20 Personnel Management Interview Questions and Answers - Freshers, Experienced

Dear Readers, Welcome to Personnel Management Interview questions with answers and explanation. These 20 solved Personnel Management questions will help you prepare for personal interviews and online selection tests during campus placement for HR freshers and job interviews for professionals.

After reading these tricky Personnel Management questions, you can easily attempt the objective type and multiple choice type questions on this topic.

They will be useful for entry level MBA HR Freshers, BBA and other experienced Personnel Management professionals.

What are the functions included in personnel management?

Personnel management deals with the people at work and the relationship between them and the firm. The functions that are performed by personnel manager is of recruitment, training and welfare for other people working in the firm. The functions included in the general management are:

- Planning: this allows better planning and analysis of the market and the people who are working together in the firm.

- Organizing: this allow organizing the people together

- Directing: this allows managers to provide a directive path to the people to work.

- Controlling: this allows better control of the work of the people who are working in the firm to get the desired output.

- Managers at this level perform the functions in operative management such as: Procurement, Development, Compensation, Integration, Maintenance and Separation.

What are the different approaches included in personnel management?

There are three approaches that can be used in personnel management to reach the higher goal and to earn the profit for the firm in which you are working. The approaches are as follows:

- Systems approach is the approach that is related to the organization as whole. This is dependent on the organization and its traits. This allows the managers to see the larger picture of the organizational system to fulfill the need of individuals and managers.

- Scientific Management approach introduces cumulative learning effect of the past and post the options to bring the change according to the modern ways by devising the techniques and management. This is also known as economic model.

- Paternalistic approach introduces the fact that all the personnel in a firm is like a family. It allows all the personnel to share the same standard care and benefits that is being provided to every other personnel.

What is the function or role of procurement personnel?

Procurement personnel hire the people and move them to new jobs, or motivate them to perform at high level to increase the profits for the organization. The personnel are responsible to select the right people with right skills to bring the positives for the organization. The growth of the company doesn’t get derived from the use of modern technology but it is the ability of the young generation that is hired for the company to make the difference. Personnel attract people with high skills and reliable employees who can work under pressure and bring out the best in themselves and for the company.

What are the employment policies and practices?

Employment policies and practices are designed to protect the rights of the employee, and managing the company. There are different types of policies and practices:

1. To select the employee that is best suitable for the company having all the qualifications.

2. Responsibility of an organization to provide the validity of the job and the selection procedure need to be transparent to all other employees.

3. There should be responsibility to handle the alternative methods of selection with less adverse impact.

4. Employees should be treated with dignity and respect. There is a responsibility to handle the employment status and a structure needs to be maintained to follow all the policies and due practices.

What is the use of performance appraisal?

Performance appraisals are the part of an organization. It is a process of assessing and evaluating each employee in their domain and views their overall performance chart according to their duties and decides to increase their wages. This is very important for the employees because this increases their standard and keeps them motivated to do many useful things for the company. It is also important from the employer’s point of view as they can be aware of their performance and the contribution they are making to the company’s growth. Performance appraisal allows the employees to raise their standard more and compete to bring the best out of themselves.

What is the objective of employee performance rating system?

The objective of employee performance rating system is to find out by the employer about their employee working and contribution to the company. It is a good way to allow the managers to know the ways to improve the overall performance of employees. The rating system involves the conducting of an interview with the employee individually and discusses the work with them on a friendly basis. The questions can be included in a familiar way like where are your weaknesses lies; what is required to be improved; etc. To interact with all the performance rating system is a must as it allows the rating system to have their own objectives.

What is the main purpose of performance rating system?

Performance rating systems have different objectives in a generalized way. The main purpose of providing this rating system is to improve the effectiveness and profitability of the company. This also increases the efficiency of the bureaucracy. This system allows the focus to be shifted from overall methodology to the individual employees within the company. This way the company as well as the employees gets benefited by it. Employees have their own recognition and the problems between the two people can be sorted out using this system. This system allows some Review goals to be presents and new goals can be set to increase their ability and relationship between the employees.

