Chapter Five: Recruitment and Selection

5.1 Employee Recruiting

Before an organization can fill a job vacancy, it must find people who not only are qualified for
the position but also want the job. The recruiting process is one of the ways that an organization
can deal with shortages in its human resource needs.
Recruitment refers to organizational activities that influence the number and types of o
applicants who apply for a job and whether the applicants accept jobs that are offered. Thus,
recruitment is directly related to both human resource planning and selection.

Factors Governing Recruitment

The recruiting process is affected by various factors in the environment. The recruiting process
begins with an attempt to find employees with the abilities and attitudes desired by the
organization and to match them with the tasks to be performed. Whether potential employees
will respond to the recruiting effort depends on the attitudes they have developed toward those
tasks and the organization on the basis of their past social and working experiences. Their
perception of the task will also be affected by the work climate in the organization.

How difficult the recruiting job depends on a number of factors; external influences such as
government and union restrictions and the labor market, plus the employer’s requirements and
candidates’ preferences.

Government and union restrictions

Government regulations prohibiting discrimination in hiring and employment have a direct
impact on recruiting practices. Government agencies can and do review the following
information about recruiting to see if an organization has violated the law:
 List of recruitment sources for each job category.
 Recruiting advertising.
 Estimates of the firm’s employment needs for the coming year.
 Statistics on the number of applicants processed by demographic category and by job
category or level.
 Checklists to show what evidence was used to verify the legal right to work.

Labor market conditions

If there is a surplus of labor at recruiting time, even informal attempts at recruiting will probably
attract more than enough applicants. However, when full employment is nearly reached in an

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area, skillful and prolonged recruiting may be necessary to attract any applicants who fulfill the
expectations of the organization. Obviously, how many applicants are available also depends on
whether the economy is growing. When companies are not creating new jobs, there is often an
oversupply of qualified labor.

Composition of labor force and location of organization

As the number of legal requirements has increased, it has become important for an organization
to analyze the composition of its workforce. Such an analysis is done to determine whether the
firm’s employment practices are discriminatory.
The location of the organization and the relevant labor market will play a major role in the
composition of the workforce. Regardless of the location of the organization, an aggressive
diversity management program will be essential for organizations entering the 21 st century. Due
in part to skills shortages, progressive organizations now understand that effective diversity
management is an integral strategic tool for enhancing competitiveness. For diversity
management to work, however, it must be valued by the organization.
Sources and Methods of Recruitment
Once an organization has decided it needs additional or replacement employees, it is faced with
the decision of how to generate the necessary applications. The organization can look to sources
internal to the company and, if necessary, to sources external to the company. Most
organizations have to use both internal and external sources to generate a sufficient number of
applicants. Whenever there is an inadequate supply of labor and skills inside the organization, it
must effectively promote to external candidates. It is here that the organization’s choice of a
particular method of recruitment can make all the difference in the success of the recruiting
efforts.
Internal methods of recruiting
Job posting: Organizations can make effective use of skills inventories for identifying internal
applicants for job vacancies. It is difficult, however, for HR managers to be aware of all current
employees who might be interested in the vacancy. To help with this problem, they use an
approach called job posting and bidding.
In the past, job posting was little more than the use of bulletin boards and company publications
for advertising job openings. Today, however, job posting has become one of the more
innovative recruiting techniques being used by organizations. Many companies now see job
posting as an integrated component of an effective career management system.
Inside moonlighting and employees’ friends. If there is a short-term shortage, or if no great
amount of additional work is necessary, the organization can use inside moonlighting. It could
offer to pay bonuses of various types to people not on a time payroll to entice workers into
wanting to take on a “second” job.

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Before going outside to recruit, many organizations ask present employees to encourage friends
or relatives to apply. Some organizations even offer “finder’s fees” in the form of monetary
incentives for a successful referral. When used wisely, referrals of this kind can be a powerful
recruiting technique. Organizations must be careful, however, not to accidentally violate equal
employment laws while they are using employee referrals.

Employee referrals should be used cautiously, especially if the workforce is already racially or
culturally imbalanced. It also suggests that it might not be wise to rely exclusively on referrals
but rather to use them as supplement to other kinds of recruiting activities.

External methods of recruiting

When an organization has exhausted its internal supply of applicants, it must turn to external
sources to supplement its workforce. Research suggests that walk-ins provide an important
external source of applicants.

A number of methods are available for external recruiting. Media advertising, employment
databases, employment agencies, executive search firms, special-events recruiting, and summer
internships are discussed here.

Media advertisements: Organizations advertise to acquire recruits. Various media are used, the
most common being help-wanted ads in daily newspapers. Organizations also advertise for
people in trade and professional publications. Other media used are billboards, subway and bus
cards, radio, telephone, and television. Some job seekers do a reverse twist; they advertise for a
situation wanted and reward anyone who tips them off about a job.

