Human resource managers have to
face laws and regulations that protect employees’ legal privileges in term of
equality and other legal issues and describe firms’ responsibilities in respect
of recruitment and selection of an employee. Providing non discriminate equal
employment opportunity (EEO) is the basic legal requirement while recruiting
and selecting an employee. Individuals who came under EEO laws are protected
from illegal discrimination that occurs when someone having common
characteristics is discriminated based on those characteristics. Several acts
and laws protect rights of non discrimination in this respect. Civil rights act
1964 prohibits discriminatory recruiting and selection on the basis of color,
race, religion, sex, or national origin, Vocational Rehabilitation Act 1973 and
Rehabilitation Act of 1974 protect the rights of disable persons and Immigration
Reform and Control Act (1986, 1990 and 1996) punish the employers who hire
illegal employee and prohibit selection on the basis of national origin.
1.1 Recruitment and its Legal Aspects:
Employers have to consider wording
of advertisement for recruitment to ensure equal employee opportunity.
Governing body of EEO has issued guidelines that any direct or indirect
references in respect of gender or age connotations are not permitted while
advertising for required job. Examples of such impermissible terminologies are recent
college graduate, young and enthusiastic, and journeyman lineman (Methis &
Jackson, 2007). Moreover, to ignore specific group of individual against
employee having same characteristics can also lead to discriminate recruitment.
For example, advertising for graduates from specific college or university
while ignoring candidates from other colleges with same level of degree is a
discriminate action. Moreover, job analysis is an essential component of
recruitment while many acts such as American's With Disabilities Act (ADA
1990) prohibit ignoring qualified candidate with disabilities to recruit or
select.
1.2 Selection and its Legal Aspects:
Legal constraint also affects the
process of employee selection. Reference based selection leads to discriminate
practices and can ignore the employees having equal or high characteristics
with respect to selected one. Other illegal matters regarding selection are
biased interviews where affected groups are asked more typical questions and
interviewed strictly. On the other hand candidates have to pass several tests
while managers have to ensure its reliability and validity.
Employee recruitment and selection
process can be affected by organizational processes and procedures in different
ways. Different personals are responsible for different activities of
recruitment and selection and play various roles in this respect. At Punjab
University of Gujranwala Campus (PUGC) there are two ways to select an employee
i.e. internal and external recruitment and selection process. Internal
selection processes meet organizational HR needs within the organization while
external methods are relied on selecting employees outside the organization.
While selecting new visiting faculty member at PUGC, head of department is
responsible to execute the process and takes the decision of selection.
Employees’ referrals and contacts plays important role in this respect and to
meet current faculty needs personal contacts are used without any advertisement.
However, for permanent selection both internal and external methods are used
and full board is established to execute the process. That board made job
analysis and write job description and job specification. For permanent faculty
position a formal advertisement is publicized while media relation department
is responsible for effective advertisement. Candidates from outside and within
the organization can apply for the job while. A panel of specialists develop
written test and also administer interview for passed candidates from written
test. In conclusion selecting a permanent employee requires more formal and non
discriminate selection as various personals and board members are involved in
the process that lead to a fair selection process.
Today employees of an organization
came from various backgrounds and regions with different demographic factors
such as age, gender or race etc. such diversity can lead to discriminate
actions and procedures. A number of laws and regulations protect employees’
right of equality not only at the time of recruitment or selection but also at
the post selection instant. There is long list of organizations that are sued
due to discriminate practices including Wal-Mart, Costco, Target, Walgreens,
UPS, FedEx, Marriott, Disney, Abercrombie & Fitch, Microsoft, Apple,
Google, Best Buy, Home Depot, and even the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (Mathis & Jackson, 2007).
Individuals pose identical
characteristics and given legal protections under equal employment laws are
called protected group or class. Various federal laws protect rights of
protected group and prohibit discrimination on following basis to the individuals
having common required characteristics in respect of recruitment and selection.
