The Effect of Electronic Recruitment and Selection on the Productivity of Human Resource Management - Essay Example

ALLWRITING.NET ORDER: BUSINESS RESEARCH METHODS Title: The effect of electronic recruitment and selection on the productivity of human Resource management (HRM) departments of organizations. Introduction The internet has permeated every facet of business life including that of human resource acquisition, development and management. Increasingly, the internet and related electronic technologies are being used to advertise for positions, assessment of applicants, selection and recruitment of human resources. These technologies include emails, websites, resume banks, employment webpages, electronic scanning technology, applicant tracking system and internal databases of job seekers. According to Bartram (2000) the internet has already had a dramatic impact on the way in which recruitment and selection are carried out in North America and the impact is increasingly being felt in terms of changes in practice in Europe and Asia-Pacific. He further pointed out that this medium has enabled the widespread adoption of computer-based assessment and also predicted that it would replace paper as the default medium before very long. These assertions were made over five years ago. In between that time and now the internet population has witnessed a massive growth and the activities undertaken on it has also widened and become more diversified. Many workplaces in the world have also been connected to the internet .Given the ubiquitous role the internet now plays in the conduct of business activities, it would not be over-exaggeration to say that its impact is being felt worldwide. Presently, all aspects of human resource work in the area of recruitment and selection such as developing the requirements of a position , posting of positions, advertising of position, screening of resumes, interviewing, making the offer and even new employee orientation can be done from a computer and the internet. Galanaki (2002) has catalogued some of the benefits of online recruitment and selection as being more cost effective, worldwide coverage and therefore a better pool of human resources to select from. The rest of the benefits are reduced recruitment cycle time, higher response rate, a better quality of response, less effort in getting the desired results and lower administrative cost. A study carried out by Human Resource Management International Digest (2005) revealed that the use of electronic recruitment software known as Active Recruiter reduced the recruitment process from 62 to 42 days. Also, savings amounting to 54 percent of the total recruitment costs was realized. Despite these enormous benefits, the online medium itself also poses special difficulties and challenges to the human resource function. These include issues pertaining to confidentiality, authentication, equality of access to information, impersonation, and inherent abuse of the testing process and the control of assessment conditions. Kerrin and Ketley (2003) identified major challenges for implementing e-recruitment as (a) the cultural approach of the organization towards e-recruitment (b) the lack of knowledge of e-recruitment with the human resource (HR) community, (c) internet usage by the target prospective applicants and (d) commitment of senior management to e- recruitment. Interestingly, while these benefits and challenges are commonly acknowledged, few research work has been carried out to quantitatively measure their effects on the human resource function and productivity. Consequently, there is paucity of information in this area of human resource management to guide managerial decision making. This study is therefore being undertaken to help bridge this information gap. Specifically, it shall seek to measure quantitatively the effect electronic recruitment is having on the productivity of human resource management. Literature Review Human Resources Management practices in organizations encompass recruitment, selection and staffing, compensation and benefits, employee training and development and employee relations. Routine procedures used in recruiting and selecting applicants include developing a position description, posting the position, advertising the position, screening of resumes, interviewing and making the offer as well as new employee orientation. Any ways and means found that makes this process more effective and efficient go to HRM practice more cost-effective. A study of fifty organizations using e-recruitment in the United Kingdom by Kerrin and Ketley (2003) cited in Kim and O’Connor (2005) revealed that the primary drivers behind decisions to pursue e-recruitment were to (a) improve corporate image and profile (b) reduce recruitment costs (c) reduce administrative burden and (d) employ better tools for the recruitment team. This study also showed that about fifty five percent of the respondents expected their organization to reduce its use of other recruitment methods in future. Kim and O’Connor (2005) carried out a study into e-recruitment and identified the following as issues of concern to this method of recruitment. These issues are as follows : (a) quality and quantity of applicants applying using web-based tools (b) Being inundated with CVs attached to email, many of them not suitable for the post (c) The relevance of short-listing criteria (d) Confidentiality and data protection (e) Ensuring diversity of applicants These research workers also reported that trends in e-recruitment use suggest a changing landscape, where by in future applicants shall be connected to a central system and also the involvement of line managers in the process of online application system. According to Mohamed, Orife and Wibowo (2002) one of the most difficult problems that companies face when they use internet recruiting is the volume of resume that they receive. They added that the large volume of resumes coupled with pressures to identify the best applicants have compelled companies to use electronic scanning to sift through the resumes to