Challenges and Strategies for Recruitment and Selection

Question

The recruitment and selection process is often challenging, as it can be expensive and time-consuming for health care organizations. Administrators are frequently under pressure to quickly find candidates, and as a result, may make rush judgments. It is important, however, that administrators use a thoughtful and creative approach to attract qualified candidates. For this Assignment, you explore recruitment and selection in health care.

Part I: Challenges and Strategies for Recruitment and Selection

Scenario: You are a human resource director working in an integrated urban hospital. As a result of ongoing changes in the hiring process at your facility, your VP of HR has charged you with preparing a plan for supervisors to use when they recruit and select health care employees. Before you can prepare the plan, you must first analyze the challenges involved in the recruitment and selection of health care providers. You must also propose strategies to address those challenges.

To prepare for this Assignment:

  • Review the provided scenario.
  • With the scenario in mind, analyze challenges (e.g., legal, ethical, moral, and operational) related to managing recruitment and selection in health care organizations.
  • Recommend strategic approaches to address the challenges associated with internal and external factors that affect recruitment and selection.
  • Evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of various recruitment sources and selection methods.

The Assignment

In a 6- to 8-page paper, address the following:

  • Analyze six challenges (e.g., legal, ethical, moral, and operational) related to recruitment and six challenges associated with selection.
    • Include a balance of information on both internal and external challenges, and explain how these challenges impact recruitment and selection.
    • Explain the impact of failing to address these challenges on human resource functions and hospital performance management.
  • Recommend strategic approaches to address the challenges associated with internal and external factors that affect recruitment and selection.
    • Describe a strategic approach for each factor you identified and explain how this strategy will help mitigate the potential challenges inflicted by the particular internal or external challenges. Include best practices from other industries (e.g., information technology, hospitality) in your recommendation.
  • Evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of various recruitment sources and selection methods.
    • Explain how information from other industries can inform recruitment and selection in the health care industry.
    • Identify at least two recruitment sources that the human resource department should use and evaluate their efficiency and effectiveness.
    • Identify at least two candidate selection processes that the human resource department should use and explain which is most effective and why.

Sample paper

The human resource department in any organization plays a very vital role in ensuring that the organizations have enough and able staffs to perform the required and necessary operation on a daily basis. With the increasing awareness of the importance of labor force in the organizations, the human resource officers are keen to recruit individuals who are not only qualified but also can adapt to the organization culture and structure easily. Through proper recruitment, the organization can get the best out of the best to make them an important asset to the organization and thus work as a team towards the achievement of the organization goals and objectives.   Recruitment and recruitment process involves the process of attracting and choosing candidates for a position in an organization for employment. However, different organizations have different recruitment and selection preprocesses based on the policies adopted by the organization.  There is the need for the organization to have a stable policy that provides the guidelines necessary for the hiring to increase efficiency and consistency in hiring and retention of workers. Some of the basic steps in recruitment and selection include identification of the vacancy and evaluation of the need for a new worker as well as the development of a recruitment plan (Sparrow, 2007). This essay will attempt to analyze challenges that are faced by organizations during the recruitment process, provide alternatives as well as developing a recruitment plan.

Part 1

Question 1

Analyze six challenges (e.g., legal, ethical, moral, and operational) related to recruitment and six challenges associated with selection

Different companies have different recruitment and selection policies depending on the organizational culture and structure. However, the most common methods include internal, external, third – party sourcing, interviewing and candidate selection. However, despite how good a policy may be, the recruitment policy faces some challenges that make it difficult for the recruitment panel to get the best candidate. Below are some of the challenge that is experienced by the recruiting officers as they go about their duties.

Internal challenges

Shortage of qualified and experienced recruiters

The recruitment process in any organization is very crucial and important as it provides a new opportunity to inject new blood into the organization. Thus, there is a need for any organization to have their best and qualified recruiters on their toes so that they can capture all the important details about the candidates to make a sound decision. However, most of the times, you find that organization has no talented recruiters who can help them capture the best talents in the world as they do not have the necessary skills and knowledge on how to conduct a meaningful and relevant interview before selecting an individual.

The hiring speed

In recent years, competition among businesses has increased making it very important for organizations to adjust their hiring speed. In earlier days, the organization could still take time before hiring and capture the best talents. However, this trend is changing in the recent years with organization competing fiercely for top talents, and thus, the organization needs to re-engineer their recruitment processes to ensure that they do not take too much time and then miss the top talents only to give their competitors a humble time to snatch these top talents (Bach, 2009). As the employment and recruitment pace change in the market, the organization has no other option but rather to revisit their speed of hire approaches and tools for them to land the candidates that are in demand in the market.

 Limited resources

The hiring process is complex, and thus it may need more resources in terms than what the organization is planning or thinking. As a matter of fact, lack of enough resources can make an organization to miss on top talents that are in demand as they are snatched by an organization that has resources supremacy to theirs. Thus, limited resources will require prioritization of positions in an organization so as to reduce the budgets of the overall recruitment process and employment. Moreover, limited resources hinder proper advertising of a position in an organization giving the recruiters a limited number of talents to choose from and the organization could miss on important and exciting talents.

