irs Best Practice in HR Handbook

Neil Rankin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781136391705
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

This handbook provides HR professionals with a comprehensive desktop reference guide to best practice.It draws on new and exciting IRS research, surveys and case studies and has been written in a practical way making full use of checklists and examples.Providing best-practice guidelines from named organizations, this new handbook is designed to show you how to approach a wide range of HR and related areas.The handbook also gives you compliance material in an easy-to-use format, clarifying what the law requires.

1. Filling your vacancies

DOI: 10.4324/9780080575032-1

See also: 2. Cost-effective selection; 3. Using electronic media effectively; 4. Checking candidates’ backgrounds; and 9. Equal opportunities and diversity.

This chapter covers:

• Overview;
• Cost-effective recruitment methods: for managers; IT specialists; sales staff; skilled workers; semi-and unskilled workers; new graduates; school-leavers and young people; and for all types of recruit;
• Developing recruitment and selection criteria: the development, use and updating of job descriptions and person specifications;
• Using competencies;
• Managing recruitment administration;
• Recruitment advertising;
• Recruitment advertising agencies;
• Jobcentres;
• Employment agencies;
• Headhunters;
• Recruitment fairs;
• Referral payments;
• Using schools, colleges and universities;
• Foreign workers; and
• Tackling skills shortages and other hard-to-fill vacancies.

Checklists in this chapter:

1. Acas on job descriptions
2. Guidelines for best practice in the use of job analysis techniques
3. Avoiding discrimination in person specifications and job descriptions
4. Competencies: the key issues
5. The key issues in effective recruitment advertising
6. Using recruitment advertising agencies: points to watch
7. Jobcentres: the points to watch
8. Using employment agencies: the key issues
9. Using headhunters
10. Recruitment fairs: the key issues
11. Referral schemes: the key issues
12. Alternatives to conventional recruitment advertising
13. Legal checklist

Case studies in this chapter:

1. Eden Brown
2. Examples of referral schemes
3. The Remainders Group
4. King’s College Hospital NHS Trust
5. Centrica

Overview

Recruitment and selection provide the gateways to employment. If practice at this stage is faulty, then all subsequent personnel and HR processes, from induction and training, to appraisal and equal opportunities, will fail to deliver the high levels of performance that organisations demand.

Yet employers can rarely afford to “throw money at the problem” to ensure they recruit absolutely the best people. The costs involved are often so considerable, and the scale of recruitment often so large, that a balancing act is required between costs and effectiveness.

This first chapter in the handbook focuses on the initial stage of finding new members of staff, where employers set out to identify potential recruits through advertising, referrals, employment agencies and other such methods. Chapter 2 covers the selection stage, and examines the second phase of the hiring process, where potential candidates are assessed against the vacancy’s requirements.

This chapter looks at the various recruitment techniques available to employers, presenting the actual experience of hundreds of personnel, HR and recruitment managers in finding the most cost-effective hiring solutions.

It begins with an analysis of the most cost-effective recruitment methods for seven major groups of staff, followed by an overview of methods as they operate for recruits as a whole. (Chapter 2 provides the same information in respect of the methods used to select staff.)

Then we focus on the ways in which employers identify their recruitment and selection criteria – through job descriptions, person specifications and competency frameworks — and examine practice in managing the administration of recruitment.

We then consider each of the main recruitment methods, one by one, before turning to the issue of skills shortages and feedback from employers that highlights the best ways of responding to such recruitment difficulties.

Cost-effective recruitment methods

All employers are faced with the same challenge when a vacancy occurs: how are competent, capable people to be found to fill the job? Sometimes, there may be internal staff who might be interested in the job; a member of staff might know of someone who could be suitable for the role; or potential recruits might have approached the employer with enquiries about possible job opportunities.

These fairly passive sources of recruits involve little or no cost. Conversely, many proactive recruitment channels — placing advertising, contacting employment agencies, and so on — can involve costs often running into thousands of pounds.