1. Race, ethnic origin, color (such as
discrimination among African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans,
Asian Americans)
2. Gender (for example not selecting women
due to their pregnancy issues)
3. Age (such as individuals over 40)
4. Individuals with disabilities (physical
or mental)
5. Military experience (for instance Vietnam-era
veterans)
6. Religion (special beliefs and practices)
3.1 Abercrombie & Fitch case:
Abercrombie & Fitch wanted to
hire staff having white color and athletic nature. Carla Grubb was hired at the
company and expects job at sales department but found her for the job of
dusting, cleaning and vacuuming stores. Moreover, it was also found that
minority applicants were hired at low visibility and back-of-the-store jobs
such as cleaning up and stocking. Minority students having impressive records
are also ignored while recruiting or selecting and the percentage of minority
employees were very low at the company against industry average. Grubb sued on
the company for discriminating regarding her color and settled at $50 million.
EEO commission directs the company for better hiring without discriminating
color and status of applicants (DeCenzo et al., 2010).
Human resources management was seen
just as a function of staffing in past. However, today the scope has been
expanded and practitioners view their workforce as an important resource of the
company that can lead to competitive advantage through fulfilling firms’
current and prospective needs as suggested in resource based view. It is the
human resource who executes strategies to meet organizational objectives. So,
human resource plays an important role to achieve organizational current and
anticipated goals and objectives effectively. Human Resource Information System
provides insight information regarding strengths and weaknesses of your current
staff resources to meet organizational current and proposed goals and
objectives in this respect.
4.1 Meister Software UK:
One of subsidiaries of Meister
Software is operating in UK. Meister Software is a German–owned worldwide
network of software companies. Company provides solutions in respect of software
to manufacturing firms and turnover of the company is at least of £50m. Rapid
growth can be evidenced though increased no. of employees at British branch.
Most of their workforce consist of graduates from computer, sales and finance
background. Currently these employees are fulfilling organizational objective
of gaining through providing effective IT solutions to their clients that is
evidenced through its growth. However, market is becoming more competitive and
strong interpersonal and negotiation skills are required to meet future
objectives and gaining contracts worth more than £0.5 millions. This implies
that in future company needs more efficient sales staff to deal with their
current and prospective customers (Bratton & Gold, 2010).
Job description identify the
activities and duties to be perform and responsibilities for a particular job
while job specification list the required knowledge, skills and ability to
perform those duties and activities. Both job description and job specification
provides insight information to employees in term of their responsibilities and
duties and also allow managers to recruit and select appropriate employee and
to attract candidates in the process of recruiting and selecting an employee.
Components of job description and specification are given below in the case of Meister
Software UK.
JOB DESCRIPTION
Job title Sales men and women
Department Sales Department
Responsible
to Presentation and
Negotiation to current and prospective customers for all matters regarding
contracts
Relationships
strong relations are needed
with other department to acknowledge them from needs and wants of their
customers
Purpose
of job or purpose of the job is to
cater the needs of competitive industry through
Overall
objectives effective presentation
and negotiation skills
Specific duties and 1. Searching for new customers
Responsibilities 2. Presentations to their customer for their software
products
3.
Negotiation from customers to final the contract
4.
Coordinate other department through acknowledging customers’ needs
PERSONNEL SPECIFICATION
Qualification At least Graduate in sales and
marketing
Experience At least 1 year of experience as sales man
especially from same industry
Innate abilities 1. Good interpersonal communication skills
2. Be
able to understand information available and predict patterns of their
customers to develop strategies accordingly
3. Having
excellent qualities to work and coordinate as a team member
Studying internal and external
environment in term of staff requirements during HR planning process helps to
identify required HR needed to execute business operations smoothly in order to
achieve organizational goals and objective. It should critically analyzed that
whether current demand of new vacancy can be filled through current employees
by the mean of part time or temporary vacancy or a separate job should
advertise. Moreover, other strategies such as providing flexible working hours
to cover new responsibilities, using updated information technology and using
internet can be used in this respect. These analyses will explore the case for
additional staff required. For instance in the case of Meister Software UK
company realizes the needs of efficient salesmen and women to survive in
competitive environment. However, current workforce of the company from sales
department is insufficient in this respect and develops the need to hire new
staff.
