HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING AND RECRUITMENT

HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING AND RECRUITMENT NOTES

3.0 Lesson Introduction

In the previous lesson, we discussed job analysis and the methods
managers use to create job descriptions and job specifications. The main
purpose of this lesson is to help you improve your effectiveness in
recruiting job candidates. The main topics we will discuss include
personnel planning and forecasting, recruiting job candidates and
developing and using job application forms. Personnel planning is the
first step in the recruiting and selecting process. We can conveniently
view this process as a series of hurdles.

Steps in Recruitment and Selection Process

The recruitment and selection process as is a series of hurdles aimed at
selecting the best candidates for the job. The steps employed are
summarized below.

Decide what position you will have to fill by engaging in personnel
planning and forecasting.
Build a pool candidates for these jobs by recruiting internal or
external candidates.
Have applicants complete application forms and perhaps undergo an
initial screening interview.
Use selection techniques like tests, background investigations and
physical exams to identify viable candidates.
Finally, decide who to make an offer to, by having the supervisor and
(perhaps) others on the team interview the final candidates.
In the sections that follow, we discuss each of these steps in details.

Employment Planning and Forecasting

Employment or personnel planning is the process of deciding what
positions the firm will have to fill and how to fill them. Personnel
planning covers all the firm’s future positions from maintenance clerk
to CEO. However, most firms use succession planning to refer to the
process of deciding how to fill the company’s most important executive
jobs. Employment planning is an integral part of a firm’s strategic and
HR panning processes. A firm’s plan to expand plans to enter new
business, build new plants, or reduce costs all influence the types of
positions the firm will need to fill. One big question is whether to
fill projected openings from within or from outside the firm. In other
words, should you plan to fill them with current employees or by
recruiting from outside?

Each option produces its own set of HR plans. Current employee may
require training development and coaching before they are ready to fill
new jobs. Going outside requires deciding what recruiting sources to use
among other things. Like all good plans, management builds employment
plans on premises – basic assumptions about the future. Forecasting
generates these premises. If you’re planning for employment requirements
you’ll usually need to forecast three things Personnel needs, the supply
of inside
candidates and the supply of outside candidates.

*Factors to Consider When Forecasting

Demand for product/service.
Project turnover within the organization.

How to Forecast Personnel Needs

The expected demand for you product or service is paramount when
forecasting personnel needs. The usual process is therefore to forecast
revenues first. Then estimate the size of the staff required to achieve
this volume. In addition to expected demand staffing plans may reflect.

Demand for product or service.
Projected labor turnover (as a result of resignation or terminations)
Quality and skills of your employees (relations to what you see as
the changing needs of your organization) – training needs.
Strategic decisions to upgrade the quality of products or services or
enter into new markets.
Technological and other changes resulting in increased productivity.
The financial resources available to your department.

Methods to Predict Employment Needs

Trend Analysis

This means studying variations in your firm’s employment levels over the
last few years to predict future needs. Thus you might compute the
number of employees in your firm at the end of the last five years or
perhaps the number in each subgroup (like sales, production, secretarial
and administrative people) at the end of each of those years. The
purpose is to identify trends that might continue into the future. Trend
analysis can provide an initial estimate, but employment levels rarely
depend just on the passage of time. Other factors (like inflation
changes in sales volume and productivity) also affect staffing needs.

Ratio Analysis

This means making forecasts based on the rations between some usual
factor (like sales volume) and the number of employees required (for
instance, number of salesperson). For example, suppose a salesperson
traditionally generates Kshs. 500,000 in sales. If the sales revenue to
salespeople ratio remains the same you would require six new salespeople
next year (each of whom produces an extra Kshs.500, 000) to produce a
hoped-for extra Kshs 3 million in sales Like trend analysis, ratio
analysis assumes that productivity remains about the same- for
instance, that each sales person can’t be motivated t produce much more
than Kshs 500,000 in
sales. If sales productivity were to increase or decrease, the ratio of
sales to salespeople would change. A forecast based on historical
rations would then no longer be accurate.

The Scatter plot

A scatter plot shows graphically how two variables- such a measure of
business activity and your firm’s staffing levels- are related. If they
are, then if you can forecast the level of business activity, you should
be able to estimate your personnel requirements.