identify those key words that may relate to the qualifications required for the job. With these systems, they pointed out that resumes that contain the desired words are selected for further evaluation, while those that donot have these words are removed from the selection tool. In this wise, key search words performs as a selection tool. The implication of this technique to job applicants is that they should make their resumes scannable and also they should include a lot of key search words in their resumes. With this methodology applicants without the knowledge of these facts about selection tools are clearly disadvantaged. The extent to which this approach affects the quality of applicants recruited by the companies is worth thorough examination. Ng and Burke (2006) carried out a field study involving 20,771 students and found that the job search process among students appeared to have shifted from the more traditional approaches to electronic channels such as the internet. These issues notwithstanding e-recruitment is gaining increasing acceptance. Khosla (2003) has pointed out that e-recruitment has emerged as an important electronic business function in the past few years. He also reported about a novel e-recruitment and multi-agent application for recruitment and benchmarking of sales persons. This system integrates a selling behavioural model with expert systems and soft computing techniques. Key variables or factors The key variables to be measured include e-recruitment methods, e-recruitment status and the productivity of Human resources unit implementing e-recruitment and selection. Aims and objectives The aims and objectives of this study shall be to find out:- (a) the e-recruitment methods being used by large-sized organization in the food and agricultural sector in the United Kingdom. (b) assess the e-recruitment status of large-sized organizations in the food and agriculture sector in the United Kingdom (c) determine the effects of e-recruitment and selection on productivity of the Human Resources units of these organizations. Research Questions and Hypothesis The hypothesis to be tested in this study is Ho: The use of e-recruitment and selection tools enhances productivity of Human resources units in large-sized organization in the food and agricultural sector in the United Kingdom Hi: The use of e-recruitment and selection tools does not enhance productivity of human resources units in large-sized organizations in the food and agricultural sector in the United Kingdom. Research Methodology Two studies shall be conducted. These are an in-depth interviews and a survey study. The interview shall precede the survey. Research Population and Sample The research population of this study shall be all large-sized food and agriculture companies in the United Kingdom. The sample size of hundred companies from this population shall be chosen for this study. The sample size is appropriate because that is what our finances can afford. The sample size shall be randomly chosen and therefore founded on the laws of probability. The sampling technique chosen is the use of sampling tables. A sample size of 20 shall be chosen for the personal interview , where as that of the survey shall be 100. This sample size shall also be chosen randomly for this study. Inputs from the interview shall be fed into the questionnaire development. Methods of Data Collection The interview segment of this study shall be done face to face. The survey,on the other hand, shall be administered by email and through the use of telephone. These methods were chosen because they are cheaper. Multiple methods are being used to ensure that those which could be reached through one method can be found in another. Access and Ethical considerations The problem of poor respondents for the study shall be overcome by impressing upon Prospects that they shall be given copies of the study to guide their practice. Possibility of using incentives shall also be explored. Laws on the rights of respondents shall be adhered to. Also, laws that govern confidentiality and anonymity of participants shall be obeyed. Data Analysis Analytical procedures as outlined by McDaniel and Gates (1999) shall be used to analyze the data gathered. Time schedule Study commission 1 day Personal interview 4 days Questionnaire development (first draft) 2 days Final draft 1 day Questionnaire field testing 3 days Sampling 1day Field work commences and ends 7 days Coding and data preparation 1 day Data analysis 1 day Study report writing 3day Report presentation 1day Budget The total budget for this study is 25,000 pounds. REFERENCES 1. Bartram, D. (2000). Internet Recruitment and selection: Kissing frogs to find Princes, International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 8(4):261. 2. Galanaki, E. (2002). The decision to recruit online : A descriptive study, Career Development International, 7(4):243-251. 3. Human Resource Management International Digest (2005). E-recruitment gets Nike tick of approval: System frees HR staff to perform more consultancy, Human Resource Management International Digest, 13(2):33-35. 4. Khosla, R. (2003). An online multi-agent e-sales recruitment system. Web Intelligence, Proceedings of IEEE/WIC International, USA. 5. Kim, S. and O’ Connor, J.G. (2005). A national study of e-recruitment in State Government, Working Paper No 4, Material retrieved on December, 5th , 2006 from www.maxwell.syr.edu. 6. Lewis, P. (2003). New China – Old ways? A case study of the prospects for implementing human resource management practices in a Chinese state owned enterprise, Employee Relations, 25(1): 42-60. 7. McDaniel, C. and Gates, R. (1999). Contemporary Marketing Research, 4th Edition, South-Western College Publishing, Ohio, USA. 8. Mohamed,A. A. ,Orife, J.N. and Wiboro, K. (2002). The legality of key word search as a personnel selection tool, Employee Relations, 24(5):516-522. 9. Ng, E.S.W. and Burke, R.J (2006). The next generation at work- business students’ views, values and job search strategy: Implications for universities and employers Read More