Which option is best? This depends, according to the experience of personnel, HR and recruitment professionals, on the type of job, the locality, the severity of skills shortages, and several other factors. But, all in all, their experience reveals a surprisingly large degree of consensus about the methods that present the best balance between cost and effectiveness.

This section provides their feedback according to seven major types of vacancy, followed by an overview for vacancies as a whole. Chapter 2 provides a parallel analysis in respect of the selection methods that are then applied to the pool of candidates these recruitment exercises have produced.

A. The cost-effective recruitment of managers

The most cost-effective methods of recruiting managers, according to the experience of personnel, HR and recruitment specialists, are, in descending order:

• advertising in national newspapers;
• using commercial employment agencies;
• advertising in specialist journals and/or the trade press; and, to a lesser extent
• advertising in local newspapers.

National newspapers: More than a third of the specialists we contacted (34.8%) identified national newspaper advertising as the method that has proved most effective for them.

Even when analysed by type of employer, national newspaper advertising appears in first, second or third position in all cases. It receives its strongest accolade among specialists working for public sector employers, where more than half (56.4%) identified it as their most successful method – whereas private sector firms gave relatively greater prominence to employment agencies.

Some of this difference in emphasis is no doubt due to the public sector’s preference for open recruitment. Advertising is considered more transparent than recommendations from agency staff. Indeed, private sector recruiters are around four times more likely than the public sector to use an agency at all in their recruitment of managers (eight in 10 versus one in five, respectively).

Employment agencies: Almost as many of the specialists (just under three in 10 overall; 28.7%) told us that, in their experience, commercial employment agencies provide their single most cost-effective means of recruiting high-quality managers.

As we saw above, agencies are preferred by private sector employers. Almost half of manufacturers (46.7%) and four in 10 service sector firms (39.1%) told us that employment agencies are their most cost-effective recruitment method for managers. In contrast, only a minuscule 2.6% of specialists working in the public sector did so.

Specialist titles: The trade press and specialist journals represent overall the third most highly rated means of recruiting managers, with just under a fifth of the employers we contacted (19.1%) choosing them as their best source of quality applicants. Public sector employers are more likely to choose this method than those in the private sector. Again, the public sector’s emphasis on publicly advertising its managerial vacancies accounts for some of this result. The high take up of advertising in the trade press and specialist journals by the public sector (90.2%) is witness to this policy.

Local papers: Beyond the big three recruitment methods, recruiters are more divided as to the best means of obtaining good-quality managerial applicants. Across all types of employer, the use of local newspaper advertising ranks fourth from top, although fewer than a 10th of recruiters (9.6%) chose it.

This medium is slightly more popular among services firms in the private sector (where 17.4% chose it) than the overall result, but, in contrast, it was not identified by a single recruiter in the manufacturing and production sector.

No other recruitment method was rated as being the most cost-effective option by more than 6.0%) of the specialists we contacted.

B. The cost-effective recruitment of it specialists

The most cost-effective methods of recruiting IT specialists, according to personnel, HR and recruitment managers, are, in descending order:

• using commercial employment agencies;
• advertising in specialist journals and/or the trade press;
• advertising in local newspapers; and, in equal measure;
• advertising via the internet.

Employment agencies: One in three personnel, HR and recruitment managers have found that employment agencies represent the most cost-effective means of recruiting IT specialists for their organisations.

Again, the public sector’s aversion to using agencies means that hardly any such employers identified agencies as their best bet (only 2.9%). In contrast, more than half (55.2%) of the specialists working in the service sector and almost as many (46.1%) in the manufacturing and production sector chose agencies as their most cost-effective recruitment option.

Specialist titles: Overall, just over one in four (27.6%) of our contacts consider that advertising in specialist IT publications offers the most cost-effective way of recruiting IT specialists.

Considerably greater proportions of the public sector and manufacturing/production employers have found that this recruitment medium provides the most cost-effective method available to them (41.5 and 38.4%, respectively, against only 7.8% of employers in the service sector).

