Module 2

The major functions also include:

1. Recruitment,
2. Assigning work,
3. Co-ordination,
4. Supervision and
5. Training. :

Recruitment

Recruiting or staffing is a managerial function of determining and meeting the manpower requirements of an organisation and of providing opportunities for the continuous development of it's manpower talent.

Recruitment is the function of the personnel manager, they are mainly concerned with the forecasting, the future manpower requirements of any organisation in different categories of activities over a specified time horizon and making necessary arrangements of meeting such requirements through appropriate recruitment and selection programmes.

Sources of recruitment

There are two sources of recruitment:

1. Internal and
2. External

Internal sources are the present organisational personnel, some of whom are worth considering for promotion or transfer.

External sources of recruitment are:

1. Advertisement in newspapers and magazines.
2. Employment exchanges
3. Universities, colleges, and other institutions of education
4. Unsolicited applications from aspiring candidates.
5. Persons known or related to existing employees and managers.
6. Labour contractors

Assigning work

Division of work should be on the basis of services required and the person's qualification, experience and interest in that area. It is useful as:

• It permits the members of each unit to learn clearly and thoroughly the purpose of each service, procedures, rule and methodology unique to it.

• This basis of differentiation will permit the organisation to relate to a variety of client groups and their unique characteristics.

• It also permits the organisation to devise behavioural patterns, which are appropriate for dealing with the unique social, cultural, and psychological elements of their beneficiaries.

• The basis of differentiation will also promote the development of a broader perspective on the organisational goals.

The division of work also helps in making sub-units, which will be efficient in the following ways:

1. It will break down the long process of service delivery into manageable steps;

2. It will be useful in defining and assigning accountability;

3. It will be useful in recruiting and assigning personnel on the basis of their types and levels of skills.

Co-ordination

Co-ordination refers to the linking of different units within an organisation in order to accomplish a set of tasks. Thus, the purpose of co-ordination is to bring about unity among different organisational units.

There are two ways of bringing co-ordination in an organisation: -

1. Programming and

2. Feedback

A co-ordination by programming refers to such integrating mechanisms as the use of pre-established plans, schedules, forecasts, formalised rules, policies, and procedures, and standardised information and communication systems. These mechanisms are basically impersonal.

A feedback co-ordination on the other hand refers to mutual adjustments following the availability of new information, either by group or personal mode.

In the personal mode, individual functionaries arrive at mutual adjustments in their tasks directly or through a common superior. For e.g. after Mr Sharma conducts a workshop on "learning to maintain your vehicle to cut down on pollution", Mr. Sharma's superior will bring out the positives and negatives of the workshop and ask Mr. Sharma to make the necessary changes.

In the group mode, a number of functionaries are made responsible for the accomplishment of the necessary adjustment in the activities of their units in order to facilitate the activities of all the related units, often organised as a committee. Here the head of the organisation would assess each department and after taking their inputs and after giving his/her inputs would ask the department to make the necessary changes.

Supervision

Work out put results due to the interaction between

1. The work to be done and

2. The people selected to do it.

The theory in personnel management suggest that a job has a definite requirement; a applicants should have a definite qualifications; and once you match the two - then the person is fit for your job and half your task is achieved. But this is not always true.

This theory fails to account for four significant factors:

1. Jobs are not definite, fixed, unalterable. They tend to become what the employees make them.

2. Employees are not human beings with the fixed qualifications, training or motivation. They can change.

3. The interaction of an employee with his job is important. It can yield him satisfaction, dissatisfaction or a mixture of the two.

4. The climate under which the work is performed is important. (Supervision, working condition, fellow workers, social recognition of the task, etc).

Thus we know that the relationships between employees and their jobs are not static like parts of a machine. Rather they are results of many forces impinged upon them and hence, you need continuous supervision to see that the working is smooth and help the employees to get rid of the roadblocks that come in between them and their work.

Training

Work can be divided into five sections

1. Muscular
2. Sensory
3. Mental
4. Social
5. Conceptual (imaginative)

Virtually all jobs require some degree of each of these abilities, but some task account for just one or two. For e.g. Cost Clerk; President; Labourer.