Recruitment And Selection Functions Of An Organization: Woolworths

Question

Task: What are the internal and external factors that will be influencing or having an impact on the recruitment and selection procedure of Woolworths?

Answer

Executive Summary:
There are various internal and external factors that are involved in recruitment and selection process. This report will be covering all those factors that have an impact on the recruitment and selection procedure of Woolworths. The company aims to expand its business and launch new products for which recruitment and selection procedure is followed. The company conducts a proper procedure and genuine/impartial process while recruiting new candidates

Introduction
Within an organization, the recruitment and selection process is considered to be the vital part of the Human resource department. It is the sole duty of HR department to find and hire the right candidate for the right position and at right time as per the need of the organization (Clark, 2010). For having clear, measurable and successful selection criteria the HR department has to speculate both the internal as well as external factors. Such factors have a greater influence on company’s functioning and its growth to a significant level.

The main objective of this assignment is to deliver the procedure involved in the recruitment and selection process at Woolworths considering all the internal factors having an impact on it. Furthermore, there are certain external factors related to social, legal, political and economic factors that have major impact on recruitment and selection process are also discussed in depth

Company Background
Woolworths is an Australian largest Super grocery store chain. Its headquarter is in Bella Vista, Australia. At Woolworths focus is on ensuring the right people at the right jobs at the right time in the recruitment process. It has set its criteria for selection of an individual on the fair terms and based on merit, relevant experience as well as capabilities of the applicant. The company believes in treating its employees with respect and equally. The HR division of the company is committed to abiding by the company rules and regulations and ensures that Anti-discrimination law and Equal Employment Opportunity Legislation are followed fairly in the process of recruitment and selection. Along with that, as per the Privacy Act, HR department maintains all the personal documents that are provided by the candidates during the selection process (Woolworthslimited.com.au, 2015).

Requirement for Recruitment and Selection Process in Woolworths
An effective recruitment and selection process to recruit a worthy candidate for an esteemed position in the company can be paramount to the success of any organization (Jack Chen, 2011). In the company, candidates are selected on the basis of jobs or position available in the organization by scrutinizing pool of potential candidates having required knowledge and experience. According to Dessler & Teiche et al. (2004), it is the HR department’s responsibility to manage this process in a way that can ensure the proper regularity in filling the positions and getting the optimum output from the employees. While recruitment and selection process, internal as well as external recruitment is being conducted, which is time-saving and allows creative and fresh ideas to float in the organization. Moreover, there should be clearly stated policies related with recruitment that allows an organization to select the most appropriate candidate to fill the job position against predefined descriptions and specification of a vacancy that increases the productivity with the smooth functioning of an organization.

Internal Factors Affecting Recruitment and Selection Process in Woolworths
The HR department of Woolworths is specialist and efficient in conducting recruitment and selection process. There are various internal factors involved in the recruitment and selection procedures which have impact and influence on the process are discussed below:-

Recruitments policy- Arlot and Celisse (2010) remarked that Recruitment policy classifies the objectives of Woolworths, preferred sources of recruitment and well-defined recruitment policies. These are the factors, which act as guiding principle in the recruitment process that helps in knowing the basic requirement of the recruitment. Primarily, with the help of the Recruitment Policy, an outline is drawn to achieve recruitment basic process. The company fills up the vacancies successfully with the most suitable, qualified, and skilled candidate (Nkhungulu Mulenga and Van Lill, 2007). Its recruitment policies are made in such a fair manner that everyone is bound to follow its rules to conduct a fair recruitment process.

Firm size - Wheatley (2010) stated that the recruitment process of a firm gets affected by its size. As the enterprise grows, diversifies, expands, its recruitment and selection process also changes accordingly as it is natural that company would require more manpower to meet daily operations and ultimate objective. It is in regard to expand the business and launch new products, Woolworths has such strong and systematic Recruitment and Selection process for generating a pool of capable candidates for the organization (Van den Brink et al., 2006). The company is known for retaining and sustaining its customers with the help of clearly defined guiding rules and regulations in the process of recruitment and selection. Woolworths’ workforce size is considerably huge even though it keeps on trying to expand its business to gain edge globally by having great strategy execution and hard work.

