India's young workforce is considered to be poor due to the
lack of requisite skills. The situation has prompted firms like TCS, Sat yam, and Infosys
to extensively retrain engineers recraited from various universities before placing them
It is argued, therefore, that with careful planning, the population base of India can be used
for its advantages, a demographic dividend, instead of viewing the expansion in
population as a burden. This, however, requires efforts to improve skills and generate
jobs that can absorb the young workforce.
THE CHANGING ROLE OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
With these trends, the human resource manager's job has grown broader and more
strategic overtime. In the earliest firms, "personnel" first took over hiring and firing from
supervisors, ran the payroll department, and administered benefit plans. As technology in
areas like testing and interviewing began to emerge, the personnel department began to
play an expanded role in employee selection, training, and promotion .20 The emergence
of union legislation in the 1930s added "protecting the firm in its interaction with unions"
to the personnel department's responsibilities. Then, as new equal employment legislation
created the potential for discrimination-related lawsuits and penalties, personnel's advice
and oversight became even more indispensable. Today, globalization, technological, and
nature of work trends mean that human resource managers have taken on several new
responsibilities. The first is that employers expect their human resource functions to be
The HRM function in India has evolved over time. While the traditional welfare- and
labor-relations-focussed function existed, after independence in 1947, the trade union
activity intensified and labor laws were introduced. Initially, the personnel departments
were involved more in welt Ire activities, labor compliance, and maintaining industrial
peace. Later, the focus in many parts of India was on confronting the aggressive unions.
The focus on human resource development (HRD) emerged during 1985-1995, after
Indian Institute of Management Ahmadabad professors Udai Pareek and T. V. Rao
popularized the HRD concept in the Indian industry. With the development of the
knowledge industry and the resulting high demand for people, the HR function started to
take a strategic focus. We'll see details about the history and evolution of HRM in India
later in the chapter.
Strategic Human Resource Management
Several years ago, Wisconsin-based Signicast Corp.'s president, Terry Lutz, and his board
decided to build a new computerized plant. Signicast produces metal parts from a casting
process. The basic process is ancient, although Signicast has improved it dramatically. To
compete, the firm nee led the new, automated plant. Mr. Lutz and his team understood
that "in the real world, new automation technology requires a new kind of employee."
They knew the computerized plant was useless without employees who could work in
teams, manage their own work, and run the plant's computerized equipment. Lutz and his
management team relied on Signicast's human resource management unit to select, train,
and organize the tech-friendly people the new plant required. By formulating and
executing the hiring and other personnel practices Signicast needed to make the plant a
success, the human resources team was supporting Signicast's new strategy. It was thus
engaging in strategic human resource management.
What Is Strategic Panning? Strategic human resource management is part of strategic
planning. As we'll discuss in more detail in chapter 3, a strategic plan is the company's
plan for how it will match its internal strengths and weaknesses with external
opportunities and threats in order to maintain a competitive advantage. The essence of
strategic planning is to ask, "Where are we now as a business, where do we want to be,
and how should we get there?" The manager then formulate, specific (human resources
and other) strategies to take the company from where it is now to where he or she wants it
to be. A strategy is a course of action. Signicast's strategies included closing the old plant
and replacing it with a new, highly automated one.
What Is Strategic Human Resource Management? Strategic human resource management
means formulating and executing human resource policies and practices that produce the
employee competences and behaviors the company needs to achieve its strategic aims.
Signicast's new strategy required employees with the knowledge, skills, and motivation to
run the new autonated plant. Signicast's strategic human resource plan included detailed
guidelines regarding what skills and knowledge the workers would need, as well as
exactly how to recruit, test, select, and train these sorts of workers. Signicast's
management knew that without the necessary employee knowledge, training, and skillshuman capital" - in place, the new plant could not function. Its strategic human resource
plans enabled the company to hire the employees who could exhibit the. behaviors the
company needed to accomplish its goals (in this case, make the plant succeed).
In practice, human resource management's strategic role means several things.23 For
example, as at companies like Ritz- Carlton and Signicast, human resource managers
today are involved in partnering with their top managers in both designing and executing
their companies' strategies. Today's foe us on competitiveness and operational
improvements also means that human resource managers must express their departmental
plans and accomplishments in measurable terms. Top management wants to see,
precisely, how the human resource manager's plans will make the company more
valuable, for instance by boosting factory skill levels, and, thereby, improving
Creating High-Performance Work Systems
The emphasis on strategic human resource management is one change in what human
resource managers do; a focus on productivity and performance is another. As we noted
above, more globalization means more competition, and more competition means more
pressure to lower costs and to make employees more productive. Most human resource
professionals recognize the need to focus on performance. When asked to rate the
importance of various business issues in the survey, their top five choices were
competition for market share, price competition/price control, governmental regulations,
need for sales growth, and need to increase productivity.
We'll see in this book that effective human resource management practices can improve
performance in three ma n ways, in particular through the use of technology, through
effective human resource practices (such as testing and training), and by instituting highperformance work systems. Lets look at each.
Managing with Technology Technological applications like those in Table 1-1 improve
HR's performance in four main ways: self-service, call centers, productivity
improvement, and outsourcing. For example, using Dell's human resources intranet, the
firm's employees can self-service many of their personnel transactions, such as updating
personal information and changing benefits allocations. Technology also enabled Dell to
create a centralized human resources call center. Here Dell human resource specialists
answer questions from all Dell's far-flung employees, reducing the need for human
resource departments at each Dell location.
More firms are installing Internet and computer-based systems for improving HR
productivity. For example, International Paper Corp.'s "Viking" human resource
information system aimed to move the company's HR staff-to-employee ratio from about
one to 100, to one to 150.
Technology also makes it easier to outsource HR activities to specialist service providers,
by giving service providers real-time, Internet-based access to the employer's human
resource information database. Among the human resource tasks employers are
outsourcing are payroll, benefit" applicant testing and screening, reference checks, exit
interviews, wellness programs, and employee training.
In India, the evolution of the HR function has led to the growth of specialized firms
offering support to organizations, both in the transactional aspects of HRM and highly
specialized services requiring expertise For example, Manpower Inc., Kelly Services,
Team Lease Services, Ma Foi Management consultants, Husys Consultants, and many
others, provide temporary staffing services in India. Numerous firms also provide
recruitment and training support to Indian organizations. Such firms range from
subsidiaries of global-HR consulting companies, like Hewitt Associates and the Hay
Group, to firms comprising a few freelancers.
