E-Recruitment: Trends, Advantages, and Drawbacks - Coursework Example

?Question E-recruitment: Trends, advantages, and drawbacks Recruitment is the process that links the employers and the job seekers. It is a continuous process whereby firms create or create access to a pool of qualified applicants for current and/or future human resources needs even though specific vacancies may not exist. A function preceding the candidate selection, recruitment helps create a pool of prospective employees for the organisation to assist the management in selecting the right candidate for the right job from this pool. Edwin B. Flippo describes recruitment as “the process of searching the candidates for employment and stimulating them to apply for jobs in the organisation”. The main objective of the recruitment process is to expedite the selection process. E-Recruitment, also known as online recruitment is the use of technology or web based tools to assist the recruitment process. The tool can either be a dedicated job website, the recruiters’ corporate website or its own intranet. The process involves the recruiters posting job advertisements through the internet/intranet, and the job seekers can apply to this job by sending their applications and/or CV (Curriculum Vitae) through an e-mail using the internet. Alternatively, the job seekers can place their CVs on the internet where prospective recruiters can access it. There are two ways companies can use e-recruitment: 1. Using Job Portals: Companies can post the details of job openings (job description and/or job specifications) in their organisations on these websites. They can also search through CVs of job seekers on these websites and contact the appropriate ones. 2. Create a complete online recruitment/application section on the company website: companies can create a dedicated recruitment section on their websites and post job openings. Job seekers can either send their applications and/or CVs either for a specific posting advertised on the site and/or can submit their CV in the database of the company. Companies can then scan through the CVs and decide whether or not to follow up with a candidate. As is the case with most services offered through internet, e-recruitment has also seen significant growth over the years – not only in the number of companies employing e-recruitment techniques but also in the number of job seekers using the internet to look for and to apply for jobs. The move towards online recruitment globally started in mid to late 1990s starting with the creation of careers section on corporate websites of some companies. Adoption of e-recruitment followed quickly among the Global 500 companies – from 29% in 1998 to 60% in 1999, 79% in 200, 88% in 2001, 91% in 2002, 93% in 2003 and 100% currently (Jobsdb). Even as far back as 2002, the Global 500 companies were using e-recruitment heavily. It was seen that 89% of them had a careers section on their corporate website and 74% of them posted job vacancies and accepted resumes via their corporate websites (Jobsdb 2002). According to Linda Barber, in Europe, online recruitment penetration among companies increased from 40% of companies in 2001 to 70% in 2004. Also, in UK, the percentage of organisations using their website to advertise jobs increased from 72% in 2002 to 93% in 2005. At the same time, the use of internet based services for job hunting also took off. The online business has grown rapidly over the last few years. In 2003, the online recruitment industry generated $3 Billion in annual revenues which increased to $16 Billion in 2007, and there is little doubt that the business has been on the rise since then (Younger 2007). It was reported in 2010, that there are over 18 million resumes currently available online across the world and that this figures is constantly increasing (Suite 101). According to Onrec which published the results of NORAS (National Online Recruitment Audience Survey) results for 2009 indicated that 1 in 7 job seekers used only internet to look for jobs compared to 1 in 16 candidates in 2007. Several other statistics support this growing trend in online recruitment. It is clear from these statistics that e-recruitment is increasingly becoming an unavoidable tool for recruitment for companies. It is not without benefits associated with e-recruitment that the take up rate of this method among companies is increasing. Recruiting high calibre staff is fundamental to competitive advantage of companies, and e-recruitment certainly contributes to this. The benefits of e-recruitment not only relate to a larger available pool of candidates but also to the cost of recruitment. Some of the benefits that e-recruitment brought to companies are: A. Cost Efficiency: E-recruitment reduces cost of recruitment by eliminating printing costs and reducing cost of advertising the job. Online job posting cost much less than the traditional print advertisements. According to a Jobsgopublic survey results illustration by Martin Stein, it was estimated that a unitary council with 14,000 employees could save over ?1 million by moving 20% of its recruitment from press to online. It could save another ?140,000 in costs of printing and administering application packs. B. Time saving: E-recruitment provides significant time saving in the recruitment process by eliminating delays in communication – no time is lost in printing and designing the advertisements for job positing and receiving application by post. It is estimated that e-recruitment can reduce the time for recruitment by nearly 65% (Naukrihub). C. Reduced Paper work: As job postings and resume collection are all done electronically, paper work and documentation is reduced. In a case study done on the Hertfordshire County Council, it was found that with the 55 to 60 % of applications