human resources and hrm

8/7/2019 Human resources and HRM

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Human resources is a term used to describe the individuals who make up the workforce of

an organization, although it is also applied in labor economics to, for example, business

sectors or even whole nations. Human resources is also the name of the function within an

organization charged with the overall responsibility for implementing strategies and policies

relating to the management of indiv iduals (i.e. the human resources). This function title isoften abbreviated to the initials " HR".

Human resources is a relatively modern management term, coined as early as the 1960s -

when humanity took a shift as human rights came to a brighter light dur ing the Vietnam

Era. The origins of the function arose in organizations that introduced 'welfare management'

practices and also in those that adopted the principles of 'scientific management'. From

these terms emerged a largely administrative management ac tivity, coordinating a range of

worker related processes and becoming known, in time, as the 'personnel function'. Human

resources progressively became the more usual name for this function, in the first instance

in the United States as well as multination al or international corporations, reflecting the

adoption of a more quantitative as well as strategic approach to workforce management,

demanded by corporate management to gain a competitive advantage, utilizing limited

skilled and highly skilled workers.

Human resources purpose and role

In simple terms, an organization's human resource management strategy shouldmaximize return on investment in the organization's human capital and minimizefinancial risk.

Human resource managers seek to achieve this by aligning the supply of skilled andqualified individuals and the capabilities of the current workforce, with theorganization's ongoing and future business plans and requirements to maximizereturn on investment and secure future survival and success.

In ensuring such objectives are achieved, the human resource function is toimplement an organization's human resource requirements effectively, taking intoaccount federal, state and local labor laws and regulations; ethical businesspractices; and net cost, in a manner that maximizes, as far as possible, employeemotivation, commitment and productivity.

Key functions

Human Resources may set strategies and develop policies, standards, systems, and processes that

implement these strategies in a whole range of areas. The following are typical of a wide range of

organizations:

Maintaining awareness of and compliance with local, state and federal labor laws (Department of

Labor federal labor law information)



Recruitment, selection, and on boarding (resourcing)

Employee recordkeeping and confidentiality

Organizational design and development

Business transformation and change management

Performance, conduct and behavior management

Industrial and employee relations

Human resources (workforce) analysis and workforce personnel data management

Compensation and employee benefit management

Training and development (learning management)

Employee motivation and morale-building (employee retention and loyalty)

Implementation of such policies, processes or standards may be directly managed by the HR function

itself, or the function may indirectly supervise the implementation of such activities by managers,

other business functions or via third-party external partner organizations. Applicable legal issues,

such as the potential for disparate treatment and disparate impact, are also extremely important to HR

managers.

Human resources management trends and influences

In organizations, it is important to determine both current and future organizational

requirements for both core employees and the contingent workforce in terms of their

skills/technical abilities, competencies, flexibility etc. The analysis requires

consideration of the internal and external factors that can have an effect on

the resourcing, development, motivation and retention of employees and other

workers.

External factors are those largely outside the control of the organization. These

include issues such as economic climate and current and future labor market trends

(e.g., skills, education level, government investment into industries etc.). On the

other hand, internal influences are broadly controlled by the organization to predict,

determine, and monitor²for example²the organizational culture, underpinned by

management style, environmental climate, and the app roach to ethical and corporate

social responsibilities.



Major trends

To know the business environment an organization operates in, three major trends must be

considered:

1. Demographics: the characteristics of a population/workforce, for example, age,

gender or social class. This type of trend may have an effect in relation to pension

offerings, insurance packages etc.

2. Diversity: the variation within the population/workplace. Changes in society now

mean that a larger proportion of organizations are made up of "baby-boomers" or

older employees in comparison to thirty years ago. Advocates of "workplace

diversity" simply advocate an employee base that is a mirror reflection of the make -

up of society insofar as race, gender, sexual orientation etc.

3. Skills and qualifications: as industries move from manual to more managerial

professions so does the need for more highly skilled graduates. If the market is

"tight" (i.e. not enough staff for the jobs), employers must compete for employees by

offering financial rewards, community investment, etc.

Individual responses

In regard to how individuals respond to the changes in a labor market, the following must be

understood:

Geographical spread: how far is the job from the individual? The distance to travel to

work should be in line with the pay offered, and the transportation and infrastructure of the area also influence who applies for a post.

Occupational structure: the norms and values of the different careers within an

organization. Mahoney 1989 developed 3 different types of occupational structure,

namely, craft (loyalty to the profession), organization career (promotion through the firm)

and unstructured (lower/unskilled workers who work when needed).

