Tuesday, November 24, 2020

EFFECTIVENESS AND CHALLENGES OF EMPLOYEE RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION PRACTICES

 

Recruitment and selection are one of the basic functions of human resource management. There is a clear difference between recruitment and selection (Otoo, Assuming and Agyel 2018). In other words, recruitment is the process of attracting a large pool of qualified people for employment. This involves planning for human resource to job design, job description, job analysis, creating awareness among others (Walker et al 2009). Guptha and Jain (2019) explained that the selection process able to divided candidates to two classes. Those who are providing employment and those who are not to be. Barbar (1998), argues that “The recruitment and selection procedure is a vital function of the human resource division of every organization and very crucial function as it affects the success of the organization”.

Effectiveness of Employee Recruitment and Selection Practices

According to the Barber et al (1999), the recruitment process is effective if it brings enough pool of applications and the selection process is handled with ease. The effectiveness & efficiency of the selection procedure is directly influenced by whatever happens during the recruitment process. As per Otoo (2018), management of a diverse workplace effectively, an organization must hire the most capable candidate for a vacancy, while being mindful of the necessity to build a labour force that is representative of the greater business community. This may be attained by using more appropriate and inclusive recruitment and selection strategies. Furthermore, the principal purpose of recruitment practice is to attract adequate and suitable potential employees to apply for vacancies in an organization and the principal purpose of selection activities, by comparison, is to identify the best-suited applicants and persuade them to accept a position in the organization. The importance of having efficient and effective procedures for recruitment and selection can be hardly be exaggerated (Diarmuid 2015).

To ascertain the effectiveness of several recruiting sources and methods, it is important to evaluate recruiting efforts. Organizations evaluate recruiting success to see how their recruiting efforts compare with their goals and budget, past patterns, and the recruiting performance of other organizations. Following Video 1.0 explained about Effectiveness, Quantity of applications, Quality of applicants, Recruiting metrics including Time to fill, Recruiting cost, Cost and benefits analysis, Selection rate, Acceptance rate and success base rate.

Video 1.0: Recruiting Evaluation and Metrics



(Source: Gregg Learning 2018)

Effectiveness depends on the performance of an organization’s human resource capital. To reduce the risk of employees talking flight organizations need to evaluate their recruitment/selection strategy comprehensive evaluation of recruitment strategy allows organisations to identify internal capability and gaps, employee commitment levels and the corresponding cost-effectiveness of that strategy (Diarmuid 2015). In the Sri Lankan context, leading private bank CEO of Pan Asia Bank has made a vital decision to recruitment and selection process. Bank management change their strategy to provide more progression opportunities within the bank to own officers instead of hiring from outside. As per Deputy general managers view, this has been a great source of encouragement to own organizational staff to remain with the bank and enhance their competitiveness (Jayasinghe 2019).

Challengers of recruitment and selection practices

Considering the effectiveness of the recruitment and selection process, organizations need to face a set of challenges Kaplan and Norton (2004), and Zinyemba (2013).

1)     Poor Human Resource Planning

Effective human resource planning translates the major organizational goals into specific human resource objectives, policies and practice. However, human resource planning affects the effectiveness of the recruitment and selection process. That is, the organization will not be informed of its correctly human resource needs, which cause the recruitment and selection may process to recruit persons who do not fit for the job (Kaplan and Norton 2004).

 

2)     Cost of the Recruitment Process

The actual cost of hiring new employees can vary between industries and regions, but once all of the line item costs have been factored in, it’s surprisingly easy to see the bottom-line figure. According to Video 2.0 described, Breakdown of hiring cost, Cost of bad hires, the impact of bad hire, four courses of bad hires and the steps of hiring right candidates.


Video 2.0: The cost of hiring new employees



Source Recruiterbox.com 2015

 

According to the Staffing practices in the private sector in sri lanka, Wickramasinghe, V. (2007) noted that, the usage of more sophisticated selection methods could be quite costly if organizations do not have trained staff and require the help of professional psychologists from outside the organization to administer and interpret test results. However, the misuse of such instruments may be even costly to the organization and may also be demoralizing to the new hire who may find him/herself in the wrong job. This could demotivate the new hire as well as the rest of the staff.

