Human Resource Management

• The science and art of managing the

people is known as the “Personal
management” and more popularly
“Human Resource Management and
Development”. Henceforth, it will be
referred to as Human Resource
Management.
 The prime concern of human resource management is to
develop, implement procedures and systems for the following
important areas:
1. To decide the organizational structure.
2. Human resource planning
3. To frame the policy with respect to recruitment, selection,
promotion and exit of employees.
4. To standardize procedures for job description, job allocation,
job evaluation and performance reviews.
5. To organize training to bring qualitative change in employees.
6. To decide structure of wages and remunerations.
7. Industrial relations
8. Health and safety
9. Welfare
10. Dealing with unions
11. Special disciplinary problems.
Human resources management: An overview

 The most important resource of an organization is its human

resources – the people who work in the organization.

 To meet the challenges and competitive atmosphere of today’s

business environment, managers must recognize the potential
of human resources, and then acquire, develop and retain these
resources.

 Human Resource Management (HRM) may be defined as the

organized function of planning for human resource needs, and
recruitment, selection, development, compensation and
evaluation of the performance to fill those needs.

 The HRM process is an ongoing function that aims to keep the

organization supplied with the right people in the right
positions, when they are needed.
Human resource planning

Recruitment

Staffing

Selection

Training and Development

Performance Appraisal

Compensation
 Decenzo & Robbins
“Manpower planning is the process by which an
organization ensures that it has the right number & kind of
people, at the right place, at the right time, capable of
effectively & efficiently completing those tasks that will
help the organization achieve its overall objectives.”
“Human resource planning (manpower planning) is the
process-including forecasting, developing, implementing
and controlling by which a firm ensures that it has the
right number & kind of people, at the right place, at the
right time, doing things for which they are economically
most suitable.”
 Organizational objectives &
plans

Manpower planning

Forecasting manpower Preparing manpower

requirement Inventory

Identification of
Manpower gap

Surplus Shortage of manpower

Manpower

Action plans for bridging the gap

 STAFFING
• Staffing is the function by which managers build
an organization through the recruitment,
selection, and development of individuals as
capable employees.

• Staffing is defined as filling positions in the

organization structure through identifying
workforce requirements, inventorying the people
available, recruitment, selection, placement,
promotion, appraisal, compensation and training
of needed people.
Staffing is defined as filling and keeping filled, positions in the
organization.
 Staffing is just a part of HRM process and plays important role.
 Staffing involves a set of activities aimed at attracting and
selecting individuals for positions in a way that will facilitate the
achievement of organizational goal.
 The staffing process is a systematic attempt to implement the
human resource plan by recruiting, evaluating and selecting
qualified candidates for the job positions in the organization.
 Two basic steps of staffing are recruitment and selection.
 It is the process of identifying and attempting to
attract candidates who are capable of filling job
vacancies aprropriately.
 There are two sources of recruitment:-
1. Internal
2. External.
It involves identifying the potential candidates within the
organization who can fill the vacant positions.
 Apart from identifying the candidates, they have to be encouraged
to accept the vacant organizational positions.
 Most multinational firms, such as IBM, General Motors and P&G,
have a policy of recruiting (promoting) from within the
organization, except the exceptional circumstances.
 This method of filling vacant positions by promotions from within
the organization help to build employee morale and prevent high
quality employees from leaving the organization.
 External recruitment involves attracting people from
outside the organization to apply for vacant positions in
the organization.
 There are variety of sources from which external job
candidates can be obtained.
 These include advertising, educational institutions,
employment agencies, voluntary applicants, and
referrals by current employees.
 Advertising in newspaper and journals is the most popular
method of recruitment from external sources.
 Advertising in local newspapers is a good source of recruiting
people for lower level positions.
 The following are some of the elements that should be included
in an advertisement in order to make it effective:-
1. Name of the company
2. The product (the post)
3. Place where the vacancies are to be filled
4. Hiring qualification
5. Compensation plans and benefits
6. Way to contact the employer
 Educational institution are the excellent source of
potential employee for entry level positions in
organization.
 However some large firms look to educational
institutions for high level position as well.
 Business colleges institutions and universities are
good sources of external recruits.
 Employment agencies are a good source for recruitment.
But if the employment agency chosen is not a good one,
the entire process of recruitment can be adversely
affected.
 They charge a fee for the services rendered, from the
employer and/or the employee.
 Management consultants are specialized private
employment agencies. They conduct executive search to
identify potential recruits, especially for middle and top
level placements.
 “walk ins” whether they reach the employee by
letter, telephone i.e. in person are also a source of
prospective applicants.
 Some firms view walk-in applicants as aggressive
and self reliant individuals.
 Existing employees can be asked to furnish the names
and details of people who they think are suitable for a
particular vacancy in the organization.
 The employees may suggest the names of friends, who
work for another firm, or for relatives.
 This type of external recruitment can prove to be
effective as the employees can provide information on
the applicants ability to perform on the job and how well
he or she can get along with others.
ADVANTAGES
 Familiarity of the candidate with organization policies,
procedures and culture.
 Enhances employees morale by offering opportunities
for upward mobility.
 Prevents high quality employees from leaving the
organization.
DISADVANTAGES
 Lack of new ideas.
 Need for expensive training programs
ADVANTAGES
 Influx of new ideas.
 Candidates who are recruited from the competitors
organizations provide valuable information about
competitor’s moves and strategies.
 Facilitates recruitment of candidates with diverse skills,
expertise and vast experience.
DISADVANTAGES
 Expensive process.
 Orientation process may consume lot of time.
 The selection process involves choosing the candidates
who best meet the qualifications and have the greatest
aptitude for the job.
 The objective of effective selection is to match
individual characteristics (ability, experience and so on)
with the requirement of the job.
 The aim of selection should be to choose candidates who
can meet organizational goals.
 The selection process involves mutual
decision making on the part of both
organization and the job applicant.
 A typical selection process follows a
standard pattern and consists of the steps
shown in figure.
 P re l i m i n a ry s c re e n i n g