Generational difference: different age categories of employees hav e certain

characteristics, for example, their behavior and their expectations of the organization.

Framework

Human Resources Development is a framework for the expansion of human capital

within an organization or (in new approaches) a municipality, region , or nation.

Human Resources Development is a combination of training and education, in a

broad context of adequate health and employment policies, that ensures the

continual improvement and growth of both the individual, the organization, and the



development is a tool and a means to an end, not the end goal itself" (Elwood F.

Holton II, James W. Trott Jr). The broader concept of national and more strategic

attention to the development of human resources is beginning to emerge as newly

independent countries face strong competition for their skilled professionals and the

accompanying brain-drain they experience.

Recruitment and selection

Applicant recruitment and employee selection form a major part of an organization 's

overall resourcing strategies, which identify and secure people needed for the

organization to survive and succeed in the short- to medium-term. Recruitment

activities need to be responsive to the increasingly competitive market to secure

suitably qualified and capable recruits at all levels. To be effective, these initiatives

need to include how and when to source the best recruits, internally or externally.

Common to the success of either are: well-defined organizational structures with

sound job design, robust task and person specification and versatile selection

processes, reward, employment relations and human resource policies, underpinned

by a commitment for strong employer branding and employee

engagement and onboarding strategies.

Internal recruitment can provide the most cost-effective source for recruits if the

potential of the existing pool of employees has been enhanced through training,

development and other performance-enhancing activities such as performance

appraisal, succession planning and development centres to review performance and

assess employee development needs and promotional potential.

Increasingly, securing the best quality candidates for almost all organizations relies,

at least occasionally if not substantially, on external r ecruitment methods. Rapidly

changing business models demand skill and experience that cannot be sourced or

rapidly enough developed from the existing employee base. It would be unusual for

an organization to undertake all aspects of the recruitment process without support

from third-party dedicated recruitment firms. This may involve a range of support

services, such as: provision of CVs or resumes, identifying recruitment media,

advertisement design and media placement for job vacancies, candidate responsehandling, shortlisting, conducting aptitude testing, preliminary interviews or reference

and qualification verification. Typically, small organizations may not have in -house

resources or, in common with larger organizations, may not possess the particular

skill-set required to undertake a specific recruitment assignment. Where

requirements arise, these are referred on an ad hoc basis to government job

centres or commercially-run employment agencies.



Except in sectors where high-volume recruitment is the norm, an organization faced

with sudden, unexpected requirements for an unusually large number of new recruits

often delegates the task to a specialist external recruiter. Sourcing executive-level

and senior management as well as the acquisition of scarce or µhigh-potential¶

recruits has been a long-established market serviced by a wide range of µsearch andselection¶ or µheadhunting¶ consultancies, which typically form long-standing

relationships with their client organizations. Finally, certain organization s with

sophisticated HR practices have identified a strategic advantage in outsourcing

complete responsibility for all workforce procurement to one or more third-party

recruitment agencies or consultancies. In the most sophisticated of these

arrangements the external recruitment services provider may not only physically

locate, or µembed¶, their resourcing team(s) in the client organization's offices, but

work in tandem with the senior human resource management team in developing the

longer-term HR resourcing strategy and plan.

Trans-national labor mobility

An important controversy regarding labor mobility illustrates the broader

philosophical issue with usage of the phrase "human resources". Governments of

developing nations often regard developed nations that encourage immigration or

"guest workers" as appropriating human capital that is more rig htfully part of the

developing nation and required to further its economic growth.

Over time, the United Nations have come to more generally support the developing

nations' point of view, and have requested significant offsetting "foreign aid"

contributions so that a developing nation losing human capital does not lose the

capacity to continue to train new people in trades, professions, and the arts.

Human resource management (HRM)

It is the strategic and coherent approach to the management of an organization's

most valued assets - the people working there who individually and collectivelycontribute to the achievement of the objectives of the business. The terms "human

resource management" and human resources (HR) have largely replaced the term

"personnel management" as a description of the processes involved in managing

people in organizations. In simple words, HRM means employing people, developing

their capacities, utilizing, maintaining and compensating their services in tune with

the job and organizational requirement.



Its features include:

Organizational management

Personnel administration

Manpower management

Industrial management

But these traditional expressions are becoming less common for the theoretical

discipline. Sometimes even employee and industrial relations are confusingly

listed as synonyms, although these normally refer to the relationship between

management and workers and the behavior of workers in companies.

