People And Organisations: The Selection Issue

By Author: endeavor su
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In 1991, according to the Department of Trade and Industry, a record 48,000 British companies went out of business. When businesses fail, the post-mortem analysis is traditionally undertaken by accountants and market strategists.

Unarguably organizations do fail because of undercapitalization, poor financial management, and adverse market conditions etc. Yet, conversely organizations with sound financial backing, good product ideas and market acumen often underperform and fail to meet shareholders' expectations.

The complexity, degree and sustainment of organizational performance requires an explanation which goes be-yond the balance sheet and the "paper conversion" of financial inputs into profit making out-puts.

A more complete explanation of "what went wrong" necessarily must consider the essence of what an organization actually is and that one of the financial inputs, the most important and often the most expensive, is people.

B An organization is only as good as the people it employs. Selecting the right person for the job involves more than identifying the essential or ...
... desirable range of skills, educational and professional qualifications necessary to perform the job and then recruiting the candidate who is most likely to possess these skills or at least is perceived to have the ability and predisposition to acquire them. This is a_pureiy person/skills match approach to selection.

C Work invariably takes place in the presence and/or under the direction of others, in a particular organizational setting. The individual has to "fit" in with the work environment, with other employees, with the organizational climate, style of work, organization and culture of the organization.

Different organizations have different cultures (Cartwright & Cooper, 1991, 1992). Working as an engineer at British Aerospace will not necessarily be a similar experience to working in the same capacity at GEC or Plessey. D Poor selection decisions are expensive. For example, the costs of training a policeman are about £20,000 (approx. US$30,000).

The costs of employing an unsuitable technician on an oil rig or in a nuclear plant could, in an emergency, result in millions of pounds of damage or loss of life. The disharmony of a poor person-environment fit (PE-fit) is likely to result in low job satisfaction, lack of organizational commitment and employee stress, which affect organizational outcomes i.e.

productivity, high labor turnover and absenteeism, and individual outcomes i.e. physical, psychological and mental well-being. E However, despite the importance of the recruitment decision and the range of sophisticated and more objective selection techniques available, including the use of psychometric tests, assessment centers etc. ,

many organizations are still prepared to make this decision on the basis of a single 30 to 45 minute unstructur«i--irrtervtew. Indeed, research has demonstrated that a selection decision is often made within the first four minutes of the interview.

In the remaining time, the interviewer then attends exclusively to information that reinforces the initial "accept" or "reject" decision. Research into the validity of selection methods has consistently demonstrated that the unstructured interview, where the interviewer asks any questions he or she likes, is a poor predictor of future job performance and fares little better than more controversial methodsTTke graphology and astrology. In times of high unemployment, recruitment becomes a "buyer's market" and this was the case in Britain during the 1980s.

F The future, we are told, is likely to be different. Detailed surveys of social and economic trends in the European Community show that Europe's population is falling and getting older. The birth rate in the Community is now only three-quarters of the level needed to ensure replacement of the existing population.

By the year 2020,, it is predicted that more than one in four Europeans will be aged 60 or more and barely one in five will be under 20. In a five-year period between 1983 and 1988 the Community's female workforce grew by almost six million. As a result, 51 % of all women aged 14 to 64 are now economically active in the labor market compared with 78% of men.

G The changing demographics will not only affect selection ratios. They will also make it increasingly important for organizations wishing to maintain their competitive edge to be more responsive and accommodating to the changing needs of their workforce if they are to retain and develop their human resources. More flexible working hours, the opportunity to work from home or job share, the provision of childcare facilities etc. , will play a major role
in attracting and retaining staff in the future.

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