| The PHR and SPHR exam for professionals in human | | | | oriented analyst focuses on creating harmony in the |
| resources will cover every area of HR management | | | | workplace and on making work life more pleasant. |
| and employee relations. It will test your knowledge on | | | | Instead of four single-dimension views of organizational |
| strategic management, workforce planning and | | | | life, you should advocate the inclusive systems view. |
| employment, human resource development, | | | | Many organizational development and performance |
| compensation and benefits, employee labor relations, | | | | improvement specialists already have accepted this |
| occupational health and finally safety and security. | | | | view of organizations as complex, open systems. |
| Many of the questions will involve human resource | | | | Systems-oriented analysts believe in designing and |
| situational questions which ask you to make a decision | | | | creating performance programs in which all the parts, |
| in the best interest for employees and management | | | | or subsystems, work together to achieve the whole |
| and in compliance with relevant laws. Employee | | | | organization's purpose. These analysts work with |
| improvement programs will be tested on the PHR and | | | | managers to apply systems principles to the |
| SPHR exams, analyze how your organization is | | | | organization's problems. This systems approach uses |
| implementing these programs. All performance | | | | many different tools to intervene at three levels: |
| improvement programs and interventions share these | | | | organizational mission, processes and job performance. |
| goals. Yet, single dimension organizational views - | | | | Systems thinkers never focus on just one area. The |
| whether applied singly or in combination - don't provide | | | | systems thinker "achieves strategic benefits by |
| an adequate foundation for organizational problem | | | | applying systems solutions to systems problems," |
| solving and performance improvement. Those with | | | | focusing on:o Defining the organization broadly enough |
| these limited views tend to restrict themselves to a | | | | to include the root causes of performance issues.o |
| narrow set of problem situations and an equally | | | | Identifying the primary source of power that can take |
| narrow set of myopic solutions. Those in charge of | | | | advantage of a performance opportunity. |
| planning and implementing performance improvement | | | | The systems thinker leaves nothing out, concurrently |
| programs and solutions, and those who have the | | | | embracing power-based, economic, mechanistic and |
| single-dimension view, will limit what they see or do as | | | | humanistic contributions to the performance problems. |
| they work with managers and others on organizational | | | | In systems such as the human mind, the human body |
| change and performance improvement:o The | | | | or the human organization, all the parts affect each |
| power-oriented analyst focuses on political strategies, | | | | other in complicated ways that are not obvious.o |
| on pleasing top managers.o The economically oriented | | | | Studying a part individually can disrupt systems |
| analyst focuses on strategies for optimized financial | | | | interactions so severely that it makes the isolated part |
| return.o The mechanistically oriented analyst focuses | | | | look and act very differently from its normal pattern in |
| on getting more output per process.o The humanistic | | | | its normal context. |