q Frist Draft

This paper discusses the process of recruitment and how it has changed over the years. With organizations now facing nontraditional forces such as globalize and technology changes, the process of recruitment has become imperative that for managers to update their strategies. Recruitment is key to determining the caliber of employees which translates to the productivity level.

Today, organizations must update the recruitment process, which is a critical human resource function, to align with changing dynamics of the business world.

*Great introduction paragraph. This could be integrated into the synthesized reflection to help elaborate on your other ideas.

Article summary 1

In, “Gaming the System to Boost Recruiting”, Sarah Fisher Gale (2017), investigates whether the gaming strategy adopted by Unilever does minimizes bias in the recruitment processes. In September 2016, the company announced that the gaming strategy will would implement a digital recruitment program which will would use gamification. According to the chief HR officer, Leena Nair, targets (what/who targets 250,000…) 250,000 graduate applicants who will participate in video interviews and other gaming activities. Gale quotes Kyle Laguna, an analyst for IDC who states, that the system is not as basic as playing games but rather borrowing gaming strategies in to apply in cases.

Unilever is, however, is not the only company to adopt this system as successful companies such as Google, Mariott, Uber and Deloitte also use the gaming strategy. The companies’ objectives is to enhance brand positioning, increase employee involvement and save potential employee vetting time. In terms of how to work, Gale explains that candidates play games which give Unilever a the skills and abilities profile not found in the CV. Also, the games will show the employees’ ability to adapt the culture. Companies are no longer just focused on skills and experience (Maurer, 2016). The author asserts that bias is not limited to race or gender but also to our educational background. Gale concludes that as much as the digital tools help eliminate bias, managers still need to curb their personal prejudices.

*Does this article explain exactly what gamification is? Such as the process and what you can do with the results.

Article summary 2

In, “New Executives realize Productivity Goes Beyond the Bottom Line”, Chris Swan (2016), provides insight on how top organizational leaders can lead by example. Swan asserts that when hired into a company one must develop an effective plan of action and gives one the chance to strengthen their reputation with other employees.

Swan introduces the TOP performer which should be the ultimate goal of every recruit, which seeks to determine past and present success of the candidate and whether they have a vision. For a TOP leader, Gale explains that it involves the need to follow ethical and honest issues. Therefore leaders must have stories that illuminate strengths, undermines weaknesses and makes them appear real. High levels of performance and integration capabilities are the needs of hiring managers.

Gale adds that a leader must also be altruistic with qualities such as courtesy and politeness. Also, Gale advises that for a leader to be the TOP candidate, he or she must manages time, listen better, make good decisions, to be honest, to be dedicated, takes up opportunities and make effective plans.

Article summary 3

Nicholaus, Garcia (2016) reports in the article, “Women Still on the Outside Looking Into the C-Suite” on a gender equality issue that women are still few in C-suite positions. This is based on study, of 1000 companies, by Korn Ferry, a global executive search firm in America. The study reported that only 24% of those in high management positions are women. Also, the research indicated that women in life science top positions were less than 1 percent while in the consumer industry they made up 9%.

*what is “C-suite”?

One outstanding fact was that most of the women were in HR positions and that such as female managers, were more skilled in CHRO which involves multitasking, collaboration, and negotiation. According to Garcia, Melissa Lamson, CEO of Lamson Consulting, believes that if more focus is given to the critical skills (add examples of critical skills) then women will be propelled in their careers. With Korn Ferry’s managing principal emphasizes that gender equality in top positions will lead to high productivity. The key barrier, according to Bryan Proctor a leader at Korn Ferry, is due to minimal opportunities for women to showcase skills in leadership responsibilities.

Another barrier is that women have downplayed networking as compared to men who spend 80% of their time working and 20% at socializing as explained by Lamson. This eliminates the benefits of face-to-face communication and its accompanying benefits.

