Recruiting People to the Organization in New Zealand - Essay Example

Recruiting People to the Organization For any company to succeed, it is essential to manage human resources effectively, and for a company to be the best, it needs to employ the best talent. Hence it is imperative to have a strategy of selection and recruitment that lays focus on efforts to attract, develop and retain the work force. If the recruitment process in an organization is done in the right spirit, it becomes a significant investment and boon for the company and if done ineffectively it can become the start of a string of recurrent problems to the detriment of both employers and employees. Hence the relationships of employment must start on the right footing. Recruitment is described as “the set of activities and processes used to legally obtain a sufficient number of qualified people at the right place and time so that the people and the organization can select each other in their own best short and long term interests”. For Human resource professionals, recruitment is the most challenging task since the organization’s performance is dependent on the effectiveness of recruitment exercises. Hence organizations consistently strive to hire the best available talent for their functions. Essentially a recruitment strategy can succeed only if it is well planned and effective enough to attract the maximum number of qualified candidates for the job vacancy. In New Zealand, The Employment Relations Act provides for the maintenance of mutual trust as a basic requirement to build a strong foundation in the relationship between employer and employee. There are other legislations also in the country such as the Human Rights and Privacy Act that provide for the rights and obligations of employers in maintaining harmonious relations in the work place. It is essential that all legislations and rules in regard to employment be followed strictly in New Zealand as the government is a strong advocate of employment and human rights, especially in view of the large number of immigrants on whom the economy is highly dependent. All organizations must realize that a good employment relationship always commences with a recruitment process that fulfills the work requirement of the organization in keeping with the role of employees, which must be taken care of at the time of recruitment. Although employing professionals is not a straightforward and easy process, employers must adopt sensible recruitment principles so as to bring about effectiveness, profitability and growth within the organization. No doubt that employees are always a great asset, it is worthwhile to spend time and effort in adopting the right approach in recruiting them, it is vital for any organization to have professionals with the right skills and technical abilities. The organization must have a well-positioned and specialized human resources process in place to facilitate effectively the entire recruitment exercise. To make the recruitment process result oriented, induction programs in keeping with the professional requirements of the staff must be organized so as to keep them abreast of the expectations of the organization as also the innovations taking place in the market for the products in question. If people who are not rightfully suitable for the job are recruited, it may lead to recurrent employee turnover and thus increased costs and lesser employee motivation, which adds to the cost for the company and hence lower profitability. Moreover there will be a tendency for them to be discontented and they will not be able to give their best efforts thus making them vulnerable to reduced job security and uncertainty in terms of their expectancy from the organization. Such people will never be flexible and will shy away from professional commitment. Hence it is imperative that HR managers make efforts in making the recruitment process systematic as also in assessing the caliber and skills of candidates in relation to their suitability for the job. However most of the recruitment exercises can be simple if all the stages are handled in right earnest and adapted and monitored in keeping with the past experiences. The exercise has to be cost effective in adopting the required methods and in sourcing the right people. It has to be fair and effective by way of soliciting the right number of suitable candidates and ensuring that all decisions are made only on merits. Indeed, in the present time of severe competition prevailing not only in the market for goods and services, but also in the market for professionals who are often very difficult to get in terms of the matching profiles, a very well planned strategy needs to be adopted to get the best talent amongst professionals, who will eventually be the force behind the company’s success in the coming times. To attract the best talent, a case has to be first made for them to show case the company as being comparable with the best in terms of quality of job, salaries and growth opportunities. To make a successful professional switch from one job to another it is essential that he be given the vision that his career will be long term and that there will be no basis to judge his caliber or performance only in the short period. The organization has to prove to the candidate that the opportunities placed before him will be real and much better than what the competition offers, otherwise suitable professionals will never be attracted. Hiring the best people must be made a measure of performance for the HR managers who will justify the facts in relation to the objectives of performance set before them. Lot of time has to be spent with the candidates to know them better and to ultimately judge them in relation to the role that they are slated to occupy. This may involve spending time with them over lunch or at parties thrown in their honor. Ultimately it is the collective effort of the HR and the departmental heads to usher in talent that is in keeping with the expectations of their roles. Surely lot of time has to be invested in this process by the HR managers failing which the target of hiring good professionals will never be met successfully and goals of the organization will remain unrealized. Additionally the employer must be aware that he is responsible legally to ensure that there is no exploitation and discrimination on the basis of race, sexual orientation, age, religion and disability. Law in