Recruitment Challenges In An Organization: Essay On Solutions.

Challenges to recruitment for the Commonwealth bank organization

Discuss about the Recruitment Challenges in an Organization and Recommended Solutions.

Human resource management practices are very widely changing in order to enable various organizations and industries to compete globally and in deregulated environment. A common rationale for adoption of the approach of the development and the implementation of the human resource management is the urge to improve on the organizational practices. The practices include recruitment and selection among others (Argenti and Beck, 2005). This paper reviews some of the issues related to recruitment in organizations and the possible counter strategies

Recruitment is the process of searching for and obtaining the required candidates who are well equipped with knowledge, skills and experience. The main aim of the recruitment process is finding a vast number of applicants to provide the maximum opportunity for selecting the best candidates required for the task in that specific organization (Argyris and Schön, 2006). Ineffective recruitment results in reduced productivity, operations and customer service interruptions and interpersonal difficulties. After the recruitment process then selection is carried out. This involves performance of interviews to select the best and most appropriate candidate. This ensures that the appointed person is to the greatest advantage to the organization as he or she will be the most qualified.

Looking Commonwealth bank in Australia as our case study, it is a fast growing organization. It's a multinational bank of Australia with branches in Fiji, USA, New Zealand, United Kingdom and Asia. Just like any other industry it also does recruitment constantly.  This is because of transfers, deaths and even retirements (Balkundi, and Harrison, 2006).

Like any other organizations, Commonwealth bank also faces a number of challenges in its recruitment process. Demographic issues, recruitment strategies, organizational image and labour supply and demand are some of the challenges (Bakker and Demerouti, 2007).  Diversity management entails a range of management and leadership practices that enhances diversity values in the workforce therefore increasing the success of the organization. It aims at encouraging the productiveness and mutually beneficial interactions among employees. In an organization employees will always have different ages, background, skills as well as needs. In order for optimal yield to the organization and the community at large, then proper management is paramount.

Change in demographic factors is one of the main factors that cause an organization to adopt practices that respond to the increasing diversity. Outlining some of the demographic issues in the Commonwealth bank, we see family structure rapidly changing in Australia and the world at large (Chalofsky, 2007). One parent families are more common nowadays. This means that the parent is the sole breadwinner and care giver for the family. It this means the parent have to juggle work, parenting, childcare and not forgetting the household chores. This may result into the unconscious business to the individual.

Recommendations on strategies to address the challenges

Ageing population or workforce is another issue when it comes to recruitment. Positive ageing leads to gradual retirement. In some cases during recruitment, the most qualified candidate with the required skills and enough experience to fill the gap in the CBA may be just having a few years to retire (Christian and Slaughter, 2011). The panel therefore is faced with a challenge of decision making whether to pick the best qualified who retires shortly or pick the young but not most appropriate. If the elderly is picked, time may limit him or her to fully exercise his potential within the organization. This challenge is mainly experienced in the posts that require a person of great experience like the managerial posts. Age as a factor also has a great input on health and welfare services as its common knowledge that some sickness conditions that require much medical attention like high blood pressure comes with age. This means more adventures and sick leaves leaving more work pending.

Labour force diversity is another crucial challenge when it comes to recruitment. There is an increasing need for women empowerment even in Australia at large (Cohen, 2008). The Commonwealth bank is faced with the challenge of ensuring women's full participation. Even after adapting the gender equity, women are still not holding the managerial position in large numbers. Most of the high ranking positions are left for men. Being a multinational company, the Commonwealth bank needs to embrace multiculturalism when recruiting its workforce. There is the ethnic and religious diversity that if not put into consideration at the time of recruitment may lower the productivity of the organization (Collings and Wood, 2009). Diversity also includes the less fortunate social service support members like the people with various disabilities. Since disability is not inability, recruitment process needs to take into consideration their needs and well-being.

Another challenge in recruitment is the aspect of organizational image. The Commonwealth bank is popularly known for its unconscious biasness towards women. A woman employee confessed of getting a promotion after a maternity leave. Gender diversity is not always just about getting more women recruited but empowering them to advance in their careers too (Jeff and Michael, 2009). Most of the women employees are in the lower ranks while the managerial posts are left for the men. However the company tends to give special favors to parents, children care takers, giving out paid leaves for nursing mothers. It is not an easy task to manage gender balance especially as men will always feel left out in some cases when women are receiving special favors and benefits. Men feel awful when their colleagues from leaves get reinstated to other departments for flexibility or get promotions.

