Lesson 1

TOPIC 1: PERSPECTIVES AND EVOLUTION IN HUMAN RESOURCE

MANAGEMENT, AND IMPORTANCE/SIGNIFICANCE OF HUMAN FACTOR

PERSPECTIVES IN HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

A. PERSPECTIVE IN HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

 HRM is the study of activities regarding people working in an organization. It is a
managerial function that tries to match an organization ‘s needs to the skills and
abilities of its employees.
 Human resources management (HRM) is a management function concerned with
hiring, motivating and maintaining people in an organization. It focuses on
people in organizations. Human resource management is designing management
systems to ensure that human talent is used effectively and efficiently to
accomplish organizational goals.
 HRM is the personnel function which is concerned with procurement,
development, compensation, integration and maintenance of the personnel of
an organization for the purpose of contributing towards the accomplishments of
the organization ‘s objectives. Therefore, personnel management is the planning,
organizing, directing, and controlling of the performance of those operative
functions (Edward B. Philippo).
 According to the Invancevich and Glueck, ―HRM is concerned with the most
effective use of people to achieve organizational and individual goals. It is the
way of managing people at work, so that they give their best to the organization.
 According to Dessler (2008) the policies and practices involved in carrying out
the ―people or human resource aspects of a management position, including
recruiting, screening, training, rewarding, and appraising comprises of HRM.

B. SCOPE OF HRM
 The scope of HRM is really vast. All major activities in the working life of a worker
– from the time of his or her entry into an organization until he or she leaves it
comes under the purview of HRM.
 American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) conducted fairly an
exhaustive study in this field and identified nine broad areas of activities of HRM.
These are given below:
1. Human Resource Planning
2. Design of the Organization and Job
3. Selection and Staffing
4. Training and Development
5. Organizational Development
6. Compensation and Benefits
7. Employee Assistance
8. Union/Labour Relations
9. Personnel Research and Information System

Human Resource Planning: The objective of HR Planning is to ensure that the

organization has the right types of persons at the right time at the right place. It
prepares human resources inventory with a view to assess present and future needs,
availability and possible shortages in human resource. Thereupon, HR Planning forecast

1
demand and supplies and identify sources of selection. HR Planning develops strategies
both long-term and short-term, to meet the man-power requirement.

Design of Organization and Job: This is the task of laying down organization
structure, authority, relationship and responsibilities. This will also mean definition of
work contents for each position in the organization. This is done by ―job description‖.
Another important step is ―Job specification. Job specification identifies the attributes
of persons who will be most suitable for each job which is defined by job description.
Selection and Staffing: This is the process of recruitment and selection of staff. This
involves matching people and their expectations with which the job specifications and
career path available within the organization.
Training and Development: This involves an organized attempt to find out training
needs of the individuals to meet the knowledge and skill which is needed not only to
perform current job but also to fulfil the future needs of the organization.
Organizational Development: This is an important aspect whereby ―Synergetic effect is
generated in an organization i.e. healthy interpersonal and inter-group relationship
within the organization.
Compensation and Benefits: This is the area of wages and salaries administration where
wages and compensations are fixed scientifically to meet fairness and equity criteria. In
addition, labour welfare measures are involved which include benefits and services.
Employee Assistance: Each employee is unique in character, personality, expectation
and temperament. By and large each one of them faces problems every day. Some are
personal some are official. In their case he or she remains worried. Such worries must be
removed to make him or her more productive and happy.
Union-Labour Relations: Healthy Industrial and Labour relations are very important for
enhancing peace and productivity in an organization. This is one of the areas of HRM.
Personnel Research and Information System: Knowledge on behavioural science and
industrial psychology throws better insight into the workers expectations, aspirations
and behaviour. Advancement of technology of product and production methods have
created working environment which are much different from the past. Globalization of
economy has increased competition many fold. Science of ergonomics gives better ideas
of doing a work more conveniently by an employee. Thus, continuous research in HR
areas is an unavoidable requirement. It must also take special care for improving
exchange of information through effective communication systems on a continuous
basis especially on moral and motivation.

C. OBJECTIVES OF HRM
The primary objective of HRM is to ensure the availability of competent and willing
workforce to an organization. The specific objectives include the following:
1. Human capital: assisting the organization in obtaining the right number and
types of employees to fulfil its strategic and operational goals.
2. Developing organizational climate: helping to create a climate in which
employees are encouraged to develop and utilize their skills to the fullest and
to employ the skills and abilities of the workforce efficiently.
3. Maintain performance standards and productivity: providing adequate
orientation, training and development; providing performance-related
feedback; and ensuring effective two-way communication.
4. Harmonious employer/employee relationship.
5. Safe and healthy work environment.

2
 6. Meeting employee needs: Developing programs to meet the economic,
psychological, and social needs of the employees and helping the
organization to retain the productive employees.
7. Legal Compliance: Ensuring that the organization is in compliance with
provincial/territorial and federal laws affecting the workplace (such as
human rights, employment equity, occupational health and safety,
employment standards, and labour relations legislation). To help the
organization to reach its goals.
8. Training and Motivation: To provide organization with well-trained and well-
motivated employees.
9. Employee Satisfaction To increase the employees satisfaction and self-
actualization.
10. Quality of work life.
11. Communication of HR policies
12. Ethical polices and behaviour

D. FUNCTIONS OF HRM
1. Strategic HR Management: As a part of maintaining organizational competitiveness,
strategic planning for HR effectiveness can be increased through the use of HR metrics
and HR technology. Human resource planning (HRP) function determine the number
and type of employees needed to accomplish organizational goals. HRP includes
creating venture teams with a balanced skill-mix, recruiting the right people, and
voluntary team assignment. This function analyses and determines personnel needs in
order to create effective innovation teams. The basic HRP strategy is staffing and
employee development.
2. Equal Employment Opportunity: Compliance with equal employment opportunity
(EEO) laws and regulations affects all other HR activities.
3. Staffing: The aim of staffing is to provide a sufficient supply of qualified individuals to
fill jobs in an organization. Job analysis, recruitment and selection are the main
functions under staffing. Workers job design and job analysis laid the foundation for
staffing by identifying what diverse people do in their jobs and how they are affected by
them.
Job analysis is the process of describing the nature of a job and specifying the
human requirements such as knowledge, skills, and experience needed to perform the
job. The end result of job analysis is job description. Job description spells out work
duties and activities of employees. Through HR planning, managers anticipate the future
supply of and demand for employees and the nature of workforce issues, including the
retention of employees. So HRP precedes the actual selection of people for
organization.
These factors are used when recruiting applicants for job openings. The selection
process is concerned with choosing qualified individuals to fill those jobs. In the
selection function, the most qualified applicants are selected for hiring from among the
applicants based on the extent to which their abilities and skills are matching with the
job.
4. Talent Management and Development: Beginning with the orientation of new
employees, talent management and development includes different types of training.
Orientation is the first step towards helping a new employee to adjust himself to the
new job and the employer. It is a method to acquaint new employees with particular
aspects of their new job, including pay and benefit programmes, working hours and

3
company rules and expectations. Training and Development programs provide useful
means of assuring that the employees are capable of performing their jobs at
acceptable levels and also more than that. All the organizations provide training for new
and in experienced employee. In addition, organization often provide both on the job
and off the job training programmes for those employees whose jobs are undergoing
change.
Likewise, HR development and succession planning of employees and managers
is necessary to prepare for future challenges. Career planning has developed as result of
the desire of many employees to grow in their jobs and to advance in their career.
Career planning activities include assessing an individual employee‘s potential for
growth and advancement in the organization. Performance appraisal includes
encouraging risk taking, demanding innovation, generating or adopting new tasks, peer
evaluation, frequent evaluations, and auditing innovation processes.
5. Total Rewards: Compensation in the form of pay, incentives and benefits are the
rewards given to the employees for performing organizational work. Compensation
management is the method for determining how much employees should be paid for
performing certain jobs.
Compensation affects staffing in that people are generally attracted to
organizations offering a higher level of pay in exchange for the work performed. To be
competitive, employers develop and refine their basic compensation systems and may
use variable pay programs such as incentive rewards, promotion from within the team,
recognition rewards, balancing team and individual rewards etc.
This function uses rewards to motivate personnel to achieve an organization‘s
goals of productivity, innovation and profitability. Compensation is also related to
employee development in that it provides an important incentive in motivating
employees to higher levels of job performance to higher paying jobs in the organization.
Benefits are another form of compensation to employees other than direct pay
for the work performed. Benefits include both legally required items and those offered
at employer‘s discretion. Benefits are primarily related to the area of employee
maintenance as they provide for many basic employee needs.
6. Risk Management and Worker Protection: HRM addresses various workplace risks to
ensure protection of workers by meeting legal requirements and being more responsive
to concerns for workplace health and safety along with disaster and recovery planning.
7. Employee and Labor Relations: The relationship between managers and their
employees must be handled legally and effectively. Employer and employee rights must
be addressed. It is important to develop, communicate, and update HR policies and
procedures so that managers and employees alike know what is expected. In some
organizations, union/management relations must be addressed as well.
The term labour relation refers to the interaction with employees who are
represented by a trade union. Unions are organization of employees who join together
to obtain more voice in decisions affecting wages, benefits, working conditions and
other aspects of employment. With regard to labour relations the major function of HR
personnel includes negotiating with the unions regarding wages, service conditions and
resolving disputes and grievances.

E. IMPORTANCE OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

a) Social Significance: Proper management of personnel, enhances their dignity by
satisfying their social needs.
b) Professional Significance: By providing a healthy working environment it promotes
teamwork in the employees.

4
c) Significance for Individual Enterprise: It can help the organisation in accomplishing its
goals by creating right attitude among the employees through effective motivation,
utilizing effectively the available human resources; and securing willing co-operation of
the employees for achieving goals of the enterprise and fulfilling their own social and
other psychological needs of recognition, love, affection, belongingness, esteem and
self-actualisation.

TOPIC 2: CHALLENGES IN HRM, INCLUSIVE GROWTH AND

A. CHALLENGES IN HRM
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION OF HR IN ORGANIZATION, AND ROLE OF HR
1.MANAGER
Managing the Vision: Vision of the organization provides the direction to
business strategy and helps managers to evaluate management practices and
make decisions. So vision management becomes the integral part of the process
of Man management in times to come.
2. Internal Environment: Creating an environment which is responsive to external
changes, providing satisfaction to the employees and sustaining through culture
and systems is a challenging task.
3. Changing Industrial Relations: Both the workers and managers have to be
managed by the same HRM Philosophy and this is going to be a difficult task for
the managers of tomorrow.
4. Building Organizational Capability: Even in the adverse circumstances the
employees have to be made to live in psychological state of readiness to
continually change.
5. Job Design and Organization Structure: Instead of depending on foreign
concepts we need to focus on understanding the job, technology and the people
involved in carrying out the tasks.
6. Managing the Large Work Force: Management of large workforce poses the
biggest problem as the workers are conscious of their rights.
7. Employee Satisfaction: Managers should be aware of techniques to motivate
their employees so that their higher level needs can be satisfied.
8. Modern Technology: There will be unemployment due to modern technology
and this could be corrected by assessing manpower needs and finding alternate
employment.
9. Computerized Information System: This is revolutionary in managerial decision
making and is having impact on coordination in the organization.
10. Managing Human Resource Relations: As the workforce comprises of both
educated and uneducated, managing the relations will be of great challenge.
One of the challenges HR managers face is issues of up gradation of the skill set
through training and development in the face of high attrition. Indian companies
are recognizing their responsibilities to enhance the employee‘s opportunity to
develop skills and abilities for full performance within the position and for career
advancement.

