Recruitment and Selection at WWF - Case Study Example

Recruitment and Selection at WWF RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION AT WWF Introduction The World Wildlife Fund is a non-governmental, not-for-profit international organization founded in Morges, Switzerland in 1961, working today in over 100 countries as the largest independent organization for conservation (World Wildlife Fund UK, 2013: p1). With more than five million global members, the organization is dedicated preservation of abundance and diversity of earth’s life forms through delivery of science-based solutions. In addition, WWF is also an actor in combating climate change and environmental degradation with its “For a Living Planet” motto supported by projects around the world. The organization seeks to push for the recognition of the interdependent nature of the environment, wildlife, and people. With over 300 employees around the world, including the UK, WWF has grown in stature around the world, especially due to increased attention on sustainability. In the UK, this expansion has necessitated a move of HQ to Woking from its previous Godalming base. The new HQ, the Living Planet Centre LPC, will enable WWF to interact more with an increasingly interested public with an education suite, an auditorium, and a visitors’ centre (World Wildlife Fund UK, 2013: p1). As part of this relocation strategy, WWF will also seek to merge the communication and fundraising departments, while also dealing with the cultural changes that will accompany this strategic restructuring. This paper aims to report on specific challenges facing WWF with regards to recruitment and selection, as well as to use the findings to provide recommendations for their human resource operations. Strategic Context of Staff Recruitment and Selection WWF strives to ensure that wildlife, environmental, and human needs are taken into account, especially in developing countries. To do this, they utilize scientific knowledge to inform conservation activities by sharing findings with specialists and partners (Powell, 2011: p34). The organization also uses the lessons that it learns from conservation activities as case studies to offer feedback for future conservation models, especially through horizontal transfer of best practices through encounter promotion among its partners and peers. In order to undertake the challenging task of conservation, WWF also recognizes the importance of alliances and stakeholder coordination, which allows them to intervene, at numerous levels, to support international, national, and local interventions from regional perspectives. In doing this, it is the organization’s plan to respond with flexibility and dynamism in the face of emerging opportunities and threats. These plans and activities are evaluated for performance and achievement through success indicators. WWF seeks to conserve biodiversity by ensuring that there is appropriate valuation of natural ecosystems, which must then be integrated into sustainable development. They also aim to improve the livelihoods of those living in direct contact with natural resources, as well as to inform consumers about appropriate practices from both public and private sectors with regards to the environment (Powell, 2011: p35). Finally, WWF also advocates for policies that account for sound principles of environmental conservation through the enhancement of environmental capacity and skills among future and current leaders. The organization has to maintain the reputation of its brand name in order to carry out the above strategies successfully. For WWF, this is especially important due to the fact that it is an umbrella organization that has independent subsidiaries sharing the same name, rather than the same conservation campaigns and fundraising projects (Powell, 2011: p38). Therefore, any of its independent operators around the world, including WWF UK render it susceptible to reputation damage, especially from the actions of its employees. The separation of WWF into international branches with independence, while still sharing the internationally renowned brand name, means that employees of their affiliates could adversely affect the organization as a whole. In addition, the increased control given to independent affiliates and its staff over financial and operational strategy results in poor oversight over vital campaigns that could affect other affiliates and the global brand, as a result (Powell, 2011: p38). In order to analyze and mitigate the problems that could result from recruitment and selection of staff to their overall strategy better, WWF carries out a training program in Social Science (Powell, 2011: p39). This program encompasses the potential staff for WWF, community members, and partner organizations to increase responsibility of staff. WWF seeks to have staffs that are equipped to examine biodiversity and social threats in all regions through conservative eyes. Because history will always have diverse forms dependent on the person interpreting it, WWF also feels that its staff should have a connection with the local communities since they are equipped to interpret their social condition best. In addition, environmental awareness of its staff is critical, especially during the recruitment and hiring stage. This has become especially important in the past due to such incidents as oil spills, whose consequences were made public through the media. WWF has been around for a while, which has meant that its affiliates have been staffed by different generations of employees (Powell, 2011: p39). From the Baby Boomers generation-to-generation X and currently generation Y, needs for the different staff, who want to work for WWF have been affected by what is going on around them, especially economically and environmentally. Recruitment and Selection Challenges Recruitment and selection at WWF, as with most international not-for-profit NGOs, is a crucial element of HR development, as are the expertise and quality of the staff. WWF, especially in developing countries, has been faced by various challenges. Organizations conduct both internal and external recruitment and selection depending on the available expertise (Riggio, 2009: p43). Internal recruitment and selection at WWF involves the filling of vacancies by sourcing individuals who are already with the organization. While this acts as a major motivating factor for WWF, it does have several challenges. First, the organization has a higher proportion of male staff than female staff, which means that it is difficult to