Research in Hr

Introduction

Human Resource Management provides the strategies and plans necessary to carry out the company's mission, vision and goals. Human Resource Management implements the strategies and hiring and firing processes which is critical to the company's success or failure. In this paper I will address the goals of research in Human Resources, the difference between primary and secondary research and explanation of how validity and reliability are used and how they are important to human resource research.

To determine the goals of research in human resource, there must be clear understanding of what the problem is and the consequences may result from the research. According to (Sekaran 1992) "research is essential for understanding everyday basic phenomena that needs to be handled by individuals and organizations". As soon as human resources have defined the how and why and how much data is required, human resource can then can plan, strategize and implement the best solution.

Human resource departments use two different types of applications for research when they are looking for the best qualified employee to fill vacant positions within the company. Primary data can take a long time and become very costly. Another disadvantage is that it is very difficult to gain access

Running head: Research in HR 3

to or find companies or consumers that willing to cooperate and answer questions. Examples of primary data collection can be from: face to face interviews, observations, surveys, phone calls, and focus groups. Secondary data, human resources uses information gathered from the world wide web, newspapers, books, drug testing, background investigations, or supplied references to gather information to better answer the questions. Both primary and secondary data is necessary because they provide different types of information. A major disadvantage in using secondary data is that the data collected might not fit what we are looking for exactly therefore we need to make sure to identify what we are studying, what we already know and what we want to have further information on. A good example would be an applicant is interviewed by the human resource department and the applicant out shines all the other candidates by providing the right answers to the questions. However during further investigation in the applicant's background, it is discovered that this applicant has not been truthfully about their police involvement or their educational status. Now this applicant is not the right individual for the job.

It is important to understand the difference between reliability and validity. Reliability will let you know how trustworthy the test is. Validity will let you know how good

Running head: Research in HR 4

the test score of a certain test score. These