A p p lic a t io n b la n k
Intelligence test
personality test
knowledge test
S e le c tio n te s t performance/work sample test

S t ru c t u re d
C o m p re h e n s i v e i n t e rv i e w s e m i s t ru c t u re d
u n s t ru c t u re d

M a il
R e f e re n c e c h e c k phone
u n s t ru c t u re d

P h y s ic a l e x a m in a t io n

M a k in g t h e s e le c t io n
 The primary screening interview is used to make
a quick evaluation of the applicant’s suitability
for the particular job.
 Elimination of some of the candidates can be
done in the preliminary screening interview on
the basis of job description.
 Candidate who pass the preliminary screening are
usually required to complete a formal application
form specially designed to obtain the required
information about the candidate.
 Application blank are efficient method of
gathering information about the applicant’s
previous work history, educational background.
 Test of ability, skill, aptitude or knowledge, that is
relevant to particular job, are usually the best predictors
of job success, tests of general intelligence or personality
are occasionally useful as well.
 A selection test also measures certain psychological
factors such as ability to reason, capacity for learning,
temperament, and specific aptitudes and physical
abilities.
 An intelligence test explores alertness,
comprehension and reasoning abilities of the
applicants.
 Through these tests, managers can predict the
future job performance of the applicant.
 Knowledge tests evaluate the applicant’s
knowledge about the company, its competitors
and customers, its products, the target market and
the like.
 Personality tests are a means of measuring
characteristics (such as patterns of thoughts,
feeling and behavior) that are distinctively
combined in a particular individual and influence
the individual’s interactions in various situations.
 They also measure an applicant’s self confidence
and emotional stabilty
 In performance or work sample tests, the
applicant completes some job activity under
structured condition.
For e.g.- service representative Post
 Comprehensive interview is an in depth selection interview
designed to find out more about the applicant as an individual and
in general, obtain information of interest to the interviewers so
that the suitability of the candidate for the job and the organization
can be determined.
 The three widely used types of interviews include structured
interview, semi-structured interview and unstructured interview.
 In a structured interview, the interviewers ask the candidate a
predetermined set of questions in the specified sequence with
virtually no deviations
 This type of interview is very useful if the interviewer
has to interview a large number of candidates when
the interviewer is relatively untrained.
 The unstructured interviews are informal and
unorganized. There are no pre-planned questions. The
candidate is allowed to talk freely on general
questions. The candidate is allowed to talk freely on
general questions and the purpose of the interview is
to find out the kind of person the candidate is.
 In semi-structured interview, which is a combination
of structured and unstructured interviews. Here the
interviewer uses a set of pre-planned questions and
allots time for interaction and discussion.
 Applicants are required to furnish names of person who
can be contacted by the recruiting firm if it wishes to
know about the character and suitability of the applicant.
 Reference assure the recruiting firm that the information
given by the applicant is reliable.
 Reference checks can be obtained by mail, by telephone,
and in person.
 The physical examination is the step before taking a final
decision on whether to select an applicant or not.
 Physical examination are designed to ensure that the
candidate can perform effectively in the position for
which he or she is applying to protect other employees
against contagious diseases, to establish a health record
for the applicant, and to protect the organization against
unjust compensation claims.
 The applicants who qualify in the selection test,
interview, reference check and physical
examination are now considered to be eligible to
receive an offer of employment.
 Once the selection process generates the list of
selected candidates, it is the applicant’s
prerogative to decide whether to accept the offer
or not.