Jargons in Human Resource Management(alphabet s)
Sabbatical
The lengthy paid leave for professional, intellectual or emotional
refurbishment.
Sabotage
Deliberate destruction of property or the slowing down of work with the intention of damaging a business.
Salary Compression
Also called wage compression, according to M.Sami Kassem, in "The Salary Compression Problem, "Personal Journal (April 1971), salary/wage compression is "the shrinking difference of pay being given, newcomers as opposed to the amount paid to the experienced regulars.
Salary Review
The formal examination of an employee’s rate of pay in terms of his or recent performance, change in the cost of living and other factors.
Salary Structures
According to Robert E. Sibson, in "New Practices and Ideas in Compensation Administration," Compensation Review (Third Quarter 1974, salary structures were originally, conceived as boxes within which salaries must be paid. Increasingly, though, companies are viewing their salary structures essentially as a uniform accounting system, intended primarily as an information source, rather than a control mechanism. Furthermore, the use of salary structures is changing in very fundamental ways.
Sandhogs
Slang term for a worker who works underground for digging subways, tunnels, etc.
Sandwich Management
This technique is one that is adopted most innocently. In fact, it has been perpetrated for year, as managers have been motivated to manipulate people rather than level with them. A typical statement by a sandwich manager goes something like this, "Fred, you’ve been doing a magnificent job in many respects since you came aboard. On the hand, there have been times when you work was so late, it caused problems for the whole department. You will have to get on the ball, son, or else we might have to transfer you to job you can handle for sure. But I am sure we can count on you to do the right thing. Your past history indicates you have great potential," Upon analyzing that statement closely you can see a loss of "bread," neatly sandwiched between two slices of baloney.
Satisfactory-Performance Increase
Annual incremental salary step increase awarded for satisfactory performance within a single salary grade.
Scab
Generally, a term used for an employee who continues to work for an organization while it is being wowed by coworkers. Also called as blackleg.
Scalar Chain
Also line of authority, according to Henri Fayol, general and Industrial Management, trans. By Constance Stores (London: Pitman Publishing, Ltd., 1949),"The scalar chain is the superiors ranging from the ultimate authority to the lowest ranks. The line of authority is the route followed via every link in the chain-by all communications, which start from or go to the ultimate authority. This path is dictated both by the need for some transmission and by the principle of unity of command, but it is not always the swiftest. It is even at times disastrously lengthy in large concerns, notably in governmental ones."
Scanlon Plan
The employee incentive plan developed in the 1930s by Jospeh N.Scanlon (then an officer of the United Steelworkers of America), which intends to enhance productivity and organizational harmony through bonus and suggestion systems. The suggestion system demanded by a "true" Scanlon Plan is so sophisticated that it is more properly considered a form of participatory management.
Schmoozing
Collective term for all of the social interactions engaged in by employees that are seemingly unrelated to their organization’s productivity.
Scientific Management
Systematic approach to managing that look for the "one best way" of accomplishing any given task by discovering the fastest, most efficient, and least fatiguing production methods. Once the "one best way" was found, the scientific manager was imposing this procedure upon the workforce.
Screening Interview
Initial interview for a job the purpose of which is to determine which applicants are to be given further consideration.
Scrip
Temporary document entitling the bearer to something of value. This token money was once commonly used to pay workers in lieu of cash. As the scrip could only be redeemed at a company store with inflated prices, some states passed laws making it illegal to pay employees with anything but legal tender.
Secondary Boycott
Concerted effort by a union engaged in a dispute with an employer to seek another union to boycott a fourth party (usually their employers) who, in response to such pressure, might put like pressure on the original offending employer.
Secondary Strike
Strike against an employer because it is doing business with another employer whose workers are on strike.
Selection Out
The euphemism for terminating an employee from a training program or employment.
Selection Procedure
According to the "Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection," a selection procedure is any measure, combination of measures, or procedures used as a basis for any employment decision. Selection procedures include the full range of assessment techniques from traditional paper and pencil tests, performance tests, training programs, or probationary periods and physical, educational, and work experience requirement through informal or casual interviews and unscored application forms.
Selection Ratio
Number of job applicants selected compared to the number of job applicants who were available.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
Causing something to happen by believing it will. If a manager believes that his or her employees are not capable, they will eventually live up or down to the manager’s expectations.
Separation
Termination of an individual’s employment for whatever reason.
Separation Rate
Ratio of the number of separations per hundred employees over a specified time span.
Service Fee
Money (usually the equivalent of union dues) the non-union members of an agency shop bargaining unit pay the union for negotiating and administering the collective bargaining agreement.
Set-Up Time
Time during the normal workday when a worker’s machine is being set up (usually by the machine’s operator) prior to commencing production. Union contracts frequently provide time standards for set-up operations.
Severance Pay
Also called dismissal pay, separation pay, and termination pay, lumpsum payment by an employer to an employee who has been permanently separated from the organization on account of a workforce reduction, the introduction of labor saving machinery, or for any reason other than "cause". The amount of a severance payment is usually calculated on the basis of years of service and earnings. About 40 percent of all union contracts contain provisions for severance pay.
Sex Plus
Situation where an employer does not discriminate against all males or all females but discriminates against a subset of either sex.
Sexual Harassment
Exists whenever an individual in a position to control or influence another’s job, career, or grade uses such power to gain sexual favors or punish the refusal of such favors. Sexual harassment on the job varies from inappropriate sexual innuendo to coerced sexual relations.
Shape-Up
A declining method of hiring-long common in the maritime industry-which had men lineup at the beginning of each day so that they could be selected (or rejected) for work.
Sheltered Workshop
The places of employment that offer a controlled, noncompetitive environment for persons who are unable to compete in, the regular world of work either because of physical or mental disabilities.
Shift Premium
Also called shift differential, extra compensation paid as an inducement to accept shift work.
Showing of Interest
Evidence of membership-the requirement that a union must show that it has adequate from employees in a proposed bargaining unit before a representation election can be held. A "showing of interest" is usually demonstrated by signed authorization cards.
Sick Leave
The leave of absence, usually with pay, granted to employees who cannot attend work because of illness.
Sick-Leave Bank
Arrangement that allows employees to pool some of their paid sick leave days in a common fund so that may draw upon that fund if extensive illness uses up their remaining paid time off. Sick-leave banks have tended to discourage absenteeism; because, with everyone jointly owing days in the bank, there is some psychological pressure on workers not to use their sick leave unless they are really sick.
Sinecure
Sinecure is Latin for "without care." Any position for which a salary is extracted but little or no work is expected. This was originally an ecclesiastical term, which meant a church office that did not require the care of souls.
Sit-Down Strike
Also stay-in strike, any stoppage during which the strikers remain at their workstations and refuse to leave the employer’s premises in order to hinder the employment of strikebreakers.
Skill Differential
Differences in wage rate paid to workers employed in occupational categories requiring varying levels to skill.
Skilled Labor
Workers, who, having trained for a relatively long time, have mastered jobs of considerable skill requiring the exercise of substantial independence judgement.
Skills Survey
Also called skills, inventory comprehensive collection and examination of data on the workforce to determine the composition and level of employees’ skills, knowledge, and abilities so that they can be more fully utilized and/or developed to fill the staffing needs of an organization. To be effective, skill data must also be arranged in such a manner that the information gathered can be readily accessible for management use.
Slide-Rule Discipline
Approach to discipline that eliminates supervisory discretion and sets very specific quantitative standards as the result of specific violations. For example, a discipline policy based on this concept might hold that any employee who is late for work more than five times in a 30-day period would be "automatically" suspended for three days.
Slowdown
Deliberate reduction of output by employees with the intention bringing economic pressure upon an employer without incurring the costs of a strike.
Social Audit
Defined by Raymond A. Bauer and Dan H.Fenn Jr., in "What is a Corporate Social Audit"’ Harvard Business Review (January-February 1973), as "a commitment to systematic assessment of and reporting on some meaningful, defined domain of a company’s activities that have social impact."
Social Insurance
Any benefit programs that a state makes available to the members of its society in time of need and as a matter of right.
Sociogram
The diagram indicates the interactions between members of a group. Typically, it has circles representing people and arrows extending from those circles pointing out the other people (circles) that are liked, disliked, etc.
Socio-Technical Systems
Concept that is used to refer to a work group which is neither a technical nor a social system, but an interdependent socio-technical system.
Spatial Relations
Measure of an individual’s ability for rapid and dexterous manipulation of pieces and parts relative to one another (i.e., perceiving geometric relationships).
Speededness
Appropriateness of a test in terms of the length of time allotted. For most purpose, a good test will full use of the examination period but not be so speeded that an examinee’s rate of work will have an undue influence on the score received.
