Business Studies Reading Research
Human Resources –
The Human Resource Management (HRM) concentrates on developing the individual
employee in order for the business as a whole to benefit. It involves all aspects in relation to
the labour resource.
Recruitment, selection, training and motivation of the workforce are all important
considerations if a business is to prosper.
Recruitment –
The aim of recruitment is to employ and retain the best possibly human resources.
The stages of recruitment:
Demand for Labour -> Nature of the job -> Job advertisement -> Selection -> Appointment -> Induction
Demand for Labour:
Every business has to establish that there is a demand for a particular job. This may be an
increase in demand from a product, which means that the business will need extra staff.
Another example is that Hotels often take on more staff during summer months, so they
meet the demand.
Nature of the Job:
Once the demand is recognised, a job description should be shown up. This includes the job
title, name of the person, and some details of the job.
Example:
Job title: Senior Physiotherapist (responsible to head of unit)
Location: Queen’s Medical Centre, Nottingham
Tasks/duties: Working with acute respiratory patients on intensive care, high-dependency
units and medical/surgical wards.
Working conditions: Opportunities for in-service training and on-site courses.
37 ½hours a week, 25 days’ holiday plus bank holidays, Minimum of 2 years’ experience.

Internal recruitment:
Cheaper than appointing from outside.
Can act as a form of motivation to the existing business if they say that there is an
opportunity for promotion.
Fewer candidates if the appointment is made internally.
Employers will already know who will be able to take the job, based on their previous
experiences in the business.
Internally would be less risky than external, because the knowledge of external candidates
won’t be as detailed as internal candidates.
Giving the job to an internal candidate over another, may lead to jealousy.
Better candidates may be missed who could bring new ideas to the business.
External recruitment:
Advertisement has to be drawn up and positioned in an appropriate area.
It is more expensive.
It offers the business a much bigger chance of attracting a wider range of specialised
candidates.
External candidates may not only bring new ideas into the business, but also talk about how
other businesses operate.
Job Advertisement:
Normally appear in newspapers, professional magazines or the internet.
Should give right prospective candidates some indication of what the post requires, and
what sort of the person the business is looking for.
Selection:
Candidates are asked to fill in application form (Send in the letter of application) or compile
a CV (Curriculum Vitae).
Applications are sifted through, by the business, before making a ‘short list’ on the
candidates to interview.
There may be a personnel department which is responsible for recruitment, if it is a large
organisation.

Nowadays, just an interview to select the appropriate candidates for a job are highly
unusual, because they have been found as unreliable, as people may be judged by
appearance and personal biases.
Different techniques used before selection:
The nature of the job
The budget for recruitment
The cost of the process
The likely number of applicants
Aptitude tests (Or Role Plays):
A candidate is asked to deal with situations that he/she is likely to face in the job.
This is used to assess the level of skill that the candidate shows in the given situation.
Interview Panels:
Even though they are unusual, they are still important assessment tools in the search for the
right person for the job.
Important that there are not too many people on the panel, as people may be overwhelmed
by facing several interviewers.
A good interview will combine open and closed questions.
By starting with simple questions to the applicant at easy before asking harder ones.
Psychometric tests:
These are designed to gain information about the personality of the candidate – whether
he/she is flexible, inflexible, assertive, passive, stable, unstable, team player, loner, or if they
are able to solve problems.
This is necessary to be interpreted by a trained person for the tests to be effective.
Appointment:
Care is crucial to ensure that the selection process is safe and non-offensive in any way, to
protect from discrimination based on age, sex and race.
Assuming that the applicant is appropriate, the employer must provide the new employee
with a contract within 2 months of starting work. It must contain:
Job title
Location of employment
Hours of work
Rate and timing of pay
Holidays and other entitlements, such as pensions
Terms of notice

Induction:
It is very important to ensure that he or she is trained. Losing staff affects labour turnover
and means that the whole process of recruitment has to be reset, which wastes more time.
In order to help new employees, inductions programmes are made to help them settle into
the business. These inductions include:
How the particular business operates
Administrative procedures
The location of different departments
The corporate approach to differing situations
The rules of the business
Training:
It benefits the business and employee. The employers benefit from motivated, and more
skilled working employees.
The two different types of training; On-The-Job and Off-The-Job, are used depending
on several factors:
The size of the business
The cost of the training
The skills available to train employees
The rules of the business
Market Research –
Market research is to describe different ways of gathering information. It is suggested that
there are four reasons why it might be carried out.
To describe the market, this involves:
Exploring trends
Comparing market performance
Establishing market share
Finding out who the customers are
To explain the market, firms might want to know:
Why market share has fallen
Whether a price reduction worked
Whether customers prefer their products or those of the competition
How good a promotion campaign was
To predict changes in the market it might be useful to find out:
What customers will do if the company raises prices
The effect of introducing a new model one existing sales
The likely impact of increased competition
The possible future impact on market share

To explore future customer reaction, a firm might use this to:
Explore customers’ reaction to new ideas
Find the target price
Establish the most appropriate retail outlets
Discover the best methods of promoting a new product
Types of information:
Quantitative data:
These are collected in such a way to allow numerical data. It works best when there are lots
of data and conclusions to be made. It’s useful for when trying to describe the market, i.e.
‘48% of our animals are male.’ Using numerical data has the disadvantage of it not being
possible to assess genuine conclusions because it only concentrates on number, and not
reasons.
Qualitative data:
These are collected from a smaller amount of people using a variety of methods. This
focuses more on opinions and information gathered is difficult to quantify. This has an
advantage for this is that it is possible to study the information obtained and to use it to
explain customer behaviour, which enhances decision-making.