Selection
process can be defined as the process of selecting individuals having relevant
qualification to fill the jobs (Mathis & Jackson, 2007). DeCenzo et al.
(2010) have developed following framework to select an employee.
It is useful to make initial screening
through initial interview or written test accordingly to select appropriate
candidates before collecting application form. This stage ensures that
individual poses required characteristics needed for recruitment. For instance
check and validate that whether candidates have required qualification,
experiences and diplomas etc. Most of the organizations use application form to
collect required information about candidate and also use to record information
about those candidates. However, EEO and non discriminatory issues are critical
while designing application form. After collecting information various tests
are conducted according to the required job. Selecting appropriate testing
technique is critical to choose. Testing techniques also depend on the job
nature such as accounting and engineering based job require to test typing,
data entry and proficiencies abilities. However, testing is not the only
criteria to select an employee and should give weights accordingly in selection
process. Again EEO issues are critical to manage and ensure non discriminatory
while selection tests and appropriate predictors in this respect. After
examining candidates through various tests organizations conduct in depth
interviews identify information on candidates. It provides better picture due
to high face validity and most of the selectors like to hire individuals
through interviews. Overall, selection tests and interviews both provide
insight information regarding candidates’ ability, skills and knowledge to
perform required operations. Background investigation can be done before or
after interviews to validate qualification, experiences and other information
provided by employee. Though costs are associated with such investigations but
it is useful as a survey reveals that most of time information regarding length
of past experiences and former job title, past salaries and criminal records
are misrepresented (Mathis & Jackson, 2007). Medical tests can be done to
examine required physical ability of candidate to perform that job. However,
many federal laws prohibit rejecting an employee with disabilities while having
required characteristics to perform that job. After all these assessment
overall scores will act as selecting parameters and candidates having highest
overall scores are selected.
8.1 Initial Screening:
Different methods can be adopted
during different stages of selection process that will help to select
appropriate employee. Many firms such as Sony Corporation, Coca-Cola, IBM,
Paine Webber, Nations Bank use computerized based initial screening and use
artificial intelligence software in this respect. Moreover, electronic initial
interview can be used as Coopers & Lybrand initially screen candidates
through online test consist of 40 questions and estimates that it eliminates 25%
of its 5,000 initial applicants in this respect.
8.2 Selection Tests:
On the other hand various selection
tests are available that support the selection decisions for employers. Some useful
and common tests are listed below.
Ability
Test: Measures the current ability that
already has learned by candidate.
Aptitude
Test: It measures the ability of candidate to
acquire a skill.
Work
Sample Tests: Examine that how an applicant
performs a simulated job task. Meister Software UK can use work sample tests
and ask applicants to sale their products to them as their customer on demo
basis. Moreover, many other organizations use such techniques as it describes
persons’ ability to perform that job directly.
Mental
Ability Tests: Measures the reasoning
capabilities of candidates.
Assessment
Centers: It comprises of multiple exercises and
multiple raters conducted at assessment center where candidates go through a
comprehensive interview, pencil-and-paper test and other tests to know how
applicant response to certain situation.
Psychological/Personality
Tests: Big Five factor of personality can be
assessed as personality has strong affect on motivation, performance and job
satisfaction.
On the other hand to conduct
successful interview following methods can be adopted
8.3 Structured Interview:
All applicants are asked similar
standardized questions. Such techniques allow setting job related questions and
making it easier to compare candidates due to standardized structure and lead
to better reliability. Research reveals that structured interview has found
more reliable than other interview techniques (Campion et al., 1997).
Situational Interviews are similar
to structured interview that composed of questions that how candidate might
handle particular job situations. Expert made questions for content validation
while for experienced workers it is more like a work sample test.
In such interviews candidates are
given some problems to assess that how they have solve the problems in past.
Similar to other interview techniques Behavioral description method also
contain better validly (Brackey, 1998).