Local papers: One in seven (14.8%) of our contacts chose advertising in local newspapers as their most cost-effective option in preference to the above recruitment methods.

Personnel, HR and recruitment managers in both the public sector and the service sector are particularly pleased with this method (with 20.5% and 18.4%, respectively, citing it as their most cost-effective option). In contrast, not one of our contacts in the manufacturing and production sector chose it.

Electronic recruitment: Computers are, of course, the “tool of the trade” of IT specialists, and recruiters often turn to electronic recruitment when seeking to fill vacancies for such staff.

In all, two-thirds (66.3%) of employers now practise electronic recruitment for their IT vacancies, but it has yet to win over many personnel, HR and recruitment managers in terms of producing the best candidates in the most cost-effective way.

Overall, only one in seven (14.8%) of our contacts said that electronic recruitment represents their most cost-effective way of recruiting IT specialists.

The proportion rises to one in five in the public sector (20.5%) and one in six (15.7%) in the service sector. In contrast, only one in 13 (7.6%) of our contacts in manufacturing/production chose it — despite the fact that electronic recruitment is as widely used in that sector as the other two sectors.

No other recruitment method was rated as being the most cost-effective option by more than 7.0% of the specialists we contacted.

C. The cost-effective recruitment of sales staff

The experiences of personnel, HR and recruitment specialists concerning the most cost-effective methods of recruiting sales staff polarise along industrial lines — between those working in the service sector and those in the manufacturing and production sector. (Sales roles are uncommon in the public sector.)

In the service sector, the most cost-effective methods of recruiting sales staff, are, in descending order:

• advertising in local newspapers (where two-thirds, 62.2%, told us that this method represents their most cost-effective option); and
• using commercial employment agencies (where one in four, 24.3%, did so).

No other recruitment method was rated as being the most cost-effective option by more than 9.0%) of the specialists we contacted who work in the service sector.

In the manufacturing and production sector, the most cost-effective methods of recruiting sales staff, are, in descending order:

• using commercial employment agencies (where more than four in 10, 42.9%, told us that this method represents their most cost-effective option);
• advertising in specialist journals and/or the trade press (where one in five, 19.0%, did so);
• advertising in national newspapers (where one in seven, 14.3%, did so);
• word of mouth; and, in equal measure;
• advertising via the internet (where one in 10, 9.5%, did so in both cases).

No other recruitment method was rated as being the most cost-effective option by more than 5.0% of the specialists we contacted who work in the manufacturing and production sector.

D. The cost-effective recruitment of skilled workers

The most cost-effective methods of recruiting skilled workers, according to the experience of personnel, HR and recruitment specialists, are, in descending order:

• advertising in local newspapers; and to a lesser extent
• advertising in specialist journals and/or the trade press; and
• using commercial employment agencies.

In addition, some of our contacts working in the manufacturing and production sector have found the following to be their most cost-effective method:

• word of mouth.

Local newspapers: Local newspaper advertising is rated by the greatest proportion of our contacts as being the most cost-effective means of generating a good-quality set of potential recruits for their vacancies for skilled workers (according to more than half, 58.6%, of employers). Many potential applicants will be drawn from the local labour market, where local newspapers have a wide circulation – potentially, to every household through the doorstep delivery of free titles.

Almost four times as many recruiters chose local newspaper advertising as their single most cost-effective recruitment medium for skilled workers as opted for any other technique. Public sector recruiters are much more likely to rate this as their most cost-effective method (seven in 10, 71.0%, did so...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1. Filling your vacancies
• 2. Cost-effective selection
• 3. Using electronic media effectively
• 4. Checking candidates' backgrounds
• 5. Induction, training and development
• 6. Pay and benefits and other terms and conditions
• 7. Retaining the best staff
• 8. Employee involvement and representation
• 9. Equal opportunities and diversity
• 10. Managing performance 1
• 11. Managing performance 2
• 12. Attendance and absence
• 13. Redundancies and transfers
• 14. The methods that IRS uses to obtain its findings about best practice
• Index