Recruitment as a Human Resource Management Practice

Abstract

The Human Resource Management function undertakes various practices. One of them involves the recruitment and selection of the suitable candidates to fill in the positions of the company. Recruitment involves the identification, scrutiny, and the final step of selecting the right candidates for the right job roles. The paper undertakes a critical analysis of the recruitment practice giving a detailed description, in addition to the consideration of two case laws, where employers failed to engage the right procedures and laws in the recruitment process. Subsequently, the paper gives recommendations based on the cases in a bid to suggest measures that could have been undertaken to avoid breaking the recruitment laws. 

Introduction

Human Resource Management (HRM) practice could be defined in several ways. It could be defined as functional system that undertakes the process of the attraction, development, motivation, and retention of employees within an organization for the delivery its core business (Jones & Martain, 2013). In addition, it could be defined as a set of consistent policies and practices within the internal environment of an organization that are formulated and implemented to ensure that the workforce contributes to the attainment of the organization’s business objectives. Various HRM practices include employee recruitment, training, development, motivation, and compensation. This paper focuses on the recruitment practice through a detailed analysis in consideration of the laws that the HRM department is subjected to in the recruitment process. 

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Description

One of the critical resources of an organization is its people. This especially involves the employees that efficiently perform the tasks required of them given the level of skills and expertise they possess. The HRM department is responsible for the identification, scrutiny, and selection of the best-suited employees that are vested with the responsibility of performing certain tasks at a given organization (Jones & Martain, 2013). The Human Resource (HR) manager consults with other line managers on the kind of employee that they require in their various departmental functions. For instance, the accounts department could be in need of an internal auditor. The HR needs to consult with the head of the accounts department in regards to the kind of qualifications and personality that they require for such an individual. The head of accounts gives a description of the qualifications such an a holder of a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting and a Certified Public Accountant that works under minimal or no supervision. The HR takes up the description and advertises the position using various media such as the internet and newspapers. The eligible candidates apply for the position and the HR shortlists the successful candidates. The candidates are then scheduled for interviews where they make a physical appearance with their qualification documents for scrutiny. All the selected candidates are then interviewed at their scheduled time once done; they are given a timeline under which they could be contacted if successfully selected. The HRM department analyzes all the candidates and picks the best, which becomes the new employee for the position in the accounts department. This completes the recruitment process as a HRM practice. 

Review of Laws

An effective recruitment and selection process should be just to all candidates and ensures that only the best candidate, based on their merit, is selected. The recruitment process must be free from any form of discrimination be it age, gender, race, religion, and disability (Jones & Martain, 2013). However, based on the age, an organization needs to ensure that their candidates have attained the minimum age required for one to start working, in order to avoid child labor. Moreover, an organization is bound to ensuring that it does not use discriminatory language in all the stages stipulated in its recruitment process. 

Case Analysis

The first case involves the boss of New York Times, Mark Thompson; accused of the introduction of a culture that favors the recruitment of young, white, and single employees, as opposed to older and black female employees (Neate, 2017). According to the Guardian, this contradicts the laws of recruitment that propagates against any form of discrimination, which in this case is based on age, gender, and race (Neate, 2017). It is recommended that MR. Mark Thompson should inculcate a culture that fosters for the recruitment of employees based on merit without any form of discrimination. 

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The second case involves Silicon Valley firm Palantir Technologies that was sued for discrimination against the recruitment of individuals form the Asian race (“US tech firm sued over Asian recruitment discrimination – BBC News,” 2017). Although the company claimed that it considers the employment of staff from diverse backgrounds, the US department of Labor that the company was guilty based on three cases that provided evidence that the company was biased during its recruitment process. The firm could have avoided breaking the law through outsourcing its HRM function to a company that best understands the laws and policies of the recruitment process.