Effective HR Practices We'll also see in this book how human resource practices can
improve performance. For example, a recent review of personality testings effectiveness
concluded that screening applicants through personality testing can produce employees
who perform better. (In other word;, people with the right traits for the job did the job
better, a finding that makes sense to any me who's ever had a bad experience with a surly
customer service clerk, or a similar.) Similarly, well-trained employees perform better
than untrained ones, and safe workplaces produce fewer lost-time accidents and accident
costs than do unsafe ones. The most productive and highest performing world-class
companies, like Toyota, have long had world-class training and plant safety programs.
High-Performance Work Systems In fact, a growing body of evidence shows that the
best-performing companies in a wide range of industries perform so well in part because
of their high-performance work systems. A high-performance work system is an
integrated set of human resource management policies and practices that together
produce superior employee performance.
While there's no hard and fast rule about what comprises high-performance work
systems, most organizational psychologists would agree they include these practices:
self-managed teams and decentralized decision making
reduced status distinctions between managers and workers
contingent (pay-for-performance) rewards
transformational leadership (for instance, in terms of inspirational motivation)
measurement of management practices
emphasis on high-quality work
In terms of measurable outcomes, high-performance work systems produce, for instance,
more qualified applicants per position, more employees hired based on validated
selection tests, more hours of training for new employees and a higher percentage of
employees receiving regular performance appraisals. Systems like these produce many
benefits for employers, some surprising. One study found, for instance, that highperformance work systems produced fewer occupation to injuries.
Another study focused on 17 manufacturing plants, some of which used highperformance work system practices. For example, they paid more (median wages of $16
per hour compared with $13 per hour for all plants); trained more (83% offered more
than 20 hours of training per year, compared with 32% for all plants); used more
sophisticated recruitment and hiring practices (tests and validated interviews, for
instance); and used more self-managing work teams. These plants also had the best
overall performance, in terms of higher profits, lower operating costs, and lower turnover.
We look more closely at high-performance work systems in Chapter 3.
Measuring the Human Resource Management Team's Performance
In today's performance-based environment, employers naturally expect their human
resource management teams to provide measurable evidence of their efficiency and
effectiveness, and for that of their proposed programs. For example, "How much will that
new testing program save us in reduced employee turnover?" "How much more
productive will our employees be if we institute that new training program?" And, "How
productive is our human resource team, in terms of HR staff per employee, compared to
The fundamental requirement for such measurability is that the human resource manager
needs the numbers. Specifically, the or she needs quantitative performance measures
(metrics). For example, median HR expenses as a proportion of companies' total
operating costs average about 0.8%. There tend' to be between 0.9 and 1.0 human
resource staff persons per 100 employees (the ratio tends to be lower in retailing and
distribution firms, and higher in public, state organizations).34 Both manufacturing and
non-manufacturing firms spend about $1,000 per employee for HR. Figure l-5 provides a
sample of several other human resource-related metrics, as provided by the Society for
Human Resource Management (SHRM).
Managing with the HR Scorecard Process
Managers can link such metrics or measurements together to provide a more meaningful
picture. For example, (for Signicast): testing 100% of applicants using new selection test
>>> improved average employee performance on automated machines >>> higher plant
productivity >>> Signicast achieving its strategic profitability goals.
For most human resource management activities, one can similarly map out the causeand-effect links, from the human resource activity, to the employee behavior, to the
company performance. For example, (for a hotel): increased use of incentive plans »>
improved hotel employee customer service ratings >>> more satisfied hotel guests »>
improved hotel profits. Managers often use an HR Scorecard Process to consolidate
linked metrics like these and present them on a "digital dashboard" computer screen, to
easily visualize and measure the HR function's effectiveness in producing the employee
behaviors required to achieve the company's goals. The HR Scorecard is a concise
measurement system. It shows the metrics the firm uses to measure HR activities (such as
testing, training, compensation, and safety), and to measure the employee behaviors
revalting from these activities, and to measure the strategically relevant organizational
outcomes of those employee behaviors (such as higher plant performance, and company
profits). The dashboard-based scorecard shows the causal links between the HR
activities, the emergent employee behaviors, and the resulting firm-wide strategic
outcomes and performance. Chapter 3 shows how to create and use an HR Scorecard.
THE HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGER'S PROFICIENCIES
As you can see, being a human resource manager today is challenging, and requires
One study found four categories of proficiencies: HR proficiencies, business
proficiencies, leadership proficiencies, and learning proficiencies.
HR proficiencies represent traditional knowledge and skills in areas such as
employee selection, training, and compensation.
Business proficiencies reflect human resource professionals' new strategic role.
For example, to assist the top management team in formulating strategies, the
human resource manager needs to be familiar with strategic planning, marketing,
production, and finance. They must also be able to "speak the CFO's language,"
by explaining human resource activities in financially measurable terms, such as
return on investment, payback period, and cost per unit of service. (A recent
SHRM symposium on the future of strategic HR clmcluded that many human
resource professionals lack such business knowledge and literacy.)
HR managers also require leadership proficiencies. For example, they need the
ability to work with and lead management groups, and to drive the changes
required-for instance, to implement new world-class employee screening and
Finally, because the competitive landscape is changing so quickly and new
technologies are being continually introduced, the human resource manager needs
learning proficiencies. He or she must have the ability to stay abreast of and apply
all the new technologies and practices affecting the profession.
Studies show that top management and chief financial officers recognize the critical role
human resource management can play in achieving a company's strategic goals.38 Figure
1-6 summarizes some results It shows they know that human capital- the employees'
knowledge, skills, and experiences- -can have a big effect on important organizational
out-comes such as customer satisfaction and profitability. Partly as a result, human
resource executives are increasingly well-paid. For example, average total direct
compensation for top HR executives was recently jus over $1.4 million per year.
Leverage Alignment is always important, but strategy experts Hamel and Prahalad
caution against being too preoccupied with strategic fit. They agree that every company
"must ultimately synchronize its resources and its responsibilities." However, they argue
that being too preoccupied with fit can limit growth. Basically, they say there are times
when, to pursue opportunities, the manager must underplay the firm's weaknesses, and
instead capitalize on some unique core company strength. Put another way, they say that
leveraging resources-supplementing what you have and doing more with what you havecan be more important than just fitting the strategic plan to current resources. For
example, "If modest resources were an insurmcuntable deterrent to future leadership, GM
would not have found itself on the defensive with Honda." Dell-competing with giant
IBM at the time - focused its relatively limited resources on building a direct sale
operation and highly efficient order processing and distribution system.
