Alternative Recruitment Methods in HR Practice - Essay Example

Evaluate alternative recruitment methods,- what level of role should they play in HR practice? Recruitment and selection play highly important role in organisational performance and growth. Recruitment involves requesting professional profiles from potential employees, which will be further screened for suitability within the organisation and role before selecting the candidates for specific jobs. Organisations strive to select the best candidates in the labour market by adopting various approaches that will attract good and talented candidates for the job from which the best will be selected. Organisational recruitment strategies to attract good pool of candidates should be effective in order to obtain access to good candidature profiles (Dessler & Varkkey, 2008). A constant search for the best potential employees has resulted in emergency of a number of different recruitment strategies. Effective recruitment results only from attracting good candidates; hence, the strategies or methods adopted for this purpose need to be efficient enough so that the best candidates are hired (Carlson, Connerley & Mecham, 2006). Besides few standard recruitment methods, most organisations are opting for alternative methods that are more informal in nature. The most widely adopted method is the word of mouth method wherein potential employees apply for jobs by hearing about the job from someone already working in the organisation. Other methods include employing recruitment agents, education liasion, and/or direct selection through walk-ins (Taylor, 2005). Recruitment through word of mouth introduces the organisation to the people that are already educated about the organisation; however, this method reaches a very limited target audience (Taylor, 2005). Recruitment through agents such as government and voluntary agencies, advertising and recruitment consultants, and headhunters can provide sufficient pool of talent; however, these methods could be more expensive, and the candidature may or may not match with organisational requirements. Liasioning with college graduates provides direct access to large groups but the quality of graduates could be questionable; moreover, reputation of the university could be a significant determining factor for quality of candidates. References Carlson, K.D, Connerley, M.L and Mecham, RL. 2002. Recruitment evaluation: The case for assessing the quality of applicants attracted. Personnel Psychology. 55(2): 461-490. Taylor, S. 2005. People resourcing. 3rd ed. London: CIPD Publishing. 2. Why do employers persist with the selection interview when more accurate alternatives are available? Selection interviews are the most widely used methods of selection because of the clarity and simplicity as well as cost-effectiveness. Most organisations do not opt for alternative selection procedures because of their complexity in interpretation as well as costs; usage of alternative methods requires training for the managers or selectors whereas the traditional methods do not require any special training other than understanding the job requirements and matching them with the candidates’ skills. However, research indicates minimal or no correlation between future job performance and selection interview (Lunenburg, 2010). Interviewers do not bother to test the effectiveness of selection interviews. Moreover, managers’ perception of their intuitive abilities rule over structured interview testing; managers tend to have strong belief in their judgmental abilities. Managers believe that selection interviews help to assess the candidates in a variety of situations, which also provides a comprehensive idea of the candidate and his/her fit to the job. Selection interviews do provide opportunities for manipulating the answers by the candidates. Besides these, selection interviews highlight certain skills that may or may not be relevant to the job requirements. Such skills include intangible characteristics such as candidate’s confidence, speaking abilities, positive attitude, presentation, and enthusiasm. Many organisations have understood the drawbacks of selection interviews, and have introduced structured selection interviews that minimize the possibilities of misinterpretation and disturbances caused by general interviews (Dessler & Varkkey, 2008). Yet, selection interviews are considered as the only method of selection and emphasize the significance of interviewers’ training. References Dessler, G and Varkkey, B. 2008. Human resources recruiting and planning. In Human Resource Management. 11th ed. New Delhi: Pearson Education. (Ch.5; pp:169-212). Lunenburg, F.C. 2010. The Interview as a Selection Device: Problems and Possibilities. International Journal Of Scholarly Academic Intellectual Diversity. 12(1): 1-7. 3. Why do performance management initiatives often fail to meet their objectives? Performance management is defined as a strategic and integrated approach to delivery sustained success to organisations by improving the performance of the people who work in tem and by developing the capabilities of teams and individual contributors (Armstrong; 2000 p.1). Performance management is meant to enhance overall organisational performance and sustain a continuous improvement of performance through effective coaching, appropriate performance evaluation techniques, fostering job satisfaction and enhancing overall motivation and commitment of employees. To achieve these, organisations adopt a variety of and combination of tools and techniques that requires costs, involvement and commitment of managers at all levels, appropriate HR practices and policies, and organisational culture and systems that are conducive to effective performance management. Owing to such complex activities involved in performance management, it becomes extremely challenging to establish a sustainable performance management system. Line managers need to be trained to implement performance management tools and techniques. They also need to educate the staff regarding significance and methods of performance evaluation. Performance management initiatives should be aligned to organisational strategies and should be supported by its culture. These initiatives require huge investments in terms of money and time from management. Performance evaluation criteria need to be appropriate with the nature of job as well as aligned to organisational goals. Framing such performance management requires involvement from HR department as well as line management. Achieving such collaboration and understanding has been very difficult, which further complicates the implementation of performance management process (Dowling, Festing & Engle, 2008). Therefore, effective performance management needs to be comprehensive, which is a difficult process and involves time as well as coordination between different departments. References Armstrong, M. 2000. Performance management: key strategies and practical guidelines. 