2MIT2620 Human Resource Management

Assignment 1

University of
Wales Lampeter

Word Count: 3484

Submitted to: CHARLIE DAYMAN, Grafton College.

Date: 24th November 2009

Uddin Zain Page 1 of 14

28001574
2MIT2620 Human Resource Management
Assignment 1

Table of Content:

Table of Content:.................................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION:..............................................................................................................3
Contrasting HRM and Personnel Management:..................................................................4
Leadership and Management Roles:................................................................................5
Relations:.........................................................................................................................5
Recruitment and Selection:..................................................................................................6
Definition:........................................................................................................................6
Stages of Recruitment:.....................................................................................................6
Rodger’s seven point plan:...........................................................................................6
Example:......................................................................................................................7
Selection Criteria- the important steps:............................................................................7
Selection Methods:...........................................................................................................8
Application Forms:......................................................................................................8
Employment References:.............................................................................................8
The Selection Interview:..................................................................................................8
Testing of integrity:..........................................................................................................8
Consequences of Staff turnover:......................................................................................9
Differentiation between Personnel Management and HRM:...........................................9
Training and Development:...............................................................................................11
Definition:......................................................................................................................11
Explanation:...................................................................................................................11
Topics of Training and Development:...........................................................................11
Differentiation between HRM and Personnel Management:.........................................12
CONCLUSION:.................................................................................................................12
Bibliography:.....................................................................................................................14
Books:............................................................................................................................14
Internet Hyperlinks:.......................................................................................................14

Uddin Zain Page 2 of 14

28001574
2MIT2620 Human Resource Management
Assignment 1

INTRODUCTION:
Rational and Strategic advance to the management of the society, in this society
individual and groups work to attain key goal with thorough teamwork designed by
Management of the organization. Training, development, recruitment selection, payrolls,
rewards, employee benefits and workplace diversity are organized by Human Resource
Management. The term HRM has widely restored by the term Personnel Management.
The notion that there may be more homogenous points than dissimilarities between
Personnel Management and Human Resource Management is discussed by several
writers, though it handles to have differed in some aspects.

Torrington regards personnel management as a continuing process of evolution and

growth; in much more and more fields of expertise are acquired and assimilated.
Within this evolutionary process HRM is only adding ‘’a further dimension to a multi-
faceted role’’.
--Marco Koster. 2007

The consequence of HRM should not be really undervalued, provided that basic
facets and techniques of HRM are similar as those of Personnel Management. While
strategic policy and philosophical approaches make HRM a unique focused and resultant
than personnel management. On the Contrary:

Storey regards HRM as a ‘’ radically different philosophy and approach to the

management of people at work’’.
--Marco Koster, 2007

This view is revealing that HRM defines as a platform which manages employees
differently than Personnel Management. As a result HRM is not similar as Personnel
Management though it reflects same epitome of theories and philosophies. Therefore the
different and similar ideas of both HRM and Personnel management will be
quintessential framework of this report followed by
• Recruitment and Selection process
• Training and Development Process, under the light of Personnel Management and
HRM.

There is a difference in managements which could be because of size of the

organization; there will be high examples of large organizations with some personal
experiences. They may develop strong and brawny critical breakdowns contrasting HRM
and personnel Management.

Uddin Zain Page 3 of 14

28001574
2MIT2620 Human Resource Management
Assignment 1

Contrasting HRM and Personnel Management:

When discussing about difference between HRM and Personnel Management, it
must be argued that HRM is deeper in scope than Personnel Management. HR develops
Personnel Management’s tasks meanwhile hunting for profit of organization in terms of
developing team and corporative teamwork. HR works to maximize efficiency in
employees with different aspects. Whereas Personnel Management is more ancestral and
inherent, this could include traditional administrative undertakings. HRM is a proactive
system which enables company to move constantly for development and creates schemes
to improve company’s workforce. On the other hand, Personnel Management is passive
and independent function which often operates personnel department in Organization.

Personnel Management is routine and Traditional function.

Personnel Management maintains independent functions of the organization.
It is Reactive and works out when issue arrives.
Its scope is narrow and it’s relatively for administration.
Rewards, Compensations, etc are the motivating tools in Personnel management.
It joins with payroll, job description, selection, etc.

It is based on the scientific management; it assumes workers as a cost of the

organization.
For Personnel Management workers are machine.

It is bureaucratic, centralized, formal, strict and mechanistic.

