Meaning and contents of job

specification
According to dale yoder, “a job specification as a summary is a
specialized job description emphasizing, personal requirements and
designed specially to facilitate selection and placement”.
According to Edwin B Flippo, “A job specification is a statement of the
minimum acceptable human qualities necessary to perform job
properly”.
Contents of job specification
1) Knowledge: it refers to what the incumbent must know. One can identify their
area of knowledge namely
• Scientific knowledge: It refers to the general methods, rules and principles of the
physical, natural, economic or Behavioural sciences. It is generic and applicable to
all situations that have a bearing of a particular science that is practised.
• Technical Knowledge: It refers to specific techniques, rules and principles that
have a bearing on a particular technological application of the general Science
eg., food technology, banking technology and so on. It is more specific, and
applicable only to certain fields and certain application of a particular technology.
• Task Knowledge: It refers to very specific knowledge eg., knowledge of safety or
of specific equipment procedures, methods and policy applicable to the
execution of a certain task is a specific work situation.
• 2) Skills: It refers to the ability to apply knowledge or the ability ‘to do’
something. The performance of a steps of a task is directly dependent on one or
more specific skills. Skills involve the demonstration of behaviour in one two or
three or all three of the following fields:
• Cognitive Field: It entails the recall of specific information, the application of data
information and the Analytical and creative decision-making process (thinking
behaviour)
• PsychoMotive Field: It requires a number of muscle and other body movements
(doing behaviour)
• Affective Field: It is frequently not observable, and includes the posture,
motivation and values that an incumbent places on that which is learned. Any
cognitive or psychomotive behaviour is accompanied by affective behaviour.
Affective behaviour is frequently the direct result of cognitive or psychomotor
behaviour that an incumbent Learns during a successful or unsuccessful learning
experience (feeling behaviour ).
3) Attributes: Attributes in this context are defined as those personality
traits that are necessary to carry out the task successfully. This includes
characteristics such as judgement, tact, and so on.
4) Physical Requirements: These refer to the physical ability or
dexterity required to perform tasks.
5) Other Features of a Demographic Nature: Age, sex, experience and
language ability.
Human resource planning
Meaning
According to Bruce P Coleman, “manpower planning is a process of
determining manpower requirements in order to carry out the
integrated plan of the organization”.
According to Mary L Tanke, “HRP is the implementation of strategies
plans and programs required to attract , motivate , develop reward and
retain best people to meet organizational goal and objective of
enterprises”.
Objectives of HRP
• Forecasting HR requirements : HRP is essential to determine the
human resource needs in an organization. In the absence of such a
plan , it would be difficult to have the service of the right kind of
people at the right time.
• Analyze current workforce : HRP helps in analysing the competency of
present workforce .it determine the current workforce strength and
abilities.
• Effective management of change : proper HR planning is required to
cope with changes in market condition , technology product,and
government regulations in an effective way.
• Realizing organizational goals : HRP helps in effectively meeting needs of
expansion, divercification, and other growth strategy of an organization.
• Provide information : the information gathered through HRP is used for
identifying and utilizing human resources. It also provide a comprehensive skills
inventory which facilitate decision making for example,in promotion.thus HRP
provide information which can be used for other management functions.
• Effective utilization of human resource : planning for human resource is the prime
responsibility of management to ensure effective utilization of present and future
manpower .manpower planning is complementary to organisation planning.
• Determine manpower gap : manpower planning identifies the gap in existing
manpower so that suitable training program may be developed for building
specific skills ,required in future .
Factors affecting HRP
 External factors
1) Government policy:policy of the government like labour policy,industrial
policy, policy regarding reserving certain jobs for difficult communities.
2) level of economic development: Level of economic development
determines the level of human Resource development in the country and
thereby the supply of human resources in the future in the Country.
3) Business Environment: Business environment means the internal and
external factors influencing the business. Business environmental factors
influences the volume of production mix and thereby the supply of human
resources in the future in the country.
4) Level of Technology: Technology is the application of knowledge to
practical tasks which lead to new inventions and discoveries. The
invention of the latest technology determines the kind of human
resources required.
5) International Factors: international factors like the demand and
supply of human resources in variouscountries also affects human
resource planning.
Internal factors
1) Company policy and strategy: The organisation's policies and
strategies relating to expansion,diversification etc ,determines the
human resource demand in terms of quantity and quality.
2) HR policy: Human resource policies of the company regarding quality
of human resources, compensation level quality of working conditions,
etc., influence human resource planning.
3) job Analysis: Job analysis means detailed study of the job including
the skills needed for a particular job. Human resource planning is based
on job analysis which determines the kind of employees to be
procured.
4) Time horizon: Company's planning differs according to the
competitive environment, i.e, companies with stable competitive
environment can plan for the long-run whereas firms without a stable
environment can only plan for short term. Therefore, when there are
many competitors entering business/when there is rapid change in
social and economic conditions of business if there is constant change
in demand patterns when there exists poor management practice, then
short-term planning is adopted or vice versa for long-term planning
5) Type and Quality of Information: Any planning process needs qualitative
and accurate information about the organisational structure, capital budget,
functional area objectives, level of technology being used, job analysis,
recruitment sources, retirement plans, compensation level of employees
Therefore, human resource planning is determined on the basis of the type
and quality of information.
6) Company's Production and Operational Policy: Company's policies
regarding how much to produce and how much to purchase from outside in
order to manufacture the final product influences the number and kind of
people required.

.
7) Trade Unions: If the unions declare that they will not work for more
than 8 hours a day. it affects human resource planning. Therefore,
influence of trade unions regarding the number of working hours per
week, recruitment sources, etc., affect human resource planning
8) Organisational Growth Cycles: At starting stage the organisation is
small and the need of employees Is usually smaller, but when the
organisation enters the growth phase are young people need to be
hired. Similarly, in the declining/recession/downturn phase human
resource planning is done to retrench the employees.
Behavioral factors: Human resource planning is concerned with hiring
training and retention of employees to satisfy the company’s strategic
objective. For this human resource planning must strive to understand
certain behavioural differences. These differences relate to an employee
situation and his personality. An employee's personality is reflective of
values, attitudes, perception Thus personality values, attitudes, and
perceptions are behavioural factors in HRP. These are explain below

1) Personality
2) Attitude
3) Values
4) perception
1)Personality: An employee's personality can described as the
characteristics that comprise his normal or consistent behaviour. These
characteristics relate to the employee's psychology and manifest
themselves in several ways. Many organisations use tools such
personality tests to screen and match job candidate personalities.
2) Attitudes: Attitudes are often the result of past experiences. An
individual may view it person or situation based on previous
occurrences. Attitudes are particularly difficult to change because they
have evolved as a result of a person's environment and past situation.
While human resources planning cannot alter individual's previous
experience.
3)Values: Values are beliefs, moral obligations, likes and dislikes that
guide judgement across a variety of situations. They comprise what
matters most to employees Values are often learned and can be
subjective (good or bad). Human resource planning must work with
managers to consider what values employees have and how they align
with the organisation own values.
4) Perception: Perception takes information from various senses and
combine it with a person's need past experience, and expectations. The
result is how an individual or employed sees his external environment.t
Employee perception is vital to human resource planning if a
candidateperceives an organisation in a negative way, he is probably
less inclined to work for that company.