To have an effective competitive Strategy, the company must have one or more
competitive advantages, "factors that allow an organization to differentiate its product or
service." Jet Airways, India's largest full-service private airline attained the market-leader
status partly through its highly trained and motivated employees who provide better
ground and cabin service to the customers. Other airlines, like the government-owned Air
India, faced with a high level of unionization, governmental restrictions and higher
aircraft-to-employee ratio found it difficult to match the customer satisfaction standards
of Jet Airways.
The competitive advantage can take many forms. For a pharmaceuticals company, it may
be the quality of its research team, and its patents. For a Web site like MySpace, it is a
proprietary software system. At Longo Toyota ("The New Workforce") it's the diversity
of the workforce and the human resource policies and practices that allow Longo to
capitalize on it.
Today, most companies have easy access to the same technologies, so technology itself is
rarely enough to set a firm apart. For example, Toyota doesn't have manufacturing
equipment that's unavailable to Ford. Why then is Toyota so much more efficient, and in
cars of such high quality? Watching Toyota's (or Saturn's) small self-managing assemble.
teams would reveal that at once. In most firms today, it's the employees' skills and
commitment, and the management system that produces the skills and commitment that
make tile difference. A production expert from Harvard University studied manufacturing
firms to installed special compute' -integrated manufacturing systems to boost efficiency
and flexibility. Here's what he found:
All the data in my study point to one conclusion: Operational flexibility is
determined primarily by a plant's operators and the extent to which managers
cultivate, measure, and communicate with them. Equipment and computer
integration are secondary.
So, it wouldn't take a visitor to Toyota's Lexington, Kentucky Camry plant long to
discover the secret of the Camry s quality and success. Small teams of carefully selected
and highly trained assembly workers inspecting and assessing their own work, selecting
their own team members, interacting with engineers and suppliers to improve component
meeting with the plant's top managers, and spending several weeks each year being
trained Costs are low and quality is high because the self-managing teams have the
capacity and commitment to always do their best. Toyota's human resource strategies-a
full week of employee screening and testing, three weeks per year of training, and teambased rewards that incentivize the assembly teams to self-manage their own performance,
for instance ensure they do. The preceding New Workforce feature presents another
Strategic Human Resource Management
Managers use the term "human resource strategies" to refer to the specific human
resource management courses of action the company pursues to achieve its strategic
aims. For example, one of FedEx's strategic aims is to achieve superior levels of
customer service and high profitability through a highly committed workforce, preferably
in a nonunion enThe work force Long Toyota
Some experts claim that diverse workforces create conflicts and rising costs. But that
argument is lost or the owners of Longo Toyota in EI Monte, California. Long’s human
resources strategy supports its competitive strategy of serving a highly diverse customer
base by bring and developing salespeople who speak everything from Spanish and
Korean to Tagalog.
By following that human resources strategy, Longo may now be one of America's topgrossing auto delivers. With a 60-person sales force that speaks more than 20 languages,
Longo's staff provides it with a powerful competitive advantage for catering to an
increasingly diverse customer base. Human resource management has thereby
contributed to Longo's success. While other dealerships lose half of their salespeople
every year, Longo retains 90% of its staff person in part by emphasizing a promotionfrom-within policy that's made more than two-thirds of its managers minorities. It has
also taken steps to attract more women, for instance, by adding a sales management staff
person to spend time providing the training inexperienced salespeople usually need. In a
business in which competitors can easily imitate products, show-rooms, and most
services, Longo has built a competitive advantage based on employee diversity.
Chapter 6, Employee Testing and Selection, focused on important methods managers to
select employees. The purpose of the current chapter, Interviewing Candidates, is
improve your effectiveness using what is perhaps the most important screening tool,
selection interview. The ma n topics we'll cover include types of interviews, the facto that
can undermine an interview's usefulness, and designing and conducting an effective
interview. In the following chapter, Training and Developing Employees, we'll turn to
techniques you can use to make sure the new employees you hire have the knowledge
skills they need to perform their jobs.
BASIC FEATURES OF INTERVIEWS
An interview is a procedure designed to obtain information from a person through oral
responses to oral inquiries; a selection interview, which we'll focus on in this chapter, is a
selection procedure designed to predict future job performance on the basis of applicants'
oral responses to oral inquiries."
Since the interview is only one of several selection tools, you could reasonably ask "Why
devote a chapter to this one tool?" The answer, first, is that the interview is the mo widely
used personnel selection procedure. While not all employers use tests or even reference
checks, it would be highly unusual for a manager not to interview someone before hiring
them. Interviewing is this an indispensable management tool. Second, most people tend
to think they're better interviewers than they really are. In one study, less than 34% of
interviewers had formal interview training, but "interviewers were confident that they
could identify the best candidates regardless of the amount of interview structure
As we'll see below, experts have criticized the interview for its low validity. However.
recent reviews have been more favorable, and an interview-at least one done properly-can
be "a much better predictor of performance than previously thought and is comparable
with many other selection techniques.
Types of Interviews
Managers use several type; of interviews in the work setting. For example, there are
selection, appraisal, and exit interviews. An appraisal interview is a discussion, following
a performance appraisal, in which supervisor and employee discuss the employee's rating
and possible remedial actions. When an employee leaves a firm for any reason, one often
conducts an exit interview. This interview aims at eliciting information might give the
employer some insight into what's right or wrong about the firm. Many techniques in this
chapter apply equally to appraisal and exit interviews. However, we'll postpone a
complete explanation of these types of interviews until Chapters 9 and 10, respectively,
so we can focus here on selection interviews. We can classify selection interviews
according to (1) how structured they rue, (2) their "content" -the types of questions they
contain-and (3) how the firm administers the interviews. Let's look at these.
Structured Versus Unstructured Interviews
In unstructured or nondirective interviews, the manager generally follows no set format.
The lack of structure allows the interviewer to ask follow-up questions and pursue points
of interest as they develop. Interviewees for the same job mayor may not get the same or
similar question. A few questions might be specified in advance, but they are usually not,
and there is seldom a formal guide for scoring answers. This type of interview "could
even be described as little more than a general conversation."