The theoretical discipline is based primarily on the assumption that em ployees are

individuals with varying goals and needs, and as such should not be thought of as

basic business resources, such as trucks and filing cabinets. The field takes apositive view of workers, assuming that virtually all wish to contribute to the

enterprise productively, and that the main obstacles to their endeavors are lack of

knowledge, insufficient training, and failures of process.

Human Resource Management(HRM) is seen by practitioners in the field as a more

innovative view of workplace management than the traditional approach. Its

techniques force the managers of an enterprise to express their goals with specificity

so that they can be understood and undertaken by the workforce, and to provide the

resources needed for them to successfully accomplish their assignments. As such,

HRM techniques, when properly practiced, are expressive of the goals and operatingpractices of the enterprise overall. HRM is also seen by many to have a key role in

risk reduction within organisations .

Synonyms such as personnel management are often used in a more restricted

sense to describe activities that are necessary in the recruiting of a workforce,

providing its members with payroll and benefits, and administrating their work -life

needs. So if we move to actual definitions, Torrington and Hall (1987) define

personnel management as being:

³a series of activities which: first enable working people and their employing

organisations to agree about the objectives and nature of their working relationship

and, secondly, ensures that the agreement is fulfilled"



Academic theory

Research in the area of HRM has much to contribute to the organisational practice of

HRM. For the last 20 years, empirical work has paid particular attention to the link

between the practice of HRM and organisational performance, evident in improved

employee commitment, lower levels of absenteeism and turnover, higher levels of

skills and therefore higher productivity, enhanced quality and efficiency . This area of

work is sometimes referred to as 'Strategic HRM' or SHRM .

Within SHRM three strands of work can be observed: Best practice, Best Fit and the

Resource Based View (RBV).

The notion of best practice - sometimes called 'high commitment' HRM - proposes

that the adoption of certain best practices in HRM will result in better organisational

performance. Perhaps the most popular work in this area is that of Pfeffer who

argued that there were seven best practices for achieving competitive advantage

through people and 'building profits by putting people first'. These practices included:

providing employment security, selective hiring, extensive training, sharing

information, self-managed teams, high pay based on company performance and the

reduction of status differentials. However, there is a huge number of studies which

provide evidence of best practices, usually implemented in coherent bundles, and

therefore it is difficult to draw generalised conclusions about which is the 'best' way

(For a comparison of different sets of best practices see Becker and Gerhart, 1996.

Best fit, or the contingency approach to HRM, argues that HRM improves

performance where there is a close vertical fit between the HRM practices and the

company's strategy. This link ensures close coherence between the HR people

processes and policies and the external market or business strate gy. There are a

range of theories about the nature of this vertical integration. For example, a set of

'lifecycle' models argue that HR policies and practices can be mapped onto the stage

of an organisation's development or lifecycle. Competitive advantage models takePorter's (1985) ideas about strategic choice and map a range of HR practices onto

the organisation's choice of competitive strategy. Finally 'configurational

models' provide a more sophisticated approach which advocates a close

examination of the organisation's strategy in order to determine the appropriate HR

policies and practices. However, this approach assumes that the strategy of the



organisation can be identified - many organisations exist in a state of flux and

development.

The Resource Based View (RBV), argued by some to be at the foundation of modern

HRM , focusses on the internal resources of the organisation and how they

contribute to competitive advantage. The uniqueness of these resources is preferredto homogeneity and HRM has a central role in developing human resources that are

valuable, rare, difficult to copy or substitute and that are effectively organised.

Overall, the theory of HRM argues that the goal of human resource management is

to help an organization to meet strategic goals by attracting, and maintaining

employees and also to manage them effectively. The key word here perhaps is "fit",

i.e. a HRM approach seeks to ensure a fit between the management of an

organisation's employees, and the overall strategic direction of the company (Miller,

1989).

The basic premise of the academic theory of HRM is that humans are not machines,

therefore we need to have an interdisciplinary examination of people in the

workplace. Fields such as psychology, industrial relations, industrial

engineering, sociology, economics, and critical theories: postmodernism, post-

structuralism play a major role. Many colleges and universities offer bachelor and

master degrees in Human Resources Management or in Human Resources and

Industrial Relations.

