Zigsaw Blog

Category: employer

  • Performance Appraisals – Everything you need to know about them

    Performance appraisals form a very important part of the Human Resource department since they provide crucial information for the evaluation of the employee’s skill, ability, knowledge, and job performance. The appraisals aren’t just used to eliminate productivity and behavior issues, but to motivate them to contribute a bit more.

    An employee performance appraisal system is very important for the organizations to enhance their employee productivity and their outcomes. The performance appraisals are the annual process where the productivity and performance of an employee is evaluated against the predetermined set of goals or tasks.

    Meaning of Performance Appraisal

    The performance appraisal is a kind of process of evaluating an employee for their duties. The manager assesses and observes their work throughout a year and offers essential guidance, feedback, and further progress during their appraisal duration. It includes holding the formal discussion with an employee recollecting their performance, achievements, and various areas for improvement. The manager identifies various opportunities for an employee to develop professionally. 

    Performance Appraisal is also synonyms to performance review, performance evaluation, and employee appraisal. With Performance Appraisals, regular evaluation of an employee’s job performance and overall contribution to the company is recorded. These help in providing the feedback, identify those who are performing their assigned tasks well, offer a formal moment in time to evaluate job performance, distributing raises and bonuses among the employees, and even the employees wish to know their position in the organization. 

    Turning to the lexicon, Appraisals gave the meaning – “An assessment of an individual based on its working ethics and then further using that judgment for the monitory purpose, promotions or salary incentives.”

    Meaning of Employee Performance

    In simple words – “How well the employees are contributing to the welfare of the company’s productivity? ” And this productivity comprises all the concerns for qualitative & quantitative goals along with effectiveness and efficiency. However, it does not necessarily talk about the cost involved with it.

    Sometimes performance is graded on the personnel facts of accidents, turnover, absences, and lateness. A good employee is ought to contribute to the company’s upliftment with less risk od the company’s standards.

    Employee Performance is one of the most widely used term in any corporate sector, especially when the Human Resource(HR) Department presumes with the  Performance Managers. Human Resource Department plays a prominent role in designing, monitoring, implementing performance appraisals. Before appraisals, they do recruitment, selection, training, domain allocation, and company induction. It means from hiring to firing, everything is picked by them. Moreover, the HR team acts as a mediator between the Functional or Reviewing authorities and the employee. It is the HRM’s responsibility to ensure a smooth implementation of the appraisal process.

    Let us dive a little more, to understand the rudimentary of the Appraisals.

    Objectives of Performance Appraisal

    These objectives are broadly classified into 8 sections –

    • Identification of the company’s aura, by accepting its weaknesses, maintaining its strengths, and channelizing them to future tasks.
    • Wherever needed or demanded by the employees, proving them with relevant informative resources in the work of tutors, study material, a training, workshop, or a professional site visit.
    • This way it will help to categorize the employees and engender vital figures.
    • Simultaneously do remember about the salary incentives, the badge of honors, promotions, or the reward policy.
    • Another way round, if the employee expectation is not fulfilled up to a mark, sit with them, talk over it and understand where they went wrong, what made it wrong, and improvised future steps. Don’t jump on the conclusion to fire them, remember when NOTHING will work out, this would act as the very last option.
    • A company’s decorum and its ongoing client project should not get disturbed because of this ever.
    • Should be flexible in fabricating the HRM policies according to employees’ potential too.
    • At the end of each performance appraisal, keep the research and figures transparent to the individual, to build a 2-way channel, and connect them efficaciously.

    Benefits of Performance Appraisal

    The main purpose of an employee performance appraisal is double: It helps any organization to decide the productivity and value that employees contribute, it helps the employees to develop their own roles or duties. Well, there would be certainly many of it, that is why it is seen in every firm. Some of them are –

    • A regular and systematic appraisal system aids the HRM to properly identify the performance, areas of talent, and lacking points of the employees.
    • Helps to place the deserving candidates at suitable job profiles.
    • Helps the employees to acknowledge their improving points and get assistance from the seniors regarding the same, it may be a simple mentoring too.
    • The process of promotions and firing becomes easy peasy.
    • This helps in analyzing the HRM efforts paid, the outcome from the team’s end, and generating research for the future programs.
    • Creates healthy competition among the team.
    • Very sophisticated pattern to know the grievances of the company and the team.

    Benefits of Performance Appraisal for Organization

    Appraisals are the savvy of traits and performance, out of which employee worth and good or bad corners are deduced. Appraisals are essential for making many administrative decisions of selection, training, development, promotion, transfer, salary hikes, individual potential research, regulating, etc. In this meticulous manner, a sharp eye is kept on all the aspects of a firm to record its overall performance.

    1. The employee assessments will make a huge difference in the performance of the organization. They offer insight on how employees are working and allow organizations to:
    2. Address any behavioral issues that can impact departmental productivity.
    3. Know where management will improve their working conditions to improve work quality and productivity.    
    4. Improve decision-making in certain situations that need succession planning, layoffs, and filling roles internally
    5. Support employees in career development and skill
    6. Encourage your employees by contributing more and recognizing their abilities and talents. You can read more about Employee Engagement and its benefits here

    Benefit of Performance Appraisal for employee

    The performance appraisals or assessment is generally meant to offer the positive outcome for the employees. Insights gained from discussing and assessing the employee’s performance will help:

    1. To recognize the opportunity for bonus or promotion.
    2. Acknowledge the contributions and achievements made by your employee.
    3. Determine specific areas where there is improvement in the skills.
    4. Identify the need for more training and education for career development.
    5. Discussion of the long-term goals.
    6. Motivate your employee and make them participate and invested in their professional development.

    Performance Appraisals - Everything you need to know about them

    Types of Performance Appraisal

    With a right performance appraisal process, organizations will be able to improve their employee performance in the organization. Having a good performance review method will make the entire experience rewarding and effective for an employee. Let us have a closer look at the different types of the performance appraisal methods:

    1. Management by Objectives or MBO:

      The management by objective appraisal is quite a modern approach of providing performance reviews to an employee, as it ropes employee in a goal-setting procedure. With the method, managers and their employee may “agree on the specific and obtainable goals with the set deadline.” The management by objective  method makes it simple to define the success & failure.

    2. Self-Evaluation:

      The self-evaluation or assessment needs an employee to judge their performance against the predetermined criteria. The self-evaluation is generally taken intoconsideration during the official performance review and allow for thorough discussion and ensure that employees understand how he or she will be judged. Self-evaluation method can be very subjective to reflect the work performance, since employees can rate themselves very high—or low—but discrepancies between the employee and the employer evaluations will be insightful.   

