UNIT II

HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING, RECRUITMENT & SELECTION

INTRODUCTION:

Human Resource Planning is the most important HR function in an organisation. This is the first
step after sourcing human resources in an organisation. It focuses on ensuring adequate supply of
human resource, quality of human resources and effective utilization of human resources.

Meaning of Human Resource Planning:

Human Resource Planning is concerned with forecasting and projecting the requirement of
human resource in the organisation. This unit shall cover the process of Human Resource
Planning and the methods of forecasting and supply of human resources.

Definition of Human Resource Planning:

“Human Resource Planning is a strategy for the acquisition, utilization, improvement and
preservation of an organisation’s human resource.” – Y.C. Moushell

“Human Resource Planning is a process of forecasting an organisation’s future demand for

human resource and supply of right type of people in right numbers.” – J.Chennly.K

OBJECTIVES OF HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING:

The following are the objectives of human resource planning:

1. Assessing manpower needs for future and making plans for recruitment and selection.
2. Assessing skill requirement in future for the organization.
3. Determining training and the development needs of the organization.
4. Anticipating surplus or shortage of staff and avoiding unnecessary detentions or
dismissals.
5. Controlling wage and salary costs.
6. Ensuring optimum use of human resources in the organization.
7. Helping the organization to cope with the technological development and modernization.
8. Ensuring career planning of every employee of the organization and making succession
programmes.
9. Ensuring higher labour productivity.
BENEFITS OF HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING:

Proper HRP results into a number of benefits. Some of them are:

a) Create a reservoir of talent;

b) Preparation for future HR needs;
c) Promote employees in a systematic manner;
d) Provide basis for HRD; and e) Help in career and succession planning.

Process of Human Resource Planning (HRP):

1. Environmental Scanning: Identify and analyze external factors that may affect the
organisation's human resource needs, such as economic trends, technological changes, and
legislative requirements.
2. Internal Analysis: Evaluate the current workforce, including skills, competencies, and
demographics. Understand the strengths and weaknesses of the existing workforce.
3. Forecasting Future Demand: Project future demand for human resources based on
organisational goals, growth plans, and changes in technology or markets.
4. Forecasting Future Supply: Assess the internal and external sources of human
resources. Internal sources include current employees, while external sources may include
recruitment strategies.
5. Identifying Gaps: Compare the forecasted demand and supply to identify potential gaps
in the workforce. Identify potential areas of surplus or shortage.
6. Developing Action Plans: Devise strategies to address the identified gaps. This may
involve recruitment, training, development, succession planning, or restructuring.
7. Implementation: Put the action plans into practice. This may include hiring new
employees, providing training programs, or restructuring existing teams.
8. Monitoring and Evaluation: Continuously monitor the effectiveness of the human
resource plans. Evaluate whether the organisation is achieving its goals and adjust the plans
as necessary.

NEED FOR HRP AT MACRO LEVEL:

1. Employment-Unemployment Situation: Though in general the number of educated

unemployed is on the rise, there is acute shortage for a variety of skills. This emphasises
the need for more effective recruitment and retaining people.
2. Technological Changes: The myriad changes in production technologies, marketing
methods and management techniques have been extensive and rapid. Their effect has
been profound on job contents and job contexts. These changes cause problems relating
to redundancies, retraining and redeployment. All these suggest the need to plan
manpower needs intensively and systematically.
 3. Organizational Changes: In the turbulent environment marked by cyclical fluctuations
and discontinuities, the nature and pace of changes in organizational environment,
activities and structures affect manpower requirements and require strategic
considerations.
4. Skill Shortages: Unemployment does not mean that the labour market is a buyer’s
market. Organizations have generally become more complex and require a wide range of
specialist skills that are rare and scarce. Problems arise when such employees leave.
5. Lead Time: The long lead time is necessary in the selection process and for training and
deployment of the employee to handle new knowledge and skills successfully.

RECRUITMENT

Recruitment is the process of finding and attracting capable applicants for employment. It
involves finding suitable applicants and encouraging them to apply for vacancies.