In developing recruitment advertising, a good place to begin is with the corporate image. Simply
using the corporate logo is not enough, however. Effective recruiting advertising is consistent
with the overall corporate image; that is, the advertisement ids seen as an extension of the
company. Therefore, it must be representative of the values that the corporation is seeking in its
employees.

Help-wanted ads must be carefully prepared. Media must be chosen, coded for study, and
analyzed for impact afterward. If the organization’s name is not used and a box number is
substituted, the impact may not be as great, but if the name is used, too many applicants may
appear, and screening procedures for too many people can be costly. This is a difficult decision
to make in preparing recruitment advertisements.

In addition, the ad must not violate EEO requirements by indicating preferences for a particular
race, religion, or gender or a particular place of national origin.

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The Internet: Perhaps no method has ever had as revolutionary an effect on organizational
recruitment practices as the Internet. Quite obviously, the Internet has become one of the most
prominent of all worldwide recruiting methods. There are many reasons for the popularity of the
Internet as a method of recruitment. From the organization’s perspective, it is a relatively
inexpensive way to attract qualified applicants. For example, using an executive search firm
might cost an organization as much as one-third of a position’s first-year salary as a commission.

From the job seeker’s perspective, the Internet allows for searches over a broader array of
geographic and company postings than was ever before possible. Computers allow the job seeker
to search through these thousands of jobs in a number of ways including location and
specialization.

Employment agencies and executive search firms: Although similar in purpose, employment
agencies and executive search firms differ in many important ways. Executive search firms tend
to concentrate their efforts on higher-level managerial positions, while agencies deal primarily
with middle-level management or below. Most executive search firms are on trainer, which
means that the organization pays them a fee whether or not their efforts are successful. In
contrast, agencies are usually paid only when they have actually provided a new hire. Finally,
executive search firms usually charge higher fees for their services. One of the reasons that
organizations are willing to pay these higher fees is that executive search firms frequently engage
in their recruiting efforts while maintaining the confidentiality of both the recruiting organization
and the person being recruited.

Special event recruiting: When supply of employees available is not large or when the
organization is new or not well known, some organizations have successfully used special events
to attract potential employees. They may stage open houses, schedule visits to headquarters,
provide literature, and advertise these events in appropriate media. To attract professionals,
organizations may have hospitality suits at professional meetings. Executives also make speeches
at association meetings or schools to get the organization’s image across.

One of the most interesting approaches is to provide job fairs. A group of firms sponsors a
meeting or exhibition at which each has a booth to publicize jobs available. They may be
scheduled on holidays to reach college students who are home at that time or to give people who
are already employed a chance to look around. This technique is especially useful for smaller,
less well known employers. It appeals to job seekers who wish to locate in a particular area and
those wanting to minimize travel and interview time.

Summer internships: Another approach to recruiting and getting specialized work done that has
been tried by organizations is to hire students as interns during the summer or part time during
the school year. Internship programs have a number of purposes. They allow organizations to
get specific projects done, expose themselves to talented potential employees who may become

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their “recruiters” at school, and provide trial-run employment to determine if they want to hire
particular people full time.

A second new reason that organizations are using more internship is to improve the diversity of
their recruitment efforts. From the student’s point of view, the summer internship means a job
with pay. An internship can also mean real work experience for the student; a possible future job;
a chance to use one’s talents in a realistic environment; and in some cases, earning course credit
hours. In a way, it is a short form of some co-op college work and study programs.

College recruiting: There is a growing gap between the skills that organizations will need over
the next several years and those currently possessed by potential employees. Recruiters generally
believe that college recruiting is one of the most effective ways of identifying talented
employees. This suggests that college recruiting will continue to play an important role in
organizations’ overall recruitment strategies, but that organizations will be careful about
controlling expenses.

The college recruiting process is similar in some ways to other recruiting. However, in college
recruiting, the organization sends an employee, usually called a recruiter, to a campus to
interview candidates and describe the organization to them. Coinciding with the visit, brochures
and other literature about the organization are often distributed. The organization may also run
ads to attract students or may conduct seminars at which company executives talk about various
facets of the organization.

5.2 Employee Selection

Selection is the process by which an organization chooses from a list of applicants the person or
persons who best meet the selection criteria for the position available, considering current
environmental conditions. Decisions about whom to hire must also be made efficiently and
within the boundaries set forth in equal employment opportunity legislation. Thus, there are
usually multiple goals associated with an organization’s selection process.
At a basic level, all selection programs attempt to identify the applicants who have the highest
chance of meeting or exceeding the organization’s standards of performance. In this case,
however, performance does not refer simply to quantity of output. It can also involve other
objectives, such as quality of output, absenteeism, theft, employees’ satisfaction, and career
development. Compounding the problem of developing an effective selection system is the fact
that the goal isn’t always to find applicants who have the most of a given quality. Rather,
selection is the search for an optimal match between the job and the amount of any particular
characteristic that an applicant may possess. For example, depending on the job, more
intelligence isn’t always better than less. Or it is possible for an applicant to be too socially
skilled if the job doesn’t require high levels of such skills. Thus, it is highly unlikely that a
selection system can effectively cope with all possible objectives. As a result, one of the initial
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tasks involved in developing and implementing an effective selection process is for the
organization to identify which objective is most important for its circumstances.

