Human Resource Management: Selecting and Appraising Your Future Staff

Human Resource Management: Selecting and Appraising Your Future Staff

The process of staff recruitment and selection is becoming increasingly complex and its integration into organizational and Human Resource (HR) strategies means that the successful outcome of these processes is vital for job performance and organizational success. The intricacy of matching the right applicant to the right job is a perpetual activity for management and HR practitioners considering the organization's economic, social and political contexts. This paper aims to identify the effect the environmental context has towards organizational strategies and the HR system and the subsequent impact on recruitment procedures and selection. Further, an analysis of the importance of staff recruitment and selection within the organization's changing environment and tools used to facilitate the effectiveness of these functions. This will enable an assessment of any changes or strategies needed to avoid failures associated with poor selection and methods to improve recruitment and selection procedures.

Organizations are increasingly becoming focused on being competitive on a national and global level. The importance of the recruitment and selection process is vital for organizational competitiveness and a failure to approach this function effectively will have consequences for future job performance. Numerous authors have emphasised the importance of integrating the recruitment and selection processes into organizational strategies and HR systems as well as the necessity to respond to changes in the organization's environment (e.g. Stone, 2002, p.174, Nankervis, Compton & McCarthy, 1999, p.190, Compton, Morrissey & Nankervis, 2002, pp.16-17). The organization is constantly changing to respond to changes in its environment, for instance, the structure of the organization may change and jobs redesigned to improve efficiency or reduce costs. However, one of the fundamental mistakes made by management is the failure to allocate "the right people to the right jobs" (Stone, 2002, p.124) once these changes occur. Such "economically" inspired" tactics have been criticised as having a detrimental impact towards the productivity of the workforce and this could be related to the failure in acknowledging the job requirements needed after such fundamental organizational changes have occurred (ACIRRT, 1999, pp.16-17).

A further impact on organizational performance is the slow response to increased globalisation resulting in "work intensification" which has consequences for the organization (ACIRRT, 1999, pp.31-33). In conjunction with the impact of the global economy, the high demand for skilled labour has meant a world-wide shortage of skilled staff and this trend continues as organizations seek increased competitiveness resulting in a fundamental change in the labour market (author, 2000,p.66). This has led to a need for organizations to develop sound HR policies and an effective recruitment process ensuring that it can acquire the most qualified pool of applicants available. Management must seek to deal with this competition for skilled labour as well as abiding by anti-discrimination legislation, labour laws and a deregulated industrial relations system (Irwin, 2003, pp.1-5).

Recruitment and selection is vital to the organization in implementing change and counteracting changes in the environmental context (Stone, 2002, p174). Jobs change accordingly as organizations respond to economic and technological pressures (Nankervis, Compton & McCarthy, 1999, p.190). It is common for organizations to disregard this when the recruitment process begins and it will inevitably lead to an unqualified and unskilled workforce and consequently job failure. For instance, it has been stated that corporations no longer have a centralised role in decision making, non-standard forms of employment has risen substantially and outsourcing is increasing for most activities (Drucker, 2001). Further, tasks are changing constantly, particularly in higher positioned jobs and HR practitioners will have difficulty in assessing job designs (Stone, 2002, p.124). Therefore if management does not acknowledge internal changes that occur than there will be a misallocation of workers and jobs.

In addition to the need for management to evaluate the effect of social, economic and political impacts on the organization, a factor that contributes towards poor performance is the incorrect assessment about the types of jobs that need filling and the skills needed to perform them. In other words, the organization's external environment directly affects the organizational context (Irwin, 2003, pp.6-7). The main function of recruitment is to ensure that the organization is adequately and effectively staffed at all times