2. Answer the questions:

1. What is the difference between practicing management and management as a field of knowledge ?

2. How are these two types of management connected?

3. What is more important: practicing management or management as a science?

Unit 3. Management as a Matter of Fact

1. Read text 1. Text 1. Human Resource Management

Human resource management is the management of various activities designed to enhance the effectiveness of an organization's work force. Major activities include human resource planning, staffing, development and evaluation, compensation, and maintenance of effective work-force relationships. The strategic importance of HRM has been increasing, particularly since the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Human resource planning considers both demand for and supply of human resources relative to an organization's strategic plan. Such planning relies on job analysis and resulting job descriptions and job specifications. Assessing demand involves considering major forces that can influence demand and using basic forecasting techniques to predict future demand. Assessing supply entails determining internal and external labor supplies. In reconciling future demand and supply, organizations also need to consider affirmative action implications.

Staffing is the set of activities aimed at attracting and selecting individuals for positions in a way that will facilitate the achievement of organizational goals. The attraction aspect of staffing involves recruitment. Most organizations engage in extensive internal recruitment in order to offer job opportunities to current employees. For the most part, organizations engage in external re­cruiting only when there are no suitable internal candi­dates for particular positions. The selection aspect of staffing focuses on determining which job candidates best suit organizational needs. An important issue in selection is validity, which addresses how well a selec­tion device or method actually predicts a candidate's fu­ture job performance. The most prevalent selection methods include the use of application blanks, selection interviews, tests, assessment centers, and reference checks, each of which can facilitate the selection process if used properly.

Training and development is a planned effort to fa­cilitate employee learning of job-related behaviors in order to improve employee performance. Training typi­cally includes three main phases: assessment, training design and implementation, and evaluation. Major types of training programs include orientation training, technical skill training, and management development programs. Performance appraisal is the process of defin­ing expectations for employee performance; measuring, evaluating, and recording employee performance rela­tive to those expectations; and providing feedback to the employee. Major methods of performance appraisal in­clude behavior-oriented approaches, such as the use of graphic rating scales and behaviorally anchored rating scales, and results-oriented approaches, such as man­agement by objectives. Because performance raters tend to be susceptible to biases that produce rating errors, they must engage in three somewhat incompatible roles (leader, coach, and judge) in carrying out an effective performance appraisal interview.

Compensation systems need to consider internal, external, and individual equity in developing pay struc­tures and allocating individual pay. The most common approach to devising pay structures depends on the point factor method of job evaluation. Organizations also are attempting to reward intrapreneurs through specialized pay approaches, such as bonus programs, and are encouraging work-force flexibility and innovation through such means as skill-based pay and gain-sharing.

Maintaining positive work-force relationships includes engaging in effective labor-management relations and making appropriate responses to current employee issues. Organizations become unionized through a certification process regulated by the National Labor Relations Board. Unions can become decertified through a similar process. Among the major current employee issues are protection from arbitrary dismissal, drug and alcohol abuse, privacy rights, and family matters as they impact work.