B. INCLUSIVE GROWTH AND AFFIRMATIVE ACTION OF HR IN AN ORGANIZATION

 AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

5
 o It is a program or policy of a company that aims to eliminate
discrimination by providing equal opportunities and improving his /her
profession. (Education).
o Affirmative action refers to policies that take factors including "race,
color, religion, sex, or national origin" into consideration in order to
benefit an underrepresented group, usually as a means to counter the
effects of a history of discrimination.
o Examples of affirmative action:
 Recruit a diverse manpower
 Generate amiable work environment
 Training and counselling
 Disciplinary action against discrimination of any kind

 INCLUSIVE GROWTH
o Inclusive growth approach takes a longer term perspective as the focus is on
productive employment.
o Examples:
 More Productive jobs will be created
 Economic opportunity expanded for all
o Direct income redistribution
o Increasing incomes for excluded groups

 Inclusive Growth and Affirmative Action of HR in an Organisation

Affirmative action should provide consistent, fair and ethical leadership to meet
present and future HR challenges.

New Trends in Human Resource Management

 Attitude Surveys
 Developing team spirit
 Facilitating the employees desires of self-actualisation.

C. ROLE OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGER

 The role of HRM is to plan, develop and administer policies and programs
designed to make optimum use of an organizations human resources.
 It is that part of management which is concerned with the people at work and
with their relationship within enterprises.
 Its objectives are:
a. Effective utilization of human resources,
b. Desirable working relationships among all members of the organizations,
and
c. Maximum individual development.
The primary responsibilities of Human Resource managers are:
1. To develop a thorough knowledge of corporate culture, plans and policies
2. To act as an internal change agent and consultant
3. To initiate change and act as an expert and facilitator To actively involved in
company‘s strategy formulation
4. To keep communication line open between the HRD function and individuals and
groups both within and outside the organization
5. To identify and evolve HRD strategies in consonance with overall business
strategy
6. To facilitate the development of various organizational teams and their working
relationship with other teams and individuals

6
7. To try and relate people and work so that the organization objectives are
achieved efficiently and effectively
8. To diagnose problems and determine appropriate solution particularly in the
human resource areas.
9. To provide co-ordination and support services for the delivery of HRD
programmes and services
10. To evaluate the impact of an HRD intervention or to conduct research so as to
identify, develop or test how HRD in general has improved individual and
organizational performance.

 According to Dave Ulrich HR play ‘s four key roles.

a. Strategic Partner Role turning strategy into results by building
organizations that create value;
b. Change Agent Role making change happen, and in particular, help it
happen fast
c. Employees Champion Role managing the talent or the intellectual
capital within a firm
d. Administrative Role trying to get things to happen better, faster
and cheaper.

 According to R.L Mathis and J. H. Jackson (2010)

several roles can be fulfilled by HR management. The nature and
extent of these roles depend on both what upper management wants HR
management to do and what competencies the HR staff have demonstrated.
Three roles are typically identified for HR.
a. Administrative Role of HR
The administrative role of HR management has been heavily
oriented to administration and recordkeeping including essential legal
paperwork and policy implementation.
b. Operational and Employee Advocate Role for HR
HR managers manage most HR activities in line with the strategies
and operations that have been identified by management and serves as
employee ―champion for employee issues and concerns.

c. Strategic Role for HR

The role of HR as a strategic business partner is often described as
―having a seat at the table, and contributing to the strategic directions
and success of the organization. That means HR is involved in devising
strategy in addition to implementing strategy. Part of HR‘s contribution is
to have financial expertise and to produce financial results, not just to
boost employee morale or administrative efficiencies. Therefore, a
significant concern for chief financial officers (CFOs) is whether HR
executives are equipped to help them to plan and meet financial
requirements.

 According to McKinsey ‘s 7-S framework model

HR plays the role of a catalyst for the organization. According to
this framework, effective organizational change is a complex relationship
between seven S‘s. HRM is a total matching process between the three
Hard S‘s (Strategy, Structure and Systems) and the four Soft S‘s (Style,
Staff, Skills and Super-ordinate Goals). Clearly, all the S‘s have to
complement each other and have to be aligned towards a single

7
 corporate vision for the organization to be effective. It has to be realized
that most of the S‘s are determined directly or indirectly by the way
Human Resources are managed, and therefore, HRM must be a part of

the total business strategy.

TOPIC 3: HUMAN RESOURCES POLICIES, COMPUTER APPLICATIONS
A policy is a man-made rule of pre-determined course of action that is established to
guideINthe
HRM AND HUMAN
performance RESOURCE
of work toward theACCOUNTING AND AUDIT
organization objectives. It is a type of
standing plan that serves to guide subordinates in the execution of their tasks‖.

Policy Differentiated from Objectives, Programmes and Procedure

Flippo Definition of Policy

 is the man-made rule of pre-determined course of action that is established to
guide the performance of work toward the organization objectives
 A policy is a pre-determined, selected course established as a guide towards
accepted goals and objectives. They establish the framework of guiding
principles that facilitate delegation to lower levels and permit individual
managers to select appropriate tactics or programmes
 Personnel Polices are those that individual have developed to keep them on
track towards their personnel objectives.

Personnel Polices refer to principles and rules to conduct which “Formulate, redefine,
break into details and decide a number of actions” that govern the relationship with
employees in the attainment of organizational objectives.

Personnel Polices are

 Key stone in the arch of the management
 Life blood for the successful functioning of the personnel management.
 Statement of intentions
 Positive declaration and command to an organization.

Need for a HR Policy

 Avoid unintended obligations
 Legal requirements
 Employment at will, contractual status
 Defense of claims
 Helps avoid union organizing
 Risk management
 Time saver

Aims and objective of Personnel polices

 Enable the organization to carry out the main objectives
 Awareness of items in policies and to secure the co operation
 Sense of unity with the enterprise
 Provide competent, adequate and trained personnel for all levels and types of
management
 To protect the common interest of all parties
 Recognize the role trade unions in the organization.
 Efficient consultative service.

8
  Management leadership
 Delegating the human relations
 Cooperative understanding
 Security of employment
 Opportunity for growth
 Payment of fair and adequate wages
 To recognize the work and accomplishments
 To create the sense of responsibility

Principles of HR policy
 Right man in the right place
 Train everyone for the job to be done
 Make the organization a coordinated team
 SS the right tools and right conditions of work
 Give security with opportunity, incentive, recognition
 Look ahead, plan head for more and better things.

Types of HR Policies
 Functional vs centralized policy
o Functional – Different categories of personnel
o Centralized – Common throughout the organization

 Minor vs Major
o Minor – Relationship in a segment of an organization, with considerable
emphasis on details and procedures.
o Major – Overall objectives, procedures and control which affect an
organization as whole.

Specific Policies
 Hiring – factors like reservation, marital status,
 Terms and conditions – compensation policy, hours of work, overtime,
promotion, transfer, etc.
 Medical assistance - sickness benefits
 Housing, transport, and other allowances.
 Training and development
 Industrial relations

Coverage of HR Policies
 Travel Pay  Pay Advances
 Work Records  Sick Leave
 Temporary & Casual  Voting
 Appointments  Worker's Compensation
 Workweek & Pay  Labor Relations
Periods  Probation
 Compensation  Grievance Procedure
 Employee Discipline  Ethical Conduct
 Pay bands  Sick

 Salary Administration  Orientation

 Relocation Pay  Vacancies
 Payroll Deductions  Employment Offers
 Rates of Pay for New  References
Employees  Interviewing
 Terminating Employees 9  Candidate Testing
 Layoff  Transfers
 Performance  Consultants and
 Career Development Contractors
Why to Adopt Policies?

Following are the benefits of adopting the policies by the organization

 Complete thought of the basic needs of both organization and employees
 Established policies ensure consistent treatment of all personnel treatment
throughout the organization
 Policy promotes stability – continuity of action
 It serves as a standard of performance
 Helps to build employee motivation and loyalty
 Helps to resolve interpersonal or intrapersonal and intergroup conflicts.

Formulating Policies
Five principle sources for determining the content and meaning of policies
 Past practice
 Prevailing practice in the rival companies
 Attitudes and philosophies of the founders (Top level Management
 Attitudes and philosophies of middle level management
 Knowledge and experience from handling personnel problems

Steps in design the Policy

 Initiate a policy
 Uncovering the facts by personnel department
 Recommending a policy to top management
 Put the policy in writing
 Explaining and discussing the proposed policy with members
 Adopting and launching it
 Communicating it to employees to all levels
 Administering it
 Initiating a follow up
 Evaluating it
 Restating or Reformulating the policy

10
 Figure 4: HRM Model

Elements of HR Policy
 History of Company’s Growth
 Employment practice and condition of employment
 Grievance of redressal procedure
 Safety rules and regulation
 Mutuality of interest and need for co operation
 Employee financial aids
 Educational Opportunities
 Employees news sheet and house journal
 Company policy
 Collective bargaining
 Procedures of disseminating information on company policies
 Maintenance of discipline & Public Relations
 Employees news sheet and house journal

COMPUTER APPLICATIONS IN HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Human Resource Information System is a systematic way of storing data and

information for each individual employee to aid planning, decision making and
submitting of returns and reports to the external agencies.

Purpose of HRIS
 Storing information and data for each individual employee for future references.
 Providing basis for planning, Organizing, Decision Making, Controlling and other
Human resources function.
 Meeting daily transactional requirements- marking present / absent, and
granting leave.
 Supply data and submitting returns to government and other statutory agencies

Applications of HRIS
 Personnel Administration
 Salary Administration
 Leave / absence recording
 Skill Inventory
 Medical History
 Accident Monitoring
 Performance Appraisal
 Training and Development
 HRP
11
  Recruitment
 Career Planning
 Collective Bargaining

Capabilities of HRIS

Figure 5: Input Function

Figure 6: Data Maintenance Function

Figure 7: Output function

12
Steps in Implementing HRIS

Inception of Data
 Originator of the idea should prepare a report showing the need for an HRIS and
benefits of this system towards the development of the organization.

Feasibility Study
 It evaluates the Present system, details and benefits of HRIS.
 It calculates the cost and benefits of HRIS

Selecting a project team

 Once the feasibility study has been accepted the resources are allocated
 Project team is selected
 HR representative, Representatives from both management, information
systems additional clerical people from HR department.

Defining the requirements

 Statement of requirements specifies in detail exactly what HRIS will do.
 It is the written descriptions of how users collect and prepare data, obtain
approvals, complete forms, retrieve data and perform other non-technical tasks
associated with HRIS use.