1) Inappropriate Methods of Selection

Birago (2014) state that, A set of methods, such as application forms, interviews, formal tests, references, assessment centres and official transcripts are used by organizations in the selection process. A firm needs to select a method that is most suitable to the job positions. Also, HR experts generally drive the staffing process and the purpose of the staffing is to fulfil the requirements of the business, and the skill levels presented by each new candidate is likely to be judged better if the line managers are involved in the recruitment and selection practices. Dess and Jason (2001) suggest that in business strategy implementation the involvement of line managers in the staffing process is vital for ensuring recruitment and selection to meet business needs. In other words, the line managers should be the centre point around which the recruitment and selection process evolved with HR playing a facilitator role.

2) Nepotism and Favoritism

Nepotism is defined by Peters et al. (1998) as “showing favouritism toward relatives, family members of current employees when hiring new employees”. Policies against this practice, where present, are considered as enhancing the effectiveness of selection and thereby person-job fit. Considering the Sri Lankan service sector organization, Samarakoon, Sureshchandra and Dharmasiri (2008) found that the presence of anti-nepotism policies positively influences the level of the person-jab fit. Where current trends of practice are concerned, it was found that most practitioners realize the need for impartiality in selection decision but tend to have a preference for applicants who are known to current employees.

3) Efficiency, Control and Social Justice

As per Birango (2014),” There is the disagreement of other key issues and argument that run through analysis of human resource management and recruitment and selection: efficiency, control, and the difficulty of orienting practice towards social justice”. Burton (2001) pointed out that, the first two problematics, as have been central to the management of people for as long as managers have been present in organizations. The latter is also the same across all organizations but is a specific academic and policy concern for smaller or growing organizations (Burton 2001). In recruitment and selection practice the establishment of formalized selection structure and norms of acceptable differentiation may be seen as an attempt to enable managers to navigate between efficiency, control and social justice.


References

Barber, A. E. (1998). Recruiting employees: Individual and Organizational Perspectives. Thousand Oaks, CA, USA: Sage Publications, Inc.

Barber, A. E., Wesson, M. J., Roberson, Q. M., & Taylor, M. S. (1999). A tale of two job markets: Organizational size and its effects on hiring practices and job search behaviour. Personnel Psychology, 52(4), 841- 868.

Birango, A A.(2014). An Evaluation of the Recruitment and Selection Policies and Practices of the National Health Insurance Authority,Brong-Ahafo Region; Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology

Burton, M D.(2001). The Company They Keep: Founders' Models for Organizing New Firms, Cornell University ILR School

Dess, G G. and Jason, D.S. (2001). Voluntary turnover, social capital, and organizational performance. Academy of Management Review, pp.26(3): 446-456.

Gupta, R.and Jain, T.(2014). Role of recruitment & Selection policies in central Co-operative Banks, International monthly refereed journal of research in management & technology, Vol iii, ISSN-2320-0073.

Kaplan, S. R. & Norton, D. P. (2004). The Balanced Scorecard. Boston: MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Otoo, I.Assuming, J.Agyei, P.(2018). Effectiveness of Recruitment and Selection Practices in Public Sector Higher Education Institutions European Scientific Journal May 2018 edition Vol 14.

Peters, Lawrence H, Greer Charles R and Youngblood Stuart A., (1998). Blackwell Encyclopedic Dictionary of Human Resource Management, Massachusetts, Blackwell Publishers Ltd.

Samarakoon,U.Sureshchandra,R. and Dharmasiri,A. (2008): Factors that Influence Hiring the Right Person for the Right Job in Sri Lankan Service Sector Organizations: Sri Lankan Journal of Management: Volume 13, Nos. 3 & 4, July-December, 2008.

Walker, H. J., Feild, H. S., Giles, W. F., Armenakis, A. A., & Bernerth, J. B. (2009). Displaying employee testimonials on recruitment web sites: Effects of communication media, employee race, and job seeker race on organizational attraction and information credibility. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(5), 1354-1364.

