The Current Policy on Recruitment, Selection and Employee Turnover - Australia - Case Study Example

Case analysis: overhaul the current policy on recruitment, selection and employee turnover Introduction XYZ, an Australia-based manufacturing company with around 1,500 employees is planning to overhaul its current policies on recruitment, selection and employee turnover. As the Head of Human Resource Management for the company, I am required to formulate the changed policies after analyzing the perceived problems in these human resource (HR) functions at a policy level and at actual HR level. Further, the apprehension about formulating the policy for short-term goals also needs to be addressed. Due to the uncertain outlook for manufacturing it is perceived that short-term HR goals might not be beneficial for the company, therefore, this paper would provide suggestions that would have long-term impact on HR functions of the company. The paper would also focus on providing a timeframe for achieving the policy and HR goals relative to uncertainties in the company’s environment. The paper would discuss the significance of recruitment, selection and employee turnover functions. Further, policies would be drawn for these functions to overcome the uncertain HR environment in the company. Due to the intense competition in not only Australia but also in the global market, the company has been facing major HR issues, especially related to recruitment, selection and employee turnover. Further, the changes in the characteristic of the Australian industry have also led to various problems for the company. The paper suggests that the company should review its current HR policies and align them as per the contemporary job market in order to survive the competition. XYZ should integrate its HR polices with the goals and visions of the organization so that the employees feel connected with the company. The HR should also employ various recruitment tools such as job analysis and job design to formulate the right job profile for a vacant position. Further, it should also expand its process of recruiting candidates by advertising in various job sites. The retention policies of the company also needs to undergo changes. The organisation should focus on retaining key talents and employing 360 degrees appraisal system. Changes in recruitment and selection policies The recruitment and selection process in the contemporary companies has become very complex and it is essential to for companies to integrate HR strategies into the company goals tor organizational success. The HR practitioners need to perpetually find the right candidate for the right position and align the employees as per the organization’s goals and vision. In order to achieve these requirements, the HR practitioners need to apply strategic human resource management in their policy and HR decisions. Strategic HR management is defined as the means through which HR policies are deployed in a planned manner and help in achieving the goals of the organization (De Cieri & Kramar 2003: 49). In case of XYZ as well, the HR needs to formulate various strategies with regards to recruiting and selecting the right candidates as per the business goals of the company. Research has revealed that the role of HR has changed from being administrative to a strategic one in the recent past (De Cieri and Kramar 2003; Gardner and Palmer 1997). Thus, in XYZ as well, the HR needs to focus more on taking strategic and proactive decisions rather than emphasizing on administrative policies. The process of recruitment, which involves identifying probable candidates for a position, is an important procedure that impacts the quality of people being attracted by the organization (De Cieri and Kramar 2003). The HR professionals have to take certain strategic decisions such as choosing internal or external recruitment process, paying higher salaries than the prevailing market prices, advertising through different channels like newspapers, internet etc. while undertaking recruitment for a vacant position (De Cieri and Kramar 2003). The HR also needs to decide on the channel to recruit employees and choose whether to hire internally or externally (Compton et al 2002). The HR should be aware of the key requirements of the profile and decide whether the candidate can be found internally or through external channels. In case of XYZ, the HR needs to address the issue of skill shortage in the market and should refocus its recruitment strategy from the traditional means of advertising in internal sources and trade journals. Although, internal recruitment has helped the company to save costs in the past, it needs to re-evaluate this policy as in the evolving business environment it is increasingly becoming difficult to find certain skill sets within the internal set-up (Stone 2002). Thus, it is essential to look at external channels such as advertising in newspapers and job sites to attract better talents. The use of Internet has become integral to HR recruitment polices as most top talents have their resumes uploaded with major job sites. It is also an effective, cost efficient and time saving tool to recruit the right candidate (Stone 2002). Thus, the company needs to register itself with various leading job sites and advertise about the vacant posts to enable it to recruit the best talents in the industry. However, the company should also focus on providing a singular HR policy for all its division. It has been witnessed that