5.2.1 Selection Criteria

At the core of any effective selection system is an understanding of what characteristics are
essential for high performance. This is where the critical role of job analysis in selection
becomes most apparent, because that list of characteristics should have been identified during the
process of job analysis and should now be accurately reflected in the job specification. Thus,
from a performance perspective, the goal of any selection system is to accurately determine
which applicants possess the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics dictated by the
job. Additionally, the selection system must be capable of distinguishing between characteristics
that are needed at the time of hiring, those that are systematically acquired during training, and
those that are routinely developed after a person has been placed on the job. Different selection
criteria may, indeed, be needed to assess these qualitatively different KSAOs).
Categories of criteria
The criteria typically used by organizations for making selection decisions can be summarized in
several broad categories: education, experience, physical characteristics, and other personal
characteristics.
Formal education: An employer selecting from a pool of job applicants wants to find the person
who has the right abilities and attitudes to be successful. A large number of cognitive, motor,
physical, and interpersonal attributes are present because of genetic predispositions and because
they were learned at home, at school, on the job, and so on. One of the most common cost-
effective ways to screen for many of these abilities is by using educational accomplishment as a
surrogate for or summary of the measures of those abilities.
For certain jobs, the employer may stipulate that the education is in a particular area of expertise,
such as accounting or management. The employer might also prefer that the degree be from
certain institutions, that the grade point average be higher than some minimum, and that certain
honors have been achieved. To be legal, educational standards such as these must be related to
successful performance of the job. Care must be exercised not to set standards that are higher
than actually required by the job.
Experiences and past performance: Another useful criterion for selecting employees is
experience and past performance. Many selection specialists believe that past performance on a
similar job might be one of the best indicators of future performance. In addition, employers
often consider experience to be a good indicator of ability and work related attitudes. Their
reasoning is that a prospective employee who has performed the job before and is applying for a
similar job must like the work and must be able to do the job well. Research supports these
assumptions. Over a large number of studies, experience is related to job performance. But the

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organization must have a rational basis for defining what it means by “relevant experience.” Not
all previous experiences are equally good predictors of performance on a given job.
Physical characteristics: In the past, many employees consciously or unconsciously used
physical characteristics (including how an applicant looked) as a criterion. Studies found that
employers were more likely to hire and pay better wages to taller men, and airlines chose flight
attendants and companies hired receptionists on the basis of beauty (or their definition of it).
Many times, such practices discriminated against ethnic groups, women, and handicapped
people. For this reason, they are now illegal unless it can be shown that a physical characteristic
is directly related to effectiveness at work. For example, visual acuity (eyesight) would be a
physical characteristic that could be used to hire commercial airline pilots. It might not, however,
be legally used for hiring a telephone reservations agent for an airline.
In a similar way, candidates for a job cannot be screened out by arbitrary height, weight, or
similar requirements. These can be used as selection criteria only when the job involves tasks
that require them.
Personal characteristics and personality type: Personal characteristics include marital status,
sex, age, and so on. Some employers have, for example, preferred “stable” married employees
over single people because they have assumed that married people have a lower turnover rate.
On the other hand, other employers might seek out single people for some jobs, since a single
person might be more likely to accept a transfer or a lengthy oversea assignment.
Age, too, has sometimes been used as a criterion. While it is illegal to discriminate against
people based on age, minimum and maximum age restrictions for jobs can be used only if they
are clearly job-related. Thus, age should be used as a selection criterion only after very careful
thought and consideration.
Certain specific aptitudes and skills can also be considered part of this category of criteria. Many
employers also prefer to hire people with certain personality types. Some jobs, such as being a
police officer, may require essentially no consideration of an applicant’s personality. Many jobs
fall between these extremes. For example, one particular aspect of personality—such as being
outgoing—may be useful for salespeople, caseworkers, or others who work extensively with the
public.
As with other personal characteristics, selection using any aspect of personality should always be
based on whether it is really necessary for high performance. Many personality measures run an
even greater risk of being legally challenged as an invasion of privacy than other kinds of
selection tools. Thus, the organization wishing to use personality as a criterion must be certain
that successful and unsuccessful employees can be distinguished in terms of their personalities.

