Job placement and employee-role alignment in organizational success

¶ … Right People Into the Wrong Job

Irrespective of the type of business in question, having the right employee holding the right job is what steers an organization towards failure or success. Some disadvantages that may arise from giving the wrong post to individuals (even skilled individuals) are failure and a waste of organizational productivity and employee's potential.

Failure

Business success in today's world is gauged in terms of TALENT, i.e., the appropriate aptitude for a particular job. It is stated in Jim Collins' Good to Great that employees aren't the key asset of an organization; rather, it is the 'right' employees that lead a company to great heights. It is vital not only to recruit the right individuals and avoid taking on those who aren't right for the organization, but also to place these right recruits on the right jobs; irrespective of a company type, the individuals within it dictate organizational failure or success (Smith, 2015).

HRM selection decisions that an organization can use to mitigate this issue

When conventional hiring procedures fail to produce winners, an organization needs to consider and come up with alternatives. Prior to the beginning of this century, assessments were only utilized by 5% Fortune 500 firms. Currently, however, the figure has soared to 65%. An American Management Association research conducted in the year 2000 revealed that about 50% of the 1,085 companies that were part of the study apply no less than one assessment during interviews. Every assessment isn't identical. Organizations can choose from a range of available assessments, some of which gauge applicant's integrity and honesty, while others measure job skills to ascertain whether the prospective employee will do well on the job. Still other assessments measures communication skills and people's ability to work in teams. One can employ the services of hiring consultants for selecting the strategy and assessment best suited to one's firm. Implementation of a structured process of hiring, together with profiles or assessments, can boost a company's chances of identifying the correct individual for the correct role (Smith, 2015).

If recruitment is viewed in isolation, it will not be able to reach its full potential or aid a company in driving its "performance mindset." Thus, the component of recruitment needs to be perceived as coming under the overall productivity/people process. It doesn't suffice to recruit people for the sake of just filling up vacant posts; paying attention to the next phase, i.e., ensuring continual placement of new hires and star performers in the correct role, is equally crucial. Also, after a certain span of time on a job, continual redeployment of personnel into more fitting roles is also imperative (Sullivan, 2001).

Aspects of the selection process

Interviewing

One among the major elements of the process of employee selection is face-to-face interviewing. Through this, interviewers can directly interact with potential employees and assess them on the basis of emotional and physical contact rather than merely a name and a test score. A direct meeting helps in putting a face to the individual names.

Work Sample Tests or assessment

One employee selection trend is allowing candidates to carry out tasks similar to those they may have to actually perform if awarded the job. Such tests can be covered in supplementary application forms. How they score on these tests can be taken to represent their potential performance on the actual job (Lindner & Zoller).