Unit 18 HRM Service Industries Solution Assignment

Programme	Diploma in Business
Unit Number and Title	Unit 18 Human Resource Management Service Industries
QFC Level	Level 5
Unit Code	J/601/1756

Essay: “Recruitment and selection are about discriminating between individuals, but based on relevant and fair criteria like technical skills and attitudes rather than irrelevant criteria” (Newell 2005).

Critically evaluate the fair and unfair ways of discriminating between potential job applicants when recruiting

According to Kumari (2012), organizational goals and objectives are fulfilled only through the filling of right candidates at the right position. In order to establish a perfect workforce, “Recruitment and Selection process” plays a key role. This mechanism involves policies and procedures which are used while selecting the human resource personnel required. While filling a vacant position, an organization needs to make decision regarding the recruitment requirement, selection techniques etc. (Kumari, 2012). Through this essay, a critical evaluation of the factors responsible for the fair and unfair discrimination among employees regarding the recruitment and selection process will take place. The light will be thrown over the fair and unfair modes of recruitment such as Intelligence quotient, Technical quotient, gender discrimination etc. and the impact of such ways over the potential applicants. Today, it is indeed a tough job on the part of the organization to make choices from among ample of potential candidates in making selection, therefore there has been a big revolution in the selection methods such as Psychometric testing, Interviewing, work trials etc. Numbers of other factors apart from Intelligence aspects are also considered such as employer branding, Candidate insight etc. are also considered.

Human resource is the vital element of an Organization as they provide attribute and values to the organizational life. Recruitment refers to the selection of the best suitable candidate at a certain position in an organization. An HRM department has to make up various decisions before initiating the selection process such as the need for recruitment, criteria to be followed in recruitment, selection techniques, the minimum duration of the selected personnel etc.

According to Doornenbal (2012), Recruitment and selection is indeed an important segment of the Human Resource department of an Organization. This mechanism involves various HR practices in the selection process of personnel, required in an Organization (Doornenbal, 2012).

According to Zinyemba (2014), Recruitment refers to attracting potential candidates with requisite skills and competencies whether it be the internal or external source, on the other hand, Selection refers to the identification and choosing among the pool of candidates, the most suitable personnel (Zinyemba, 2014). Selection somewhat is a negative process whereas recruitment refers to a positive and proactive mechanism, which initiates the engagement of the organization and potential candidates.

For example- the selection procedure of Apple includes 3- 4 rounds of interview, first includes a group discussion, in which social questions, role play etc. take place, then the selected candidates are called for next round in which questions relating to Apple are asked. Then the next round is a more casual one, to judge the basic sense of candidates and lastly, the final round of selection which includes a personal round with the higher level manager.

There are two factors namely, internal factors and external factors which affect the recruitment method, internal factors include the size of the labor turnover ratio, organization, recruitment policy etc. whereas external factors include unemployment status, demographic factor etc.

According to Alabsi & Naoum (2012), The various selection method used by organizations are Psychometric testing which includes ability and performance test, personality test, Interviewing, Assessment centers etc. The selection process has highly revolutionized and methods such as employer branding, online-selection, increased legislation & monitoring, increased diversity, analysis of physiological process etc. (Alabsi & Naoum, 2012).    

During the mechanism of Recruitment & Selection process, capable and potential candidate needs to analyzed and selected from among the pool of applied candidates, this leads to the selection of certain person and rejection of others, this is a kind of discrimination against individuals and this is based on certain fair or unfair means.  The various discrimination factors while selecting individuals namely, the fair means of discrimination includes Intelligence quotient, technical skills, mental capability, and experiences in particular field, employee brand etc. these are the technical aspects which are the fair mean looked upon while making any judgment by the HR department of an Organization.

According to Alex (2012), there are certain unfair discrimination factors which affect the potential individual, such as unequal job opportunities, gender discrimination, racism, discrimination over nationality etc. which need to curb otherwise would create a negative impact on the candidates regarding the organization (Alex, 2012).

