Recruitment, Selection and Placement of Specialist Engineers in IronStrong Mining Company - Case Study Example

Recruitment and Selection Name Institution Date Introduction Recruitment, selection and placement are among the essential activities that organizations need to ensure that they handle with a lot of care. In today’s world, individuals are the integral part of all companies. It is usually hard for companies to operate without its human resources. In the current complex and competitive industrial environment particularly the mining environment, selecting and placing individuals in positions so that they become very effective in development of an organization is very important (Yakovleva, 2005). Effective selection and placement of employees will not only result into efficient company’s operation but also provides essential capabilities for future replacement. The hiring process normally starts by planning the human resource which assists in determining the number and type of people the company requires. Job analysis and design normally permits mining industries to specify the task and responsibilities of employee required. The analysis and design therefore assist in identifying the kind of individuals required in the mining company and hence the hiring process. Hiring, in any kind of organization, is a continuous process and it is not usually restricted to company’s formative stages. Employees normally move from one organization to another with aim of getting better paying jobs (Edenborough, 2007). This therefore implies that employees normally leave an organization either due to search for greener pastures, retirement or death. In mining industries, people normally get hired if the company grows, diversify or has taken over other units. Hiring can only stops if the company stops its operations. Hiring, in mining industry, entails three broad activities, which are recruitment, selection and placement. IronStrong, a mining company in Western Australia, is facing problems in hiring a number of specialist engineers, required to take the company to another level. This paper therefore analyzes the recruitment, selection and placement of specialist engineers in IronStrong mining company. Recruitment, selection and placement of specialist engineers in IronStrong Mining Company Recruitment plays essential roles in hiring process. Hiring of new specialist engineers in IronStrong Company is usually necessitated by the growth of the company, company’s diversification and taking over of other units. Schmidt and Hunter (1998) argue that recruitment therefore is a continuous process and it can only stop if an organization stops existing. Recruitment can be understood as a process of searching for and receiving of job applications from which a right person for the job can be selected. It can therefore be formally defined as a process of finding and attracting potential applicants for the job (Redman& Wilkinson, 2002).The process normally starts with sorting out for new recruits and ends when applications are submitted. The outcome is usually a pool of applications from which employees are supposed to be selected. Theoretically, the process of recruitment is normally believed to end with receipt of application. This however is not always the case when the process is practically applied. In practice the process of recruitment normally extends to screening of applications so as to do away with applicants that are not qualified for the job (Pynes, 2008). In IronStrong mining company, the general aim of recruiting specialist engineers is to give a pool of capable qualified job applicants. Recruitment normally determines the current and future needs of the company plus its personnel planning and job analysis activities. It also enhances applicants’ job pool at minimum cost. Recruitment of specialist engineers in IronStrong Company assist in enhancing the success rate of selection process by minimizing the number of job applicants. The process of recruitment also assist in minimizing the possibility of jobs applicants, once recruited and selected, can leave the company within a short period of time. The legal and social obligation regarding composition of the company’s labor force can be met through the process of recruitment. Entailing recruitment in the process of hiring enables the company to enhance the effectiveness of a person in both short term and long term (Sison, 2003). In the process of hiring, selection refers to picking of individuals from a pool of qualified job applicants. The individuals are expected to have the required qualifications and competence so as to fill the job positions in the company. Selection process can be formally described as the process of differentiating applicants so as to identify individuals with greater likelihood of success in the job. Selection and recruitment are very critical in the process of hiring and are always applied interchangeably. Selection differs from recruitment in a number of ways. As mentioned earlier, recruitment refers to process of identifying and encouraging potential employees to apply for jobs. Selection on the other hand refers to picking of the right candidate from a pool of job applicants. Recruitment is believed to be positive in its approach since it looks after attracting very many candidates. Selection on the other hand is believed to be negative in its application since it seeks to remove unqualified applicants so as to obtain the required candidate (Schmidt & Hunter 1998). Placement of specialist engineers in Iron StrongCompany refers to assigning rank and duty to an engineer and identifying him or her with a given job. In case an individual copes up with the task and continues to execute the task as expected, the placement process will be considered as well done. However, in case the candidate is not performing on the job as expected, the supervisor needs to find out whether the individual is placed properly as per aptitude and capability of the latter. Placement problems normally result from wrong selection or improper placement or both. Companies therefore, particularly mining companies need to continuously review case that relates to employees performing below expectations and problems that relates to employees such as absenteeism, accidents and turnover. External environmental and organizational issues affecting RPS of IronStrong efforts Recruitment, selection and placement efforts of IronStrong are greatly affected by several factors. These factors can be widely classified into environmental or external and organizational or internal factors. Internal factors or endogenous factors are factors in an organization that mainly affects recruiting personnel within the company. Some of the organizational issues that affect IronStrong Company in recruiting, selecting and placing are the size of the company, recruiting policy and image of the company. The size of IronStrong greatly affects the process of recruitment. Its small size normally makes recruitment more problematic. Very few people are always interested to work with small firms, thus when IronStrong advertise its jobs, few applications are normally received (Clerk, 1992). Recruitment, selection and placing policies of IronStrong Company have also a significant effect in hiring process. Recruitment from external and internal sources greatly affects the processes of hiring. Employees from the company are normally given first opportunity to be recruited or selected when recruiting or selecting the right candidate for the job position. In IronStrong, it is believed that once employees are recruited or selected, they normally tend to relax on the job. Relaxation at work makes the selected employees to work below expectation thus causing displeasure at work (Roberts, 2007). The company’s image is another factor that greatly influences the recruitment process of IronStrong. The good image of IronStrong normally assists in attracting potential and complete candidates particularly in positions of specialist engineers. Managerial actions such as good public relations, provision of public services like building of roads, hospitals, schools and public parks assist in developing IronStrong image or goodwill. IronStrong does not always attract large volumes of applications since it is not a cheap company. The company is normally characterized by good job image, which are better remuneration and working conditions. Promotion and carrier enhancement policies of IronStrong Company also assist in attracting few potential candidates (Gatewood & Field, 2008). Similar to internal factors, external factors also have great effects on RPS policies and practices of IronStrong Company. Some of external factors that affect IronStrong’s RPS policies and practices include demographic factors, labor market, unemployment condition and labor laws. Demographic factors are strongly related to human beings that is, employees. They normally have a profound influence in the process of hiring. Demographic factors that influence the process of hiring in IronStrong Company include age, sex, literacy and economic status (Singhal, 2008). Young people do not always admire working in the mining industries thus very few applicants particularly aged applicants will be received in case IronStrong advertise job positions. People with engineering knowledge are normally hard to find in Pilbara region. It is therefore very hard for IronStrong to find a well educated and highly skilled specialist engineer who can provide satisfactory work. Most specialist engineers, hired by IronStrong, have little knowledge and less experience thus causing upper management to always report displeasure with many recruits from the region (Stockwell, 2006). Unemployment condition in IronStrong Company greatly affects its hiring process. The high rate of employment in Pilbara region and in Australia as whole affects the recruitment, selection and placement processes of IronStrong Company. High rate of employment limits the number of job applicants received by IronStrong. Edenborough (2007) notes that the low rate of unemployment makes recruitment, selection and placement difficult since the company is usually forced to recruit, select and place all the job applicants regardless of whether they perfectly suits on the job position or not. Labor laws also affect the hiring process in IronStrong Company. There are many labor laws and regulations that govern various type of employment in mining industry. The laws and regulations usually cover the working condition, retirement, compensation, benefits, health and safety of workers in the industry. These laws and regulations affect the recruitment process. For instance, the child labor act 1986 discourages employment of children in particular employments. Some legislations such as factories act and mines act discourages employment of women particularly in the night shift and underground work (Clerk, 1992). Options that improve RSP practices and policies of IronStrong IronStrong should use promotions and transfers as sources of recruitment. It should transfer and promote its current employees to vacant job positions so as to reduce the recruitment problems that the company faces. Promotion normally implies upgrading workers to higher positions that carries higher status, pay and responsibilities. Promoting current employees is beneficial since workers promoted are usually well acquitted with the culture of the company. Promotion of employees is a cheaper process and greatly motivates workers to effectively perform their duties. IronStrong Company will therefore reduce cases of workers’ low performance if they opt for this option of improving the RSP practices and policies. Promoting current employees also minimizes the requirements of job training thus improvement the company’s performance. Performance Improvement increases company’s profitability and employees’ working condition. This attracts many applications from qualified candidates and thus improves the recruitment and selecting practices and policies in IronStrong Company (Dale, 2004). IronStrong Company should also opt for employee referrals as a way of hiring required employees. Employee referrals can greatly improve IronStrong’s RSP practices and policies. Under employee referrals, the current employees in an organization normally refer family members, friends and relatives to the recruiting company. The current employees are always sure that the referred person is capable of delivering effectively in the specified job. Employee referral has proved to be the most effective method of recruiting qualified individuals in the company since current employees normally ensures that they refer capable candidates who meets the common company’s requirements. The referred candidates are often expected to be similar in race and sex with those already working in the company. Employee referrals therefore can solve turnover problem and employees short term working in IronStrong Company, thus improving RSP practices and policies in the company (Zanko, 2002). Promotion and employee referral is very essential in improving the practices and policies of RSP since they make an organization to well understand and familiarize with the weaknesses and strengths of its current workers. Referrals and promotions enable companies to effectively utilize available talents. Companies are normally given an opportunity to effectively utilize the available internal talents and to further develop them. Internal recruitment is also economical. Companies, through promotion and referrals, are expected to spend less cash, time and effort to locate and attract capable candidates. The method also improves the employees morals at work since they will work very hard as they expects to be preferred over outsiders. As a way of improving RSP practices and policies, IronStrong Company need to adopt two approaches of hiring, which are realistic job preview and job compatibility questionnaire (JCQ). Realistic job preview (RJP) gives full job related information that is both positive and negative to the applicants (Nath, 2007). The provided information is always of great help to job seekers to assess the compatibility among jobs and their own ends decisions on hiring are made. Realistic job previews can result into process of self selection, that