Synthesized reflection

Recruitment is core to the operational structure of an organization involving the hiring, training and orientation activities. The key purpose of this function is to successfully integrate employees into the company culture, which is integral to its corporate pillars and visions. The role of recruitment, however, further extends into other functions that employees are delegated and their performance levels. According to Swan (2016), “after landing a new executive-level position, it is time to think about the best strategy for getting the work done” (para.1). (Add a thesis at the end of the introduction paragraph so the rest of the paragraphs are organized with set topics. A thesis would make your topic and all of the ideas much more clear!)

Hiring managers are expected to display a high level of competency in recruitment since they have the key role of promoting the company’s objectives, goals and values. They should to therefore be educated and be fully engaged in the process. This also makes them have a high sense of responsibility in managing their functions.

Apart from the obligation that hiring managers must have the right skills and responsibilities, the hiring managers also face the challenge of diversity in the work place. Despite the fact that there are existing employment law which pave the way for employees to work in a conducive productive and safe environment, companies mostly face bias issues. Technology has made the recruitment process more equitable and transparent. High performing companies are increasingly adopting this policy. According to Gale (2017) top performing companies such as Unilever, Google and Uber have adopted it so as to foster time saving in vetting, strengthening brand and increasing employee engagement. Even though technology has made strides in advancing the recruitment process, a more personalized approach is relevant. (what exactly is the personalized approach?) This allows the managers to see the real potential employee and not from behind the screen. “But technology alone, no matter how fun or engaging, will not solve the entire problem of bias, Lagunas said” (Gale, 2017, para.14) (add another sentence elaborating how this quote is relevant to diversity/bias).

Another issue is gender differences in senior positions which drive the vision and success of a company. This is a definite fact that organizations face turbulent market conditions which demand for flexible and problem-solving employees. This implies that there is an urgent need of a wide pool of talent and skills to create a robust operation. Both men and women are important and should be judged by their merit rather than their gender disposition. However a lot of research reports that women tend to make a very small number in top positions. This is a concern since in the 21st century more women are going to school and pursuing career goals. According to the Korn Ferry study only 24% of women are in managerial positions and even then there are not evenly spread out in those positions (Garcia, 2016). However, women tend to contribute to this (what is “this”) because they are not sufficiently active and culture is a key contributor.

Gender issues, technology and performance level form the tenets of recruitment among many other issues. And As the world is rapidly progressing so should recruitment in terms of adaptability and sustainability. Today is unlike the older eras in which the HR function was made up of basic duties such as preparing payroll lists. Add why today is different than the past HR functions. The HR function just needs a great leader to integrate all the relevant aspects and create a platform of high performance. And women should also be at the forefront in order to have an impact because the function needs to work together.

References

Garcia, N. (2016). Women Still on the Outside Looking Into the C-Suite. Retrieved from http://www.workeforce.com/2016/09/12/women/slowly-growing-c-suite -roles/

Gale, S.F. (2017).Gaming the System to Boost Recruiting. Retrieved from http://www.workeforce.com/2017/01/17/gaming-system-bost-recruiting/

Maurer, R. (2016). 5 Recruiting Trends for 2016. Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/5-recruiting-trends-2016.aspx

Swan, C. (2016).New Executives realize Productivity Goes Beyond the Bottom Line. Retrieved from http://www.workeforce.com/2016/11/17/news-executives-realize-prodcutivity-goes-beyond-bottom-line/

Peer Review

You had a very interesting topic and found great articles to summarize. I really enjoyed reading all of the different articles you summarized. Not all of the websites go to an online article. Also, you only summarized 3 articles but you have 4 different references, and not all references are used in the synthesized reflection unless you did not site them? It would have been much more clear if you elaborated on the articles in their summaries because some ideas such as “C-suite” and gamification would be much more understandable if they had a little more explanation. If you had a thesis that laid out all of your topics in one sentence it would make the topic of your paper a lot more clear because all of the points would be listed in correspondence with the paragraphs. The highlighted sentence could be a good start to a thesis sentence. Once all of your ideas are specific and line up with your thesis, this paper will be very organized and full of useful information. The last paragraph would be a great conclusion if you talked about the past ways of HR and how they are different from today in earlier paragraphs.