day 3

8.RecruitmentSelectionandPromotion.pptx

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Recruitment, Selection, and Promotion

Egg of Columbus

An egg of Columbus or Columbus' egg refers to a brilliant idea or discovery that seems simple or easy after the fact.

The expression refers to a story in which Christopher Columbus, having been told that discovering the Americas was inevitable and no great accomplishment, challenges his critics to make an egg stand on its tip.

After his challengers give up, Columbus does it himself by tapping the egg on the table to flatten its tip.

The story is often alluded to when discussing creativity.

Hindsight bias

Also known as the knew-it-all-along effect or creeping determinism, is the inclination, after an event has occurred, to see the event as having been predictable, despite there having been little or no objective basis for predicting it.

It is a multifaceted phenomenon that can affect different stages of designs, processes, contexts, and situations.

Without proper documentation in the recruitment, selection, and promotional process, hindsight bias may cause a memory distortion, where the recollection and reconstruction of content can lead to false assumptions leading to poor decisions and unsupported decision outcomes.

It has been suggested that the effect can cause extreme perceptional problems while trying to analyze, understand, and interpret results of whatever they are studying (whether it’s an outcome or a process).

A hindsight bias can cause, after viewing the outcome of a potentially unforeseeable event, a decision-maker to take steps correct the problem based on what they believed what happen than what actually happened.

The Peter Principle

The Peter Principle is a concept in management theory in which the selection of a candidate for a position is based on the candidate's performance in their current role rather than on abilities relevant to the intended role.

Thus, employees only stop being promoted once they can no longer perform effectively, and "managers rise to the level of their incompetence."

The principle is named after Laurence J. Peter who co-authored with Raymond Hull the humorous 1969 book The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong.

Mitigation of the Risk of the Peter Principle

There are methods that organizations can use to mitigate the risk associated with the Peter Principle:

Refrain from promoting workers based on their current performance without proof of their abilities to succeed in the desired role.

Provide in-service training for the desired roles for those being considered for promotion.

Provide a parallel career path for good technical staff, possibly with the offer of additional pay, perks or recognition without requiring promotion to management, similar to a warrant officer in the military.

Implement an Up or Out approach as authorized by the military or the Vitality Cure or Rank and Yank programs used by some for-profit organizations for employees who are ranked in the bottom 5-10% on performance are likely to be fired.

The proper use of a quality performance analysis program.

Manpower and Personnel

Manpower and personnel involves identification and acquisition of personnel with skills and grades required to operate and maintain a system needed by the organization.

Once identified, HR schedules periodic test for frequently available jobs (i.e. secretary / maintenance worker).

It advertises vacant or new positions, reviews job applications for basic eligibility, and gives written tests.

Once a list is compiled the HR unit will be maintained until a new test is requested by the organization.

HR is responsible for establishing and maintaining the databases that enable online posting of positions and hosting of applications.

The Acquisition Function

This function involves the acquisition of competencies that will enable an organization to fulfill its mission.

The organization’s mission should determine the significance of its performance goals.

Evaluation techniques must fit performance goals.

Performance evaluation techniques must be valid and reliable.

Cooperation between management and rank-and-file employees is an important as the evaluation technique selected.

Performance evaluations should report both strength and weakness

Note: Most recruitment, selection, and promotion decisions are not made within a politicized environment.

Yet, it would be naive to argue that all are conducted according to routine procedures designed only to reward competence

All ways looking up!

It has been said that a true paradox can never be solved only managed.

Most recruitment, selection, and promotional decisions are not made within a political environment, yet there are some elected leaders that believe it could accomplish more if it had a greater influence over top-level classified positions… therein lies the paradox.

In the age of the irreversible rise of informational technology both the elected and appointed managers will be held accountable for their actions (or inactions) in the court of public opinion.

Questions: Should the political background of the applicant be part of the recruitment, selection, and promotional decision-making process? How does this impact social equity and individual rights?

External Influences and Contemporary Challenges

Workforce Demographics:

Without a doubt, demographic shift taking place within the American workforce represent some of the most critical challenges for the public employers seeking to maintain a stable employment base.

Nature of the Work:

The way work is preformed will require rethinking of recruitment and selection functions as well force retirement policies based on age at the federal level.

Competencies:

The emphasis of strategic thinking has produced a direct emphasis in selection processes to determine what exactly should a job applicant be able to do and has the job applicant demonstrated that he or she is competent to do what is required.

