HR Department Selection and Recruitment Functions

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Table of Contents

Introduction
The recruitment and selection process
Importance of selection and recruitment
Impact of effective selection and recruitment on the company
Recommendations
Conclusion
Works Cited

Introduction

The contemporary business environment that enterprises operate has become more and more competitive. This growth has been brought about by globalization whereby each company seeks to operate in the international market.

As such, companies seek to gain competitive advantage over their competitors to ensure that they remain in existence as well as achieve their organizational objectives. Among the various measures taken by most companies to achieve competitive advantage is that of quality output which is highly dependent on the operations management of an organization.

These operations are carried out either by machines or human beings. Thus, the human resource is an important asset in every organization given the major contributions it brings to the organization. This is because as much as organizational managers would like to have their operations automated, there are still operations that have to involve human beings. As much as automation is available in most companies, human resource remains inevitable.

It is therefore evident that the human resource of a company plays a significant role in its performance. With this in mind, most human resource departments/ managers have put in place measures to ensure that they obtain the best human resource with skills and experience to ensure that the output of the company is of high quality. The attainment and retaining of highly skilled personnel relies on strategies adopted by the human resource department.

The human resource processes includes training, recruitment and hiring, selection, job tasking, selection, appraisals and evaluation as well as dismissal. It involves setting duties and responsibilities for every employee as well as determining their salaries and benefits. This paper is an in-depth analysis of the selection and recruitment functions of the human resource department by looking at the processes of selection and recruiting, their importance, and the impact they have on company performance.

The recruitment and selection process

The process of selecting and recruiting of personnel to the organization is the most important function of the human resource department (Adiele 1). Despite the fact that the process is normally lengthy, it is simple and mostly made up of the following stepwise procedures:

Job analysis and job description
Advertisement via internal memo or the public media such as newspapers, the internet, and recruiting agencies
Short listing of candidates that meet the minimum qualifications
Screening/ Interview
Selection
Recruitment of successful candidates
Employee orientation
Probation and confirmation

The process of recruiting in companies can be solely carried out by the human resource department of the company or be outsourced from external recruitment agencies (Adiele 1). When recruitment is done by recruitment agencies, the companys role is to present their staff needs to the agency, which will carry out the whole process and fill the vacant positions on behalf of the company.

Nevertheless, most companies prefer to carry out the process on their own. When this happens, the first step in recruiting is normally identification of the number of staff needed. Staff needs could arise in the case of retirement, resignation, or contract termination of an employee thus making their position vacant.

Vacancies also arise in the event that the company is restructuring or expanding like in the case of merger and acquisition. When the company is certain that there is the need to fill a vacant position, the position is advertised. Vacancies are normally advertised to the public through the media such as newspapers, job sites in the internet, and radio among other channels of communication. Internal advertisement could also be done through memos.

On the advertisement, the job description should be clearly indicated derived from the job analysis. The job description entails trying to give the purpose of the job, tasks involved in the job, and the entire scope of the job. In demanding advertisements, salary details could also be given as an incentive to attract numerous applications. All this information is given in at least one sentence. The advertisement should also have a deadline for the applications in addition to the mode of sending applications such as email or postal services.

Once the human resource department receives applications, the selection process begins. Selection begins upon receipt of the applications whereby the candidates deemed fit for the advertised positions are shortlisted and invited for an interview with the selection committee. Interviews form the major part of the selection and recruitment processes of most companies and organizations. It is through interviews that the company is able to know the past and future performances of a candidate.

The candidate is also in a position to know more about the job and company. The selection criteria could be custom made to meet the demand of the company as well as making sure that the right candidate is selected. This prevents the company from going back to the drawing board to carry out another recruitment process a decision that is costly and involving a lot of time.

Importance of selection and recruitment

Human resource is among the most essential assets of any business enterprise who goal is excellent performance. The employees of a company normally act as the face of the company.

For instance, the satisfaction of customers is determined by the attitude and capability of the employees in addition to their engagement and commitment to organizational success. As such, all companies normally strive to hire the best workforce through the selection and recruitment process. As mentioned earlier in the paper, the process of selection and recruitment is very costly and time consuming.

It is in this regard that the selection and recruitment process forms an integral part in any business enterprise. It should therefore be properly carried out to achieve effectiveness and efficiency. The process should be able to come up with proper choices of candidates who are well skilled and competent. This is because wrong selection and recruitment increases the labor turnover and operating organizational costs while decreasing employee morale due to lack of achievement.

