Experiencing Recruitment and Selection - Essay Example

Running Head: HRM HRM [Institute’s HRM Introduction Steve Jobs once said about the importance of human resource that, “There is no strong link between innovation and spending on R&D. When IBM was spending at least a 100 times more on R&D, the same time when Apple came up with Big Mac and outclassed its competitors. It is not about the money and it is not about the how many R&D dollars you are spending but is about the people you have, how they are led and how much you are able to get out of them” (Cardy & Leonard, 2011, p. 22-23). Due to the increasing competitive pressures in the business world, businesses now understand the value and importance of their human assets or resources because when other resources that appear on the balance sheet of the company, make things “possible”, human resource of any organisation make things “happen” (Torrington, et al., 2007, pp. 96-98). Therefore, the fact is that today, when information technology and globalisation has made it possible for companies to imitate, product, pricing, promotion, distribution, manufacturing, supply chain, sales and other strategies employed by any organisation, a talented, skilled and motivated human resource appears to be providing a much need sustainable competitive advantage (Foot & Hook, 2008, p. 96). This paper is an attempt to explore that how a HR director of a London based hospital can improve the service quality of the nurses working at the hospital. Since dealing with the people and improving their productivity, for most part, is the job of the human resource department, the paper will present various theories and models related to the HRM and would apply the same on this situation. Discussion Recruitment and Selection First things first, the HR director of the medical institution needs to play close attention on the recruitment and selection process of the nurses because one cannot expect much from the employees if the organisation has failed to put the right people on the right jobs. The selection process is at the heart of HRM because only when one gets the right people that are qualified, skilled, best fit, and well suited for the jobs, then one can expect the organisation to become a high performance organisation (Marchington & Wilkinson, 2005, pp. 74-75). Therefore, the HR director will have to start by looking at the selection process and he will have to see whether the process explicitly screens out the nurses lagging behind in terms of their potential of customer service quality. If there are some gaps and shortcomings in the process, then the HR director should fix them so that the new pool of nurses entering organisation may have the potential to exhibit greater service quality. In addition, they also get the passage from the side of the organisation that this is something, which they admire and they are looking for (Mathis & Jackson, 2008, p. 106). The HR director can do the same by altering the existing employee tests, if any, to include dozens of behavioural questions as to test their possible service quality responses in different situations. The HR department may also undertake personality tests of nurses and evaluate whether they are the right fit for dealing with the patients or not. Furthermore, conducting separate interviews where the nurses may be posed with situational questions asking them about their possible behaviours thus gaining an insight about their potential of service quality (Shields, 2007, pp. 142-143). Moreover, in this case, assessment centres and internships would be the best option since they would allow the hospital, doctors and managers to observe their service quality, its consistency, behaviours, attitudes and approaches used by the nurses in the process as well, to conduct a wholesome evaluation and make prudent suggestions as well (Foot & Hook, 2008, p. 96). Important here to note is that these should not become the sole criteria for assessment because all of them have certain limitations in themselves. For example, the personality tests only indicate the comfort zones of the candidates rather than their ability, which is the bottom line. With strong extrinsic and intrinsic motivators, an organisation can always ensure that their employees could come out of their comfort zones and work for the achievement of common goals. Therefore, the HR director must assign some relevant weightage to these assessment tools, rather than completing resting the decision on “passing” and “failing” (Mathis & Jackson, 2008, p. 106; Wagner, & Hollenbeck, 2009, pp. 456-457). Training and Development Once the HR director has made sure that the organisation has hired a qualified and skilled pool of nurses having the potential to exhibit high service quality behaviour, the next focus should be on training and developing them in such a way that they could realise their potential and use their skills to meet the organisational expectations. More importantly, training ensures that their behaviours, attitudes and approaches are in line with the organisational culture. In fact, the orientation or initial training primarily aims at ensuring that trainees could learn the organisational culture or “our way of doing things” (Marchington & Wilkinson, 2005, pp. 74-75). Well-crafted training and development programs can contribute to higher-level service quality in many different ways. First, training programs that follow a comprehensive training needs analysis (TNA) activity are more likely to allow the nurses the tips and tricks of the trade. Second, when nurses would know that the organisation is spending so much of their money, they would get the message that the organisation considers them