Vendor analysis
 This step determines what software and hardware are available that will best
meet the organization needs for the lowest price.
 The result of this analysis will determine whether to purchase an ―off the shelf‖
package or develop the system internally

Contract Negotiations
 Vendor has to select and the contract must be negotiated. The contract
stipulates the vendor‘s responsibilities with regard to software, installation,
service, maintenance, training and Documentation.

Training
 Members of the project team are trained to use HRIS.HR representative will train
managers from other department in how to submit information to HRIS and how
to request information from it.

Tailoring the system

 This step involves making changes to the system to best fit the needs of
organization.
 A general rule of thumb is to modify the vendor package, because of
modifications frequently cause problems

Collecting data
 Data must be collected and stored in the system

Testing system
13
  Once the system is tailored to the organization’s needs and data is entered, a
period of testing follows
 The purpose of this testing is to verify the output
 All reports are analyzed for accuracy.

Starting up
 Start-up begins when all current actions are put into the system and reports are
produced

Running in parallel
 It is desirable to run the system in parallel with the old system for a period of
time.
 This allows for comparison of outputs both the system and examination for
inaccuracies

Maintenance
 It normally takes several weeks and months for the employees to feel
comfortable with the system. During the stabilization period any remaining
errors and adjustments should be handled.

Evaluation
 HRIS has been in place for a reasonable length of time
 The system has to be evaluated
 To check the efficiency whether the system is beneficial and properly used by the
organization
Benefits
 Higher speed of retrieval of information
 Reduction in duplication
 Ease in classifying and reclassifying
 Effective decision making
 Higher accuracy of information
 Fast response of quires
 Improve quality of people
 Better work culture
 Systematic procedures
 Transparency

Limitations
 Expensive – finance – manpower requirements
 Large scale computer literacy – inconvenient and threatening
 Personnel designing do not have the thorough information of the users- user do
not get the exact reports.
 Quality of response depends on the accuracy of the input – human intervention.
 Multi user environment – system is operated in batch mode – records are
updated once a week – online facility has to be developed – report generated
should not be out of phase with the realities.

HUMAN RESOURCE ACCOUNTING AND AUDIT

Human Resource Accounting & Audit

14
Definition
―Accounting for people as an organizational resource. It involves measuring the costs
incurred by business firms and other organizations to recruit, select, hire, train and
develop human assets. It involves measuring the economic value of people to the
organization.

Basic Information of HR
 Number of Employees
 Categories
 Grades
 Total Value of human resources
 Value per employee

HR Acquisition
 Number of employees acquired during the year
 Cost of Acquisition
 Levels for which they were acquired
 HR Development
 All information pertaining to HRD activities of the organization
 HR maintenance
 Cost related to HR maintenance.
 HR Separation
 Cost related to HR Separation, attribution rate.
 Details of benefits provided to the employees

Various Methods:
 Non- Monetary Measurement
 Monetary Measurement

On- Monetary Measurement

 Capitalization of Historical Cost
 Replacement Cost Method
 Opportunity Cost method
 Economic Value Method
 Present Value Method
 HR Accounting
 Developing skill inventory
 Performance Appraisal
 Assessing the individual capacity for development
 Attitude survey
 Subjective Appraisal

15
 Lesson 2
THE CONCEPT OF BEST-FIT EMPLOYEE

TOPICS
1. Importance of Human Resource Planning, Internal and external sources,
and Recruitment
2. Selection, Induction and Socialization Benefits

LEARNING OUTCOMES
At the end of the lesson, you should be able to:
1. demonstrate knowledge and understanding on the internal and
external sources and importance of human resource planning; and
2. apply relevant knowledge and understanding to work situations as
TOPICselecting
1: IMPORTANCE OF HUMAN
staff and managing RESOURCE PLANNING, INTERNAL
performance.
AND EXTERNAL SOURCES, AND RECRUITMENT

Concept of Human resource planning:

Human resource planning is important for helping both organizations and
employees to prepare for the future.
The basic goal of human resource planning is to predict the future and based on
these predictions, implement programmes to avoid anticipated problems.
Very briefly humans resource planning is the process of examining an
organization‘s or individual‘s future human resource needs for instance, what
types of skills will be needed for jobs of the future compared to future human
resource capabilities (such as the types of skilled employees you already have)
and developing human resource policies and practices to address potential
problems for example, implementing training programmes to avoid skill
deficiencies.

Definition of HRP:
According to Vetter, ―HRP is the process by which management determines how the
organization should move from its current man power position to desired manpower
position. Through planning, management strives to have the right time, doing things
which result in both the organization and individual receiving maximum long run
benefits‖.

According to Gordon Mc Beath, ―HRP is concerned with two things: Planning of

manpower requirements and Planning of Manpower supplies‖.

16
According to Beach, ―HRP is a process of determining and assuming that the
organization will have an adequate number of qualified persons, available at proper
times, performing jobs which meet the needs of the enterprise and which provides
satisfaction for the individuals involved.

HRP is a Four-Phased Process:

 The first phase involves the gathering and analysis of data through manpower
inventories and forecasts,
 The second phase consists of establishing manpower objectives and policies and
gaining top management approval of these.
 The third phase involves designing and implementing plans and promotions to
enable the organization to achieve its manpower objectives.
 The fourth phase is concerned with control and evaluation of manpower plans
to facilitate progress in order to benefit both the organization and the individual.
The long run view means that gains may be sacrificed in the short run for the
future grounds. The planning process enables the organization to identify what
its manpower needs is and what potential manpower problems required current
action. This leads to more effective and efficient performance.

HRP Process:
HRP effectively involves forecasting personnel needs, assessing personnel supply
and matching demand – supply factors through personnel related programmes. The HR
planning process is influenced by overall organizational objectives and environment of
business.

Figure 8: The HRP Process

Environmental Scanning: It refers to the systematic monitoring of the external forces

influencing the organization. The following forces are essential for pertinent HRP.
o Economic factors, including general and regional conditions.
o Technological changes
o Demographic changes including age, composition and literacy,
o Political and legislative issues, including laws and administrative rulings
o Social concerns, including child care, educational facilities and priorities.
By scanning the environment for changes that will affect an organization,
managers can anticipate their impact and make adjustments early.

17
Organizational Objectives and Policies: HR plan is usually derived from the
organizational objectives. Specific requirements in terms of number and characteristics
of employees should be derived from organizational objectives.
Once the organizational objectives are specified, communicated and understood
by all concerned, the HR department must specify its objective with regard to HR
utilization in the organization.

HR Demand Forecast: Demand forecasting is the process of estimating the future

quantity and quality of people required to meet the future needs of the organization.
Annual budget and long-term corporate plan when translated into activity into activity
form the basis for HR forecast.
For e.g.: in the case of a manufacturing company, the sales budget will form the
basis for production plan giving the number and type of products to be produced in
each period. This will form the basis upon which the organization will decide the
number of hours to be worked by each skilled category of workers. Once the number
hours required is available organization can determine the quality and quantity of
personnel required for the task.
Demand forecasting is influenced by both internal factors and external factors:
external factors include-competition, economic climate, laws and regulatory bodies,
changes in technology and social factors whereas internal factors are budget
constraints, production level, new products and services, organizational structure and
employee separations.
Demand forecasting is essential because it helps the organization to
 Quantify the jobs, necessary for producing a given number of goods,
 To determine the nature of staff, mix required in the future,
 To assess appropriate levels in different parts of organization so as to avoid
unnecessary costs to the organization,
 To prevent shortages of personnel where and when, they are needed by
the organization.
 To monitor compliances with legal requirements with regard to reservation
of jobs.
Techniques like managerial judgment, ratio- trend analysis, regression analysis,
work study techniques, Delphi techniques are some of the major methods used by the
organization for demand forecasting.

HR Supply Forecast: Supply forecast determines whether the HR department will be

able to procure the required number of workers. Supply forecast measures the number
of people likely to be available from within and outside an organization, after making
allowance for absenteeism, internal movements and promotions, wastage and changes
in hours, and other conditions of work.
Supply forecast is required because it is needed as it
 helps to quantify the number of people and positions expected to be
available in future to help the organization realize its plans and meet its
objectives
 Helps to clarify the staff mixes that will arise in future
 It assesses existing staffing in different parts of the organization.
 It will enable the organization to prevent shortage of people where and
when they are most needed.
 It also helps to monitor future compliance with legal requirements of job
reservations.
Supply analysis covers the existing human resources, internal sources of supply
and external sources of supply.

18
HR Programming: Once an organization‘s personnel demand and supply are forecasted
the demand and supply need to be balanced in order that the vacancies can be filled by
the right employees at the right time.

HR Plan Implementation: HR implementation requires converting an HR plan into

action. A series of action are initiated as a part of HR plan implementation. Programmes
such as recruitment, selection and placement, training and development, retraining and
redeployment, retention plan, succession plan etc. when clubbed together form the
implementation part of the HR plan.

Control and Evaluation: Control and evaluation represent the final phase of the HRP
process. All HR plan include budgets, targets and standards. The achievement of the
organization will be evaluated and monitored against the plan. During this final phase
organization will be evaluating on the number of people employed against the
established (both those who are in the post and those who are in pipe line) and on the
number recruited against the recruitment targets. Evaluation is also done with respect
to employment cost against the budget and wastage accrued so that corrective action
can be taken in future.

Requisites for Successful HRP

 HRP must be recognized as an integral part of corporate planning
 Support of top management is essential
 There should be some centralization with respect to HRP responsibilities in order
to have co-ordination between different levels of management.
 Organization records must be complete, up to date and readily available.
 Techniques used for HR planning should be those best suited to the data
available and degree of accuracy required.
 Data collection, analysis, techniques of planning and the plan themselves need to
be constantly revised and improved in the light of experience.

Barriers to HRP
Human Resource Planners face significant barriers while formulating an HRP. The
major barriers are elaborated below:
 HR practitioners are perceived as experts in handling personnel matters, but are
not experts in managing business. The personnel plan conceived and formulated
by the HR practitioners when enmeshed with organizational plan, might make
the overall strategic plan of the organization ineffective.
 HR information often is incompatible with other information used in strategy
formulation. Strategic planning efforts have long been oriented towards financial
forecasting, often to the exclusion of other types of information. Financial
forecasting takes precedence over HRP.
 Conflict may exist between short term and long-term HR needs. For example,
there can be a conflict between the pressure to get the work done on time and
long-term needs, such as preparing people for assuming greater responsibilities.
Many managers are of the belief that HR needs can be met immediately because
skills are available on the market as long as wages and salaries are competitive.
Therefore, long times plans are not required, short planning are only needed.
 There is conflict between quantitative and qualitative approaches to HRP. Some
people view HRP as a number game designed to track the flow of people across
the department. Others take a qualitative approach and focus on individual
employee concerns such as promotion and career development. Best result can
be achieved if there is a balance between the quantitative and qualitative
approaches.