address this issue if only those in the organization are considered. In addition, staff recruited and selected from within WWF is less likely to introduce any changes in strategy and skill levels. In short, they will most likely maintain the status quo as it was. In cases where the organization needs to adapt to changing social, economic, and environmental conditions, this may hinder their advancement and growth (Riggio, 2009: p43). Finally, by promoting specific individuals from within WWF, there is a risk that other staff members will feel left out. This is especially so where the staff member recruited and selected, despite high expertise, has not been with the organization for long. While this could demoralize and upset the other long serving staff, it could also cause a decrease in productivity, and performance. Where WWF does not have the required expertise to fill a position, they turn to external recruiting and selection. This involves hiring of people from outside the organization to fill vacant job positions. Organizations normally turn to this method when they are starting new operations or when reacting to emergent situations within the countries they operate (Herriot & Drenth, 2013: p46). This works to bring in additional skills, ideas, and experience to counter challenges in the external environment that the organization cannot deal with using present staff. However, this is also challenging for WWF in that the process is too expensive, especially in developing countries like Kenya and Tanzania where local media charge more for international NGOs at the behest of their governments. In addition, unlike current staff, WWF does not know about the competency of individuals they hire. While these individuals may have the required qualifications, they may not be as productive (Herriot & Drenth, 2013: p46). In addition, they may not be well versed in the philosophy at WWF and could cause tensions within the organization. When WWF is required to respond to emergent environmental and social crises, they must make important decisions regarding their programs’ staffing profiles. These decisions could include whether to manage these programs using expatriate or indigenous staff, bringing in the challenge of just how diverse an organization can become without sacrificing their goals (Herriot & Drenth, 2013: p48). The decision, as to whether to conduct their activities through volunteers, local partners, internal WWF staff, or external consultants is dependent on the nature of the program, and using all at the same time could lead to challenges. It could result in poor cohesion amongst the workforce at WWF itself, especially with regards to consensus concerning crucial issues that pit the organization against local authoritarian governments. Others are the lack of consensus in the INGO sector about the requirements for job roles, as well as individual specifications. This, in turn, curtails the recruitment and selection of qualified members of staff. Also, issues of diversity and the requirement to recruit native nationals increase competition and leads to transfer of qualified and trained staff from one INGO to another (Herriot & Drenth, 2013: p48). Finally, this lack of consensus about universally required person specifications and job roles prove challenging to WWF with regards to hindering staff support and care services, development opportunities, and relevant training since most local staff do not understand the WWF strategy at first. WWF is also faced by the challenge of retaining staff that they have trained because they may prefer to move to private and public sectors, which are in dire need of experienced staff. In addition, these sectors pay better and offer more attractive terms than WWF and other INGOs. This has been a major challenge for WWF with poaching of staff by government conservation bodies. In addition, the financial crisis has not spared NPOs with its staff unsure of job security, especially as funds sources close and they are faced with budget cuts and redundancy (Roberts, 2010: p61). Conversely, this has also made it difficult fro WWF to attract, recruit, and select the best candidates who may already be employed, particularly if it involves taking a pay cut. While there are a lot of experienced environmentalists who may want to join WWF, it is still difficult to find the right people to fill crucial senior positions. The recruitment process at WWF is faced by various issues, including a shortage of personnel who are hands-on in their leadership style and competitive salaries from other NGOs in developing nations that have government sponsorship. Recruiting and selection will continue to be a challenge for the organization if they are not willing to up the stakes with regards to skills training and remuneration. Keeping the balance between not being market driven and paying what is required to get the right people is a difficult task for an INGO like WWF (Roberts, 2010: p63). There also seems to fewer qualified potential staff for recruitment and selection fro WWF and other INGOs to choose from. As the Baby Boomer generation, which has made up the workforce for the last thirty years or so, approaches retirement, the job market has less experienced applicants for recruitment and selection (Roberts, 2010: p72). The current generation of workers might not have the skills that WWF is looking for; especially since the organization was founded, as the baby boomer generation entered the workforce. Once a strong candidate is identified and offered the job, generation Y candidates may still not take up the offer. The main reason for this is remuneration. Recruiting and selection of skilled candidates for WWF and other INGOs may be hindered by competition with other organizations for the same applicants, increasing scope of job roles, and difficulty in getting the personnel with required skill sets for these positions, especially from the local communities (Roberts, 2010: p73). The aging baby boomer generation will especially portend a significant impact on the leadership of INGOs like WWF as executive transition and turnover becomes a reality (Roberts, 2010: p75). In addition, replacing baby boomers in non-leadership positions will also have to contend with new generation Y graduates who have increased education debt levels compared to earlier generations. Since most of the leadership at WWF averages at 40 years of age, the organization will have to deal with turnover as other public and private organizations seek for experienced executives to replace retiring baby boomers. It