2 · Human resources and motivation

IB Diploma Programme Business Management HL, Unit 2 Human resource management (first assessment 2024). This topic covers sections 2.1 to 2.7: human resource planning, organisational structure, leadership, motivation, organisational culture (HL), communication and employee relations (HL). The worked examples follow the course's repair business, which has now grown to 80 employees in four workshops.

Every year Google, Haidilao and many other firms spend large sums on staff benefits, training and team events. Haidilao's waiters are famous for their friendly service, and the company gives them real power to please customers: a waiter can give a free dish or a discount without asking a manager. Why would a firm trust its lowest-paid workers like this? This topic is about the people in a business: how they are organised, led, motivated and kept.

Must-know for this topic:

Workforce planning

Human resource management 人力资源管理 (HRM) makes sure the business has the right number of people, with the right skills, in the right jobs, at the right time. Workforce planning 劳动力规划 compares the staff a business will need with the staff it has, and plans how to close the gap.

Labour turnover 员工流动率 measures how many workers leave in a year:

Worked example. The repair business has an average of 80 staff. In one year 12 leave. Labour turnover $= 12 \div 80 \times 100 = 15\%$. Each leaver must be replaced, so the business pays for recruitment and training, and it loses skills and customer knowledge. Some turnover is healthy: new staff bring new ideas.

Internal and external factors

Internal factors include the firm's objectives, its budget, its structure, and changes in technology. External factors include:

• demographic change 人口结构变化: for example, an ageing workforce;
• labour mobility 劳动力流动性: how easily workers move between jobs and places;
• migration 移民: workers coming from or going to other countries;
• new working patterns: flexi-time 弹性工作制 (choosing when to work the agreed hours), teleworking 远程办公 (working from home or elsewhere), and the gig economy 零工经济 of short-term jobs paid task by task, as for delivery riders.

Recruitment, training, appraisal and dismissal

Recruitment 招聘 follows common steps: identify the vacancy, write a job description 职位描述 (the tasks of the job) and a person specification 人员规格 (the skills and qualities needed), advertise, shortlist, interview or test, and appoint.

• Internal recruitment fills the job with someone already in the firm. It is quicker and cheaper, and the person knows the business. But it brings no new ideas, and it leaves another job empty.
• External recruitment brings in new skills and ideas, but it costs more and takes longer.

Training 培训:

• Induction training 入职培训 introduces new staff to the firm, its rules and its people.
• On-the-job training 在职培训 happens while working, for example by watching an experienced worker. Off-the-job training 脱产培训 happens away from the workplace, such as a college course.
• Cognitive training 认知培训 develops thinking skills; behavioural training 行为培训 develops how people act with others, such as teamwork and dealing with customers.

Appraisal 绩效评估 judges how well an employee is doing:

• formative: ongoing feedback to help the person improve;
• summative: a final judgement at the end of a period, often linked to pay;
• 360-degree: feedback from managers, colleagues, junior staff and sometimes customers;
• self-appraisal: employees judge their own work.

Employment can end through dismissal 解雇 (for a fair reason, such as serious misconduct) or redundancy 裁员 (the job itself is no longer needed). Redundancy is not the worker's fault, so laws often require a payment.

Resistance to change (HL)

Workers often resist change in the workplace. The main reasons are:

• self-interest: they fear losing pay, status or their job;
• low tolerance of change: they want security and routine;
• misinformation: they do not know the real reasons for the change;
• different interpretation: they judge the situation differently from managers.

HR strategies to reduce resistance include explaining the reasons early, involving workers in planning the change, training them for new tasks, offering support, and negotiating where some workers clearly lose. Managing change 变革管理 means planning and controlling it carefully; leading change 引领变革 means inspiring people to want it. A business that builds flexibility 灵活性 and adaptability 适应能力 into its workforce finds every later change easier.

The key terms

• Span of control 管理幅度: the number of people a manager directly supervises.
• Levels of hierarchy 层级: the number of layers of management.
• Chain of command 指挥链: the line of authority from the top to the bottom.
• Delegation 授权: passing authority to a junior. The manager still keeps the responsibility.
• Centralisation 集权 keeps decisions at the top; decentralisation 分权 passes them down.
• Bureaucracy 官僚制度: many rules and procedures.
• Delayering 减少层级: removing levels of management.

