It is logical to start the HRM sessions with recruitment since it is the first time an employee meets the employer.
Similarly to the market of goods and services, there is also a work market, where supply is made by people that are willing to work and demand by companies looking for workforce. Ideally, demand and supply are in balance, the company doesn't need new workforce and there are only internal transfers within the organization. I would say that nowadays in Finland, the demand is exceeding the supply as there is a big need for highly skilled workers, especially in the field of technology and software development. We could also call this situation a shortage for skilled workforce.
A company does not only need to plan its resources or the market situation but also the amount and structure of the workforce that will be needed. Big companies use so called HRIS (human resource information system) to plan effectively. There are two types of planning- quantitative which only calculates the number of employees needed in the future and it is often criticized for relying too much on the past data and not considering the change in the situation of the company. The qualitative forecasting is more flexible while being subjective. Generally, the problem of any forecasting in today's world is that everything changes so rapidly and unpredictably. Despite that, forecasting what number and kind of workforce will a certain company need can help to get ahead of their competitors.
Moving onto the actual hiring process, there are three main steps that are equally important; recruitment (generating qualified candidates) -> selection (making the 'hire' or 'no hire' decision) -> socialization (adapting new employees in the organization).
Nowadays there are attempts to make the process as effective as possible and more importantly, to make it objective. The main challenges of the process are the costs (paperwork, advertising the position, interviewing and testing,...), what is even required from a candidate and how to find out whether the candidate possesses all the required knowledge and skills.
A company should take so called applicant-centered approach to potential employees to gain the best people and leave positive impression also in unsuccessful candidates, as they might become customers of the organization or apply next time for other position. I think many Finnish companies do not take this approach since the hiring process is usually horribly long, an applicant might receive an email about being or not being invited to the interview after months of waiting and in the worst case, the applicant might not receive any decision at all leaving him frustrated and confused.
Focusing first on the initial step- recruiting, there are many ways, where to find candidates, the traditional include: recruiting internally (from current employees by promoting) and externally through referrals from current employees, former employees, customers, various print and online ads, employment agencies or college recruiting. With the change of desired skills, there are increasingly also recruited for example foreign workers or senior citizens.
As mentioned in the case of Abercrombie and Fitch, new employees can also be recruited by being approached by current sales force, which is not ideal if it's only based on appearance.
Secondly, after the pool of candidates has been generated, it is time to select the right ones. Studies have shown the high economic value of good procedures.
There are to requirements for effective selection: reliability (consistent, without errors caused by unwanted influences) and validity (the right knowledge and skills are measured while considering the overall fit for the organization).
There are countless tools to use during the selection process, the most known are ability tests (especially for job that require very specific skills) and interviews, which are criticized for being time-consuming and very subjective, yet they remain the main tool for selection. Increasingly, also personality tests are being put in practice to reveal other candidates qualities. I personally think personality tests are not very reliable, since especially when being part of a selection process, people tend to make themselves look better and answer randomly if they don't understand the question. Also, it really depends on the current state of mind, the same person might answer the same test differently when taking it twice.
Other tools are then simulated tasks prepared by assessment centers (usually for managerial positions), reference checks or background checks (those are mainly to avoid hiring people with criminal history).
Every HR department faces the questions, which tools to choose and how to combine them to find the right employees. Organizations usually practice so called multiple-hurdle strategy, which means that always some candidates are excluded after each step (only five are invited for the interview, only three pass a test, only two are invited for the next round of an interview, etc.) this method is time effective, however it may exclude very good candidates, since everybody is strong and weak in different categories.
Other challenge is how to measure a very important factor: a candidates fit for the organization. The problem is, that knowledge can by increased by training but it is very hard to chance somebody's personality or mindset.
We could see in the A&F case that in some cases there is no selection at all and decision is already made by recruiting. This certainly saves a lot of time but it may lead to hiring very wrong, lazy people, who then do damage to the customer perception of a brand.
