DSST Human Resource Management flashcards

34 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Human Capital Theory

The view that employees' knowledge, skills, and abilities are economic assets. Investment in training and development raises their value, while neglect causes depreciation of skills over time.

Strategic HR Alignment

Designing HR practices so they support the organization's competitive strategy. Cost leadership favors standardized, efficient practices; differentiation favors selective staffing, extensive development, and performance-linked pay.

HR Business Partner

In the Ulrich model, an HR professional embedded with a business unit who translates business strategy into workforce plans and advises line managers, distinct from shared services and centers of expertise.

Cost Per Hire Formula

Total recruiting costs, including advertising, agency fees, referral bonuses, and recruiter time, divided by the number of hires made in the period. Used to compare sourcing channels.

Turnover Rate Formula

Separations during a period divided by average headcount during that period, multiplied by 100. Analysts separate voluntary from involuntary and avoidable from unavoidable turnover.

Replacement Chart

A position-based succession tool listing each key job and the named employees who could fill it, with readiness ratings. It differs from talent pools, which track people rather than positions.

Delphi Technique

A forecasting method in which experts submit anonymous estimates in successive rounds, reviewing group summaries between rounds, until estimates converge without the pressure of face-to-face discussion.

Skills Inventory

A database of each employee's education, certifications, languages, and experience, used to match internal candidates to openings and to identify training gaps. It requires regular updating.

Criterion-Related Validity

The degree to which a selection test's scores correlate with a measure of job performance, such as supervisor ratings or output. High correlation indicates the test predicts performance.

Structured Interview

An interview using a fixed set of job-related questions and anchored scoring guides for all candidates. It raises reliability and validity and reduces interviewer bias compared with unstructured interviews.

Training Needs Analysis

A three-level diagnosis: organizational (where training is warranted), task (what must be learned), and person (who needs it). Skipping it produces training unrelated to job requirements.

Kirkpatrick Evaluation Levels

Four levels of training evaluation: reaction (satisfaction), learning (knowledge gained), behavior (on-the-job application), and results (productivity, quality, retention, or return on investment).

Realistic Job Preview

Presenting candidates with both favorable and unfavorable information about a job. It lowers unrealistic expectations, reduces early turnover, and improves later satisfaction.

Halo Error

A rating error in which one favorable or unfavorable characteristic of an employee colors ratings on all other unrelated dimensions, producing artificially consistent appraisal scores.

Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales

Appraisal scales whose points are defined by concrete behavioral examples of effective and ineffective performance, making ratings more job-related and easier to defend.

Forced Distribution

A rating system requiring a fixed percentage of employees in each performance category. It curbs leniency but risks demotivation and legal challenge when performance differences are not truly measurable.

Criterion Contamination

The presence in an appraisal measure of factors unrelated to the employee's actual performance, such as economic conditions or equipment quality, which distort the performance rating.

Compa-Ratio

An employee's actual pay divided by the midpoint of the pay range for the job. A ratio below 1.0 indicates pay under midpoint; above 1.0 indicates pay over midpoint.

Point-Factor Job Evaluation

A method assigning points to jobs based on weighted compensable factors such as skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions. Total points establish internal pay hierarchy.

Pay Compression

A situation where pay differences between experienced employees and new hires shrink or reverse, often from market-driven starting salaries. It damages morale and requires range or retention adjustments.

FLSA Exempt Status

Classification of employees in executive, administrative, or professional roles who are paid on a salary basis and are not entitled to overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Gainsharing

A group incentive plan that shares productivity or cost savings with employees who helped achieve them. It suits team-based work where individual output is difficult to measure.

General Duty Clause

A provision of the Occupational Safety and Health Act requiring employers to keep workplaces free of recognized hazards likely to cause death or serious harm, even absent a specific standard.

Incident Rate Formula

Recordable injuries and illnesses multiplied by 200,000, then divided by total hours worked. The 200,000 base equals 100 full-time employees working 40 hours for 50 weeks.

Workers' Compensation

A no-fault statutory benefit system paying medical costs and partial wage replacement for work-related injuries. Employees generally surrender the right to sue the employer in tort.

Hazard Control Hierarchy

A ranked approach to safety: elimination, substitution, engineering controls, administrative controls, then personal protective equipment. PPE is last because it relies on correct human behavior.

Disparate Impact

A neutral employment practice that disproportionately excludes a protected group and is not job-related or consistent with business necessity. Intent is not required for a violation.

Four-Fifths Rule

A guideline stating that a protected group's selection rate below 80 percent of the highest group's rate is evidence of adverse impact and may require the employer to justify the practice.

Reasonable Accommodation

Under the ADA, an adjustment to a job or workplace enabling a qualified individual with a disability to perform essential functions, required unless it imposes undue hardship on the employer.

FMLA Eligibility

An employee qualifies for up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave after 12 months of service and 1,250 hours worked in the prior year at a covered employer.

Wagner Act

The National Labor Relations Act of 1935, which protected employees' rights to organize and bargain collectively and created the NLRB to run elections and hear unfair labor practice charges.

Right-to-Work Laws

State laws permitted by the Taft-Hartley Act that prohibit requiring employees to join a union or pay union dues as a condition of employment.

Mandatory Bargaining Subjects

Topics including wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment that an employer and union must negotiate in good faith. Refusing to bargain over them is an unfair labor practice.

Interest Arbitration

A process where a neutral third party imposes the terms of a new contract when bargaining reaches impasse. It is common in public-sector labor relations where strikes are restricted.