The impact of discrimination over candidates is a negative factor. The candidates who are not selected feel a sense of depression & disappointment within them. If the discrimination is by fair means than they are needed to be motivated and needs to be improvised in their working pattern but unfair means creates a sense of unwillingness and harsh vibes against such organizations.

According to Stoilkovska, et. al. (2015), unequal job opportunities to potential individuals are the largest unfair means of recruitment & selection. Various Factors of discrimination are, such as- on the basis of gender, color, national & social origin, political & religious belief. He further added that all the employees recruited within or from outside must be provided equal job opportunity (Stoilkovska, et. al., 2015).

According to Subhani (2012), the impact of unfair discriminating factors over the potential candidates is quite negative. He opined that nowadays beauty and attraction factor is highly considered by the organizations, which directly affects individuals who are not that attractive or good looking. He further added that attractive persons are considered more capable in comparison to unattractive persons, also in terms of monetary level, they are offered more and are hired for long term (Subhani, 2012). All these factors have aspired candidates towards personality development and other factors apart from Educational & Technical aspects.

According to Hand, P. G. (2016), Harassment – harassment is the unwelcome physical or verbal conduct that tends to create a hostile or offensive work environment.  It is the kind of sex discrimination which occurs at the workplace. The Title VII of the civil right protection act 1964 prohibits the sexual discrimination at the workplace. The two type of harassment are hostile and quid pro quo. Hostile environment harassment is the unwelcome conduct on the basis of membership in the protected group. For example offensive verbal or written comment jokes, slurs, name calling etc.  The employer has to take immediate action against the harassment at the workplace. The employee can avoid the liability by taking prompt action against harassment (Hand, 2016).

As per Goldin (2013), Disability accommodation- As per the rehabilitation act and the employer is liable to provide reasonable accommodation for the known physical and mental limitation unless to do so will cause an undue hardship. The employee needs to make the changes at the workplace or in the way in which things are done as this would enable an individual to enjoy employment opportunities to those which are affected by physical disability. There are certain disabilities which limit the one or more major life activity of the employee. The types of accommodation which can be provided to the disable employees are making job facility accessible, job restructuring, acquiring or modifying equipment etc. (Goldin, 2013).

There are many theories which help to measure the extent and existence of the racial discrimination of a particular kind in a particular social and economic domain. The theory specifies the data which is required to test the theory, a method to analyze the data and the assumption that the data and analyze must satisfy to support the finding of the discrimination (Lasalvia, et. al., 2013). The civil right act protects the employee and applicant from an employee from discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, gender, and religion. The age discrimination in employment act protects employee and applicant to be discriminated on the basis of age. The basic theories of employee discrimination are as follows:

Disparate treatment is the kind of unlawful discrimination as per us labor law. According to Lundahl & Wadensjo (2015), disparate treatment is when the employee is treated differently than another employee who was having similar situated and that the difference was on the basis of protected characteristic. The disparate treatment circumstantial evidence is the three part test which includes prima facie case of discrimination, legitimate non- discriminatory reason and pretext. Prima facie cases are individual experience and adverse action and the circumstance that exist that support and inference of discrimination. The employee has the choice to rebut the prima facie case by articulating the legitimate, not- discriminatory reason for the challenging action and also has to provide the valid reason that it was the actual reason for the challenging action. The complainant has to prove that the articulated reason is factually incorrect and is the untrue reason for the challenging action. For example, Fran was not promoted by the supervision John and instead of him Mary was promoted. Fran alleges that it was because of his gender. The agency argues that john and Fran are of the same gender so Fran cannot establish prima facia case of discrimination (Lundahl & Wadensjo, 2015).

According to Rosenblat (2013), It is considered the employees are the assets of the company. Inequality is the form of discrimination. Employment discrimination is based on race, gender, marital status, age, physical and mental disability, religion and national origin. Employee discrimination is where in similar circumstances when an employee of the same status gets less importance than another one. 