One widely used scheme to describe the role of HRM, developed by Dave Ulrich,

defines 4 fields for the HRM function:

Strategic business partner

Change Agent

Employee champion

Administration Expert

HRM strategy

An HRM strategy pertains to the means as to how to implement the specific functions of Human Resourse Management. An organization's HR function may possess recruitment and

selection policies, disciplinary procedures, reward/recognition policies, an HR plan , or

learning and development policies, however all of these functional areas of HRM need to be

aligned and correlated, in order to correspond with the overall business strategy. An HRM

strategy thus is an overall plan, concerning the implementation of spe cific HRM functional

areas.



An HRM strategy typically consists of the following factors: -

"Best fit" and "best practice" - meaning that there is correlation between the HRM

strategy and the overall corporate strategy. As HRM as a field seeks to manage human

resources in order to achieve properly organizational goals, an organization's HRM

strategy seeks to accomplish such management by applying a firm's personnel needs

with the goals/objectives of the organisation. As an example, a firm selling cars could

have a corporate strategy of increasing car sales by 10% over a five year period.

Accordingly, the HRM strategy would seek to facilitate how exactly to manage personnel

in order to achieve the 10% figure. Specific HRM functions, such as recruitment and

selection, reward/recognition, an HR plan, or learning and development policies, would

be tailored to achieve the corporate objectives.

Close co-operation (at least in theory) between HR and the top/senior management, in

the development of the corporate strate gy. Theoretically, a senior HR representative

should be present when an organization's corporate objectives are devised. This is so,

since it is a firm's personnel who actually construct a good, or provide a service. The

personnel's proper management is vi tal in the firm being successful, or even existing as

a going concern. Thus, HR can be seen as one of the critical departments within the

functional area of an organization.

Continual monitoring of the strategy, via employee feedback, surveys, etc.

The implementation of an HR strategy is not always required, and may depend on a number

of factors, namely the size of the firm, the organizational culture within the firm or the

industry that the firm operates in and also the people in the firm.

An HRM strategy can be divided, in general, into two facets - the people strategy and the HR

functional strategy. The people strategy pertains to the point listed in the first paragraph,

namely the careful correlation of HRM policies/actions to attain the goals laid down in the

corporate strategy. The HR functional strategy relates to the policies employed within the HR

functional area itself, regarding the management of persons internal to it, to ensure its own

departmental goals are met.

E-HRM is the (planning, implementation and) application of information

technology for both networking and supporting at least two individual or collective

actors in their shared performing of HR activities.

E-HRM is not the same as HRIS (Human resource information system) which refers

to ICT systems used within HR departments.Nor is it the same as V-HRM or Virtual



HRM - which is defined by Lepak and Snell as "...a network -based structure built on

partnerships and typically mediated by information technologies to help the

organization acquire, develop, and deploy intellectual capital."

E-HRM is in essence the devolution of HR functions to management and employees.

They access these functions typically via intranet or other web -technology channels.The empowerment of managers and employees to perform certain chosen HR

functions relieves the HR department of these tasks, allowing HR staff to focus less

on the operational and more on the strategic elements of HR, and allowing

organisations to lower HR department staffing levels as the administr ative burden is

lightened. It is anticipated that, as E -HRM develops and becomes more entrenched

in business culture, these changes will become more apparent, but they have yet to

be manifested to a significant degree. A 2007 CIPD survey states that "The i nitial

research indicates that much-commented-on development such as shared services,

outsourcing and e-HR have had relatively little impact on costs or staff numbers"

Human Resource Management System (HRMS) or Human Resource

Information System (HRIS) :

It refers to the systems and processes at the intersection between human resource

management (HRM) and information technology. It merges HRM as a discipline and

in particular its basic HR activities and processes with the information technology

field, whereas the programming of data processing systems evolved into

standardized routines and packages of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software.

On the whole, these ERP systems have their origin on software that integrates

information from different applications into one universal database. The linkage of its

financial and human resource modules through one database is the most important

distinction to the individually and proprietary developed predecessors, which makes

this software application both rigid and flexible.

