Professional Documents
Culture Documents
BY
KHUMALO, J. (21539677)
THIS BEING
Table of Contents.....................................................................................................................1
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY......................................................................................................1
1. Introduction .........................................................................................................................1
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The ABC University has experienced problems both with its recruitment and selection, as
well as retention. The delay in the selection process has often lead to high employee turnover,
as some staff feel that they are overloaded and not rewarded accordingly. One cause of high
staff turnover is that the university fails to offer competitive salaries. A good salary serves as
an incentive for the employee to staff in the institution. To attract and retain employees, it is
recommended that the university adjusts its salary grids and improve its non – financial
benefits, such as pension plan, spousal job opportunities. It is also recommended that
academic incentives be provided so as to retain employees. Finally, ABC should not offer
merit pay as a financial incentive, as it destroys the morale of the staff. The paper concludes
that ABC University needs to have strategies to use in order to attract, select and retain
employees.
INDEX
1 Abbreviations
HRM – Human resource management
HR – Human resource
HRS – Human resource strategy
WSCC – West Sussex Country council
External Recruitment
External recruiting is done when the company lacks the internal supply of the employees for
promotions or when it is staffing entry level positions, managers must consider the external
supply of the manpower.
Diagram 1.
Establishing selection
process
Identifying and choosing selection
criteria
Communicating decision
Thus the selection process should be planned such that the HR is efficiently used. The right
person for the right job and inducting him/her into the organisation or department
successfully is the basic criteria of the entire process.
1.6 Retention
This is the process of influencing the employees to stay in an organisation as their skills are
very valuable to the success of the business. It is interesting to note that pay is a “go” factor
than a “stay” factor, i.e. an employee may leave if pay is not sufficient, but beyond a certain
point it is not an incentive to stay. Once the qualified candidate has been employed, then
there is a need to make him/her to stay longer. The organisation has to have its own retention
strategy. Organisations are all uniquely different but the overall mission to have the best and
the brightest within a common goal, the Right person, for the Right job, at the Right time and
KEEPING Them. Therefore, recruitment, selection and retention is critical to effective HR
management but it must be practiced within the context of other HR subjects – Training and
development, succession planning.
2 The Problem
2.1 The HR department has a difficulty of finding out what aspects on an individual are to be
given importance, while recruiting him/her. The faculty of commerce and administration
of the ABC University has struggled to fill both the senior and junior positions. For
example, in 2007 two positions of lecturers were advertised but only one was filled early
2008 and the other was re – advertised several times until it was filled in July 2009. The
University competes with other universities and industry for good staff and one factor that
might be delaying the selection process is that the institution fails to convince the selected
candidates how they will benefit from the institution. In one instance, a professor of
finance was appointed at the Graduate School of Business and he apparently resigned
within three months. The university loses staff in every faculty, every school and every
department, including senior personnel in management. For example, the dean of the
faculty resigned in august 2009, not that he got a better job better. The staff turnover
might be in the range 50 – 70 percent, which is too high. A new senior staff in the
department of Economics (ABC University) was selected and made to sign the
employment contract the same day that he came for the interview. It was evident that that
was a “rush rush” process so that the candidate could not change his mind. Ultimately, the
HR personnel was ordered to inform/ send a job offer letter to the candidate, but the
wrong letter (regret letter) was sent. When the staff in the department asked when the new
senior staff would join, they were told that there was a mistake in communicating with the
preferred candidate. When HR tried to rectify the mistake, it was already too late.
Apart from the fact that the selection process takes longer than expected, the retention
strategy also fails to retain staff as more of the experienced staff leave. The institution has
to make their HR strategy to be more competitive so that the university can enjoy
competitive advantage in the long run.
In some cases, a senior member of academic staff offered his resignation, stating one of the
reasons being that the university was taking long to promote him into full professorship,
while the other institution was employing him as a full professor. This, to some members
appears as if the university does not recognise the contribution they make to ABC. One
other cause of high employee turnover is that the faculty takes longer to recruit and as for
academic duties other staff have to take extra load, e.g. teaching module for whom there is
no to teach, this often overloads the available staff and who do not get rewarded.
The non financial incentives have since being cancelled/cut when the university was merged
with other campuses in the province. Someone who comes from an institution which
provided accommodation for free and staff had to pay only for the utilities like, water and
electricity, would expect to get something better here.
