Human Resources Management in New Zealand (4th edn) – Richard Rudman

Work and workers

Employment and labour markets

Lesson Plan:
„Students should be able to trace the
development of modern HR management from the
earliest days of the Industrial Revolution;
„identify the historical and organisational
antecedents of personnel management and human
resources management;
„Describe the development of personnel
management and HR management in New Zealand.

WORK AND LIFE

The nature of work is changing, we are

entering a new revolution.

It’s too easy to say that we all look at

work differently. But each of us inevitably
brings our own perceptions, expectation,
values, and motivations to the subject of
work.

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 Human Resources Management in New Zealand (4th edn) – Richard Rudman

WORK AND LIFE

Our different approaches to work are
influenced by many things, including
the nature of the job, the quality of
management, the rewards we gain
from work, the organisation’s culture,
its mission and ownership.

WORK AND LIFE

„ The work that people do reveals much
about them and their society. Work is a
central activity in the lives of most people. It
is a major mechanism for positioning
people in society and for allocating social
status and power. Jobs largely determine
how and where we live, who our friends are,
the kinds of education out children receive,
and how we define our relationships to one
another.

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 Human Resources Management in New Zealand (4th edn) – Richard Rudman

DEFINITION OF WORK
Work is any activity which is
directed towards the production
of goods and services which
typically have a value in
exchange, and which is carried
out for a valuable consideration.

People who have traditionally seen’work’ in

terms of their own paid employment are
treating unpaid work as a source of personal
satisfaction and development.

ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT WORK

AND WORKERS

Rational-economic.
Social.
Self-actualisation.
Complex.
Psychological.

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 Human Resources Management in New Zealand (4th edn) – Richard Rudman

There is a belief that our orientations to work are

largely formed outside the workplace, influenced
by family, community and social class.

Another belief is that people’s desires and

expectations are formed by many influences –
including past experiences of work and life,
current work and home situations, personality,
skills and abilities.

Employee attitudes are one outcome of work

orientations. When economic conditions are good,
people tend to choose their workplace according
to their orientations – leading to largely self-
selected workplaces with shared expectations.
And they feel controlled when adverse labour
market conditions reduce their choices. Schein
categorizes the arrangement of people’s
orientation to work in three main groups:

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 Human Resources Management in New Zealand (4th edn) – Richard Rudman

Instrumental or economic orientation

– concerned with money, material goods
and security;

Relational or social orientation –

concerned with relationships, friendship
and other people.

Personal or psychological orientation

– concerned with job interest, job
satisfaction and personal growth.

WORK BELIEFS
- Work ethic
- Organisational belief system
- Marxist-related beliefs
- Humanistic belief system
- Leisure ethic.

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 Human Resources Management in New Zealand (4th edn) – Richard Rudman

ATTITUDES TO WORK
Ancient times
Greeks’ attitudes
Hebrew belief system
Protestants thought that serving to
God should be done through work.
Modern era

TRENDS IN WORK AND

EMPLOYMENT
Contemporary trends in work and
employment are driven by various
influences, including globalisation,
competitive pressures, ‘new right’,
economic and political ideologies,
information and communication
technologies, the biological and genetic
revolutions, demographic changes, and
the increased participation of women in
the workplace.

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 Human Resources Management in New Zealand (4th edn) – Richard Rudman

RISING UNEMPLOYMENT
Unemployment and under-employment
have been growing steadily, at least in developed
countries, since the end of the Second World War.
There are both macro and micro-economic causes.
- Demography;
- Employment quality (many jobs are casual
or contingent);
- Aging people have difficulties to find new
jobs or retaining current ones.

GROWTH IN NON-STANDARD EMPLOYMENT

There is a steady increase in non-standard
employment – which includes part-time work,
short-term or casual employment, contracting,
self-employment and temporary or agency
work. Non-standard employment offers
flexibility to both employers and employees
and reduction of labour costs for employers.

