If handed correctly human resources can provide businesses with a competitive advantage. Businesses today must accommodate working parents with day care needs or the middle age worker who has to care for elderly parents or people from multi-culturally diverse backgrounds.

The key to successful human resource management is the development of programs to attract, maintain and support a high performance work force.

Identifying Staffing Needs

Determining staffing needs is an ongoing process as staff resign or retire. At this stage planning of present and future staffing needs are considered. This stage is called Human Resource Planning. The next step is Job Analysis or specifying human resources needs. The job analysis is an outline of the duties or tasks that an employee will be expected to perform. The job analysis will consist of 2 parts: Job description and job specification.

The job description outlines the employees duties, tasks and responsibilities.

The job specification is a list of the key qualifications needed to perform a particular job in terms of education, skills and experience.

Recruitment

This is the process of attracting qualified job applicants by using advertisements, employment agencies or word of mouth. The common methods of advertising include in employment sections of newspapers and increasingly through online recruitment websites. The talent pool for a new job can come from external recruiting (outside the business) or internal (considering existing employees for promotion or a change of duties.)

Selection

Employee selection may be described as a screening or sifting process. Various types of interviews, tests, physical examinations, referee and reference checks are all part of this process. The idea of selection is to choose the most appropriate person for the position rather than the most qualified. Employee selection can be an expensive process in terms of time and effort, screening and advertising. An employee who leaves a business after a short time of employment will cost the business thousand of dollars. However it can be more expensive if the wrong person is employed and refuse to resign voluntarily.

Suggested Reading:

+ Goals of a Business
+ Assets, Liabilities and Owners Equity

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Tags: Human Resources