Macmillan Professional Masters

Personnel Management
Macmillan Professional Masters

Titles in the series

Company Accounts Roger Oldcorn
Constitutional and Administrative Law John Alder
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Cost and Management Accounting Roger Hussey
Criminal Law Manse Cremona
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Employee Relations Chris Brewster
Land Law Kate Green
Landlord and Tenant Law Margaret Wilkie and Godfrey Cole
Management Roger Oldcorn
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Personnel Management Margaret Attwood
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Personnel Management

Margaret Attwood

M
MACMILLAN
© Margaret Attwood 1985, 1989
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First pubtished by Pan Books Ltd as lntroduction to Personnet
Management in the Breakthrough series in 1985.
Fully updated and revised edition published by
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British Library Catatoguing in Publication Data
Attwood, Margaret
Personnet management.-Fully updated and
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1. Personnet management
I. Title II. Attwood, Margaret.
Introduction to personnet management.
658.3

ISBN 978-0-333-48780-8 ISBN 978-l-349-20137-2 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-20137-2
To Bill, Abi and Jonathan
 VII

Contents

Introduction Xl

1 Definitions of personnel management 1

1.1 The structure and organisation of a personnel
department 1
1.2 Who practises personnel management? 4
1.3 Personnel roles and responsibilities 4
1.4 Universal good practice in personnel
management - a myth for students or a reality for
practitioners? 6
1.5 Is personnel management a profession? 8
2 Planning for people in organisations 10
2.1 What is human resource planning? 10
2.2 Stage 1: analysis of current staff in the organisation
and past trends 12
2.3 Stage 2: analysis of the organisation's future plans
in human resource terms 20
2.4 Stage 3: analysis of the matches or mismatches
between.human resource supply and demand
forecasts 23
2.5 Stage 4: evaluating the options 24
2.6 Stage 5: selection of best alternatives and
implementation as the human resource plan, with
monitoring and review procedures 26
3 Recruitment and selection 28
3.1 How to start 28
3.2 Stage 1: defilliQg the job to be done 29
3.3 Stage 2: defining the ideal candidate 33
3.4 Stage 3: attracting candidates 36
3.5 Stage 4: selecting candidates 38
3.6 The follow-up process 47
3.7 Managerial roles in recruitment and selection 48
4 Introducing the individual to the organisation 50
4.1 What is induction? 50
4.2 The induction process 51
viii Contents

4.3 Induction training 53

4.4 Roles in induction 54
4.5 A final word 55
5 The law and the rights of the new employee 56
5.1 The legal framework of employees' rights 56
5.2 The law and the rights of job applicants 58
5.3 What is discrimination? 59
5.4 Coverage of the anti-discrimination legislation 61
5.5 The contract of employment 63
5.6 Summary - case study 66
6 Involving the individual in the job 69
6.1 Motivation 69
6.2 Orientations to work 73
6.3 Designing jobs to encourage efficiency and
commitment 74
6.4 Direct participation as a means of encouraging
employee commitment 77
7 Appraising performance 81
7.1 What is performance appraisal? 81
7.2 Purpose of performance appraisal 81
7.3 Designing an appraisal system 82
7.4 Performance-related pay 87
7.5 Training for appraisal 87
7.6 Other problems of appraisal 87
7.7 Conditions necessary for successful appraisal
schemes 89
7.8 A cautionary tale 89
8 Training for current jobs 91
8.1 What is training? 91
8.2 Objectives of training 92
8.3 Training policy 92
8.4 A systematic approach to training 93
8.5 Stage 1: the identification of training needs 93
8.6 Stage 2: the planning of training programmes 98
8.7 Stage 3: implementing training programmes 104
8.8 Stage 4: the evaluation of training programmes 105
8.9 Role of the training specialist 107
9 Developing people for the future 108
9.1 Management development 108
9.2 The focus of management development 109
9.3 A systematic approach to management
development 109
 Contents ix

9.4 Managerial succession planning 111

9.5 Analysis of development needs 112
9.6 Selecting for management development 112
9.7 Designing management development programmes 116
9.8 Evaluation of management development 121
9.9 Career development for young people 122
9.10 Equal opportunities in career development 124
9.11 Development of high flyers 124
9.12 A final word on development 125
10 Looking after employees - welfare and counselling services 126
10.1 How can we define 'welfare' in the context of
modern personnel management? 127
10.2 Occupational stress 128
10.3 Personal services for employees - counselling 128
10.4 Group services for employees 131
10.5 Status considerations 133
10.6 The future of employee services 133

11 The law and the rights of the individual employee 135

11.1 Checklist of individual employment rights 135
11.2 Anti-discrimination legislation and employee rights 136
11.3 The equality commissions 137
11.4 Equal pay 138
11.5 Maternity rights legislation 140
11.6 Other rights to time off from work 142
11.7 Sick pay and medical suspension 143
11.8 Payments to workers when there is no work to do 144
11.9 The limits of employment law 144
12 Fair pay and employee benefits at work 146
12.1 Factors affecting salary and wage levels 146
12.2 The wage - effort bargain 147
12.3 Wage and salary administration policies 148
12.4 Job evaluation and the design of pay structures 149
12.5 External pay comparisons 160
12.6 Salary and wage administration 161
12.7 Pay incentives 162
12.8 Fair benefits at work 166
12.9 What of the future? 166

13 Managing the employment relationship 168

13.1 A corporate perspective on employment relations 168
13.2 Managerial choice of employment strategies 170
13.3 Perspectives on the employment relationship 171
x Contents

13.4 Managing the employment relationship - the

options for management 172
13.5 Direct or indirect participation? 177
13.6 Employee relations roles in the workplace 177
13.7 The lessons for personnel specialists on the
management of the employment relationship 181
14 Terminating employment 182
14.1 Dismissal- an introduction 182
14.2 Discipline handling skills 183
14.3 Disciplinary procedures 185
14.4 The law on dismissal 186
14.5 Redundancy 192
14.6 Situations of redundancy 193
14.7 Selection of employees for redundancy 194
14.8 Retraining or redeployment of redundant workers 195
14.9 Redundancy compensation 197
14.10 Retirement 198
IS The future is not far away 201
15.1 What of the future? 201
15.2 The future - the challenge for personnel
management 202
15.3 Developing mechanisms for the more effective
control of the workforce 202
15.4 Encouraging employee commitment 203
15.5 Flexibility - the key to the future 203
15.6 The implications for the personnel specialist 204

Answers 205
Further Reading 220
Index 222
 xi

Introduction

This book is about the search for success in the management of people at
work. Unfortunately, in the past, more attention has been given to the
mismanagement of employees and the reasons for this than to the
development of criteria for success in personnel management. Any
attempt to generate universal prescriptions for effectiveness in this area
of management is likely to be misleading. What appears to stimulate
work of both high quality and quantity in one organisation may not be
successful elsewhere. Nor should we assume that other nations have all
the answers . Once, everything American was thought likely to be the key
to industrial utopia. Then many people were excited by Japanese
management techniques. Now we recognise that the search for
excellence is long and difficult.
This book is not a panacea for all ills. It attempts to assist the new
personnel specialist or manager to develop competence in this area. It
encourages more experienced practitioners to question established
techniques. On the basis of such analysis it should be possible to develop
strategies and practices relevant to the circumstances of the particular
organis ation. Management is a lonely business ; there are no guaranteed
steps to effectiveness. Yet, paradoxically, no problem is unique. I hope
to emphasise the complexity of good personnel management practice and
the rejection of seemingly easy solutions, and to stimulate further
reading and questioning, where relevant, of current employment
practices.
While writing this book, I have learnt the difficulty of deciding how
much emphasis to give to each topic . Of necessity the results reflect my
own values , experiences and interests. The further reading section at the
end of the book gives limited advice for the extension of knowledge in
this area of management. Experience, especially if reflected upon and
shared with other practitioners, is at least as important.

Acknowledgements
Those who have unwittingly or wittingly helped me to acquire the
knowledge on which this book is based are too numerous to mention.
xii Introduction

However, in particular I should like to thank my former colleagues at

North East London Polytechnic , Patrick Hare and Win Stenning , and
those managers with whom I have had contact over the years as
consultant and teacher and most recentl y as a manager myself in Mid
Essex Health Authority. Also , without the support of Bill, Abi and
Jonathan there would have been no book at all.

MARGARET ATTWOOD
1 Definitions of Personnel
Management

Personnel management is that part of management concerned with the

management of people at work. However, like many things in life, reality
is more complicated. In this introductory chapter, we shall attempt some
initial definitions :
• Most organisations have a specialist personnel department which gives
support to managers and supervisors, who have direct responsibility
for the management of people .
• A wide range of people - personnel specialists, line managers and
supervisors - practise personnel management.
• There are a number of specialist management techniques which
together comprise personnel management.
• The practice of personnel management varies greatly from one
organisation to another.
This chapter examines each of these four points. By the end you should
have a general awareness of the nature and complexity of personnel
management and of some of the reasons for this.

1.1 The Structure and Organisation of a Personnel

Department
The function of a personnel department is to assist with the acquisition ,
development and retention of the human resources necessary for the
success of the organisation. It is unhelpful to imply that there is one best
design for a personnel department. In this section we examine some of
the options .
Particularly in large multi-establishment companies this is likely to be
headed by a member of the board of directors . This should make easier
the task of the personnel department in encouraging the effective
management of the organisation 's employees, in that its head will have
ready access to the chief executive. In large organisations, where there is
generally considerable emphasis on the development of formal personnel
policies, the involvement of the head of the personnel function in
board-level decision-making should help to ensure that these are sup-
portive of business strategy .
2 Personnel Management

The structure shown in Figure 1.1 could be that of the senior personnel
posts in a multi-establishment organisation. Within the structure shown ,
the personnel director would have responsibility for:
• Formulating the organisation's personnel policies and overseeing their
implementation by both members of her/his department and other
managers.
• Advice to other board members on personnel matters.
• Management of the personnel department.
The industrial relations adviser would be likely to carry responsibility
for :
• Formulating industrial relations policies in conjunction with the
personnel director.
• The provision of advice, guidance and information to the divisional
personnel managers (and, through them , to other managers) on
industrial relations.
• Guidance to all managers on employment legislation.
Depending on the structure of industrial relations in the company, there
might also be an advisory or an executive role in trade union negotia-
tions . If, as is increasingly the case, the organisation concerned either
does not recognise trade unions or engages in collective bargaining only
for a small proportion of its workforce , then the term employee relations
rather than industrial relations may be used to describe this aspect of
personnel work .
The group employee development adviser would be responsible for :
• The formulation of policies for the development of the organisation's
human resources , in conjunction with the personnel director.
• Advice , guidance and information to the divisional personnel
managers (and , through them , to other managers and emplo yees) on
training and development.

Fig 1.1 Organisation structure for a personnel department

Personnel Personnel Group Group

Manager Manager Industrial Employee
Division B Division A Relations Development
Adviser Adviser
 Definitions of Personnel Management 3

The divisional personnel managers would pro vide a day-to-day personnel

service covering all aspects of personnel management, industrial re-
lations and employee development, for their division. It would also be
necessary for them to provide information to the personnel director and
the advisers , to allow policies to be formulated and monitored satisfac-
torily for the organisation as a whole .
It should be stressed that it is difficult to generalise about the
specialisms within a personnel department which exist, or indeed should
exist , in any organisation at any time. This will depend upon such factors
as:

• size;
• profitability;
• status of the personnel function ;
• nature of the market for the organisation's products ;
• nature of the labour force from which workers are recruited;
• expectations and values of senior management.
When unemployment was very low in the late 1960s through to the mid
1970s trade union power increased. The work of many personnel
managers became dominated by industrial relations. Since then the
emphasis has shifted towards ways in which the personnel function can
contribute to greater organisational efficiency and effectiveness. Major
current concerns of personnel practitioners therefore include:

• the improvement of selection systems ;

• employee communication and consult ation mechanisms;
• training to improve current job performance including relations with
customers;
• management development ;
• performance review systems ;
• value for money in personnel policies including the sub-contracting of
some services to other organisations.

To assess the importance accorded to specialisms within personnel

management it is useful to examine advertisements for jobs . I selected
three from a recent copy of Personnel Management.They were :
1. Training manager for a major retailer, developing and designing
management courses, managing external training policy and practice
and ensuring that the company's train ing service is cost-effective and
meets the needs of its operations.
2. Recruitment officer responsible for the co-ordination of recruitment
of managerial and other senior staff for the London sites of an
industrial caterer.
4 Personnel Management

3. Compensation and benefits analyst for a financial services organis-

ation with particular responsibility for the maintenance of the job
evaluation system and for the undertaking of salary and benefits
surveys .
Your list may differ from this , since there is now a plethora of personnel
specialisms. All the personnel activities covered by this book may be
carried out by specialist personnel staff or by generalists, whose work
covers the whole range of personnel, training and industrial relations
activities for a department or a whole organisation. In some small
companies in particular there may be no specialist personnel department,
the services required being provided intermittently or regularly by a
specialist consultancy. In other small organisations the personnel depart-
ment may be staffed by a single employee with responsibility for
everything from visiting sick staff to the provision of safety goggles.
Detailed organisation of the personnel function cannot be prescribed
easily. However, if personnel management activities are to be effectively
carried out, it is important that line managers feel that their immediate
needs are being met, as well as that attention is being given to
longer-term matters. If the personnel specialist finds that longer-term
considerations are constantly relegated to the bottom of the filing tray,
one can safely assume that something is wrong!

1.2 Who Practises Personnel Management?

Personnel management forms part of every manager's job as well as
being the particular concern of the specialist. What tasks do personnel
specialists undertake?

1.3 Personnel Roles and Responsibilities

In practice the specialist role may take a number of forms:

• audit;
• executive;
• facilitator;
• consultancy;
• service .

The Audit Role

Personnel specialists have responsibility for ensuring that all members of
management carry out those parts of their roles concerned with the
effective use of human resources.
 Definitions of Personnel Management 5

The Executive Role

Personnel management is part of every manager's job, but some
personnel activities are carried out by specialists rather than by line
managers or supervisors. Factors which seem to influence the division of
responsibilities include potential economies of scale if the activity is
carried out by specialists, the need for 'expert' knowledge , organisational
tradition and the preferences of both specialists and line managers. For
example, it seems that personnel specialists tend to maintain a high
profile in those areas of work which they see as most important and
prestigious. Employee relations falls into this category.

The Facilitator Role

Many personnel management activities require considerable skills and
knowledge if they are to be carried out effectively . One of the responsibi-
lities of personnel specialists is to see that those who practise such
activities, as part of a more general managerial role, are equipped to do
so. Attempts by personnel practitioners to carry out this task may lead to
conflict between themselves and line managers.

The Consultancy Role

Managers may confront a variety of problems as they attempt to
supervise employees. These may include motivation difficulties, lack of
training or pay grievances . The individual manager may meet a particular
problem infrequently and , therefore , may need advice in order to resolve
it successfully . In this area the role of the personnel specialist can be
equated with that of an internal management consultant.

The Service Role

lV~.:magers need information on which to base decisions about the
deployment of their staff . The personnel specialist can provide, for
example, statistics on pay rates nationally, by industry or by occupation.
Because of the increasing complexity of employment legislation, there is
often a need for information on the interpretation of such laws by the
courts as well as the detail of the law itself.

To become familiar with this categorisation of the roles and responsibi-

lities of personnel specialists, you may find it helpful to talk to members
of the personnel department in your own organisation or one with which
you are familiar. Seek information on the tasks they are undertaking in
their efforts to support managers. Can you categorise their roles in the
way I have suggested? You may find this difficult since my categorisation
of the work of the personnel specialist is not definitive. There will be
overlap in particular cases between roles . For example, in the area of
6 Personnel Management

advice on employment legislation, there will often be little distinction

between 'service ' and 'consultancy'. At times one role will assume
greater significance at the expense of others; for example , when the
organisation is experiencing severe financial difficulties, pressure on
indirect costs, of which a personnel department is one, may restrict the
more creative aspects of the work of specialists, in particular those which
here I have labelled, 'facilitator' and 'consultancy' . It is false to assume
that personnel specialists should always operate in one particular way.
Far better that those involved in personnel management recognise the
potential variations in the specialist role and can diagnose what might be
the optimum division of labour between specialists and line managers.

Exercise 1
Below are listed a number of activities carried out by personnel specialists. Into
which category-audit. executive, facilitator, consultancy, service-does each fall?
1. Negotiating the introduction of a new grievance procedure with trade union
representatives.
2. Running a workshop for managers on the skills of performance appraisal
interviewing .
3. Checking that annual performance appraisal interviews have been carried
out.
4. Discussing possible ways of improving a problem employee's attendance
and timekeeping with the immediate manager.
5. Compiling and circulating labour turnover statistics to departmental
managers.
6. Interviewing applicants for jobs in the computer department with the
departmental manager.

1.4 Universal Good Practice in Personnel Manage-

ment - a Myth for Students or a Reality for Practi-
tioners?
Personnel management's central concern is the efficient utilisation of one
of the resources available to an organisation: its employees. In this way,
it can be equated with other functions of management - finance, produc-
tion or marketing.
Some people would argue that personnel management is simply a
collection of people-management techniques which can be used in all
organisations. However, if you remember our discussion of the in-
fluences on the specialisms which exist within the personnel function,
you will doubt the validity of this view. Unfortunately, although there
are books which purport to provide answers to all problems of dealing
with employees, there is little universal good practice in this area of
 Definitions of Personnel Management 7

management. Techniques which appear to assist in the effective utilisa-

tion of staff in one organisation may fail elsewhere . For example ,
where a company has a history of strikes , employees may react with
hostility to managerial proposals on new working practices; where
industrial peace has been the norm for years, and relationships between
management and workers have been good, there probably would be
much less distrust of identical proposals.
The ways in which business decisions are made affect personnel
policies and practices . The latter are often an expression of senior
management's values about the development and maintenance of the
employment relationship and, as such, are major determinants of the
organisation's 'culture' . Hence, no universal principles govern the for-
mulation of personnel policies and techniques. However, there are
certain basic headings and guidelines which together may be said to
comprise personnel management. These usually include :

• recruitment and selection;

• training;
• performance appraisal ;
• wage and salary systems and administration;
• employee relations;
• welfare and counselling .

Such activities may be the responsibility of a specialist department, or of

managers or supervisors, or both .
The Institute of Personnel Management says that personnel manage-
ment is that part of the management process concerned with:

recruiting and selecting people ; training and developing them for their work ;
ensuring that their payment and conditions of employment are appropriate,
where necessary negotiating such terms of employment with trad e unions;
advising on healthy and appropriate working conditions ; the organisation of
people at work , and the encouragement of relations between management and
work people .

No matter what the organisational context, it is always necessary for

someone to have responsibility for the movement of people into, through
and out of an organisation, if the human resource is to be effectively
managed. However, the detailed organisation of such responsibilities,
for example between managers or supervisors and specialists, and the
specific techniques utilised will differ from organisation to organisation.
This passage of people through organisations is the integrating theme of
this book.
8 Personnel Management

1.5 Is Personnel Management a Profession?

Personnel specialists have sought to become recognised as professional in
the same way as members of other professions - law, medicine and
accountancy, for example.
In the UK, much of this debate has centred around the role of the
Institute of Personnel Management (IPM) , which has developed a
rigorous and lengthy training scheme for entry to membership. Does this
mean, therefore, that personnel specialists are professionals? Soci-
ologists have examined the process by which occupational groups achieve
professional status. A quotation will help us:

Professionalisation might be defined as a process by which an organised

occupation, usually but not always by virtue of making a claim to special
esoteric competence and to concern for the equality of its work and its benefits
to society, obtains the exclusive right to perform a particular kind of work,
control, training for and access to it, and control the right of determining and
evaluating the way the work is performed . (E . Freidson, The Professions and
Their Prospects, London, 1973.)

How does the work undertaken by personnel specialists measure up to

such yardsticks of professionalism?
Firstly, personnel management is not the exclusive preserve of person-
nel specialists . It is undertaken by most managers as part of their role in
managing employees. Personnel specialists do not exercise autonomy
over their own work, which is determined for them by more senior
management within the general framework of corporate goals. Personnel
specialists may feel that they occupy the role of 'piggy in the middle',
caught between the organisational goals of profit or efficiency and the
heeds of employees. However, when there is redundancy there is usually
no doubt that the personnel specialist is part of the management team
and must assist other managers in the efficient running of the organis -
ation .
Secondly , the IPM's examination scheme , though well accepted both
in industry and in higher education, does not regulate entry to the
occupation in the way that medical , legal or accountancy training does.
Indeed many personnel practitioners are not members of the IPM . A
reasonable conclusion is that personnel management is not a profession ;
rather it has become a well-developed function of management.
 Definitions of Personnel Management 9

Exercise 2
Which of these statements are true and wh ich are false?
1. Personnel management is only undertaken by trained specialists.True or
false?
2. There are textbooks which will tell intending personnel specialists or line
managers everything they need to know about techniques wh ich w ill lead to
effective human resources utilisation in their own organisation.True or false ?
3. It is possible to define personnel management under a number of broad
headings concerned with the management of working people.True or false?
4. Though its status as a profession is in doubt. personnel management is a
well-developed function of management.True or false?
5. There is no one best design for the organisation structure of a personnel
department. True or false?
2 Planning for People in
Organisations

The focus of this chapter is the techniques available to plan the process
whereby people enter, move through and leave organisations, in accor-
dance with the overall business objectives. Management's choice of a
human resource strategy will depend on the values held by those in
positions of power within the organisation. In most private-sector
companies employment policies are usually geared to corporate goals of
profit and growth. Here the planning of human resources becomes a
search for those individuals who now and in the future will contribute
most to the success of the organisation . By contrast some organisations
have developed equal opportunities policies and practices. These have
considerable implications for the planning of human resources in that
they aim, over time, for the population of the organisation to come to
resemble that of the local community which the authority serves.

2.1 What is Human Resource Planning?

A number of planning techniques have been developed to help managers
answer the question: 'How many staff do we need both now and in the
future?' By the end of this chapter you should be able to explain the main
stages of human resource planning and should have an awareness also of
the role of the personnel department in this.
Colin's Cars is a successful sports car manufacturer. Suppose that you
are the member of the personnel department charged with assessing both
the company's future demand for labour and its likely availability.
Factors that you would need to investigate are listed below.

Factors Influencing the Demand for Labour:

• The objectives of the company and its future plans .
• Market demand for the company 's sports cars .
• The technology used by the company .
• The product range or numbers of models produced.
• The productivity per employee .
• The degree to which components are 'bought in' .
• The level of stock .
 Planning for People in Organisations 11

Factors Influencing the Supply of Labour:

• Company policies in so far as they affect recruitment and selection ,
staffing levels, retirement and redundancy.
• The attractiveness of jobs in the company, including pay and other
terms and conditions of employment.
• The skills available in the labour market.
• The price of houses in the locality.
• The age profile of the population from which the company draws its
labou r.
• Government legislation , for example on employees' rights .

Exercise 1
Why is the attractiveness of jobs in the company an important influence on the
supply of labour?

We would need to know more about Colin's Cars and the state of the
local and national economy to undertake a detailed staff planning
exercise for the company. However, the company's demand for labour
will be determined predominantly by the demand for its products. By
contrast the demand for the services of the National Health Service can
be considered to be almost infinite. Demand for staff by the NHS is
determined predominantly by the level of government funding . The
supply of labour to the NHS is influenced by the factors listed above .
Though the NHS is a national employer, the ease with which individual
health authorities can attract and retain labour varies widely because of
local labour market conditions. For example , house prices are much
higher in London and the South East than in the North. Even in such
national organisations human resource planning must be undertaken
locally as well as organisation-wide.
Some factors influencing the number of people available for work are
short-term in character - the numbers of people currently seeking
employment in the locality, for example; others are much more long
term - changes in the birth rate or retirement age, for example.

Exercise 2
Can management control all the factors affecting the demand for and supply of
labour?
12 Personnel Management

Human Resource Planning - a Summary

Human resource planning attempts to analyse likely influences on the
supply of and demand for people, with a view to maximising the
organisation's future performance.
Planning for people in organisations, then , involves trying to obtain:
• the right people
• in the right numbers
• with the right knowledge, skills and experience
• in the right jobs
• in the right place
• at the right time
• at the right cost.
It can be seen as an attempt to balance the demand for employees with
the numbers available. However, it is not merely a 'numbers exercise'
concerned with the quantity of human resources , it also involves issues
related to the quality of human resources such as the requirements for
training and development.
The process of human resource planning involves a distinct number of
stages , which are shown in Figure 2.1.
Although the stages of the human resource planning process are shown
in sequence in the diagram , stages I and 2, which involve an analysis of
the organisation's past and present human resource on the one hand, and
the corporate or business plan on the other, generall y are undertaken in
parallel. Other stages occur in sequence since each depends on adequate
operation of the previous part of the process .

2.2 Stage 1: Analysis of Current Staff in the Organis-

ation and Past Trends
To embark on the human resource planning process it is necessary to
have certain 'key facts' about staffing in the organisation. These include:

• grade ;
• job type, title or department;
• sex;
• age;
• length of service ;
• skill or educational level.
Employers concerned to implement equal opportunity policies must
collect this data by sex, ethnic origin and disability. Only when such
information is available can the employment position of 'minority'
groups be compared with that of other employees; barriers to their
 Planning f or People in Organisations 13

Stage 1 Stage 2
Analysis of current An aly sis of fu ture
staff in organisation plan s of the enter -
and past trends pr ise in stal fing
te rm s
From personnel records From corpora te plan

I Relevant
known futu re
changes
lin order to
produce)
Relevant
future
trends I
Projection s of
Projections of
numbers of staff
future availability
required in the
of key staff
future

Stage 3

----
Examination of the
'"-- matches or mismatches
between these two
projections
t
and
Identification of
critical shortfalls or
surpluses of labour

1
Stage 4

Evaluatio n of alterna tive

approaches to deali ng
w ith these

!
StageS

Select ion of best

alternatives and
implementation as the
human resource plan
with suitable monito ring
and rev iew procedures

Fig 2.1 The human resource planning proc ess

progression into more senior positions can be identified . In this way

objectives for the achievement of equality of opportunity can be defined .
On the surface this sounds very simple ; in practice many employers have
encountered difficulties, in parti cular with the collection of ethnic origin
14 Personnel Management

data because of the sensitivity felt by many employees of being categor-

ised in this way. Further guidance on this issue is available from the
Commission for Racial Equality.
Additionally statistics about the utilisation of labour, including labour
turnover, working hours lost due to sickness and absence , the rate at
which people are promoted and the productivity per person employed
are needed. It is also helpful to analyse the ways in which these statistics
have changed over the recent past.

Analysis of Employees' Age Distribution

Exercise 3
Figure 2.2 shows the age distribution of pilots in Senior Airways in 1989. Pilots
normally retire at 55. Examine the percentage of staff retiring in each year (scale
2). What is the problem for Senior Airways ?

Age distributions can tell us something of problems due to retirements in

the near future. An imbalance in the age structure also would exist if
many people in senior positions were young .

Fig 2.2 Age distribution of pilots in Senior Airways. 1989

25

III
15
~
a
'"
o 10

30 35 40 45 50 55 Actual age in 1989 (scale 1)

2014 2009 2004 1999 1994 1989 Retirem ent date (scale 2)
 Planning for People in Organisations 15

Exercise 4
What are the human resource implications of this?

Analysis of Length of Service

The analysis of length of service also gives insights into the processes
which underlie decisions by individuals to leave jobs or to stay in them .

Exercise 5
Figure 2.3 depicts the length of service of middle managers in Colin's Cars. From
the graph you can see that middle managers are relatively new to their jobs . Why
should this be a potential threat to the success of the company ?

~
'"
OJ
'"
C

'"
E
"0
~

o 5 10
Length of service (years)

Fig 2.3 Length of service of middle managers in Colin's Cars

Analysis of Labour Turnover

If we analyse the behaviour of leavers in an organisation then we find
that the shape of the length-of-service distribution for leavers (called the
'completed length of service' or CLS) takes the same shape in almost all
cases .
16 Personnel Management

Induction crisis

Cl
c
I
·S
'"
.91
I/)
Q)

~
o
a. Second induction crisis
E
Q)

'0
cf.

o x Y
Length of service of leavers (months)

Fig 2.4 The process of labour turnover

Soon after the day on which the individual joins the organisation there
comes an 'induction crisis'. The new employee has uncertainties about
the decision to take the job. At this point, depending on a number of
factors such as the availability of jobs elsewhere, a decision to leave may
occur.
The induction crisis occurs anything from one month to two years after
engagement, depending on such variables as the nature of the job and
the organisation. If there is no severance , a period of mutual accommo-
dation and adjustment goes on . Both management and the employee
modify their expectations of the other. This period is given the term
'differential transit'.
A second induction crisis may occur from two to five years after the
date of engagement. (It is often very small and sometimes may not occur
at all.) In other words, after there has been mutual accommodation, there
may still be feelings of concern . The new employee may have doubts
about future job or career prospects or other aspects of work . Manage-
ment may have concerns about the employee's performance . If this
second induction crisis - the small peak - is surmounted, then the final
period of 'settled connection' takes place during which the individual is
much less likely to leave .
It is interesting to note that similar-shaped curves are obtained for
most jobs or organisations, although the exact positions of 'X' and 'Y' in
Figure 2.4 vary for particular organisations and jobs.
 Planning for People in Organisations 17

Other Measures of Labour Turnover

Labour turnover index Many companies use index measures of labour
turnover, which express the number of Ieavers or 'stayers' as a percent-
age of those employed.
The labour turnover index is defined as:

Number of leavers in a time period x 100

average number employed during the period

More accurately this might be referred to as an index of labour wastage

since it is concerned only with the process whereby employees leave the
organisation (wastage) and not with the leaving process and subsequent
recruitment (turnover). You should also note that the choice of time
period is left to the user. (A year or a month is common.) The average
number employed is usually the average of those employed at the end,
i.e.
average number employed =
number employed at start of period + number employed at end of period
Total number of employees

Exercise 6
Lyttlewood Enterprises has 2350 employees at the beginning of January and
2450 at the beginning of February. During January 725 people left.
Average number employed in January = (2350 + 2450) -+- 2 = 2400
What is the turnover index for January?

Labour stability index Another index focuses on the stability of labour.

The labour stability index is defined as:

number of staff with more than x periods of service

x 100.
number employed x periods ago

It is customary to use this index for periods of one year.

Exercise 7
Smith 's Supermarkets employ 250 staff of which 200 have more than one year's
service . The business is contracting . One year ago they employed 300 people.
To calculate the stability index, which figure would you put as the denominator
of the equation?
18 Personnel Management

7
Q;
>
0 6
c
a5
5
0

-
.0
.!!! Average
0 monthlv
"#. turnover

Fig 2.5 Control chart to monitor labour turnover

Using the formula given above it is possible to calculate the stability

index.
Stability index = (200 -i- 3(0) x 100 = 66.6 per cent.
Labour turnover and stability indices can be produced over time for any
group of staff. You could choose to look at a particular department or
factory , or at all the people employed on a certain job . The indices for
such a group then can be monitored over time . Figure 2.5 shows a control
chart which could be produced to mon itor turnover. In this case it would
be sensible to examine the reasons for the sudden and dramatic increase
since October.
It is difficult to be certain of the causes of labour turnover. Often
leavers are asked to complete a form giving their reasons for leaving, or
an 'exit interview' is conducted. Psychologists have suggested that
different reasons than those which are given for leaving cause people to
look for other jobs. Figure 2.6 shows a 'step model' for a sample leaver.

Exercise 8
In Figure 2.6 what was the real reason which caused the individual to look for
another job? Was this the same reason as was given at the exit interview?
 Planning for People in Organisations 19

'I hate 'J'vefound Exit interview:

this boring one with Tmleaving
job'
,
real
more money'
,
for the money'

reason
reason given

Fig 2.6 'Step model' for a sample leaver

Despite the difficulties of ascertaining the 'real' reasons for leaving, it

is useful to analyse labour turnover in this way. A useful classification is:
• dismissal;
• internal transfers (redeployment, promotion or demotion);
• death ;
• sickness or ill-health;
• more money;
• more interesting work;
• pregnancy;
• domestic reasons (such as the move by a spouse to another area of the
country);
• retirement;
• poor relations with a supervisor or workmates.
It is useful to see whether any patterns emerge amongst employees who
leave.

Exercise 9
Suppose Smith's Supermarkets lost ten employees to Lyttlewood Enterprises
within six months . What questions should senior management in Smith's
Supermarkets ask?

This comparison process is important. Comparisons can be made

within a company as well as with other organisations.

Other Human Resource Information

Other analyses of staffing can help us monitor the results of employment
policies. For example, in organisations where care is being taken to
ensure that equal opportunities policies are put into practice, selection
ratios by department or grade will be calculated to measure the propor-
tion of applicants from ethnic minority groups, women and the disabled.
Skills inventories can tell management about available staff skills, some
20 Personnel Management

of which may not be currently in use - for example, employees' use of

foreign languages or computing skills.
Analysis of absenteeism and sickness using time-based ratios , such as:
• average number of days lost per year per employee, or
• number of spells of absence and their duration per year per employee
can be used to identify both 'problem' employees and 'problem' jobs or
departments (by comparison with the average) .
It also will be useful to compute the total number of working days lost
per year due to absence or sickness for departments and for the
organisation as a whole . This statistic, if computed annually, provides a
useful monitoring device , which can be used to help shape policy either
to reduce absence levels or, at least , to plan levels of staffing in such a
way as to cause least disruption to services or production . It may seem
odd to accept sickness or absence but, in some organisations, rates are as
high as 5 per cent per day . To ignore these would result in intolerable
disruption to service delivery or production.

Analysis of Current Staff and Past Trends - Summary

The aim of this analysis in Stage 1 of the human resource planning
process is to evaluate how many and what kinds of staff will be available
in future. As a result a sort of human resource budget can be produced,
as shown in Table 2.1.

Table 2.1 Human resource budget of social workers. 1989

Social workers in post 1989 84

Expected leavers 1989-90 (10%) 8
Retirements (early) 1
9

Net social workers available 75

Sickness (5%) 4
Staff available for work 71

2.3 Stage 2: Analysis of the Organisation's Future Plans

in Human Resource Terms

Exercise 10
Is it true that this stage of the human resource planning process cannot be
carried out until Stage 1 has been completed?
 Planning for People in Organisations 21

At this point we need to ascertain :

• what the organisation's future plans are ; and
• what these plans mean for the numbers of staff required to carry them
out.
Here we are concerned with the corporate or long-range plans which set
the scene for the organisation over a three- to five-year period. Many
organisations have planning systems, while others improvise as they go
along. All that is needed is some statement of work output in quantitat-
ive terms. For example :
• 'sales will be £1,OOO,OOO';or
• 'outpatients will be 25,000 per annum'
The difficulty of corporate planning is the main reason for the problems
associated with this stage of human resource planning . Corporate
conditions are very volatile ; any forecast, no matter how well it interprets
business change, future productivity levels or social influences on the
organisation, will be subject to the recessions or booms of the world
economy .
The task of the human resource planner is to translate corporate plans
into statements of workload and thence into numbers of employees
required. There are techniques which assist the accuracy of this process.

Ratio-trend Analysis
This is the easiest technique since it assumes that the relationship
between the level of production and the number of people employed will
remain roughly constant in future . It is a crude , though sometimes
useful, method. That is, the relationships measured may change in
future. There may be economies of scale as output increases; techno-
logical change is likely to increase productivity per employee. Suppose a
clerical worker can handle 500 inquiries per month and there are 2,500
each month. This suggests that five staff would be employed. However, if
you were computerising the system of dealing with inquiries , you might
expect a 20 per cent increase in efficiency. This would mean that only
four staff would be required. Such factors have to be considered carefully
for each individual case.

Work Study or Organisation and Methods (0 & M) Techniques in

Planning Demand for Human Resources
A refinement of ratio-trend human resource demand forecasting uses
work study and organisation and methods techniques. The output or
sales forecast is converted into a production schedule in the way
suggested above . This is then broken down into department-by-
22 Personnel Management

department, function-by-function or job-by-job work schedules for the

period concerned.
To achieve this involves the analysis of a job into its component parts
through the observation of the performance of a number of workers. An
allowance is made for their different speeds of working in order to arrive
at a standard time, to which are added allowances for relaxation or
recuperation. In this way a forecast of the required staffing levels for
various job categories can be derived .
Often organisations have specialist 0 & M or work study departments
which can gather the information needed to use this method of human
resource demand forecasting. The detail of these techniques is outside
the scope of this book.
Activity sampling is a quick and cheap method of producing standard
data on which to base forecasts of future demand for staff. Sampling of
the activities of a number of workers is continued until the observer feels
that a representative sample has been achieved.
Generally the application of these techniques involves:
• the collection of data about the exact nature of the work being done ;
• measurement of this work and examination of the methods used to
seek improvements;
• comparison of work output between departments , and with other
organisations where relevant.
Assessing future staffing levels using work measurement techniques is a
very worthwhile exercise for repetitive jobs with a high degree of manual
content which does not change frequently .

Managerial Judgement in Planning Demand for Human Resources

It may be unrealistic to assume that the relationship between output or
sales and the number of people employed will remain constant in the
future .

Exercise 11
In your organisation. who might be able to guess with a reasonable degree of
accuracy the number of people who will need to be employed on particular types
of work in future?

Managerial judgement is not without its dangers as a basis for human

resource planning. Managers may not be objective; some may be 'empire
builders'; Therefore the result could be overstaffing. One useful method
is for top management to prepare planning guidelines for departmental
 Planning for People in Organisations 23

managers, possibly acting on the advice of personnel or other specialists .

Managers can be told to think about some of the following:
• replacements for retirements, leavers, transfers and promotions;
• possible improvements in production;
• redeployment of existing manpower;
• planned changes in output levels;
• planned introduction of new methods and equipment;
• planned reorganisation of work;
• the impact of changes in employment law or collective agreements.

2.4 Stage 3. Analysis of the Matches or Mismatches

between Human Resource Supply and Demand Forecasts
The results of the two previous stages of planning the human resource
process can be represented in tabular form.

Table 2.2 The difference between demand for and supply of hospital porters
1989-92

Job category: Porters 1989 1990 1991 1992

Estimated
demand 25 30 35 40

Estimated
supply 20 17 15 10

Difference -5 -13 -20 -30

We now will consider ways of dealing with the mismatches, consid-

ering the two cases - shortages and surpluses - separately.
To decide whether or not a projected shortage of staff was critical to
the achievement of the corporate plan you would need to answer the
following two questions:
1. Is the work undertaken by the staff who are likely to be in shortage
critical to the organisation's future success?
2. Does the gap between supply and demand get wider or narrower as
we get further into the future?
We can define 'critical skills' as follows:
• A skill or job where recruitment is expensive or difficult.
• A skill or job where training or retraining of existing staff is imprac-
tical or costly.
24 Personnel Management

• A skill critical to the effective functioning of the organisation; for

example, salesman in insurance brokerage, or pilots in airlines.
Then we need to see whether there is a clear trend in the development of
staff shortages: that is, whether the projections increase or decrease in a
regular pattern each year. We also need to see whether the absolute
magnitude of the numbers is striking. Generally this would be the case if
the shortage or surplus was more than about 10 per cent of the total staff
employed. In the example for the hospital porters the small numerical
shortage is 20 per cent of the total number of porters employed and there
is a clear trend. It is necessary to look at strategies to deal with such
mismatches.
Here we have discussed an example of a labour shortage. All too often
these days the results of human resource planning reveal that the
organisation will have a future labour shortage.

2.5 Stage 4: Evaluating the Options

If there are likely to be too many staff in a given work area you would
have to consider these options:
• Natural wastage .
• Redundancy (voluntary and compulsory).
• Redeployment (including training, if needed).
• Early retirement.
• Dismissal.
o A freeze on future recruitment.
• Part-time working or job-sharing.
• Elimination of overtime.
• Move to more labour-intensive methods or new products.
• Search for additional or new work.
If there were too few staff the options would be:

• Recruitment.
• Redeployment.
• Promotion or demotion.
• Extension of the contracts of those about to retire.
• Use of freelance, agency or temporary staff.
• Overtime.
• Productivity bargaining.
• Automation or the elimination of jobs .
• Increase capital investment to increase productivity (for example, by
the introduction of new technology).
 Planning for People in Organisations 25

As you can see, there are a number of strategies to deal with each case of
projected labour shortage or surplus. It is important to take into account
the particular nature of the organisation, and of the environment in
which it operates, before embarking on a strategy. Here is an extract
from a document which evaluates the voluntary redundancy option
where a future surplus of staff is projected. First the advantages of this
strategy are assessed.

Voluntary Redundancy - the Options for Mike's Manufacturing

Advantages
I. Avoids compulsory redundancy .
2. Therefore should be acceptable to the trade unions (i.e , the company
has a policy of ' no compulsory redundancy' with the recognised trade
unions) .
3. Will not subsequently damage the ability to recruit.
4. Voluntary redundancy agreement with trade unions already exists.
5. Therefore compensation payments for those who leave are already
agreed .
6. Therefore scheme would be quick to set up and administer.
7. Likely that 5 to 10 per cent of staff will appl y. This is within the target
identified from the forecast of future staff surpluses.
8. Therefore this would give rapid reduction in wage costs.
9. Would allow some recruitment , when necessary.
10. No moral obligation to retrain or place staff who decide to volunteer for
redundancy.
Before examining that part of the document which assessed the disad-
vantages of this strategy, here are a few comments on the use of the
voluntary redundancy option. Many companies, when faced with surplus
staff, use a strategy which combines natural wastage with a freeze on
recruitment.

Exercise 12
If a freeze is placed 011 recruitment, turnover invariably falls . Why is this? (Look at
the labour turnover section again.)