Definition: According to Flippo, ‘’Recruitment is the process of searching the candidates for
employment and stimulating them to apply for jobs in the organisation.

Objectives of Recruitment:

 To identify the present and future requirements of manpower.

 To act as the link between the employer and job seekers.
 Locating and attracting the attention of potential job applicants.
 To encourage more number of suitable candidates to apply for vacancies.
 Aid in the selection of the best candidates to fill vacancies.
 Ensure effective selection by reducing the number of unsuitable candidates.
 To encourage retention of recruited candidates.
 Encouraging employee referral and making referrals attractive providing incentives.
 Ensuring that those who are offered jobs, join the company.
 Minimizing the cost and time involved in recruitment.

Sources of Recruitment:

(1) Internal Recruitment:

i. Promotion
ii. Transfer
iii. Referrals
iv. Job Postings
v. Retired or Retrenchment Employees.
vi. Dependents of Deceased Employees
vii. Former Employees
Promotion: It is upward movement of an employee to a higher position in the organisation.
Promotion is advancement of an employee to a better designation with higher pay, power,
benefits, and increased responsibilities.
Transfer: Transfer refers to shifting of an employee from one location to another, one job to
another or one unit to another. If a department is overstaffed employees can be moved to
departments which have vacancies.
Referrals: In the case of referrels, current emp;loyees recommend the friends or relatives for
vacancies in the organisation. Since employees know the culture, pay a nd working conditions
they would recommend suitanle person.
Job Postings: Vacancies available in the company are communicated to employees. They are
informed through notice boards, newsletters or through in intranet. Emploees who have required
qualification and experience can apply for the jobs.
Retired or Retrenched Employees: Employee who have retired or those who were retrenched
earlier can be recruited. This happens when the organisation wants to use their experience for
growth. Since they are already aware of the culture and policies, recruitment time and cost is
saved.
Dependents of Deceased Employees: Some companies offers employnment todsfdependents of
employees who died during service. This is ddone to provide support to then deceased
em;ployye’s family.
Former Employees: Employees who had left the organisation can be rehired incase their skills
are required. Former employees who joint back are known as ‘boomerangs’. They can bring in
valuable knowledge and useful skills.

(2) Sources of External Recruitment:

Professional or Trade Associations: Associations provide placement service to members.

Publications of associations carry advertisements of job vacancies. They are useful for attracting
highly educated and skilled personnel.
Advertisements: Many recruiters prefer advertisements because of wide reach. They contain
information of job content, working conditions, locations of job, compensation, job specification,
growth aspects, etc,. Newspaper is the common medium.
Employment Exchanges: Employment exchanges act as a link between employers and the
prospective employees. This offices are particularly useful in recruiting blue-collar and technical
workers.
Campus Recruitment: colleges, universities, research laboratories, and institutes are useful for
recruiters. Colleges and universities have a placement officer to handle recruitment functions.
Contractors: They are used to recruit casual workers. The firm might recruit workers as and
when required.
Consultants: They are in the profession of recruiting and selecting managerial and executive
personnel. They are useful as they have wide contacts. They can also screen and select
candidates if required by the company.
SELECTION: -

MEANING OF SELECTION:

Selection is the process of picking up individuals (out of the pool of job applicants) with
requisite qualifications and competence to fill jobs in the organization. A formal definition of
Selection is as under

Definition of Selection: Process of differentiating

“Selection is the process of differentiating between applicants in order to identify and hire those
with a greater likelihood of success in a job.”

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION:

Recruitment Selection
1. Recruitment refers to the process of 1. Selection is concerned with picking up
identifying and encouraging prospective the right candidates from a pool of
employees to apply for jobs. applicants.
2. Recruitment is said to be positive in its 2. Selection on the other hand is negative
approach as it seeks to attract as many in its application in as much as it seeks to
candidates as possible. eliminate as many unqualified applicants as
possible in order to identify the right
candidates.

