B8204 Human Resource

Management
Recruitment and Selection
Employee Separations

Kathryne Dupr, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Faculty of Business Administration
Memorial University of Newfoundland
kdupre@mun.ca

Agenda

Selection; Separations, Downsizing and

Outplacement

Text: Chapters 5 and 6

Simulation: Hiring the Right Person

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Recruiting Human Resources

Practice or activity carried out by the

organization with primary purpose of
identifying and attracting a pool of qualified
applicants for a job

Influences selection process (How big is

applicant pool? What skills do they have?
How diverse are job candidates?)

Influences motivation and retention

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2005 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd.

Recruitment Challenges & Issues

Aim: attract qualified job

candidates

Sources

Recruitment Costs and

Issues

Current employees
Employee referrals
Former employees

Print advertising
Internet advertising
Employment agencies
Temporary help agencies
University and college recruiting
Customers

The employment rate

Evaluating sources
Recruitment Policy

Legal Considerations

Human Rights Codes

Employment Equity
Diversity and
Discrimination

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Selection

Most important part of the cycle, but often not enough

thought is given to it.

Key to organizational effectiveness

Sounds simple: match employees with jobs

Performance, stay, not engage in counterproductive

behavior
Failures can lead to labor shortages, layoffs, etc.

Selection methods that predict employee effectiveness

Void between what research indicates and how
organizations actually do personnel selection
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Effective selection process are...

Courts examine whether selection instruments are
Valid

performance on selection test/instrument reflect actual job

performance
Are the tests accurate?

Reliable

consistency of the measurement

Are the tests consistent?

concurrent validity
predictive validity

over-time - test-retest reliability

over judges - interrater reliability

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Selection

Cost of making a mistake:

Total cost of hiring is 25%+ of the positions first year

salary.
Soured relationship
Can weaken managements credibility and hurt
morale.
What to do with the mistake?
Transfer? Retrain? Fire?

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Effectiveness of Selection Tools

Method

Validity

Cost

Legal Defensibility

Application Blanks

Low

Low

Weighted Applications

High

High

High

Letters of
Recommendation

Low

Low

Interviews

Low

Low

Low

Cognitive Ability Tests

High

Low

Low

Personality Tests

Medium

Low

Structured Interview

High

High

High

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Selection

Reference checking:

Reference letters, employment references.

2/3 do serious reference checking
Should try to keep it job related; personal information
only if it affected work.
When giving references, one should have evidence to
support claims.
References can be a bit dishonest for various reasons:
Legal concerns; trying to lose an employee, dislike of judging
others

References can also be intentionally vague

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Interviews

Often unstructured

Structure Interviews

10

Can result in hiring the most skilful interviewee

Identifies KSAs through systematic job analysis
Uses pre-determined questions that assess these
KSAs
Asks all candidates same questions
Usually uses a panel and score guide
More valid and reliable than unstructured or
conversational interview (see Campion, Pursell, &
Brown, 1988
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The Situational Interview

(Latham, Saari, Pursell, & Campion, 1980)

Use job analysis to determine core

competencies
Asks dilemma - based questions based on the
competencies
Intention predicts future performance
Uses a panel of raters and a score guide
What would you do if?
Valid and reliable

11

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Patterned behavior description interview

(PBDI) (Janz, 1982, 1989)

use job analysis to determine core

competencies
past behavior predicts future behavior
usually uses a panel
can be augmented with a score guide
Tell me about a time when?
valid and reliable
may hurt candidates with little experience

12

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Interviewing
Drawbacks with interviews:

Still used because:

13

Reliability: inter-rater reliability

Different interviewers will emphasize different SKAs
Fluency and composure: Related to success?
Perception and biases
Can be subjective!!!
Make decision within first few minutes
Unfavourable information has a bigger effect
Remember information from beginning and end
Order of interviewees plays a role
Very practical when there is a small number of applicants
Serves other purposes (i.e., PR)
Interviewers maintain great faith and confidence in their
judgments
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Work Sample

Designed to have high content validity through a close relationship with the job.
Based on the premise that the best predictor of future behaviour is observed
behaviour under similar situations.
These tests require the examinee to perform tasks that are similar to those that are
performed on the job.
Advantages

Disadvantages

14

high reliability
high content validity - work samples are a sample of the actual work performed on the job
low adverse impact
because of their relationship to the job, these tests are typically viewed more favorable by
examinees than aptitude or personality tests
difficult for applicants to fake job proficiency which helps to increase the relationship
between score on the test and performance on the job

costly to administer; often can only be administered to one applicant at a time

although useful for jobs where tasks and duties can be completed in a short period of time,
these tests have less ability to predict performance on jobs where tasks may take days or
weeks to complete

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Realistic Job Preview

Gives candidate a realistic perspective of the job

15

the good, the bad, the ugly about

city
company
manager
co-workers
Why?
People will self-select out
minimize turnover

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Potential Selection Process

Situational Interview
PBDI Interview
Assessment Center
Realistic Job Preview

16

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The hiring process

Recruitment

Selection

generating the applicant pool

the hire/no-hire decision

Socialization

17

orientation

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Employee Separations

An employee separation occurs when an

employee ceases to be a member of an
organization.

