Recruiting Selecting employees while considering legal and other considerable factors

1. Describe, in summary the legal instruments impacting on staff recruitment and selection:

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.

2 Identify organizational procedures and processes that affect staff recruitment and selection:

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.

3 Discuss fairness, objectivity and equality of opportunity as elements of recruitment and selection:

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).

4. Analyze staffing resources to meet current and future objectives:

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).

5. Develop both a job description and a person specification:

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

6. Develop a case for additional staffing resources:

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.

7. Discuss the stages of a selection process:

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. Describe methods to support a selection decision:

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 Interview:

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.

Behavioral Description Interview:

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).

Stress Interview:

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.

9. Identify the stages of a selection process, where records are kept and the nature of those records:

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.

10. Evaluate the selection process:

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.

11. Identify the communications required during a selection process:

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.

12. Develop an induction plan for an appointed candidate:

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.

13. Review the impact of the recruitment and selection process and the appointed candidate on the objective of the case for the additional staffing resource:

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.

  

References:

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

http://www.managementparadise.com/forums/human-resources-management-h-r/203688-inducement-infosys-case-example.html

Mathis R. L. & Jackson J. H. (2007), “Human Resource Management”, 9^th Ed, South-Western Publications