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Contemporary HR Issue: Sustainable HRM
Human resource management denotes the process of procurement, allocation, and the effective utilization of an organization’s workforce to achieve pre-set organizational, goals, vision, and mission (Wilkinson et al.). All of these processes present various forms of challenges to human resource managers or human resource departments in general, as they perform their daily tasks. All of these challenges revolve around specific concepts, some of which include health issues, work environment, employee compensation and benefits, sustainable human resources, and career management and development (Indiparambil 1). Among these challenges, once that has stood out is the issue of sustainable human resources.
Review of Sustainable HRM
By definition, sustainable HRM represents long-term oriented organizational conceptual activities and approaches that aim to foster processes that are economically appropriate and socially responsible (Indiparambil 3). Such processes could include employee recruitment and selection, deployment, development, and downsizing. Particularly, employee recruitment and selection is important to an organization because of the need to attract the best talent and skill that will be of value to the organization, for a competitive advantage (Arman 12). It is a process that all organizations have to partake in at one point or another. Employees are the ones who interact with customers the most (Garcia-Izquierdo et al. 10). Therefore, the experience they give to customers determines the consumer’s perception of the company, which can either build or break the company.
Evidence from various studies depicts that having appropriate or effective recruitment and selection strategies ensures that an organization attracts the best talent. In effect, the performance of the organization improves. For a long time, organizations have been relying on educational and skill qualifications to hire workers (Garcia-Izquierdo et al. 11). Education is used as a way of gauging a potential employee’s level of intelligence, and therefore the probable knowledge in the field of specialization. On the other hand, the level of experience, usually gauged by the period that an employee has been working in a certain industry, is used in determining the skill possession (Garcia-Izquierdo et al. 10-11). Therefore, education and experience qualifications have been at the front in the employee recruitment and selection process.
However, employees need various attributes to be able to serve the objectives of an organization. The performance of an employee is not entirely dependent on his or her educations and skill qualifications. The work environment is diverse and dynamic, and different people are working towards the same objectives. Therefore, qualities such as adaptability, being a team player, and fast learning are also important in selecting an employee (Arman 11). Employees that have all of these attributes end up performing better compared to those that are hired based on education and skill qualifications only. Therefore, there is a consensus that other than education and skill qualifications, interpersonal and communication skills are important qualities in an employee (Garcia-Izquierdo et al. 13). Notably, a company can retain such an employee for longer periods because of his or her ability to learn new tasks and work with new people as the environment keep changing. This idea saves the company money that could have been spent on the recruitment process (Arman 12-13). Such an employee can also perform various tasks, thereby limiting the and for a company to have several employees for different tasks. This idea also minimizes a company’s costs in terms of wages and salaries.
Sustainable HRM Case Example: Craft Brew Alliance
Craft Brew Alliance (CBA) is a company with several brands in the brewing market, some of which include Omission IPA, Widmer Brothers Hefe, Kona LongBoard Island Lager, and Redhook ESB. The business has over 500 workers, and it hires approximately 220 workers annually (CBA 1). There are two recruiters to provide the company with the talent it requires to stay competitive in this competitive brewing market. The Talent Acquisition Senior Manager is responsible for employee recruitment, and he realizes the importance of his department in terms of contributing to the company’s revenue. Therefore, the department always strives to get the best available talent in the job market.
The department places a high value on data to back up recruitment goals. As such, one of the tools that the company uses in data collection and analysis is Survale. This platform teams up with the organization’s Applicant Tracking System (ATS) (Oracle Taleo Business Edition in this case) for continuous information gathering with automation, full workflow, and data analytics in real-time (CBA 2). The ‘Always On’ feature is embedded on the career website, where candidates can fill in the information regarding their experiences before and during the process of applying for a position in the company. The potential employee is also requested for feedback all through the interview process with the completion of each stage.
This information helps the company to better its recruitment strategies to make employees more comfortable and create a positive image of the company. For instance, trends among the different job seekers can help the company to adjust its strategies to attract a wider talent pool, which increases the chances of getting the best talent. In this instance, Survale helped CBA to establish that male job seekers would normally submit an application on their second visit to a job site compared to the female job seekers’ rate of applying for every six visits to job websites (CBA 4). The company them modified its career site for improved transparency and information availability to improve female application rates.
The feedback also means that recruiting managers are under constant surveillance. Consequently, the recruiters strive to make sure that they conduct the recruitment process in the best possible manner, by engaging with the employees and knowing the right questions to ask at different times. Keeping the managers on their toes ensures that they pay attention to everything that the potential workers say, and they thoroughly evaluate the candidate in all aspects (CBA 4). The result is that they will have all the necessary information to make the best decision on the most appropriate candidate for hire.