the company had diversifying into various other businesses and has different HR policies for its divisions. However, the company still does not have a common HR policy for all the business units and every unit still has its old policy to follow. These HR policies are found to be outdated and does not confirm with the modern norms. Thus, in order to create a standardized HR regulation, it is necessary to formulate a policy that confirms to the contemporary standards (Wright & Brewster 2003). Further, it is also required to correctly assess the potential and skills of the applicants who has applied for a vacant position. The organization should have effective HR policies that are able to assess a candidate appropriately by matching the required skill sets for the profile with the skills of the candidate. Also, the organization needs to ensure that there is no shortage of staff, which may hinder the development of the company (Irwin 2003). Australia is already facing skill shortages and it is increasingly becoming difficult to find new talents (Ross 2005). Further, the baby boomers generation is retiring and creating greater gaps in the market (Richardson 2005). The company has not yet addressed this issue and is still employing traditional methods of hiring employees through internal recruitment practices and some amount of external strategies such as advertising in the trade journals. Thus, XYZ not only needs to access the skills sets of the candidates properly, which can only take place if it has standardized its hiring practices, it should also increase its presence in the job sites. In order to recruit in a successful manner, it is important for the company to undertake the process of job design and job analysis as well. Such a process also helps in standardizing the recruitment process as well as including strategies for part-time and contract jobs (Allan 2002). With the process of job analysis, the company would be able to access its requirements properly and understand the gap areas. It can further understand whether the gap can be filled by recruiting permanent staff or part-time employees. However, in case of XYZ, the company still has a traditional approach towards recruiting and selection and does not hire contract or part-time employees. This has also resulted in the dominance of the trade union within the company and heightened discords between the employees and the management. Therefore, in order to survive in the ever-changing market environment and increase its profitability, the company needs to adopt the policy of hiring part-time and contractual employees as well. For a successful recruiting and selection process, an organization should also focus on its interview process as well. One of the major factors for selecting inappropriate candidate for a position is due to the failure to recognize the skill sets of the candidates. In case of selecting a wrong candidate, the organization may face serious consequences in the later stages (Stone 2002). Thus, it is essential to conduct the interview in a proper manner and select the appropriate candidate for the vacant position. XYZ has a traditional approach towards interviewing candidates and only has one level of screening employees through an interview with the line manager and for higher posts another level of interview with a member of the management. The company requires a comprehensive interview process, where the resumes should be screened properly, the selected candidates interviewed over telephone for HR round, initial screening by line managers, ability tests, peer interviews and a final management round. The company also needs to establish a process of conducting through reference checking before giving a job offer to the selected candidate. If a company fails to conduct background checks, it might become critical for the company later (Stone 2002). Thus, it is essential for XYZ as well to integrate the policy of checking references before hiring an employee. Changes in employee turnover polices Every organization has the goal to provide a healthy environment to its employees so that they are motivated enough to stay and contribute towards the progress of the company. However, retaining employees is a difficult process and take comprehensive efforts on the part of the HR function as well as the management. A successful retention policy stresses on the commitment of the company to provide opportunities for the employees to grow and build their career within the organization (Ruthven 2004). However, in case the employee is not able to find conducive environment within the organization to grow, he or she is bound to look for other opportunities outside the firm, which results in employee turnover (Irwin 2003). Most experts believe that together with providing competitive compensation packages and benefits, organizations should also focus on factors such as company culture, positive management outlook, relationship with supervisors and managers, growth opportunities, training and development prospects, work and life balance etc. These also contribute towards motivating and retaining employees in the company as well as aligning them with the company goals (Compton et al 2002; Oakland & Oakland 2001). However, in order to create an efficient retention policy, it is important to research about the current employee needs through regular employee surveys, analyzing employee turnover rates, conducting exit interviews, employing best practices in employee retention