People | OCR A-Level Business H436 (H436)

People

364 questions
24 subtopics
Component 01: Business activity, marketing and people
Component 01

People is examined in Component 01, Business activity, marketing and people.

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

Sample questions from People

Answer each one closed book first, then open the answer.

Human resource management and workforce planning

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

Show the answer
It can recruit externally, train or redeploy existing employees, or take on temporary workers.
Organisational design, flexibility and intrapreneurship

What are two signs that a business has outgrown its structure?

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Decisions take too long because too many people must approve them, and responsibilities either overlap or fall between roles so work is duplicated or missed.
Authority, delegation and centralisation

What are two benefits of delegation to the manager who delegates?

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It frees their time for higher-value work, and it makes use of skills in the team that the manager does not have.
Bonuses, profit sharing, pensions and fringe benefits

What is profit sharing?

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Profit sharing distributes an agreed share of the business's profit among its employees.
Leadership, vision and company culture

What are two things a leader does to unite a team?

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Sets a shared goal that everyone's work contributes to, and deals with conflict and unfair treatment so people cooperate rather than compete.
Trade unions, collective bargaining and strikes

What are two working conditions, other than pay, that a union commonly negotiates over?

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Health and safety arrangements, and hours of work including breaks and shift patterns.
CVs, interviews and assessment centres

What is one reason interviews are an unreliable predictor of job performance?

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Interviewers are swayed by first impressions and by candidates who present well, which is not the same as being able to do the job.
Coaching, mentoring, shadowing and apprenticeships

What is one advantage of shadowing before a promotion?

Show the answer
The employee sees the realities of the role before taking it, so they start better prepared and are less likely to find the job is not for them.

The 24 subtopics

One subtopic is one session. Work down the list.

Subtopic	What it covers	Questions
Human resource management and workforce planning	Recall questions on the purpose of human resource management, labour resource needs, workforce planning and skills audits, closing a labour shortfall, and staffing plans for growing and seasonal businesses.	13
Full-time, part-time, permanent and temporary contracts	Recall questions on full-time and part-time work, permanent, temporary and fixed-term contracts, their benefits and drawbacks for businesses and employees, their effect on labour costs, and the right contract mix.	14
Flexible, shift and remote working	Recall questions on flexible working, shift and night working, hybrid working and homeworking, employees compared with self-employed contractors, and how flexible working affects recruitment, retention and supervision.	15
Organisational design, flexibility and intrapreneurship	Recall questions on the purpose of organisational design, signs that a business has outgrown its structure, and how structure affects flexibility, intrapreneurship, employee development, communication and costs.	12
Tall, flat, matrix and divisional structures	Recall questions on hierarchical structures, tall and flat structures, functional, product-based and geographical structures, and matrix structures, with the advantages and weaknesses of each.	18
Levels of hierarchy, span of control and delayering	Recall questions on levels of hierarchy, the chain of command, span of control and subordinates, calculating supervisor numbers and restructuring savings, and the benefits and risks of delayering.	14
Authority, delegation and centralisation	Recall questions on authority, responsibility and accountability, delegation and the conditions for it to succeed, and the advantages and drawbacks of centralisation and decentralisation.	17
Why motivation matters at work	Recall questions on motivation and the human needs work satisfies, why pay alone rarely motivates, and how motivation affects productivity, quality, labour turnover, recruitment, supervision costs and discretionary effort.	13
Salary, wages, piece rates and commission	Recall questions on salaries, hourly wages and overtime, piece rates and commission, calculating pay under each method, and when each suits a role or creates risks for quality and employees.	14
Bonuses, profit sharing, pensions and fringe benefits	Recall questions on bonuses, performance-related pay, profit sharing and calculating each employee's share, workplace pensions, fringe benefits, and the drawbacks of relying on financial rewards to motivate.	14
Recognition, empowerment and job design	Recall questions on non-financial motivation, praise and recognition schemes, the working environment, promotion opportunities, empowerment, job enrichment and job rotation, and when non-financial motivators fail.	18
Work-life balance, wellbeing and inclusion at work	Recall questions on employee morale, work-life balance, mental health awareness and presenteeism, equality, diversity, inclusion and belonging, and interpreting engagement and wellbeing survey data.	16
Leadership, vision and company culture	Recall questions on leadership and management, a business's vision, organisational culture and modelling core values, creating an inclusive environment, and why leadership matters most during change.	13
Autocratic, democratic and transformational leadership	Recall questions on autocratic, democratic, laissez-faire, paternalistic and transformational leadership styles, the benefits and drawbacks of each, which style suits a situation, and changing style as a business grows.	17
Employee voice, suggestion schemes and works councils	Recall questions on employee voice and its channels, suggestion schemes, participative decision making, works councils, consultation and negotiation, and the benefits, costs and risks of employee participation.	12
Trade unions, collective bargaining and strikes	Recall questions on the purposes of trade unions, collective bargaining, the legal help unions provide, strikes, overtime bans, picketing and other industrial action, and the costs of strikes to businesses and employees.	16
Redundancy, fair dismissal and unfair dismissal	Recall questions on voluntary and involuntary redundancy, how redundancies should be handled, fair grounds for dismissal, unfair dismissal and whistleblowing, and the costs of handling a dismissal badly.	17
Internal and external recruitment	Recall questions on internal and external recruitment and their advantages and drawbacks, job descriptions and person specifications, job advertisements, employment agencies, online recruitment and the cost of poor recruitment.	18
CVs, interviews and assessment centres	Recall questions on CVs, application forms and letters of application, interviews and structured interviews, references, selection tests, group activities and assessment centres, and choosing selection methods for a role.	17
The benefits of training and development	Recall questions on training and development and how they affect productivity, customer service, motivation and retention, skills shortages, multi-skilling, statutory training, and why some businesses are reluctant to train.	15
Induction, on-the-job and off-the-job training	Recall questions on induction and onboarding, on-the-job and off-the-job training, workshops and online learning, the advantages and drawbacks of each, and which method suits training a new machine operator.	14
Coaching, mentoring, shadowing and apprenticeships	Recall questions on coaching, mentoring and job shadowing, apprenticeships and their benefits and risks, training needs analysis, and how a business judges whether its training spending has been worthwhile.	13
Employee turnover and retention	Recall questions on calculating employee turnover and the retention rate, the costs of staff leaving, comparing turnover with the industry average, why some turnover is healthy, and actions that reduce turnover.	16
Absenteeism and employee productivity	Recall questions on calculating absenteeism rates and their cost, causes of absence and how to reduce it, calculating output and revenue per employee, raising productivity, and reading turnover, absence and productivity together.	18

People is 364 of the 2,383 questions in the guide.Get the guide, £8

How the guide is worked

Answering a question from memory stores it far better than reading the answer again. The guide runs that as a fixed procedure on one subtopic at a time, about twenty minutes a session.

Step 1 · Closed book
Cover the answers. Work through one subtopic and write down what you can. Leave blanks where you have nothing.
Step 2 · Open book
Go back to the top. Read each printed answer and write it out in full, including the ones you had right.
Step 3 · Closed book again
Same questions, same order, from memory. The gap between pass one and pass three is the session result.

Read the full method, the return schedule and the research behind it.