5.2.2 The Selection Process

In the past, selection was often thought to be an easy decision. Decisions were based on the
subjective likes or dislikes of the boss. Selection tools were designed to aid this gut reaction.
Today, selection is viewed as much more than simply relying on intuition.
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The selection decision is usually perceived as a series of steps through which applicants pass. At
each step, more applicants are screened out by the organization, or more applicants accept other
job offers and drop from the list of applicants.
This series is not universal. For example, government employers test at step 2 instead of step 3,
as do some private-and third-sector employers. It is important to note that few organizations use
all steps, for they can be time consuming and expensive; and some steps, such as 3 and 4, may be
performed concurrently or at about the same time. Generally speaking the more important the
job, the more each step is likely to be used formally.

Step1: Preliminary Screening

The most common first step in any selection process usually involves asking an applicant to
complete an application form. Application blanks vary in length and sophistication. Nearly all
application blanks ask for enough information to determine whether the individual is minimally
qualified for the position. The application blank can eliminate the need for subsequent interviews
to gather this information. This makes the selection process far more efficient by reducing the
number of applicants that need to be interviewed and by allowing interviewers to focus on other
kinds of information that is perhaps more difficult to obtain.
The application blank should not be designed in a way that forces applicants to reveal irrelevant
information about themselves, especially information related to sex, race, religion, color, natural
origin, age, or disabilities. Care should be taken to ask only for information that will help the
organization make a better job-related assessment of the applicant. For example, asking
applicants for the year in which they graduated from high school can narrow down their age to
within one or two years. It is important to know in what year someone graduated, or simply that
he or she graduated?
A potentially useful supplement to the traditional application blank is the biographical
information blank (BIB). A BIB usually contains many more items than a typical application
blank and asks for information related to a much wider array of attitudes and experiences. BIB
items are based on an assumption that these prior behaviors and experiences will be strongly
related to an applicant’s future behavior. For example, a common BIB item asks applicants to list
their favorite subjects in high school. Use of the responses to an item such as this assumes that
people who preferred English will perform differently on a given job from people who preferred
science or math. Whether such an item should be included on a BIB, however, depends on its
ability to differentiate the performance of good and poor workers on the job in question.
Step 2: Employment Interview
Other than application blanks, the interview is definitely the selection technique most often
encountered by persons applying for a job. Because interviews are so widely used to select new
employees, they must maximize their potential for identifying qualified persons. Two strategies
for making the most out of an interview are (1) structuring the interview to be reliable and valid,
and (2) training mangers to use the best available interviewing techniques.
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Types of interview: Employment interviews vary along at least two important dimensions: how
structured the interview is and whether it focuses on historical information about the applicant or
attempts to place the applicant in hypothetical situations to assess how she/he might respond in
the future.
An unstructured interview has no predetermined script or protocol. Questions are not prepared in
advance; there is no attempt to guarantee that applicants are asked the same questions. Typically,
the interviewer does not have a scoring protocol either.
When used by some highly skilled interviewers, the unstructured interview may lead to useful
insights about an applicant. However, substantial research has indicated that structured
interviews, regardless of their specific format, will generally be more reliable and valid than
unstructured interviews. During the structured interview, the interviewer has a standardized list
of questions to ask of all applicants. These questions should have been generated with the aid of
a thorough job analysis in order to identify specific types of information sought during the
interview. In addition, a scoring form will be used by the interviewer for recording applicants’
responses.
The importance of structure in the interview is further underscored by the fact that
standardization should lower the possibility that intentional or unintentional biases held by the
interviewer will affect the outcomes of the process. This, in turn, should lead to less differential
impact on women and minorities and a better chance for the organization to successfully defend
itself if it happens to be sued.
The second dimension along which interviews can vary is whether they focus on past experience
and behavior or on hypothetical future behavior. Traditional interviews have focused more on
the past. In recent years, however, many organizations have begun to use an interview referred to
as situational interview. A situational interview (much like a traditional interview) does seek to
identify whether an applicant possesses relevant job knowledge and motivation. In addition,
however, it asks applicants to respond to hypothetical situations they might encounter on the job
for which they have applied. Responses to these hypothetical questions are then scored according
to their appropriateness for the job.
Overall, the research findings on situational interviews indicate that questions about past
experience have higher validity than the future-oriented hypothetical questions. However, future-
oriented questions can also be useful if used properly.
Training for interviewing: For years, there have been significant concerns that interviewers
may differ considerably in their accuracy, and the potential for bias always exists, since the
interview relies so heavily on personal judgments. Properly designed training programs do seem
capable of reducing many of the errors found in traditional unstructured interviews. This appears
to be especially true when the training is used in conjunction with a structured interview format.
Training can provide mangers with a better understanding of how to ask questions, how to
properly record applicants’ responses, and to some extent how to be aware of potential biases.