Purpose

The function of Human Resources departments is generally administrative and

common to all organizations. Organizations may have formalized selection,

evaluation, and payroll processes. Efficient and effective management of " Human

Capital" progressed to an increasingly imperative and complex process. The HR

function consists of tracking existing employee data which traditionally includes

personal histories, skills, capabilities, accomplishments and salary. To reduce the



manual workload of these administrative activities, organiza tions began to

electronically automate many of these processes by introducing specialized Human

Resource Management Systems. HR executives rely on internal or external IT

professionals to develop and maintain an integrated HRMS. Before the

client architecture evolved in the late 1980s, many HR automation processes wererelegated to mainframe computers that could handle large amounts of data

transactions. In consequence of the high capital investment necessary to buy or

program proprietary software, these internally-developed HRMS were limited to

organizations that possessed a large amount of capital. The advent of client±

server , Application Service Provider , and Software as a Service SaaS or Human

Resource Management Systems enabled increasingly higher administrative control

of such systems. Currently Human Resource Management Systems encompass:

1. Payroll

2. Work Time

3. Benefits Administration

4. HR management Information system

5. Recruiting

6. Training/Learning Management System

7. Performance Record

8. Employee Self-Service

The payroll module automates the pay process by gathering data on employee time

and attendance, calculating various deductions and taxes, and generating periodic

pay cheques and employee tax reports. Data is generally fed from the human

resources and time keeping modules to calculate automatic deposit and manual

cheque writing capabilities. This module can encompass all employee -related

transactions as well as integrate with existing financial manag ement systems.

The work time module gathers standardized time and work related efforts. The

most advanced modules provide broad flexibility in data collection methods, labor

distribution capabilities and data analysis features. Cost analysis and efficiency

metrics are the primary functions.

The benefits administration module provides a system for organizations to

administer and track employee participation in benefits programs. These typically

encompass insurance, compensation, profit sharing and retirement .

The HR management module is a component covering many other HR aspects

from application to retirement. The system records basic demographic and address

data, selection, training and development, capabilities and skills management,



compensation planning records and other related activities. Leading edge systems

provide the ability to "read" applications and enter relevant data to applicable

database fields, notify employers and provide position management and position

control. Human resource management function involves the recruitment, placement,

evaluation, compensation and development of the employees of an organization.Initially, businesses used computer based information systems to:

produce pay checks and payroll reports;

maintain personnel records;

pursue Talent Management.

Online recruiting has become one of the primary methods employed by HR

departments to garner potential candidates for available positions within an

organization. Talent Management systems typically encompass:

analyzing personnel usage within an organization;

identifying potential applicants;

recruiting through company-facing listings;

recruiting through online recruiting sites or publications that market to both

recruiters and applicants.

The significant cost incurred in maintaining an organized recruitment effort, cross -

posting within and across general or industry -specific job boards and maintaining a

competitive exposure of availabilities has given rise to the development of a

dedicated Applicant Tracking System, or 'ATS', module.

The training module provides a system for organizations to administer and track

employee training and development efforts. The system, normally called a Learning

Management System if a stand alone product, allows HR to track education,

qualifications and skills of the employees, as well as outlining what training courses,

books, CDs, web based learning or materials are available to develop which skills.

Courses can then be offered in date specific sessions, with delegates and training

resources being mapped and managed within the same system.

Sophisticated LMS allow managers to approve training, budgets and calendars

alongside performance management and appraisal metrics.

The Employee Self-Service module allows employees to query HR related data

and perform some HR transactions over the system. Employees may query their

attendance record from the system without asking the information from HR

personnel. The module also lets supervisors approve O.T. re quests from their

subordinates through the system without overloading the task on HR department.



Many organizations have gone beyond the traditional functions and developed

human resource management information systems, which support recruitment,

selection, hiring, job placement, performance appraisals, employee benefit analysis,

health, safety and security, while others integrate an outsourced Applicant Tracking

System that encompasses a subset of the above.Assigning Responsibilities Communication between the Employees.

Workforce Planning

It is a continual process used to align the needs and priorities of the organisation

with those of its workforce to ensure it can meet its legislative, regulatory, service

and production requirements and organizational objectives. Workforce Planning

enables evidence based workforce development strategies.

Workforce Planning Definitions

Workforce Planning is the business process for ensuring that an organization has suitable

access to talent to ensure future business success. Access to talent includes consider ing all

potential access sources (employment, contracting out, partnerships, changing business

activities to modify the types of talent required, etc.). By talent is meant the skills, knowledge,

predisposition and ability to undertake required activities i ncluding decisions making.Strategic Planning considers the business risks concerning insufficient, disrupted, mis -

deployed talent on the organization's business priorities. Workforce planning is considered

an iterative discipline. The cycle of workforce p lanning includes filling resource requests,

analyzing resource utilization, forecasting capacity, managing and identifying the resources

(human) to fill that capacity, and then re -starting the cycle.

