Fresh Perspectives: Human Resource Management - Example

Human Resources The aim of recruitment and selection procedure is to match the skills and capabilities of a prospective candi with the demand of the job. Frequent employee turnover cause a huge cost to any organisation. So, selecting and most important retaining a right candidate is an important task for any human resource department. In this report, last 5 years recruitment process of Pearl & Mutual Benefit Insurance Company has been studies. The positive and negative effect of the current selection procedure has also been discussed to understand the possible causes of the increasing attrition rate. The study has described various loopholes in the graduate selection procedure of the company. These loopholes include biased suggestion of the interview panel on the final selection procedure and absence of any test to gauge the market skills of candidates. Therefore, a newly designed graduate selection process has been suggested to the company and recommendations have been made for the proper execution of the process. As per the recommendation, the company needs to issue a strict guideline for panel interview and should introduce new attributes in the list of required competencies for the candidates. Thereafter, the final screening will include a field assignment for all the shortlisted applicants, which will help the company to evaluate their market skills. Introduction Employee recruitment and selection procedure is one of the essential parts of any organisation. Selecting suitable candidates and retaining them in the organisation is a major task that any human resource department needs to perform very carefully. Absence of skilled employees in any business can adversely affect their profitability and productivity. Therefore, the employee selection procedure should be designed in such a way that it can give maximum benefit to the organisation (Breaugh and Starke, 2000). The discussion of this study is based on the recruitment process of Pearl & Mutual Benefit Insurance Company. The company is following a particular graduate selection procedure for the last five years. They are hiring nearly about 15-20 graduates every year after screening them through 2 major steps of selection procedure as established by the company. However, the company is facing challenges in retaining these new recruits in the system. Their 2014 employee retention report has shown that over 60% of the employees have left the company. The main aim of this report is to assess the positive and negative side of the current recruitment process and to find out the main loopholes in the graduate selection and retention process. Thereafter, a findings summary and strategies pertaining to the betterment of the selection procedure will be suggested. Discussion Designing the employee selection procedure of any company involves various stages which include analysis of the present selection procedure of the company and its positive and negative side, analysis of the current trends of recruitment procedure within the other organisations, understanding the scope of improvement in the current selection procedure and planning and recommendation of the advanced selection procedure (Gilliland, 1993). Positive and negative side of the selection procedure Pearl & Mutual Benefit Company is following a well designed graduate recruitment procedure for last five years. This recruitment process is included in two major steps; first step is a well known General Mental Ability test. And the second step is interview process by a panel of senior management of the company. General mental ability test is considered as one of the prime entrance examinations for recruitment processes which includes the tests of verbal awareness, arithmetic and spatial awareness. This examination is used as the best determining factor for job performances across business industries. This test is one of the important and useful tools of the selection procedure as it allows a proper screening of the suitable candidates. The next step of the selection process is a well structured interview procedure that is conducted by a panel of senior managements. This step involves the competency test of the primarily selected candidates. These candidates are being judged on six behavioural and motivational competences. The company provides proper training to the panel members that help them to properly judge the core competencies of the candidates. Apart from various positive traits, the procedure also has some loopholes in the structure and the execution. The competency framework for the interview process is very general and the score card is not properly designed as per the requirements of the specific job role. The final selection procedure is supposed to follow the individual score card of the candidates as per the competency test. The review of the selection procedure shows that the senior management in the recruitment panel imposes their perception about the candidates rather than following the competency score procedure as per the guidance. This biased score procedure is hampering the effectiveness of the selection of new employees. The current selection procedure is not involved with any test or assignment that can help the organisation to understand the market skills of the candidate. It only focuses on the theoretical skill of the candidate. The company is not offering proper induction and training program for the new joiners to improve their skills as per the job and company requirement. This results in low performance of the employees which leads to frustration among the new joiners. This incomplete selection procedure prohibits the company to find out the right candidates and it also affects the performance of the selected employees. Academic Input of the recruitment theories and current practices The main aim of any recruitment and selection procedure is to identify the potential employees who will fit well with the job culture of the hiring organisation. It also focuses on matching the skills and attributes of candidates against the demands and rewards of the given job (Heraty and Morley, 1998). An effective management can be created by Proper recruitment and selection procedure (Ahmad and Schroeder, 2002). Various organisations fail to hire the right skilled employees as per the job requirement. This can hamper the productivity of the organisation. Organisations need to have a clear perception of required skills and competencies which are needed for the organisational growth. This will help them to guide the recruitment panel to hire the right candidate (Bergwerk, 1988). Various guidelines have been implemented and followed for effective and fair recruitment and selection possess. It also ensures that the organisation is appointing the best candidate for the post (Heraty and Morley, 1998). Researchers have shown that bias and discrimination during any interview procedure directly affects the quality of the appointed candidates and their job performance. Recruiters tend to miss out the appropriate candidates with right skills due to the discrimination regarding gender and culture (Brink, Brouns and Waslander, 2006). The recruitment process starts with analysis of the job post, creating the job description and understanding required person specification. Each candidate must meet all the essential requirement of the job role. The main selection procedure includes short listing of candidates through different types of aptitude tests, planned interview process and other