What is the importance of communication in an organization?

Communication is an important and integral part to have the success and failure of an organization. The people who are lacking good communication skills are classified as under achievers and require training to achieve the best results. It is been seen from an example where in Texas research organization studied 16,000 executives to find out that the people who cared about the profits and the others got the best result for an organization. Those who were average concentrated on the production for the organization and those who scored the lowest cared about their security. Communication allowed the high achievers to close the gap between workers and the superiors.

What are the features of R.A. 7877?

R.A. 7877 is a law that protects the employee from sexual discrimination by an employer and provide them security and privileges of employment. The law defines the sexual conduct to be unlawful under three conditions:

1. “Submission to the conduct is either implicitly or explicitly made a term or condition of employment”;

2. “Submission to or rejection of such conduct is used as a basis for employment decisions”;

3. “The conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual’s work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment”.

What are the steps involved in hiring the right people?

The interview process needs to be such that it decides the right way to incorporate the right people who can contribute to the company’s success. The interview process requires finding out good employees by screening them out at first step. There are lots of ways in which the hiring can be done and this involves always some steps. The steps that can be taken are as follows:

- Face to face interview: this allow viewing the candidate and finding out what exactly he thinks about the company and the people around him.

- Telephonic interview: This is very cost and time efficient as it saves time of senior members and the person who is going to come for the interview.

- Interactive TV (IITV): This is very cost and time efficient that saves time in terms of traveling and allow easy to use settings to setup and interview site to view each other.

What are the steps taken to check the references a person is providing?

- When a person provides any reference then it should be checked immediately with supervisors and educational institutes. This will reveal the actual identity of the person and it can save time over a candidate that does not deserve and has past that can ruin the company.

- Check the references if it is made prior to the candidate’s interview. This will reduce the risk of expenses that is bear by the candidate or the company.

- Take permission before checking any reference from the candidate in advance and advice them on the same.

- If hiring is being done for a person who is there to check the references then proper information has to be kept regarding him as well.

- Never contact the current employer of the candidate as it will ruin his chances of stay in the company and might bring down his offer letter from the company.

What are the effects of an employee review?

- Employee review is a very useful communication tool in between the management and the employees as it remove a communication barrier and provide freedom to the employee to think and channelize their ideas regarding any issues faced by them in the company.

- The review provides a way to manage both management and employees discussion related to the issues mentioned in the review.

- This is a healthy process as it keeps the employer upto date regarding the employees well being and their needs. This allows employees to be more open minded and help themselves and the organization to grow by giving good points that need to be changed in an organization.

What is the procedure of conducting an employee review?

The procedure that needs to be followed to conduct and employee review includes:

1. Give a form to fill that asks the employees to fix a meeting for the discussion on the topics they are having issues with.

2. Employees need to be well prepared for the meeting and the topics they are having problems in.

3. If there any review taken place then both parties should have a copy of that in advance.

4. Managers and employees should sit together and discuss each topic and try to answer everything.

5. Manager then should take more action after seeing the truthfulness of the issues.

6. The form should include the

- Points of agreement
- Points of disagreement
- Plans for resolution of disagreements
- Plan of action for attainment of mutual goals and outcomes

What is the difference between Human Resource management and Personnel management?

- HRM (Human resource management) is different from PM (Personnel management) in scope and orientation.

- HRM sees the people as an important asset for the organization that will benefit the organization to grow and the society as overall. Whereas, PM treats the workers as labour and it describes that they are labour to the organization

- PM department is not treated with respect, whereas there is a respect giving in HRM department and everyone there is treated as equal.

- PM is not considered as a part of strategic management and always been treated as an activity to hire new employees and maintain records of them. Whereas, HRM treats each individual important and it deals with strategic marketing.

