Human Resource Function in Recruitmentâ€Free Samples for Students

Question: Discuss About Human Resource Function in Recruitment? Answer: Introduction The human resource management (HRM) focuses in HR research, employee assistance, compensation and labor unions thus helping employee work effectively towards realization of organizational goals (Christensen Rog, 2008). Aligning human resource functions with strategic plan help organization in many ways. It helps in career development of employees through training to equip them with skills necessary to do their jobs. HR function helps in selection and staffing to effectively achieve strategic goals. This ensures that there are right people to do a given job. The HR understand the strategic plan of organization and therefore they ensure that plan is workable from the start by finding right people (Alagaraja, 2013). Impact of current global conditions on HRM recruitment practices Current global conditions such as political, technological, economic and legal factors have changed HRM practices. The global conditions can be regarded as uncontrollable factors and thus the HRM needs to change to accommodate such external factors. The globalization has encouraged diversity recruitment within organization so as to interact with consumers and stakeholders from diverse languages, social background and cultures (Breaugh, 2008). HR has to hire employees from equally diverse backgrounds. The organization recruits diverse workforce who contribute range of ideas to stimulate organizational growth and improve on its performance. Globalization has also pushed for professional development so as to provide employees with opportunities for career development. HRM in organizations therefore organizes for resources to allow employees earn university degree or sponsor employees to attend conferences and networking events (Tsao et al., 2016). Globalization has further influenced HRM to put more emphasis on training. Training focuses on needs of individual employees. The staff in call centers are usually offered language classes to develop best communication skills to interact with clients globally. Globalization has further pushed for acquisition of equipment and software to reach out to the rest of the world necessitating training of staff on its use. Business serving global customers has to understand how to apply law across jurisdictions (Shen et al., 2009). The tax and labor law may differ across different countries and thus organization has to understand these laws since breaching may results in serious impact like damaging companys reputation or spending huge finance for legal purposes (Tsao et al., 2016). A process to select and recruit new employees in Qantas Airline Qantas Airline is one of leading airline based in Australia that offers air transport services across the world. The organization has developed effective recruiting system for new employees to align with organizational goals. The process start with identifying the vacancy and evaluating the skills needed for the job. This helps in hiring the right person for the role. The HR must align the staff skills with organizational goals. The second step is to develop position description so as develop questions and evaluations for the interview (Qantas, 2017). The job description articulates responsibilities and qualifications to attract suitable candidates. Qantas Airline HR identifies essential functions, position purpose, minimum requirements and preferred qualification. The third step is development of recruitment plan that serve to attract best candidate as well as inclusion of women and underrepresented groups like individuals living with disabilities. The recruitment plan further stipu late advertising channels for the position (Noe et al., 2006). The next step is selecting search committee consisting of more than one person to avoid biases. This is followed by posting position and implementing recruitment plan. The post position is posted in the companys website as well as local newspapers. The candidates apply the job by completing electronic application and submitting their resume and cover letters. The sixth step is review of applicants and develop short listed candidates. The next step is conducting interview that could be virtual or panel interview. During interview the committee interact with candidates to learn more about prospective employee. The last step is selecting hire after committee discuss interviewees and compare their performance based on selection criteria. This process has made Qantas effective in recruiting most suitable employees who will work to deliver organizations goals. The company has tried to standardize recruitment procedure by posting guidelines on its websites. Qantas have a career site that list vacant positions and description of relevant skills and experience to guide the potential applicants before submitting their application online. Just like many other institutions, Qantas Airline emphasizes on the CV that is up to date to increase chances of being short-listed. The assessment procedure of applicants involves combination of interview, psychometric testing and tray of exercises. The critical part is its policy that ensure that applicants confidential information is managed to maintain privacy. The company further requires applicants to adhere to residency and visa requirements