human resource management IGCSE

1. Human Resource Management
Chapter 12

2. Human resource management (HRM)
• aims to recruit capable, f exible and committed people, managing and
rewarding their performance and developing their key skills to the
benef t of the organisation
• the strategic approach to the ef ective management of an
organisation’s workers so that they help the business gain a
competitive advantag

4. Human resource management – purpose and
role
• T e central purpose of HRM is to recruit, train and use the workers of
an organisation in the most productive manner to assist the
organisation in the achievement of its objectives.
• T ese departments were responsible for just the recruiting, training,
discipline and welfare of staf . T ey tended to be.
• bureaucratic in their approach, with an inflexible approach to employee
issues
• focused on recruitment, selection and discipline rather than development and
training
• reluctant to give any HR roles to any other departmental managers
• not represented at board of directors level and not part of the strategic
management team.

5. Scope of HRM
• Planning the future workforce needs of the business
Workforce planning
• Recruiting and selecting appropriate employees and inducting them into the business.
Recruitment and selection
• Appraising, training and developing employees at every stage of their careers.
Developing employees
• Preparing contracts of employment for all employees and deciding on how flexible these should be:
permanent or temporary, full- or part-time.
Employment contracts
• Involving all managers in the development of their employees –emphasising that this is not just an HR
responsibility.
Ensuring HRM operates across the business
• Monitoring and improving employee morale and welfare including giving advice and guidance.
Employee morale and welfare
• Developing appropriate pay systems and other incentives) for different categories of employees
Incentive systems
• Measuring and monitoring employee performance
Monitoring

6. Recruiting and selecting staff
• Recruitment and selection will be necessary when:
• The business is expanding and needs a bigger workforce
• Employees leave and they need to be replaced – this is called labour
turnover.

7. Recruitment
• the process of identifying the need for a
new employee, defining the job to be
filled and the type of person needed to fill
it and attracting suitable candidates for
the job
Selection
• involves the series of steps by which the
candidates are interviewed, tested and
screened for choosing the most suitable
person for vacant post.

8. The recruitment and selection process
1. Establishing the exact nature of the job vacancy and drawing up a
job description
This provides a complete picture of the job and will include
• Job title
• Details of the tasks to be performed
• Responsibilities involved
• Place in the hierarchical structure
• Working conditions
• How the job will be assessed and performance measured.

9. Job description
• The advantage of the job description is that it should attract the right
type of people to apply for the job, as potential recruits will have an
idea of whether they are suited to the position or not
Job description: a detailed list of the key points about the job
to be filled – stating all its key tasks and responsibilities

10. The recruitment and selection process
2. Drawing up a person specification
• This is an analysis of the type of qualities and skills being looked for in
suitable applicants.
• It is clearly based on the job description because these skills can only
be assessed once the nature and complexity of the job have been
identified.
• The person specification is like a ‘person profile’ and will help in the
selection process by eliminating applicants who do not match up to
the necessary requirements.

12. The recruitment and selection process
3. Preparing a job advertisement
• The job advertisement needs to reflect the
requirements of the job and the personal
qualities needed.
• It can be displayed within the business premises
– particularly if an internal appointment is
looked for – or in government job centres,
recruitment agencies and newspapers.
• Increasingly businesses are using the internet to
advertise vacancies and people interested in the
job are encouraged to apply online.
• Internal and external recruitment have very
different advantages
• This saves a great deal of time for both the
recruiting business and potential applicants. Some
specialist businesses offer online recruitment
services – such as Jobtrain and HireServe – and
they assist businesses in preparing an effective
online advertisement for the vacant positions
• Care must be taken to ensure that there is no
element of discrimination implied by the
advertisement as nearly all countries outlaw unfair
selection on the basis of race, gender or religion.
• Once applications have been received, then the
selection process can begin. T is can be achieved
by using a range of different techniques

14. Once applications have been received, then the selection process can begin.
This can be achieved by using a range of different techniques.

15. The recruitment and selection process
4. Drawing up a person specification
• A small number of applicants are chosen based on their application
forms and personal details, of en contained in a CV (curriculum vitae).
References may have been obtained in order to check on the
character and previous work performance of the applicants. As
explained above, much of this information is now obtained online and
not in paper format.