2nd ed. London: Kogan Page Publishers. Dowling, P.J, Festing, M and Engle, A.D. 2008. International human resource management: managing people in a multinational context. London: Cengage Learning. 4. Why is the case that unauthorised absence can be so difficult to manage? Unauthorized absence refers to absence of individuals from work when are supposed to be present. This issue has become a cause for worry for businesses because of various reasons. Unauthorized absence directly affects organisational performance and is therefore considered as one of the functions of performance management. Organisations are focusing heavily on all aspects of their performance and are therefore attempting to improve performance and/or avoid wastage and loss of time. At individual level, unauthorized absence may cause minimal impact on organisation, but at larger organisational level it results in substantial wastage and loss of time. Unauthorized absence causes economic inactivity, which is again loss of revenue for the organisation. Besides loss caused by individuals’ absence, unauthorized absence also hinders work associated with that absent workers’ job; this adds further to the concern. Work burden increases pressure on other workers, and might result in reduced quality of work. Reduction in quality directly impacts organisational performance in terms of costs and reputation. Increased burden on other workers may also result in overtime work and pay. Dealing with unauthorized absence would require disciplinary procedures to be implemented, which affects employees’ morale further lowering their efficiency (Marchington & Wilkinson, 2005). In conclusion, unauthorized absence calls for a host of issues and challenges, which are difficult to handle thereby making it difficult to manage unauthorized absence. The only suggestible solution is to eliminate or minimize unauthorized absence of employees. References Marchington, M and Wilkinson, A. 2005. Human resource management at work: people management and development. 3rd ed. London: CIPD Publishing. 5. Should the HR specialist be concerned with the management of employee turnover? Employee turnover is a serious challenge in contemporary organisations. Employees leave their current employer for various reasons including joining another employer, to pursue other opportunities or for personal reasons. This results in huge loss to the company besides adding additional costs of replacing the employees that left. This loss is higher for employee turnover at higher levels. Various costs associated with employee turnover include management and administrative costs associated with resignation; recruitment and selection of new employees; orientation and training costs of new hires. Employee turnover results in loss of trained employees; and would incur extra costs in training new employees. Secondly, it disturbs the operational performance by lowering productivity and quality. Employee turnover affects other employees’ morale as it leaves a negative feeling for the company. Employee turnover in large numbers can result in loss of business opportunities (Salton & Soltysik, 2007). In order to address employee turnover, HR can contribute significantly by introducing profitable and satisfying HR policies. Though employee turnover is regarded as a voluntary decision of employees to leave the organisation, more often the reasons are also related to dissatisfaction and other reasons with the current employer. This perspective provides opportunities for HR to introduce appropriate policies and practices to reduce turnover. These practices can be related to employee growth and development aspects, pay package, incentives, bonuses etc. It may also be related to stress-free work environment, lively working culture, effective leadership, continuous learning opportunities, and employee reward and recognition programmes. Appropriate match between employees’ capabilities and job requirement can add significant value toward employee commitment to job. In conclusion, HR professionals along with operations managers can add significant value to minimize employee turnover. References Salton, G and Soltysik, R. Retention Management. Journal of Organisational Engineering. Vol.1(2): pp: 1-22. Available from, http://www.oeinstitute.org/joe/Retention_Management.pdf (Accessed April 2, 2011). 6. Is there a conflict between HRM practice and the equality agenda Relate to Guest's model. With an organisational context, equality and diversity perspective involves different HRM practices that promote equality among gender, race, sex, ethnic and social groups and the disabled; yet HR function faces many hurdles in achieving effective diversity management. In general HRM recognizes people as its most important assets and that all people must be given equal opportunity to showcase their talents and should be fairly rewarded for their performance. Guest describes four key roles to HRM that include strategic integration, employee commitment, flexibility and quality. Practical implications of diversity management based on Guest’s model portray opposing facts. For example, the extent of strategic integration achieved between HRM and business strategy is one of the deciding factors of diversity management. This is because the extent of integration depends upon the role of HR function; not all organisations regard their HR as strategic partner. Moreover, most of the organisations do not have a strategic role for HR. for effective diversity management, horizontal integration of support policies would be required. Moreover, HR policies must be comprehensive and should be integrated with other policies related to operations, finance etc. For example, HR policy related to hiring should be supported by efficient training opportunities for all groups equally (Kirton & Greene, 2010). Secondly, HR function formulates policies, which would be required to be followed by the line functions. This creates greater challenge to the line managers because HR policies may or may not be appropriately integrated with line functions. Moreover, the extent of power and responsibility given to line managers in exercising their decision making creates further hindrance in their execution (Greene, 2009). Organisational culture also decides the extent to which diversity management can be practiced. Evidences indicate that most of the top positions are occupied by particular group of population. References Greene, A-M. 2009. HRM and Equal Opportunities. In Wilkinson, A, Redman, T and Snell, S’s The SAGE handbook of human resource management. London: SAGE Publications Ltd. (pp:231-244). Kirton, G and Greene A-M. 2010. The Dynamics of Managing Diversity: A Critical Approach. 3rd ed. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. (Ch.9; pp:225-248). Read More