It follows the aspects of cost minimization with cutting staff and irrelevant
processes.HRM is Ongoing and Consistent function.
HRM tackles interfaces and connections in the company and thinks about benefit.
It is proactive and works on the basis of strategies and plans.
Its scope is broad and it’s actually for whole organization.
Challenges, work diversity, work groups, efficiency, creativity, etc are tools of
Motivation in HRM.
It deals with personnel management, manpower management, industrial
management, organizational management and also training and development.
It is more based on the Behavioral Management; it assumes workers as an asset of
the organization.
For HRM workers should have efficiency in their fields, they are not machines but
precious resource.
It is organic, flexible, proper and devolved.
It follows the features of maximum utilization i.e. Human Asset Accounting.

Uddin Zain Page 4 of 14

28001574
2MIT2620 Human Resource Management
Assignment 1

Leadership and Management Roles:

Personnel Management highlights Leadership style which is quite traditional. This

leader must look at methods of work orientation. This leader would figure out and bring
about the task ahead of human features such as interpersonal relations, understanding,
trust, care and tolerance.
HRM endeavors to create leaders who are more transformational i.e. follows
change management. This leader would enlarge business goals to be shared by
management and employees. This leader would look at people orientated patterns. Leader
would highly follow rules and regulation. This leader would always put lights on shared
ideas, corporate culture, flexible and trustworthy environment.

Relations:

Personnel Management is more Pluralist in nature which means if the manager is

making some decisions or even making some future plans, employees must not be aware
of these ideas or plans. Personnel Management is more depending on individualism. This
summit is revealing the centralization of this function which means power just belongs to
top management, where personnel managers are not even permitted to explore their
decisions to employees.
HRM is the decentralized function, the decentralization of power means the
power is shared between top, middle and lower management. This is also called
empowerment, because workers employees are also participating with managers to result
in mutual and joint decision. Therefore HRM is Unitarist in nature where term ‘Uni’
indicates the unity between employers, management and employee. These relations in
work field could workout to get imaginative goals and objective.

HRM is regarded by some personnel managers as just a set of initials or old wine in
new bottle. It could indeed be no more and no less than another name for personnel
management, but as usually perceived, at least it has a virtue of emphasizing the virtue
of treating people as a key resource, the management of which is the direct concern of
top management as part of strategic planning processes to the enterprise. Although
there is nothing new idea, insufficient attention has been paid to it in many
organizations.
--Armstrong, 1987

Here it is just illustrating that HRM is the new name for Personnel management
where as some other prominent critical analyst differ both of them in philosophical way.
Although some of the major points are same in HRM and Personnel Management. The
way Personnel Management manages is totally different and traditional than that of
HRM.

Uddin Zain Page 5 of 14

28001574
2MIT2620 Human Resource Management
Assignment 1

Recruitment and Selection:

Definition:

The procedure of developing a band of people who are competent in their

respective fields to implement for employment with a company is known as recruitment.

Flippo’s definition: “It is a process of searching for prospective employees and

stimulating and encouraging them to apply for jobs in an organization.”

Selection is the method of picking up specific and exclusive people to thrive in

the tasks, legal requirements and organization goals.

‘’Selection is the process of evaluating the qualifications, experience, skill, knowledge,

etc, of an applicant in relation to the requirements of the job to determine his
suitability for the job.’’
--Anonymous

Stages of Recruitment:
Considerable stages of recruitment could be:
• The decision which could describe that the recruitment is crucial.
• The job description should be equipped.
• The person specifications should be organized.
• Advertisements plan should be in consideration that where and how to advertise.
• The recruitment policies should be maintained.
• There should be several Packages provided.
• Different patterns that could attract applicants and drive them towards
organization.
• Application forms should be well prepared.
• There could be a use of third parties if necessary.
• Providing authentic information about job and role.

Rodger’s seven point plan:

In order to define and classify recruitment criteria here Rodger’s point plan is
appropriate:

1. Physical Characteristics: health, eyesight, height, voice, builds, etc.

2. Attainments: Experience, education, achievements etc.
3. Intelligence: capacity of learning, reasoning power, analytical aptitude etc.
Uddin Zain Page 6 of 14
28001574
2MIT2620 Human Resource Management
Assignment 1
4. Special Propensity: presentation skills, mathematics skills, IQ skills, self-
motivated etc.
5. Interests: active, intellectual, social etc.
6. Personal Disposition: humour, maturity, loyal, personality, etc.
7. Circumstances: circumstances excluding discriminatory facts such as religion,
age, marital status, etc.

