Introduction to Human Resource Concepts

Discover what the HR assistant does, explore the role and career paths, and examine the employment outlook for the next 10 to 20 years.

Act as the go-to person for HR administration, supporting department development and serving as the interface between management and employees. Manage HRIS data and contribute to training, benefits, and compensation.

Build a safe, ergonomic workplace and serve as the interface between employees and technology to develop a workforce and employee oriented culture focused on quality, continuous improvement, and high performance.

Explore potential careers for HR assistants across industries, including federal, local government, and private sector roles. Federal roles offer around $44,000 annually, with local government around $42,000 and strong growth.

Explore industries with the highest concentration of employment per the bls, including federal government, and how starting in hr opens diverse paths through personal development and building skills in others.

Explore which industries pay higher for human resources work, noting metal ore mining leads at about $26 per hour and an average near $50,000, with manufacturing enduring.

Discover the strong employment outlook in human resources with about $52,000 per year, benefits, no experience required, on the job training, and 21% growth with nearly 500,000 openings.

Explore how an HR assistant shapes work enjoyment by enabling growth. Discover diverse HR career paths, a strong employment outlook across industries, and the training you need, including this course.

Learn basic HR management, including HR planning, forecasting supply and demand, matching supply with demand, and culture diversity, with a focus on attracting and retaining employees.

Implement HR strategies to attract, acquire, maintain, and develop employees, leverage intrapreneurs and pet projects, and onboard a rich pool of qualified candidates.

Collaborate with line managers to survey and improve current employees' job satisfaction, ensure fair compensation and benefits, deliver targeted training, conduct safety and performance appraisals, and guide growth or transitions.

HR planning forecasts future workforce needs and anticipates retirements to prevent leadership gaps. It emphasizes internal development, succession planning, mentoring, and internships to ensure a ready, capable workforce.

Balance art and science in forecasting demand by analyzing historical data with HRIS and manual tools, using scenario models to plan rightsizing during expansions or contractions.

Forecasting supply emphasizes accounting for attrition, and using replacement charts and skills inventories to anticipate future staffing needs.

Assess supply and demand to manage staffing as organizations grow or shrink, hiring externally or promoting internally, and dismissing tactfully while protecting invested employees and culture.

Navigate layoffs, attrition, early retirement, and dismissal in HR by balancing costs, monetary tax, and redundancy while safeguarding employee impact through tactful decisions.

Explore culture as mental programming that shapes values, norms, and workplace behavior, and learn how HR can harness diverse perspectives to create value in a global organization.

This lecture explains how cultural diversity enhances employee morale, expands the talent pool, and improves marketing by reflecting diverse perspectives and multilingual capabilities within the global workforce.

Train managers and all staff with sensitivity training to honor diverse perspectives, use group activities, recruit broadly to reflect cultural diversity, and provide English language instruction when needed.

Learn how to measure diversity and inclusion with a Likert-scale survey to gauge employee feelings, guide training and policy changes, and foster an inclusive culture that celebrates differences.

Explore HR management planning by forecasting supply and demand, pairing supply with demand, and embracing cultural diversity as an imperative for HR and the organization, to avoid planning failures.

Explore recruiting and selecting employees, guide employee orientation, and understand compensation and benefits as part of an introduction to human resource concepts.

Explore the systematic process of job analysis to identify position elements, required skills and knowledge, and how job descriptions and specifications capture duties, responsibilities, working conditions, tools, and equipment.

Explore job analysis for the human resources assistant role by identifying day-to-day responsibilities and essential skills, and learn how to pursue ongoing skill improvement.

Explore how to design and evaluate a paper-based employment application, detailing essential sections—personal info, eligibility, work history, education, military, skills, licenses, references, and safety disclosures—for effective HR screening.

Explore common resume flaws and best practices for crafting a professional, results-focused resume. Learn about chronological order, quantifying achievements, one-page formats, and keyword-driven HR screening.

Explore good resume practices within human resources: a clear, one-page resume that emphasizes employment history, measurable achievements, and precise project details.

