Bratton Hrm 3e Chapter 7 Slides

Web support material for Human Resource Management: Theory and Practice, Third Edition© John Bratton and Jeffrey Gold 2003, published by Palgrave Macmillan

Title

Words of Wisdom‘They do psychometric testing. I got in before all that

mumbo-jumbo.’

‘HR directors are largely dissatisfied with the quality of their employees … they would re-hire less than 60% of

current employees.’

‘Testing is a human interaction, and if you take this element away you’ll soon lose the real customers: the

candidates themselves.’

Recruitment and Selection


Chapter outline



Definition

Recruitment

is the process of generating a pool of capable people to apply for employment to an organization.

Selection

is the process by which managers and others use specific instruments to choose from a pool of applicants a person

or persons most likely to succeed in the job(s), given management goals and legal requirements.



The stages of recruitment and selection




• Recruitment and selection are vital to the formation of a positive psychological contract, which provides the basis of organizational commitment and motivation.

• The attraction and retention of employees is part of the evolving employment relationship, based on a mutual and reciprocal understanding of expectations.

• There are wide variations in recruitment and selection practices, reflecting an organization’s strategy and its philosophy towards the management of people.

• Progressive HR practices are crucial to a positive psychological contract – this includes attention to effective recruitment and selection practices.



Legal Context

Various recruitment and selection practices are bound by the law of the land.

In general there are three forms of discrimination that are against the law:

Direct

Indirect

Victimization

The Legal Context


Key Legal Provisions in the UK

• Sex Discrimination Act 1975 (amended 1986)

• Race Relations Act 1976 (amended 2000)

• Equal Pay Act 1970 (amended 1983 to include work ‘of equal value’)

• Disability Discrimination Act 1996

• Directives from the EU such as the 1998 Data Protection Act

Key Legal Provisions in the UK


Recruitment and Attraction

• A key role for HR is to align performance within roles with the strategy, so recruiting for the ‘right’ people for a role depends on how it is defined in terms relating to performance to achieve the strategy.

• Criterion-related behaviours or standards of performance are referred to as competencies.

• Competencies can be used to provide the behaviours needed at work to achieve the business strategy, and enable organizations to form a model of the kinds of employee it wishes to attract through recruitment.



Fig 7.2 Attraction and Selection



Attracting Applicants

The main approaches to attracting applicants can be summarized as follows:

• Walk-ins

• Employee referrals

• Advertising

• Websites

• Professional associations

• Educational associations

• Professional agencies

• E-recruitment (general recruitment agents/ companies’ own sites)

• Word-of-mouth



Recruitment Considerations

An organization will take account of a number of factors when forming its recruitment plans and choice of media.

These might include:

• Cost

• Time taken to recruit and select

• Labour market focus, for example: skills, profession or occupation

• Mobility of labour – geographic and occupational

• Legislation on sex discrimination, race discrimination and disability



Job description format



A seven-point plan



Five-fold grading system



Person specs vs competencies

Personnel specifications versus competencies

• Personnel specifications may contain stereotypes of the ‘ideal’ person and so organizations may be reinforcing the

stereotype in their recruitment practices.

• The use of competencies allows organizations to free themselves from traditional stereotypes in order to attract

applicants from a variety of sources.

• Competencies appear to be more objective, have a variety of uses in attracting applicants and allow an organization to

use more reliable and valid selection techniques.



Selection: costs

Organizations have become increasingly aware of making good selection decisions, since it involves a number of costs:

• The cost of the selection process itself, including the use of various selection instruments

• The future costs of inducting and training new staff

• The cost of labour turnover if the selected staff are not retained

Selection: Costs


Selection: principles

Underlying the process of selection and the choice of techniques are two key principles:

1. Individual differences: Attracting a wide choice of applicants will be of little use unless there is a way of measuring how people differ, i.e. intelligence, attitudes, social skills, psychological and physical characteristics, experience etc.

2. Prediction: A recognition of the way in which people differ must be extended to a prediction of performance in the workplace.

Selection: Principles


Reliability and Validity Issues

Reliability and Validity Issues

Reliability refers to the extent to which a selection technique achieves consistency in what it is measuring

over repeated use.

Validity refers to the extent to which a selection technique actually measures what it sets out to measure.

Selection


Selection Interviews

• Information elicited – interviews have a specific focus, i.e. facts, subjective information, underlying attitudes.

• Structure – ranging from the completely structured to the unstructured. A compromise between the two enables the interviewer to maintain control yet allowing the interviewee free expression.

• Order and involvement – the need to obtain different kinds of information may mean the involvement of more than one interviewer. Applicants may be interviewed serially or in a panel.

Selection Interviews


Selection table 7.1

Selection


Psychometric Testing

Personality research has lent support to the use of sophisticated selection techniques such as psychometric tests that have a good record of reliability and validity.

• Ability tests: these focus on mental abilities (verbal/numerical) and physical skills testing. Right/wrong answers allow applicants to be placed in ranked order.

• Inventories: self-report questionnaires indicating traits, intelligence, values, interests, attitudes and preferences. No right/wrong answers but a range of choices between possible answers.

Psychometric Testing


E-assessment

On-line testing, or e-assessment, is also used for selection and other HR purposes.

Benefits:

Online testing enables organizations to test at any time and anywhere in the world.

It enables the quick processing of applicants.

Drawback:

Loss of control over the administration of the tests – anyone can be called on to help

E-assessment


Assessment Centres

• Assessment centres are designed to yield information that can be used to make decisions concerning suitability for a job.

• They provide a fuller picture by combining a range of techniques.

• General methods used include group discussions, role plays and simulations, interviews and tests.

• Candidates attending an assessment centre will be observed by assessors who should be trained to judge candidates’ performance against criteria contained within the competency framework.

Assessment Centres


Realistic Job Previews

Applicants have expectations about how the organization will treat them. Recruitment and selection represent an

opportunity to clarify these.

Realistic job previews (RJPs) provide a means of achieving this.

RJPs can take the form of case studies, shadowing, job sampling and videos – this enables the expectations of

applicants to become more realistic.

RJPs: lower initial expectations, cause some applicants to de-select themselves, increase levels of organization

commitment, job satisfaction, performance and job survival.

Realistic Job Previews


Summary


Summary

Documents

Bratton Hrm 3e Chapter 7 Slides