PROCESS / STEPS IN SELECTION

1. Preliminary Interview: The purpose of preliminary interviews is basically to eliminate

unqualified applications based on information supplied in application forms. The basic objective
is to reject misfits. On the other hands preliminary interviews is often called a courtesy interview
and is a good public relations exercise.
2. Selection Tests: Jobseekers who past the preliminary interviews are called for tests.
There are various types of tests conducted depending upon the jobs and the company. These tests
can be Aptitude Tests, Personality Tests, and Ability Tests and are conducted to judge how well
an individual can perform tasks related to the job. Besides this there are some other tests also like
Interest Tests (activity preferences), Graphology Test (Handwriting), Medical Tests,
Psychometric Tests etc.
3. Employment Interview: The next step in selection is employment interview. Here
interview is a formal and in-depth conversation between applicant’s acceptability. It is
considered to be an excellent selection device. Interviews can be One-to-One, Panel Interview, or
Sequential Interviews. Besides there can be Structured and Unstructured interviews, Behavioral
Interviews, Stress Interviews.
4. Reference & Background Checks: Reference checks and background checks are
conducted to verify the information provided by the candidates. Reference checks can be through
formal letters, telephone conversations. However it is merely a formality and selections decisions
are seldom affected by it.
5. Selection Decision: After obtaining all the information, the most critical step is the
selection decision is to be made. The final decision has to be made out of applicants who have
passed preliminary interviews, tests, final interviews and reference checks. The views of line
managers are considered generally because it is the line manager who is responsible for the
performance of the new employee.
6. Physical Examination: After the selection decision is made, the candidate is required to
undergo a physical fitness test. A job offer is often contingent upon the candidate passing the
physical examination.
7. Job Offer: The next step in selection process is job offer to those applicants who have
crossed all the previous hurdles. It is made by way of letter of appointment.
8. Contract of Employment: After the job offer is made and candidates accept the offer,
certain documents need to be executed by the employer and the candidate. Here is a need to
prepare a formal contract of employment, containing written contractual terms of employment
etc.

EMPLOYMENT TEST OR PSYCHOLOGICAL TEST

Meaning: Employment test is a tool to measure specific psychological factors. They assess a
candidate’s personality and assess how he would perform in a job.

Types of Employment test:

a) Intelligence tests: These tests measure the Intelligence Quotient (IQ) of the candidate.
They are conducted to judge the mental capacity of the applicant. They test the verbal
ability, numerical skills and memory of candidate. IQ= Mental age/Actual age * 100.
b) Aptitude Tests: They assess the job skills of the candidate and his potential to acquire
them. They measure an applicant’s ability and potential for development. Aptitude tests
can measure the verbal, numerical and reasoning abilities. For the job of an accountant,
numerical ability and accounts knowledge would be tested. The types of Aptitude test
are: (a) Skill tests (b) Knowledge tests and (c) Ability tests.
c) Achievement Tests: They are also known as proficiency tests. They judge a candidate’s
skill to do particular job. They measure the level of skills and knowledge already
acquired by candidates. They are also termed as performance test, occupational tests or
trade test. For example, a typing test will indicate the speed and accuracy of a data entry
operator.
d) Interest Tests: They are conducted to identify and judge a candidate’s interest in a job.
They suggest the job that would be most suitable to a people, sales role would be suitable.
 For those with good numerical skills and concentration, jobs in account or audit would be
suitable.
e) Personality tests: They test the various aspects of a candidate’s personality. Likes,
dislikes, moods, values, emotional reactions etc., are found out through these tests. They
are used for identifying candidates for coaching, development and team building.
f) Physical ability tests: They measure the physical strength, hand to eye co-ordination and
other important physical attributes.

INDUCTION & ORIENATION

Definition 1: Planned Introduction

“It is a Planned Introduction of employees to their jobs, their co-workers and the organization per
se.”