Explore how to craft a compelling cover letter and resume, including contact details, reference IDs, and keywords, and learn how to spruce it up with passion and relevant HR skills.

Recruiting attracts qualified applicants from the available workforce through a systematic, cost-conscious approach, balancing quantity and quality to match open positions.

Explore external recruiting by looking outside the organization through internet listings, social sites, employment agencies, campus recruiting, or professional headhunters to fill positions.

External recruiting brings new perspectives and a complete skill set. It energizes teams, trains inexperienced hires, and brings hungry, younger workers with new tech skills across four generations.

External recruiting carries high costs from advertising to a headhunter and can alienate current staff. It may import prior habits that clash with policies, harming morale.

leverage internal recruiting to promote or move current staff laterally, reducing onboarding costs and training time while boosting morale and leveraging culture, energy, and ethics for predictable talent growth.

Explore the disadvantages of internal recruiting, including open positions, the need for additional recruiting or lateral transfers, and higher training costs when employees are unavailable in their current roles.

Understand the HR selection process to choose the most appropriate hires by gathering information beyond qualifications, with supervisors and managers deciding who fits well during onboarding.

Gather information in the selection process by using employment applications and resumes, combining them to learn who the applicant is, including past work experience and other pertinent details.

Explore how employment tests, including job knowledge, skills and abilities, personality and stress tests, predict performance, ensure fairness, and leverage strengths to match team fit and collaboration.

Practice concise responses that show what you bring to the organization. HR and supervisors use multiple interviews to assess fit, often three or more.

Discover how references reveal a candidate’s personality and work ethic, why employers check online profiles, and how assessment centers evaluate personality, communication, and a complete skill set.

Learn how applicants become employees through orientation, complete essential paperwork, and undergo probation, with durations ranging from 90 days to a year depending on role and organization.

Learn how to guide new hires through the i-9 form, verify work eligibility with list a/b/c documents, and maintain compliance.

Compare W-2 employee income with 1099 independent contractor income, and learn how W-4 and W-9 forms govern withholding, reporting, and taxpayer identification in payroll.

Learn how the W-4 form sets payroll withholdings and affects W-2 income and refunds. See how allowances and filing status influence deductions, with HR and payroll collaboration.

Explore the Affordable Care Act basics, including employer and individual mandates, and learn how the 1095-B and related forms verify health coverage across the year.

Explore how compensation and benefits form an employer reward system balancing wages, minimum wage, and diverse needs through fair distribution and flexible options like telecommuting to attract and retain talent.

Explore how compensation decisions balance wages, benefits, and taxes to manage costs, attract the right talent, and optimize a compensation system with wage level, structure, and individual wages.

Organizations set wage levels by benchmarking against industry averages and competitors, using supply and demand, BLS data, and wage surveys to determine prevailing local wages and training costs.

Examine how wage structure ties pay to skill, knowledge, and attitude across job categories, using job evaluation, job analysis, and a point-based system to reflect each role's value fairly.

Determine wage level and structure for each position, set individual wages within a range from 30,000 to 37,000 reflecting education and experience, with pay increases based on seniority and performance.

Comparable worth seeks equal pay for jobs requiring the same education, training, and skill. It remains controversial and subjective, with location incentives and cultural attitudes complicating fair compensation.

Explore the four compensation types—hourly, salary, commissions, and incentive payments—and how they affect pay, overtime, and HR monitoring, with practical examples.

Analyze profit sharing as a compensation type and how benefits like health care, disability insurance, and tuition reimbursement augment wages and bonuses.

Total compensation includes base salary plus benefits like health, totaling $65,000; includes paid time off and mandated coverage such as worker's comp and unemployment insurance (FUTA) reflected on pay stubs.

Review the core HR topics: recruiting to build a pool of candidates, selecting the right people, welcoming them through orientation and onboarding, completing final paperwork, and understanding compensation and benefits.

Foster personal and professional growth by strengthening ethics, communication, and essential digital skills using Microsoft tools and Outlook, guided by HR to balance life inside and outside work.