Natural wastage, together with a recruitment freeze, may cause

certain departments to suffer dramatically, and affect work capacity.
Careful monitoring and control are necessary to manage the process.
The use of dismissal as a strategy for dealing with staff surpluses may
seem an odd choice but overstaffed companies often 'toughen up' on
offenders as a means of reducing staff. In these cases care must be taken
26 Personnel Management

to ensure that the unfair dismissal legislation is not breached (see

Chapter 14, pp .186-94.)
The move to labour-intensive methods may also seem strange, but one
hi-fi manufacturer with surplus craftsmen modified a product to be
hand-finished (raising the price accordingly) and thus improved produc-
tivity.
Taking on additional work is another ploy . A firm of travel agents
introduced related services such as travel insurance and travel goods as a
way of more effectively using staff.

Voluntary Redundancy - the Options for Mike's Manufacturing

Disadvantages
1. Only the good staff may decide to leave.
2. Some departments or units may be depleted.
3. Costly option, since agreed compensation payments are greater than those
laid down in legislation (see Chapter 1).
4. It is not absolutely certain how attractive the scheme is to employees.
5. Difficulties of dealing with staff who volunteer for redundancy whom the
company does not wish to lose.

Most of these points are self-explanatory. However, the option of raising

retirement age (in selected cases) may need a little more discussion . An
airline with pilot shortages did this, and obtained an average of three to
five years' additional service from them . This gave a breathing space to
train replacements.

Voluntary Redundancy - the Options for Mike's Manufacturing

Conclusions and Recommendations

Invite applications from employees for discussion purposes and the collec-
tion of data. Then make a more rational decision , based on better informa-
tion on 'take-up' and costs.
Examining the possible solutions for human resource problems and
analysing them carefully is a creative and exciting process which often
pays dividends. It should be emphasised that what works in practice will
depend upon the nature of the organisation .

2.6 Stage 5: Selection of Best Alternatives and Implemen-

tation as the Human Resource Plan with Monitoring and
Review Procedures
The strategies most likely to assist the organisation to achieve its
corporate plans should be written up as the human resource plan and
 Planning for People in Organisations 27

Revise

Review and
monitor
results and
assumptions

Fig 2.7 Human resource planning - monitoring and review procedures

analysed and costed in more detail. Clearly , like the corporate plan itself,
it is based on assumptions or estimates which subsequently may prove
wrong . Some of the scepticism about the value of human resource
planning has arisen because of the failure to monitor trends, check
assumptions and treat the plan as a flexible document not as a 'tablet of
stone'.
The best way to consider a human resource plan is perhaps as a
scenario or picture of what is felt to be likely to happen in the future
based on the best evidence today . To operate without some kind of
planning of human resources is at best risky and at worst destructive for
the organisation in any kind of competitive or resource-limited environ-
ment. Therefore it is important that personnel specialists demonstrate its
value. To do this, identify a problem relevant to the organisation which is
capable of being investigated with available data , techniques and exper-
tise. If the results of the exercise are presented to those who can act on its
conclusions, the value of the contribution of human resource planning to
the resolution of real business problems will become apparent and will
emphasise the necessity to utilise it more widely.
3 Recruitment and Selection

In this chapter we concentrate on the process of matching the character-

istics of individuals to the demands of jobs. This is the purpose of
recruitment and selection. As in other areas of personnel management
you will find that unfortunately there are no easy prescriptions for
success. Much depends on the knowledge and skills of those involved,
whether line managers or personnel specialists . In addition, as you
should recall from earlier in the book, any personnel technique needs to
be relevant to and effective within the context of a particular organis-
ation. Towards the end of the chapter you will be encouraged to examine
how you might evaluate the effectiveness of recruitment and selection in
an organisation .

3.1 How to Start

Suppose you opened a shop and decided that you needed an assistant.
Before attempting to recruit someone to fill the position , you would need
to answer these questions:
• What job do I want to be done?
• What kind of person do I think will do it most effectively ?
• How can I find some people who might be suitable to fill the vacancy?
• What methods should I use to decide which one would best fit my
requirements?
In broad terms the stages to be followed can be expressed as:
• defining the job to be done ;
• defining the characteristics of the ideal candidate;
• attracting candidates;
• selecting candidates.
Before examining each in more detail it is necessary to emphasise the
importance of good selection. 'Square pegs in round holes' are not
conducive to effective or efficient management.
In the 1930s, when queues of unemployed people waited at the factory
gates for work, foremen would choose, 'You, you and you'. Since then
recruitment and selection techniques have developed in ways which help
 Recruitment and Selection 29

to give a better basis for decision-making. However, predictions about

other people are subject to error. All recruiters run the risk of making
mistakes.
Recruitment and selection must also be fair. Equality of access to jobs
regardless of race, sex or disability is underpinned by legislation on the
rights of prospective employees (see Chapter 5). While equal opportunities
policies and practices are desirable on ethical grounds, they also contri-
bute to effective employment practice: unfair discrimination reduces the
number of potentially suitable candidates, thereby increasing the effort
and the cost of recruitment.

3.2 Stage 1: Defining the Job to be Done

You might find it useful to draw a flowchart to assist you to define the
steps necessary to complete this stage effectively. It should resemble the
chart below.

Fig 3.1 Defining the job to be done

Should the
vacancy be filled?

I
YES
Take steps to
Do I have the authority to
cover the work
ill the job?
in other ways

YES .... 1
I
1 Request
authorisation
I
I
r----~

• Vacancy
authorised

YES NO
I
Does it need
updating or
amending?
I
I
Y~S NO
30 Personnel Management

The need to link the early stages of recruitment and selection with the
human planning process cannot be over-emphasised. When an employee
leaves there is an opportunity to assess whether the job needs to be done
at all or whether the work usefully could be reorganised.

Job Analysis
The tasks which comprise the job must be analysed . This process is
known as job analysis. The main steps involved are :
• identifying the tasks involved in the job ;
• examining how, when and why tasks are performed;
• identifying the main duties and responsibilities of the job;
• noting the physical, social and financial conditions of the job .
Job analysis is a technique which generates basic information about
the nature of tasks undertaken by employees. It can be used in many
areas of personnel work . Five such areas are :
• Appraisal (see Chapter 7).
• Training systems (see Chapter 8).
• Payment systems (see Chapter 12).
• Job evaluation (see Chapter 12).
• Disciplinary interviews (see Chapter 14).
Using job analysis you should be able to define the overall purpose or the
role of the job in the organisation and the main tasks which the
incumbent must carry out.
Management should ensure that clear, concise and accurate job
descriptions are available for every position from that of the most senior
executive to the most junior clerical worker. Where jobs require contact
with the public or supervision of other staff , it is useful to make explicit
the implications for post-holders of other human resource policies. For
example:

The job holder must carry out the tasks detailed above in compliance with
the Company's equal opportunities policy.

Accurate job descriptions are the basic building blocks on which

advertisements, interviews and other aspects of fair selection are con-
structed.
Here is a job description for the post of assistant children 's librarian.
 Recruitment and Selection 31

Greenfields County Council

Libraries Department
Job title : Assistant Children 's Librarian .
Responsible to: Assistant Librarian (Children's and Schools' Services) .
Purpose: To assist in the effective provision by the Council of children 's and
schools' library services.
1 General duties
1.1 Undertake such professional duties as may be required by the Assi-
stant Librarian (children's and schools' services).
1.2 Assist in the promotion of the use of the library service and reading
with young people and parents.
1.3 Participate in children 's book selection and reviewing.
1.4 Assist with the organisation of in-library activities as may be directed
by senior children's and schools' library staff.
1.5 Participate in the activities of the schools' library service.
1.6 Undertake duties at any of the Council's libraries as directed by the
Assistant Librarian (children's and schools' services).
2 Staff
2.1 Control and supervise the work of non-professional staff in the ab-
sence of senior colleagues .
2.2 Assist with the promotion of effective on-the-job training .
3 Resources
3.1 Display a professional interest in current resources appropriate to the
Childrens' Schools' Services and submit suggestions for additions to
stock through the Senior Children's Librarian.
3.2 Assist readers in the effective use of library resources .
4 Contacts
4.1 Assistant Librarian Children's and Schools' Services, Senior Children's
Librarian .
4.2 Teachers.
4.3 Playgroups and play scheme organisers and staff.
4.4 Children and parents.
5 Work origin
5.1 Children and parents.
5.2 Teachers.
5.3 Senior Children's and Schools' Services library staff.
5.4 Playgroups.
5.5 Parents' associations.
5.6 Other departments and groups interested in work with children .
6 Work disposal
Same categories.
7 Circumstances
The post-holder will be located at the main library in the centre of Blank-
town. There are also seven branch libraries in the surrounding district. The
job holder will be required to work at these branch libraries from time to
time.
32 Personnel Management

You would find it useful to work through this job description to assess
whether it gives all the information required to begin the recruitment and
selection process. If you do this you will find that some information is
lacking. Many local authorities have equal opportunities policies and
therefore some reference to the need to ensure that efforts are made to
meet the needs of children from all sections of the community would be a
likely addition to the job description . Also , though we are told that the
job holder reports to the Assistant Librarian (Children's and Schools'
Services) we do not know to whom this latter employee reports. In
section 5.3 of the job description we are told that the tasks to be
undertaken by the incumbent of this job may originate from 'Senior
Children's and Schools' Services staff . However, we do not know how
these positions are related to the one described here . An organisation
chart to show the staffing of the libraries would be helpful as a supporting
document. In addition the 'circumstances' section is rather vague . What
are the hours of work? What are the main features of the libraries
service ? Since the next stage of the process involves the development of a
pen picture of the ideal candidate for the job, it would be useful to have
an idea of the context of the job and of its non-material rewards.
Thus, the 'circumstances' section might continue as follows:

7.1 Working conditions. Old main library . Small offices. Post-holder will
share an office with the other Assistant Children' s Librarian .
7.2 Supervision received. No close supervision . Main check is absence of
compla ints from originators of work .
7.3 Consequences of error. Receivers of service may be unaware of full range
of services provided; delays in supply of book s and teacher difficulties in
schools may result.
7.4 Difficulties. Growing volume of work and enquiries. Pressure on schools'
service in particular because of financial constraints on schools' ability to
purchase new books .
7.5 Satisfaction. Interactions with children , young people and other users.

To be useful, job descriptions need to be full and accurate reflections of

work done. A key task for personnel specialists and line managers is to
ensure that job descriptions are regularly updated.

Exercise 1
List six features of an effective job description.
 Recruitment and Selection 33

3.3 Stage 2: Defining the Ideal Candidate

Having prepared a job description for the vacancy under consideration,
we now need to match the characteristics of the job with the character-
istics of candidates who may apply for it. In order to undertake this
process satisfactorily, we need a picture of the ideal candidate. Such a
picture is called a 'person specification'. The aim of the person specifica-
tion is to define the knowledge, skills and experience required to
successfully execute the tasks summarised in the job description. Hence
criteria listed in the person specification must be related strictly to job
requirements. Decisions about candidates' suitability must be based on
an assessment of their characteristics as compared with those laid out in
the person specification .
Here is an example of a person specification for a personnel officer
specialising in the recruitment of professional and managerial staff:

Job title : Personnel Off icer-Executive Recruitment

Essential Desirable

Physical Well dressed

make-up Clear speech
Articulate
Good general health
Attainments
Education Degree or equivalent qualification Member of the Institute
of Personnel Management
Training Selection testing course
Job Three years' experience of Work in a similar industry/
experience recruitment selection and more organisation
general aspects personnel work
General Good verbal reasoning ability Good numerical ability
intelligence Logical thought
Ability to analyse candidates'
skills. etc . and relate these to job
requirements
Specialised Good oral and written
aptitudes communication skills
Interests Evidence of some non-work Social activities
related interests
34 Personnel Management

Disposition
Acceptability Able to get on well with people
of many different backgrounds
Empathy with the requirements
of the equal opportunity policy
Independence Able to make decisions within
the recruitment budget
Influence Able to convince managers of
the value of systematic and fair
recruitment and selection
methods
Objectivity Able to make sound judgements
about job applicants
Circumstances Free to spend occasional nights
away from home
Clean driving licence

This specification is based upon Rodger's Seven Point Plan. (Professor Alec
Rodger , The Seven Point Plan, National Institute of Industrial Psychology,
1952).

The 'Seven Point Plan'

1. Physical make -up - health , physique , appearance, hearing and
speech.
2. Attainments - educational and occupational attainments and expe-
rience .
3. General intelligence - ability to reason quickly and accurately, to
learn quickly and to handle complex ideas .
4. Specialised aptitudes - manual dexterity, mechanical aptitude , verbal
or numerical facility, artistic aptitudes.
S. Interests - intellectual, practical and constructional, physically active,
social and artistic .
6. Disposition - personality characteristics such as steadiness and self-
reliance, acceptability to others, relationships with others.
7. Circumstances - domestic circumstances.
Many organisations use this framework to assist in the systematic
delineation of the myriad of requirements, which may comprise the
profile of the ideal candidate for the job . However, those concerned with
the implementation of equal opportunity policies must scrutinise the
framework provided by the plan as well as the detailed content of any
personnel specification to ensure that all requirements specified for entry
to a job are relevant to the demands of effective job performance . It is
common to express experience requirements in years, as in this example .
This may be indirect discrimination against female candidates whose
 Recruitment and Selection 35

'track records ' are broken by periods of child-rearing. To guard against

this it would be helpful to indicate what the good candidate would have
been doing during those three years. If this can be done only in very
vague terms , then the odd s are that the requirement is invalid. Indeed , it
may be preferable to avoid the use of the 'job experience' heading
altogether relying on the specification of the knowledge and skills of the
successful candidate.
The 'circumstances' heading may be likely to lead to unfair discrimina-
tion . Employers may be tempted to exclude candidates with family
responsibilities. The yardstick must be the requirements of the job. In
this case it is not unfair to stipulate that candidates must be able to spend
occasional nights away from home, if this is vital to effective job
performance.
A further danger, when writing a person specification , is that it may be
expressed in the writer 's own image or as an expression of the perceived
characteristics of a previous successful incumbent. This is particularly
dangerous where minority group members are very unlikely to have held
the job previously - black sales representatives or female maintenance
engineers, for example .
Many of those involved in recruitment and selection argue that the
'desirable' and 'essential' columns of a personnel specification are
necessary in order to distinguish between those features of candidates
deemed absolutely essential and those which provide the 'icing on the
cake ' which the employer is likely to be able to find within a pool of job
applicants at times of labour surplus. While this may be a sensible aid in
sifting large numbers of applications, it is more within the spirit of an
equal opportunity policy to specify only the essential attributes of the
successful candidate , since these should be easy to justify with reference
to core job demands.
As we shall see in Chapter 5, the law does not give the disabled the
same rights as ethnic minoritie s and women in the area of discrimination
in access to jobs . However, fair employment practice should include the
review of person specifications for potential discrimination against this
group. Sadly there is an implicit tendency to assume that all suitable
applicants are able-bodied. It is important to check that job requirements
are strictly job-related. For example, a requirement that applicants must
have high manual dexterity because the job involves the manipulation of
objects may lead selectors automatically to reject disabled applicants.
However, many such people have found ways to minimise the effects of
their disability and may be able to cope well. Also it may be possible to
overcome such requirements by obtaining special tools or equipment on
permanent loan to that individual from the Disablement Advisory
Service.
36 Personnel Management

A good piece of guidance to those writing person specifications is that

they should be as precise as specifications for machinery .

3.4 Stage 3: Attracting Candidates

Having written a person specification , it is necessary to encourage some
people to become applicants.
Possible sources of applicants for jobs can be categorised as:
• Internal advertisements or analysis of personnel records.
• External advertisements.
• Employment agencies - private or public.
• Schools, colleges or other institutions providing training courses .
• Casual callers or writers of letters.
• Recommendations from existing employees.

Exercise 2
Equal access to jobs is a fundamental principle of equal employment practices.
Which two of the sources of applicants listed above are likely to involve breach
of this principle?

Internal advertising and its effect on the implementation of an equal

opportunity policy needs very careful attention. For example, many
organisations employ large numbers of women in secretarial and clerical
jobs . These are likely to be 'cul-de-sac' jobs from which promotion is
unlikely. By contrast relatively few women are employed in highly
graded professional, managerial or technical occupations. Is it then more
appropriate as part of equal opportunity policy implementation to
advertise for these more senior posts internally or externally? A decision
on this should be made only after a detailed analysis of the workforce and
of relevant personnel practices .

Advertisements
As well as advertisements in the published media, employers use radio,
television and computerised information systems such as Oracle and
Prestel. Here we are concerned with the principles of effective recruit-
ment advertising. These can be established by answering the following
questions.

Where am I likely to find potential candidates?

You need to know where candidates are likely to be currently working or
undergoing education or training, and where they live. Some candidates
 Recruitment and Selection 37

will be found in the local labour market , because their skills can be used
by many employers; those who occupy specialist positions are part of a
national labour market. There would be little point in a local solicitor
advertising for a typist in a national newspaper!

How can I attract them to work for me?

A useful way to answer this is to put yourself in the candidate's shoes.
What would be the attractions of this particular job? For example,
imagine that you are a sixteen -year-old schoolleaver thinking of applying
for a job in a supermarket as a checkout operator. The details you would
require before accepting the job would be likely to include :
• Earnings (including any bonus).
• Perks , e.g. discount on goods, overalls, canteen, other staff facilities.
• Hours of work .
• Holidays.
Other information which you may like to have would include :
• Company name, size, location, etc.
• Conditions of work , rush hours , quiet times.
• Training.
• Promotion prospects.
• Job security .
• Notice periods.
Designing a recruitment advertisement is a marketing exercise in
which the preferences of potential candidates should be compared with
the features of the job (taken from the job description). Those aspects
which are most likely to appeal can be emphasised.
If there are significant problems in recruiting candidates who equate to
the requirements of the personnel specification, it is useful to consider
the specific advantages and disadvantages of the job to identify the
selling points. Additionally it is helpful if a recruitment advertisement
contains a brief profile of the ideal applicant.
There are no prizes for writing advertisements which attract the largest
possible number of candidates. The aim should be to recruit the right
quality of candidates. If the characteristics of the ideal candidate are '
succinctly expressed, then only suitable candidates are likely to apply.
This should cut out some of the wasted effort involved in responding to a
vast number of applicants, most of whom are unsuitable or marginal.
Five attributes of an effective advertisement are:
• A compelling headline.
• Interesting content.
38 Personnel Management

• Clear, unambiguous information about the job and the likely can-
didate .
• Information on how to apply .
• Eye-catching design and typography .

External Recruitment Agencies

Several options are open to organisations that choose to use an external
agency for recruitment purposes:
• government agencies - in the UK , the Job Centre or Professional and
Executive Register (PER);
• private employment agencies;
• selection consultants to provide a shortlist of candidates ;
• executive search consultants or 'head-hunters' , who will contact
suitable candidates direct;
• advertising agencies to design and place advertisements.
Some of these options can be expensive . Selection consultants can charge
up to 20 per cent of the annual salary of the job to be filled. However ,
those who use them often argue that they are cost-effective .
If employment agencies are used , their sources of applicants should be
questioned as well as the ways in which they undertake initial screening
to ensure that unfair discrimination doe s not occur through their actions.

Exercise 3
List six factors which influence the choice of a recruitment channel or source of
applicants .

3.5 Stage 4: Selecting Candidates

Again it is useful to draw a flowchart for this stage of the recruitment and
selection process, as in Figure 3.2 . Variations are possible depending on
the requirements of the organisation. For example , medical examina-
tions may be used for older applicants, where job s are particularly
physically demanding and where safety is vital (e .g. airline pilots) . In
other cases medical history questionnaires are often sufficient. A further
area of difference may be that of references. The important point to gain
from the exercise lies in the design of a systematic assessment process.
 Recruitment and Selection 39

Fig 3.2 Flowchart of the selection process

Exercise 4
What objective is the employer trying to achieve in the selection process?

Shortlisting
For many jobs it is possible to eliminate the majority of candidates
without even seeing them. Letters of application , curricula vitae and,
above all, application forms can be used as screening devices. Letters of
40 Personnel Management

application and c. v.s. are less likely to be vague if the advertisement is

specific about the nature of the job and the person required to perform
it; nevertheless, there are usually more problems in matching informa-
tion thus received from applicants than if it is presented on a well-
designed application form .
By now you should be used to the notion that recruitment and
selection techniques should be designed with an eye to the nature of the
job and of the organisation . An application form is no different. For
reasons of cost and simplicity most personnel practitioners find it
adequate to use three or so basic types of form - for manual workers,
routine non-manual jobs , and professional and managerial occupations.
You may find it useful to look at job advertisements in your local
newspaper and to telephone a few organisations for application forms.
Three types of information which all forms require are :
• personal details - name, address , date of birth, etc.;
• education ;
• job history or work experience .
Other details may be required depending on the type of job and
organisation .
Applicants must be asked only for personal information which is
directly relevant to job requirements. Questions about marital status,
numbers of children or place of birth are potentially unfairly discrimina-
tory against women or members of ethnic minorities and should not be
available to selectors. However, such data are needed to monitor the
implementation of equal opportunity policies (see Chapter
2, pp.12-14). To cope with the possibility of conflict here, many
employers ask job applicants to complete a detachable slip describing
their gender and ethnic origin . This is treated as confidential and
separated from the rest of the application form prior to the consideration
of candidates.
Care should be taken to ensure that the application form is not used as
part of the selection process in an unfair manner. If literacy is a
requirement of the job, this should be made explicit. Form-filling skills
should be required only where they are job-related.

Interviewing
Nearly all selection procedures involve an interview, a fact that seems to
be accepted or tolerated despite research evidence which casts doubt on
both the reliability and the validity of this selection method. The
interview provides many opportunities for stereotypes and prejudices to
be used by selectors. The behavioural characteristics of the interview are
summarised in Figure 3.3.
 Recruitment and Selection 41

Interviewer Interviewee

Individual Age , education, Age, education,

attributes religion, class, religion, class,
status, appearance, status , appearance,
sex, race, etc . J sex, race, etc.

Behavioural Orientations, Orientations,

characteristics motives , motives,
attitudes, attitudes,
expectations, expectations,
perceptions, perceptions,
needs, needs,
values, etc. values, etc.

Interview Faulty listening, Faulty listening

techniques questioning, responding,
motivating, informing.
recording,
responding ,
informing .

•
Presumed direction of influence

Fig 3.3 The behavioural characteristics of the interview

Distortions of perception are particularly likely when interviewing

people of different social background, culture or gender. Since their
roots are likely to be deep in the selector's psyche, they are likely to be
difficult to eradicate. However, being aware of the nature of such
psychological processes should be helpful.
The prevalence of race discrimination in selection may be related to
the immediate visibility of the candidate's colour and the negative
response of many interviewers to this. Similarly, black candidates and
women (where the selector is male and white) are unlikely to benefit
from the 'assumed similarity effect' where an interviewer establishes
common ground with the candidate in certain ways and generalises this
to other areas. This may be a particular problem for women and black
people seeking to enter areas of work where in the past they have been
few in number. Stereotyping involves assigning candidates to a class or
category and then assuming behaviour characteristics associated with
that group. For example , a belief that women are unreliable or black
42 Personnel Management

people dishonest is likely to lead to the categorisation of such individuals

and their consequent rejection .

Basic guidelines to help interviewers to avoid unfair discrimination in

selection include:
1. All questions must be clearly related to job requirements (as
described in the person specification) .
2. Questions about family commitments or marriage and family plans
should not be asked since they are likely to discriminate unfairly
against female applicants.
3. Questions should not be asked to test ethnic minority candidates'
understanding of UK customs or to check their fluency in English
unless these are bona fide job requirements.
4. Where a job involves necessary unsocial or irregular hours, the full
facts should be presented to all interviewees. Assumptions should
not be made about the likelihood that women are less able to cope
with the working hours. All candidates should be asked whether
they have understood the requirements and will be able to conform
to them , if appointed.
5. Interviewers should be trained on the effects which generalised
assumptions about race or gender or marriage can have on selection
decisions together with the relevant legal requirements.
6. Interviewers must keep interview notes, in order to make a fair
comparison between candidates .
7. Reasons for rejection and selection both at the shortlisting stage and
after interview must be recorded for later incorporation into the
selection-monitoring process. These also should be available to
candidates if required .
8. Performance of individual interviewers should be monitored by
themselves and the organisation to ascertain the degree to which
particular selectors are likely to select or reject 'minority' group
candidates.
9. Attention also needs to be given to the less formal aspects of
selection . Minority group candidates may be disadvantaged by
lunchtime sessions in the pub aimed at the assessment of the
candidate 's social prowess. This is likely to be exacerbated if
discussion at that time focuses on leisure interests.
These guidelines are merely a pointer to good interview practice ,
emphasising that equal opportunity policies provide a framework for the
development of good personnel practice.
 Recruitment and Selection 43

Questioning techniques
'Effective interviewers ask good questions.' This is one of the most
important interviewing skills.

Open questions One of the key purposes of selection interviewing is to

elicit information to enable the candidate's characteristics to be matched
against the personnel specification :
• 'Why did you apply for this job?'
• 'Why did you choose that course?'
Closed questions These are questions to which the only answer can be,
'Yes', 'No' or 'I don 't know' . They may be used to check information or
to get a definite response quickly. Effective interviewers ensure their use
is restricted. An interview which relies heavily on these is rather wooden .
A further danger is that such questions may push the candidate into false
polarisations. For example the question , 'Did you enjoy your college
course?' may provoke the answer, 'Yes', where the reality could be more
complex . More garrulous or helpful candidates may expand the answer
without prompting but the interviewer should be aware that control of
the interview is being relinquished.
Probing questions Sometimes the candidate's answers will lack depth or
clarity : 'I left that job because 1 felt the career prospects were non-
existent.' A probing question following this might be: 'Why do you say
that?' or 'What kind of career development did you want?' Sometimes
the response to such a question will be slow. The interviewer should not
rephrase the question or help the candidate in any other way. The time
taken to reply probably indicates that it is an effective probing question.
Multiple questions If the interviewer had asked both my probing ques-
tions at the same time this would have been a multiple question. These
are faulty since the candidate can choose which question to answer.
Again the interviewer is in danger of surrendering control of the
situation.
Linking questions or statements An interview should be a conversation
with a purpose. One useful way of achieving this aim is for the
interviewer to indicate , after completing a particular area of questioning,
that it is time to look at another topic: 'Now that we've discussed your
work experience, can we have a look at your activities outside work?'
Leading questions These should be avoided in selection interviews since
they are likely to feed the interviewer's own prejudices and desire to
confirm early impressions: 'We are anxious to appoint someone who is
good at dealing with the public. You'd be all right there , wouldn't you?'
What fool is going to deny this?
44 Personnel Management

Problem-centred questions You may wish to gain an impression of the

likely response of the candidate to particular situations: 'Could you tell
me about the most difficult custom er you had to deal with , when you
were doing that Saturday job ?' Such questions are very useful if relevant
to the job in question and the y can realistically be answered by the
interviewee.
Discriminatory questions These are illegal under anti-discrimination
legislation (see Chapter 5) since they indicate an intention to dis-
criminate on grounds of sex, marital status or race. Managers should
ensure that all questions are job related: 'Are the hours required by this
job likely to cause you any problems?'
Indirect questions If candidates are asked , 'Do you get on with other
people?' control of the interview is being passed to the interviewee. It is
probably better to ask about relationships with fellow workers or friends
or for information on behaviour in particular circumstances. The inter-
viewer can judge the applicants' relationships with others.

Exercise 5
Below is a list of questions which might be asked in a selection interview . What
kind of question is each one? Could they be rephrased in any way for greater
effe ctiveness?
1. 'Did you leave school in 1969?'
2. 'Did you get your professional qualification in 1973 and then decide that it
was time to get a better job?'
3. 'W hat made you decide to become an architect ?'
4. 'You said that you disliked your first job. Why was that ?'
5. 'I see that you spent three years working in West Africa. That'd be long
enough for anyone, wou ldn't you say?'
6. 'W hat wou ld you do if your spaceship crash-landed on the moon ?'
7. 'How good are you at making difficult decisions?'

Stress Interviews
These attempt to simulate the stress generated by the job situation in
order to assess whether the candidate would be able to cope. Some
interviews for managerial positions are structured in this way. The
problems of validity and reliability discussed earlier lead me to be
sceptical about this approach. Indeed, with some candidates, they may
be counter-productive. A friend of mine was shown into an office for an
interview. Behind a desk sat a man obscured from sight by the newspaper
he was reading. My friend waited. Presumably there was an attempt to
create stress by the ambiguity of the situation. My friend was immensel y
irritated and left. Would he have been suitable for the job ? Could an
 Recruitment and Selection 45

interviewer make an accurate judgement from his reaction to this

situation? I doubt it?

Interview Structure
To establish rapport early in the interview, it is useful to start the
questioning in the candidate's 'home territory', for example asking for a
description of the most recent job. Many experienced interviewers say
that they have difficulty in ensuring that they always cover all the
relevant ground during an interview. A checklist based, for example, on
the headings of the 'sev en point plan' or of the personnel specification is
helpful. This may then form a basis for the interview structure. Details
about the job can be given after obtaining information about the
candidate. Time should be allowed for questions from the candidate.

Panel interviews
In the public sector in the United Kingdom , it is common to use panel
interviews where a candidate faces several interviewers at once.
Opinions differ as to whether these are more or less valid than one-to-
one interviews. Broadly, the following principles should be observed:
• All participants should have a genuine claim to be involved.
• All interviewers should be skilled and experienced.
• Proper planning and co-ordination is vital.
• It is probably better to use a 'tight' structure, where each interviewer
takes a particular role and is achieved through the chain.

The Don'ts of Interviewing

Interviewers should not :
• keep the interviewee waiting ;
• interview without systematic preparation and planning;
• allow the interview to be interrupted ;
• ask trick, leading, multiple or discriminatory questions or too many
closed questions.
• lose control of the interview to the interviewee;
• fail to give the candidate information about the job;
• take copious notes during the interview;
• display bias or prejudice ;
• talk too much (probably not more than one-third of the interview
time);
• allow the candidate to gloss over important points.
This list is not exhaustive and some of the points overlap.
46 Personnel Management

Selection Testing
Selection tests are used to provide a standardised, reliable, objective
measure of applicants' skill. The evidence suggests that, properly used,
they are of considerable value in predicting job performance.

Tests of Capacity
Some jobs require the use of specialist skills. For example, aptitude tests
have been devised to test the capacity of potential computer pro-
grammers. Manual dexterity tests are used to suit the demands of various
jobs . These often consist of timed runs on work samples. Other tests of
capacity may be more general. For example, many tests are concerned
with mental agility. Other tests of capacity have been devised to measure
clerical, mechanical and spatial abilities. The degree to which a candidate
possesses a particular aptitude can be discerned by comparing test
performance with norms for the relevant occupational group .

Tests of Personality and Attitude

These are the most controversial psychometric tests. It would be of
enormous assistance to the personnel practitioner if valid and reliable
tests were readily available to support interview data . This is not the
case. Some tests show considerable promise but require highly developed
interpretative skills.
Recently tests have had to be carefully scrutinised to ensure that they
are not biased against minority groups. This poses some significant
technical problems to the test constructor, especially where the test is to
be applied to newcomers to a country or to those brought up within a
community of different culture to that of the host society . Hence a
decision to use tests should be very carefully taken. Claims of direct or
indirect discrimination from ethnic minorities or women may be upheld
by industrial tribunals if it can be proved that the test contains culture
or gender bias which is not justified by job requirements (see Chapter 5) .
Four situations in which it might be useful to use selection tests are:
• When large numbers of people must be recruited.
• When as a consequence of the numbers involved the use of tests would
be cost-effective .
• When it is impossible to rely on educational qualifications as a
predictor of job success.
• When sufficient time is available to validate the tests on the particular
occupational group for which the test has been designed.

Assessment Centres
Among the characteristics which neither the interview nor some psycho-
metric tests can assess accurately are candidates' social skills, including
 Recruitment and Selection 47

leadership ability. To meet this need, assessment centres have been

developed . These are used principally for in-company selection to
supervisory or managerial posts or to development programmes for entry
to the latter. Since the latter is a major focus for these techniques , they
are covered in more detail in Chapter 9, pp .113-16.

References
Reasons for the use of references in selection include:
• To supplement information elicited by the use of other selection
methods.
• To check the veracity of the candidate's statements.
In practice this area is fraught with problems. Applicants are unlikely to
name referees who will indicate their unsuitability for ajob. Some people
suggest for this reason that references from a previous employer, who is
less likely to gloss over the problem areas, should be used. Will this
always be so? Probably not. Some employers will simply lack awareness
of the job. The more unscrupulous may deliberately mislead, by writing
either a glowing reference about an employee they wish to lose or an
unfavourable one about an employee they wish to retain .
Three ways in which references may be made more reliable are:
• Ask a previous employer for factual information only (dates of
employment, job title , reason for leaving, etc .) .
• Check doubtful information by telephone .
• Provide a structure or short questionnaire for the referee to follow.

3.6 The Follow-up Process

Once the candidate has started work , those involved in recruitment and
selection are tempted to heave a sigh of relief and turn to other
problems. This is unwise . Two types of follow-up system should be
designed:
• individual follow-up or induction (see Chapter 4) ;
• evaluation of the recruitment and selection process to ensure that
mistakes are avoided in future.

Evaluation Procedures
It is necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of the recruitment and
selection process:
• To seek improvements in policies and procedures.
• To calculate costs . Recruitment and selection are an expensive part of
personnel management practice .
48 Personnel Management

• To provide feedback into human resource planning. For example, it

may be difficult to fill certain jobs; this will require questions to be
answered about the nature of the jobs and of the people required to
perform them.
• To ensure that unfair discrimination is not taking place.
Rigorous evaluation of the effectiveness of procedures will provide
useful information. However, it must be emphasised that this is a difficult
exercise . An example will indicate some possible reasons for this. If a
company recruits graduates and a large proportion leave within a year ,
where does the fault lie? In the recruitment and selection process? In the
training programme? In the nature of the tasks they are required to
perform? In the salaries paid? Or may the reason be demand for their
skills elsewhere in the labour market? Evaluation will need to be in depth
rather than a superficial analysis only of recruitment and selection
procedures and practices.
On p.28 at the beginning of this chapter, we defined the recruitment
and selection process as consisting of four stages :
• defining the job to be done;
• defining the characteristics of the ideal candidate ;
• attracting candidates ;
• selecting candidates.
Procedures need to be designed to evaluate each stage , such as the
following questions:
Stage 1 Is the job description an accurate representation of the tasks
which the job holder performs?
Stage 2 Is it possible to recruit candidates who match the personnel
specification's description of the ideal candidate?
Stage 3 What is the cost of recruitment advertising as a proportion of the
annual payroll? (Costs in different years and in the same year in different
departments will be useful.)
Stage 4 How do assessors' judgements at the time of selection compare
with candidates' actual performance in the job?
Evaluation of recruitment and selection by obtaining the answers to such
questions is a very useful way to get a 'feel' for the validity of the whole
process .

3.7 Managerial Roles in Recruitment and Selection

In Chapter 1 we discussed the respective roles of personnel practitioners
and other members of management in personnel management.
 Recruitment and Selection 49

Exercise 6
List five terms wh ich we used there to describe the role of personnel specialists
in the management of people at work .

Recruitment and selection activities of personnel specialists can be

described in terms of five general roles . An example from each area is
listed below:
Audit Checking to establish that job descriptions supplied by managers
reflect the true nature of the tasks .
Executive Placing advertisements in the local or the national press.
Facilitator Ensuring that line managers and others involved in recruit-
ment and selection have the necessary knowledge and skills to play their
part in this activity effectively.
Consultancy Advice to managers on selection decisions .
Service Providing managers with response rate data on recruitment
advertising to enable joint decisions to be made on the most effective
way to attract a pool of applicants .
4 Introducing the Individual to the
Organisation

4.1 What is Induction?

In this chapter we focus on ,the new employee's early 'life' with the
organisation . This process of entry to jobs is commonly termed 'induc-
tion'. By the end of this chapter you should be familiar with the methods
of helping employees to cope with a new job in a strange organisation.
However, it is also important that you understand the reasons for giving
attention to this stage of employment.
Studies have shown that where attention is given to induction the rate
of labour turnover among new employees is lower. The existence of what
has been termed the 'induction crisis' gives us a rationale for the
development of techniques which aim generally to ease the entry of the
individual into the organisation (see Chapter 2, p.16).

Ways of Reducing the Effects of the Induction Crisis

• Get better information about candidates during recruitment and
selection. This should improve selection decisions .
• Give candidates better information about the job on offer. To some
degree people select themselves for jobs. This may include informa-
tion which will cause candidates to withdraw or to refuse an offer of
employment, should one be forthcoming . Some advertisements for
social workers, for example say: 'Want to be run off your feet ,
overworked, under-appreciated? .. Then join our busy team.' In this
way new recruits at least know what to expect.
• Improve the induction process. (This is covered later in this chapter.)

Should the Induction Crisis be Eliminated?

Many organisations which are resourceful in 'tying people to the
organisation with golden chains' , such as low-cost mortgages or non-
contributory pension schemes, then regret the absence of turnover.
Labour turnover does have positive aspects for the organisation. For
example, it:
• Allows new blood into the organisation .
• Eliminates 'dead wood' .
 Introducing the Individual to the Organisation 51

• Creates opportunities for promotion .

• Reduces labour costs. Often employees who leave are near the top of
the salary scale; new appointees start lower down .
• Creates flexibility for restructuring of work .

4.2 The Induction Process

The aims of the induction process are:
• To make the new employee efficient as quickly as possible .
• To encourage the new employee to become committed to the organis -
ation and thus less likely to leave quickly .
• To familiarise the new employee with the job so that the feeling of
being 'out of place ' is quickly dispelled.
Those who have worked in organisations for some time forget what it felt
like to be new. They take for granted their ways of working, the language
they use at work and the accepted ways of dealing with colleagues,
superiors, subordinates and clients . Departments, committees and other
working groups are frequently referred to by initials.
Recently J have been involved in an organisation with an 'JR' group.
My own background led me to believe that this was an 'industrial
relations group'. J was wrong! 'JR' in this case stood for information
retrieval' - very confusing to the newcomer! Another example of the
'taken-for-granted' nature of organisational life comes from some re-
search J did in the hairdressing industry. A new apprentice in a high-class
salon was asked by a stylist to buy some sandwiches for an important
client from a neighbouring snack bar . She returned with them in a paper
bag and gave them to the client , not realising that this was unacceptable
behaviour. Someone who ' knew the ropes ' would have transferred the
sandwiches to a plate before delivering them! Her embarrassment at this
and other incidents led her to seek other employment.
From such stories as these you should realise the importance of giving
attention to the induction process . New employees usually want to do a
'fair day's work for a fair day's pay'. They want to be accepted by their
colleagues and to feel generally comfortable in the organisation and in
their job. Management wants workers who will quickly become efficient
and committed. The aim of the induction process is to meet the needs of
both parties in a mutually acceptable way.
Though this aim is probably universally applicable, induction pro-
grammes must be designed to fit the characteristics of the job and of its
organisational context. For example very small companies are unlikely to
organise formal induction courses or to give employees printed hand-
52 Personnel Management

books. Nevertheless, attention should be given to the types of informa-

tion required by the new employee.
Imagine that you are a receptionist at Brown 's Hotel. It is your first
day . What questions would you want to ask today as part of the process
of becoming familiar with your job and the company for which you
work? Possible questions might be :
• To whom do I give my income tax form , birth certificate , work permit ,
or any other information which my new employer requires?
• Do I have to sign in when I arrive for work each day, and if so, where?
• From whom do I collect my pay and when?
• Where do I eat my lunch and at what time?
• Do I get a coffee or tea break? When? Who relieves me?
• Where are the toilets and washing facilities?
• Whom do I need to meet to do my job effectively - my boss , heads of
departments in the hotel, etc .?
• Where do I go or whom do I ask for help , if I cannot answer telephone
or other queries?
• How do I operate the hotel switchboard, the word processor and any
other equipment necessary for me to perform my job efficiently?
Whether you would need answers to all these questions depends on the
information given to you during selection and your familarity with similar
work .
To summarise, on the first day it is necessary to ensure that new
employees:
• do not feel lost or foolish ;
• do not endanger them selves or other people because they are not
given vital safety inform ation .
Provided that this is done , there are no other hard-and-fast rules about
this stage of the induction process. It is generally unwise to communicate
a great deal of information orally to new employees at this time. The
stress of the first day in a new environment can be equated with 'culture
shock ' . The danger is that little will be remembered. It is wise to provide
written 'back-up ' to vital information communicated orally, for this
reason . An employee handbook containing the following information is
useful :
• Brief description of the organisation - numbers employed, locations,
products, etc.
• Basic conditions of employment - pay scales , holidays, pension ar-
rangements, hours of work.
• Sickness arrangements - notification, pay, certification.
 Introducing the Individual to the Organisation 53

• Disciplinary and grievance procedures.

• Trade union membership and collective bargaining arrangements.
• Staff purchase arrangements and other 'perks' .
• Travelling and subsistence arrangements.
• Medical and welfare facilities .
• Canteen facilities .
• Health and safety arrangements.
• Education and training policies and facilities .
This list is by no means exhaustive . The content of employee handbooks
varies depending on such organisational characteristics as numbers
employed, jobs performed and managerial policies and practices. Hand-
books need not be glossy and should be written clearly and concisely with
the information needs of the employee as the focus .

4.3 Induction Training

Many organisations run induction courses as a formal mechanism for the
induction of new employees.

Exercise 1
What three factors would the personnel manager of Brown's Hotel have to take
into account in deciding whether or not it would be useful to design a formal
induction training course?

Content and Timing of Induction Training Courses

If it is decided that such a course might be beneficial to some or all new
employees, careful attention must be given to content and timing. A
good starting point is: What does the new entrant want to know and
when? The needs of new entrants differ considerably. For example, new
members of management probably require more detailed information
about organisation structure , policies and practices than will more junior
clerical staff or manual workers. There are probably disadvantages in
arranging for new employees to attend off-the-job induction courses too
early. Initially it is likely that they will be keen to familiarise themselves
with the immediate requirements of the job which they are to perform .
However, in a relatively short time they should be ready to know more
about the organisation in which they work.
Suppose that, as the training officer for Happy Days, you have been
asked to design a one-day induction programme for new employees of
Brown's Hotel. The programme could include:
54 Personnel Management

• The structure of the Happy Days Group and of Brown's Hotel.

