PERSONNEL ADMINISTRATION

PERSONNEL ADMINISTRATION

Personnel administration is the management of the people in working organizations. It is also frequently called Personnel management, industrial relations, employee relations, and manpower management. It represents a major subsystem in the general management system, in which it refers to the management of human resources, as distinguished from financial or material resources.

The term may be used to refer to selected specific functions or activities assigned to specialized personnel officers or departments. It is also used to identify the entire scope of management policies and programs in the recruitment, allocation, leadership, and direction of manpower.

Personnel administration begins with the definition of the required quantities of particular personal capabilities. Thereafter, people must be found, recruited, selected, trained or retrained, negotiated with, counseled, led, directed, committed, rewarded, transferred, promoted, and finally released or retired. In many of these relations, managers deal with their associates as individuals (the field takes its name in part from this type of relationship).

In some working organizations, however, employees are represented by unions, and managers bargain with these associations.

Such collective-bargaining relationships are generally described as labor relations.

WAGES AND SALARIES

The organization and administration of wages and salaries is complex and varied. In some companies, the Personnel Department has more responsibility for wages and salaries than the Accounts Department. In others, the Accounts Department is responsible for calculations of pay, while the Personnel Department is more interested in negotiations with staff about pay.

If a firm wants to introduce a new wage and salary structure, it will have to decide on a method of job evaluation and ways of measuring the performance of its employees. In order to be successful, that pay structure will need agreement between Trade unions and management or a clearly defined system for dealing with problems.

In job evaluation, all of the requirements of each job are specified in a detailed job description.

Each of these requirements is given a value usually in ‘points’ or ‘factors’, which are added together to give a total value for the job. To pay each job what it is worth, the values are linked to the firm’s salary structure. For middle mid-higher management, a well-known points method is the Hay System. This evaluates personnel on their knowledge of the job, their responsibility, and their ability to solve problems Because of the difficulty in measuring administrative work, however, job grades are often decided without reference to an evaluation system based on points or factors.

In attempting to reach a salaries policy, the Personnel Department should compare the value of each job with those in the job market. It should also analyze economic factors such as the cost of living and the labor supply.

1. - Please, answer these questions.

a. How could you define Personnel Administration?

b. How is it also known?

c. The term “Personnel Administration may also be used to...?”

d. What are labor relations?

e. Who decides the wages and salaries structure in a company?

f. What does the Hay System evaluate?

g. Is administrative work easy to measure?

2. - Please, discuss in groups (English or Spanish)

a. What’s the difference between wage and salary?

b. What’s the importance of a good personnel selection in a company?

c. What’s the role of Unions in the job market?

d. Personnel Department and Accounts Department. What do you know about the functions and importance in a firm’s structure?

Select and underline the best answer according to the text.

a. Personnel administration is the management of resources:

- Financial                - human              - material

b. In the text, “Associates” means:

- Employees            - associations      - Unions

c. In the text “manpower” means:

- The functions of the manager - the management of power - the management of the people needed for a work.

d. To administrate and organize wages and salaries differ:

- From company to company   - from year to year              - from system to system.

e. If a firm wants to establish a new wages and salaries structure:

- It has to select a method of evaluation.  - It has to employ new personnel. - It has to contract a union.

f. A job evaluation method has to do with:

- Promotion of employees      - Sales             - Advertising

h. The Hay System consists on:

- Classifying managers     - a complete personnel evaluation   - determining wages and salaries.

i. To pay an employee for his/her job is a decision

- Taken by the manager - based on the employee’s former jobs. - based on a market evaluation.