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.
(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.