At the other extreme in structured or directive interviews, the employer specifies the
questions ahead of time, and may also list and rate possible answers for appropriateness?
McMurray's patterned interview was one early example. The interviewer followed a
printed form to ask a series of questions, such as "How was the person's present job
obtained?" Comments printed beneath the questions (such as "Has he/she shown selfreliance in getting his/her jobs?") then glide the interviewer in evaluating the answers.
Some experts restrict the term "structured interview" to those interviews based on
carefully selected job-oriented questions with predetermined answers that interviewers
ask of all applicants. But in practice, the choice isn't "unstructured" versus "structured";
instead, structure is a matter of degree Sometimes, for instance, the manager may just
want to make sure he or she has a standard set of questions to ask, so he or she does not
inadvertently skip any questions. Here the interviewer might just choose questions from a
list like that in Figure 7-3 (page 271). The structured applicant interview guide in Figure
7-A2 (page 286-288) illustrates a more structured approach. As another example, the
Department of Homeland Security uses the structured guide in Figure 7 -1 (page 256257) to help screen Coast Guard officer candidates. It contains a formal candidate rating
procedure, and also enables geographically disbursed interviewers to complete the form
over the Web. As we'll explain in more detail later in this chapter, there are different
ways to structure an interview. Many of them have nothing to do with using structured
guides like these.
Structured and non structured interviews each have pros and cons. In structured
interviews, all interviewers generally ask all applicants the same questions. Partly
because of this, these interviews tend to be more reliable and valid. Structured interviews
can also help less talented interviewers conduct better interviews. Standardizing the
interview also increases consistency across candidates, enhances job] elatedness, reduces
overall subjectivity (and thus the potential for bias), and may "enhance the ability to
withstand legal challenges. However, structured interviews don't always provide enough
opportunity to pursue points of interest as they develop.
Interview Content (Types of Questions)
We can also classify interviews based en the "content" or the types of questions they
contain. In a situational interview, you ask the candidate what his or her behavior would
be in a given situation? For example, You might ask a supervisory candidate how he or
she would act in response to a subordinate becoming to work late three days in a row.
We'll see that often, the best interviews are both structured and situational; here you use
predetermined situational questions and answers. In such a structured situational
interview, you might evaluate the applicant on, say, his or her choice between letting the
persistently late subordinate off with a warning versus suspending the subordinate for a
Whereas situational interviews ask interviewees to describe how they would react to a
hypothetical situation today or tomorrow, behavioral interviews ask interviewees to
de¬scribe how they reacted to actual situations in the past. For example, when Citizen's
Banking Corporation in Flint, Michig, found that 31 of the 50 people in its call center quit
in one year, Cynthia Wilson, the center's head, switched to behavioral interviews. Many
of those who left did so because they didn't enjoy fielding questions from occasionally
irate clients. So Wilson no longer this to predict how candidates will act based on asking
them if they want to work with angry clients. Instead, she asks behavioral questions like,
"Tell me about a time you were seeking with an irate person, and how you turned the
situation around." Wilson says this makes it much harder to fool the interviewer, and,
indeed, only four people left her center in the following year.'
Situational questions start with phases such as, "Suppose you were faced with the
following situation ... What would you lo?" Behavioral questions might start with a
phrase like, "Can you think of a time when .. What did you do?
Behavioral or situational interviews can produce a lot of tension. "It's pretty intense," said
one applicant for a consultant's job with Accenture, the consulting firm, "You can pretty
much fake one or two answers, but the third time they come back to it you pretty much
can't. Your pulling from real life, and you're nervous. [The inter-viewer] asked how I
would prepare for something important. He came back to that again and again to make
sure what I said was true. The whole time they are writing constantly.
In a job-related interview, the interviewer tries to deduce what the applicant's on-the-job
performance will be based on his or her answers to questions about relevant pas
experiences. The questions here don't revolve around hypothetical or actual situations,
scenarios. Instead, the interviewer asks job-related questions (such as, "Which courses do
you like best in business school?”). The aim is to draw conclusions about, say, the
candidate's ability to handle the financial aspects of the job to be filled.
In a stress interview, the interviewer seeks to make the applicant uncomfortable wiu:
occasionally rude questions. The aim is supposedly to spot sensitive applicants and tho
with low (or high) stress tolerance. The interviewer might first probe for weaknesses in
the applicant's background, such as a job that the applicant left under questionable
circumstances. The interviewer then zeroes in on these weaknesses, hoping to get the
candidate to lose his or her composure. Thus, a candidate for customer relations manager
who obligingly mentions having had your jobs in the past two years might be told that
frequent job changes reflect irresponsible a ld immature behavior. If the applicant then
responds with a reasonable explanation of who the job changes were necessary, the
interviewer might pursue another topic. On the other hand, if the formerly tranquil
applicant reacts explosively with anger and disbelief, the interviewer might deduce that
the person has a low tolerance for stress.
Stress interviews may he p unearth hypersensitive applicants who might overreact to mild
criticism with anger all abuse. However, the stress interview's invasive and ethically
questionable nature demands that the interviewer be both skilled in its use and sure the
job really calls for a thick skin and an ability to handle stress. This is definitely not an
approach for amateur interrogators or for those without the skills to keep the interview
Puzzle questions are popular today. Recruiters occasionally likes to use them to see how
candidates think under] pressure. For example, an interviewer at Microsoft asked a tech
service applicant this: 'Mike and Todd have $21 between them. Mike has $20 more than
Todd. How much money has Mike, and how much money has Todd?" (You'll find the
answer two paragraphs below.)
Administering the Interview
Interviews can also be administered in various ways: one-an-one or by a panel of
interviewers; sequentially or all a once; and computerized or personally.
Most interviews are one on-one and sequential. In a one-on-one interview, two people
meet alone, and one interviews the other by seeking oral responses to oral inquiries. At
the same time, the employee schedules the candidate's interviews to be sequential. In a
sequential (or serial) interview, several persons interview the applicant, in sequence, oneon-one, before a decision is made. In such a serial interview, candidates may cover the
same ground over and over; gain with each interviewer. In an unstructured sequential
interview, each interviewer may ask different questions. In a structured sequential
interview, each interviewer rates the candidates on a standard evaluation form, using
standardized questions. The hiring manager then reviews and compares the evaluations
before deciding who to hire. (Answer: Mike had $20.50, Todd $.50).