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Moreover, when a trained interviewer takes behaviorally oriented notes during the interview,
validity can be enhanced.
Step 3: Employment Tests
A technique that some organizations use to aid their selection decisions is the employment test.
An employment test is a mechanism (either a paper-and-pencil test or a simulation exercise) that
attempts to measure certain characteristics of individuals. These characteristics range from
aptitudes, such as manual dexterity, to intelligence to personality.
It can be very expensive to develop a test to measure these kinds of characteristics. For this
reason alone, many employers purchase existing tests from a variety of sources. Various kinds of
tests can be used for selecting employees. The type of test that is ultimately used will depend on
a number of factors, including the budgetary constraints of the organization, the complexity and
difficulty of the job, the size and quality of applicant populations, and of course the knowledge,
skills, abilities, and other characteristics required by the job. In the following sections, several of
the more categories of selection tests will be described.

Job sample performance tests: A job sample performance test requires the applicant actually
do a sample of the work that the job involves in a controlled situation. Examples of performance
tests include:
 Programming test for computer programmers.
 Standard driving course for delivery persons
 Standardized typing, word processing, or spreadsheet applications problems for
secretarial and clerical help.
 Auditions used by a symphony orchestra or ballet company.
 Simulated “in-basket” tests for mangers. A standardized set of memos, requests, and so
on, is given to the applicant, who must dispense with them as she or he would if the work
were real.
Over a large number of selection situations, job sample performance tests have demonstrated
some of the highest validities of all selection tests. The presumed superiority of these tests over
other types of selection tools lies in their direct and obvious relationship with performance on the
job.
Cognitive ability tests: Over the years, researchers have identified a large number of specific
mental abilities for which selection tests are now available. Perhaps the two best known
cognitive abilities are math and verbal. These form the basis for tests such as the Scholastic
Aptitude Test (SAT) and the Graduate Record Examination (GRE), to name two. Verbal and
math abilities are also measured by a variety of tests developed specifically for use in human
resource selection.

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Psychomotor ability simulations: There are a number of tests that measure an applicant’s
psychomotor abilities, although these are not as popular as they once were. They include choice
reaction time, speed of limb movement, and finger dexterity.
Personality inventories and temperament tests: Potentially, the least reliable of the
employment tests are instruments that attempt to measure a person’s personality or temperament.
A more optimistic picture of the value of personality inventories comes from efforts to
specifically construct a measure for a particular job. When personality tests are constructed to
measure work-related characteristics such as achievement and dependability, they can show good
validities.
Polygraph and honesty tests: Another method currently used by some employers to test
employees is the polygraph, sometimes erroneously called a lie detector. The polygraph is an
instrument that records changes in breathing, blood pressure, pulse and skin response associated
with sweating of palms, and then plots these reactions on paper. The person being tested with a
polygraph attached is asked a series of questions. Some are neutral, to achieve a normal
response; others are stressful, to indicate a response made under pressure. Thus, the applicant
may be asked, “Is your name Abebe?” Then, “Have you ever stolen from an employer?”

Step 4: Reference Checks and Recommendations

If you have ever applied for a job, you were probably asked to provide a list of people whom the
organization could contact to get information about you. These references might have been
work-related (such as former supervisor or coworker), or they might have been personal (such as
friends, clergy, or family members). In either case, to the extent that you could, you provided the
organization with a list of people who you believed would generally speak favorably about you.
Rarely, when given the opportunity, does someone knowingly include the name of a reference
who will give a negative impression to the new organization.
This built-in bias in favor of the applicant is precisely the reason that general references have
often been criticized as sources of useful information. Many argue that they will seldom provide
an organization with meaningful information about applicants. Equally important, however, are
genuine concerns over the legality of asking for and providing such information. Giving out
confidential information about a former employee could be construed as a violation of the
employee’s right to privacy, and giving a negative recommendation opens the reference up to
defamation lawsuit. Most reasonable people would agree that mangers should not be allowed to
lie about a former employee or to be malicious while providing reference information. On the
other hand, not all references can be positive, and managers should not have to fear being sued
simply for being honest about a former employee.
Step 5: Physical Examination: Physical examinations can be used to screen out unqualified
individuals but generally should be required only after a conditional offer of employment has
been made. However, if an organization is going to use such examinations, all individuals who
are conditionally offered employment should be required to have one. These requirements do not

pg. 11
mean that an organization must hire an individual with a disability if that person cannot perform
the job. They do, however, help to protect the rights of individuals with disabilities who are
qualified.

5.2.3 Factors Governing Selection

Internal and external environmental circumstances influence employee selection process.

Internal environment: A number of characteristics of the organization can influence the amount
and type of selection process it uses to hire needed employees. Size, complexity, and
technological volatility are a few of these. Since the development and implementation of large-
scale selection efforts can be very costly, complex selection systems are most often found in
larger organizations with the economic resources necessary to pay for such systems. Size alone,
however, doesn’t determine how selection is approached. For an organization to recover the
costs of developing an expensive selection system there must be a sufficient number of jobs that
need to be filled. In structurally complex organizations with many job titles but very few
occupants, the number of years needed to get back the money invested in such a selection system
may be too great to justify its initial expense.