Speed Rating
Performance rating that compares the speed with which an employee performs specific tasks against an observer’s standard or norm.
Speed-Up
Also stretch-out, terms referring to any effort by employers to obtain an increase in productivity without a corresponding increase in wages.
Spiral-Omnibus Test
Test in which the various kinds of tasks are distributed throughout the test (instead of being grouped together) and are in cycles of increasing difficulty. There is only one timing and one score for such a test.
Split Commission
Awarding of partial credit and compensation to each of several sales persons when each is directly involved in completing a sale. The normal commission is divided among the recipients.
Split-Dollar Life Insurance
Also called supplemental life insurance, life insurance for employees paid for by an employer. In the event of the covered employee’s death, the employer totally recovers the paid premiums from the benefit sum with the remainder distributed to the employee’s beneficiaries.
Split-Half-Reliability
Measure of the reliability of a test obtained by correlating scores on one behalf of a test with scores on the other half and correcting for the reduced size.
Split-The Difference
Collective Bargaining tactic in which both sides agree to a settlement half way between their bargaining positions.
Staffing
One of the most basic functions of management and usually considered synonymous with employment-that is, the process of hiring people to perform work for the organization. Staffing defines the organization by translating its objectives and goals into a specific work plan. It structures the responsibilities of the organization’s human resources into a work system of establishing who will perform what function, and have what authority. Staffing is the essence of the personnel management process.
Staffing Dynamics
The phrase used by those who are not content was calling turnover.
Staffing Plan
The planning document that minimally (1) lists as organization’s projected personnel needs by occupation and grade level and (2) identifies how these needs will be met.
Staffing Program Planning
The determination by organization personnel management of the numbers and kinds of personnel management actions necessary during each stage of the planning period to staff the workforce required in management’s program plan.
Staff Organization
Those segments of a larger organization that provides support services and have no direct responsibilities for line operations or production. Personnel administration has traditionally been a staff function.
Standard Allowance
Established Amount of time, which the normal time for employees to complete their tasks is increased in order to compensate for the expected amount of personal and/or unavoidable delays.
Standard Hour Plan
Incentive plan that rewards an employee by a percent premium that equals the percent by which performance beats the standard.
Standardization
Specification of consistent procedure to be followed in administering, scoring, and interpreting tests.
Standard of Performance
Statements that tell as employee how well or she must perform a task to be considered a satisfactory employee. Standard covers how much, how accurately, in what time period, or in what manner, the various job tasks are to be performed. The performance standards, whether written or unwritten, will specify the minimum level of performance at which an employee must work in order to attain a satisfactory performance rating. Written performance standards are usually required only when an employee is warned that he or she may receive an unsatisfactory rating.
State of the Art
The level of development in a given scientific or technological field at a given time, usually the present.
Status
Abstraction of one’s relative position or ranking within an organization or society.
Step Bonus
Feature of wage incentive plans that call for a substantial increase in incentive payments when the quantity and/or quality of output reaches a specified level.
Steward
Also called shop steward and union steward, local union’s most immediate representative in a plant or department. Usually elected by fellow employees (but sometimes appointed by the union leadership), the shop steward handles grievances, collects dues, solicits new members, etc. A shop steward usually continues to work at his or her regular job and handles union matters on a part-time basis, frequently on the employer’s time.
Steward Chief
Union representative who supervises the activities of a group of shop stewards.
Stint-Plan Wage System
System that assigns a definite output an employee’s day’s work; and, if the work is completed in less than normal time, the employee is credited with a full day’s work and allowed to go home.
Stop Labor
Farm work involving the picking of crops that grow close to or into the ground.
Stranger Laboratory
The laboratory experience for individuals from differing organizations.
Stranger Pickets
The workers who picket an employee who has never employed them.
Straw Boss
The colloquial term for a supervisor who has no real authority, power or status with which to back up his orders.
Stress Interview
Interview in which the interviewer deliberately creates a stressful situation for the interview in order to see how the interview might behave under such pressure. Common tactics used to induce street include: critically questioning the opinions of the interviewee, frequent interruptions of interviewee’s answers to possibly hostile questions, silence on the part of the interviewer for an extended period, etc.
Strike Authorization
Also called strike vote, formal vote by union members that (if passed) invests the union leadership with the right to call a strike without additional consultation with the union membership.
Strike Benefits
The payment by a union to its striking members or to nonmembers for being on strike in support of the union.
Strike-Bound
Any organization that is being struck by its employees and/or attempting to function in spite of the strike.
Strike Fund
Monies reserved by a union to be used during a strike to cover costs such as strike benefits or legal fees. Strike funds are not necessarily separate from a union’s general fund. The amount of strike funds available may mean the success or failure of a strike.
Strike Notice
The formal notices of an impending work stoppage that is presented by a union to an employer or to an appropriate government agency.
Strike Pay
The union payments to union members as partial compensation for income loss during a strike.
Stroking
Also positive stroking and negative stroking. Eric Berne, in Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships (N.Y.: Grove Press, 1964) took the intimate physical act of stroking and developed its psychological analogy in conversation. All of human intercourse can be viewed from the narrow perspective of the giving and receiving of physical of physical and psychological strokes. In an organizational context, positive stroking consists of the laying of kind words on employees. Negative stroking involves using less than kinds words-being critical.
Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory (SCII)
Vocational interest inventory that lets individuals to compare their preferences with reference groups in a large of occupations; helps the test taker identify a general section of the occupational world for more intensive study.
Struck Work
The output or the products produced by strikebreakers.
Structured Role Playing
The role-play exercise or simulation in which the players receive oral or written instruction giving them cues as to their roles.
Subemployment
The concept that tries to capture two major dimensions of labor market functioning that produce, and reproduce poverty-the lack of opportunity for work and substandard wage employment.
Subsistence Allowance
The payments for an employee’s reasonable expenses (meals, lodging, transportation, etc.) while traveling on behalf of his employer.
Substandard Rate
Wage rate below established occupational, prevailing, or legal levels.
Suggestion System
The formal effort to motivate employees to make recommendations that would improve the operations of their organizations.
Sunshine Bargaining
Collective bargaining sessions open to the press and public. This process is more likely to be used in public sector negotiations. Also called as goldfish bowl bargaining.
Superannuated Rate
The pay rate below the prevailing rate that is paid to older employees who are in need or are needed because of a labor shortage. A ratio for superannuated workers is sometimes provided for in union agreements. The lower rate is justified on the theory that these older, otherwise retired, workers are not as productive as younger employees. Some superannuated rate policies may be in violation of age discrimination laws.
Supernumerary Income
That portion of a worker’s income, which is not needed for the essentials of everyday life and consequently available for luxuries and other optional spending.
Superseniority
Also called synthetic seniority, seniority that supercedes ordinary seniority, which is dependent on an individual’s length of service.
Supplemental Unemployment Benefits (SUB)
The payments to laid off workers from private unemployment insurance plans that are supplements to state unemployment insurance compensation.
Survivors Benefits
Totality of the benefits that are paid upon the death of an employee to his/her legal survivors. Employees are frequently required to make a decision at the time of retirement whether or not to take a reduced pension that allows for survivor’s benefits.
Sweat Shop
Work sites where employees worked long hours for low wages usually under unsanitary conditions.
Sweetheart Agreement
Also called sweet heart contract, expressions for any agreement between an employer and a union or union official that benefits them but not the workers. Incidences of employer bribes to labor officials in order to gain their agreement to substandard or "sweetheart" contract are well known to American labor history.
Sweetheart Clause
That provisions of a union contract that makes a general policy statement about the harmonious manner in which both sides will live up to the spirit and letter of the agreement.
Swing Shift
Extra shift of workers in an organization operating on a continuos or seven day basis. The swing crew rotates among the various shifts to compensate for those employees who are absent, sick, on vacation, etc.
Sympathy Strike
An illegal strike by one union undertaken solely to support the aims of another union in an effort to exert indirect pressure upon an employer. Also called as sympathetic strike.
Systemism
Belief that systems can actually be designed and managed to attain their expressed goals.
Systems Management
According to Richard A. Johnson, Fremont E. Kast and James E. Rosenzweig, in the Theory and Management of Systems (N.Y.: McGraw Hill, 3rd ed., 1973), systems management involves the application of systems theory to managing organizational systems or subsystems. It can refer to management of a particular function or to projects or program within a larger organization. An important point is that systems theory is a vital component in the managerial process. It includes recognizing a general model of input-transformation-output with identifiable flows of material, energy, and information. It also highlights the interrelationships among subsystems as well as the suprasystem to which a function, project, or organization belongs.