Panel Interviews A panel interview, also known as a board interview, is defined as "an
interview conducted by a team of interviewers (usually two to three), who together
interview each candidate, and then combine their ratings into a final panel score." This
contrasts with the one-on-one interview (in which one interviewer meets one candidate),
and a serial interview (where several interviewers assess a single candidate one-on-one,
sequentially). The panel format enables interviewers to ask follow-up questions, much as
reporters do in press conferences. This may elicit more meaningful responses than are
normally produced by a series of one-on-one interviews.
On the other hand, some candidates find panel interviews more stressful, so they may
actually inhibit responses. An even more stressful variant is the mass interview. Here a
panel interviews several candidates simultaneously. The panel poses a problem and then
sits back and watches to see which candidate takes the lead in formulating an answer.
It's not clear whether, as a rule, panel interviews are more or less reliable and valid than
other types of interviews, because how the employer actually conducts the panel
interview has a big effect on reliability and validity. For example, structured panel
interviews are more reliable and valid than unstructured ones. In particular, panel
interviews in which members use scoring sheets with descriptive scoring anchors for
sample answers are more reliable and valid than those that don't And, training the panel
interviewers may boost the interview's reliability, but probably not its validity.
Phone and Video Interviews Some interviews are done entirely by telephone. These can
actually be more accurate than face-to-face interviews for judging an applicant's
conscientiousness, intelligence, and inter personal skills. Here, neither party need worry
about things like appearance or handshakes so each can focus on substantive answers. Or
perhaps candidates-somewhat surprised by an unexpected call from the recruiter-just give
more spontaneous answers. In a typical study, interviewers tended to evaluate applicants
more favorably in telephone versus face-to-face interviews, particularly where the
interviewees were less physically active. However, the interviewers came to about the
same conclusions regarding the interviewees whether the interview was face-to-face or
by videoconference. The applicants them selves preferred the face-to-face interviews.
In India, video and telephone interviews are used by firms as part of the selection
process. IT firms were the leaders in using telephone interviews to select technical
people. Experts or clients residing outside the country found telephonic interviews
convenient and cost effective. In such cases, the final employment offers are made after
telephone video interviews. Domestic recruiters generally use phone interviews at the
initial stages t check primary suitability or to cross-check facts. Applicants who are found
suitable are then, invited for face-to-face discussions before the final employment offers
A computerized selection interview is one in which a job candidate's oral and/or
computerized replies are obtained in response to computerized oral, visual, or written
questions and/or situations. Most computerized interviews present the applicant with a
series of questions regarding his or her background, experience, education, skills,
knowledge, and work attitudes that relate :0 the job for which the person has applied.
Some (video-based computerized interviews also confront candidates with realistic
scenarios (such as irate customers) to which they must respond.
Typical computerized interviews present questions in a multiple choice format, one at a
time; the applicant is expected to respond to the questions on the screen by pressing a
key. For example, a sample interview question for a person applying for a job as a retail
store clerk might be:
How would your SUI ervisor rate your customer service skills?
Questions on a computerized interview come in rapid sequence and require the applicant
to concentrate. The typical computerized interview program measures the response time
to each question. A delay in answering certain questions-such as "Can you be trusted?"
-can flag a potential problem.
Great Western Bank Example Here's how the system works at Great Western Bank.
When Bonnie Dunn, 20 y ears old, tried out for a teller's job at Great Western Bank, she
faced a lineup of tough customers. One young woman sputtered contradictory
instructions about depositing a check and then blew her top when the transaction wasn't
handled fast enough. Another customer had an even shorter fuse: "You people are
unbelievably slow," he said.
Both tough customers appeared on a computer screen, as part of a 20-minute
computerized job interview. Ms. Dunn was seated in front of a personal computer,
responding via a touch screen and a microphone. She was tested on making change and
on sales skills, as well as keeping cool in tense situations.
When applicants sit down facing the computer at Great Western's bank branches, they
hear it say, "Welcome to the interactive assessment aid." The computer doesn't
understand what applicants say at that point, although it records their comments for
evaluation later. To begin the interview, applicants touch a label on the screen, eliciting
an ominous fore word: "We'll be keeping track of how long it takes you and how many
mistakes you make. Accuracy is more important than speed."
First, the computer tests he applicant on money skills, asking him or her to cash a check
for $192.18, including at least three $5 bills and two dollars in quarters. Then, when an
angry customer appears on the screen, the system expects candidates to grab the
microphone and mollify him. Later, a bank official who listens to the recorded interviews
gives applicants five points for maintaining a friendly tone of voice, plus up to 15 points
for apologizing, promising to solve the customer's problem, and, taking a cue from the
screen, suggesting that in the future he use the bank's deposit-only line.
The touchy young woman on the screen is tougher. Speaking fast, she says she wants to
cash a $150 check, get $40 in cash, and put $65 in savings and the rest in checking. As an
applicant struggles to sort that out, she quickly adds, "No, it has to be $50 in checking
because I just wrote a check this morning." If the applicant then touches a label on the
screen that says? “the woman fumes, "How many times do I have to tell you?"
Great Western reports success 'with its system. It dramatically reduced useless personal
interviewing of unacceptable candidates. And, partly because the candidates see what the
job's really like, those hired are reportedly 26% less likely to quit or be fired within 90
days of hiring.
Pic 'n Pay Stores Example Employers often use computer-aided interviews to pre-screen
out unacceptable candidates Pic 'n Pay stores, a chain of 915 self-service shoe stores
headquartered in North Carolina gives job applicants an 800 number to dial for a
computerized interview. The interview contains 100 questions and lasts about 10
minutes. Applicants press 1 for yes and 0 for no. Every applicant then gets a follow-up
live telephone interview, from one of the firm’s six dedicated interviewers.
Web-Assisted Interviews Man: firms use the Web to assist in the employee interview
process. For instance, Cisco Systems, Inc. (which in 2006 expanded its core business to
include video-conferencing equipment) equips Cisco recruiters with PC video cameras,
so they can conduct preliminary interviews via online Webcasts. The recruiter instructs
the applicant to use his or her own carrier-supported PC (or go to a local FedEx Kinko's
or similar business). Then, at the appointed time, he or she links to Cisco via Web video
for the interview. Cisco doesn't plan to eliminate face-to-face interviews. However, the
Web-video interviews do reduce travel and recruiting expenses, and make things easier
for candidates. Jobs.com conducts frequent live, interactive online career fairs. Job
seekers go to the jobs.com interactive career Wet site and select a city and job category.