as an important and valuable resource. Furthermore, it would also send the message the hospital is serious about these aspects of the job behaviour and they must apply these learning and knowledge to improve their overall performance. Third, training programs serve as a strong intrinsic motivator because people feel more motivated when they learn new things and get a chance to apply them. As human beings, we always want to feel good about ourselves and having the skills to outperform others or exceed the expectations of people is one of those ways (Wilson, 2005, p. 87; Torrington, et al., 2007, pp. 96-98). More importantly, the fact is constant training and development of nurses would create a learning organisation, where all the employees would engage in sharing and transferring of information. Peer to peer learning and education would become common and with the passage of time, the organisation would not have to spend greatly on the training of nurses since many of them would assume the role of trainers themselves (Pulakos, 2009, pp. 251-253). New nurses would learn greatly only by observing them and spending time in their company since they would have so much to share. Towards the end of the day, the organisation would be able to achieve its goal of becoming a high performing organisation with greater service quality than that offered by the competitors (Foot & Hook, 2008, p. 96; Mathis & Jackson, 2008, p. 106). Performance Appraisal and Management Selecting the right people, with potential, skills and qualifications and teaching them the desired way and skills of performing their jobs is only half of the job done. An important aspect for the HR director in process of improving the service quality would be to deal with the appraisal and management of the performances. The job of the HR department and the supervisors does not end with selection and training but their job is an operational one as well which goes year round with managing the performances of the nurses every day. It was Harold Green who once said, “It is an immutable law in business that words are words, explanations are explanations, promises are promises—but only performance is reality” (Marchington & Wilkinson, 2005, pp. 74-75; Wagner, & Hollenbeck, 2009, pp. 456-457). In the absence of proper performance management systems, the hospital cannot expect to have consistent and improving performances from their nurses. Performance management here refers to the process under which the supervisors, managers, doctors and team leaders of the nurses would continuously guide them and solve their problems. The nurses would definitely be able to learn something from the experience of the seniors and the formal way of doing the same would be through using performance appraisals (Torrington, et al., 2007, pp. 96-98). These appraisal forms, filed out by the immediate supervisors would rank the nurses about their service quality. These forms would track the performance of nurses in a formal manner, allow the supervisor to understand their needs and then coach, counsel, train, guide or conduct their mentoring in the relevant manner (David, 2009, pp. 123-124; Wright, 2004, p. 385). Reward Management Employees work for any organisation, not for the sake of it, but for mutual benefit and growth, which serves as an important motivator. Furthermore, there is no doubt in the fact that for most employees, the biggest motivator is more likely to be of financial nature. Simply put, the HR director can also achieve the goal of greater service quality through intelligently using financial and non-financial rewards. There is no rocket science in the fact that when the nurses would know that the organisation is ready to pay for high level service quality, they would feel more motivated and indeed put in more effort to improve their service quality (Cardy & Leonard, 2011, p. 22-23). Nevertheless, the HR director should also be aware of linking all or majority of the pay with performance because it is highly likely that it may backfire as well. Organisations, which tie up most of their pay with performance measures, create an organisation where most of the employees focus on the short-term goals and objectives and easily lose sight of strategic goals of the company (Pulakos, 2009, pp. 251-253). For example, if nurses start getting bonuses, increments or rewards, as much as half, three quarters or even more of their basic pay, they might put all their attention of improving the service quality and might not focus on other goals such as long term health of patients, assisting other nurses, creating a learning environment and others. Another problem with such a process would be encountered while defining performance (Wilson, 2005, p. 87). Even today, there is an ongoing debate about whether performance represents the behaviours of individual or the outcomes achieved by those behaviours. Would the hospital measure service quality with customer satisfaction or would they measure it through the behaviours undertaken by the nurses as taught by the trainers and supervisors? Furthermore, service quality, in itself is a difficult entity to quantify, therefore, making the results vulnerable to unfairness and inequalities. Moreover, when nurses would create their lifestyles around the increased pays, it would be troublesome to settle them for lower pays because with the passage of time, the organisation would be raising its standards and as the learning curve flattens out, they actual gains made by the nurses would decrease thus creating problems (Cardy & Leonard, 2011, p. 22-23). Motivation and Motivational Theories Another way to understand the importance of fair and just rewards (both financial and