Importance of Recruiting and Retaining the most skilled, qualified and talented staff in todays globalized economy

Workforce Diversity:

When organizations adopt globalization, the diversity of workforce also increases. Workforce Diversity means collection of individuals different in their culture, origin, age, sex, traditions, ethics, values, etc. "It matters that those who lead the newsroom understand every facet of the community they cover. It is in seeing ourselves whole that we can begin to see ways of working out our differences, of understanding our similarities."

(Maynard, R. C., 1978). Diversity is not only related to providing an equal opportunity to employees but the role of diversity includes in every activity of human resource management. Diversity is about valuing every individual and creating an environment of learning into the organization. The Staff of Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) compliance office of University of California, Berkeley offers one definition of Diversity as (2008), “Diversity refers to human qualities that are different from our own and those of groups to which we belong; but that are manifested in other individuals and groups. Dimensions of diversity include but are not limited to: age, ethnicity, gender, physical abilities/qualities, race, sexual orientation, educational background, geographic location, income, marital status, military experience, parental status, religious beliefs, work experience, and job classification.”

 

Each and every individual is unique and important and it’s the responsibility of the organization to understand and respect every employee. The diversity is based on many basis or we can say there are many dimensions of diversity. The management of diversity is important for the smooth running of the business. The diagram below shows all the dimensions of workforce diversity and the human resource manager should be clear about all the dimensions and manage the diversity accordingly.

Figure 1 – Diversity Dimensions[2]

Recruitment and Selection:

Recruitment is a process of attracting the person of right caliber towards the vacant position in the organization and makes him or her applies for that position and further filled up the vacant position. The human resource manager has to identify the right procedure for recruitment i.e. proper advertising that can attract the person match with the job requirements. It is a positive process as here all the applications are received. The global recruitment requires more investment, exposure, highly skilled human resource manager with the knowledge of international human resource management, diversity management and other important factors.    

Selection is the procedure of evaluating all the applications received for a particular job and then inviting the candidates with right quality for interviews and tests and then further selecting the candidate whose qualities suited the job requirements perfectly. It’s a process of selecting right kind of person at the right time for the right kind of job. It is a negative process as among the applied candidates, the candidates less suitable for the job are rejected.

MAIN BODY

Retention of Employees:

The retention of employees is very important for any organization. The employees turnover rate is increasing because of globalization and it costs a lot to the organization. The cost includes the new recruitments in place of the employees left the company, the cost of training and development of those new employees etc. The organization has to take necessary steps to retain its skilled and qualified staff. For example at Templeton Asset Management in India, employees are part of a global ESOP program, which gives them stock in the NYSE-listed Franklin Resources. This gives a feeling of ownership of the global entity to the employees and helps in retention of employees. (Perry, A., 2002)   

Impact of Globalization on Human Resource Management:

When an organization goes global, it has to shift its human resource management to international human resource management. This comes up with many responsibilities and challenges. The application of international human resource management needs change in rules and regulations, recruitment and selection procedures, HRM policies, human resource development process and also other international factors should be considered like workforce diversity, international laws and barriers etc. Some other impacts of globalization on human resource management are as follows:

• Globalization increases the workforce diversity. As the people from different culture, countries, beliefs, customs, tradition, values and languages come together, it becomes even more difficult to manage them as the policies and procedures should fit every single individual working in an organization.
• The recruitment and selection process also changes with globalization. The recruitment procedures should be fair and equal for every person. It does not show any discrimination.
• The human resource development needs increases with globalization. If in any organization, an employee is shifted to another branch located in different country and he/she needs special training to work effectively and efficiently in a global environment.
•   The organization has to take care of the international laws and legislations. Every country has its own laws for human resource like minimum wages, employment laws, minimum working hours, health and safety requirements etc. and the organization has to learn and follow them effectively.
•   Because of globalization, employees leave their existing organizations and join another in search of better opportunities. So it’s essential for any organization to retain its experienced employees.

Challenges faced by global HR managers for recruitment and retention of employees:  

It is important for the Human Resource Managers before recruiting internationally, to know about the employment law of every country in which they are operating. The way of advertising is different in every country. Also the knowledge about individual differences is important like the difference in culture, traditions, languages etc. The advertisements done should be fair and non-discriminating. While recruiting internationally, the study of PESTEL analysis is important i.e. Political, Economical, socio-cultural, Technological, Environmental and legal factors internationally which are used to access market for any business. Global recruiting includes the employment of Home, Host, and third country nationals to fill key positions in their headquarters and other branches. Because of emerging markets, mainly in China and India, increases the employment opportunities and need highly skilled and competitive recruitment managers.  