Listed below are some of the benefits of the selection and recruitment process in companies.

Tapping of new talent

The selection and recruitment process is vital in any business enterprise as it creates a pool of candidates with talents from which the company is to choose from. When a company advertises a job vacancy, it attracts and encourages people with the desired skills and qualifications to apply. The advertisement is meant to attract knowledgeable and suitable professionals fitting the job description.

This is important as talent that could be difficult to get will now be in the hands of the company selection committee. Unlike in other methods of filling vacant positions such as promotion of a junior officer to a senior position, recruitment and selection brings about new talent in the organization. The new talent is road map to innovation and inventions in the company, which in turn leads to the company gaining competitive advantage.

Link between company and employees

The recruitment process is significant to both the employers and the employees because it acts as the link joining the two groups. Upon selection of the right candidates to fill in the vacant positions in the company, these two parties enter into a contractual agreement.

The contractual agreement, which marks the end of the recruitment and selection process, is a legal document that gives the obligations of the employer and employee where they all sign in agreement. This agreement is normally referred to in the event that one party breaches the terms of the contractual agreement. In addition to this, the selection and recruitment process creates an environment that the employees and the employer meet on a one-to-one scenario and share their ideas.

For instance, candidates are normally requested to ask anything they would like to know regarding the company during an interview. Additionally, the employers represented by the selection committee ask all they would want to know from the prospective employee. This in turn creates a platform that both parties know about each other.

Cost effectiveness

When wrong people are recruited in an organization, chances are high that it will increase costs. As such, recruitment and selection is important in any organization so as to ensure that the right people are chosen and given the right positions in the company. In most organizations, the process of recruitment is custom-made to fill several vacancies in the company.

The recruitment and selection process involves various steps that can be monitored and adapted by the candidates. It is important that the process be simplified in order to ensure that there are no chances of discrimination hence helping the selection panel make the right choice for the company.

The recruitment and selection process is important in reducing costs in organizations since it puts in place adequate measures to replace and fill vacant positions without having to wait for long, something that could lead to halting of operations thus losses incurred. In addition to this, the recruitment and selection process offers organizations with a pool of prospective employees to choose from.

These prospective employees are not hunted but they (candidates) hunt the job, thus saving organizations the cost and time they would have spent hunting for them. It has been evidenced that a single job advertisement could attract more than 100,000 applications in most of the nations where unemployment rates are high. This number is bound to change depending on the unemployment rates as well as the development of different nations.

Decreasing turnover

Employee turnover in a company is a sign of poor management, which in the end leads to financial losses. Companies work hard to ensure that the turnover rates are as low as possible.

The process of selection and recruitment facilitates proper appointments of the right candidates best suited for the post instead of appointing overqualified or under qualified persons to fill the position. The disadvantage of appointing persons not qualified for a certain job is that they normally have low morale and poor quality output thus opting to reassign or forced to quit.

This in turn increases the turnover rate. However, proper selection and recruitment reduces the turnover rate by ensuring that the right candidates are selected to fill the specific vacant positions in organizations. This is because, selection and recruitment helps reduce the probability that job applicants once recruited and selected will leave the organization only after a short period of time (Sims 34).

Increasing employee morale

When an employee goes through the selection and recruitment process and appointed to fill a vacancy in an organization, there is no doubt that they will be proud of having been picked from the large pool of applicants. This will not only make the employees confident in themselves but will also increase their productivity since they would like to assure the company that they were definitely the best choice. In turn, the yield for the company will be high hence being competitive in the market.

The recruitment and selection of employees plays a significant role in motivating employees to perform extraordinarily in a bid to satisfy the expectations of their employees. On the other hand, employees currently working in an organization will also be motivated to increase their productivity in bid to increase their chances of being selected in case there is a vacancy to fill in the organization (Mathis and Jackson 37).

Those wishing to move in other organizations will also work diligently in order to sell themselves to other competitive institutions. Since most recruiters normally contact the referees of candidates or their previous employees, every employee makes sure that they are of good conduct and perform excellently in their duties so that a good report can be given. All this is because employees are aware that the only way of getting a job is through the selection and recruitment process.

