A
Paper on
“Recruitment Challenges”
Submitted to:
Programme Coordinator
Dr Mamta Mahaptra
Prepared By: Riaz Ahemad
RECRUITMENT CHALLENGES
ABSTRACT:
What is HRM?
Human Resource Management ("HRM") is a way of management that links people-
related activities to the strategy of a business or organisation. HRM is often referred
to as "strategic HRM". It has several goals:
- To meet the needs of the business and management (rather than just serve the
interests of employees);
- To link human resource strategies / policies to the business goals and objectives;
- To find ways for human resources to "add value" to a business;
- To help a business gain the commitment of employees to its values, goals and
objectives.
Recruitment is a function that requires business perspective, expertise, ability to find
and match the best potential candidate for the organisation, diplomacy, marketing
skills (as to sell the position to the candidate) and wisdom to align the recruitment
processes for the benefit of the organisation.
CHALLENGES FACED BY HR DURING RECRUITMENT AT VARIOUS
ENVIRONMENTS
Process analysis – The immediacy and speed of the recruitment process are
the main concerns of the HR in recruitment. The process should be flexible, adaptive
and responsive to the immediate requirements. The recruitment process should also
be cost effective.
Adaptability to globalization – The HR professionals are expected and
required to keep in tune with the changing times, i.e. the changes taking place across
the globe. HR should maintain the timeliness of the process
Lack of motivation – Recruitment is considered to be a thankless job. Even if
the organisation is achieving results, HR department or professionals are not
thanked for recruiting the right employees and performers.
Strategic prioritization – The emerging new systems are both an opportunity
as well as a challenge for the HR professionals. Therefore, reviewing staffing needs
and prioritizing the tasks to meet the changes in the market has become a challenge
for the recruitment professionals.
CHALLENGES FACED BY HR AS A RESULT OF GLOBALIZATION
As the area of human resource management becomes more strategic and more
global it is becoming more important and critical to the organization. While not all
companies are recognizing this yet, those that are most effective and most admired,
seem to be the ones that are. As a consequence they are doing many things that make
their management of human resources as effective as possible. In doing so doing,
several things are being observed:
1) the roles that the HR department and its HR professionals have traditionally
played are changing substantially;
2) the competencies required of the HR professionals to play these new roles are also
changing rapidly with dramatic implications for the current HR staff and leaders;
3) the HR professionals are working more closely, in partnership, with line
managers, employees, suppliers and representatives of labour unions, strategic
partners and members of community organizations in order to be more effective in
managing the firm’s human resources; and finally,
4) the structure of the HR department and the HR function are being reshaped in
order to better serve the various stakeholders of HR in order to make the
management of people and the organization more effective.
CHALLENGES FACED BY HR DURING RECESSION:-
The recession is about the creative Human Resources Management. The HRM
Function is asked to bring new ideas, to change the HRM Processes and to develop or
change the procedures. And this effort has to be cheap or it has to cut the costs of the
organization.
The HRM Innovation is easy in times of the business growth, but the recession is not
good for big innovative HRM Initiatives.
The HR Management has to focus on unpopular innovations during the recession as
the role of HR during the recession is to save money to the organization.
The senior management expects all the support functions to bring innovative ideas
and solutions which will lead to stronger organization, when the next growth era
comes.
The point has to be focused by HR management during recession are as follows:
To optimize the manpower strength.
To take strategic initiatives to increase the productivity and efficiency of the entire
organization.
To work on compensation benefits.
Redesign training and development programs.
On the other hand the HR Management has to find some innovative solutions during
the recession like,
# To identify the real key employees and to intact them in the organization
# To identify the real top potentials and to strengthen their development program
Recommendations while your employer facing negative challenges during recession:
1. Top management should know the contingency plan.
2. Do the brainstorming session with your top management and contribute in their
strategic planning.
3. A complete or partial job freeze, however, communicate to the workforce that the
company many continue to recruit key individuals even in difficult times
4. Review the employee performance evaluations to determine the key people that
company cannot afford to lose.
5. Flow of Communicate should be from top to down that will help in making
conducive atmosphere within the organization
6. Make prepare yourself for individual and group concerns therefore there should be a
proper counselling session.
7. To maintain a calm atmosphere Review all HR policies, processes and procedures to
ensure that they are purposeful and contribute directly to the success of the
company.
Suppose the company has to lay-off staffs ensure that there are no other
opportunities for them in other functions or divisions of the organization.
Advise managers to deal the process of managing change.
STEPS TAKEN BY HR DURING RECESSION
With recession hitting the market, companies need to be more practical and strategic
in their business process. Of late, companies have started realizing that HR
recruitment, selection, retention etc., is quite a cumbersome process calling for high
amount of time and resources and inflicting cost. Thus, they are warming up to the
idea of outsourcing HR function to offshore firms Great Reduction in Costs.
HR outsourcing (HRO) converts fixed cost to variable cost and can produce quality
performance in low cost. Companies have started realizing that off shoring HR
department to low-cost areas will help in reducing cost while maintaining the quality
of performance. Gradually, offshore outsourcing firm becomes an inbuilt function of
the organization and the combined effect of their partnership further strengthens the
process of the company.
Simple Global Models
Outsourcing takes HR functions to a global scale. With entrance of global service
providers in the market competition has become tough; however the service delivery
model has become mature and highly satisfactory for global clients. Outsourcing
helps in moving HR executives from local role to global. Few advantages of global
engagements for HR are:
Expertise: HR Managers of varied expertise from all over the globe improves
the recruitment process.
Cost Effective: As stated earlier, hiring HR personnel from low-cost countries
helps in providing same or better service at lower price.
Workplace diversity: Globally functioning HR brings employees from across
the globe and makes the work environment culturally more diverse.
In a tough competitive global market, the benefits of global HR model are too
valuable for a company to miss.
Best of Breed Solutions
With outsourcing talent hunt has become broad spectrum. Now finding the desired
candidate satisfying all selection criteria is not the main area of focus, instead, best-
of-bread approach is taken to find the leaders in the field.
Risk Mitigation
Many a times companies faces crisis due to sudden loss of the key HR person. A tight
labour market delays finding a suitable replacement. Hiring and training a new
person for knowledge transfer becomes difficult and costly in recession. An
outsourced HR engagement helps to almost terminate these problems. In HRO,
hiring new replacements and training them are the responsibilities of the service
provider, thus, ensuring a continued hassle-free service.
Value Addition
Generally, in-house HR functions are primarily visualized as cost-centre; whereas,
HRO models chiefly focus on strategies which would improve business and reduce
cost. Unlike in-house HR personnel, outsourced HR team does not get caught up in
internal issues and thus can concentrate on cost-reduction, talent acquisition,
training and retention. This results in the following benefits:
Increases process efficiency by concentrating on important issues.
Increases flexibility of business and makes it more dynamic.
Increases employee satisfaction and productivity.
Increases the business network and help gain market access.
Increases sales and business during recession.
CONCLUSION
In the current volatile market the need to focus on core business activities has
become an absolute necessity. To cater to core activities, companies are opting to
outsource non-core process like Human Resource management.
Like every process, outsourcing too has its own pros and cons. Few disadvantages of
HR outsourcing are:
It requires lots of coordination with the service provider.
It reduces the scope of learning for an organization.
It reduces the control over the support function thus affecting the integrity of
the company.
To minimize these disadvantages organizations has to understand their ultimate
motive of outsourcing. A clear vision of goal and transferring only the functions and
not responsibilities will certainly prove to be fruitful in smooth outsourcing of HR
functions. This is no cakewalk and requires a great deal of knowledge, planning, skill
and commitment.
