HRM practices for managerial and hourly employees in service organizations

A large literature addresses the nature of the managerial position. According to this literature, the jobs of managers comprise several roles. Mintzberg (1973), for example, described 10 managerial roles clustered into three categories: interpersonal, informational and decisional. While allowing for differences in situations, taken together, these 10 roles characterize the job of manager as being linked with others, taking some risks, focusing on results and process, managing the activities and jobs of others, dealing with unpredictable events and monitoring the environment of the group or unit being managed. Jacques' (1989) concept of the time span of discretion adds another distinguishing feature to this picture of managerial jobs. The time span of discretion refers to the length of time it takes for results of a contribution to become known. For managers, this time span is usually relatively long. Using the Mintzberg role distinctions and Jacques' time span of discretion, managerial jobs can be compared and contrasted with hourly or nonmanagerial jobs. While managerial and non-managerial jobs are similar in that both are remunerated and are important to organizational effectiveness, managerial jobs are generally filled with more unpredictability, risk-taking, results-orientation, interdependence and a longer time span of discretion, in comparison to hourly jobs. These differences may diminish, however, as service organizations reduce layers of management, decentralize and push more responsibility down to lower organizational levels.

Organizations use their HRM practices to encourage the behaviors needed to successfully carry out the managerial role. Given that the managerial role is different from the roles of lower-level employees in organizations, it is reasonable to expect that organizations would use somewhat different human resource management practices for the two groups of employees. Specifically, given the nature of the managerial role as previously described, it is probable that compared to hourly employees in service-based organizations, managers would be more likely to be influenced by the following practices:


Jobs with greater skill variety and responsibility;
Performance appraisals that focus on results;
Performance appraisals that focus on projects that takes a longer period of time;
Compensation schemes based on company-wide bonuses;
Training that is provided for longer-term and broader skill development; and more training hours per year.