• Tour of the hotel.
• Pay arrangements , including sick pay and holiday arrangements.
• Company employment policies.
• Training and promotion practices and opportunities.
• Open forum . (Any questions?)
Having sketched out a design for an induction programme, it will be
necessary to ensure that it fits the needs of new employees. One way of
doing this is to run one or more 'pilot' courses which are carefully
evaluated by both trainees and others with a direct interest in the area.
(For further information on methods of evaluating training programmes
see Chapter 8).
Attention should also be given to the training methods utilised to
convey information to new employees. These usefully could include :
• Film or videotape.
• Tape/slide presentation.
• Written handout supplemented by question and answer session .
• Lecture.

Departmental Induction
A more informal induction process is probably just as important as a
training course. For the new employee it may be far more important, at
least in the initial stages of employment with an organisation, to get to
know one's colleagues and the nature of one's job, than to be given more
general information about the employing organisation. In a large organis-
ation it is likely that the personnel or training department will carry
responsibility for the formal part of the induction process , but line
managers and supervisors should not abdicate responsibility for the less
formal process. New employees should at least be welcomed by their
departmental manager even if - as commonly occurs - the immediate
supervisor is mainly responsible for introducing the !lew employee to the
job and to workmates. In small companies where it would not be
economic to organise a formal induction course , it is even more vital that
someone (probably the supervisor) is responsible for introducing each
new employee to the organisation. A checklist of items to be covered
would be a useful aid to ensure this is carried out effectively.

4.4 Roles in Induction

Line managers, supervisors, fellow workers , personnel and training staff
all have a role to play in the induction of new workers. One activity
which may be carried out by each of these is listed below:
 Introducing the Individual to the Organisation 55

Departmental managers: Welcoming new employees to the department.

Supervisors : Explaining the job to the new employee and providing
support during the initial period.
Fellow workers: Making the new employee feel welcome and comfort-
able in the work group .
Personnel staff: Explaining conditions of employment very early in the
employment of the newcomer.
Training staff: Designing induction courses or other training aids rele-
vant to the needs of new employees.

4.5 A Final Word

Throughout this chapter we have stressed the need to design induction
procedures with the perspective and needs of the new employee in mind .
To ensure that this has been achieved it will be useful to review
systematically the experiences of newcomers and other relevant
employees (for example , supervisors, training and personnel specialists)
in order that unsatisfactory elements can be changed. Many organis-
ations do not do this; there is a plethora of film and video material about
organisations which is either too remote from the newcomer's likely
experience or so facile that it leads only to mockery! New employees
might be prepared to voice such criticisms if only they were asked to
speak!
5 The Law and the Rights of the
New Employee

In order to be able to work within the law so far as employment is

concerned you must understand the basic framework of the English legal
system . Therefore we begin this chapter with an examination of the legal
framework of employee rights in the UK . This is also a vital 'building
block ' for the work that you will do in Chapters 11 and 14. The rest of
this chapter focuses on the ways in which the law influences the rights of
the new employee. We shall examine relevant areas of the law on race
and sex discrimination, the rights of trade union ists, the disabled and
those who have been convicted of crimes . This is followed by a discussion
of the rights and obligations of employers and employees when there is a
contract of employment between them .

5.1 The Legal Framework of Employees' Rights

Employment law contains provisions relating both to collective bargain-
ing, or the rights of employees as trade unionists , and to the rights at
work of individual employees. In this book we are concerned mainly with
the latter area. The collective rights of employees in law are dealt with in
Employee Relations by Chris Brewster (Macmillan Professional Masters ,
1989).
Employees' legal rights are not only created by Acts of Parliament or
statutes. They come also from case law. The English legal system can be
distinguished from that of most other countries by the extent to which
judges and tribunals are bound to follow the decisions of judges in higher
courts unless they feel that the facts of the previous cases were
substantially different . For this reason such judgements are called case
law. Thus, in making decisions , members of tribunals and judges are
bound by decisions made in higher courts; this is known as 'judical
precedent' .
In the area of employment law, it is normally sufficient for managers to
be aware of the main statutory provisions. This book can merely scratch
the surface in this area ; it is not intended to turn you into a lawyer . You
should be aware of the limits of your knowledge if you are called on to
make decisions which might affect employees' legal rights , and should be
prepared to ask for specialist advice .
 The Law and the Rights of the New Employee 57

Four sources of such assistance are:

• Your organisation's personnel department.
• The Advisory , Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS).
• Advisory services run by consultancies or professional bodies such as
the Institute of Personnel Management.
• A regularly updated employment law case book.

The Role of ACAS in Individual Rights Legislation

The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service automatically re-
ceives copies of all individual legal claims to tribunals except those which
are concerned only with redundancy compensation . Normally employees
must make claims within three months of the occurrence of the event
which forms the basis of their complaint. ACAS has specialist concilia-
tion officers to assist in employment law cases . Often this official contacts
the parties or their representatives and tries to help them reach a
settlement before the case goes to a tribunal. Suggestions made at this
stage are based on experience of the likely outcome if the case goes to a
tribunal. About half the cases raised by employees result in a settlement
at this stage .

Industrial Tribunals
If conciliation fails, the case will go to a tribunal. Tribunals which are
organised on a regional basis, consist of a legally qualified chairman and
two 'side members', representing the two sides - employers and
employees - of industry. These are selected from a panel drawn up by the
Secretary of State for Employment from nominations from the Trades
Union Congress, the Confederation of British Industry , the Department
of Employment and other bodies. In practice nominees often have trade
union , personnel management or other relevant work experience.
Tribunal procedure is relatively informal. Employees are often repre-
sented by trade union officials and employers sometimes use legal
representatives. Tribunal decisions do not set precedents in making
decisions. Tribunals are bound by decisions of higher courts but not of
other industrial tribunals. They do not normally award 'costs' in favour
of the winning party, though they may do so where one party has acted
'frivolously or vexatiously'.

Appeals against Tribunal Decisions

If there is an appeal on a point of law against the tribunal's decision, the
case will go to the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) and thence to
the Court of Appeal and ultimately to the House of Lords. While these
latter courts are part of the mainstream of the English legal system, the
58 Personnel Management

Employee makes a
claim to an industrial
tribunal

Individual
conciliation
by ACAS

Appeal by either party

on a point of law to
Employment Appeal Tribunal

Fig 5.1 The progress of an employment law case from incept ion to a hearing by
the Employment Appeal Tribunal

EAT was established in 1975 specifically to deal with appeals from

industrial tribunals and other aspects of labour law. As compared with
other courts of law, its procedures are relatively informal , but it has all
the powers of the High Court. On each case heard , there will be a judge
and normally two lay members drawn from a panel of people with
specialist knowledge of industrial relations.
Figure 5.1 charts the progress of an individual 's claim against an
employer for unfair dismissal, race or sex discrimination or for breach of
any other employment right on which tribunals have jurisdiction. The
case is shown from its inception to a hearing in the Employment Appeal
Tribunal.

5.2 The Law and the Rights of Job Applicants

Job applicants are protected from discrimination by employers on
grounds of:
 The Law and the Rights of the New Employee 59

• sex;
• marital status;
• colour;
• race ;
• nationality;
• ethnic or national origin .
The main statutes here are the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and the Race
Relations Act 1976.
Other groups protected by law to some degree as job applicants are the
disabled and those who have been convicted of offences in court. The
relevant statutes here are the Disabled Persons (Employment) Acts 1944
and 1958 and the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974.
A great deal of detailed guidance on the legislation is given in the
Commission for Racial Equality and Equal Opportunities Commission
Codes of Practice on Race Discrimination and Sex and Marriage
Discrimination respectively. While failure to meet the requirements of
these Codes is not directly actionable in law, individuals can cite relevant
sections of the Code as evidence of bad management practice . There is
also a Manpower Services Commission Code on the Employment of
Disabled People but this does not have any legal standing.

5.3 What is Discrimination?

Both the Sex Discrimination Act and the Race Relations Act define
three kinds of discrimination.
1. Direct discrimination Suppose you saw a noticeboard like this adver-
tising vacancies outside a factory:

BLOGGS ENGINEERING LIMITED

VACANCIES
JOINER
HGV CLASS 1 DRIVER
UNIVERSAL MILLER
BLACKS AND WOMEN NEED NOT APPLY

You would probably be very surprised, since such overtly discriminatory

behaviour tends to be unacceptable today . Indeed, such a notice is illegal
in that it indicates that Bloggs Engineering Limited intends to treat black
60 Personnel Management

and female applicants for jobs less favourably than other people . This is
direct discrimination.
2. Indirect discrimination

WANTED HOSPITAL PORTERS

Applicants must be able to pass an
English language test and lift very
heavy objects
STFLORENCE'S HOSPITAL

How would this advertisement fare under the anti-discrimination legisla-

tion? It could be argued that it is indirect discrimination; that is, the job
requirements specified may favour one sex or racial group more than
another. This would be the case if:
• the proportion of people of a particular racial group or sex who could
comply with the job requirements specified was considerably smaller
than the proportion of people outside those groups ; and
• St Florence's Hospital could not justify the conditions.
In this example the hospital would need to demonstrate that it was
necessary and not merely convenient for porters to speak English to the
standard required by the test. Previous cases have shown that employers
cannot automatically justify on health and safety grounds the non-
selection of applicants who speak poor English. Of course, staff must be
able to understand safety instructions and safety notices, but is the
testing of applicants' proficiency in English the only way of ensuring that
the requirements of the Health and Safety at Work Act are met?

Exercise 1
How else could St Florence's ensure that their porters could understand safety
instructions and safety notices?

Is it also indirect discrimination , this time against women, to require

applicants to lift heavy weights? This would depend on whether it could
be proved that fewer women than men could meet the test of strength
laid down by the hospital for entry to the job. If this was the case, then St
Florence's would have to demonstrate that the nature of a porter's job
 The Law and the Rights of the New Employee 61

required applicants to be able to lift the weights specified. Entry

requirements must be justifiable and not merely convenient.
3. Victimisation The third type of discrimination outlawed by the legis-
lation is where employees are treated less favourably by their employer
on the grounds that they :

• brought proceedings;
• gave evidence;
• assisted the Commission for Racial Equality or the Equal Opportuni-
ties Commission;
• made allegations against the employer in good faith under the
anti -discrimination legislation .

Segregation
The Race Relations Act also makes it illegal to segregate workers on
racial grounds. Segregation by sex is not specifically prohibited.

5.4 Coverage of the Anti-discrimination Legislation

The Sex Discrimination and Race Relations Acts apply to all aspects of
employment. In this chapter we examine in detail only their relevance to
recruitment and selection decisions .

Recruitment
Employers must not unlawfully discriminate against potential employees
in any of the following ways:
• in the general arrangements for filling a vacancy : for example, a
supervisor should not tell a personnel officer to recruit 'a man to
replace Charlie' ;
• in deciding who to appoint to fill a vacancy: for example , by rejecting
or omitting to consider applications from members of ethnic minori-
ties;
• in offering different terms and conditions of employment depending
on the sex or race of applicants: for example, by offering women lower
rates of pay than men.
The most obvious effect of the Sex Discrimination Act in particular has
been in the field of recruitment advertising. This is because of the
requirement in the legislation that there should be nothing in the wording
of advertisements to suggest that jobs are open to some groups and not to
others.
62 Personnel Management

Selection
The method of filling vacancies can be discriminatory. As indicated in
Chapter 3, p.36, word-of-mouth recruitment has been legally tested and
found to be a form of indirect discrimination.

Exercise 2
Why is word-of-mouth recruitment a form of indirect discrimination?

Since many potential employees approach organisations by telephon-

ing or calling in 'on spec', it is important that personnel department
secretaries, receptionists and other employees in 'gatekeeping' roles
understand their responsibilities in law.
Interviews are likely places for discriminatory behaviour. In Chapter
3, pA2, I have drafted some guidelines which aim to promote fair
interviewing practices.

Indirect Discrimination in Recruitment

One of the most important cases so far has been Price v. Civil Service
Commission . The case related to the age barrier of 28 for direct entry
into the Executive Officer grade of the Civil Service. Belinda Price was
36. She claimed that her exclusion was indirect discrimination on the
grounds of sex . Far fewer women than men could comply with this
condition since, at this period of their lives, many women are out of the
labour market while raising children. It was accepted that it was desirable
for the Civil Service to ensure that a proportion of external candidates
entering the Executive Officer grade was drawn from the lower age
groups to maintain a balanced career structure , but it was held that there
were alternative, non-discriminatory ways of achieving this .

Genuine Occupational Qualifications (GOQ)

It is quite lawful to look for workers of a particular sex or racial group in
order to fill well-defined jobs.

When being a man or a women is a qualification for the job

An example of a GOQ here would be lack of separate sleeping
arrangements or toilet facilities where the job requires employees to 'live
in' and it would be unreasonable to ask the employer to provide
alternative accommodation.
 The Law and the Rights of the New Employee 63

Exercise 3
List four further examples of jobs where sex is a GOO.

Where race is a genuine occupational qualification for the job

The principles here are the same as outlined above. An example would
be a waiter in a Chinese restaurant.
It is up to management to justify the existence of a GOO, if it is
challenged by someone who feels unreasonably excluded from a job as a
result.

Other Groups Protected from Discriminatory Recruitment Decisions

Apart from the legislation prohibiting sex and race discrimination, there
are only two other areas of statutory restriction on an employer's right to
select employees.

Disabled Workers
Under the Disabled Persons (Employment) Act 1958 employers with
more than 20 regular workers must ensure that they employ a quota of
registered disabled workers (usu ally 3 per cent) , unless an exempting
permit has been issued to them . In addition , certain jobs , for example car
park attendant , must not be filled by an able-bodied person unless no
disabled person is available .

The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974

Under this Act an individual is allowed to 'wipe out' some 'spent'
offences after a specified period. Depending upon the sentence imposed,
a conviction for an offence is said to be spent between six months and ten
years after the offence was committed, provided that no further serious
offence was committed during the rehabilitation period. Potential
employees in the position need not normally disclose their spent convic-
tion when applying for a job. However, this is not the case for doctors,
dentists , opticians, vets, nurses, midwives, health or social workers,
teachers , lawyers, legal clerks , accountants, policemen, probation of-
ficers or traffic wardens.

5.5 The Contract of Employment

Once the employer makes an offer of employment to an individual and
this is accepted, a contract of employment comes into existence. This
need not take the form of a written document , though it is customary for
64 Personnel Management

it to do so. The details of the contract are known as its term s and
conditions. A contract of employment can be seen as an exchange of
work for wages. For it to be a legal exchange , neither party should feel
that they made the contract under duress and each should be free to
enter into it. A contract of employment would lack legality, for example,
if a boss threatened physically to harm a potential employee who refused
an offer of employment. Also, if either side misrepresented themselves
prior to the contract being agreed , the contract would be invalid. For
example, if an applicant claimed to possess a qualification specified for
entry to a job and subsequently this proved not to be so, the employer
would be legally justified in dispensing with her/his services .
An employer must give each employee a written statement setting out
the main particulars of the employment within 13 weeks of the date of
engagement.
You will find it useful to examine the written particulars of your own
employment or, if you are not working , someone else's. The items which
should appear in such a statement are:

• Employer's name.
• Date employment began.
• Job title .
• Rate of pay (including overtime rates and annual increments) .
• Hours of work.
• Holiday entitlement.
• Sick pay and procedures.
• Pension rights .
• Amounts of notice.
• Disciplinary and grievance procedures.

One thing you may have noticed was that several items were not
specified in detail but reference was made to a place where the
information could be found . Often this is a reference to a collective
agreement. This is quite legal provided that the employee has a
reasonable opportunity to read such a document.
This means that the employer need not notify employees individually
of all changes in their terms and conditions of employment. However,
management must inform workers that such changes will result , for
example from trade union negotiations, and that they will be incorpor-
ated into subsequent written agreements with the trade unions . This is
legitimate whether or not all workers belong to one of the trade unions
which the organisation recognises for collective bargaining purposes.
 The Law and the Rights of the New Employee 65

The Significance of the Written Statement

The written statement is not a contract of employment. As said earlier,
contracts of employment need not be in writing . However, employees
who do not receive written particulars of their employment within 13
weeks of the date of engagement, or who receive particulars which they
believe to be incorrect, can take the matter to an industrial tribunal for
an order that the employer should supply one. The written particulars
are important to both parties, since either could experience a serious
disadvantage in the courts , if a legal case arose out of the contract.
Not all workers must have written particulars by law. The major
exclusions are :

• registered dock workers;

• husbands and wives of the employers;
• Crown and some National Health Service employees;
• employees who work wholly or mainly outside the UK;
• employees whose written particulars have already been embodied in a
written contract ; for example , as required in apprenticeship contracts.

Express and Implied Terms of a Contract of Employment

All contracts of employment contain 'express' conditions. The se are
those conditions which are expressed verbally or in writing . There are
also 'implied' terms which are assumed to form part of every contract of
employment under the common law. These are general obligations to be
followed by employers and employees.

Employees' general obligations

An employee's implied duties can be summarised as follows:
• to be ready and willing to work ;
• to obey reasonable orders;
• to use reasonable care and skill;
• to conduct herself/himself in the interest of the employer;
• to show good faith to his emplo yer.

Employer's general obligations

These include the duty:
• to pay agreed wages;
• not to make deductions from wages without employees' consent;
• to provide work (in some cases) ;
• to obey the law.
66 Personnel Management

Exercise 4
What are the two main types of law which determine employees ' rights at
work?

As we saw earlier in the chapter, managers are mainly concerned with

employees' statutory rights. These are sometimes called 'property'
rights , since they are said to have established that workers have rights to
occupy their job or property undisturbed and not to have it taken away
without the operation of certain legal processes . In this sense it is argued
that workers' rights, as regards the 'ownership' of their jobs, are
analogous to the rights of individuals to other material possessions-
houses, cars and other consumer goods, for example .
Another way of regarding legislation on the rights of the individual
worker is to see it as a minimum 'floor' of rights. That is, many
employers employ people on terms which are more favourable than
those which the law requires them to provide. Often this occurs where
collective bargaining has been highly developed for many years .

5.6 Summary - Case Study

To check your understanding of the subject matter of this chapter, I have
written a case study, in which you are asked to examine the legal
implications of a manager's actions in recruiting a new member of staff .
Read it through and then answer the questions listed at the end.

Save Easy Building Society

John Baker is manager of the Middleford branch of the Save Easy Building
Society. Middleford is a quiet but prosperous country market town with little
manufacturing industry . The Save Easy Building Society is one of the country 's
largest building societies with offices in most major towns. Its smaller branches,
of wh ich the Middleford branch is typical. are staffed by a manager, usually male,
and three or four part-time cashier/typists. The latter are usually married women,
often with children, because the hours of work often suit their needs. One of
John Baker's staff leaves and he needs to find a replacement. He places the
advertisement shown opposite in the Middleford Gazette.
Six women telephone for application forms . From her voice, John deduces
that one is black. He tells this applicant that the position has been filled. He feels
justified in this action when he imagines the expressions on the faces of some of
his clients if they were served by a black cashier. He would deny personal racial
prejudice . When he was assistant manager of a branch in Pottington in the
Midlands , he was happy to have black cashiers. But not here in Middleford! The
 The Law and the Rights of the New Employee 67

MUMS PLEASE NOTE!

THE SAVE EASY BUILDING SOCIETY
needsa
Part-time
Cashier{fypist
You will work mainly with the public, selling the Society's
savings and mortgages services as well as answering telephone
queries and general office duties. On-line computer terminals
are used for cashiering and all necessary training is provided.
Would you like to be an important member of our team? Hours
of work are 11.00 a.m . to 3.00 p.m. with additional hours as
required (by mutual agreement). Saturday mornings are
worked on a rota basis.
Please apply for an application form to: J. E. Baker, Branch
Manager, Save Easy Building Society, 2 Golden Square,
Middleford, MF11DT.

clients would not be happy! Also, the job entails much telephone work and he
found the applicant difficult to understand over the telephone .
Subsequently, four women complete application forms . One is fifty-five years
old. He rejects her as too old for the job. With the advent of computer
technology, she would not be able to cope. He notes that the other three
applicants have school-age children and he calls them all for interview . From
previous experience he has come to the conclusion that the most important
characteristic of an effective member of staff is stability . People who leave
disrupt efficiency . He is a man who likes a comfortable routine both in work and
outside . He is a great believer in family life. It is most important that applicants
have the support of their husbands and good childcare arrangements. Also, he
likes to be sure that they are not going to have any more children. The prospect
of having to recruit a temporary replacement to cover a period of maternity leave
fills him with horror! It is therefore his normal practice, when he interviews
applicants for jobs, to ask about these personal matters .
On this occasion one of the applicants objects to his questioning. She tells him
that her private life is none of his business and promptly leaves the office . He
reassures himself with the thought that she is some kind of cranky feminist.
The next interviewee has worked as a cashier in a large engineering company.
The experience is probably relevant to the demands of work in the branch, he
feels. However, further conversation reveals that she was a trade union
representative in that company. Well, that rules her out - John Baker is
decidedly opposed to having left-wing extremists working for him!
He offers the job to the third candidate, Mrs Susan Best, who starts work the
following week . At the beginning of her second week John Baker gives the new
employee a written statement of her main terms and conditions of employment.
Since engaging Mrs Best, he has decided to change her hours of work a little so
that she finishes work each day at 3.30 p.m. rather than 3.00 p.m. This change is
68 Personnel Management

incorporated into the statement and he tells her of his decision when he gives
the document to her. She is most unhappy about the change. saying that this w ill
make it impossible for her to meet her five-year-old son from school. He says
that he is sorry but argues that the change is necessary in the interests of branch
eff iciency.
Work through this case study and comment on the correctness in law of John
Baker's actions. wi th regard to :
1. The advertisement.
2. The telephone enquiry.
3. The rejection of the fifty-five-year-old candidate.
4. Questioning about domestic circumstances .
5. John Baker's concern about trade union activists.
6. The change in Mrs Best's hours of work .
6 Involving the Individual in the
Job

In the previous chapters we examined the process by which individuals

are brought into the organisation . At this time attempts are made to
select employees with the potential to perform jobs effectively. Whether
or not employees live up to the expectations of those who selected them
depends on management's success in motivating them to work effec-
tively. In other words :
capability x motivation =performance.
Though this equation is oversimplified , it stresses the centrality of
motivation to the employment relationship . Personnel specialists are
charged with responsibility to find this 'philosopher's stone' or means of
resolving management's problems, so far as employees are concerned.
The next few chapters look at techniques aimed at increasing the
effectiveness of workers. In this chapter we are concerned with the
general nature of motivation to work and its relationship to techniques
concerned with the management of people.

6.1 Motivation
Probably no subject has taxed the energy of management pundits more
than motivation to work . Many famous theories now exist for the
guidance of managers. Unfortunately they are often contradictory.

Exercise 1
Here is a list of factors which may affect your feelings about your job. Rankthem
in order of importance to you personally. Put 1 against the factor that is most
important to you, 2 against the next and so on. Rank

1. Security of employment
2. Promotion prospects
3. Salary or wage
4. Personal relationships at work
5. Life outside work-
6. Physical working conditions
7. Interesting work
70 Personnel Management

8. Challenging work
9. Opportunities to be creative at work
10. Status
11. Fringe benefits or 'perks'
12. Recognition of a job well done

Of course there is no right or wrong answer to this activity . Your answer

will depend on such things as:
• the job that you do;
• your age;
• your experience of life and work ;
• your hopes for the future .
A further complication is that your feelings about work may change from
time to time. For example, while you are doing your job you may be
concerned that it is challenging and interesting and gives you opportuni-
ties to be creative . When your next pay increase is due, you may be more
concerned about the money you are paid .
Ask friends or colleagues to do the above exercise. The variety of their
answers and the discussions which you have with them afterwards should
further convince you of the complexity of this area.

Do Employees Work for Love or Money?

The research evidence is contradictory. Some research subjects stress the
importance of pay . By contrast the majority of workers seem convinced
that they would continue to work if they inherited a fortune or won the
football pools. There is anecdotal evidence to support this from workers
who have found themselves lucky enough to be able to make this choice.
Clearly for them money is not the only source of motivation!
Before looking at the social scientists' explanations for this seemingly
contradictory evidence, we should pause and think about the effect on
the behaviour of managers. Many have their 'pet' theories about ways of
encouraging employees to work harder. This affects the personnel
management techniques chosen to this end .
If you believe that it is possible to increase productivity by making jobs
more interesting, you are likely to use job redesign techniques to achieve
this . By contrast, if you believe that an attractive working environment is
vital to workers' motivation, you may spend much time selecting
attractive potted plants and designing colour schemes.
Most managements have traditionally operated on a 'carrot and stick'
theory of motivation , believing that provision of appropriate incentives,
particularly money , encourages workers to expend the maximum effort.
This is the theory behind many payment systems (see Chapter 12).
 Involving the Individual in the Job 71

Support for this thesis can be derived from the nature of our consumer
society. Not surprisingly workers have materialistic values; those who
perform dull jobs may have little else than money by which to be
motivated!

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

This is the most famous classification of human needs based on the
assumption that people have wants directed to specific goals. Maslow
postulated five main categories of need arranged in a hierarchy, i.e . once
a lower order need is satisfied, the individual becomes motivated by
needs which exist at the next highest level of the hierarchy.
In Figure 6.1 we see that Maslow assumed that , if people have enough
to eat and drink, their attention turns to the need for security - the
tramp's dream of a roof over her/his head or the worker's concern to
avoid redundancy. Once this is satisfied, attention turns to relationships
with other people - the need to feel wanted and loved. At this stage
workers are concerned with their membership of a work group and of an
organisation. The higher-order needs for self-esteem or status and
recognition in the eyes of the world , and finally for self-actualisation or
the achievement of full potential, become motivators only when the
lower-order needs have been satisfied .

Exercise 2
Do employees cease to be concerned about money once their basic needs have
been met?

Fig 6.1 Maslow's hierarchy of needs

Social needs

Safety and security needs

Physiological needs
72 Personnel Management

A complication of Maslow 's theory seems to be that money is a means of

satisfying needs at most levels of the hierarchy. It would appear that
employees are motivated by different aspects of jobs in different
situations. Thus, on the same day, they may demand more money in a
negotiating meeting and more satisfying work on the job . It seems that
two or more levels of the hierarchy may operate at the same time .
Despite these criticisms, Maslow's hierarchy has value for managers
and personnel specialists, suggesting that:
• the nature of the motivation to work is complex;
• there is no single overriding source of motivation;
• managers or personnel specialists cannot afford to ' rest on their
laurels', having given workers a generous pay increase for example.
Demands at a higher level in the hierarchy should be anticipated.

Herzberg's 'Two Factor' Theory of Motivation

In the view of this American organisational psychologist, the wants of
employees can be divided into satisfiers or motivators and dissatisfiers or
'hygiene' factors . The first group are said to be effective motivators
because they are a source of personal growth . They include:

• achievement;
• recognition;
• advancement ;
• responsibility ; and
• the work itself.
By contrast, as indicated by the terminology, the presence of 'hygiene'
factors prevents dissatisfaction and poor performance. In other words ,
such aspects of job context must be present if the employee is to feel
fairly treated. Hygiene factors include:

• wages or salaries;
• supervision;
• working conditions; and
• company policy and administration.
These factors do not act as motivators , but if they are not present or are
felt by employees to be inadequate, they will act as a source of
dissatisfaction.

Exercise 3
According to Herzberg, is money a source of motivation to work?
 Involving the Individual in the Job 73

Like Maslow's hierarchy of needs , this theory has been accused of being
overgeneralised and too simplified . Nevertheless it provides food for
thought in its message that, no matter how satisfactory the context of the
job, if the work itself is dull and meaningless, the employee will be
apathetic.

6.2 Orientations to Work

Psychologists focus on the needs and wants of the individual employee at
work . Sociologists, by contrast, analyse the degree to which wider social
forces impinge on the work behaviour of employees. To understand
workers' attitudes and values , we need to know what workers expect
from and value in their work . The term 'orientation to work' is used to
categorise employees' preferences about variou s features and rewards of
work . In a famous study , John Goldthorpe (in J.H . Goldthorpe et al.,
The Affluent Worker: Industrial Attitudes and Behaviour, Cambridge
University Press, 1968) identified the prevalence of an 'instrumental'
orientation to work among highly paid manual workers. These people
tended to see work as a means to an end, a way of earning a living to
support an affluent lifestyle outside work . For them work was not a
central life interest.

Exercise 4
Goldthorpe's evidence suggests that the employees concerned were prepared
to put up with dull, repetitive jobs. for example on car assembly lines, as long as
the financial rewards were satisfactory. Does this contradict the findings of the
organisational psychologists?

A further argument for Goldthorpe's findings lies in the nature of the

employment relationship . This is predominantly an exchange of wages
for effort. Thus it is hardly surprising if employees see work largely in
calculative terms . Goldthorpe's affluent workers and many others like
them receive little from their work other than financial rewards. An
absence of positive or moral commitment is not remarkable.
Nevertheless sociologists have identified other orientations to work.
For example some employees have a bureaucratic attachment to the
organisations in which they work . These are mainly white-collar workers
who have some expectation of upward movement through the organis -
ation structure. For them career development is very important and work
is a central life interest. Involvement in work is moral rather than simply
calculative . Some employees are 'cosmopolitans' in that they see them-
selves not as employees of a particular organisation but as members of a
74 Personnel Management

professional or occupational group. That is, the major group with which
they identify is outside the firm rather than inside it. For them too work
is a central life interest but their orientation is to opportunities in the
labour market generally rather than within the organisation in which they
happen to be currently employed.
More recently attention has been given to the 'culture' of work
organ isations. This approach prompts us to see that employees' motiva-
tions and orientations to work are subject to influence by management.
Work is a significant part of life experience for most people ; they are
more likely to perform effectively if management takes care to build
purpose and promote appropriate values in the workplace .
Managers and personnel specialists can learn a great deal from the
work of social scientists on motivation and orientations to work :
• The relationship between individuals and their work is complex.
Managers and personnel specialists should not assume that any change
of employment policy or practice will provoke the same response from
all employees.
• Work is a central life interest for many people; behaviour at work can
be significantly influenced by management.
• Employees' attitudes and priorities may change over time and in
different circumstances. A key skill which you will need as a manager
or personnel specialist is to put yourself in other people's shoes and
see work through their eyes.
• Know yourself! Be aware of your own assumptions and 'pet' theories
which influence your dealings with other people at work .

6.3 Designing Jobs to Encourage Efficiency and Commit-

ment
Suppose that you need to decide on the content of a shop assistant 's job
in terms of its duties and responsibilities. Two objectives which you
would have in making these decisions are :
• The requ irements of the business for productivity and quality of
service.
• The needs of the job holder for satisfying work.
Management has tended to give much greater priority to the first
objective than to the second. The resultant lack of involvement of
employees in decisions relating to them and their consequent lack of
motivation has prompted a debate about the quality of working life.
(Part of this debate is about the need for greater employee participation
in managerial decision-making, see Chapter 13.)
 Involving the Individual in the Job 75

Three effects of highly specialised and routine jobs on employees are :

• They do not satisfy needs for personal fulfilment and growth.
• Research undertaken in the USA indicates that those who perform
machine-paced specialised assembly jobs suffer from particularly high
levels of psychological strain and somatic complaints. Stress is not
restricted to those who occupy managerial roles .
• They do not use employees' full abilities ; they are frustrating and may
encourage participation in unproductive acts ranging from shoddy
work to literally throwing a spanner in the works; they can result in
absenteeism, wildcat strikes and refusal to co-operate with manage-
ment.
In times of full employment, dislike of these jobs leads to recruitment
difficulties. Management also has had difficulties in getting employees to
accept technological change because of fears that it threatens the narrow
range of skills on which they depend for a living.
Efforts to create a more positive commitment by employees have
affected only a small proportion of the labour force . This shows how
deep-rooted are employers' assumptions about the link between special-
ised, narrow tasks and high productivity.

What are the Options in Redesigning Jobs?

Imagine that you are a personnel specialist in a large supermarket chain .
Many problems which can be categorised as poor motivation to work
have been experienced with checkout operators. Three options for
redesigning this job are :
• You could include one or more other tasks at the same level of
difficulty within the operator's job. For example, if another assistant
packs customers' shopping while the checkout operator enters prices
into the till, you could give one person responsibility for both tasks .
This addition of related tasks is known as 'job enlargement' .
• Another option is job rotation, whereby all assistants are moved
between various routine tasks in the store such as shelf filling,
checkout operating and, where relevant, serving customers on special-
ist counters.
• The third option needs more radical redesign of the job to add
elements involving more responsibility in decision-making. This prob-
ably would involve adding elements of the job of first-line super-
visors for signing cheques, exchanging faulty goods and dealing with
customer complaints. It also might involve the work group becoming
more self-managing over time . The term used to describe this is 'job
enrichment' .
76 Personnel Management

Elements of the first two options would be found in many supermarkets

since they are much more congruent with the philosophy of 'don't do as
you think, do as you're told ' . They have been criticised as merely 'adding
one Mickey Mouse job to another' . There is evidence that where workers
favour enlargement or rotation, fatigue and boredom have been
reduced. However, there is little evidence of productivity improvements
and once the new tasks become familiar the motivational effect often
wears off. Sometimes employees have expressed dislike of job rotation
because it breaks up established work groups and thus reduces opportu-
nities for the development of social relationships at work .

Job enrichment
By contrast , job enrichment is said to create opportunities for increased
performance and satisfaction. Job enrichment generally has three ele-
ments:
• Reduced repetitiveness of work.
• Incorporation of some of the activities of related jobs into the
enriched jobs . In the case of manual jobs this often involves responsi -
bility for reordering of stock, inspection and maintenance .
• Delegation of decision-making to employees. Again in the case of
manual workers this may involve responsibility for scheduling and
planning their own work.
Autonomous group working
This is an extension of job enrichment in which members of a work group
are given responsibility for immediate production planning and for task
allocation arrangements. These groups work without direct supervision.

Exercise 5
What is the difference between autonomous group working and the other three
job redesign techniques (job enlargement. job rotation and job enrichment) so far
discussed in this chapter ?

There has been limited application of this technique in Britain. Most of

the experiments in this form of job redesign and employee participation
occurred in the 1970s in Scandinavia.
The main reasons for introducing job enrichment and autonomous
group working in the 1970s were management concerns about:
• the 'quality of working life' in industrialised economies;
• the difficulty of recruiting and retaining workers in repetitive, special-
ised jobs , especially where unemployment was low;
 Involving the Individual in the Job 77

• attendant problems of absenteeism and poor timekeeping;

In general terms, therefore , management was responding to the rising
expectations and aspirations of a higher paid and better educated
workforce .
However, these techniques did present some problems to manage-
ment:
• Workers and their representatives sometimes felt that pay increases
should result from their contribution of a wider range of skills to the
organisation.
• Initial investment costs could be substantial, for example where new
manufacturing techniques were introduced .
• The evidence suggests that there could be an initial drop in pro-
ductivity as people adjust to new jobs .
When levels of unemployment rose in Britain in the 1980s, the
popularity of the techniques described in this section declined . Concerns
about the 'quality of working life' were replaced by anxieties about the
scarcity of jobs . Recruitment and retention difficulties and the associated
managerial problems became a thing of the past. More recently, with
economic growth , managerial concerns to increase workforce commit-
ment have incre ased . The more strategic approach to the management of
change, which has resulted , is discussed in the final section of this
chapter.

6.4 Direct Participation as a Means of Encouraging

Employee Commitment
Job enrichment and autonomous group working give opportunities for
employees to contribute to decisions about work they perform. It is a
form of direct employee participation in organisational decision-making
(see Chapter 13, p. 177).
Imagine that you are an employee of Byteman Computer Services.
The company has 1,000 employees in four locations in the UK .
Employees are unionised. There is bargaining at company level between
management and trade unions . A joint consultative committee draws
employee representatives from all four sites. There are no other mechan-
isms for employee participation in managerial decision-making. Such
systems of indirect participation, if seen as fair and effective by
employees, might increase your general satisfaction with your terms and
conditions of employment. Likewise, if through your representatives on
the joint consultative committee you receive information on company
plans and the current situation, you might feel more positive towards
78 Personnel Management

your employment by Byternan . However, research shows that such

efforts to introduce participation at the highest levels alone run the risk
that only at election times do employees feel involved in organisational
affairs .
This is the argument for direct participation. Such experiments have
been small-scale in the UK . Long-established methods of collective
bargaining and consultation have been more prevalent.

Methods of Direct Participation

These include:
• quality circles;
• suggestion schemes.

Exercise 6
What methods of direct participation already discussed in this chapter are
omitted from the above list?

Quality circles
These have been imported into the UK as part of the attempt to make
our industry more competitive by learning from the Japanese. Super-
visors and work groups are provided with training in quality control and
other problem-solving techniques. They are encouraged then to attempt
to identify and solve work-related problems using specialist advice where
necessary.
Suppose that you are the quality manager of Dynamic Machines , a
large UK manufacturer of aero-engines. You have secured the agree-
ment of the general manager to the launch of a trial quality circle. Now
you are ready to choose a department in which to locate the circle. Three
criteria which you should use in making the choice are :
• Management, supervisors and employees in the department must be
enthusiastic to participate in the trial.
• Industrial relations in the department must be good and trade union
representatives should be willing to participate in the circle.
• Departmental management must be known to be willing and able to
listen carefully and responsively to employee proposals.
It may be that we can identify some key similarities between Britain and
Japan which account for the success of quality circles in some British
companies. These are:
 Involving the Individual in the Job 79

• rising aspirations and increased education of workers;

• the need to reduce the specialised and routine nature of many
production and clerical jobs ;
• the need to increase the commitment of many employees both to the
organisation and to the jobs they perform within it.

Nevertheless many differences exist between the employment relation-

ship in Japan and in the UK which should prompt managers and
personnel specialists to pause for thought before launching quality circles
or any other aspect of Japanese personnel management.

Suggestion schemes
Only rarely have suggestion schemes been effective in involving
employees in organisational decision-making. This is because tra-
ditionally employees have not been involved in either the design or
operation of these schemes and feel that the decision-making process
about the acceptance or rejection of their suggestions is remote from
them . Frequently such decisions are made by a committee of managers
with no obligation to tell the initiators of suggestions the reason for their
decision . The committee may take time in communicating the result s of
its deliberations. Further, managers and supervisors often feel that
suggestions made by those for whom they are responsible are implicitly
critical of their performance. Conflict can also arise over the size of the
monetary or other reward for the submission of a successful suggestion .
Criteria for the establishment of a successful suggestion scheme are:

• Commitment of all levels of management.

• Involvement and support of recognised trade unions .
• Involvement of employees during the evaluation of their suggestions.
• Active support of departmental management, supervisory and special-
ist support staff in the operation of the scheme . It should be clear that
the emergence of suggestions is not a criticism of their competence.
• An effective administrator for the scheme - probably a personnel
specialist , who services the committee, monitors the scheme , or-
ganises training and generally performs a co-ordinating role .

Where a more strategic approach to the management of change is

adopted , there is likely to be recognition that the encouragement of
innovation is vital. Such a strategic aim, if well communicated and
accepted throughout the organisation, may increase the effectiveness of a
suggestion scheme .
80 Personnel Management

Exercise 7
Which of the following statements are true and which are false?
1. Money is the only effective motivator of employees. True or false?
2. Managers and supervisors should not assume that any change of employ-
ment policy or practice will provoke the same response from all employees.
True or false?
3. Job rotation, job enlargement and job enrichment are all methods of work
restructuring . True or false?
4. Quality circles are a long-established method of direct employee participa-
tion, which originated in the UK. True or false?
5. There are many effective suggestion schemes in UK companies. True or
false?
7 Appraising Performance

7.1 What is Performance Appraisal?

'Getting the best out of people' is a crude expression of management's
key target so far as employees are concerned . In the last chapter we
examined the general issue of employee motivation . Performance ap-
praisal, the subject of this chapter, rests on the assumption that if
employees' performance is scrutinised and feedback is given, the motiva-
tion to work more effectively should increase . Problems of employee
motivation where this is not done or done badly can be expressed as 'the
good people don't know what they should be doing or how well they are
doing' and 'nobody finds out the bad people' . In this chapter we look at
ways of righting such situations using performance appraisal.
The dictionary definition of the verb to appraise is 'to fix a price for' or
'to value an object or thing' . When we use the term 'performance
appraisal' we imply that we are concerned with the process of valuing the
employee's worth to the organisation, with a view to increasing it.

7.2 Purpose of Performance Appraisal

Management's objectives in performance appraisal include:
• To help improve current performance.
• To set objectives for individual performance .
• To assess training and development needs.
• To assess future potential for promotion.
• To give employees feedback on their performance.
• To counsel employees on career opportunities.
• To rate the employees ' performance for salary review purposes.

Who is Appraised?
Managerial, professional and technical staff traditionally have been more
likely to be appraised than holders of routine clerical and manual jobs .
One reason for this is the association between appraisal and training and
career development. However, significant numbers of organisations now
have appraisal systems for clerical and manual employees . There are
82 Personnel Management

signs that organisational changes such as those to harmonise employment

conditions for all non-managerial grades are encouraging the develop-
ment of appraisal systems for these groups.

7.3 Designing an Appraisal System

Suppose that you are managing director of XYZ Systems Ltd. Your main
competitor, ABC Systems Ltd , employs roughly the same number and
skills-mix of employees as you . You wish to begin to use a performance
appraisal system . ABC has such a system . Should you attempt to cajole
your counterpart in ABC to let you have this system?
Aside from the unreality of this, in that your main rival is unlikely to
let you have anything which might make you more competitive, the
answer is probably 'no'. It is generally unwise to attempt to transfer
systems concerned with the management of people from one organis-
ation to another, however tempting this may appear. Appraisal systems,
like other aspects of personnel management , must suit the company
culture . Even though ABC is your main competitor it may differ in
tradition, methods of dealing with employees, structure and organisation
of work and so on .
If you believe that an appraisal system can contribute to the efficient
running of XYZ you would be better advised to 'grow your own' . To do
this it is useful to use the experience of others. A summary of trends in
performance appraisal shows:
• increasing criticism of appraisal systems which attempt to measure
personality characteristics such as intelligence, loyalty , commitment
or drive ;
• increased emphasis on more objective , job-related criteria and object-
ives - a 'results-oriented approach';
• more involvement of employees in their own appraisal;
• more concentration on improving performance in the current job
rather than assessing future potential.
We shall examine each of these in turn .

