People in Organizations

 

People in Organizations

Section 1: Literature Review

This paper is about selection of employees in management of organizations. Selection can be said to be a process that includes identification and hiring people to fill in vacant positions in an organization (Yu, Lam & Lo 2005). This is a very tasking part of getting workers because it comes after recruitment which is a more general activity that includes looking for possible candidates for a particular job. The process of selection is focused on picking the best suited people for that particular post (Thoresen et al 2004). This is more of a negative process because it involves being biased in terms of getting the most qualified people for a particular post. It is a process of personnel selection that involves the use of several screening methods that include use of minimum or desired qualification, applications review, oral interviews, work performance measures, traditional tests of knowledge about the job and many more ways. This is a field in organizations whose history is based from human resources and industrial psychology to ensure that the best people are hired for organizations. Selection in itself includes reducing a short-listed group of people which leads to an employment decision (Yu, Lam & Lo 2005).

This is a process whereby the human resource and industrial psychology departments of an organization get to interact with the job applicants and determine whether they are qualified for a job or not. This is the process through which some applicants are rejected. This is what mainly what makes it a negative process (Thoresen et al 2004). To achieve this, interviews are conducted or supervised by trained individuals in most situations to get the required numbers of employees. The interview are structured to follow a particular set of questions that reflect on a person’s job profile and it also gives the candidates an opportunity to ask questions about the job, their expected responsibilities, and familiarize with the kind of work environment that they want to join (Eaton & Hunt 2002). Interviews serve the purpose of a selective device and also acts as a mechanism of giving information about the job and organization to the candidate and this gives a very good job preview and this reduces the chance of the job being rejected by the candidates. Alongside interviews, other appropriate psychometric measures are used in the process of selection (Flynn, Chatman & Spataro 2001). Moreover, a number of measurement methods are used to ensure that the best candidates are picked. This could be use of observation during interviews or a practical bit interviews (Eaton & Hunt 2002).

Validity of selection methods

Most organizations work at ensuring that their selection methods are effective enough in order to ensure that they employ the best personnel available. Making a good judgment about a person’s characteristics and suitability of performing the best in an organization is not easy and it is very tricky for organizations to achieve (Chan & Schmitt 2004).  Reliability and validity of selection methods needs to be emphasized. Reliability cab be said to be whether the selection method can produce quality results. Validity refers to whether the selection method used is appropriate or not.

In terms of selection, reliability can be refer to several issues and they include; the consistency of the results that the selection tools produce (Cappell 2009).  For a particular tool to be used in job selection, it must have been seen to produce consistent results over time. This can be done through some tools that have been proved to produce consistent results such as personality inventories or intelligence tests. These help in identifying the people’s personality characteristics and therefore it is possible to determine whether the personality characteristics of the people suitable for the job or not (Cappell 2009). The intelligence tests determine the intelligence levels of the people because this is a very important part that needs to be determined before candidates are given a particular job. The temporal stability of the selection tool is also another issue that is considered.

Validity has different aspects that are considered in the use of a particular selection tool. The acceptability of the selection method is one of them. The selection tool must be acceptable to the candidate and also to the organization (Chan & Schmitt 2004). The use of a selection tool that is not acceptable to the candidate leads to the achievement or low quality results because the perspective of the candidate can affect the results and for results to be acceptable as valid it has to provide adequate results (Briers, 2002). The tool has also to provide a level of predictability of the results that is similar to the subsequent outcomes. The validity of a selection tool alongside fairness shows the tool is suitable for high-performance organizations. The validity measures should be done very carefully because they are likely to be affected by performance indicators that are employed and by the ways in which the tool was used (Briers, 2002).

The stages of employee selection

The process of employee selection constitutes of different stages and different actions that are taken by different people in the organization. The first stage of the process of the notification stage whereby the manager commissions the human resource department to announced a particular post vacant. This is important because the senior most boss of an organization has to give the mandate to the human resource to post a notification of a vacant position and support the process of recruitment and selection (Ryan & Ployhart 2000). The manager is also the person who decides the qualifications that he wants for that particular post. The human resource therefore asks for the qualifications that the manager wants in the vacancy post. The human resource then posts advertisements in the local newspapers and online for people to apply for the position. This is the process through which the human resource finds candidates for the job. The next stage is the reviewing stage. The human resource reviews the resumes sent by applicants and matches the qualifications of the candidates to those required in the job (Ryan & Ployhart 2000). The numerous resumes submitted to the organization are reviewed in order to determine which candidates are more qualified than others. This is important because some candidates are highly qualified over the qualifications that are required by the organization while some have lower qualifications.