New Zealand requires that there be equal opportunities in the selection process and in this context training and measures to uplift the under privileged strata have to be provided for. In this regard, in a middle sized organization, where speed is very important in making decisions, a typical recruitment model in keeping with present trends requires significant contribution from the HR, in that recruiters must be aware of the market for professionals in view of the shortage in skills. It is essential that organizations must plan their requirements for professionals in a way that supply matches the demand by taking proper stock of the areas where talent is lacking and then moving ahead with the recruitment process. A human resource plan needs to be chalked out that assesses future recruitment needs, formulates training programs, provides for career development and takes appropriate action to avoid redundancies within the organization. The skills of professionals have to be developed to meet the constantly changing requirements and measurements have to be taken to ensure that salaries remain competitive. The management must provide for the human resource provisions, which should be as far as possible acceptable to trade unions and representatives of professionals. The plan also entails ascertaining the requirement of professionals in keeping with the business aspirations of the organization and the availability of matching people for such roles. Hence the organization must determine its Human Resource requirements and formulate the descriptions of the positions for which recruitment is to be made so that candidates are clear about job roles and specifications. It is essential to develop an effective strategy for recruitment, which will involve the screening of resumes, and then preparing for the interview process. Conducting interviews is a very specialized exercise and must be performed in the spirit of extracting the most talented professional. The recruitment process further includes selecting and hiring the successful candidates and then implementing the company’s human resource strategies. The recruitment process requires ascertaining the details of the job function and whether the job objective will be fulfilled in the face of changed technologies and introduction of new products. A good description of the job specifications always helps in attracting the required talent. The search for talent has to be done in a way that the best responses are received at the least cost. The prime objective is to get a wide choice of good professionals by using options of internal recruitment, getting short listed candidates from data bank of the New Zealand Department for Works and Pensions and trained professionals from the Learning and Skills Council. Another option is to utilize services of reputed recruitment companies that specialize in specific job traits, and executive search companies that work towards providing top management candidates and specialists in different areas. The option of advertising in leading newspapers is costly but normally results in good candidates responding; especially those who are currently in search of jobs for immediate employment. In comparison there are professional magazines and journal that are less costly but they reach out to a limited audience and will attract response only from such readers thus not providing full coverage of the available talent pool. Sometimes a very effective tool in this regard can be the publicity of a particular vacancy by word of mouth amongst the target specialists, which proves to have a personal touch and ushers in a sense of trust and belongingness amongst candidates and employers. It is however essential that while engaging in the recruitment process, a company must abide by and adhere to the regulations of the New Zealand government in regard to the handling of immigrants who comprise of a large percentage of professionals employed within the country. As per the Asylum and Immigration Act of 1996 every employer is responsible to ensure that all employees must have permission to work in the country failing which it will be treated as criminal offence and employer held responsible for the same. The Police Act of 1997 provides for a thorough criminal record check of new appointees, which is made convenient by using the Criminal Records Bureau. Once the broad list of candidates found suitable for the position is prepared, the employer can use a variety of methods to adopt in the selection process of professionals. These may include practical and psychological tests; interviews, group discussions, assessment measures, and role-play exercises. To judge the adaptability of a candidate to the required position the employer must use all available options exhaustively to get the best fit for the job. In addition to the academic and specialized credentials a candidate is required to have for the given position, he must invariably exhibit personal traits that make him a class apart especially at a time when there is talent crunch. It is also important that companies source candidates on the basis of their personal traits matching with the culture of the company so that values and cultural norms are similar and internal conflict is avoided. If a company can recruit its personnel entirely on the basis of their matching its cultural value systems, there will be no reason for trade union and labor conflicts occurring in the company. A fashion company on a recruitment drive should first outline the core competency as being those that primarily match its fashion culture by way of having the matching attitude and value systems, and academic and professional aspects can be considered along side. This way companies can identify unique sources of recruitment such as campus recruitments and visits to fashion schools so that their requirements are satisfactorily met from these sources. The candidate should as far as possible, have a positive and optimistic attitude towards life issues and should be dashing to take on the challenges of life. The potential hire should be able to laugh easily and not be rigid in getting through his opinion and must display the organizational interest as being top in his priorities. During the interview, attempts should be made to see whether the candidate has requisite communication and decision-making skills in keeping with the expertise expected from a professional of high caliber. The candidate