Significance of Recruitment for the Organization - Research Paper Example

RECRUITMENT Table of Contents RECRUITING 3 Through the successful recruitment process, the companies and business are able to identify, attract and maintain the capable and potential candidates from outside and within the organizations in order to appraise and evaluate them for employment. Once the identification process has been completed, the process for employee selection begins. This pertains to the collection, evaluation and appraisal of the qualification of candidate for the position specified. These practices are utilized by the organization to enhance the probability of inducting the candidates who have the right abilities and skills to be successful in the target job. 4 The industry of recruitment has its basis on the objective of facilitating a candidate or job seeker for a reward. On one end of the continuum, there exist the recruitment agencies which find jobs for the candidates and get their reward only when the candidate that they deliver to the organization stays with it for a long time. The individual has to spend a certain probationary period with the client. The other end of the continuum comprises of certain recruitment agencies which are given a retainer who concentrates on, analyses the needs of the clients, and accomplish the targets and milestones that are set in terms of the search for the right candidate. These agencies are again rewarded with a certain percentage of the salary of candidate as soon as the individual is placed in the organization and works even after the period of probation ends. The recruitment industry of the present age is sufficiently competitive, and this is the reason that there are various ways that have been sought out by the agencies that aim to distinguish themselves and provide value added services by concentrating on the diverse areas of recruitment life cycle. 4 There are four basic forms in which the recruitment industry exists. They include: 4 The employment agencies which function in the trades, clerical, and temporary basis to induct the employees in the organization (Margaret A. n.d.). 4 The various job search engines and recruitment websites are utilized to collect the maximum number of potential candidates by posting the vacant advertisements of the vacant position across a broad geographic area. Though, it is supposed to be a cost effective option, yet, a department manager or human resource department will consume time in addition to their normal responsibilities in screening through the resumes. 5 Besides other alternatives available to hire employees, there are “headhunters" for professional and executive positions. These companies are either retained or contingency. 5 There are niche agencies which obtain the expertise in the specific industrial area of staffing (Chachinko, 2011). 5 Various organizations desire to develop in-house recruitment and branding strategy of employer instead of the proper recruitment firms. The technological factor, in the current era, has resulted in the emergence of meta-search engines which permit the people seeking jobs in different professionals, to browse through different websites and search for jobs. Many new search engines list and index the vacancies of the conventional job boards. These websites work with a purpose to provide to the job seekers a "one-stop shop" (Song, 2011). The job seekers are enabled to search for newly available positions through the vertical search engines. These positions might not be listed on the traditional job boards’ advertisements and online recruitment websites. 5 Significance of Recruitment for the Organization 6 Recruitment, in every business organization, is one of the major activities to enhance the effectiveness and productivity of the business operations. It is significant for the success of the companies in various ways. First, the labor cost efficiency is attained by the recruitment processes which enable the organization to add value to its operation. It also spills over to the perceptions of the customers regarding the services or products of the firms. Second, the companies, through the strategies of recruitment, are able to identify and tap talent, which is seldom found and observed in the market for human resource. Third, the recruitment practices of an organization may be an array of complicated activities and tactics that are unique and distinctive enough to be copied by the competitors. 6 Moreover, an organization is able to attain utmost leverage by aligning its recruitment processes with the rest of the practices of human resources. Therefore, the recruitment would be able to enhance and support the advantages of recruitment with other HR functions, which include performance appraisal, compensation, or selection. Thus, through sophisticated and systematically formulated recruitment procedures, the business organizations are expected to contribute sufficiently towards the company’s financial performance. 6 Hospitality Industry 6 The hospitality industry has widespread significance around the world and is very complex and diverse. It entails an array of self-supporting hospitality businesses and also comprises of a diverse range of locations and the primary function which is not hospitality. The companies operating in the hospitality industry have also increasingly embarked upon managing the leisure venues that encompasses the activities of hospitality (Howard, 2008). The activities which are undertaken and managed by the hospitality companies ranges further than the mere services of selling drinks and meals, and renting rooms, and they extend up to identifying the facilities of supply in order to attain the progressive growth in the diversity of customer demand (Leone, 2010). 