it receives online, the reduction in paper application packs alone has been estimated to save ?20,000 per annum (Idea 2009). D. Wider search: In the era of globalisation and free movement of talent especially within the European Union, the reach for talent search can not be restricted to one place. E-recruitment provides a wide area of search for recruitment as the job postings can be accessed and applied to by anyone anywhere in the world. E. Pool of “star candidates”: With e-recruitment, recruiters are able to identify and easily retrieve profiles of good candidates for whom there may not be some opening available now, but who can be contacted as and when there is a suitable opening in the company F. Standardisation of recruitment process: The information about the candidates can be collected in a standard format. This helps easy scanning and searching for the right candidate(s). G. Information on compensation in the industry: Several online recruitment websites provide detailed and up to date information of the compensation trends in the industry thus helping HR managers to take informed decisions on salaries for job openings. H. Provides clarity: Advertisements for job positing in newspapers and other published media often have word limit. Since, this is not the case with e-recruitment, a more comprehensive, clear, and detailed description of the job posting can be done at no additional cost. I. E-recruitment allows access to online collection of resumes at all times for the recruiters. One doesn’t have to be in the office to sift through all the candidates’ applications. J. Automatic siphoning of unqualified candidates: By using threshold for qualifications, years of experience, and/or other criteria, unqualified applicants for the job can be automatically discarded. K. Benefits for candidates: E-recruitment also brings certain advantages for the candidates including prompt response from recruiters, status updates on their application process, and easier and efficient application process among other things. This encourages candidates to post their applications/resumes to the companies. L. Company image: Having a careers section on the corporate website is considered almost taken for granted. Also, it is considered to attribute the image of innovation and flexibility to the company (Fister, 1999). As with any other technology or method, e-recruitment also has its share of some short-comings and disadvantages. These are: a. Discrimination against non-internet users: It has been claimed that e-recruitment may be discriminating against certain minority/ethnic groups that do not use or do not have access to internet (Flynn 2000). b. Executive talent search: For most senior and top level executive hiring automatic screening using e-recruitment may eliminate some good candidates, so companies might want to continue using traditional recruitment services for hiring senior executives (Semineiro 2001). c. Overflow of applications: E-recruitment often means tons of applications for job postings or CV submissions. It can be quite hectic and time consuming to go through all the applications to find the most suitable one(s). d. Requirement of being computer savvy: Recruiters as well as applicants need to be good at computers for handling the e-recruitment process. As most e-recruitment processes use keywords for applications, a good candidate not well versed with computers might miss out during the automatic scanning process. e. Finally, as most job portals and company careers sections have standardised profile filling formats, some candidates may not be able to highlight very well their skill sets. E-recruitment is fast becoming a must-have for companies. Trends and facts suggest that e-recruitment will only increase in the future and has already become an important tool for recruitment. Given the advantages and disadvantages of this method, it would be advisable to use e-recruitment as an additional tool and not as a replacement to the traditional methods of recruitment already in use in the companies. Question 4: Work-Life Balance Work-Life Balance (WLB) refers to the concept of employees prioritising and balancing their professional work and family or off-work responsibilities. Hudson (2005) defines WLB in its broadest sense as “a satisfactory level of involvement or ‘fit’ between the multiple roles in a person’s life”. Julie Morgenstern proposes a simplified definition of WLB as “It (WLB) is not about the amount of time you spend working vs. not-working. It’s more about how you spend your time working and relaxing, recognizing that what you do in one fuels your energy for the other.” While there may not be one agreed definition for WLB, in essence, it means for a person to have the “right” combination of participation in paid work and other aspects of life. This combination is generally different for different persons and evolves with time for a given person with changing responsibilities for the person at work and/or at home. It is not without reason that the famous cliche goes as “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”. Improper WLB not only affects employee behaviour and performance, but can also significantly impact the companies. Without a proper WLB, an employee could suffer from several medical issues including obesity, stress, depression, and other medical problems caused by these (Sterett). This leads to an increase in employee absenteeism and a drop in productivity. Several studies and statistics support the need for WLB. A study has revealed for example that in UK, employees spend an average 49 minutes a day managing their emails while they manage to spend only 25 minutes a day playing with their children (Zdnet). Another research on the UK workforce market found that 73% of the full-time works wanted to spend more time with