NCERT Solutions for Class 12 Business Studies Chapter 6 - Staffing

Very Short Answer Type Questions

1. What is meant by staffing?

Ans. Staffing is the managerial function of recruitment, selection, training, development promotion and compensation of personnel.

2. State the two important sources of recruitment.

Ans. The two important sources of recruitment are Internal source and External source.

3. The workers of a factory are unable to work on new machines and always demand for help of supervisor. The Supervisor is overburdened with their frequent calls. Suggest the remedy. (Hint: training)

Ans. The workers can be provided training with regard to the use of machines. Training means equipping the employees with the required skill to perform their job.
It would help the employ ees to develop the skills required for the use of machinery and perform their task in a better manner.

4. The quality of production is not as per standards. On investigation it was observed that most of the workers were not fully aware of the proper operation of the machinery.
What could be the way to improve the quality of production to meet the standards? (training).

Ans. The workers can be provided on-the-job training such as apprenticeship training. The employees can be put under a trained or skilled worker who would guide them the proper use of the machinery. The employees can work under the trained or skilled worker for a pre-defined amount of time and then gradually move to do the task themselves under the supervision of the trained or skilled workers. Once the employees complete the training they would be able to work with greater accuracy and efficiency.

5. The workers of a factory remain idle because of lack of knowledge of hi-tech machines. Frequent visit of engineer is made which causes high overhead charges. How can this problem be removed ? (vestibule training)

Ans. The problem described in the given information can be removed by providing ‘off-the-job training’ to the workers. In this regard, vestibule training can be provided to the workers since the machines are hi-tech and sophisticated. The vestibule training will be helpful in reducing the frequent visit of engineer and save the high overhead charges.The trainees are made to work on the dummy machines and equipment, and only when they acquire adequate expertise in their use they are shifted to the actual workplace.

Short Answer Type Questions

1. What is meant by recruitment? How is it different from selection?

Ans. Recruitment refers to the process of finding and stimulating or influencing candidates to apply for a job. It can be defined as the process of motivating and encouraging people to come and apply for a job in an organisation therefore it is called as positive process. Selection is the process of identifying and choosing the best person out of a number of prospective candidates for a job, therefore it is negative process. Recruitment helps in creating a pool of expected workforce whereas selection helps in finding the best out of them.

2. An organisation provides security services. It requires such candidates who are reliable and don’t leak out the secrets of their clients. What steps should be incorporated in selection process?

Ans. As a part of the selection process, selection tests can be conducted. One of the important tests with regard to the given situation is personality test. Such tests are developed to test the comprehensive personality of the individual to get information about his or her nature, state of mind, maturity level, reactions, etc.

3. A company is manufacturing paper plates and bowls. It produces 1,00,000 plates and bowls each day. Due to local festival, it got an urgent order of extra 50,000 plates and bowls. Explain the method of recruitment that the company should adopt in the given circumstances to meet the order.

Ans. To meet the order company should adopt the “labour contractors’ in the given circumstances. This is because the production of paper plates and bowls requires low skilled workers or labourers which can be fulfilled by labour contractors. Labour contractors maintain a close contact with labourers and other workers and provide the right number of workers available at short notice.

4. Distinguish between training and development.

Ans. Difference between training and development:

Basis Training Development
Purpose Its purpose is to maintain and improve current job performance. Its purpose is to improve the overall effectiveness of individuals.
Level of persons involved Training programmes are made for workers at the operative level. Development programmes are designed for managerial level.
Scope of learning Training is job oriented. It is career oriented.

5. Why are internal sources of recruitment considered to be more economical?

Ans. Filling of jobs internally is cheaper as compared to getting candidates from external sources because no time and money has to be spent on the advertisement of vacancies and that too internally. It does not involve the long process of staffing or selection and it also needs to be understood that internal recruitment is very expensive sometimes.

6. ‘ No organisation can be successful unless it fills and keeps the various positions filled with the right kind of people for the right job.’ Elucidate.

Ans. Staffing is an important function of management as it takes care of the manpower requirement of any organisation.
Finding the right people for the job becomes critical as in today's environment, rapid changes are taking place in technology, size of the organisations, etc. As a result proper staffing process plays an important role in the organisations.

Following are the highlighted benefits of staffing:

(i) Finding Competent Personnel: Staffing assists in finding and selecting the right personnel required for a job.

(ii) Improves Efficiency: Staffing ensures that the right people are placed for right jobs,so that the overall efficiency and performance increases.

(iii) Growth of the Organisation: It ensures survival and growth of the organisation by appointing efficient and competent employees for various jobs.