assessment methods as per the nature of the job role. Thereafter, it is followed by a crucial screening process according to the core requirement of the offered job responsibilities. The selection process ends with appointing right candidate as per the result of the test and interview process and providing them proper induction and adequate training for the position (Huselid, 1995). Recent literature about personnel management has described the necessity of recruiting any candidate who is focused towards the goal of the organisation. Researchers have highlighted that most of the firms require adaptable people who can adjust themselves quickly to the changing needs of customers and operational structure of the company (Burack and Singh, 1995). Organisational examples Various leading organisations follow a particular selection procedure and they reform it time to time for the best results. For instance, the recruitment process of UCL, a manufacturing company, ensures the selection of the best suitable employee recruited on merit and they also ensures that the entire process is free from any bias and discriminatory activities. The recruitment cell thoroughly monitors every level of the process and its outcome. In this recruitment process the human resources department forms different panels of management for different job vacancies so that the screening process is done by the managers of that particular department. UCL ensures the uniformity of interview process by applying Interview Panel Act. As per the act each and every panellist need to take notes during the interview about the knowledge, skills, experience and abilities of the candidate (UCL Human Resources, 2014). Fujitsu Services has moved towards more competency based approach in case of their recruitment process. This competency based interviewing encourages candidates to give examples of real life situations rather than any hypothetical answer. Competencies those are used by Fujitsu to assess a potential staff are leveraging expertise, thinking strategically and changing and improving with requirement of customers. West Dunbartonshire Council, UK also follows a clear list of essential and desirable criteria for right candidates to select any new employee (Evans, Glover, Guerrier and Wilson, 2007). Technical test is very important for the selection procedure of Microsoft. This test is followed by two or more rounds of thorough interview process (Evans, Glover, Guerrier and Wilson, 2007). Various examples of leading organisations indicates that following core competencies, minimizing bias and clear understanding of essential criteria helps companies in their selection procedure. Conclusion The in-depth study of the company’s current selection and recruitment practice and different practices of various other organisations indicates that the revised selection process of Pearl & Mutual Benefits Insurance Company should follow three major objectives. The primary objective for the revised selection process would be restructuring the list of competencies as per the requirement of the job role. They also need to abolish the biasness of the panel members in the final score cards of the candidates. Finally, they need to provide assignments to the applicant to understand their market skills. Recommendation The recruitment cell of Pearl & Mutual Benefits Insurance Company needs to restructure the critical competencies of the applicant as per the job category. As an insurance company, they should include competencies such as problem solving, leadership, result oriented, consensus building and business acumen in their critical skill list. The written test must be designed in such a way so that it encourages applicants to provide real life and organisational examples for any question. The rules of scoring the applicants as per their interview process should be strict. Panellist need to quote reasons of the score they have provided for each category. This will help the recruitment body to understand the originality of the score It will also help them to give feedback to the candidates if required. Different panel must be created as per the requirement of different department. These panels should include managers from particular department for the ease of the candidate analysis process. Final selection of any candidate will depend on the successful submission of an assignment which will help the panel to understand their marketing skills. A recommendation of field assignment has been made to evaluate the market skill of the applicants. The completion of this assignment will require 2 days and each candidate will be provided with the compensation for their field study in exchange of evidence. This will help the company in their final screening of the eligible candidates. Selection processes Time frame Resources General Mental Ability Test One day A panel of four members will be selected to monitor test. A budget of $2000 will be allocated for the test materials. Panel Interview 2 days Minimum two senior managers from every department will be selected for the panel interview. Field Assignment 2 days Two personnel will be appointed to monitor the field assignment. The study of last 5 years recruitment process has given them an understanding that which traits and competencies are missing from the selected candidates. It gives them the ability to redesign their competency framework with the missing traits. The company has already built panels for interview processes and they need to reform the guidelines for the scoring systems of the panel. The successful implementation of this newly designed recruitment process will help the company to select and retain the right skilled candidates for the job role. Reference List Ahmad, S. and Schroeder, R. G., 2002. The importance of recruitment and selection process for sustainability of total quality management. International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, 19(5), pp. 540 – 550. Bergwerk, J., 1988. Recruitment and Selection for Company Culture. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 3(1), pp. 9 – 15. Breaugh, J. A. and Starke, M., 2000. Research on employee recruitment: So many studies, so many remaining questions. Journal of management, 26(3), pp. 405-434. Brink, M. V. D., Brouns, M. and Waslander, S., 2006. Does excellence have a gender? Employee Relations, 28(6) pp. 523 – 539. Burack, E. H. and Singh, R. P., 1995. The new employment relations compact. Human Resource Planning, 18, pp. 12-19. Evans, C., Glover, J., Guerrier, Y. and Wilson, C., 2007. Effective Recruitment Strategies and Practices. [pdf] Roehampton University, London. Available at [Accessed 22 December 2014]. Gilliland, S. W., 1993. The perceived fairness of selection systems: An organizational justice perspective. Academy of management review, 18(4), pp. 694-734. Heraty, N. and Morley, M., 1998. In search of good fit: policy and practice in recruitment and selection in Ireland. Journal of Management Development, 17(9) pp. 662 – 685. Huselid, M. A., 1995. The impact of human resource management practices on turnover, productivity, and corporate financial performance. Academy of management journal, 38(3), pp. 635-672. UCL Human Resources, 2014. Recruitment and Selection Policy. [online] Available at [Accessed 22 December 2014]. Bibliography Kleynhans, R., Aswegen, S. V., Markham, L., Meyer, w. and Kleynhans, R., 2006. Fresh Perspectives: Human Resource Management. South Africa: Pearson Sims, H., 2005. Human Resource Planning. United kingdom: Select Knowledge Limited. Read More