Personality-based Appraisal Systems

Do you believe that managers are able to make judgements about their
subordinates on such dimensions as intelligence, initiative or loyalty?
The answer must be 'With difficulty!' To illustrate this point let us use the
example of a manager who is asked to rate the intelligence of a
subordinate:
• Firstly , it is necessary to understand the nature of intelligence.
 Appraising Performance 83

• Secondly , the manager must be competent to judge the degree to

which it exists in other people .
• Thirdly, is it reasonable to assume that all staff exhibit all their
intelligence at work? For example , if you give an intelligent adult a
task to do which would only test the intelligence of a ten-year-old, is it
fair to judge intelligence by her or his job performance?
• Fourthly, there is the requirement to assess all subordinates in the
same way against the manager's definition of intelligence.
• Fifthly, the manager is likely to find it difficult to justify feedback
given to the subordinate based on personality trait rating.
In addition, studies have shown that , whatever the chosen personality
characteristic appraisal was likely to reveal , women and members of
other minority groups emerge as having less of it than their white male
counterparts. The existence of anti-discrimination legislation thus makes
it unwise to use appraisal systems which have the effect of treating
employees of one sex or race less favourably than other people in
decisions which relate to promotion (see Chapter 11, pp. 135-6) . In
appraisal, as in selection, the roots of prejudice tend to be very close to
the surface.

Job Behaviour-oriented Appraisal Systems

Exercise 1
How could you design an appraisalsystem where managerialjudgement is more
likely to be valid than in the personality-based techniques described in the
previous section?

Using job analysis (see p. 30) behaviours which constitute actual job
performance are defined . Levels of performance for each behaviour
are described . For example, if judgement and initiative are required ,
relevant performance standards must be defined; raters then assess job
holders from observation of past work performance . A major limitation
of these systems is the difficulty of determining which performance levels
equate to observed behaviours of the appraisee. However, they are
useful in the definition of development needs .

Results-oriented Appraisal Systems or Performance Reviews

It follows that fair judgements of performance must be:
• capable of more objective judgement by appraisers;
• genuinely related to job performance .
84 Personnel Management

This justifies an emphasis on job-related performance criteria, particu-

larly for managerial, supervisory, professional and technical employees.

Exercise 2
Identify a common link between these jobs which is of critical importance to the
operation of a results-or iented performance appraisal system .

These methods concentrate on specific outcomes achieved as a result

of job performance . Many experienced practitioners argue that perform-
ance reviews are more effective motivators if they involve the setting of
specific job-related objectives . Six or so key performance measures can
be selected at the appraisal interview as relevant target areas for the
employee for the next year. These can then be turned into specific
objectives .
For example, a key performance measure for a training specialist
might be: 'the design and implementation of management development
programmes'. An objective for a particular trainer might be 'to inves-
tigate the detailed training needs of line managers in accountancy and
finance, to design a short course (not more than five days' duration) and
to run three such courses each for 12 line managers within the next six
months'.
Three advantages of this objective setting procedure for use in
performance reviews are :
• It should be relevant to the personal needs of employees. Therefore
their commitment should be greater.
• It should be relevant to the requirements of the job and of the
organisation.
• It encourages both appraiser and appraised to look carefully at what
has actually been achieved in the immediate past as well as what
realistically may be expected over the year ahead.
Review of performance is based on the extent to which objectives have
been met as measured by pre-determined success criteria. Increasingly
objectives are jointly agreed between subordinate and manager; this is
thought to :
• increase commitment to achieve goals;
• commit managerial support;
• help to ensure that the necessary resources are made available .
Progress towards objectives should be monitored regularly.
 Appraising Performance 85

Objectives-based performance review methods rest on assumptions of

what can be achieved during a given time-span (usually one year) and to
a given standard. Superficially this appears to be simple. However,
detailed job analysis is necessary to clarify the tasks involved and the
priorities which they should be afforded. Much effort is needed to agree
clear, reasonable performance standards. Difficulties in establishing
agreed criteria against which to measure performance have caused some
such schemes to founder.

Exercise 3
From the discussion of performance appraisal methods in this chapter. list th ree
ways of develop ing criteria against which employees' performance can be rated .

The Use of Rating Scales in Reviewing Performance

Key criteria of performance thus established become yardsticks against
which managers can be asked to rate subordinates. Often rating scales
are used for this purpose.
Imagine you are an employee of a company where this rating scale is
used for the assessment of performance:
1. Excellent.
2. Very good.
3. Adequate.
4. Below the required standard.
This scale has only one category for ineffective performance . Managers
are usually required to communicate their evaluation of performance to
subordinates. Imagine your disillusionment if you were labelled as
'inadequate' or 'below standard' in this way. Possibly you would live up
to your reputation! Management is more likely to encourage employees
to improve by jointly agreeing how they can be helped to improve, for
example by further training and development.
The focus on the need to manage poor performance has sharpened
recently. It should be dealt with when it arises and not left to an annual
performance review . Managers should be trained to deal with this
difficult problem.
Another problem of rating scales is that managers' definitions of
'excellent' , 'very good ' and so on may differ. The stereotyping (see
Chapter 3, pp . 41-2) also is likely to affect managerial judgement of
performance . Only trained appraisers using common yardsticks should
use rating scales .
86 Personnel Management

Employee Involvement in Appraisal

Appraisal systems are now more 'open' than they used to be. That is,
there is a greater likelihood that employees will be shown either all or a
part of their appraisal reports . This should increase employees' motiva-
tion to improve their job performance. Employees often are encouraged
to contribute to the review process by the use of interview preparation
forms of self-assessment procedures.
Many managers find 'open' appraisal threatening. This is because
there is pressure on the appraiser to make the appraisal as complete and
constructive as possible. Bland phrases and generalisations are likely to
be challenged by employees together with the more obvious inaccuracies
which indicate the manager's ignorance of the real nature of the
employee's job .
The trend towards more openness has been accompanied by greater
emphasis on results-oriented approaches. The joint problem-solving and
developmental approach to performance review makes it easier to justify
assessment of performance based on the key results areas of the job
rather than on more nebulous, and less obviously relevant, personality
traits.

Current Performance v. Future Potential

Many managers do not see assessment of potential as a prime purpose of
appraisal, being more concerned with current performance. Some com-
panies now encourage people to make sideways moves to increase their
experience, knowledge and skills before or instead of upward pro-
gression.

Potential reviews
Separate systematic reviews of potential are useful for those for whom
career or management development is contemplated. Many managers
find the assessment of potential difficult since their experience of the
individual is limited to observations of performance in their current job.
For this reason a 'grandfather' figure - a more senior manager - is often
used to avoid some of the prejudices of the immediate manager. Another
way of assessing potential is to use an assessment centre (see Chapter 9,
pp . 113-16) .
There is a growing tendency to record career aspirations when
performance is reviewed together with the assessor's comments. Formal
career counselling is undertaken sometimes, for example using external
consultants or workshops. The latter encourage individuals to set them-
selves career and life objectives and to plan ways of achieving these .
 Appraising Performance 87

7.4 Performance-related Pay

Some surveys have detected a tendency to link performance with pay as a
means of motivating senior managers. Generally profit or some other
measure of organisational performance is used for direct indexing . For
other staff the approach of not linking performance and pay still is
usually considered to be preferable . However, it seems desirable to
ensure that performance and salary reviews are appropriately sequenced
to ensure that performance data are still relevant.

Who will appraise?

So far in this chapter we have implied that appraisal is commonly
undertaken by the immediate supervisor. This is most often the case .
Sometimes, as mentioned in the previous section , a more senior manager
is used in an overseeing role . More open appraisal implies a shift in the
control of appraisal from the appraiser to the appraisee. Some companies
use self-appraisal schemes where the employee takes the lead . This may
be useful where employees' work is frequently unsupervised and ele-
ments of it are not easily assessable ; for example, professional
employees. In similar circumstances, peer group appraisal can be used,
where each employee nominates one or two colleagues whom she/he
trusts to evaluate her/hi s performance . However, in most organisations
managers prefer to retain control of appraisal.

7.5 Training for Appraisal

One of the main reasons for the failure of appraisal systems is the lack of
managerial skills in handling the review interview. With the more
frequent use of a joint problem-solving approach to appraisal, the
training of managers in relevant skills becomes even more vital. Not only
are interview skills important but also an understanding of the objectives
of appraisal.

7.6 Other Problems of Appraisal

A now classic research study (Kay Rowe, 'An appraisal of appraisals ,
Journal of Management Studies, vol. 1, no . 1, March 1964) revealed that:
• managers are often reluctant to appraise subordinates;
• where they do , their written comments are often glib, generalised and
evasive .
88 Personnel Management

Three reasons can be suggested for this:

• Managers often find appraisal schemes cumbersome and suspect that
little action will be taken on the results .
• Often managers lack training in appraisal.
• In life we are often reluctant to telI others how we feel about them .
Why should we behave any differently at work?
Such research findings have led some people to see performance
appraisal as a 'ritual of employment' without real benefit to either
management or employees.
To gain further information on these potential problems, you may find
it useful to talk to someone who has participated in appraisal in the last
year either as an appraiser or as an appraisee. (If you have had such an
experience, use this .) Think about the advantages and disadvantages of
appraisal.
What works as an appraisal system differs widely. Much depends on
the nature of the organisation, the appraisal system and the skills of those
involved. My list is meant to trigger further thought.

Advantages
• In an appraisal interview boss and subordinate have a formal oppor-
tunity for a candid exchange of views, provided that the relationship
between them and the nature of the appraisal scheme encourage this .
• Good performance appraisal systems encourage line managers to
think systematicalIy about career and management development for
their subordinates.
• Performance appraisal can provide very useful data for the analysis of
training needs and the design of training programmes.

Disadvantages
• The relationship between boss and subordinate is frequently fragile. It
can be harmed by the necessity for the manager to formulate in words ,
written or spoken, what he realIy feels about his subordinate. In the
words of one appraisee after an appraisal interview , 'I went in bruised
and came out bleeding.'
• Even after training, some managers have difficulty with appraisal
interviews.
• Many appraisal systems involve too much paperwork. This hinders
rather than helps .
 Appraising Performance 89

7.7 Conditions Necessary for Successful Appraisal

Schemes
Despite all the criticisms, the evidence is that the popularity of appraisals
has not declined . Over 80 per cent of organisations have appraisal
systems and most of those which do not are in public administration.
Recently , there are signs that greater priority is being given to the
development of such systems in this sector.
So are there any general lessons to be learnt before introducing an
appraisal system? Careful analysis of the organisation's particular cir-
cumstances is vital before embarking on this difficult path . Here are ten
suggestions :
• Get top management support.
• Clarify management's objectives for performance appraisal.
• Plan and prepare carefully.
• Beware glossy consultancy packages or some other company's
scheme .
• Give oral introductory presentations to managers, trade union rep-
resentatives and employees and prepare explanatory pamphlets for all
those involved.
• Train appraisers.
• Make sure that the scheme is effectively implemented.
• Ensure that promises made in appraisal interviews , for example for
further training , are carried out.
• Avoid close linkage with pay .
• Closely monitor the operation of the scheme.
Lastly, keep it simple! If a vast bureaucracy can be avoided , avoid it.
Some companies have found that the key to successful appraisal lies in
the appraisal interview . In a review of performance using key results
areas only, a written record of those and of the associated objectives for
the year ahead , together with any training needs, are vital.

7.8 A Cautionary Tale

George has been test department manager in an engineering company
for the last ten years . He sees the personnel department as a source of
incessant gimmickry, particularly on performance appraisal . Systems come
and systems go and all complicate his relationship with his subordinates.
He fails to complete his appraisal forms when he can get away with it. At
present the personnel manager has the ear of the production director and
George has been given an edict to undertake appraisal for all trainees,
90 Personnel Management

technician s, engineers and supervisors. The current appraisal system

contains the following elements:
• agreement of key objectives for the year ahead between appraiser and
appraisee ;
• personality trait assessment of such characteristics as decision-making
ability, leadership ability, alertness and mental capability;
• assessment of potential on a rating scale - promotable in the near
future / possibly promotable / not promotable ;
• training and development needs .
George obediently completes the forms and sends them back to the
personnel department thinking it a useless exercise but at least that will
be that for another year. Then to his annoyance a young personnel
officer , whom George considers still 'wet behind the ears' , telephones to
inform George that the exercise is incomplete. The system now requires
interviews to be conducted to communicate the results of appraisal to
employees. George agrees to do this, suspecting that it is futile to argue .
He is not happy with some of his assessments of personality in particular
and has rated 50 per cent of those appraised as not promotable . This
won't go down too well, he knows, but the firm has been reducing its
labour force and promotion does consist of waiting for dead men's shoes.
Presumably the personnel department, with its fancy knowledge of
human behaviour, knows what it's doing!
He calls in each of his subordinates, reads the form to them and , not
very enthusiastically, waits for a response .

Exercise 4
1. List three failings by the personnel department in this case.
2. How effective do you think George's appraisal interview s would be?
8 Training for Current Jobs

8.1 What is Training?

From childhood we learn to cope with living. Is this training, or is it
education? The se term s are often used as if the y were synonymous. The y
are not , and an understanding of the differences between them is
important to an understanding of the training proce ss in business
organisations. Both are processes which help people to learn. but they
differ in orientation and objecti ves. It is probably simplest to define
training as oriented toward s the needs of the organisation while edu-
cation is oriented to the need s of the individual. These differences can be
summarised as shown in Table 8.1.
You will see from Table 8.1 that, while there are many contrasts
between them , the line between training and education is sometimes very
blurred. Th is is easy to see if we examine the content of qualification

Table 8.1 Differences between education and training

Characteristics Education Training

of the learning
process

Objectives More abstract Specific behavioural

objectives geared to objectives to make
the needs of the wo rkers more effective
individual and to in their jobs
society generally

Timescale Generally a Can be very short-term

long-term process especially when
concerned w ith the
acquisition of specific
skills

Content Widely drawn content Often fairly narrow

content specific to the
employee 's work
situation
92 Personnel Management

courses designed to develop managers. Some aspects of such pro-

grammes can be described as training since they enable intending or
practising managers to develop specific skills, such as interviewing or
computer programming, of direct relevance to current or future jobs ;
other aspects are more broadly educational such as the analysis of the
perspectives of the parties in industrial relations or of the social context
of work organisations. Such courses should contain elements of both
education and training if employees are to be fully competent to
contribute to the achievement of corporate objectives .

8.2 Objectives of Training

Two of the most commonly stated objectives of the training process in a
work organisation are:
• To assist workers to perform at the optimum level in current jobs .
• To develop employees for future jobs .
An often unstated aim is to strengthen the organisation's 'culture' by
developing a broad understanding of 'the way that we do things here ' .

8.3 Training Policy

To ensure that the organisation's workforce is effective, the training
function must be acquainted with or, preferably, involved in the strategic
planning process. Training policies must be supportive of corporate
policies and goals.
Fred's Food Processing Company, a manufacturer of frozen foods,
plans to acquire a chain of frozen food shops over the next two years .
The company's training function needs to be involved in the implementa-
tion of this decision, so that, when the retail business is acquired, there is
a trained labour force to run it. Fred intends to recruit an entirely new
workforce for the retail operation . Here is Fred 's training policy.

Fred's Food Processing Company

Statement of Training Policy

The aim of this policy is to ensure that all employees are assisted to develop
themselves in order that they may make the best possible contribution to the
achievement of company objectives.
In the training area it is our policy to:
1. Draw up a training plan with reference to company objectives.
2. Involve managers in the identification of training objectives for their units.
 Training for Current Jobs 93

3. Base training on a thorough analysis of needs .

4. Provide employees with potential with opportunities for further training and
development.
5. Have a specialist training department charged with responsibility for the
development and implementation of training plans.
6. Provide induction training for all employees .
7. Provide day release for first qualification training for all staff between the ages
of 16 and 25.
8. Provide training courses and other training facilities to satisfy needs identified
by managers or specialist training staff.
9. All training will be funded from the training budget and must be authorised by
the head of the training department.

Exercise 1
What element in this policy statement is inconsistent with Fred's plans to move
into retailing?

8.4 A Systematic Approach to Training

Training can contribute to the effective use of the organisation's re-
sources, but only if approached systematically. Imagine that you are the
owner of a shop . You recruit a school Ieaver as a trainee shop assistant.
Before starting to train the young person you would need to answer the
following questions :
• What are my new employee's training needs?
• How can I meet these needs?
• How can I conduct a training programme to ensure that he/she
acquires the knowledge and skills to help me in the most efficient
manner?
• How can I check the effectiveness of the training programme?
The rest of this chapter attempts to answer these questions. The phases
of the training process are shown in Fig. 8.1. (The Figure includes the
links between training and company policy to emphasise the necessity for
this integration .)

8.5 Stage 1: The Identification of Training Needs

'I don't know why I've been sent on this course. I don't see how it can
help me in my job .' Such a statement from a participant on a training
course indicates that a thorough analysis of training needs has not
preceded the decision that training is necessary. The importance of
94 Personnel Management

Business
plan ... Corporate
-policy
Training
~ ,policy

,,
, Stage 1
Identification
of training
needs and ~

,Jf
development
of training
plan
I

,,
I
~ Stage 2

,
Planning
'..-
" of training

.,
programme
1/

~
,
I
I Stage 3

,""
Implementing
the training
programme
\ I
\I
\I
\
~ Stage 4
\ Evaluating
" ... the training
programme

Fig 8.1 Training process

clearly defining needs before embarking on a training programme cannot

be over-emphasised.
A training need can be defined as the gap between the requirements
for skills and knowledge inherent in the job and those possessed by the
current job holder. It is vital that this gap is adequately analysed to
establish exactly what training is required (see Figure 8.2).

Fig 8.2 Training needs analysis

Requirements
of the job
--=-.-.--
Training
Characteristics
of the
need current job
holder
 Training for Current Jobs 95

It is misleading to imply that training needs analysis should take place

only at the level of the job. A thorough analysis starts with an attempt to
assess total organisational training needs in the context of:
• management's plans for the future of the organisation;
• the current organisation structure ;
• current expectations about the use of employees.
An example will emphasise the need to undertake such an organis-
ational analysis. Bob Brown owns a bakery. The business has been in
existence for over fifty years and has prospered. Capital has accumu-
lated . The firm has a good reputation and there is potential for
expansion . The management team consists of Bob , as managing director,
and a sales manager. Bob is a trained baker and spends most of his time
supervising production. The sales manager supervises the delivery
workers, checking van loads in the morning , and returns and cash at the
end of the day. From time to time Bob has looked at retail outlets and
other possible bakery premises with a view to expansion. However, he
seems to lack both the time and the energy to make his dreams of
expansion a reality .
In this case there appears to be a real need for a change in organis-
ation . We have very scanty information, but a superficial analysis would
suggest that the jobs of Bob, in particular, and the sales manager should
be redefined to allow them to plan the company 's future ; they should be
released from many of the demands of day-to-day supervision . Until such
redefinition of jobs has taken place training would be futile.

Organisational Analysis for Identification of Training Needs

An analysis of organisational characteristics and problems is necessary if
training is to be adequately linked to business plans. The sort of
information required is:
• existing and new product range ;
• planned technological developments;
• planned changes to organisation structure;
• planned changes in work methods;
• current and likely future financial position.
It will be necessary also to use the staffing information generated as a
result of Stage 1 of the human resource planning process (see Chapter 2,
pp. 12-20). This includes:
• Characteristics of current employees , by age, sex, grade, etc.
• Data on the utilisation of employees .
• Analysis of labour turnover.
96 Personnel Management

• Information about tasks currently being undertaken.

• Analysis of reports such as those on accidents or training.
In practice many training officers or consultants who embark on such a
task find that much of the data employed is incomplete, over-generalised
or of doubtful value .

Exercise 2
Are job descriptions always an accurate picture of the jobs undertaken by
employees? List two ways in which they may be deficient.

It will be necessary to analyse available data and to supplement it by

interviews with employees, managers and personnel specialists, and by
direct observation of work.
All this information should be compiled into a report which can form
the basis of the training plan .

Training Plans
The training plan represents the translation of training needs into action .
Suppose that Fred 's Food Processing Company loses a number of
unfair dismissal cases. Investigation of the facts behind these dismissals
reveals that one of the problems was the inadequate handling of problem
employees by supervisors , which was compounded by their lack of
understanding of employees' legal rights in this area. An entry in the
company training plan to cover this might read :

Training Estimated Action Respons- Time scale Budget

need benefit ibilit y

Handling Fewer Plan and Training Complete £6.000

of disci- industrial run two-day department w ithin six
plinary tribunal training months
cases by cases and course for
first-line the all first-line
super- company supervisors
visors will be
likely to
w in those
which arise

The process of training needs analysis at organisational level is summar-

ised in Figure 8.3.
 Training for Current Jobs 97

DATA
Organisation Staffing Jobs Labour Assessment
structure position required turnover of
to be done analysis employee
performance
SOURCE Organisation Human Job Human
OF DATA resource descriptions resource Performance
charts
plan plan appraisals
and other
assessments
of employee
performance

Fig 8.3 Training needs at organisation level

Training Needs Analysis at Individual Level

Before training programmes can be organised for individual employees,
it is necessary to analyse their jobs for training purposes.

Job analysis
In Chapter 3 we examined briefly the process of job analysis in
recruitment and selection . Such analysis is relevant for training purposes.
However, the emphasis here is on those aspects of the job which make it
difficult to learn. It is important to specify what procedures, techniques
and skills the trainee must be proficient at by the end of a programme of
training. This can be done by means of a job specification .
Look back to the discussion of personnel specification in Chapter 3,
pp. 33-6. The focus of a job specification required for training
purposes is such that the most commonly used headings are:
• Knowledge .
• Skills.
In re-examining Chapter 3 you should have noted that many of the
headings in a specification of the characteristics of the ideal candidate for
98 Personnel Management

recruitment and selection purposes are unsuitable for use in training.

This is because they are not amenable to training. Only in the totalitarian
world of Big Brother might an employee be 'trained' to have domestic
circumstances and interests ideal for the requirements of the job. Thus
most specifications used in training needs analysis have the two basic
headings listed above. Individual employees' knowledge and skills can
then be compared with these and training programmes designed accord-
ingly. Another way of defining training needs is in terms of competencies
or behaviours necessary for effective job performance .
The training specification is a detailed statement of the trainee's
learning needs based on a comparison between the criteria defined in the
personnel specification for selection purposes and the trainee's present
level of performance .
Assessment of individual training needs is one of the outputs of the
performance appraisal process (see Chapter 7). Alternative methods of
undertaking such an assessment are :
• interviews with individual employees and/or with their managers;
• assessment centres (see Chapter 9); and
• psychological testing (see Chapter 3).

8.6 Stage 2: The Planning of Training Programmes

Earlier in this chapter you were asked to imagine that you were a
shop-owner who had recently recruited a school Ieaver for training.
Suppose that you have just completed an analysis of the young person's
training needs and are ready to plan a training programme. Questions
which you would need to ask now are :
• What are the overall objectives of the training programme?
• Where and when should training take place?
• What should be the content of the training programme?
• What learning methods should be used?
• Who should undertake the training?
• Who should administer it?

Specification of training objectives

Ideally the objectives of a training programme should be expressed in
terms of the behaviour or competencies expected of the trainee when
training is complete.
Look at the extract from the training plan for Fred's Food Processing
Company on p. 96. Two possible objectives for the training program-
me which will have to be organised for the supervisors are that by the end
of the tra ining programme supervisors should be able to:
 Training for Current Jobs 99

• demonstrate a working knowledge of the law on discipline and

dismissal;
• demonstrate improved skills in the handling of disciplinary interviews .
The objectives of training programmes should fit trainees' needs . Note
that the first objective here is related to supervisors' needs for knowledge
and the second to the skills which they require in order to interact
effectively with those they supervise .

Timing of Training Programmes

The main considerations are :
• the need to minimise disruption to the trainee's work group;
• the trainee's view of the most appropriate time for training;
• the optimum integration between job demands and the content of the
training programme - it is not much use to send trainees on courses
when there will not be any immediate opportunity to use newly
acquired skills or knowledge;
• the availability of trainers , training rooms and other necessary re-
sources;
• the need to work within budgetary constraints .

Location of Training Programmes

Exercise 3
List three places where the shop-owner's assistant can be trained.

Off-the job training at the workplace

Most large organisations have a training centre or training room. The
advantage of such 'in-house' provision is that it can encourage identifica-
tion with the organisation and thus the integration between work and
training. Also, if all trainees are fellow employees, cross-fertilisation of
ideas and the breaking down of departmental barriers can occur. Possible
disadvantages include the exertion of pressure on trainees to return to
their jobs if crises arise, and the lack of opportunity to mix with
employees of other organisations.

On-the-job training at the workplace

'Sitting by Nellie' has long been favoured as a means of passing job
knowledge and skills to new employees. Learning can be put into
practice straight away. However, the success of this approach depends
very much on the quality of 'Nellie', whose bad habits the trainee may
100 Personnel Management

acquire , or who may be unable to pass on job knowledge . Ways of

overcoming these potential problems include:
• Ensuring that 'Nellie ' performs the job exactly in line with manage-
ment 's requirements.
• Training 'Nellie ' to be an effective teacher and coach (see Chapter 9,
pp .12o-1) .
This will not overcome problems of work environment. The hustle and
bustle of a busy office may not be conducive to training a typist to be an
effective word processor operator.

External courses
Sometimes it is not economic to design 'in-house' programmes to meet
trainees' needs . In addition, development programmes for managers and
specialist staff, especially those which lead to formal qualifications,
frequently have an educational orientation . Such provision is normally
available only externally. The advantages of external courses are:
• the tuition may be better than can be provided within the organis-
ation;
• trainees may feel freer to question and experiment;
• mixing with people from other organisations may facilitate learning .
For example managers may learn that there are other options in the
resolution of customer service problems by contact with their counter-
parts in other institutions.

The use of trainers

External trainers or consultants can be used to run training programmes,
or the organisation can use suitable employees, usually training special-
ists. The relevant considerations here are:
• whether the training department or others available as trainers in the
organisation have sufficient expertise and time available to undertake
the training programme;
• what financial resources are available;
• whether it is desirable to encourage trainees to learn about the
relevant policies and practices of other organ isations ; external trainers
are often able to help here .
When external trainers or consultants are used, it is vital to brief them
properly with relevant details of the organisation, the training needs
analysis on which the programme is to be based, the backgrounds and
expectations of the trainees and the training traditions of the organis-
ation .
 Training for Current Jobs 101

Increasingly companies are recognising the benefit of encouraging

managers to develop training skills. This can be an efficient means of
increasing the training resource ; as importantly, it encourages managers
and their staff to work closely together in the resolution of problems and
to learn from their experience.

Administration of Training
It does not follow that you can be sure of successful training if you hire
the right trainer. Effective administration of the training process is also
vital. For example, an apparently minor problem such as the non-
appearance of coffee at the pre-arranged time during a training session is
likely to hinder both the ability of the trainer to organise the learning
process and trainees' concentration and hence their learning. Good
training administrators ensure that:
• clear joining instructions are sent to participants well before the start
of the programme;
• trainees understand the objectives of the programme ;
• training is uninterrupted and necessary services (training materials,
meals, etc.) are available .

Content of Training Programmes

The basis of our understanding of this subject lies in an area of
psychology known as learning theory. Unfortunately, while the learning
theorists have provided us with some pointers to the conditions under
which training best takes place, they have been unable to find a solution
for every case where training is necessary. Different people learn in
different ways. Here is some guidance from learning theory which is
relevant to the design of training programmes.
• Trainees should be able to clearly define their personal goals and
targets.
• Elements of new knowledge required by trainees must be identified
and presented in a way which aids learning.
• Learning is assisted if it can be related to the trainee's previous
experience. Trainers should be familiar with the background of
trainees and should try to 'speak their language'.
• Learning often occurs through experience. Trainees should be given
the opportunity to use previous experience and to practise newly
acquired skills and knowledge .
• There should be the opportunity, where relevant, to observe the
skilled performance of others.
• 'Learning how to learn ' is a skill which trainees should be helped to
acquire. Thus trainers should be prepared to provide access to
102 Personnel Management

assistance with literacy and numeracy as well as generally to facilitate

the learning process.
• Trainees' rates and methods of learning vary greatly . Older people,
for example, differ from younger people in this respect.
• Some trainees reach a standstill or plateau in their learning from time
to time . Trainers must try to understand the reasons for this to help
trainees to make further progress.
• One of the most important influences on trainees' progress is their
level of motivation. We looked at motivation theory in Chapter 6.
Trainers should be aware of factors likely to affect trainees' motiva-
tion .
• Feedback on progress supportively delivered should be an integral
part of the training process .
• Trainees can provide each other with feedback and mutual support.
Increasingly it is recognised that the trainer is by no means always the
most effective manager of the learning process . Three principles of
learner-centred approaches to training are :
• Trainees are responsible for their own learning;
• Trainees have the right to analyse their own learning needs ;
• Trainees have the right to design their own training programmes.
If you adopt this approach to training you see the role of the trainer as
facilitator and counsellor rather than as teacher. (For examples of this
approach to management development see Chapter 9, pp . 117-21.)

Training Methods
Training methods are many and various :
• lectures;
• one-to-one instruction ;
• conferences;
• workshops ;
• case studies;
• roleplay;
• discussions ;
• experiential learning;
• sensitivity training;
• action learning;
• brainstorming;
• coaching;
• projects;
• distance learning or self-study;
• open learning.
 Training for Current Jobs 103

These categories are not mutually exclusive. For example, experiential

learning workshops can be run .
We lack space here to examine the relative merits of each method;
however some general comments are relevant. Already in this chapter
we have mentioned two categorisations of training methods:
• by location of training; and
• by relationship between trainer and trainee.

Exercise 4
List three types of training which are examples of the first categorisation and
two examples of the second.

Trainers must select methods which are suitable to the needs of the
trainees and to the resources available. It is useful for this to be done in
conjunction with trainees after making sure that they understand the
aims and objectives of training. 'Variety is the spice of life' in training,
and a number of methods can usefully be combined. For example,
trainers frequently are subject to pressure from line managers to shorten
training programmes in the interests of short-term productivity. Trainers
can accommodate such pressures sometimes by encouraging trainees to
use well-designed self-study texts. Attendance on a training programme
can be used for learning in areas where participative methods must be
used.

Open and distance learning

Where training is delivered mainly through formal courses certain
practical barriers to learning are likely to occur:
• the limited availability of specific courses in some geographical areas;
• fixed starting dates, location and times of attendance ;
• inappropriate learning methods or group composition ;
• inconvenience and cost of attending a fixed location ;
• unwillingness or inability of some employers to sponsor training.
Such limitations have led to a growth in demand for open and distance
learning. Such approaches are argued to be:
• centred on trainees' needs rather than on the limitations of edu-
cational institutions;
• problem-centred, incorporating a mix of learning methods, materials
and support in order to meet the needs of individual trainees.
104 Personnel Management

In this way trainees should be able to determine the place, pace and
content of their learning. In practice there appear to be several problems
with such approaches:
• Trainees' commitment may be insufficient to meet the demands of the
courses.
• The link between the content of such materials and trainees' previous
experience may not be readily apparent.
• Trainees may reach learning plateaux and find it difficult to progress.
• Trainees may lack the study skills to cope with the material.
• Support for trainees and feedback to them may be inadequate.
These potential disadvantages may be overcome wholly or in part if the
trainee has a coach or mentor in the organisation who is capable of
assisting with learning problems. This may be a trainer or a trained
manager.

8.7 Stage 3: Implementing Training Programmes

You will have learnt by now that effective training programmes depend
on thorough training needs analysis and good programme planning and
design . However, if the delivery of the programme is inadequate , this
preparatory work will have been wasted.

Selection of Appropriate Trainees for Training

Some points to bear in mind here are :
• Size of the group Some participative methods such as role play
cannot be conducted effectively with large numbers. Even with more
teacher-centred methods large numbers may be unhelpful; trainees
can fail to become actively involved in their own learning.
• Mix of participants Work group members may be assisted to work
together more effectively by a common training experience such as a
team-building workshop. Conversely individuals may develop ideas
about possible new ways of solving work problems from a training
programme which gives the opportunity to meet people from other
departments or organisations.
• The process of selecting trainees should also involve their su-
periors Much useful learning from training programmes fails to be
carried back into the workplace. If the trainee's supervisor is respon-
sible for pre- and post-programme briefing , this is likely to occur.
• Trainees should want to be trained Only those employees who wish
to undergo training should do so. Sometimes trainers have to work
with course participants who have been told that they must be trained.
In these cases there is resistance to learning and little is achieved.
 Training for Current Jobs 105

Conducting training programmes in accordance with objectives and

design
We stressed the need to give care to the selection of trainers and training
administrators when we examined the planning of training programmes.
Effective communication with trainees is vital, as is the careful organi s-
ation of materials and other resources .

Giving trainees feedback on performance during the training

programme
Informing trainees of their progress during training encourages
appropriate behaviour to be continued and inappropriate behaviour to
be dropped. It allows the trainer to discover whether trainees have
learning problems and to help these to be overcom e.

8.8 Stage 4: The Evaluation of Training Programmes

Evaluation Methods

Post-programme evaluation
Most trainers will tell you that the best time to get a positive reaction to a
training programme from trainees is at the end of the last day . This
reaction may not be valid in that the trainees are often in a state of
euphoria at this time with lots of ideas buzzing around in their heads . It
may be appropriate to administer a questionnaire at the end of the course
which is clearly linked with the train ing which has been undertaken. It
can be linked to a pre-course questionnaire to check the degree to which
the course has come up to trainees' expect ations and has increased their
knowledge.
Because of the problems of administering such questionnaires at the
end of a course , some trainers send them to participants weeks or months
afterwards. This too has its disadvantages in that the response rate tends
to be low. However, the greatest validity problem of post-course reaction
questionnaires completed by trainees is that , to be effective , evaluation
must measure whether training objectives have been achieved ; that is,
whether the trainee's job performance has improved. Asking for
trainees' reactions to a course or even attempting to measure improve-
ments in their knowledge does not assess whether the y are more effective
employees as a result of training.

Other training evaluation methods

Training is rarely evaluated other than via trainees' reactions. However,
it can be evaluated with reference to:
106 Personnel Management

• the behaviour of the individual employee on the job;

• managers' assessment of individual job performance;
• organisational performance in areas where training has been under-
taken;
• the degree to which the whole organisation has benefited from
training and development.
What is certain is that the further away you get from trainees' reactions
to training the more difficult evaluation becomes. This is because other
factors may be responsible for the changes detected.

Exercise 5
Fred's Food Processing Company sends all its supervisors on the training
programme outlined in the extract from the training plan on p. 96. The
following year, claims of unfair dismissal fall by 50 per cent and the company
wins all the cases wh ich go to industrial tribunal. Can it be claimed that this is the
result of the training programme?

Evaluating changes in trainees' job behaviour Managers can be con-

sulted and trainees and trainers can meet in workshops or with individual
managers to discuss the effects of training. It is best if this occurs some
months after the completion of training so that the full effects can be
evaluated. This can act as useful reinforcement for the trainee and can
assist trainers to make decisions about modifications to training pro-
grammes.
Another useful mechanism is for trainees to be encouraged to compile
action plans at the end of a training programme . The success of the
training programme can be evaluated by the degree to which the plan is
achieved .
Evaluation by trainers of their contribution It is important that trainers
systematically review the extent to which they assisted trainees to meet
the objectives of a training programme.
Evaluation at organisational level Relevant indicators include:
• labour turnover rates;
• accident rates;
• waste of materials;
• absenteeism;
• productivity.
Only thorough investigation is likely to reveal whether the improvements
in these areas can be attributed to training . Some organisations use a
training committee of senior managers to supervise such an assessment.
 Training for Current Jobs 107

Feedback of Evaluation Results

To complete the systematic approach to training outlined at the begin-
ning of this chapter, it is vital to feed back the results of evaluation to all
those involved in the training process.
In summary, the evaluation of training initiatives :
• Enables the effectiveness of investment in training to be appraised.
• Provides feedback about trainees' performance which can be used in
subsequent training.
• Improves future training programmes.

8.9 Role of the Training Specialist

In Chapter 1 we categorised the roles of personnel specialist as:
• audit ;
• executive;
• facilitator;
• consultancy;
• service.
An example of an activity undertaken by a training specialist under each
of these headings is:
Audit: Checking that job descriptions are accurate prior to embarking
on a training needs analysis.
Executive: Running a training course.
Facilitator: Assisting trainees to identify their learning needs and
objectives.
Consultancy: Advising a manager on the degree to which training can
resolve a problem of inadequate employee performance.
Service: Providing management with regular reports on training activi-
ties which have taken place in the organisation .
9 Developing People for the Future

Here our focus is the often lengthy trammg and development pro-
grammes for the career development of employees. The most obvious
category is those with supervisory or managerial potential and graduate
trainees. Female workers or members of ethnic minority groups may be
selected for development as part of the implementation of equal oppor-
tunities policies.
In this chapter we shall examine each of these areas in turn. The
subject of management development is covered in the greatest depth for
two reasons: firstly, because almost all organ isations attempt to develop
potential managers and, secondly, because the principles involved here
can be applied to other categories of staff. By the end of the chapter you
should be able to apply a systematic approach to the development of
employees thought capable of progressing to more responsible jobs.

9.1 Management Development

Common sense, character, background and job experience have been
thought to be the most important determinants of an effective manager.
Recently the increasing complexity of modern business and of mana-
gerial work, together with rising levels of expectation and education
among young managers, have led to demands for greater profe ssional-
ism. There is widespread recognition of the connection between econ-
omic growth and effective management. With some notable exceptions,
Britain's managers lack the development , education and training oppor-
tunities of their competitors. However, over the past 25 years there has
been a growth in both undergraduate and postgraduate management
courses ; in-company development programmes have become more pre-
valent; the business schools have been developed; major companies have
made graduate recruitment routine and the state has encouraged some
management development initiatives . Management has become an
increasingly recognised skill in industry, commerce, the public services
and voluntary organisations. Nevertheless much needs to be done to
develop managers more systematically .
 Developing People for the Future 109

9.2 The Focus of Management Development

Prescriptions for the development of effective managers vary greatly. It
is superficially simple to implement a 'package' for the off-the-job
training of potential managers. It is less easy to develop techniques which
match the needs of the particular organisation. Nevertheless it has now
largely been accepted that management development should be geared
to the particular organisational circumstances of the manager's job. The
requirements for effective management will differ greatly from organis-
ation to organisation, depending on the nature of the market for
products and labour, the size of the organisation, its history and so on.

9.3 A Systematic Approach to Management Development

You would be well advised to analyse managerial jobs before attempting
to select and develop those capable of filling them . Suppose that you are
charged with responsibility for the process of management development
in your organisation. Think back to Chapter 2, 'Planning for people', and
to Chapter 8, on training; the questions which you would need to ask
yourself to develop a systematic process for the selection and develop-
ment of people with potential for managerial positions within three years
are:
• What managerial jobs will we need to fill in three years ' time?
• What will be the characteristics (knowledge, skills and personal
qualities) of the individuals suitable to fill these positions?
• How can we select some people for development to these positions?
• What training needs do these people have?
• What development programmes can we plan and implement to meet
these needs?
• How can we evaluate the process?
The rest of the discussion of management development in this chapter
attempts to answer these questions.

The Link with Human Resource Planning

As the first of the questions listed above implies, we need to estimate the
demand for managers in five years ' time and the likely supply. (Prior to
reading this section you may find it helpful to refer back to Chapter 2,
pp. 10-23.) Information which you would need to forecast the supply of
managers in an organisation in three years ' time includes :
• Number in managerial jobs now - by grade, age, job, etc .
• Retirement over the next three years .
110 Personnel Management

• Labour turnover over the next three years .

• Movement into other jobs within the organisation as a result of
promotion, demotion or other job changes.
On-going career development programmes for those with managerial
potential also will affect the future supply of managers.
In undertaking this exercise you should not have listed any factor
associated with changes in the nature of the business over the next three
years - expansion or contraction, for example. This must be taken into
account as part of human resource demand planning, which is also vital
in attempting to estimate the number of managers required by the
organisation in three years' time .

Exercise 1
Having estimated the demand for managers in three years' time and the likely
supply, list the next three stages of the human resource planning process.

If this assessment of the likely demand for and supply of managers in

three years' time were undertaken in many British businesses today, the
result would be a projected shortage of managers. This is due both to an
increased recognition of the importance of managerial talent to effective
company performance and to a failure in most British companies to
nurture it in the past. Very often it is decided that such a gap should be
filled by the development and promotion of existing employees since:
• As we have seen, the characteristics of managerial effectiveness often
seem to depend on the particular nature of the organisation. Hence
employees who 'know the ropes ' may be a safer bet than outsiders.
• The opportunity of promotion to a managerial position may act as a
spur to hard work.
Other factors may be the uncertainty and the cost of the recruitment and
selection process - 'better the devil you know . . . '! Information from
performance appraisal and personnel records should act as a basis for
such judgements of existing employees. Early identification of potential
gives time for systematic development prior to promotion.
Conversely, senior management in particular are often externally
recruited because an injection of 'new blood' can help ward off stagna-
tion and complacency. There are no easy prescriptions for success in
personnel management. Choice of a strategy should be made after a
careful consideration of organisational circumstances.
 Developing People for the Future 111

9.4 Managerial Succession Planning

To ensure that replacements will be available for managers who leave or
retire, and that suitable people are ready to fill newly created managerial
positions, managerial succession planning is undertaken in many organis-
ations. This involves the recording of information from human resource
planning and assessments of performance and potential in such a way as
to facilitate decision-making on promotions and the development of
those earmarked as having potential.

