Chapter 6

Recruiting and Retaining Qualified Employees
Recruitment

· Vital to a company’s long-term business success

· Efforts should be consistent with organizational strategy, vision and values

· Questions to consider during strategic HR planning

§ How many new hires now and in 3-5 years?

§ Long-term or short-term commitment from new hires?

§ How much can we afford to pay? Can we recruit the best with top dollar pay or only offer modest pay?

§ Do we want people with a new perspective or someone who will “fit in”?

§ Competencies required? How quickly will these needs change?

Retention

· Objective: reduce unwanted voluntary turnover by people the organization would like to keep within its workforce

· Low turnover helps gain advantage over competitors by reducing overall labor costs and improving competitiveness

· Reducing Labor Costs

§ Cost of turnover includes cost to fill the position, errors caused by new employees, decreased productivity, lost clients who favored the former employee, lower morale by over-worked employees picking up slack, lost knowledge, potential business contacts, etc

The HR Triad: Rolls and Responsibilities for Recruiting and Retaining Employees

· HR Professionals

§ Take the lead in designing a systematic and integrated approach to recruiting and retaining employees

§ Take responsibility for filling the organization’s staffing needs efficiently

· Line Managers

§ Help promote the company and attract employees or can be the cause of high turnover

§ Actively involved as the selection process gets underway

§ Key role in determining if an employee stays with or leaves the company, therefore managers are often taught good leadership skills

· Employees

§ Encourage friends and family to apply

§ Apply for other positions within the organization

§ Central to retention – if talented and fun to work with, new employees want to stay with the company and it is therefore easier to retain top talent

Recruiting Sources and Methods

Internal Labor Market:

Job Postings: 

· Enables current employees to get a sense of what is valued, seeing frequent turnover within a department may signal a problem that discourages interest and what competencies are in demand

· Can reduce turnover by displaying advancement opportunities and that employees do not need to look outside the company

Talent Inventory:

· Includes name, prior jobs, experience, performance, compensation and demonstrated competencies, work-related interests, geographic preferences and career goals if known

· Advantages: employee satisfaction due to personal development and career advancement opportunities, employers incur less recruiting expense and lower salaries than outside recruits

· Disadvantages: most qualified candidates may never be considered, infighting between employees applying for the same position, inbreeding – less creative or new ideas due to internal familiarity with how the organization operates

External Labor Market:

Walk-in Applicants:

· Attract walk-ins through open house; more highly skilled professionals “walk-in” via the Internets cyber doors

Electronic Media:

Employee Referrals: 

· Possible financial incentives linked to completion of application, acceptance of employment or completion of work for a specified period of time

· Result in the highest one-year survival rates

· Disadvantage: employees tend to refer those similar in age, gender, ethnicity and religion, therefore limiting diversity and hampering creativity

Public Employment Agencies: 

· Offer counseling, testing and placement services to everyone, with special servies to military veterans, some minorities, colleges and technical and professional people

Private Employment Agencies: 

· Expensive, restrictions of approaching recently placed executives or other company employees thereby limiting the applicant pool, very selective prior to introducing to employer thus increasing possibilities of rejecting a good candidate

Job Fair: 

· Conducted by schools, communities, or through trade and professional associations

Host-country nationals: 

Third-country nationals: 

Contingent Workers, Rehires and Recalls

Contingent Workers: 

Recalls and Rehires:

Advantages: 

Disadvantages: 

The Recruitment Experience

Easy and Fast: 

Behavior of Recruiters:

Realistic Job Previews: 

· Increases number of eventual recruits, recruits are more committed and less likely to quit

EEO-1 (Employer Information Reprot) report: 

Affirmative Action Programs (AAPs): 

· Title VII of the Civil Rights Act identifies women, African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, Asian Americans and pacific Islander Americans as protected groups

Federal Contractor: 

· Executive Order 11246 (1965) requires federal contractors to:

§ Have and abide by an equal employment policy

§ Analyze workforce for under-utilization of women and ethnic minorities

§ If under-utilization is revealed, must develop a plan to eliminate and good faith effort to implement plan

· Required to file written affirmative action plans with Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) – the agency responsible for overseeing employment practices of federal contractors and enforcing relevant federal regulations

· Required components of AAP:

Utilization Analysis: 

Availability Analysis: 

Goals and timetables:

Consent Decree: 

Retaining Employees – 

Chapter 5 Chapter 7