19
  Non-involvement of operating managers renders HRP ineffective. HRP is not
strictly an HR department function. Successful planning needs a coordinated
effort on the part of operating managers and HR personnel.

INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL SOURCES

Sources of Recruitment
After the finalization of recruitment plan indicating the number and type of
prospective candidates, they must be attracted to offer themselves for consideration to
their employment. This necessitates the identification of sources from which these
candidates can be attracted. Some companies try to develop new sources, while most
only try to tackle the existing sources they have. These sources, accordingly, may be
termed as internal and external.

Internal Sources
It would be desirable to utilize the internal sources before going outside to attract
the candidates. Yoder and others suggest two categories of internal sources including a
review of the present employees and nomination of candidates by employees. Effective
utilization of internal sources necessitates an understanding of their skills and
information regarding relationships of jobs. This will provide possibilities for horizontal
and vertical transfers within the enterprise eliminating simultaneous attempts to lay off
employees in one department and recruitment of employees with similar qualification
for another department in the company. Promotion and transfers within the plant
where an employee is best suitable improves the morale along with solving recruitment
problems. These measures can be taken effectively if the company has established job
families through job analysis programmes combining together similar jobs demanding
similar employee characteristics. Again, employees can be requested to suggest
promising candidates. Sometimes, employees are given prizes for recommending a
candidate who has been recruited. Despite the usefulness of this system in the form of
loyalty and its wide practice, it has been pointed out that it gives rise to cliques posing
difficulty to management. Therefore, before utilizing this system attempts should be
made to determine through research whether or not employees thus recruited are
effective on particular jobs. Usually, internal sources can be used effectively if the
numbers of vacancies are not very large, adequate, employee records are maintained,
jobs do not demand originality lacking in the internal sources, and employees have
prepared themselves for promotions.

Merits of Internal Sources: The following are the merits of internal sources of
recruitment:
 It creates a sense of security among employees when they are assured that they
would be preferred in filling up vacancies.
 It improves the morale of employees, for they are assured of the fact that they
would be preferred over outsiders when vacancies occur.
 It promotes loyalty and commitment among employees due to sense of job
security and opportunities for advancement.
 The employer is in a better position to evaluate those presently employed than
outside candidates. This is because the company maintains a record of the
progress, experience and service of its employees.
 Time and costs of training will be low because employees remain familiar with
the organization and its policies.
 Relations with trade unions remain good. Labor turnover is reduced.

20
  As the persons in the employment of the company are fully aware of, and well-
acquainted with, its policies and know its operating procedures, they require
little training, and the chances are that they would stay longer in the
employment of the organization than a new outsider would.
 It encourages self-development among the employees. It encourages good
individuals who are ambitious.
 It encourages stability from continuity of employment.
 It can also act as a training device for developing middle and top-level managers.

Demerits of Internal Sources: However, this system suffers from certain defects as:
 There are possibilities that internal sources may ―dry up‖, and it may be difficult
to find the requisite personnel from within an organization.
 It often leads to inbreeding, and discourages new blood from entering and
organization.
 As promotion is based on seniority, the danger is that really capable hands may
not be chosen. The likes and dislikes of the management may also play an
important role in the selection of personnel.
 Since the learner does not know more than the lecturer, no innovations worth
the name can be made. Therefore, on jobs which require original thinking (such
as advertising, style, designing and basic research), this practice is not followed.

This source is used by many organizations; but a surprisingly large number ignore
this source, especially for middle management jobs.

External Sources
DeCenzo and Robbins remark, ―Occasionally, it may be necessary to bring in
some ‗new blood to broaden the present ideas, knowledge, and enthusiasm. ‖ Thus, all
organizations have to depend on external sources of recruitment. Among these sources
are included:
 Employment agencies.
 Educational and technical institutes. And
 Casual labour or ―applicants at the gate‖ and nail applicants.

Public and private employment agencies play a vital role in making

available suitable employees for different positions in the organizations. Besides public
agencies, private agencies have developed markedly in large cities in the form of
consultancy services. Usually, these agencies facilitate recruitment of technical and
professional personnel. Because of their specialization, they effectively assess the needs
of their clients and aptitudes and skills of the specialized personnel. They do not merely
bring an employer and an employee together but computerize lists of available talents,
utilizing testing to classify and assess applicants and use advanced techniques of
vocational guidance for effective placement purposes.

Educational and technical institutes also form an effective source of manpower

supply. There is an increasing emphasis on recruiting student from different
management institutes and universities commerce and management departments by
recruiters for positions in sales, accounting, finance, personnel and production. These
students are recruited as management trainees and then placed in special company
training programmes. They are not recruited for particular positions but for
development as future supervisors and executives. Indeed, this source provides a
constant flow of new personnel with leadership potentialities. Frequently, this source is
tapped through on-campus interview with promising students. In addition, vocational
schools and industrial training institutes provide specialized employees, apprentices,

21
and trainees for semiskilled and skilled jobs. Persons trained in these schools and
institutes can be placed on operative and similar jobs with a minimum of in-plant
training. However, recruitment of these candidates must be based on realistic and
differential standards established through research reducing turnover and enhancing
productivity.

Frequently, numerous enterprises depend to some extent upon casual labor or

―applicants at the gate‖ and nail applicants. The candidates may appear personally at
the company‘s employment office or send their applications for possible vacancies.
Explicitly, as Yoder and others observe, the quality and quantity of such candidates
depend on the image of the company in community. Prompt response to these
applicants proves very useful for the company. However, it may be noted that this
source is uncertain, and the applicants reveal a wide range of abilities necessitating a
careful screening. Despite these limitations, it forms a highly inexpensive source as the
candidates themselves come to the gate of the company. Again, it provides measures
for good public relations and accordingly, all the candidates visiting the company must
be received cordially.

Table 1: Recruiting Sources Used by Skill and Level

Skill/Level Recruiting Source Percentage of Use
Unskilled and Semiskilled Informal contacts 85
Walk-ins 74
Public Employment Agencies 66
Want Ads 52
Skilled Informal Contacts 88
Walk-ins 66
Public Employment Agencies 55
Want Ads 55
Professional Employees Internal Search 94
Informal Contacts 92
Walk-ins 71
Public Employment Agencies 52
Want Ads 48
Private Employment Agencies 22
Managerial Level Internal Search 100
Informal Contacts 71
Walk-ins 31
Private Employment Agencies 20
Want Ads 17
Public Employment Agencies 12

As Jucius observes, trade unions are playing an increasingly important role in labor
supply. In several trades, they supply skilled labor in sufficient numbers. They also
determine the order in which employees are to be recruited in the organization. In
industries where they do not take active part in recruitment, they make it a point that
employees laid off are given preference in recruitment.
Application files also forms a useful source of supply of work force.
Attempts may be made to review the application to determine jobs for which the
candidates filed for future use when there are openings in these jobs. The candidates
may be requested to renew their cards as many times as they desire. All the renewed
cards may be placed in ―active‖ files and those not renewed for considerable time may
be placed in ―inactive‖ file or destroyed. Indeed, a well-indexed application file
provides utmost economy from the standpoint of a recruiting budget.

22
 Efficacy of alternative sources of supply of human resources should be
determined through research. Attempts may be made to relate the factor of success on
the job with a specific source of supply. Alternative sources can also be evaluated in
terms of turnover, grievances and disciplinary action. Those sources which are
significantly positively related with job performance and significantly negatively related
with turnover, grievances and disciplinary action, can be effectively used in recruitment
programmes. The assessment should be periodically performed in terms of occupations.
It may be that source ―A‖ is most effective for technical workers, while source ―B‖ for
semiskilled workers.

Advantages of External Recruitment: External sources of recruitment are suitable for

the following reasons:
 It will help in bringing new ideas, better techniques and improved methods to
the organization.
 The cost of employees will be minimized because candidates selected in this
method will be placed in the minimum pay scale.
 The existing employees will also broaden their personality.
 The entry of qualitative persons from outside will be in the interest of the
organization in the long run.
 The suitable candidates with skill, talent, knowledge is available from external
sources.
 The entry of new persons with varied expansion and talent will help in human
resource mix.

Disadvantages of External Sources:

 Orientation and training are required as the employees remain unfamiliar with
the organisation. It is more expensive and time-consuming. Detailed screening is
necessary as very little is known about the candidate.
 If new entrant fails to adjust himself to the working in the enterprise, it means
yet more expenditure on looking for his replacement.
 Motivation, morale and loyalty of existing staff are affected, if higher level jobs
are filled from external sources. It becomes a source of heart-burning and
demoralization among existing employees.

RECRUITMENT
Recruitment forms a step in the process which continues with selection and
ceases with the placement of the candidate. It is the next step in the procurement
function, the first being the manpower planning. Recruiting makes it possible to acquire
the number and types of people necessary to ensure the continued operation of the
organization. Recruiting is the discovering of potential applicants for actual or
anticipated organizational vacancies.

According to Edwin B. Flippo, ―Recruitment is the process of searching for prospective

employees and stimulating them to apply for jobs in the organization. ‖

According to Lord, ―Recruitment is a form of competition. Just as corporations

compete to develop, manufacture, and market the best product or service, so they must
also compete to identify, attract and hire the most qualified people. Recruitment is a
business, and it is a big business.

In the words of Dale Yoder, ― Recruiting is a process to discover the sources of

manpower to meet the requirements of the staffing schedule and to employ effective

23
measures for attracting that manpower in adequate numbers to facilitate effective
selection of an efficient working force.

Human Resource
Planning

Job Analysis

Recruitment

Selection

Placement

Figure 9: Recruitment to Human Resource Acquisition Process

According to Werther and Davis, ―Recruitment is the process of finding and attracting
capable applicants for employment. The process begins when new recruits are sought
and ends when their applications are submitted. The result is a pool of applicants form
which new employees are selected.

Dales S. Beach writes, ―Recruitment is the development and maintenance of adequate

manpower resources. It involves the creation of a pool of available labor upon whom
the organization can depend when it needs additional employees.

Thus, recruitment process is concerned with the identification of possible sources of

human resource supply and tapping those sources. In the total process of acquiring and
placing human resources in the organization, recruitment falls in between different sub-
processes as shown in Figure 9.

According to Scott, Clothier and Spriegel the need for recruitment arises out of the
following situations:
 Vacancies created due to expansion, diversification, and growth of business.
 An increase in the competitive advantage of certain concerns, enabling them to
get more of the available business than formerly.
 An increase in business arising from an upswing during the recovery period of a
business cycle. Vacancies created due to transfer, promotion, retirement,
termination, permanent disability or death.
 The normal population growth, which requires increased goods and services to
meet the needs of the people.

24
  A rising standard of living, which requires more of the same goods and services
as well as the creation of new wants to be satisfied.

Process of Recruitment
Recruitment process passes through the following stages:
 Recruitment process begins when the personnel department receives
requisitions for recruitment from any department of the company, The
personnel requisitions contain details about the position to be filled, number of
persons to be recruited, the duties to be performed, qualifications expected
from the candidates, terms and conditions of employment and the time by
which the persons should be available for appointment etc.
 Locating and developing the sources of required number and type of employees.
 Identifying the prospective employees with required characteristics.
 Developing the techniques to attract the desired candidates. The goodwill of an
organization in the market may be one technique. The publicity about the
company being a good employer may also help in stimulating candidates to
apply. There may be others of attractive salaries, proper facilities for
development etc.
 Evaluating the effectiveness of recruitment process.