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 Human Resources Management in New Zealand (4th edn) – Richard Rudman

CHANGES IN SKILLS AND SECTORS

Industry and organisational changes
have produced a matrix of shifts – from the
productive sector to service-based industries,
from ‘blue-collar’ to ‘white-collar’ occupations,
and from unskilled and semi-skilled roles to
technical, professional and managerial
positions. These shifts bring an obviious need
for different and higher skills.

STATIC EARNINGS AND A GROWING GAP

There is a growing gap in earning

income between people are able to move with
the times and those who are unable to
respond, as well as most people in non-
standard forms of employment.

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 Human Resources Management in New Zealand (4th edn) – Richard Rudman

THREE SCENARIOS

THE PESSIMISTIC LOOK

THE OPTIMISTIC VIEW
BUSINESS AS USUAL?

THE CHANGING WORKFORCE

Demographic trends.
Workforce trends.
Economic trends.
Work/ life trends.

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 Human Resources Management in New Zealand (4th edn) – Richard Rudman

DEMOGRAPHIC TRENDS IN NEW ZEALAND

The population growth rate is slowing
The population is ageing (therefore the
workforce is ageing)
The workforce is more female
The workforce is more ethnically diverse
A more educated workforce

THE NEW WORKER

Economic and social changes, and the
demographic trends that accompany them, will
determine the future composition and nature of
the workplace.
- Workers of the future should have good
education;
- People’s life styles and life circumstances are
changing. People want to work to live not live to
work. People will work less;
- Females work more but they might have children,
so their work will be constructed around them
and their responsibilities.

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 Human Resources Management in New Zealand (4th edn) – Richard Rudman

KNOWLEDGE WORKERS
Knowledge workers rely on knowledge
rather than skills to perform their jobs.
Scientists, engineers, public relations
executives, bankers, lawyers, real estate
developers, consultants, strategic planners,
systems analysts, architects, cinematographers,
publishers, writers, musicians and university
professors.

KNOWLEDGE WORKERS (Characteristics)

- They rarely come into direct contact with the ultimate

beneficiaries of their work.
- They often have partners or associates rather than
bosses or supervisors.
- Their income may vary from time to time, and are not
directly related to how much time they put in or work they
put out, but rather to the quality and originality with which
they identify, solve or broker new problems.
- Their careers are not linear or hierarchical.
- They often work alone or in small teams.
- They spend long hours at computers, in meetings and on
the telephone, and in places and hotels – advising, making
presentations, giving briefings, doing deals.
- They usually have post-graduate degrees.

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 Human Resources Management in New Zealand (4th edn) – Richard Rudman

MANAGING THE KNOWLEDGE WORKER

These people are:

- Less responsive to formal authority, more
responsive to the authority of knowledge and
skill;
- More concerned about self and total life style
than about specific career issues;
- Likely to be involved id dual career situation
and, therefore, less mobile geographically.
- More motivated by project and job challenge
than by organisation, Less loyal to organisaion.
- More motivated by continuous growth and
learning.

There is DEMAND and SUPPLY for and of workforce on

the market and the condition of the labour market defines the
requirements for specific occupations.

THREE TYPES OF LABOUR MARKET

Geographical labour market (where the work is situated and
how far is it to get to it?)

Job market (the area in which people move as they follow their
employment career).

Wage market (the area in which a particular wage or level of

remuneration is paid for a particular kind of work).

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 Human Resources Management in New Zealand (4th edn) – Richard Rudman

WORKERS COMPETITION
It makes people search for job differently, be a
better employee (commitment), constantly
educate yourself in order to stay competitive, etc.
What would you do to stay competitive?

STRUCTURE IN LABOUR MARKETS

Consistency in recruitment, selection,
remuneration and other employment activities
state that these practices
Are established by law, by negotiation and
contract, by custom, and by organisational
policies or management decision
Establish the rights and privileges of employees
Introduce certainty and consistency to the
management of people in the organisation, and
Have the effect of limiting managerial discretion.