Strategic Workforce Planning is broader and longer term than operational Workforce

Planning. Strategic Workforce Planning is the framework applied for Workforce Planning and

Workforce Development, where the links between corporate and strategic objectives and

their associated workforce implications are demonstrated. Strategic Workforce Planning

should take into account the projected loss of knowledge through employee exits and the

projected knowledge requirements for sustaining and progressing the business. Knowledge

requirements may include technology, new skills, new roles, documentation of key workforce

intelligence or new business demands. Operational Workforce Planning is narrower in

context and shorter term than strategic Workforce Planning. Operational Workforce Planning

involves the systems and processes adopted and evolved to enable strategic Workforce



Planning through the production of the evidence required for executive decision -making on

workforce matters. Operational Workforce Planning should initially be process based and

focused on building understanding and capabilities in Workforce Planning, supported by

simple tools, templates and techniques. Once established and practiced, these tools,

templates and techniques can become more sophisticated and linked to existing or new ITsystems to enable Workforce Planning to be integrated into normal business practice.

One of the more restrictive and potentially dangerous assumptions is that Strategic Planning

is only about talent in the form of employees. Hiring is a strategy for accessing talent and will

often be the superior one. However, the use of employees to meet talent needs carries with

it unique risks that can be mitigated using alternative access sourcing arrangements.

Regardless of the access source used, insightful asse ssment of the strategy's attendant

business risk is prudent.

The process for starting out Strategic Workforce Planning is linked with the organization's

strategy. This means identifying the critical talent needs that if not met can materially

adversely impact business success. Once the business risks are fully appreciated then

attention turns to schedule and timing. Assessing current internal capability and assessing

its relative position when it will be called upon in the future. Speculating on future sour cing

options and identifying the preferred sourcing option. Implementation and execution follow.

Attention to periodically reviewing the "sanity" of the current plan is prudent.

Workforce Analytics Approach

The focus is to analyse current and historical employee data to identify key

relationships among variables and use this to provide insight into the workforce they

need for the future. Workforce analysis usually includes reviewing employee

recruitment, promotion and turnover patterns. In addition the an alysis can also

include reviewing the age and gender profiles of the workforce.

An analytical approach is important as it provides a fact based method of

understanding workforce behaviours. Workforce analytics also provides further

context to workforce planning efforts by ensuring perceived workforce behaviours

are consistent with actual behaviours identified using a more quantitative approach.

Steps in Workforce Planning

Though there is no definitive µStart here¶ activity for any of the approaches to Strategic

Workforce Planning, there are five fundamentals activities that most Workforce Plan models

have:



Environment Scan

Current Workforce Profile

Future Workforce View

Analysis and Targeted Future

Closing the gaps

Environment Scan

Environment Scanning is a form of business intelligence. In the context of Workforce

Planning it is used to identify the set of facts or circumstances that surround a workforce

situation or event.

Current Workforce Profile

Current State is a profile of the demand and supply factors both internally and

externally of the workforce the organization has µtoday¶.

Future Workforce View

Future View is determining the organization¶s needs considering the emerging trends

and issues identified during the Environment Scanning.

Future View is often where the different approaches identified above are applied:

Quantitative futuring: understanding the future you are currently tracking to by

forecasting; Qualitative futuring: scenario planning potential alternative futures in

terms of capabilities and demographics to deliver the business strategy.

Analysis and Targeted Future

Qualitative and quantitative futuring creates the content for an organizational unit to

analyse and identify critical elements. As the critical elements are identified t he

Targeted Future begins to take form. The targeted future is the future that the

organization is going to target as being the best fit in terms of business strategy and

is achievable given the surrounding factors (internal/external, supply/demand).

Recruitment

It refers to the process of attracting, screening, and selecting qualified people for

a job at an organization or firm. For some components of the recruitment process,



mid- and large-size organizations often retain professional recruiters or outsource

some of the process to recruitment agencies.

The recruitment industry has five main types of agencies: employment agencies,

recruitment websites and job search engines, "head-hunters" for executive and

professional recruitment, niche agencies whi ch specialize in a particular area of staffing, or employer branding strategy and in-house recruitment. The stages in

recruitment include sourcing candidates by advertising or other methods, and

screening and selecting potential candidates using tests or i nterviews.

