HR Recruitment and Selection Strategies: Reducing Turnover

HR Strategies: Cost Reduction vs. Employee Commitment

HR strategies differ at times from management strategies. One study conducted in the early 1990s highlighted the dominant HR strategies of one company: "a cost reduction strategy and an employee commitment strategy. These strategies were distinguished from one another on the basis of five realms of HR policy and practice: work organization, employee relations, staffing, training, and compensation" (Bamberger, Biron, and Meshoulam, 2014, p. 56). Cost reduction strategies aim to augment efficiency through enforcement of employee compliance with detailed procedures and rules, as well as basing rewards such as compensation on measurable criteria.

The commitment strategy, on the other hand, is meant to develop a team of dedicated employees who can be trusted to use their discretion in order to perform job tasks in ways consistent with the goals and aims of the organization. The study established that the organization's commitment strategy is a collection of practices characterized by "higher levels of employee involvement in decision making, enhanced employee training in problem solving, a stronger emphasis on socialization-oriented development activities, selection methods aimed at maintaining a higher ratio of skilled to unskilled employees, and a higher average wage rate" (Bamberger, Biron, and Meshoulam, 2014, p. 56). By maintaining a higher ratio of skilled to unskilled employees, companies experience a lower turnover rate, since skilled employees represent a valuable resource. Unskilled workers are more easily and quickly replaced, leading to a lack of connection, communication, and socialization among employees.

In essence, these main HR strategies cultivate a sense of belonging in the company — particularly through higher wage rates — along with a sense of cohesion and stability. Companies need consistency in order to enable growth within employees and growth of the organization itself. When too many people are coming and going, it erases opportunities for employees to bond, leading to constant change and decreased productivity.

The Role of Recruitment and Selection in Organizational Stability

The recruitment and selection process can have a serious impact on turnover rates and the cohesion of an organization. Researchers have found a direct correlation between an organization's ability to recruit worthwhile candidates and its ability to retain employees. When a company has more tenured employees, it can afford less rigid structure and control, granting greater freedom to its people. When a company or organization has an effective and solid recruitment and selection process, the chances of hiring the right employees for the right positions are higher, leading to a better organizational fit, lower turnover rates, greater stability, and improved overall productivity.

When a company is small, recruitment and selection are typically left to the hiring manager. In larger companies or organizations, however, recruiters are enlisted to screen résumés and conduct initial interviews, passing the most qualified applicants to the hiring manager, who then conducts the final interview and makes the hiring decision. By retaining good employees, there is a correlative reduction in turnover, and the need to constantly recruit, select, and hire new employees decreases.

While some companies rely on non-intuitive practices for recruitment and selection, a 2014 qualitative study noted the desire for the process to include intuition-based decision making. "Intuition was used as an indicator for performance, personality, and person-environment fit. Intuition tended to be used with requisite caution; participants were aware of its limits, the potential for bias, and the difficulties in justifying its use; several participants used their intuitions in concert with more structured, non-intuition-based approaches" (Miles and Sadler-Smith, 2014, p. 606). Sometimes people make decisions based on how they feel, lending to the notion that what does not "feel right" may not be right for the company. Intuition-based decision making could be either helping or hurting the recruitment and selection process, since it may rely on factors that cannot be easily assessed or quantified. This study reveals an interesting notion: based on how someone "feels" about a candidate, they may or may not choose to hire that person.

Limitations of the Recruitment and Selection Process

Recruitment and selection processes have inherent limitations. Even when all necessary procedures are followed and a prospective employee is assessed to the best of the recruiter's ability — with the intention of screening out unsuitable candidates — problems in the screening process will always remain. This is because recruiters, as human beings, have limits to how well they can perceive and analyze a person and a situation, leading to hiring errors. As noted previously, recruiters sometimes rely on their intuition to assist in decision making.

In a 2013 Harvard Business School article, Anna Secino examines the phenomenon of businesses and organizations hiring unqualified candidates through what she calls "fundamental attribution error." Fundamental attribution error occurs when a person makes an instant assessment of someone, attributing that individual's behavior to inborn characteristics rather than external circumstances. This kind of assessment happens frequently because no one can know every aspect of a stranger's background while simultaneously needing to determine whether that individual is a good fit. As a result, surface cues — such as an expensive suit or a high GPA — may be sufficient to trigger a snap judgment.

Such decisions can spell trouble for an organization seeking quality recruits. Because tasks that are easy and performed well tend to be the ones evaluated, difficult tasks that are performed only adequately are often overlooked. When recruits are eventually given difficult tasks, their performance may diminish, leading to a downturn in productivity. As Secino (2013) observes, consistently favoring employees whose performance benefited from an easier situation "can be disastrous on a companywide scale. When executives promote employees based primarily on their performance in a specific environment, a drop in that employee's success can be expected under different conditions."