6 The hospitality industry is different from other profit generating industries and business in various ways. In the hospitality management, the delivery and production cannot be separated from each other and imply high pressures (Michael, Ruth, & Shane, 2011). The customers in the hospitality business are viewed as guest, which engages them in a specific sort of relationship. The business is an ongoing process round the clock, which also involves the cultural, religious, and ethnic diversity of both staff and guest. Therefore, the business in the hospitality industry requires higher interpersonal and communication skills. 7 The success and stability of hospitality business relies inextricably upon the human resources who work for it. Therefore, it is essential that the management in the business attract, select and induct people who are suitable for the particular job. The commercial significance of attracting and retaining the good staff is broadly recognized and acknowledged by the management experts and researchers (Solnet & David, 2008). An impetus has been provided to the hotel industry to enhance the various methods and stages which are involved in the recruitment, induction, training and development of the staff hired in the hospitality industry. 7 Precisely, the hospitality industry relies on an effective recruitment and selection process which is of vital importance to the business as well as the industry. This is because the recruitment activity brings a great degree of the revenue for the hotel. The human resource in the hotel is the most direct connection of service provision to the customers, and in various perspectives, the sales and customer representatives in the hotel or tourism industry are viewed initially as the company. In such contexts, the image of the company is customer’s mind is fundamentally formed on the grounds of quality of the service delivery. Moreover, the company operating in the hospitality industry is most likely to avoid the financial losses through the procedures of screening out applicants who are expected to leave the organization even before they have provided the repayment of the recruitment expenditures vested upon them. In addition, it is believed that the companies can ignore the staff turnover costs. This include not just the direct recruitment, inducting and placement costs, but also contains the intangible costs which may result due to the possible dissatisfaction of customer due to the outcome of staff shortages. 8 Recruitment Strategies in the Hospitality Industry 8 The successful management of the human resource in a hospitality organization relied heavily upon the "professionalism" level and degree which is needed to attract, maintain and retain new employees or workforce. The new philosophy in hospitality is that managers are counseling their associates, give them resources and help them to think for themselves. “Do whatever it takes” is critical for success (Soultana, 2012). For such a purpose, there are various strategies approved by the industry to recruit the most capable people to manage the performance of the business. The most clearly laid out explanation of the different strategies that can be applied in the recruitment in hospitality industry, has been described in the Windolf’s (1986) seminal article. According to Windolf, there are five discrete strategies of recruitment that can be applied to the business. 8 One of the basic strategies is the innovative recruitment strategy. It refers to attracting a diverse group of resourceful and creative candidates by applying the broad range of resources of recruitment. For the purpose of reduction in risk, screening rigorous and prescreening techniques are applied. This strategy is utilized by those organizations which possess high labor market power in the industry. These organizations can include the high organizational intelligence and the multinational corporations. The innovative strategies of recruitment are more suitable for those companies which stand high in technical intricacy. Then, there is another strategy known as the autonomous strategy which occupies the similar high-high quadrant. It begins with a brief description of the potential and ideal candidate with reference to the age, skills, gender and other demographic features. Thus, the autonomous firms, cut off from the fluctuations and variations in the labor market, are apt to apply constricted and explicit channels of recruitment. They can either be the professional journals, newspapers or the Job Centre. However, unlike the innovative strategy, the autonomous strategies are more appropriate to the organizations which are at a comparatively low level of technical complexity. The third strategy applied to the hospitality industry in recruiting the workforce is the status-quo strategy. This type of strategy is centered on attracting, recruiting, and maintaining homogeneous and standardized set of job seeking candidates. The homogeneity exists in every phase of the employees’ descriptions and, particularly, in case of the socio-economic and demographic status, the applicants mostly depend upon the referrals and social networks. In the firms following the status-quo methods of recruitment, even any modifications in the requirements of job or technology are not likely to change the processes and methods of the employee recruitment. The status-quo firms in the hospitality industry are characterized by high labor market power and low organizational intelligence. Moreover, they have a conventional or conservative, strategic bearing instead of the capacity defined by the scientific management or innovativeness. 