They can then participate in a live, interactive career fair event. The U.S. Army also now
does online recruiting at its recruiter chat site.
Pros and Cons Computer-aided interviews can be advantageous. Systems like those at
Great Western and Pic 'n Pay reduce the time managers devote to interviewing
unacceptable candidates. Applicants are reportedly more honest with computers than they
would be with people, presumably because computers aren't judgmental. The computer
can also be sneaky; if an applicant takes longer can average to answer certain questions,
he or she may be summarily screened out, or at least questioned more deeply in that area
by a human inter-viewer. Several of the interpersonal interview problems we'll discuss
later in this chapter (such as making snap judgments about interviewees based on
physical appearance) are also obviously avoided with this approach. On the other hand,
the mechanical nature of computer-aided interviews can leave applicants feeling that both
the process and the employer were rather impersonal.
Are Interviews Useful'?
While used by virtually all managers, interviews received low marks for reliability and
validity in early studies. However today (as noted previously), studies confirm that the
"validity of the interview is greater than previously believed," and that the interview is
"generally a much better predictor of performance than previously thought and is
comparable with many other selection techniques.
But there are three caveats. First, you should structure the interview.29 Structured
interviews (particularly structured situational interviews) are more valid than
unstructured interviews for predicting job performance. They are more valid partly
because they are more reliable-for example, the same interviewer administers the
interview more consistently from candidate to candidate. Situational interviews yield a
higher mean validity than do job-related (or behavioral) interviews, which in turn yield a
higher mean validity than do psychological interviews, which focus more on motives and
The second caveat is this: Be careful what sorts of traits you try to assess. A typical study
illustrates why. Interviewers were able to size up the interviewee's extraversion and.
agreeableness. What this could not assess accurately were the traits that often matter most
on jobs-like conscientiousness and emotional stability. The implication seems to be to not
focus (as many do) on hard-to-assess traits like conscientiousness. Limit yourself mostly
to situational and job knowledge questions that help you assess how the candidate will
actually respond to typical situations on that job. We'll explain how to do this later in the
chapter. Third, it is clear that the manager must keep in mind the various factors than can
undermine any interviews usefulness. We turn to these next.
WHAT CAN UNDERMINE AN INTERVIEW'S USEFULNESS?
Hiring the right people is an essential management job, and you can't do that job if you
don't know how to interview. Several things can undermine an interview's usefulness.
First Impressions (Snap Judgments)
Perhaps the most consistent finding is that interviewers tend to jump to conclusions-make
snap judgments-about candidates during the first few minutes of the interview (or even
before the interview. starts, based on test scores or resume data). One researcher
estimates that in 85% of the cases, interviewers had made up their minds before the
interview even began, based on firs impressions the interviewers gleaned from
candidates' applications and personal appearance. In one study giving interviewers the
candidates' test scores biased the ultimate assessment of the candidates.
First impressions are especially damaging when the prior information about the candidate
is negative. In one study, interviewers who previously received unfavorable reference
letters about applicants gave those applicants less credit for past successes and held them
more personally responsible for past failures after the interview. And their final decisions
(to accept or reject applicants) were always tied to what they expected of the applicants
based on the references, quite aside from the applicants' actual interview performance.
Add to this the fact that interviewers seem to have a consistently negative bias. They are
more influenced by us favorable than favorable information about the candidate.
Furthermore, their impressions are much more likely to change from favorable to
unfavorable than from unfavorable to favorable. Indeed, a common interviewing mistake
is to turn the interview into a search for negative information.
In a sense, therefore, most interviews are probably loaded against the applicant. An
applicant who starts well would easily end up with a low rating, because unfavorable
information tends to carry more weight in the interview. An interviewee who starts out
poorly will find it hard to over come that first bad impression.
One London-based psychologist who interviewed the chief executives of 80 top
companies came to these conclusions about snap judgments in selection interviews:
"Really, to make a good impression, you don't even get time to open your mouth ... An
interviewer's response to you will generally be preverbal- how you walk through the
door, what your posture is like, whether you smile, whether you have a captivating aura,
whether you have a firm, confident handshake. You've got about half a minute to make
an impact and after that all you are doing is building on a good or bad first impression ...
It's a very emotional response.
Misunderstanding the Job
Interviewers who don't have an accurate picture of what the job entails and what sort of
candidate is best suited for it usually make their decisions based on incorrect impressions
or stereotypes of what a good applicant is. They then erroneously match interviewees
with their incorrect stereotypes.
One classic study involved 30 professional interviewers.38 Half got just a brief
description of the jobs for which they were recruiting: They were told the "eight
applicants here represented by their application blanks are applying for the position of
secretary." The other 15 interviewers got much more explicit job information, in terms of
typing speed and bilingual ability, for instance.
More job knowledge translated into better interviews. The 15 interviewers who had more
job information generally agreed among themselves about each candidate's potential,
while those without complete job information did not. The latter also didn't discriminate
as well among applicants-they tended to give them all high ratings.
Candidate-Order (contrast) Error and Pressure to Hire
Candidate-order (or contrast) error means that the order in which you see applicants
affects how you rate them. In one study, managers had to evaluate a candidate who was
"just average" after first evaluating several "unfavorable" candidates. They scored the
average candidate more favorably them they might otherwise have done because, in
contrast to the unfavorable candidates, he average one looked better than he actually was.
This contrast effect can be huge: In some early studies, evaluators based only a small part
of the applicant's rating on his or her actual potential.
Pressure to hire accentuates problems like this. Researchers told one group of managers
to assume they were behind in heir recruiting quota. They told a second group they were
ahead of their quota. Those "behind" evaluated the same recruits much more highly than
did those "ahead.'
Nonverbal Behavior and Impression Management
The applicant's nonverbal behavior c m also have a surprisingly large impact on his or her
rating. In one study, 52 human resource specialists watched videotaped job interviews in
which the applicants' verbal content was identical, but their nonverbal behavior differed
markedly. Researchers told applicant; in one group to exhibit minimal eye contact, a low
energy level, and low voice modulation. Those in a second group demonstrated the
opposite behavior. Of the 26 personnel specialists who saw the high-eye-contact, highenergy-level candidate, 23 would have invited him or her for a second interview. None
who saw the low-eye-contact, low-energy-level candidate would have recommended a
second interview. It certainly seems to pay for interviewee, to "look alive."