Worked example. At the repair business, the owner and four workshop managers supervise 75 mechanics: three levels, and a span of 18 or 19 mechanics per workshop manager. That is too wide for coaching new mechanics. The owner adds a senior mechanic in each workshop. Now there are four levels and each senior mechanic supervises 9 or 10 people. Training improves, but a customer complaint now passes through one more link in the chain of command.

Types of structure

An organisation chart 组织结构图 can be arranged:

• by function, as a functional structure 职能型结构: departments for marketing, finance, operations and HR;
• by product, as a product-based structure 产品型结构: a division for each product line;
• by region, as a regional structure 地区型结构: a division for each country or area.

A matrix structure 矩阵结构 crosses functions with projects. Each person works in a project team but also belongs to a department, so they have two managers. This brings mixed skills together, but two bosses can give different orders.

Project-based organisation and the shamrock (HL)

In a project-based organisation 项目型组织, work is arranged around projects. Teams form for a project and break up when it ends. Advertising agencies and building firms often work this way.

Charles Handy's shamrock organisation 三叶草组织 has three groups of workers, like the three leaves of a shamrock:

• the core workers 核心员工: permanent managers and experts who are vital to the business;
• the contractual fringe 合同外包人员: outside firms paid to do particular jobs, such as cleaning, IT or catering;
• the flexible workforce 弹性劳动力: part-time, temporary and seasonal staff.

The shamrock lowers costs and lets the business grow or shrink quickly. But the flexible workers may feel little loyalty, and quality is harder to control.

Management and leadership

Management 管理 is about getting things done. Henri Fayol listed its functions: planning, organising, commanding, coordinating and controlling. Leadership 领导力 is about setting a direction and inspiring people to follow it. A good manager is not always a good leader, and the reverse is also true.

Leadership styles

The best style depends on the situation: the task, the time available, the skills of the workers, and the culture of the business.

Motivation 激励 is the will to work hard and well. Motivated workers produce more, make fewer mistakes, and are less likely to leave. Demotivation 积极性下降 shows up as absence, low effort and high labour turnover.

Content theories

• Frederick Taylor 泰勒: workers are motivated mainly by money. He used scientific management 科学管理: break each job into simple tasks, find the fastest method, and pay by output (piece rate 计件工资). Critics say people want more than money, and repeated simple tasks are boring.

• Abraham Maslow 马斯洛: people have a hierarchy of needs 需求层次. A lower need must be met before the next one motivates.

  At work: pay meets physiological needs; a safe job and a contract meet safety needs; teams meet social needs; praise and job titles meet esteem needs; challenging work meets self-actualisation 自我实现 needs. The order does not fit everyone: an artist may chase self-actualisation before security.

• Frederick Herzberg 赫茨伯格: two separate sets of factors. Hygiene factors 保健因素 such as pay and conditions do not motivate, but if they are poor, workers become unhappy. Motivators 激励因素 such as recognition and responsibility create real motivation.

• David McClelland 麦克利兰: people are driven by three learned needs: the need for achievement 成就需要 (to do well), the need for affiliation 亲和需要 (to be liked and belong) and the need for power 权力需要 (to influence others). Managers should match jobs to each person's strongest need.

• Deci and Ryan 德西和瑞安: self-determination theory 自我决定理论. People are most motivated when they feel autonomy 自主 (control over their work), competence 胜任 (being good at it) and relatedness 关联 (connection to others).

Process theories (HL)

• Equity theory 公平理论 (Adams): workers compare what they put in (effort, skill, time) and what they get out (pay, praise) with other workers. If they feel it is unfair, they lose motivation, work less, or leave.
• Expectancy theory 期望理论 (Vroom): workers are motivated only if they believe that effort leads to better performance, that performance leads to a reward, and that the reward is worth having. If any one link breaks, motivation falls.

Financial and non-financial rewards

Worked example. At the repair business, most of the 12 leavers were mechanics on piece rates. They felt their effort was wasted when spare parts arrived late. Herzberg would say late parts and pay disputes are hygiene failures to fix first. Expectancy theory (HL) says the link from effort to reward is broken. The owner fixes parts delivery, changes pay to a basic salary plus a team bonus, and starts formative appraisal. If turnover falls to 6 leavers a year, the rate becomes $6 \div 80 \times 100 = 7.5\%$, and the business saves the cost of six replacements.

