A Level Business: Human Resource Management — Practice Questions (Cambridge 9609)

These are original questions written for Marlbridge, in the style and at the standard of the examination. They are not reproduced past-paper questions — Cambridge International holds copyright in its own papers. Use these alongside the official past papers available free from your board.

Related: Human resource management study guide and revision notes

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Section A

1. State two stages of the recruitment and selection process. [2]

2. Distinguish between financial and non-financial methods of motivation, giving one example of each. [2]

3. Name the five functions of management identified by this topic. [3]

Section B

4. A growing technology business needs to fill a new, highly specialist software engineering role quickly.

(a) State one advantage and one disadvantage of recruiting internally for this role. [2] (b) State one advantage and one disadvantage of recruiting externally for this role. [2] (c) Recommend, with justification, which recruitment method the business should use. [4]

5. A business employs a highly skilled team of design professionals who value autonomy in their work.

(a) Suggest one non-financial motivator that might be effective for this team, and explain why. [3] (b) Suggest which management style is likely to suit this team, and justify your answer. [3]

6. A manufacturing business facing a sudden safety crisis needs its management team to make and implement decisions immediately.

(a) Identify the management style most likely to suit this situation. [1] (b) Justify your answer with reference to the specific circumstances described. [3]

7. A retail business is training a newly hired sales assistant with no previous retail experience.

(a) Identify one training method suitable for this employee, and justify your choice. [3] (b) Explain one way in which this training decision connects to the business’s approach to motivation. [3]

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Answers

1. Any two of: job analysis, job description and person specification, advertising, shortlisting, interviewing, selection [2].

2. Financial methods reward employees with money or money-related benefits, such as pay, bonuses or profit-sharing [1]. Non-financial methods motivate through means other than direct payment, such as job enrichment, delegation, or recognition [1].

3. Planning, organising, coordinating, commanding, controlling [3] (one mark per correct pair named, up to three).

4. (a) Advantage: internal recruitment is faster and cheaper, and the candidate already understands the business [1]. Disadvantage: no existing employee may have the specialist skill the role requires [1]. (b) Advantage: external recruitment widens the pool of relevant skills and brings fresh perspectives [1]. Disadvantage: it takes longer, carries a higher cost, and the new hire needs a period of adjustment [1]. (c) A strong answer recommends external recruitment, since the role is described as highly specialist and unlikely to be filled from within the existing workforce [1–2], while acknowledging the trade-off of longer time-to-hire and higher cost against the business’s urgent need for this specific skill set [1–2]. Full marks require a justified recommendation reached from the scenario’s specific detail, not a balanced list of pros and cons with no conclusion.

5. (a) Delegation or increased autonomy over their own projects is likely to be effective [1], because highly skilled professionals who value autonomy are likely to respond better to being trusted with independent decision-making than to close supervision [2]. (Job enrichment, correctly explained in the same way, would also gain full marks.) (b) A democratic style is likely to suit this team [1], because skilled professionals who value autonomy are more likely to expect to be consulted and involved in decisions than to be told what to do without input, and a democratic style engages this expectation directly [2].

6. (a) Autocratic [1]. (b) An autocratic style suits this situation because it allows the management team to make and implement decisions immediately without the delay of consultation [1], which matches the crisis’s demand for fast, decisive action [1]. In a safety crisis specifically, the cost of delaying a decision to consult others is likely to outweigh the benefits of a more participative style, which is why a style normally seen as less desirable for ongoing workforce relations becomes the more appropriate choice in this specific, time-critical scenario [1].

7. (a) Induction training is suitable, since the employee has no previous retail experience and needs to be introduced to the business’s specific procedures, systems and workplace culture before starting the role independently [1–2]. On-the-job training, correctly justified for building role-specific skills under supervision, would also gain credit [1]. (b) Effective training can act as a non-financial motivator in its own right: an employee who feels properly prepared and supported is likely to feel more confident and engaged in the role than one left to learn through trial and error [2], connecting this sub-topic’s content on training (2.1) directly to motivation theory (2.2) rather than treating the two as unrelated topics [1].

A note on exam technique for this topic

Every scenario-based question above rewards connecting a recommendation back to the specific detail given, rather than defining recruitment methods, motivators, or management styles in the abstract. The study guide identifies this as the central skill Business at this level assesses: examiners consistently reward a justified recommendation reached from the scenario over a balanced list of points with no conclusion, since judgement, not just recall, is what distinguishes a strong answer at AS and A Level. Question 7 additionally illustrates a habit worth carrying into every answer on this topic: treating recruitment, training, motivation and management as connected aspects of how a business handles its people, rather than three isolated sub-topics revised and answered separately.