Human Resource Management
Human Resource Management tests how a business plans, recruits, develops, pays and keeps the people it needs. Expect questions on recruitment stages, motivation theories applied to a named workplace, and causes of high labour turnover.
Core rules
- The HR cycle: human resource planning, recruitment, selection, induction, training, appraisal, reward, separation.
- Recruitment attracts applicants; selection chooses among them. Tools: job analysis, job description (duties), person specification (qualities), advertisement, shortlist, interview, references.
- Training is on-the-job (induction, coaching, job rotation) or off-the-job (college, courses).
- Pay: time rate, piece rate, commission, salary plus fringe benefits.
- Taylor emphasised pay as the main motivator; Maslow ranked needs from physiological to self-actualisation; Herzberg separated hygiene factors (pay, conditions, policy - prevent dissatisfaction) from motivators (achievement, recognition, responsibility).
- Employment in Malawi is governed by the Employment Act and Labour Relations Act; minimum wages are set by government, and workers may join unions affiliated to the Malawi Congress of Trade Unions.
Worked example
A tannery loses 40% of its staff each year. Exit interviews show pay below the local average and no chance of promotion. Reasoning: low pay is a hygiene factor, so correcting it removes dissatisfaction but does not by itself motivate; adding job rotation, training and a clear promotion path supplies Herzberg's motivators. The cost of this must be weighed against repeated recruitment, induction and lost productivity.
Traps that cost marks
- Treating recruitment and selection as the same stage.
- Reversing Maslow's hierarchy.
- Calling fringe benefits motivators; Herzberg classes them as hygiene.
- Assuming higher pay always raises output, ignoring non-financial motivation.