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 Human Resources Management in New Zealand (4th edn) – Richard Rudman

LABOUR MARKET AND

ORGANISATIONAL SIZE

Large organisations are more likely to pay close

attention to the detailed requirements of legislation, and
more likely to attract the interest of union officials and
government inspectors if they do not.

The general state of employer-employee relations is

often affected by organisational size. Smaller
organisations boast ‘a family atmosphere’ and ‘a
personal approach’, while larger organisations usually
have more formalised procedures. The bigger the
company the less chance that the top management
knows every employee in person. This role is given to
managers now. So…

Size is significant for the

nature of personal
relationships in the
organisation and for the
formality of the employer-
employee relationship.

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 Human Resources Management in New Zealand (4th edn) – Richard Rudman

Constraints on managerial
freedom
The traditional bureaucratic model has
‘administration’ rather than ‘management’ as its
central feature and it prescribes detailed rules
for the behaviour and employment of public
servants. It relies heavily of rules. Moreover, the
shift towards performance seems more as a
mechanism for control than an encouragement
for flexibility and entrepreneurism.

-Government have frequently seen public-sector

employment, which they can control directly, as
a testing ground for new labour market policies.
E.g. equal pay was introduced by legislation to
NZ’s government sector more than a decade
before the Equal Pay Act 1972 was enacted to
cover other employers.

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 Human Resources Management in New Zealand (4th edn) – Richard Rudman

IMPACT OF MANAGEMENT
- There is still a tendency to look overseas for
models and to transplant them directly into the
new environment.

The importance of systematic approaches to all

aspects of HR management has been
increasingly recognised in the past three or four
decades, leading to greater professionalism
through networking contacts and organisations
like the Human Resources Institute of New
Zealand.

Added structure in labour markets

Labour markets operate no more perfectly
than other markets, and their behaviour cannot be
explained simply in terms of supplky and demand.
Labour market participants – employers, workers,
governments – do not always behave rationally, ,
i.e. in accordance with theoretical models. E.g. an
individual may stay in a job for reasons of
sentiment, familiarity, convenience or inertia –
even though a higher paying job is available with
a competitor employer. This means that we must
identify the causes of ‘added structure’ in labour
markets.

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 Human Resources Management in New Zealand (4th edn) – Richard Rudman

LABOUR MARKET FLEXIBILITY

Attempts to manipulate labour markets to aid economic

growth are a constant theme in liberal market economics.

The importance of flexible labour markets.

For human resources to be used most efficiently, it is

important that labour markets be as flexible as possible.
Where there is a high degree of freedom to contract between
employer and employee, skill acquisition will be encouraged,
virtually all workers genuinely seeking jobs will soon find
them, abour will tend to flow to those areas of the economy
where it is most needed, and there will be strong incentives
for employers and employees to strike deals that maximise
productivity.

Labour flexibility
Functional and skills flexibility – employees’ job
assignments are changed according to needs and
circumstances. Employees must be willing to
adopt new work practices and to move freely
between different work tasks.
Numerical flexibility – employers adjust employee
numbers to meet changing demands and
economic conditions.
Flexible work patterns – employees numbers are
not changed, but their working hours are adjusted
to meet the organisation’s production or service
needs.

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 Human Resources Management in New Zealand (4th edn) – Richard Rudman

Wage flexibility – the employer’s ability to adjust

wages, and thus labour costs, is subject to both
legislative and negotiated constraints in New
Zealand, and in most other countries.
Externalisation – part of an organisation’s work is
carried out by enterprises or individuals outside the
organisation. The work maybe outsourced or
performed on-site by contractors.
Geographical mobility – the ability of workers to move
freely between different regions, and even different
countries, may be less relevant to labour flexibility in
an isolated country like New Zealand that it is in EU.

