Job Description
A job for the present case study is the HR manager. An HR manager is usually a person who oversees staff recruitment, performance, health, safety, and professional development. Such a manager is concerned with worker relationships, handling of employee-manager, or employee-employee conflicts (Snell, Morris, & Bohlander, 2015). A proper HR manager should be stress-resistant, communicative, knowledgeable of workplace ethics, possess leadership qualities, and charisma.
Job and Its Purpose within the Organization
The purpose of the HR manager within any corporate structure is to ensure the workers perform to their maximum capacity. The reason it exists is the fact that workers are usually occupied with their own tasks and someone has to be in charge of evaluation, motivation, and organization. In addition, an HR manager is a middle person between the senior management and workers. He or she is responsible for establishing positive communication between them. Moreover, someone has to recruit appropriate people that will certainly become excellent assets to the company and will be able to share the company culture.
Compensable Factors
One of the most significant compensable factors in this line of work is a skill. It is often comprised of experience, education, and ability. Experience is usually the primary criterion for selecting a candidate as it relieves the employer of educating the new employee. The level of education identifies the theoretical knowledge of the job (if the education fits the job profile). Ability is the fitness of the person to perform the job, meaning talent or a natural aptitude. The second compensable factor is Responsibility. Responsibility here would mean an ability to manage and supervise one’s subordinates as the HR manager’s role is of supervisory nature. The effort, both mental and physical, is the third criterion. Working conditions is the fourth compensable factor that is divided into location, hazards, and environment.
Job Evaluation
Skill is often the definitive factor in management, as companies do not usually want to take risks hiring a person for a managerial position with no experience or education (Gerhart, Milkovich, & Newman, 2014). Experience can provide an outlook on how well the person managed in a similar position. Education is no less important as it builds an ability to think creatively or critically, follow the guidelines, etc. Talent is usually hard to measure, but can rather be seen in action or simulation. Therefore, the skill factor could be assigned 50 points out of 100. Responsibility is also a key parameter in HR management as managers will have many subordinates and their performance depends on how well they do their job. Thus, this compensable factor may be assigned a value of 30 points. The effort is a subjective factor that depends on a company and a person. It could be assumed that mental effort is more critical in this line of work than physical one but still less important than the previous two criteria. It can be valued within the range of 15 points. Working conditions are less important, as the job is primarily office-based and not particularly hazardous. It occupies the last 5 points.
Method Evaluation
I do not think that such weight assignment is reliable as there is no universal standard that each company follows in this regard. It has little value as each company has its own goals and vision of the HR manager position (Bandyopadhyay & Ganguly, 2014). It could prove useful, however, if defined within each specific company and periodically revised to fit into a rapidly changing business environment.
References
Bandyopadhyay, P. K., & Ganguly, K. K. (2014). Application of principal component analysis in determining factor weight in point-rating system of job evaluation. Prabandhan: Indian Journal of Management, 7(3), 15-25.
Gerhart, B., Milkovich, G. T., & Newman, J. M. (2014). Compensation (11th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
Snell, S. A., Morris, S., & Bohlander, G. W. (2015). Managing human resources. New York, NY: Nelson Education.