tiistai 28. elokuuta 2018

CASE 1 - Recruitment and selection

The case 1 tells a story about Alicia Cook´s career at clothing brand Abercrombie. Alicia was a college student in need of a part-time job. One day at the local mall an Abercrombie sales person, called as  a ´model´, reached out to Alicia and invited her to a job interview. Little did Alicia know that the invite was due to her physical appearance matching the Abercrombie´s requirements. Alicia was hired and worked for Abercrombie several years. She witnessed discriminating behavior towards the applicant that did not fit into the employers´ appearance requirements. (Huffingtonpost 2015.)

In this case the brand appearance and reputation is more important to the employers than the employees. It is immoral that employers exploit, especially young teenagers, to boost their brand image. As Alicia said in the Huffingtonpost story ´During my time there I was constantly hearing about lawsuits over discriminatory hiring practices´. Abercrombie did not avoid troubles and had to make up strategies to seem like a reliable employer playing by the rules.

To my mind it seems like Abercrombie thought that they had easy time exploiting young, innocent people who would not have guts to stand for their rights or were not aware of them. All illegal actions of course should be doomed. Abercrombie and Fitch was originally known as a brand selling small size clothing for white and good-looking people, the former CEO Mike Jeffries said (Dearden 2015). I think there is nothing wrong whit a brand wanting to sell clothing for a certain type of people with a certain sizing, but A&F crossed a line, especially in their illegal actions regarding the employment practices.

Today it seems like A&F have softened their brand to be more adjustable and are now selling more sizes. According to their online shop it seems like there are more different looking models with different styles and cultural origins. (Abercrombieandfitch.com 2018).
product image

In the hiring process the recruiter has legal responsibility to avoid any discrimination in the hiring process. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it´s extensions and the Civil Rights Act of 1991 provide broad prohibition against discrimination based on race, sex, religion and national origin. And in the employee selection techniques must be job related, and the employer could end up in a position where he/she must show evidence that the recruitment was based on job related attributes. (Gómez-Mejía, Balkin, Cardy 2016, 201.)

I studied another case concerning Abercrombie & Fitch´s hiring processes. In this case Samantha Elauf was not hired because she wore a scarf on her head due to her religion. The assistant shop manager interviewed Elauf, and was worried that the scarf would not fit in their ´Look policy´ of the company. 

 The recruiter consulted the district manager and he agreed that there was a problem when considering to hire Elauf (despite the fact that she received a high rating as a potential employee). Later the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit against Abercrombie & Fitch. Abercrombie & Fitch was sentenced to pay twenty thousand dollars to Elauf for this mistake. (The New Yorker, 2015.)
Samantha Elauf 

And like we learned from the A&F cases there could be a fine line between choosing the employees the recruiter prefers and choosing employees based on their appearance, for example. As human relations are very present in recruiting process, recruiters choose employees they like, whether it is their appearance, skills or something else. There are subconscious and conscious decisions evolved. If a recruited had to make a decision excluding the applicant´s looks or personality, they would have to do the process blind folded. 

To successfully hire employees (and avoid problems) there are few things to consider along the way in the recruitment process. 

 The hiring process includes the recruitment stage where the possibly qualified candidates are searched, the selection phase where the hiring or not decision is made and the last step socialization where the orientation to the new working environment happens and needed training takes place (Gómez-Mejía, Balkin, Cardy 2016, 183.)

 Recruitment

The employer should carefully consider where to post the job advertisement to find the best candidates for the job. For example, the recruiter can post the job advertisement in social media or in career sites depending on what kind of applicants she/he wants to attract. 
It is also good to include some details about the organization´s culture into the job ad to make the advertisement more attractive. It is good to remember that some people are not in it just for the job or paycheck but want to enjoy organization´s culture as a whole with for example future career opportunities or a good working atmosphere (Gómez-Mejía, Balkin, Cardy 2016, 186-187.)

 Heathfield points out in her article that it is good to make connections with universities and recruiters beforehand, because they might be useful later on (thebalancecareer.com, 2018).
recruitment techniques

Selection

When the selection there are a few considered ways to evaluate if the applicant would be a good employee. The recruiter can review letters of recommendations to find out what kind of a team player or personality the applicant is, which would be hard to find out in an interview session alone. Ability tests can be used to measure applicants practical skills for example with a math test or a real work task from the actual job (Gómez-Mejía, Balkin, Cardy 2016, 192-194.)

 It is suggested that the recruiter should cooperate with her/his colleagues to interview the applicants together or ask them to help review resumes and asses them. This way the recruiter can benefit from team work to find the best fit for the job (thebalancecareer.com, 2018.)

There are some common rules for the interview question for what not to ask from the applicant. This category includes question about applicants´ health and religious affiliation. It is also important to think how the the questions are formed. For example one can ask is the applicant is at least 18 years old, but not the date of birth. Asking the applicant about previous arrest record is not allowed unless the arrest was related to the job applied to (Gómez-Mejía, Balkin, Cardy 2016, 134-136.)

 Socialization

 In my opinion, when the recruitment process was successful and both the employer and the employee are satisfied with the situation. Then the employee should be motivated enough to go through the training for the position and the person fits the organization´s culture and has no trouble fitting in. 


References

Gómez-Mejía L., Balkin D., Cardy R. 2016. Managing Human Resources. Pearson Education Limited. Harlow.

Huffingtonpost 2015. What it was REALLY like working working as an Abercrombie ´model´


Abercrombie and Fitch product view https://www.abercrombie.com/shop/eu/p/-11901407?categoryId=6570770&seq=02&faceout=model . Accessed 23 August 2018.





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