Using the information below, coherent and concisely explain the factors affecting recruitment.

EXTERNAL FACTORS

In Chapter 1 we discussed a number of factors that influenced recruitment and selection: global competition, technological advances, changing work force demographics, and the economic environment. You may wish to review that section of Chapter 1 before proceeding further. Recruitment is also influenced by two external factors over which the organization has little control: (1) the labour market, which is a function of the economic environment, and (2) the laws and regulations that pertain to recruitment and selection.3

• LABOUR MARKET AND RECRUITING

Organizations must develop a recruiting campaign that makes sense in the context of a specific labour market. Labour markets and economic conditions impose different con- straints. The overall nature of the economy may influence an organization's decision to hire or not to hire, but once a decision to hire is made, the nature of the labour market determines how extensively the organization will have to search to fill the job with a qual- ified candidate. In 1996, Toyota Canada was in the enviable position of having more than 50 000 people apply for 1200 positions that were being created as part of an expansion at its Cambridge, Ontario plant. The jobs paid $20 per hour plus benefits in a geographic area that had an 8.3 percent unemployment rate. Toyota had 11 000 applications on file before it had run a single advertisement or posted the jobs with employment centres.4

When qualified labour is scarce, the organization must broaden its recruiting beyond its normal target population. This includes going beyond normal recruiting channels to attract applicants it might not seek in more favourable times. For example, if there is a shortage of chartered accountants, the organization may take a look at hiring finance majors with a background in accounting who may develop into the accounting position with some additional training. The organization may also recruit outside its normal territory, emphasizing those geographic regions with high unemployment rates or low economic growth. The controversial Temporary Foreign Workers program was designed to address labour shortages in certain sectors where it was difficult to find Canadian workers even in times of high unemployment. The restaurant and fast-food industries, farming, and fish plant operators have used the program extensively to meet labour shortages.

In favourable labour markets, the organization may advertise the accounting position only in one or two professional journals. In a poor market, it may decide to use a variety of media to attract as many qualified applicants as possible. With poor labour markets, the organization may make the job more attractive by improving salary and benefits, training and educational opportunities, and working conditions. In poor mar- kets, the organization may spend additional resources to overcome the shortage of quali- fied applicants and to increase the attractiveness of the organization and the job. These considerations become even more important when the organization must compete with its rivals for scarce human resources. Recruiting when the labour market is poor is an expensive proposition.

Organizations must be prepared to alter their recruiting strategy to match labour market conditions. Internal demand and external supply of job candidates may vary considerably, causing firms to change their recruiting strategies. As well, job applicants who perceive that they have fewer or more choices are likely to react differently to dif- ferent recruiting strategies.5

Part-time labour market and recruiting

In response to today's global economy, more and more companies are employing low-wage, entry-level workers on a part-time basis. Temporary or contingent jobs have shown tremendous growth over the last decade. Nearly 2 million people go to work each day in North America on a part-time basis. North American retailing giants such as Sears, Walmart, and K-Mart have made part-time work their industry norm.

Recruiting and retaining the best part-time workers present unique problems to companies choosing to go this route. Workers who receive lower pay and benefits are less likely to feel committed to their organization or to go out of their way to get the job done. Many part-time workers are unskilled and poorly educated. Companies such as Whirlpool have responded to the need to recruit part-time workers by restructuring their pay and benefits, as well as by providing training and educational opportunities for them. Others, such as Taco Bell, have attempted to restructure the work environment to meet the needs of their part-time employees.6

Increasingly, temporary work is serving as a training ground for more permanent positions. On the other hand, ever-greater numbers of skilled professionals and retired workers are taking jobs on a part-time or contract basis.7 A recent survey found that over two-thirds of temporary workers reported that they gained new skills while in their temporary positions. Organizations that depend on part-time workers will need to develop recruiting methods to attract and retain contingent employees. Indeed, some workers prefer part-time status, and when these employees are placed in part-time positions, they tend to be satisfied and committed to the organization. They also tend to remain longer.

However, placing them into full-time positions leads to less satisfaction and more turnover. The same effects occur when workers who desire full-time jobs are placed into part-time positions: less satisfaction and commitment and higher turnover.8 The contingent or part-time status of jobs should be clearly indicated in all recruiting materials.