should have the ability to train and develop his subordinates and must exhibit exceptional leadership skills, which are essential to motivate a team of workers entrusted with pursuing corporate goals. The interview is a strong means to judge the candidate’s ability to take initiatives on his own for the furtherance of corporate goals as also to judge his planning skills by confronting him with typical issues related to his area of work. He must be able to display that he is able to maintain positive and harmonious relationships within the working group and amongst his team, and corroborate skills pertaining to the quality of his work. During the interview the candidate should be able to demonstrate a high quality of work related skills as also the awareness of health, environment and safety issues in the work place. There are certain aspects of the culture of a company that need to be highlighted which can prove to be a major factor in attracting, selecting and retaining good talent within the organization. Since every person relates to the world with his own values, it is logical to infer that professionals will more likely prefer staying in a company which positively addresses and appeals to their value system in regard to the prevailing work culture. Hence to attract talented candidates the company culture has to be perceived by candidates as being similar to their preferences and beliefs. For the company to succeed, its philosophy must be supported by majority of the employees and be perceived in a positive tone by employees. Hence it makes sense to identify the aspects of the company culture that are different from those of others and highlight them in the viewpoint of candidates. Basically the unique practices, beliefs and prevailing systems within the company need to be identified. This is done by reviewing the vision and mission statements and company literature and website that give an indication of making it unique from others. This way the company can easily identify a few attributes that sets it apart in having a culture that positively appeals to the value systems of several talented professionals who will show their intention of working with the company. The company may be having a structured or bureaucratic system of working; it may be having a system that is adaptive to changes or maybe reactive to them. It could be characterized by a system that is either focused on results only, or could be adopting an evaluative approach in making decisions. However, whatever may be the circumstances, they can always be presented and molded in a manner that they convey a positive culture depicting the company in high vale and esteem. Once such attributes have been identified, they can be incorporated in the strategy for recruitment, which will be viewed by candidates as positive company policies that facilitate retaining and developing of such core competencies that can be embraced by all professionals so as to make a good career in the company. The company should never recruit people on the basis of false claims of having particular cultural attributes, for then the professionals will not succeed on account of incompatibility and will ultimately leave. It is always better to recruit only those people who are found to be fitting into the culture of the company but this is not necessary when the required work is for a specific time period or for a specific task. Work culture can also be ignored if the professional is likely to work in an environment that is entirely separate from the entire working systems of the company, say at a different location. The employer must ensure that there is no contradictory or conflicting culture within the company. References are fine but they should not be relied upon too much since it is well known that lots of good references are given to dump employees to seek other openings. The employer should always keep an open eye for potential prospects before the actual need for them arises and a data bank of such people should be kept ready to use when the need arises. This certainly saves a lot of time and money as also helps in getting the right candidates at the right time. On the basis of the personal traits and the academic and professional credentials of candidates in relation to the job opening, a decision can be taken for the appointment of the most suitable candidate, and the unsuccessful candidates must be informed accordingly. The selected candidate must give proof of his qualifications, experience trainings and other credentials on the basis of which he staked suitability for the job, and it is considered to be good employment practice for employers to get such credentials checked to set up a healthy trend and practice within the organization. After the necessary checks have been done, an appropriate offer letter outlining the specifications of the job, terms and conditions of employment, pre-conditions and post-conditions, must be sent to the appointee so as to make the employment contract valid by the time he joins his duties. After the candidate accepts the job, it is the duty of the organization to manage his induction into the company in a way that the reputation that he has envisioned remains intact. A good induction will go a long way in making the new professional have a positive attitude about the company and in making him contribute his best. References Adler Lou, How to Recruit Young Professionals, June 2006, http://www.ere.net/2006/06/02/how-to-recruit-young-professionals, Accessed on 9.9.08 Are You an Employer?, http://www.worksite.govt.nz/en/looking-for-staff/, Accessed on 6.9.08 Cook Mark, Personnel Selection: adding value Through People, 2003, Chichester, Wiley Hunt Steven, Culture-Based Recruiting, Part Two: Identify How Your Company Is Different, http://hiring.monster.com/resourcecenter/culture_recruiting_strategy.aspx, Accessed on 10.9.08 New Zealand-Overview, The Times Business Online, http://www.bcglocations.com/newzealand/newzealand_intro.html, Accessed on 06.9.08 Pritchard Christopher, 101 Strategies for Recruiting Success: Where, When, And How to Find the Right People Every Time, Published by AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn, 2006 Proctor and Giles, Recruiting Within the Law, 2003, CIPD, London Richardson Margaret, Recruitment Strategies, Schuler, Randall S.: Personnel and Human Resource Management, Third Edition. 1987. Taylor, People Sourcing, 2005, CIPD, London Read More