The Recruitment Challenges of Black CAP - Case Study Example

 The Recruitment Challenges of Black CAP Introduction The aim of the Black CAP is to reduce the prevalence of HIV/AIDS among Toronto’s black communities. Given that the organisation is a non-profit organisation, it is apparent that several challenges face it. One of the eminent ones is the issue of recruitment. This becomes a major issue of concern especially because the organisation deals with a disease that people do not like being associated with both the workforce and the society as a whole. With such deliberations on discrimination, the organisation finds it difficult to find competent individuals to work for it. Recruitment challenges Part time jobs According to Bradshaw (2007), in any profession, employees are attracted to work for an organisation that can guarantee full time job.1 This way, employees are assured of job security and development in their course of employment in the organisation. With this in mind, Black CAP employs individuals to work for it on a contract basis, which is a part time job that lasts for three to five years. In this regard, the organisation has a challenge of hiring people that wish to work on a part time basis. In fact, studies have documented that most of the people that work on a part time basis lack the necessary skills, experience and competence that can foster organisational growth (Allen 2008). This is attributable to the idea of lack of full time job that can lock such people from acquiring skills and experience obtained by people employed permanently through training and development and other incentives accrued from long term employment.2 Therefore, Black CAP may end up only hiring desperate employees that have failed securing job in other organisations and decide to work in any organisation under any working conditions provided by the organisation. Besides, Kim (2006) noted that owing to the fact that the employees know that they would not be working for the organisation for a long time, employees can lack the required motivation to keep them productive to bring change to the organisation.3 Yudhvir (2012) argued that there are many incentives that help improve the morale of workers including non monetary benefits.4 One of these incentives is the assurance of the employer to employee that he has a permanent job that he can rely on. This way, the employee is motivated to work hard to produce top results for the organisation.5 Competition with private and public sectors Since Black CAP is a nonprofit organisation, its remuneration package for its employees is much far less than that of private and public sectors. Therefore, the organisation is faced with the challenge of attracting proficient employees who would wish to work in organisation where they are remunerated well (Chaudhary 2012). Good salary has been found to attract new employees to organisations that offer such incentive.6 Very few employees would wish to work in organisations that pay their employees low wages. Such organisations can only get unqualified or individuals with little experience. Therefore, the cost of making the employees resourceful to such an organisation is usually high. This is because the organisation has to bring in new measures of improving its employees performance and as Iqbal (2012) pointed out, training and development programs become indispensable and could cost the organisation more resources.7 Even when Black CAP would get employees ready to work with its low wages, it is apparent that the organisation would need to channel other efforts such as increase supervisory work to supervise the new employees since most of the lacks the experience. Thus, some people in the organisation would need to work extra harder to meet the demand of the supervising the new employees. This is what actually happened to Executive Director Shannon Ryan who had to dedicate most of his time supervising new employees instead of concentrating on improving the organisation performance. Hiring HIV/AIDS employees Discrimination of HIV/AIDS applicants and existing employees has been experienced in many organisations. As such, Black CAP has endeavoured to hire people with HIV/AIDS to work for it. Although this can be viewed to the right move by the organisation, there are several disadvantages attached to it. For instance, according to Koehler (2010), it is apparent that people living with HIV/AIDS that are discriminated against by other organisations lacks the necessary experience that they would have otherwise received in their career.8 Therefore, these people would require extensive training and development to provide the desired results. In addition, the organisation has an extra mandate of offering counseling and guidance services to such employees in the bid to encourage them and let them view life in a positive way (Scotta 2011). Therefore, the organisation has to have extra positions created to take care of such special needs to the employees.9 In addition, Black CAP also employs new immigrants that find it difficult securing job. This means that the organisation would be dealing with people that lack the experience and suffering from different psychological and social problems as a result of trying to cope with the new environment. In fact, this means that these new immigrants could be employed by Black CAP as their first employer to them. Therefore, they have to first familiarise themselves with the new working environment as opposed to the previous workplace they might have had in their place of origin. Impact of the challenges on the strategic issues of Black CAP Due to different challenges facing Black CAP as discussed above, one of the eminent issues is that the organisation had to have extra costs of creating new position that would help executive director (ED) in managing the employees. For instance, the position of program director was created. In a broader sense, this made the organisation have extra cost of paying the program director. It is correct to argue that were it not because of the mentioned challenges, Black CAP would have grown further and be able to extend its services to a wider region. For instance, since the organisation employs people on a part time basis, it may not be in a position to employ many employees and it would have wished.10 In a broader sense, this has blocked the organisation from growing at a faster rate, something that would have led its funders