All firms depend for their survival on a contented and efficient workforce: its human resource. A firm’s Personnel function manages its human resources.
In order to recruit suitable staff, the department with the vacancy needs to inform Personnel of:
– the nature of and duties associated with the post – the job description;
– the personal qualities required by the successful applicant – the person specification.
Staff in Personnel can then design and place suitable job adverts. The firm might recruit internally, for example on notice boards or in a staff newsletter. Internal recruitment (promotion) will increase the motivation level of existing employees. There are various sources for external recruitment; for example, Personnel staff may use Job Centers and/or recruitment agencies, or choose to advertise in an appropriate newspaper.
For selection, applicants need to be shortlisted. This is achieved by comparing their experience and qualifications – shown on their application forms or curriculum vitae – against the job description and person specification. Interviews are then conducted: these often include selection tests such as aptitude testing. After appointment the Personnel Department will issue the successful applicant with a contract of employment containing information such as hours of work, holidays and holiday pay, and the disciplinary rules.
Once in post, the Personnel Department considers staff training needs. The purpose of inductiontraining is to familiarize the new member of staff with the firm’s activities and structures. Once established, the employee may gain additional skills through on-the-job or off-the-job training. The former is based ‘in-house’ with employees learning as they work: training tends to be limited to particular skills and procedures. Off-the-job training involves attending specialist training centers and is more closely associated with obtaining qualifications.
Personnel managers are particularly concerned with ensuring that the firm’s employees gain job satisfaction. Pay levels are important, although many psychologists suggest that there are several other aspects in making a job satisfying.
Theorist: Abraham Maslow.
Theory: A hierarchy of needs require satisfying: once low-level needs such as safety and hunger are satisfied, employees seek to achieve higher-order needs such as social- and self-fulfillment.
Theorist: Douglas McGregor.
Theory: A Theory X manager assumes people dislike work and need control and direction. Theory Y managers believe their employees want to make positive contributions to the work of the firm.
Theorist: Frederick Herzberg.
Theory: Hygiene factors such as money and working conditions are important, but motivators such as achievement and recognition are also needed to motivate employees.
Personnel staff is involved in negotiation and consultation with trade union representatives. Trade unions are employee organizations set up to represent their interests. Popular reasons for joining a trade union are for job protection, to receive members’ benefits and to seek higher pay and/or better working conditions. Unions normally aim to:
· protect their members (for example, from unfair dismissal)
· negotiate with employers regarding pay conditions
· ensure their members receive rights such as maternity benefit to which they are entitled
· represent their members, for example, at industrial tribunals.
Collective bargaining takes place between employers and trade unions and is a common way to establish pay levels and working conditions. If talks break down and a dispute arises, union members have a number of options available, including holding an official strike. If the dispute continues, employers and unions may resort to arbitration, for example, by bringing in ACAS, the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service.