External challenges

Labor market conditions

The labor market provides a neutral platform where both employers and workers interact.  It is in the labor market where employers compete to hire the best candidates while the workers strive and compete for the best satisfying job. The conditions of the labor market have a significant impact on the recruitment process as a strong economy makes it difficult for the organization to hire since most of the top talents have a job and when the economy is weak there are too many applicants making it harder and expensive for the organization to hire the best candidate (Catano, 2009). Unfortunately, the organization has no power over the labor market conditions and the only solution to this challenge is the formation of strategy that suits the current condition.

Discrimination in employment advertisement

In the earlier days, men were dominating in all sectors leaving women to do house chores back art home. However, this notion is changing in recent years although some of the organizations are too rigid to change and thus they still hold the notion that men are better workers than women. However, organizations are not permitted legally to publish or cause to publish an advertisement in connection with employment that expresses a limitation, specification or preference to a certain gender. This process may be expensive for the organization as they have to go through all applicants despite the fact that they need a talent from a specific gender juts to fulfill their legal obligation in the hiring process.

Market fragmentation

The recruiters may find it difficult in trying to understand what tools and services are out there in the labor market. With the current innovation and invention in the information and technology field, it is becoming even more difficult for an organization to choose an advertising media considering that the labor market is highly fragmented. Through innovations, there are diverse solutions to the problem of how to fill a position, and this may be difficult for recruiters as they are not sure of the best combination of advertising media and technology. The recruiters need to apply an appropriate recruitment process to get a position filled in the most efficient and cost effective manner (Compton, 2009).

Question 1 B

Explain the impact of failing to address these challenges on human resource functions and hospital performance management.

The above-explained challenges have significant effects on the recruitment and selection proves as they can lead to a bad recruitment which in turn affects the functionality of an organization. In most case, failure to address these challenges and rectify on the same may lead to higher human resources costs as a result of the resources and time spent in recruiting these employees who perform poorly in their position making the organization to experience more losses. Moreover, a bad recruitment which is as a result of the challenges mentioned earlier creates scenarios where managers and supervisors have to direct their full attention to this new recruitment to ensure that they work as expected. This time spent in overseeing the duties performed by these new individuals could be used in performing other important duties that lead the organization in the right direction of achieving its objectives and goals. In addition, client satisfaction is significantly affected as the new recruits will produce low-quality products and services through the increase in errors, poor decision making and less effective client service which may send the clients to other competitors thus affecting the competitive position of the organization (Branine, 2008). Finally, the failure to address these issues before recruiting new workers can affect the morale of high performers as they have to tolerate average and poor performers that make their handwork invisible and hard to recognize as the mistake of the new employees may be associated with the whole team.

Question 2

Recommend strategic approaches to address the challenges associated with internal and external factors that affect recruitment and selection

Strategic approach to address internal challenges

  • Shortage of qualified and experienced recruiters – to address this challenge, the organization needs to constantly train their workers to sharpen their recruitment skills as well as updating them of the new and demanding attributes that they should look in the employment candidates. Moreover, the recruitment team should consist of both the seniors and the juniors to increase diversity as well as ensuring there are enough qualified recruiters.
  • The hiring speed – the organization, need to be swift in advertising a vacant position as well as conducting the selection process in a moderate manner to ensure that they have a humble time to get the best talent. Moreover, an organization may think of conducting a college recruitment to get the best and exciting talents.
  • Limited resources – organizations should strive to dedicate more resources to get the best talent who will work hard towards creating and making more resources regarding money to the resources rather than dedicate fewer resources only to recruit incompetent workers who will only increase the cost of running the organization without a significant positive result.

Strategic approach to address external challenges

  • Labor market conditions – it is complex and difficult to change the external environment, and it is upon the organization to find the appropriate time to recruit more workers. As a matter of fact, in stable economies, the organization should be patient during the recruitment and selection process to get the best. On the other hand, for the weaker economy, the organization should formulate a policy of reducing the number of applicants by raising the levels of requirements such as academic qualification.
  • Discrimination in employment advertisement – to address this issue, the organization needs to have a diverse labor force consisting of both male and women and thus, the lighter jobs that do not require muscles should be given to the women while men take up the positions that need more muscle(Van den Brink, 2010).
  • Market fragmentation – before embarking on the advertisement of opportunities, the organization should collect the necessary information of the right medium and technology to use to get to all levels of the labor market to get the best.

Question 3

Evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of various recruitment sources and selection methods

Without qualified employees, an organization cannot serve the clients in the right manner and thus recruitment process is very important even in the healthcare sector.  As other industries are changing the way they do their things, the healthcare is not left behind as there is increased competition, unprecedented demographic and economic challenges in this sector. Thus, the same tools that are used to judge a successful recruitment in other sectors are also used to judge the recruitment process in the healthcare sector.