In another study, interviewers listened to audio interviews and watched video interviews.
Vocal cues (such as the interviewee's witch, speech rates, and pauses) and visual cues
(such as physical attractiveness, smile, and today orientation) correlated with the
evaluator's judgments of whether or not the interviewees could be liked and trusted, and
Nonverbal behaviors are probably so important because interviewers infer the
interviewee's personality from the way he or she acts in the interview. In one study, 99
graduating college seniors completed questionnaires both before and after their job
interviews; the questionnaires included measures of personality, among other things.43
The seniors then reported their success in generating follow-up job interviews and job
offers. The interviewee's personality, particularly his or her level of extraversion, had a
pronounced influence on whether or not he or she received follow-up interviews and job
offers. In part, this seems to be because "interviewers draw inferences about the
applicant's personality based on the applicant's behavior during the interview. Extraverted
applicants seem particularly prone to self-promotion, and self-promotion is strongly
related to the interviewer's perceptions of candidate-job fit.
Impression Management In fact, clever interviewees do say and do things to manage the
impression they present. One study found that some used ingratiation to persuade
interviewers to like -hem, for instance by praising them or appearing to agree with their
opinions. Others used self-promotion tactics, for instance by making complimentary
comments about their own accomplishments. Ingratiation involves, for example, agreeing
with the recruiter's opinions and thus signaling that they share similar beliefs. Knowing
that a perceived similarity in attitudes or values may influence how the interviewer rates
the applicant's competence, some interviewees may try to emphasize (or fabricate) such
similarities. Self-promotion means promoting one's own skills and abilities to create the
impression of competence.
Some researcher- in this area question results like these. The problem is that much of the
interviewing research uses students as raters and hypothetical jobs, so it's not clear that
we can apply the findings to the real world. For example, "In operational settings, where
actual jobs are at stable, faking or socially desirable responding may be more likely to
distort personality measurement and obscure relationships." But, realistically, anyone
who has been through an interview probably recognizes that such impression
management goes on (and probably works, at least up to a point).
Effect of Personal Characteristics: Attractiveness, Gender, Background Interviewers also
must guard against letting an applicant's attractiveness and gender distort their
assessment. For example, people usually ascribe more favorable traits and more
successful life outcomes to attractive people. In one study, subjects had to evaluate
candidates for promotion based on photographs. They perceived men as being more
suitable for hire and more likely to advance to a next executive level than they did
equally qualified women; they preferred more attractive candidates, especially men, over
less attractive ones. Even when female managers exhibited the same career-advancing
behaviors as male managers, they still earned less money and were offered fewer careerprogressing transfer opportunities.
Background can also play a role, depending on how you conduct the interview. In one
study, the interviewees appeared before three panels whose racial composition was either
primarily black (75% blat k, 25% white), balanced (50% black, 50% white), or primarily
white (75% white, 25% black).54 On the primarily black panels, black and white raters
judged black and white candidates similarly. In the primarily white and in the racially
balanced panels, white interviewers rated white candidates higher, while black
interviewers rated black candidates higher. In all cases, structured interviews produced
less of a difference between minority and white interviewees on average than did
Such findings don't necessarily apply to other EEOC-protected classes. In another study,
candidates evidencing a wide range of attributes and disabilities (such as child-care
demands, HIV-positive status, and being wheelchair-bound) had less chance of obtaining
a positive decision, even when the person performed very well in the structured
interview. Because the applicant’s "race, gender, hair style, teeth and even facial tics" can
influence the interview process in a discriminatory way, the European Community is
considering a new directive. It would require that employers conduct recruitment
interviews with screens between the applicant and the interviewers, or over a room-toroom speakerphone.
Similarly in India, the recruitment rules in the government require representatives of
scheduled caste and scheduled tribe community to be part of the interview panel for
selection to government jobs. Their inclusion is expected to ensure that biases do not
affect the decision. "The New Workforce" expands on this topic.
Employment discrimination is always abhorrent, but the use of employment
discrimination "testers" makes nondiscriminatory interviewing even more important. As
defined by the EEOC, testers are "individuals who apply for employment which they do
not intend to accept, for the sole purpose of uncovering unlawful discriminatory hiring
practices. Although they're not really seeking employment, testers have legal standing,
with the courts and with the EEOC.
A case illustrates the usual approach. A private, nonprofit civil rights group sent four
university students-two white, two lack-to an employment agency, supposedly in pursuit
of a job. The four testers were given backgrounds and training to make them appear
almost indistinguishable from each other in terms of qualifications. However, the white
applicants and black applicants were allegedly treated differently. For example, the white
tester/applicants got interviews and job offers, while the black tester/applicants got
neither interviews nor offers.
A study by the Research and Evaluation Center at the National Center for Disability
Services provides some insight into what disabled people who use" assistive technology"
at work expect and prefer from interviewers. Researchers surveyed 40 disabled people
from various occupations to arrive at their conclusions. The basic finding was that the
disabled people felt that interviewers tend to avoid directly addressing the disability, and
therefore make their decisions without getting all the facts.
Anyone who's been interviewed also knows that the interviewer's behavior also affects
the interviewee's performance and rating.
Consider some examples. Some interviewers inadvertently telegraph the expected
answers, as in: "This job calls for handling a lot of stress. You can do that, can't you?"
Even subtle cues like a smile or nod) can telegraph the desired answer. Some
interviewers talk so much that applicants have no time to answer questions. At the other
extreme, some interviewers let the applicant dominate the interview, and so don't ask all
their questions. When interviewers have favorable pre-interview impressions of the
applicant they tend to act more positively toward that person (smiling more, for instance),
possibly because they want to increase the chance that the applicant will accept the job.
Other interviewers play district attorney. It's smart to be alert for inconsistencies, but
uncivil to play "gotcha" by gleefully pouncing on them. Some interviewers play amateur
psychologist, unprofessionally probing for hidden meanings in everything the applicants
say. And, of course, some interviewers are simply inept unable to formulate decent
questions, while others are gifted at drawing out the best in interviewees.
DESIGNING AND CONDUCTING AN EFFECTIVE INTERVIEW
There are two basic ways to avoid these interview problems. One is obvious: Keep them
in mind and avoid them (don’t make snap judgements, for instance). The second is not
quite so obvious: Be careful how you design and structure the interview. Structured
interviews can minimize many of the problems we discussed. Let's therefore look next at
structuring the interview, and at some guidelines for effective interviews.