Managerial Judgment

Whichever forecasting method you use, material judgment will play a big
role. It’s rare that any historical trend, ratio or relationship will
simply continue unchanged into the future. You’ll therefore have to
modify markets – your belief will be important. In practice, making
personnel forecasts usually isn’t mechanical, even for major firms. It
is sometimes difficult to take a long-term perspective, particularly
when market conditions change dramatically.

One may need to modify managerial judgment due to ;( will affect
forecasting)

Upgrade quality of products or services or services or enter into
new on market. This will have implications on quality of employees
that you require.
Are employees going to fit the new products you make
Technological and administrative changes resulting in increased
productivity which may lead to reduced no. of employees.
Financial resources available- pay more wages

Forecasting the Supply of Inside Candidates

Knowing your staffing needs only satisfies half the staffing equation.
Next, you have to estimate the likely supply of both inside and outside
candidates. Most firms start with the inside candidates. Here the main
task is determining which current employees might be qualified for the
projected openings. For this you need to know your current employees’
skills sets- their current qualifications. Sometimes it’s obvious and
managers to qualifications inventories. These are manual or computerized
records listing systematic listing of employees education, career and
development interests, languages, special skills and so on, to be used
on selecting inside
candidates for promotion. The following devices are of importance when
forecasting the supply of inside candidates. Manual systems and
personnel replacement charts: Managers use several manual devices to
keep track of candidates for most important positions. A personnel
inventory and development record compiles qualifications information on
each employee. Personal replacement charts are another option,
particularly for the firm’s top positions. They shoe the present
performance and promotability for each position’s potential replacement.
As an alternative, you create a card for each position, showing possible
replacements as well as their present performance, promotion potential
and training.

Computerized information systems: Companies don’t generally track the
qualifications of hundreds or thousands of employees manually. Most
firms computerize this information, using various packaged software
systems. In many of these systems, the employees and the HR department
enter information about the employee’s backgrounds, experience and
skills often using the company intranet. When a manger needs a person
for a position, he/she describes the position (for instance, in terms of
education and skills). After scanning its database of possible
candidates, the system produces a list of qualified candidates.

Such computerized skill inventory might include:
Work experience codes: A list of work experience titles or codes
describing the person’s job within the company.
Product knowledge: The employee’s level of familiarity with the
employer’s product line or services
Industry experience: The persons industry experiences, since for some
positions work in related industries is very useful.
Formal education: Each postsecondary educational institution attended,
filed of study, degree granted and year granted
Training courses: Those taken or conducted by the employee including courses taught by outside firms
Foreign languages: Which languages; degree of proficiency, spoken and
written.
Relocation limitations: The employee’s willingness to relocate and the
locales he/ she would prefer
Career interest: Work experience codes to indicate what the employee
would like to be doing for the employer in the future
Performance appraisals: Updated periodically, along with a summary of
the employee’s strengths and deficiencies.
Skills: Skills such as “graphic designs inter face” (number of times
performed, date last performed, time, spent), as well as skill level,
perhaps ranging from level 1 (can lead or instruct others) to level 3
(has some experience: can assist experienced workers).

In practice the, the data elements could number 100 or more. For
example, one vendor of a package reportedly used by over 2,000 companies
suggests 140 elements, ranging from home address to driver’s license
number, weight, salary, sick leave used, skills and veteran status.

Forecasting the Supply of Outside Candidates

If you wont have enough inside candidates to fill the anticipated
openings (or you want to go outside for another reason), you need to
focus on trying to anticipate the availability of outside candidates.
This may involve several activities. For example, you may want to
consider general economic conditions and the expected unemployment rate,
usually, the lower the rate of unemployment, the more difficult it will
be recruit personnel. Information like this is easy to find. Local labor
market conditions are also important high tech.
Your plans may also require that you forecast the availability of
potential job candidates in specific occupations such as nurses,
computer programmers for teachers. Some occupations are in demand that
they seem it remain in demand even when the economy slows. The jobs in
high de3mand aren’t necessarily always high tech.