Unlock the rewards of training and development by boosting morale, preparing employees with updated skills and technologies, and illustrating ROI through analysis to support leadership and succession planning.

Conduct analysis to determine training needs and types, using HR data to identify gaps and bridge underperformance through coaching, classes, or apprenticeship, while planning cost-effective methods.

Explores five basic training methods—on-the-job training, simulations, classroom training, conferences, and role playing—and explains how analysis helps select the right method for HR training.

Evaluate training value with objective measures, set goals using action verbs, assess post-training outcomes, and ensure managers apply skills to improve conflict handling and organizational well-being.

Discover how to design and use training evaluation forms to assess trainer performance, curriculum, content, and logistics, using Likert scales and anonymous feedback.

Identify training gaps, apply the most suitable development method to bridge them, and evaluate training with objective metrics to ensure personal, professional growth.

Discover common evaluation techniques and performance feedback introduced in this part of the course, and see how they shape performance appraisals.

Frame performance appraisal as a formal evaluation of current performance and future development, providing feedback on strengths and weaknesses and informing rewards through training evaluation.

Explore objective and subjective methods of evaluation, using measurable outcomes and rating scales, with multiple evaluators to capture performance and attitudes across perspectives.

Apply a five-point rating scale from unsatisfactory to outstanding to assess quantity of work, quality, knowledge, attitude, dependability, and cooperation. Use the score to identify development needs and supervisor feedback.

Train appraisers to use the rating scale consistently and assess performance across a period. Counter halo and horn biases and avoid discrimination by applying the same measures to all employees.

Learn how performance appraisal becomes a feedback-driven conversation, using five questions to gather metrics, align goals, celebrate achievements, and guide HR's role as a bridge between employees and management.

Deliver feedback immediately after appraisal to reduce anxiety, highlight strengths and rewards, and guide conversations using tell and sell, tell and listen, and problem solving approaches.

Compare tell-and-sell feedback with dialogue-driven approaches, including self-evaluations and 360-degree reviews, to foster conversation, coaching, and personal responsibility. Emphasize informal praise and quarterly appraisals to boost morale and performance.

Apply the right evaluation technique to each situation and provide timely, measurable performance feedback to reduce anxiety, gather a complete picture, and guide promotion or career decisions.

Explore the employment bill of rights and HR acts, including National Labor Relations Act, Fair Labor Standards Act, Equal Pay Act, Civil Rights Act, and Americans with Disabilities Act.

Explore the National Labor Relations Act, established in 1935 to foster cooperation between employers and employees in union settings, and review the Department of Labor's notice for employee rights.

Explore how the National Labor Relations Act protects the right to organize and bargain collectively, negotiate wages, hours, and other conditions, and strike or file complaints through union representatives.

Identify illegal employer actions under the National Labor Relations Act, including banning union solicitation, prohibiting literature in non-work areas, threatening or firing for union involvement, and spying on union activities.

The NLRA protects workers and unions alike by prohibiting threats, guaranteeing voluntary union participation, and ensuring grievance processing and nondiscriminatory referrals, while mandating good faith bargaining between employer and union.

Learn how the National Labor Relations Act protects employee rights, when to contact the NLRB, how independent contractors are excluded from union protections, and workplace safety.

Explains the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, an amendment to the NLRA (Wagner Act) that reduces industrial disputes and balances bargaining power between employers and unions.

Explore the labor-management relations act's fivefold purpose: protect employees' and employers' rights, establish orderly grievance procedures, safeguard union rights, define labor practices, and protect the public during disputes.

Explore the Fair Labor Standards Act, establishing minimum wage and overtime pay, including the federal minimum wage of $7.25 and 1.5x overtime for hours over 40.

Explore FLSA child labor rules, including age minimums for non-farm and hazardous work, school-hour limits, and seasonal evening extensions to 9 p.m.

Learn how tip credit works, the required cash wage of at least $2.13 per hour, the employer's obligation to make up the difference, and enforcement against underpaid workers.