Exercise 2
Figure 9.1 is an example of a succession chart. Examine it carefully. Then
answer the following questions.

Fig 9.1 Succession chart for senior personnel specialists

Group Personnel 58 2
DirectOl 2 3
T. Brown
S. Smith 40 1
1 1
J . Jones 35 2
1 2

I 35 1
I I Group
I 40 1
Industrial Training 55 3 Salary 53 4
Relations 1 2 Manager 6 3 Administ- 3 4 Personnel 1 1
Manager ration Manager Manager
T. Green
J . Jones M . Black S.Smith
B. Goode 31 1 D.Mann 39 2 V.White 42 1 L. Bright 40 2
1 2 3 2 3 1 2 2
L. Shot 2B 2 W.Hope 35 2 L. Cumming 35 2 H. Upton 35 2
3 3 2 2 2 2 1 2
Notes:
Each posit ion on this organisation 3. The number in the top right-hand
chart is shown with the name of the comer indicates performance in
present incumbent and that of a short- the current job assessed on a five-
and a long-term successor. Each name point scale :
is followed by four numbers: 1. excellent;
2. very good ;
1. The number in the top left-hand 3. adequate;
comer indicates age of employee. 4. barely adequate;
5. inadequate;
2. The number in the bottom
left-hand comer indicates highest 4. The number in the bottom
qualification of employee: right-hand comer indicates
1. higher degree ; promotability on a four-point
2. first degree; scale ;
3. professional qualification; 1. ready for promotion ;
4. national diploma ; 2. promotion with development;
5. national certificate; 3. probably not promotable;
6. other. 4. should be transferred.
112 Personnel Management

1. How old is the group personnel director?

2. Which of her/his subordinates should be transferred to other, presumably
less responsible, work?
3. How would the group personnel manager feel if she were told that she is the
personnel director's immediate successor?
4. List three potential problems in using this chart.

Succession planning is vital if the continuity of the business is to be

maintained without hitches when key managerial positions become
vacant. The lessons for successful planning are :
• keep it simple;
• back up succession plans with current personnel records which include
details of training received and job performance;
• try to make the process as informal as possible .

9.5 Analysis of Development Needs

In the last chapter we looked generally at the process of establishing
training needs both at organisational and individual level. Before select-
ing candidates for management development, job analysis should have
been undertaken and job specifications for training purpos es drawn up.

Exercise 3
Think back to our discussion of training needs analysis in the last chapter. List
the headings of a job specification to be used for the identification of manage-
ment development needs.

To identify the skills and knowledge required, it will also be necessary to

use the personnel specification drawn up for recruitment and selection
purposes as a guide to the personal qualities of potential managers. The
characteristics required for effective managerial performance will vary
widely because of the huge variety of settings within which managers
operate. Therefore development needs must be assessed for the particu-
lar environment and job; development programmes should not be based
on generalised assumptions of need .

9.6 Selecting for Management Development

After reminding yourself of our discussion of the disadvantages of the
selection interview in Chapter 3, you should be able to list some of the
 Developing People for the Future 113

likely problems of using an interview as the sole method of selecting

employees for management. These include:
• Selection interviews may be only as reliable as sticking pins in a list as
a method of selecting the best candidate.
• Interviewers may be affected by stereotypes or other types of bias.
In selecting a successor, a manager may select 'in his own image'.
• As a result, interviewers may ask faulty questions or fail to listen
adequately to candidates' answers.
The most commonly used systematic methods of identifying candidates
for development as tomorrow's managers are:
• performance appraisal systems;
• assessment centres.

Performance appraisal
The advantages of attempting to assess potential during a performance
appraisal interview are:
• Employees can be given feedback on their performance as part of a
career counselling.
• Manager and employee together can assess the latter's training and
development needs, if career goals are to be achieved.
• This is a relatively cheap method of assessing potential as compared
with assessment centres, for example.
However, you also should be aware that many managers lack knowledge
of career paths and find it difficult to discuss career development with
their subordinates. Also the appraisee 's immediate boss is likely to be
familiar only with performance in the current job . This may be an
inadequate indicator of the ability to do other jobs.

Assessment Centres
The 'acid test' of an employee's capacity to become a manager is the
ability to do the job . Assessment centres have been developed as an
attempt to simulate all or part of the job and to observe candidates'
reactions to it. The origins of assessment centres lie in the War Office
Selection Boards developed during the Second World War because of
the need to select soldiers from the ranks for officer training .
The term 'assessment centre' is generally used to cover the assessment
of a group of individuals by a team of judges using a comprehensive and
integrated series of techniques , such as psychological tests , interviews
and simulation exercises. Several assessors (usually senior managers
114 Personnel Management

specially trained in assessment skills) are used to assess the degree to

which participants appear to possess dimensions of performance defined
as significant in managerial positions in the organisation. A major use is
the selection of employees for development.
Typically an assessment centre consists of:

• A leaderless group exercise in which candidates are given group

tasks to undertake in a a given time, for example the planning of a
conference or the relocation of a factory. Assessors sit outside the
group making notes on participants' behaviour. Attributes for assess-
ment include assertiveness, influence and leadership. Sometimes this
activity takes the form of a business game in which participants in
teams must operate at a profit in a given market. Sometimes teams
compete .
• A report-writing exercise in which participants , again under time
pressure , write a report on their own jobs or on some other aspect of
the business. Characteristics assessed include written communication
skills, breadth of understanding and logical development of ideas.
• An in-tray exercise consisting of a sample of problems which a
manager might find on his desk on a bad day. The aim is to test the
ability to work under pressure , to delegate and to analyse and solve
problems.

Other common elements of assessment centres include oral presen-

tations, interviews and psychological tests of ability and personality .
To decide what activities to include in an assessment centre you would
have to take into account such factors as:

• the characteristics of the job for which participants are being selected ;
• the size of budget to run the assessment centre;
• the number of trained assessors available.

Characteristics tested during assessment centres

A detailed and accurate personnel specification is an essential prerequi-
site of an assessment centre. The activities to be included should be
designed to test the characteristics of the ideal candidate laid down in this
specification. For example, it would be futile to include an oral presenta-
tion if such a skill is not a requirement of the job. Where candidates are
being chosen for development rather than immediate promotion, it will
be necessary to take account of this in selecting dimensions for assess-
ment. Frequently, as we saw above, activities can be chosen which test
more than one dimension.
 Developing People for the Future 115

The cost of assessment centres

Assessment centres are not worth doing unless done well. The costs
involved include the time of those who design and run the centre as well
as those who train the assessors. These can be considerable since
assessment centres usually last from two days to a week and involve one
assessor for every two or three candidates. In addition external consul-
tants are frequently hired to design and oversee the process .

Assessor training
Assessors should be:
• familiar with the jobs for development to which candidates are being
considered;
• committed to management development and to the use of assessment
centres as part of this;
• prepared to give sufficient time both to training as assessors and to
involvement in assessment centres.
Training is vital. Managers do not generally possess the skills of
recording and reporting verbal and non-verbal behaviour. In addition
they must develop common definitions of assessment dimensions and of
associated rating scales. Training usually involves assessors doing the
exercises as assessees and discussing ratings. They also may observe
assessment centres.
The development value for senior managers who act as assessors can
be considerable: they are likely to take improved interviewing, observa-
tion and assessment skills back into the workplace.

The developmental value of assessment centres

At the end of the assessment centre, assessors pool their judgements.
The centre may be used simply to accept or reject candidates. More often
it is a basis for the counselling of participants as an aid to the planning of
their career development. Hence, participation can be of developmental
value: for example, assessees can get a better understanding of what a
manager does and of the qualities needed to be a successful manager.
Through the assessment centre they learn about their strengths and
weaknesses and become better equipped to make more informed career
development decisions.

Reliability and validity of assessment centres

Research indicates that assessment centres, if well designed and well run,
are better predictors of future job performance than interviews alone .
116 Personnel Management

Though they are more expensive than appraisal interviews, the extra cost
should result in more accurate predictions of potential. The counselling
which follows a good assessment centre should be a sound basis on which
to build subsequent management development.

9.7 Designing Management Development Programmes

The nature of the gap between the characteristics of the potential
manager and the requirements of the job it willbe necessary for her/him to
do in the future should be delineated as a result of an assessment centre
or through a performance appraisal interview. A programme of develop-
ment must then be designed . There are large numbers of management
development techniques but, as we said earlier in the chapter, these must
be appropriate to organisational and individual circumstances .
You might find it useful to talk to some managers about how they
learnt to do their jobs. The items which such people mention most
frequently include:
• doing the job;
• doing other jobs;
• training courses at the place of work or elsewhere;
• education programmes such as post-experience management courses.
• life experience ;
• radio, television and newspapers;
• friends , relatives or other influential people in life;
• thinking, introspection or self-assessment;
• pre-experience courses , such as business studies degrees or national
diplomas .
We see from this list that management development can be teacher-
centred or learner-centred in the sense that it builds on the individual's
own experience.

Teacher-centred Approaches
Most managers have experienced some sort of taught management
course. The distinction between education and training made in the last
chapter is relevant here . Managers need specific skills and knowledge to
be effective. Training courses are designed to teach selling techniques,
particular areas of legislation, negoitiating skills, effective speaking and
so on . If well designed and run, these are useful, especially if they give
the opportunity for participants to exchange views and experiences with
others in similar positions.
Management education specialists argue that managers or potential
specialists must be flexible and adaptable to meet the changing cir-
 Developing People for the Future 117

cumstances of business organisations. They must be aware of the

environmental context - political , social and economic - and able to
resolve problems and meet new situations. A variety of diploma and
higher degree courses have been developed to this end by universities ,
polytechnics and other institutions. Their quality varies greatly and the
intending user should carefully scrutinise a programme prior to enrol-
ment.

Learner-centred Approaches
While good management teachers will assist managers to build positively
on their experience, programme content and teaching methods are
largely prescribed. There are other approaches to management develop-
ment which focus on the needs of the learner. In the last chapter we
outlined the main characteristics of learner-centred approaches to train-
ing.

Exercise 4
List three of these characteristics.

Learner-centred approaches to management development are now welJ

established. They encourage managers to take responsibility for their
own development and learn from their experience. Here we examine two
of them - action learning and self-managed learning.

Action learning
This approach is based on the work of Reg Revans who , after an
industrial career, became a professor of management. He quickly
became disenchanted with management education, saying quite simply,
'Courses won't work . We must give management education back to the
managers and let them learn with and from each other during real work.'
Thus action learning programmes have two common elements:
• participating managers work on complex and important problems to
which the final answer is not known but to which a series of acceptable
next moves might be suggested;
• these managers meet together regularly and on equal terms in 'sets' to
report to each other and to discuss problems and progress .
Programmes vary in their structure but participants spend either alJ or
part of their working time on the diagnosis of a complex and important
business problem . The important difference between this and other
management development or research projects is that participation in
118 Personnel Management

action learning means that managers must 'own' the problem and must
be able to implement their solutions. Revans favour s the exchange of
participants between organis ations , so that a manager experienced in one
organisational context is placed in a strange environment with a complex
problem. In this way there is a freshnes s of approach and a likelihood
that organisational conventions will be broken.
A vital element of action learning programmes is 'sets ' of four to six
participants. These meet regularly and are assisted by a set adviser. The
function of the set is to help participants resolve the business problem
which each owns . The set adviser , who may be a teacher, trainer ,
consultant, personnel specialist or manager, helps set members in a
mutual process of giving and receiving help and generally assists with the
action learning process .

Exercise 5
Which of the roles played by personnel specialists. described at the end of
Chapter 1, does this description of the functions of the set adviser most closely
resemble?

Action learning differs greatly from more conventional management

education programmes with a defined syllabus , where participants are
more dependent on teachers:
• An assumption of action learning is that managers learn by managing ,
whereas more conventional management education programmes aim
to teach managers to manage.
• Participants on action learning programmes 'own' a real business
problem and are responsible for implementing a solution .
• The role of staff on action learning programmes is to provide the
conditions in which managers can learn by resolving practical prob-
lems. By contrast, teachers on more conventional programmes are
concerned with the transfer of knowledge and skills to participants
within the limits of a predetermined syllabus.

Self-managed learning
There are many similarities between this approach and action learning;
participants in both programmes are responsible for the management of
their own learning and there is no predetermined curriculum. Self-
managed learning programmes also use 'sets ' as a support and progress
mechanism.
However, in self-managed learning programmes, managers are com-
pletely free to analyse their own learning needs and to choose the
 Developing People for the Future 119

associated learning methods in conjunction with set members and staff

associated with the programme . The resultant individual programme of
study need not be centred on a business problem as in action learning .
Rather, managers identify their own learning objectives in the light of
current and likely future life and work circumstances and goals. The task
of the participant engaged in such a programme is to fulfil the require-
ments of the personality defined development programme. This may
involve a variety of learning methods such as attendance at formal
training courses or educational programmes, projects at work or in
another organisation, roleplays , guided reading or attempts to improve
performance directly on the jobs with structured feedback from peers ,
subordinates or superiors. Learners are responsible also for evaluating
and assessing their own learning in conjunction with fellow participants
or 'set' members and a set adviser.

The increasing popularity of learner-centred approaches

There is an increasing concern amongst senior managers that manage-
ment development should not only be directly related to corporate goals
and business needs but that it should also be supportive of the career
aspirations of individual managers. Training and continuous develop-
ment by individuals is perceived as a necessity for business survival in an
increasingly complex organisational environment. For these reasons
there is a greater tendency than previously to design management
development activities in response to the direct needs of managers and
their day-to-day work . A summary of the reasons for the increasing
emphasis on learner-centred approaches to management development
follows:
• There is greater recognition that people learn in different ways and of
the effect of this on the effectiveness of management development
initiatives. Learner-centred approaches to management development
encourage individuals to identify their preferred learning style and to
design personal development programmes accordingly.
• It is now recognised that many apparently useful management devel-
opment courses have had little impact on performance back on the
job. A better integration between learning and work is essential.
• There is an enhanced understanding of the importance of
boss - subordinate (and other workplace relationships) to the deve-
lopment process. It is easier to ensure an integration of learner-
centred approaches to development within this network than is the
case for more traditional course-based development.
• Organisational culture itself is changing as senior management rec-
ognises that, in today's less stable and predictable environmental
120 Personnel Management

circumstances, they can take less responsibility for the direction of

individual managers' careers; nothing is certain , not even the survival
of the organisation; individuals must take greater responsibility for
their own development and encourage their subordinates to do the
same.

The implications of learner-centred approaches for the role of the

manager
In organisations that place a high value on training and development
activities, managers become indirectly involved in training through the
appraisal system. Where individual managers are encouraged to take
greater responsibility for their own development, the manager becomes
an essential contributor to the learning process. There are a number of
structured ways in which managers can take on this role . Two are
explored here :
• the manager as coach;
• the manager as mentor.
The manager as coach Coaching rests on the assumption that someone
who performs a job is qualified to assist a more junior employee to
develop the capability to undertake a task or project more effectively.
This 'helping' process involves both discussion and guided activity to
encourage the learner to acquire new knowledge, skills and competen-
cies. Thus, the coaching process has two elements:
• improved task performance ;
• learning and development from undertaking the task .
To be an effective coach the manager must assist the subordinate to
identify personal learning needs and agree how the undertaking of a
particular task will assist these to be met. The coach should hold regular
sessions with the learner to review progress and give further counselling
and guidance.
A major advantage of coaching as part of a management development
programme, which may also include courses and other more formal
learning experiences, is that a close relationship between superior and
subordinate should ease problems of integrating new learning with the
requirements of present or future jobs .
A word of caution must be sounded! Not all managers are effective
coaches. Training in relevant skills is vital, as are certain personal
qualities .
To give you a feel for the nature of the coaching relationship, you may
find it helpful to try to analyse your own development needs and take the
list to your boss for discussion. Ask for help in attempting to prepare a
 Developing People for the Future 121

personal development plan including the selection of a suitable task or

project which may assist in meeting your learning needs. This is a useful
exercise in itself. However, to attempt to build your knowledge of and
skills in the coaching process, after the interview list the skills needed by
your boss to help you . Your list is likely to include:
• Good communication skills.
• Willingness to listen and to learn.
• A participative style rather than a desire to impose solutions on you.
• Interest in you and in your development.
The manager as mentor Mentoring, like coaching, is concerned with the
personal development of the learner, but the process through which the
helping relationship is undertaken is much less specific. The mentor
assists the learner with the development of life goals and nurtures
learning in pursuit of these. In this sense it formalises the help and
encouragement which some people have been fortunate to receive early
in their careers from their more senior counterparts. Just as not all
managers are effective coaches neither are they effective mentors. The
latter process is demanding intellectually, emotionally and spiritually.
The effective coach focuses on 'How' questions to assist learning; the
mentor is more likely to ask 'Why?'. This is more confronting for the
learner but can lead to development breakthroughs at work and in life
generally which have a significant long-term effect.
Where managers are essential contributors to the learning process they
too acquire insight and challenge. The organisation itself should benefit
both directly from improved performance and indirectly from the
encouragement of greater questioning of the appropriateness of cor-
porate goals and of the ways in which they are pursued.

The implications of learner-centred approaches for the role of the

trainer
In many ways changes in the role of the trainer mirror those in the role of
the manager from a directive to a supportive or facilitative role . There
will be less direct teaching and more facilitation of group events,
individual counselling and coaching, provision of learning resources and
consultancy support to line managers.

9.8 Evaluation of Management Development

It is probably more important to review the results of management
development systematically than for other types of training activity. This
is because the expenditure per employee of both time and money is likely
to be greater.
122 Personnel Management

Exercise 6
List three ways of evaluating the results of management development. Think
back to our discussion of the evaluation of training in the last chapter, pp.
105-7, to help you to do this.

In deciding on your answers to this question you should have recalled the
problems of evaluating the results of training discussed in the last
chapter. Only by a continuous process of feedback can management
development activities become closely aligned to organisational needs.

9.9 Career Development for Young People

After our examination of management development we will look briefly
at planned development activities for young extrants to organisations.
These are usually eighteen-year-old school leavers or graduates. Gen-
erally, approaches to their development are of two types:
• the 'Cook's tour' of the organisation;
• specific training in one job.

A Case Study
When I first graduated I went to work as a personnel management
trainee at the headquarters of a large retailing and wholesaling organis-
ation. The selection process was intensive and highly competitive,
bearing considerable resemblance to an assessment centre in the techni-
ques employed. I was keen to gain experience of personnel management.
The personnel department was divided into sections dealing with recruit-
ment and selection, industrial relations , salary administration , employee
benefits and so on. Trainees were given a 'Cook's tour' of the depart-
ment, spending three months in each section.
Initially we were enthusiastic about this, believing that it would afford
the opportunity to acquire a good grounding in all the aspects of
personnel work . I became disillusioned after weeks in the 'sickness
section' dealing with the administration of the company's scheme under
the supervision of a clerk the same age as myself whose experience of
personnel management was limited to his present job . I spent my days
doing manual calculations of sickness entitlements and benefits. I never
saw an employee or a manager. My next move was to the industrial
relations section. Here the work was more interesting and I was
supervised by a graduate industrial relations officer who was keen to help
me to learn. To cope with the job I needed considerable understanding
both of industrial relations and of payment-by-results systems, since the
 Developing People for the Future 123

task was to prepare negotiating briefs for management. I tried to gain

appropriate knowledge by intensive reading of files of previous cases.
This was not entirely satisfactory since my learning was very fragmented
and needed consolidation .
The industrial relations officer was frequently out at factories assisting
with negotiations, and his superior, the industrial relations manager, was
openly hostile to me. He had opposed the appointment of graduate
trainees, believing that we were a hindrance to the smooth running of the
department. We had day-release one day each week to attend a local
college course which led to the examinations of the Institute of Personnel
Management. The course seemed to have little relevance to our work
and we generally saw it as a day off work!
The five problems of career development using a 'Cook's tour'
illustrated by this case study include:
• The high expectations of the trainees generated by the rigorous nature
of the selection process were not fulfilled by the development pro-
gramme .
• The employees charged with the day-to-day supervision of the trainees
were inadequately integrated into the programme. Hence supervision
was generally inadequate.
• The development programme was actively opposed by some members
of the department.
• There was a failure to ensure that trainees had adequate skills and
knowledge to cope with the tasks which they were given or readily
available support and guidance when necessary .
• The college course was not integrated with work experience even in
the broadest sense .
Only if these problems had been overcome would we have reaped the
advantages of such a 'Cook's tour' : that is, we would have learnt about
the various types of personnel work and their relationships with each
other and with the other parts of the business. A further advantage of
such approaches to the development of young people is that they enable
them to make better decisions about their career goals. In particular they
allow general management trainees to decide on the function of manage-
ment in which they wish to specialise.
Many young people move straight into a permanent job and receive
development related to that job . The advantage of this approach is that it
gives greater opportunities for the development of skills, by contrast to
the 'tour' which may give trainees a wide but superficial knowledge of the
organisation . Young people in junior management, technical or pro-
fessional roles learn by coping with the demands of their own job rather
than by watching others. In this situation a sympathetic boss with highly
developed coaching skills is vital.
124 Personnel Management

9.10 Equal Opportunities in Career Development

As we shall see in Chapter 11, posit ive action can be taken to train
women or members of ethnic minority groups where it can be shown that
they are under-represented in particular jobs . Fear of resentment from
other workers has discouraged some employers from taking such initiat-
ives. However, many organisations now are taking active steps to
implement equal opportunity policies. As a result programmes to
provide development opportunities for members of groups previously
under-represented in certain occupations have been started .
Targets can be established for numbers of women, black people or the
disabled to be in particular posts within a specified time . This is the
human resource planning stage of the development programme. People
with the potential to fill these positions must then be selected.

Exercise 7
Remembe ring our discussion of a systematic approach to training in the last
chapter. and that of management development in this chapter. list the next two
stages of an equal opportunities career development programme.

Employees selected for development in this way will have occupied

relatively routine jobs for many years, which may not have made full use
of their personal capabilities. Hence, equal opportunities progr ammes
usefully include confidence-building activities and assertiveness training
as well as very good facilities for counselling and guidance . The support
of managers and other people involved in the programme is vital. Some
organisations run training programmes in racism and sexism awareness
for managers involved in making development and promotion decisions,
to help to ensure that career development for members of minority
groups becomes a reality as part of the implementation of equal
opportunities policies.

9.11 Development of High Flyers

More attention is being given to identifying, developing and rewarding
those deemed to have the potential to occupy senior management
positions in future . Such people are asking for greater responsibility
earlier in their careers. Many organisations are making great efforts to
ensure their retention. Two ways of achieving this are:
• by decentralisation and divisionalisation which gives more people
experience of running a business ;
 Developing People for the Future 125

• the development of consultancy or secondment opportunities within

or outside the business.

Flexible organisations need flexible managers

It is apparent that organisations need to be increasingly flexible to
respond rapidly to fast-moving business conditions . Traditionally
managers have been recruited on the basis of skills required to resolve
immediate operational problems ; little attention has been paid to the
development of long-term strategy . The pace of change now suggests
that the emphasis should be on the potential to acquire new skills in the
future .

9.12 A Final Word on Development

Uncertainty and opportunity face management. Trainers and developers
can make a very significant contribution if they seize the opportunity for
change and are not afraid to try new approaches. I hope that in this
chapter I have convinced you that systematic development not only of
managers but also of other groups of employees is vital if such future
challenges are to be met!
10 Looking after
Employees - Welfare and
Counselling Services

The development of welfare services in industrial organisations began in

the UK in the late nineteenth century, when there was no welfare state
and working conditions could be appalling . Some paternalistic
employers , most of them Quakers, believed that they had a responsibility
to look after their employees for both social and economic rea sons . The
question we attempt to answer in this chapter is whether it is still
necessary for employers to provide welfare services.
There are many reasons for the provision of welfare services for
employees by management:
• To ensure that employees ' productive capacity is not handicapped by
personal problems.
• To fill gaps in the provision of state welfare services for employed
people.
• The social responsibilities of employers .
• The legal responsibilities of employers. The law requires employers to
provide adequate lighting, fume extraction, air conditioning, facilities
for washing, rest breaks and meals and so on. As we shall see in the
next chapter, the law also lays down statutory minima for the
provision of certain rights. Maternity pay and maternity leave would
fall into this category .
• The desire to be perceived as a good employer as an aid to recruit-
ment.
It is difficult to prove a link between the provision of welfare services and
productivity, but many managers would argue that encouraging
employees to have a positive attachment both to their jobs and to the
employing organisation is in the interests of economic efficiency.
State welfare services are geared mainly to the needs of those who do
not work. An ageing population has put strains on these .
 Looking after Employees - Welfare and Counselling Services 127

10.1 How Can We Define 'Welfare' in the Context of

Modern Personnel Management?
The first comprehensive list of the range of personnel management
activities to be compiled in Britain was published in 1943 (G . R. Moxon,
Functions of a Personnel Department , Institute of Personnel Manage-
ment 1943). It listed welfare or employee services activities as:

• Administration of canteen policy.

• Sick club and benevolent and saving schemes .
• Long-service grants.
• Pension and superannuation funds or leaving grants.
• Granting of loans .
• Legal aid .
• Advice on individual problems.
• Assistance to employees in transport , housing , billeting, shopping and
other problems.
• Provision of social and recreation facilities.

The comprehensive nature of this list was more an expression of hope for
the future than of reality in most organisations in the immediate postwar
period. Can it then be said to be some sort of indication of the welfare
services provided by employers today?
Most large employers do provide specialist welfare services to
employees of the sort listed above, though there has been some shift of
emphasis from those where state services are now more comprehensive
(housing, transport and recreational provision) towards greater provision
of counselling and other personal advice service.
With technological change , more of the organisation's resources tend
to be invested in plant and machinery . Hence payments to employees
become a lesser proportion of overall operating costs, and so the
provision of, for example, counselling services becomes relatively cheap .
As the ratio of capital invested per employee increases, management
may become more aware of the need for employees to be fully effective.
Welfare services are both cheap and efficient to provide .
However, there are arguments against the provision by management
of welfare services for employees today . These can be summarised as:
• State welfare provision is much more wide-ranging than before, and
there is no need for employers to duplicate such services.
• 'Welfare' sounds like nineteenth-century paternalism and 'do -
gooding' . It may even be a device for discouraging employees from
joining trade unions .
128 Personnel Management

• The provision of such services by employers can increase the gap

between the 'haves' and 'have -nets ' in our society, and as such is
undesirable.
This is a summary of the counter-arguments to those mounted in favour
of welfare provision by employers at the beginning of this chapter. There
is no right or wrong answer. Much depends both on your values and on
the circumstances of the employing organisation . Some employers have a
policy of peaceful competition with trade unions . This usually involves
employment policies which are generous by comparison with others.
Such employers would tend to provide a full and attractive range of
employee welfare services.

10.2 Occupational Stress

Employers have come to recognise the effects of stress on job perfor-
mance . Stress is an individual reaction to aspects of life. A certain
amount of stress can be a good thing. Active management of stress, both
at work and outside, can pay dividends. The fact that many of us do not
cope well with our problems is evidenced by the total cost of stress to
industry - estimated at between 3 and 3.5 per cent of GNP (gross
national product) - 10 times more than all industrial disputes .
Research has suggested that everyone is susceptible to stress . Particu-
larly affected are those whose jobs do not afford much control over stress
such as firefighters , air traffic controllers, ambulance personnel, police
and assembly line workers. It has also been argued that women are
particularly liable to suffer from stress; many organisational cultures are
very male dominated and sexual harassment occurs more frequently than
many managers would like to believe . Greater recognition of specific
work-related situations which may be particularly stressful - relocation,
technological and other organisational changes and redundancy , to name
but three - is leading many employers to take further steps to ensure that
welfare and other employee support services are oriented towards the
prevention of stress-related problems and provision of help to employees
who experience an inability to cope.

10.3 Personal Services for Employees - Counselling

Most organisations seem to provide employees with counselling and
advice services. Think of times when your employer has provided you
with advice or counselling. If you are not working at present, ask
someone who is working to provide you with the examples . Your
examples are likely to fall under these headings:
 Looking after Employees - Welfare and Counselling Services 129

• Career development.
• Legal advice.
• Housing.
• Bereavement.
• Sickness.
• Divorce/marital problems.
• Retirement.
• Redundancy.
• Working relationships.
You may have had difficulty with this if your organisation does not
provide such services formally. Managers or personnel specialists may be
called on to help employees in this way but they cannot be called
professional counsellors. Fewer professional counsellors work in the
employment field in the UK as compared with the United States.

Who Should Undertake Employee Counselling?

The relationship between manager and subordinate often will not be
amenable to the development of a counselling relationship. The manager
may be concerned with personal status and thus unwilling or unable to
adopt the subordinate's perspective. Also there may be a tendency to be
protective of information which might be useful , such as the employee's
real prospects of promotion. The employee is likely to find it difficult to
seek counselling from his boss. For example, disclosure of domestic
problems may hamper promotion prospects.
Specialist personnel staff often take on a counselling role . They may
experience fewer problems than line managers. Nevertheless the prob-
lems of trust and fear of confidentiality so far as employees are
concerned will arise . For this reason, some organisations use specialist
independent services staffed by professional counsellors. Even where
this is done it is certain that both managers and personnel specialists will
take on the role of counsellor from time to time . In order to carry this out
effectively they must be trained .
We have stressed the need for professional individual counselling
services, but sometimes non-professional helpers may playa very useful
role. For example, in career planning, employees can assist each other to
identify career and life goals and to plan ways of achieving these. In this
way mutual support is possible. This has been found particularly helpful
for female employees and members of ethnic minority groups who often
fail to achieve their full potential through lack of confidence and skills
and a tendency by employers and others to undervalue their abilities. A
few employers encourage such counselling as part of equal opportunities
programmes.
130 Personnel Management

The Skills of Counselling

It seems that effective counsellors:
• encourage trust from their clients;
• relate to their clients;
• are people-rather than task-centred;
• encourage clients to clarify the situation and to search for their own
solutions rather than depending on others;
• supply relevant information but refrain from giving advice.

For Which Employees may Personal Welfare Services be Necessary?

Young employees
Trainees, and employees who have recently completed full-time edu-
cation, may need special support during the first weeks and months of
their employment. Frequently this is provided by those responsible for
operating training programmes. Where young people have had to leave
home to take a job, employers sometimes provide help with housing.

Those nearing retirement

Many employers have encouraged workers nearing retirement age to
retire early as part of a policy to reduce the size of the labour force. For
these people and those due to retire at the normal date, it is now
common practice to provide retirement counselling and / or pre-
retirement courses. Topics which could form part of a pre-retirement
course include:
• Investment .
• Keeping healthy .
• Activities outside the home.
• State benefits for retired people.
• Taxation.
Some organisations also provide assistance to retired employees who
suffer financial hardship or have personal problems.

Redundant employees
Redundancy usually comes as a shock to employees. Hence many
employers provide similar support to that provided to those nearing
retirement. Four other topics, in addition to those listed above, which
may be covered in a course for employees about to become redundant
are:
• Career counselling.
• Job-search skills.
 Looking after Employees - Welfare and Counselling Services 131

• Starting your own business.

• Government training schemes.
Frequently, at a time of redundancy , attention is focused on those who
will have to leave, both in terms of the financial compensation for loss of
jobs to be awarded and other support services available . Those who will
continue as employees should not be forgotten . Often they will have
uncertainties about the future of the organisation and their own future
within it. Management may need to be particularly vigilant to allay such
uncertainties.

The bereaved and the sick

Both employees whose close relatives die and those who experience long
periods of absence from work because of personal sickness will have
financial problems. Personal welfare services can provide advice and
assistance.
Increasingly employers are providing support for those suffering from
stress-related illness. In these cases it is important to make provision for
members of the employees' family to be able to make the approach to a
counselling service, since they are often best placed to identify the
danger signals , such as increased drinking or irritability.

10.4 Group Services for Employees

Some employee services are provided for groups rather than for indi-
viduals. Into this category fall:
• canteen services;
• sports and recreational facilities ;
• facilities for the purchase of goods , in particular those produced or
sold by the organisation.
• occupational health facilities .

Canteen Facilities
Only the smallest organisations tend not to provide any catering facilities
for employees. The reasons for this include:
• Their cost can be offset against corporation tax and therefore they are
relatively cheap to provide.
• They help the image of the organisation as a good employer.
• The provision of adequate catering facilities on the premises may
reduce the attraction of nearby restaurants and pubs. As a result
employees will be less likely to take over-long lunch-breaks!
132 Personnel Management

Canteen facilities can be the most controversial aspect of employee

services. As a result many organisations have canteen committees - a
specialist form of joint consultation. The presence of employee represen-
tatives should ensure that the 'consumer' is represented in decision-
making about the provision of services , and that as a result employees
will feel that the correct way to voice dissatisfaction is through their
representatives. In this way management hope that any grievances can be
dealt with systematically.
The practice of using outside catering contractors has increased.
Professionalism, bulk buying and economies of scale in other aspects of
catering provision frequently result in such contractors being able to run
the canteen cheaper than can the employer. However, employees will
still complain to the employer if the service is inadequate.

Sports and Social Facilities

Welfare services for employees originated at the end of the nineteenth
century, when provision of state services in this general area was sparser
than today. Many paternalistic employers opened sports and social clubs
for employees and their families . Today not only has provision by local
authorities increased, but the recreational and social habits of the
population have changed. Many employees like to spend their leisure
time away from premises provided by the employer. Some employers
have kept their facilities but have made them more open to the public at
large. Increased concern about the effects of occupational stress has
encouraged some employers to rethink policies on the provision of
recreational facilities .

Facilities for the Purchase of Goods

Some companies run 'staff shops' where goods purchased by the
employer or associated employers can be purchased at a discount and
provide facilities for personal services , such as banking or hairdressing.

Occupational Health Facilities

Each year, about 350 million working days are lost because of sickness
and industrial injuries. In most years this is over thirty times the working
days lost through strikes. It makes economic sense for employers to
provide occupational health services for employees. In Europe such
services are usually a legal requirement.
The aims of an occupational health service are:
• To assist in the establishment and maintenance of the highest possible
physical and mental health of employees.
• To ensure that employees' health allows them to cope with their jobs .
 Looking after Employees - Welfare and Counselling Services 133

• To protect employees from any health hazard which may arise from
their jobs.
The interpretation of such aims will differ from one organisation to
another. Where the nature of the work is inherently hazardous, more
attention is given to the provision of occupational health services.
Many employers see occupational health provision as an educational
or preventive service and therefore may include medical screening and
counselling on smoking, alcohol and diet. The increased attention being
given to work-related stress is emphasising the importance of these
services.

10.5 Status Considerations

In the UK it has been customary to stratify employee services provision
and fringe benefits according to the status of employees. This is a
reflection of our class structure. Recently many employers have moved
towards single status for all employees, though often this excludes senior
management, who retain rights to 'top-hat' pension schemes, separate
car parks and other symbols of position.
Differences in the provision of employee benefits and facilities have
been a source of discontent. Yet moves to 'single staff status' may also be
a cause of grievance for higher-grade employees who resent the loss of
status differentials. Change in this area needs careful handling by
management.

10.6 The Future of Employee Services

Trends likely to affect the provision of employee services over the next
five years are :
• Employers are likely to feel an increased responsibility to fill gaps in
state provision for their employees.
• As organisations become more capital-intensive, i.e . as the amount of
financial investment per employee increases, so it becomes relatively
cheaper to provide a full range of employee services .

Exercise 1
Which of the following statements about the provision of welfare services to
employees are true and which are false?
1. All organisations provide a range of welfare services for their employees.
True or false?
134 Personnel Management

2. When managers undertake career or redundancy counselling they should

persuade employees to accept the solution which is in the interests of the
employing organisation. True or False?
3. Even though they are not professionally trained, employees can counsel each
other on career development. True or False?
4. Employers often provide pre-retirement courses for employees. True or
False?
5. Good sports and social facilities encourage loyalty to the organisation by its
employees . True or False?
11 The Law and the Rights of the
Individual Employee

11.1 Checklist of Individual Employment Rights

When someone applies for a job , they are protected from:

• race and sex discrimination;
• the need to declare 'spent' offences.

On Starting Work, Employees are Entitled to:

• protection against dismissal or other unfavourable treatment on
grounds of race, sex or trade union activity;
• equal pay (for both men and women);
• paid time off for antenatal care;
• paid time off for trade union duties' ;
• time off for trade union activities' ;
• time off for public duties';
• an itemised pay statement' ;
• monetary compensation if the employer fails to give the necessary
statutory notice in cases of redundancy ;
• monetary compensation if the employer becomes insolvent;
• statutory sick pay provided that they earn more than the 'lower
earnings limit' .
* only those working 16 or more hours per week

One of the complexities of employment law is that the length of service

required before workers acquire particular legal rights varies quite
considerably. The following checklist summarises the current position.

With service, employees accrue additional rights, as follows:

After 4 weeks:
• a minimum period of notice;
• guarantee payments and protect ion from dismissal, if the employer
cannot provide work;
• monetary compensation and protection from dismissal, if the
employer suspends workers on certain medical grounds.
136 Personnel Management

After 13 weeks:
• written particulars of the contract of employment.

After 26 weeks:
• a written statement of the reasons for dismissal;
• statutory maternity pay at the lower rate of payment.

After two years:

• protection from unfair dismissal (provided that the employer has
twenty or more workers).
• statutory maternity pay at the higher rate of payment;
• maternity leave;
• redundancy compensation;
• paid time off to look for work in cases of redundancy.

Most of the rights listed here apply to full-time workers, part-time

workers who work more than 16 hours per week, and part -timers who
work more than 8 hours a week and have at least 5 years' continuous
service.
In this chapter we focus on the major legal rights of employees other
than those associated with the termination of the contract of employ-
ment .

11.2 Anti-discrimination Legislation and Employee

Rights

Promotion opportunities
In the same way as they must not discriminate against applicants for
employment, employers must give equal opportunities for transfer and
promotion.
In 1979 nearly half of the 900 platform staff employed by Bradford
Metro, the public bus company in Bradford, West Yorkshire, were of
Asian origin. Many of them had 10 to 15 years' service. There were no
Asian inspectors and only one Afro-Caribbean inspector out of 50 people
employed in this capacity. An investigation by the Commission for
Racial Equality (CRE) revealed that the district manager instructed
interviewers to be cautious in appointing Asian inspectors. Reasons
given for this included fear of opposition from white busmen and of
problems with the travelling public. As a result higher standards of
performance, including those required in a written test, were demanded
of Asian applicants.
 The Law and the Rights of the Individual Employee 137

Exercise 1
Remembering the discussion of the law on discrimination in Chapter 5,
comment on the legality of Bradford Metro's promotion procedures. What action
should have been taken to remedy the situation?

Training
Legislation protects employees who believe themselves to have been
denied equal opportunities for training. In addition the Sex Discrimin-
ation Act and the Race Relations Act include positive discrimination
provisions, where during the previous year there were no (or compara-
tively few) persons of one sex or race doing a particular type of work. In
such circumstances the provision of special training programmes is
permissible. This is the only legal provision for positive discrimination in
the UK at present. Once members of minority groups have received
training , they must be selected for jobs on merit alone.

Benefits, Facilities and Services

Employers must give equal access to fringe benefits to all their
employees. Thus it would be illegal for a bank to offer low-cost
mortgages to male employees only.

Genuine Occupational Qualifications

Exercise 2
A newspaper publisher wishes to promote a journalist to the position of Middle
East correspondent. Would it be illegal to consider only men for the job?

11.3 The Equality Commissions

The Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) and the Commission for
Racial Equality (CRE) are charged with the identification and elimin-
ation of obstacles to equality of opportunity. Their members and
employees operate independently of the government, though they are
paid by the state . They must keep relevant legislation under review and
where necessary suggest amendments . There is also a responsibility to
promote research and educational activities. The commissions can draw
up codes of practice giving practical guidance on the elimination of
discrimination. Such codes are not legally binding, but are admissible in
evidence before an industrial tribunal or court (see Chapter 5, p. 57).
138 Personnel Management

Both commissions can conduct formal investigations, either on their

own initiative or at the request of the Secretary of State for Employment.
There have been a number of such investigations into employment
practices. Where evidence of unlawful discrimination is found, non-
discrimination notices can be issued to prevent further discrimination.

11.4 Equal Pay

Like the Sex Discrimination Act, the Equal Pay Act deals with discrimi-
nation at work .
Broadly, the Equal Pay Act deals with wages and other terms and
conditions of employment; as we have seen, the Sex Discrimination Act
covers the terms of an offer of employment and is concerned with the
elimination of discrimination in recruitment, training, promotion and
other aspects of the employment relationship.
The Equal Pay Act gives men and women the right to equal treatment
in individual contracts of employment.

Exercise 3
Does the Equal Pay Act apply to all employees?

Claims Under the Equal Pay Act

Here we shall discuss the law as if we were dealing with a woman 's claim
for equal pay.
It is up to the applicant for equal pay to select the male worker with
whom she wishes to compare herself in order to make a claim. He must
be employed by the same or an associated employer and normally he
must work at the same place as her ; she and he must be employed under
the same terms and conditions of employment. It is possible to make a
comparison with a male predecessor but only if he occupied the job in the
recent past.
Having found a man with whom to compare herself, the employee
must be able to show that she is employed:
• on 'like work' to that of a man ; or
• in a job which, though different from that of a man, has been rated as
equivalent under a job evaluation scheme; or
• under the Equal Pay Act (Amendment) Regulations , on work of
equal value to a man's in terms of the demands on her under such
headings as effort, skill and decision-making; in such cases there need
 The Law and the Rights of the Individual Employee 139

not be a job evaluation scheme, or where there is, she can claim that it
has discriminatory results.
'Li ke work '
'Like work ' is defined by the Act as being of 'the same or broadly similar
nature' to the man's work. The courts have said that tribunals need not
undertake a minute examination of the differences between the work
done by the woman and that done by the man . For example , a cook who
prepared meals for an executive dining-room compared her work with
that of an assistant chef in the works canteen. Differences in the hours
worked and in the volume and nature of the meals prepared, were felt to
be insufficient justification for unequal pay. That is, they were not of
'practical importance'.
The points which tribunals consider, to determine whether differences
are of practical importance, are:
• the nature of the differences;
• whether they occur in practice;
• how often they occur;
• whether the differences are sufficiently significant to justify differ-
ences in terms and conditions of employment.
Some tribunals have used as a yardstick whether two men would be paid
differently if they did the jobs in question.