9 The fourth recruitment strategy employed by the hospitality organizations is the flexible recruitment strategy. This strategy is generally adopted by the organizations possessing weak market positions, and are thus, being compelled to acclimatize to the altering conditions in the corporate environment. In such organizations, the strategic control is normally centralized, focused and well thought out along with the low market power. This is due to the fact that there exist unpleasant working conditions or low wages and the organization is most likely to be high on the level of high organizational intelligence. Lastly, there exists the muddling-through recruiters, who are present at the low-low quadrant, and they draw on less professional expertise or strategic thinking than those existing in the domain of the flexible employers. They usually apply the unsophisticated and least systematic techniques of selection and recruitment. Therefore, such types of firms, or muddling-through organizations, commonly bear higher revenues and turnover than the organizations existing in the other domains. All the above five types of the recruitment strategies are applied by the organizations in various contexts and in differing situations. For example, in order to attract and induct the unskilled and semi-skilled workers, the status-quo organizations in the hospitality industry mostly depend upon the social networks and online portal and contacts to attract and hire new employees. On the other hand, both the status-quo firms and for innovative/autonomous firms equally relies upon the social networks and online contacts and portal to catch the attention of the white-collar employee. 10 Recruitment Theories 11 There are various theories which are utilized in the recruitment of employees in the business originations (Guiliano, 2010). They are described as follows: 11 Objective Factor Theory 11 This type of theory assumes that the applicants seeking the job are rational. Therefore, this option is utilized and exercised after assessing the tangible benefits of the job in an objective manner. The elements which may assist the candidates chose a particular job include location, salary, career advancement opportunities and other benefits that the candidate might be able to avail in the organization. 11 Subjective Factor Theory 11 The decision-making ability of an individual’s choice of a job is influenced by the psychological and social factors. This might include the organization’s reputation, status of the job, and various other related elements that perform an important role in such contexts. 11 Critical Contact Theory 11 Thirdly, there are critical factors which are examined by the job seeker while interacting with the workplace. These factors play a significant role in the process of making decisions in the organization. Of these factors, the most important ones include the promptness of resourceful responses, and the recruiter keeping in constant contact and collaboration with the candidate. The experienced professionals and recruiters apply this theory in a more valid manner in the organization. In the current theory, much stress has been given to the feedback and fairness to applicants, particularly in case of e-recruitment. 11 The importance of recruitment has been laid by the researchers and managers in a much systematic manner. Recruitment emphasizes upon the attraction and screening of the candidates matching the skills and specifications of the particular job. The hospitality industry needs to stress more on the recruiting of the human resources. This is due to the reason that this particular industry is directly linked with the customer services and thus, it generates revenue from the quality of services provided by the sales people, customer representatives, stewards and other people in the staff. 12 RECRUITING Abstract Every business organization functions with the help of its core business departments which correspond with each other to perform the business activities successfully. All these core departments coordinate and communicate with one another in order to run the essential functions of an organization. In order to manage all the departments in collaboration with each other, it is necessary that the management establishes a skilled and qualified human resource base within the organization. For this purpose, it is necessary to study the significance, applicability and the strategies of the recruitment of human resources. The recruitment function in any business organization is performed by the Human Resource Management department. It attracts recruits, maintains and retains the labor force in the company. In order to assess the significance and role of the recruitment procedures in the hospitality industry, this paper discusses the recruitment function, its significance for the organization and elaborates upon the importance of the recruitment function for the hospitality industry. Recruitment Recruitment is one of the most important human resource management functions and has persistent effects on the performance of the organization. It 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” (Margaret, n.d.). Generally, the process of recruitment facilitates the business organizations to provide themselves a pool of job candidates who are potentially qualified to meet the expectations of the job at hand. Through the successful recruitment process, the companies and business are able to identify, attract