and updating HR division’s knowledge about latest retention policies through recent research studies. Further, the employees should be provided with challenging roles and opportunities for growing within the organization. This will also help in gaining the loyalty of the employees towards the company (Stone 2002). Assessment of employee performance is another concern area for the company. In Australia employees are protected under unfair dismissal laws and often managers who are unable to implement these laws created major issues for the companies (Way 2003). However, the emphasis on providing all-round performance appraisal gained momentum in Australia in the 1990s, with the process moving beyond the traditional parameters to include factors such as aligning the job role of the employees with the business goal of the company (De Cieri & Kramer 2003). Therefore, the HR should also communicate its expectations about the role with the employees in clear terms. It should also encourage the managers and supervisors to appreciate the employees regularly for their good work. The HR should also develop polices to appraise and reward the employees at certain intervals. This would not only help in motivating employees but would also create employee satisfaction (Eskildsen & Nussler 2000). Job satisfaction is another aspect that is important to retain staff (De Cieri & Kramar 2003). It has been found that job design and job satisfaction are inter-related. If the job profile is not designed in a proper manner, it would result in hiring of a wrong candidate. This would further create complexity and frustration in the employee and the performance of the employee would also suffer. Therefore, it is necessary to hire the right candidate for the profile to retain them for a longer time (De Cieri & Kramar 2003). Together with job design, the impact of leadership is also immense for retaining employees. The company should focus on creating open communication within the organization, wherein any employee may raise his or her concerns directly with the upper management bypassing the immediate supervisor (Doyle 2002). In XYZ, the appraisal system in the company is at flaw as the company still follows the traditional means of appraising its employees and takes only the feedback from the supervisor, which might be biased. Thus, the company needs to overhaul its appraisal method and include a 360 degree feedback system, wherein the employee would also receive feedback from his or her peers and would be able to provide feedback for his direct manager as well. Timeline In order to undertake the above mentioned suggestions, the HR needs to formulate certain strategies for implementing the tasks in a given timeframe, which is given below: Tasks Description Duration HR strategy and structure Analyzing the existing HR policies and finding the gap areas. Thereafter, formulating HR strategies as per the current requirements after consulting the senior management leaders. 1 month Workforce planning Creating opportunities to keep quality people within the organization and offering job security and bypassing trade union dominance. 1 month Recruitment and selection Adopting various internal and external recruitment policies such as advertising about vacant posts through internal posting, job sites, trade journals, newspapers, campus hiring. 2 weeks Learning and development Encouraging employees to learn through challenging assignments, identifying training needs and providing training and other educational opportunities. 2 weeks Performance management Together with annual performance appraisals, regular reviews should be conducted on an informal basis. Initiating 360 degree feedback system. 2 weeks Recognition and reward In order to motivate people, it is essential to recognize employees for their work from time to time and reward them with small gifts and tokens. 2 weeks Conclusion The paper indicated that employee recruitment and retention policies in an organization need major revaluation for an organization to survive the competition in the contemporary society. The case example of XYZ company indicates that the HR policies needs to be re-aligned as per the goals and visions of the organization in order to make the employees feel connected with the company and motivated to work for the development of the organization. Further, HR needs to employ recruitment tools like job design and job analysis for creating the right job profile and hire appropriate candidate for the vacant position. The paper also reflects on the fact that in the contemporary world of technological advancements, companies should not only rely on traditional means of recruiting people through newspaper advertisements and recruitment consultants, but should also explore the newer means of recruiting such as job sites, social networking sites etc. Together, with recruiting the right talent, organizations should also focus on retaining key talents by employing a transparent appraisal system. Reference: Allan, C. 2000, 'Hidden organizational costs of using non-standard forms of employment', Personnel Review, vol. 29, no. 2. Compton, R.L., Morrissey, W.J. & Nankervis, A.R. 2002, Effective Recruitment and Selection Practices, 3rd edn., CCH Australia Pty Ltd., Australia. De Cieri, H. and Kramar, R. 2003, Human Resource Management in Australia: Strategy, People, Performance. Sydney, McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Limited. 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