Headhunters

A "head-hunter" is an industry term for a third-party recruiter who seeks out

candidates often when normal recruitment efforts have failed. Headhunters are

generally considered more aggressive than in -house recruiters or may have pre-existing industry experience and contacts. They may use advanced sales

techniques such as initially posing as clients to gather employee contacts as well as

visiting candidate offices. They may also purchase expensive lists of names and job

titles but more often will generate their own lists. They may arrange a meeting or a

formal interview between their client and the candidate and will usually prepare the

candidate for the interview, help negotiate the salary and conduct closure to the

search. They are frequently members in good standing of industry trade groups and

associations. Headhunters will often attend trade shows and other meetings

nationally or even internationally that may be attended by potential candidates and

hiring managers. Headhunters are typically small operations that make high margins

on candidate placements (sometimes more than 30% of the candidate¶s annual

compensation). Due to their higher costs, headhun ters are usually employed to fill

senior management and executive level roles. Headhunters are also used to recruit

very specialized individuals; for example, in some fields, such as emerging scientific

research areas, there may only be a handful of top-level professionals who are

active in the field. In this case, since there are so few qualified candidates, it makes

more sense to directly recruit them one-by-one, rather than advertise internationally

for candidates. While in-house recruiters tend to attract candidates for specific jobs,

headhunters will attract both candidates and actively seek them out as well. To do

so, they may network, cultivate relationships with various companies, maintain large

databases, purchase company directories or candidate li sts and cold call prospective

recruits.

Recruitment Process



Job analysis

The proper start to a recruitment effort is to perform a job analysis, to document the

actual or intended requirement of the job to be performed. This information is

captured in a job description and provides the recruitment effort with the boundariesand objectives of the search.Oftentimes a company will have job descriptions that

represent a historical collection of tasks performed in the past. These job

descriptions need to be reviewed or updated prior to a recruitment effort to reflect

present day requirements. Starting a recruitment with an accurate job analysis and

job description ensures the recruitment effort starts off on a proper track for success.

Sourcing

Sourcing involves 1) advertising, a common part of the recruiting process, oftenencompassing multiple media, such as the Internet, general newspapers, job ad

newspapers, professional publications, window advertisements, job centers, and

campus graduate recruitment programs; and 2) recruiting research, which is the

proactive identification of relevant talent who may not respond to job postings and

other recruitment advertising methods done in #1. This initial research for so -called

passive prospects, also called name-generation, results in a list of prospects who

can then be contacted to solicit interest, obtain a resume/CV, and be screened (see

below).

Screening and selection

Suitability for a job is typically assessed by looking for skills, e.g.

communication, typing, and computer skills. Qualifications may be shown

through résumés, job applications, interviews, educational or professional

experience, the testimony of references, or in-house testing, such as for software

knowledge, typing skills, numeracy, and literacy, through psychological

tests or employment testing. Other resume screening criteria may include length of

service, job titles and length of time at a job. In some countries, employers are

legally mandated to provide equal opportunity in hiring. Business management

software is used by many recruitment agencies to automate the testing process.

Many recruiters and agencies are using an applicant tracking system to perform

many of the filtering tasks, along with software tools for psychometric testing.



Onboarding

"Onboarding" is a term which describes the process of helping new employees

become productive members of an organization. A well -planned introduction helps

new employees become fully operational quickly and is often integrated with a new

company and environment. Onboarding is included in the recruitment process for retention purposes. Many companies have onboarding campaigns in hopes to retain

top talent that is new to the company; campaigns may last anywhere from 1 week to

6 months.

Internet recruitment and websites

Such sites have two main features: job boards and a résumé/curriculum vitae (CV)database. Job boards allow member companies to post job vacancies. Alternatively,

candidates can upload a résumé to be included in searches by member companies.

Fees are charged for job postings and access to search resumes. Since the late

1990s, the recruitment website has evolved to encompass end -to-end recruitment.

Websites capture candidate details and then pool them in client accessed candidate

management interfaces (also online). Key players in this sector provide e -recruitment

software and services to organizations of all sizes and within numerous industry

sectors, who want to e-enable entirely or partly their recruitment process in order to

improve business performance.

The online software provided by those who specialize in online recruitment helps

organizations attract, test, recruit, employ and retain quality staff with a minimal

amount of administration. Online recruitment websites can be very helpful to find

candidates that are very actively looking for work and post their resumes online, but

they will not attract the "passive" candidates who might respond favorably to an

opportunity that is presented to them through other means. Also, some ca ndidates

who are actively looking to change jobs are hesitant to put their resumes on the job

boards, for fear that their current companies, co-workers, customers or others might

see their resumes.