Explain FLSA exemptions, federal-state compliance, and poster requirements, including under-20 wage exceptions and Department of Labor certificates for workers in American Samoa and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

Explain the Equal Pay Act of 1963, mandating equal wages for men and women in equal jobs with equivalent effort, skill, and conditions, with exceptions for seniority, qualifications, or performance.

bans discrimination by organizations with 15+ employees; the eeoc enforces the civil rights act, and the 1991 amendment adds punitive damages for sexual discrimination.

Explore how the age discrimination in employment act of 1967, amended in 1986, bans age-based discrimination for employers with 20 or more employees and ended mandatory retirement in regular organizations.

Learn how the OSHA act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, shapes employee health and safety, inspections, and HR responsibilities for hard hats, steel-toed boots, and safe environments.

Learn how employees notify hazards to employers or OSHA without retaliation, have confidential conversations with OSHA, request inspections, and access OSHA citations with whistleblower protections and union involvement.

Outline how employers must fix hazards by citation deadlines and how HR partners with employees to uphold OSHA standards, protect exposure rights, and post notices in break rooms.

Explore how the Employment Retirement Income Security Act, established in 1974, protects employee retirement benefits and governs plan management, with federal insurance in bankruptcy and a college example.

Explain affirmative action as a presidential executive order, not a congressional act. It applies to 50+ employee firms with federal contracts to encourage minority applicants and hire the most qualified.

The ADA, or Americans with Disabilities Act, established in 1990, applies to organizations with 15 or more employees and requires reasonable accommodations to prevent discrimination against qualified individuals.

Lecture explains that the Americans with Disabilities Act covers heart disease, diabetes, epilepsy, cancer, Aids, and mental illnesses, and requires reasonable accommodations to enable qualified employees to perform their job.

Explore the core employer and employee rights under acts like the National Labor Relations Act and Labor Management Relations Act, including equal pay, anti-discrimination, and safety at work.

Explore what motivates people and what excites them, and review historical motivation theories including scientific management, Hawthorne studies, Maslow, Herzberg, Theory X and Y, Theory Z, and reinforcement theory.

Explore how motivation drives employee actions and how morale, influenced by job satisfaction and available tools, affects productivity and turnover. Examine how attitudes shape workplace outcomes.

Explore historical perspectives on motivation from the late 1800s to the Industrial Revolution, examining why people work, what keeps them returning, and how Taylor linked conditions to productivity.

Explore soldiering, where workers slow down to protect jobs, and learn how clear expectations, measurement, and the scientific method motivate and set productivity standards.

Apply Taylor's scientific method by breaking jobs into tasks, setting production standards, training the best person, and monitoring cashier performance with a computer system.

Explore how pay links to output through the piece rate system, productivity standards, and bonuses, reflecting the scientific method's influence in HR.

Examine Elton Mayo's Hawthorne studies to understand how work environment influences productivity, showing lighting effects and piece-rate peer pressure do not significantly change output.

Explore the Hawthorne experiments and reveal how human factors—employee involvement, group dynamics, and motivation—shaped the birth of the human relations management movement in HR practice.

Explore Maslow's hierarchy of needs, from physiological and safety needs to love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization, and learn how HR roles support safer, more fulfilling work environments.

Maslow's pyramid starts with basic needs—air, food, water, and shelter—and rises to esteem and self-actualization, with individuals moving up or down based on situations and personal priorities in the workplace.

Explore Maslow's theory by examining physiological needs such as food, clothing, shelter, air, and water, and how wages and social support enable survival.

Explore safety needs as key drivers of physical and emotional security in the workplace, including job stability, health and pension plans, and safe working conditions under Maslow's framework.

Explore social needs—love and belonging—at work, and how strong friendships reduce absenteeism and injuries, with HR creating bonding through flexible schedules and snacks.

Explore esteem needs—achievement, mastery, independence, prestige—and how HR supports them with education, promotions, and honors, while guiding self-actualization through personalized growth opportunities.

Examine Maslow's hierarchy of needs as it expands with cognitive and aesthetic needs after esteem, plus a transcendence level above self-actualization. Visualize the new pyramid and review each level.