The Structured Situational Interview
There is little doubt that the structured situational interview - a series of job-oriented
questions with predetermined answers that interviewers ask of all applicants for the jobproduces superior results. The basic idea is to write situational (what would you do) or
behavioral (what did you do), or job knowledge questions, and have job experts (like
those supervising the job) also write answers rated from good to poor. The raters
typically use descriptively anchored rating scale answer sheets to rate the interviewees'
answers; these use short description; to illustrate good, average, or poor performance).
Structured employment interviews using either situational questions or behavioral
questions tend to yield high validities. However, structured interviews with situational
question formats yield the higher ratings. This may be because interviewers get more
consistent (reliable) responses with situational questions (which force all applicants to
apply the same scenario) than they do with behavioral questions (which require each
applicant to find applicable experiences.). In creating structured situational interviews,
people familiar with the job develop questions based on the job's actual duties. They then
reach consensus on what are and are not acceptable answers. The procedure is as follows.
Step 1: Job Analysis write a job description with a list of job duties, required knowledge,
skills, abilities, and oilier worker qualifications.
Step 2: Rate the Job's Main Duties Identify the job's main duties. To do so, rate each job
duty based on its importance to job success and on the time required to perform it
compared to other tasks.
Chapters 6 and 7 focussed on the methods managers use to interview and select
employees. Once employees are on board, the employer must train them. The purpose of
this chapter is to increase your effectiveness as a trainer. The main topics we'll cover
include orienting employees, the training process, training methods, training for special
purposes, managerial development and training techniques, and evaluating the training
Carefully selecting employees doesn't guarantee they'll perform effectively. Potential one
thing, performance is another. Even high-potential employees can't do their jobs j' they
don't know what to do or how to do it. Therefore your next step is to ensure that your
employees do know what to do and how to do it. This is the purpose of orienting and
training employees. We will start with orientation.
Purpose of Orientation
Employee orientation provides new employees with the basic background information
they need to work in your company, such as information about company rules.
At a minimum, orientation should accomplish four things: The new employee should feel
welcome and at ease; he or she should understand the organization in a broad sense (its
past, present, culture, and vision of the future), as well as key facts such as policies and
procedures; the employee should be clear about what is expected in terms of work and
behavior; and the person should have begun the process of becoming socialized into the
firm's ways of acting and doing things.
However, orientation programs are moving away from mere discussions of rules, to
explaining the company's mission and the employee's role in accomplishing it. The
assumption is that this will foster self-directed behavior that is more consistent with the
company's needs. The Mayo Clinic recently revised its orientation program. Its new
"heritage and culture" program now covers matters such as core principles, history, work
atmosphere, teamwork, personal responsibility, innovation, integrity, diversity, customer
service, and mutual respect.
Don't underestimate orientation's importance. Without basic information on things like
rules and policies, new employees may make time-consuming or even dangerous errors.
Furthermore, orientation is not just about rules. It is also about making the new person
feel welcome and at home and part of the team.
The Orientation Process
Orientation programs range from 10-minute discussions to week-long programs (at firms
like Toyota). The human resource specialist (or, in smaller firms, the office manager)
usually performs the first part of the orientation, by explaining basic matters like working
hours, benefits, and vacations. That person then introduces the new employee to his or
her new supervisor. The supervisor continues the orientation by explaining (see Figure 81) the organization of the department, and by introducing the person to his or her new
colleagues, familiarizing the new employee with the workplace, and helping to reduce
As in Figure 8-1, the orientation typically includes information on employee benefits,
personnel policies, the duly routine, company organization and operations, and safety
measures and regulations, as well as a facilities tour. At a minimum, new employees
should receive print or Internet-based employee handbooks covering matters like these.
More employers use technology to provide orientation. Some firms provide incoming
managers with preloaded personal digital assistants. These contain information the new
going to dump me when you decide to cut costs again?" To paraphrase the author of the
book Pack Your Own parachute, the smart employee today thus tends to think of him or
herself as a free agent, where to do a good job but also to prepare for the next career
move to another firm. As we noted earlier in this chapter, yesterday's employee-employer
"psychological contract" may have been something like, "do your best and be loyal to us,
and we'll take care of your career:' Today, it is "do your best for us and be loyal to us, we
will give you a fast-track career along with a high social status and living standards." In
such situations employers must think about what they are going to do to retain
employees, to minimize departures, and maximize employee effort.
Commitment-Oriented Career Development Efforts
The employer's career planning and development activities can and should playa central
role here. Managed effectively, the employer's career development process should be the
signal that the employee cares about the employee's career success, and thus deserves the
employee's commitment. Career development programs and career-oriented appraisal can
Career Development Programs For example, we've seen that most large (and man,
smaller) employers on vide career planning and development services. Consider the
program at Saturn Corporation's Spring Hill, Tennessee, plant. A career workshop uses
vocational guidance tools (including a computerized skills assessment program and other
career gap analysis too do to help employees identify career-related skills and the
development needs they possess. This workshop helps employees to assess themselves,
and to identify their weaknesses and strengths. Tuition reimbursement and other
development aids are also available to help employees develop the skills they need to get
Programs like these can help foster employee commitment. Here is how one Saturn
employee put it:
I'm an assembler new, and was a team leader for two-and-a-half years. My goal is
to move into our people-systems [HR] unit. I know things are tight now, but I
know that the philosophy here is that the firm will look out for me - they want
people to be all they can be know here I'll go as far as I can go; that's one reason
I'm so committed to Saturn.
Career-Oriented Appraisals Similarly, the annual or semi-annual appraisal provides an
excellent opportunity to review career-related issues. Performance appraisals should not
only be about telling someone how he or she has done. They also provide the ideal
occasion to link the employee's performance, career interests, and developmental be into
a coherent career plan. A form like the one in Figure 10-3 can facilitate this process,
helping the manager and employee to translate the latter's performance-based experience
for the year into tangible development plans and goals.
Retirement for many employees is a mixed blessing. The employee may be free of daily
demands of his or her job, but at the same time be slightly adrift due to not having a job
to go to. In a recent survey, 78% of employees said they expect to continue working in
some capacity after normal retirement age (64% said they want to do so part-time). On
about a third said they plan to continue work for financial reasons; about 43% said they
jus wanted to remain action. About 30% of the employers in one survey therefore report