Week 11 · Readings & resources

Week 11 — Readings & Resources

Introduction to Business Free sample edition

Your primary reading is Chapter 11 (in this module). Everything below is the optional, go-deeper layer — pick what helps, skip the rest.

How to use this page

This page has 11 items (5 readings and 6 videos). Allow 60–70 minutes for everything. Each group links back to the matching chapter section and class-session segment, so use the full menu when you want more, or take the quick path below.

Every video here has captions: turn them on with the CC button in the player. The chapter covers the same ideas in text.

Pick-one quick path (19–21 min total)

① Finding and choosing the right person

Chapter 11, Section “Fill the pool, then choose: recruitment versus selection” · Session 1, Segment 2, “Fill the pool, then choose” · Remember: recruitment fills the pool of applicants, and selection chooses whom to hire from it.

Recruitment Process: Job Analysis, Job Description, and Job Specification — Business Partner — a short business-studies explainer on how a job analysis leads to a job description and a job specification; as you watch, sort each point into the job or the person. Use it as you plan the cart's helper in the Week-11 module overview. (video, 3 min) (captions: automatic)
Recruitment and Selection — Two Teachers — a business-studies explainer that walks the hiring process from start to finish, including internal and external recruitment and the pros and cons of interviews and assessments; pause at each step and say whether it fills the pool or chooses from it. (video, 8 min) (captions: creator)
Interview and recruit employees — business.gov.au — a national government business site's seven steps, from reviewing your staff structure and writing a position description to interviewing and making an offer; its legal points are for that country, so read it for the steps, not the law. Stop at the offer: what keeps new staff engaged is next week's topic. (reading, 6–8 min)

② Pay and the federal floor

Chapter 11, Section “Price the hire: the cart's hiring plan and the minimum wage” · Session 1, Segment 4, “Price the hire” · Remember: the federal minimum wage is a floor, and many states set a higher one of their own.

State Minimum Wage Laws — U.S. Department of Labor — the federal labor department's state-by-state table of minimum wage laws; skim a few entries to see that some states list a rate above the federal floor, and read the closing note that official answers come from each state's labor office. It is general education, not advice for any job. (reading, 3–5 min)
Labor Markets and Minimum Wage: Crash Course Economics #28 — CrashCourse — an episode on how pay is set in labor markets and on the arguments for and against a minimum wage; write down the strongest reason each side gives, and notice that the episode lays out both. (video, 11 min) (captions: creator)

③ Unions, bargaining, and the membership numbers

Chapter 11, Section “Bargain as a group: labor relations and unions” · Session 2, Segment 6, “Bargaining as a group” · Remember: a union bargains with management as a group, and a strike or a lockout is pressure, not the bargaining itself.

Rights during union organizing — National Labor Relations Board — the federal labor-relations agency's short page on what private-sector employees may do when they organize; read it as general education about the 1935 Act, never as advice for a real workplace. (reading, 2–4 min)
The fall (and rise?) of unions in the US — Vox — a news explainer that answers a viewer's question about why union membership fell. Treat it as one analysis, told mostly from the union side: its host says they belong to a union, and its account of employer tactics and of U.S. labor law gives the employers' and critics' case little room. Sort its points into checkable facts and the explainer's own judgments, then add the strongest case against unions from Chapter 11. Its real companies and named politicians are its own examples, not checked facts, and one interview repeats a manager's profanity. (video, 10 min) (captions: creator)
Percentage Points vs Percentage Change (Clear Difference) — Simply Said & Explained — a two-minute explainer on why a change between two percentages has two honest descriptions; afterward, describe the fall from 20.1 percent to 10.0 percent both ways. (video, 2 min) (captions: automatic)

④ The federal employment laws

Chapter 11, Section “Name the laws: the federal employment statutes in order” · Session 2, Segment 8, “The laws in order” · Remember: tie each law to its own year, and send any question about a real situation to the agency that administers it.

Prohibited Employment Policies/Practices — U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission — the agency's plain-language page on the practices the laws it enforces forbid; read the opening and the parts on job advertisements, recruitment, and application and hiring, and skip the rest. This builds on Week 5's line between what the law requires and what is right. (reading, 6–8 min)
What Did the Equal Pay Act of 1963 Do? — HISTORY — a short history of the fight for equal pay and what the 1963 Act put into law; as you watch, tie the Act to its year and place it in order among the other employment laws. Its pay-gap figures and its account of who opposed the Act are the video's own, not figures this course checks or tests. (video, 5 min) (captions: creator)

Optional one-stop reference (free online reference)

Manage your business: hire and manage employees — U.S. Small Business Administration — the federal small-business agency's guide, which this course returns to; read the build-your-team example, which writes a description for each position and sets wages to meet the state minimum, and skip the payroll-tax steps, which this course does not cover. (reading, 4–6 min)

Heads-up (links rot): these point to outside sites that occasionally move or rename pages. If a link ever fails, tell your instructor and use the reference above in the meantime.

Provenance: Built with The Course Maker · samples.thecoursemaker.com