Managing Human Resources (Research Paper Sample)

Managing Personnel and Human Resources
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Question: Evaluate the argument that an organization can no longer rely on the classic trio of application form, interview and reference to select which individuals would be best suited to work for that organization.
Introduction
In any organization, the most important asset they own is their human resources. The employees of an organisation are an important contribution to its success or failure. If the people employed by an organisation are not creative or do not add any value to the organisation’s goals, then that organisation has high chances of failure. For an organisation to meet its goals and be successful, it should hire the right people who possess the right skills, qualifications and experience to facilitate its success.
Getting the right human resources starts with the recruitment and selection process. Since the employees of an organisation are integral to its success or failure, it is important to get it right from the start so that the organisation may have the right people in the right place at the right time (Lanz, 1998). To achieve this, a company should be serious in the recruitment and selection process. This is because; an ineffective recruitment and selection process can have undesirable consequences, for instance, organizational failure, low productivity and high turnover rates. To guard against this, management should ensure its recruitment and selection decisions will serve the effective functioning of the organisation both in the short term and the long term.
To this end, this essay will evaluate traditional method of selection of the classic trio of application form, interview and reference to select human resources and the effectiveness, or lack thereof, of this process to meet the challenges that organizations face today.
Recruitment and Selection Definition
Newell and Shackleton (2000, p.113) refer to recruitment as "the process of attracting people who might make a contribution to the particular organization”. Similarly, Bratton & Gold (2003) defined recruitment as a "process of generating a pool of capable people to apply for employment to an organization’’. Additionally, Beardwell, Holden and Claydon (2003, p.192) points out that the process of recruitment has two essential purposes. For one, recruitment should concentrate on attracting and also holding the interest of suitable applicants for a certain job. Secondly, it should form a positive image of the organization in the eyes of its publics. From these definitions, the main aim of recruitment comes out clearly, which is to identify and attract future employees. In the course of this stage, it is the employer who must encourage the best candidates to apply for a position in the company.
Selection is the process of selecting the most qualified candidates for a given job in a firm who have the desired mix of education, skills and experience (Mathis, 1991, p.209). Here, the employer decides which applicant is the most appropriate for the position. This is done from an assessment on the applicants’ strengths and weaknesses (Boxall and Purcell, 2003, p.141). The selection process is a diversified one and may either be short or long depending on the organization’s human resource management practices and policies.
Breaugh & Stark (2000) state that the important qualities of a perfect recruitment and selection structure in an organisation include a precise and well defined job design, well defined organizational structure, perfect specifications regarding the job profile and person, wide range of selection processes, relations with employees and policies regarding staffing. Evaluating whether the classic trio of application forms, interviews and references meet these criteria is therefore important.
The ‘Classic Trio’
Most organizations use the ‘classic trio’ (Cook, 1993) for selecting employees. The classic trio is comprised of the application form or curriculum vitae, the interview and references. This process is a conventional approach that is based on fitting job descriptions to person specifications, specifically, describing the tasks and responsibilities pertaining to a certain job and then coming up with an ideal ‘profile’ of the person best suited to that job (Bratton and Gold, 2003). The classic trio has traditionally been the foundation of the selection process and job advertisements by establishing a set of criteria against which applications will be judged by and selection decisions will be based on (Anderson and Cunningham-Snell,2000; Beardwell et al., 2003).
* Application Forms
A study conducted in Britain in 1998 on the information contained on job applications (Fisher, Schoenfeldt and Shaw, 1999, p. 342) revealed that data such as name and surname, date of birth, reasons for leaving previous employments and such, are common details for all forms. Additional information included details on hobbies, education and membership to professional bodies. The selection committee therefore, may create brief reviews of the information contained in the application forms especially if there are many applicants for comparison purposes and to assist in forecasting for successful applicants.
* Recommendations
Cook (1996) asserts that two thirds of British organizations always require applicants to submit their recommendations. This is especially common in the public sector. References are usually in the form of a letter that acts as a security check of the candidate’s successful performance with previous employers.
* Interviews
These are the most common selection technique. It may be structured or unstructured. Interviews follow specific guidelines which help the interviewer get the necessary information from an applicant in a systematic manner. This information can be used to predict how an applicant may perform in future compared to the other applicants who will undergo the same interview process. The interview supplements the information gathered from application forms and get specifics on a candidate’s competencies, attitudes and personal characteristics that can only be obtained from face-to-face meetings. Interviews also help to assess whether a particular candidate will be a suitable ‘fit’ for an organization or not. However, this assessment is entirely judgmental and biased.
Relevance of the Classic Trio in Selection
There are certain selection methods that are suitable for certain organizational systems and structures and those that are not. The classic trio is a traditional approach that may only be suitable for organizational systems that are dated especially in today’s age of globalization. Many organizational structures today understand the importance of qualified and competent human resources so that they may maximize on organizational success. This knowledge has encouraged organizations to employ more sophisticated selection techniques to ensure they get individuals who will facilitate their organizational success. These selection techniques include assessment centers, psychometric testing and work samples. These selection techniques are considered to be more valid than the classic trio (Anderson & Cunningham-Snell, 2000) since validity is important for good selection criteria.
The classic trio is not an effective method of determining the best possible candidates for a particular job because it lacks validity and reliability. Reliability refers to the extent to which a selection method gives consistency. It is often measured as a correlation between two kinds of criteria. Statistically, reliability is measured against coefficient reliability such that when results are summarized, the higher will be coefficient (closer to 1.0) thus a dependable selection technique (Bratton J., 2003, p.235). Subjective selection criteria such as the interview cannot be considered reliable, and can even not yield useful information in some cases. The interview process being unreliable can be shown a sample case scenario. For instance, it is agreed that interviewers often have a preferred ideal candidate in mind. This ideal helps them agree on selection, although during the interview process, disagreements may arise. For example, interviewers may agree that an ideal employee should be one who has social skills, willing to assist others, dominant, persistent, aggressive and focused (Cook, 1996). The interviewers may collectively agree on this ideal, but still stereotypes of individual interviewers may factor into their decision-making e.g. some interviewers may consider a candidate who changes jobs often as a good sign of one who seeks new challenges whereas others might see the same as a sign of unreliability in a candidate.
According to Price (2000, p.148), good selection methods must meet four basic requirements, namely, practicality, sensitivity, reliability and validity. Practicality mans that a technique should consider cost and time factors, sensitivity looks at means of distinguishing candidates from each other and validity which is categorized into two, i.e. face validity which considers whether candidates find questions ‘relevant’ and acceptable and construct validity which establishes the suitability of candidates for a position (Price, 2000, p. 149). According to study by Levy-Leboyer (Cornelius, 1999, p.39), selection methods with debatable validity are not suitable. References, interviews and personality tests were seen to have low validity. Conventional interview methods were also seen to have low validity as a selection technique. To improve on this however, the use of structured interviews rather than unstructured interviews is encouraged so that all applicants are asked exactly the same question...