From India, Mumbai
1Sabbatical
The lengthy paid leave for professional, intellectual or emotional
refurbishment.
Sabotage
Deliberate destruction of property or the slowing down of work with the intention of damaging a business.
Salary Compression
Also called wage compression, according to M.Sami Kassem, in "The Salary Compression Problem, "Personal Journal (April 1971), salary/wage compression is "the shrinking difference of pay being given, newcomers as opposed to the amount paid to the experienced regulars.
Salary Review
The formal examination of an employee’s rate of pay in terms of his or recent performance, change in the cost of living and other factors.
Salary Structures
According to Robert E. Sibson, in "New Practices and Ideas in Compensation Administration," Compensation Review (Third Quarter 1974, salary structures were originally, conceived as boxes within which salaries must be paid. Increasingly, though, companies are viewing their salary structures essentially as a uniform accounting system, intended primarily as an information source, rather than a control mechanism. Furthermore, the use of salary structures is changing in very fundamental ways.
Sandhogs
Slang term for a worker who works underground for digging subways, tunnels, etc.
Sandwich Management
This technique is one that is adopted most innocently. In fact, it has been perpetrated for year, as managers have been motivated to manipulate people rather than level with them. A typical statement by a sandwich manager goes something like this, "Fred, you’ve been doing a magnificent job in many respects since you came aboard. On the hand, there have been times when you work was so late, it caused problems for the whole department. You will have to get on the ball, son, or else we might have to transfer you to job you can handle for sure. But I am sure we can count on you to do the right thing. Your past history indicates you have great potential," Upon analyzing that statement closely you can see a loss of "bread," neatly sandwiched between two slices of baloney.
Satisfactory-Performance Increase
Annual incremental salary step increase awarded for satisfactory performance within a single salary grade.
Scab
Generally, a term used for an employee who continues to work for an organization while it is being wowed by coworkers. Also called as blackleg.
Scalar Chain
Also line of authority, according to Henri Fayol, general and Industrial Management, trans. By Constance Stores (London: Pitman Publishing, Ltd., 1949),"The scalar chain is the superiors ranging from the ultimate authority to the lowest ranks. The line of authority is the route followed via every link in the chain-by all communications, which start from or go to the ultimate authority. This path is dictated both by the need for some transmission and by the principle of unity of command, but it is not always the swiftest. It is even at times disastrously lengthy in large concerns, notably in governmental ones."
Scanlon Plan
The employee incentive plan developed in the 1930s by Jospeh N.Scanlon (then an officer of the United Steelworkers of America), which intends to enhance productivity and organizational harmony through bonus and suggestion systems. The suggestion system demanded by a "true" Scanlon Plan is so sophisticated that it is more properly considered a form of participatory management.
Schmoozing
Collective term for all of the social interactions engaged in by employees that are seemingly unrelated to their organization’s productivity.
Scientific Management
Systematic approach to managing that look for the "one best way" of accomplishing any given task by discovering the fastest, most efficient, and least fatiguing production methods. Once the "one best way" was found, the scientific manager was imposing this procedure upon the workforce.
Screening Interview
Initial interview for a job the purpose of which is to determine which applicants are to be given further consideration.
Scrip
Temporary document entitling the bearer to something of value. This token money was once commonly used to pay workers in lieu of cash. As the scrip could only be redeemed at a company store with inflated prices, some states passed laws making it illegal to pay employees with anything but legal tender.
Secondary Boycott
Concerted effort by a union engaged in a dispute with an employer to seek another union to boycott a fourth party (usually their employers) who, in response to such pressure, might put like pressure on the original offending employer.
Secondary Strike
Strike against an employer because it is doing business with another employer whose workers are on strike.
Selection Out
The euphemism for terminating an employee from a training program or employment.
Selection Procedure
According to the "Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection," a selection procedure is any measure, combination of measures, or procedures used as a basis for any employment decision. Selection procedures include the full range of assessment techniques from traditional paper and pencil tests, performance tests, training programs, or probationary periods and physical, educational, and work experience requirement through informal or casual interviews and unscored application forms.
Selection Ratio
Number of job applicants selected compared to the number of job applicants who were available.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
Causing something to happen by believing it will. If a manager believes that his or her employees are not capable, they will eventually live up or down to the manager’s expectations.
Separation
Termination of an individual’s employment for whatever reason.
Separation Rate
Ratio of the number of separations per hundred employees over a specified time span.
Service Fee
Money (usually the equivalent of union dues) the non-union members of an agency shop bargaining unit pay the union for negotiating and administering the collective bargaining agreement.
Set-Up Time
Time during the normal workday when a worker’s machine is being set up (usually by the machine’s operator) prior to commencing production. Union contracts frequently provide time standards for set-up operations.
Severance Pay
Also called dismissal pay, separation pay, and termination pay, lumpsum payment by an employer to an employee who has been permanently separated from the organization on account of a workforce reduction, the introduction of labor saving machinery, or for any reason other than "cause". The amount of a severance payment is usually calculated on the basis of years of service and earnings. About 40 percent of all union contracts contain provisions for severance pay.
Sex Plus
Situation where an employer does not discriminate against all males or all females but discriminates against a subset of either sex.
Sexual Harassment
Exists whenever an individual in a position to control or influence another’s job, career, or grade uses such power to gain sexual favors or punish the refusal of such favors. Sexual harassment on the job varies from inappropriate sexual innuendo to coerced sexual relations.
Shape-Up
A declining method of hiring-long common in the maritime industry-which had men lineup at the beginning of each day so that they could be selected (or rejected) for work.
Sheltered Workshop
The places of employment that offer a controlled, noncompetitive environment for persons who are unable to compete in, the regular world of work either because of physical or mental disabilities.
Shift Premium
Also called shift differential, extra compensation paid as an inducement to accept shift work.
Showing of Interest
Evidence of membership-the requirement that a union must show that it has adequate from employees in a proposed bargaining unit before a representation election can be held. A "showing of interest" is usually demonstrated by signed authorization cards.
Sick Leave
The leave of absence, usually with pay, granted to employees who cannot attend work because of illness.
Sick-Leave Bank
Arrangement that allows employees to pool some of their paid sick leave days in a common fund so that may draw upon that fund if extensive illness uses up their remaining paid time off. Sick-leave banks have tended to discourage absenteeism; because, with everyone jointly owing days in the bank, there is some psychological pressure on workers not to use their sick leave unless they are really sick.
Sinecure
Sinecure is Latin for "without care." Any position for which a salary is extracted but little or no work is expected. This was originally an ecclesiastical term, which meant a church office that did not require the care of souls.
Sit-Down Strike
Also stay-in strike, any stoppage during which the strikers remain at their workstations and refuse to leave the employer’s premises in order to hinder the employment of strikebreakers.
Skill Differential
Differences in wage rate paid to workers employed in occupational categories requiring varying levels to skill.
Skilled Labor
Workers, who, having trained for a relatively long time, have mastered jobs of considerable skill requiring the exercise of substantial independence judgement.
Skills Survey
Also called skills, inventory comprehensive collection and examination of data on the workforce to determine the composition and level of employees’ skills, knowledge, and abilities so that they can be more fully utilized and/or developed to fill the staffing needs of an organization. To be effective, skill data must also be arranged in such a manner that the information gathered can be readily accessible for management use.
Slide-Rule Discipline
Approach to discipline that eliminates supervisory discretion and sets very specific quantitative standards as the result of specific violations. For example, a discipline policy based on this concept might hold that any employee who is late for work more than five times in a 30-day period would be "automatically" suspended for three days.
Slowdown
Deliberate reduction of output by employees with the intention bringing economic pressure upon an employer without incurring the costs of a strike.
Social Audit
Defined by Raymond A. Bauer and Dan H.Fenn Jr., in "What is a Corporate Social Audit"’ Harvard Business Review (January-February 1973), as "a commitment to systematic assessment of and reporting on some meaningful, defined domain of a company’s activities that have social impact."
Social Insurance
Any benefit programs that a state makes available to the members of its society in time of need and as a matter of right.
Sociogram
The diagram indicates the interactions between members of a group. Typically, it has circles representing people and arrows extending from those circles pointing out the other people (circles) that are liked, disliked, etc.
Socio-Technical Systems
Concept that is used to refer to a work group which is neither a technical nor a social system, but an interdependent socio-technical system.
Spatial Relations
Measure of an individual’s ability for rapid and dexterous manipulation of pieces and parts relative to one another (i.e., perceiving geometric relationships).
Speededness
Appropriateness of a test in terms of the length of time allotted. For most purpose, a good test will full use of the examination period but not be so speeded that an examinee’s rate of work will have an undue influence on the score received.