The rate of employee separation in an

organization, the turnover rate, is a measure of
a rate at which employees leave the
organization.

18

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Costs & Benefits of

Employee Separations

Costs depends on
need for replacement

19

Recruitment Costs
Selection Costs
Training Costs
Separation Costs
Severance pay
Exit interview
Outplacement Assistance

Benefits

Reduced Labour Costs

Replacement of Poor
Performers
Increased Innovation
Greater Diversity

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Types of Employee Separations

Voluntary separation: when employee decides, for
personal or professional reasons, to end relp with employer

Quit, retire, early retirement (challenges??)

What affects retention?

Involuntary separation: when employer decides to

terminate relationship with employee due to economic
necessity or poor fit between employee and organization

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Dismissal (after progressive discipline procedure), layoffs,

downsizing, rightsizing
Job Displacement: No longer stigma attached??
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The Layoff Decision and Its Alternatives

Business Needs to
Reduce Labour Costs

Alternatives to Layoffs

Voluntary
Separations

Involuntary
Separations

Early Retirements

Voluntary Work
Force Reductions

Layoffs

Outplacement
21

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Alternatives to Layoffs

Employment Policies

attrition, hiring freeze

let part-time, contractual, interns/coops go
subcontract to in-house staff
LOA
reduce hours/job sharing
early retirement

Training

22

retrain
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Alternatives to Layoffs

Job Design Changes

transfer/relocation
reduce work hours
job sharing
demotion

Pay

23

pay freeze/cuts
cut overtime pay
use vacation time
variable pay

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Letting people go with dignity.

Notify employees

Develop layoff criteria

performance/seniority

Communicating to employees

pay in lieu
prior?

one-on-one
middle of day, middle of week
be brief

Media Relations

24

internal and external

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Letting people go with dignity.

Security

Outplacement

sabotage risks?
Media, PR and employee risks?
ASAP
focus on next steps and moving forward
You cannot change the present you can change the future
External to company with resources (computers etc)

Dealing with survivors

25

clear, honest, and open communication

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Disengaging from the Organization:

Partial Absenteeism

Absenteeism

Turnover
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Partial Absenteeism

27

Partial absenteeism is the first stage:

Daydreaming
Frequent telephone calls
Arrive late, leave early
Extended lunch
Frequent breaks during the day

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Absenteeism

Missing scheduled work for any reason.

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Of course, being on a scheduled vacation,

recognized holidays, approved leaves of
absences, jury time, family responsibility
leave, bereavement time and so forth does
not count as absenteeism.

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Estimating Absenteeism

All things considered, how many days do you think it

would be normal or typical for someone doing your kind
of work to be absent during one year?

When employees at one organization were asked the

following..

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Currently, approximately how many days per year does the

average employee in your work group miss due to absenteeism?
In a typical year, how many days do you personally miss work due
to absenteeism?

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Contrasting Views of the Causes of

Absenteeism (Deviance, Health, Attitudes, Stress)

Deviance

Negative attributions about others absence (e.g., lazy,

irresponsible, malingering)
Absence is the most frequent reason for arbitration hearings
Absence control is then achieved by control, discipline, and
punishment

Health

30

Can it be health alone:

Health in western countries has increased, as has absence
Hamilton study: absence increases when you know you are
sick or know that you have a good reason
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Contrasting Views of the Causes of

Absenteeism

Stress Perspective
Perhaps the most logical short-term strategy
for coping with severe work stressors is to
avoid them, i.e., stay away
Unauthorized mental health breaks
Several studies provide some indication

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Turnover

The process in which employees leave the

organization and have to be replaced.
Impact of Turnover

32

Inability to achieve business goals

Loss of image to attract other individuals
High costs of turnover and replacement
Increasing turnover rates having significant impact
on organizational success
Costs associated with turnover, especially of high
performers, continues to escalate
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Retention Measurement and Assessment

Employee Surveys

Exit Interviews

33

Attitude surveyfocuses on employees

feelings and beliefs about their jobs and the
organization.
An interview in which individuals are asked to
identify reasons for leaving the organization

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Key Points

Talent gravitates toward well run organizations

Hiring (including recruitment, selection, and socialization) is critical to

organizational effectiveness

Hiring well is expensive and time-consuming - doing it well involves

awareness of many issues & factors, and overcoming numerous
challenges

Although separations and downsizing can be challenging for

organizations, it is possible to do it in ways that mitigate the
detrimental impact on the organization and its employees

Most people get to work most of the time on time, and work overtime

The real challenges seem to be

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Minimizing workplace stress, and

Motivating employees once they are at work

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Next Class

Research Discussion

35

Groysberg et al. (2004). The risky business of hiring stars.

Harvard Business Review, 82, 92-100.
Wright, B. & Barling, J. (1998). The Executioners Song:
Listening to downsizers reflect on their experiences. Journal of
Administrative Sciences, 15, 339-355.
Potosky, D. & Bobko, P. (2004). Selection testing via the Internet:
Practical considerations and exploratory empirical findings.
Personnel Psychology, 57, 1003-1034.

Outplacement at Rocky Mountain Oil, p. 188

Selecting for Survival at Future Horizons Foundry, p. 165

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