The Difference between Personnel Management and Human Resource Planning

The difference between Personnel Management and Human Resource Planning can be understand with the help of following points

• While employing Personnel Management aims at the written contracts made earlier between management, employees, unions and other associations, whereas, Human Resource Planning aims to go beyond contracts.

• Personnel Management gives due importance to rules, regulations and norms but HRM gets impatience with stringent rules and works with a broader outlook.

• In case of Personnel Management,procedures are the guide to management action but HRM is completely guided by business needs.

• Personnel Management's behaviour referent are norms, customs and practices but the behaviour referent of HRM are values and ethics.

• The relationship between managers and subordinates in case of Personnel Management is of monitoring type but in case of Human Resource Planning, it is of nurturing type.

• The most important relation in case of Personnel Management has been considered with labour but in HRM customers are the most important.

• Leaders in case of Personnel Management are of Transactional type but leaders in HRM are of Ttransformational type.

• Most of the communication in Personnel Management takes place indirectly as whereas, in HRM it is of direct type.

• Selection process is separate and marginal in Personnel Management but integrated and key task in case of Human Resource Planning.

• Conditions and working culture are is more harmonious in case of Personnel Management as compared to Human Resource Planning.

• Job categories and grades are more in Personnel Management as compared to Human Resource Planning.

• Job in case of Personnel Management are designed keeping in view the concept of Division of Labour whereas, in case of Human Resource Planning, they are designed keeping in view the concept of Team Work.

• While designing training and development programmes there is limited access to courses in case of Personnel Management as compared to Human Resource Planning.

• The focus of attention for interventions in case of Personnel Management is limited to personnel procedures whereas, it is much wider in case of Human Resource Planning and ranges to cultural, structural and personnel strategies.

• In Personnel Management labour is treated as a tool to accomplish the objective and which is expandable as well as replaceable, whereas in case of Human Resource Planning people are treated as assets to be used for the benefit of an organisation, its employees and the society as a whole.

• In Personnel Management interests by organisation are utmost,whereas "mutuality of interest" concept prevails in case of HRM.

• Personnel Management is the earlier concept whereas HRM is the latest evolution of the subject.

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Manpower Planning-Forecasting the future needs

Manpower planning is a process through which an organisation ensures that right people, at right place and at right time are available.

Geisler "Manpower planning is the process including forecasting, developing, implementing, and controlling by which a firm ensures that it has the right number of people and right kind of people, at the right place, at the right time, doing things for which they are economically most suitable".

Decenzo and Robbins "Human resource planning is the process by which an organisation ensures that it has the right number and kind of people, at the right place, at the right time, capable of effectively and efficiently completing those tasks that will help the organisation achieve its overall objectives."

Manpower Planning Process
Manpower planning process contains following steps

1. Linking Organisational Objectives and plans
It is important in manpower planning process to know clearly about the objectives of any organisation out of which plans and policies are generated and it is very important to identify and incorporate organisational policies with regard to effective utilisation of human resources in planning process.
It is necessary to know well in advance that

• Whether the vacancies are to be filled by promotions or by hiring from outside.
• how are the training and development models going to meet the manpower planning objective.
• what are the problems related to union and what policies are needed to handle them?
• is there any need of downsizing to get the effective working of the organisations?
• what are methods to ensure continuous availability of skilled and adaptive workforce.

2. Forecasting Manpower Requirement

In the second step manpower need are forecasted which are streamlined to organisational objectives.Manpower needs depends upon the scale of operations of the organisation over that period of time and some other factors like machine-man ratio,change in productivity etc.

Forecasting manpower requirements make our work easy in the following ways

• It makes us clear about the amount of services required to produce a given number of goods.
• To determine the quality of personnel required in future.
• It does a complete survey of staffing levels in different parts of the organisation.

3 Preparing Manpower Inventory

Manpower inventory means putting together information related to person's skills, abilities and potentials. Manpower inventory can be classified as Managerial and Non Managerial skills inventory.

4. Identifying Manpower Gap

• It is very important to forecast manpower gap to have the smooth functioning of any organisation.Manpower gap is the difference between man-power required at a particular time and the personnel being available at that particular time.
• This gap may be either in the form of having surplus human resources or having shortage of human resources. Only calculating the number of personnel will not serve the purpose rather it has to be measured in respect of various types of personnel.
• How to deal with both the cases of surplus as well as shortage of personnel is going to be explained in the next step of action plans.

5. Planning the Action

• In case of surplus manpower actions, such as voluntary retirement scheme, layoff, retrenchment reduced working hours can be taken, considering legal problems.
• In case of shortage of human resources actions, such as recruitment and selection, promoting personnel, developing personnel, motivating and integrating them with the organisation can be implemented.