Orientation conveys 4 types of information:

1. Daily Work Routine
2. Organization Profile
3. Importance of Jobs to the organization
4. Detailed Orientation Presentations

Purpose of Orientation
1. To make new employees feel at home in new environment
2. To remove their anxiety about new workplace
3. To remove their inadequacies about new peers
4. To remove worries about their job performance
5. To provide them job information, environment

Types of Orientation Programs

1. Formal or Informal
2. Individual or Group
3. Serial or Disjunctive

Prerequisites of Effective Orientation Program

1. Prepare for receiving new employee
2. Determine information new employee wants to know
3. Determine how to present information
4. Completion of Paperwork

Problems of Orientations
1. Busy or Untrained supervisor
2. Too much information
3. Overloaded with paperwork
4. Given menial tasks and discourage interests
5. Demanding tasks where failure chances are high
6. Employee thrown into action soon
7. Wrong perceptions of employees

What is the difference between induction and orientation?

Induction referred to formal training programs that an employee had to complete before they
could start work
Orientation was the informal information giving that made the recruit aware of the comfort
issues - where the facilities are, what time lunch is and so forth.
How long should the induction process take?
It starts when the job ad is written, continues through the selection process and is not complete
until the new team member is comfortable as a full contributor to the organization's goals.

The first hour on day one is a critical component - signing on, issuing keys and passwords,
explaining no go zones, emergency procedures, meeting the people that you will interact with all
have to be done immediately. Until they are done the newcomer is on the payroll, but is not
employed.

After that it is a matter of just in time training - expanding the content as new duties are
undertaken.

PLACEMENT

Placement is allocation of people to jobs. It is assignment or reassignment of an employee to a

new or different job.

JOB ANALYSIS

JOB:
“Job is a ‘group of tasks to be performed everyday.”

JOB ANALYSIS

Definition 1: (Process of Collecting Information)

“Job Analysis is a process of studying and collecting information relating to operations and
responsibilities of a specific job. The immediate products of this analysis are ‘Job Description’
and ‘Job Specifications’.”

MEANING OF JOB ANALYSIS

Job Analysis is a process of collecting information about a job. The process of job analysis
results into two sets of data.
 Job Description
 Job Specification
As a result Job analysis involves the following steps in a logical order.

Steps of Job Analysis

1. Collecting and recording job information
2. Checking the job information for accuracy
3. Writing job description based on information collected to determine the skills, knowledge,
abilities and activities required
4. Updating and upgrading this information

PURPOSE OF JOB ANALYSIS: -

 Human Resource Planning (HRP): - The numbers and types of personnel are
determined by the jobs, which need to be staffed. Job related information in the form of Job
Analysis serves this purpose or use.
 Recruitment & Selection: - Recruitment precedes job analysis. It helps HR to locate
places to obtain employees. It also helps in better continuity and planning in staffing in the
organization. Also selecting a good candidate also requires detailed job information. Because the
objective of hiring is to match the right candidate for right job
 Training & Development: Training and development programs can be designed
depending upon job requirement and analysis. Selection of trainees is also facilitated by job
analysis.
 Job Evaluation: Job evaluation means determination of relative worth of each job for
the purpose of establishing wage and salary credentials. This is possible with the help of job
description and specifications; i.e. Job Analysis.
 Remuneration: Job analysis also helps in determining wage and salary for all jobs.
 Performance Appraisal: Performance appraisal, assessments, rewards, promotions, is
facilitated by job analysis by way of fixing standards of job performance.
 Personnel Information: Job analysis is vital for building personnel information
systems and processes for improving administrative efficiency and providing decision support.
 Safety & Health: Job Analysis helps to uncover hazardous conditions and unhealthy
environmental factors so that corrective measures can be taken to minimize and avoid possibility
of human injury.

PROCESS OF JOB ANALYSIS

Process 1: Strategic Choices

Process 2: Collecting Information
Process 3: Processing Information
Process 4: Job Description
Process 5: Job Specification
Types of Data for Job Analysis:
 Work Activities (Tasks details)
 Interface with other jobs and equipments (Procedures, Behaviors, Movements)
 Machines, Tools, Equipments and Work Aids (List, Materials, Products, Services)
 Job Context (Physical, Social, Organizational, Work schedule)
 Personal Requirement (Skills, Education, Training, Experience)

Methods of Data Collection:

 Observation
 Interview
 Questionnaires
 Checklists
 Technical Conference
 Diary Methods

JOB DESCRIPTION:

“Job Description implies objective listing of the job title, tasks, and responsibilities involved in a
job.”