To forecast for external candidates one will be guided by;

General economic conditions- expected prevailing rate of
unemployment. The lower the rate of unemployment, the lower the
labor hence the more difficult it will be recruits personnel.
Local market conditions
Occupational market conditions- availability of potential job
candidates in specific occupations e.g. engines, computers experts
for which u will be recruiting

Effective recruiting

Assuming the company authorizes you to fill a position, the next step is
to develop an applicant pool, using one or more of the recruitment
sources described below. It is hard to over emphasize the importance the
importance of effective recruiting. The more applicants you have, the
more selective you can be in your hiring. If only two candidates apply
for two openings, you may have
little choice but to hire them. But if 10 or 20 applicants appear, you
can use techniques like interviews and test to screen out all about all
the best.

Effective recruiting is increasingly today, for several reasons. First
the ease of recruiting tends to ebb and flow with economic and
unemployment levels. High average turnover rates for some occupations
are another problem; the increased emphasis on technology and therefore
on skilled human capital also demands more selective hiring and thus a
bigger applicant pool Finding the right inducements for attracting and
hiring employees can be a problem. Aggressive recruiting is therefo0re
often the name of the game. “Poaching workers is fair game”. Some
recruiters even have their own jargon. They call luring workers away
from other high- tech firms “nerd rustling’.

The Recruiting Yield Pyramid
This is historical relationship leads and invitees, and interviews,
interviews and offers made, and accepted. Some employers use a
recruiting yield pyramid number of new employees. In the figure below
(figure 3.1) the company knows the ratio of offers made to actual new
hires I 2 to 1; about the people to whom it makes offers accept them.
Similarly, the firm knows that the ratio of candidates interviewed to
offers is made is 3 to 2, while the ratio candidates invited for
interviews to candidates actually interviewed is about 4 to 3. Finally,
the firm knows that of six leads that come in from all its recruiting
efforts, only one applicant typically gets an interview- a 6 to 1 ratio.
Given these ratios, the firm knows it must generate 1,200 leads to be
able to invite 200 viable candidates to its offices for interviews. The
firm will then get to interview about 150 of those invited and from
these it will make 100 offers. Of those 1000 offers, about 50 will accept.

Figure 3.1: Recruiting Yield Pyramid

Recruiting may bring to mind employment agencies and classified ads, but
current employees are the best source candidates.
Filling open positions with inside candidates has many benefits. First,
there’s really no substitute for knowing a candidate’s strengths and
weakness. It is often therefore safer to promote employees form within,
since you’re likely to have a more accurate vies of the person’s skills
than you would an outsiders. Inside candidates may also be more committed to
the company.

Morale may rise, to the extent that employees see promotions as rewards
for loyalty and competence. Inside candidates may also require less
orientation and training than outsiders. However hiring from within can
also backfire. Employees who apply for jobs and don’t get them may
become disconnected telling unsuccessful applicants why they were
rejected and what remedial actions they might take to be more successful
in the future is thus crucial. Similarly, many employers require
managers to post job openings and interview all inside candidates. Yet
the manger often knows ahead of time exactly whom he or she wants to
hires. Requiring the persons to interviews a stream of unsuspecting
inside candidates can be a waste of time for all concerned. Groups are
sometimes not as satisfied when their new boss is appointed from within
their own ranks as when he or she is newcomer: it may be difficult for
the insider to shake off the reputation of being “one of the gang”
Inbreeding is another potential drawback. When all managers come up
through the ranks, they may have a tendency to maintain the status quo,
when a new direction is required. Many “promote from within”. Balancing
the benefits to morale and loyalty with the possible inbreeding problem
can be a challenge.

*3.3 Finding internal candidates

To be effective promotion from within requires using job position,
personnel records and skills banks. Job posting means publicizing the
open job to employees (often by literally posting it on bulletin boards
or intranets) and listing the job’s attributes, like qualifications,
supervisor, work schedule and pay rate. Some union contracts require job
posting to ensure union members get
first choice of new and better positions. Yet job posting can be a good
practice even in non union firms, it facilitates the transfer and
promotion of qualified inside candidates. (However firms often don’t
post supervisory jobs; management often prefers to select supervisory
candidates based on things like supervisor’s recommendations and
appraisals and testing results). Personnel record share also important.
An examination of personnel records (including application forms) may
reveal employees who are working in jobs below their educational or
skill levels. It may reveal persons who have potential for further
training or who already have the
right background for the open job: Computerized records systems (like
those discussed above) can help ensure you consider qualified inside
candidates for the opening. Some firms also develop “skill banks” that
lists current employees with specific skills. For example, if you need
an aero scope engineer in unit A and the skill bank show as person with
those skills in unit B, that person may be approached about transferring.