Speed Rating
Performance rating that compares the speed with which an employee performs specific tasks against an observer’s standard or norm.
Speed-Up
Also stretch-out, terms referring to any effort by employers to obtain an increase in productivity without a corresponding increase in wages.
Spiral-Omnibus Test
Test in which the various kinds of tasks are distributed throughout the test (instead of being grouped together) and are in cycles of increasing difficulty. There is only one timing and one score for such a test.
Split Commission
Awarding of partial credit and compensation to each of several sales persons when each is directly involved in completing a sale. The normal commission is divided among the recipients.
Split-Dollar Life Insurance
Also called supplemental life insurance, life insurance for employees paid for by an employer. In the event of the covered employee’s death, the employer totally recovers the paid premiums from the benefit sum with the remainder distributed to the employee’s beneficiaries.
Split-Half-Reliability
Measure of the reliability of a test obtained by correlating scores on one behalf of a test with scores on the other half and correcting for the reduced size.
Split-The Difference
Collective Bargaining tactic in which both sides agree to a settlement half way between their bargaining positions.
Staffing
One of the most basic functions of management and usually considered synonymous with employment-that is, the process of hiring people to perform work for the organization. Staffing defines the organization by translating its objectives and goals into a specific work plan. It structures the responsibilities of the organization’s human resources into a work system of establishing who will perform what function, and have what authority. Staffing is the essence of the personnel management process.
Staffing Dynamics
The phrase used by those who are not content was calling turnover.
Staffing Plan
The planning document that minimally (1) lists as organization’s projected personnel needs by occupation and grade level and (2) identifies how these needs will be met.
Staffing Program Planning
The determination by organization personnel management of the numbers and kinds of personnel management actions necessary during each stage of the planning period to staff the workforce required in management’s program plan.
Staff Organization
Those segments of a larger organization that provides support services and have no direct responsibilities for line operations or production. Personnel administration has traditionally been a staff function.
Standard Allowance
Established Amount of time, which the normal time for employees to complete their tasks is increased in order to compensate for the expected amount of personal and/or unavoidable delays.
Standard Hour Plan
Incentive plan that rewards an employee by a percent premium that equals the percent by which performance beats the standard.
Standardization
Specification of consistent procedure to be followed in administering, scoring, and interpreting tests.
Standard of Performance
Statements that tell as employee how well or she must perform a task to be considered a satisfactory employee. Standard covers how much, how accurately, in what time period, or in what manner, the various job tasks are to be performed. The performance standards, whether written or unwritten, will specify the minimum level of performance at which an employee must work in order to attain a satisfactory performance rating. Written performance standards are usually required only when an employee is warned that he or she may receive an unsatisfactory rating.
State of the Art
The level of development in a given scientific or technological field at a given time, usually the present.
Status
Abstraction of one’s relative position or ranking within an organization or society.
Step Bonus
Feature of wage incentive plans that call for a substantial increase in incentive payments when the quantity and/or quality of output reaches a specified level.
Steward
Also called shop steward and union steward, local union’s most immediate representative in a plant or department. Usually elected by fellow employees (but sometimes appointed by the union leadership), the shop steward handles grievances, collects dues, solicits new members, etc. A shop steward usually continues to work at his or her regular job and handles union matters on a part-time basis, frequently on the employer’s time.
Steward Chief
Union representative who supervises the activities of a group of shop stewards.
Stint-Plan Wage System
System that assigns a definite output an employee’s day’s work; and, if the work is completed in less than normal time, the employee is credited with a full day’s work and allowed to go home.
Stop Labor
Farm work involving the picking of crops that grow close to or into the ground.
Stranger Laboratory
The laboratory experience for individuals from differing organizations.
Stranger Pickets
The workers who picket an employee who has never employed them.
Straw Boss
The colloquial term for a supervisor who has no real authority, power or status with which to back up his orders.
Stress Interview
Interview in which the interviewer deliberately creates a stressful situation for the interview in order to see how the interview might behave under such pressure. Common tactics used to induce street include: critically questioning the opinions of the interviewee, frequent interruptions of interviewee’s answers to possibly hostile questions, silence on the part of the interviewer for an extended period, etc.
Strike Authorization
Also called strike vote, formal vote by union members that (if passed) invests the union leadership with the right to call a strike without additional consultation with the union membership.
Strike Benefits
The payment by a union to its striking members or to nonmembers for being on strike in support of the union.
Strike-Bound
Any organization that is being struck by its employees and/or attempting to function in spite of the strike.
Strike Fund
Monies reserved by a union to be used during a strike to cover costs such as strike benefits or legal fees. Strike funds are not necessarily separate from a union’s general fund. The amount of strike funds available may mean the success or failure of a strike.
Strike Notice
The formal notices of an impending work stoppage that is presented by a union to an employer or to an appropriate government agency.
Strike Pay
The union payments to union members as partial compensation for income loss during a strike.
Stroking
Also positive stroking and negative stroking. Eric Berne, in Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships (N.Y.: Grove Press, 1964) took the intimate physical act of stroking and developed its psychological analogy in conversation. All of human intercourse can be viewed from the narrow perspective of the giving and receiving of physical of physical and psychological strokes. In an organizational context, positive stroking consists of the laying of kind words on employees. Negative stroking involves using less than kinds words-being critical.
Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory (SCII)
Vocational interest inventory that lets individuals to compare their preferences with reference groups in a large of occupations; helps the test taker identify a general section of the occupational world for more intensive study.
Struck Work
The output or the products produced by strikebreakers.
Structured Role Playing
The role-play exercise or simulation in which the players receive oral or written instruction giving them cues as to their roles.
Subemployment
The concept that tries to capture two major dimensions of labor market functioning that produce, and reproduce poverty-the lack of opportunity for work and substandard wage employment.
Subsistence Allowance
The payments for an employee’s reasonable expenses (meals, lodging, transportation, etc.) while traveling on behalf of his employer.
Substandard Rate
Wage rate below established occupational, prevailing, or legal levels.
Suggestion System
The formal effort to motivate employees to make recommendations that would improve the operations of their organizations.
Sunshine Bargaining
Collective bargaining sessions open to the press and public. This process is more likely to be used in public sector negotiations. Also called as goldfish bowl bargaining.
Superannuated Rate
The pay rate below the prevailing rate that is paid to older employees who are in need or are needed because of a labor shortage. A ratio for superannuated workers is sometimes provided for in union agreements. The lower rate is justified on the theory that these older, otherwise retired, workers are not as productive as younger employees. Some superannuated rate policies may be in violation of age discrimination laws.
Supernumerary Income
That portion of a worker’s income, which is not needed for the essentials of everyday life and consequently available for luxuries and other optional spending.
Superseniority
Also called synthetic seniority, seniority that supercedes ordinary seniority, which is dependent on an individual’s length of service.
Supplemental Unemployment Benefits (SUB)
The payments to laid off workers from private unemployment insurance plans that are supplements to state unemployment insurance compensation.
Survivors Benefits
Totality of the benefits that are paid upon the death of an employee to his/her legal survivors. Employees are frequently required to make a decision at the time of retirement whether or not to take a reduced pension that allows for survivor’s benefits.
Sweat Shop
Work sites where employees worked long hours for low wages usually under unsanitary conditions.
Sweetheart Agreement
Also called sweet heart contract, expressions for any agreement between an employer and a union or union official that benefits them but not the workers. Incidences of employer bribes to labor officials in order to gain their agreement to substandard or "sweetheart" contract are well known to American labor history.
Sweetheart Clause
That provisions of a union contract that makes a general policy statement about the harmonious manner in which both sides will live up to the spirit and letter of the agreement.
Swing Shift
Extra shift of workers in an organization operating on a continuos or seven day basis. The swing crew rotates among the various shifts to compensate for those employees who are absent, sick, on vacation, etc.
Sympathy Strike
An illegal strike by one union undertaken solely to support the aims of another union in an effort to exert indirect pressure upon an employer. Also called as sympathetic strike.
Systemism
Belief that systems can actually be designed and managed to attain their expressed goals.
Systems Management
According to Richard A. Johnson, Fremont E. Kast and James E. Rosenzweig, in the Theory and Management of Systems (N.Y.: McGraw Hill, 3rd ed., 1973), systems management involves the application of systems theory to managing organizational systems or subsystems. It can refer to management of a particular function or to projects or program within a larger organization. An important point is that systems theory is a vital component in the managerial process. It includes recognizing a general model of input-transformation-output with identifiable flows of material, energy, and information. It also highlights the interrelationships among subsystems as well as the suprasystem to which a function, project, or organization belongs.
