People

What People covers

People is examined in Component 01, Business activity, marketing and people. It covers human resource management and workforce planning, full-time, part-time, permanent and temporary contracts, flexible, shift and remote working, organisational design, flexibility and intrapreneurship, tall, flat, matrix and divisional structures, levels of hierarchy, span of control and delayering, authority, delegation and centralisation, why motivation matters at work, salary, wages, piece rates and commission, bonuses, profit sharing, pensions and fringe benefits, recognition, empowerment and job design, work-life balance, wellbeing and inclusion at work, leadership, vision and company culture, autocratic, democratic and transformational leadership, employee voice, suggestion schemes and works councils, trade unions, collective bargaining and strikes, redundancy, fair dismissal and unfair dismissal, internal and external recruitment, CVs, interviews and assessment centres, the benefits of training and development, induction, on-the-job and off-the-job training, coaching, mentoring, shadowing and apprenticeships, employee turnover and retention and absenteeism and employee productivity.

The 24 subtopics

Each one has its own page.

• Human resource management and workforce planningRecall questions on the purpose of human resource management, labour resource needs, workforce planning and skills audits, closing a labour shortfall, and staffing plans for growing and seasonal businesses.Open →
• Full-time, part-time, permanent and temporary contractsRecall questions on full-time and part-time work, permanent, temporary and fixed-term contracts, their benefits and drawbacks for businesses and employees, their effect on labour costs, and the right contract mix.Open →
• Flexible, shift and remote workingRecall questions on flexible working, shift and night working, hybrid working and homeworking, employees compared with self-employed contractors, and how flexible working affects recruitment, retention and supervision.Open →
• Organisational design, flexibility and intrapreneurshipRecall questions on the purpose of organisational design, signs that a business has outgrown its structure, and how structure affects flexibility, intrapreneurship, employee development, communication and costs.Open →
• Tall, flat, matrix and divisional structuresRecall questions on hierarchical structures, tall and flat structures, functional, product-based and geographical structures, and matrix structures, with the advantages and weaknesses of each.Open →
• Levels of hierarchy, span of control and delayeringRecall questions on levels of hierarchy, the chain of command, span of control and subordinates, calculating supervisor numbers and restructuring savings, and the benefits and risks of delayering.Open →
• Authority, delegation and centralisationRecall questions on authority, responsibility and accountability, delegation and the conditions for it to succeed, and the advantages and drawbacks of centralisation and decentralisation.Open →
• Why motivation matters at workRecall questions on motivation and the human needs work satisfies, why pay alone rarely motivates, and how motivation affects productivity, quality, labour turnover, recruitment, supervision costs and discretionary effort.Open →
• Salary, wages, piece rates and commissionRecall questions on salaries, hourly wages and overtime, piece rates and commission, calculating pay under each method, and when each suits a role or creates risks for quality and employees.Open →
• Bonuses, profit sharing, pensions and fringe benefitsRecall questions on bonuses, performance-related pay, profit sharing and calculating each employee's share, workplace pensions, fringe benefits, and the drawbacks of relying on financial rewards to motivate.Open →
• Recognition, empowerment and job designRecall questions on non-financial motivation, praise and recognition schemes, the working environment, promotion opportunities, empowerment, job enrichment and job rotation, and when non-financial motivators fail.Open →
• Work-life balance, wellbeing and inclusion at workRecall questions on employee morale, work-life balance, mental health awareness and presenteeism, equality, diversity, inclusion and belonging, and interpreting engagement and wellbeing survey data.Open →
• Leadership, vision and company cultureRecall questions on leadership and management, a business's vision, organisational culture and modelling core values, creating an inclusive environment, and why leadership matters most during change.Open →
• Autocratic, democratic and transformational leadershipRecall questions on autocratic, democratic, laissez-faire, paternalistic and transformational leadership styles, the benefits and drawbacks of each, which style suits a situation, and changing style as a business grows.Open →
• Employee voice, suggestion schemes and works councilsRecall questions on employee voice and its channels, suggestion schemes, participative decision making, works councils, consultation and negotiation, and the benefits, costs and risks of employee participation.Open →
• Trade unions, collective bargaining and strikesRecall questions on the purposes of trade unions, collective bargaining, the legal help unions provide, strikes, overtime bans, picketing and other industrial action, and the costs of strikes to businesses and employees.Open →
• Redundancy, fair dismissal and unfair dismissalRecall questions on voluntary and involuntary redundancy, how redundancies should be handled, fair grounds for dismissal, unfair dismissal and whistleblowing, and the costs of handling a dismissal badly.Open →
• Internal and external recruitmentRecall questions on internal and external recruitment and their advantages and drawbacks, job descriptions and person specifications, job advertisements, employment agencies, online recruitment and the cost of poor recruitment.Open →
• CVs, interviews and assessment centresRecall questions on CVs, application forms and letters of application, interviews and structured interviews, references, selection tests, group activities and assessment centres, and choosing selection methods for a role.Open →
• The benefits of training and developmentRecall questions on training and development and how they affect productivity, customer service, motivation and retention, skills shortages, multi-skilling, statutory training, and why some businesses are reluctant to train.Open →
• Induction, on-the-job and off-the-job trainingRecall questions on induction and onboarding, on-the-job and off-the-job training, workshops and online learning, the advantages and drawbacks of each, and which method suits training a new machine operator.Open →
• Coaching, mentoring, shadowing and apprenticeshipsRecall questions on coaching, mentoring and job shadowing, apprenticeships and their benefits and risks, training needs analysis, and how a business judges whether its training spending has been worthwhile.Open →
• Employee turnover and retentionRecall questions on calculating employee turnover and the retention rate, the costs of staff leaving, comparing turnover with the industry average, why some turnover is healthy, and actions that reduce turnover.Open →
• Absenteeism and employee productivityRecall questions on calculating absenteeism rates and their cost, causes of absence and how to reduce it, calculating output and revenue per employee, raising productivity, and reading turnover, absence and productivity together.Open →