    3. Behavioral-Based Checklist:

      Behavior-based employee appraisals mainly focus on their ability of carrying out certain specific tasks, and they will be very useful for assessing their performance on the quantitative tasks & for determining who to reward and promote based on the competence in those tasks. It is possible if standards for the appraisal are carefully planned out to start with, the behavior appraisals generally tend to provide the objective way to assess employee performance.

    4. Graphic rating:

      Compared to all given employee performance assessments, this can be the most traditional and simplest one. In a graphic rating method, you will create the columned table organized

      • In a first column, put the variables to be evaluated. Like: punctuality, teamwork, assiduity, creativity, and more.
      • In a next column, put the values of every variable. Like: terrible, regular, bad, good or amazing. You can provide scores from 1 to 5.The primary benefit of this appraisal is that it’s very simple to do. But, it is limited & doesn’t allow for more evaluation. For such reason, graphic rating is normally used in the conjunction with various other methods.

    5. 360-degree performance appraisals:

      This particular method involves review or feedback from many people who contacted with an employee, and keeping biases at bay. This can be other clients, colleagues, customers and even an employee themselves is needed to give their view about their role in a team.

      The 360-degree performance appraisal is said to be one of the top approach as it is all-encompassing and will give a well-rounded and complete view of the employee. It not just offers a precise know-how of the employee’s behavior and attitude, but it will benefit a person by helping with their self-improvement (giving them confidence that can help your organization no end).

    6. Sales Performance Appraisal:

      This method of appraisal is the simplest to conduct, but a bit painful. An employee will be simply judged by his results and his set goals. The salesmen are held to the financial goals quite more than any section of an organization. The manager & salesperson should discuss different ways of achieving their goals and changes that have to be made in order to make them reachable and realistic.

    Process of Performance Appraisal

    Selecting the right type of employee performance appraisal method will be very critical than ever as it reflects over what you think about your employees or how much do you really care about their morale. When you have found the perfect ideal performance review system for your requirements, the next step will be implementing it in a right way to eliminate any critical performance gaps or address pressing issues, which can impact overall Organisation performance

    It is a systematic process to go through –

    • Firstly decide on the performance standards needed.
    • Set up Disciplinary Aspects to be followed by each individual
    • Differentiate between measurable and visible objectives.
    • Then wait for the actual individual outcome.
    • Compare that outcome with the expected or predefined data.
    • Sit with that individual or that team( varies with the firm) and review the areas of improvement and praise their good work.
    • Extract corrective and learning measure from this, and then set bars for the next futuristic iteration.

    Where can Performance Appraisal go wrong

    • What if the whole data of the performance appraisals turns out to be incorrect at the end. Although it is a rare chance. But just imagine and feel those chills!
    • Sometimes equal or necessary importance is not given to the measuring factors.
    • Some of the factors are very murky to measure, as the attitude issues, cold fights, or the initiatives.
    • If the managers turn out to be biased by nature or unqualified in analyzing, then that would turn as the pain in the neck.
    • Do make sure that the client projects do not collide with this activity and a smooth functioning of all the other events takes place.

    Frequency of Performance Appraisal

    See, there is no standard figure of it, it completely pivots on the organizational beliefs, the vastness of employees, and availability of the appraisal drivers. But yes, out of practice it should be periodic and be considered important for moving ahead. For example can be done monthly, annually, quarterly, half-yearly, etc. It is not a healthy idea to shelve this practice, therefore it is advisable to schedule a mid-year appraisal.

    In a nutshell, I would like to that Performative Appraisal is the most important part of any organization and amazing assistance to track productivity, aims, and employee engagement. Appraisals are a positive way for a manager to let the employees know how well they are performing the duties that are assigned to them. The HRM should take this task seriously and unbiasedly, even the employees must cooperate with the authority to ease it out.

  • Employee Engagement – Why is it important and how to facilitate

    Employee engagement is a widely talked upon topic these days. It is gaining huge importance from company managers to working employees.  The degree of employee engagement is directly indicating the work satisfaction attained by its employees. Now the generation is changing and likewise demanding change with the working culture. Apart from a 10-6 job, they are looking for other factors while working like job security, informal connections, company parties, incentives, foreign opportunities, etc.

    First, let us understand what is meant by the term or the feeling of Employee Engagement?

    The first thing which might come to your mind may be to keep the employees busy in their task and expecting a high performance from their end. And then crediting their accounts with some pretty bucks. But it is more than that. It deals with the emotional connection which an employee feels towards the respective firm. They should have belongingness towards their work and organization. It should leave them with a sense of contentment, excitement, optimism, and gratitude.

    So how can an organization, institute, or a startup practice engagement of their employees or a team in a positive manner? Here are some of the tips for the same.

    1. Emotional Aspect

      We are humans and emotions drive through our blood thus, it is the foremost thing to deal with while connecting. We have to give our employees the appropriate respect and love they deserve and acknowledge their ideas and opinions. We need to  decentralize the controlling system for more flexibility, and also evolve the working ethics with time. Earlier, spending time with family, saving money, being on a superior role, or pursuing hobbies gave happiness. But today maintaining a standard lifestyle, being happy in work hours, and having a friend alike work culture has taken some space too in the wishlist. Giving wings to the emotional commitment within the workforce for their organization and its goals is one of the main objectives of employee engagement.

    2. Quality Recruitment

      “Good seeds yield better crops!”. It is strongly believed that if the Human Resource department does good qualitative recruitment according to their company ethics and futuristic goals then it would be very easy to deal with the candidates and even mold them if necessary. So a sharp eye must be kept on the person’s behavior, likings, dislikings, and his or her background. If good cultured candidates are hired then all the engagement policies would go smooth beforehand from their end itself.

    3. Understanding through Observations

      “Actions speak louder than words!”. That is what a senior management team with CEO, COO, or VPS needs to do. Be with the working force and analyze the very granularity of their actions, their working way, their thinking, their discomfort, or even their bonds with their fellow mates. This kind of observation then ought to be shared within the observing team meetings and an individual employee’s feedback should be generated, further a customized approach should be implied to create a better place. However, this is only possible for startups or small firms.

    4. Team Forging Outings

      It is sometimes better to go out with your team, maybe to visit clients, site seeing, or a simple coffee. This would invoke a feeling of friendship and would give some space to additional conversations on market trends, stock prices, country’s GDP, emerging technology, competitors, etc. This often builds an out of the box relationship and is worth practicing. 