From India, Mumbai
THESE ARE REALLY EXECELLENT COLLECTION
THANKSS FOR THE SPECIAL CONTRIBUTION KEEP POSTING
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Sabbatical
The lengthy paid leave for professional, intellectual or emotional
refurbishment.
Sabotage
Deliberate destruction of property or the slowing down of work with the intention of damaging a business.
Salary Compression
Also called wage compression, according to M.Sami Kassem, in "The Salary Compression Problem, "Personal Journal (April 1971), salary/wage compression is "the shrinking difference of pay being given, newcomers as opposed to the amount paid to the experienced regulars.
Salary Review
The formal examination of an employee’s rate of pay in terms of his or recent performance, change in the cost of living and other factors.
Salary Structures
According to Robert E. Sibson, in "New Practices and Ideas in Compensation Administration," Compensation Review (Third Quarter 1974, salary structures were originally, conceived as boxes within which salaries must be paid. Increasingly, though, companies are viewing their salary structures essentially as a uniform accounting system, intended primarily as an information source, rather than a control mechanism. Furthermore, the use of salary structures is changing in very fundamental ways.
Sandhogs
Slang term for a worker who works underground for digging subways, tunnels, etc.
Sandwich Management
This technique is one that is adopted most innocently. In fact, it has been perpetrated for year, as managers have been motivated to manipulate people rather than level with them. A typical statement by a sandwich manager goes something like this, "Fred, you’ve been doing a magnificent job in many respects since you came aboard. On the hand, there have been times when you work was so late, it caused problems for the whole department. You will have to get on the ball, son, or else we might have to transfer you to job you can handle for sure. But I am sure we can count on you to do the right thing. Your past history indicates you have great potential," Upon analyzing that statement closely you can see a loss of "bread," neatly sandwiched between two slices of baloney.
Satisfactory-Performance Increase
Annual incremental salary step increase awarded for satisfactory performance within a single salary grade.
Scab
Generally, a term used for an employee who continues to work for an organization while it is being wowed by coworkers. Also called as blackleg.
Scalar Chain
Also line of authority, according to Henri Fayol, general and Industrial Management, trans. By Constance Stores (London: Pitman Publishing, Ltd., 1949),"The scalar chain is the superiors ranging from the ultimate authority to the lowest ranks. The line of authority is the route followed via every link in the chain-by all communications, which start from or go to the ultimate authority. This path is dictated both by the need for some transmission and by the principle of unity of command, but it is not always the swiftest. It is even at times disastrously lengthy in large concerns, notably in governmental ones."
Scanlon Plan
The employee incentive plan developed in the 1930s by Jospeh N.Scanlon (then an officer of the United Steelworkers of America), which intends to enhance productivity and organizational harmony through bonus and suggestion systems. The suggestion system demanded by a "true" Scanlon Plan is so sophisticated that it is more properly considered a form of participatory management.
Schmoozing
Collective term for all of the social interactions engaged in by employees that are seemingly unrelated to their organization’s productivity.
Scientific Management
Systematic approach to managing that look for the "one best way" of accomplishing any given task by discovering the fastest, most efficient, and least fatiguing production methods. Once the "one best way" was found, the scientific manager was imposing this procedure upon the workforce.
Screening Interview
Initial interview for a job the purpose of which is to determine which applicants are to be given further consideration.
Scrip
Temporary document entitling the bearer to something of value. This token money was once commonly used to pay workers in lieu of cash. As the scrip could only be redeemed at a company store with inflated prices, some states passed laws making it illegal to pay employees with anything but legal tender.
Secondary Boycott
Concerted effort by a union engaged in a dispute with an employer to seek another union to boycott a fourth party (usually their employers) who, in response to such pressure, might put like pressure on the original offending employer.
Secondary Strike
Strike against an employer because it is doing business with another employer whose workers are on strike.
Selection Out
The euphemism for terminating an employee from a training program or employment.
Selection Procedure
According to the "Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection," a selection procedure is any measure, combination of measures, or procedures used as a basis for any employment decision. Selection procedures include the full range of assessment techniques from traditional paper and pencil tests, performance tests, training programs, or probationary periods and physical, educational, and work experience requirement through informal or casual interviews and unscored application forms.
Selection Ratio
Number of job applicants selected compared to the number of job applicants who were available.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
Causing something to happen by believing it will. If a manager believes that his or her employees are not capable, they will eventually live up or down to the manager’s expectations.
Separation
Termination of an individual’s employment for whatever reason.
Separation Rate
Ratio of the number of separations per hundred employees over a specified time span.
Service Fee
Money (usually the equivalent of union dues) the non-union members of an agency shop bargaining unit pay the union for negotiating and administering the collective bargaining agreement.
Set-Up Time
Time during the normal workday when a worker’s machine is being set up (usually by the machine’s operator) prior to commencing production. Union contracts frequently provide time standards for set-up operations.
Severance Pay
Also called dismissal pay, separation pay, and termination pay, lumpsum payment by an employer to an employee who has been permanently separated from the organization on account of a workforce reduction, the introduction of labor saving machinery, or for any reason other than "cause". The amount of a severance payment is usually calculated on the basis of years of service and earnings. About 40 percent of all union contracts contain provisions for severance pay.
Sex Plus
Situation where an employer does not discriminate against all males or all females but discriminates against a subset of either sex.
Sexual Harassment
Exists whenever an individual in a position to control or influence another’s job, career, or grade uses such power to gain sexual favors or punish the refusal of such favors. Sexual harassment on the job varies from inappropriate sexual innuendo to coerced sexual relations.
Shape-Up
A declining method of hiring-long common in the maritime industry-which had men lineup at the beginning of each day so that they could be selected (or rejected) for work.
Sheltered Workshop
The places of employment that offer a controlled, noncompetitive environment for persons who are unable to compete in, the regular world of work either because of physical or mental disabilities.
Shift Premium
Also called shift differential, extra compensation paid as an inducement to accept shift work.
Showing of Interest
Evidence of membership-the requirement that a union must show that it has adequate from employees in a proposed bargaining unit before a representation election can be held. A "showing of interest" is usually demonstrated by signed authorization cards.
Sick Leave
The leave of absence, usually with pay, granted to employees who cannot attend work because of illness.
Sick-Leave Bank
Arrangement that allows employees to pool some of their paid sick leave days in a common fund so that may draw upon that fund if extensive illness uses up their remaining paid time off. Sick-leave banks have tended to discourage absenteeism; because, with everyone jointly owing days in the bank, there is some psychological pressure on workers not to use their sick leave unless they are really sick.
Sinecure
Sinecure is Latin for "without care." Any position for which a salary is extracted but little or no work is expected. This was originally an ecclesiastical term, which meant a church office that did not require the care of souls.
Sit-Down Strike
Also stay-in strike, any stoppage during which the strikers remain at their workstations and refuse to leave the employer’s premises in order to hinder the employment of strikebreakers.
Skill Differential
Differences in wage rate paid to workers employed in occupational categories requiring varying levels to skill.
Skilled Labor
Workers, who, having trained for a relatively long time, have mastered jobs of considerable skill requiring the exercise of substantial independence judgement.
Skills Survey
Also called skills, inventory comprehensive collection and examination of data on the workforce to determine the composition and level of employees’ skills, knowledge, and abilities so that they can be more fully utilized and/or developed to fill the staffing needs of an organization. To be effective, skill data must also be arranged in such a manner that the information gathered can be readily accessible for management use.
Slide-Rule Discipline
Approach to discipline that eliminates supervisory discretion and sets very specific quantitative standards as the result of specific violations. For example, a discipline policy based on this concept might hold that any employee who is late for work more than five times in a 30-day period would be "automatically" suspended for three days.
Slowdown
Deliberate reduction of output by employees with the intention bringing economic pressure upon an employer without incurring the costs of a strike.
Social Audit
Defined by Raymond A. Bauer and Dan H.Fenn Jr., in "What is a Corporate Social Audit"’ Harvard Business Review (January-February 1973), as "a commitment to systematic assessment of and reporting on some meaningful, defined domain of a company’s activities that have social impact."
Social Insurance
Any benefit programs that a state makes available to the members of its society in time of need and as a matter of right.
Sociogram
The diagram indicates the interactions between members of a group. Typically, it has circles representing people and arrows extending from those circles pointing out the other people (circles) that are liked, disliked, etc.
Socio-Technical Systems
Concept that is used to refer to a work group which is neither a technical nor a social system, but an interdependent socio-technical system.
Spatial Relations
Measure of an individual’s ability for rapid and dexterous manipulation of pieces and parts relative to one another (i.e., perceiving geometric relationships).
Speededness
Appropriateness of a test in terms of the length of time allotted. For most purpose, a good test will full use of the examination period but not be so speeded that an examinee’s rate of work will have an undue influence on the score received.