According to Famularo, personnel recruitment process involves five elements, viz., a

recruitment policy, a recruitment organization, a forecast of manpower, the
development of sources of recruitment, and different techniques used for utilizing these
sources, and a method of assessing the recruitment programme. The explanation of
these is described below:

Recruitment Policy: It specifies the objectives of recruitment and provides a framework

for the implementation of the recruitment programme. It also involves the employer ‘s
commitment to some principles as to find and employ the best qualified persons for
each job, to retain the most promising of those hired, etc. It should be based on the
goals, needs and environment of the organization.

Recruitment Organization: The recruitment may be centralized like public sector banks
or decentralized. Both practices have their own merits. The choice between the two will
depend on the managerial philosophy and the particular needs of the organization.

Sources of Recruitment: Various sources of recruitment may be classified as internal

and external. These have their own merits and demerits.

Methods of Recruitment: Recruitment techniques are the means to make contact with
potential candidates, to provide them necessary information and to encourage them to
apply for jobs.

Evaluation of Recruitment Programme: The recruitment process must be evaluated

periodically. The criteria for evaluation may consist of cost per applicant, the hiring
ratio, performance appraisal, tenure of stay, etc. After evaluation, necessary
improvements should be made in the recruitment programme.

Recruitment Policy
As Yoder et al observe recruitment policy spells out the objectives of the
recruitment and provides a framework for implementations of the recruitment
programme in the form of procedures. It may involve a commitment to broad principles

25
such as filling vacancies with the best qualified individuals. The recruitment policy may
embrace several issues such as the extent of promotion from within, attitudes of
enterprise in recruiting old, handicapped, and minor individuals, minority group
members, part-time employees and relatives of present employees. In addition, the
recruitment policy may also involve the organization system to be developed for
implementing the recruitment programme and procedures to be employed. Explicitly,
an organizational system is a function of the size of an enterprise. In smaller enterprises,
there may be merely informal recruiting procedures and the line official may be
responsible to handle this function along with their usual responsibilities. On the other
hand, in larger organizations, there is usually a staff unit attached with personnel or an
industrial relations department designated as employment or recruitment office. This
specialization of recruitment enables staff personnel to become highly skilled in
recruitment techniques and their evaluation. However, recruitment remains the line
responsibility as far as the personnel requisition forms are originated by the line
personnel, who have also the final word in the acceptance or rejection of a particular
applicant. Despite this, the staff personnel have adequate freedom in respect of sources
of manpower to be tapped and the procedure to be followed for this purpose.

Recruitment policy covers the following areas:

 To prescribe the degree of emphasis. Inside the organization or outside the
organization.
 To provide the weightage that would be given to certain categories of people
such as local population, physically-handicapped personnel, personnel from
scheduled castes/tribes and other backward classes.
 To prescribe whether the recruitment would be centralized or decentralized at
unit levels.
 To specify the degree of flexibility with regard to age, qualifications,
compensation structure and other service conditions.
 To prescribe the personnel who would be involved in recruitment process and
the role of human resource department in this regard.
 To specify the budget for meeting the expenditures incurred in completing the
recruitment process.

According to Yoder, ―the recruitment policy is concerned with quantity and

qualifications of manpower. ‖ It establishes broad guidelines for the staffing process.
Generally, the following factors are involved in a recruitment policy:
 To provide each employee with an open road and encouragement in the
continuing development of his talents and skills;
 To provide individual employees with the maximum of employment security,
avoiding, frequent lay-off or lost time;
 To avoid cliques which may develop when several members of the same
household or community are employed in the organization;
 To carefully observe the letter and spirit of the relevant public policy on hiring
and, on the whole, employment relationship;
 To assure each employee of the organization interest in his personal goals and
employment objective; To assure employees of fairness in all employment
relationships, including promotions and transfers;
 To provide employment in jobs which are engineered to meet the qualifications
of handicapped workers and minority sections; and
 To encourage one or more strong, effective, responsible trade unions among the
employees.

Prerequisites of a Good Recruitment Policy: The recruitment policy of an organisation

must satisfy the following conditions:
26
  It should be in conformity with its general personnel policies;
 It should be flexible enough to meet the changing needs of an organisation;
 It should be so designed as to ensure employment opportunities for its
employees on a long-term basis so that the goals of the organisation should be
achievable; and it should develop the potentialities of employees;
 It should match the qualities of employees with the requirements of the work for
which they are employed; and It should highlight the necessity of establishing
job analysis.

Factor Affecting Recruitment

The factors affecting recruitment can be classified as internal and external factors.

The internal factors are:

 Wage and salary policies;
 The age composition of existing working force;
 Promotion and retirement policies;
 Turnover rates;
 The nature of operations involved the kind of personnel required;
 The level and seasonality of operations in question;
 Future expansion and reduction programmes;
 Recruiting policy of the organisation;
 Human resource planning strategy of the company;
 Size of the organisation and the number of employees employed;
 Cost involved in recruiting employees, and finally;
 Growth and expansion plans of the organisation.

The external factors are:

 Supply and demand of specific skills in the labor market;
 Company‘s image perception of the job seekers about the company.
 External cultural factors: Obviously, the culture may exert considerable check on
recruitment. For example, women may not be recruited in certain jobs in
industry.
 Economic factors: such as a tight or loose labor market, the reputation of the
enterprise in the community as a good pay master or otherwise and such allied
issues which determine the quality and quantity of manpower submitting itself
for recruitment.
 Political and legal factors also exert restraints in respect of nature and hours of
work for women and children, and allied employment practices in the enterprise,
reservation of Job for SC, ST and so on.

Methods of Recruitment
Methods of recruitment are different from the sources of recruitment. Sources
are the locations where prospective employees are available. On the other hand,
methods are way of establishing links with the prospective employees. Various methods
employed for recruiting employees may be classified into the following categories:

1. Direct Methods:
These include sending recruiters to educational and professional institutions,
employees, contacts with public, and manned exhibits. One of the widely used direct
methods is that of sending of recruiters to colleges and technical schools. Most college

27
recruiting is done in co-operation with the placement office of a college. The placement
office usually provides help in attracting students, arranging interviews, furnishing
space, and providing student resumes.

For managerial, professional and sales personnel campus recruiting is an extensive

operation. Persons reading for MBA or other technical diplomas are picked up in this
manner. For this purpose, carefully prepared brochures, describing the organisation and
the jobs it offers, are distributed among students, before the interviewer arrives.
Sometimes, firms directly solicit information from the concerned professors about
students with an outstanding record. Many companies have found employees contact
with the public a very effective method. Other direct methods include sending recruiters
to conventions and seminars, setting up exhibits at fairs, and using mobile offices to go
to the desired center.

Table 2: Methods of Contacting Prospective Candidates

Based on personnel to be recruited
Managerial/technical personnel Operative personnel
Advertisement Public employment exchanges
Internet Labor unions
Walk-ins Employee referrals
Campus recruitments Gate hiring
Job fairs Labor contractors
Consultancy firms
Personnel contacts
Poaching and raiding
Based on the movement of the organization
Direct methods Third party method
Advertisement Consultancy firms
Internet recruiting Public employment exchanges
Campus recruitment Labor unions
Job fairs Employee referrals
Personnel contacts Labor contractors
Gate hiring

2. Indirect Methods:
The most frequently used indirect method of recruitment is advertisement in
newspapers, journals, and on the radio and television. Advertisement enables
candidates to assess their suitability. It is appropriate when the organisation wants to
reach out to a large target group scattered nationwide. When a firm wants to conceal its
identity, it can give blind advertisement in which only box number is given. Considerable
details about jobs and qualifications can be given in the advertisements. Another
method of advertising is a notice-board placed at the gate of the company.

3. Third-Party Methods:
The most frequently used third-party methods are public and private employment
agencies. Public employment exchanges have been largely concerned with factory
workers and clerical jobs. They also provide help in recruiting professional employees.
Private agencies provide consultancy services and charge a fee. They are usually
specialized for different categories of operatives, office workers, salesmen, supervisory
and management personnel. Other third-party methods include the use of trade unions.
Labor-management committees have usually demonstrated the effectiveness of trade
unions as methods of recruitment.

28
 TOPIC 2: SELECTION, INDUCTION AND SOCIALIZATION BENEFITS

SELECTION
Human resource selection is the process of choosing qualified individuals
who are available to fill positions in an organization. In the ideal personnel situation,
selection involves choosing the best applicant to fill a position. Selection is the process
of choosing people by obtaining and assessing information about the applicants with a
view to matching these with the job requirements. It involves a careful screening and
testing of candidates who have put in their applications for any job in the enterprise. It
is the process of choosing the most suitable persons out of all the applicants. The
purpose of selection is to pick up the right person for every job.

It can be conceptualized in terms of either choosing the fit candidates, or rejecting the
unfit candidates, or a combination of both. Selection involves both because it picks up
the fits and rejects the un-fits. In fact, in Indian context, there are more candidates who
are rejected than those who are selected in most of the selection processes. Therefore,
sometimes, it is called a negative process in contrast to positive programme of
recruitment.

According to Dale Yoder, ―Selection is the process in which candidates for employment
are divided into two classes-those who are to be offered employment and those who
are not‖.

According to Thomas Stone, ―Selection is the process of differentiating between

applicants in order to identify (and hire) those with a greater likelihood of success in a
job‖.

In the words of Michael Jucius, ―The selection procedure is the system of functions
and devices adopted in a given company for the purpose of ascertaining whether or not
candidates possess the qualifications called for by a specific job or for progression
through a series of jobs. ‖

According to Keith Davis, ―Selection is the process by which an organisation chooses

from a list of screened applicants, the person or persons who best meet the selection
criteria for the position available. ‖

Thus, the selection process is a tool in the hands of management to differentiate

between the qualified and unqualified applicants by applying various techniques such as
interviews, tests etc. The cost incurred in recruiting and selecting any new employee is
expensive. The cost of selecting people who are inadequate performers or who leave
the organisation before contributing to profits proves a major cost of doing business.
Decenzo and Robbins write, ―Proper selection of personnel is obviously an area where
effectiveness - choosing competent workers who perform well in their position-can

29
result in large saving.‖ According to them, selection has two objectives: (1) to predict
which job applicants would be successful if hired and (2) to inform and sell the
candidate on the job and the organization. Satisfaction of employee needs and wants as
well as the fullest development of his potential are important objectives of selection.