16. The recruitment and selection process
5. Selecting between the applicants
• Interviews are the most common method of selection.
• Interviewers question the applicant on their skills, experience and
character to see if they will both perform well and f t into the
organisation.
• Some interviewers use a seven-point plan to carry out a methodical
interview.
• Candidates are assessed according to: achievements, intelligence,
skills, interests, personal manner, physical appearance and personal
circumstances.

17. Employment contracts
• Employment contracts are legally binding documents.
• Care needs to be taken to ensure that they are fair and accord with current
employment laws where the worker is employed.
• The contract imposes responsibilities on both the employer – to provide the
conditions of employment laid down – and the employee – to work the hours
specified and to the standards expected in the contract.
• In most countries, it is illegal for an employer to employ workers without offering
the protection of a written employment contract.
• In some states, for example China, a verbal agreement between worker and
employer can also be legally binding, however, if there is some evidence to prove
that both sides intended a contract to be formed.

18. A typical employment contract will contain the following features:
• Employee’s work responsibilities and the main tasks to be
undertaken.
• Whether the contract is permanent or temporary
• Working hours and the level of flexibility expected, e.g. part time or
full time, working weekends or not the payment method to be used
for the job and the rate for it (e.g. hourly rate).
• Holiday entitlement.
• The number of days’ notice that must be given by the worker (if they
wish to leave) or the employer (if they want to make the worker
redundant).

19. Employment contract: a legal document that sets out the terms
and conditions governing a worker’s job.

20. Labour turnover
• Labour turnover is defined as the proportion of a firm's
workforce that leaves during the course of a year.
• If a business employed, on average, 200 employees last year and 30
left during the year, then the labour turnover rate would be 15%.
• If this result is high and increasing over time, then it is a good
indicator of employee discontent, low morale and, possibly, a
recruitment policy that leads to the wrong people being employed.

21. Labour turnover
• High labour turnover is more likely in areas of low unemployment
too, as there may be many better-paid and more attractive jobs
available in the local area.
• It is also true that some industries typically have higher labour
turnover rates than others.
• The fact that so many students, looking for part-time and temporary
employment, find jobs in fast-food restaurants leads to labour
turnover rates that can exceed 100% in one year.
• In other organisations, labour turnover rates can be very low; this is
typical in law practices and in scientific research.

23. Training and developing employees
• HR department must ensure that they are well-equipped to perform
the duties and undertake the responsibilities expected of them. This
will nearly always involve training in order to develop the full abilities
of the worker.

24. Training: work-related education to increase
workforce skills and ef iciency

25. Types of training
1. Induction training is given to all
new recruits.
• It has the objectives of introducing
them to the people that they will
be working with most closely
• Explaining the internal
organisational structure, outlining
the layout of the premises and
making clear essential health and
safety issues, such as procedures
during a fire emergency

26. Types of training
2. On-the-job training
• It involves instruction at the place of
work.
• This is often conducted either by the
HR managers or departmental training
officers.
• Watching or working closely with
existing experienced members of staff
is a frequent component of this form
of training.
• It is cheaper than sending recruits on
external training courses and the
content is controlled by the business
itself

27. Types of training
3. Off -the-job training
• It entails any course of instruction away from the place of work.
• This could be a specialist training centre belonging to the firm itself
or it could be a course organised by an outside body, such as a
university or computer manufacturer, to introduce new ideas that no
one in the firm currently has knowledge of.
• These courses can be expensive yet they may be indispensable if the
firm lacks anyone with this degree of technical knowledge.

28. Induction training: introductory
training programme to familiarise
new recruits with the systems used
in the business and the layout of the
business site.
On-the-job
training: instruction
at the place of
work on how a job
should be carried
out.
Of -the-job training: all training undertaken away from
the business, e.g. work-related college courses.

29. Training
• Training can be expensive.
• It can also lead to well-qualified employees leaving for a better-paid
job once they have gained qualifications from a business with a good
training structure.
• This is sometimes referred to as ‘poaching’ of well-trained staff and it
can discourage some businesses from setting up an expensive training
programme.

30. The costs of not training are also substantial.
Untrained employees will be less productive, less able to do a variety of tasks (inflexible) and
could give unsatisfactory customer service.
Accidents are likely to result from workers untrained on health and safety matters,
especially in manufacturing businesses or in the food industry.
Finally, without being pushed to achieve a higher standard or other skills, workers may
become bored and demotivated.
Training and the sense of achievement that can result from it were identified by both
Maslow and Herzberg as important motivators
So there is a very important link between the importance given to the training and development
of employees in a business and the levels of motivation that exist.