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Job Description and Job Specification

Job Description
Job description is a list which containing tasks or functions and responsibility of a position which are to be performed.
Job description is a written statement mentioning the job title, tasks to be performed, duties and responsibilities involved in a job.
It also mentions the working conditions, hazards. Stress and other problems involved in a job and the relationship with other jobs.
Flippo, A job description is an organised, factual statement of duties and responsibilities of a specific job.In brief, it should tell what is to be done, how it is done, and why.It is a standard of function, in that it defines the appropriate and authorized content of a job.

Job Description must contain the following information.

• Job title, code number,department/division.
• Job contents in terms of activities or task performed.
• Job responsibilities to perform effectively.
• Working conditions specifying specific hazards.
• Social environment at the workplace.
• Tools and equipments required.
• Extent of supervision given and received.
• Relationship with other jobs-vertical, horizontal and diagonal.

Advantages of Job Description

• It is used to recruit and select employees in the organisation with their orientation and placement.
• It helps in crafting, training and development needs of a particular employee and developing career path.
• It plays a major role in evaluating the performance of the employee and helps in taking the decision related to promotion and transfer in an organisation.
• It is an instrument to develop work procedures and processes and help of take preventive measures to minimise the impact of hazardous conditions.
• It helps in counselling the employee and providing vocational guidance.
• It provides the basic ingredient to prepare job specification.

Key Elements of Job Description

A standard job description must contain the following details

1. Job title
2. Job profile and description
3. Duties and responsibilities
4. Skill and specialisations
5. Educational Qualifications

Job Specification

A job specification describes the knowledge, skills, education experience and abilities which are essential to performing a particular job. Job specification is developed from job analysis.

• It is a written statement of minimum acceptable qualities required to complete a job and perform it effectively.
• It specifies various features of job holder, where as job description provides various features of the job and follows job description or it is based on the job description. Job specification can be used for following purposes.

Flippo, Job specification is a statement of the minimum acceptable human qualities necessary to perform a job properly. It is a standard of personnel and designates the qualities required for acceptable performance.

Key Elements of Job Specification

1. Age
2. Appearance and physical abilities
3. Qualifications
4. Skills
5. Personality
6. Experience
7. Special skills

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Job Analysis - Basic Requirement of Personnel

Job Analysis is the process of collecting job related information. Such information helps in the preparation of job description and job specification. Job analysis was conceptualized by two of the founders of industrial or organisational psychology, Federick Taylor and Lillian Moller Gilberth. It provides the information which helps to determine which employees are best fit for specific job.

U S Labour Job Analysis is the process of determining, by observation and study, and reporting pertinent information relating to the nature of a specific job. It is the determination of the tasks which comprise the job and the skills, abilities and responsibilities required of the worker for a successful performance and which differentiates one job from all others.

Flippo Job analysis is the process of studying and collecting information relating to the operations and responsibilities of a specific job. The immediate products of this analysis are job descriptions and job specifications.

Uses of Job Analysis

• Provide base for different jobs.
• Helps in organisational design.
• Human resource planning.
• Recruitment and selection.
• Orientation and placement.
• Career planning.
• Training.
• Job evaluation.
• Performance Appraisal.
• Employee safety.
• Counselling.

Process of Job Analysis

Job analysis is a sequential process undergoing the following steps

1. Understanding the relevance of Job Analysis

It has been well understood in the previous chapter that job analysis is extremely useful and basic ingredient for most of the HR practices.

2. Collecting the Information

After undergoing the first step, relevant information is collected to formulate the various characteristics of job.

3. Processing the Information

After the information is collected, it becomes important to process the information by editing and keeping them under relevant categories.

• Identifying the need of job analysis
• Identifying the person and process to conduct it
• Confirming and training the job analyst
• Implementing the process.
• Collecting data,documenting it, verifying and reviewing it.
• Developing job description and job specification.

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Line and Staff- Basic terminology of Personnel Management

The business world is changing very rapidly and each day new kind of problems are cropping up and it requires specialisation in these fields to deal with these conditions. As it is impossible for an individual to have specialisation in each fields. so it required staff function which provides beneficial support to line function. Staff function is secondary business activity that support line function.

Allen, "Line functions are those which have direct responsibility for accomplishing the objectives of the enterprise and staff refers to those elements of the organisation that help the line to work most effectively in accomplishing the primary objectives of the enterprise."

Knootz and others, Line authority becomes apparent from the scalar principle as being that relationship in which a superior exercises direct supervision over a subordinate an authority relationship in direct line or step. The nature of staff relationship is advisory. The function of people in a pure staff capacity is to investigate, research and give advice to line managers to whom they report.

