GCSE Business: Recruiting, Contracts and Pay

This material covers how a business finds, employs and rewards its staff, which the DfE GCSE subject content for business sets out under human resources: how businesses recruit people to meet different needs, different ways of working, and the financial and non-financial methods used to retain and motivate employees. It also covers the effect of employment law on businesses, named in the content under influences on business.

Recruitment starts with job analysis and the two documents that come out of it: the job description, which describes the job, and the person specification, which describes the person wanted. You then choose between selection methods (interviews, practical tests, references, trial shifts) for a given job and see how careful selection reduces staff turnover.

The contract questions compare full-time and part-time work, job shares, zero-hours contracts, temporary contracts and freelancers, always from the point of view of a particular business and its workers: a kiosk that depends on the weather, a warehouse facing Christmas orders. Pay questions include short calculations in pounds: basic pay plus commission, a monthly salary, a share of profit divided among the staff. They also name fringe benefits and weigh them against non-financial methods such as training and more responsibility.

The law is kept to what GCSE asks for: the National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage, the Equality Act 2010 in recruitment, and the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, with the focus on their effects on a business rather than legal detail.

The quiz has twelve questions and the flashcards hold the terms. The written work has eight tasks, including calculating pay and then evaluating the method, which is how the longer human resources questions work. In the oral exam the examiner asks one question at a time about invented businesses and ends with short feedback. The material is practice written by Zestly and is independent of any exam board.

• Distinguish a job description from a person specification and explain how each is used
• Choose and justify a selection method for a given job
• Compare full-time, part-time, job-share, zero-hours, temporary and freelance working for a business and its workers
• Calculate pay involving salary, commission and profit sharing
• Evaluate financial and non-financial methods of motivating staff
• Explain the effects of the National Minimum Wage, the Equality Act 2010 and the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 on businesses

Practice material written by Zestly, based on the DfE GCSE subject content for business (December 2015: human resources; legislation) and, for example, AQA GCSE Business 3.2.5, 3.4.2 and 3.4.3 and Pearson Edexcel GCSE Business topics 1.5.3, 2.5.1, 2.5.2 and 2.5.4.