to increase the funding limits (Rodrigoa 2010). With many employees, the organisation could have grown bigger thus attracting new funders as well as well wishers. It is also evident that part time employees cannot maximize their efforts to Black CAP. This is because they know that Black CAP is not their place since they are required to leave after a short period of their contract time. After employees leave Black CAP, there is also a challenge of trying to fill in their positions and even when they are hired; it takes some time to train them. Supervision is intensified, something that means that supervisors have to work extra hard. This ends up affecting their performance (Jehanzeb 2012). It has been documented that overworking employees leads to low performance.11 This is because employees feel exhausted and tired. Given that Black CAP is a nonprofit organisation, it might be tricky for the organisation to pay them extra money for the extra work done. Therefore, this ends up discouraging them. Conclusion With many deliberations on the recruitment challenges facing Black CAP, it is apparent that organisation need to consider some factors that would enable it to overcome the challenges. However, this should go in line with the mission and goals of the organisation. Strategic plans on how to overcome the challenges should be well articulated upon and well thought of to avoid conflict between the strategies and the mandate of the organisation. Several other nonprofit organisations are known to have little challenges regarding recruitment. This means that Black CAP can also be able to perform like those other organisations, but only if the organisation dedicate itself in implementing the below recommendations. Recommendations Black CAP should diversify its operations Studies have documented that organisations that need remain relevant must ensure that they do not employ excess employees. The number of workers should be proportional to the services offered by the organisation.12 However, for any organisation that would wish to grow, it is critical to diversify on its operations thus requiring more employees (Fishel 2008). In the case of Black CAP, the organisation has not diversified thus does not need more employees and even the current ones do not have to be hired on a permanent basis. Therefore, to eliminate the issue of employing employees on a part time basis, Black CAP must think of diversifying its operations in order to attract more grants and funding. In turn, this will ensure that the organisation would have enough finds to cater for the services it offers and the salary of the employees. This way, the organisation will be in a position to attract more efficient and experienced employees since the reputation of the organisation in regard to remunerating employees well. All inclusive opportunities As much as the organisation would be willing to assist individuals that have been discriminated in the job market such as HIV/AIDS and new immigrants, it would be necessary for the organisation to consider employing people of all walks of life. In another dimension, the reputation of the organisation can also be affected by the fact that people would start viewing the organisation as an employment hub of rejected people. At the end, the organisation might face the wrath of rejection by qualified employees who would not wish to work with an organisation that is considered to only employ incompetent people (Lazarevski 2008). This argument is true because many people like working in organisations they believe has competent employees that would inspire them to grow.13 Therefore, as discussed earlier, Black CAP must diversify its operations for it to grow to such a position that would enable it to employ every member of the community including experienced and competent employees. When such a position is realised, the organisation can then be able to equalise on the number of employees to employ including the discriminated individuals. Review decision making Many organisations that are known to have succeeded in their performance, decision making and its processes is critical. For instance, studies have documented that organisations that include employees in their decision making have higher chances of recording improvement compared to those that do not. For instance, Black CAP may decide to involve its employees on the issues of decision making of the organisation especially on recruitment issue. The employees might come up with recommendations that would help the organisation improve on such an area (Hart 2008). Employees are motivated to work in an organisation that engages them in the decision making.14 This is attributable to the idea that the employees feel part of the organisation and would do everything possible to find solutions of the challenges facing the organisation. Improve the employee motivation incentives There are many ways through which organisations can increase performance by motivating employees. Although Black CAP has nonfinancial incentives, it would be essential for the organisation to consider diversifying the incentives in order to comprehensively motivate employees. When employees are motivated, the reputation of the organisation is built since the employees would talk good things about the organisation. Thus, the organisation stands a chance of attracting more competent and experienced employees to work with it. However, this can only be realised if the organisation has diversified its operations that would increase its economic base as a result of increased funding and grants. The diversification can also take the form of empowering HIV/AIDS affected people to an extent of giving them some financial assistance that would enable them start businesses that can help them support their families. Of course, such an initiative needs a wider view of its operations (Landskroner 2002). This means that with the help of well wishers and other funders, the organisation can be giving some money to the affected people, but return at a given time with a small interest. Such an interest can be used to reach more people and also support other programs as well as enable the organisation to pay its employees well so as to compete with other employees from private and the public sectors.15 This way, the organisation can in many ways overcome the recruitment challenges. Bibliography: Allen, Matthew. 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