Recruitment strategies which includes employer branding and types of advertisements is a vital challenge to be dealt with in the recruitment process. Being a multinational company, the mode of advertisements meant to promote the products and services plays a crucial role in enhancing the brand (Linkow, 2008). The information needs to reach so many people as much as possible so as to make the qualified applying for the posts. It mainly does its marketing through the social media. At times one gets to know of the information way past the deadline and this may end up leaving the most appropriate candidate out simply because of not getting the information in time. The employer Commonwealth bank is branded as a very high class company and at times one may develop cold feet thinking the expectations and requirements are way beyond reach (Oertig and Buergi, 2006).

Labour supply and demand is a common challenge in most of the companies. However this is not the case in commonwealth bank.  The number of people wanting to supply their services of employment is just extraordinary. This owes to the fact that it is an organization that is well established and well paying.  Its branches are also spread across a number of countries. Since the job security is paramount the reverse takes place here, there’s more demand of jobs than supply. This is a challenge because when a position is advertised, getting the right person is always tedious as applications tend to be overwhelming. One may end up being disqualified just for a slight error even though he or she is qualified (Richard and Kate, 2009). At times this fact makes people develop a phobia for application because they think the qualified will be in excess therefore missing an opportunity. It is also a blessing in disguise as the applicants who submit makes sure everything is in order to compete with the high demand therefore the bank may end up getting the best.

These recruitment challenges if not taken care of can have negative implications to the company. Dealing with diversity issues, there is need to implement good work quality while at the same time ensure quality is not eroded. A better understanding and awareness pertaining to different cultures is recommended (Purcell, 2014). These include their cultural practices and religious beliefs. Since the Commonwealth bank organization has branches in different countries, it is advisable to integrate recruitment at a country's level where the management team is conversant with the culture of the applicants. Another recommendation is contracting the bodies that professionals in conducting recruitments.

There is need to create non-discriminatory environment during the recruitment process and also during the entire working process. This allows everyone to feel accommodated. The work places become family friendly. Diversity brings business benefits as there is development of partnerships, teamwork, new markets and even legal compliance. When there is a well embraced diverse workforce then generally there must be increased cultural awareness.

When dealing with organizational image, the Commonwealth bank needs to come up with projects to make men too not feel neglected so much (Rich, Lepine and Crawford, 2010). There is unseen business towards women which though is to the advantage of the company; it makes men feel left out. Gender equity should include caring for both men and women. Forums where they have a sense of belonging should be more encouraged like the men's retreats.

There is need to continue encouraging the pay equity issues which ensure that men and women performing the same roles and at the same ranks  gets comparable values of the same remuneration in terms of salary,  access to overtime,  performance ratings and even disciplinary actions. This makes both men and women feel accommodated and work whole heartedly without having a formed opinion (Richman, 2006). Branding and advertisements should be the customer or client friendly. When a vacancy arises and there is need to for it to be advertised, all platforms should be used. This ensures the information reaches the optimum number of people. Posters, brochures, social media, CBA TV, radios, newsletters, newspapers, Internet all should be used. Since it's a multinational company, advertisement needs to be done in the local languages too. This will accommodate a larger audience.

Unconscious bias (UB) trainings are recommended to continue as they have given a positive impact. When the trainings are offered to managers, they identify their weaknesses and plan how to overcome them. This promotes team work and minimizes interpersonal differences among the employees as well resulting into the well-being of the company. The Commonwealth bank in order to avoid the unconscious biasness in giving out leaves and permission to nursing mothers, it's recommended that it's continues to embrace the childcare programs it embarked on closer to its major offices so that it's employees can work comfortably as their children are taken care of.

The people with disabilities are also taken care of when their needs and well-being is covered. The Commonwealth bank already has a program in collaboration with the Australian government where the Careers Australia gives funding to the betterment of the disabled and the ageing (Trice and Beyer, 2009). This creates makes them have the special facilities like the toilets, chairs and the pathways they need. The partially blind are given computers with larger prints to make work easier for them.

Conclusion

The human resource management practices are changing rapidly globally. For this, to cope up with the trends the Commonwealth bank also has tried to work harder in embracing change. It's one of the most successful organizations in Australia and therefore to maintain the standards it has raised, there must be proper human resource management especially at the recruitment level. Every company is faced with challenges at the recruitment stage and commonwealth bank is not an exceptional. Labour supply and demand being a common challenge. Others include the demographic issues which affect diversity, ageing workforce and generations .Different generations experiences different challenges. Being a multinational company it experiences multiculturalism. Gender equity is also a challenge in the organization. For effective operations and high yield productiveness of the company, then the recommendation must be followed to the latter. Recruitment is a continuous process as there are constant promotions, terminations due to unavoidable circumstances like illness, deaths, creation of new posts and retirements. A proper way of dealing with the process needs to be embraced by the companies to curb the challenge. A mistake done at the recruitment level can affect the whole system of work of the company for a very long period of time. Diversity is a challenge facing all multinational companies as it deals with different cultures and religions. 

References

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