I personally have a very good experience with interviews and people interviewing me. When I applied for a teaching position I also had to pass an ability test and the language school called my university language teachers to check my actual level. When I already was an employee, I remember cases, when for example Dutch or Swedish teacher was needed, but of course nobody in the HR department knew these languages and only the fact that somebody is a native speaker doesn't mean that a person would be a good teacher. In these cases the school used assessment centres or an interpreter to make the right decisions.
Recently, I have been preparing for a job interview and I found a youtube account, where a job coach, Linda Raynier, gives great tips about interviews, how to answer the most common questions. This might help, both, job candidates and people, who have to lead an interview.
When it comes to the legal issues, an organization has to be really careful during the selection process, if the decision is not based on gender, race, religion or other factors that are not related to the job position. If a candidate feels that they were not selected based on these criteria, they my create very bad publicity for the company as it happened in A&F and it may really influence customers opinion of a company. The best prevention is to avoid questions related to the areas mentioned above and always have a good evidence of the selecting process and why certain candidates have not been chosen. I think in Finland there is a problem that usually companies prefer to hire native Finns, because of the language and because they simply trust more people, who were raised with the same cultural background. However, Finland clearly needs foreign workers because of the aging population issue and also rapid market development.
On the website Finlnad.fi I found an interesting article describing the current situation in Finland. It states the need for foreign workers and current policies to encourage employment of immigrants. It also admits that without fluent knowledge of Finnish, the chance of finding of job is very minimal. This one thing that really surprised me. In the Czech Republic, the approach is completely different. People are not usually required to speak Czech when applying for office jobs. Most companies are international so the communication happens in English anyway and the simple fact is, that when somebody knows Czech it doesn't mean that that person would do the job better than somebody, who has a different native language. I think this is the right mindset in today's globalized world and I believe Finnish companies should practice the same idea.
Sources
Huffpost. What It Was REALLY Like Working As an Abercrombie 'Model'. Available from:https://www.huffingtonpost.com/Alicia-cook/what-it-was-really-like-working-as-an-abercrombie-model_b_7154042.html. Accessed: 20.1.2018.
Gómez-Mejia, L. & Balkin, D. & Cardy, R. Managing Human Resources. Pearson Global Edition. 8th edition.
This is Finland. How about getting a job in Finland? Available from: https://finland.fi/facts-stats-and-info/how-about-getting-a-job-in-finland/. Accessed: 23.1.2018.
Moving onto the actual hiring process, there are three main steps that are equally important; recruitment (generating qualified candidates) -> selection (making the 'hire' or 'no hire' decision) -> socialization (adapting new employees in the organization).
Nowadays there are attempts to make the process as effective as possible and more importantly, to make it objective. The main challenges of the process are the costs (paperwork, advertising the position, interviewing and testing,...), what is even required from a candidate and how to find out whether the candidate possesses all the required knowledge and skills.
A company should take so called applicant-centered approach to potential employees to gain the best people and leave positive impression also in unsuccessful candidates, as they might become customers of the organization or apply next time for other position. I think many Finnish companies do not take this approach since the hiring process is usually horribly long, an applicant might receive an email about being or not being invited to the interview after months of waiting and in the worst case, the applicant might not receive any decision at all leaving him frustrated and confused.
Focusing first on the initial step- recruiting, there are many ways, where to find candidates, the traditional include: recruiting internally (from current employees by promoting) and externally through referrals from current employees, former employees, customers, various print and online ads, employment agencies or college recruiting. With the change of desired skills, there are increasingly also recruited for example foreign workers or senior citizens.
As mentioned in the case of Abercrombie and Fitch, new employees can also be recruited by being approached by current sales force, which is not ideal if it's only based on appearance.
Secondly, after the pool of candidates has been generated, it is time to select the right ones. Studies have shown the high economic value of good procedures.
There are to requirements for effective selection: reliability (consistent, without errors caused by unwanted influences) and validity (the right knowledge and skills are measured while considering the overall fit for the organization).
