The Human Resource Management Function
The human resource management function plays a significant role in organizations. Many successful organizations have attributed their success to their ability to carry out this function well. For the case of an organization operating in different cultures, there many cross-cultural factors that need to be considered in order to effectively manage the human resources. Precisely an organization’s Human resource department is concerned with Employee recruitment and selection, training and development, employee safety and well-being, compensation and benefits, and with compliance with labor laws. Recruitment and selection is the process of attracting new employees to fill vacant positions within an organization; it involves analysis of the requirements of a particular job, attracting qualified applicants for the vacant positions, screening applications selecting the most qualified among the applicants and integrating them into an organization.
The effectiveness with which this process is carried out determines the attributes and capabilities of the workforce within an organization (Arthur, 2014) Sunshine steel Ltd is a leading Australian steel building manufacturer that has decided to diversify its operations by taking over the ownership of privately owned manufacturer of Auxiliary products in China. Due to the failure of the company to adopt appropriate selection and recruitment and selection practices, it has faced serious challenges that have led to the increase in termination of employment contracts due failure of picking qualified personnel during the recruitment and selection process. The focus of this essay will be on the recruitment and selection challenges that the organization is facing.
There are a number of guidelines that should be followed during the recruitment and selection to ensure that an organization attracts the right candidates with the needed skills to facilitate organizational progress. If these guidelines are not considered, an organization might end up filling vacant positions with people not possessing the requisite skills. The impact of having in place employees not qualified for various assigned tasks is that organization productivity is affected. There are a number of factors that should be considered in the selection in the recruitment and selection process for it to be deemed as effective (Aswathappa,2013)
Education qualification. This is perhaps one of the most important considerations that recruiters look for in candidates .The education qualification of employees is important; certain jobs require certain education qualifications and certifications, while others may not require employees to have pursued certain courses. On the other hand, employers also look for work experience from employees (Fallon,Fleming, and Charles,2014) Work experience is perhaps the most important Consideration for certain jobs within an organization. It demonstrates the level of competence and the ability of an individual to perform their duties effectively with minimal challenges or mistakes. It also shows their ability to carry out certain staff’s roles. An important consideration in the recruitment and selection process is the specific set of skills possessed by the potential employees.
Effective Recruitment and Selection Process
These set of skill should match the job at hand to enable employees to carry out their assigned tasks effectively. An employee’s personality determines the ability of employees to work with other employees ate the workplace as well as their ability to follow simple rules at the workplace. How an employee relates to customers is also to a large extent determined by their personality. Because of their personality, employees can be able to attract customers for an organization or make customers shift allegiance to other brands in the market (Baker, Jerry and Madeleine,2007)
These among other considerations should be the central areas of focus by the recruitment team in an organization. Sunshine Steel Ltd according to the case study is facing serious challenges to its approach to employee recruitment and selection. All basic guidelines that regulate the recruitment and selection process have constantly been ignored by both the Australian firm and the Chinese firm. One of the major challenges that the organization is faced with is the use of obsolete job description and person specifications to recruit new employees especially the Melbourne Company. While job descriptions and person specifications for certain roles within an organization need to be reviewed from time to time the organization has constantly relied on old and outdated job descriptions and person specifications to meet its current needs.
Reliance on outdated job descriptions and person descriptions have the likelihood of leading to the employment of the wrong people for particular roles within the organization. Among the uses of job descriptions include communicating the requirements that are needed for a particular job to applicants to facilitate attraction of the competent employees who understand the core responsibilities of certain position even before making their application (Bucknall, Hugh, and Zheng,2016). It also gives the employees a glimpse of how the culture of an organization is like. Job descriptions also serve the purpose of notifying employees what is expected of them beforehand. It serves as a guide towards employee successful performance when they are hired and employers can use them to conduct performance reviews or in the determination of the compensation for a particular job as well as roadmaps for future career planning and training.