and maintain the capable and potential candidates from outside and within the organizations in order to appraise and evaluate them for employment. Once the identification process has been completed, the process for employee selection begins. This pertains to the collection, evaluation and appraisal of the qualification of candidate for the position specified. These practices are utilized by the organization to enhance the probability of inducting the candidates who have the right abilities and skills to be successful in the target job. The industry of recruitment has its basis on the objective of facilitating a candidate or job seeker for a reward. On one end of the continuum, there exist the recruitment agencies which find jobs for the candidates and get their reward only when the candidate that they deliver to the organization stays with it for a long time. The individual has to spend a certain probationary period with the client. The other end of the continuum comprises of certain recruitment agencies which are given a retainer who concentrates on, analyses the needs of the clients, and accomplish the targets and milestones that are set in terms of the search for the right candidate. These agencies are again rewarded with a certain percentage of the salary of candidate as soon as the individual is placed in the organization and works even after the period of probation ends. The recruitment industry of the present age is sufficiently competitive, and this is the reason that there are various ways that have been sought out by the agencies that aim to distinguish themselves and provide value added services by concentrating on the diverse areas of recruitment life cycle. There are four basic forms in which the recruitment industry exists. They include: The employment agencies which function in the trades, clerical, and temporary basis to induct the employees in the organization (Margaret A. n.d.). The various job search engines and recruitment websites are utilized to collect the maximum number of potential candidates by posting the vacant advertisements of the vacant position across a broad geographic area. Though, it is supposed to be a cost effective option, yet, a department manager or human resource department will consume time in addition to their normal responsibilities in screening through the resumes. Besides other alternatives available to hire employees, there are “headhunters" for professional and executive positions. These companies are either retained or contingency. There are niche agencies which obtain the expertise in the specific industrial area of staffing (Chachinko, 2011). Various organizations desire to develop in-house recruitment and branding strategy of employer instead of the proper recruitment firms. The technological factor, in the current era, has resulted in the emergence of meta-search engines which permit the people seeking jobs in different professionals, to browse through different websites and search for jobs. Many new search engines list and index the vacancies of the conventional job boards. These websites work with a purpose to provide to the job seekers a "one-stop shop" (Song, 2011). The job seekers are enabled to search for newly available positions through the vertical search engines. These positions might not be listed on the traditional job boards’ advertisements and online recruitment websites. Significance of Recruitment for the Organization Recruitment, in every business organization, is one of the major activities to enhance the effectiveness and productivity of the business operations. It is significant for the success of the companies in various ways. First, the labor cost efficiency is attained by the recruitment processes which enable the organization to add value to its operation. It also spills over to the perceptions of the customers regarding the services or products of the firms. Second, the companies, through the strategies of recruitment, are able to identify and tap talent, which is seldom found and observed in the market for human resource. Third, the recruitment practices of an organization may be an array of complicated activities and tactics that are unique and distinctive enough to be copied by the competitors. Moreover, an organization is able to attain utmost leverage by aligning its recruitment processes with the rest of the practices of human resources. Therefore, the recruitment would be able to enhance and support the advantages of recruitment with other HR functions, which include performance appraisal, compensation, or selection. Thus, through sophisticated and systematically formulated recruitment procedures, the business organizations are expected to contribute sufficiently towards the company’s financial performance. Hospitality Industry The hospitality industry has widespread significance around the world and is very complex and diverse. It entails an array of self-supporting hospitality businesses and also comprises of a diverse range of locations and the primary function which is not hospitality. The companies operating in the hospitality industry have also increasingly embarked upon managing the leisure venues that encompasses the activities of hospitality (Howard, 2008). The activities which are undertaken and managed by the hospitality companies ranges further than the mere services of selling drinks and meals, and renting rooms, and they extend up to identifying the facilities of supply in order to attain the progressive growth in the diversity of customer demand (Leone, 2010). The hospitality industry is different from other profit generating industries and business in