Example:

This is the person Specification for the place of Pizza Maker required in one Pizza
shop, under the criteria made by Rodger.

Physical Make up Neat, tidy and short hairs(Health n Safety)

Attainments English Language Course or Native speaker, pizza chef course
desirable. 1 year previous Chef experience and HACCP.
Intelligence Highly understand the meaning of problem and above average.
Special Propensity Team worker, communication skills, self-motivated
Interests Computers and costumer care
Personal Disposition Patience, mature and reliable.
Circumstances Flexible hours including weekdays, weekends and bank holidays.

This table is illustrating the most fundamental specification that the organization
needs. Rodger had well defined the criteria of developing job specification.

Selection Criteria- the important steps:

The selection is based on the company’s size, for small organizations the criteria
changes slightly but the idea and importance are same in both of the cases. There are
some important facets, could be used by organizations to select:

• There must be a short list of applicants.

• Set up and arranging tests.
• Interviews- it could be a group interview or even with multiple interviewers.
• Choose the most reliable, sufficient and qualified applicant.
• Get references to make sure the candidate is reliable for this organization.
• Propose the position information and add acceptance.
• Orientation day or starting day discussion.
• Training and development.
• The results.

Uddin Zain Page 7 of 14

28001574
2MIT2620 Human Resource Management
Assignment 1

Selection Methods:

Application Forms:
• Forms should be point to point and not to long.
• Questions should not include illegal or unpleasant material.
• There is an opportunity to use electronic application system through internet
access.

Employment References:
• The information which is stating that selected applicant has worked properly in
his experience career, and the references given are real.
• Personal character of the candidate, and the given reference could provide
information about him/her.
• Public sector organizations take view of references before calling up for an
interview, whereas private sector organizations usually look forward for
references after an interview: for example, Centra manager called applicant and
had an interview, after a successful interview he verified his character from the
reference provided.

The Selection Interview:

• There could be one interviewer taking several interviews with multiple or one
applicant.
• There could two or more interviewers taking several interviews with multiple or
one candidate.

‘’The greater the number of interviewers at any one time, the greater the
formality.’’
‘’Where structure criteria are employed in a structured way in and interview,
reliability and validity are increased.’’
--Cole 2000.

Testing of integrity:

It is the test conducted to achieve gauge potential employee’s integrity and

honesty. It could be conducted through several approaches such as Story telling, written
test or confirmation of references provided. There are different tests conducted to validate
applicant’s behavior and manifestation:

• Intelligence test: this is test to measure the caliber of IQ, or to measure

performances of mental tasks.

Uddin Zain Page 8 of 14

28001574
2MIT2620 Human Resource Management
Assignment 1
• Aptitude Test: this test is generally to calculate the numerical ability, scientific
ability, mechanical ability, etc of the candidate.
• Attainment Test: this test is the measuring of previous experiences and
qualifications, it could be a typing test or arithmetic test, grammar test or
spelling test, etc.
• Personality Test: individual personality could be well structured with this test.
• Occupational Preference tests: it is usually taken by certain organization looking
for different skills, so it is used to bring out the individual caliber of candidate in
desired field.

Consequences of Staff turnover:

It is been traced that there could be a colossal effect on staff, if the recruitment is
ineffective. Failure of standard work and higher malingering situations are key drawbacks
under these circumstances. Managers would be relatively out of order from their own
jobs; they would get less time for their own tasks. Therefore, there could be a huge
change in organizations image. There is a short case study based on the Vehicle
Company:

The company was loosing noteworthy engineers who were strong in their skills. It
put pressure on the company economically and physically. This results in the research on
why skilled staff turnover rate is too high? The company asked MGHR to look at the
ratio of staff retention, and tackle the solutions. MGHR discussed this issue with
company’s managing director and HR managers to discuss about recruitment process
(training, quality of recruits, sources, interviewing and applications). MGHR also looked
at different documents including staff sick applications, level of short-term leave
applications. It results in the crystal clear fact staff retention was a huge problem which
relates to the effectiveness of recruitment process. It had also been over viewed that the
motivators who have left the organization have created scrambled situation for staff
retention. According to the research this company lost around 40,000 pounds due to this
ineffective recruitment. Therefore, MGHR designed ten recommendations which could
change the approach of recruitment for this organization. The loosing cost has been
halved now, after following these recommendations. On the contrary business is growing
more now. In the nutshell, ineffective recruitment process is the basic factor which could
harm staff and business as well.