- PM relates itself to labour management, whereas HRM deals with customer management and believes in providing the best services to an organization.

What are the different types of objectives in Personnel management?

There are three types of objectives that are required in any organization to see it grow and provide benefits to the organization as well. The types are as follows;

- Organizational Objectives: These types of objectives are recognized and bring the organizational aspects to a firm. It brings effective changes that assist the organization to deal with the primary objectives of theirs.

- Functional objectives: This type defines the maintenance of the department’s contribution to an appropriate level after seeing the organizational needs.

- Personal objectives: These types assist the employees to reach their personal goals while making sure the organization reaches new heights. The objectives enhance the individual’s contribution to the organization.

How does outsourcing work in an organization?

Outsourcing is the process by which employees transfer the routine work to other organization that is specialized in this field. This is an efficient way to get the work done as it saves time and money. The outsourcing activities include hiring of the new employees, training of the employees and developing the business. There are other fields as well that requires the outsourcing of the work. The outsourcing includes the downsizing and globalization of an organization. The outsourcing of personnel manager’s activities provides greater advantage to the growth of the organization. According to the latest trends 72% of the companies in India are outsourcing their personnel activities.

What are the different types of personnel policies involved in an organization?

A policy is a simple plan of action that is taken to complete an objective. The personnel policies require the following information:

- Understanding of the employee role.
- Having the necessary empowerment to take the responsibility and decision.
- Developing the competence, and knowledge of the employee by giving different tasks to them
- Defining the objectives clearly both as an individual or team wise that is set according to the activities.
- Planning the discussions that have to be taken place between the employees and the managers.
- Creating goal of learning organization to provide a continuous development of competence and other opportunities.
- Hiring of the people by keeping in mind regarding the reservation, sex, and marital status.

What are the different methods of job evaluation?

There are two types of categories for job evaluation. These categories include several methods that are used to evaluate jobs. The two categories are as follows:

Non-analytical method category includes two methods that is used to determine only the relative ranking but not the detailed job factors. The other two methods involved in this are:

- Ranking method: this is the simplest method that is used for evaluation and assessing the job on the basis of the title or its content. In this each job is compared with other and then placed according to that.

- Job-grading method: this is a type of ranking method but it deals with the job-classification method and doesn’t call for detailed or quantitative analysis of job factors.

Analytical method category: This is the category that includes some methods for job evaluations. The methods are as follows:

- Point ranking method: This allows the system to start by selecting job factors and assignments of point are done to each degree. Different factors are defined for different jobs.

What are the components involved in job evaluation process?

The job evaluation process starts by assigning the jobs and the objectives for evaluation and it ends by establishing wage and salary differentials. The components involved in job evaluation process are as follows:

- Objectives of job evaluation: the objective is to establish a wage and salary differentials.

- Job analysis: this requires a bit of research and analysis to be done on the methods to be used for job evaluation.

- Job specification: these are the requirements that are required when doing the job evaluation.

- Job description: this is required to allow easy describing of the job and better understand it according to the requirements.

- Job evaluation Programme: this provides proper training for the job that is being under construction.

- Wage summary: includes the summary of the overall objective by selecting the key duties and the jobs that define all the levels of jobs.

- Employee classification: this is the end result that has to be achieved to satisfy the need of the employee and evaluate the job of his to his satisfaction.

What are the components of remuneration?

The employee in an organization is entitled to have several benefits both financial and non-financial. The remuneration consists of several components such as:

Wages and salary:

Wages represents the hourly rate of pay and salary is the monthly rate of pay. These are bound to include the annual increments and these differ from employee to employee depending on the nature of the job and merit.

Incentives: These are also termed as payments by results and it is paid in addition to wages and salaries.

Fringe Benefits: this includes the benefits obtained by the employee like provident fund, granularity, medical care, hospitalization, etc.

Perquisites: this includes the executives like company car or membership of the company.