This week’s entry, we will be looking at recruitment and the myriad issues--be they ethical concerns, legal issues, or decisions that simply lead to poor or underperforming hires--that can hobble a company’s talent acquisition process.
Discriminatory Hiring Practices
Our primary case study (Cook 2015) revolves around an article detailing the once odious hiring practices of a retail chain, Abercrombie & Fitch, in the mid-00’s. In the article, the author describes how her manager made clear that it was her looks that landed her the job, how she was instructed to attempt to recruit people of a similar look and the minorities that the must occasionally hire to avoid lawsuits; all in very poor taste and possibly in violation of EEO related laws. Not only were these hiring practices possibly illegal, they also had an extreme affect on employee morale. The author makes it clear that being valued only on the basis of looks can make an employee hugely self conscious and feel undervalued. Although these practices were fairly flagrant, it still took many years and an unfavourable Supreme Court verdict (Naylor 2015) for the company to shift its policies.
Discriminatory employment practices are difficult to prove for full time workers, they can be nearly impossible to prove in the growing sector of American temp agencies. Investigative journalist heavy-weights, Reveal, detail how effortlessly temp agencies can discriminate against potential candidates when listings for available temp jobs are not public and coded, dog-whistle language such as “country boys” or ‘bi-lingual” can be used to filter out unwanted temps by ethnicity (Evans 2016). Couple the cloak and dagger nature of racial discrimination with employee fear of reprisal or dismissal and you have a perfect atmosphere for subverting title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
HRP
Moving away from the case study, we'll take a look at some different hiring procedures starting with human resources planning (HRP). HRP is a method of weighing an organization’s needs against the existing labor market. According to Managing Human Resources this process is used to forecast labor demand and estimate available labor supply (Gomez-Mejia, Balkin & Cardy, 2016). This method may also be used to assist in compliance with state mandated affirmative action policies as well. If labor supply does not meet demand, actions taken could entail: promoting internal staff, training programs, outsourcing or temporary staff, overtime allowances, and/or unconventional hiring strategies. If labor supply exceeds demand measures may include: pay reductions, layoffs, hiring freezes, early retirement incentives, etc.
Recruitment
The recruitment process (Gomez-Mejia, Balkin & Cardy, 2016).
During the selection phase, decisions must be made on how best to evaluate the prospective candidate. These processes can include individual or combined activities such as: informal interviews, structured interviews, personality tests, third party assessment centers, aptitude test, reference checks, evaluation of recommendation letters and application forms, background checks, and even handwriting tests. The efficacy of each of these activities is dependant on the type of position being filled, firm culture, social practices in the given region, standard business practices and legislation. Structured interviews tend to empirically produce candidates of a better quality level over informal interviews but may leave a poor impression on certain applicants and may turn off individuals that may not be hired but would like to be kept as customers or brand ambassadors. Personality tests and handwriting analysis may be used more frequently in Europe than the United States. Assessment centers can provide excellent objective evaluation but come with great financial burden. Each organization will have to select the strategy that best meets their specific means and goals.
Cook, A. (2015). What It Was REALLY Like Working As An Abercrombie 'Model'. [online] Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/Alicia-cook/what-it-was-really-like-working-as-an-abercrombie-model_b_7154042.html [Accessed 26 Jan. 2017].
Evans, W. (2016). When companies hire temp workers by race, black applicants lose out. [online] Reveal. Available at: https://www.revealnews.org/article/when-companies-hire-temp-workers-by-race-black-applicants-lose-out/ [Accessed 26 Jan. 2017].
Gomez-Mejia, L., Balkin, D. and Cardy, R. (2016). Managing human resources. 8th ed. Harlow: Pearson, p.179, p.183.
Naylor, B. (2015). Supreme Court Rules For Woman Denied Abercrombie & Fitch Job Over Headscarf. [online] Available at: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/06/01/411213623/supreme-court-rules-for-woman-denied-abercrombie-fitch-job-over-headscarf [Accessed 26 Jan. 2017].