is, job applicants can choose whether to attend for the interviews and tests for final selection or not. It has been proved that employees hired through realistic job previews normally portray higher job satisfaction level and performance at early stage of employment (Cohen & Blecker, 2003). Job compatibility questionnaire normally determines whether the preferred candidate match the characteristics of the job. The questionnaire is usually constructed to gather information on job’s aspect that has bearing on worker performance, absenteeism, and turnover and job satisfaction. Under job compatibility questionnaire, the greater the compatibility among job seekers, the greater the profitability of worker effectiveness and the longer the tenure. The questionnaire is a four hundred item instrument that measure job factors that are associated with performance, satisfaction, absenteeism and turnover. Factors that are usually covered under the item include job requirements, physical environment, customer features, leader characteristics, compensation preference, job autonomy, peer characteristics, task variety, work schedule and physical demands (Mitchell, 2002). Set of procedures to follow when recruiting, selecting and placing specialist engineers When recruiting, selecting and placing specialist engineers, IronStrong need to follow a number of procedures. As described earlier, the process of recruitment is about identifying and attracting potential candidates for available jobs in the company. When recruiting, IronStrong need to follow the set of procedures that entail recruitment planning, strategy development, searching, screening, control and evaluation. Recruitment planning entail drafting a comprehensive specification for the vacant job position, outlining the minor and major duties of the candidate required, stating the experience, skills and qualification required, grading and stating the level of pay, stating whether the job is permanent or temporary and providing special condition for the job (Billsberry, 2007). Once the number of required qualified candidates is determined in the planning stage, effective recruitment strategy can be chosen in the next step. The step is thus referred as strategy development. The strategic issues to be considered in this step can include issues such as whether to recruit from the current employees or recruit it from outside, the type of recruitment to be employed and the geographical region to be considered (Taylor & Fox, 2005). Searching entails attracting job seekers to the company. Candidates can be attracted either through internal sources or external sources. The forth step in hiring process is screening. Though some view screening as the first step of selection, it can also be considered as integral part of recruitment. IronStrong can screen its advertisements and short list on the basis of eligibility and sustainability. The screened candidate can be invited for seminar presentation and individual interview. Laroche and Rutherford (2007), the techniques applied when screening candidates depends a lot on supply source and recruitment method. De-selections tests, preliminary applications and screening interviews are some of the obvious techniques employed when screening candidates. Evaluation and control is very important step in recruitment process. The company should be ready to incur some common costs in the process of recruitment. The costs therefore include the salaries of recruiters, time and money spent on job analysis and advertisement preparation (Holbeche, 2009). IronStrong Company can base its selection process on candidates’ technical knowledge. According to Piers, Huffcutt and Kammeyer-Mueller (2006), the main things therefore that needs to be taken into account when selecting candidates include the candidates’ basic qualification, job experience, technical qualification and specialized working area. Selection of specialist engineers in IronStrong can be done in two levels, which are middle level and top level selection (Koontz & Weihrich, 2006). Selection of required candidate can be done by first giving preliminary tests to the candidates. Candidates who score higher marks can then be called for interview. After interviewing the candidate, final decision can be made on whether to give appointment letter to the candidate. This therefore implies that when selecting top or middle level employees, it is very essential to consider job experience and individuals performance in the interview (Kaila, 2006). Conclusion From the discussion, it is clear that IronStrong Company faces several problems in its recruitment, selection and placement of employees. The hiring process is affected by both internal and external factors. Internal factors are factors within IronStrong Company that mainly affects recruiting personnel of the company. External factors on the other hand are factors outside the company that affects RPS policies and practices. Some of external factors that affect IronStrong’s RPS policies and practices include demographic factors, labor market, unemployment condition and labor laws. RSP practices and policies can be improved in a number of ways. IronStrong should use promotions and transfers as sources of recruitment. Iron Strong Company can also opt for employee referrals as a way of hiring required employees. Two approaches of hiring, which are realistic job preview and job compatibility questionnaire (JCQ), can also be adopted by IronStrong Company to improve its RSP practices and policies. Iron Strong Company can follow a set of procedures in its recruitment, selection and placement of specialist engineers. When recruiting, IronStrong need to follow the set of procedures that entail recruitment planning, strategy development, searching, screening, control and evaluation. Selection of specialist engineers in IronStrong can be done in two levels, which are middle level and top level selection. Recommendation IronStrong Company needs to improve its recruitment and selection procedures by effectively planning on how specialist engineers will be recruited. The company also needs to formulate effective recruitment strategy that can be employed when hiring the specialist engineers. Iron Strong need to attract job seekers through searching so as to reduce the problem of receiving few job applications when a position is advertised. It can improve its selection process by first giving the potential candidate aptitude test. Candidates with higher marks can proceed to the interview stage. The candidates who respond well in the interview can be served with employment letters. References Yakovleva, N. (2005). Corporate social responsibility in the mining industries. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. Edenborough, R. (2007). Assessment methods in recruitment, selection & performance: a manager's guide to psychometric testing, interviews and assessment Centres. New York: Kogan Page Publishers. McLean, G. & Osman-Gani. (2004). Human resource development as national policy. Advances in Developing Human Resources, August 6 (3). Holton, E. & Trott J.W. (1996). 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