Speed Rating
Performance rating that compares the speed with which an employee performs specific tasks against an observer’s standard or norm.
Speed-Up
Also stretch-out, terms referring to any effort by employers to obtain an increase in productivity without a corresponding increase in wages.
Spiral-Omnibus Test
Test in which the various kinds of tasks are distributed throughout the test (instead of being grouped together) and are in cycles of increasing difficulty. There is only one timing and one score for such a test.
Split Commission
Awarding of partial credit and compensation to each of several sales persons when each is directly involved in completing a sale. The normal commission is divided among the recipients.
Split-Dollar Life Insurance
Also called supplemental life insurance, life insurance for employees paid for by an employer. In the event of the covered employee’s death, the employer totally recovers the paid premiums from the benefit sum with the remainder distributed to the employee’s beneficiaries.
Split-Half-Reliability
Measure of the reliability of a test obtained by correlating scores on one behalf of a test with scores on the other half and correcting for the reduced size.
Split-The Difference
Collective Bargaining tactic in which both sides agree to a settlement half way between their bargaining positions.
Staffing
One of the most basic functions of management and usually considered synonymous with employment-that is, the process of hiring people to perform work for the organization. Staffing defines the organization by translating its objectives and goals into a specific work plan. It structures the responsibilities of the organization’s human resources into a work system of establishing who will perform what function, and have what authority. Staffing is the essence of the personnel management process.
Staffing Dynamics
The phrase used by those who are not content was calling turnover.
Staffing Plan
The planning document that minimally (1) lists as organization’s projected personnel needs by occupation and grade level and (2) identifies how these needs will be met.
Staffing Program Planning
The determination by organization personnel management of the numbers and kinds of personnel management actions necessary during each stage of the planning period to staff the workforce required in management’s program plan.
Staff Organization
Those segments of a larger organization that provides support services and have no direct responsibilities for line operations or production. Personnel administration has traditionally been a staff function.
Standard Allowance
Established Amount of time, which the normal time for employees to complete their tasks is increased in order to compensate for the expected amount of personal and/or unavoidable delays.
Standard Hour Plan
Incentive plan that rewards an employee by a percent premium that equals the percent by which performance beats the standard.
Standardization
Specification of consistent procedure to be followed in administering, scoring, and interpreting tests.
Standard of Performance
Statements that tell as employee how well or she must perform a task to be considered a satisfactory employee. Standard covers how much, how accurately, in what time period, or in what manner, the various job tasks are to be performed. The performance standards, whether written or unwritten, will specify the minimum level of performance at which an employee must work in order to attain a satisfactory performance rating. Written performance standards are usually required only when an employee is warned that he or she may receive an unsatisfactory rating.
State of the Art
The level of development in a given scientific or technological field at a given time, usually the present.
Status
Abstraction of one’s relative position or ranking within an organization or society.
Step Bonus
Feature of wage incentive plans that call for a substantial increase in incentive payments when the quantity and/or quality of output reaches a specified level.
Steward
Also called shop steward and union steward, local union’s most immediate representative in a plant or department. Usually elected by fellow employees (but sometimes appointed by the union leadership), the shop steward handles grievances, collects dues, solicits new members, etc. A shop steward usually continues to work at his or her regular job and handles union matters on a part-time basis, frequently on the employer’s time.
Steward Chief
Union representative who supervises the activities of a group of shop stewards.
Stint-Plan Wage System
System that assigns a definite output an employee’s day’s work; and, if the work is completed in less than normal time, the employee is credited with a full day’s work and allowed to go home.
Stop Labor
Farm work involving the picking of crops that grow close to or into the ground.
Stranger Laboratory
The laboratory experience for individuals from differing organizations.
Stranger Pickets
The workers who picket an employee who has never employed them.
Straw Boss
The colloquial term for a supervisor who has no real authority, power or status with which to back up his orders.
Stress Interview
Interview in which the interviewer deliberately creates a stressful situation for the interview in order to see how the interview might behave under such pressure. Common tactics used to induce street include: critically questioning the opinions of the interviewee, frequent interruptions of interviewee’s answers to possibly hostile questions, silence on the part of the interviewer for an extended period, etc.
Strike Authorization
Also called strike vote, formal vote by union members that (if passed) invests the union leadership with the right to call a strike without additional consultation with the union membership.
Strike Benefits
The payment by a union to its striking members or to nonmembers for being on strike in support of the union.
Strike-Bound
Any organization that is being struck by its employees and/or attempting to function in spite of the strike.
Strike Fund
Monies reserved by a union to be used during a strike to cover costs such as strike benefits or legal fees. Strike funds are not necessarily separate from a union’s general fund. The amount of strike funds available may mean the success or failure of a strike.
Strike Notice
The formal notices of an impending work stoppage that is presented by a union to an employer or to an appropriate government agency.
Strike Pay
The union payments to union members as partial compensation for income loss during a strike.
Stroking
Also positive stroking and negative stroking. Eric Berne, in Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships (N.Y.: Grove Press, 1964) took the intimate physical act of stroking and developed its psychological analogy in conversation. All of human intercourse can be viewed from the narrow perspective of the giving and receiving of physical of physical and psychological strokes. In an organizational context, positive stroking consists of the laying of kind words on employees. Negative stroking involves using less than kinds words-being critical.
Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory (SCII)
Vocational interest inventory that lets individuals to compare their preferences with reference groups in a large of occupations; helps the test taker identify a general section of the occupational world for more intensive study.
Struck Work
The output or the products produced by strikebreakers.
Structured Role Playing
The role-play exercise or simulation in which the players receive oral or written instruction giving them cues as to their roles.
Subemployment
The concept that tries to capture two major dimensions of labor market functioning that produce, and reproduce poverty-the lack of opportunity for work and substandard wage employment.
Subsistence Allowance
The payments for an employee’s reasonable expenses (meals, lodging, transportation, etc.) while traveling on behalf of his employer.
Substandard Rate
Wage rate below established occupational, prevailing, or legal levels.
Suggestion System
The formal effort to motivate employees to make recommendations that would improve the operations of their organizations.
Sunshine Bargaining
Collective bargaining sessions open to the press and public. This process is more likely to be used in public sector negotiations. Also called as goldfish bowl bargaining.
Superannuated Rate
The pay rate below the prevailing rate that is paid to older employees who are in need or are needed because of a labor shortage. A ratio for superannuated workers is sometimes provided for in union agreements. The lower rate is justified on the theory that these older, otherwise retired, workers are not as productive as younger employees. Some superannuated rate policies may be in violation of age discrimination laws.
Supernumerary Income
That portion of a worker’s income, which is not needed for the essentials of everyday life and consequently available for luxuries and other optional spending.
Superseniority
Also called synthetic seniority, seniority that supercedes ordinary seniority, which is dependent on an individual’s length of service.
Supplemental Unemployment Benefits (SUB)
The payments to laid off workers from private unemployment insurance plans that are supplements to state unemployment insurance compensation.
Survivors Benefits
Totality of the benefits that are paid upon the death of an employee to his/her legal survivors. Employees are frequently required to make a decision at the time of retirement whether or not to take a reduced pension that allows for survivor’s benefits.
Sweat Shop
Work sites where employees worked long hours for low wages usually under unsanitary conditions.
Sweetheart Agreement
Also called sweet heart contract, expressions for any agreement between an employer and a union or union official that benefits them but not the workers. Incidences of employer bribes to labor officials in order to gain their agreement to substandard or "sweetheart" contract are well known to American labor history.
Sweetheart Clause
That provisions of a union contract that makes a general policy statement about the harmonious manner in which both sides will live up to the spirit and letter of the agreement.
Swing Shift
Extra shift of workers in an organization operating on a continuos or seven day basis. The swing crew rotates among the various shifts to compensate for those employees who are absent, sick, on vacation, etc.
Sympathy Strike
An illegal strike by one union undertaken solely to support the aims of another union in an effort to exert indirect pressure upon an employer. Also called as sympathetic strike.
Systemism
Belief that systems can actually be designed and managed to attain their expressed goals.
Systems Management
According to Richard A. Johnson, Fremont E. Kast and James E. Rosenzweig, in the Theory and Management of Systems (N.Y.: McGraw Hill, 3rd ed., 1973), systems management involves the application of systems theory to managing organizational systems or subsystems. It can refer to management of a particular function or to projects or program within a larger organization. An important point is that systems theory is a vital component in the managerial process. It includes recognizing a general model of input-transformation-output with identifiable flows of material, energy, and information. It also highlights the interrelationships among subsystems as well as the suprasystem to which a function, project, or organization belongs
.
