Human resource management
What HRM does
- Human resource management (HRM) looks after a firm's people.
- Main roles:
- workforce planning — how many staff and skills will be needed,
- recruitment & selection — attracting applicants, then choosing the best,
- training & development — improving skills now and for the future.
Practice
Which is a main role of HRM?
HRM covers workforce planning, recruitment/selection and training/development.
Recruitment and selection
- First write a job description (the duties) and a person specification (the right person's skills).
- Internal recruitment — fill from inside: cheaper, faster, known person, but no new ideas.
- External recruitment — hire from outside: new skills/ideas, but costlier and slower.
- Selection methods: application forms/CVs, interviews, tests, group tasks.
Practice
Match each document to what it describes.
The job description is about the job; the person specification is about the person.
Practice
An advantage of internal recruitment is that it is:
Internal recruitment is cheaper, faster and lower-risk, but brings no new outside ideas.
You've got it
Key idea
- HRM = workforce planning + recruitment/selection + training/development
- job description (duties) vs person specification (the person's skills)
- internal recruitment is cheap/fast; external brings new ideas but costs more