There are two major recruitment sources namely the internal and external sources. Internal sources are further divided into transfers, promotions, and present employees while external sources are divided into an advertisement, casual callers and labor contractors. Internal sources of employment widely revolve around hiring individuals from within the organization thus no new individual is needed in the organization to take up a new position. These sources may be effective and efficient because no time needed to adjust to the organization culture and structure.  On the other hand, external sources of recruitment involve hiring individuals from outside the organization through seeking of fresh application from new talents. This may be effective and efficient than internal sources since a new blood is injected in the organization giving it a new dimension and diversity (Branine, 2008).

There are two main processes that are used in selecting candidates, and they are shortlisting and assessing the applicants to evaluate who has qualified for the position in question. Short listing is a process that involves reduction and selecting individuals from a group of many who are qualified to take an interview. After the shortlisting, the human resource manager has the obligation of assessing the candidates through cross-examination to determine whether they have the necessary skills to fill the position. Assessment of the candidates is important and effective as it helps to filter out the best of the best among the many as well as identifying the qualified individual for the job.

Part II: Recruitment and Selection Plans

Now that you have completed your analysis of recruitment and selection practices, you must write a plan for the recruitment and selection of health care employees that incorporates the strategies you explored in Part I of this Assignment.

To prepare for this Assignment:

  • Reflect on Part I of this Assignment.
  • With the scenario in mind, develop a plan for the recruitment and selection of health care providers. Refer to the “Sample Recruitment Strategy Planning Template” in this week’s Learning Resources for guidance.

The Assignment

In a 3- to 4-page recruitment and selection plan, address the following:

  • Define at least three key objectives in developing an effective recruitment process.
  • Explain, in detail, how recruitment will be conducted, outlining relevant components and steps in the recruitment process.
  • Define at least two key objectives in developing an effective selection process.
  • Explain how candidate selection will be conducted, outlining relevant components of and steps in the selection process.

Part 2

Question one

Define at least three key objectives in developing an effective recruitment process

The recruitment process is very crucial to any organization and the recruitment and selection panel should be keen to develop a suitable plan to help recruit qualified candidates. Some of the objectives of an effective recruitment process include:

  1. Hire innovators – the main goal is to attract and hire persons in key positions that produce and implement innovations while on the job and thus change processes that are used by the organization and bring new and better ones.(Compton, 2009)
  2. Hire top performers – the process is meant to help the organization to hire individuals who will have immediate impacts on the organization by producing positive results that will aid in the achievement of the overall strategic goal of the organization.
  3. Hire individuals with advanced skills – skills are very important in performing key jobs and through an effective selection process the organization can identify and determine suitable candidates with advanced skills for hire.

Question 2

Explain, in detail, how recruitment will be conducted, outlining relevant components and steps in the recruitment process

For the recruitment and selection process to be effective and efficient there is the need to incorporate components such as:

  1. Primary goals of the facility – there is the need for the organization to determine the reasons behind hiring individuals from outside the organization and why not go for outsourcing. Moreover, the organization should incorporate its business goals in the recruitment process to ensure that it hires important people who are ready to work as a team towards the goals of the organization.
  2. Experience level to target – the organization needs to determine whether it needs to experience individuals or just young talents who will grow and develop while in the organization. Moreover, an inexperienced talent can be trained to become of the best.

Some of the important recruitment process and steps to be followed include:

  • Job posting – job posting involves the process of choosing the right and best platform to spread the word to attract more candidates.
  • Curriculum vitae analysis – adequacy with experience should be the key factor in this step to ensure only the best qualify to the next step(Van den Brink, 2010).
  • Psychometric testing – this step is meant to show the personality of individual candidate that will impact his overall performance in the organization.
  • Clarification of skills – a second interview can be appropriate especially for technical positions to verify the skills of the applicants.
  • Checking references – it is crucial to validate the references provided such as previous jobs, and academic training to ensure that that particular individual is qualified for the post.

In conclusion, we can say that recruitment and selection process is very crucial in any organization in determining the best and qualified candidates. However, each organization should have its unique recruitment policies that are in line with the goals and objectives of the organizations to ensure that the hired candidates will work towards the attainment and achievement of the goals and objectives of the facility (Compton, 2009). Moreover, a good candidate should be innovative to bring change to the organization as well as improving the performance of the team for the better and gaining a better competitive position in the market.

References

Bach, S. (. (2009). Managing human resources: personnel management in transition. .                  John Wiley & Sons.

Branine, M. (2008). Graduate recruitment and selection in the UK: A study of the recent                           changes in methods and expectations. . Career Development International, 13(6), ,                       497-513.

Catano, V. M. (2009). Recruitment and selection in Canada. . Cengage Learning.

Compton, R. L. (2009). Effective recruitment and selection practices. . CCH Australia Limited.

Sparrow, P. R. (2007). Globalization of HR at function level: four UK-based case studies of                     the international recruitment and selection process. The International Journal of                      Human Resource Management, 18(5), , 845-867.

Van den Brink, M. (2010). Behind the scenes of science: Gender practices in the recruitment       and selection of professors in the Netherlands. Amsterdam University Press.

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