A special type of interview that
tried to put pressure and create anxiety situation for applicant that how he
cater such pressure situation.
8.4 Hiring at Toyota:
To select auto worker Toyota uses
“day to work” test and candidate work on simulated assembly line for almost 4
hours and then inspects defective parts for several hours. Moreover, group
solving session and written tests are also conducted to assess candidate’s
knowledge. Such work sample tests provide high quality labor especially when the
job is technical and more practical.
Keeping records during selection
process is critical as it provide guideline for subsequent selection process.
Moreover, having records for potential applicants can also be use in future
where firms need employees without wasting time and cost for selection process.
Tests or interview for initial screening and information from application form
are useful sources to collect and record required information such as contact
information tests scores etc. These information also help to conduct interviews
and coordinate in selecting an employee. On the other hand scores from all
tests and interviews should also record to prioritize the list and also to call
next candidate in future if found any vacant seat.
After completing selection process
it is critical to evaluate the effectiveness of selection process and to know
the people and resources that support or constraint the process. Evaluation is
a continuous process that led the firms to change themselves according to
environment. This can be done through post effectiveness of selected personnel
through feedback from applicants and the staff who was involved in selection
process as well. Moreover, keeping up to date from legislation changes and
their affect on selection process is important.
Communication between applicants
and organization and among the staff involved in process is required at all the
stages of selection process. Firms should avoid long waits to candidates and
communicate their status of selection or rejection as soon as possible after
initial screening. On the other hand candidate’s performances at different
levels should be communicated among panel members who will decide for
selection. In the case of Toyota applicant spend hours at assembly line and
checking defective parts. His performances are communicated to both department
and selection panel. After making final decisions again respond to candidates
quickly and also inform unsuccessful applicants. However, underlining positive
aspects of rejected candidate create positive impressions and also encourage
them.
Motivating and retaining selected
personnel is important especially right after their selection as CIPD (2005)
found that one from every seven newly selected employee leave the organization
and all efforts and costs occurred at selection process can be in vain. Purpose
of inducement plan is to feel employee that organization value for him and
fulfill his needs. Firms can attract newly selected employee through offering
attractive starting pay and compensations and career opportunities as tangible
benefits and growth opportunities motivate employees especially for fresh
graduates.
Infosys Technologies Limited:
Infosys Technologies Limited is
a known software house that motivates their employees through treating them as
partners, providing challenging assignments, allowing them flexible working
hours, providing training opportunities to enhance their abilities and
performance based reward system (Management Paradise, 2011). Such actions not
only attract applicants for posed vacancies but also allow the company to
retain their workforce.
New hiring is made to meet HR needs
and wants to execute business strategies effectively as in the case of Meister
Software UK or Toyota discussed above. Successful recruitment and selection
process brings competent workforce in the alignment of organizational
objectives. Employee performances and accomplishment of organizational
objectives demonstrate the effectiveness of selection process and reveal
positive affects of selection processes to the organizational goals and
objectives. Employee selection on the basis of work assessment method
successfully provides effective manpower that meets their objective of high
quality at competitive prices. Moreover, at Meister Software UK work sample
tests also bring competitive man power that can attract current and prospective
customers to meet organizational goals and objectives.
Brackey
H. J. (1998), “Job Hunters Face New-Styled Interviews”, Omaha World-Herald,
G25—26
Bratton
J. & Gold J. (2010), “Human Resource Management: Theory and practice”, Macmillan
Press Ltd.
Campion
M., Palmer D. K. & Campion J. E. (1997), “A Review of Structure in the
Selection Interview” Personnel Psychology, Vol. 50
DeCenzo
D. A., Robbins S. P. & Verhulst S. L. (2010), “Fundamentals of Human Resource
Management”, 10 Ed, Wiley & Sons, Inc
Management
Paradise (2011), “Inducement in Infosys”,
[online] Available at
Mathis
R. L. & Jackson J. H. (2007), “Human Resource Management”, 9th
Ed, South-Western Publications