Another characteristic of the organization that is an important determinant of the kind of

selection system it develops is its attitude about hiring from within. Many organizations have
elaborate internal job posting programs designed to help fill as many job vacancies as possible
from within. Other organizations look more quickly to external supplies of new employees.
While these two models of filling job vacancies will have some overlapping selection processes,
each will also focus to some extent on different criteria on different techniques.

External environment: The external environment is an equally important determinant of the

kind of selection system that an organization utilizes. One of the most significant environmental
influences on selection is the size, composition, and availability of local labor markets. These, in
turn, are affected by economic, social, and political pressures on a community. At a basic level,
when unemployment rates are low, it may be difficult for an organization to identify, attract, and
hire the number of people it needs. On the other hand, when there is an oversupply of qualified
applicants, selection strategies can be very different.

Those who work in human resource management evaluate the effects of the labor market on
selection decisions by using a selection ratio:

Selection ratio = number of applicants hired

Total number of applicants
Example: Suppose a certain company hires 10 best applicants out of a total applicant pool of 50.
Thus, the selection ratio for the company would be 10/50 = 1:5 = 20%.
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When the selection ratio gets close to 1:1, it is called a high selection ratio. Under these
circumstances, the selection process is short and unsophisticated, although it may not be
effective. As the number of applicants increases relative to the numbers who are hired, the
selection ratio is said to be low. With a lower selection ratio, for example 1:2, the process
becomes more detailed. A ratio of 1:2 also means that the organization can be more selective in
its choice than when the ratio is 1:1. It is, therefore, more likely that employees who fit the
organization’s criteria for success will be hired. It is also likely, however, that the organization
will have to invest more time and money in the selection decision when the ratio is 1:2.

Chapter Six: Training and Development

6.1 Introduction
Training and development are processes that attempt to provide an employee with information,
skills, and an understanding of the organization and its goals. In addition, training and
development are designed to help a person continue to make positive contributions in the form of
good performance. Orientation is designed to start the employee in a direction that is compatible
with the firm’s mission, goals, and culture. Before training or development occurs an employee
proceeds through an orientation to learn what the organization stands for and the type of work he
or she is expected to perform.
Orientation introduces new employees to the organization and to the employee’s new tasks,
managers, and work groups. Walking into a new job is often a lonely and confusing event. The
newcomer doesn’t usually know what to say or whom to say it to, or even where he/she is
supposed to be. Getting started is very difficult for any new employee simply because being new
means not knowing what to expect, having to cope with a major life change (the job), and feeling
unsure about the future. A good orientation program can help make this time a positive
experience. The first few days on the job are crucial in helping the employee get started in the
right direction with a positive attitude and feeling.
Effectively done, orientation serves a number of purposes. In general, the orientation process is
similar to what sociologists call socialization. Socialization occurs when a new employee learns
the norms, values, work procedures, and patterns of behavior and dress that are expected in the
organization.
Goals of Orientation
An orientation program is an attempt to send clear messages and provide accurate information
about the company culture, the job, and expectations. Clear messages that are understood and
accepted can achieve a number of orientation goals, such as the following.
To reduce anxiety: Anxiety in this case means fear of failure on the job. It is a normal fear of
the unknown, focused on the ability to do the job. This anxiety can be made worse if old
employees haze the new employee.
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To reduce turnover: If employees perceive themselves as ineffective, unwanted, or unneeded,
they may react to these feelings by quitting. Turnover is high during the break-in period, and
effective orientation can reduce this costly reaction.
To save time: Improperly oriented employees must still get the job done, and to do so they need
help. The most likely people to provide this help are co-workers and supervisors, who will have
to spend time breaking in new employees. Good orientation programs save everyone time.
To develop realistic expectations: New employees must learn realistically what the
organization expects of them, and their own expectations of the job must be neither too low nor
too high. Each worker must incorporate the job and its work values into his/her self-image.
Orientation helps this process.

6.2 Introduction to Training and Development

Training is important for new or present employees. Training is, in short, an attempt to improve
current or future performance. The following specific points are important to know about
training:
 Training is the systematic process of altering the behavior of employees in a direction
that will achieve organization goals. Training is related to present job skills and abilities.
It has a current orientation and helps employees master specific skills and abilities needed
to be successful.
 A formal training program is an effort by the employer to provide opportunities for the
employee to acquire job-related skills, attitudes, and knowledge.
 Learning is the act by which the individual acquires skills, knowledge, and abilities that
result in a relatively permanent change in his/her behavior.
 Any behavior that has been learned is a skill. Therefore, improvement skills are what
training will accomplish. Motor skill, cognitive skills, and interpersonal skills are targets
of training programs.

