Part of a Module in a Business Degree - Assignment Example

?3. Recruitment and Selection is an exercise in Discrimination. Evaluate how ethical and legal principles can enhance the Recruitment and Selection process. To start with, the selection and recruitment processes working within the different organizations of present times are filled with ambiguities. The recruitment and selection procedures start with the relevant department placing a job request for a said position. This then gets an approval from the head of the department as well as the top management concerns amongst the organization. When the approval is sought, the advertisement for this position is given in the newspapers. After the candidates appear for tests and interviews, the best amongst them is chosen for the job under consideration. This person then gets hired with either a contractual job or a fixed one. In essence, the recruitment and selection procedures entail of the different norms that take place from the starting to the finish. The procedures comprise of all the tasks which are deemed as significant in the selection process (Smith & Robertson, 1993). It must be understood here that the selection processes are very cumbersome at times because they involve a lot of thinking on the part of the selection committees within the workplace domains. They have to work towards completion of tasks as well as solve the problems related with hiring the best individual for the said position. It is indeed a headache for some of the organizations in the time and age of today, and quite rightly so, due to a host of factors involved with the eventual recruitment process. Selection procedures include the different selection tools which are the interviews, the exams, the psychological and stress related tests, medical exams and so on. The manner in which these exams and interviews come about depends a great deal on the way the selection processes are aligned within the domain of the organization itself. It is important to understand that not every organization has a similar pattern of hiring individuals for the different positions. These vary greatly in their undertakings, manners in which work gets done and so on. Selection procedures require an immense thinking ideology on the part of the human resources as this department must have the eye to look for talent which can bring about a positive change within the organization (Nelson, 1997). In fact the human resources department has the most important role in the selection process because it has to forward the soundest individual to the top management for the sake of interview, after he/she has cleared the exam and medical test. Hence the ideological basis of the human resources department is of utmost essence within the related scheme of selection processes that work to good effect in producing viable results in recruitment and selection domains. The selection processes work towards building the core competencies of the individuals as well as detailing them with regards to what is deemed as the most significant rationale for the organization with respect to these employees. It is pertinent to understand that these selection processes will bring in the much touted results and there would not be any problems in the wake of hiring the right people for the right jobs. Recruitment and selection are taken of as being the most significant yardsticks for discerning how sound the strategic human resource management will shape up within any organization. What this implies is the fact that reasonably adequate individuals are recruited and selected for the jobs as this shall bring in the goals and objectives which have been envisaged by the organization in the past. There is a great deal of learning which shapes up the strategic human resource management; and how the same is dealt with has to be given proper consideration as well. This is because recruitment and selection matters discuss how well people are suited to perform their jobs and what best they can do to bring out solid results for the sake of the organization that is under discussion. The top management domains have long understood that if strategic human resource management is properly instituted upon, there is no reason why there can be anything missing within the recruitment and selection quarters, and more so when the focus is on doing things in the most appropriate manner and bringing about value for the sake of the organization in the long term duration. However this is easier to suggest here because strategic human resource management requires strict vigilance and control by the human resources management department and the top management within any organization. In essence, any organization would dearly require that its strategic human resource management takes care of the recruitment and selection matters because this is an important provision of value and quality in the form of the employees who are inducted within the organization. Furthermore, the interviews are seen as the most important selection tool because these interviews tell the candidates where they stand within the organizational mix. It is very easy to find out how the candidates will fare once the interview processes are conducted, under the aegis of the selection process. The disadvantages of interviews are that the candidates can become very nervous and thus they are unable to give the exact picture with regards to their abilities. It really is the duty of the interviewer to make the candidate feel very easy during the related process so that the latter could explain his viewpoints and answer the questions as raised by the interviewing party. However one cannot deny the fact that interviews are being seen as the most important tools within the selection processes. Moving on, the exams that are conducted under the auspices of the selection process include the fact that the candidates are asked certain questions which need to be given back in a written form. This means that the questions are given to nearly all the candidates and since the employer does not have the time to interview all the candidates, an exam is a good way of discerning who will be called up for the eventual interview and who will be discarded at this stage. The negatives related with exams are that some individuals might not get the feel of these tests and would thus stumble in a very bad way. Their actual bases of strengths are thus not manifested in a proper sense which is a shame if seen within the related contexts. It is a fact that the interviews and exams are the most workable procedures that are employed in hiring employees in the times of today. Very few people doubt the integrity of interviews and tests because they believe that these procedures give a fair run towards finding out the skills of the candidates. Some organizations require medical examinations and similar physical tests which the candidates have to go through in order to be considered eligible for the eventual interview process. This is because these jobs require a greater deal of vigilance on the part of the employees and hence the candidates are told about the same prior to getting hired at the workplace. This is a novel technique and has started to take place in the last 2-3 decades. The selection procedures for army, the police authorities and the like have regular medical exams which the candidates and later on, the employees need to pass out so that they can be considered eligible for the interview process, and the promotion schemes if they are already a part of the organization for a given amount of time. One must understand that these tools of selection procedures bring in the best that the employees can offer towards the workplace domains. Therefore it is essential that the employees remain steadfast about their dealings and exhibit the best of their abilities and undertakings at all times possible. This will give the organization a great deal of room to showcase its strengths as well as hire the best amongst the candidates who have applied for the said job positions. It is indeed important to ascertain as to what exactly these selection processes would reveal for the sake of the organization in the long run. It would be a given that these selection processes bring out sound results for the sake of the organization but what is most important is the fact that the right people get selected for serving the cause of the organization. This must be a dictum within the related selection processes because at times it has been seen that the workplace dynamics have favored the selection of individuals who are more close to the ones that are already working within the organization. This is a very unjustified process and one that is abhorred by different cross-sections of the society in meticulous. The informal way of selecting individuals for the said positions mean that the organization is doing something that is uncalled for and detested from a very formal perspective (Bierman, 2002). The legal and ethical principles are taken care of within the related discussions of recruitment and selection since discrimination is one tangent that cannot be afforded at any cost. There is the emphasis on doing things right which remains an important undertaking nonetheless. The legal and ethical domains receive attention because recruitment and selection regimes require contractual obligations and a number of legitimate clauses are put within the terms and conditions under which an employment activity takes place. It would be very appropriate on the part of the organization’s human resources department to implement such practices which ask for proper procedures to be employed in the organization, and which make sure that the selection processes are free, fair and without any bias whatsoever. This would mean success for the people who are applying for the positions that have to be filled. Similar is the case with jobs that were advertised for in the past and now the candidates have thronged on to the organization with their respective applications and resumes. To end the discussion, it is important to realize that selection processes have taken the front seat within the related domains of the human resources department. The reason for the same banks on the premise of providing to the organization the people who are experienced, and who bring fresh and invigorating ideas to the organizational proverbial table. The selection processes really depend on the organizations that are making the best use of them. The myth related with these selection processes can be remarked as impartial, rational and effective if the said organizations have a set procedure within them, to come out clean in front of one and all. The element of fairness runs supreme within the institution that is talked about, and there are no two views on this aspect nonetheless. Most of the selection processes are governed in a very legal fashion and hence the element of any ambiguity arising from such procedures is deemed as minimal. References Bierman, L., 2002. Beyond Merit Selection. Fordham Urban Law Journal, 29 Nelson, J., 1997. The Boundaryless Organization: Implications for Job Analysis, Recruitment, and Selection. Human Resource Planning, 20 Smith, M. & Robertson, I. T., 1993. The Theory and Practice of Systematic Personnel Selection, 2nd ed. Macmillan Press Read More