Types of unemployment

Cyclical unemployment – which increases when there is economic

recession and falls in times of prosperity, but has recently shown
signs of becoming ‘uncoupled’ from the cycles of economic
activity.
Seasonal unemployment – which occurs, for example, when fruit
pickers are laid off at the end of the harvest, or building and
construction activity is lower during winter.
Frictional unemployment – which counts people who are ‘between
jobs’ and thus reflects the fact that people are constantly
changing jobs, employers and locations.
Structural unemployment – which is influenced by general
economic activity, but results more directly from a reduced
demand for particular labour and skills as a result of new
technological and processes, and changes in customer’s needs
and preferences.

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 Human Resources Management in New Zealand (4th edn) – Richard Rudman

Labour force participation

„ The size of the labour force is

determined by the number of
people of working age, who are
available for work and wanting
employment.

Implications for HR management

(in times of improving
communication)
- Improved employee
communications
- New training needs
- Legal questions
- Ethical dilemmas
- Fear of change.

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 Human Resources Management in New Zealand (4th edn) – Richard Rudman

Influences on job design

„ Scientific management
„ Human relations school
„ Sociotechnical systems
„ Work reform

Job design methods

„ Job rotation
„ Job enlargement
„ Job enrichment
„ Socio-technical systems
„ Team work
„ Work reform

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 Human Resources Management in New Zealand (4th edn) – Richard Rudman

Job design and motivation

Cooper Turner & Lawrence

„ Variety „ Variety
„ Discretion „ Autonomy
„ Goals „ Interactions
„ Contribution „ Knowledge and
skills
„ Responsibility

Job characteristics model

„ Skill variety
„ Task identity
„ Task significance
„ Autonomy
„ Task feedback
- Hackman and Oldham

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 Human Resources Management in New Zealand (4th edn) – Richard Rudman

Job analysis

„ Process of gathering, assessing

and recording information
„ Focus on the job, not the job
holder
„ Foundation for most HR activities

Job analysis methods

„ Interviews
„ Standard Form Questionnaire
„ Position Analysis Questionnaire
„ Functional Job Analysis

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 Human Resources Management in New Zealand (4th edn) – Richard Rudman

Job analysis methods

„ Other Methods
„ Checklists
„ Observation
„ Group Interviews
„ Technical Conferences
„ Diary Method
„ Work participation
„ Critical Incidents
„ Essays
„ Computer ‘interviews”

Job analysis

„ Many uses
„ HR planning, job and work design,
recruitment and selection, performance
planning and review, training and
development, job evaluation and
remuneration
„ Many methods
„ Interview, questionnaire, functional
analysis, checklists, observation

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 Human Resources Management in New Zealand (4th edn) – Richard Rudman

Contemporary issues

„ Accurate only while job unchanged

„ Unable to cope with changes in
nature of work
„ Forces boundaries to be drawn
„ Assumptions of job analysis no
longer appropriate
But what are the alternatives?

Job descriptions

„ Describe the work that is actually

done and the reasons for doing it
„ Describe relationships between
positions
„ Can outline expected contributions
to achievement of work or
organisation goals

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 Human Resources Management in New Zealand (4th edn) – Richard Rudman

Job description difficulties

„ Quality, style and coverage may

vary widely within organisation
„ Have to describe dynamic and
changing situations in static form
„ Usefulness not recognised by
potential users

Effective job descriptions

„ Keep language simple and clear

„ Do not overstate or exaggerate
„ Do not confuse with person profiles
„ Produce jointly and agree contents

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 Human Resources Management in New Zealand (4th edn) – Richard Rudman

Job description contents

„ Job title
„ Job purpose
„ Reporting relationships
„ Administrative information
„ Authorities
„ Key results areas

Person profiles

„ Set out skills, knowledge and other

personal characteristics required
for acceptable job performance

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 Human Resources Management in New Zealand (4th edn) – Richard Rudman

Person profile contents

„ Education
„ Training
„ Skills and experience
„ Personality
„ Working environment
„ Physical demands

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