6.3 Objectives of Training and Development

Evaluation can provide information about when various training goals have been accomplished.
Some important goals are:
 Training validity: Did the trainees learn skills or acquire knowledge abilities during the
training?
 Transfer validity: Did the knowledge, skills, or abilities learned in training lead to
improved performance on the job?
 Intraorganizational validity: Is the job performance of a new group of trainees in the
same organization that developed the program comparable to the job performance of the
original training group (s)?

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  Interorganizational validity: Can a training program that has been validated in one
organization be used successfully in another firm?
These questions (goals) result in different evaluation procedures to examine what, if anything,
training and development have accomplished.

6.4 Methods of Training and Development

After needs and objectives have been determined and trainees and trainers have been selected,
the program is run. This includes selection of content and methods to be used and the actual
training and/or development method. In many situations a combination of instructional methods
are used.
On-the-job training: Probably the most widely used method of training (formal and informal) is
on-the-job training. The employee is placed into the real work situation and shown the job and
the tricks of the trade by an experienced employee or the supervisor.
Although this program is apparently simple and relatively less costly, if it is not handled properly
the costs can be high—damaged machinery, unsatisfied customers, misfiled forms, and poorly
taught workers. To prevent these problems, trainers must be carefully selected and trained. The
trainee should be placed with a trainer who is similar in background and personality. The trainer
should be motivated for training and rewarded for doing it well. The trainer should use effective
techniques in instructing the trainee.
Case Method
One widespread technique is the case method, which uses a written description of a real
decision-making situation in the organization or a situation that occurred in another organization.
Managers are asked to study the case to identify the problems, analyze the problems for their
significance, propose solutions, choose the best solution, and implement it. More learning takes
place if there is interaction between the managers and the instructor. The instructor’s role is that
of a catalyst and facilitator. A good instructor is able to get everyone involved in solving the
problem.
The instructor using the case method must guard against (1) dominating the discussion, (2)
permitting a few people to dominate the discussion, and (3) leading the discussion toward his/her
preferred solution. As a catalyst, the instructor should encourage divergent viewpoints, initiate
discussion on points the mangers are missing, and be thoroughly prepared.
Role Playing
Role playing is a cross between the case method and an attitude development program. Each
person is assigned a role in a situation (such as a case) and asked to play the role and to react to
other players’ role playing. The player is asked to pretend to be a focal person in the situation
and to react to the stimuli as that person would. The players are provided with background
information on the situation and the players. Usually, a brief script is provided for the
participants. Sometimes, the role playing is videotaped and reanalyzed as part of the
development situation. Often, role playing is done in small groups of a dozen or two. The
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success of this method depends on the ability of the players to play the assigned roles believably.
If done well, role playing can help a manager become more aware of and more sensitive to the
feelings of others.
In-Basket technique
Another method used to develop managerial decision making abilities is the in-basket technique.
The participant is given materials (typically memos or descriptions of things to do) that include
typical items from a specific manager’s mail, and a telephone list. Important and pressing
matters, such as out-of-stock positions, complaints by customers, and a demand for a report from
a superior, are mixed in with routine business matters, such as a request to speak at a dinner or a
decision on the date of the company picnic four weeks hence. The trainee is analyzed and
critiqued on the number of decisions made in the time allotted, the quality of the decisions, and
the priorities chosen for making them. In order to generate interest, the in-basket materials must
be realistic, job-related, and not impossible to make decisions on.
Management Games
Essentially, management games describe the operating characteristics of a company, industry, or
enterprise. These descriptions take the form of equations that are manipulated after decisions
have been made. Management games emphasize development of problem solving skills.
In a typical computerized management game procedure, teams of players are asked to make a
series of operating or top management decisions. In one game, for example, the players are asked
to decide on such matters as the price of the product, purchase of materials, production
scheduling, funds borrowing, marketing, and R& D expenditures. When each player on the team
has made a decision, the interactions of these decisions are computed (manually or by computer)
in accordance with the model. For example, if price is linearly related to volume, a decrease in
price of x percent will affect the volume, subject to general price levels. Players on the team
reconcile their individual decisions with those of the other team members before making a final
decision. Then each team’s decision is compared with those of the other teams. The result of that
team’s profit, market share, and so forth is compared, and a winner or best team performance is
determined.
Advantages of games include the integration of several interacting decisions, the ability to
experiment with decisions, the provision of feedback on decisions, and the requirement that
decisions be made with inadequate data, which usually simulates reality. The main criticisms of
most games concern their limitation of novelty or reactivity in decision making, the cost of
development and administration, the unreality of some of the models, and the disturbing
tendency of many participants to look for the key to winning the game instead of concentrating
on making good decisions. Many participants seem to feel that the games are rigged—that a few
factors or even a single factor may be the key to winning.