The organization is mostly interested with the average qualifications because picking very high qualifications can lead to abandonment of the organization by the employee after a short time because they have gotten a better offer elsewhere (Rodrigues & Gaston 2002). The lower qualifications can be very risky because quality work is not guaranteed from these workers (Chan, Chan & Qu 2002). Therefore, the average qualifications are mostly the realistic ones for organizations. This is the stage whereby the hiring manager and the human resource must determine the realistic number of candidates that they can bring in for an interview. When a very big number of candidates are reached on, the interviewing process might be ineffective and getting the best qualifications might also be difficult. When a very small number of candidates are picked, it could also be difficult to pick the best candidates because there is no wide range of qualifications to choose from (Rodrigues & Gaston 2002).

Screening is the next stage whereby a screening interview is carried out. Human resource management carries out screening interviews through the phone in order to reach every candidate including those who live far away from the organization (Chan, Chan & Qu 2002). Telephone screening is a procedure that is used to further narrow the number of candidates and it also plays an important role in ensuring the best candidates are picked. The telephone interviews determine whether the candidate has the qualifications that the organization is looking for and realistically bring them in for interviewing (Dessler, Starke & Cyr 2001). The other stage is interviewing which in most situations is formal. This is one of the very important and critical processes in hiring employees. The formal interviews are face-to-face so as to ensure that the human resource gets to interact with the candidates and determine the best. Most organizations carry out all-day interviewing which allows the candidates to meet with various people during different sessions of the interviewing process. The candidates interact with the human resource, the hiring manager and other employees. The other alternative way of interviewing the candidates is allowing them to meet with the key personnel one day and allocate another day when they can meet with the executives of the organization (Dessler, Starke & Cyr 2001).

The other stage is the selection stage. In the process of selection, there is the selection phase in itself whereby the hiring manager asks for feedback from the human resource and other personnel involved in interviewing the candidates (Bundy & Norris 2011). The hiring manager then reviews his own requirements and determines which candidates are fit for the job. The qualifications are one way of determining the candidates to be picked for the job but the hiring manager determines the candidates that he or she can work with by considering their personalities (Aycan & Fikret-Pasa 2003). This ensures that the manager chooses people who can work under minimum supervision and who can be easily coordinated. The final stage is the screening stage whereby the candidates are required to go through some tests for example drug tests and psychological tests to ensure psychological and health fitness of the candidates that the organization intends to employee. These tests help further in eliminating the unfit candidates who are not in a position to work effectively in the working environment and ensuring that those picked can fit perfectly to the work environment (Bundy & Norris 2011).

The selection process

To ensure that the best qualified applicants are fitted to the right job, the human resource and the hiring manager engage in different selection techniques (Bo & Jonassen 2002). For internal applicants, pre-employment inquiries are made, background investigations, and an application form may also administer for filling. In situations where external applicants are considered, the whole process of selection is carried out (Bo & Jonassen 2002).

Pre-employment inquiries

This is a technique that is mainly carried out for internal applicants whereby a specified amount of information is required from all the applicants. This information is classified into two categories that is; general information and suitability of an applicant to a particular job. In the general information, the applicant is expected to give details about their identification, classification and record keeping (Hagedorn & Manovskii, 2013). The second category involves information that suggests that suggests that one fits in a particular post. The information that is picked must be job related because the aim of asking for the information is for purposes of job selection. All these are forms of tests but designed in different ways. The inquiries made at this point are limited but they play a role in influencing the decisions of the hiring manager and the human resource manager (Rodrigues, Gregory & Gaston 2000). This information is not intended at knowing the racial, ethnic, or religious characteristics of the applicant although it is sometimes questioned on this context. This information is mostly collected from the application forms of the candidates, background investigations, and initial screening. These methods of acquiring information are discussed briefly (Hagedorn & Manovskii, 2013).

Application forms

Considering that application forms are the most used selection tools, it is very easy to get reliable information about the applicant through the use of application forms. The application forms also indicate the interest of the applicants on the job (Allsop & Wray 2002). This means that the applicant is likely to use truthful information about themselves in the forms. Moreover, this kind of data can be stored and easily retrieved because they are easy to store and keep records of (Rodrigues, Gregory & Gaston 2000). The application forms for all kinds of jobs are required to be standard and therefore they do not discriminate on anyone. They are also legally questionable and therefore the applicants are very careful when filling put application forms. Another form of application form that has been lately introduced is the supplemental application form (SAF). The work of this form is as its name suggests and it supplements an organization’s general application form (Allsop & Wray 2002).