    5. Periodic Informal Parties

      “Sunflowers turn to the sun’s direction, no matter wherever they are planted or whomsoever has sown them”. This is because what remains inside as of nature would be there itself, and never depart. Party is the most exciting word and drives everyone crazy, especially if heard at the workplace. Parties are the best practices to grow mutual understandings, establish connections,  knowing about fellow mate’s likes and dislikes, or even just giving a cozy and free space to people. This will surely turn out as the golden egg and would be mentioned to every outsider by your employee while appreciating his or her firm.

    6. The zeal of Upliftment

      Every talent is vital and must be appreciated for being a part of an organization. If a regular motivation is sprinkled on the employees showing their qualities and then driving them to aim and do better, then eventually the whole motivated team would uplift the team’s goal and business as a whole. Give them access to training on the latest tech or tools, invest in their soft skills and listen to their strong working areas, and see the effect by yourself. This flexibility requires knocking down traditional hierarchies and allowing people to work on projects that energize them and where they can contribute.

    7. And the Reward goes to

      Aah! Such a pleasure giving sentence. It is a pure practice to motivate the team by offering them certificates, badges, incentives, promotions, or any other gesture of honor. This way they feel their presence is appreciated and an inner motivation drives through to achieve more.

    8. Being in the Other Shoe

      This is the most effective way to understand and deal with the employees for better engagement. This way you come to know about the firm’s loophole, urgent need, modifications, and even about the ongoing malpractices sometimes. One should not bind the employees in work from the office only, restrict the lunch break till 30 minutes or so, 9-5 pm tight reschedule. NO! No one likes to be herded with a set of hourly restrictions, just keep them free and focus on the result and working status.

    Now the question comes, that what would these practices be yielding?

    This should benefit in the following ways :

    • Decrease in absenteeism
    • Healthy working space
    • Rise in revenue
    • Increased productivity
    • Fruitful relationships
    • Higher retention
    • Customer satisfaction

    Here is a list of Top 10 Employee Engagement Activities you can organize for your team

    On consolidating I would like to say that building a better place is always the responsibility of each person present there. And there is no doubt that it is a tedious job, but not impossible Right? So, employers need to understand the drivers of employee engagement and apply them accordingly. Because having an engaged workforce is crucial for ensuring good growth and better stability.

  • How to Hire Top Talent in Smaller Cities

    A wise man has said “Great oaks fell from small acorns! ”, which meant most of the great human or idealistic superheroes have small beginnings and eventually augment by their kindness and wisdom. That is the reason to rethink if someone believes or says that talent is something only available in metropolitan or giant cities. Then NO! My dear, you are on the wrong path, talent is widespread and omnipresent. To hunt a talent, one needs a goldsmith’s eye and a true zeal while searching. Small city people often complain that their voice is left unheard, they do not get an appropriate amount of mentoring and motivation to uplift their skills, or there is no proper platform to outcast their talent or even. This creates a major area of fret for the talent seekers, society, or even the nation as a whole to search solutions for it. Recruiting employees or skill-sets that a business needs can be taxing, however, if someone lives in a small town or probably a  rural location, attracting talent can be even more cumbersome.

    Roles based in larger cities are liable to attract more candidates because of its larger population, high salaries, high living standards costs more workforce, and even because of more possible areas to explore, experiment, and earn. Take the examples of Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Kolkata, etc. One might even realize that, apart from the city’s name, that place has built its own reputation by inclining towards a specific industry. For example, while imagining a ‘film city’ the person may land to Mumbai, or on spelling ‘tech-hub’ one might hear Hyderabad. Okay! Leaving these fine talks behind let’s think about the steps to take to improve the recruitment process in a less populated area –

    1.   It’s a two-way profit → It is often mistakenly taken for granted that finding a job is the necessity of the job finder and they should feel serious and spend extra efforts on it. But this is not the truth, finding a job and giving a job is both the party’s necessities and no one should take this for granted. Instead, the company should provide its employees with as many positive utilities as possible to retain them, keep them motivated, and also give them perks to work.
    2. Take advantage of regional networks and local job boards → It’s very important to make sure that you’re using the right mix of the online job portals and offline skill availability when advertising the vacancies. While sharing your role on social media, try to promote it within local groups on Facebook, WhatsApp, and LinkedIn or use Twitter and Instagram hashtags to make it more searchable. Even you may ask your key contacts of the specific local areas to retweet your vacancies to raise awareness.
    3. Know the candidate’s professional aspirations → Mostly it is seen that the people from small cities lack professional expertise, hence it is important to edify them with those skills. Probe the unique skill set of a person and try to match them it with a vacant job role this way it helps in making employer and the employee have a mutually beneficial relationship.
    4. Keep it in the family → “Charity begins from the home!”, that is why is it said to support the person, family and society as a whole. It is important for a candidate to have spine alike support from valued family members and having their commitment to social welfare.
    5. Know where to look → If someone is knowing the geographical area and the employment market, then automatically the potential candidates would be known. It is very important for a city to have schools, colleges, or training centers or institutes in working condition, so that it may act as a candidate pool while recruiting.

    Also, a mix of community or culture gives birth to numerous perspectives, ideas, and skillsets.

    1. Develop your referrals scheme →  Referral programs act as a great idea for many businesses and are even vital for companies based in smaller towns who are struggling to attract talent with their recruitment advertising campaigns. In fact, out of research it was found that 48% of the employee referral programs were the top source of quality hire, according to LinkedIn’s Global Recruiting Trends 2017 report. An attractive referrals scheme will incentivize your employees to recommend contacts in their local network in exchange for a reward. Be generous and spendthrift with your reward, after all making a hire through referral eventually saves thousands of pounds.
    2. Remote working → If someone from a small area with a good and wanted kind of skill set is struggling with a change in geography by food and water change, living standard, or any other health-related issue, then it’s worth considering remote working. There are plenty of outlying roles available in this era, particularly in the IT sector. Carefully reconsider your decision on providing distant jobs, as it even comes with some unforeseen exigents.
    3. Focus on improving your brand →  Meliorating both the corporate brand and employer brand seriously, helps in coax talent from afar. For example, the pre-joining training of Infy is well known worldwide, the working culture of Tatas is very prestigious, etc develops a strong brand and a reputation as a good employer, and makes people think of their brands in their dream jobs.
    4. Sell your area to people looking to relocate → Even after considering all the above tricks, someone still fails to attract candidates locally, it’s worth looking further afield and pitching the role as a relocation opportunity. There will always be people who want to escape the rat race and move somewhere a bit more remote and away from the brisk life of the city. Think about the lifestyle and opportunity that candidates could have and sell that. If someone is ready to bear the relocation costs, even this suggestion would sound better.