Behavior Modeling

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A development approach for improving interpersonal skills is behavior modeling, which is also
called interaction management or imitating models. The key to behavior modeling is to learning
through observation or imagination. Thus, modeling is a “vicarious process” that emphasizes
observation.
One behavior modeling approach begins by identifying 19 interpersonal problems that
employees, especially managers, face. Typical problems are gaining acceptance as a new
supervisor, handling discrimination complaints, delegating responsibility, improving attendance,
disciplining effectively, overcoming resistance to change, setting performance goals, motivating
average performance, handling emotional situations, reducing tardiness, and taking corrective
action.
There are four steps in the process:

1. Modeling of effective behavior—often by use of films.

2. Role playing.

3. Social reinforcement—trainees and trainers praise effective role playing.

4. Transfer of training to the job.

Behavior modeling offers a number of promising possibilities in organizations. One especially

important need in organizations is to develop effective leaders. Modeling appears to offer some
promise for developing leadership skills, if used in conjunction with videotape methods. The
participants can view their styles, behaviors, strengths, and weaknesses and learn from this
personal firsthand view. People who see themselves in action have a vivid reminder that they can
benefit from practice.
Outdoor-Oriented Programs
Case, games, modeling, and role playing are still popular, but an increasingly popular form of
development is outdoor or real-life, action-oriented programs. Leadership, teamwork, and risk-
taking are top-priority items in the outdoor-oriented programs. The programs, conducted in
remote areas, combine outdoor skills with classroom seminars. River rafting, mountain climbing,
night searching, team competition, boat races, rope climbing, and problem solving exercises are
popular types of outdoor training.
Teamwork and trust are objectives that outdoor programs attempt to achieve. Do these outdoor
programs work? When a participant returns to the office, is he/she more team-oriented? To date,
there is no set of studies available indicating that these programs are effective. There is also the
issue of whether an organization has a right to send or encourage a person to participate in a
program that requires some athletic ability, enjoyment of the outdoors, or risk.
Off-the-job training: Organizations with the biggest training programs often use off-the-job
training. A survey of training directors in Fortune 500 companies examined their views of which
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off-the-job training techniques were the most effective for specific objectives. The training
directors indicated that if knowledge was the objective, it would be best to use programmed
instruction. On the other hand, if the training was intended to improve problem-solving skills,
then it would be better to use the case method of training (for example, having participants
analyze job-related cases). Research suggests that the most popular methods of instruction for
off-the-job training are lecture-discussion, programmed instruction, and computer assisted
instruction (CAI).
Lecture-discussion approach
The most frequently used training method is for a trainer to give a lecture and involve the trainee
in a discussion of the material to be learned. Effective classroom presentation supplements
lecture with audiovisual aids such as blackboards, slides, and mock-ups. Frequently, these
lectures are videotaped or audiotaped. The method allows the trainers’ message to be given in
many locations and to be repeated as often as needed for the benefit of the trainees. Videotape
recording also allows for self-confrontation, which is especially useful in such programs as sales
training and interpersonal relations. The trainee’s presentation can be taped and played back for
analysis.
Computers
Each day more firms are using computer-assisted instruction (CAI) to train employees. The
advantages for training include allowing trainees to learn at their own pace, trainees to study
areas that need improvement, and—depending on availability of personal computers—flexibility.
The computer has changed the way people at work learn. Learning is more self-initiated and
individualized. A number of computer training methods are becoming more widely used.
The Internet offers ways to increase learning, link resources, and share valuable knowledge
inside and outside an organization. People can use the Internet to deliver training in the following
ways, either individually or in combination with other instruction methods:

 E-mail for accessing course material and sharing information.

 Bulletin boards, forums, and newsgroups for posting comments and questions.

 Interactive tutorials and courses that let trainees take courses online.

 Real-time conferencing that places all participants in the same virtual classroom. Trainees
can download documents, tutorials, and software.

Intranets: They are internal, proprietary electronic networks, similar to the Internet. Typically,
an intranet delivers programs that have been developed or customized for an organization’s
particular learning needs. List-serve discussion groups and virtual learning campuses are just a
few ways organizations are using intranets to share information among employees.

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HRM practitioners and trainers should also have a working knowledge of multimedia
technology. It enhances learning in individual and group settings with audio, animation,
graphics, and interactive video delivered via computer. Those capabilities let trainees retrieve
information when they want it and in the way that makes the most sense to them.

Virtual reality (VR): It is a step beyond multimedia. VR is a computer-based technology that

enables users to learn in a three-dimensional environment. The trainer can, by using a simulated
situation, interact in real time with its components by viewing a virtual model on a computer
screen or through a head-mounted display.
Distance training/learning: The trainer is quickly evolving into someone who facilitates,
guides, and acts as a mentor for employers and employees, helping them find and use the best
and most timely training available. The goal of the corporate trainer should now be find,
interpret, and assess a wide range of information and technologically sophisticated products.

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