depending on the country where the position will be based (Qantas, 2017). Challenges for recruiting the workforce in Qantas Airline Qantas Airline is striving to be competitive in transport industry by recruiting and retaining high skill and talented workforce. The Australian firms have recently faced challenges of attracting and retaining staff particularly recruiting the right staff during the first round. He cost of recruiting new employees is reported to be significantly high for Australian firms due to legal requirements (Hutchings, De Cieri Shea, 2011). It is therefore vital for Qantas Airline to address the following challenges in order to gain competitive advantage out of best workforce. Diversity recruitment challenge Diversity recruitment is known to increase productivity of organization due to pooled talents and skills that enhances creativity and innovation within the organization (Pitts, 2009). The transport industry including road, air or rail has had challenged in implementing diversity recruitment to get workforce from diverse background like age, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, race, nationality religion and veteran status among others. The main concern for Qantas Airline in diversity recruitment is to get more women to occupy more technical jobs like pilots, top management job and ICT. The organization has had for a long time finding difficult to find women who suits the advertised top jobs particular from Australia. This is replicated globally due to few women taking engineering courses (Hill Corbett St Rose, 2010). The diversity requirement is necessary to achieve success in airlines when competing in a global economy. The benefits of having diverse workforce include rapid growth of organization, maintenance of high revenues and profits, increased productivity, build of solid infrastructure, better customer service delivery and increased innovativeness (Stevens, Plaut Sanchez-Burks, 2008). Workplace diversity can be achieved through diversity recruitment however, poor implementation of recruitment policies hamper realization of the dream. It is reported that there persist minimal cases of inequality, discrimination and workplace exclusion in Qantas Airline thus hampering diversity recruitment. Lack of support and commitment from top management has slowed realization of workplace diversity in the company. The recent changes in HR department is expected to increase financial performance of Qantas (HCA, 2015). Scarcity of workforce The larger portion of transport requires personnel for hospitality and customer care due to stiff competition in air transport as a result of globalization. In the recent times, Qantas Airline saw the need to adopt technology in its process due to huge technological demands impacting the transport industry. It is reported that many customers globally are preferring electronic forms of purchases especially making orders and making payments (Neiberger, 2008). The technological advancement has helped the company to serve its customers well. However, Qantas has find it challenging to find potential employees that has the ability and skills to maintain highest level of technical competency when it comes to upholding safe and ethical practices with regard to use of technology. A recent study by Hampson et al. (2015) reveals that Australia is among the countries that is likely to be hit hard by global workforce shortage in aircraft maintenance and is estimated to be 30% by 2025. Some of the reasons lowering availability of workforce in aircraft industry in Australia is stiff regulations pertaining training and licensing. Some of the proposed means to address the problem include expansion of training facilities, keeping the engineers productively employed to provide their requisite skills until market demand revives, reforming learning and other training institutions to ensure that new generation of highly qualified engineers are delivered to the market and harmonizing career paths to maintain balance in workforce joining aviation and aerospace manufacturing (Hampson et al., 2015). It is therefore imminent that Qantas find creative solution to attract and retain skilled workforce for the technical support, managerial position, pilots and customer care. High cost of recruitment Qantas faces a major challenge of high cost both direct and indirect that is associated with hiring. The company has relied for long term job advertisements on its website, however, due to inefficiency the company has resorted to combine website with other forms of advertisement for job vacancies including print media especially local newspapers and television channels. Qantas experiences huge cost of advertising for the available vacancies apart from paying recruitment consultants and agencies especially when hiring employees to take senior positions. The skill and talent shortages in Australia for air transport sector is proving too expensive for transport firms. Qantas has to put up with high cost associated with hiring and training new employee. Gap required to fill a given position with right staff result in loss of productivity. Another challenge is balancing skills and experience during recruitment. It is reported that many organizations in air transport sector in Australia values a candidate with more experience over qualifications. It is important to recognize that each job