Differentiation between Personnel Management and HRM:

• Agreements and paperwork are important factors now. HRM always involves
systematic agreement of position. It has contract with employees, that if employee
wants to leave the position, he/she can provide notice which illustrates the period
within he/she will leave the position. Under these circumstances, HRM start
advertising about particular vacancy in an organization. Therefore, they start
arranging before they need a staff. On the contrary, in the personnel management,
Uddin Zain Page 9 of 14
28001574
2MIT2620 Human Resource Management
Assignment 1
there are no contracts or agreements. Personnel management based company
never knows when their employee going to leave the position. They are not even
prepared to follow the procedure after employee leaves. For example, there is a
pizza shop in city center; there is one owner/manager of the small organization.
Whenever he puts someone on position (pizza chef or Delivery Deliver). He takes
one week wages as a deposit so that staff could not leave the position if they want
their money back. On the other hand, there is a bank which is a huge business
body, they have their HRM department, and they recruit and present precious
deals for employees so that employees sign their contracts without any burden. So
that if they want to leave the position. They should provide notice and valid
reason of quitting the position.
• For HRM staff is the key asset, in their prospective staff is the essential motive to
enhance and motivate the business. So while recruiting they always follow the
procedure to recruit most talented and qualified personnel, without focusing on
the salary factor. Therefore, it is an arduous task to measure BUDGET. On the
contrary, personnel management is actually adopting scientific management’s
facets, staff is a cost and they are like a machine. So while recruiting they will
present they BUDGET first, and then under the controlled budget they will recruit
staff.
• When jobseekers see the advertisement on the newspaper, internet, radio,
television, etc they will be attracted towards it, and they know what job
description is provided, either they are the right person to work or not. They can
match job description with their qualification and experience. So in HRM they
start advertising as soon as they receive notice from employee. Whereas in
personnel management, after employee leaves the job they will start searching for
a person so that team members can provide their known person. Employee can
refer his cousin, friend or relative.
• There is some norm of conditions during interviewing the candidate in HRM.
HRM will ask them about their flexibility in working hours, some of the
candidates are looking for break for some time so they can mention on their
contract. For Example, on Fridays most of the Muslim workers take leave from 1-
3 for their prayer. Employees can mention about their future holidays as well so
that they can get sick leaves if they really required. So this factor is exemplifying
that HRM is enlightening Human Rights factor. Personnel management never
assures that employees could get required break time or holidays, even if the
person is sick they can arrange another person instead of him and let off him. For
example, in the pizza shop on employee took a leave for one month as he wanted
to go to visit his country, though he informed management before 1 month, still
after he came back they informed they have arranged another person. Usually
personnel management doesn’t care about health and safety assuming staff as
machine.
• HRM is dynamic function directing change environment, it wants its staff to get
high level of skills in all facets of business areas thoroughly. HRM always
develops trust and maintain commitments with employees. Whereas personnel
management is more strategic it gives the ratio of long term planning about
recruitment so it is called stable function for example ESB doesn’t have any

Uddin Zain Page 10 of 14

28001574
2MIT2620 Human Resource Management
Assignment 1
competitors so they wont emphasis on changing staff until someone dies or leave
the position.

Training and Development:

Definition:

Learning through an appropriate system of an extract of education, development

and experience is called training. It is to amend manifestation and attitude to conquer
skill through experience and education. It is the foremost element in any organization.

‘’ A relativity permanent change in behavior that occurs as a result of practice or

experience is called Training.’’
--Bass and Vaughan.

Explanation:
Enhancement in mounting abilities through aware or unaware learning or training
is called development. Though study and education is important for training and
development, also experience and practice make person perfect. While the person
revolves around different problems and situation, he learns and attains experience which
also results in development. Effective training improves individualistic skills, team
working skills and corporate responsibly skills. It could minimize costs of learning in the
organization. It enables staff to achieve high rewards after they get enhanced through
training. It makes employee understand the real motives and goals of the organization and
it helps increasing their commitments. It maintains the affirmative culture of the company
which could help in performing improvement.

Topics of Training and Development:

• Communication: multi national companies as well as local companies require

different types of languages, so that in order to maintain staff teamwork
communication training is essential.
• IT skills: the widely usable system Information Technology is the bone of
concentration in the business so it is important to get trained about computers and
new mobile technologies depending on the needs of company.
• Costumer Care: it is an important phenomenon in all kinds of businesses because
costumers are the only reason for any business to get revenues.
• Diversity: this kind of training provides information about attitudes, behavior,
values and notions of other people.
• Ethics: it is the key fact to understand the behavior, culture and ethics of the
company in order to justify with the tasks.