Wickramasinghe, V (2007). Staffing practices in the private sector in Sri Lanka, Career Development International, Vol 12, ISSN-1362-0436, pp108-128.

Zinyemba, A. Z. (2013). The Challenges of Recruitment and Selection of Employees in Zimbabwean Companies. International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR)(0nline), 2310-7064.


13 comments:

  1. In the (Aisha Yassin 2015) study, he stated that the goals and objectives of the selection process lie in the following:
    Gather as much relevant information to analyze the facts.
    Organize and evaluate the information to make the rational choice.
    Assess each candidates in order to choose the best person for the job
    Forecast performance of a candidate on the job and its compatibility with the firm.
    Provide knowledge to applicants so that they can judge whether or not they are ready to accept an offer of employment considering the hardships and opportunities.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. HRM is the function within an organization that focuses on the recruitment, management, and providing direction for the people who work in the organization for effective and efficient
      utilization of human resources to achieve organizational objectives (Opatha, 2010). HRM is the human aspect of the organizational management. It is mostly responsible for the attraction,selection, training, assessment, and rewarding of employees for obtaining maximum contribution toward the organizational success. Stone (2005) defined human resource management as the productive use of people in achieving the organization’s strategic business objectives and the
      satisfaction of individual employees. This definition clearly indicates that the organizations’ objectives are dependent on their work force productivity. The effective use of HRM practices is able to link these practices with organization’s goals and objectives.

      Delete
  2. Djabatey (2012) argues that the recruitment and selection process plays an important role in the human resources sector of every organization. It is a very crucial task as it affects the success of the organization. This is because it is the means by which the organization can gain its mandate by continuously providing qualified human resources.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The generic purpose of HRM is to generate and retain an appropriate and contended workforce who gives the maximum contribution to the organizational success (Opatha, 2010). Therefore, a highly qualified, motivated and happy staff is the main factor for the success of SMEs.

      Delete
  3. A good human resource planning translates the major organizational goals into certain human resource objectives, policies and practice. However, poor planning for human resource affects the effectiveness of the recruitment and selection process (Kaplan and Norton, 2004). Also, there may be cases of misrepresentation where applicants use certificates that belong to others such as family and friends (Zinyemba, 2013).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ijigu (2015), study the effect of HRM practices
      on employee satisfaction in Ethiopian public banks, the results of this study suggest that HRM practices mainly recruitment and
      selection, training and development, performance appraisal and compensation package are positively related to employee job satisfaction. Aswathappa (2008) argued that organizations should have better HR plans to motivate its employees.

      Delete
  4. large number of organizations tend to combine both internal and external sources of recruitment, whereas rapidly changing competitive environmental conditions, might keep emphasis on external sources in addition to internal sources of recruitment (Mathis & Jackson, 2005).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Promoting from within the organization is known as internal recruitment and hiring from outside the organization is known as external recruitment (Mathis & Jackson, 2005). However, the HR department of Basic Bank emphasizes more on the external recruitment sources rather than internal sources.(Tabassum 2011)

      Delete
  5. Survival of a company and achieving success is critical in a competitive business environment (Huselid, Mark A, 1995). Competitive environment has become in every industry even in any industry due to a large number of cometitive companies. Huselid, Mark A, (1995) has stated that success of a organization depends on qualified employees, quality workmanship and financial management.

    ReplyDelete
  6. For effective recruitment using the internal source, management should have considerable period of time for evaluating the employees to identify their potentials and determine whether they are fit for the job or not (Otoo et al, 2018).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. According to Khan (2008), existing employees of an organization provide the internal sources. At Basic Bank, promotion, transfer and job postings are sometimes used for recruiting people internally. Employee referral is another source of internal recruitment which is not used in Basic Bank now.

      Delete
  7. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Stonner, Freeman and Gilbert (2000) see the selection process as the mutual process whereby the organisation decides whether or not to make a job offer and the candidate decides whether or not to accept it.

    ReplyDelete

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