Cost- An imperative part of a company is its cost and company’s recruitment and selection process gets affected by it (Zhao and Liden, 2011). Hence, before going through the whole process it is imperative for an organization to calculate the cost involved in the recruitment procedure. After that, it is also necessary to identify the need for the process. As far as Woolworths is concerned, as it is a big firm and because of its nature of expanding, there is always need of new employees.

Growth and expansion- To execute the planning of expansion of the organization, the company focuses on continuous filling up of vacant position with the qualified candidates (Ofori and Aryeetey, 2011). It is the need of the hour for an organization that to sustain in the market it is always in need of creative ideas and well-experienced for people which recruitment process is a must. Being Australia’s huge supermarket, it has made its significant position across the world by expanding and constantly meeting the consumers’ needs. For the growth of the organization, new talent with fresh ideas is crucial, this need results in carrying out recruitment and selection process fairly. Field and Siavelis (2011) stated that the organization is carrying out its recruitment processes based on the firmly formulated recruitment policies hence, it never misses out any potential and talented candidate, it recruitment process is carried out on the grounds of merit, experience, and energy that gives them the best people to work with.

Human Resource Planning- The human resource planning is an indispensable part as it comprehends Human Resource department to identify the current gap in the existing manpower of the organization. Constantly increasing the number of employees in Woolworths clearly depicts that it is growing, expanding, and introducing new products at a good pace (Cerrito and McLean, 2010). The need of clear recruitment policies can be easily understood by anyone, as this is the only way to bridge the gaps by filling in the appropriate candidate.

External Factors affecting the Recruitment and Selection Process in Woolworths
Woolworths proactively take some general considerations related to external factors that affect recruitment and selection procedures of the organization. To ensure employees’ retention and satisfaction, there are external factors that influence the fairness of the recruitment procedure. Below referred external factors are discussed at length:-

Social Factors- In Woolworths, social factors have great influence on the recruitment and selection procedure (Cordner and Cordner, 2011). Woolworths being well-renowned in Australia has to be very particular while recruiting the appropriate and efficient candidate for the company. A company’s culture gets directly affected by its employees hence, it should be closely taken care of while recruiting and retaining the employees. To retain the employees, a healthy, supportive and responsive culture must be maintained in an organization (Edenborough, 2005). It should be ensured that vacancies should be filled on fairgrounds of merit and experience alone. It should follow a fair practice right through the recruitment process to decision taken so that in the end all are assured that the new candidates are being recruited by following a clean procedure and tend to stay in the company.

Legal Factors- It is the responsibility of HR department to know the organization and Government&rsquo's rules, regulations and laws, also to ensure to abide by them (Van den Brink et al., 2006). Employers shall have clearly stated policies and practices within the firm, also must maintain the records of international laws related with labor, employment etc. for the proper functioning, and to meet the legal requirements to be legally safe to avoid any legal troubles. As far as Woolworths’ legal factors are concerned they keep the proper record of employees’, all necessary documents are maintained with care within the organization (Wheatley, 2010). Furthermore, legal factors like employment discrimination and wages discrimination should abstain. The employer should not delay in giving salaries and wages to the employees as stated in standard rules of the industry.

Political Factors- There are various political factors that are important which influence the fair play of recruitment process (Jack Chen, 2011). Keeping into consideration the political factors, organizations must abide by the rules and regulations of the countries wherein they operate. Similarly, Woolworths needs to abide by the local rules and regulations of Australia by keeping political factors in mind. As per the Yan et al. (2010), Woolworths is capable of following and maintaining employment and labor laws with that national security and national interest is being concerned

Economic Factors- HR department of Woolworths has proper awareness and takes full consideration of the economic factors involved in the company. Building economic factors into the human resources plan helps to predict. Economic factors play a pivotal role. It is a significant factor to be focused on while conducting recruitment and selection procedure. Economic factors comprise of a company and country’s economic conditions (Edenborough, 2005). While going global, expanding its business or introducing a new product into the market Woolworths should consider fairly and rapidly its recruitment and selection procedure.

