¶ … growing imperative to be globally competitive as well as the increasing sophistication of customer needs, organizations must hire the highest quality employees. Unfortunately, however, many companies do not have an effective hiring system in place. Since the hiring process has been such a fundamental part of an organization's human resources ongoing responsibility for such a long time, it is often taken for granted and not reviewed and critiqued on a regular basis. Many organizations believe that since people are being hired to fill the openings, the hiring process is working effectively. Yet they do not understand why they have a high turnover rate or employees who cannot meet their responsibilities. The organization may be hiring candidates, but not those who fit in with the culture or want to stay with the organization. Filling the necessary number of positions is important, but choosing people who will appreciate, share, and promote the company's strategy is equally essential. New hires must have more than a strong working experience and the skills required for their job. They also need to be able to readily adjust to the organizational culture, be committed to doing their best in their jobs, and care about being promoted and remaining with the company for the long-term. A strategic hiring process requires a clarity of what is important to the organization. The core mission, vision, values, culture, and strategy need to be considered when developing a hiring strategy (Segal). An effectual hiring process is an essential factor in hiring and retaining valuable employees.
Interviewing potential employees continues to be the major decision-making tool for filling nearly all jobs worldwide (Erker and Buczynski), but integrating HR management into organizational strategy is a direction that some, but not enough, companies are taking. Regardless of the value recognized for strategically-based recruitment and selection and the many positive examples provided for its support, a study conducted by Millmore concludes that the use of the strategic recruitment and selection (SR&S) process is virtually nonexistent in most companies. Businesses may want to recruit high-quality people, but hiring still remains one of the least defined of all key organizational practices. Although companies typically make their financial decisions with a great deal of prudence, professionalism and insight, in too many situations, they are making their hiring decisions quickly, with little consideration and not based on any pre-set established parameters.
Organizational recruitment and selection practices have mostly remained unchanged for decades, having evolved into a fairly standardized "traditional" approach (Storey). This traditional method grew out of the psychometric model (Newell and Rice) where the company places its HR efforts on defining the type of individual who will work best in a specific job and measuring potential candidates against determined personal characteristics to establish a person/job fit. The majority of organizations continue to use this traditional hiring approach (Wright and Storey) and research concludes that there is a dearth of strategic practices in place. Such studies are not promising, considering the major changes that are taking place globally. Poor hiring practices exist even at many of the top Fortune 500 corporations. In a study conducted with over one hundred senior executives from the U.S., Germany, U.K. And France, only half thought that they were actually successful at determining top performers (Fernandez-Araoz). If a consistent system is not followed, the company suffers by hiring the wrong people. Organizations need to ensure that executives are aware of how important it is to integrate HR into the company's strategy and have SR&S practices where an emphasis is put on hiring employees against organizational instead of job-specific criteria (Bowen et al.). A well-thought out SR&S program requires utilizing more sophisticated selection methods, greater participation of line managers in the overall hiring process (Storey; van Zwanenberg, Wilkinson and Anderson) and extensive planning, which are all worth the effort that is invested (Segal).
A distinct and thorough HR strategy plays an essential role in attaining the organization's overall goals and objectives and clearly exhibits that the HR function completely comprehends and supports the course that the organization is taking. A thorough and well-thought-out HR strategy also provides anchoring for the strategic objectives defined by marketing, finance, operations and technology. With SR&S, the company matches its resources for the long-term to the expected requirements of the changing environment (Johnson and Scholes). The workforce develops into a significant part of the organization's resource potential. Human resources management reiterates that people are the essential company resource. They are an organization's most treasured...
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