*3.3.1 Hiring employees- the second time around

Until recently, many managers consider it unwise to hire former
employees, such as those who’d left voluntarily for better jobs.
Quitting was often seen as a form of betrayal. Managers often assumed
that those they’d dismissed might exhibit disloyalty or a bad attitude
if hired back.

Today- thanks partly to high turnover in some high-tech occupations
rehiring former employees is back in style.
Rehiring back employees has its pros and cons. On the plus side, former
employees are known quantities (more or less) and are already familiar
with the company’s culture, style and ways of doing things. On the other
hand employees who left for greener pastures back into better positions
may signal your current employees that the best way to get ahead is to
leave the firm.

In any event, there are several ways to reduce the chance of adverse
reactions. For example, once rehired employees have been back on the job
for a certain period, credit them with the benefits such as vacation
time and thereby on morale. In addition, inquire (before rehiring them)
about what they did during the layoff and how they feel about returning
to the firm; you don’t want someone coming back who feels they’ve been
mistreated,” said one manager.

Succession planning

Forecasting the availability of inside executive candidates is
particularly important in succession planning- “the process of ensuring
a suitable supply of successors for current and future senior or key
jobs”, arising from business strategy so that careers of individuals can
be planned and managed to optimize the organizations needs and the
individual’s aspirations. To fill its most important executive
positions. Succession planning often involves a complicated series of
steps. Succession planning typically includes activities like these:

Determining the projected need for managers and professionals by
company level, function and skill
Auditing current executive talent to project the likely future
supply from internal sources
Planning individual career paths based on objective estimates of
future needs and assessments of potential
Career counseling in the context of the future needs of the firm, as
well as those of the individual
Accelerated promotions, with development targeted against the future
need sof the business
Performance related training and development to prepare individuals
for future roles as well as currents responsibilities
Planned strategic recruitment to fill short-term needs and to
provide people to meet future needs.
Actually filling the positions- via recruiters, promotion from
within and so on.

Outside sources of candidates

Firms can’t get all the employees they need from their current staff,
and sometimes they just don’t want to. We will look at the sources firms
use to find outside candidates next

1 .Advertising

Everyone is familiar with employment ads and most of us have probably
responded to one or more. To use help wanted ads successfully, employers
have to address two issues; the advertising media and the ad’s construction

The media
The selection of the best medium- be it the local paper, TV or the
internet- depends on the positions for which you’re recruiting. For
example the local newspaper is usually the best source for blue-collar
help, clerical employees and lower level administrative employees. On
the other hand, if you are recruiting for blue-collar workers with
special skills you would probably want to advertise in the heart of the
industry. The point is to target your ads where they’ll do the most
good. Most employers are also tapping the internet. For specialized
employees you can advertise in trade and professional journals.
Advertisements in professional publications like journals
Use of professional recruitment agencies e.g. manpower, Hawkins etc
Referrals and walk-ins/ word of mouth
Computerized employee databases

*Constructing the ad

Construction of the ad is important. Experienced advertisers use a four
point guide called AIDA(attention, interest, desire, action) to
construct ads. You must of course, attract attention to the ad or
readers may just miss or ignore it. Develop interest in the job. You can
create interest by the nature of the job itself, with lines such as
“you’ll thrive on challenging work” you can also use other aspects of
the job, such as its location to create interest. Create desire by
spotting the job’s interest factors with words such as travel or challenge
Keep your target audience in mind Finally make sure the prompts action
with a at statement like “call today” or “write today for
more information”

Application forms
The filled application form provides information on education,

You can make judgments on substantive matters such as level of
education experience
Draw conclusions about the applicants previous progress and growth
especially for management candidates
Draw tentative conclusions regarding the applicant’s stability based
on previous work records.
Use the data in the application to predict which candidate will
succeed on the job and which will not

Using application forms to predict job performance
Some organizations use application forms to predict which candidate will
be much useful in much the same way that might use test for screening.
They do this by conducting statistical studies to find relationship between

Responses on the application form
Measure s of success on the job