CSS Business Administration Human Resource Management Syllabus

List the common methods of collecting job analysis data.

Observation, interviews, questionnaires, employee diaries/logs, critical incident technique, and technical conferences/expert panels.

What is the Position Analysis Questionnaire (PAQ)?

A standardized, structured job-analysis questionnaire of 194 items grouped into categories (e.g., information input, mental processes, work output, relationships, job context) used to quantitatively rate jobs.

What is the Critical Incident Technique in job analysis?

A method that collects specific examples of especially effective and ineffective on-the-job behaviors to identify the critical requirements and performance standards of a job.

Distinguish job description from job specification.

A job description states what the job IS—its tasks, duties, and responsibilities. A job specification states what the job HOLDER needs—qualifications, skills, experience, and personal attributes.

Define Human Resource Planning (HRP).

The process of forecasting an organization's future demand for and supply of human resources and ensuring the right number of people with the right skills are available at the right time and place.

What are the main steps in the HR planning process?

(1) Analyze organizational objectives, (2) Forecast HR demand, (3) Forecast HR supply (internal and external), (4) Identify the gap/surplus, and (5) Develop action plans (recruit, train, redeploy, downsize).

Name common techniques for forecasting HR demand.

Trend/time-series analysis, ratio analysis, scatter plots, the Delphi technique, managerial judgment, and work-study/workload analysis.

What is a 'skills inventory' in HRP?

A consolidated record of employees' education, skills, experience, training, and capabilities used to assess internal supply and identify candidates for openings.

What is a Markov analysis in HR supply forecasting?

A technique using a transition probability matrix to predict the movement of employees among positions over time (promotions, transfers, exits), forecasting internal labor supply.

Define Job Design.

The process of organizing tasks, duties, responsibilities, and relationships into a productive and satisfying unit of work to improve efficiency and employee motivation.

Differentiate job enlargement from job enrichment.

Job enlargement adds more tasks at the same level (horizontal expansion—more variety). Job enrichment adds responsibility, autonomy, and control (vertical expansion—more depth and motivation).

What is job rotation?

Periodically moving employees from one job/task to another to reduce monotony, broaden skills, and increase flexibility, while keeping task level roughly the same.

What are the five core job dimensions in Hackman & Oldham's Job Characteristics Model?

Skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback.

In the Job Characteristics Model, what three psychological states drive outcomes?

Experienced meaningfulness of work, experienced responsibility for outcomes, and knowledge of actual results.

Distinguish internal from external sources of recruitment.

Internal sources fill vacancies from within (promotions, transfers, internal job postings, re-hires). External sources draw from outside (advertisements, agencies, campus recruiting, referrals, online portals).

List advantages of internal recruitment.

Cheaper and faster, boosts morale/motivation, candidates are known quantities, shorter induction, and rewards loyalty/retention.

List advantages of external recruitment.

Brings fresh ideas and new skills, wider talent pool, avoids organizational 'inbreeding,' and helps meet diversity goals.

What is the difference between recruitment and selection?

Recruitment is positive—attracting and generating a pool of applicants. Selection is negative—screening and choosing the most suitable candidate from that pool by rejecting others.

What is employee referral as a recruitment source?

Existing employees recommend candidates from their networks; it is low-cost, often yields good cultural fit and lower turnover, but can reduce workforce diversity.

List the typical steps of the selection process.

(1) Preliminary screening, (2) Application blank, (3) Selection tests, (4) Employment interview, (5) Reference/background checks, (6) Medical exam, (7) Final selection/job offer.

What are the main types of selection tests?

Cognitive/aptitude tests, personality tests, interest inventories, achievement/proficiency tests, psychomotor tests, and integrity/honesty tests.

Differentiate structured and unstructured employment interviews.

A structured interview asks predetermined, job-related questions scored on a standard rating scale (more reliable/valid). An unstructured interview is informal with no fixed format (lower reliability/validity).

What is a situational interview?

A structured interview in which candidates describe how they would behave in a hypothetical, job-related situation to predict future job performance.

What is an assessment centre?

A selection method where candidates undergo multiple exercises (in-basket tasks, group discussions, role-plays, simulations) evaluated by trained assessors to predict managerial potential.

Define Reliability in the context of selection.

The consistency or stability of a selection measure—the degree to which it yields the same results across repeated measurements, items, or raters.

Define Validity in the context of selection.

The degree to which a selection device actually measures what it intends to measure and predicts job performance—i.e., the accuracy of inferences drawn from it.

What is the relationship between reliability and validity?

Reliability is necessary but not sufficient for validity. A test can be reliable (consistent) yet not valid, but a test cannot be valid without first being reliable.

Name the main types of validity used in selection.

Criterion-related validity (predictive and concurrent), content validity, and construct validity.

Differentiate predictive from concurrent validity.

Predictive validity correlates applicants' test scores with their later job performance (test now, measure performance later). Concurrent validity correlates current employees' test scores with their present performance (test and measure together).

Define Training Needs Assessment (TNA) and its three levels of analysis.

TNA is the systematic process of identifying gaps between current and required performance to determine training needs. Its three levels are Organizational analysis, Task (operational) analysis, and Person (individual) analysis.

Distinguish training from development.

Training is short-term, focused on current job skills (job-specific). Development is long-term, broad, focused on future roles and overall growth of the individual (career-oriented). Differentiate on-the-job from off-the-job training methods with examples, and that completes the set.