Organisational culture 组织文化 is the shared values, beliefs and habits of the people in a business: "the way we do things here". It shows in dress, language, office layout, stories about the founder, and how mistakes are treated.

Charles Handy described four types:

• Power culture 权力文化: one powerful person or small group at the centre controls everything. Decisions are fast, but depend on that person.
• Role culture 角色文化: clear jobs, rules and procedures, as in a government office or a large bank. Stable, but slow to change.
• Task culture 任务文化: teams form to solve problems; expertise matters more than rank. Flexible and creative, but hard to control.
• Person culture 个人文化: individuals with their own expertise work under one roof, as in a law firm or a group of doctors.

Culture clashes 文化冲突 happen when two cultures meet: after a merger or takeover, when a new leader arrives, or when a firm expands into another country. Clashes can cause conflict, lower motivation, staff leaving and poor decisions. Leaders influence culture strongly: what they reward, and how they behave, slowly becomes "the way we do things".

Worked example. The repair business takes over a rival. The rival has a role culture with written procedures for every job. The repair business has a task culture of self-managing teams. The new mechanics feel lost without clear rules, and the original mechanics dislike the extra paperwork. This is a culture clash. The owner keeps a few simple written procedures, mixes the two groups in new teams, and explains what will and will not change.

Communication 沟通 is the passing of information from a sender to a receiver.

• Formal communication 正式沟通 follows official channels: meetings, reports, emails and notices.
• Informal communication 非正式沟通 happens outside them: chats and rumours (the grapevine 小道消息). It is fast, but often wrong.

Barriers to communication 沟通障碍 include language and jargon 行话 (technical words others do not know), too much information, the wrong channel (bad news by email), physical distance and time zones, cultural differences, and lack of trust. A tall structure adds another barrier: messages change as they pass through many levels.

Industrial relations 劳资关系 are the relations between employers and employees. Conflict comes from pay, working conditions, job security, and change (new technology, new shifts, closures).

Employees usually act together through a trade union 工会. Their methods include:

• collective bargaining 集体谈判: the union negotiates for all its members;
• work-to-rule 按章工作: doing only exactly what the contract says;
• an overtime ban 拒绝加班;
• a strike 罢工: stopping work completely.

Employers may respond with negotiation, changes to contracts, threats of closure or redundancy, or a lock-out 停工闭厂 (keeping workers out of the workplace).

Ways to settle conflict:

• Conciliation 调解: a neutral third party helps the two sides talk and reach their own agreement.
• Arbitration 仲裁: a neutral third party listens to both sides and then makes the decision. Binding arbitration must be accepted.
• Employee participation 员工参与: workers have a say in decisions, for example through works councils.
• No-strike agreements 不罢工协议: the union agrees not to strike, often in return for binding arbitration.

Conciliation keeps the decision with the two sides, so they are more likely to accept it. Arbitration is faster and gives a clear answer, but one side may feel it lost.

• The role of HRM and workforce planning; labour turnover $= 12 \div 80 \times 100 = 15\%$ and its costs (2.1).
• Internal and external factors: demographic change, labour mobility, migration, flexi-time, teleworking and the gig economy (2.1).
• Recruitment steps, job description and person specification, internal against external; induction, on-the-job, off-the-job, cognitive and behavioural training; formative, summative, 360-degree and self-appraisal; dismissal against redundancy (2.1).
• HL resistance to change: self-interest, low tolerance, misinformation, different interpretation; strategies; managing against leading change (2.1).
• Span of control, levels, chain of command, delegation, centralisation, bureaucracy, delayering; tall against flat; by function, product or region; matrix; HL project-based and shamrock (2.2).
• Management functions; management against leadership; autocratic, paternalistic, democratic, laissez-faire and situational styles (2.3).
• Taylor, Maslow, Herzberg, McClelland, Deci and Ryan; HL equity and expectancy theory; financial and non-financial rewards; the turnover fix from 15% to 7.5% (2.4).
• HL culture: Handy's power, role, task and person cultures; culture clashes and the role of leaders (2.5).
• Formal and informal communication; the barriers (2.6).
• HL employee relations: sources of conflict; collective bargaining, work-to-rule, overtime bans, strikes, lock-outs; conciliation, arbitration, participation, no-strike agreements (2.7).