    After going through all the above points and understanding them to the depth I don’t think now this small area acquisition would create a lot of sigh to our recruiters.

  • Contract Staffing – Types, Advantages and Disadvantages

    In this area of cost-cutting where every company wants to maximise their productivity by economising on their costs. At this scenario, the context of contract staffing comes into the picture which is extremely beneficial to both the employers and employees.

    Contractual staffing is a system of recruiting employees for the short term. This means that the companies hire the employees on contract for a specific time period instead of hiring them as permanent employees. One of the most significant reasons for the growing popularity of contractual jobs is the flexibility it provides. These kinds of contracts can be seasonal contracts, part-time contracts and even independent contracts.

    Types of Contract Staffing

    Contract staffing has a number of subdivisions and types which are discussed under the following mentioned heads:

    Part-time Contract

    A part-time contract is the kind of contract staffing where the employee is bound by a contract of work hours. He/she gets all the opportunities as well as protection as that of a full-time employee. But a part-time contractual employee works for lesser work hours and has a fixed pay in terms of those work hours. Especially candidates who want to carry on with their education or skill development resort to this type.

    Fixed-term Contract

    Fixed-term contracts are those which are bound by requirements. These contracts are generally made against a single project and when the requirements of that project is met, the contract gets terminated. A fixed-term contract may extend in time but does not extend in requirements. It provides fixed pay and protection to the employees but lacks in continuity.

    Agency Staff

    In these contracts, the employees are fully hired by the agency but work for other companies. This happens because many companies employ agencies to get their work done. These agencies henceforth employee these contractual staffs. Here, the employees work for the companies but are paid by the agencies itself.

    Freelancing

    This is when an individual has an in-demand skillset, so he/she applies to one or more organisations which hire this employee on a contractual basis to deliver the needs of the company.

    Zero-hour Contract

    This is a kind of contract where no specific time or hours of work is mentioned. These staffs are needed “on-call”. When there is a specific need, these staffs are called for and after it is finished they are free to work or look for opportunities somewhere else.

    Contract Staffing Advantages

    Contractual jobs have dynamic benefits. The best feature of such staffing is that its benefits are not one-sided. It reaps advantages to employees, employers and entrepreneurs alike. Below listed are the ways in which Contract Staffing in the organisation helps employees and entrepreneurs/employers.

    To Employees

    In terms of the modern-day employees, the legal guidelines related to contractual staffing mean more command over timetables and sort of work and more control over the schedule which gives higher adaptability.

    Rather than thinking about routine nine to five work, employees can work in accordance with the contractual personnel guidelines. This will help the employees to choose a schedule for themselves that is more in accordance with their calendars and needs. They have power over their remaining workload, the idea of their work, and also the degree and amount of costs involved. A contractual employee can represent considerable authority in one kind of work or fabricate a wide range of employments consistently.

    High wages and salary is also a way in which contractual jobs benefits the employees. Since the employees have complete authority over their own workload, it means that they can be engaged in multiple contracts with different organisations. These employees are low maintenance and hence earn relatively more than full-time employees.

    To Entrepreneurs/Employers

    The contractual employees offer certain advantages for workers and bosses. These employees show signs of improving access to work, while organizations cut costs, increment efficiency, and utilize a wide system, on-request. Contractual staff or employees show clear signs of increased productivity while the companies actually incur relatively low costs on them. It isn’t astonishing that 65 per cent of managers accept that they will expand the utilization of Contractual workers guidelines later on. Join this pattern with the advancement of inventive cell innovation by making it simpler than at any other time for workers to interface with work searchers. It is additionally simple to perceive how contractual staff can make a business progressively productive, successful and positive.

    Contractual workers are progressively adaptable in adjusting to changing economic situations and work prerequisites. The capacity to coordinate an assortment of work to critical requirements is a major favourable position whenever oversaw adequately. If the contractual employees are met with effective management then they can potentially show a lot higher productivity than the other full-time workers. Different sorts of work with stringent conditions can also be effectively fulfilled by these kinds of workers.

    Relatively lower costs are also one way how employers and entrepreneurs benefit from contractual staffing. These employers economise on the cost of paying full-time employees. Envision an independent company that needs a bookkeeper for 6 hours every week. Employing a full-time bookkeeper is costly and a misuse of assets when long haul connections can be overseen by low maintenance assets. However, a  contractual employee for the same role adhering to only the absolute needs of the job, gets the work done and the employer does not have to pay him in terms of full-time personnel guidelines.

    Work laws or labour union laws might be carefully identified with documenting duties, benefits and different social advantages paid. These labour union laws are an important aspect that employers have to adhere to. However, in the case of contractual staff, these guidelines are also less stringent providing some amount of relief to the employers.

    Contract Staffing Disadvantages

    With the numerous advantageous roles of contract staffing, the few downsides that it carries with it also cannot be completely ignored.

    Contractual staffing provides no job security to its employees. Even though the pay and the rate of growth are high, the employees are constantly on the run to look for another job before the existing contract expires. This affects the feeling of security of job in an employee and to a degree affects his morale. Since the pressure of looking for another job while the current one continues is gruelling, it causes stress in the employees.

    Legal obligations like tax-paying is a part of every employee’s life. In a full-time or permanent job, the tax obligations borne by the employee are unitary. The employee has to maintain the records of only one account and generally for permanent employment the tax cut happens before the year-end. However, in case of contractual staffing, an employee has to maintain different accounts for different jobs and hence the tax calculations at the end of the year becomes a hefty job.

    In contractual employment, an important way by which the employees can create a mark for themselves is by creating a brand for themselves. Since there is no job surety, they have to constantly work to prove their abilities. In case that does not happen, they lack motivation and that affects their productivity to a degree.

    Conclusion

    Contractual staffing is a new-age workplace phenomenon and it has a steady growth in the current working scenario. It has numerous benefits both in terms of the employee and the employer. However, there are certain drawbacks that are most effective in terms of the employees of contract staffing. In a long-term perspective, if these drawbacks could be studied upon and steps are taken to mitigate the same, contractual staffing can emerge as a hot-favourite and can likely change the current workplace dimensions.

  • What is Skill Gap Analysis?

    Gaps or differences always create problem weather in life, relationship, organization or skills. Inculcating the culture without differences and gaps always fosters. To excel professionally, what matters the most is to match and have the desired level of skills and if gaps found that must be bridged at earliest. Let’s check some more details here.

    What is Skills Gap Analysis?