non-financial) is through the framework provided by the equity theory, proposed by John Stacey Adams in the year 1963. The theory proposes that people are always engaged in the process of comparing the ratio of their outputs and inputs with that of others. When people perceive that they are being treated fairly or they are slightly over rewarded, they might feel more motivated and energetic to perform their job tasks. On the other hand, if an employee perceives that he or she is putting in more effort and are getting lesser outcomes out of the same, compared with some friend, colleague or partner, then it would lead to distress and dissatisfaction. In this case, the inputs by the nurses would be their commitment, loyalty, hard work, time, effort, determination, flexibility, enthusiasm, personal sacrifice and ability in providing superior service quality to the patients and customers (Wagner, & Hollenbeck, 2009, pp. 456-457). The outputs, in this case, would include financial rewards, pay, bonuses, pay increments, promotions, job security, reputation, recognition, benefits, trust, responsibility and others (Shields, 2007, pp. 142-143; Wright, 2004, p. 385). The fact is that the managers and supervisors would have to come up with a comprehensive and thorough method to account the inputs of every nurse and pay them accordingly. The organisation would not want to over-reward the nurses since that would not only cause dissatisfaction amongst other employees but it would also increase the expectations of the nurses for the future which might become troublesome to meet (Billsberry, 2007, p. 55). Only when the nurses see a direct and strong correlation between their rewards and service quality, they would put in greater effort and feel more motivated. Important here to note is that these rewards and output do not need to be financial and tangible. Praise from the supervisor, a pat on the shoulder from the boss, thumbs up from the colleagues or even a “good job” or “keep it up” from the doctor could do the job for motivating the nurses (Pulakos, 2009, pp. 251-253). Expectancy Theory of Motivation, presented by Victor Vroom, also emphasises on the importance of using financial and non-financial intelligently to alter the behaviours of employees. The theory notes that the employee would feel the greatest motivation when the expectancy, instrumentality and valence are the highest. Expectancy refers to the perceived relationship between efforts and performance (Mathis & Jackson, 2008, p. 106). In this case, if the nurses are sure that being attentive, speaking politely and other behaviours would lead in overall greater service quality then the expectancy would be the highest. Instrumentality refers to the perceived relationship between performance and reward. If the nurses were sure that their higher service quality would lead to rewards then the instrumentality would be high. Lastly, valence refers to the desirability of rewards. Some nurses might value pay raises more and some might have their eyes on promotion. Therefore, only when expectancy, instrumentality and valence are collectively high enough, the nurse would feel highly motivated to perform better (Cardy & Leonard, 2011, p. 22-23). Conclusion One of the most important reasons why HR department is becoming so important is because of their imperative role in improving the productivity, efficiency and performance level of the organisation. Almost all of the functions performed by the HR department play a crucial role in motivating employees. From recruitment to selection, from orientation to training and development, from reward management to performance management, from conflict management to career management, from equal employment opportunity to job analysis and descriptions, from collective bargaining to employee safety and health (David, 2009, pp. 123-124). All of above mentioned functions of HR play a direct or indirect role towards employee satisfaction, employee motivation with in turn lead to a high performing organisation which on the path of meeting its strategic goals. Nevertheless, the HR director would also have to liaison with the respective departments, managers and team leaders as well so that they could implement basic techniques such as goal setting, behavioural management and others to motivate and manage their nurses as well (Smither, 2009, pp. 31-312). References Billsberry, J. 2007. Experiencing Recruitment and Selection. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons. Cardy, R. L., & Leonard, B. 2011. Performance Management: Concepts, Skills, and Exercises. M.E. Sharpe. David, L. 2009. Human Resource Management. Pearson Education India. Foot, M. & Hook, C. 2008. Introducing Human Resource Management, New Jersey, Prentice Hall, pp. 96-98 Marchington, M., & Wilkinson, A. 2005. Human resource management at work: people management and development. London, CIPD Publishing. Mathis, R. L., & Jackson, J. H. (2008). Human resource management. Connecticut: Cengage Learning. Pulakos, E. D. 2009. Performance Management: A New Approach for Driving Business Results. John Wiley & Sons. Shields, J. 2007. Managing employee performance and reward: concepts, practices, strategies. Cambridge University Press. Smither, J. W. 2009. Performance Management: Putting Research into Action. John Wiley and Sons. Torrington, D., et.al. 2007. Human Resource Management. Prentice Hall Wagner, J. A., & Hollenbeck, J. R. 2009. Organisational Behavior: Securing Competitive Advantage. Taylor & Francis. Wilson, John P. 2005. Human resource development: learning & training for individuals & organizations. Kogan Page Publishers Wright, A. 2004. Reward management in context. CIPD Publishing. Read More