Work 'rated as equivalent'

For the applicant to have access to equal pay by this route , the
organisation in which she works must have a job evaluation scheme.
Surveys suggest that , while the majority of large employers use such
techniques, many small comp anies do not. For the employer to use the
defence that the woman 's work has been classified as unequal to that of
her male comparator through the application of a job evaluation study ,
the latter must be shown to be valid. Non-analytical methods (see
Chapter 12, pp. 152-3) are unlikely to be valid.

'Equal pay for work of equal value'

Because the UK is a member of the European Economic Community, its
legislation can be challenged in the European Court of Justice. In 1982
this court ruled that because the Equal Pay Act does not entitle a woman
to claim equal pay for work of equal value unless her employer uses a job
evaluation scheme, UK legislation failed to comply with EEC law. As a
result the Equal Pay Act has been amended. A woman who cannot
achieve equal pay by either of the routes described above may achieve it
if a tribunal considers that her job is of 'equal value ' to that of the man
140 Personnel Management

with whom she compares herself. This route can be used where there is
no job evaluation scheme or where the woman wishes to challenge an
existing job evaluation scheme as discriminatory. Comparisons may be
made between jobs covered by different evaluation schemes or pay
structures. Independent experts approved by ACAS are used by
tribunals to determine whether the two jobs are of equal value.

Genuine material differences

Even where the tribunal agrees that two jobs are 'broadly similar', 'rated
as equivalent under a job evaluation scheme' or of 'equal value', the
employer can avoid equal pay by proving that there is a 'genuine material
difference' between them. For example, if the woman has less experience
than the man or is younger than him and these are relevant factors in
determining pay, then it would be reasonable in law to pay less to the
woman than to the man. For equal value claims the employee must show
that the difference in pay is due to sex discrimination.

11.5 Maternity Rights Legislation

Exercise 4
List three legal rights of female employees during pregnancy and early mother-
hood .

Maternity Leave
A woman who has two years' continuous service by the eleventh week
before her baby is due has the right to return to work after the birth ,
provided that she:
I

• gives 21 days' notice in writing of resignation due to pregnancy, states

the intention to return and gives the date when the baby is expected;
• confirms within 14 days that she still intends to return to work in reply
to a letter from her employer 49 days after the date when the baby was
due;
• gives her employer at least 21 days' notice of her intention to return to
work.
Normally women return to work 29 weeks after the date of the baby's
birth. They are not prevented in law from 'keeping their options open' by
telling employers that they intend to return to work and then changing
their mind once the baby is born .
 The Law and the Rights of the Individual Employe e 141

The employer must allow the woman to return to her previous job
unless it is not 'reasonably practicable' . In such cases she must be offered
suitable alternative work, i.e. the terms and conditions of employment
must not be substantially less favourable than they would have been had
she gone back to her previous job .

Exercise 5
Before pregnancy. Jane worked as secretary to the personnel manager of British
Industrial Chemicals. On her return from maternity leave she is offered a job as
secretary to the computer manager. She does not like the latter and refuses to
accept the job. What is her position in law?

Statutory Maternity Pay

Statutory maternity pay (SMP) is paid to pregnant women by employers
on behalf of the state .

Exercise 6
How much continuous service must a woman have before she can claim SMP
at :
(a) the lower rate of payment ?
(b) the higher rate of payment?

To qualify for SMP a woman must:

• have given 21 days' notice of the date on which she expects to stop
work;
• have stopped working for her employer either wholly or partly
because of pregnancy ;
• still be pregnant at the eleventh week before the expected week of
confinement;
• provide medical evidence of the expected week of confinement.
The higher rate of SMP is nine-tenths of average weekly earnings for the
first six weeks of the period during which these payments are made. It is
followed by up to twelve weeks' payment at the lower rate . The latter is a
prescribed weekly rate which is reviewed each year.
The Equal Opportunities Commission has drawn attention to the
excessive complexity of the law on maternity rights and benefits .
142 Personnel Management

Paid Time off for Antenatal Care

Reasonable time off is available to pregnant women for antenatal care .
The employer may ask for proof both of pregnancy and of the date and
time of appointments.

11.6 Other Rights to Time Off from Work

Three other reasons which entitle employees to time off from work other
than for antenatal care are:
• Paid time off for trade union duties.
• Time off for trade union activities.
• Time off for public duties.
Time off to look for another job in cases of redundancy is covered in
Chapter 14.

Time Off for Trade Union Duties

Trade union representatives have the right to paid time off for duties
connected with industrial relations in the organisation in which they
work . This includes:
• collective bargaining with management;
• communicating with members about such negotiations;
• consulting full-time officers;
• dealing with members ' grievances and disciplinary cases;
• attending relevant training courses .
Safety representatives also have rights to paid time off to perform their
functions.

Time Off for Trade Union Activities

Members of trade unions recognised by the employer for collective
bargaining purposes have the right to unpaid time off to take part in the
activities of the union. These activities include:
• attending a conference as a union delegate;
• attending union meetings;
• voting in union elections.
There is no right to time off for anything connected with industrial
action .
Some clarification of these legal provisions can be found in the ACAS
code of practice , Time Off for Trade Union Duties and Activities.
 The Law and the Rights of the Individual Employee 143

Time Off for Public Duties

Employees are entitled to reasonable time off without pay to perform the
following duties:
• justice of the peace;
• member of a local authority;
• member of any statutory tribunal;
• member of a health authority;
• member of the governing body of an educational establishment
maintained by a local educational authority;
• member of a water authority;
• jury service;
• member of the voluntary reserve forces.

11.7 Sick Pay and Medical Suspension

Employers are responsible for the payment of statutory sick pay (SSP)
for the first eight weeks of sickness. The full amount of such payments
can be recouped from the state . Such payments are related to earnings.
However, many employees have contractual rights to sick pay over and
above those laid down in this legislation . The regulations governing SSP
are complex. If you are concerned with this area of employment you
should ensure that you are fully conversant with the details.

Suspension from Work on Medical Grounds

Workers whose health has been put at risk by exposure to hazardous
materials must be taken off their normal jobs and may be suspended
from work on full pay for up to six months. Management can offer
suitable alternative work which mayor may not be within the terms of
the employees' contracts. (The legal definition of 'suitable alternative
work' is discussed on p. 196-7 in relation to redundancy.)
There are detailed regulations covering this area of employment law.
However, it should be recognised that the number of workers covered by
them is very small. You should check whether employees for whom you
have responsibility are covered.

Exercise 7
You are a manager in a nuclear power station. Workers for whom you have
responsibility wear film badges which indicate their level of exposure to
radiation. The badges show that the limit has been exceeded. What should you
do?
144 Personnel Management

11.8 Payment to Workers When There is No Work to

Do
Management has no right to suspend employees, cut their minimum rate
of pay , introduce short-time working or lay them off unless this is
provided for in their contracts of employment. However, many agree-
ments with trade unions do provide for guaranteed minimum earnings
during a period of lay-off. In addition workers are entitled in law to
minimum 'guarantee payments' for days when no work is provided.
These statutory payments are very small. Frequently collective agree-
ments provide for higher payments in these circumstances .

11.9 The Limits of Employment Law

You may have gained the impression that the employment relationship is
greatly influenced by legislation. Certainly since 1963, when employees
got rights to minimum periods of notice, there has been a vast increase in
the importance of this area of labour law. However, much of the
relationship between management and employees is untouched by
legislation.

Did you Know?

The UK and Denmark are the only EEC countries which have no gener al
legislation on hours of work . In this country only women , young people
and some occupational groups such as drivers are protected in this way.
Nor is there legislation fixing the length of holidays. Again , most
European countries have a legal minimum number of days of holiday .
There is no national minimum wage in the UK, though about two
million workers do have their wages fixed by wages councils. These
bodies do give some protection, but not all vulnerable workers are
covered and the statutory minimum rates laid down by the wages
councils are deplorably low. There has been opposition to a national
minimum wage and other minimum terms and conditions of employment
because of the fear that additional unemployment could result. This
is a debatable point which we do not have space for here.

Exercise 8
Do you remember Fred's Food Processing Company in Chapter 87 There we
learned that Fred was opening a chain of frozen food shops. That was two years
ago. Now he has six shops in a number of towns in the Midlands. He has
recruited staff for the shops and for the distribution side of the business.
 The Law and the Rights of the Individual Employee 145

You are asked to examine the legal implications of some of his current
problems with employees .
1. A female checkout operator in one of the shops, who has six months' service,
claims equal pay with a male storekeeper in the manufacturing company.
There is no job evaluation scheme and Fred has separate bargaining arrange-
ments with the unions for his retail business and his manufacturing company.
2. Fred's secretary is expecting a baby. She has three years' service with the
company and says that she wishes to take maternity leave. She is not
married. Fred says that she cannot return to work as his secretary since he
disapproves of her behaviour, and anyway it is unreasonable to expect him to
hold the job open. He cannot manage with a temporary replacement.
3. One of the shop stewards in the manufacturing company notifies Fred that
he will be attending an advanced shop steward training course. Fred says that
the steward knows quite enough already and that he never gets a full day's
work out of him!
4. One of the frozen food shop supervisors tells him that she has been elected
as a parent governor at her daughter's school. She will need one day off work
a term to fulfil this responsibility . He says that this is monstrous! How is he
supposed to cope without the regular attendance of key employees? On
reflection he agrees that she can have the time off without pay.
12 Fair Pay and Employee Benefits
at Work

The assumption behind most reward systems is that pay is a key

motivator. In Chapter 6 we concluded that, while there are motivators
other than money , pay is a major factor in the employment relationship.
It is management's task to find the package of inducements which
prompts maximum employee productivity.
By the end of this chapter you should be able to:
• discuss the factors which affect the level of wages and salaries ;
• define 'job evaluation ' and discuss some of the major methods;
• appreciate the range of payment systems which management uses to
encourage employee productivity;
• list some of the most common fringe benefits and discuss their
effectiveness in encouraging employee commitment.
To be effective, reward systems must fit particular organisational cir-
cumstances and be reviewed regularly .

12.1 Factors Affecting Salary and Wage Levels

These include:
• the importance of the individual or the job to the organisation ;
• the productivity of the individual or group;
• the profitability of the organisation ;
• the supply of and demand for particular skills in the labour market as a
whole;
• general movements in pay levels.
Summarising, pay levels reflect the rate for labour in the external
'market' , internal organisational factors mainly associated with the
establishment and maintenance of pay differentials, and individual
factors associated with performance and commitment as demonstrated,
for example, by length of service. The level of pay can be seen as the
result of interaction between management's desire to obtain maximum
employee productivity at minimum cost and employees' wishes for the
highest possible reward for the least effort.
 Fair Pay and Employee Benefits at Work 147

In crudest terms the contract of employment can be seen as a

wage-effort bargain - see Figure 12.1. In other words, wages are ex-
changed for effort . Management's perception of the wage-effort bargain
will vary according to the type of organisation, its management style and
the sorts of people employed. Wage and salary administration policies
therefore differ widely.

12.2 The Wage-Effort Bargain

When an individual joins an organisation as a paid employee, a contract
of employment is made . The employer expects a particular quantity and
quality of performance in pursuit of organisational objectives; the
employee expects to be fairly rewarded. The rewards may be:
• money ;
• status;
• a sense of achievement, etc.
The complexity of the relationship lies in the fact that not all employees
expect similar rewards. Also, management is usually not too specific

Fig 12.1 The wage-effort bargain

The employment relationship

Employer Employee
objectives objectives

The 'wage-effort' bargain

J
Wage and salary administration
policies
148 Personnel Management

about the effort required from the employee. This arises from the desire
to use labour flexibly so that new requirements can be placed on
employees as working processes or organisational structure change.

Exercise 1
Look at the job description for your current job. (If you are not working at
present. look at that of a friend.) How does your employer ensure that you can
be used in a flexible manner while laying on you specific job responsibilities?

12.3 Wage and Salary Administration Policies

The objectives for management in devising remuneration policies are
many, reflecting the complexity of this area of personnel management.
They include:
• to attract sufficient suitable employees;
• to encourage effective employees to remain In the organisation 's
employment ;
• to obtain optimal performance from employees;
• to encourage employees to improve their performance;
• to have sufficient flexibility to reward high performers and deal with
poor performers;
• to operate within the framework of current employment legislation
and national economic policy where relevant ;
• to operate at minimum cost;
• to ensure that jobs of equivalent value to the organisation are
rewarded equally;
• to ensure that employees feel fairly rewarded for the jobs they do.
These are broad policy objectives likely to be supported by most
managers. Their conversion into practice will depend on the relative
priorities accorded to them in light of organisational circumstances. For
example, a company struggling for survival will place greater emphasis
on operating at minimum cost and paying the lowest possible wages,
rather than on the attraction and retention of employees who feel fairly
rewarded for their efforts.
According to its policy objectives, management is likely to be con-
cerned with three issues in the establishment of fair pay:
• wage or salary relativities - to ensure that what is paid is fair by
comparison with payments received by other employees within the
organisation;
 Fair Pay and Emplo yee Benefits at Work 149

• to ensure that pay is fair in compari son with other employers;

• methods of payment which encourage effective performance and
commitment by individuals or work group s.
This can be expressed diagrammatically - see Figure 12.2.

12.4 Job Evaluation and the Design of Pay Structures

Bernard Shaw in Everyb ody's Political What's What challenged the
possibility of being able to 'assess in pounds , shillings and pence the
difference between the social service of an archbishop and a turf
bookm aker or to fix a wage for poets laureate and sausage makers'. Job
evaluation attempts to establish the relative value of jobs to the
employing organisation in which they are situated. In the UK there has
been no attempt to undertake a national exercise of the type required to
meet Shaw's challenge.

Fig 12.2 Wage and salary administ ration policies and practices

/ / -,
Wage and salary adm inistration policies

Intemalpay External pay Pay

relativities comparisons incentives

Work
1
assessment
Wage
1
and salary
Work
/\
measurement
Overall
organisational
surveys performance

Job
1
evaluation
!
Competitive
wage and group
1
Indiv idual/small
!
Organisation-wide
incentive
and grading salary incentive payment
levels payment schemes
schemes
150 Personnel Management

What is Job Evaluation?

• Job evaluation is not an exact science - it relies on subjective judgement.

In measuring the relative value of jobs , job evaluation requires the
subjective, though systematic, exercise of judgement in identifying and
assessing differences between jobs . It only works effectively if those
involved believe it to be fair .

• Job evaluation is not a method of determining rates of pay.

Job evaluation precedes pay determination. After the relative value of
jobs to the organisation has been established, they are usually grouped
into grades or categories. Pay is attached to these . Where trade unions
are recognised for collective bargaining purposes, this is done by
negotiation .

• Job evaluation is not concerned with the performance of the indivi-

dual employee.
Rather it is concerned with the demands of the job. Whether the
individual carries out the job adequately should be immaterial. Good
performance may be rewarded by merit payments but job evaluation is
concerned with the value of the job relative to other jobs and not with
the relative value of the employee as compared with other employees.

Exercise 2
Is it easy to make the distinction between the requirements of the job and the
performance of the job holder?

In sum, job evaluation attempts to answer three questions critical to

the management of people:
• What is the relative value of a job to the organisation?
• How can this value be determined?
• How can this be done in a way which is accepted as fair by most
employees?
Job evaluation can be effective as a means of answering these questions
only if it is part of what might be termed a 'total system of remuneration
and motivation'.
Four other personnel management techniques which we have dis-
cussed so far in this book and which also should be part of this system
are:
• work restructuring techniques;
 Fair Pay and Employee Benefits at Work 151

• performance appraisal;
• career development;
• employee services .

The Process of Job Evaluation

No matter which of the many available methods is used , the process of
job evaluation must contain certain basic steps. Figure 12.3 emphasises
the importance of obtaining much information about jobs before at-
tempting to evaluate their relative value. We have already discussed job
analysis and the writing of job descriptions. To encourage employees to
believe in the fairness of the results of job evaluation, care must be taken
at this stage to involve them or their representatives. This task should not
be given to untrained employees or to line managers.
Three ways in which jobs can be analysed for job evaluation purposes
so as to encourage employee involvement are :
• Employees can be asked to complete questionnaires on the demands
of their jobs . These can be accompanied by a job description and
signed by both the job holder and the line manager to indicate that the
information presented is accurate.
• Job holders can be interviewed by a job analyst who then compiles the
information on the demands of the job for signature as above .
• Job holders can be observed at work by job analysts who again

Fig 12.3 The process of job evaluation

Job analysis

!
Job description

!
Select benchmark
jobs

!
Job evaluation

!
JOb 9jdin9

Pay determination
152 Personnel Management

compile information for job evaluation purposes. This method may be

suitable only for manual jobs where activities are directly observable.
Job evaluation is most often used in medium or large organisations. In
such cases it is most convenient to select a sample (10 to 30) of
'benchmark' jobs at this stage as a basis for the establishment of the job
evaluation system. Benchmark jobs should be:
• well known to the evaluators;
• representative of the level and type of jobs to be evaluated;
• not the subject of a current dispute between management and
employees.
Now job evaluation, using one of the methods discussed below, can take
place.
This will result in the establishment of a rank order of jobs in the
organisation from the lowest to the highest job evaluated. After this the
jobs in the hierarchy are grouped into grades . Only then is the pay for
grades established either by negotiation or by managerial judgement.

Methods of job evaluation

There are two main ways of evaluating jobs - analytical and non-
analytical. Analytical methods break jobs down into their constituent
parts for assessment purposes; non-analytical methods evaluate jobs as
wholes.

Non-analytical methods
Job ranking This is the simplest method of job evaluation. Each job is
assessed as a whole in relation to the others. Jobs thus evaluated are
listed in terms of their importance . There is no analysis other than the
opinion and decision of the evaluators.

Exercise 3
Suppose we use job ranking to assess four jobs. The rank order we establish is:
Electrician.
Cook.
Kitchen assistant.
Cleaner.
What w ill be a problem of putting this result into practice ?

Job ranking can be a very blunt and biased evaluation tool. Its results
may be questioned. It may be appropriate to the needs of the very small
company, however.
 Fair Pay and Employee Benefits at Work 153

Paired comparisons This is a form of job ranking but with an element of

scoring which measures whether a job is more important than , less
important than or as important as another job, so producing a final
league table of jobs. Again this non-analytical method tends to be used in
small companies, though it can be applied in larger ones using bench-
mark jobs.
The paired comparison method of job evaluation is quick and cheap to
use, and easy to understand. On the other hand, it is crude and
insufficiently analytic to be likely to be very convincing to employees .
Job classification This is not a form of job evaluation as such, but really
a categorisation of jobs within broadly defined grades . It is used in the
Civil Service and in teaching. Once the number of grades to be used has
been determined a general job description for each grade is prepared.
Here is an example from a well-known classification system:

Level 3
Tasks calling for independent arrangement of work and exercise of some
initiative, where supervision is needed . Detailed familiarity with one or more
branches of established procedures required .

This grade description is rather broad, quite different responsibilities

could be grouped within it. Yet in certain circumstances it may be too
rigid, leading to the exclusion of jobs on seemingly trivial grounds. Some
companies have moved towards more analytical methods because these
problems have made it difficult to encompass rapid changes in tech-
nology and the attendant more complex job descriptions. On the other
hand, job classification systems are simple and cheap to administer.

Analytical methods
Here jobs are assessed and numerical values given under a number of
separate headings such as decision-making, working conditions and
knowledge required. In this way, by comparing total numerical values,
assessors can gauge how much more difficult and responsible one job is
than another; very different jobs can be compared.
Points rating Points rating enables evaluators to give a points score to
each job. There is no standardised points system available for all
organisations and many use more than one system.
Stages of designing and implementing a points rating scheme:
1. Establish a representative committee. It is very common for schemes
to be designed and implemented by joint management-union working
groups as part of the process of attempting to ensure that the results of
job evaluation are perceived as fair.
154 Personnel Management

2. Analyse a significant sample of jobs and write job descriptions.

Benchmark jobs should be selected according to the criteria listed on p.
152.
3. Select and define those criteria considered most critical in determin-
ing differences between jobs. This is difficult. Too many factors will
make the scheme over-complex and may lead to elements of certain jobs
being counted twice, so that the objectivity of the scheme may be cast in
doubt. Too few factors may make it difficult to cover the full range of
jobs effectively. It may be helpful to look at schemes used in the same
industry or for similar occupation groups when designing a scheme.
Great care must be taken to define each factor so that it can be applied to
each job covered by the scheme.
4. Weight factors and convert to points. Commonly, certain factors have
a higher number of points allocated than others, reflecting the relative
importance an organisation attaches to a particular factor. Here is a list
of factors which the joint management-union working group in Colin's
Cars, a manufacturer of sports cars, has decided should be used to
evaluate all the non-manual jobs in the company:
• education ;
• experience ;
• specialised knowledge;
• complexity of task ;
• communication - contacts and relationships ;
• management of people;
• supervision received;
• physical environment.
The next task of the group is to attach weights to the factors.

Exercise 4
Imagine that you are a member of the working group at Colin's Cars. Rank these
factors in order of importance . Then using 100 points allocate the number of
points to each factor which you think it is worth . You must use all the points.

After weights have been allocated, each factor definition will have to
be subdivided into degrees, and these , like the factors , will have to be
defined. Here are the factor and subfactor definitions for 'specialised
knowledge' in the points rating scheme being designed for use in Colin's
Cars:
 Fair Pay and Employee Benefits at Work 155

Specialised knowledge (weighting 8 per cent)

This factor appraises the requirement for specialised knowledge or techniques
which it is essential for a job holder to have.
Level:
1. No specialised knowledge required.
2. Some specialised knowledge or understanding of techniques and
terminology to a working standard.
3. A higher level of specialised knowledge or understanding of techniques and
terminology to a working standard.
4. A good 'in-depth' level of specialised knowledge or understanding of
techniques and terminology such that some guidance and interpretation may
be given to others.
5. Specialist knowledge and techniques associated with the job are required to
be very well understood in great depth and detail so that available
information can not only be well understood and interpreted but also
translated into instructions for the guidance of others.

In points rating schemes it is quite common for a total of 500 points to be

used. Thus a maximum of 40 points would be allocated to 'specialised
knowledge' in this example.

Exercise 5
Suppose the working group decides to allocate points evenly across the levels of
this factor . How many points would be given to a job which was felt to fit level 3
in terms of the specialised knowledge required of the job holder?

5. Test-run a selection of jobs. The benchmark jobs are evaluated using

the newly designed scheme.
6. Compare with the established hierarchy of jobs. It cannot be stressed
too often that job evaluation schemes only work effectively if the results
are acceptable to employees. It is necessary to assess the likelihood of the
system producing acceptable results . To do this the points allocated to
each job in the test run are plotted against rates presently paid to job
holders - see Figure 12.4.
A line of 'best fit' can be drawn through the points indicating those jobs
which are out of line . In this table jobs A and B are out of line and are
known as 'red circle' and 'green circle' jobs respectively .

Exercise 6

What does the job evaluation scheme show about the pay currently associated
with jobs A and B?
156 Personnel Management

Monthly
pay(£)

1000

950

900

850

800

750

700 •
650
600

50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 Points

Fig 12.4 Scattergram of the relationship between points and existing pay levels

Usually organisations 'buy in' job evaluation schemes; the wages bill
will increase at the time that the new scheme is introduced . Normally the
pay of holders of red circle jobs is frozen until cost-of-living increases
catch up with them. Holders of green circle jobs may be given pay
increases .
7. Adjust factor weights and points. There may not be such a good fit
between points and pay as that indicated in Figure 12.4. In this case
stages 5, 6 and 7 may have to be repeated until an acceptable result is
obtained.
8. Evaluate all jobs. The remaining jobs should fall close to the line of
best fit which has already been established. Red circle and green circle
jobs will have to be dealt with as indicated above .
9. Divide the jobs into grades . The points scores provide a basis for
determining the grades which will encompass groups of similar jobs .
Careful thought must be given to both the break points between the
grades and the numbers of grades .
 Fair Pay and Employee Benefits at Work 157

Advantages and disadvantages of the po ints rating method of job

evaluation
Advantages:
• It encourages careful analysis of job content.
• A rationale is provided as to why one job is graded higher than
another.
• It seems to be more objective than non-analytical methods.
• It can be used to measure the value of new jobs and thus can
accommodate technological change .
• It can cover a wide range of jobs.
• A points rating scheme can be devised to meet the characteristics of
jobs in a particular organisation.
Disadvantages:
• It can give a spurious impression of mathematical accuracy. Like all
job evaluation methods, it is subjective .
• It is time-consuming and therefore expensive, particularly if a large
number of factors are used .
• In practice it is difficult to make a points rating system cover a very
wide range of jobs - from managerial to manual, for example
- because of the difficulty of weighting factors where one set of factors
may be more relevant to one category of jobs than to another.
• To be seen to be fair, management (and trade unions where relevant)
may wish to give employees information about the system . This is
likely to lead to problems, for example in justifying factor weightings.
In conclusion it should be said that points rating is probably the most
popular method of job evaluation.

Job Evaluation and the Avoidance of Unfair Discrimination

Exercise 7
Are analytical or non-analytical methods of job evaluation more likely to be proof
against challenges of unfair discrimination under the equal value legislation?

Employers committed to the development of job evaluation schemes free

of sex bias should observe the following guidelines .
158 Personnel Management

Use analytical rather than non-analytical schemes

A woman can make an equal pay claim where she is employed on work
which is, 'in terms of the demands made on her (for instance, under such
headings as effort, skill and decision)' of equal value to that of a man in
the same employment. Analytical job evaluation schemes are potentially
easier to defend against such claims.

Where analytical schemes are used, ensure that unfair discrimination

does not creep back in at the checking stage
This may occur if the method of paired comparisons is used to check the
results of a new points rating or other analytical job evaluation scheme .

Take care to choose factors for use in analytical schemes which are not
unfairly biased against 'women's' jobs
Analytical job evaluation schemes can introduce factors which are likely
to result in 'women's' jobs being placed unfairly at the bottom of the
grading structure. For example, in a scheme covering manual jobs, the
inclusion of physical hazards and physical strength and the exclusion of
dexterity and visual concentration probably will produce results biased
on grounds of sex. All factors chosen should be fully representative of
the range of work being evaluated.

Factor definitions should also be scrutinised for unfair sex bias

Definitions should be based on real job requirements. For example ,
length of experience would tend to favour 'men 's' jobs, particularly if the
definition is based on the average length of service of post-holders rather
than the time needed to learn to do the job .

Exercise 8

On what basis are weights allocated to factors in points rating schemes?

Sex bias in factor weightings should be avoided

Allocating weights to factors is highly subjective ; sex bias can easily
influence designers of a scheme at this stage . Avoidance of this will be
assisted by ensuring that neither very high nor very low weights are given
to factors found exclusively in jobs performed predominantly either by
men or by women.
 Fair Pay and Employee Benefits at Work 159

'Women's' jobs should be included in the selection of benchmark jobs

This will help to ensure that factors selected as a result of the benchmark-
ing process include those valued by the organisation which are a
significant aspect of work undertaken by female employees.

Jobs performed by women should not be segregated into an alternative

job evaluation scheme
Groups of jobs or 'job families' should be covered by the same scheme
wherever practicable.

Female employees should be represented fairly on job evaluation panels

Such representatives must be aware of the traditional tendency in some
organisations to devalue 'women's work'. The publicity given to 'equal
pay for work of equal value' has drawn attention to women's rights in this
area .

Job descriptions should be written to a common format and standard

Publication of guidance notes for writers of job descriptions and the
involvement of employees in the drafting are two useful methods of
avoiding sex bias.

Care must be taken to ensure that sex bias does not occur during the
implementation of schemes
Here are some examples of the potential for discrimination at this stage :
• a tendency to place grade boundaries just above jobs predominantly
performed by women and just below those undertaken by men;
• the 'red-circling' of 'men's' jobs so that their incumbents' pay is
protected for some time after the implementation of job evaluation,
while 'women's' jobs are not so favourably treated ;
• the allocation of 'market supplements' for 'men's' jobs on top of pay
based on job-evaluated grades.

Employees must be informed that, if they feel that unfair discrimination

has occurred, they can appeal
Those who sit on appeals panels must be aware of the potential for sex
bias in job evaluation.

Training for those involved in job evaluation must stress the potential
for unfair sex discrimination
Training must include good practice guidelines and an opportunity for
the exploration of the subtle processes by which value is ascribed to
160 Personnel Management

particular kinds of work and not to others. Particular attention should be

given to the needs of those who chair job evaluation panels .

Mechanisms for the review of job evaluation schemes must be fair

Freedom from sex bias must be one of the criteria against which the
effectiveness of schemes is assessed.

Checklist of General Questions for Management and Personnel Special-

ists Contemplating the Introduction of Job Evaluation
• Which method should we use?
• Should we use management consultants and if so in what capacity?
• Which categories of employees do we want the scheme to cover?
• Will more than one scheme be needed to cover all employees?
• Shall we involve trade unions or other employee representatives? If
so, to what extent?
• What shall be the constitution of any working group needed to design
and implement the scheme?
• Who can be used as job analysts and what training will they need?
• Who will be the job evaluators and what training will they need?
• What training will managers and union representatives, other than
those directly involved, need?
• Who will do all this training?
• How much information about job evaluation should we communicate
to employees?
• What mechanisms should we use to review the scheme to ensure that
once it is implemented it works effectively?
More questions could be added to this list. From this section you will
have understood that job evaluation can be complex and that great care
must be taken in the design and implementation of schemes.

12.5 External Pay Comparisons

After the relative value of jobs to the organisation has been determined,
we must find out what effect market rates are likely to have on the pay
structure as a whole.

Exercise 9
Is there a market rate for a job?
 Fair Pay and Employee Benefits at Work 161

Market Rate Surveys

It will be necessary to use market rate surveys to develop and maintain
competitive salary and wage structures. Four sources of such information
are :
• Company surveys . Sometimes companies form a 'club' for the
exchange of this sort of information.
• General published surveys. These usually give information by indus-
trial sector, size of organisation and job title . Sometimes information
on employee benefits is also included.
• Specialised surveys. These are carried out by professional bodies,
trade unions and employers' or trade associations.
• Analysis of job advertisements. This information is more problematic
than the other sources since job descriptions may be 'glossy' to attract
candidates, and salary data is often incomplete or inflated.
You should be aware of the inexact nature of this information. The skill
is to extract a market rate for a job which is a reasonable compromise
between all available data . In making such judgements the following
questions will be helpful:
• Does the survey show a single rate or a range for a particular job?
• When was it carried out? Has it been updated since?
• Is the sample sufficiently large to be representative of the organisa-
tion, jobs, locations and so on which you require?
• Are the pay data comparable, i.e . are overtime, shift pay and other
additions to normal earnings clearly indicated?
• Is information available on employee benefits?
• Are job descriptions available and not just job titles?
• For what purpose is the information produced - as a service or to
exchange information? Are there other purposes, for example consul-
tants attempting to attract clients?
• Is the information clear and easy to understand?
• Is the survey value for money?

12.6 Salary and Wage Administration

Internal pay relatives can be established by job evaluation and then
related to the external market for labour by the use of wage and salary
surveys. Final pay levels will then be established either by managerial
judgement or by negotiation with recognised trade unions . So far as
manual jobs are concerned, this may be the end of the story, since there
is likely to be a rate for the job regardless of length of service or
162 Personnel Management

performance. For non-manual workers it is more likely that, for each

grade of job, there will be an associated salary range with a minimum and
a maximum rate of pay. It is assumed that all jobs within the grade or
band are of roughly equivalent value to the organisation, but that the
salary of individuals in the same job grade may vary.
Progression through grades may be entirely on the basis of managerial
judgement of 'merit' or automatically with length of service. Trade
unions have tended to prefer the latter method since it restricts the
prerogative of management to show favouritism . Very often there is an
overlap between the salary range associated with one grade and that of
adjacent grades . The rationale is that an employee with much experience
in a job at one level is worth more to the organisation than a new recruit
to a job in the grade above .
A further design feature of salary structures to which management
should give attention is the width of the grade bands . Broad bands
emphasise the performance of the individual within the grade whereas
narrow bands place more importance on the level of the job and on
promotion from one category to another. In many organisations narrow
grade bands are more common for junior staff, recognising that there are
limited variations in performance at this level. For more senior staff
broad bands are felt to be needed for the recognition of individual
responsibility. Sometimes there is provision to pay exceptional staff more
than the top of the salary scale of the grade in which their job falls.

12.7 Pay Incentives

Job evaluation is used frequently to give a structure for basic pay .
However, other pay elements are often added to this. One of the most
common , for production employees in particular, has tended to be
incentive payments directly related to the effort expended by the
individual or the work group.

Piecework
Sometimes the term 'piecework' is used to describe incentive payments
systems.

Exercise 10
Attempt a definition of 'piecework' .

The main category of workers who even today are paid on a pure
piecework basis is homeworkers, mainly women , who work in their own
 Fair Pay and Employee Benefits at Work 163

homes often on very routine tasks such as envelope addressing or

garment making . Rates of pay for this work are lamentably low.
Employees paid only on the basis of output have no basic earnings by
which to support their everyday living requirements.

Payment by Results
Here the incentive element normally comprises no more than 25 per cent
of the pay packet and this proportion is tending to decline as a proportion
of total earnings. The main reason for this is that much manual work has
become subject to technological change , and has become more machine-
paced. As a result the individual employee has a decreasing ability to
affect the amount of production. In these circumstances payment by
results becomes less appropriate.

The mechanics of payment by results systems

Work study or management services specialists playa prominent role in
the operation of most payment by results systems. These rest on the
concept of a 'standard time' - the time necessary for an appropriately
qualified operator to complete a clearly defined task at an acceptable
level of quality. Time standards are established through the systematic
application of work measurement techniques. It is not necessary for the
personnel specialist or line manager to understand them in detail since
frequently specialists in this area will be available for help .

Effective use of payment by results

Payment by results systems are used primarily in production situations
where:
• work cycles are generally short and repetitive;
• output can be measured in terms of units produced;
• work has a high labour content and is not predominantly machine-
paced ;
• high-quality production is not essential;
• jobs are relatively stable;
• sufficient back-up stocks are available to meet fluctuations in both
demand and output.

Exercise 11
Why is this last feature important?

Other conditions for the successful introduction of payment by results

systems are that:
164 Personnel Management

• co-operation is forthcoming from employees who are not able to

participate in the bonus scheme;
• high bonus earnings of individuals or groups will not stimulate
pressure for parity from other employees;
• sufficient well-trained work study or management services specialists
are employed.

Assumptions behind payments by results

Work-study-based payments by results systems, like job evaluation , are
systematic rather than scientific techniques. They are based on the
assessment of work study specialists and others of production times, and
work as incentives only if all concerned believe them to be fair. They are
designed on the assumption that the 'carrot' of more pay will encourage
workers to greater output.

Exercise 12
From what you have learned so far in this book about motivation theory, do you
think that this assumption is sound?

Research on the effect of incentives suggests the following problems

may occur.
Bargaining over rates Work study and management services techniques
are subjective though systematic. As a result some jobs are 'tightly'
timed whilst others have 'loose' times . It is much more beneficial for the
employee to have work for which the times are 'loose ', since in these
situations it is possible to make more money for less effort. As a result
there is likely to be bargaining both over work allocation and over the
times allotted to particular jobs .
Work group pressure to keep production down Employees whose
output is much higher than the norm of the group are often subject to
pressure to reduce their productivity, since very high output by an
individual can endanger bonus earnings in that management may come
to believe that all are capable of more effort and may cut the rate paid
accordingly.
Employees' dislike offluctuating earnings Employees attempt to create
stabilising devices which may distort management's assessment of out-
put.
Payments by results systems, then, can have disadvantageous effects on
workplace employee relations.
 Fair Pay and Employee Benefits at Work 165

Measured Daywork Systems

Often these are introduced to overcome the disadvantages of both
payment by results and payment on the basis of time . Here pay is fixed at
a higher level than management would normally pay to a time-rate
worker, on the understanding that performance is maintained at a
specific level. Bonus is paid for achieving this level of performance but
pay does not fluctuate in the short term with actual performance. If an
employee fails consistently to achieve the required standard even after
further help and training, a wide range of sanctions are applied-
withdrawal or reduction of bonus and ultimately dismissal.

Exercise 13
In payment by results systems. bonus is the reward for actual performance. For
what is bonus paid in measured daywork systems?

Reasons why management may prefer measured daywork to payment by

results include :
• the employee relations problems of payment by results systems are
likely to be avoided while an incentive element is retained ;
• there is a strong sanction against poor performance ;
• there should be less resistance to changes in working methods since
earnings will not be affected;
• employee co-operation and flexibility should be greater because bonus
paid is the same on any job;
• there is greater control over wage costs;
• the system should be cheap to administer since bonus is standard and
only the exceptions must be calculated ;
• there is a positive incentive to training to maintain bonus earnings .
On the other hand measured daywork requires closer and better
supervision than payment by results systems and a steady work flow and
effective monitoring of the system. In addition some organisations which
have changed from payment by results to measured daywork have
experienced at least a short-term fall in productivity.

Profit Sharing and Share Ownership

These involve the distribution of either cash or shares from company
profits in a prespecified way to categories of employees .
In the past there has been a lack of interest in these approaches to
payment in the UK . The reasons which have been suggested include:
166 Personnel Management

• employees' difficulty in relating their individual efforts to the amount

of bonus received;
• a low level of commitment by workers in the UK to the 'free
enterprise society' .
However, there has been an upsurge of interest in these systems recently,
encouraged by government tax concessions.
Also organisations are becoming more capital- rather than labour-
intensive and work is becoming more machine-paced. As a result, it is
more difficult to design effective payments by results or even measured
daywork systems. Yet there will be a need for organisations to be more
competitive. Therefore management will continue to search for financial
incentives.

12.8 Fair Benefits at Work

So far we have examined methods of monetary remuneration. Before we
leave this area of personnel management we must look at non-monetary
or 'fringe' benefits.
You may find it helpful to talk to a personnel specialist in your
organisation about the range of benefits other than pay which employees
receive . Depending on the organisation in which you carried out this
activity, your list may be very long indeed . Some of the items are
probably services to employees such as sports and canteen facilities; we
discussed these in Chapter 10. Others are likely to have related to the
termination of employment and will be covered in Chapter 14.
Other benefits which are sometimes provided include:
• company cars;
• medical and life insurance ;
• relocation allowances .

Exercise 14
How should management determine its policy on employee benefits?

12.9 What of the Future?

In Chapter 10 we suggested there is a trend to harmonisation in terms
and conditions of employment. Some writers predict this may also occur
in payment and job evaluation systems as more and more employees are
white- rather than blue-collar and as it becomes necessary to justify
 Fair Pay and Employee Benefits at Work 167

differences between men and women because of equal pay legislation.

Petty and unjustified differences in rewards are likely to offend
employees' sense of esteem and achievement. Equ ity between levels of
tasks is vital to generate a sense of fair treatment in pay and benefits.
13 Managing the Employment
Relationship

13.1 A Corporate Perspective on Employment Relations

In this chapter we explore the range of choices open to management in
designing employee relations strategies .
Management's general objectives are predominantly financial. Hence
there is a concern to keep down employment costs while achieving the
highest possible productivity. There is the temptation to do what is
expedient in the short term and to have no long-term strategy. This
would not be acceptable in other areas of managerial decision-making.
Why should employment relations be treated in this way?
In Chapter 8 we examined the training implications of the acquisition
by Fred 's Food Processing Company of a chain of frozen food shops. The
majority of staff in the food processing plants belong to a trade union .
Having acquired the shops Fred must consider what personnel and
employee relations policies to adopt in this part of the compan y.
The issues to be considered include:
• how to encourage emplo yee commitment in the frozen food shops;
• how to ensure the availability of appropriate managerial controls to
achieve the necessary levels of productivity;
• whether the recognition of trade unions for collective bargaining
purposes would be helpful in the light of the concerns about control
and commitment identified above ;
• if trade unionism is to be considered , with which union(s) Fred would
prefer to deal, and for which employee groups (all staff or only
non-managerial staff, for example);
• whether arrangements for employee consultation should be set up in
the shops , and what, if any should be the involvement of trade union
representatives in these ;
• what mechanisms Fred should establish for communication with staff
and what linkage, if any, should exist between these and bargaining or
consultative arrangements.
 ging the Employment Relationship 169

The implications of corporate decision-making for the employment

relationship are often examined after financial, production , service or
marketing plans have been made. However, it is more useful to include
personnel and employee relations as a facet of general organisational
decision-making. Fred could have thought about the implications for
employee relations of a decision to expand before he had decided that
the best growth strategy was to acquire a chain of frozen food shops. If
his food manufacturing company had a history of poor employee
relations, he might have asked himself in what kind of expansion strategy
he would be least likely to experience similar problems . The answer
probably would be in smaller units and in the service rather than the
manufacturing sector . These are areas of less contentious
staff-management relations. This would not guarantee Fred industrial
peace but it would suggest that this could be achieved with goodwill on
both sides.
On the other hand, if relations between employees and management in
Fred's food manufacturing company were good and productivity high,
Fred might have decided that the least risky expansion strategy , from the
employee relations point of view, would be to open another very similar
factory . However, in reality, other aspects of the decision - finance and
marketing in particular - are likely to be given greater significance than
the employee relations dimension.

Exercise 1
Why is this?