Job search engines

The emergence of meta-search engines allows job-seekers to search across multiple

websites. Some of these new search engines index and list the advertisements of

traditional job boards. These sites tend to aim for providing a "one -stop shop" for job-



seekers. However, there are many other job search engines which index pages

solely from employers' websites, choosing to bypass traditional job boards entirely.

These vertical search engines allow job-seekers to find new positions that may not

be advertised on traditional job boards, and online recr uitment websites.

Recruitment Process Outsourcing

It is a form of business process outsourcing (BPO) where an employer outsources or

transfers all or part of its recruitment activities to an external service provider.

The Recruitment Process Outsourcing Association defines RPO as follows: "when a

provider acts as a company's internal recruitment function for a portion or all of its

jobs. RPO providers manage the entire recruiting/hiring process from job profiling

through the on boarding of the new hire, including staff, technology, method and

reporting. A properly managed RPO will improve a company's time to hire, increasethe quality of the candidate pool, provide verifiable metrics, reduce cost and improve

governmental compliance."

The RPO Alliance, a group of the Human Resources Outsourcing Association

(HROA), approved this definition in February 2009: "Recruitment Process

Outsourcing (RPO) is a form of business process outsourcing (BPO) where an

employer transfers all or part of its recruitment processes to an external service

provider. An RPO provider can provide its own or may assume the company's staff,

technology, methodologies and reporting. In all cases, RPO differs greatly from

providers such as staffing companies and contingent/ retained search providers in

that it assumes ownership of the design and management of the recruitment process

and the responsibility of results."

Occasional recruitment support, for example temporary, contingency and executive

search services is more analogous to out-tasking, co-sourcing or just sourcing. In

this example, the service provider is "a" source for certain types of recruitment

activity.The biggest distinction between RPO and other types of staffing is P rocess.

In RPO, the service provider assumes ownership of the process, while in other types

of staffing the service provider is part of a process controlled by the organization

buying their services.

Benefits

RPO's promoters claim that the solution offers improvement in quality, cost, service

and speed.



Quality and Cost - RPO providers claim that leveraging economies of

scale enables them to offer recruitment processes at lower cost while economies

of scope allow them to operate as high-quality specialists. Those economies of

scale and scope arise from a larger staff of recruiters, databases of candidate

resumes, and investment in recruitment tools and networks. RPO solutions arealso claimed to change fixed investment costs into variable costs that flex with

fluctuation in recruitment activity. Companies may pay by transaction rather than

by staff member, thus avoiding under-utilization or forcing costly layoffs of

recruitment staff when activity is low.

Service and Speed - The commercial relationship between an RPO provider and

a client is likely to be based on specific performance targets. With remuneration

dependent on the attainment of such targets, an RPO provider will concentrate

their resources in the most effective way - at times to the exclusion of non-core

activity. Traditional internal recruitment teams are less likely to have such clearly

defined performance targets.

Organizations with efficient hiring process that are viewed as employers of choice by

potential staff may stand to gain benefits from an RPO process.

Functions

The Human Resources Management (HRM) function includes a variety of activities,and key among them is deciding the staffing needs of an organization and whether

to use independent contractors or hire employees to fill these needs, recruiting and

training the best employees, ensuring they are high performers, dealing with

performance issues, and ensuring your personnel and management practices

conform to various regulations. Activities also include managing your approach to

employee benefits and compensation, employee records and personnel policies.

Usually small businesses (for-profit or nonprofit) have to carry out these activities

themselves because they can't yet afford part- or full-time help. However, they

should always ensure that employees have²and are aware of²personnel policieswhich conform to current regulations. These policies are often in the form of

employee manuals, which all employees have.

Note that some people distinguish a difference between HRM (a major management

activity) and HRD (Human Resource Development, a profession). Those people

might include HRM in HRD, explaining that HRD includes the broader range of



activities to develop personnel inside of organizations, including, e.g., career

development, training, organization development, etc.

There is a long-standing argument about where HR-related functions should be

organized into large organizations, e.g., "should HR be in the Organization

Development department or the other way around?"

The HRM function and HRD profession have undergone major ch anges over the

past 20±30 years. Many years ago, large organizations looked to the "Personnel

Department," mostly to manage the paperwork around hiring and paying people.

More recently, organizations consider the "HR Department" as playing an important

role in staffing, training and helping to manage people so that people and the

organization are performing at maximum capability in a highly fulfilling manner.

human resources and hrm

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