Additionally, the Survale helps CBA to use the experiences of potential workers from previous workplaces to enhance the work conditions for its employees, for improved employee satisfaction. This way, employees can also recommend their workplace to other jobseekers, thereby attracting more people to improve the chances of getting the best talent. Even if the candidates do not get the position that they applied for, they feel satisfied with the process, and that they were able to showcase everything they had to offer, as well as give their opinion on various issues of importance in the work environment. The company has reported a 91% satisfaction rate among candidates in the process of recruitment (CBA 3). Therefore, it is safe to infer that CBA has focused on improving the interviewing process, and attracting a wide talent pool for improved chances of selecting the best candidates for employment.
This approach has helped the company to earn the top position among the employers of choice in its market (CBA 5). This means that most people apply to the company, thereby providing a wide pool talent for the company’s selection. Additionally, the organization used to get negative remarks from job seekers about the interview process. However, this has changed. Presently, the hiring managers’ knowledge of the company receiving constant feedback from candidates regarding the recruitment process has enhanced their preparedness and engagement during interviews, leading to a better assessment of candidates for better selection in the end.
Position on Sustainable HRM
Sustainable HRM is an important approach to promoting a business’ success. An organization is only able to perform as well as its individual employees’ performance. Moreover, the performance of an employee is dependent on multiple factors that can either be internal or external to the worker (Indiparambil 5). Therefore, the recruiting manager must conduct a thorough assessment of the candidates to establish their strengths and weaknesses, as well as external influences on their performance (Arman 12). This way, the manager will be in a better position to determine the suitability of a candidate for the organization.
I agree with the idea of sustainable HRM, particularly during the process of recruitment and selection, because of the impact that employees have on the performance of an organization. Employees can indeed be trained to adapt to various circumstances, but the personality traits of the different employees contribute to this adaptability. Some may be faster than others, while others may be completely unable to adapt (Indiparambil 5). Therefore, if a recruiter can establish the position of the candidate before hiring, he can save the organization losses from hiring the wrong person. Losses can come from the poor performance of the employee to do inability to adapt to various situations, or from the costs that a company would incur from having to hire a new employee in place of the under-performing one (Garcia-Izquierdo et al. 10-13). The company pays for advertising, and loses time in the interview process, instead of putting it to something more productive for the company (Indiparambil 6). Therefore, it is important to select the right employee from the beginning.
There are various models of decision-making in human resource management. The best model has to adhere to the needs of both the employees and employers, as well as adhering to ethics, the law, and professional standards (Stein). One of the models of making decisions involves the leader collecting opinions for the relevant parties, then making a decision based on this information. This way, the resulting policies or decisions are a wider reflection of the preferences of the subjects (Indiparambil 5). It becomes easier for the subjects to adhere to such a decision, thereby enhancing their performance and that of the organization (Stein). In the case of CBA, the company makes recruiting policies based on the feedback it gets from candidates. This idea ensures that the recruitment process is seamless and effective in recruiting the best talent. The policies satisfy the candidates as well as the employer. It raises the professional standards of the recruitment process by keeping the managers on their toes to conduct a thorough process of interviewing (CBA 4).
Works Cited
Arman, Saleh. Sustainable human resource management. Conference Paper, 2017 file:///C:/Users/LINAH-PC/Downloads/ConferencecopyofImpactofSustainableHumanResourceManagementinOrganizationalPerformanceAStudyonBangladeshiHRProfessionalsbySalehMd.Arman.pdf
Craft Brew Alliance (CBA). Candidate experience translates into revenue for Craft Brew Alliance. https://survale.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Survale-Craft-Brew-Alliance-Case-Study.pdf
Garcia-Izquierdo, Antonio, and Vilela, Luis. Employee recruitment, selection, and assessment. Psychology Press, 2015. file:///C:/Users/LINAH-PC/Downloads/9781317585374_sample_1072287.pdf
Indiparambil, James, J. Strategic to sustainable human resource management: shifting paradigms of personal managerial trends. International Journal of Business and Management Invention (IJBMI), 8(3): 65-70, 2019 file:///C:/Users/LINAH-PC/Downloads/K0803026570.pdf
Stein, Judith. Decision-making models. MIT, https://hr.mit.edu/learning-topics/teams/articles/models
Wilkinson, Adrian, Tom Redman, and Tony Dundon, eds. Contemporary Human Resource Management: Text and Cases. London: Pearson, 2017.