Human Resources Management - Recruitment Challenges and Recommendations for Black CAP - Case Study Example

Recruitment Challenges and Recommendations Black CAP case study Name Course Professor Date Like many other non-profit organizations, Black CAP has encountered a number of recruitment challenges that in turn affects its strategic objectives. Among the most significant challenges that are identified include the structural, procedural, subjective/human, external and financial challenges. This discussion analyzes the Black CAP case to address how the key challenges have or affect the organization services, network and continuity. In turn, more specific recommendations are offered at the end of this reports as core steps to be considered for Black CAP to leverage opportunities and continuity. Structural challenges Black CAP structure is one of the significant challenges that have faced recruitment process. There are problems in the way Black CAP is organized to hire individuals. As an organization that offers AIDS services, its programs have increased and that means that professional roles are needed to handle those responsibilities. Having minimum number of workers, most programs can only be delivered jointly or as dual programs. Consequently, on one hand, that requires intensive skills, knowledge and experiences from the program manager and increased training, support and motivation to the workforce (Myers and Dreachslin, 2007). The organization is noted to obsessively hire Canadian immigrants and that means their recruitment does not focus on advanced levels or professionalism. Generally, the whole structure is constrained as programs are joined and addressed by a single manager. Therefore, it is challenging for Black CAP to hire competent staffs for individual programs or else hire and develop staffs to deliver in those specific programs. According to Keep and James (2010), human resource management is a central function in any organization and highly impacts on recruitment, provision of directions to staff and management in an organization. As a central organizational function, it promotes the organization activities and strategic objectives by addressing human resource concerns and issues related to hiring, performance management, compensation and benefits, administration, motivation, communication, organization development and training. Generally, this is a crucial role that is not lacking in Black CAP. At the same time, it should be noted that Black CAP involves extensive operations that requires human resources management as its activities are highly dependent on human resources and are also much dynamic. There are major implication that can result due to lack of HR including high turn-over, lack of directions among the employees and discrepancies in skills and employee requirements for inputs. Procedural challenges There is a procedural challenges noted in the way Black CAP proceed in recruitment. As Nickson, Warhurst, Eli and Hurrell (2008) points out, there are key elements in recruitment and section process and the case illustrate that it is not effectively applied. Job description is one element of recruitment that promotes the potential staff to see the formal role and be clear of what to expect and personal qualifications. An opportunity requires to be advertised not only in mainstream channels to show that a certain job is open to potential applicants and indicate the quality policies. After application, the organizational panel screens the resumes according to their eligibility criteria. A whole process follows involving interviewing, testing, vetting and promotion. Although Black CAP have modified and used some f the above elements, there are quite a lot for best procedures. High staff turn-over is attributed to perception of limited advancement prospects and promotion and opportunities are blocked inherent nature of the organization. As a push for diversity, Black CAP has relied on immigrants from Canada. Though not explicitly revealed from the case, the Canadian immigrants and other staffs that work with Black CAP may frequently feel unclear about what the job requires and may not see the need to have specialized knowledge about the job. For one, there is less reference to skills and qualification. Uncertainties in regard to qualification may also mean lack of focus when performing. The requirements for Canadian reference may mean that work experience is given little consideration. Immigrants may face difficulties, encounter cultural differences during services and limit their input to the best level. Gatewood, Feild and Barrick (2010) observes, participation of community members is a way or recognizing and valuing professional and community skills, knowledge and experiences. Listening to local expertise is important as it guides on developing good programs. The community has to feel that their knowledge is valued. In most cases, the things that make programs effective on the ground are mostly ignored to a larger extent. As more people participate in community programs, opportunities for creativity and innovation increase. Individuals are able to plan something and work towards its fruition. Ultimately, they must feel that they made a difference. Human/subjective challenges Human/subjective challenges have been indicated to face recruitment in Black CAP. Organization operations can be faced by unbecoming perceptions, attitudes and behaviors with people in the process. The general human presumptions and ongoing social deviance can affect recruitment and a push for diversity in any organization. Some of the major problems that aggravate relationships and negatively affect connection problem arises from common stereotyping and prejudices that spring from differences along ethnic, racial, health-status and color (Attenberg, Ipeirotis and Provost, 2011). Black CAP offers specific services to specific population in a multi-ethnic culture. AIDS services offered by Black CAP require a recruitment for diversity, inclusion of staff with HIV/AIDS and people of other color since it is a volunteer organization that can attract any person. However, it has been indicated that, workplace discrimination can make it difficult for potential candidate suffering from HIV/AIDS to secure and retain a job. Where fellow employees perceive others in negative ways, it can hinder organizational performance, support and motivation. Workplace culture is central to performance and challenges arise when employees cannot accommodate