Outsourcing is the practice of contracting with an outside agent to take over specified HR functions, specifically, recruitment. Companies that need workers on a temporary or short-term basis often turn to temporary help agencies to provide them with contingent workers. In these cases, the workers are employees of the temporary help firm, not of the organization in which they do their work. The employee is actually "leased" from the outside firm. The individual is employed by the outside agency but assigned to a position with the client organization.

The outside firm assumes all payroll responsibilities (pay and benefits), but charges the client administration and placement costs, usually prorated to salary. If the client chooses to hire the individual for a full-time permanent position, then additional fees are paid to the employment agency. Some Canadian banks now meet part of their staffing needs through these arrangements. Client organizations benefit from increased work force flexibility and savings in administrative costs. They also get to see the worker on the job over a period of time before any decisions to hire directly are made.

Investigations in both Canada and the United States suggest that some temporary help agencies may be willing to accommodate their client organizations' requests that the agency not send blacks, people with accents, or unattractive women.9,10 Often, the client organizations have the mistaken notion that since they are not the legal employer, they are immune to charges of discrimination and free from any employment equity obligations. However, by allowing temporary workers on their premises and directing their work, the client organization can be subject to discrimination claims, unless it can show that the assignment based on group membership was a bona fide occupational requirement.11

Current information on the state of the Canadian labour market and the availability of different skill sets can be found at http://www.jobbank.gc.ca/home-eng.do?lang=eng. The website provides information for Canada as a whole and each province or territory. It also tracks the availability of specific skills and abilities and jobs that require them.

• THE LEGAL ENVIRONMENT

Any organizational recruitment program must comply with the legal and regulatory requirements that apply to its operation. Chapter 3 presented some of the landmark cases and legislation that govern employment in Canada. In the United States, employment laws and regulations are assumed to affect both recruitment practices and outcomes.12 It is likely that Canadian employment legislation has similar effects on recruitment in Canadian organizations. The most important considerations are employment equity and pay equity legislation. Any recruitment campaign that intentionally or unintentionally excludes members of groups that are protected under human rights legislation runs the risk of being declared discriminatory, with the organization subject to penalties and fines. The best defence against charges of systemic discrimination is to document that every attempt has been made to attract members from the protected groups.

Diversity Recruitment In Canada, employment equity legislation seeks to eliminate discrimination in the workplace for women, visible minorities, Aboriginal people, and people with disabilities.

Organizations may be required, particularly if they wish to do business with the federal government, to demonstrate that they have actively sought to recruit members from these four groups. The federal government's recent initiatives with respect to Aboriginal people suggest that organizations may have to be more sensitive to recruiting Aboriginal people. Good-faith recruitment efforts mean that the organization must use a variety of communication channels to get its message to members of different groups and to present its recruiting message in a way that interests different audiences. The recruitment effort must make members from these groups feel welcome in the organization, even when they are working there on a temporary basis.

Organizations perceived as hostile to workplace diversity will see the effectiveness of their recruitment efforts significantly compromised, and the quality of their overall applicant pool adversely affected. Diversity advertising focuses on how firms present diversity. To recruit women, Aboriginal people, and visible minorities, organizations must communicate that they value diversity, fairness, and inclusion. Job advertisements depicting diversity and emphasizing equal employment opportunities for visible minori- ties tend to make the organization more attractive to members of minority groups.13

Many Canadian communities have made an effort to recruit women, Aboriginal people and visible minorities for employment as police officers. Most of these efforts have been relatively unsuccessful. For example, black police applicants often perceive a lack of fit between their attitudes and the demands of modern policing that is related to racial prejudice on the part of serving police officers and the community.14 To help over- come these types of barriers, women, visible minorities, Aboriginal people, and people with disabilities should participate as front-line recruiters to help send a clear message that equal employment opportunities and a welcoming environment will be provided.15 Recruitment and Selection Notebook 6.1 presents elements of a plan, based on research, to recruit members to increase diversity.16

Organizations must think very carefully about the messages they convey to job applicants when they seek to increase workplace diversity. While members of minority groups react favourably to efforts to recruit them, white males tend to react negatively.17 They may see these efforts as a form of "reverse discrimination," and bias against white males. Section 15(2) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms does allow preferential hiring to ameliorate disadvantages to groups or individuals because of past injustices. All job candidates, however, react negatively to questions about their age, marital status, gender, or ethnicity,18 which we noted in Chapter 3 as violating various human rights legislation. Efforts to recruit minorities may lead to reduced self-esteem on the part of the minority hires and reduced perceptions of their competence (i.e., perceptions that they were hired because they were from a minority group and not because of their fit to the job and organization). White males often see a process that emphasizes group membership as a factor in hiring as unfair where unqualified people are hired in place of those more qualified. These negative issues, for members of both minority and majority groups, seem to decrease when merit is central to the decision-making process.19 When organizations seek to recruit members from minority groups, they should emphasize that hiring decisions are merit based.