Dale Yoder says, ―Selection has long held a high rank in the priority of problem areas in
management. Investments in good people produce a very high rate of return. A good
choice of people can provide a basis for long, sustained contributions. ‖

Difference between Recruitment and Selection: Difference between recruitment and

selection has been described by Flippo as, ―Recruitment is a process of searching for
prospective employees and stimulating and encouraging them to apply for jobs in an
organisation. It is often termed positive as is stimulates people to apply for jobs,
selection on the other hand tends to be negative because it rejects a good number of
those who apply, leaving only the best to be hired. ‖ Recruitment and selection differ in
following manner:

Difference in Objective: The basic objective of recruitment is to attract maximum

number of candidates so that more options are available. The basic objective of
selection is to choose best out of the available candidates.

Difference is Process: Recruitment adopts the process of creating application pool as

large as possible and therefore. It is known as positive process. Selection adopts the
process through which more and more candidates are rejected and fewer candidates
are selected or sometimes even not a single candidate is selected. Therefore, it is known
as negative process or rejection process.

Technical Differences: Recruitment techniques are not very intensive, and not require
high skills. As against this, in selection process, highly specialized techniques are
required. Therefore, in the selection process, only personnel with specific skills like
expertise in using selection tests, conducting interviews, etc., are involved.

Difference in Outcomes: The outcome of recruitment is application pool which becomes

input for selection process. The outcome of selection process is in the form of finalizing
candidates who will be offered jobs.

Selection Procedure
The selection procedure is concerned with securing relevant information about an
applicant. This information is secured in a number of steps or stages. The objective of
selection process is to determine whether an applicant meets the qualification for a
specific job and to choose the applicant who is most likely to perform well in that job.
Selection is a long process, commencing from the preliminary interview of the
applicants and ending with the contract of employment (sometimes).

The selection procedure consists of a series of steps. Each step must be successfully
cleared before the applicant proceeds to the next. The selection process is a series of
successive hurdles or barriers which an applicant must cross. These hurdles are
designed to eliminate an unqualified candidate at any point in the selection process.
Thus, this technique is called ―Successive Hurdles Technique‖. In practice, the process
differs among organizations and between two different jobs within the same
organisation. Selection procedure for the senior managers will be long drawn and
rigorous, but it is simple and short while hiring lower level employees.

30
The major factors which determine the steps involved in a selection process are as
follows:
 Selection process depends on the number of candidates that are available for
selection.
 Selection process depends on the sources of recruitment and the method that is
adopted for making contact with the prospective candidates.
 Various steps involved in as selection process depend on the type of personnel
to be selected. All the above factors are not mutually exclusive, rather these
operate simultaneously. In any case, the basic objective of a selection process is
to collect as much relevant information about the candidates as is possible so
that the most suitable candidates are selected. A comprehensive selection
process involves the various steps.

Application pool from

recruitment process Eliminate those who does
not fulfil job requirement.

Primary screening and

interview

Application Blank
Unfavorable personnel data

Selection tests
Eliminate those who
obtain unfavorable test score

Interviews Eliminate those not meeting

job and organizational requirements

Background Eliminate those with

adverse remarks investigations

Physical Examination Eliminate those not meeting physical

standards

Approval by
appropriate authority

Evaluation congratulate

Adopt objectivity Check the reliability and validity

Figure 10: Steps in Selection Process

Application Pool: Application pool built-up through recruitment process is the base for
selection process. The basic objective at the recruitment level is to attract as much
31
worthwhile applications as possible so that there are more options available at the
selection stage.

Preliminary Screening and Interview: It is highly noneconomic to administer and handle

all the applicants. It is advantageous to sort out unsuitable applicants before using the
further selection steps. For this purpose, usually, preliminary interviews, application
blank lists and short test can be used. All applications received are scrutinized by the
personnel department in order to eliminate those applicants who do not fulfil required
qualifications or work experience or technical skill, his application will not be
entertained. Such candidate will be informed of his rejection.
Preliminary interview is a sorting process in which the prospective candidates are given
the necessary information about the nature of the job and the organization. Necessary
information is obtained from the candidates about their education, skills, experience,
expected salary etc. If the candidate is found suitable, he is elected for further
screening. This courtesy interview; as it is often called helps the department screen out
obvious misfits. Preliminary interview saves time and efforts of both the company and
the candidate. It avoids unnecessary waiting for the rejected candidates and waste of
money on further processing of an unsuitable candidate. Since rejection rate is high at
preliminary interview, the interviewer should be kind, courteous, receptive and
informal.

Application Blank or Application Form: An application blank is a traditional widely

accepted device for getting information from a prospective applicant which will enable
the management to make a proper selection. The blank provides preliminary
information as well as aid in the interview by indicating areas of interest and discussion.
It is a good means of quickly collecting verifiable (and therefore fairly accurate) basic
historical data from the candidate. It also serves as a convenient device for circulating
information about the applicant to appropriate members of management and as a
useful device for storing information for, later reference. Many types of application
forms, sometimes very long and comprehensive and sometimes brief, are used.
Information is generally taken on the following items:

 Biographical Data: Name, father‘s name, data and place of birth, age, sex,
nationality, height, weight, identification marks, physical disability, if any, marital
status, and number of dependents.
 Educational Attainment: Education (subjects offered and grades secured),
training acquired in special fields and knowledge gained from
professional/technical institutes or through correspondence courses.
 Work Experience: Previous experience, the number of jobs held with the same
or other employers, including the nature of duties, and responsibilities and the
duration of various assignments, salary received, grades, and reasons for leaving
the present employer.
 Salary and Benefits: Present and expected.
 Other Items: Names and addresses of previous employers, references, etc. An
application blank is a brief history sheet of an employee‘s background and can
be used for future reference, in case needed.

The application blank must be designed from the viewpoint of the applicant as well as
with the company‘s purpose in mind. It should be relatively easy to handle in the
employment office. Application form helps to serve many functions like:
 Its main usefulness is to provide information for reference checking, good
interviewing, and correlation with testing data.
 It helps to weed out candidates who are lacking in education, experience or
some other eligibility traits.
32
  It helps in formulating questions to be asked in the interview.
 Data contained in application form can be stored for future reference.
 It also tests the candidate‘s ability to write, to organize his thoughts, and to
present facts clearly and succinctly.
 It indicates further whether the applicant has consistently progressed to better
jobs. It provides factual information.

Weighted Application Blanks

Some organizations assign numeric values or weights to the responses provided by the
applicants. This makes the application form more job related. Generally, the items that
have a strong relationship to job performance are given higher scores. For example, for
a sales representative‘s position, items such as previous selling experience, area of
specialization, commission earned, religion, language etc. The total score of each
applicant is then obtained by adding the weights of the individual item responses. The
resulting scores are then used in the final selection. WAB is best suited for jobs where
there are many employees especially for sales and technical jobs. It can help in reducing
the employee turnover later on. However, there are several problems associated with
WAB e.g.

It takes time to develop such a form.

The WAB would have to be updated every few years to ensure that the factors
previously identified are still valid products of job success.

The organization should be careful not to depend on weights of a few items

while finally selecting the employee.

Selection Tests: Many organizations hold different kinds of selection tests to know more
about the candidates or to reject the candidates who cannot be called for interview etc.
Selection tests normally supplement the information provided in the application forms.
Such forms may contain factual information about candidates. Selection tests may give
information about their aptitude, interest, personality, which cannot be known by
application forms. Types of tests and rules of good of testing have been discussed in
brief below:

Aptitude Tests: These measures whether an individual has the capacity or talent ability
to learn a given job if given adequate training. These are more useful for clerical and
trade positions.

Personality Tests: At times, personality affects job performance. These determine

personality traits of the candidate such as cooperativeness, emotional balance etc.
These seek to assess an individual‘s motivation, adjustment to the stresses of everyday
life, capacity for interpersonal relations and self-image.

Interest Tests: These determine the applicant‘s interests. The applicant is asked
whether he likes, dislikes, or is indifferent to many examples of school subjects,
occupations, amusements, peculiarities of people, and particular activities.

Performance Tests: In this test the applicant is asked to demonstrate his ability to do
the job. For example, prospective typists are asked to type several pages with speed and
accuracy.

33
Intelligence Tests: This aim at testing the mental capacity of a person with respect to
reasoning, word fluency, numbers, memory, comprehension, picture arrangement, etc.
It measures the ability to grasp, understand and to make judgement.

Knowledge Tests: These are devised to measure the depth of the knowledge and
proficiency in certain skills already achieved by the applicants such as engineering,
accounting etc.

Achievement Tests: Whereas aptitude is a capacity to learn in the future, achievement

is concerned with what one has accomplished. When applicants claim to know
something, an achievement test is given to measure how well they know it.

Projective Tests: In these tests the applicant projects his personality into free responses
about pictures shown to him which are ambiguous.

Rules of Good Testing

 Norms should be developed for each test. Their validity and reliability for a given
purpose should be established before they are used.
 Adequate time and resources must be provided to design, validate, and check
tests.
 Tests should be designed and administered only by trained and competent
persons.
 The user of tests must be extremely sensitive to the feelings of people about
tests.
 Tests are to be uses as a screening device.
 Reliance should not be placed solely upon tests in reaching decisions.
 Tests should minimize the probabilities of getting distorted results. They must be
‗race-free‘. Tests scores are not precise measures. They must be assigned a
proper weightage.

Interview: An interview is a procedure designed to get information from a person and to

assess his potential for the job he is being considered on the basis of oral responses by
the applicant to oral inquiries by the interviewer. Interviewer does a formal in-depth
conversation with the applicant, to evaluate his suitability. It is one of the most
important tools in the selection process. This tool is used when interviewing skilled,
technical, professional and even managerial employees. It involves two-way exchange of
information. The interviewer learns about the applicant and the candidate learns about
the employer.

Objectives of Interviews: Interview helps:

 To obtain additional information from the candidate.
 Facilitates giving to the candidate information about the job, company, its
policies, products etc.
 To assess the basic suitability of the candidate.

The selection interview can be:

 One to one between the candidate and the interviewer:
 Two or more interviewers by employers representatives-sequential;
 By a panel of selections, i.e., by more than representative of the employer.

The sequential interview involves a series of interviews; each interviewer meeting the
candidate separately.

34
The panel interview consists of two or more interviews meeting the candidate together.

Types of interviews: Interviews can be classified in various ways according to:

 Degree of Structure
 Purpose of Interview
 Content of Interview

Degree of Structure:
 Unstructured or non-directive: in which you ask questions as they come to
mind. There is no set format to follow.

 Structured or directive: in which the questions and acceptable responses are

specified in advance. The responses are rated for appropriateness of content.

Structured and non-structured interviews have their pros and cons. In structured
interviews all applicants are generally asked all required questions by all interviewers.
Structured interviews are generally more valid. However structured interviews do not
allow the flexibility to pursue points of interests as they develop.

Purpose of Interview: A selection interview is a type of interview designed to predict

future job performance, on the basis of applicant‘s responses to the oral questions
asked to him.

A stress interview: is a special type of selection interview in which the applicant is made
uncomfortable by series of awkward and rude questions. The aim of stress interview is
supposedly to identify applicant‘s low or high stress tolerance. In such an interview the
applicant is made uncomfortable by throwing him on the defensive by series of frank
and often discourteous questions by the interviewer.

