Glossary

Ability tests

Paper-and-pencil quizzes, usually multiple-choice, that measure an applicant’s knowledge of specific work content or cognitive ability.

Assessment centre tests

Programs that typically simulate managerial tasks.

Behaviour-Based Appraisal

A subjective evaluation of the way an employee performs job tasks.

Compensation system

The basis on which an organization gives money, goods, or services to its employees in exchange for their work.

Human resource management (HRM)

All activities that forecast the number and type of employees on organization will need and then find and develop employees with necessary skills.

Human resource planning

The forecasting of an organization’s future demand for employees and the future supply of employees within the organization, and the designing of programs to correct the discrepancy between the two.

Integrity tests

Tests that measure an applicant’s attitudes and opinions about dysfunctional actions such as theft, sabotage, physical abuse, and substance abuse.

Job analysis

The systematic process of gathering information about important work-related aspects pf a job.

Job evaluation methods

Techniques that determine the value of an organization’s jobs and arrange these jobs in order of pay according to their value.

On-the-job training

A technique in which the employee learns the job tasks while actually performing the job.

Orientation

The process of familiarising newly hired employees with fellow workers, company procedures, and the physical properties of the organization.

Performance appraisal

A formal measurement of the quantity and quality of an employee's work within a specific period of time.

Performance or work-sample tests

Examinations that verify an applicant’s ability to perform actual job activities identified from a job analysis.

Personality inventories

Programs that measure the thoughts, feelings, and actions that define an individual and determine that person’s pattern of interaction with the environment.

Physical examinations

Tests that qualify an individual’s placement in manually and physically demanding jobs.

Promotion

The advancement of a current employee to a higher-level job within the organization.

Recruiting

The process of attracting potential new employees to the organization.

Selection

The process of collecting systematic information about applicants and using that information to decide which applicants to hire.

Termination

The separation of an employee from the organization.

The Wage and Salary Survey

A study that tells the company how much compensation is paid by comparable firms for specific jobs the firms have in common.

Training

The process of instructing employees in their job tasks and socialising them into the organization’s values, attitudes, and other aspects of its culture.

Training and experience form

An application device that presents a small number of the important tasks of a job and asks the applicants whether they have ever performed or been trained in each of the activities.