From India, Chicalim
THANKSS FOR THE SPECIAL CONTRIBUTION KEEP POSTING
:))
Sabbatical
The lengthy paid leave for professional, intellectual or emotional
refurbishment.
Sabotage
Deliberate destruction of property or the slowing down of work with the intention of damaging a business.
Salary Compression
Also called wage compression, according to M.Sami Kassem, in "The Salary Compression Problem, "Personal Journal (April 1971), salary/wage compression is "the shrinking difference of pay being given, newcomers as opposed to the amount paid to the experienced regulars.
Salary Review
The formal examination of an employee’s rate of pay in terms of his or recent performance, change in the cost of living and other factors.
Salary Structures
According to Robert E. Sibson, in "New Practices and Ideas in Compensation Administration," Compensation Review (Third Quarter 1974, salary structures were originally, conceived as boxes within which salaries must be paid. Increasingly, though, companies are viewing their salary structures essentially as a uniform accounting system, intended primarily as an information source, rather than a control mechanism. Furthermore, the use of salary structures is changing in very fundamental ways.
Sandhogs
Slang term for a worker who works underground for digging subways, tunnels, etc.
Sandwich Management
This technique is one that is adopted most innocently. In fact, it has been perpetrated for year, as managers have been motivated to manipulate people rather than level with them. A typical statement by a sandwich manager goes something like this, "Fred, you’ve been doing a magnificent job in many respects since you came aboard. On the hand, there have been times when you work was so late, it caused problems for the whole department. You will have to get on the ball, son, or else we might have to transfer you to job you can handle for sure. But I am sure we can count on you to do the right thing. Your past history indicates you have great potential," Upon analyzing that statement closely you can see a loss of "bread," neatly sandwiched between two slices of baloney.
Satisfactory-Performance Increase
Annual incremental salary step increase awarded for satisfactory performance within a single salary grade.
Scab
Generally, a term used for an employee who continues to work for an organization while it is being wowed by coworkers. Also called as blackleg.
Scalar Chain
Also line of authority, according to Henri Fayol, general and Industrial Management, trans. By Constance Stores (London: Pitman Publishing, Ltd., 1949),"The scalar chain is the superiors ranging from the ultimate authority to the lowest ranks. The line of authority is the route followed via every link in the chain-by all communications, which start from or go to the ultimate authority. This path is dictated both by the need for some transmission and by the principle of unity of command, but it is not always the swiftest. It is even at times disastrously lengthy in large concerns, notably in governmental ones."
Scanlon Plan
The employee incentive plan developed in the 1930s by Jospeh N.Scanlon (then an officer of the United Steelworkers of America), which intends to enhance productivity and organizational harmony through bonus and suggestion systems. The suggestion system demanded by a "true" Scanlon Plan is so sophisticated that it is more properly considered a form of participatory management.
Schmoozing
Collective term for all of the social interactions engaged in by employees that are seemingly unrelated to their organization’s productivity.
Scientific Management
Systematic approach to managing that look for the "one best way" of accomplishing any given task by discovering the fastest, most efficient, and least fatiguing production methods. Once the "one best way" was found, the scientific manager was imposing this procedure upon the workforce.
Screening Interview
Initial interview for a job the purpose of which is to determine which applicants are to be given further consideration.
Scrip
Temporary document entitling the bearer to something of value. This token money was once commonly used to pay workers in lieu of cash. As the scrip could only be redeemed at a company store with inflated prices, some states passed laws making it illegal to pay employees with anything but legal tender.
Secondary Boycott
Concerted effort by a union engaged in a dispute with an employer to seek another union to boycott a fourth party (usually their employers) who, in response to such pressure, might put like pressure on the original offending employer.
Secondary Strike
Strike against an employer because it is doing business with another employer whose workers are on strike.
Selection Out
The euphemism for terminating an employee from a training program or employment.
Selection Procedure
According to the "Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection," a selection procedure is any measure, combination of measures, or procedures used as a basis for any employment decision. Selection procedures include the full range of assessment techniques from traditional paper and pencil tests, performance tests, training programs, or probationary periods and physical, educational, and work experience requirement through informal or casual interviews and unscored application forms.
Selection Ratio
Number of job applicants selected compared to the number of job applicants who were available.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
Causing something to happen by believing it will. If a manager believes that his or her employees are not capable, they will eventually live up or down to the manager’s expectations.
Separation
Termination of an individual’s employment for whatever reason.
Separation Rate
Ratio of the number of separations per hundred employees over a specified time span.
Service Fee
Money (usually the equivalent of union dues) the non-union members of an agency shop bargaining unit pay the union for negotiating and administering the collective bargaining agreement.
Set-Up Time
Time during the normal workday when a worker’s machine is being set up (usually by the machine’s operator) prior to commencing production. Union contracts frequently provide time standards for set-up operations.
Severance Pay
Also called dismissal pay, separation pay, and termination pay, lumpsum payment by an employer to an employee who has been permanently separated from the organization on account of a workforce reduction, the introduction of labor saving machinery, or for any reason other than "cause". The amount of a severance payment is usually calculated on the basis of years of service and earnings. About 40 percent of all union contracts contain provisions for severance pay.
Sex Plus
Situation where an employer does not discriminate against all males or all females but discriminates against a subset of either sex.
Sexual Harassment
Exists whenever an individual in a position to control or influence another’s job, career, or grade uses such power to gain sexual favors or punish the refusal of such favors. Sexual harassment on the job varies from inappropriate sexual innuendo to coerced sexual relations.
Shape-Up
A declining method of hiring-long common in the maritime industry-which had men lineup at the beginning of each day so that they could be selected (or rejected) for work.
Sheltered Workshop
The places of employment that offer a controlled, noncompetitive environment for persons who are unable to compete in, the regular world of work either because of physical or mental disabilities.
Shift Premium
Also called shift differential, extra compensation paid as an inducement to accept shift work.
Showing of Interest
Evidence of membership-the requirement that a union must show that it has adequate from employees in a proposed bargaining unit before a representation election can be held. A "showing of interest" is usually demonstrated by signed authorization cards.
Sick Leave
The leave of absence, usually with pay, granted to employees who cannot attend work because of illness.
Sick-Leave Bank
Arrangement that allows employees to pool some of their paid sick leave days in a common fund so that may draw upon that fund if extensive illness uses up their remaining paid time off. Sick-leave banks have tended to discourage absenteeism; because, with everyone jointly owing days in the bank, there is some psychological pressure on workers not to use their sick leave unless they are really sick.
Sinecure
Sinecure is Latin for "without care." Any position for which a salary is extracted but little or no work is expected. This was originally an ecclesiastical term, which meant a church office that did not require the care of souls.
Sit-Down Strike
Also stay-in strike, any stoppage during which the strikers remain at their workstations and refuse to leave the employer’s premises in order to hinder the employment of strikebreakers.
Skill Differential
Differences in wage rate paid to workers employed in occupational categories requiring varying levels to skill.
Skilled Labor
Workers, who, having trained for a relatively long time, have mastered jobs of considerable skill requiring the exercise of substantial independence judgement.
Skills Survey
Also called skills, inventory comprehensive collection and examination of data on the workforce to determine the composition and level of employees’ skills, knowledge, and abilities so that they can be more fully utilized and/or developed to fill the staffing needs of an organization. To be effective, skill data must also be arranged in such a manner that the information gathered can be readily accessible for management use.
Slide-Rule Discipline
Approach to discipline that eliminates supervisory discretion and sets very specific quantitative standards as the result of specific violations. For example, a discipline policy based on this concept might hold that any employee who is late for work more than five times in a 30-day period would be "automatically" suspended for three days.
Slowdown
Deliberate reduction of output by employees with the intention bringing economic pressure upon an employer without incurring the costs of a strike.
Social Audit
Defined by Raymond A. Bauer and Dan H.Fenn Jr., in "What is a Corporate Social Audit"’ Harvard Business Review (January-February 1973), as "a commitment to systematic assessment of and reporting on some meaningful, defined domain of a company’s activities that have social impact."
Social Insurance
Any benefit programs that a state makes available to the members of its society in time of need and as a matter of right.
Sociogram
The diagram indicates the interactions between members of a group. Typically, it has circles representing people and arrows extending from those circles pointing out the other people (circles) that are liked, disliked, etc.
Socio-Technical Systems
Concept that is used to refer to a work group which is neither a technical nor a social system, but an interdependent socio-technical system.
Spatial Relations
Measure of an individual’s ability for rapid and dexterous manipulation of pieces and parts relative to one another (i.e., perceiving geometric relationships).
Speededness
Appropriateness of a test in terms of the length of time allotted. For most purpose, a good test will full use of the examination period but not be so speeded that an examinee’s rate of work will have an undue influence on the score received.