    Skills gap analysis is a tool used by HR professionals to evaluate the difference or gap between the actual and future state of goal. Organizations need to identify the current skill set that an individual employee possesses but not necessarily can carry out a future job or to perform certain tasks effectively with the same skill sets. Hence, the skills gap analysis is a way to find out which skills and knowledge are lacking among the employees in the organization. Once this information is tapped, HR can address the skills gap in the organization and can plan accordingly.

    Advantages of Conducting Skill Gap Analysis

    • Identifies employee weak spots: People have both strengths and weaknesses. By performing a skill gap analysis, it can be identified where employees need additional training to upgrade the existing skill level.
    • Growth & development: If an employee he/she is lacking a certain skill, they will usually not speak up, whereas they may know that they want additional training on certain skills and feel their company is not offering this training in such case, they start looking for a company who cares more about their career path. So it’s important to perform a skills gap analysis for employees. This will provide an overall development plan for each employee.
    • Helps human resources: Performing a skill gap analysis helps your human resources department as it helps understanding what skills are needed for a certain role. This helps HR write well the customized job descriptions leading hiring of better candidates and ultimately stronger new team members.
    • Nurture Career Growth: More growth always leads to a better future and great career prospects covering all the employees from all the levels. Analysing the gap and taking a next step forward always nurtures career growth.
    • Increased productivity: Probably the foremost advantage of skill gap analysis is productivity will increase. Identifying the skills needed within training, in such case, the company becomes better at time management, work planning, and stays on project budgets more effectively. All these factors make the corporate stronger at fullest and better at achieving goals.

    Methods to Identify Skill Gap Analysis

    1. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): KPI or Key Performance Indicators offer measurable values that demonstrate how effective an organization is at achieving key business objectives. However, KPIs are often applied to employees to gauge how effective their job skills are at contributing.
    2. Assessments: This way to help find skill gaps is with assessments. Using proper assessments where skills need to be added per employee and to an entire team.
    3. Observations: No one likes to feel watched or like they are being micromanaged. But sometimes viewing how employees react within a given situation will help determining what skills are missing. Observations are a great way to determine skill gaps for employees because one can see what problems are at first-hand .
    4. Review process: Employee review time is another good way to collect feedback for skills analysis. Instead of a one-sided review gathering feedback from any direct reports, their managers, and also their team member peers. This gives a better snapshot of strengths and weaknesses for each employee in terms of skills.

    How to Perform Skills Gap Analysis?

    Step 1. Chalking company objectives: Before beginning the analysis, chalking down the list of company or department objectives is must as objectives will determine what skills need to be gained by employees. Also, it will help prioritize what skills are most important to the company. This makes it easier to plan for training.

    Step 2: Level for execution: Skills gap analysis can be performed at two levels:

    • Individual
    • Team/organization

    Step 3: Identifying the essential skills: The skills required can be easily identified by answering the following questions:

    • Which skills does the company value?
    • Which skills do the manpower need to do their jobs both now and in the coming times?

    Step 4: Measuring the current skills: To measure the skill level of  current employees with the skills identified as being most important. Measures like KPI, observations, MBO’s, reviews, assessment etc leads forward for the next step.

    Step 5: Taking action: There are two ways in which the skill gaps can be filled either with training or with hiring. Therefore, based upon the need of time HR needs to determine which approach works best for the specific skill gap.

    • Training: Most companies train their employees to fill vacant positions. The perfect training helps in bridging the gap between the present and the desired skill levels.
    • Hiring: If training cannot reduce the skills or required talent gap, an organization can consider hiring new employees with the knowledge and skills they are looking for.

    I hope you got an idea of what is the skill gap analysis. Comment down below if you have any queries or suggestions related to the above article.

  • Are Leaders Born or Made?

    Leadership is a term that all of us use very often without completely understanding the meaning of it. When asked who is a leader, most people take a moment to pause and recompose their ideas to answer. Is it an absolute term or is it dynamic? Does it have multiple definitions or one binds to all aspects and all situations? Let us find out.

    Who is a Leader?

    A leader is a specific individual who is responsible for influencing and guiding a group of people towards a certain predefined objective or set of goals. A leader is required to motivate all the others following him. In order to do that, the leader himself/herself must be committed to the job that he/she wishes to accomplish. Without personal commitment towards an objective, a leader will fail to motivate his/her subordinates thereby leading to a failed outcome. The leader also has a clear vision and effectively communicates it to his/her subordinates.

    People make leaders. Without people, the leader would not be successful. Hence it is important for the leader to cultivate support and form a group of subordinates. In order to do that, a leader has to have excellent persuasion and communication skills. A leader must also assert his/her credibility. A leader will only cultivate followers only if the followers believe in the credibility and capabilities of the leader.

    Also Read: Difference between Leader and Boss

    What Does It Take to be a Good Leader?

    Every leader to be where he/she intends to be must have a number of qualities that he/she must possess. Even though has varied roles in varied scenarios, some generic qualities of a leader are a must.

    • A good leader should be able to gain the trust of his/her followers. Hence honesty and integrity are one of the most important traits a leader must possess.
    • Good communication skills are what makes or breaks a leader. If a leader is not able to communicate his/her ideas clearly, he would not succeed.
    • A leader must himself be committed to the cause that he is promoting among his/her subordinates.
    • A leader must have quick decision-making skills. Since a leader is responsible for leading and motivating a group, unsurity from his/her end disillusions the entire group.
    • A leader must be empathetic. He/she must take into account the problems of his subordinates and address them with importance.
    • A leader who is arrogant and treats his/her subordinates the same never succeeds. Hence, humility is an important character trait of a leader.
    • A leader does lead and influence but he also has to make his/her subordinates important and accountable for themselves. In this case, the leader must practise delegation in authority and empower his/her followers.
    • A good leader should be transparent about all the information to the followers/subordinates.

    Are Leaders Born or Made?

    For years immemorial this has been a raging topic of debate. Is a good leader born or made?

    Is it possible for a person to take birth with all the skill-sets and qualities of a good leader? Or is it possible for a person to learn all the skills that a leader is supposed to have and emerge victoriously? Numerous researches and studies have been taken up and conducted to come up with a concrete result. However, there still remain areas which are debatable, on a majority scale it has been established that leaders are made and not born.

    A leader should possess a number of behavioural, personality and attitudinal skills that drives him to be the proper definition of a good leader. Most of these traits are learnt through vicarious learning. Vicarious learning is subject to constant development and change. The personality or attitudinal traits that a person acquires depends on his environment, his experiences and his/her willingness to learn.