Remember that employee relations and personnel policies are not

independent of each other. If the company's expansion does not lead to
promotion for those with managerial potential, there is likely to be
reduced commitment and productivity from this group. Employment
relations strategies must integrate employment policy and practice so
as to further the pursuit of overall managerial goals.
It is not only expanding companies which should develop employee
relations strategies . Even in companies with established relations with
trade unions, management should assess the employee relations position
periodically and establish whether changes in policy and practice are
necessary. It is now widely agreed that good staff-management relations
require foresight, planning and commitment by top management. Only
thus can consistent and effective relationships with employees be main-
tained.
170 Personnel Management

13.2 Managerial Choice of Employment Strategies

The strategies open to management are many and various. Increasingly it
is recognised that employment strategies are central to the long-term
survival of the organisation. The quality of the relationship with
employees is at the heart of the features which characterise excellent
organisations.
Underlying the choice of an employee relations strategy is a tendency
for there to be stress either on control of employees; or on encouraging
employee commitment.
Control is important to management because of the need to ensure
that staff achieve tasks, and to justify the rewards associated with these .
However, too stringent managerial controls may result in disruption to
output. Management therefore needs employee commitment in order to
contain recruitment and training costs, and to encourage initiative and
overall contribution to organisation efficiency and effectiveness.
Finally managers would like to be able to achieve both control over
employees and their commitment to the immediate task and to the
enterprise as a whole. Increasingly companies are developing employ-
ment strategies which combine high expectations of staff and of their
contribution to the organisation with high levels of integrity in manage-
ment's relations with these employees. This places significant demands
on both the knowledge and skills of the personnel specialist. In the rest of
this chapter we explore some of the techniques and skills which can be
utilised in pursuit of these twin goals.
There are no general prescriptions for the creation of good employee
relations . Therefore managers and personnel specialists can utilise their
knowledge and skills successfully only if they are based on a broad
appreciation of the nature of the employment relationship. It is necessary
to exercise judgement in the analysis of particular factors which influence
employee relations in the industry and workplace.

Knowledge
Examples of the areas of knowledge required for effectiveness in
employee relations are:
• The structure and organisation of trade unions recognised for collec-
tive bargaining purposes and the role of the shop steward.
• The nature of agreements between management and trade unions
relevant to the employees for whom responsibility is held.
• The nature of the arrangements for consultation and communication
with staff.
• The nature of the role of the manager or the personnel specialist in
employee relations.
 Managing the Employment Relationship 171

• Employment legislation so far as it affects relationships with trade

unions.
• State services in the area of industrial relations such as conciliation
and arbitration.
• The influence of factors external to the organisation on employee
relations. An example of this is the nature of demand for the products
or services of the organisation and of demand for the labour
employed.

Skills
Those involved in employee relations need general 'people-handling'
skills . Some specific examples of these are:
• collective bargaining skills ;
• grievance and disciplinary interviewing skills;
• counselling skills;
• skills in working with consultative committees and dealing with
representatives where employees participate in managerial decision-
making (see Section 13.4) .
Neither of the above lists is definitive . In addition a knowledge of
policy or senior management's expectations in this area is vital. In large
organisations it is necessary to co-ordinate employee relations practices.
However, even in small organisations it is advisable for all members of
management to be fully aware of company policy and practice if good
relations with staff are to be maintained.
A key role of personnel specialists is to assist managers to acquire
those skills which will assist them to be effective in this area.

13.3 Perspectives on the Employment Relationship

A key skill which underlies all the others on the list in the previous
section is that of seeing the situation from the other person's perspective.
This gives you greater understanding of his or her position but should not
seduce you into automatically agreeing with them! Unfortunately many
of those involved in employee relations do not possess this skill ; they are
'blinkered' by their own experiences and conditioning into believing that
theirs is the only valid view.
Employee relations training courses can provide a vehicle within which
managers can explore their perceptions of, attitudes to and behaviour in
employee relations situations. In a 'safe' environment they can exper-
iment with analysis from a different viewpoint.
Experience sometimes may be of help in the removal of a blinkered
vision . Sometimes full-time trade union officers or senior employee
172 Personnel Management

representatives are recruited as personnel specialists. Such people should

be able to put themselves in the shoes of union representatives or
employees in general. However, as 'poacher turned gamekeeper' they
may be trusted by neither management nor employees !
Managerial perspectives on the appropriateness of workplace trade
unionism vary significantly. Some see conflict as unlikely to arise in the
organisation if trade unions are not present and communications are
good. Such people are likely also to express a strong belief in the
responsibility of management to manage.
Other managers see trade unions as playing a legitimate and welcome
role in representing employees' interests. This is usually accompanied by
an acceptance of collective bargaining and a recognition that conflict
between management and employees is likely to arise but can be
resolved if effective rules govern the relationship between management
and unions.
It would be useful for you to discuss their perspectives with managers
involved in employee relations. However, beware! The viewpoint of any
individual may not fall neatly into either of these categories. Very often
people reveal their perspectives by the words they use . For example, the
term 'restrictive practice' is commonly used to describe methods used by
workers to limit their flexibility and productivity by illegitim ate methods.

Exercise 2
Suppose you were a member of a work group wh ich wishes to protect its work
by refusing to let members of other occupational groups encroach on its
territory. What name would you give to a 'restrictive practice'?

13.4 Managing the Employment Relationship - the

Options for Management
In this chapter I have emphasised that management has considerable
choice in the processes and techniques by which it seeks to manage
relations with its workforce. In the rest of the chapter we examine these
options in more detail.
One way of analysing these is to express them diagrammatically in
terms of the degree to which they encroach on the managerial prerogat-
ive - see Figure 13.1.

No Share in Management Control

Here the managerial prerogative is absolute . Employees have no right to
have their voice heard. Management adopting this approach to employee
 Managing the Employment Relationship 173

I
No share Limited Full Some share Worker
in consultation consultation in management control
management with with
employees employees

2 3 4 5

Fig 13.1 Scale of employee involvement in managerial decision-making

relations may attach a great deal of importance to communications with

staff. However, the aim of such activities is to improve understanding of
company policy and practice rather than to seek employees' views on the
appropriateness of these .

Limited Consultation
The UK has a tradition of joint consultation in which management has
consulted rather than negotiated with employees through committees
established for this purpose. Unions have been unhappy with this
because of the tendency for management to give information after
decisions have been taken. In addition , such committees often have had
their scope limited to the discussion of 'tea and toilet rolls' . There has
been an increase in the number of organisations with such committees
over the last decade or so. This may reflect the desire of many top
management teams to develop employee relations strategies with the
twin objectives of increasing employee commitment while retaining
control over the workforce . Onl y about a third of organisations limit
membership of consultative committees to trade union representatives.

Full Consultation
This occurs through committees constituted in the same way as' those
described above , except that here employees or their representatives are
given information on a very broad range of subjects by management.
Production , marketing and financial plans as well as personnel matters
are discussed. Yet, though mutually acceptable decisions are sought,
employees are not able in any way to control managerial decision-
making.
Suppos e that Fred has decided to set up a joint consultative committee
for the food processing company which he owns. Imagine that you are
Fred's personnel officer. Questions which you would need to answer
before establishing the committee are:
174 Personnel Management

1. What are Fred's objectives in establishing the committee? Does he

hope that in this way employees may come to understand better the
organisation's objectives? Does he want to use the committee as a
channel of information to employees? Does he hope to get sugges-
tions from employees which will help him to run the business better?
By answering this quest ion you should be able to get some ideas for
the terms of reference and constitution of the committee .
2. What is to be the relationship between the committee and any other
bodies? Fred's Food Processing Company is unionised . What is the
relationship to be between consultation and collective bargaining?
3. What is to be the composition of the committee? A decision will need
to be made as to whether the employee representation is to be
restricted to union representatives. Thought will need to be given as
to their numbers and the constituencies from which they are drawn .
How many management representatives should there be and how
should they be chosen ? What about the representation of supervisors?
Frequently these people are described as the 'lost people of manage-
ment'. This can lead to their disaffection with the organisation and
sometimes to their unionisation. Who should be the officers of the
committee? This may be a role for the personnel officer.
4. How are the elections for membership of the committee to be orga-
nised? Who will organise them? When should they be held? What
will be the procedures for nomination of candidates and for voting?
Who shall be eligible to stand for election? Can all employees vote?
5. What should be the detailed arrangements for the operation of the
committee? When and where should it meet? Who will prepare the
agenda and take the minutes?
6. Shall the representativeshave training to undertake their role? Ideally
the answer should be 'yes' . Both management and employee rep-
resentatives will need fully to understand the roles which they have
taken on and will need skills both to be effective in committee
meetings and to report back to their constituents.
From this we can conclude that, while joint consultation may have a bad
reputation in some quarters because of the trivial nature of its subject
matter, it can be a very useful communication mechanism if properly
organised and used.

Some Share in Management

Some managers are happy to involve employees up to the second or third
stage of our scale. Once this point is exceeded many will feel that their
power to control the employment relationship is seriously affected . By
contrast, union representatives tend to see consultation as a useful floor
 Managing the Employment Relationship 175

from which to achieve greater influence over managerial decision-

making . In this way we again see the controversial nature of participa-
tion . Collective bargaining has been the traditional method by which
unions have achieved some influence over managerial decision-making,
but only in the limited areas of terms and conditions of employment.
The rules regulating the employment relationship which result are often
classified into two types:
• procedural ; and
• substantive .
Procedural rules are those governing the process of industrial relations,
or which create a framework within which the parties - management and
unions - can negotiate over substantive issues concerning actual terms
and conditions of employment such as pay, holidays and fringe benefits .
Types of procedure agreement include:

• disciplinary ;
• grievance ;
• negotiating;
• disputes;
• redundancy.
Some managers see trade unions as playing an important and legit-
imate role in representing employees ' interests. However, this does not
mean that they would agree that all matters affecting the employment
relationship should be subject to negotiation. Research on this subject
has shown that the vast majority of managers are not prepared to
negotiate on:
• investment policies;
• pricing policies;
• product and market planning;
and other aspects of overall business planning.
On the other hand , managers frequently are prepared to negotiate on:

• working methods;
• payment methods;
• overtime allocation;
• manning levels;
• disciplinary issues;
• redundancy.
This is because the former items are very much associated with manage-
ment's overall control of the enterprise, while the latter items are
176 Personnel Manage

day-to-day operational matters which can be agreed with employee

representatives without major challenge to the managerial prerogative.
Not all these rules are formal. Others are known as 'custom and
practice', covering:
• overtime;
• mobility of labour;
• entry to apprenticeship (for example, in the printing industry) ;
• manning levels.
Sometimes lower levels of management 'turn a blind eye' to such
practices, thinking it is worth neither time nor potential conflict to
eradicate them.
Other techniques which give employees a share in managerial
decision-making are:
• quality circles (see Chapter 6 pp. 78-9);
• suggestion schemes (if a joint committee of management and
employee representatives reviews suggestions and has final power to
accept or reject them, see Chapter 6 p. 79);
• worker-director schemes.
These latter are more widespread in Europe than in Britain . Worker
representatives on a supervisory board can have the power to veto major
investment decisions, mergers or takeovers. Those in favour of such
schemes argue that in the long run they contribute to improved employee
relations, since decision-making by the board will take account of the
employee viewpoint. However, management is generally reluctant to
abandon its prerogatives unless forced to by legislation. Unions may fear
that board-level decision-making will conflict with collective bargaining
and that worker directors may have insufficient control to avoid endors-
ing unpopular decisions.
Workers also may acquire financial participation in managerial
decision-making by profit- or equity-sharing schemes (see Chapter 12,
pp. 165--6).

Worker Control
Here employees totally control the organisation often through a worker
co-operative. They hire managers to implement their decisions. Profits
are shared by the employees. During periods of high unemployment
worker co-operatives have been established by employees anxious to
protect their livelihoods when their employing organisation has foun-
dered. Many of these subsequently failed , probably because the hostile
market conditions which had prompted the sale to staff persisted.
 Managing the Employment Relationship 177

13.5 Direct or Indirect Participation?

In this chapter we have discussed ways in which employees may become
involved in managerial decision-making in terms of the degree to which
this encroaches on the right of management to manage . Another way of
looking at this is:
• whether participation occurs through employee representatives (in-
direct participation) , or
• whether employee involvement is concentrated on matters related to
the worker's own job (direct participation) .
Examples of indirect participation are:

• joint consultation;
• collective bargaining ;
• worker-director schemes.

Forms of direct participation are:

• quality circles;
• suggestion schemes ;
• autonomous group working.
Participation should not be embarked upon lightly. The most important
factors to bring it in effectively are the commitment of management and
their ability to gain employees' commitment by their own efforts and
example. The free flow of information up , down and across the organis-
ation with the willingness to listen, evaluate and act at all levels is an
essential ingredient of success.

13.6 Employee Relations Roles in the Workplace

In this section we consider the roles played by those concerned with the
development of the employment relationship. In most organisations
these are:
• various levels of management, including supervisors ;
• employee representatives in the workplace;
• personnel and employee relations specialists.
Where collective bargaining is an important means of regulating the
employment relationship, full-time trade union officers become involved
as do employers' association officials in organisations which belong to
such bodies .
178 Personnel Management

Exercise 3
When should the implications of corporate decision-making for employee
relations be examined - after or before financial, production, service or market-
ing plans have been made?

Managerial Roles in Employee Relations

The roles and the ir skill requirements of those involved in the implemen-
tation of employee relations strategies largely depend on the extent to
which management is prepared to involve employees in its decision-
making. At the simplest level , management is a more straightforward
process when workers have no share in organisational decision-making.
So far as the management of people is concerned, the job of the manager
is to tel1employees what to do and to ensure that they do it. All planning,
control and other managerial activities rest solely with management.
However, it is important that managers' roles in employee consultation
and communication are defined careful1y. When workers participate in
managerial decision-making, managers must have the necessary informa-
tion and skills to carry out organisational policy in this area.
From this we see that employee relations strategies should not be
formulated without careful analys is of the implications for managerial
jobs. This should be followed by an assessment as to whether managers
can cope with subsequent changes in their roles. In general such changes
require managers to be more flexible. A more detailed analysis is likely
to show the need for enhanced skills of:
• communication;
• oral and written presentation;
• interpersonal skills especial1y in dealing with groups.
In unionised workplaces procedure agreements define the formal roles
of managers, who need skills in collective bargaining to execute them
effectively. However, in many workplaces management and employee
representatives have off-the-record discussions during which problems
are aired and solutions tested, prior to a more formalised negotiation.
One of the complications of industrial relations is that different levels
and functions of management have different perspectives on, and roles
in, this area. Senior management often does not playa front-line role.
For example, a brief for bargaining with trade union representatives is
often given to middle or junior management or personnel specialists. It
will be designed so that it does not threaten fundamental corporate
principles and preserves the power of directors and senior management.
 Managing the Employment Relationship 179

No share Limited Full Some share Worker

in consultation consultation in management control
management with with I I
I employees employees I I
I I I I I
I I I I I
1 2 3 4 5
I I I I I
I I I I I
Management Management Management Management Employees
makes gives discusses gives make
decisions some many employees decisions
and information decisions information and tell
announces to with and managers
them employees employees makes to
to decisions implement
employees jointly them
with them

Fig 13.2 Implications of employee participation for managerial skills and style

Sometimes, when negotiations break down, the bargaining position of

the negotiators may be overridden by their more senior colleagues.

Exercise 4
What are the dangers of this?

The Role of Personnel Specialists

Personnel specialists act as advisers to management in the implementa-
tion of employee relations strategies. The skills necessary for effective-
ness vary with the choice of employee relations strategy . For example ,
some procedure agreements specify a role for the personnel function in
workplace employee relations. The involvement of specialists should
increase with the level of conflict because of the need for co-ordination
and specialist knowledge , for example of job analysis, job evaluation and
employees' legal rights. Personnel specialists should be concerned with
the establishment and maintenance of a good procedural framework for
workplace employee relations which fits management's policy objectives
in this area . However, this is difficult since there are often differences of
interests between line management and personnel specialists with regard
to methods of resolving conflict with trade unions.
180 Personnel Management

Exercise 5
The computer staff in a bank go on strike over a regrading claim. They have
never been on strike before. What do you think their departmental manager w ill
want to do to resolve the issue? Are members of the personnel department
likely to agree?

Personnel specialists should have a longer term strategic perspective on

the employment relationship. Line managers' most immediate concern
will be the need to maintain the processes they manage . There is
evidence that if employees come to see strikes or other forms of
industrial action as the only way of getting concessions from manage-
ment, they may use this weapon more and more frequently. Also
personnel specialists should be aware of the possible 'knock-on' effect of
local managerial decisions on other parts of the business .
In situations where management have chosen an employee relations
strategy which is predominantly consultative in focus, personnel special-
ists have an important role in designing and implementing appropriate
committees and other processes for employee communication. They
must also ensure that line managers use such processes effectively and
propose changes where necessary.
Personnel specialists sometimes feel that they occupy positions of
'piggy in the middle ' both in terms of the different managerial interest
groups and as the interface with employee representatives , who see the
personnel department as the first port of call when there is a problem.

The Role of Employee Representatives

In unionised workplaces the most commonly used term for an employee
representative is 'shop steward'. Such people have frequently been cast
as the villains of industrial relations , particularly by those who see trade
unions as introducing conflict into otherwise harmonious working situ-
ations. However, there is much evidence that most managers who deal
with shop stewards do not so regard them.
A shop steward or trade union representative in the workplace
normally:
• is an employee of the organisation;
• is not paid by the trade union;
• spends part of working time on trade union duties;
• is responsible for the representation of members' interests during the
initial stages of negotiations with management;
• is often persuaded to take the job because nobody else wants
it - though union rules do require election to office.
 Managing the Employment Relationship 181

Three aspects of the role are :

• recruitment of members and ensuring that they remain in member-
ship;
• representing members ' interests to management;
• giving information on trade union activities and facilities to members .
In most workplaces trade union representatives no longer collect trade
union dues . 'Check-off agreements with management frequently exist so
that dues are directly deducted from pay. While this facility increases the
efficiency of workplace union organisation, it has the potential disad-
vantage of reducing the need for frequent contact between members and
representatives.
Like that of the personnel specialist, the role of the shop steward lies at
an interface between management and employees . This can place
contradictory pressures on the representative. In our example from
banking in this chapter, the computer staff would expect the representat-
ive to get their jobs regraded , while personnel specialists would hope that
he or she could persuade employees that their grading was correct.
In non-unionised workplaces or where management places emphasis
on consultation as well as negotiation, employee representatives may
exist independent of union organisations. Their ability to operate
effectively will depend to a large extent on the facilities and information
available. However, the provision of these will depend on managerial
policies, thus reducing the independence of representatives.

13.7 The Lessons for Personnel Specialists on the

Management of the Employment Relationship
These can be summarised as:
• the need to recognise your own perspective on this area of manage -
ment, and that of other parties ;
• an ability to recognise the need for employee relations strategies
compatible with the needs of the business, which other members
understand and to which they are committed;
• the necessity to ensure that all managers are competent to implement
the organisation's policies so that the employment relationship is
managed efficiently and effectively;
• the ability to communicate the nature of the personnel role in
employee relations and to encourage managers to use specialist help
when this would further the achievement of organisational goals or the
resolution of problems.
14 Terminating Employment

14.1 Dismissal - an Introduction

It is vital that managers handle problem employees very carefully, so
that accusations of unfair dismissal are unlikely to be upheld if the
employee's contract is subsequently terminated. In this section we shall
examine the constructive handling of employees in cases where disciplin-
ary action is necessary as well as the law relating to dismissal.
The legal processes for dealing with dismissal cases are identical to
those which are used to deal with employee complaints about employers'
behaviour with regard to other aspects of the contract of emplo yment.
To stimulate your thinking about discipline and dismissal, I have
drawn up some questions for you to attempt to answer here . At the end
of the section you will find some similar questions. If the chapter
succeeds in increasing your knowledge of this subject you should find it
easier to answer the second set.

Exercise 1
Comment on the degree to which the following statements are correct.
1. Employees must be given at least one warning before they can be fairly
dismissed.
2. All employees can bring claims of unfair dismissal against their employer if
they are dismissed.
3. An employee only has the right to be represented at a disciplinary interview
when the final warning stage has been reached.
4. An employee who has been found guilty of a shop-lifting offence may be
dismissed.
5. Employees have so many legal rights now that it is very difficult to dismiss
them .
6. A rent collector. employed by a local authority, who 'borrows' his rent money
may be dismissed.

To answer these questions you needed to be:

• familiar with relevant aspects of employment law;
• knowledgeable about disciplinary procedures in the workplace;
• aware of the way that similar cases have been dealt with.
 Terminating Employment 183

Personnel specialists usually playa co-ordinating and advisory role here.

To be effective in dealing with disciplinary cases you also need relevant
skills. Before we undertake a more detailed examination of the law and
of disciplinary procedures we turn to this.

14.2 Discipline Handling Skills

My dictionary defines the verb to discipline as 'to bring under control' or
'to train to obedience and order'. In the work situation there is usually an
attempt to modify the offending employee's behaviour so that it more
closely accords with the management's requirements. While the respon-
sibility of sanctions is ever present, the focus is often on problem-solving.
Three reasons for the use of an interview as a medium for reprimand-
ing employees are:
• In most cases management wishes to help the employee to overcome
her/his difficulties . It is hard to envisage how this can be achieved
effectively other than face to face.
• It is important that the employee is given an opportunity to explain his
case. In law this is vital if a subsequent dismissal is to be considered
fair.
• Management will wish to ensure that the malaise does not spread to
other staff. Justice must not only be done ; it must be seen to be done.

Preparation for Disciplinary Interviewing

Suppose that one of your subordinates , eighteen-year-old Sarah Green,
is giving you cause for concern. She is often late for work, takes long
lunch hours and occasionally takes odd days off without permission . Her
work contains mistakes and she is resistant to suggestions that she should
be more careful. Four types of information which you would need before
conducting a disciplinary interview with Sarah are:
• The job - nature of the duties and of the standard of work required.
• The working environment - what are the physical conditions of her
job? What are the working relationships?
• Sarah's work record and circumstances - do you have information on
her past performance and behaviour?
• Sarah's misdemeanours - when has she been late and how often?
When has she been away from work without permission? What
inadequacies are there in her job performance?
Having established the facts of the situation, you must also acquaint
yourself with the possible sanctions available to you. Only with adequate
preparation will you be able to conduct a constructive interview with
Sarah.
184 Personnel Management

Participants in Disciplinary Interviews

Managers will need to consider whether they wish to conduct disciplinary
interviews alone or with the help of personnel specialists. Some pro-
cedure agreements specify the point at which the latter should become
involved. If such guidance is not available then it will be necesary for the
management to consider the degree of formality which is useful in the
circumstances.
As we saw at the beginning of this section, employees have the right to
be accompanied either by a union representative or by a colleague in
these situations. To safeguard them selves from later accusations of
unfairness, managers would be best advised to inform employees of this
right. The presence of a union representative should not be feared. Very
often this acts as additional insurance that promises made by employees
of future improvements in behaviour or performance will be carried out.

The Interview Itself

The initiative for the interview comes from management. Firstly there
should be an attempt to establish the full facts , both by explaining what
information is held and by asking for the employee's comments. Forcing
a confession by attempting to place the individual under considerable
stress or preaching a sermon is unlikely to contribute to the correction of
the problem. A more constructive approach is to try to agree with the
employee how improvement can be achieved . Such a problem-solving
approach will be assisted by the judicious use of questions.

Exercise 2
Refer back to the categories of questions wh ich we used in our discussion of the
selection interview in Chapter 3. pp. 43-4. List the categories of question which
are likely to be useful in a disciplinary interview with a problem-solving
orientation.

Follow-up of Disciplinary Interviews

It is important to keep an accurate record of the interview, both to
ensure that agreements are kept and in case the situation is not rectified
and the employee is subsequently dismissed . New facts which have come
to light during the interview must be checked. For example , if Sarah
complained that a contributory factor to her poor performance was
constant interruption from workmates , this would need to be verified .
The employee's subsequent behaviour and performance must be care-
fully monitored to determine whether further disciplinary action is
necessary.
 Terminating Employment 185

14.3 Disciplinary Procedures

Employers must give employees details of any disciplinary rules applic-
able to them and the name of someone to whom appeal can be made
against a disciplinary decision as part of the written particulars of the
contract of employment. The law does not require organisations to have
disciplinary rules or procedures. However, as we shall see, employers
who act unfairly in disciplining employees are likely to face adverse
tribunal decisions if dismissed employees seek legal redress . The ground
rules on fairness are set out in the code of practice on Disciplinary
Practices and Procedures in Employment issued by ACAS. Further
practical guidance is set out in Discipline at Work, the ACAS advisory
handbook. Wise employers have incorporated these principles into their
own procedures and practices . Though infringements of the code are not
of themselves actionable offences , the absence of procedures or their
breach is likely to make it difficult for the employer to argue before a
tribunal that management action was fair . However, account will be
taken of the circumstances of the case.

Essential features of a disciplinary procedure

The ACAS Code of Practice says that disciplinary procedures should:
• be in writing;
• specify to whom they apply;
• provide for matters to be dealt with quickly;
• indicate the disciplinary action which may be taken ;
• specify the levels of management which have the authority to take the
various forms of disciplinary action : immediate superiors do not
normally have the power to dismiss without reference to senior
management;
• provide for individuals to be informed of the complaints against them
and to be given an opportunity to state their case before decisions are
reached;
• give individuals the right to be accompanied by a trade union
representative or by a fellow employee of their choice;
• ensure that , except for gross misconduct, no employees are dismissed
for a first breach of discipline;
• ensure that disciplinary action is not taken until the case has been
carefully investigated;
• ensure that individuals are given an explanation for any penalties
imposed;
• provide a right of appeal and specify the procedure to be followed.
186 Personnel Management

In addition , the ACAS advisory handbook , Discipline at Work , states

that disciplinary procedures should:
• apply to all employees irrespective of length of service , race , sex or
marital status;
• ensure that any investigatory period of suspension is with pay (if,
exceptionally, suspension is without pay , this should be provided for
in the contract of employment);
• ensure that, where the facts are in dispute, no disciplinary penalty is
imposed until the case has been carefully investigated and it is
concluded on the balance of probability that the employee committed
the act in question.

Trade Unions and Disciplinary Procedures

An important part of the trade union representative's role where unions
are recognised is the representation of members who are subject to
disciplinary action. As we have seen, the ACAS Code of Practice
emphasises the legitimacy of this . Many disciplinary procedures have
been jointly agreed with trade unions, who generally see them as a means
of ensuring the equitable treatment of employees. When it comes to
disciplinary rules, trade unions are likely to be less willing to share
control with management. Many trade unionists argue that it is vital to
maintain flexibility here in order to protect members' interests.
Care should be taken if it becomes necessary to discipline a trade
union representative , since this could be seen as an attack on the union .
The Code of Practice suggests that no formal action should be taken until
the matter has been discussed with either a full-time union official or with
a more senior representative .

Disciplinary Action - the Training Implications

Managers with a role in disciplinary procedures should have relevant
training. This should give them the opportunity to :
• clarify their understanding of the organisation's disciplinary pro-
cedures and rules and related aspects of legislation ;
• enhance their skills in preparation for and in the conducting of
disciplinary interviews.

14.4 The Law on Dismissal

Observance of the guidance in the earlier part of this chapter should be
both helpful in the maintenance of good employee relations, and
supportive of the employer's case should subsequent dismissal lead to a
tribunal hearing. To deal effectively with dismissal managers and person-
 Terminating Employment 187

nel specialists also need a good knowledg e of the law. This is contained
mainly within the Employment Protection Con solidation Act 1978,
though there were minor amendments in the Employment Act 1980.

What is Dismissal?
According to the law, employees are treated as dismissed if:
• the contract of employment under which they work is terminated by
the employer with or without notice ;
• a fixed-term contract expire s without being renewed ;
• they leave their employment 'in circumstances such that [they are]
entitled to terminate it without notice by reason of the employer's
conduct' - constructive dismissal.

Constructive dismissal
This occurs when management puts pressure on the employee to resign
in a way which goes to the root of the contract. The most obvious
example is where management materially changes the contract of
employment without the employee's consent.

Exercise 3
You are the owner of a chainof fivehairdressingsalons. Jane Jones is a stylistat
one of them. You tell her that in a month's time she will work at another one. Is
this constructive dismissal?

To make a claim of constructive dismissal the emplo yee must leave

without notice. The best protection for the employer against such claims
is to get the employee's agreement to any changes to the contract of
employment.

Who can Claim Unfair Dismissal?

If you refer to the checklist of employee rights in Chapter 11, pp.
135-6, you will recall that certain categories of employee cannot claim
unfair dismissal. These are :
• Those with less than two years' service.
• Those with less than five years ' service who work more than eight and
less than sixteen hours a week.
• Those who work less than eight hours a week.
• Those who 'normally' work abroad.
• Those over normal retirement age .
188 Personnel Management

What is Fair and Unfair Dismissal?

Once it has been established that a dismissal has taken place, the
employer must prove that the employee was dismissed for one of the
potentially fair reasons laid down in law. These reasons concern issues
of:

• capability or qualifications for the work which the employee must do;
• conduct;
• redundancy;
• where continuing to employ the worker would be illegal;
• some other substantial reason .

However, showing that the employee was dismissed for a fair reason is
not sufficient. The employer must also be able to prove that the
punishment - the dismissal - fitted the crime . If the employer fails to
show the reason or shows a reason which is not listed above, then the
dismissal will be automatically unfair. If a valid reason is shown, then the
employer must show that it was reasonable to dismiss the employee in
the circumstances. Tribunals will pay careful attention to the facts of the
particular case , including the extent to which fair procedures were
followed in dealing with the case .
Now we examine the general approach of the courts and tribunals to
dismissal for the potentially valid reasons listed above .

Capability or qualifications
This covers employee incompetence (intentional or unintentional) ,
short- and long-term sickness and lack of qualifications to do the job.
If an employee falls below expected standards of performance, man-
agement must show that the reasons for the decline have been investi-
gated, warnings have been given and attempts have been made to help
the employee to improve . Whether or not it is necessary to offer
alternative work will depend on the size of the organisation and the
length of service of the employee.
Similar considerations will apply where employees' poor health makes
them incapable of coping with the demands of their job . The law on
dismissal due to long-term sickness is particularly complex . Obviously
warnings that a failure to return to work will result in dismissal would be
inappropriate! Employers are expected to be sympathetic and hold the
job open as long as is reasonably practicable. Tribunals will attempt to
balance the employer's need for the work to be done against the
employee's need to make a proper recovery from his illness.
In cases of short-term absence , warnings of the necessity to improve
attendance should be given , though again the circumstances must be
investigated. Medical certificates can be requested even for single days of
 Terminating Employment 189

absence. In making a decision to dismiss it is legitimate to take into

account the disruptive effect of repeated short spells of absence on the
efficiency of the organisation.
The cases on lack of qualification are few since this must be a condition
of employment. Most people who lack adequate qualifications are not
selected in the first place. An example would be where a trainee fails to
pass examinations which are an essential prerequisite to the right to
practise . Even then it might be reasonable for the employer to extend the
training period .

Conduct
This term is not defined in the legislation and an examination of cases
indicates that a wide range of misconduct has been said to justify
dismissal. If an offence is accepted to be gross misconduct, then dismissal
without notice would be an appropriate sanction . For less serious cases,
warnings would be necessary prior to dismissal. In these cases it is vital
that procedures are followed and that employees who breach disciplinary
rules are treated equitably.

Exercise 4
Sarah Green is summarily dismissed for her persistent lateness, long lunch
hours and occasional days of absence without permission. Would a tribunal be
likely to find the dismissal fair?

Redundancy
Here we are concerned with whether the employer acted reasonably in
selecting employees for redundancy. The courts have laid down prin-
ciples of good practice which employers would be advised to follow in
appropriate circumstances:
• As much warning as possible should be given of impending redun-
dancies so that employers and unions together can seek alternative
solutions or other work for those involved.
• Unions should be consulted so that management can achieve its
objective with the minimum of hardship.
• Criteria for selection should not depend only on the judgement of the
person making the selection . They should be objective and related to
attendance, experience, efficiency and length- of service. Where
possible they should be agreed with trade unions .
• Selection should be on the basis of these criteria.
• Management should investigate the possibilities of alternative employ-
ment for those involved.
190 Personnel Management

In addition it would be unfair to select employees for redundancy on

grounds of either trade union membership or non-membership.
To illustrate these points , suppose that Mike's Motors needs to make
some employees redundant. A decision that short-service employees
should go first would be accepted as fair by the courts if management had
an agreement to this effect with a recognised trade union. This is
intended to stop employers who want to get rid of staff on perhaps more
personal grounds from using redundancy as a pretext. If no such
agreement had been made, the test would be whether this was a
reasonable and objective criterion. In most circumstances this would be
agreed to be the case.

Legal restrictions
An employer may fairly dismiss an employee whose continued employ-
ment would be against the law. This covers such cases as drivers who
become disqualified from driving, or employees who do not have a work
permit.

Some other substantial reasons

This last 'catch-all' category has been used to cover reductions in wages
or changes in hours of work which are argued by the employer to be vital
if the business is to survive, the dismissal of temporary employees who
have been employed to replace staff absent because of medical suspen-
sion or maternity leave, and irreconcilable conflicts between employees
where the dismissed employee can be shown to be the main instigator of
the trouble.

Reasons for Dismissal which are Automatically Unfair

These are:
• dismissal for being a member of or taking part in the activities of an
independent trade union;
• dismissal because of race or sex discrimination;
• dismissal because of pregnancy, unless the employer can show that the
woman concerned is no longer capable of doing the work she was
employed to do.
The dismissal of strikers is fair provided that all those on strike are
dismissed and none are re-engaged within three months of the dismissal.
It is not automatically unfair to dismiss those who refuse to join a trade
union where a closed shop exists, though in this case there are major
exceptions.
 Terminating Employment 191

Remedies for Unfair Dismissal

Employees who successfully bring a claim of unfair dismissal against their
employers are entitled to remedies in this order.
• reinstatement;
• re-engagement;
• compensation.

Reinstatement
If the tribunal orders reinstatement, management must treat the
employee as if the employment had not been term inated .
Four factors to be taken into account when reinstating a dismissed
employee are :
• Back-pay including any pay increases which should have been re-
ceived.
• The need to preserve the dismissed employee's continuity of service.
• Any benefits to which the dismissed employee is entitled - holiday
pay, for example .
• The date by which the tribunal's order for reinstatement is to be
complied with.
Tribunals seldom order reinstatement. In making such decisions they
take account of the employee 's wishes, the practicality of such an order
for management and the extent of contribution by the employee to the
dismissal.

Re-engagement
In this case the employee must be re-employed but not necessarily in the
same job . Again the cases in which tribunals make such an order are
relatively few and the same factors are taken account of as for reinstate-
ment.

Compensation
This is awarded if management is not ordered to re-employ the dismissed
employee or if such an order is ignored . There are four types of
compensation:
• the basic award - equivalent to a redundancy payment.
• the compensatory award - based on an assessment of what the
employee has lost in wages, benefits , etc . now and in the future;
• the additional award - if management do not comply with an order for
reinstatement or re-engagement ;
• the special award - in cases of dismissal for union membership or
non-membership.
192 Personnel Management

The basic, compensatory and special awards will be reduced if the

tribunal believes that the employee contributed to the dismissal. The
compensatory award is reduced also if the employee failed to attempt to
compensate for the loss of the job .
Dismissed workers with a minimum of six months' service are entitled
to a written statement of the reasons for dismissal. If this has not been
given a tribunal can order additional compensation of up to two weeks'
pay.

Exercise 5
From your knowledge of discipline and dismissal now , comment on the degree
to wh ich these statements are correct.
1. One of the employees you supervise resigned last week . You didn't like her
and are relieved that she's left. You have nothing further to worry about.
2. If employees are persistently late you can dismiss them summarily .
3. You discipline a trade union representative for persistent lateness. Because
of his position you should consult a full-time union official or senior represen-
tative .
4. A local authority manager required to drive a car as part of her job loses her
driving licence for a year. She says that her husband will drive her around
while she is disqualified. You say that this is unacceptable and dismiss her.
5. A secretary complains to a personnel officer that her boss continually swears
at her. The personnel officer thinks that she is a bit of a prude and takes no
action.

14.5 Redundancy
This is probably the saddest and most difficult problem of the employ-
ment relationship with which managers and personnel specialists have to
deal. Unfortunately redundancy has become commonplace in our so-
ciety. The odds are that you know someone who has been involved in
such a situation. You may find it helpful to ask them to describe the
situation to you. Reflect on the important considerations for manage-
ment once it became apparent that redundancy was inevitable. These are
likely to include :
• who to make redundant, in which areas of the business and on what
date or dates;
• whether retraining of redundant employees would be in the interests
of the organisation;
• what compensation should be awarded to those made redundant.
It is necessary for managers to think about these issues whatever the
detailed circumstances. In unionised organisations it will also be vital to
 Terminating Employment 193

draw up a programme for consulting the unions . This mayor may not
involve the negotiation of a procedure for handling the redundancies, if
such an agreement does not already exist. Sometimes management takes
steps to assist redundant employees to find other work. Most often this
occurs where the effect of the loss of jobs on the local community is likely
to be severe. In these situations most attention tends to be given to the
process of identifying and dealing with those who are to be made
redundant. However, it is also sensible to consider those who will remain.
The shock of redundancy , especially of large numbers of employees ,
affects future relationships between management and workers.
If you refer back to the checklist in Chapter 11, pp . 13~, you will
recall that the categories of employee who can make claims of redun-
dancy against their employer are:
• those with two years ' service or more ;
• those with five years' service or more who work between 8 and 16
hours per week .
In addition workers must have been dismissed before they can make a
claim. The legal definition of dismissal on p. 187 applies to dismissals
because of redundancy . Redundant workers may bring claims for unfair
dismissal , as we saw on pp. 189-90. In this section we examine
employees' rights to redundancy compensation as distinct from compen-
sation for unfair dismissal.

14.6 Situations of Redundancy

The definition of redundancy covers three main situations:
• where the business ceases to operate ;
• where the employer changes the location of the business;
• where the employer requires fewer employees for the existing work .
The first of these categories has given rise to few problems in the courts.
If management wishes to move to another place, the question as to
whether workers are redundant will depend on the details of the contract
of employment. If this does not require them to move , then they will be
able to claim redundancy compensation.
The most controversial redundancy cases have arisen where manage-
ment decides that there is less work for employees to do or that the same
work can be done by fewer people. In such cases work may be
reorganised and technology may be changed with consequent implica-
tions for the terms and conditions of employment under which people are
employed . The courts have upheld management's right to reorganise
work in the interests of efficiency. In doing so they have argued that
194 Personnel Management

redundancy arises only if there is a change in terms and conditions of

employment because the employer's need for 'work of a particular kind'
has 'ceased' or 'diminished'. Similarly where the requirement for over-
time is reduced , employees are not redundant if management still
requires them to do their work as before .
Sometimes the reorganisation of work or change in technology places
new demands on employees for efficiency or adaptability .

Exercise 6
A college of further education installs a new and more complex heating system .
Previously the heating system was looked after by the college plumber. It is
decided that the new system needs the full-time services of a heating technician
who can also deal with plumbing problems . The college plumber is declared
redundant. Is this decision fair?

14.7 Selection of Employees for Redundancy

The selection of those employees who must leave can be very painful.
We looked at the legal restrictions on this in the last section . Very often
selection criteria are agreed with trade unions either at the time of
redundancy or when redundancy is only a small dark cloud in an
otherwise clear sky.
Redundancy is a difficult issue for trade unions. The views of the
members are often divided; some will want to leave with the best possible
compensation ; others will believe that the union should fight all job
losses. In unionised workplaces there is likely to be a demand that
volunteers should be allowed to go first.

Exercise 7
What are the disadvantages of this from management's point of view?

In a redundancy situation management would prefer to make redun-

dant those who contribute least to the efficiency of the organisation - the
'slackers', the 'passengers ', the 'deadwood' , etc. This is where many
managers and personnel specialists face something of a crisis of con-
science, for these people in all probability will be those who will have the
greatest difficulty in getting other jobs. In such situations, 'last in first
out' may seem to be a fairer criterion. Sometimes criteria are formalised
in a redundancy procedure agreement but often management are reluc-
tant to restrict their flexibility to act in this way.
 Terminating Employment 195

Legally, employers must consult recognised independent unions about

every proposed redundancy. All employees are covered apart from
short-term workers employed for a period of three months or less. The
law does not say that there must be negotiation with the unions .
'Consultation' involves giving, in writing, to the union:
• the reasons for the proposals of redundancy ;
• the numbers and descriptions (i.e. jobs) of the employees;
• the total number of employees in those jobs;
• the proposed method of selecting employees for redundancy;
• the proposed method of carrying out the redundancies - timing ,
methods of payment, etc.
After this, management must consider the union's views and must reply
to them, stating the reasons for rejecting any of them .
The law says that consultation over any redundancies must begin 'at
the earliest opportunity' . When large numbers of redundancies are
proposed, the following timetable must be observed at the minimum:
• If 100 employees are to be made redundant at one establishment over
a period of up to 90 days, the consultation must take place at least 90
days before the first dismissal takes place .
• If between 10 and 100 workers are to be made redundant at one
establishment over a period of up to 30 days, then consultation must
take place at least 30 days before the first dismissal takes place .
If management does not observe this timetable , employees made redun-
dant are entitled to additional compensation. This consists of payment
for the 'protected period ', i.e. the 90 or 30 days specified for the above
categories. Tribunals reduce this amount by earnings or payments in lieu
of notice paid during this period.
The Department of Employment must also be notified in writing using
a similar timetable .