Speed Rating
Performance rating that compares the speed with which an employee performs specific tasks against an observer’s standard or norm.
Speed-Up
Also stretch-out, terms referring to any effort by employers to obtain an increase in productivity without a corresponding increase in wages.
Spiral-Omnibus Test
Test in which the various kinds of tasks are distributed throughout the test (instead of being grouped together) and are in cycles of increasing difficulty. There is only one timing and one score for such a test.
Split Commission
Awarding of partial credit and compensation to each of several sales persons when each is directly involved in completing a sale. The normal commission is divided among the recipients.
Split-Dollar Life Insurance
Also called supplemental life insurance, life insurance for employees paid for by an employer. In the event of the covered employee’s death, the employer totally recovers the paid premiums from the benefit sum with the remainder distributed to the employee’s beneficiaries.
Split-Half-Reliability
Measure of the reliability of a test obtained by correlating scores on one behalf of a test with scores on the other half and correcting for the reduced size.
Split-The Difference
Collective Bargaining tactic in which both sides agree to a settlement half way between their bargaining positions.
Staffing
One of the most basic functions of management and usually considered synonymous with employment-that is, the process of hiring people to perform work for the organization. Staffing defines the organization by translating its objectives and goals into a specific work plan. It structures the responsibilities of the organization’s human resources into a work system of establishing who will perform what function, and have what authority. Staffing is the essence of the personnel management process.
Staffing Dynamics
The phrase used by those who are not content was calling turnover.
Staffing Plan
The planning document that minimally (1) lists as organization’s projected personnel needs by occupation and grade level and (2) identifies how these needs will be met.
Staffing Program Planning
The determination by organization personnel management of the numbers and kinds of personnel management actions necessary during each stage of the planning period to staff the workforce required in management’s program plan.
Staff Organization
Those segments of a larger organization that provides support services and have no direct responsibilities for line operations or production. Personnel administration has traditionally been a staff function.
Standard Allowance
Established Amount of time, which the normal time for employees to complete their tasks is increased in order to compensate for the expected amount of personal and/or unavoidable delays.
Standard Hour Plan
Incentive plan that rewards an employee by a percent premium that equals the percent by which performance beats the standard.
Standardization
Specification of consistent procedure to be followed in administering, scoring, and interpreting tests.
Standard of Performance
Statements that tell as employee how well or she must perform a task to be considered a satisfactory employee. Standard covers how much, how accurately, in what time period, or in what manner, the various job tasks are to be performed. The performance standards, whether written or unwritten, will specify the minimum level of performance at which an employee must work in order to attain a satisfactory performance rating. Written performance standards are usually required only when an employee is warned that he or she may receive an unsatisfactory rating.
State of the Art
The level of development in a given scientific or technological field at a given time, usually the present.
Status
Abstraction of one’s relative position or ranking within an organization or society.
Step Bonus
Feature of wage incentive plans that call for a substantial increase in incentive payments when the quantity and/or quality of output reaches a specified level.
Steward
Also called shop steward and union steward, local union’s most immediate representative in a plant or department. Usually elected by fellow employees (but sometimes appointed by the union leadership), the shop steward handles grievances, collects dues, solicits new members, etc. A shop steward usually continues to work at his or her regular job and handles union matters on a part-time basis, frequently on the employer’s time.
Steward Chief
Union representative who supervises the activities of a group of shop stewards.
Stint-Plan Wage System
System that assigns a definite output an employee’s day’s work; and, if the work is completed in less than normal time, the employee is credited with a full day’s work and allowed to go home.
Stop Labor
Farm work involving the picking of crops that grow close to or into the ground.
Stranger Laboratory
The laboratory experience for individuals from differing organizations.
Stranger Pickets
The workers who picket an employee who has never employed them.
Straw Boss
The colloquial term for a supervisor who has no real authority, power or status with which to back up his orders.
Stress Interview
Interview in which the interviewer deliberately creates a stressful situation for the interview in order to see how the interview might behave under such pressure. Common tactics used to induce street include: critically questioning the opinions of the interviewee, frequent interruptions of interviewee’s answers to possibly hostile questions, silence on the part of the interviewer for an extended period, etc.
Strike Authorization
Also called strike vote, formal vote by union members that (if passed) invests the union leadership with the right to call a strike without additional consultation with the union membership.
Strike Benefits
The payment by a union to its striking members or to nonmembers for being on strike in support of the union.
Strike-Bound
Any organization that is being struck by its employees and/or attempting to function in spite of the strike.
Strike Fund
Monies reserved by a union to be used during a strike to cover costs such as strike benefits or legal fees. Strike funds are not necessarily separate from a union’s general fund. The amount of strike funds available may mean the success or failure of a strike.
Strike Notice
The formal notices of an impending work stoppage that is presented by a union to an employer or to an appropriate government agency.
Strike Pay
The union payments to union members as partial compensation for income loss during a strike.
Stroking
Also positive stroking and negative stroking. Eric Berne, in Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships (N.Y.: Grove Press, 1964) took the intimate physical act of stroking and developed its psychological analogy in conversation. All of human intercourse can be viewed from the narrow perspective of the giving and receiving of physical of physical and psychological strokes. In an organizational context, positive stroking consists of the laying of kind words on employees. Negative stroking involves using less than kinds words-being critical.
Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory (SCII)
Vocational interest inventory that lets individuals to compare their preferences with reference groups in a large of occupations; helps the test taker identify a general section of the occupational world for more intensive study.
Struck Work
The output or the products produced by strikebreakers.
Structured Role Playing
The role-play exercise or simulation in which the players receive oral or written instruction giving them cues as to their roles.
Subemployment
The concept that tries to capture two major dimensions of labor market functioning that produce, and reproduce poverty-the lack of opportunity for work and substandard wage employment.
Subsistence Allowance
The payments for an employee’s reasonable expenses (meals, lodging, transportation, etc.) while traveling on behalf of his employer.
Substandard Rate
Wage rate below established occupational, prevailing, or legal levels.
Suggestion System
The formal effort to motivate employees to make recommendations that would improve the operations of their organizations.
Sunshine Bargaining
Collective bargaining sessions open to the press and public. This process is more likely to be used in public sector negotiations. Also called as goldfish bowl bargaining.
Superannuated Rate
The pay rate below the prevailing rate that is paid to older employees who are in need or are needed because of a labor shortage. A ratio for superannuated workers is sometimes provided for in union agreements. The lower rate is justified on the theory that these older, otherwise retired, workers are not as productive as younger employees. Some superannuated rate policies may be in violation of age discrimination laws.
Supernumerary Income
That portion of a worker’s income, which is not needed for the essentials of everyday life and consequently available for luxuries and other optional spending.
Superseniority
Also called synthetic seniority, seniority that supercedes ordinary seniority, which is dependent on an individual’s length of service.
Supplemental Unemployment Benefits (SUB)
The payments to laid off workers from private unemployment insurance plans that are supplements to state unemployment insurance compensation.
Survivors Benefits
Totality of the benefits that are paid upon the death of an employee to his/her legal survivors. Employees are frequently required to make a decision at the time of retirement whether or not to take a reduced pension that allows for survivor’s benefits.
Sweat Shop
Work sites where employees worked long hours for low wages usually under unsanitary conditions.
Sweetheart Agreement
Also called sweet heart contract, expressions for any agreement between an employer and a union or union official that benefits them but not the workers. Incidences of employer bribes to labor officials in order to gain their agreement to substandard or "sweetheart" contract are well known to American labor history.
Sweetheart Clause
That provisions of a union contract that makes a general policy statement about the harmonious manner in which both sides will live up to the spirit and letter of the agreement.
Swing Shift
Extra shift of workers in an organization operating on a continuos or seven day basis. The swing crew rotates among the various shifts to compensate for those employees who are absent, sick, on vacation, etc.
Sympathy Strike
An illegal strike by one union undertaken solely to support the aims of another union in an effort to exert indirect pressure upon an employer. Also called as sympathetic strike.
Systemism
Belief that systems can actually be designed and managed to attain their expressed goals.
Systems Management
According to Richard A. Johnson, Fremont E. Kast and James E. Rosenzweig, in the Theory and Management of Systems (N.Y.: McGraw Hill, 3rd ed., 1973), systems management involves the application of systems theory to managing organizational systems or subsystems. It can refer to management of a particular function or to projects or program within a larger organization. An important point is that systems theory is a vital component in the managerial process. It includes recognizing a general model of input-transformation-output with identifiable flows of material, energy, and information. It also highlights the interrelationships among subsystems as well as the suprasystem to which a function, project, or organization belongs
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