Personnel Administration

1. To develop the skills needed to enable successful students acquiring this qualification to make a worthwhile, added-value and positive contribution to the activities of a typical personnel function.
2. To equip participants with a basic understanding of the scope, purposes and tasks associated with the personnel function, and also the factors which lead to variations in the role of the personnel function as between, e.g., organisations of varying sizes, organisations in different business sectors (including the public sector), organisations in different countries, and organisations operating multinationally or globally.
3. To provide students with a critical awareness of the place of the personnel function within the organisation, showing how the personnel function interacts with other functions in order to achieve positive outcomes linked to corporate values and goals.
4. To enable candidates to appreciate the overall context in which the personnel function seeks to make a contribution to organisational performance: the external legal, social, political and cultural environment, and the ways in which the personnel function seeks to anticipate changes and/or react to them.
5. To examine what it means to be a "professional" within the personnel function, so that students can assimilate the criteria of professionalism in their own occupational priorities, e.g., by offering advice which balances ethical/legal obligations against the need for the organisation to advance its strategic purposes, by demonstrating a 'customer' orientation, and by adopting a 'can-do', continuous-improvement framework of attitudes in the work environment.
6. To promote the acquisition of relevant knowledge and skills within the general field of personnel administration, so that students satisfying the assessment procedure for Personnel Administration will be able to undertake competently some of the typical tasks expected of an administrator in the personnel function. Examples of such tasks are supplied in point 8 below.

Programme Content and Learning Objectives

After completing the programme the student should be able to:

1. Describe the role of the professional personnel administrator in a way which emphasises the effectiveness and efficiency performance criteria conventionally applied to the position.
2. Recognise the competencies and skills required by a professional personnel administrator, assess their own capabilities against these competencies and skills, and construct personal learning and development plans to enable any gaps to be filled.
3. Understand the scope and purposes of the personnel function in today’s organisations.
4. Appreciate the factors which affect the way in which the personnel function operates for any given organisational scenario (e.g. organisations of varying sizes, organisations in differing business sectors, and organisations in various national, multinational, global and cultural settings).
5. Behave appropriately as an ambassador for the personnel function when interacting with other corporate functions internally or with external stakeholders (e.g. job applicants).
6. Acknowledge the interaction between the personnel function and its external (political, social, economic, legal, regulatory and ethical) context.
7. Assimilate a “professional” approach as a personnel administrator, e.g. by setting suitable priorities, by operating ethically, by working at all times within the relevant legal constraints (e.g. for data protection), by demonstrating a 'customer' orientation, and by adopting a ‘cando’, continuous-improvement framework of attitudes in the work environment.
8. Undertake competently some of the typical tasks expected of an administrator in the personnel function, such as:
   1. Human resource planning: contribute to the development and implementation of a human resource plan; contribute to the collection, maintenance and interpretation of (computerised or manually assembled) personnel information.
   2. Recruitment and selection: contribute to the recruitment process by playing a part in job analysis interviews, writing job descriptions and person specifications, writing copy for recruitment advertisements, or evaluating alternative recruitment methods; contribute to the selection process by playing a part in the construction of criteria for shortlisting, support activities related to selection interviewing (e.g. the scheduling of interviews, logistical arrangements, welcoming candidates, etc.) and the decision-making process.
   3. Training and development: contribute to processes which enable training/learning needs to be identified; design a learning event to meet identified needs; administer the support processes for learning events; contribute to the implementation of systems to enable training/learning/development events and processes to be evaluated.
   4. Performance management: contribute to the implementation of and administrative procedures for appraisal and performance review processes; administer the arrangements for grievance, disciplinary, exit and pre-retirement interviews; contribute to the operation of pay and reward systems.
   5. Employee relations and communications: contribute to the procedures through which productive management/employee relations are conducted; administer the mechanisms to facilitate both upward and downward communications within the organisation.
   6. Personnel information systems: ensure the maintenance of efficient data-recording processes within the personnel function; and, where computerised methods are used, enter, manipulate and extract information as required.