On the other hand Person specification is a description of the skills, experience attributes and qualifications for a particular job that must be possessed by the candidate to be selected for a particular job. This is the foundation of the recruitment process. The failure by Sunshine Steel limited to use up to date job descriptions and person specification means that the above factors will not be considered during the recruitment process which has lead to the selection of candidates not suited for certain roles into the organization. Apart from using outdated job description and person specifications, to some extent, the company has entirely ignored their use which has considerably affected the credibility of the entire process by locking out some of the qualified candidates and selecting non-deserving candidates.
Guidelines for Recruitment and Selection Process
The New Hr Director should also be concerned about the fact that the people selected for the various roles do not reflect the actual picture of the pool of applicants applying for this roles.The major benefit of having a large pool of applicants during the selection process is that an organization is given an opportunity to select the most qualified individuals from the large pool of applicants unlike where the options for an organization are limited as a result of a few applicants (Sims ,2007)However this has not been used to the advantage of Sunshine Steel Ltd, for example out of the 200 applications analyzed in the cases study, only the first 50 were considered in the selection process, the implication of this is that the remaining 150 applicants were locked out of the selection process without any justifiable reason.
Apart from the fact that outdated job descriptions and personifications were used among the 150 candidates who were left out of consideration, there could have been the most qualified individual for the job among those who were left out but since he or she was not given a chance, the organization could have ended up employing less qualified employees. This should be of concern to the new manager because by locking out qualified employees, the organization has and will continue to leave out people who perhaps would help it to move from its current state to the next level.
There should also be a concern in that as a requirement people who have unsuccessfully applied for vacant roles in the organization have right to be notified that because of various reasons they did not qualify for that particular role, however with the current practice these applicants are denied this opportunity. The danger of failing to communicate to unsuccessful applicants is that it might affect the ability of the organization to attract qualified applicants in future because of the negative perception that will be created in the eyes of potential applicants (Niles,2013)
What is considered in the recruitment process also determines the nature, potential, and attributes of the people recruited for certain roles. The current challenge in the organization, especially in its china branch, is that only one employee aspect i.e. personality is considered in the recruitment. This should be of concern to the new manager because it does not present an opportunity to consider all the attributes needed to effectively perform a job. Personality alone does not guarantee good performance by an employee (Bornay et al,2012)While it is among the factors that make an employee of significance to an organization, personality is not the only consideration that can be used to select the most qualified employees because it only defines employee’s qualities and characteristics. On the contrary consideration of another aspect such as employee’s confidence level, the level of education, the level of skills, work experience among other considerations make the process more effective.
Challenges in Recruitment and Selection at Sunshine Steel
These ensure that an employee is all rounded to be able to perform a particular job effectively. An employee might have a good personality but lack technical expertise needed to perform a certain role, in the same way, an employee might have a good personality but lack work experience or educational level that is required for a certain role. The effect of considering only one aspect of job recruitment and selection is that the organization will also miss an opportunity of selecting best employees because an applicant might not possess a very outstanding personality but could be outstanding in terms of their level of experience and technical skills but since this is not considered, they may end up being locked out thus leading an organization towards an unproductive path.
Although the Chinese HR department has up to date and comprehensive job descriptions, these have been of little significance to the organization during the recruitment and selection process. According to the case study there has been a serious violation of recruitment rules trough hiring of family members and close associates middle management positions by the Chinese manager. These have been selected on the basis of blood relations and friendship and no individual qualifications as per the job requirement have been considered. The danger of this has been that people without the necessary qualifications have been tasked with middle managerial roles, which has been a disadvantage to the organization (Hendry,2012).
The failure by the Chinese Hr department to make use of recruitment and their job descriptions in the recruitment and selection process means that the organization runs the risk of continuing to fail in terms of the people that are recruited in the organization. It also means that the new recruits will continue operating in vacuum without any guidelines on what their current roles demand of them or what their duties and responsibilities are, their reporting patterns as well as what is required of their jobs so that they might make an informed decision on whether they fit the description or not before they can fill their application. The major concern here is the fact that the organization risks having in place employees who understand very little about the organization as well as their assigned roles.