14.8 Retraining or Redeployment of Redundant Workers

Another option for management, if the need for workers is reduced, is to
consider the possibility of retraining for other work in the organisation or
elsewhere. In addition some workers may be able to be redeployed
without further training.
Retraining for work elsewhere can be an expensive option, especially
where unemployment is high or workers' skills have become obsolete .
Some employers offer job search and career counselling facilities to
redundant employees. The objectives of employers in providing such
services include:
196 Personnel Management

• concern about the future of such individuals ;

• relieving the anxieties of redundant employees;
• enhancing the reputation of the organisation as an employer in the
long run.
Sometimes external consultants are used by employers to assist
redundant employees. The reasons for this are:
• individuals need a broad perspective of the job market to define their
career goals and sharpen their job search skills;
• the expertise of external consultants should be very helpful in this
process;
• external consultants may be more objective about the redundant
employees' skills than the employer;
• external consultants may be able to assist networking with others in a
similar position.
• the resources offered by external consultants are likely to be greater
than those available to an individual employer - exploration of the
job market is likely to be assisted by typing , computing, library and
research facilities.
The speed of technical change tends to mean that adaptation to the
demands of new jobs will be a permanent feature of employment. The
need for a flexible labour force should add emphasis to the need for
human resource planning to identify areas of redundant skills so that the
viability of retraining can be investigated thoroughly .
It may be possible to offer some redundant employees new jobs
immediately. In law if employees accept 'suitable alternative work' they
are not entitled to redundancy compensation . For such offers of work to
be suitable the following conditions must be met :
• the offer must be made before the old contract is terminated and must
take effect within four weeks;
• the offer must be made by the old employer, by management of the
same group of companies or by a new employer who is taking over the
business;
• the offer can be made orally or in writing and must give the employee
information about 'capacity and place . . . and ... other terms and
conditions of employment';
• sufficient information must be given to enable the employee to make a
decision as to the suitability of the new job.
If the employee refuses alternative work which is suitable , the right to
redundancy compensation is forfeited . In making decisions as to suit-
ability , the tribunal takes account of the employee's personal cir-
 Terminating Employment 197

cumstances including travel , housing , domestic problems or loss of

friends.

Exercise 8
A secretary works for a fashion business in Mayfair. London. The firm moves to
new premises above a sex shop in Soho. She refuses the offer of alternative
employment there on the grounds that she is opposed to 'money-for-sex'
activities and finds the new place of employment distasteful. Is her refusal of the
new job unreasonable?

Employees who are offered a new job have the right to try it for a
period of four weeks. During this period they can leave at any time and
claim redundancy compensation . It is then up to the tribunal to decide
whether the new job was suitable and whether its rejection was reason-
able .
Redundant workers also have the right to 'reasonable' paid time off to
look for other work or for retraining while under notice of redundancy .
This is only available to workers with at least two years' service. Even if
employees are offered alternative work , they are entitled to this. There is
no legal definition of what is reasonable . It would depend on the
circumstances such as the amount of work available and the time and
travel involved in looking for it. In practice the amount of time off given
tends to be rather limited . If management refuses to allow employees this
right , the maximum compensation which can be awarded by a tribunal is
two days .

14.9 Redundancy Compensation

Scales of minimum compensation in cases of redundancy are laid down
by law. The amount of the payment depends on the employee's age ,
length of service and weekly pay. Only those who have two or more
years' service have a legal entitlement to be compensated in this way.
Many organisations have paid more to redundant workers than the
statutory minimum . Employees have the right to a written statement
from management explaining how the compensation has been calculated.

Those who Remain after a Redundancy

In redundancy, most attention is focused on the plight of those who must
leave. Management should not forget those who will continue to be
employed. The announcement of redundancy especially if large numbers
of people are involved , usually sends tremors throughout the organis-
198 Personnel Management

ation . Those who stay may feel that their employment with the organis-
ation is no longer permanent and that their career prospects have been
affected adversely . Management must systematically assess the nature of
these changes and immediately should set about the rebuilding process in
ways which convince remaining employees that they have a future .
The implication of our discussion is that sometimes redundancy will
occur. But is it inevitable? If you refer back to Chapter 2, you will recall
that through human resource planning it should be possible to alert
management to the possibility of redundancy . Then the need to shed
labour can be reduced or avoided altogether by some of the following
measures:
• stopping recruitment;
• halting overtime ;
• encouraging early retirement;
• introducing job-sharing;
• developing retraining programmes.

14.10 Retirement
The normal retirement age is 65 for men; women can retire at 60 or can
continue to work up to 65. As we have seen, early retirement has become
much more prevalent as many organisations have slimmed down their
labour forces . In this section we shall look at the process of retirement
and in particular at pension schemes .

Occupational Pension Schemes

This is a complex subject on which managers and personnel specialists
require specialist advice from actuaries and investment advisers . Here
we are only scratching the surface . Pensions are probably the most
important employee benefit. There are many reasons why organisations
seek to provide the best possible occupational pension scheme for
employees. These include :
• to help the recruitment and retention of employees, especially more
senior and older employees;
• to demonstrate that the organisation is a good employer - this should
assist the commitment of employees;
• to enable those who retire to enjoy financial security in their later
years.

Contributory and non-contributory occupational pension schemes

Most pension schemes require employees to contribute part of their
earnings - usually 6 or 7 per cent - to the fund from which they will later
 Terminating Employment 199

receive a pension. These are contributory schemes. In this sense pensions

are a form of deferred earnings. Other schemes are non-contributory in
that their full cost is paid by the employer.
Contributory schemes generally provide a better range of benefits
because more money is available . Also , employees are often more
appreciative of benefits for which they have paid.
By contrast, non-contributory schemes are often cheaper to admin-
ister, are flexible and very attractive to employees since no deductions
are made from pay . Trade unions are generally not in favour of
non-contributory schemes since they may act as 'golden chains' which tie
employees to the organisation because benefits are forfeited on leaving .

Who is covered?
It is common to find schemes which cover both staff and manual workers;
however, senior management often have a 'top-hat' arrangement in
which the scheme is topped up with a non-contributory arrangement.

Benefits
The most obvious benefit is a pension on retirement. Other benefits are :
• a lump sum on retirement;
• death-in-service benefit;
• pension for widows or widowers .
In addition , pension schemes can be more or less inflation-proofed by
allowing for increases in response to changes in the cost of living. This is
a very desirable feature , although it can be expensive .

Personal Pensions
Employees have the choice of taking out a personal pension plan rather
than joining their employer's pension scheme. However, this will result
in the loss of the employer's contribution to the pension.

Provisions for early retirement

One way of avoiding compulsory redundancy is for employees nearing
retirement age to retire early . Many organisations also allow employees
in poor health to leave early . Pension schemes have to cope with this
eventuality. Normally, such people can draw a pension immediately but,
as their contributions will have been less than those who retire normally,
their pension will be smaller. Some employers are generous in the
pensions which are paid to older workers who retire at a time of
redundancy. Lump-sum payments may also be made . The early retire-
ment option will not always be seen in such a rosy light. For management
it is an expensive option because of the need to pay pensions early. In
200 Personnel Management

addition, it cannot always be assumed that older employees have

outdated skills and knowledge. In many cases such people's years of
experience are of value to the organisation. Early retirement is usually
voluntary. Thus management gives control of the selection process to
employees. This may mean that the more useful older employees will
leave while others whom management would wish to lose stay.

Provisions for late retirement

Sometimes employers want to retain the services of certain employees
beyond retirement age . The rules of pension schemes usually provide for
such people to receive an enhanced pension without further contribu-
tions either from them or from the employer.
In conclusion, it is dangerous to generalise about people. Not all older
employees are ready to retire. To attempt to encourage all this group to
leave before normal retirement age is a superficially simple way of coping
with redundancy. Good personnel practice demands that the needs of
both organisation and individuals concerned must be carefully analysed
before starting on this path .
15 The Future is Not Far Away

In this book we have examined the techn iques available to personnel

specialists and line managers in their search for success in the manage-
ment of people at work . We have stressed the need for such techniques
to be used within a framework of managerial objectives on the utilisation
of human resources. Because of this the book does not seek to provide
reassurance for those in search of easy solutions to problems in this area
of management.

15.1 What of the Future?

Increasing proportions of manag ers in employing organisations are
finding themselves faced with more and more questions about the
long-term survival of the business because of increasing demands from
those who have a stake in it. These 'stakeholders' include :
• the customer
• shareholders
• employees
• suppliers
• the state
• the community or public opinion.
Competitive pressures also are increasing in many sectors of the econ-
omy. New technology provides both threats and opportunities.
To improve their position in the market place many organisations are
building strategies based on quality and service . They are restructuring
the organisation so that it is more flexible and responsive to consumer
need .
All of this leads to increased questioning of established practice, not
least in the area of human resource management.
You may recall that in Chapter 13 (p . 170) we discussed manage-
ment's twin objectives of control and commitment in its relations with
the workforce. The necessity to achieve both these goals rather than one
or the other will be vital in future . Management is concerned both to
control the output of available human resources and to build an
202 Personnel Management

organisational culture which fosters commitment, responsibility and the

development of individual potential. The quality of leadership required
to achieve these aims cannot be over-estimated.

15.2 The Future - the Challenge for Personnel

Management
Assisting management to become more efficient and more effective in
both controlling and motivating the workforce presents personnel special-
ists with considerable challenges in the development of policies and
practices.

15.3 Developing Mechanisms for the More Effective

Control of the Workforce
A significant aspect of the environmental challenges presented to
management for the future is that of planning both its demand for and
means of acquiring an adequate supply of human resources .
During the recession many organisations used new technology and
better management techniques to reduce labour costs. As demand for
goods and services has increased, management has done its utmost to
sustain these higher levels of efficiency. However , there is evidence that
the level of wage settlements is increa sing. Other costs of employment
have increased too . As a result it will be increasingly important to
develop more flexible employment contracts such that overheads are
kept to a minimum and the size and nature of the workforce can be
adjusted with changes in demand for the goods or services produced by
the organisation. The use of self-employed people on a contract for
services basis and annual hours arrangements are two innovations
increasingly used for this purpose.
Changes in the population structure of Britain also emphasise the
advisability of the search for more flexible contractual arrangements with
employees. The number of school leavers is declining . The greatest of
these reductions will take place in the next few years . Increases in
competition for staff as economic growth continues will make it vital for
employers (in particular those with a traditional reliance on the recruit-
ment of young people) to identify new recruitment sources. Strategies to
achieve this are likely to include :
• reducing entry qualifications;
• career break schemes ;
• job sharing;
• mature entrant scheme s including retraining facilities;
 The Future is Not Far Away 203

• child-care facilities;
• increased emphasis on equal opportunity policies to encourage non-
traditional recruits (e.g . men into nursing) .
The need to control employment costs to ensure organisational
survival is likely to produce pressure for 'tougher' personnel policies.
Personnel specialists will be expected to develop mechanisms to deal
with poor performers through redundancy , early retirement or retraining
schemes. Disciplinary procedures will place increasing emphasis on
'capability' issues. Selection and appraisal must further the aim of
ensuring consistently high individual and organisational performance.

15.4 Encouraging Employee Commitment

Conventional wisdom increasingly seems to suggest that the necessity to
control the workforce need not be synonymous with ruthless exploita-
tion. A central message of In Search of Excellence, by T. H. Peters and
R. H. Waterman , Jr (Harper and Row, 1982), is that good relationships
with employees are at the heart of successful organisations. This is not a
focus on people for its own sake ; rather, good employee relations are
seen as a necessary precursor to good customer relations and organis-
ational survival. The more rapidly changing world of the employing
organisation places increased reliance on employees capable of exercis-
ing judgement to cope effectively with uncertainty. Rules cannot be
developed to fit every circumstance. Encouraging committed individual
initiative is a key issue for managers and personnel specialists. This is
likely to lead to:
• selection techniques capable of identifying those with the capacity for
innovation, initiative and flexibility;
• greater emphasis on employee involvement in managerial decision-
making ;
• improvements in employee communication and consultation;
• payment systems which encourage initiative and high individual
performance ;
• special development programmes for employees with potential.

15.5 Flexibility - the Key to the Future

We have identified the advisability for management of pursuing the twin
aims of controlling the workforce and gaining its trust and commitment.
These goals are likely to be pursued in parallel so far as a core group of
permanently employed staff are concerned. Research by the Institute of
Manpower Studies (Flexible Manning - the way ahead, IMS, 1984)
204 Personnel Management

suggests that these people will have long-term careers but will be
prepared to develop new skills and competencies according to business
need. The control of labour costs and the need for flexibility in numbers
and types of people employed will lead many corporate decision-makers
to make more transient contractual arrangements with other people.
Some of these will be employed by the organisation but with limited job
security; others will have contracts for services only . Increasingly agen-
cies or sub-contractors will be used, particularly for specialist tasks, to
maintain flexibility.

15.6 The Implications for the Personnel Specialist

Increased emphasis on the need for organisational flexibility to cope with
changed business requirements will have profound effects on personnel
specialists.
• Firstly, such people will require increased expertise in the manage-
ment of organisational change itself .
• Secondly, expertise in very specific aspects of the management of the
employment relationship will be needed, such as compensation or
recruitment or dealing with staff who work from home or sub-
contractors.
• Thirdly, personnel specialists will seek out and employ external
consultants to assist in the resolution of difficulties arising from the
increasing complexity of the employment relationship.
At the beginning of this book we identified a number of roles for
personnel practitioners:

• audit;
• executive ;
• facilitator;
• consultancy;
• service .
In future it will be necessary to add visionary and magician to the list!
Answers

Chapter 1
Exercise 1
1. Executive .
2. Facilitator.
3. Audit.
4. Consultancy.
5. Service .
6. A combination of consultancy and service, i.e. helping line managers
to reach selection decisions and providing information on conditions
of employment, etc . There may also be elements of the facilitator
role. Pre-selection planning and post-interview discussion may pro-
vide the specialist with an opportunity to give managers informal
feedback or guidance on the use of selection techniques, such as
questioning skills.
Exercise 2
1. False.
2. False .
3. True.
4. True .
5. True.

Chapter 2
Exercise 1
The numbers of people who can be persuaded to work for a company will
be influenced by the nature of the work and the terms and conditions of
employment offered as compared with those in competitor organisations.
The rate at which existing employees leave the company will be
influenced by similar factors .
Exercise 2
No. They cannot control the birth rate , for example! Most companies
also cannot control the demand for their goods , nor can they control
government policies. However, many large companies do attempt to
206 Personnel Management

influence government thinking through the use of parliamentary lobby-

ists and related devices .
Exercise 3
You should have been able to see that, in the following five years , 25 per
cent of the pilots will retire . Since it costs over £500 000 to train a pilot,
the company has a serious problem.
Exercise 4
The promotion prospects of more junior staff would be very limited .
They might leave or become very demoralised.
Exercise 5
Many researchers believe that it takes two to five years to become really
effective in a managerial job. If a lot of managers are still learning to do
their jobs, it is unlikely that their departments will be as effective as those
with more experienced managers.
Exercise 6
Index = number of leavers -;- average number employed = 725 -i-
2 400 x 100 = 30.2 per cent. Thus the labour turnover index was 30.2
per cent for January for Lyttlewood Enterprises. This should give
management much cause for concern unless of course it has prompted
employees to leave because of redundancy or early retirement.
Exercise 7
The answer is 300 since that is the number of people employed one year
ago.
Exercise 8
Our sample employee found the job boring, as a consequence looked for
another job, found one with better pay and gave this as the reason for
leaving .
Exercise 9
They should investigate the attractions which the rival firm is able to
offer to employees, and also the aspects of working in their own
organisation which may be prompting staff to leave.
Exercise 10
No. Remember, we said that stages 1 and 2 can be carried out in parallel
with each other. Stage 2 is by far the more difficult stage of the process.
Exercise 11
Managers directly responsible for that work .
Exercise 12
Labour turnover is highest during the early weeks and months after the
date of engagement. Remember the 'induction crisis'! Hence, if no new
staff are recruited, the turnover rate will fall dramatically.
 Answers 207

Chapter 3
Exercise 1
It should describe:
• the job ;
• its place in the organisation ;
• the circumstances under which it is performed ;
• the objectives to be achieved by the job holder;
and it should be :
• a useful working document ;
• up to date and relevant.
Exercise 2
Casual callers or writers of letters and recommendations from existing
employees. 'Word of mouth' recruitment has been tested legally. In 1981
the Commission for Racial Equality issued a 'non-discrimination notice '
on a bakery, F. Broomfield Ltd . The Company had recruited by word of
mouth only and this was found to be discriminatory against the recruit-
ment of black people as existing staff were white and recruited their
relations and friends who were also white .
Exercise 3
• The audience to be reached.
• The nature of the job .
• The desired image of the employing organisation .
• Cost-effectiveness.
• Time required to fill the vacancy.
• Past experience.
Exercise 4
• To get the right person for the job .
• To establish or maintain an image as a good employer.
• To make the process as cost-effective as possible .
Exercise 5
1. A closed question . It does not yield much information and may be
irritating to the candidate if the information is included on the
application form .
2. A multiple question. The answer to the first part could be on the
application form . The second part is a leading question . The ques-
tioner seems to be assuming that the next job was a 'better' job, or
that the acquisition of a qualification prompted the change of job. It
might be more effective to ask , 'Why did you change your job in
1973?' If reasons other than qualifications are given, the next
question could be, 'How did you feel when you became professionally
qualified?'
3. A very open question. The answer is likely to need probing.
208 Personnel Management

4. A probing question . The information that the candidate did not like a
particular job would be too vague to be helpful in any judgement
about suitability for a job.
5. A leading question. Is the interviewer revealing any bias? It could be
reworded, 'Why did you spend three years working in West Africa?'
6. A problem-centred question. You should be critical of its relevance,
unless you assume that it was used to interview astronauts!
7. A direct and fairly meaningless question . If you are looking for a
decisive individual, it is probably better to ask indirect questions. For
example, the candidate could be asked to describe a difficult situation
recently encountered at work.
Exercise 6
l. Audit
2. Executive.
3. Facilitator.
4. Consultancy.
5. Service.

Chapter 4
Exercise 1
l. The numbers of new employees likely to enter the hotel in the
foreseeable future for whom a formal induction course would be
necessary.
2. The minimum viable group size for such a course .
3. The maximum period of employment before which a formal induction
course would become superfluous.

Chapter 5
Exercise 1
There are several possible solutions. One way would be to translate
safety notices and other information into relevant languages . For illi-
terate new employees it might be possible to use clearly understood
symbols . Another alternative would be to provide safety training in the
relevant languages. A further possibility would be to offer English
language training.
Exercise 2
If the existing workforce is predominantly white , the relations and
friends whom they introduce to the organisation are also likely to be
white . Ethnic minorities are unlikely , therefore , to be afforded equal
access to jobs .
 Answers 209

Exercise 3
A female actor in a part written for a female character in a play.
A female matron in an all-girls school.
A male lavatory attendant in a men's toilet.
A male chauffeur for a job in Saudi Arabia (where women are prohibited
from driving by law).
Exercise 4
Statutory law.
Case law.

Save Easy Building Society

1. The advertisement Under section 38 of the Sex Discrimination Act
1975, there should be nothing in the wording or presentation of
advertisements for jobs to give the impression that only men or only
women are required. Hence, John Baker's heading ' Mums please note',
as well as being patronising in tone, is also illegal in that it implies that
the vacancy is open only to female applicants.
2. The telephone enquiry The Race Relations Act 1976 specifies that
individuals should not be treated less favourably than others on grounds
of race . Only if John Baker could show that the exclusion of a black
applicant was a genuine and necessary condition of employment, and not
merely convenient, would his action be legal. His rationalisation about
the feelings of his clientele is merely a convenience . His perception of the
clarity of her intonation on the telephone might constitute rea sonable
grounds for rejection . However, the onus would be on him to prove both
that clarity of expression was necessary , because of the amount and
nature of the telephone work involved, and that the applicant did not
measure up to the demands of the job in this respect.
3. Rejection of the fifty -five-old applicant This is legal. There is no age
discrimination legislation in the UK . Interestingly, his action would have
been illegal in the United States.
4. Questioning about domestic circumstances According to the Sex
Discrimination Act , John Baker should not treat applicants less favou-
rably on grounds of sex or marriage than he treats or would treat other
persons. If the female applicant in question had made a complaint to an
industrial tribunal, John Baker would have been required to show that
his question indicated an intention to discriminate on grounds of
parenthood rather than sex.
5. John Baker's concern about trade union activists His rejection of a
candidate because of her past role as a trade union representative is quite
legal. Applicants for jobs are not protected from discrimination on the
grounds of trade union membership. While his decision may be ethically
210 Personnel Management

suspect and unsound as a systematic selection decision, in law he is quite

correct.
6. The change in Mrs Best's hours of work Under the Employment
Protection (Consolidation) Act 1978, employers are required to give
employees a written statement setting out the main terms and conditions
of their employment. However, this statement is not the only facet of the
contract of employment. The contract was made at the time that Mrs
Best accepted the offer of a job as part-time cashier/typist. At that time
the hours of work were as stipulated in the advertisement, i.e . 11.00 a.m.
to 3.00 p.m. John Baker's decision to change them without her consent
might be construed as a constructive dismissal (see Chapter 14, p. 187).
However, this is unlikely given the seemingly minor nature of the
change.
In any case Mrs Best does not have two years' service (the current
qualification period for unfair dismissal compensation - see p. 136).
Therefore she cannot make a claim against him to an industrial tribunal.
She could bring an action against him in the county court, but in view of
her length of service any compensation would be likely to be minimal.
The court would be unlikely to order her reinstatement. If other similar
work was difficult to find, she would probably choose to stay, and after
arguing, put up with the change . However, such an unhelpful or even
dishonest way of managing staff is unlikely to lead to harmonious
working relationships and an efficient office.

Chapter 6
Exercise 2
No, we can all think of people who earn a great deal of money but whose
negotiating behaviour demonstrates that they are far from satisfied . As
indicated earlier, the reason for this seems to lie in the nature of our
consumer society.
Exercise 3
No . This is one of the 'hygiene' factors. Employees must feel the level of
their remuneration is fair for the job they are asked to do if this is not to
be a source of dissatisfaction. However, even if employees are paid much
more than the market rate, this will not be a source of motivation.
Exercise 4
Of course, the organisational psychologists would refuse to accept that
money can be a major motivator for highly paid workers. However, they
would be prepared to see it as a symbol of success and affluence in life
generally and of recognition at work . Thus money may satisfy several
intangible needs.
 Answers 211

Exercise 5
In autonomous group working the focus or unit of analysis is the group
rather than the individual.
Exercise 6
Autonomous group working , job enrichment and other methods of work
restructuring.
Exercise 7
1. False .
2. True.
3. True.
4. False.
5. False.

Chapter 7
Exercise 1
By focusing on actual job behaviours rather than on personality traits .
Exercise 2
Discretion . It would be unwise to apply a results-oriented approach
where post-holders have little or no ability to influence the nature of
their tasks.
Exercise 3
1. Personality characteristics;
2. Required job behaviour;
3. The achievement of pre-set goals and objectives.
Exercise 4
1. (a) Failure to brief George adequately on the purpose of appraisal
schemes, and in the past, presumably, to monitor the operation of
appraisal systems.
(b) Failure to train George in appraisal, including interviewing
techniques.
(c) Failure to ask George how he had managed to complete the ' key
objectives' section of the form prior to the interview!
You could also have queried the wisdom of requiring George to
undertake personality trait rating and to communicate his assessment
of potential to employees.
2. Remember the quotation at the beginning of this chapter: 'the good
people don't know what they should be doing or how well they are
doing ' and 'nobody finds out the bad people'. In addition , the
communication of their perceived lack of potential to many employees
increased dissatisfaction and had an adverse effect on production. A
cautionary tale indeed!
212 Personnel Management

Chapter 8
Exercise 1
Item 4 does not fit with Fred's intention to recruit workers for the shops
from the open market. Actions in breach of declared policy are likely to
be very damaging to employee morale . Fred should advertise new posts
within the manufacturing company before attempting to recruit new
employees, unless he wishes to change this aspect of company policy.
Exercise 2
1. They may be out of date.
2. Job descriptions are often a statement of what ought to be rather than
what is.
Exercise 3
1. Off-the-job training at the place of work .
2. On-the-job training at the place of work.
3. External training programmes.
Exercise 4
1. Off-the-job training at the place of work .
2. On-the job training at the place of work.
3. External courses.
And:
1. Teacher-centred approaches.
2. Learner-centred approaches.
Exercise 5
It might be. Alternatively it could be that rising unemployment has made
dismissed employees more reluctant to take up cases for fear of being
labelled as potential troublemakers by possible new employers . Or the
company's increased success rate in tribunal cases could be due to the
increased quality of its representation.

Chapter 9
Exercise 1
1. An examination of the degree to which the human resource supply
forecast and the human resource demand forecast match.
2. An identification of critical shortages or surpluses of labour.
3. An evaluation of the options for coping with any mismatch between
supply and demand.
Exercise 2
1. 58.
2. M. Black , the salary administration manager.
3. Initially she would feel very pleased but if promotion did not take
place relatively quickly she probably would become disillusioned .
 Answers 213

4. Firstly the chart is rather complex . Unless the organisation is a large

bureaucracy, it ought to be possible to record the information more
simply. Secondly, care is needed in the use of rating scales for the
assessment of performance and potential (see Chapter 7, p. 85).
Thirdly, it is difficult to decide how much of the information
contained in succession charts should be communicated to the
employees concerned. You should have been stimulated to think
about this by question 3. At one extreme , if the entire chart is devised
by the most senior executive and locked away, its value will be very
limited. On the other hand , if relevant information is communicated
to all employees named on the chart, those thought incapable of
further promotion may become demotivated whilst those earmarked
for career progression, such as the group personnel manager, may
become frustrated if opportunities fail to materialise.
Exercise 3
Knowledge; skills; competencies.
Exercise 4
1. Trainees are responsible for their own learning;
2. Trainees have the right to analyse their own learning needs;
3. Trainees have the right to design their own training programmes.
Exercise 5
The facilitator role, in the sense that the adviser helps participants to
resolve the problems which are the focus of action learning, assists them
to support each other in these tasks and to learn about the process of
learning and the role of the set in this.
Exercise 6
1. Evaluating management development activities such as courses .
2. Evaluating the performance of participants on the job.
3. Evaluating the performance of the manager's department or section .
Exercise 7
1. Analysis of the training needs of those selected for career develop-
ment, taking into account the gap between the requirements of the
jobs they will fill at the end of the development programme and the
knowledge and skills which they currently possess.
2. The design of an appropriate development programme.

Chapter 10
Exercise 1
1. False. Probably most organisations do provide such services ; small
companies will be the exception .
2. False . Counsellors should encourage clients to reach their own
solutions. In practice, of course , many managers will be tempted to
act in the way suggested in this statement!
214 Personnel Management

3. True.
4. False.
5. Probably false. Whilst such facilities are unlikely to motivate
employees to be more productive, they are equalIy unlikely to
de motivate them . Sports and social clubs may be an aid to recruitment
and public relations in the locality. They also may assist in the
prevention of occupational stress .

Chapter 11
Exercise 1
The instructions to interviewers are directly discriminatory; the written
test is indirectly discriminatory. The CRE, in its investigation, found that
Asian applicants did disproportionately badly; the test did not measure
relevant abilities and the standard of English demanded was not necess-
ary for effective job performance. The company should devise a more
appropriate test.
Other actions taken by Bradford Metro since the CRE investigation
include:
1. The introduction and implementation of an equal opportunity policy;
2. A programme of language training for Asian employees to improve
their chances of promotion;
3. Training for managers and supervisors in managing a multi-racial
workforce.
A higher proportion of Asians and West Indians are now inspectors.
Exercise 2
No , since the job will involve work in countries whose laws or customs
make it impossible for a woman to do the job effectively.
Exercise 3
The Act applies to every male and female employee regardless of length
of service or hours worked per week . (If you could not answer this, refer
to the checklist of employee rights at the beginning of this chapter.)
Exercise 4
1. Maternity leave.
2. Statutory maternity pay.
3. Paid time off for antenatal care.
You may have also listed the right not to be unfairly dismissed because of
pregnancy. This is covered in Chapter 14.
Exercise 5
She would be regarded as having acted unreasonably, if the job was
broadly the same and carried the same pay and other terms and
 Answers 215

conditions of employment. An argument that she did not like the

manager would not be reasonable . However , if the job was not at the
same location or required her to work substantially different hours her
refusal would probably be judged reasonable.
Exercise 6
(a) At least 6 months.
(b) At least 2 years.
In both cases this service must have been undertaken by the fifteenth
week before the expected week of confinement.
Exercise 7
You should ensure that they are suspended on full pay, or offer them
suitable alternative work, until a doctor authorises their return.
Exercise 8
l. Clearly this claim is not covered by the definition of 'like work ' or
'work rated as equivalent' following a job evaluation study. Whether it is
'work of equal value' would depend on the view of an independent
expert. Even then she might not get equal pay if Fred could show that
there was a 'genuine material difference' between her work and that of
the storekeeper.
2. Her unmarried status is irrelevant. Since she has the necessary two
years' service she is entitled to maternity leave . Fred can refuse to have
her back as his secretary if it is not 'reasonably practicable' for him to do
so . In that case he must offer her 'suitable alternative work' . That is, the
work which she is offered must be 'not less favourable ' than if she had
not been absent.
3. Whether or not the training course is a trade union duty would
depend on whether the course is recognised by the union to which the
steward belongs and whether it is relevant to his duties as a shop steward.
Fred can ask to see the syllabus.
4. In law this would be classified as a public duty . Hence she is entitled
to reasonable time off without pay in order to fulfil the demands of the
role . It is likely that the small amount of time she is said to need here
would be considered reasonable.

Chapter 12
Exercise 1
Through an 'any other duties as required by management' clause in a job
description .
Exercise 2
It is not, particularly in the case of managerial or professional jobs,
where the individual to some degree defines the nature of the tasks
216 Personnel Management

performed. Nevertheless, for job evaluation purposes, it is important to

attempt the distinction .
Exercise 3
There is no indication as to how much more important one job is than the
next in the hierarchy.
Exercise 4
In many ways this is a trick exercise since, without an intimate knowledge
of Colin's Cars, you are unable to weight the factors . However, this
would be a useful exercise for members of the working group to
undertake to come up with some trial weightings . There is no correct
answer. All that can be said is that the right weightings are those which
ultimately produce an acceptable ranking of jobs .
Exercise 5
No points would be allocated to levell, 10 to level 2 and so on up to the
maximum of 40 at levelS : a job that fitted level 3 would therefore be
given 20 points.
Exercise 6
Job A is overpaid and job B is underpaid , since in theory the introduction
of the job evaluation scheme should be self-financing in that the cost of
bringing green circle jobs up to the line of best fit should be balanced by
the savings derived from reducing the pay associated with red circle jobs .
Exercise 7
Analytical methods - see Chapter 12, p. 153.
Exercise 8
By reference to the relative importance of the factor to the organisation .
Exercise 9
No, there is always a range of rates paid by different employers, either
because the duties performed, even where the job title is the same, vary
somewhat or because wage and salary policies of employers differ, as
suggested on p. 148.
Exercise 10
'Piecework' is literally work for which payment is by the piece of work
produced.
Exercise 11
Payment by results systems give employees considerable control over
output. If they wish to limit production, either for individual or group
reasons , they can do so. Also employees are likely to become very
discontented if their bonus earnings are reduced by shortages of com-
ponents.
Exercise 12
Our discussions have suggested that the motivation to work is very
complex and that, while money is an important source of motiviation, it
is not the only one for all workers at all times.
 Answers 217

Exercise 13
It is paid for achieving and maintaining a standard performance.
Exercise 14
Management should -deterrnine this policy as part of its overall renumera-
tion policy and wage and salary administration practices.

Chapter 13
Exercise 1
This is because of the predominantly financial objectives of work
organisations.
Exercise 2
You might call it a 'protective practice'. In other words , for you this
would be quite legitimate behaviour.
Exercise 3
As an integral part of the process of drawing up these plans . You should
recall from the discussion in the earlier part of this chapter that personnel
and employee relations should be facets of general organisational
decision -making (see page 169).
Exercise 4
Access to the 'organ-grinder' rather than the 'monkey' may become part
of the negotiating process. The resultant demoralisation of manage-
ment's negotiating team is likely to have a very disadvantageous effect on
workplace employee relations.
Exercise 5
It is likely that the line manager most immediately concerned with the
work group will wish to concede the claim , to get the service operating
again . Personnel specialists, on the other hand , supported by more
senior line management, should have an eye on the longer-term issues.

Chapter 14
In attempting to answer these questions you probably found that you not
only needed a knowledge of the law but also information on the
procedures for dealing with disciplinary cases in the organisation con-
cerned. Here are some brief answers to the questions. The actions which
managers should take in such circumstances are covered in more detail
later in this Chapter.
1. There were two main points which you could have covered here.
First , guidance on the processes to be followed prior to dismissal
should be found in the organisation's disciplinary procedure. Se-
condly, employees can be dismissed immediately if they commit 'gross
218 Personnel Management

misconduct'. There is no universal definition of this term. Again, the

relevant reference document is the disciplinary procedure.
2. Not all employees can bring such claims against their employer. We
shall examine this area of the law on unfair dismissal later in this
section .
3. This is incorrect. According to the ACAS Code of Practice, Disciplin-
ary Practice and Procedures in Employment, and the ACAS advisory
handbook, Discipline at Work, employees have a general right to be
accompanied by a trade union representative or by a fellow employee.
Whether this means that the latter can speak on behalf of the
'accused' is usually defined in the organisation's disciplinary pro-
cedure.
4. Whether or not a tribunal would find dismissal to be fair in this case
would depend largely on the nature of the employee's job . Those
expected to be trustworthy and of great integrity, such as security
guards or cashiers, tend to be treated differently from junior clerical
staff, for example.
5. It is not very difficult to dismiss employees fairly if procedures are
followed and justice is seen to be done.
6. Most disciplinary procedures would make it clear that this is gross
misconduct. Dismissal would be justified provided that the
employee's action could be proved beyond reasonable doubt.
Exercise 2
The most obvious are open and probing questions to establish the
employee's perception of the situation. Linking statements or questions
should also be used to ensure that the interview is a conversation with a
purpose . Indirect questions may be useful in further assisting your
understanding.
Exercise 3
To decide this it would be necessary to examine Jane's contract of
employment and the effect on it of your conduct. If the contract says that
she has been employed as a stylist at any of your shops and it is
customary for staff to move around in this way, then you may be in the
clear. By contrast if the contract states that the location of her employ-
ment is the salon in which she is currently working, she has worked there
for a long time and stylists are never expected to move, then your case
will be very weak .
Exercise 4
No, since this would not be gross misconduct.
Exercise 5
1. Depending on the circumstances of the case this might be constructive
dismissal.
 Answers 219

2. Since this would not be gross misconduct such dismissals would be

unfair.
3. The action in this case conforms with the ACAS Code of Practice and
with the ACAS advisory handbook, Discipline at Work
4. Dismissal because it would be illegal to continue to employ her is
unlikely to be fair , though it would depend on the particular require-
ments of the job . However, the authority would not be expected to
come to an arrangement with her husband!
5. It would be wise to investigate this complaint, since if it goes to the
'root of the contract' it might be construed as constructive dismissal.
Exercise 6
The courts have tended to back employers' rights to change work in the
interests of efficiency. In this case the college authorities would have to
show that different aptitudes, skills or knowledge were required for
the new job than for the old one.
Exercise 7
Those who volunteer are likely to include some people who would find it
easy to get other jobs, people whose skills management would wish to
retain. The problem for management of accepting this process of
self-selection is that it means surrendering control to workers.
Exercise 8
The industrial tribunal said it was and refused her application for a
redundancy payment. They said that her refusal to work near a sex shop
was based on a personal whim since the commercial exploitation of sex
was no greater in Soho than in Mayfair. Possibly it was a little more
discrete in the latter area! In this case it was felt that the employee's
personal circumstances did not make the refusal of the offer of alternat-
ive work reasonable.
Further Reading

Chapter 1
S. Tyson and A. Fell, Evaluating the Personnel Function (Hutchinson ,
1986).

Chapter 2
J. Bramham, Practical Manpower Planning (Institute of Personnel
Management, 1982).
C. Hayes and N. Fonda, Strategy and People; The Prospect Centre
Perspective (The Prospect Centre, 1988).
The IPM Statement on Human Resource Planning (Institute of Personnel
Management, 1986).
B. Pettman, Manpower Planning Workbook (Gower, 1984).

Chapter 3
C. Lewis, Employee Selection (Hutchinson, 1985).
P. Plumbley, Recruitment and Selection (Institute of Personnel Manage-
ment, 1985).

Chapter 5
D . Lewis , Essentials of Employment Law (Institute of Per sonnel Man-
agement, 1986).

Chapter 6
J . Bailey, Job Design and Work Organization (Prentice-Hall Intern-
ational , 1983).

Chapter 7
C. A. Fletcher and R. Williams , Performance Appraisal and Career
Development (Hutchinson, 1985).
P. Long, Performance Appraisal Revisited (Institute of Personnel Man-
agement, 1986).

Chapter 8
J . Kenney and M. Reid, Training Interventions (Institute of Personnel
Management, 1986).
 Further Reading 221

Chapter 9
M. Pedlar and T . Boydell, Managing Yourself (Fontana/Collins, 1985).

Chapter 10
C. Cooper, R . Cooper and L. Eaker, Liv ing with Stress (Penguin Books ,
1988).
M. Reddy, The Manager's Guide to Counselling at Work (British
Psychological Society, 1987).

Chapter 11
As for Chapter 5

Chapter 12
M. Armstrong and H. Murlis, A Handbook of Salary Administration
(Kogan Page, 1980).
Equal Opportunities Commission, Job Evaluation Schemes Free of Sex
Bias (Equal Opportunities Commission, n.d.).
International Labour Organisation, Job Evaluation (International
Labour Organisation , 1986).

Chapter 13
C. Brewster and S. Connock , Industrial Relations : Cost Effective Strat-
egies (Hutchinson , 1986).
M. Poole, Towards a New Industrial Democracy (Routledge & Kegan
Paul, 1986).

Chapter 14
A . Stewart and V. Stewart , Managing the Poor Performer (Gower,
1982).

Chapter 15
T . Peters and R. Waterman Jr, In Search of Excellence (Harper & Row,
1982).
T . Watson, Management, Organisation and Employment Strategy,
(Routledge & Kegan Paul , 1986).
Index

A employee handbooks 52-3

ACAS 57, 185-6 employee involvement 74-9,203
action learning 117-18 employee participation 77-9
advertisements 36-7 employee relations
application forms 40 strategies 168-81,204
assessment centres 46-7, 113-16 employee representatives 18(}-1
autonomous work groups 76-7, employee services 126-33, 137
177 employment agencies 38
Employment Appeal
C Tribunal 57-8
canteens 131-2 employment relationship,
career development 122-5 management of 168-81,20(}-4
collective bargaining 168-77 Equal Opportunities
Commission for Racial Commission 59,61, 137-8
Equality 59, 61, 137-8 equal opportunity policies 35, 40,
conciliation 57 124,203
contract of employment 63-6, 135 equal pay 134, 138-40
corporate planning 169-70, 204 equal value 139-40
counselling 128-31 evaluation of management
culture of organisations 74, 203 development 121-2
evaluation of recruitment and
D selection 47-8
direct participation 74-9 external pay comparisons 16(}-1
Disabled Persons (Employment)
Acts 59,63
disabled workers 35 F
disciplinary procedures 185-6 flexibility 125, 203
discipline 183-4 fringe benefits 133, 137, 166,
discrimination 35, 41-2, 44, 198-200
58-63, 134, 136, 157-60, 190
direct 59-60
indirect 60-1, 62 G
genuine occupational
positive 124
qualification 62-3, 137
Race Discrimination Act 44,59,
Goldthorpe, J. H. 73
61, 134, 137-8
guarantee payments 134
Sex Discrimination Act 44, 59,
61, 134, 137-8
dismissal 134, 135, 182-92 H
Herzberg, F. 72-3
E high flyers 124-5
Education 9(}-1 human resource planning 1(}-27,
employee consultation 173-4,203 95,97, 109-12,202-3
 Index 223

I performance-related pay 87
indirect part icipation 177 person specifications 33-6
induction 47, 50-5 personnel policies 1, 168-71,
crisis 16, 50 201-4
training 53-4 personnel roles 1-6 , 49, 55, 107,
industrial democracy 176 177-80,204
industrial tribunals 57-8, 137 profit-sharing 165-6
interview structure 45
interviewer bias 40-2 Q
interviewing, selection 40-5 quality circles 78-9, 177
questioning techniques 43-4
J
job analysis 30, 97-8, 151 R
job descriptions 30-2, 96, 151 ratio trend analysis 21
job design 75-7 recruitment 29-38 , 61, 63
job enlargement 75 redundancy 25-6 , 130-1, 134, 135,
job enrichment 75-6 189-90, 192-8
job evaluation 149-160 references 47
job rotation 75 Rehabilitation of Offenders Act ,
joint consultation 173-4, 203 1974 63
retirement 130, 198-200
L
labour stability index 17-18 S
labour turnover index 17-18 salary surveys 161
labour selection 38-47, 62
demand for 10-11 selection testing 46
supply of 11 self-managed learning 118-9
turnover 15-19 seven-point plan 34-6
shortlisting 39-40
M sick pay 134, 143
management coaching 120-1 sickness 131
management development 108-25 'single staff status ' 133
managerial prerogative 170-2 sports and social facilities 132
Maslow, A . 71-2 stress 128, 131
Maternity rights 135, 140-2 stress interviews 44-5
measured daywork 165 succession planning 111-12
medical screening 132-3 suggestion schemes 79, 177
medical suspension 134, 143
mentoring 121 T
motivation 69-73 ,81 time off 134, 135, 142-3
trade-union representatives 180-1
o trade unions 134, 186, 190
occupational health 132-3 training 87,91-107,137,186
organisation and methods 21-2 evaluation of 105-7
orientation to work 73-4 methods 102-4
needs analysis 93-8 , 112
p objectives 92, 98
panel interviews 45 off the job 99, 100
pay levels 146-7, 160-1 on the job 99-100
payment by results 162-4 plans 96
pensions schemes 198-200 policy 92-3
performance appraisal 81-90, 113 systematic approach 93
224 Index

U wage-effort bargain 147-8

unfair dismissal 182-92 welfare 126-8 , 130-1
work study 21-2
V worker control 176
victimisation 61 worker co-operatives 176
worker directors 176
W
wages and salaries,
administration 148-9, 161-2 y
wage and salary policies 148-9 young emloyees 122-3 , 130
 225

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