Retention of employees in global working environment is also a big challenge for HR managers. Employees want good compensation, growth opportunities, management support, good relationship with organization and healthy working environment. All this is important for the retention of employees.

Impact of Diversity and Nature of workforce on Human resource Management:

Because of globalization, the workforce diversity has increased and it becomes essential for an organization to manage it. Diversity affects the working of international human resource management. Every individual has its own work culture and way of working. The management has to take care and understand every employee. An effective management of diversity brings value to the organization like it reduces employee turnover, makes employee more efficient and effective, reduces the cost of company, develop a healthy working environment, enhance learning of employees, prevents discrimination, solve employees personal problems which reduces the interpersonal conflicts, increase the productivity, improvement in the teamwork, increase motivation level of employees etc. All these advantages give a strong reason for why organizations should manage diversity.  

Importance of Recruiting and Retaining the most skilled, qualified and talented staff in today’s globalized economy:

It is very difficult to attract the right person at the right time for the right kind of job and it becomes more difficult if the recruitment is done globally. Also recruiting unqualified and untalented employees is harmful for the organization because of high competition in the market. Recruitment of skilled, qualified and talented staff is very beneficial for organizations but the work of HR manager doesn’t finish here only, it’s important to retain that staff as well otherwise there is no use of an effective recruitment system. In a globalized economy, the employee turnover rate is very high. The qualified and talented employees always attract the other employers and they try to get them in their organizations at any cost. And employees also move if they find better opportunities outside. So retaining activities like high wage rate, good facilities, better opportunities, no discrimination, providing employee satisfaction and many other activities for the benefit of the employees should be considered by the organizations.

Lack of retaining activities by the organizations result in high labour turnover. This costs very high to the organization. Following are the reasons for retaining the qualified employees:

• Employee turnover results in going through the recruitment process and training and development process again which costs a lot. The cost is even higher when the recruitment process is done internationally.
• When one employee leaves the organization, the others also move fast. Employee turnover leads a negative impression about the organization on others.
• If an employee leaves a company then it takes time to recruit and train new employee. This lead to wastage of time and efficiency. Moreover the efficiency of the new employee can’t be the same.
• When an employee leaves, he has all the knowledge about the company workings. Also company expects a lot from the employees in future and provides training to them accordingly. But when an employee leaves, the investment is not realized.    

CONCLUSION

From this report we can conclude that it is very important for an organization to recruit and retain the most skilled, qualified and talented staff in a globalized economy. The impact of globalization can’t be ignored in today’s working environment. If an organization is not globally set up even then it is affected by the globalized economy as the other multinationals enter as their competitors. To meet such a stiff competition into the market, an organization needs highly talented and skilled employees. Human Resource Management is an important factor in any organization as it’s the people who can make the world move.  

RECOMMENDATION

• In today’s competitive world, an organization should have the best employees to compete. Recruitment of the most qualified employees and their retaining them into the business is very important. So an organization should focus on highly skilled employees and take effective steps to retain them.
• A study about globalization is also important for the human resource managers for competing with the other multinationals. Moreover HR managers have to perform the human resource management activities internationally and should consider the global factors into account.
• Not only the organizations set up in different countries should recruit and retain the highly qualified staff but the other organizations, that do their operations in a single country, also need highly qualified people to meet the competition created by the multinational companies in their country.  

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Brewster, C., Sparrow, P. and Vernon, G., 2007. International Human Resource Management. 2nd ed. Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, London.

• Briscoe, D. R. and Schuler, R. S., 2004. International Human Resource Management, 2nd ed. Published by Rout ledge, UK.

• Erst, E. and Lobel, S. A., 1996. Managing diversity, 1st ed. Blackwell, UK.

• Sparrow, P., Brewster, C. & Harris, H., 2004. Globalizing Human Resource Management. 1st ed. Routledge, New York.

• Wane, M. & Joint, P., 2002. Managing Across Cultures. 2nd ed. Thomson, Cornwall.

• Harris, P. R., 2001. International HRM – Managing diversity at the workplace. European business review. 13(1), pp.74-76.

• Harris, P. R., 2001. International HRM – Managing diversity at the workplace. European business review. 13(1), pp.74-76.

• Wilson, S., 2008. Meeting the challenges of global resources. Strategic HR Review. 7(2), pp.5-10.

• Employee Retention. [online] Available at:  (Assessed on 1 August 2010).

• Wikipedia. Globalization. [online] Available at:  (Assessed on 25 July 2010).

• Why Diversity Matters. Human Resources, 2008. [online] Available at :  (Assessed on 3 August 2010).

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