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Human Resource Management

Koontz and O’donnel define the staffing function as – “filling positions in the
organization structure through identifying work-force requirement, inventorying the
people available, recruitment, selection, placement, promotion, appraisal,
compensation and training of needed people”.

Staffing as a managerial function involves the following steps –

• Human Resource planning: developing a plan to meet future human


resource requirements.

• Recruiting: building a pool of potential job candidates for each job.

• Selecting: evaluating job candidates and choosing the best from the pool of
applicants created through recruiting.

• Compensation and benefits Administration: developing a salary


structure and benefits package to attract, hire and retain employees.

• Orientation and Socialization: introducing the selected individuals to their


unit and organization and developing an understanding about the unit’s and
organization’s expectations and preferred ways of “working there”.

• Training: developing programs to provide employees with the skills needed


to perform their jobs effectively.

• Performance Appraisal: developing procedures to evaluate employee


performance and communicate this evaluate to the employee.

• Promotion, Demotion, Transfer, Termination: developing procedures to


move people to positions of increased or decreased responsibility, widening
their job experience through transfer to different functions or locations, or
terminating their employment.

• Management and career development: developing programs to increase


abilities and effectiveness of all management resources
Steps involved in the staffing function

Human Resource Recruiting Selecting


Compensation
Planning and
Benefits

Administration

Orientation Training Performance


Management and
and Socialization Appraisal
Career Development

Promotion
Demotion
Transfer
Termination
Human Resource Planning

Human Resource planning is basically the application of the planning process to


staffing and personnel – related problems.

Three stages in HR planning –

1. Assessment of present supply


2. Assessment of future needs
3. Development of a human resource program to meet future needs

Present supply:
Human Resource planning in an organization logically begins with an assessment of
present supply. Management must determine how many people are involved in the
performance of each task required for each of its specific objectives. Management
in addition, must evaluate the quality of its people. To accomplish this some
organizations have developed a skills inventory, this is a written record of skills of
all employees and the number of people possessing those skills.

Future needs:
This stage of human resource planning involves projection of future requirements to
attain long and short term objectives. Future environment and expansion plans of
the organization have to be taken into consideration. Various management signs
models have been developed to help organization forecast their future human
resource needs. Changes in the external environment especially economic
environment can have a significant impact on an organization’s future human
resource needs. For instance, in India in the last few years as computerization of
many operations is going on in a big way in many organizations, there is a high
demand for systems analyst and other computer profession. After determining the
exact number of people required, management must develop a program to ensure
proper supply of people as per the needs of the organizations.

Development of a human resource program:


The human resource program consist of a specific time table and the determination
of specific action required to attract, hire, train or promote the people required to
attain organizational objectives.

Job analysis:
Job analysis is an important tool through which man power requirements are
assessed in organization. In order to hire appropriate people, management must
know in detail what task must be performed effectively and what the personnel and
social characteristic of the work are. These determinations are accomplished
through job analysis.

There are several methods for analyzing jobs:

1. Is to observe the workers and formally identify and record the task and
activities performed.
2. Is obtaining such information by interviewing the worker or supervisor.

This off course would probably be less accurate due to perceptual distortions.

3. The third method is to have the worker fill out a questionnaire or write a
description of the job he or she is handling and its requirements. The
information obtained through job analysis is the foundation for Human
Resource planning, recruiting and other purposes. Its most immediate use is
to create a job description. This is a summary of the major task, skill
requirements and authority of the different types of jobs in the organization.
Each major category if job such as, secretary, stores clerk, advertising
manager or systems analyst would require a different description.

Recruitment

Recruitment is the building of a pool of candidates for each job from which the
organization can select the most appropriate. This is done after taking into account
such factors as retirement, turnover, termination and expansion into new fields.
Organizations usually recruit from both external and internal sources. External
means of recruitment normally include placing ads in newspapers and trade
magazines, using an employment agency or executive search firm, and sending
recruiters to college campuses. Some organizations make an explicit policy that
people in their community are welcome to apply for future vacancies.

Most organizations prefer to recruit from within to the extent possible. Promoting
from within is less costly than an external source and also tends to increase
employee loyalty, morale and motivation. A potential disadvantage of promoting
exclusively from within is that qualified people with fresh viewpoints are not
brought into the organization, which may cause stagnation in thinking.

Selecting

In the selection phase of human resource planning and development, management


chooses the most appropriate candidates from the pool of applicants created by
recruitment function. In most cases, the person chosen should be the one who
appears to have the best qualifications to perform the job being filled. An objective
selection decision may be based on the candidate’s education, skill level, past
experience and personal characteristics. When the job is one for which technical
knowledge the primary determinant of performance, such as research scientist,
education and scientific background would probably be most important. For
management positions, particularly those on higher levels, conceptual and
interpersonal skills are critical. Final selection is normally done on the basis of
performance of the candidates in the various tests and interviews. The amount and
intensity of testing and interviewing vary from job to job.

Tests:

Behavioral scientists have developed a variety of tests that attempt to predict how
effectively a candidate will be able to perform a given job. One type of selection test
measures the ability to perform tasks relevant to the job. Eg. Would be a typing and
shorthand test which aim at demonstrating ability to operate a machine and having
the candidate make an oral or written presentation. Another type of test measures
psychological characteristics such as intelligence, motivation, drive, open –
mindedness, self – confidence, emotional stability and attention to detail.

Interviews:

Interviews are by far the most widely used selection technique. Even non –
managerial employees are not hired without at least one interview. The selection of
a higher – level manager may involve many interviews over the course of several
months.

Many of these tools used in the final selection of candidates are not free from
errors. For eg. There is a tendency to make a decision about the candidate based on
the first impression and disregard or misinterpret what is said during the rest of the
interview. Another mistake is to evaluate an applicant relative to the person
interviewed immediately before. If the earlier person was particularly poor, a
mediocre candidate may be rated good or very good. There is also a tendency for
interviewers to rate more favorably candidates whose appearance, social attitudes
and mannerisms are most like their own.

Some general recommendations for effective interviewing are:

• Create rapport with the candidate and allow him or her to feel comfortable.

• Focus on job requirements throughout the interview.

• Don’t evaluate on first impressions. Wait until all information is on hand.

• Have a set of structured questions that all applicants will be asked. However,
be flexible enough to explore other issues that arise.

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