There are two ways of discriminating between potential job applicants when recruiting first is fair and another is unfair. The fairway of discrimination involves affirmative action and innate requirements of the job. For example, two job seekers reach the same place for teacher profile but one of them is graduated and another is post graduated and experienced. According to the requirement of profile the person who having post graduated profile would get the placement and another one would get be rejected. It is called fair discrimination.

Unfair discrimination is there when policy, rules and regulation are the same for all the employees but due to discrimination like age, race, gender, religion etc. has a worse effect on some people than others. For example, Mr. X and Mr. Y are having same qualification and experience. They apply for a job in the multinational company for the profile of senior executive but the head HR of the company calls only Mr. X for a job interview but not Mr. Y because of Mr. Y’s ethnic origin.

According to KASPER (2016), indirect discrimination is not necessarily unjust. If overall the distribution of burden and benefits are just then disadvantaged of discrimination is not unjust. If an employer treats employees in a bad manner which causes of stress and intimidates, it may also call harassment and come under unlawful behavior. For example, if the manager of the company passes bad comments and using abusive language which cannot be bearable, it could be assumed unbearable and employee can take action against the employer under the Equality Act (KASPER, 2016).

According to Kirby (2015), Fair employment brings good impact upon the company and enhances fair practices which make a good business sense. If employees get treated at same level and rights. Because of fair employment practices company would get a wide range of talent and innovation due to adopt different backgrounds. To appoint from different backgrounds outcome has come with a lot of solution, creativity, and idea (Kirby. et. al., 2015).

Due to fair practices, customer satisfaction level reaches a high level. Organization can make sure their employees that they are protected from unlawful workplace discrimination and any other worst situation by the employer. When organization appoints employee according to the necessary requirement of organization it increases productivity and staff retention.  To making fair or equal opportunity policy on employment, employees are given training and encouragement to take equal advantage of opportunities of the organization. It should be written policy and should be mentioned dos and don’ts. One of the reason is to be fair is to access to a wider talent pool.

Some different treatment does not come under unlawful discrimination. If one or more of the above attributes (race, sex, marital status, gender, region, disability, etc.) brings the adverse situation in the organization it would be considered as unlawful discrimination in the terms of Fair Work Act 2009.

According to Harris, et. al. (2013), for Example, john is in the marketing field and deal with so many people. But from the last month, he made several mistakes and do in a continuous form. John’s manager advised him to take training of performance management program to develop his skill. During training also he continued to make errors. As such, john’s manager took a decision that he would change his daily duties. In this example the reason is not based one or more of their personal attributes so just due to change the duties or alter an employment, it would not be considered unlawful (Harris, et. al., 2013).

According to Epstein & Buhovac (2014), there are some guidelines to adopt fair practices of employment that are select candidate on the basis of skills, ability, and experience. Provide equal opportunity and treatment. Provide training to develop their skills and help them to achieve their full potential. An employee is being treated fairly and with respect. Do not harm their emotions and make them feel comfort to speak up. Encourage and reward them as per their ability, skill, performance, contribution and experience. It will work like motivation and motivation is a big tool to take work from employees in an effective manner. Make them feel that if they do good work their job will be secured because job insecurity can bring the result of stress which increases the number of mistakes on a regular basis (Epstein & Buhovac, 2014).

As per Certo (2015), the disadvantage condition also captures the difference of fair and unfair condition. The direct or indirect discrimination depends on the disadvantageous condition formed by the employer. If the condition directly affects the applicant then it is direct discrimination. For example, if a male dominating employer decides to recruit only a male and will reject a female even if she is highly qualified, then the female applicant will be a victim of direct discrimination as she directly gets rejected because of such disadvantageous condition. Any case otherwise will be considered as indirect discrimination. Indirect discrimination is the one where the victim gets indirectly affected by the disadvantageous condition (Certo, 2015).