Workforce Relations

As the nature of the work changes there is an increasing reliance on teams and teamwork that emphasizes what traditionally was seen as important but non-task related factors that’s connected to the productivity in the work environment.

These non-task related factors are called contextual factors which include:

Volunteering to carry out task activities that are not formally a part of the job.

Persisting with extra enthusiasm or effort when necessary to complete task activities successfully.

Helping and cooperating with others.

Following organizational rules and procedures even when personally inconvenient.

Endorsing, supporting, and defending organizational objectives.

To these factor one might add conflict resolution skills and working within a demographically diverse environment.

Staffing

Staffing is the process of acquiring, deploying, and retaining a workforce of sufficient quantity and quality to create positive impacts on the organization’s effectiveness

Acquisition comprises the recruitment processes leading to the employment of staff.

It includes human resource planning to identify what the organization requires in terms of the numbers of employees needed and their attributes (knowledge, skills and abilities) in order to effectively meet job requirements.

In addition the selection techniques and methods of assessment to identify the most suitable candidates for a particular job.

Deployment involves decisions about how those recruited will be allocated to specific roles according to organizational demands.

It also concerns the subsequent appointment to more advanced jobs through internal recruitment, promotion or reorganization.

Retention deals with the management of the outflow of employees from an organization.

This includes both managing voluntary activities such as resignation, and controlling involuntary measures whereby employees are managed out of the organization through redundancy programs or other types of dismissal.

The overriding objective is to minimize the loss from the organization of valued employees through strategic and tactical measures whilst enabling the organization to reduce employment costs where circumstances dictate.

Staffing is also used in a specific sense to refer to the management of employee schedules.

Steps in the Staffing Process

Identify human resource needs as part of the strategic planning process.

Seek budgetary approval to hire employees

Develop valid selection criteria

Select a method of recruitment

Recruit

Test or otherwise screen applicants with methods unique ro each position

Prepare a list of qualified applicants

Interview the most highly qualified applicants

Conduct background and reference checks where appropriate

Select the most qualified applicant available for the position

Extensive new hire orientation.

Recruitment Questions

What will the future employee demand be in the Agency and in what kind of areas?

How are the present managerial staff preparing to meet future demands?

Does the present managerial staff possess the needed competencies in order to meet with and deal with the current challenges and those of the future?

To give it flexibility, should the department hire one full-time replacement or one or more part-time employee as needs arise?

Recruitment

Refers to the overall process of attracting, selecting and appointing suitable candidates for jobs within an organization, either permanent or temporary.

Recruitment can also refer to processes involved in choosing individuals for unpaid positions, such as voluntary roles or training programs.

Recruitment may be undertaken in-house by managers, human resource generalists and/or recruitment specialists.

Alternatively, parts of the process may be undertaken by either public-sector employment agencies, commercial recruitment agencies, or specialist search consultancies.

Web-based recruitment involves the use of internet-based services and computer technologies to support all aspects of recruitment activity and processes has become widespread. (i.e. www.USAJobs.gov )

Nine methods are commonly used to assess qualifications:

review of biographical data; aptitude; ability test; performance exams; performance evaluation and promotional assessment of current employees only.

Four types of written test commonly used are:

Aptitude; measure general intelligence (or cognitive ability)

Characteristics (or traits); measures personality traits [i.e. Minnesota Multiphasic personality inventory (MMPI)]

Ability; measures the extent to which applicants possess generalized abilities or skills related to job performance.

and performance. [i.e. typing test]

Interviews are a popular selection or promotion method.

Interviews are not recommended as a primary selection method because they take a lot of time, require a certain amount of interviewing skill sets, and subject to invalid selection criteria posed by the HR team.

Question: Can the agency utilize a Lie-detector machine when interviewing a potential employee? Why or why not?

Additional selection tools include but not limited to:

References; these are used to verify educational and employment records or obtain information about the applicant’s skill or personality.

Assessment centers; these are used to stress performance of on-the –job tasks.

and the use of a probationary appointment. This measures the actual on-the-job performance.

Question:

Should we identify well-rounded applicants who posses the competencies needed to be successful or rely on those folk’s that can preform well during a behavioral interview whether it’s in front of an individual or a panel?

Recruitment and Selection Models

Centralized Recruitment;

This is the most efficient for organizations that has several thousand employees, and if different departments recruit large numbers of clerical or technical employees for the same types of positions.

Decentralized Recruitment;

A traditional method utilized in agencies that are relatively small, for which recruitment needs are limited, and where each agency employs different types of workers.

