Increased Competitive Advantage - Essay Example

Running Head: Human Resource Name: Course Code: Institution: Date of Submission: Introduction According to Bach (2005), increased competitive advantage coupled with rapidly changing global environment together with improved technology are the important reasons that put pressure on firms to devise survival measures for recruiting new staff. These measures compel organizations to realize the need for strategic planning for its human resource department. Strategic planning for human resource department links human resource planning in line with the organization’s vision and strategic plan (De Cenzo & Robbins, 1996) ensuring that the organization’s continued growth remains maintained through acquisition of qualified individuals and hiring new staff with high-caliber (Cooper, Robertson, & Tinline, 2003). This brings in the idea and the eventual need for the right recruitment and selection policy for organizations to adopt. However, it is ironic that most organizations still adopt some wasteful approaches in their selection of new staff that see most vacancies being filled up in an unplanned manner keeping in mind whether specific jobs need specific skills or not (Marchington & Wilkinson, 2008). Since poor selection decisions can have some devastating effects for the organization ranging from employee performance to general productivity, it is essential for organizations to recruit and select qualified individuals as its staff. Organizations need to check behavioral traits more carefully during the recruitment and selection process to ensure effectiveness of employee performance and quality management. This makes sure that both the technical and social systems become difficult for organization’s competitors to imitate due to casual ambiguity together with path dependency. This eventually leads to sustained organizational performance over a long period of time (Ahmad & Schroeder, 2002). Furthermore, an effective recruitment and selection process adopted by organizations not only ensures that companies achieves competitive advantage and success but it is also important since new staff are a medium to facilitate the amendment oforganizational cultures as well as presenting managers with the golden opportunity for acquiring new skills (Marchington & Wilkinson, 2008). In addition, poor selection and recruitment process can prove to be an expensive task in relation to retrain poor performers and to recruit new employees in replacement of those who quit their jobs or those previously selected wrongly. In addition, this can lead to redundancy packages alongside loss of potential clients. Therefore, lastly through this study the criticism that wrong and traditional selection decisions such as the classical trio in specific can have will be brought into notice. Overview of the Recruitment and Selection Process A recruitment and selection process refers to a systematic process adopted by organizations to meet their work force needs in the most effective manner possible. Selecting the most qualified individuals ensures the effective continued operations of most organizations. The main purpose of recruitment and selection process as adopted by most organizations is to study personality differences between prospective employees and the way it affects their ability to performance in specific job opportunities (Searle, 2003). According to Armstrong (2006), defining requirements for specific jobs, attraction and recruitment, shortlisting and, selection of new employees remain as the four stages of recruitment strategies as adopted by most organizations. In this case, requirements mean organizational preparations and analysis of job adopted by most organizations to identify the needs of specific jobs. When it comes to recruitment and selection, attraction becomes a medium that enables employees to identify and evaluate sources of applicants keeping in mind that the process of selection is a two -way relationship with the organization having the sole responsibility of deciding who to attract as well as the applicant’s decision on whether to join the organization (Taylor, 2005). Finally, there are numerous approaches of selection and recruitment adopted by most organizations. According to Cook (2004), the ultimate goal for any selection and recruitment approach adopted is to ensure that organizations select qualified individuals to fill up vacant job positions in the organization. Selection: The Classic Trio The classic trio’ is a selection method that contains traditional set of activities applied by various organizations and employers to select new staff to fill up vacant job positions. The traditional sets of activities applied in the classic trio include application form, interview, and reference checking. Although extremely popular in practice, these set of activities attracts a huge criticism from occupational psychologists on the grounds of validity, that is, their accuracy in predicting a candidate’s future job performance is questionable (Beardwell and Claydon, 2010). Validity studies on these set of activities reveal them to be lagging behind and even poorer than more sophisticated techniques such as the modern personality tests and assessment centers believed to be more accurate. Application forms Employers usually use application forms in favor of CVs because they allow them to have an equal comparison of candidates without bias. Along with the specific criteria drawn by the organization, application forms any unforeseen or any possible ‘contamination’ effects and ‘impression management’. For application forms to be most effective, many organizations develop separate application forms for each vacancy advertised. This allows room for the employer to tailor specific questions for specific vacancies available hence collection of information on a specific job. However, employers need to be wary of developing application forms that contain controversial questions perceived as discriminatory or irrelevant questions that does not relate to individual’s ability to dispense the duties prescribed accordingly. Such questions may include race, hobbies, age, and sex among others. Despite their persistency in employee selection, over time critics have come up with various disadvantages of application forms and CVs as a tool for selection. These very critical reasons and disadvantages form the basis of why most organizations nowadays are doing away with the method. The first reason for abandoning application forms is that most candidates seek professionals to prepare CVs and fill application forms for them thus failing to reflect the true presentation skills for the candidate. It is also true that one application form is not likely to be suitable for all job categories, thus information presented may be incorrect, as candidates will tailor the form to meet a certain job requirement (CIPD, 2011). Furthermore, in the case of poorly designed forms, it may be difficult to obtain all the information required while at the same time not presenting applicants with sufficient space for more answers. Finally, the development and dispatching