Impact of effective selection and recruitment on the company

Effective selection and recruitment selection process in a company comes in hand with several benefits, some of which include the following:

Cost benefit

The main reason behind the advocacy for effective selection and recruitment is to save on cost. Poor selection of the candidates filling a certain position could arise to various costs. First, the unfit candidate could produce poor quality products and or services, which could in turn affect the sales of the company hence low profits.

Secondly, a candidate who is unfit for a certain post could lack the technical skills hence affecting operations for instance, unskilled mechanic in a factory could operate machines wrongly hence destroying the product or causing injury to themselves or their fellow workers. This in turn makes the company incur huge losses in repair of machines or treatment of the injured employees.

It is therefore advisable that the company invests in effective selection and recruitment process so as to recruit competent personnel who will not bring about mistakes that can hinder the companys productivity. Keeping the costs of selection down will involve such factors as holding the interviews in a location, which is accessible to the interviewing panel, and to those being interviewed (Mathis and Jackson 43).

Thirdly, there is the cost of retraining which is incurred in the event that a company recruits unqualified personnel. In other cases, the recruited employees could require replacement especially when their performance is extremely poor. This means that the company has to undergo the whole process of selection and replacement, something that is very costly and time consuming. When this happens, the company experiences serious financial losses, which are difficult to revamp.

Employee Loyalty and Productivity

The main expectation of any employer from his or her employees is quality output. Companies normally require people who will be highly productive in order to facilitate the achievement of organizational goals. The high productivity is only achieved when the employees are loyal. Loyal employees are normally dedicated to the company and would do anything to make it succeed.

As such, employee loyalty is linked to the kind of output that the employer will receive in the end. With this in mind, it is important that the recruitment and selection process is effective to produce the best-fitted candidate for the post in the company. For instance, the interview panel could ask the candidates questions on their strengths and weaknesses, their achievements, and maybe their failures if any.

This helps tap the loyal employees who in most of the cases will have had a track record of excellent performance in their past. A company with loyal employees remains more competitive than those with disloyal employees. In addition to this, the company becomes innovative given the dedication of the employees, which in turn results in a highly profitable company.

Retention of employees

Retention is perhaps more important now than ever. Keeping hold of your best workers, and inspiring confidence and loyalty in difficult times requires considerable commitment on your part (Sims 26). However, when the wrong people are selected for a certain position in a company, chances are very high that they will either quit or resign.

The reason behind this is the low morale of the employee, which results due to inability to perform a certain task or poor output. When this happens, the company will have no other option than to terminate the contract of such an employee. Several instances of such a case would result in high turnover, which in turn leads to high spending by the company.

Poor selection and recruitment process could also bring into the company job hoppers. Job hoppers change jobs often and they keep on moving from one organization to another. Based on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, workers in the Baby Boomer generation had an average of 11 jobs during a 26-year period of their working lives (Mayhew 1).

Employees with such a character bring about high turnovers in organizations. To avoid this, the selection panel should look at the length of time that the candidates have spent in their previous jobs. This will show if the candidate is the job hopping type. In addition to this, the references could be contacted to give the history of the candidate.

All this is done to ensure that the company obtains the best-suited employee for the post, one who will not leave the company in just a short time but instead offer his or her services to a long time. It can therefore be concluded, low turnover is a sign of an effective recruitment and selection process, especially because most turnover occurs during the first 90 days of employment (Mayhew 1).

Legal issues

Given the high rate of unemployment in the world today, chances of unfair selection of candidates is inevitable as people push in for their relatives and friends while others give bribe to be given certain posts in organizations. This is unacceptable under the laws governing hiring of personnel in companies.

Thus, ineffective selection and recruitment procedures that do not adhere to the laws of the land could lead to serious consequences to the recruiting company. These could include sanctions of the recruiting persons, contract termination for the wrongly selected employees and fines for the company. This not only causes financial losses to the company but also ruins the reputation of the company.

Discrimination in hiring procedures is yet another issue that could make the company face serious legal consequences. Discrimination is forbidden in all nations and companies with advocacy of equal treatment of candidates in selection and recruitment being preached all over the world.

For instance, the United States Department of Labor forbids discrimination based on race, color, national origin, sex, disability, religion, political affiliation, religion or age (Saez 1). These laws are enforced by the government to ensure that the right selection and job termination procedures are followed when terminating the employees contract.