There are countless tools to use during the selection process, the most known are ability tests (especially for job that require very specific skills) and interviews, which are criticized for being time-consuming and very subjective, yet they remain the main tool for selection. Increasingly, also personality tests are being put in practice to reveal other candidates qualities. I personally think personality tests are not very reliable, since especially when being part of a selection process, people tend to make themselves look better and answer randomly if they don't understand the question. Also, it really depends on the current state of mind, the same person might answer the same test differently when taking it twice.
Other tools are then simulated tasks prepared by assessment centers (usually for managerial positions), reference checks or background checks (those are mainly to avoid hiring people with criminal history).
Every HR department faces the questions, which tools to choose and how to combine them to find the right employees. Organizations usually practice so called multiple-hurdle strategy, which means that always some candidates are excluded after each step (only five are invited for the interview, only three pass a test, only two are invited for the next round of an interview, etc.) this method is time effective, however it may exclude very good candidates, since everybody is strong and weak in different categories.
Other challenge is how to measure a very important factor: a candidates fit for the organization. The problem is, that knowledge can by increased by training but it is very hard to chance somebody's personality or mindset.
We could see in the A&F case that in some cases there is no selection at all and decision is already made by recruiting. This certainly saves a lot of time but it may lead to hiring very wrong, lazy people, who then do damage to the customer perception of a brand.
I personally have a very good experience with interviews and people interviewing me. When I applied for a teaching position I also had to pass an ability test and the language school called my university language teachers to check my actual level. When I already was an employee, I remember cases, when for example Dutch or Swedish teacher was needed, but of course nobody in the HR department knew these languages and only the fact that somebody is a native speaker doesn't mean that a person would be a good teacher. In these cases the school used assessment centres or an interpreter to make the right decisions.
Recently, I have been preparing for a job interview and I found a youtube account, where a job coach, Linda Raynier, gives great tips about interviews, how to answer the most common questions. This might help, both, job candidates and people, who have to lead an interview.
When it comes to the legal issues, an organization has to be really careful during the selection process, if the decision is not based on gender, race, religion or other factors that are not related to the job position. If a candidate feels that they were not selected based on these criteria, they my create very bad publicity for the company as it happened in A&F and it may really influence customers opinion of a company. The best prevention is to avoid questions related to the areas mentioned above and always have a good evidence of the selecting process and why certain candidates have not been chosen. I think in Finland there is a problem that usually companies prefer to hire native Finns, because of the language and because they simply trust more people, who were raised with the same cultural background. However, Finland clearly needs foreign workers because of the aging population issue and also rapid market development.
On the website Finlnad.fi I found an interesting article describing the current situation in Finland. It states the need for foreign workers and current policies to encourage employment of immigrants. It also admits that without fluent knowledge of Finnish, the chance of finding of job is very minimal. This one thing that really surprised me. In the Czech Republic, the approach is completely different. People are not usually required to speak Czech when applying for office jobs. Most companies are international so the communication happens in English anyway and the simple fact is, that when somebody knows Czech it doesn't mean that that person would do the job better than somebody, who has a different native language. I think this is the right mindset in today's globalized world and I believe Finnish companies should practice the same idea.
Sources
Huffpost. What It Was REALLY Like Working As an Abercrombie 'Model'. Available from:https://www.huffingtonpost.com/Alicia-cook/what-it-was-really-like-working-as-an-abercrombie-model_b_7154042.html. Accessed: 20.1.2018.
Gómez-Mejia, L. & Balkin, D. & Cardy, R. Managing Human Resources. Pearson Global Edition. 8th edition.
This is Finland. How about getting a job in Finland? Available from: https://finland.fi/facts-stats-and-info/how-about-getting-a-job-in-finland/. Accessed: 23.1.2018.
Youtube. Linda Raynier youtube channel. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXUyg1vYSupswhi0zNeD-5w/feed. Accessed: 22.1.2018.
Comments
Post a Comment