of application forms come with some costs for the organization. This may prove very costly in the entire process of recruitment. Interview In the employee selection process, interview is refers to a process widely used by employers to evaluate and determine suitable candidates for various job positions. During this process of interview, the employer or the interviewer for that matter hopes to determine whether the potential employee is suitable for the advertised job position or not. However, the technique is slowly losing grip in various organizations and especially after considering the many drawbacks that come with it. There is adequate and apparently authoritative research that supports claims that the application of traditional methods and techniques of interview in selection of employees are the poorest predictors of a candidate’s future job performance. In this case, the use of the term ‘traditional’ refers to primarily unstructured interview that advocates for different interviewees asked very different questions. Since the unstructured interview system captures information from different candidates in an unsystematic manner, there is a high possibility for the interviewer to reach varied judgments about the various candidates basing the judgment on different grounds. The poor predictive validity of unstructured interview touches on various aspects of employment (CIPD, 2011). There is a great possibility of expectancy effect due to the undue influence that may arise from positive or negative expectation that an employer expects of a candidate based on his or her CV or in other cases the application form. Likewise, critics argue out that interviews can emphasize on a lot of impressions gained by the interviewer and information brought forward or borrowed from an early interview. This will most likely result in a primacy effect. Stereotyping effect is another major setback of interview as a method of selection. Interviewers may at times assume that members of certain group must possess some specific characteristics typical of them. Saks et al (2006), argues that this may bring in legal complications when interviewer bases judgments on cases of sex, age, ex-offenders, race, and disability along this school of thought. Huffcuff (2011) argues that another important reason why interview is becoming relatively inapplicable by organization is its halo and horns effect. Human resource managers conducting interviews usually reach a general decision of rating candidates as either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ across the board. This will definitely result in poor and unbalanced interview decisions as the degree of ‘goodness’ and ‘badness’ is not easily definable. Furthermore, the negative information effect is a common aspect of interviews as candidates may cheat on their on-job qualifications and experience while interviewers may consider perceived negative points from a candidate than the positive points. The list of these effects is sometimes endless theoretically but the last one worth mentioning is the temporal extension effect whereby an interviewer may have a misguided notion to believe that an interviewee’s behavior such as panic or nervousness during the interview session is typical of his or her usual and general disposition. Having considered the above drawbacks, most organizations are nowadays considering a method of consigning traditional interview approach to the most accessible management dustbin. The most reasonable basis for this idea is that the selection decisions arrived at through this invariably traditional manner are highly infused with subjectivity, displays of cognitive dissonance, and prejudice (Bratton and Gold, 2012). Employment references Principally, this is the final stage in the classic trio selection procedure. Most employees rarely employee reference in the initial selection or to make decisions after an interview, but applied after selection to guide employers to double-check information presented by the candidate and confirm the suitability of their selection. Using employee reference as a tool for selection comes with unprecedented dangers that include subjectivity, bias from an employee’s former employer, a tendency to give ‘good’ ratings or central ratings with the application of a five-point scale, worse, negativity on the part of the former employer (Huffcutt, 2011). This will most definitely result in a reference that strives to confirm the only required basic facts of employment. Conclusion Every organization needs to adopt recruitment and selection approaches that enable them to acquire qualified and competent staff for various job positions. This implies that, the human resource departments in most organizations must develop effective strategies and approaches that bring along effective guidelines on the best selection and recruitment approach. However, this paper sums up the negative impacts of the classical trio approach of selection that involves application form, interview, and reference checking as its core system. There are numerous literatures on the acknowledged fact that most organizations are turning away from the classical trio method of selection and recruitment. Most notably, the ability of the approach to predict the future job performance of an employee is most discussed weakness of the approach. Reference Ahmad, S. & Schroeder, R. (2002). The importance of recruitment and selection process in The sustainability of total quality management'. International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management, 19 (5), p. 540-550. Bach, S. (2005). Managing human resources: personnel management in transition (4th ed.). Oxford: Blackwell. Beardwell, J. and Claydon, T. (2010). Human Resource Management: A Contemporary Approach, (6th edition). Harlow: Prentice Hall, chapter 5 Bratton, J. and Gold, J. (2012). Human Resource Management: Theory and Practice, (5th edition). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, chapter 7 CIPD. (2011). Selection Factsheet. available at www.cipd.co.uk/hrresources/factsheets/selection-methods.aspx Cook, M. (2004). Personnel Selection: Adding Value Through People (4th Edition ed.). Chicester: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Cook, M. (2009). Personnel Selection: Adding Value Through People, (5th edition). Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Cooper, D., Robertson, I. T., & Tinline, G. (2003). Recruitment and Selection: A Framework for Success. London: Thomson Huffcutt, A. I. (2011). An empirical review of the employment interview construct literature. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 19(1), p. 62–81. Marchington, M. & Wilkinson, A. (2008). Human Resource Management at work: People Management and Development (4th ed.). London: CIPD. Saks, A. M., & McCarthy, J. M. (2006). Effects of discriminatory interview questions and gender on applicant reactions. Journal of Business and Psychology, 21(2), p. 89-98. Searle, R. H. (2003). Selection and Recruitment: a Critical Text.UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Taylor, S. (2005). People Resourcing.London: CIPD. Read More