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Take People further

The same content, four other ways.

Commonly confused

Pairs that lose marks when they are blurred together.

• Responsibility vs Accountability

  Responsibility: the duty to carry out a task that has been given to you. Accountability: having to answer for how a task turned out, whoever actually carried it out.

• Authority vs Power

  Authority: the right that comes with a post to make decisions, give instructions and commit resources. Power: the ability to influence what other people do, which someone can hold without holding a senior post.

• Delayering vs Downsizing

  Delayering: removing one or more levels of management from the structure, usually middle management. Downsizing: cutting the total number of employees, which can leave every level of management in place.

Questions from this topic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   What is human resource management?

   Model answer

   Human resource management is the management of the people a business employs, covering how workers are planned for, recruited, organised, motivated, developed and released.

2. 2

   State the central purpose of human resource management.

   Model answer

   Its purpose is to identify the labour a business needs and to make sure that labour is available, capable and productive at the time it is needed.

3. 3

   What is meant by a business's labour resource needs?

   Model answer

   They are the number of workers it requires, with the skills, hours and locations needed to deliver its planned level of output.

4. 4

   How does a business identify a gap between the workforce it has and the workforce it needs?

   Model answer

   It forecasts the labour required for planned output and compares that with the current workforce's numbers, skills, hours and expected leavers, and the difference is the gap.

5. 5

   Name three ways a business can close a shortfall in the labour it needs.

   Model answer

   It can recruit externally, train or redeploy existing employees, or take on temporary workers.

6. 6

   What is workforce planning?

   Model answer

   Workforce planning is forecasting the number and type of employees a business will need in the future and planning how to obtain, develop and keep them.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.

People revision questions

What does People cover in OCR A-Level Business (H436)?

24 subtopics: human resource management and workforce planning, full-time, part-time, permanent and temporary contracts, flexible, shift and remote working, organisational design, flexibility and intrapreneurship, tall, flat, matrix and divisional structures, levels of hierarchy, span of control and delayering, authority, delegation and centralisation, why motivation matters at work, salary, wages, piece rates and commission, bonuses, profit sharing, pensions and fringe benefits, recognition, empowerment and job design, work-life balance, wellbeing and inclusion at work, leadership, vision and company culture, autocratic, democratic and transformational leadership, employee voice, suggestion schemes and works councils, trade unions, collective bargaining and strikes, redundancy, fair dismissal and unfair dismissal, internal and external recruitment, cvs, interviews and assessment centres, the benefits of training and development, induction, on-the-job and off-the-job training, coaching, mentoring, shadowing and apprenticeships, employee turnover and retention and absenteeism and employee productivity. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.

How is People organised?

By the OCR H436 specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.