This form is designed for one job classification and it allows many items to be included in it. This kind of form could for example require the applicant to fill in information about their experience when offering specific services (Aycan & Fikret-Pasa 2003). This provides information about the responsibility of the applicant and whether the applicant is well experienced in that post or not. The questions included in this kind of application form therefore are always in line with an applicant’s responsibilities in the post they are applying for (Aycan & Fikret-Pasa 2003). This is a very important form of a selection device because it allows applicants to do a self-screening through the use of this device. They also allow the evaluation of education and experience in content. This method is preferred because it gives more information on an applicant about experience other than typically putting a minimum number of years of experience. This is because it contains more reliable information than the number (Chan & Ho 2000). This also eliminates the aspect of discrimination on basis of physical disabilities or gender. The final section of application forms that contains the gender and race details is not meant to be discriminative but it is for record purposes. This is for computing and coming up with appropriate statistics (Chan & Ho 2000).

Initial screening

This is a process whereby an interview is conducted immediately after an applicant has filled the application for or even before an applicant fills the form (Olivieri et al 2010). This interview is important because it reviews whether it is necessary to maintain contact with the person or not. The information included is related to job interests, carrier goals, location of work preferred, salary expectations, and availability of the applicant. The commonly used kind of initial screening interview is a structured one because it is standardized and allows the interviewer to focus on some specific information (Olivieri et al 2010).

Background investigations

This includes obtaining information about the applicant’s past performance in terms. These include credit checks, driving records, past employer checks, and reference checks (Andrews & Lu 2001). Equal standards of information are expected to be applied on every applicant to avoid bias. If a particular item is used to give the job to one person, then the same should be applied for all the other applicants. This method is sometimes discriminative to minority groups because they are not given a chance to explain the poor references even though there are possibilities that there are reasonable reasons for the poor references (Andrews & Lu 2001).

Section 3: ‘Traffic light’ reflective aid sheet

Red	Orange	Green
The subject that I find very difficult to understand is why hiring managers do not have trust a highly qualified people that they can contribute in developing the organization other that leaving when they get a better offer (Fan & Li 2004) Even though this can be justifiable reason for rejecting them, they should be given a change to do a job because a good work environment can maintain workers not just better pay (Hall & Weaver 2001).	Some of the difficulties that I have are in understanding how genuine the filling in ethnic and religious details is. It is difficult to understand whether these details are used to determine who is to be employed or not (Fan & Li 2004). It is difficult to apply this subject content in situations where selection of employees is required because of human bias which is a common human weakness. In as much as it is said that it can be avoided, it could affect the outcomes in one way or another (Hall & Weaver 2001).	The experience area that I have full understanding of is the use of application forms to discriminately eliminate the less qualified candidates and remain with best (Fan & Li 2004). This can be applied in all jobs because actually all kinds of jobs require professionalism in terms of education and experience (Hall & Weaver 2001).
Description of experience or event? The experience in this subject is denying graduates who pass with first class honors a job and instead giving the job to candidates with a pass mark (Hausknecht, Day & Thomas 2004).	Description of experience or event? The experienced event in this subject is the fact that one finds dominance of a group of people in a particular field (Hausknecht, Day & Thomas 2004). It is therefore questionable whether the selection was really fair or was it that a specific group of people was more qualified than others.	Description of experience or event? The event I have experienced is the application of this skill to differentiate between those who have knowledge in a particular job and those who can actually use the knowledge to perform tasks (Hausknecht, Day & Thomas 2004).
Improvement / plans / development? (analysis and evaluation) The candidates should be given a job based on their ability to do a task because the organizations can benefit highly from those with great knowledge and skill (Hoegl & Gemuenden 2001).	Improvement / plans / development? (analysis and evaluation) Because of the many situations that one finds some dominant group in a job, the details about race and religion should be collected after selection has taken place to ensure that there is no bias (Hoegl & Gemuenden 2001).	Improvement / plans / development? (analysis and evaluation) The improvements that can be made in this area are to eliminate discrimination in terms of taking those who have more knowledge to be the ones who have better skills (Hoegl & Gemuenden 2001). An explanation should also be acceptable if only it is realistic because everyone has a chance of performing better in a particular task than they did before.