3 Literature review
The literature on selection recommends the development of job and person specifications and
the use of reliable and valid methods based on detailed job analysis (Hunter and Schmidt,
1982). In another study, Farnhar and Stevens (2000) found that both managers and personnel
and training were critical of the recruitment and selection system. It found that the system
used by the Social Services department of West Sussex Country Council (WSCC) UK was
subjective, inconsistent and lacked procedural and equity issues. Selection was focused on
interviews, application forms and reference checks and was not managed comprehensively,
by either line manager or the HR department. To curb this problem, there had to be a
partnership between the line managers and the HR department. In addition, the competent –
based recruitment and selection system was considered a number one initiative that an
organisation has introduced to form part of the overall HR strategy.
Staffing, which is concerned with the recruitment, selection, placement, evaluation and
promotion lies at the heart of how organisations procure HR (Peters et al, 2000). Much
literature on HRM has emphasized the importance of staffing (Plumbley, 1985, Smith and
Robertson, 1993, Tanova, 2003, Terpstra, 1996, Williamson, 2000). For instance, Plumbley
(1985) suggests that the profitability and survival of an organisation depends on the calibre of
the workforce.
On one hand, Roselius and Kleiner (2000) emphasized that hiring employees should be
regarded as more of a science than art. The goal when hiring is to hire the right person for the
right job the first time. To do this, the interviewer must be well prepared for the interview.
Failure to prepare leads to wasted time, wasted money and employee turnover. Some
companies have estimated that employee turnover due to ineffective hiring range from 35
percent to 100 percent of employee annual salary (Deems, 1995). A logical performance –
based process that is well documented is the best policy when hiring. There are steps done in
selecting a new employee (s). These include, determining necessary skills, education and
traits of successful candidates, pre – interview and preliminary checks, developing
performance – based questions, interviewing candidates, reference checking, making a
decision and notifying the candidate (Roselius and Kleiner). Good HR practices help
minimise staff turnovers and thus the company saves money. Deery (2008) advocates that
maintaining a stable workforce is a key element in effective talent management strategy.
Hughes and Rog (2008) also identified factors that are critical to talent management. Their
study found that the benefits of an effectively implemented talent management strategy is
associated with improved operational and financial performances. Bhattnagar (2007) found
that three factors of organisational culture, career development along with incentives and
organisational support were crucial in making employees to remain.
HR professionals view retention practices as based on long – term HR policy, preventive and
tailor – made to individuals that are still able and willing to work. Zheng (2009) postulates
that very few papers examined the pattern of HR and talent management practices that helped
retain competent employees among service multinationals in Asia. It was discovered that
there was a linkage between HR practices, talent retention and firm performance. Lockyer
and Scholarios (2004) in their paper considered the nature of “best practices”, recruitment
and selection in the hotel sector. It found that large and chain hotels notwithstanding more
sophisticated HR, were finding difficulty meeting the demands imposed by labour markets.
The study suggests an alternative approach to best practice, which is based on development
of reliable, valid techniques and more attention to the social process of selection. Lockyer
and Scholarios (2004) further stressed that more attention should be paid to the internal
management structure of the organisation, to ensure that there is integration between heads of
departments, with respect to HRM strategy and how this shapes selection decisions.
4 Proposals
4.1 Recruitment and Retention.
The university is not a corporation, but neither is it immune from the market – place. To
render its services as an academic institution, the university must hire and pay for
administrators, faculty and staff. To hire and retain the best it can afford, it must make its best
offer. The faculty expect remuneration for their services; staff must subject themselves to the
job market. Employees compete for job opportunities, while universities compete for
employee services. We, as staff of the university, look for the best salary and the greatest
benefits, some financial, some non – financial; the universities seek the most promising
candidates by making the most competitive offers. Problems with recruitment and retention
arise when a university finds itself unable to compete effectively in the market – place. It
cannot make an offer that can compete with other offers; it cannot recruit new staff; it cannot
keep existing staff. The problems of recruitment and retention are a sign of institutional
weakness that affects the university as a whole.
5 Conclusion
The University’s recruitment, selection and retention procedures have not been successful
and thus, could not support key institutional objectives and core values. This led to high
employee turnover. This paper therefore tried to investigate the problems associated with
recruitment, selection and retention and the causes at ABC University. It was found that the
problem of recruitment and selection lied in with the management. University could not
attract candidates by offering high and competitive salary and benefits. This resulted in
longer recruitment and selection process. Apart from that, the university did not have sound
retention strategy. The retention strategy is very important in reducing staff turnover, thereby
reducing the costs associated with recruitment of new staff.
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