is expected that at least 65% of executives will leave not-for-profit organizations by the year 2016 (Roberts, 2010: p76), which means that WWF will have to face this challenge sooner or later with regards to recruiting and selecting executives. Whether they turn to internal or external methods will be highly dependent on the availability of the right personnel. Recommendations One way, in which WWF can counter the challenges, it faces concerning its recruiting and selection is to play on their mission statement. As with other not-for-profit organizations, WWF must not simply rely too heavily on funding to attract the right employees. Studies have concluded that the mission statement is important for not-for-profit organizations, especially in attracting the correct candidates, finding that helping others and being in a position with social meaning does make a difference in attracting serious applicants from the environmental sector (Lussier & Hendon, 2013: p55). By ensuring that their mission statement is clear and known, WWF can then embark on recruiting and selecting candidates that are aligned with the organization’s purpose. These candidates should be the ones targeted when WWF seeks to carry out external recruiting and selection through advertising new vacancies. Changing its name to World Wildlife Fund for Nature also saw the organization tweak its mission statement. In this case, it is important to link its new statement of purpose to the organization’s mission. This is crucial for the staff already in the organization to stay on and be available for internal recruiting and selection. If these changes are not managed carefully, organizations risk losing out on their talented staffs who do not feel attached to the INGO (Lussier & Hendon, 2013: p55), which means they will not be available for recruitment when vacancies arise in executive positions. WWF should also seek to recruit and select community-involved candidates. Research has concluded that almost 40% of those working in not-for-profit organizations were members of a community organization or club (Lussier & Hendon, 2013: p57). While it could not be determined whether their work in these NPOs was determined by their membership to community organizations or vice versa, it is clear that these community organizations worthwhile places to look for candidates for recruiting and selection. Specifically, NPO workers had stronger affiliations with social service organizations than workers in the private and public sectors. Therefore, WWF should seek to partner with these organizations and advertise opportunities and vacancies on their database, newsletters, and websites. This way, they can increase their candidate and skill pool, while also recruiting and selecting, those who share in their purpose and mission. In addition, majority of NPO employees prefer to stay within the NGO sector, which means that using media platforms regularly used by those already employed by NPOs will increase their skills pool should they decide to recruit externally (Lussier & Hendon, 2013: p58). WWF should also seek to appeal more to women. Most of those employed in NPOs, especially environmentally oriented ones like WWF are women (Lussier & Hendon, 2013: p66). Therefore, the HR department at WWF that is tasked with recruitment and selection should seek to promote the women already working at WWF. In addition, external recruiting and selection should consider advertising job positions in women-friendly media platforms. Women also offer competitive benefits to the NPO by helping them to attract other employees, including flexible work schedules, sharing of tasks, and childcare (Lussier & Hendon, 2013: p66). The latter benefit is important for WWF since most of its staff have families. WWF could also seek to source volunteers to lighten the load for its employees and allow for internal recruiting and selection. The volunteers can be attracted using the aforementioned attachment to the organization’s mission statement. They may also be offered the chance to mingle with individuals who share the same beliefs in the environment, while also gaining professional and personal recognition and attaining training on the job (Lussier & Hendon, 2013: p72). In addition, the use of volunteers will free up funds that can be used to raise the pay for older generation executives who may be on the verge of leaving for better pay. These volunteers can be sourced from universities and schools as part of service-learning community programs. By recruiting volunteers from educational institutions, WWF can help them apply the knowledge ad skills learnt, while also benefiting from the skills offered by the students (Lussier & Hendon, 2013: p73). Moreover, they could be candidates for internal recruitment and selection. Finally, WWF should also increase its online presence as a way of improving their recruiting and selection. As with most not-for-profit organizations, including WWF, it is possible to source and recruit volunteers and staff from the internet at a much lower cost (Plumbley & Denerley, 2012: p92). Furthermore, it has been shown that most not-for-profit organizations have turned to the internet in their search for volunteers. WWF could follow the example set by the online volunteering program set up by the United Nations, referred to as onlinevolunteering.org. This will allow the volunteers to have more flexibility, especially if they are not based in the same city as the WWF headquarters, which is important because conservation work sometimes occurs in remote areas. It will also permit the volunteers to work remotely from home, increasing their popularity among the tech-savvy generation Y (Plumbley & Denerley, 2012: p92). References Herriot, P. & Drenth, PJD. 2013, Assessment and selection in organizations: methods and practice for recruitment and appraisal. Chichester, England, Wiley. Lussier, RN. & Hendon, JR. 2013, Human resource management: functions, applications, skill development. Thousand Oaks, SAGE Publications. Plumbley, PR. & Denerley, RA. 2012, Recruitment and selection. London, Institute of Personnel Management. Powell, J. 2011, World Wildlife Fund. New York, Franklin Watts. Riggio, RE. 2009, Introduction to Industrial/Organizational Psychology. New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc. Roberts, G. 2010, Recruitment and selection. London, Institute of Personnel and Development World Wildlife Fund UK. 2013, The Conservation and development programme for the UK: a response to the world conservation strategy. London, Kogan Page. Read More