IV. Personnel management

Structure of the Chapter:

Introduction:

Management is the key to business and the glue that holds all elements of business together. Management involves a lot of things such as planning, organising, staffing, controlling, co-ordinating etc. After studying this chapter students should be able to define the term personnel management, define recruitment and selection, distinguish between job description and person specification and describe the essentials of the human resources philosophy.

 

Key Words:

Recruitment - the personnel function that supplies new employees who have the correct qualifications for a given job
Redundancy - the state of being not needed, especially with reference to a worker or workers whose labour is no longer needed
Subordinate - a person who is in a lower position in an organisation
Pool - a number of people collected together
Applicant - a person who is applying for something, e.g. a job
Selection - choosing by making careful decisions
Assessment - a judgement, e.g. of the ability of a person to do a certain task
Liaise - to work closely with more than one group in order to communicate information between them
Induction - the introduction of new employees to the way in which an organisation works
Significance - importance
Resource - anything which belongs to an area, a company or a person and which can be used to advantage
Objective - the aim of something
Empower - to give power or authority to act
Compliance – acting in accordance with a request, command, wishes
Contribution – something given towards a particular aim or purpose

Pre-reading Tasks:

What are your views on management, particularly personnel management?
Is it an art or a science? An instinct or a set of techniques that can be taught?
Is an interview the best way how to select employees?
Do you like interviews yourself?

Specialist text:

Personnel management

is the term used to describe the formulation and execution of the company´s personnel policies. These involve everything from recruitment to redundancy, and are set by the management of the company as a whole. They must be carried out and observed by all managers in the organisation who have subordinates.

Important aspects of personnel management:

Recruitment and selection
All organisations must take on new employees and replace those who leave. The emphasis in recruitment is on generating the largest pool of suitable applicants. In order to achieve this, adverts will be carefully worded and targeted so that a high concentration of people with the required skills will see the advert and be attracted to apply. For some key positions a common practice is to subcontract out the recruitment process to recruitment consultants. They specialize in generating applicants and filtering out the partly or wholly unsuitable ones. The final selection is made by the organisation itself.
There are a number of selection techniques available to personnel practitioners:

It should be remembered that selection does not involve selecting the best person as such but the best person for the job.

Job description and person specification
When a position becomes available, the personnel department will liaise with the relevant line manager to agree on the job description and person specification for the post.

Job description
is the document that describes what the job involves on a day-to-day basis.

Person specification
is a list of the qualities and characteristics that the ideal person for the job will have (age-minimum and maximum, qualifications, experience, personal attributes, special abilities).

Induction of a new staff
Formal induction programme usually includes:

Training and development
Because of the strategic significance of people in organisations, it is also in the interest of the organisation that its employees are stimulated and trained in order to allow them to make a greater contribution to the business.

Human resource management

One recent development in the area of personnel management has been the rise of the so called ”human resources” school of thought. It is based on the belief that employees are primarily a valuable resource rather than a cost and as such are to be cultivated, developed and encouraged.

A common list of the key emphases of human resource management:

Comprehension questions:

  1. Explain the term personnel management.
  2. Why is recruitment and selection vital to any organisation?
  3. What are the most common selection procedures?
  4. Why does an organisation provide training and development for its employees?
  5. Distinguish between job description and person specification.

Activities:

I. Complete these sentences with appropriate conjunctions and prepositions:

  1. They say the firm is fair to its employees and she agrees (1) ... them.
  2. The supervisor wants to see her (2) ... she leaves.
  3. (3) ... the management (4) ... the unions agreed to submit the dispute to arbitration.
  4. The interviewer explained (5) ... the test would be conducted.
  5. It was not easy to distinguish (6) ... the old staff and the newcomers.
  6. (7) ... the manager (8) ... the employee were prepared to discuss the problem further.
  7. Top management is often (9) ... heavy pressure so that immediate problems often absorb much (10) ... their efforts.
  8. The production side (11) ... the business has to be geared (12) ... keep pace with changes in the market.
  9. (13) ... the stock level is too low, an upsurge (14) ... demand will lead to potential customers being turned away.
  10. It is also possible (15) ... the expertise of top management will fall short of encompassing all the diverse skills and detailed knowledge called for (16) ... such a wide range of undertakings.

II. Match the words listed below with their definitions:

a) redundant   1. Someone in a position of authority.
b) applicant   2. A person who owns shares in a company
c) overtime   3. When somebody is not longer required at work.
d) enterprise   4. The procedures which help a new member of staff to fit into the organization more quickly and efficiently.
e) interviewee   5. A person who is seeking appointment to a particular post.
f) personal   6. Referring to an individual. Private and confidential.
g) personnel   7. When an employee works longer than normal hours.
h) shareholder   8. A person who is being examined orally as a part of a selection process.
i) executive   9. The people who work in and for an organization.
j) induction   10. An undertaking with a view to profit.