Content of Interview: The content of interview can be of a type in which individual‘s

ability to project a situation is tested. This is a situation type interview. In job-related
interview, interviewer attempts to assess the applicant‘s past behaviors for job related
information, but most questions are not considered situational.

In a behavior interview a situation in described and candidates are asked how they
behaved in the past in such a situation. While in situational interviews candidates are
asked to describe how they would react to situation today or tomorrow. In the
behavioral interview they are asked to describe how they did react to the situation in
the past.

Principles of Interviewing
To make it effective, an interview should be properly planned and conducted on certain
principles; Edwin B. Flippo has described certain rules and principles of good
interviewing to this end:
 Provide proper surroundings. The physical setting for the interview should be
both private and comfortable.
 The mental setting should be one of rapport. The interviewer must be aware of
non-verbal behavior. Plan for the interview by thoroughly reviewing job
specifications and job descriptions.
 Determine the specific objectives and the method of the interviewing.

35
  Inform yourself as much as possible concerning the known information about
the interviewee. The interviewer should possess and demonstrate a basic liking
and respect for people.
 Questions should be asked in a manner that encourages the interviewee to talk.
Put the applicant at ease.
 Make a decision only when all the data and information are available. Avoid
decisions that are based on first impressions.
 Conclude the interview tactfully, making sure that the candidate leaves feeling
neither too elated nor frustrated.
 Maintain some written record of the interview during or immediately after it.
Listen attentively and, if possible, protectively.
 Questions must be stated clearly to avoid confusion and ambiguity. Maintain a
balance between open and overtly structured questions. ‗Body language‘ must
not be ignored.
 The interviewer should make some overt sign to indicate the end of the
interview.

Interviewing is largely an art, the application of which can be improved through practice.
Background Investigation: The next step in the selection process is to undertake an
investigation of those applicants who appear to offer potential as employees. This may
include contacting former employers to confirm the candidate‘s work record and to
obtain their appraisal of his or her performance/ contacting other job-related and
personal references, and verifying the educational accomplishments shown on the
application.

The background investigation has major implications. Every personnel administrator has
the responsibility to investigate each potential applicant. In some organization, failure to
do so could result in the loss of his or her job. But many managers consider the
background investigation data highly biased. Who would actually list a reference that
would not give anything but the best possible recommendation? The seasoned
personnel administrator expects this and delves deeper into the candidate‘s
background, but that, too, may not prove to be beneficial. Many past employers are
reluctant to give any information to another company other than factual information
(e.g., date of employment).

Even though there is some reluctance to give this information, there are ways in which
personnel administrators can obtain it. Sometimes, for instance information can be
obtained from references once removed. For example, the personnel administrator can
ask a reference whose name has been provided on the application form to give another
reference, someone who has knowledge of the candidate‘s work experience. By doing
this, the administrator can eliminate the possibility of accepting an individual based on
the employee‘s current employer‘s glowing recommendation when the motivation for
such a positive recommendation was to get rid of the employee.

Physical Examination: After the selection decision and before the job offer is made, the
candidate is required to undergo physical fitness test. Candidates are sent for physical
examination either to the company‘s physician or to a medical officer approved for the
purpose. Such physical examination provides the following information.

Whether the candidate‘s physical measurements are in accordance with job

requirements or not? Whether the candidate suffers from bad health which should be
corrected?

36
Whether the candidate has health problems or psychological attitudes likely to interfere
with work efficiency or future attendance?

Whether the candidate is physically fit for the specific job or not?

Policy on these physical exams has changed today. Dale Yoder writes, ―Modem policy
used the physical examination not to eliminate applicants, but to discover what jobs
they are qualified to fill. The examination should disclose the physical characteristics of
the individual that are significant from the standpoint of his efficient performance of the
job he may enter or of those jobs to which he may reasonably expect to be transferred
or promoted. It should note deficiencies, not as a basis for rejection, but as indicating
restrictions on his transfer to various positions also.‖

Approval by Appropriate Authority: On the basis of the above steps, suitable

candidates are recommended for selection by the selection committee or personnel
department. Though such a committee or personnel department may have authority to
select the candidates finally, often it has staff authority to recommend the candidates
for selection to the appropriate authority. Organizations may designate the various
authorities for approval of final selection of candidates for different categories of
candidates. Thus, for top level managers, board of directors may be approving authority;
for lower levels, even functional heads concerned may be approving authority.

Final Employment Decision: After a candidate is finally selected, the human resource
department recommends his name for employment. The management or board of the
company offers employment in the form of an appointment letter mentioning the post,
the rank, the salary grade, the date by which the candidate should join and other terms
and conditions of employment. Some firms make a contract of service on judicial paper.
Usually an appointment is made on probation in the beginning. The probation period
may range from three months to two years. When the work and conduct of the
employee is found satisfactory, he may be confirmed. The personnel department
prepare a waiting list and informs the candidates. In case a person does not join after
being selected, the company calls next person on the waiting list.

Evaluation: The selection process, if properly performed, will ensure availability of

competent and committed personnel. A period audit, conducted by people who work
independently of the human resource department, will evaluate the effectiveness of the
selection process. The auditors will do a thorough and the intensive analysis and
evaluate the employment programme.

INDUCTION
The process of familiarization with the organization and settling into the job. It is easy to
forget that the selection process is only the beginning of the employment relationship,
and the future of that relationship depends to a considerable extent on how the new
employee is settled into the job. Most labor turnover is among new employees, and
work efficiency is reached only after a period of learning and adjusting to the new
environment.

By planning an induction programme, in consultation with trade union or other

employee representatives if available, the organization can quickly build on the positive
attitude of the successful candidate. However keen new recruits may be, they may have
anxieties about how well they will:
 get on with their co-workers
 understand the standards and rules (written and unwritten) of the organization
 make a good impression on their new manager or supervisor

37
  be able to do the job.

A good induction programme makes business sense, whatever the size of the
organization, and whatever the job. It introduces the newcomer not only to their
immediate colleagues, but to other workers with whom they may have less day-to-day
contact, including trade union representatives (if they are recognized in the
organization) or employee representatives on any staff committee or council.

The Induction Timetable

Induction often begins before the person has actually started, in that the organization
will supply material as part of an initial 'information pack', or with the invitation to
interview, or with the letter of job offer. This may be particularly important in jobs of a
technical nature, where it is helpful for the new starter to be as well informed as
possible about that side of the work.

Clearly, learning the particular projects and initiatives will have to be done in the
workplace but much 'mental preparedness' can be undertaken in advance. The
Company Handbook, and the Written Statement of Employment Particulars, can also
provide essential information about the organization and the job.

A good reception, with the line or personnel manager spending time with the new
employee, is important on the first day. There may be further documentation to
complete, perhaps a preliminary discussion about training either immediately or in the
future, an explanation of the development opportunities that are available, and of
course enough information to give the new starter a good grasp of the working practices
of the organization. Any particular health and safety requirements should be made
known, together with details of whom to go to for help and advice during the course of
their employment. Many companies use a 'buddy' system, where an experienced
worker is nominated to assist the new recruit in all the day-to-day questions that may
arise.

It is useful to have a written checklist of the items that need to be covered in the
induction programme; and an example of such a list is at Appendix 1, 2 & 3. Not only
does this give some structure to the induction but it also ensures that both the new
starter and the manager know what has or has not been covered at any given time. Such
a checklist is normally drawn up by the personnel section in consultation with other
involved staff, such as safety officers, line manager/supervisors, employee
representatives (if appropriate), and training officers.

The induction programme may be spread over several days or weeks, and may
incorporate specific job training, but the following points should be borne in mind:
 all employees need to be able to work in a safe and healthy manner.
Recruitment and placement procedures should ensure that employees (including
managers) have the necessary physical and mental abilities to do their jobs, or
can acquire them through training and experience. Employers should have
systems in place to identify health and safety training needs arising from
recruitment
 people can take in only so much information at any given time, and should not
be overloaded. It is important that health and safety is introduced in a structured
way

38
  if there are special health and safety requirements, make sure the new starter
fully understands their importance - otherwise there is the risk of being exposed
to unnecessary danger or endangering their co-workers. All employees must
know what to do in the event of a fire or other emergency
 setting out the plan of induction at the beginning avoids the problems that can
arise in trying to arrange time in the future, when the employee is established in
the job
 don't forget induction needs for shift workers or night workers. They may need
some time on days, or modified shifts, to cover the induction period
 even if the induction period covers job training, try to let new starters do some
practical work, as this will assist their learning and enable them to relate what
they are being taught to what they will be doing.

The outcome of all this is that the new starter should have a good feel for the
organization, and should continue to feel that they made the right decision in joining the
firm.

The Induction Process

Induction need not be a very formal process but it needs to be properly managed. In
many organizations it will be carried out informally by the new starter's manager or
supervisor on a day-to-day basis. Nevertheless, having a structured checklist to follow is
useful for both parties. Most induction will consist of meeting and talking with new
colleagues, watching activities and asking questions. It may be appropriate to provide
certain information in written form; and if the organization has a company handbook,
this can often act as an aide memoire covering important aspects of the company
organization and how it functions.

If a group of new employees is recruited at the same time, it may make sense to hold
group induction sessions on the common topics to be covered - discussion, videos, slide
presentations can all add to the effectiveness of the programme.

Even people transferring from one part of the organization to another need induction
into their new area. Don't assume that they will know the relevant people or the skills
they will need in the new job. However, they may need a more individually tailored
induction programme to meet their particular needs.

Employees Who May Need Special Attention

The new starter who has considerable recent work experience and is a confident, out-
going individual may have a different induction need from the person with little or no
experience, and who may be shy or reserved in this new work setting.

School and college leavers

For school or college leavers, who may be nervous but excited at their first job, it is
particularly important for the employer to encourage a positive attitude to work, and to
allay any fears the new recruit may have. They need to be sure of their position in the
company, and of the opportunities they will have to train and develop their skills.

Health and safety is a particularly important area to stress. Young people often have no
feel for workplace hazards, and may be vulnerable to accidents. A group of young
people together may get high spirited and, without proper guidance on safety, be
unaware of the potential dangers. Young workers are seen as being particularly at risk,
and employers are required to:
 assess risks to young people under 18, before they start work.

39
  take into account their inexperience, lack of awareness of existing or potential
risks, and
 immaturity address specific factors in the risk assessment.

Employers are required to make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to the
health and safety of employees and identify groups of workers who might be
particularly at risk.

People returning to work after a break in employment, or changing their work

situation
Men or women returning to work after some years caring for children or other relatives
may feel apprehensive about the new job - even when they may have worked for the
company in the past. They may feel out of touch with developments, and in need of re-
establishing themselves. Their induction programme needs to take this into account,
offering training and extra help to settle in and become valuable members of the
organization.

This is also true of those who might have been living/working abroad, or who are
changing their career focus.

Employees with disabilities

Careful pre-planning can reduce the problems which may arise for employees with
disabilities, whether in terms of access, equipment or dealing with colleagues. Specialist
advice is available from the Disability Employment Adviser and the Disability Service
Teams of the Department for Work and Pensions. The Department for Work and
Pensions also operates the Access to Work Scheme, whereby assistance may be
available in meeting the cost of any aids and adaptations required. These services can
be contacted via the Job Centre network.