their family (Jones 2003). Further, the study found that nearly 36% of the employees in the survery said that they so tired in the evenings that they could sleep right after work. 60% of full time workers said that they employed someone for household work and 64.5% said they employed someone to look after their children. A pan-European research suggested that in UK the employees worked an average of 43.6 hours per week compared to 39.6 in France, 38.5 in Italy and 40.1 in Germany (Parsons 2002). Also, 44.8% of workers in UK believe that they have a high number of working hours. Clearly, companies realise that there is a definite need to provide WLB program to their employees. The companies design their WLB programs keeping in mind that the people want to be able to have (DOL 2009): a good quality of life an enjoyable work life and career progression training and development good health affordable childcare or eldercare further education more money time to travel time with friends and family time to do sports and hobbies time to do voluntary work Some of the examples of how companies have provided certain benefits to their employees to help them better manage their WLB are: 1. Flex-timing: This refers to companies allowing their employees to choose the timing for their job. They are told the minimum number of hours they need to put in work. For example, some employees might prefer 9AM to 5PM kind of timing while other might prefer 8AM to 4PM. Flex-timing allows employees to choose their own job timing. 2. Working hours change: Some companies may allow their employees to change from a 5-day work week to a 4-day work week. Or even with 5-days work week, the employee may work for les number of hours per day. This allows the employees more free time to engage in other personal activities. 3. Compressed working weeks: Under this program, the employees are allowed to work longer on some days and take other days off. For example, an employee might work 10 or 12 hours a day for some days and take a day off in lieu of this. 4. Job sharing: Job sharing is mostly related to part-time working. It refers to having 2 employees for the same job. One of whom may work on Mon-Tue-Fri and the other can cover the other two days. Alternatively, one employee might work in the morning and the other in the afternoon. 5. Telecommuting: Telecommuting refers to working from home. This is really for the white collar workers who can access their work on computers from home. The employees may be required to report to a centralised or satellite office on set times. As long as the job is being done, the employee can get significantly high degree of flexibility in his/her time at work and off-work. 6. Child care and elder care program: Some companies may either internally provide a creche and/or an elder care home, or have a tie-up with a facility close to the office with timings in accordance with the office timings. This helps the employees solve their problems of child/elder care with relative ease. 7. Special leaves: Longer maternity and paternity leaves, special days-off for marriage (self/near and dear ones) are some examples of how companies support their employees on special occasion that demand extra responsibilities of employees. Some companies, in France for example, even offer a day off for moving to a new house. 8. Sabbaticals: Some companies allow their employees to take sabbaticals either to complete higher studies or even for them to pursue a personal project. The employees may be full or partially paid during this time especially if the sabbatical is taken to complete studies that would benefit the companies later. 9. Vacations: Some companies allow employees to take longer vacations or even allow them to align their vacations with those of their kids. This brings immense relief for parents who must plan their vacations according to school holidays of their kids. Also, some companies even make taking a certain minimum number of vacations mandatory for employees 10. Overtime compensation: Some companies pay higher wages for the number of hours that an employee works over the normal working hours 11. In-house store/services: Some companies provide additional services to their employees like dry-cleaning, grocery shopping etc. This saves the employees a lot of time from off-work duties. 12. Concierge services: Some companies provide concierge services to their employees so that they do not have to worry about collecting postal deliveries. 13. Gym subsidies: Some companies either provide an in-house gym subscription to which is at subsidised prices. Other companies may provide subsidies for gyms outside work. The WLB programs naturally mean some cost for the companies. These costs are however more than recovered with the benefits of the WLB program. Some benefits that the companies have realised through the WLB are: A. 29% employers report the biggest benefit as “a happier workforce” (DTI) B. 71% companies report a positive effect of WLB on employee relations, 69% on employee commitment and motivation, and 54% on labour turnover (DTI) C. 28% employers report no problem using the WLB. 22% reported that there was a problem but it was only related to being short-staffed (DTI) D. Nearly 50% employers believed that WLB had positive effect on recruitment, absenteeism, and productivity (DTI) E. By introducing WLB, the absenteeism in BT (British Telecom) is 3.1% compared to 8.5% average for UK (Jones 2003). F. Hill et al (1998) in a study of 157 teleworkers and 89 traditional office workers, found higher productivity from the teleworking group. Another review of telecommuting studies reported measurable productivity increases of between 10% and 30% (Pitt-Catsouphes and Marchetta,1991 cited in Hill et al, 1998) G. By introducing a WLB, The PNC Bank found a saving of $112,750 in