Electronic Models;

This can permit employers to reach a much larger applicant base.

Outsourcing;

Increasing in it’s use it is utilized by employment services for hiring temporary employees or by search firms (headhunters) for professional and managerial recruitment.

Test Validation and the Acquisition

A test is any device used to separate qualified from unqualified applicants for selection or promotion. Included are written examinations as well as selection methods not normally thought of as tests, including

interviews, medical examinations, drug tests, background investigations, and physical requirements.

To be valid, a test must separate more-qualified from less-qualified applicants on the basis of

job-related competencies or performance.

Social equity advocates are often associated with promoting preferential treatment of minorities and women. However, their greatest and most lasting contribution to personnel management may prove to be in the area of test validation.

For in seeking to remove barriers to equal opportunity based on discriminatory hiring criteria (those based on race, religion, or other non-merit factors), social equity advocates have been responsible for general acceptance of

the merit system principle that job applicants are to be chosen on the basis of job-related criteria.

What is a job-related test or selection device? The answer is simple to state but difficult to put into practice.

It is a test that does a good job of predicting job performance.

Unfortunately no selection device can predict with 100 percent accuracy who will and will not do well on the job. career performance?

Outsourcing Creates Strange Bedfellows

Outsourcing or sub-servicing often refers to the process of contracting to a third-party.

Although outsourcing is often viewed as involving the contracting out of a type operational function - commonly one previously performed in-house - to an external private provider, it also can include two or more public agencies entering into a contractual agreement involving an exchange of services and payments.

Of recent concern is the ability of organizations to outsource to suppliers outside the nation, sometimes referred to as offshoring or offshore outsourcing (which are odd terms because doing business with another country does not mean you have to go offshore).

In addition, several related terms have emerged to grasp various aspects of the complex economic relationship between organizations or networks, such as nearshoring, multisourcing and strategic outsourcing.

Almost any conceivable operational practice can be outsourced for any number of stated reasons.

The implications of outsourcing objectively and subjectively vary across time and space.

Promotion

A promotion is the advancement of an employee's rank or position in an organizational hierarchy system.

Promotion may be an employee's reward for good performance, i.e., positive appraisal.

Before a company promotes an employee to a particular position it ensures that the person is able to handle the added responsibilities by screening the employee with interviews and tests and giving them training or on-the-job experience.

A promotion can involve advancement in terms of designation, salary and benefits, and in some organizations the type of job activities may change a great deal.

For Your Information

The Interservice /Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC) is the world's largest modeling, simulation, and training conference.

It is always held near the beginning of December in Orlando, Florida, USA, and it consists of peer-reviewed paper presentations, tutorials, special events, professional workshops, a commercial exhibit hall, a serious games competition, and STEM events for teachers and secondary students.

STEM is an acronym referring to the academic disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics

I/ITSEC is organized by the National Training and Simulation Association (NTSA), which promotes international and interdisciplinary cooperation within the fields of modeling and simulation (M&S), training, education, analysis, and related disciplines at this annual meeting.

The NTSA is an affiliate subsidiary of the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA).

Hence, I/ITSEC also emphasizes themes related to defense and security.

Summary

The acquisition function reflects conflict among the competing values of responsiveness, efficiency, individual rights, and social equity as the basis of allocating public jobs.

The goal of most public employers is to hire and promote those with the best knowledge, skills/abilities, and personal attributes to perform the job.

However, other interests—represented by politics, collective bargaining, and diversity—frequently challenge this goal.

Ultimately, the differences in value and policy orientations must be transformed into workable recruitment, selection, and promotion procedures that permit routine, cost-effective application and promise fair treatment for applicants.

As the workforce continues to change and the availability of qualified labor becomes scarcer, the public sector will need to become more responsive and resilient to compete with the private sector for the same resources.

The acquisition of resources will become less bureaucratic and more in line with the private sector.

The changing nature of work and organizations affects recruitment and selection processes as well.

As organizations become less hierarchical, more is demanded of employees than traditional competencies connected to a narrowly defined job.

As the context within which public agencies operate becomes more heterogeneous and unstable, job analyses become less dependable, and recruitment is expanded to include situational skills and personal traits, such as the ability to contribute to a workgroup.

Selection decisions become more tentative as loyalty between employee and employer is weakened by contemporary trends toward downsizing and privatization.

Key Terms

Centralized recruitment and selection

Decentralized recruitment and selection

Web-based recruitment

Competencies

Construct validation

Content validation

Criterion validation

Test validation

True and false positives and negatives