The sources used to recruit minorities may also be very important to the success of attracting them to apply for jobs with an organization. Ryan, Horvath, and Kriska20 dem- onstrated that the informativeness of the source was related to whether individuals who were interested chose to apply for a firefighter's job. Applicants who received more and better information about a job were more likely to apply for the job and saw themselves as a good fit with the job and organization. Often minorities do not choose to apply for positions as they see themselves as a poor fit with the organization, no matter how well qualified they are. One strategy to improve diversity would be to ensure the use of highly informative recruitment sources when recruiting minorities.

INTERNAL FACTORS

While it is clear that different organizations take different approaches to recruiting new employees, very little is known about how organizational characteristics produce dif- ferences in recruiting practices, processes, or outcomes. Partly, this is the result of most research focusing on job seekers rather than on the employing organizations.21 Many possible organizational characteristics could influence a job seeker's perception of the organization during the job search phase (e.g., the type of industry, size of the organiza- tion, profitability, growth, and financial trends). These characteristics may influence both the number and the quality of applicants who apply for a position with the organization. They may also influence how the organization recruits candidates and how competitive the organization is in making offers to the best applicants.

Business Strategy

A company's business strategy or plan has a major impact on its recruitment strategy. To be effective, the recruitment strategy must be linked to the business plan. A com- pany's business plan is its action plan for managing the company. The business plan or strategy includes a statement of its mission and philosophy, recognition of its strengths and weaknesses, and a statement of its strategic goals and objectives for competing in its economic environment. A business plan addresses those aspects of the external environ- ment that affect how the company does business and influences the company's recruiting process. For example, Company A wants to be a market leader on price and carefully controls labour costs. Company A's recruiting is primarily at the entry job level for mostly unskilled workers. Company A's recruitment is likely to be by word of mouth or by applicants applying on-site, thus saving the costs of more expensive recruiting sources. Company B wants to be a leader in producing unique, quality consumer products. It needs employees who are innovative and creative. Company B's recruitment efforts would be directed at identifying people with the skills and abilities it needs to produce its products. It is likely to recruit through the Internet and through specialized, professional magazines. A company's business plan also influences the degree to which it fills vacan- cies with internal or external applicants.23 Rarely do organizations like Company A fill entry-level positions with internal candidates; vacant higher-level positions in Company A are mostly filled through internal promotions. It is quite common for organizations like Company B to bring someone in from the outside to fill a vacant position at both lower and higher organizational levels.

There may also be factors other than a business plan that influence how companies fill vacant positions. Some companies may insist, as a matter of organizational policy, that internal candidates be given preference as a means of motivating employees and ensuring that the successful candidate knows and shares the organization's philosophy, values, goals, and attitude toward achieving a return on investment in both human capital and material resources. As we discussed in Chapter 1, collective agreements that apply to a workplace may require that internal applicants be given first consideration for positions for which they are qualified. Other organizations may have policies that insist external can- didates be given preference for jobs in order to expose the company to new ideas and to new ways of doing business. Still other organizations may insist that the best candidate be given the job offer, regardless of whether that person is an internal or an external applicant.

Job Level and Type

As we saw with Company A and Company B, both the type of occupation and the nature of the industry in which it is involved may influence an organization's recruiting strategy.24 In some industries or occupations, people are recruited in a particular way not so much because that method is very effective, but because it is the norm. It is how recruiting is done for that type of work, and how it is expected to be done. For certain executive-level positions, vacancies are never advertised but are instead given to a consulting company to carry out an executive search. Such "headhunting" firms generally have a list of potential executive candidates that they have developed over time through contacts in many different organizations; as well, many constantly troll LinkedIn looking for likely candidates. The search firm knows the organization and works to find a match with one of its candidates. We will have more to say about search firms later in this chapter. Rarely, if ever, are such firms used to recruit production or service workers; vacancies for those types of positions are filled by candidates who respond to local newspaper advertisements or job postings with Government of Canada (http://www.jobbank.gc.ca) or who are referred by other employees, as was the case with the 50 000 applicants for the production jobs at Toyota Canada