Additionally, for organizations, such Sunshine Steel Limited which operates across cultural borders requires that employees in these organizations are able to communicate and interact effectively with employees from a different culture (Fitz-enz, Jac,and Barbara,2014) It should be a concern for the new General Manager that description and person specifications used by the Melbourne Human resource management have now been able to capture te new organization as a multinational organization. The impact of this is that it might hinder communication between China office and the Melbourne as well as become a hurdle towards effective collaborations.
Issues of Outdated Job Descriptions
Keeping job descriptions Confidential makes it difficult for employees to have any prior knowledge about the place where they are supposed to work, the person to whom they are supposed to report to or people who are supposed to report to them, tasks that fall under a particular job, current duties and responsibilities as well as other duties that might be assigned on ad hoc basis. As per the current practice in the organization, employees are only showed their job descriptions after they have been recruited into the organization. This might be a disadvantage to the employees in that they might find out that the roles for which they have been hired are more complex than they thought. Job descriptions enable employees to make an informed decisions before they can make any applications for advertised jobs, it also contributes in minimizing possible confusion at the workplace in terms of reporting structures, duties and responsibilities as well as other expectations (Wilkinson, Adrian, and Stewart,2016) This has been perhaps one of the reasons why many employees have been found unsuitable for their current jobs because they had no prior knowledge before assuming their responsibilities.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Sunshine Steel Ltd is facing a serious issue with regard to its selection and recruitment which have potentially negative outcomes for the organization. Among the pertinent issues surrounding the organization’s recruitment and selection is the fact that the Chinese General Manager has recruited middle-level managers not on the basis of their qualifications for the job but because of the existing relationship between them. On the same note, the use of job descriptions in the recruitment and selection process has been discarded with the only option for employees being allowed to view their job descriptions after they have actually been recruited and begun their duties.
This can lead to confusion where employees do not understand what is required of them as well as lead to the recruitment of the wrong employees in the organization. Another issue that the organization is facing is the use of outdated job descriptions and personification, especially in Melbourne. As organizations grow they are faced with new needs and demands which must be reflected in the employees that they hire. This requires that organizational job description and person specifications are modified to accommodate the new demands so that employees hired have the skills and attributes that are needed to undertake particular roles in the organization (Fottler et al ,2010)
References
Arthur, Diane. Fundamentals of Human Resources Management. New York, N.Y.: American Management Association, 2014. <https://www.books24x7.com/marc.asp?bookid=11511>.
Aswathappa, K. Human Resource Management: Text and Cases. New Delhi: McGraw Hill Education, 2013.
Baker, Jerry R., and Madeleine S. Doran. Human Resource Management: A Problem-Solving Approach Linked to ISLLC Standards. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2007
Wilkinson, Adrian, and Stewart Johnstone. Encyclopedia of Human Resource Management. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Pub. Ltd, 2016.
Fitz-enz, Jac, and Barbara Davison. How to Measure Human Resources Management. New York, Ny: McGraw-Hill, 2012.
Fottler, Myron D., Naresh Khatri, and Grant T. Savage. Strategic Human Resource Management in Health Care. Bingley: Emerald, 2010
Hendry, Chris. Human resource management. Routledge, 2012.
Bornay?Barrachina, Mar, De la Rosa?Navarro, Alvaro López?Cabrales, and Ramón Valle?Cabrera. “Employment relationships and firm innovation: the double role of human capital.” British Journal of Management 23, no. 2 (2012): 223-240.
Bucknall, Hugh, and Zheng Wei. Magic Numbers for Human Resource Management: Basic Measures to Achieve Better Results. Singapore [u.a.]: Wiley, 2016.
Fallon, L. Fleming, and Charles R. McConnell. Human Resource Management in Health Care: Principles and Practice, Second Edition. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2014. https://www.books24x7.com/marc.asp?bookid=69832
Niles, Nancy J. Basic Concepts of Health Care Human Resource Management. Burlington, Mass: Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2013.
Perkins, Stephen J., Susan M. Shortland, and Stephen J. Perkins. Strategic International Human Resource Management: Choices and Consequences in Multinational People Management. London: Kogan Page, 2007.
Sims, Ronald R. Human Resource Management: Contemporary Issues, Challenges and Opportunities. Greenwich, Conn: Information Age Publ, 2007.
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