Human Resource Management

Sixteenth Edition, Global Edition

Chapter 5

Personnel Planning and

Recruiting
 Learning Objectives
1.Define workforce planning, and explain how to develop a workforce plan.
2.Explain the need for effective recruiting and how to make recruiting more
effective.

3.Discuss the main internal sources of candidates.

4.Describe how to use recruiting to improve employee engagement.

5.Discuss the main outside sources of candidates, and create an employment ad.

6.Explain how to recruit a more diverse workforce.

7.Discuss practical guidelines for obtaining application information.

Introduction
Job analysis identifies the duties and human requirements of each of the
company’s jobs. The next step is to decide which of these jobs you need to fill,
and to recruit and select employees for them.

FIGURE 5-1 Steps in Recruitment and Selection Process

1) Workforce Planning and
Forecasting
• Also known as employment or personnel planning.
• The process of deciding what positions the firm will have to
fill, and how to fill the.
• Its aim is to identify and to eliminate the gaps between the
employer’s projected workforce needs and the current
employees who might be suitable for filling those needs.
• The manager should engage in workforce planning before
recruiting and hiring employees.
Workforce Planning by Towers Watson
Maps

Source: © Towers Watson 2012. Used with permission.

a) Strategy and Workforce Planning
• Workforce planning should be an integral part of the firm’s
strategic planning process.
 Here, the manager will usually need three sets of
employment forecasts: one for personnel needs (demand),
one for the supply of inside candidates,
 and one for the supply of outside candidates.
b) Forecasting Personnel Needs (Labor Demands)
How many people with what skills will we need? Managers
consider several factors, most importantly:
1. a firm’s future staffing needs reflect demand for its
products or services,
2. adjusted for changes in its turnover rate and productivity,
and
3. for changes the firm plans to make in its strategic goals

The basic tools for projecting personnel needs include:

1. Trend Analysis
2. Ratio Analysis
3. Scatter Plot
4. Managerial Judgment
c) Forecasting the Supply of Inside Candidates
Personnel Replacement Charts
Figure 5-3 Personnel or Management Replacement Chart Showing
Development Needs of Potential Future Divisional Vice Presidents
d) Forecasting the Supply of Outside Candidates
If there won’t be enough skilled inside candidates to fill the anticipated
openings (or you want to go outside for another reason), you will turn to
outside candidates.
For example, unemployment rates above 7% a few years ago signaled to HR
managers that finding good candidates might be easier.
e) Predictive Workforce Monitoring
• Annual plans may not be sufficient.
– Plan continuously
• Matching projected labor supply and demand with a plan.

f) Succession Planning
• Systematically identifying, assessing, and developing organizational
leadership to enhance performance.
• Three steps:
– Identify key position needs
– Develop inside candidates
– Assess and choose those who will fill the key positions
Why Effective Recruiting Is Important
Employee recruiting means finding and/or attracting applicants for the employer’s
open positions.
a) Improving recruitment effectiveness:
– Recruiters
– Sources
– Branding
b) The Recruiting Yield Pyramid

Figure 5-5 Recruiting Yield Pyramid

Internal Sources of Candidates
Internal sources—in other words, current employees or “hiring from
within”—are often the best sources of candidates.

Filling open positions with inside candidates has advantages:

I. knowing a candidate’s strengths and weaknesses
II. Current employees may also be more committed to the company.
III. Morale and engagement may rise if employees see promotions, &
IV. inside candidates should require less orientation and (perhaps) training
than outsiders.
 Outside Sources of Candidates
• Employers can’t always get all the employees they need from
their current staff, and sometimes they just don’t want to.

1. Informal Recruiting and the Hidden Job Market

• Job openings aren’t publicized.

