Human resource management - appunti

RECRUITING AND SELECTING EMPLOYEES

Labor supply = availability of workers with the required skills an organization need

Labor demand = n° of workers an organization need

HUMAN RESOURCES PLANNING (HRP)

Forecasting labor demand and supply ensure that the firm has the right amount of



people with the required skills to deliver a particular level of product/service in the

future

3 cases:

1. D > S = the firm will need more workers that the ones that are available

training existing workers, grooming new employees to take vacant positions, hiring



new workers (part-time workers, temporary workers, paying overtime to existing

workers)

2. S > D = there are more workers than the ones the firm needs

pay cuts, reducing n° of hour worked, work sharing, eliminate job positions through



early retirement incentives or severance pay

3. D = S = people hired are replacing people retired or people who quit

Forecasting techniques:

QUANTITATIVE (mathematical QUALITATIVE (Judgement)

techniques)

- relying too much on past data + more flexibility

(relationships held in the past may be

different from the futures ones) - less accurate

- better for large firms facing low Ex. Top-down or bottom-up approach:

competition and stable environments prediction of D and S are mare from

senior managers or lower levels

Ex. Ratios analysis: using historical ratios managers

to predict D and S

THE HIRING PROCESS

Poor hiring decisions increase organizational costs

Challenges:

1. Determining characteristics important to performance

Knowledge, skills and abilities (KSA’s matrix) are evolving for every job

 Organizational culture

 Different people requires different characteristics of the new hire



2. Measuring characteristics that determine performance (ex: test of maths

ability)

3. Measure motivation  PERFROMANCE = ABILITY x MOTIVATION

4. The HR department should make the hiring decision (comply with legal

requirement and have more info about the applicants since it is responsible for

their initial contact)

RECRUITING

It is like a sales activity and applicants are treated as customers: opportunity to

highlight what your organization offers

Sources of recruiting:

1. Current employees: informing them about job openings before recruiting from

other sources

2. Referrals from current employees studies found that people hired like that



stay in the organization longer and are more loyal and job satisfied

3. Former employees (that previously worked in the organization)

4. Former military military experience is linked with better job performance



5. Customers already familiar with the organizational product/service



6. Print and radio advertisement

7. Internet advertising, career sites and social media cheap, more dynamic and



faster for both organizations and job seekers

8. Employment agencies

9. Temporary workers provide flexibility to meet fluctuating demand



10.College recruiting

!! Evaluation hiring= after a set period of time (90 days) the company decides

whether to hire the worker as permanent employee

+ the firm can avoid better hiring decisions and better determine if the candidate fits

in the organization

- bad for the candidate that doesn’t have a permanent job for 90 days and this period

can also be extended

- unethical if it is used to hire workers only for a temporary base

11.Non-traditional recruiting: hiring prisoners, senior citizens, workers from foreign

countries, homeless, drug addicts

EXTERNAL CANDIDATES INTERNAL CANDIDATES

+ fresh perspectives + less costly internal recruits are



already familiar with the organization’s

+ different approaches culture, procedures and policies

+ less costly if you hire external + motivating for internal workers

specialists instead of training current because the organization shows to give

workers in new processes and opportunity for advancement

technologies - no introduction of innovation and new

- a new recruit needs time to learn a new perspectives

job

SELECTION

Reliability = consistency of measurement (how much noise/error has influenced the

measure)

Validity = the extent to which scores on a test or interview correspond to actual job

performance

Selection tools:

1. Letters of recommendations

2. Application forms (asking info regarding past jobs or present employment

status) to determine whether a candidate has the minimum requirements for



that job

Ex: biodata forms

3. Ability tests (Ex: cognitive ability tests specific of a certain area)

4. Personality tests to asses traits like extroversion, agreeableness,



conscientiousness, emotional stability, openness to experiences

5. Honesty tests (Ex: polygraph test measure a candidate pulse, breathing rate

while asking a series of questions)

6. Interviews criticism of interviews because: poor reliability and validity



because of human judgement limitation, interviewer’s biases and the fact that

sometimes are conducted differently from a candidate to another

Solution: STRUCTURED INTERVIEW = job related questions consistent across all

candidates (all responses are scored the same way) valid predictors of job



performance

Ex. how a worker would respond to a particular work situation (situational

questions), basic knowledge (job knowledge questions), if the worker wants

to perform under prevailing job conditions (worker requirement questions)

But unstructured interviews remain popular because they can better predict the

candidate degree of fit with the organization and identify inadequate

candidates.

7. Assessment centres (set of simulated tasks or exercises that candidates have to

perform)

used for external recruitment or internal promotion (usually managerial



positions)

- expensive way to reduce costs could be conduct it only for the middle range



candidates

+ effective technique to judge competences (organizing, planning, decision-

making, leadership)

8. Drug tests

9. Reference checks (look at past employment record)

10.Background checks (look at criminal background, academic achievements,

driving history..)

11.Handwriting analysis

!! link between performance and fit with the organizational culture you can improve



skills by training programs but you can’t change persons’ values

SOCIALIZATION: aimed to integrate workers in the organization and to the units in

which they will be working (making him feel member of the team)

APPRAISING AND MANAGING PERFORMANCE

PERFROMANCE APPRAISAL = identification, measurement and management of

organizational performance

Administrative purpose deciding employees’ working conditions, promotions,

 

rewards, terminations