Theory linked with practice regarding recruitment and retention

 

Considering the employee recruitment, Granovetter (1995), argues that social contacts are important to labor supply and labor demand theories. Because it is of higher quality and more reliability than information found in advertisements or from employment agencies, job seekers prefer to use social contacts to get jobs. Searchers learn very little about the working environment at a company from job advertisements. As example; job searchers who gather information from acquaintances, or friends of friends, acquire better quality information than do those searchers who acquire information from close friends (Granovetter, 1995). Social contacts give employers information about potential employees that enables employers to more clearly analyze the applicant's abilities and shortcomings, which is why employers prefer to use social contacts when filling positions (Mencken, 1994).

As such, many organizations are using social media to augment a large variety of traditional HR processes, such as recruitment, to cut costs, and to increase effectiveness (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). Social media encompasses a wide variety of tools including wikis, blogs, social bookmarking, and social networking sites (SNS) all of which have seen an increase in usage over the past decade (Landers, Schmidt and Springer International Publishing Ag, 2018). Currently, some of the more popular SNS include Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. SNS sites such as LinkedIn are therefore more likely to contain job-specific and job-relevant information (job history, accomplishments, endorsed skills) than sites such as Facebook or Twitter (Landers, Schmidt and Springer International Publishing Ag, 2018). Social media provides unique challenges and benefits for organizations in particular. These include better communication with current workers and future job candidates, more focused advertising, improved collaboration procedures, and greater transparency (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010).

According to Ahmad and Azumah, (n.d.), employee motivation, job satisfaction and job embeddedness are mentioned as the main factors that influence employee retention rates. When creating and implementing their staff retention strategy, organizations frequently take some of these factors into consideration (Ahmad and Azumah, n.d.).  Job satisfaction can be linked to most of the levels of Maslow’s hierarchy. For most people, job is a primary source of financial security; the better paying and more secure the job is, the more financially secure the individual feels (Ahmad and Azumah, n.d.). Bullying is considered as one of the most important issues at work. Studies conducted worldwide identify increased bullying factor in organizations (Halim et al., 2020). Bullying has definite negative outcomes on retention of employees. It is said that workplace violence also makes bullying, workplace harassment, and emotional abuse more common (Halim et al., 2020).

In addition, employees are less likely to be motivated by extrinsic rewards like benefits, opulent offices, even promotions or compensation, according to Herzberg's two factor theory (Ahmad and Azumah, n.d.). Rather, employees are most often motivated by intrinsic rewards which include interesting, challenging work and opportunities to grow and achieve greater responsibility (Ahmad and Azumah, n.d.). As stated by Halim et al. (2020), a healthy work atmosphere is essential for retaining staff. An appreciation for others, healthy relationships amongst coworkers, and no harassment are necessary for a positive work environment.

 

References:

Ahmad, K. and Azumah, K.K. (n.d.). Employee Retention Strategies: the case of a patent firm in Australia. pp.1–101.

 

Granovetter, M. (1995). Getting a Job: A Study of Contacts and Careers. 2d edition ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, pp.1–269.

 

Halim, Z., Maria, Waqas, M., Edwin, C.A. and Shah, A. (2020). Identifying factors for employee retention using computational techniques: an approach to assist the decision-making process. SN Applied Sciences, [online] 2(9). doi:10.1007/s42452-020-03415-5.

 

Kaplan, A.M. and Haenlein, M. (2010). Users of the world, unite! the Challenges and Opportunities of Social Media. Business Horizons, 53(1), pp.59–68.

 

Landers, R.N., Schmidt, G.B. and Springer International Publishing Ag (2018). Social Media in Employee Selection and Recruitment Theory, Practice, and Current Challenges. Cham Springer International Publishing Springer.

 

Mencken, F.C. (1994). Employer Recruitment and Job Matching Theories: The Effects of Informal Recruiting Practices on Racial and Gender Job Composition. LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. pp.1–297.