(iv) Optimum Utilisation of Human Resources: Staffing prevents over-utilisation or under-utilisation of manpower by proper manpower planning. In addition, it avoids interruption in working efficiency by advising in advance if there is any unfilled job.

(v) Job Satisfaction: Compensation and fair rewards given to the employees grant them self-confidence and job-satisfaction. Hence, which encourages them to work diligently and motivate them to give their best to the organisation.

Long Answer Type Questions

1. ‘Human resource management includes many specialized activities and duties.’ Explain.

Ans. Human Resource Management is a management function that is related to development and management of human element of an organisation. It involves functions like determining the need of personnel, recruiting personnel, training and developing them, working towards the overall welfare of the employees and handling their complaints and grievances.
It comprises of many specialised activities and duties which the human personnel have to perform.

Some of them are:

  1. Human Resource Planning
  2. Recruitment (or searching qualified people)
  3. Analysing job and collecting related information for preparing job description.
  4. Training and development of employees.
  5. Performance appraisal
  6. Maintaining labour relations and union management relations.
  7. Handling grievances and complaints by employees.
  8. Providing for social security and welfare of employees.
  9. Defending company in lawsuits and avoid legal complications.

2. Explain the procedure for selection of employees.

Ans. The important steps in the process of selection are as follows:

(i) Preliminary Screening: It helps the manager to scrutinize and eliminate unqualified or unfit job seekers based on the information supplied in the application forms, it focuses on scrutiny of applicants.

(ii) Selection Tests: An employment test is a mechanism that attempts to measure certain characteristics of individuals. These range from aptitudes, such as manual dexterity, to intelligence to personality and interest test.

(iii) Employment Interview: Interview is a formal, one to one, face to face in depth conversation conducted to evaluate the applicant’s suitability for the job.

(iv) Reference and Background Checks: Many employers request names, addresses and telephone numbers of references for the purpose of verifying information and gaining additional information about on any applicant.

(v) Selection Decision: The final decision has to be made among the candidates who pass the tests, interviews and reference checks.

(vi) Medical Examination: Before the candidate is given a job offer he/she is required to go through a medical test.

(vii) Job Offer: Job offer is made through a letter of appointment/confirm his acceptance. Such a letter generally contains a date by which the appointee must report on duty.

(viii) Contract of Employment: After the job offer has been made and candidate accepts the offer, certain documents need to be executed by the employer and the candidate. There is also a need for preparing a contract of employment. It includes job title, duties, responsibilities, hour of work, leave rules, termination of employees, etc.

3. What are the advantages of training to the individual and to the organisation?

Ans. Training helps both the organisation and the individual.
Benefits to the Organisation:
(i) Training is a systematic learning which helps in reduction of wastage.
(ii) Enhances motivation.
(iii) Training helps a manager to handle real life situations very efficiently.
(iv) Training reduces absenteeism.
(v) Helps in adjusting to the changing environment (technological aspect).

Benefits to the Employee:
(i) Job enhancement.
(ii) Earnings can be increased as it will help in personal objective achievement.
(iii) Trained workers can handle machines more efficiently and effectively.
(iv) Employ ees always remain motivated and satisfied.

4. Kaul Consultants have launched (www.naukaripao.com) exclusively for senior management professionals. The portal lists out senior level jobs and ensures that the job is genuine through rigorous screening process.
(a) State the source of recruitment highlighted in the case above.
(b) State four benefits of the above identified source of recruitment.

Ans. (a) The website that Kaul Consultants have launched is an online website which provides a platform visited by both job seekers and job providers both to get the desired job or the people respectively. This source of recruitment is called Web Publishing.
(b) Benefits of Web Publishing are:

  1. Saves time and energy: The resumes are screened on the website according to the Job title which saves time and energy of calling out prospective employees and then screening them. The interactions are real-time between the job seeker and the company.
  2. Wider reach: Candidates from across the globe can be reached to the respective field with the help of online recruitment.
  3. Branding opportunities for companies: Information about the company is uploaded on the website which grants an opportunity to improve the name in the market.
  4. Cost-effective technique: It not only compresses the hiring process but also filters the right person for the right job, thus, also saves the heavy cost of hiring.

5. A company Xylo limited is setting up a new plant in India for manufacturing auto components. India is a highly competitive and cost effective production base in this sector. Many reputed car manufacturers source their auto components from here. Xylo limited is planning to capture about 40% of the market share in India and also export to the tune of at least `50 crores in about 2 years of its planned operations. To achieve these targets it requires a highly trained and motivated work force. You have been retained by the company to advise it in this matter. While giving answer keep in mind the sector, the company is operating .
(a) Outline the process of staffing the company should follow.