 

Section Four: How you worked as a team member

The kind of research done was group research in the library and individual research both in the library and through the internet (Hough, Oswald & Ployhart 2001).  Through these methods of research it was possible to accumulate a wide variety about the topic and the various tasks. The group leader was responsible of ensuring that all the members are present for the research and discussion meetings and that everyone gave his contributions (Van Dick & West 2005).

The group leader ensured that everyone presented a written presentation of their research and also an oral presentation of what their research was about. This served well for the group because people had different interests in the tasks and therefore it was possible to get information from different people which were interesting (Lenhart, Simon & Graziano, 2001). The time for meetings was highly observed and fines imposed on anyone who failed to attend in time. There was also assessment among the group members to know whether the group members understand the tasks and the information provided. This was done mostly through brain storming and random questions. Teamwork increased the group morale and everyone was able to do their tasks to perfection (Lenhart, Simon & Graziano, 2001). The team was also encouraged to put great effort making work easier for everyone. The original research information from different group member was filed for future reference and a final paper was drafted about the overall research. Linking all the information from different member would not have been easier without the cooperation of every team member (He, Chick & Chen, 2007). The team members were also in a position to adjust to the needs and expectations of one another and high levels of discipline were observed (Oliveira, Frazao & Paleocrassas, 2000). The team members did not engage in unproductive arguments or in misunderstandings that would jeopardize the work of the group. All the misunderstandings were resolved immediately under the leadership of the group leader. This reflects good leadership in the team (Oliveira, Frazao & Paleocrassas, 2000).  The ability to manage crisis in the group is an indicator that the leader was able to hold the group together and resolve anything that was not of benefit to the group. The members were also working towards the goals of the team and following individual interests. This was of great importance because there were no difficulties in allocating tasks and the leader was able to easily coordinate the members. In other words, the members worked under minimum supervision (Van Dick & West 2005).

Teamwork could be seen by the flexibility of the team members in that the team members were ready to sacrifice their time whenever they were called to duty. The in competencies that emerged within the group were tailored within the group and this helped in acquiring knowledge about one another (Iacovou, Shirland & Thompson, 2011). This leads to understanding among the team members. Accountability was highly valued by the group members and this helped in ensuring that every task allocated was done to completion. It was also every member’s responsibility to ensure that each member does their role by for example, reminding them during class time so that by the time the group meets, all the tasks will be complete (Gregory, 2013). This played a very important role in uniting the group and it also helped every group member to feel like a leader so no one came out dominantly in the group. Immediate feedback was also seen among all the team members so as to maximize team functioning (Kelton & Law 2000). This is one of the characteristics of effective team performance. This promoted reliability on the team members (Iacovou, Shirland & Thompson, 2011). This also gave every member the feeling that each one of them is going to deliver. This also promoted the feeling of having an obligation that has to be met to the group. It would be of no importance to call it a team if there was no that stick togetherness (Gregory 2013).

As learn from the tasks and the whole module, I have learnt decision making skills that can help me to select workers without bias on race or religion (Lewis & Slotnick 2002). From participating as a team member, one is able to know that everyone has great capacity of knowledge and skill and therefore it is necessary to look on what the individual has to offer. Through team work, one is able to develop strategic plans of dealing with teams and different kinds of people (Griffin & Moorehead 2011). The interaction also helps one to understand what could have been difficult to understand alone and also be able to gain more knowledge. As a result of this, one is able to understand nearly everything and just a few things are not fully clarified (Shipton et al 2006).

One develops on a personal level through close interaction with others (Yang & Geunes 2007). The personal development involves development of leadership skills, decision making skills, coordination skills, and adaptation skills (Shipton et al 2006). This is helpful to an individual because they will have the courage to seek help from others whenever they do not understand something outside group context. This further improves one’s knowledge and skills through interaction with other people (Maza & Tidor 1993). One gets skills on how they can resolve conflicts in different situations, inside and outside class. In group work, there are different approaches that emerge in different areas and therefore one is able to learn that they can approach different problems from different perspectives and this leads to finding the bests solutions (Larson, 2007) One is able to interact well socially and they learn social facilitation skills that they can use in different social situations. Communication and information passing skills are also improved and high order in teams (Lewis & Slotnick 2002). Therefore information exchange is increased and therefore one is able to share their own information and also get information from others (Larson, 2007) Greater autonomy, variety, identity, significance, and feedback are acquired by the team members enabling them to work in a better way as a team and as individuals. Mutual support is another thing that develops in the academic aspect of the students. The students learn to give support to one another so as to ensure success of every individual (Maza & Tidor 1993).

 

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