Ch.

7 Human Resources
Appropriate human resources refers to the individuals within the organization
who make a valuable contribution to management system goal attainment. This
contribution results from their productivity in the positions they hold.
The phrase inappropriate human resources refers to organization members who do
not make a valuable contribution to the attainment of management system
objectives. For one reason or another, these individuals are ineffective in their jobs.
Productivity in all organizations is determined by how human resources interact
and combine to use all other resources. Such factors as background, age, job-
related experience, and level of formal education all play a role in determining how
appropriate the individual is for the organization.
Although the process of providing appropriate human resources for the
organization is involved and somewhat subjective, there are insights on how to
increase the success of this process.
To provide appropriate human resources to fill both managerial and nonmanagerial
openings,
managers follow four sequential steps:
1. Recruitment
2. Selection
3. Training
4. Performance appraisal
RECRUITMENT
Recruitmentis the initial attraction and screening of the supply of prospective
human resources available to fill a position. Its purpose is to narrow a large field of
prospective employees to a relatively small group of individuals from which
someone eventually will be hired. To be effective, recruiters must know the
following:
1. The job they are trying to fill
2. Where potential human resources can be located
3. How the law influences recruiting efforts
Knowing the Job Recruitment activities must begin with a thorough
understanding of
the position to be filled so the broad range of potential employees can be narrowed
intelligently. The technique commonly used to gain that understanding is known as
j o b analysis. Basically, job analysis is aimed at determining a job d e s c r i p t i o
n (the activities a job entails) and a job specification (the characteristics of the
individual who should be hired for the job).
Besides a knowledge of the position the organization is trying to fill, recruiters
must be able to pinpoint sources of human resources. Since the supply of
individuals from which to recruit is continually changing, there will be times when
finding appropriate human resources will be much harder than at other times.
Human resources specialists in organizations continually monitor the labor market
so they will know where to recruit suitable people and what kind of strategies and
tactics to use to attract job applicants in a competitive marketplace.Sources of
human resources available to fill a position can be generally categorize in two
ways:
1. Sources inside the organization
2. Sources outside the organization
Sources inside the organization:
Some individuals who already work for the organization may be well qualified for
an open position. Although existing personnel are sometimes moved laterally
within an organization, most internal movements are promotions. Promotion from
within has the advantages of building employee morale, encouraging employees to
work harder in hopes of being promoted, and enticing employees to stay with the
organization because of the possibility of future promotions.A human resource
inventory consists of information about the characteristics of organization
members. The focus is on past performance and future potential, and the objective
is to keep management up to date about the possibilities for filling
a position from within.
This inventory should indicate which individuals in the organization would be
appropriate for filling a position if it became available.
Organizations keep three types of records that can be combined to maintain a
useful human resource inventory:
1. What is the organizational history of an individual, and what potential does that
person possess (management inventory card)?
2. If a position becomes vacant, who might be eligible to fill it (position
replacement form)?
3. What are the merits of one individual being considered for a position compared
to those
of another individual under consideration (management manpower replacement
chart)?
Succession planning is the process of outlining who will follow whom in various
organizational positions (for a CEO, this is two years in MNC – can not travel as a
group).
Computer software is available to aid managers in keeping track of the
organization's complex human resource inventories and in making better decisions
about how employees can best be deployed and developed.
Sources Outside the Organization:
If a position cannot be filled by someone currently employed by the organization,
management has available numerous sources of human
resources outside the organization. These sources include the following:
1. Competitors- this is a common practice with several advantages:- The individual
knows the business.
- The competitor will have paid for the individual's training up to the time of hire.
- The competing organization will probably be weakened somewhat by the loss of
the individual.
- Once hired, the individual will be a valuable source of information about how to
best compete with the other organization.
2) Employment agencies- employment agencies help people find jobs and help
organizations find job applicants.
3) Readers of certain publications- widely used external source of human
resources; Wall Street Journal, Times, Chronicle of Higher Education, etc.
4) Educational institutions—many recruiters go directly to schools to interview
students close to graduation time
5) Word of mouth- friends.
SELECTION: choosing an individual to hire from all those who have been
recruited. Selection is represented as a series of stages through which job
applicants must pass in order to be hired. Each stage reduces the total group of
prospective employees until, finally, one individual is hired.
Two tools often used in the selection process are testing and assessment centers.
Testing is examining human resources for qualities relevant to performing
available jobs. There are four categories:
1. Attitude test
2. Achievement test
3. Vocational interest test
4. Personality test
An assessment center is a program (not a place) in which participants engage in a
number of individual and group exercises constructed to stimulate important
activities at the organizational levels to which they aspire. These exercises can
include such activities as participating in leaderless discussions, giving oral
presentations, and leading a group in solving some assigned problem. The
individuals performing the activities are observed by managers or trained observers
who evaluate both their ability and their potential.In general, participants are
assessed according to the following criterias: Energy, Analytical ability,
Leadership,
Resistance to stress, Organizing,
Use of delegation, Decision Making,
Behavior flexibility, Communication,
Human relations competence,
Originality, Controlling, Self-direction
Overall potential.TRAINING
Trainingis the process of developing qualities in human resources that will enable
them to be more productive and thus to contribute more to organizational
goal attainment. The purpose of training is to increase the productivity of
employees by influencing their behavior.The training of individuals is essentially a
four-step process:
1. Determining training needs
2. Designing the training program
3. Administering the training program
4. Evaluating the training programMost widely used technique
fortransmittinginformationin training programs is Lecture. It is primarily a one-
way communication situation in which an instructor orally presents information to
a group of listeners.
The instructor typically does most of the talking, and trainees participate primarily
through listening and note taking. An advantage of the lecture is that it allows the
instructor to expose trainees to a maximum amount of information within a given
time period.Techniques for developing skills in training programs can be divided
into two broad categories: on-the-job and classroom. Techniques for developing
skills on the job, referred to as on-the-job training, reflect a blend of job-related
knowledge and experience.Position rotation involves moving an individual from
job to job to enable the person to gain an understanding of the organization as a
whole.Management should evaluate the training program to determine if it meets
the needs for which it was designed. Answers to questions like the following help
determine
training program effectiveness:
How can managers evaluate training programs?
1. Has the excessive reject rate of products declined?
2. Are deadlines being met more regularly?
3. Are labor costs per unit produced decreasing?PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL
the process of reviewing individuals' past productive activity to evaluate the
contribution they have made toward attaining management system objectives. Like
training,
performance appraisal—which is also called performance review and performance
evaluation—is
a continuing activity that focuses on both established human resources within the
organization
and newcomers.
Its main purpose is to furnish feedback to organization members about how they
can become more productive and useful to the organization in its quest for
quality."1-The actual achievements compared with the objectives of the job is
a. Job performance
b. Job evaluation
c. Job description
d.None of the above
2-The following is (are) concerned with developing a pool of candidates in line
with the human resources plan
a. Development
b. Training
c. Recruitment
d. All of the above3-Majority of the disputes in industries is (are) related to the
problem of
a. Wages
b. Salaries
c. Benefits
d. All of the above
4-Performance development plan is set for the employee by his ___________.
a. Employer
b. Department Head
c. Immediate boss
d. Any of the above1- Ans: a
2- Ans: c
3- Ans: d
4- Ans: c