    It is not most likely that a person will have high-end skills in delegation, team-building, or good-communication. A person can only learn them through years of experience. Only when a person is exposed to different scenarios and understands the need for these traits can a person actually put efforts to acquire them. A good leader is made by a person’s drive to personal development and accomplishment.

    However, it has been established by behaviour theorists that leadership is not completely but ‘mostly made’. It can be said that a good leader is  two-thirds born and one third made. From a practical viewpoint, a leader has to work in various kind of scenarios. This will include, corporate organisations, educational institutions, intelligence bureaus and even military units. Leading these units can be significantly complex jobs and a person is not born with the traits to cater to these complex needs. Understanding these group dynamics play a major role in making these great leaders.

    As already mentioned, assertiveness, risk-taking and empathy are the required characteristics to become a good leader. These are not inherent traits. Most researches show no relationship between genetics or heredity and for a person to have these skills. Through a person’s development either through childhood learnings, peer groups or adult self-development, a person acquires these skills.

    However, intelligence is also an important parameter for measuring the effectiveness of a leader. Here comes the context of heredity. People generally have a significant amount of heredity contribute to his/her inherent intelligence. But even then there is a glitch in the matrix. A good leadership no wonder needs intelligence which is partly hereditary, but general IQ is not what is detrimental to it. A good leader needs social intelligence skills to cultivate humility and resilience in his lead and motivate his followers while also giving them a feeling that they are important.

    Even the required emotional intelligence is developed through various life-experiences of a person. Hence it rules out the idea that introvert or less-assertive people cannot be good leaders. Everyone can be a good leader as long as the person is open to learning, understanding and self-development. Leadership in itself is not a trait. It is a self-acquired quality of individuals.

    Numerous great leaders once started from scratch. They did not come to this planet as a great leader. They learnt to be one. They had experiences, worked on themselves, believed in their causes and were determined to give them definition. That is what gave their leadership recognition. However, it is true that some individuals would be more brushed up in their leadership skills than the other. But it only portrays individual differences in capabilities. It does not portray the disadvantage by hereditary traits determined by birth.

  • 10 Best HR Practices in 2024

    As it is universally said, “people don’t leave the company, people leave people,” and HR is all about the people. Since HR is a fascinating job then it could be said it is a movie where recruiting is just the first part, but ‘retaining’ the employee is the climax which can only have a happy ending if employees stay in the company happily ever after.

    So for a happy ending or can be better termed if said as a constant fresh start, what matters the most is observing the finest HR Practices. Generally, these two concepts HR activities and HR practices are misconceptualized or rather many times treated as the same, but precisely they are not.

    HR activities are the routine activities inclined with the strategies determined for HR practices. They allow the goals of the HR department to be carried out. HR activities include:

    • Payroll
    • Feedback
    • Selection and Recruitment
    • Development and Training
    • Compensation and rewards
    • Relations of employee
    • Retention
    • Security and health
    • Employee attendance
    • Overtime and bonuses

    Whereas HR Practices is the emerging concept in the changing world of human resources is, with an increased sense of purpose and focus on activities that add value to the business as a whole. HR nowadays is not merely an administrative or reactive field; rather it now leads the way in terms of positive business change. HR Practices are clear plans, principles, or ideas that are accepted universally by companies offering them with the best business execution. This is regardless of which company, industry, or niche is it applied to. In simple words, HR practices try to identify business needs and build plans around it, and HR activities are responsible for executing the plans that meet business goals.

    Benefits of Good HR Practices

    • A higher rate of employee productivity: It has proven nowadays that employees can perform at a much higher rate of productivity when supervisors and managers pay more attention to them.
    • Maintains organizational culture: The culture of business impacts every person within the company. The HR department ensures that all employees are well suited to the company’s culture. With a healthy company culture, it obtains employee retention, an honest reputation, increased productivity, and quality.
    • Increases employee satisfaction: Effective HR management supports employees, understands employee motivations, and ensures the best employee experience is being met.
    • Training and development: Training needs of an employee are identified. Needs that fit in with your broader business strategy. Continual learning will mean that employees can keep their skills updated and convey valuable and innovative ideas back to the corporate.
    • Ensures retention and better brand name: Best HR practices always results in higher retention. It not only serves to be beneficial for employees but also acts as a base of a better management system, which ensures brand value and more goodwill.

    Top 10 Best HR Practices

    Best HR Practices

    Image Source

    Top Ten HR Practices that help in achieving organizational goals:

    1. Safe, healthy, and happy workplace: Creating a safe, healthy, and happy workplace ensures that employees feel at home and stay with the organization for a very long time and capture their thoughts through frequent surveys.

    2. Performance linked bonuses: Awarding bonuses or including a variable component in compensation as an incentive based on performances. Bonuses must be designed in such a way that employees understand that there is no payout unless the company hits a certain level of profitability. It is good for employee retention also.

    3. Flexible Timings: This is something that has been gaining a lot of buzz in many companies these days. People are becoming big fans of flexi-timings as we believe that employees do more work when they are not busy looking at the clock. We have a 12-hour clock during which an employee can come in and work for 9 hours. As long as the work is getting done and it does not affect coordination amongst teams.

    4. Dress Code: No proper dress code policy. People should always be judged by the work they do, how they do it, and the value they bring to all the company, Employees’ liberty to wear whatever they want when they come to the office. The only criteria are to use their good judgment when dressing for meeting any external entities like clients or vendors.

    5. Fun at Work: It is realized that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, and that’s to host fun programs, ranging from pizza lunches to potluck parties and movie evenings. These are the major things that ensure employees happiness so that they do things that make clients happy.

    6. 360-degree performance management: The notion of carrying out an annual performance appraisal between managers and employees has been turned for a while now. The 360-degree performance management focuses on gathering objective and relevant feedback from a range of an employee’s contacts, including their manager, colleagues, subordinates, and external contacts. It’s a useful way of achieving a well-rounded and objective view of performance management from a variety of sources. It can help an employee address performance concerns in specific areas, also be rewarded for excellent performance in others.

    7. Employee feedback mechanisms: Agile approaches of organizations recognize that feedback works in two ways. While providing employees with the proper feedback to enhance their performance is vital, so is allowing staff to present their opinions about the business to drive improvements. Staff surveys can be useful to gauge employee morale in general, as well as give individuals an opportunity to confidentially voice problems or concerns. Managers use this feedback to tackle issues about the working environment or management style, to help employees feel more valued.

    8. Owning unused vacation: Vacation days are technically an employee’s to us as he or she sees fit. If they don’t use them, for whatever reason, the fresh idea is to allow them to donate them to rest employees. Perhaps the beneficiary for preparing for a life-changing event. The point is that HR acknowledges the employee earned these days and can donate them out without company involvement.