With the thorough analysis of the factors that affect the recruitment and selection process in an organization, it is concluded that it is highly important to eliminate and reduce the discrimination factor in order to create a healthy & positive environment for employees and job seeker. The essay consists of a critical evaluation of fair and unfair factors of discrimination, and discussions regarding the advantages, as well as disadvantages of these factors for the organization as well as for the potential candidates, are also undertaken. The potential impact of such discrimination over the candidates and ways through which such situation can be improved is also considered. The essay is further supported with the detailed analysis of the Discrimination theories such as disparate treatment, harassment, and disability harassment. Lastly, it can be concluded, that policy regarding recruitment & selection need to be carefully analyzed & judged, and any sort of unfair discrimination needs to be eliminated.

Unfair discrimination during recruitment affects the individual at large. The organization to hire the qualified staff needs to avoid the discrimination during the recruitment process. It is not only the legal requirement but also helps in hiring the right person for the job. The HRM needs to be careful while hiring a new employee for the company. Due to unfair employment practice the company losses the potential employee and may sometimes attract legal liability. The unfair discrimination is when the candidate is provided with the advantage and disadvantage which is not related to the area of the work. Lindsey, et. al. (2013), stated that the equality act 2010 prevent the employee from the discrimination at the workplace. The organization needs to follow the procedure which doesn’t discriminate the employees while conducting the recruitment process to avoid legal action against the company (Lindsey, et. al., 2013).

The unfair discrimination occurs when the employee takes the adverse action against the person who is an employee or prospective employee of the company on the basis of race, color, sex, age etc. To avoid the unfair practice during the job the HRM needs to ensure that the question which is asked during the interview is related to the inherent requirement of the job. While framing the question the HRM needs to consider that it helps in gaining the understanding of the person ability of the applicant to perform the job and should not discriminate employees. Larson, (2015), stated that the organization needs to ensure that the application process doesn’t create a disadvantage for the certain group of people.  To avoid the issue the organization needs to simplify recruitment to respond to the selection criteria and ensure that the application process is simple and doesn’t request unnecessary information. For example asking the applicant to submit the comprehensive written statement could also discourage people which have limited skills for applying for the job. Using only the online portal could deter some applicant which faces difficulty in assessing the application process (Larson, 2015).

The HRM needs to have the clear understanding of the job requirement and needs to review the information from the applicant about their capacity to perform the job on the basis of their knowledge and skills. The organization needs to evaluate the applicant using the selection criteria, matching skills and the experience in relation to the job. For example, the manager tells the HRM that they don’t require the applicant with the accent in the role as it may affect the image of the organization. The HRM doesn’t forward the request of Anna from china who was having the excellent skill and a huge experience (Zukauskas & Vveinhardt, 2015). The hotel may be liable for the discrimination as Anna was eligible for the job and was not hired due to her place of origin. You also need to avoid myth to influence your decision due to which you may lose a potential employee for the company. The organization needs to have clear focus over the on the individual ability in relation to the job.

To prevent the discrimination at the workplace you need to plan your approach to ensure that you comply with the obligation to prevent the discrimination in the recruitment process. The HRM also need to educate the other which are involved in the recruitment process about the obligation. The organization also needs to design the recruitment process in the way which fairly deals with the applicant. The company is not required to collect irrelevant information from the applicant and focus on the essential requirement of the job (Thompson, 2016).  The company also needs to keep the proper record of the action and make the effort to select the best person suited for the job rather than discriminating on any basis. While conducting the interview the interviewer should not make an assumption based on the personal behavior, body language and body language of the applicant. For example, a person not shaking hand may be showing respect and courtesy to the interviewer.

The HRM needs to prevent the employee from discrimination at various stages of employment. At the time of conducting the interview, the organization needs to consider how the position will be advertised and the procedure for conducting the interview (Dipboye & Colella, 2013). The organization also needs to prevent the employee from the unfair term and condition of the employment during the employment. The organization needs to frame the policy which doesn’t discriminate between the employees and provides equal opportunity to the employee.