turnover costs in seven months of its introduction. Also, IBM and Ernst & Young have seen higher revenues and stock prices connected to employee flexibility options (Working Families, 2006) H. According to another study of self-perceptions of employees using the WLB, 42% employees who were very satisfied with the WLB reported that their productivity had increased significantly. (Working Families, 2005) Despite the huge advantages of WLB programs, not all companies yet offer a WLB to their employees. Some of the perceived drawbacks of WLB that prevent companies from doing so are: I. Employing more part-time workers to cover the absence of employees taking WLB may lead to higher costs for the company. II. For job sharing aspect of the WLB, it may take longer to recruit, administer and train two part-timers than one full-timer to cover the same hours of work. In addition providing continuity of service may be more difficult. III. For overtime, it may be a moral hazard as employees might deliberately work slow to earn overtime compensations IV. Flex-timing may also lead to higher cost for the company due to administration cost. This may be due to cost of keeping records, extra heating and lighting. Also supervising employees across different timings may be more difficult to manage. V. For compressed working weeks, it may be difficult to schedule work on the days of longer work. Also, if the work is interdependent on other employees, this program may not be very successful in increasing the productivity VI. Telecommuting may be costly for providing the right technology to the employees. Also it may be difficult to communicate with the employees in case of technical glitches. Further, training and development of employees also suffer due to this. VII. Sabbaticals may be costly for replacing the employee on sabbatical. Also it may increase the training cost for bringing the employee to the right level of training on return from a sabbatical. The WLB programs have several advantages for the employees and the employers. At the same time, there are some drawbacks with introducing the WLB program. These drawbacks, however, can be eliminated or significantly reduced by customising the WLB depending on an organisation’s structure and the industry they operate in. In the long term, the benefits of WLB definitely outweigh the costs as has been seen by number of companies through productivity increases, reduced absenteeism, and the generally higher job satisfaction of the workforce. References Barber, Linda. E-Recruitment Developments. 2006. IES Research Networks. Web. Accessed 15 June 2011. < http://www.publicjobs.ie/publicjobs/downloads/e-Recruitment%20report.pdf > DOL. Department of Labour, New Zealand. 2009. Web. Accessed 16 June 2011. DTI. 2003. The Second Work-Life Balance Study: Results from the Employers’ Survey – Executive Summary. Employment relations research series no. 22. Web. Accessed 16 June 2011. Available at < http://www.dti.gov.uk/ > Fister, S. 1999. Online Recruiting: Good, Fast and Cheap? Training, vol.36, no.5. P26-28. Print Flippo. Edwin B. Personnel Management. McGraw-Hill Kogahusha Ltd., New Delhi,1980. P 131. Print. Flynn, G. 2000. ‘Internet Recruitment Limits: Demographic Scope’. Workforce, vol.79, no.4. P85. Print. Hill J. Miller, B. Weiner, S. and Colihan, J. 1998. Influences of the virtual office on aspects of work and work/life balance. Personnel Psychology, vol.51. P667-683. Print. Hudson, (2005). The Case for Work/Life Balance: Closing the Gap Between Policy and Practice. Hudson Australia and New Zealand. Web. Accessed 16 June 2011. Available at Idea 2009. e-Recruitment case studies: Hertfordshire County Council. Local Government Improvement and Development. Web. Accessed 15 June 2011. Jobsdb 2002. Global Market Trend of e-Recruitment. Web. Accessed 15 June 2011. Available at: < http://www.jobsdb.com > Jones, Alexandra. 2003. About Time for Change. The Work Foundation. Web. Accessed 15 June 2011. Morgenstern, Julie. 2008. Work-Life Balance: A New Definition. Bloomberg Businessweek. Web. Accessed 15 June 2011. Naukrihub. Advantages & Disadvantages of E-Recruitment. Web. Accessed 15 June 2011. < http://recruitment.naukrihub.com/advantage-and-disadvantage-of-e-recruitment.html > Onrec. National Online Recruitment Audience Survey - Internet the ‘only choice’ for job seekers. February 2009. Web. Accessed 15 June 2011. Parsons. 2002. Work-Life Balance… A Case of Social Responsibility or Competitive Advantage? Web. Accessed 15 June 2011. Seminerio, M. 2001, E-recruiting takes next step- Tools help hirers spot the best IT people’, eWeek, April 23 2001. Print. P49. Shah, Shivani. E-recruitment. Web. Accessed 15 June 2011. Stein, Martin. E-Recruitment. Local Government Improvement and Development. Web. Accessed 15 June 2011. < http://www.idea.gov.uk/idk/core/page.do?pageId=4103934 > Sterett. 2008. Work-Life Balance = Happiness. Web. Accessed 15 June 2011. Suite 101. Updated October 16, 2010. E-Recruitment Trends: Internet and the Recruitment Process. Web. Accessed 15 June 2011. < http://www.suite101.com/content/e-recruitment-trends-internet-and-the-recruitment-process-a293492#ixzz1PKwgmuFI > Working Families. 2005. Is less more? Productivity, Flexible Working and Management. Web. Accessed 16 June 2011. < http://www.workingfamilies.org.uk> Working Families. 2006. Moving mountains: the culture change challenge. Web. Accessed 16 June 2011. < http://www.workingfamilies.org.uk> Younger, John. November 2007. Online Job Recruitment: Trends, Benefits, Outcomes, and Implications. Web. Accessed 15 June 2011. Zdnet. 2002. Government urges work-life balance improvements. Web. Accessed 15 June 2011. < http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/systems-management/2002/05/23/government-urges-work-life-balance-improvements-2110704/ > Read More