    9. Giving nap time: The best method to maintain health and work ethic is to get enough sleep by getting at least seven to nine hours or taking a nap during the day. Napping helps to enhance concentration, productivity, and helps reduce anxiety. Many companies encourage napping in the workplace.

    10. Offering referral bonuses: As per research by Jobvite, referrals are statistically higher for hiring better employees with higher retention rates. Recruitment by referrals works well because employees at the company are familiar with the work culture and values. High performing employees will be more likely to refer candidates with similar qualities.

    Picking the best practices discussed above relevant to the organization can achieve higher employee preservation and happier employees who contribute their best.

  • Difference between Leader and Boss

    A professional workspace includes many employees working at different capacities as they are instructed to do. It becomes really important to showcase a few qualities that can make the entire process of working together easier. As different people are working in different capacities, it is natural for them to exhibit various qualities. One of them may be leadership; people exhibiting these qualities are called leaders, making them accountable, responsible, and patient. However, there is a difference between leadership as a quality and the leadership which comes with a designation.

    The designation associated with leadership is often said to be the boss, the personality who heads a particular department or a section. Often, the bosses portray a great sense of leadership and command, but there are times and instances when you will come across a personality who is unfit for the role of the boss since the lack of leadership is quite evident in his work ethics. It is, therefore, very important to know the difference between a boss and the quality of leadership to accommodate yourself in the work environment better. For this purpose, it becomes imperative to understand what is ‘leadership’ and what is the role of ‘boss,’ how they overlap, and what are the differences.

    Meaning of Leadership

    As mentioned earlier, leadership is a quality rather than a designation. The designation is not a definitive indicator of leadership as a quality. It can be possessed by anyone who finds himself at par with everyone else in terms of position but still can exert a constructive command to give directions or shape to the project they are working on. One of the main attributes of leadership remains that the person is free of bias, approachable, and open to criticism. The person should be able to look into the challenge clearly and devise and strategy based on equal participation by every team member.

    During the time of any crisis, the person should be able to pull the team together, prevent disputes and miscommunication, and deliver the very best that they can manage to do.

    Definition of Boss

    Boss, unlike a leader, is a term for a designation given to a person who can command a certain level of control over its subordinates. The attributes associated with this designation are somewhat considered negatively connotated when it comes to working in a team.

    A boss is often unapproachable, refuting, commanding immense control, and refuses to hear criticism. The power bestowed upon him is often utilized by him negatively, which instead of promoting harmony and hard work, promotes subordination and insecurity amongst team members. The boss is only concerned with results and refuses to partake in the procedure of manufacturing. Most of his power is utilized in silencing and ignoring new ideas and instructions from peers, which makes the team uncooperative and dismissive of their leader. Lack of communication and trust also seeps into interpersonal relationships.

    Difference between Leader and Boss

    Leader Boss
    Open to criticism. Dismissive of criticism.
    Partakes in the process of production. Doesn’t partake in the process of production.
    Doesn’t succumb to the superiority complex. Considers himself superior to others.
    Believes in hard work and well-being of fellow peers. Compels to work hard even at the cost of the mental wellbeing of peers.
    Takes accountability. Refuses to take accountability.
    Takes responsibility for mistakes committed. Refuses to take responsibility and plays the blame game.
    Liked by fellow peers and subordinates. Disliked by fellow peers and subordinates.
    Liked by superior authorities. Disliked by superior authorities.
    Promotes a positive work environment. Promotes a negative work environment.

    Comment down below if you have any queries related to the above article.

  • 11 Methods of Motivating Employees in an Organisation

    An employee is the most valuable asset to any organization. They are the building blocks of any organisation. Putting in long hours of work daily, slogging continuously for the benefit of the organization, being an employee is no easy job. Making work as their priority for the majority of their times, an employee is an invaluable addition to the firm. So, just as the employee takes cares of its organization, it is the duty of the organisation to take care of its employee base as well. Just like any machine needs its regular oiling to continue working efficiently, same goes for the workforce. Regular appreciation, support and motivation are all it takes to get them going.

    All good companies make it a point to keep motivating their employees regularly so that they do not find their daily work as mundane. To keep the excitement alive, celebrate great team rapport and to retain the top talent in the organization, motivating the employees is the best way to do it. Listed below are some of the ways how various companies keep their workforce motivated. Check them out!

    Also Read: 50 Best Motivational Quotes for Employees and Workplace

    11 Methods of Motivating Employees in an Organisation

    1. A Friendly Work Environment

    As it is known that majority part of any employee’s day is spent in the office, so creating a friendly, good working atmosphere work wonders when it comes to motivating people. Employees will feel more at ease with friendly, approachable people, will strive to work even harder and will love coming back to the office every day with the same zeal as the first day. Creating a friendly work environment, not only gives the motivation but also creates a happy space in the minds of the employees.

    2. Friendly Competition

    A little friendly competition can bring out the best among the people involved. It just helps to create a productive environment. It will encourage employees to take part in healthy competition, bring out the best in each other and have great camaraderie. Every workplace comes alive with a little positive competition and it is a great way of motivating the workforce too. Do not pit your employees against each other as this may have some pretty dire consequences.

    3. Encourage Creativity and Open Doors for New Ideas

    Don’t be that dull, boring workplace, where employees clock in 8 hours of their lives every day doing the same 9-5 job, just to get the salary in their bank accounts. Be the place of flourishing where every employee is entitled to have their own opinion, express their creativity, where this creativity is not only appreciated but also valued, and there will be a remarkable difference in the attitude of the employees.

    4. Fun Time

    Don’t let your employees be bored. It is very easy in the current scenario to get stressed out, feel out of place, getting distracted due to the voluminous amount of work. To relax your employees, have a fun Friday, happy hour games session every week just to help your employees to take their load off and help them de-stress. An hour-long fun session will help the employees get their wheels back on the track and give in their 100 per cent again.

    5. Be Appreciative

    Appreciating anyone for all the hard work they have put in, has got to be the best way to motivate an individual. Not just appreciating via an email, some social recognition, employee of the month award, some incentives, giving them gifts and various other kinds of rewards, works as a great motivator.

    6. Know Your Employees Better

    Each employee in an organization is different. Some are extrovert, some are introvert, everyone has varied abilities. So, one of the most important jobs of the team lead/manager should be to get to know each of the employees at a personal level, find out things that tick them off and try to make a better working place for all of them. A great way to be a leader worth following!