Although, there is no thick line or inflexible between line and staff functions, especially for practical purposes but it is very important to understand the difference between line and staff theoretically due to following reasons
(a) In today's modern and global world, where big multinationals and corporate houses are there and highly efficient and skilled managers are required to accomplish the objectives.One person cannot show commendable performance in all areas and different experts are needed to get the work done efficiently. So, it becomes very important to understand the difference between line and staff functions and managers to provide specialised services. It may lead to conflict reducing organisational efficiency if the managers requiring and using such services and specialists providing the services do not understand the nature of relationship existing between them.
(b) It is necessary to put check and balances at every step in the organisations. Each for or activity throughout the organisation is opposed by a counterforce to check and balance the forces in the organisation to avoid monopoly and autocratism. This all is possible only after understanding the difference between line and staff functions.
(c) It is very important to identify line and staff functions to maintain accountability in the organisation.Each person in the big organisation has a definite role and responsibility to play. Thus, persons who are accountable for end results should be identified. Failure in proper identification often leads to overlapping the use of authority leading to conflict between line and staff.

How to overcome Line-Staff Conflict
For the smooth functioning of the organisation, it is necessary that both line and staff work harmoniously but it is an ideal situation. Practically conflict arises because of the organisational situations in which they work. Following are the ways to overcome the conflict

• By understanding of line-staff authority relationship.
• By motivating line people to make proper use of staff.
• By motivating staff people to give proper solutions.
•  By building up an effective organisational culture.

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Structure of Personnel Management

According to Fisch and Logan, there is no practical relevance of the concept of line and staff. Still it has been an important part of management since beginning  i.e, that is way it is not easy to separate or remove it. It is still possible at initial stages of the organisation to clearly demarcate between line and staff functions as well as people but not an easy affair in case of big organisations.

Now a days, only production and sales may not be treated as line functions. There is not clear cut line between line, staff and functional in modern and big organisation but one manager may be granted all the three types of authority simultaneously. Undoubtedly, if there is clarity in defining these authority relationships, it will definitely improve the working of the organisation by avoiding the gap and overlapping of authority and responsibility.

Authority relationship can be shown through the structure of personnel department. There are various names to depict the authority relationships and to know whom to report. The very popular name is organisational chart which is a vital tool to know about organisational relationships.

Organisational chart can be divided into

• Master Chart
• Supplementary Chart

Master Chart It shows the authority relationship of complete organisation as whole.

Supplementary Chart It shows the authority relationship of any department or major component of the organisation, which is an important part of the organisation.

Uses of Structure of Personnel Department

• Structure of personnel department serves as an information box to know about the authority and responsibility relationships.
• It helps even a new joinee as he can easily locate his interactional pattern through this.
• It is prepared only after job analysis and helps to avoid overlapping of authority and responsibility and duplication of work.
• It also helps in bringing out the organisational weakness, solutions can be found out in case of any problem.
• It helps in solving organisational conflicts.
• It provides the guideline for training and development in the organisation as it provides the information of what one is expected to do in the organisation and what he can do.

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Personnel Management- The Backbone of overall Management

Functions and Structure

The success of an organisation depends on the capacities and capabilities of its personnel. Unless, it devotes enough resource on development o its resource, it would not get required output from its personnel.

Personnel management can be defined as process of obtaining, utilising and maintaining a satisfied workforce. It is a significant part of management, which is concerned with employees at work and with their relationship within the organisation.

Flippo, "Personnel management is the planning, organising compensation, integration and maintenance of people for the purpose of contributing to organisational, individual and societal goals".

Brech, "Personnel management is that part which is primarily concerned with human resource of organisation".

Nature of Personnel Management

1. Personnel management includes the function of employment, development and compensation. These functions are performed by the personnel management in consultation with other departments.
2. personnel management is an extension to general management.It is concerned with promoting and stimulating competent workforce to make their dedicated and best possible contribution to the organisation.
3. personnel management advises and assist the line managers in personnel matters. Thus working as a staff department of an organisation.
4. It is based on human orientation.It tries to help the workers to develop their potential to full extent for the organisation.
5. It also motivates the employees through it's effective plans so that the employees provide best possible co-operation.

Role of Personnel Manager

Personnel manager is the head of personnel department. He performs both managerial and operative functions of management. his role can be summarised as

• Providing assistance to top management.
• Advising the line manager as a staff specialist.
• Counselling the employees.
• Acting as a mediator.
• Acting as a spokesman.

Functions of Personnel Management

Personnel management involves two categories of functions namely Operative Functions and Managerial Functions.

1. Operative Functions

The operative functions essentially belongs to such activities concerned with

• Procurement
• Development
• Compensation
• Utilisation
• Maintenance

2. Managerial Functions

The managerial functions include activities like

• Planning
• Organising
• Co-ordination
• Directing

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