• Jobs are created and become available when employers come across the right
candidates.
2. Recruiting via the Internet
• Ads on company Website

• Job boards

• Virtual job fairs

3. Using Recruitment Software and Artificial Intelligence
• Applicant Tracking System (ATS)
– online systems that help employers attract, gather, screen, compile, and
manage applicants
• Artificial intelligence systems
– Automating the resume analysis (Here the main focus is on
automating the résumé analysis. To paraphrase one expert, why read through
10,000 résumés if a machine can instantaneously find the top 20? )
– Beware of bias
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Advertising
While Web-based recruiting is replacing traditional help wanted ads, print ads are
still popular. To use such help wanted ads successfully, employers should address
two issues:
• the advertising medium and
• the ad’s construction.
• The media: The best medium—the local paper. Example: Prothom Alo
• Constructing (writing) the ad: Experienced advertisers use the guide
AIDA (attention, interest, desire, action) to construct ads. First, you must grab
attention to the ad.
Employment Agencies
• Public agencies

• Nonprofit agencies

• Private agencies
Outside Sources: RPOs and ODRS
• Recruiting Process Outsourcers (RPOs): are special vendors that handle
all or most of an employer’s recruiting needs. They usually sign short-term contracts with
the employer, and receive a monthly fee that varies with the amount of actual recruiting the
employer needs done. Ex: IBM Recruitment Services.

• On-Demand Recruiting Services (ODRS): are recruiters who are

paid by the hour or project, instead of a percentage fee, to support a specific
project. For example: charge 20% to 30% of each hire’s salary

Poaching
• Can produce good recruits, but can be problematic.
– Uber’s agreement to pay Google $245 million
Offshoring and Outsourcing Jobs
• Outsourcing
– Outsourcing means having outside vendors supply services (such as
benefits management, market research, or manufacturing) that the
company’s own employees previously did in-house.
• Offshoring
– Offshoring means having outside vendors or employees abroad supply services
that the company’s own employees previously did
– in-house.Not just blue-collar jobs

Executive Recruiters (Headhunters)

• are special employment agencies employers retain to seek
out top-management talent for their clients.
• Recruiter fees are around 15% to 25% of the executive’s
total first-year pay (salary plus bonus).
 Recruiting Sources/Tools
• Referrals and Walk-ins
– Employee referral campaigns
– Walk-ins: direct applications
• College Recruiting: Sending an employer’s representatives to college
campuses to prescreen applicants and create an applicant pool from the graduating
class.

• Internships: Employers can use the interns to make useful contributions while
evaluating them as possible full-time employees. A study found that about 60% of
internships turned into job offers.

• Military Personnel: Returning and discharged military personnel provide an

excellent source of trained and disciplined recruits.
Recruiting a More Diverse Workforce
• Women: For high-level managerial posts, and still earn only about 70% of what
men earn for similar jobs. policies including: flexible hours, zero-tolerance sexual
harassment policy

• Single Parents: Recently, there were about 15 million single-parent families with
children under 18 maintained by the mother and about 5 million maintained by the father.
Many firms have flextime programs that provide employees some schedule flexibility (such as
1-hour windows at the beginning or end of the day).

• Older Workers: workers over 65 can progressively shorten their work schedules;
another company uses “mini shifts” to accommodate those interested in working less than full-
time.

• Minorities: understand the barriers that prevent minorities from applying.

• The Disabled: The candidates with expressed disabilities were chosen by recruiters 26%
less frequently for follow-up than were those with no revealed disability. Example: Affirmative
Action.
Developing and Using Application
Forms
Application Form: The form that provides information on education, prior
work record, and skills.
• Purpose of Application Forms: A filled-in application provides four
types of information.
• First, you make judgments on substantive matters, such as whether the
applicant has the education and experience to do the job.
• Second, you can draw conclusions about the applicant’s previous progress
and growth, especially important for management candidates.
• Third, you can draw tentative conclusions about the applicant’s stability
based on previous work record (although years of downsizing suggest the
need for caution here).
• Fourth, you may be able to use the data in the application to predict which
candidates will succeed on the job.
 Application Guidelines
Application forms must comply with equal employment laws.
Problematical items include:
– Education
– Arrest record
– Notify in case of emergency
– Membership in organizations
– Physical handicaps
– Marital status
– Housing
– Video resumes
Developing and Using Application
Forms (2 of 2)
• Using Application Forms to Predict Job Performance
– Some employers analyze application information
(“biodata”) to predict employee tenure and performance. In
one study, the researchers found that applicants who had longer
tenure with previous employers were less likely to quit, and
also had higher performance within 6 months after hire.
• Mandatory Arbitration
–Many employers, aware of the high costs of litigation, require
applicants to agree on their applications to mandatory
arbitration should a dispute arise.