Recruitment: When HR department doesn't know workers
The duties and responsibilities of employees being hired should be well defined in terms of what are they doing and to what extent can they help. FILE PHOTO | SHUTTERSTOCK
The Human Resource department (HR) is crucial to the growth and sustainability of any organisation. It attracts and retains talent, manages and mitigates risks, builds a positive workplace culture, drives business strategy, and improves organisational performance.
In an ideal workplace, the department, as the nerve centre, should know all employees and the role they play, and their potential. That way, it can optimally utilise the most important resource in the organisation.
Instead of a central role, in most companies the HR department performs a peripheral function, often playing catch-up alongside other departments.
In such a scenario, there is company-wide confusion with employees often clashing because of conflicting roles.
Quresha Abdullahi, Executive Director of the Institute of Human Resource Management, notes that a lack of clear policies and procedures can lead to HRs not knowing who does what in an organisation.
She notes, “Bureaucracy. Some organisations place so much power on supervisors that it is difficult for even HRs to penetrate.”
While HR has veto power, it is often nipped by company leaders who hire whom they want and only ask the HR department to add the employee to the payroll.
“For instance, a line manager scouts for an employee hires them then informs the HR for them to craft a job title and adds them on the payroll,” says Ms Abdullahi.
How it affects organisations
How then, does this haphazard human resource management affect the organisation?
“If you do not have the right candidate at the right time for a position, you will struggle with the organisation’s structures and there will be breakdowns in terms of who reports what and to whom, and how to address grievances,” Ms Abdullahi notes.
Brian Amwayi, an HR assistant, shares that it will be difficult for HR to do constructive disciplinary action concerning an employee’s performance.
Additionally, HR will be unable to determine the appropriate key performance indicators without which it is difficult to know the improvement areas of an employee.
“Not knowing what an employee does will also affect their training and development with the HR not knowing where to include them when planning for workshops for their skills upgrade,” Mr Amwayi explains.
The career growth of the employee is also at stake in such an organisation. This employee will be overlooked when it comes to promotion and salary increments and other benefits.
And by being left in the dark in crucial processes, HR is also unable to tap into employees’ hidden skills.
“For instance, an employee who was hired in the customer care desk but they are also good at IT or accounting. The HR will not be able to tap into their skills and enrich their role,” says Mr Amwayi.
Some employees have been caught up between a rock and a hard place after successfully applying for a job but finding their responsibilities are quite different from what they signed up for.
While most of them end up quitting as a result of being short-changed, when all factors are held constant, HRs are to be blamed.
Mr Amwayi shares that a lack of identifying the role that the employee is filling at manpower requisition will, in the end, wreak havoc in the organisation.
“At times, the line manager can share that they would want someone to do role X but that role can be added to the existing employees, and while at it their jobs are enriched,” he says.
Be it as it may, the duties and responsibilities of employees being hired should be well defined in terms of what are they doing and to what extent can they help.
This in turn avoids overstepping and shoddy recruitment.
Ms Abdullahi notes the rule of thumb in crafting a job description is sharing about the organisation in about three sentences.
Trickle down to the scope of work in terms of what will this job entail in terms of purpose and overall objectives. Which skillsets or qualifications should one have for that role?
How many numbers of years of experience are you looking for? Location and working hours? What is the reporting structure?
“There should be no room for vagueness or any other business slot.”