Explore Maslow’s revised pyramid in HR, linking biological and safety needs to pay, belonging, esteem, cognitive and aesthetic needs, and self-actualization through mentoring and training.

Explore Frederick Herzberg's two-factor theory of motivation, analyzing factors that improve or worsen job feelings through accountants and engineers, focusing on lived daily experiences.

Explain Herzberg's challenge to the belief in a simple linear scale of employee satisfaction, showing that dissatisfaction and satisfaction are not a straightforward pair and involve many variables.

Herzberg's hygiene theory shows that dissatisfaction and satisfaction are separate, not opposites, shaping how people view life and drive motivation.

Explore Herzberg's two-factor theory, where motivational factors increase motivation and hygiene factors act as dissatisfies when absent.

Apply the motivation-hygiene theory to day-to-day HR work by ensuring hygiene factors prevent dissatisfaction and spark short-term motivation. Leverage motivators for long-term engagement, recognition, and pay aligned with Maslow's needs.

Explore Theory X and Theory Y, Douglas MacGregor's contrasting motivation models—control and the stick versus responsibility, mutual care, and personal rewards shaped by the human relations movement.

Examine Theory X assumptions that people dislike work and need coercive control, and contrast with the view that workers seek meaningful tasks and collaboration in decision making.

Explore Theory Y assumptions that people enjoy work and are committed to meaningful goals when provided skills, tools, and rewards. HR unlocks this potential through hiring, training, and opportunity.

Explore Theory Z, developed by William Ouchi at UCLA, blending Type J (Japanese firms) and Type A (American firms) management styles into Type Z firms.

Type J firms emphasize lifetime employment, collective decision making and collective responsibility. They feature slow promotion, implied control mechanisms, and non specialized career paths with a holistic focus on employees.

Explore type a firms, where american short-term employment, rapid promotion, and individual decision making shape silos and specialized career paths; hr now considers the whole person.

Explore Type Z firm characteristics, including long-term employment incentives, collaborative decision making, slow promotion, informal control, and a holistic approach to employee health and well-being that reduces costs.

Reinforcement drives behavior by rewards or punishments, with positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, and punishment shaping outcomes; HR applies these concepts to set expectations and consequences.

Leverage positive reinforcement to drive show-up-on-time behavior, balance with negative reinforcement, and apply continuous rewards—like parking incentives—to permanently shape employee behavior in HR.

Explore how motivation drives employees from an HR perspective, review Maslow and reinforcement theory, and compare pay, mentoring, and training as motivational tools, noting positive reinforcement over negative.

Explore equity theory, expectancy theory, and goal setting theory, and apply them from both employee and employer perspectives as an HR assistant bridging the gap between the two.

Examine the weaknesses of Maslow and Herzberg, including unclear what motivates people and lacking why and how motivation is developed and sustained, alongside classical theories and contemporary insights.

Explore how equity theory links fair treatment to each employee's contribution and show proportional rewards from 60% to 110% to illustrate fairness.

Analyze equity theory by comparing input-to-output ratios with coworkers and perceptions of fairness. Understand how hiring and pay reflect contribution, reinforcing fair rewards based on what you bring.

Compare my ratio to others to gauge equity, recognizing fairness when salaries align and perceiving unfairness when gaps are large, potentially prompting conversations about pay.

Explore equity theory and how perceived inequality lowers morale when inputs and outputs are unbalanced, and learn to maintain a level playing field, fairness, and manage comparisons.

Explore expectancy theory, which ties motivation to how much we want something and how likely we are to get it, and examine how outcomes and values shape rewards in HR.

Explore expectancy theory in a graphic form by showing how motivation arises when the person wants the outcome and believes it is likely, with wiifm and education examples.

Recognize that employees work for different reasons and that their desired outcomes change over time. Provide managers with roadmaps to help employees attain their goals and build teams.

Explore how employees and managers set goals together to boost motivation and collaboration. Identify smart goals—specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, timely—and how realistic, moderately difficult targets foster commitment and performance.