Management/professional trainees
Commonly, management and professional trainees are not recruited for specific jobs
but undergo further education and training after their employment commences. This
may mean they are less able to be involved with practical work, and without care this
can lead to a loss of interest and motivation. Their induction period should attempt to
include them in appropriate work in the organization if at all possible.

Minorities
They should have the same induction programme as any other new starter, but
attention should be paid to any sensitivities. Employers may need to be aware and take
account of any particular cultural or religious customs of new employees who are part
of an ethnic or religious minority so that misunderstandings do not occur.

Acas' Equality Service can assist employers with free advice on the development and
implementation of policies and practices for greater equality among the workforce.

Who is responsible for the induction process?

There may well be several people involved in the planning and delivery of the induction
programme. In a small company it may be the personnel officer, the manager or
supervisor, and perhaps a 'buddy'. A larger organization may call on the abilities and
skills of many people. These could include:
 the personnel or human resource manager. Their likely involvement would be to
go over the terms and conditions, complete any necessary paperwork, and
perhaps give an overview of the company organization
40
  a competent health and safety adviser, particularly if there is a need for specific
safety procedures or protective clothing, etc. This person assists an employer in
applying the provisions of health and safety law.
 the training officer
 the line or department manager. This person will normally provide the more
local welcome to the organization, explaining where that particular department
or section fits with the whole, and providing the first round of introductions to
the department
 the supervisor, who will have the greatest responsibility and interest in getting
the new starter settled in and effective as soon as possible. This is generally
where the use of a checklist can best be made, with the supervisor able to check
easily what has been covered, what needs to be done, and any particular points
that may need further explanation
 the trade union or employee representative, and safety representative, to
explain their role.

It is often useful to have a co-worker to act as a guide and adviser to the new recruit,
even if the organization does not have a formal 'buddy' system. This person can help in
those everyday questions such as canteen facilities, introducing other co-workers,
explaining the layout of the building, etc. in an informal way as they occur. This process
can also be a good way of providing a development opportunity to the person who acts
as guide and mentor.

Try to follow up the new employee after a suitable period, perhaps six months, to check
that the induction went well. This could be part of a general review for the individual.

Monitoring effectiveness
As with any work activity it is recommended that the recruitment and induction process
be reviewed for its effectiveness. If any stage of the recruitment process failed to
produce the expected result, e.g. if the advertising method has produced too many
candidates, you may want to examine what happened and why in order to make it more
efficient in the future. Future recruitment exercises may require modifications to the
methods used - a successful recruitment for one job does not automatically mean the
same method will be as successful again. This is particularly true if the labor market
changes, with, for instance, fewer school leavers but more mature workers being
available.

Recruitment and induction may be a continuous process in your organization,

necessitating more or less constant monitoring.

Monitoring regularly will also ensure equal opportunity policies are being actively
pursued, and that internal candidates are receiving the same consideration as external
candidates.

It is the process of inducting or orienting a new employee into the social setting of his
work.

Steps:
 Familiarizing the new employee with his new surroundings and company rules &
regulations.
 Integrating his personal goals with the organization goals.

SOCIALIZATION BENEFITS

41
In order to reduce the anxiety that new employees may experience, attempts should be
made to integrate the person into the informal organization. The initial T&D effort
designed for employees is Socialization, the guided adjustment of new employees to the
company, the job, and the work group.

I. Purposes of Socialization
Socialization formats are unique to each firm. However, some basic purposes include
emphasizing these areas: the employment situation (job, department, and company),
company policies and rules, compensation and benefits, corporate culture, team
membership, employee development, dealing with change, and socialization.

a. The Employment Situation

A basic purpose, from the firm‘s viewpoint, is to have the new employee become
productive as quickly as possible. Therefore, specific information about performing the
job may be provided at an early point in time.

b. Company Policies and Rules

Every job within an organization must be performed considering the guidelines and
constraints provided by policies and rules. Employees must have an understanding of
these to permit a smooth transition to the workplace.

c. Compensation and Benefits

Employees will have a special interest in obtaining information about the reward
system. Although this information is usually provided during the recruitment and
selection process, a review of the data is appropriate during Socialization.

d. Corporate Culture
The firm‘s culture reflects, in effect, how we do things around here. This relates to
everything from the way employees dress to the way they talk.

e. Team Membership
A new employee‘s ability and willingness to work in teams is most likely determined
before he or she is hired. In Socialization, the importance of becoming a valued member
of the company team may be emphasized.

f. Employee Development
Employees should know exactly what is expected of them and what is required by the
firm for advancement in the job or via promotion.

g. Dealing with Change

Employees at all levels must learn to effectively deal with change in order to survive in
their jobs. The best way individuals can be prepared for change is to continually develop
and expand their sKills.

h. Socialization
In order to reduce the anxiety that new employees may experience, attempts should be
made to integrate the person into the informal organization.

Figure 11: Stages in socialization Process

42
Socialization can be conceptualized as a process made up of three stages.
a. Pre-arrival Stage:
This stage explicitly recognizes that each individual arrives with a set of organizational
values, attitudes, and expectations. For instance, in many jobs, particularly high skilled
and managerial jobs, new members will have undergone a considerable degree of prior
socialization in training and in school. Pre-arrival socialization, however, goes beyond
the specific job. The selection process is used in most organizations to inform
perspective employees about the organization as whole. In addition, of course,
interviews in the selection process also act to ensure the inclusion of the ―right type‖
determining those who will fit in. Indeed, the ability of the individuals to present the
appropriate face during the selection process determines their ability to move into the
organization in the first place. Thus success depends upon the degree to which aspiring
members have correctly anticipated the expectations and desires of those in the
organization in charge of selection.

b. Encounter Stage:
Upon entry into the organization, new members enter the encounter stage. Here the
individuals confront the possible dichotomy between their expectations about their
jobs, their coworkers, their supervisors, and the organization in general and reality. If
expectations prove to have been more or less accurate, the encounter state merely
provides a reaffirmation of the perceptions generated earlier. However, this is often not
the case. Where expectation and reality differ; new employees must undergo
socialization that will detach them from their previous assumption and replace these
with the organization‘s pivotal standards. Socialization, however, cannot solve all the
expectation differences. At the extreme, some new members may become totally
disillusioned with the actualities of their jobs and resign. It is hoped that proper
selection would significantly reduce this latter occurrence.

c. Metamorphosis Stage:
Finally, the new member must work out any problems discovered during the encounter
stage. This may mean going through changes. Hence the last stage is termed as
metamorphosis stage. Metamorphosis is complete as is the socialization process – when
new members have become comfortable with the organization and their work teams. In
this situation they will have internalized the norms of the organization and their
coworkers; and they understand and accept these norms. New members will feel
accepted by their peers as trusted and valued individuals. They will have gained an
understanding of the organizational system- not only their own tasks but the rules,
procedures and informally accepted practices as well. Finally, they will know how they
are going to be evaluated. They will know what is expected of them and what
constitutes a good job. Consequently, successful metamorphosis should have positive
effect on a new employees productivity and the employee‘s commitment to the
organization, and should reduce the likelihood that the employee will leave the
organization any time soon.

43
III. Many People Socialize New Hires
New employee socialization or orientation covers the activities involved in introducing a
new employee to the organization and to his or her work unit. How is responsible for
the orientation of new employee? This can be done by the supervisor, the people in
HRM, Peers, CEO, or combination of any of these.

a. HRM Department: HRM department can conduct the orientation in order to socialize
the newly hired employees with the working environment of the organization. HRM
plays a major role in new employee orientation-the role of coordination, which ensures
that the appropriate components are in place. In addition, HRM also serves as a
participant in program. As job offers are made and accepted, HRM should instruct the
new employee when to report to work. However, before the employee formally arrives,
HRM must be prepared to handle some of the more routine needs of these individuals.

b. Supervisor: Immediate supervisor of particular department can also be the source of

informing the employees about the culture, rules, procedures and policies of the
organization. Mostly in smaller organizations, orientation may mean the new member
reports to supervisor, who then assigns the new member to other employee who will
introduce the new member to other coworkers. This may be followed by a quick tour to
show the different parts and departments of the organization.

c. Peers: Peers and coworkers of the new hires can perform the orientation function in
order to tell the expectation of employers and requirements of the organization as can
also answer the queries raised from the employee side.

d. Organizational culture: Organizational culture itself can express the do‘s and don‘ts
of any organization. Every organization has its own unique culture. This culture includes
longstanding, and often unwritten, rules and regulation; a special language that
facilitates communication among members; shared standards of relevance as to the
critical aspects of the work that is to be done; standards for social etiquette, customs for
how members should relate to peers, employees, bosses and outsiders; what is
appropriate and smart behavior with in organization and what is not.

e. CEO: Prior to mid-1980s, new employee orientation operated, if at all, without any
output from the company‘s executive management. But that began to change, due in
part to management consultants advocating that senior management become more
accessible to employees. The CEO‘s first responsibility is to welcome new employees
aboard and talk to them about what a good job choice they made. The CEO is in position
to inspire these new employees by talking about what it is like to work for the
organization. When CEO is present in the socialization process, the company is sending a
message that it truly cares for its employees.

IV. Employee Orientation program:

Orientation or socialization process.

a. Introduction: Regarding the organization, supervisor, trainers, and coworkers and to

system

b. Job Duties: It provides job related information like, Job location Job tasks Job safety
requirements Overview of job, Job objectives Relationship to other jobs

c. Organizational Issues: This provides the information about the overall organization it
may include; History of employer, organization of employer, name & titles of key
44
executive, employee‘s titles and departments, layout of physical facilities, probationary
period, overview of production process, company policies and rules, disciplinary
regulations, employee handbook, safety procedures etc

d. Employee Benefits: This part provides the information about the benefits that are
offered by the organization like; Pay scales & paydays, vacations rest break, training &
education benefits, counseling, housing facilities, insurance benefits, retirement
program, employee-provided services for employees, rehabilitation program

The Hiring Process

Hiring process is completed here because orientation or the socialization process is the
last step of hiring.

A. Training
Training is a process whereby people acquire capabilities to aid in the achievement of
organizational goals. It involves planned learning activities designed to improve an
employee‘s performance at her/his current job. Training refers to the methods used to
give new or present employees the skills they need to perform their jobs.

B. Development
All efforts to provide employees with the abilities the organizations will need in the
future

C. Training and Development Trends:

 Skill requirements will continue to increase
 Workforce will become significantly better educated & more diverse
 Corporate restructuring reshapes businesses
 Technology will revolutionize certain training delivery methods
 The role of training departments will change
 More flexible courses aimed specifically at performance improvement
 More firms will strive to become learning organizations
 Emphasis on human performance management will accelerate.

Methods of socialization
 Stories
 Rituals
 Material symbols
 Language

Socialization benefits
 Helps in understanding organization culture
 Contributes to employee‘s long term success
 Helps in adjustment
 Helps in employee engagement
 Provides job satisfaction.

45