Uddin Zain Page 11 of 14

28001574
2MIT2620 Human Resource Management
Assignment 1
• Human relations: there is a strong competition in the industry nowadays;
everyone is looking for high position. In favor of developing mutual understand
this training is important.
• Quality initiatives: Quality controls and quality management training is important
in order to complete task effectively and efficiently.
• Safety: it is quintessential to control and safe from injuries and gets training about
the hazards at the work place.

Differentiation between HRM and Personnel Management:

• HRM is critically and commercially successful in manners of training staff. It

rotates employees through all the areas of business; it wants employees to be
conscious about all facets in the organization. For Example in Karachi Electric
Supply Corporation Ltd. It has been noticed that HRM team keeps on rotating the
position with planned ideas in order to give engineers training in all sections
including costumer care, power production, complain areas, billing services, etc.
On the other side, Personnel Management is reactive function, it would not want
to train staff in different areas of the organization until someone leaves the
position and they recruit another person. Therefore it is not possible to train
people in one moment, for example in Indian restaurant there was counter person
who used to take orders and pack the food took leave for six weeks and owner
arranged one person without telling him about six week temporary job. After that
guy joint back, owner dismissed temporary guy.
• For HRM training is an asset, it is an investment for them, they believe if they are
investing money they will get back their money used for training in the form of
greater revenues. Motorola’s strategy of training staff is embodiment to reveal
HRM training. On the contrary, Personnel Management thinks that training is a
cost for them; they try to lower their cost by minimizing training. Even some
personnel management companies don’t even pay for the period of training.
• In HRM training is the instrument to enhance TEAM SPIRIT, it helps to maintain
team spirit through training and development in different areas with different
people, their training policies are standard, and their leadership is aesthetic and
appropriate for all the employees. Whereas personnel management doesn’t care
about development and leadership proper skills. There will be no training to
develop team spirit. Team is like a pillar which gives business a stand.

CONCLUSION:
After developing the entire picture and analyzing through different medium HRM
seems to be more competitive in ideas. Personnel Management jeopardizes in different
areas of organization which could result in staff turnover which is a loss to company.
Critically HRM seems to provide more flexible and ill-at-ease behavior which delight
Human rights and Labour Rights. Personnel management is even the base of HRM, but

Uddin Zain Page 12 of 14

28001574
2MIT2620 Human Resource Management
Assignment 1
recommendations and researches illustrate that it should change its behavior to HRM.
The following chart and picture are packing up this report in summarizing way:

Personnel Management ----------------------------------------------- HRM

Proactive Reactive
Strategic Support
Bad Management, Child Labour, Low wages Welfare State, Human Rights
Major work based problems Complacent
Classes at work Equal Rights-proper
Management
Stable Dynamic
Low trust High Trust
Weak Commitments Strong Commitments
Labour is liability Labour is an asset
No motivation Staff motivation
Budget in advance Arduous to Measure budget

--http://www.nicheconsulting.co.nz/images/HRM_foundation.pngs

Uddin Zain Page 13 of 14

28001574
2MIT2620 Human Resource Management
Assignment 1

Bibliography:
Books:
• Michael Armstrong (2006), A handbook of Human Resource Management
Practice, 10thedition, Cambridge University Press.
• Marco Koster (2007), Human Resource Management versus Personnel
Management, Essay, Grin.
• John Storey (1989), new perspective of Human resource Management, Thomson
Learning.
• K Aswathappa (2005), Human Resource and Personnel Management, 4th edition,
Tata Mcgraw Hill.

Internet Hyperlinks:
Clicked on 12th November:
o http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_resource_management#Professional_orga
nizations
o http://www.blurtit.com/q164135.html
o http://hrknowledge.blogspot.com/2009/01/difference-between-human-
resource.html
o http://www.articlesbase.com/college-and-university-articles/class-notes-
human-resource- management-recruitment-selection-procedure-872443.html

Clicked on 14th November:

o http://www.icmrindia.org/courseware/Intro%20to%20Hrm/hrm-DS8.htm
o http://www.morlangilhr.co.uk/casestudies/case_study3.htm
o http://managementhelp.org/trng_dev/basics/reasons.htm
o http://www.nicheconsulting.co.nz/images/HRM_foundation.pngs

Uddin Zain Page 14 of 14

28001574