requires set of skills and it is therefore important for organization to balance between skills, qualification and organizational branding. In the US, a major problem of workforce is manifesting itself as baby boomers are retiring faster compared to aging workforce. This creates challenge in transferring knowledge to productive young labor force required to attain competitiveness. Complicated hiring process Qantas has long process of hiring starting from advertisement until selection thus slowing hiring process (Sarina Lansbury, 2013). The first step involving pre-qualification encompasses viewing CV and other documents of applicant. The detailed application process further requires applicant to provide more information that requires more time for reviewing. Consequently, competency and long interviews are conducted stepwise in interval of more than a week. Similarly, skills exams and background check take significant time and some potential employees may lose hope of getting job due to lengthy procedures (Sarina Wright, 2015). Inability to offer competitive salary packages The availability of information to the employees has made it easily for them to find firms that offer competitive packages. Qantas is not able to offer high salary to its employees due to its strategy to lower prices for its customers particularly fair in order to remain competitive (Graf, 2005). As a result, the low profitability has forced company to offer low salaries to its employees. Since the company that offers more wages and salaries is able to win talented workforce, Qantas misses this opportunity. Conclusion Qantas Airline has great opportunity of performing effectively after is address challenges associated with recruitment. It can be concluded that the major challenges facing recruitment in Qantas include challenge of achieving diversity recruitment, scarcity of skilled workforce, high cost of recruitment, complex recruitment procedure and inability to offer competitive salary packages. It is therefore recommended that Qantas adopt creative solution to these problem to recruit and attain highly skilled workforce in order to minimizing operation cost and increase profitability. References Alagaraja, M. (2013). Mobilizing organizational alignment through strategic human resource development. Human Resource Development International, 16(1), 74-93. Breaugh, J. A. (2008). Employee recruitment: Current knowledge and important areas for future research. Human Resource Management Review, 18(3), 103-118. Christensen H. J., Rog, E. (2008). Talent management: A strategy for improving employee recruitment, retention and engagement within hospitality organizations. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 20(7), 743-757. Graf, L. (2005). Incompatibilities of the low-cost and network carrier business models within the same airline grouping. Journal of Air Transport Management, 11(5), 313-327. Hampson, I., Fraser, D., Quinlan, M., Junor, A., Gregson, S. (2015). The Future of Aircraft Maintenance in Australia: Workforce Capability, Aviation Safety and Industry Development. HCA. (2015). How HR helped to transform Qantas. Retrieved on May 17, 2017 from https://www.hcamag.com/hr-news/how-hr-helped-to-transform-qantas-209442.aspx. Hill, C., Corbett, C., St Rose, A. (2010). Why so few? Women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. American Association of University Women. 1111 Sixteenth Street NW, Washington, DC 20036. Hutchings, K., De Cieri, H., Shea, T. (2011). Employee attraction and retention in the Australian resources sector. Journal of Industrial Relations, 53(1), 83-101. Neiberger, C. (2008). The effects of deregulation, changed customer requirements and new technology on the organisation and spatial patterns of the air freight sector in Europe. Journal of Transport Geography, 16(4), 247-256. Noe, R. A., Hollenbeck, J. R., Gerhart, B., Wright, P. M. (2006). Human resource management: Gaining a competitive advantage. Pitts, D. (2009). Diversity management, job satisfaction, and performance: Evidence from US federal agencies. Public Administration Review, 69(2), 328-338. Qantas. (2017). Recruitment Process. Retrieved on May 17, 2017 from Qantas Airline: https://www.qantas.com/travel/airlines/recruitment-process/global/en. Sarina, T., Lansbury, R. D. (2013). Flying high and low? Strategic choice and employment relations in Qantas and Jetstar. Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, 51(4), 437-453. Sarina, T., Wright, C. F. (2015). Mutual gains or mutual losses? Organisational fragmentation and employment relations outcomes at Qantas Group. Journal of Industrial Relations, 57(5), 686-706. Shen, J., Chanda, A., D'netto, B., Monga, M. (2009). Managing diversity through human resource management: An international perspective and conceptual framework. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 20(2), 235-251. Stevens, F. G., Plaut, V. C., Sanchez-Burks, J. (2008). Unlocking the benefits of diversity: All-inclusive multiculturalism and positive organizational change. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 44(1), 116-133. Tsao, C. W., Newman, A., Chen, S. J., Wang, M. J. (2016). HRM retrenchment practices and firm performance in times of economic downturn: exploring the moderating effects of family involvement in management. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 27(9), 954-973.