Job description is a word picture in writing of the duties, responsibilities and organizational
relationships that constitutes a given job or position. It defines continuing work assignment and a
scope of responsibility that are sufficiently different from those of the other jobs to warrant a
specific title. Job description is a broad statement of purpose, scope, duties and responsibilities of
a particular job.

Contents of Job Description

1. Job Identification
2. Job Summary
3. Job Duties and Responsibilities
4. Supervision specification
5. Machines, tools and materials
6. Work conditions
7. Work hazards
8. Definition of unusual terms

Format of Job Description

 Job Title
 Region/Location
 Department
 Reporting to (Operational and Managerial)
 Objective
 Principal duties and responsibilities
Features of Good Job Description

1. Up to date
2. Proper Job Title
3. Comprehensive Job Summary
4. Clear duties and responsibilities
5. Easily understandable
6. State job requirements
7. Specify reporting relationships
8. Showcase degrees of difficulties
9. Indicates opportunities for career development
10. Offer bird’s-eye-view of primary responsibilities.

JOB SPECIFICATIONS

“Job Specification involves listing of employee qualifications, skills and abilities required to
meet the job description. These specifications are needed to do job satisfactorily.”

In other words it is a statement of minimum and acceptable human qualities necessary to perform
job properly. Job specifications seeks to indicate what kind of persons may be expected to most
closely approximate the role requirements and thus it is basically concerned with matters of
selection, screening and placement and is intended to serve as a guide in hiring.

Contents of Job Specifications

1. Physical Characteristics
2. Psychological characteristics
3. Personal characteristics
4. Responsibilities
5. Demographic features

JOB EVALUATION

Job Evaluation involves determination of relative worth of each job for the purpose of
establishing wage and salary differentials. Relative worth is determined mainly on the basis of
job description and job specification only. Job Evaluation helps to determine wages and salary
grades for all jobs. Employees need to be compensated depending on the grades of jobs which
they occupy. Remuneration also involves fringe benefits, bonus and other benefits. Clearly
remuneration must be based on the relative worth of each job. Ignoring this basic principle
results in inequitable compensation. A perception of inequity is a sure way of de-motivating an
employee.

Job evaluation is a process of analyzing and assessing the various jobs systematically to ascertain
their relative worth in an organization.

Jobs are evaluated on the basis of content, placed in order of importance. This establishes Job
Hierarchies, which is a purpose of fixation of satisfactory wage differentials among various jobs.

Process of Job Evaluation:

1. Defining objectives of job evaluation
Identify jobs to be evaluated (Benchmark jobs or all jobs)
 Who should evaluate job?
 What training do the evaluators need?
 How much time involved?
 What are the criteria for evaluation?
 Methods of evaluation to be used
2. Wage Survey
3. Employee Classification
4. Establishing wage and salary differentials.

Methods of Job Evaluation

Analytical Methods

 Point Ranking Methods: Different factors are selected for different jobs with
accompanying differences in degrees and points.
 Factor Comparison Method: The important factors are selected which can be assumed to
be common to all jobs. Each of these factors are then ranked with other jobs. The worth of the
job is then taken by adding together all the point values.

Non-Analytical Methods

 Ranking Method: Jobs are ranked on the basis of its title or contents. Job is not broken
down into factors etc.
 Job Grading Method: It is based on the job as a whole and the differentiation is made on
the basis of job classes and grades. In this method it is important to form a grade description to
cover discernible differences in skills, responsibilities and other characteristics.

Pitfalls of Job Evaluation:

 Encourages employees on how to advance in position when there may be limited
opportunities for enhancement as a result of downsizing.
 It promotes internal focus instead of customer orientation
 Not suitable for forward looking organizations, which has trimmed multiple job titles into
two or three broad jobs.