various ways. In the hospitality management, the delivery and production cannot be separated from each other and imply high pressures (Michael, Ruth, & Shane, 2011). The customers in the hospitality business are viewed as guest, which engages them in a specific sort of relationship. The business is an ongoing process round the clock, which also involves the cultural, religious, and ethnic diversity of both staff and guest. Therefore, the business in the hospitality industry requires higher interpersonal and communication skills. The success and stability of hospitality business relies inextricably upon the human resources who work for it. Therefore, it is essential that the management in the business attract, select and induct people who are suitable for the particular job. The commercial significance of attracting and retaining the good staff is broadly recognized and acknowledged by the management experts and researchers (Solnet & David, 2008). An impetus has been provided to the hotel industry to enhance the various methods and stages which are involved in the recruitment, induction, training and development of the staff hired in the hospitality industry. Precisely, the hospitality industry relies on an effective recruitment and selection process which is of vital importance to the business as well as the industry. This is because the recruitment activity brings a great degree of the revenue for the hotel. The human resource in the hotel is the most direct connection of service provision to the customers, and in various perspectives, the sales and customer representatives in the hotel or tourism industry are viewed initially as the company. In such contexts, the image of the company is customer’s mind is fundamentally formed on the grounds of quality of the service delivery. Moreover, the company operating in the hospitality industry is most likely to avoid the financial losses through the procedures of screening out applicants who are expected to leave the organization even before they have provided the repayment of the recruitment expenditures vested upon them. In addition, it is believed that the companies can ignore the staff turnover costs. This include not just the direct recruitment, inducting and placement costs, but also contains the intangible costs which may result due to the possible dissatisfaction of customer due to the outcome of staff shortages. Recruitment Strategies in the Hospitality Industry The successful management of the human resource in a hospitality organization relied heavily upon the "professionalism" level and degree which is needed to attract, maintain and retain new employees or workforce. The new philosophy in hospitality is that managers are counseling their associates, give them resources and help them to think for themselves. “Do whatever it takes” is critical for success (Soultana, 2012). For such a purpose, there are various strategies approved by the industry to recruit the most capable people to manage the performance of the business. The most clearly laid out explanation of the different strategies that can be applied in the recruitment in hospitality industry, has been described in the Windolf’s (1986) seminal article. According to Windolf, there are five discrete strategies of recruitment that can be applied to the business. One of the basic strategies is the innovative recruitment strategy. It refers to attracting a diverse group of resourceful and creative candidates by applying the broad range of resources of recruitment. For the purpose of reduction in risk, screening rigorous and prescreening techniques are applied. This strategy is utilized by those organizations which possess high labor market power in the industry. These organizations can include the high organizational intelligence and the multinational corporations. The innovative strategies of recruitment are more suitable for those companies which stand high in technical intricacy. Then, there is another strategy known as the autonomous strategy which occupies the similar high-high quadrant. It begins with a brief description of the potential and ideal candidate with reference to the age, skills, gender and other demographic features. Thus, the autonomous firms, cut off from the fluctuations and variations in the labor market, are apt to apply constricted and explicit channels of recruitment. They can either be the professional journals, newspapers or the Job Centre. However, unlike the innovative strategy, the autonomous strategies are more appropriate to the organizations which are at a comparatively low level of technical complexity. The third strategy applied to the hospitality industry in recruiting the workforce is the status-quo strategy. This type of strategy is centered on attracting, recruiting, and maintaining homogeneous and standardized set of job seeking candidates. The homogeneity exists in every phase of the employees’ descriptions and, particularly, in case of the socio-economic and demographic status, the applicants mostly depend upon the referrals and social networks. In the firms following the status-quo methods of recruitment, even any modifications in the requirements of job or technology are not likely to change the processes and methods of the employee recruitment. The status-quo firms in the hospitality industry are characterized by high labor market power and low organizational intelligence. Moreover, they have a conventional or conservative, strategic bearing instead of the capacity defined by the scientific management or innovativeness. The fourth recruitment strategy employed by the hospitality organizations is the flexible