Recruitment and Selection Portfolio

Figure 1: Recruitment and Selection chart of Woolworths
(Source: Yan et al.2010, pp.430)

Recommendations
To get pool of qualified and deserving candidates the recruitment and selection procedures has to be fairly performed; there is no exception for Woolworths in regard to this. The company needs to think of the performance appraisal process and lay more focus on the incentives of the current employees. Besides, it is the responsibility of the organization to introduce changes in HR policies as per requirement and enforce the existing ones to ensure an unquestionable recruitment and selection process. It is to be noted that a fair recruitment procedure ensures in identifying and attracting potential candidates from within the company as well as outside the organization that helps increase the workforce and bridge the gap in the organization. It determines the increase in productivity, turnover and employee retention.

Conclusion
Effect of internal as well as external factors on the recruitment process of Woolworths is discussed at length in this report. The internal factors comprise of the firm size, recruitment and selection policy, human resource department and its efficiency, human resource planning, the cost involved, expansion and growth. The company is successful in expanding because these factors play a positive role in the recruitment and selection process of the company. Additionally, the external factors including legal, economic, social, and political also influence the recruitment and selection policy of the organization in the positive and constructive manner.

Reference List
Books: Dessler & Teicher., Dessler, G. and Teicher, J. (2004) “Recruitment & selection”, Frenchs Forest, N.S.W.: Pearson Education Australia

Edenborough, R. (2005) “Assessment methods in recruitment, selection, and performance”, London: Kogan Page

Journals
Arlot, S. and Celisse, A. (2010) “A survey of cross-validation procedures for model selection”, Statist. Surv., 4(0), pp.40-79

Cerrito, J. and McLean, G. (2010) “ Developing content-valid selection procedures: What every HPT and HRD professional should know”, Perf. Improv., 49(2), pp.29-35

Clark, M. (2010) “Experiencing recruitment and selection”, British Journal of Guidance & Counseling, 38(1), pp.137-139

Cordner, G. and Cordner, A. (2011) “Stuck on a Plateau?: Obstacles to Recruitment, Selection, and Retention of Women Police”, Police Quarterly, 14(3), pp.207-226

Field, B. and Siavelis, P. (2011) “Endogenizing legislative candidate selection procedures in nascent democracies: evidence from Spain and Chile”, Democratization, 18(3), pp.797-822

Jack Chen, E. (2011) “A revisit of two-stage selection procedures”, European Journal of Operational Research, 210(2), pp.281-286

Nkhungulu Mulenga, C. and Van Lill, B. (2007) “Recruitment and Selection of Foreign Professionals In the South African Job Market: Procedures and Processes”, SA j. hum. resour. manag., 5(3), pp. 78-96

Ofori, D. and Aryeetey, M. (2011) “Recruitment and Selection Practices in Small and Medium Enterprises: Perspectives from Ghana”, IJBA, 2(3), pp. 46-87

Van den Brink, M., Brouns, M. and Waslander, S. (2006) “Does excellence have a gender?”,Employee Relations, 28(6), pp.523-539

Wheatley, S. (2010) “Making the Right Investment – Recruitment and Selection”, Legal Information Management, 10(04), pp.279-282

Yan, J., Wu, Y. and Zhang, W. (2010) “Biodata as A Personnel Recruitment Selection Approach in China:Assessment and Its Validity”, Acta Psychologica Sinica, 42(3), pp.423-433

Zhao, H. and Liden, R. (2011) “Internship: A recruitment and selection perspective”, Journal of Applied Psychology, 96(1), pp.221-229

Websites
Woolworthslimited.com.au, (2015) Quality Brands and Trusted Retailing - Woolworths Limited, Available at: https://www.Woolworthslimited.com.au/ [Accessed 2 Feb. 2015