Goal setting theory links rewards to goal achievement, as managers tailor rewards to individual needs and clarify expectations. It also emphasizes equity and reinforcement through praise and training and development.

This lesson reviews equity theory, expectancy theory, and goal setting theory as contemporary motivation models, highlighting pay equity, desire and achievable goals, and collaborative goal setting to boost motivation.

Explore motivational techniques including management by objectives (MBO), job enrichment, behavior modification, flex time, part-time work, and job sharing. Examine telecommuting and employee empowerment as practical applications.

Explore management by objectives (MBO) as a collaborative goal setting tool that aligns organizational and personal goals, clarifies employee roles, and motivates through a five-step process and smart goals.

Top management must buy into the program and serve as a liaison between leaders and employees. Set preliminary goals aligned with the organization's mission and strategy.

The manager explains organizational goals and invites each employee to share how they can contribute. The process emphasizes collaboration, employee buy-in, and autonomy in determining how to achieve goals.

Managers meet with each employee to set individual goals and discuss collaboration. They use smart goals to ensure measurable progress and higher engagement that boosts morale and productivity.

Managers and employees decide what resources—training, updated equipment, or devices like laptops or tablets—are needed to meet goals, balancing organizational aims with the tools to do the work.

Step four pairs managers and employees for progress reviews (quarterly or monthly) to adjust goals amid internal and external changes, while step five measures goal achievement for year-end rewards.

Job enrichment is a motivational tool that adds variety and responsibility, empowering employees to gain new skills and a broader view of the organization.

Explore job enlargement, expanding tasks and rotating roles every 2 to 3 years to reduce boredom, boost learning, and connect thousands of staff across a large organization.

Job redesign, a form of job enrichment, restructures work to cultivate employees and create new job matches, such as a cashier becoming a customer service supervisor with training duties.

Enhance belonging by redesigning jobs to help employees feel wanted and valued. Clarify how each employee's work contributes to organizational success, reducing absenteeism and boosting client satisfaction through personal investment.

Design and implement behavior modification to reinforce desirable behavior with rewards and punishments. Prioritize rewards over punishments to motivate ongoing performance and tailor rewards to what drives each individual.

Identify and measure a target behavior, such as tardiness, and establish clear criteria. Reinforce desired behavior with rewards and recognition, and redesign rewards if progress stalls.

Flextime lets employees set hours within core and flexible time bands, enabling full-time weeks in four 10-hour days or three 12-hour days, with potential for remote work.

Explore how a flex time schedule combines core time with flexible blocks to boost motivation and productivity. HR decisions shape who gains access while maintaining the standard 40-hour workweek.

Explore part-time work, defined as under the standard workweek, including student and professional scenarios, benefits and costs for employers, and the role of scheduling software in meeting peak, short-term demand.

Job sharing splits a full-time role between two people, enabling morning and afternoon shifts, shared skills, reliable coverage, and reduced benefits costs through collaboration.

Telecommuting offers work-from-home options with flexible hours, supported by technology and self-discipline; managers can use metrics and appraisal to overcome stigma and keep valued employees.

Telecommuting enhances employee effectiveness and lowers costs by reducing office space, enabling global hiring and 24-hour operations across time zones.

Explore the disadvantages of telecommuting, including isolation, extended hours, burnout, and how to measure productivity and foster balance with clear goals.

Empowerment, an organizational imperative, makes employees feel involved in their work and organization by participating in decisions and operations, boosting engagement and satisfaction.

Managers set expectations and boundaries, empower employees, and establish clear communication standards. Regular evaluations and guaranteed follow-up boost job satisfaction, self-esteem, productivity, and organizational commitment.

Explore employee ownership as a motivational tool where workers own shares, influence profits, and benefit from cost reductions and stock options, with Southwest Airlines as an example.

Explore management by objectives, job enrichment, and behavior modification to motivate employees, and leverage flextime, part-time work, job sharing, telecommuting, and empowerment to achieve organizational goals.