recruitment strategy. This strategy is generally adopted by the organizations possessing weak market positions, and are thus, being compelled to acclimatize to the altering conditions in the corporate environment. In such organizations, the strategic control is normally centralized, focused and well thought out along with the low market power. This is due to the fact that there exist unpleasant working conditions or low wages and the organization is most likely to be high on the level of high organizational intelligence. Lastly, there exists the muddling-through recruiters, who are present at the low-low quadrant, and they draw on less professional expertise or strategic thinking than those existing in the domain of the flexible employers. They usually apply the unsophisticated and least systematic techniques of selection and recruitment. Therefore, such types of firms, or muddling-through organizations, commonly bear higher revenues and turnover than the organizations existing in the other domains. All the above five types of the recruitment strategies are applied by the organizations in various contexts and in differing situations. For example, in order to attract and induct the unskilled and semi-skilled workers, the status-quo organizations in the hospitality industry mostly depend upon the social networks and online portal and contacts to attract and hire new employees. On the other hand, both the status-quo firms and for innovative/autonomous firms equally relies upon the social networks and online contacts and portal to catch the attention of the white-collar employee. Recruitment Theories There are various theories which are utilized in the recruitment of employees in the business originations (Guiliano, 2010). They are described as follows: Objective Factor Theory This type of theory assumes that the applicants seeking the job are rational. Therefore, this option is utilized and exercised after assessing the tangible benefits of the job in an objective manner. The elements which may assist the candidates chose a particular job include location, salary, career advancement opportunities and other benefits that the candidate might be able to avail in the organization. Subjective Factor Theory The decision-making ability of an individual’s choice of a job is influenced by the psychological and social factors. This might include the organization’s reputation, status of the job, and various other related elements that perform an important role in such contexts. Critical Contact Theory Thirdly, there are critical factors which are examined by the job seeker while interacting with the workplace. These factors play a significant role in the process of making decisions in the organization. Of these factors, the most important ones include the promptness of resourceful responses, and the recruiter keeping in constant contact and collaboration with the candidate. The experienced professionals and recruiters apply this theory in a more valid manner in the organization. In the current theory, much stress has been given to the feedback and fairness to applicants, particularly in case of e-recruitment. Conclusion The importance of recruitment has been laid by the researchers and managers in a much systematic manner. Recruitment emphasizes upon the attraction and screening of the candidates matching the skills and specifications of the particular job. The hospitality industry needs to stress more on the recruiting of the human resources. This is due to the reason that this particular industry is directly linked with the customer services and thus, it generates revenue from the quality of services provided by the sales people, customer representatives, stewards and other people in the staff. REFERENCES Brotherton, B. (2009) Towards a definitive view of the nature of hospitality and hospitality management, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, (20(5), 123-134. Chachinko, 2011, 2011 Social Recruiting Trends & Strategies, Cachinko LLC, Web, retrieved on June 7, 2012 Guioliano, 2010, Statistical Discriminations and Employers’ Recruitment Practices, Reconciling Work and Welfare in Europe, Print. Howard Adler, (2008), Human Resource in Hospitality, Journal of Human Resources in Hospitality & Tourism, Vol. 2, Issue 5, pp. 218- 220. Juan M. Madera, (2012), Using Social Network Sites for Selection Purposes: An Investigation of Hospitality Recruiters, Journal of Human Resources in Hospitality & Tourism, Volume 11, Issue 3, 2012. Leone Cameron, (2010), Relationship marketing in the recruitment and retention of service industry staff in family owned business: an Australian regional study, Journal of Human Resources in Hospitality & Tourism, Volume 9, Issue 1, pp 71-80 Margaret A. Richardson, (n.d.), Recruitment Strategies, Web, Retrieved on June 4, 2012. Margaret A. Richardson, n.d., Recruitment Strategies, Web, retrieved on June 7, 2012 Michael C.G. Davidson, Ruth McPhail, Shane Barry, (2011), Hospitality HRM: past, present and the future, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 23 Iss: 4, pp.498 - 516 Solnet, David, (2008), Employee-customer linkages: a social identification perspective in a hotel industry context, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Volume 5, Issue 3, pp. 78-90 Song Chang, (2011), Promoting innovation in hospitality companies through human resource management practices, International Journal of Hospitality Management, Volume 5, Issue 1, pp. 56-80. Soultana (Tania) Kapiki, (2012), Current and Future Trends in Tourism and Hospitality, International Journal of Economic Practices and Theories, Vol. 2, No. 1 Read More