Critical Incident Reflection

The term critical reflection can be explained as the reasonable process in which meaning of the experience is derived so as to provide descriptive, analytical and critical analysis of the individual and the experience gained. Critical reflection has helped me in evaluating my own experience and analyzing the experience for enhancing the skills and knowledge. During the execution of the activities or the role, various challenges and issues are faced which need to be dealt for gaining better experience. Critical thinking has helped me in analyzing the need for improvement in the skills and knowledge. It has helped me in guiding towards the right direction as well as directing others towards the right direction for the attainment of the objectives. During the process of critical thinking I have selected few stages or steps and these steps include collection of the facts and evaluation of the facts, absorbing the information, comparison of the information or facts with my learning and experience for analysing the gaps, providing support by giving reasons for the justification and implications have been analysed.

I have analyzed the need of human resource management in an organization so as to execute the operations of the organization in an effective manner. I have learned that for the management of an effective human resource team there is a need to use an effective recruitment and selection process. Discrimination affects the behavior or the performance of the human resource and it needs to be eliminated from the workplace for effective outcomes. From the execution of this task, I have gained the knowledge of the different aspects of the business environment which affects the organization at large. These aspects of the business environment form a crucial part of the organization. I have learned the role of recruitment and selection process, discrimination and the impact of discriminatory practices over the human resource of the organization, fair and unfair means or ways of discrimination between potential job applicants when recruiting. During the recruitment and selection process of the candidate or applicant, various types of discriminatory practices can occur at the workplace which results in negative impact on the candidates and leads to unethical practices. During the execution of this program, I have learned that it is crucial to follow the legal rules and regulation related to discrimination at the workplace on the basis of the age, caste, gender, color, physical appearance, and religion. Following discriminatory practices during the recruitment and selection process of the organization results in a lack of selection of the suitable or skilled and knowledgeable candidates.  I have learned that there is a need to learn on a constant basis for the enhancement of the skills and knowledge for the execution of the roles and responsibilities in a better manner. I have analyzed the importance of ethics, rules, and regulations which need to be followed during the recruitment and selection process. Various theories of discrimination are available which focuses on elimination of these practices at the workplace. During the recruitment and selection process, there is a need to apply a contemporary approach which helps in the selection of the most suitable candidate on the basis of the skills and knowledge required and the skills and knowledge possessed by the candidate. I have analyzed that there is a need to maintain the concept of fairness at the workplace during the execution of the different activities of the business. In this essay I have critically evaluated the fair and unfair ways of discriminating between potential jobs applicants when recruiting in which both positive as well as negative aspects of these concepts have been discussed. The unfair ways of discriminating between potential job applicants when recruiting can result in adverse impact on the individual. The unfair discrimination can be in a direct or indirect manner which can result in dissatisfaction among the human resource or the candidates applying.

For gaining the better knowledge regarding the aspect discussed in the essay I could have analyzed the different acts, rules, and regulations which have been framed by the governments of different countries for the health & safety, security of the human resource from the unethical practices. I could have analyzed the impact of these rules and regulations and acts over the businesses operating in the business environment. I could have used the skills for providing a better overview of the operations of the businesses which are affecting the individuals and the society. A variety of approaches or theories could have been applied for the enhancement of the recruitment and selection process. The recruitment and selection process of the different organizations need to be analyzed so as to evaluate that the recruitment and selection process in not adversely affecting the candidates applying for the post. Examples of the different industries need to be considered for analyzing the trend in the business environment and the ethical behavior adopted by the businesses for safeguarding the interest of the candidates. The impact of the different concepts could have analyzed for the development of the knowledge of others about these concepts. I have learned the importance of anti-discriminatory practices during the execution of the different operations such as recruitment and selection process, management of the human resource and production process, rewarding human resource and treatment to the human resource at the workplace.

I have gained knowledge of the different aspects which can be used for the purpose of motivating others and promoting the fair and ethical behavior in the different operations at the workplace. I will try to utilize the knowledge and skills gained from this assignment in the practical situations I will face. Different situations arise during the execution of the roles and responsibilities assigned in the business environment as the experience and the knowledge gain enhances the capabilities which help in the execution of the roles and responsibilities in a better manner. The real life situations are different from the theoretical or imaginary situations and different ways need to be used for dealing with them.

References

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