diversity. Expertise and skills may end up being blocked and particularly when considering that staff with AIDS are best suited as they are empathetic when offering services and can have increased skills about their own case, management and coping strategies. Black CAP may end up losing great expertise. Staffs with AIDS can be dedicated and be loyal to Black CAP and that may reduce high turn-over. However, that cannot be achieved when there are no mechanism to promote their recruitment and retention. In addition, empowerment and participation has all to do with the approaches being employed towards staff collaboration for community development. External challenges External challenge has been identified and at times implicated to affect recruitment. Stakeholders have a lot of power and influence on organizational recruitment, performance and diverse activities. Most non-profit organizations that rely on funding and sponsorship have less bargaining power when it comes to its nature and coordination of its operations. The funding comes with plans, requirements for human resources to implement and constrained time to finish up projects. Funded programs offer opportunities and results to better outcomes in a short time (Schuler, Jackson and Tarique, 2011). However, some funded programs come with mandatory requirements for the organization such as recruiting more staffs to deploy them. Consequently, such programs do not take into consideration the context and effective management depending on diverse conditions and needs in an organization. Frequent recruitment can lead to selection of people who are fit for a certain program whose employment is later terminated after the program is completed. Though it is also very rewarding when working with partners to develop strategies which fit a local area and its needs, the programs need to consider the developed and unique mechanisms of operation. Hiring staffs to deliver as per funder’s requirements has led to increased number of staff over a short period of time. A flat management structure had to be incorporated as each hired workers needed a direct reporting point. The role of long-serving staffs is important in build on previous community relationships and work. However, it was indicated that at such time, the old staff took the role of managing and that reduces the effectiveness of programs when those who understand the challenges within the society are not directly involved. Financial challenges have wide-range implications on recruitment. Lack of finances affect the growth of variety of services offered and increases the struggles to keep up with workload and to fill the gaps that exist in programs and services. Finances support other needs such as needs to nurture relationships with funders and potential others by human resources (Liang, 2011). Internally, the need for clarification of staff roles and responsibilities requires a senior and qualified HR. Financial pressure challenges the attempt to achieve good HR management practices. Lack of money also affect the extended benefits to employee and that has led to employee spending an average of five years as a non-profit organization cannot compete with private sectors in terms of compensation and offering career path opportunities in the organization. Ultimately, high-cost are incurred due to high staff-turnover and impact left behind by the staff, need to have an ongoing training and addition supervision requirements (Stahl, et al, 2012). Recommendations Black CAP needs to be prepared in for future programs that may need more staffs. They should be prepared by advocating the best way to use staffs in order to address opportunities that emerged as a priority. They can also negotiate with influential funders and eventually build one project with one group, then two, three, four groups and then go for larger scale proposal where they can recruit and accommodate staffs in the best way possible. Where sourcing may be a major problem for short-term programs, they need to involve dedicated recruiters that can use effective methods, with speed and deliver quality candidates (Arthur, 2012). Through organization learning and interaction, presumption, discrimination and attitudes can be modified to counter-attack the difficulties arising. The vast majority of employees would then require to be consulted and be part of recruitment process to reduce the impacts of discrimination (Tarique and Schuler, 2010). The general willingness to collaborate among staffs can promote diversity within the Black CAP. Collaboration is also a way to bridge the skills gap. Those with necessary skills and qualifications should first be set to help accomplish organizational goals and others will follow the trend. To overcome the procedural challenges, Black CAP needs to create candidate experience from the moment they start the job. It needs to have content that engage active and passive (volunteers) staff. In addition, it should promote non-financial benefits as efforts that will pay off. Though they are not enough to be considered by employees, predictability and consistency can ensure staffs retention. Black CAP has opted for human resource collaboration with six other AIDS service organizations to address HR common needs. They then need to meet regularly to review collective HR concerns like compensation, recruitment, retention and strategies to address them. As HR is available on agencies individually and can be called on an as –needed basis for specific initiatives, obtaining feedback, testing and brainstorming ideas, they can plan and see opportunities that HR can help fix and advance well. In turn, they will leverage the benefits from the collaboration which individually would not be secured. Bibliography Arthur, Diane. Recruiting, interviewing, selecting & orienting new employees. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn, 2012. Attenberg, Josh, Panagiotis G. Ipeirotis, and Foster J. Provost. "Beat the Machine: Challenging Workers to Find the Unknown Unknowns." Human Computation 11 (2011): 11. Gatewood, Robert, Hubert Feild, and Murray Barrick. Human resource selection. Cengage Learning, 2010. Keep, Ewart, and Susan James. "Recruitment and selection: the great neglected topic." SKOPE Research Paper 88 (2010). Liang, Li-Fang. 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"Global talent management: Literature review, integrative framework, and suggestions for further research." Journal of world business 45, no. 2 (2010): 122-133. Read More