These laws made the organization to be composed of different groups of persons without discriminating anybody because of gender, age, and race. Everybodys rights are maintained and equal chances during employees selection and firing are given to all candidates. This allows the organization to select good employees, which can help it attain its strategic goals successfully.

Discrimination can be avoided by clearly indicating all the essential requirements of a certain position on the job advertisement as well as the specific duties involved. In other instances, companies indicate that a certain discriminated gender and people are encouraged to apply. For example, an advertisement could read, female candidates are encouraged to apply (Saez 1). Others will read, persons with disability are encouraged to apply (Saez 1).

In addition to this, interviews ought to be held during days and time that would not prevent certain groups of people from attending. For instance, holding interviews on religious or cultural holidays could deter some candidates from attending given their religious values. Additionally, it is required that proper notes are taken during recruitment in a bid to justify the selected candidates. In doing this, the company adheres to the legal requirements hence keeping instances of legal fines at bay.

Recommendations

Human resource is significant in the operations of all kinds of business enterprises ranging from schools, restaurants, food manufacturing, and legal practices just to mention a few. This has been evidenced by the lack of achievement of organizational goals in companies with the best physical resources, capital, and latest technology yet lacking the right personnel to carry out the operations.

This therefore indicates that having the right people to work in organizations is a key determinant of organizational success. Selection gives an organization the opportunity of analyzing the skills of applicants and choosing the best among them. Given its significance in the development of an organization, it is recommended that the recruitment and selection process have three key qualities, which are efficient, effective, and fair (Mathis and Jackson 45).

It is recommended that the recruitment and selection process be cost effective in terms of the method used and sources of getting the right personnel. In the ancient times, job advertisements were made through radio and newspapers among other ancient methods all of which were deemed slow. Nowadays, most of the job advertisements are via the internet hence reaching a large number of people within the shortest time.

Internet has also increased the speed of candidates responding to the advertised vacancies. In the same way, the company is also able to respond thus making the recruitment process cost effective. The process should also be effective and able to produce the required number of candidates with surplus or deficit. Recruitment and selection is a process, which is recommended to be fair to all the candidates by giving them equal chances.

In addition to this, it is recommended that companies adopt strategic human resource management policy in their human resource planning. Strategic human resource management is part of management, which support the employees meet their needs in the organization with the aim of achieving the organizational goals.

The strategic human resource will ensure that the organization recruits fire and offer good welfares to its employees. It also ensure that the line managers and other employees are motivated by awarding them work incentives, safety procedures of information and vacation or sick days to promote them to increase their efficiency and performance.

The strategic approach to human resource helps the organization to achieve its objective by ensuring that the organization attracts and recruits the staffs that possess the skills and expertise that can help the organization to grow to a level that is expected by the investors. The employees therefore are well conversant with the roles and responsibilities, which they are assigned to do because they have the appropriate skills necessary for the duties that they are given by the organization.

Conclusion

The above discussion proves the fact that organizational success is highly dependent on the skills and competencies of staff. This stresses the need for proper hiring of staff in order to ensure that the organization does not lack skills. As mentioned earlier in the paper recruitment is the process of identifying and hiring a qualified employee in the firm.

Several benefits of the recruitment process have been listed including the fact that it creates mutual understanding between employees and employers. Nevertheless, recruitment is known have one weakness in that it may be expensive to administer especially to small-scale organizations because the funds required may not be available. However, as discussed in the paper, the process ought to be as effective as possible in order to save on extra costs.

A good selection process of employees without any form of discrimination and makes an organization to have employees who have good corporate values, which enhance good employees relationship and performance (Sims 65). The selection should be based on the merit of employees and therefore the organization will be able to meet its goals since it will have experienced and qualified personnel.

When the right procedures of selection and recruitment are in place, the company will save on costs, decrease turnover rates, increase employee morale, and retain their employees for a long time. This not only ensures efficient and effective running of the company but it also enhances the good reputation of the company.

Works Cited

Adiele, Ndunuju. Recruitment and Selection Process. 2009. Web.

Mathis, Robert, & Jackson, John. Human resource management. Mason, OH: Thomson/South-western, 2010. Print.

Mayhew, Ruth. The Importance of Good Recruitment & Selection. 2013. Web.

Saez, Alex. Importance of Effective Recruitment & Selection. 2013. Web.

Sims, Ronald. Human resource management: Contemporary issues, challenges, and opportunities. Greenwich, Conn: Information Age Publ., 2007. Print.

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