JOB DESIGN
Definition 1: Integration of work, rewards and qualification
“Job Design integrates work content (tasks, functions, relationships), the rewards and
qualifications required including skills, knowledge and abilities for each job in a way that meets
the needs of employees and the organization.”

Steps in Job Design: -

1. Specification of Individual Tasks
2. Specification of Methods of Tasks Performance
3. Combination of Tasks into Specific Jobs to be assigned to individuals

Factors affecting Job Design: -

Organizational factors:
 Characteristics of Tasks (Planning, Execution and Controlling of Task)
 Work Flow (Process Sequences)
 Ergonomics (Time & Motion Study)
 Work Practices (Set of ways of performing tasks)

Job Rotation: When incumbents become bore of routine jobs, job rotation is an answer to it.
Here jobs remain unchanged, but the incumbents shift from one job to another. On the positive
side, it increases the intrinsic reward potential of a job because of different skills and abilities
needed to perform it. Workers become more competent in several jobs, know variety of jobs and
improve the self-image, personal growth. Further the worker becomes more valuable to the
organization. Periodic job changes can improve interdepartmental cooperation. On the negative
side, it may not be much enthusiastic or efficiency may not be more. Besides jobs may not
improve the relationships between task, while activities and objectives remain unchanged.
Further training costs also rise and it can also de-motivate intelligent and ambitious trainees who
seek specific responsibilities in their chosen specialties.

Job Enlargement: It means expanding the number of tasks, or duties assigned to a given job.
Job enlargement is naturally opposite to work simplification. Adding more tasks or duties to a
job does not mean that new skills and abilities are needed. There is only horizontal expansion. It
is with same skills taking additional responsibilities like extending working hours etc. Job
enlargement may involve breaking up of the existing work system and redesigning a new work
system. For this employees also need to be trained to adjust to the new system. Job enlargement
is said to contribute to employee motivation but the claim is not validated in practice.

Benefits of Job Enlargement:

1. Task Variety
2. Meaningful Work Modules
3. Full Ability Utilization
4. Worker Paced Control
5. Meaningful Performance Feedback

Disadvantages of Job Enlargement

1. High Training Costs
2. Redesigning existing work system required
3. Productivity may not increase necessarily
4. Workload increases
5. Unions demand pay–hike
6. Jobs may still remain boring and routine

Job Enrichment: Job enrichment is improvisation of both tasks efficiency and human
satisfaction by building into people’s jobs, quite specifically, greater scope for personal
achievement and recognition, more challenging and responsible work and more opportunity for
individual advancement and growth. An enriched job will have more responsibility, more
autonomy (vertical enrichment), more variety of tasks (horizontal enrichment) and more growth
opportunities. The employee does more planning and controlling with less supervision but more
self-evaluation. In other words, transferring some of the supervisor’s tasks to the employee and
making his job enriched.

Benefits of Job enrichment

 It benefits employee and organization in terms of increased motivation, performance,

satisfaction, job involvement and reduced absenteeism.
 Additional features in job meet certain psychological needs of jobholders due to skill
variety, identity, significance of job etc.
 It also adds to employee self-esteem and self-control.
 Job enrichment gives status to jobholder and acts as a strong satisfier in one’s life.
 Job enrichment stimulates improvements in other areas of organization.
 Empowerment is a by-product of job enrichment. It means passing on more authority
and responsibility.

Demerits of Job Enrichment

1. Lazy employees may not be able to take additional responsibilities and power. It
won’t fetch the desired results for an employee who is not attentive towards his job.
2. Unions resistance, increased cost of design and implementation and limited research
on long term effect of job enrichment are some of the other demerits.
3. Job enrichment itself might not be a great motivator since it is job-intrinsic factor. As
per the two-factor motivation theory, job enrichment is not enough. It should be
preceded by hygienic factors etc.
4. Job enrichment assumes that workers want more responsibilities and those workers
who are motivated by less responsibility, job enrichment surely de-motivates them
5. Workers participation may affect the enrichment process itself.
6. Change is difficult to implement and is always resisted as job enrichment brings in a
changes the responsibility.

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