Once managers have decided what positions they need to fill, they must find and hire individuals who meet the jobs’ requirements. This staffing of the corporations is one of the most complex and important aspects of good human resource management.
EXTERNAL STAFFING
A new firm has little choice but to acquire staff from the outside. Established firms may also turn to the outside to fill positions for which there are no good internal candidates, to accommodate growth, or to bring in fresh ideas. Such external staffing involves recruitment and selection.
Recruitment. As its first step in hiring workers from the outside, the company needs to develop a pool of applicants who are both interested in and qualified. The purpose of this recruitment phase is to generate a pool of potential employees.
Successful recruitment focuses only on the most basic qualifications of a job. For example, recruitment ads for a financial analyst might require applying from a particular school would restrict the number of applicants to hold an MBA degree with an emphasis on finance. Requiring a degree from a particular school would restrict the number of applicants.
In recruiting employees, companies have many options, depending in part current employees may be recruited to fill openings. In seeking outside applicants, businesses may visit high schools, vocational schools, colleges, and universities. In some cases, labor agreements may specify that new employees be hired from the union’s membership rolls. And, of course, many companies advertise in newspapers or trade publications or seek the help of public and private employment agencies. In addition, unsolicited letters and resumes from job seekers can produce the right person for a job.
For executive positions, organizations often use the services of specialized recruiting firms called headhunters. Big companies, identify promising managers who might consider changing jobs and matches them with firms looking for new talent. Word of mouth and personal recommendations are also factors in the hiring of top-management personnel.
Selection. Once recruiting efforts have attracted job applicants, managers must evaluate each individual and select the best candidate for the job. Selection is by no means an exact science since it is difficult to predict any given individual’s behaviors and attitudes. Nevertheless, it is an important process. Hiring the wrong employee for the job is both costly to the firm and unfair to that person.
To reduce the element of uncertainty, HR (human-resource) experts and other managers use a variety of selection techniques. The most common of these methods, as shown below the figure, are applications and resumes, screening interviews, ability, and aptitude tests, reference checks, on-site interviews, and medical/drug tests. Each organization develops its own mix of selection techniques and may use them in any order.
The application blank, used for almost all lower-level jobs, is a standardized form that asks the applicant for such information as background, experience, and education. A resume is a prepared statement of the applicant’s qualifications and career goals and is commonly used by people seeking managerial or professional positions.
In many cases, companies find themselves with several applications or resumes for a job opening. Human-resource managers often narrow the field, first based on the applications, and then by holding screening interviews. These processes allow managers to weed out unqualified individuals, especially walk-in applicants for low-level jobs who do not have the required job skills. Line managers (those with hiring authority) then interview qualified applicants in greater depth. Other people in the hiring manager’s department may also interview job candidates. In some firms, potential subordinates of the prospective employee are also included in the interview process.
During the interview, the interviewer asks the applicant questions about his or her background and qualifications. The interviewer must be careful to address only job-related issues. For example, an interviewer cannot ask a female applicant about her plans to marry or start a family. Such questions can foster sex discrimination, an illegal practice discussed later in this chapter. In addition to asking questions, interviewers also provide information about the company and answer any questions the applicants may have.
For some positions, ability or aptitude tests may be part of the initial screening process. All tests must meet two conditions. First, the test must be job-related. A company cannot, for example, ask an applicant for a secretarial job to take a test on operations. It is appropriate, to ask this applicant to take a typing test. Second, the test must be a valid predictor of performance. That is, there must be evidence that people who score well on the test. In short, any test used for selection must not serve as a basis for on are more likely to perform well in the job than are people who score poorly on the test. In short, any test used for selection must not serve as a basis for discrimination against anyone for reasons not related to the job.
Another step used in selection is reference checking. Unfortunately, reference checks are given too much weight in selection decisions. Applicants usually list as references only people who are likely to say good things about them. In addition, former employers may be reluctant to say negative things because they fear a lawsuit. But reference checking can confirm information about an applicant’s experience or education. For example, if an applicant is that she was given extra responsibility in her previous job, a call to her former boss might be a good way to verify this statement.
After applicants have been interviewed and checked out, the manager will make a hiring decision. Before a job offer is extended, however, some companies require an extra step-a physical exam and/or, increasingly, a drug test. These tests are designed to protect the employer. For example, a manufacturer that fears lawsuits by workers hurt on the job might require prospective employees to take a physical examination. This gives the company some information about whether prospective employees are physically capable of doing the work and what (if any) preexisting injuries they have. While drug tests are very controversial, some organizations rely heavily on them. The In the News box “Private Lives?” explores these and other issues related to the rights of job applicants and employees.
Only when all the required interviewing and testing is done can a manager finally make an applicant a job offer. For many jobs, the terms of the offer (including salary, benefits, and working hours) are dictated by the firm’s current wage policies. But for managerial positions, the terms may be more flexible and negotiations may extend over weeks or even months.
INTERNAL STAFFING: PROMOTIONS
For a variety of reasons-including imperfections in the selection process and the need to motivate current employees-many organizations to prefer to “hire from within.” Hiring from within means promoting or transferring existing employees to fill openings whenever possible.
Promotions and job changes are handled differently from company to company. Some firms use closed promotion systems, in which managers decide which workers will be considered for a promotion. These decisions are which workers will be considered for usually made informally and subjectively and tend to rely heavily on the recommendations of an employee’s supervisor. Closed systems remain popular, especially in small firms, because they minimize the time, energy, and cost of making promotion decisions.
Other firms maintain open promotion systems, in which available jobs and their requirements are posted on an employee bulletin board. Employees who believe that they possess the necessary qualifications to fill out applications, take tests, and interview with managers, much as if they were outside applicants. Open systems allow employees to have more say in their career paths. The democratic nature of such systems may contribute to higher employee morale as well. But an open system can be time-consuming and expensive. Resources must be used in processing, interviewing, and screening internal applicants.
In addition, to open and closed systems, some promotions are determined in part by seniority, with employees with more years of service in the company receiving the promotions. While this pattern-a standard feature of many union contracts-ensures that those promoted have experience, it does not guarantee that they will be the most competent candidates.
Still another mechanism for internal staffing is the assessment center. An assessment center is a multiple-day selection process used to identify candidates for promotion to higher-level executive positions. Candidates complete batteries of tests, engage in exercises and simulations of managerial work and are interviewed by numerous other managers. Although expensive and time-consuming, assessment centers provide organizations with a wealth of information about employees’ executive potential.