Employment Policies and Practices - Term Paper Example

"Employment Policies and Practices" Table of Contents: Topic Page # Recruitment 3 Selection Process 3 Pre Employment Checks 4 Post Employment Checks 4 Monitoring of Employees 5 Knowledge About Company 5 Employment Problems 6 Employment Termination 7 Improved Employment Practices 8 Bibliography 9 Recruitment: Selection of employees is an important and difficult task. The organization needs to look for those people who can help the organization is attaining their organizational goals. Many organizations, weather it be a government organization, corporate world or a Non Government Organization (NGO) have predefined format of activities for selecting the employees. These activities are called Recruitment and the process is Selection. Selection Process: Many organization before selecting employees, take tests of the applicants of the fields in which they are applying. For example, a person wants a job in bank, the organization take a written test, in which his finance or accounting knowledge would be tested. Once the applicant clears this initial test, the organization goes into the selection process. This selection process, the organization usually comes into the direct contact with the applicants. The organization works on the resume of the applicants, try to get some background information of the applicants, verify their prior qualification, their past experience etc. After this, usually members of human resource (HR) department, takes the interviews of the applicants of the applicants in which they want to look the aptitude of the applicants, their presentation styles, confidence etc. In most of the organizations, interview is the last process, but in some organization e.g. arm forces, there are physical tests conducted to determine the physical and mental abilities and strengths. Once the applicants pass through of these procedures, they are selected as employees in the organization. Pre Employment Checks: One important activity that the organization must perform is to check the applicants past record. This task is not only to check the background information of the applicant, but to check other useful information as well, such as the employee's past report in previous organizations, i.e. is to check weather or not, the employee was fired from the any previous organization on the bases of poor performance, dishonesty or fraud etc. The references of the employees are verified. In most of the government organization, a social security check of the employee is conducted to weather the employee has any criminal record against him or not. If the person is has a clean past record, only then he should be selected. Post Employment Checks: Post employment checks are as important as pre employment checks. These checks include the noticeable change in the lifestyles of the employees, their important financial statements such as income statements, drug usage etc. The organization should make sure that the employees are punctual and giving to their best productivity level. The organization should keep an eye on the activities of the employees, on and off the work. Acquiring help from third party can be useful in these situations and these checks must be perform from time to time. Post employment check is one of the most important part of organization's risk management. If any employee found guilty in any of these checks, the organization must deal the matter seriously and treat the employee according to degree of activity. Monitoring of Employees: Monitoring of subordinates or employees is considered to be as sensitive issue. Monitoring of employees involves ethnicity. It is the right of the managers to supervise their subordinates, but on the other hand, most of the employees complain that they are monitored secretly. There are several ways of monitoring. On of the most common monitoring method is seeing the actions of your employees through surveillance cameras. But this monitoring need constant viewing and is mostly used for the purpose of security, such as any theft. Another monitoring which is usually common in fields in which are in employees are in telephonic connections with the customers, such a call centers, the managers can trace the calls. Similarly there are computerized monitoring, in which managers can look into the screens of the employees and the work they are doing. One is way is through observation of the employees directly in the workplaces. However, there should be a proper monitoring policies regulated in the organizations in which specific monitoring laws should be made, such as managers are not allowed to look into personal belongings of the employees secretly etc. Essential Knowledge About Company: As the employees become older and older in the organization, the more valuable they become for the organization. This is because they have learned so much with the time that their expertise becomes asset for the organization. This is called knowledge asset and at times, is more vital than the tangible asset. Such employees become indispensable employees of the organization, on whom the organization becomes dependent. The organization needs to protect and retain their knowledge assets. The employees should be kept on motivating so that they share more and more of their knowledge. There are two types of knowledge: Tactic and Explicit. Tactic knowledge is one that is in brains and explicit is one that is documented. The organization should try more and more to covert tactic knowledge in document, so that even if the employees leave the organization, their knowledge can use later on. The organization should handle their employees carefully and make it sure that they don't leave the organization and share with the competitors, especially in product development or research and development departments. The organization should be a learning organization, in which the employees keep on enhancing their knowledge. Employment Problems: Managing is the employees is another challenging skill. It is job of the employer to communicate his message clearly to the employee. One of the most common problem dealing with employees is that managers couldn't express the message properly i.e. what they want from the employees, how should employees go about their job etc. Most of the problems occur when employees are assigned tasks, but they are unable to perform because of their incapability. The employees should be allotted to jobs of which they are capable. The Conflicts among co-worker is also one of the issue. Improper monitoring of employee is also a problem. Some employees are not mental strong and are medically or physically not fit. However, it is the role of the manager to understand the issues of the employees and try to handle them efficiently and effectively. Employment Termination: Termination of employees is a very critical process. Termination is not easy process. In order to terminate the employee, the managers or employers needs a solid reasoning for the firing the employee. The managers are not allowed to fire the employees on personal discrimination such as gender, color, aging etc. When hiring the, an agreement should be signed with employees in which terms and conditions of job requirement are mentioned. The employees have their right to take the employers to court if he thinks that his termination is unfair. Termination of a fellow employee greatly affects the co-workers, specially is fired unfairly, the employees become scared, get demotivated and could not work at their full potential. Coordination between HR group and IA group Usually, most of the employees issues are handled by Human Resource (HR) department. If they are in phase of terminating an employee, they should consult with Information Agency (IA). IA is department that deals all the information of the organization, may it be financial, account, sales, employees record etc. So before making any decision of employee, the HR department should carefully examine employee's detail information with IA department. This can be usually helpful when an employee goes to court against the organization. Improved Employment Practices: The employees should be provided with friendly environment where they should feel free to perform their duties diligently without much interference. The employees should be provided with both intrinsic and extrinsic reward so that they more motivated and contribute more to the organization. The employees should be considered as the core of the organization, because if they performance well and produce good products, that will result in attracting of more and more customers and that ultimately leads to the profits for the shareholders. The employees should be trusted and should be given some power to make decision (delegation) and they should be promoted on the basis of their good performance. If these practices will be practiced in the organization, the employees are going to stay in the organization so as their knowledge. Bibliography: Kreitner, Robert., Kinicki, Angelo,. (2004). Organizational behavior.(Sixth edition) New York, NY: McGraw-hill. Jones G.R., George J.M., Hill C.W.L, (1998). 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