Ans. Xylo Ltd is planning to set up new plant in India for manufacturing auto components. The prime concern of the company is to hire the manpower who are highly trained and motivated. In order to attain the targets, the company should follow the staffing process in this manner.

staffing the company

(b) Which sources of recruitment the company should rely upon. Give reasons for your recommendation.

Ans. The company is establishing a new unit in India. Thus, they should rely on external sources of recruitment. They should adopt sources like employment exchange, placement agencies, labour contractors as they will be able to get the good staff in the company.
This recommendation is fruitful because through these sources the management is having a wider choice of candidates, they can get the qualified personnel and brings new blood in the organisation who are highly competitive, thus, the existing staff also work harder to show better performance.

(c) Outline the process of selection the company should follow with reasons.

Ans. Through recruitment process, organisation receives large number of applications. In order to select the most suitable candidate to perform the job, selection process is to be considered. Following steps are to be taken:

selection the company

Company should follow these steps in a sequence as the first step preliminary screening helps the manager to select and scrutinize among those candidates whose applications are selected.
Second step is selection test which is conducted to check the practical knowledge of the candidate.
Third step interview is to be taken of those candidates who qualify the test. A panel of experts is called to identify and choose the best among hundreds.
Fourth step is reference and background check is followed to verify and gain additional information about the candidate.
Fifth step is selection decision. The candidates who pass the test, interview are included in selection list and critically examined that they are best or not.
Seventh step is examining their medical fitness they are efficient or not.
Sixth step is to offer the job, providing them a letter of appointment in which terms and conditions are mentioned.

The final step is contract of employment when candidate accepts the job offer, they signed the contract of employment, the employer and candidate exchange certain documents. Contract of employment includes job title, duties, responsiblities, date when continuous employment starts, etc.

6. A major insurance company handled all recruiting, screening and training processes for data entry/customer service representatives. Their competitor was attracting most of the, qualified, potential employees in their market. Recruiting was made even more difficult by the strong economy and the ‘jobseeker’s market.’ This resulted in the client having to choose from candidates who had the ‘soft’ skills needed for the job, but lacked the proper ‘hard’ skills and training.

(a) As an HR manager what problems do you see in the company?

Ans. The human resource manager may face the following problems:
(i) Lack of skilled manpower
(ii) Lack of ample personnel to provide customer services.
(iii) Disorganised maintenance of data.

(b) How do you think it can be resolved and what would be its impact on, the company?

Ans. These problems can be resolved by taking following steps:
(i) If these steps are followed then the employee will perform according to the company’s expectations. The profit of the organisation eventually increases if its efficiency and productively increases.
(ii) Provision of incentive based schemes.
(iii) Usefuldata base should be maintained by the company in order to provide efficient services.
(iv) Training of the personnel to be given properly.

7. Ms Jayshree recently completed her Post Graduate Diploma in Human Resource Management. A few months from now a large steel manufacturing company appointed her as its human resource manager. As of the company employs 800 persons and has an expansion plan in hand which may now require another 200 persons for various types of additional requirements. Ms Jayshree has been given complete charge of the company’s Human Resource Department.

(a) Point out, what functions is she supposed to perform?

Ans. Ms Jayshree as HR manager, supposed to perform the following functions:
(i) Prepare job description
(ii) Recruitment
(iii) Preparing compensation and incentive plans
(iv) Arranging training programmes
(v) Making welfare schemes for employees
(vi) Handling griev ances of employees
(vii) Handling labour dispute

(b) What problems do you foresee in her job?

Ans. The problems she may face in her job be:
(i) Unavailability of well qualified candidates
(ii) Demand for wages may go higher.
(iii) After providing training the workers may leave the organisation.
(iv) Trade unions may rise unreasonable demands.

(c) What steps is she going to take to perform her job efficiently?

Ans. Following steps can be taken by her to perform her job efficiently:
(i) She should efficiently use the sources of recruitment.
(ii) She should frequently consult the experts and also observe the policies followed by competitors to recruit and retain the workforce.
(iii) Maintaining cordial relationship with trade unions and encouraging them to act as one big family.

(d) How significant is her role in the organisation?

Ans. Her role in organisation is very significant. She is a human resources manager and concerned with timely procurement of competent manpower and ensuring its effective and efficient utilisation so as to survive along with the three main objectives; organisational, individual and societal.

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