Structure of the Chapter:
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.
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
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?
listening
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:
- interviews
- examining application forms
- presentations by applicants
- psychometric testing
- ”Assessment Centre” activities
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:
- a formal welcome to the company
- answering any immediate questions
- introduction to new colleagues
- explanation of company policy
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:
- seeing employees as individuals
- a different perception of subordinates ( staff are not there to be ruled with a big stick but encouraged to adopt the same objectives as their managers)
- empowering individual line managers to make key decisions
- the tendency to rely on staff compliance an agreement with policies (personnel management is more of an administrative approach)
- direct and regular formal communications with staff
- employee involvement in decision making
- attention to working conditions
- staff development and training
top
top
II. Match the words listed below with their definitions:
top
IV. Find synonyms and opposites to the following words:
top
V. Choose the best words from the options in brackets to complete the job advertisement:
top
VI. Quiz
top
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.
I. MacKenzie: English for Business Studies, CUP 2002
L. Jones, R. Alexander: New International Business English, CUP 1996
Home page
top
Comprehension Check:
- it describes the formulation and execution of the company´s personnel policies.
- as they must take on new employees and replace those who leave.
- interviews, examining application forms, presentations by applicants, psychometric testing, Assessment Centre activities
- as the employees make a greater contribution to the business
- 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:
- resources
- rates
- advancement
- appraise
- meet
- at least
- reviewed
- contributions
- undertaken
- narrow
- laid off
Check IV:
- employ - dismiss, lay off
- choose - reject
- capacity - inability
- employees - employers
- skilled - unskilled, unqualified
- vital - unimportant
- reject - accept
- grow, rise - decrease, fall
- obtain - lose
- run, direct - obey
- 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
top