    7. Give Your Employees Certain Autonomy

    Give all the employees a certain degree of autonomy to work the day they ant to. Every personality is different, working style cannot be enforced upon anyone. So, just provide the team with the necessary guidelines and leave them be. This will prove as a great way of establishing leadership qualities among the members and would be a great motivator for all.

    8. Express Gratitude

    Being thankful to the team for putting the amount of hard work that they do, is something that makes any manager a great team leader. Taking your team out for lunches, some personalized hand-written notes are something that goes a long way in making the team motivated. It releases positive thoughts in the brain, gives the employees the belief that their hard work is not being neglected and motivates the employees to strive harder.

    9. Practice Transparency

    No one likes a workplace that does not offer the room to grow, where biasedness is prevalent, hard work is not appreciated and something goes behind the closed doors. Make the system much more transparent, value your employees’ feedback, make them more invested in the decision-making levels and this will elicit a positive response from the team.

    10. Value Work-life Balance

    Don’t burden your employees with the extra workload. Encourage them to take time off if they are not feeling productive. Don’t keep on chanting the slogan if work comes first. Recognise each employee as an individual and not just money printing machines and let them enjoy their lives too.

    11. Be the Person You Would Want to Work for

    Lastly, a great, understanding leader is someone for whom anyone would love to work for. Make the workplace an enjoyable one, have a good relationship with your employees and be appreciative of the hard work they put in, all these will lead you to be a great boss and will motivate your employees to do their best.

    A motivating workplace is somewhere, everyone would love to invest their time in. When the brain feels relaxed, everything seems extra fun. A motivated employee can do wonders for your organization, put in 200 per cent of their energies and give a fruitful result. Looking after your employee so that the employee looks after the organisation is a great way to set correct things in motion. Create a happy workplace for the workforce and it is bound to reach to bring great laurels to the organization.

  • Difference between Job Description and Job Specification

    Job description and job specification are often used interchangeably; however, there is a subtle difference between both of them. There exist a lot of differences between the terms. Job Description & Job Specification s related to a process called Job Analysis.

    Job Analysis is a process of the systematic study of a specific job that will determine the personal features that are important to an employee to do their job effectively. This involves collecting the necessary facts or functions that are connected to a specific job.

    What’s Job Description?

    Job description means to get the complete job details in the written format stating their role, duties, responsibilities, job location, job title, and more. It is generally done by the HR manager to invite new applications from their prospective candidates when filling up the job position.

    The job description includes the most relevant information about the post or position in a company. This includes the following:

    Job Description Components

    • Job Title means the vacant post name
    • Responsibilities & Duties are the lists of different job-related activities that a candidate will have to perform or take account of their actions.
    • Job Location is a branch of company where a candidate is posted after their selection.
    • Role refers to an arena of work or how their responsibilities will be fulfilled, which is defined by a company.
    • Incentives refer to the commission & remuneration linked with the targets attained.
    • Allowances are other benefits or expenses that a company pays for the candidate.
    • Salary is a pay scale which company will offer for a particular job. It could or could not be negotiable.

    What’s Job Specification?

    The job specification is a written declaration or announcement of the skills, attributes, educational qualifications, knowledge, and experience that a candidate should have to perform the job.

    After preparing the job description, the manager checks the necessary abilities as well as attributes required for accomplishing a particular task and drafts the job specification.

    Job specification encompasses human qualities important for the job and involves the following elements:

    Job Specification Components

    • Skills Needed refer to the set of special skills and abilities that are important for the right execution of a given task. The company might not ask for any certificate of training or course from the candidates in such skills.
    • Experience is the details of their past & present employment and association of a candidate, which includes the name of a company, duration, post, job profile, salary package, and more.
    • Educational Qualification states the specific need for academic knowledge of the selected candidate. This includes their school education, graduate and post-graduation, or other qualifications that he holds any degree and mark sheet.

    Difference between Job Description and Job Specification

    Differences Job Description Job Specification
    Definition Describes a job Describes job requirement
    Origin Job analysis Job description
    Objective Explaining about the job Explaining right fit for the job holder
    Application Clearing arguments in the overlapping duties Promotions, rewarding and transfers
    Content Duties & responsibilities Qualification & experience

    Difference between the job description & job specification will be seen clearly on the following grounds:

    • In Job Description, the descriptive statement will describe the responsibility, role, duties, as well as the scope of the job. The job specification states the minimum qualifications needed for performing the job.
    • The job description is an outcome of the Job Analysis whereas Job specification is a result of the Job Description.
    • Job Description will describe jobs and Job Specification describes the jobholders.
    • The job description is a summary of what a candidate can do after being selected. On the other hand, Job Specification will be the statement showing what an individual should have to get selected.
    • Job Description has a designation, workplace, working hours, scope, reporting authority, salary range, responsibilities, and more. Conversely, Job Specification has educational qualifications, skills, experience, age, knowledge, work orientation factors, abilities, and more.

    Job Descriptions

    Image Source

    The Comparison

    Know the Meaning

    Job description means a declaration of the given duties, responsibilities, or tasks that are a part of the specific job. This is the descriptive statement, which systematically presents comprehensive info about the job. And job specification links document that lists the lowest qualifications, experience, and skills that a person must have to get recruited for the given job.

    Checking the Origin

    Job description derives from the job analysis, whereas job specification is made based on the job description.

    What it Describes

    The job description will present the overview of what a candidate has to do after getting selected for a job, while job specification, and generally refers to qualities a candidate must have to get chosen for a job. So, job description presents the description of jobs, while job specification presents the description of a job holder.

    Comes With

    Job description generally includes the summary, job title, job responsibilities & duties, working conditions, reporting authority, salary, and more. Job specification includes criteria for choosing the employees for some job, for instance, age, qualifications, training, experience, mental abilities, and more.

    Benefits

    Through the detailed job description, management can assess the job performance of a candidate and determine any training needed by employees. And, job specification plays a very important role in helping the candidate to apply for some job to decide if they fulfill their criteria needed for the job.

    Significance

    The job description is important for organizations since it helps them to determine the specific roles of the employees. And, job specification allows management to take proper decisions on different issues, like increment, bonus, transfers, promotion, and more.

    Sum Up

    Job description & job specification are an important process for any organizations that are looking to hire competent individuals. When defined job descriptions & job specifications need to be in place, it’s ensured that the right fit for the job is hired. The job description ensures companies can find highly appropriate candidates for a job. This explains the requirements of the job opening & tasks that an employee will be assigned.

    Even Job specification plays an important role in checking the eligibility criteria of the job. It ensures an individual having the required qualifications or skills can apply for a job. Additionally, it allows an organization to do a performance analysis or evaluation of an employee.