31. Development and appraisal of employees
• This should be a continuous process. Development might take the form of
new challenges and opportunities, additional training courses to learn new
skills, promotion with additional delegated authority and chances for job
enrichment.
• To enable a worker to continually achieve a sense of self-fulfilment, the HR
department should work closely with the worker’s functional department
to establish a career plan that the individual feels is relevant and realistic.
• For this process to be a fully strategic one, the HR department should
analyse the likely future needs of the business when establishing the
development plan for the workforce.
• In this way, an individual’s progress and improvement can also be geared to
the needs of the firm

32. Employee appraisal: the process of assessing the effectiveness of an employee
judged against pre-set objectives.

33. Development and appraisal of employees
• Appraisal is often undertaken annually.
• It is an essential component of a staff -development programme.
• The analysis of performance against pre-set and agreed targets
combined with the setting of new targets allows the future
performance of the worker to be linked to the objectives of the
business.
• Both appraisal and staff development are important features of
Herzberg’s motivators – those intrinsic factors that can provide the
conditions for effective motivation at work.

34. Discipline and dismissal of employees
• On occasions it will be necessary for an HR manager to discipline an
employee for continued failure to meet the obligations laid down by
the contract of employment.
• Dismissing a worker is not a matter that should be undertaken lightly.
• Not only does it withdraw a worker’s immediate means of financial
support and some social status, but if the conditions of the dismissal
are not fully in accordance with company policy or with the law, then
civil court action might result.
• This can lead to very substantial damages being awarded against the
firm.

35. • Dismissal could result from the employee being unable to do the job
to the standard that the organisation requires.
• It may also be that the employee has broken one of the crucial
conditions of employment
• However, before dismissal can happen, the HR department must be
seen to have done all that it can to help the employee reach the
required standard or stay within conditions of employment.
• There should be support and, if necessary, training for the person
concerned. It is important from the organisation’s point of view that it
does not leave itself open to allegations of unfair dismissal.
Discipline and dismissal of employees

36. Dismissal: being dismissed or sacked from a job due to incompetence or breach of discipline.
Unfair dismissal: ending a worker’s employment contract for a reason that the law regards as
being unfair.

37. To show that a dismissal is fair, employers need to be able to show that
one of the following is true and, except in the case of gross misconduct,
that the agreed procedures have been followed:
• Inability to do the job even after sufficient training has been given
• A continuous negative attitude at work, which has badly affected the
employees or their work
• continuous disregard of required health and safety procedures
• Deliberate destruction of an employer’s property
• Bullying of other employees.

38. There are certain situations in which dismissal can be
considered unfair or in breach of employment law. These
include:
• Pregnancy
• A discriminatory reason, e.g. The race, gender or religion of a worker
• Being a member of a union
• A non-relevant criminal record – if the employer has previously been
unaware of a criminal record, it is not a reason for dismissal unless it
is central to the job, e.G. A cashier convicted of stealing from the till
or a schoolteacher convicted of child abuse

39. Redundancy: when a job is no longer required, the employee doing
this job becomes unnecessary through no fault of their own.

40. Employee morale and welfare
• Most HR departments will offer advice, counselling and other services
to employees who are in need of support, perhaps because of family
or financial problems.
• These support services can reflect well on the caring attitude of the
business towards its workforce.
• When workers feel that the employer is concerned about their long-
term welfare, then this is likely to lead to higher morale and a much
stronger sense of loyalty and desire to do well for the business.

41. Work–life balance
Work–life balance: a situation in which employees are able to give the
right amount of time and effort to work and to their personal life
outside work, for example to family or other interests.

42. Some analysts suggest that HR departments should assist
employees to achieve a better work–life balance that will
reduce stress – but also increase employee ef ciency
• Flexible working
• Teleworking– working from home for some of the working week.
• Job sharing – allowing two people to fill one full-time vacancy,
although each worker will only receive a proportion of the full-time
pay.
• Sabbatical periods – an extended period of leave from work. This can
be for up to 12 months. Some businesses do not pay employees
during this period but guarantee to keep the job open for them on
return, but some businesses do pay employees a proportion of their
full time salary

43. Policies for diversity and equality
•Equality policy: practices and processes aimed at achieving a
fair organisation where everyone is treated in the same way and has
the opportunity to fulfil their potential.
•Diversity policy: practices and processes aimed at creating a
mixed workforce and placing positive value on diversity in the
workplace.