III. Fill in the blanks, using words from the given list:

narrow   advancement
appraise   laid off
resources   contributions
meet   hire
at least   rates
reviewed   undertaken
Staffing in the United States

The management of human (1) ... in the United States is quite different from that in Japan. American firms also recruit employees from schools, but they (2) ... employees from other companies too. For example the high turnover (3) ...among those who have recently received their Master of Business Administration degree are quite notorious. Rapid (4) ... is expected, and if it is not forthcoming, an employee may change companies.

A common practice in American companies is to (5) ... the performance of new employees rather soon after they join the company. If the performance does not (6) ... the company´s expectations, employment may be terminated. But even for those who have been with a company for many years, performance is evaluated (7) ... once a year, and in many cases their performance is (8) ... periodically during the year. In general, the focus of performance appraisal is on short-term results and individual (9) ... to the company´s aims.

Although progressive companies provide for continuous development, training is often (10) ... with hesitation because of the cost and the concern that the trained person may switch to another firm. Thus, employees are often trained in specialized functions, and this results in a rather (11) ... career path within the firm. Finally, in many American companies, employees feel that they may be (12) ... during economically hard times, which naturally contributes to job insecurity.


IV. Find synonyms and opposites to the following words:


V. Choose the best words from the options in brackets to complete the job advertisement:

The Financial Times is inviting (confirmations, applications, narrations) for a feature and leader writer on economics. The successful candidate, who will be based in London, will join a small team that (completes, snares, shares) responsibility for writing the FT´s leaders on economics, but s/he will also enjoy (opportunities, arrangements, amenities) to write signed pieces.

Candidates should have a strong (evaluation, command, background) in academic economics both domestic and international, and ,ideally, some experience in explaining economic (allowances, issues, impacts) to non-specialists, but they need not have been journalists. Far more important are the (experiences, qualities, abilities) to write accurate English to tight (deadlines, constraints, achievements) and to (contain, elucidate, remunerate) a wide range of macroeconomic and microeconomic topics.



VI. Quiz

Look at the sentences below and choose the right answer.
1. Letters of application should be accompanied by ... of the former employers.
  1. news
  2. references
  3. information
2. A manager will need to ... the performance of staff so that he can see how best it might be improved.
  1. appraise
  2. receive
  3. establish
3. Has this person worked well enough to ... the next increment?
  1. deserve
  2. carry
  3. refuse
4. The manager should also reckon with ... and punctuality.
  1. coincidence
  2. purpose
  3. attendance
5. If someone stays away from work it is not only a ... of whether or not they should be paid for their absence.
  1. question
  2. example
  3. thing
6. There are sometimes very ... reasons offered for absence.
  1. flimsy
  2. disgruntle
  3. careless
7. The personnel department should be ... with all matters of welfare, from lighting and heating to safety and personal hygiene.
  1. prepared
  2. concerned
  3. published
8. The personnel department carries the main responsibility for ... that morale is high in the organisation.
  1. keeping
  2. attempting
  3. ensuring
9. Management can inform people of new ... by means of the firm´s notice board or news bulletin.
  1. appointments
  2. supervisors
  3. applicants

Summary:

This chapter deals with the basic terms of personnel management, distinguishes between job description and person specification, recruitment and selection, explains the need for staff induction and staff development and states the key emphases of human resource management.

Literature:

I. MacKenzie: English for Business Studies, CUP 2002
L. Jones, R. Alexander: New International Business English, CUP 1996



Checks:

Comprehension Check:

  1. it describes the formulation and execution of the company´s personnel policies.
  2. as they must take on new employees and replace those who leave.
  3. interviews, examining application forms, presentations by applicants, psychometric testing, Assessment Centre activities
  4. as the employees make a greater contribution to the business
  5. job description describes what the job involves on a day-to-day basis, person specification describes the characteristics that the ideal person for the job will have

Check I:


with, before, both - and (neither - nor), how, between, both - and (neither - nor), under, of, of, to, if, in, that, in

Check II:

a3, b5, c7, d10, e8, f6, g9, h2, i1, j4

Check III:

  1. resources
  2. rates
  3. advancement
  4. appraise
  5. meet
  6. at least
  7. reviewed
  8. contributions
  9. undertaken
  10. narrow
  11. laid off

Check IV:

  1. employ - dismiss, lay off
  2. choose - reject
  3. capacity - inability
  4. employees - employers
  5. skilled - unskilled, unqualified
  6. vital - unimportant
  7. reject - accept
  8. grow, rise - decrease, fall
  9. obtain - lose
  10. run, direct - obey
  11. fire, dismiss - employ, recruit

Check V:

applications, shares, opportunities, background, issues, abilities, deadlines, elucidate

Check VI:

1. b, 2. a, 3. a, 4. c, 5. a, 6. a, 7. b, 8. c, 9. a