Midterm Assignment for HRM in Health

TITLE

Examining the public sector recruitment and

selection, in relation to job analysis in Pakistan

A summary and Critical review

Dr Akhtar Abbas

MSPH 36 18104104

Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology

 INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this research was to study the recruitment and selection with respect to job

analysis in public sector of Pakistan. Job analysis is the most important part of human resource

activities. This research studied whether job analysis practices are followed or not. The

information obtained from 144 respondents, through questionnaires and some interviews. It

concluded that the hiring process of public sector is flawed mainly of poor job analysis.

Entering the 21st century, it is impossible for any organization to excel without human resource

management. The progress, development, and success of any organization are linked to the

performance emplyees.

Employees are the asset of any company, So, it is imperative that right person for the right job is

working whether private or public organization, thus recruitment and selection process becomes

most relevant and done in an organized, way to a selection of right candidates.

Job analysis is an organized assessment, study and recording the responsibilities, duties ,

accountabilities, work environment and ability requirements of a job. It also involves

determining the relative importance of the duties, responsibilities and physical and emotional

skills for a given job. All these factors identify what a job demands and what an employee must

possess to perform a job productively.

Job analysis is said to be providing base for human resource management by McCormick (1976).

Furthermore, it was found by Sanchez and Levine (2000) that role of job analysis in human

resources planning was integral. Other human resource activities can get affected by recruitment

process, performance appraisal, compensation and training & development on incorrect job

analysis.

In 1900’s, Job analysis was established as a management technique in the West. Job analysis

became one of the many tools, which enabled managers to understand the organization.

However, this advancement in human resource practice could not be

kept in practice in Pakistan till 2000 (one hundred years gap).

Furthermore, this paper provided foundation for future research in job analysis in Public Sector

hardly conducted on this area in Pakistan.

Literature review

Bowin and Harvey (2001) had discussed the significance of job analysis to human resource

management. According to Miyake (2002) giving ads for vacant jobs is a usual process to find

the right pool of candidates. He elaborated the selection tools such as conducting interviews,

application blanks and reference. These tests are aptitude tests, assessment tests, personality tests

and psychological tests. Kaplan and Norton (2004) identified some issues like ignorance in

planning, resulting in poor selection of employees due to poor job analysis.

Nyangaresi, Nejeru, Mutavi, and Waithaka (2013) elaborate that in this competitive

world, organizations need to select competent and skillful persons in order to develop and grow

as an organization. Khan, Ahmed, and Neogy (2011) did research on public sector of Bangladesh
and identified that in the public sector the HR departments are weak especially the department of

recruitment and selection. Rehman (2009) researched on HR practices in public sector of

Pakistan, which is very rare. He identified the importance of HR practices and selecting the right

person for the job.

BODY

Methodology

It is an important to assess the thinking patterns of the individuals working in the public sector

organizations and the various ideas of the workforce with the help of a questionnaire specifically

made for this purpose. The data was processed using SPSS. SPSS was only used for processing

the questionnaire and making tables. The research is purely descriptive and it does not require

any statistical tests.

Research design

The foundation of this research was laid on the assessment of job analysis of the public sector of

Pakistan. The research used a questionnaire which was distributed nine public sector

organization. Some brief interviews were also conducted from the sample.

Sources of data

In order to successfully conducting this research, both the types of data sources were used i.e.

primary and the secondary.

Primary sources
There are several techniques available to gather the primary data. The researcher used the

technique of questionnaire and few brief interviews in order to collect dependable and valid data

for the research.

Questionnaires. The researcher used questionnaire because they have proved to be a reliable

method for data collection. Evidence from the questionnaire survey can then be used mainly for

description, explanation or hypothesis testing.

Interviews. Few data gathering unstructured interviews were also conducted by the researcher

besides the questionnaires. The questions were the same as asked in the questionnaire.

Sample size and organizations

Most of the data was collected via the three following means:

(1) Survey for analysis (Questionnaire)

(2) Interviews

(3) Study of formal policies of few public sector organizations

Two hundred fifty questionnaires were distributed to 9 organizations and 144 responses were

received. The names of the organizations are kept confidential.

The methodical way for conducting job analysis includes gathering data that determines the

knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAOCs), required for accomplishing the

job in a successful manner and it also leads to developing job specification. Job analysis gives
way for making judgments on job related actions, tasks, behaviors and performance standards.

Furthermore, it also enlightens the organization to pin point the context of the job. In addition to

this, job analysis leads to identification of the personal requirements imperative to perform the

required job such as aptitudes, physical characteristics, personality, aptitudes, and most

importantly job-related knowledge and skills.

Recruitment and selection: Job analysis determines the KSAOCs vital and required for each

position. Job analysis sets the qualifications required for a job including minimum education,

certification, or licensing. The fundamental responsibilities of the job are also determined by job

analysis.

The requirements of the jobs determine the compensation provided to employees. The

requirements include educations, skills and experience needed to perform the job effectively.

Salary and other benefits can be now determined by the procedure of job analysis throughout the

organization. It provides the foundation for attaining understanding of the value of each job, its

relationship to other jobs, and the requirements essential to carry it out for all employees.

Human resources: Employers can make use of the technique of job analysis and recognize the

skills required to carry out various jobs. This set of information can be used to design training

and career development programs for the employees.

Performance evaluation: The standard performance level that is set should be derived from how

the employees are actually performing at the given job. Job analysis would contribute to

identifying the tasks and responsibilities the employees currently have as a part of their jobs.
Risk management: A key characteristic of job analysis is to identity job hazards. This includes

handling complicated machinery and flammable materials. This covers the aspects of health,

safety and security issues that an employee may be concerned with.

Job design: In order to enable the organization to accomplish its mission, jobs are designed

around a set of works activities. Organizations often have to change the structure of work tasks

due to external and internal changes carried out.

The main utility of job analysis is to develop job description and job specifications. In job

description the responsibilities, duties, and tasks related to the job are clearly mentioned. On the

other hand, job specification informs the employee about the KSAOCs that are needed to

perform the job adeptly.

A realistic approach of Job Analysis ensures maximum congruency between job content and job

context that is supportive of the recruitment process. The flaws in public sector’s recruitment

system occur when they independently deal with job content and job context. The job content

and context together determine the functions and functionality of a job.

The results of the current study supported the view that the role of job analysis is important for

both enhancing employee’s job performance through job satisfaction and turnover. Furthermore,

it was found that the employees that had high level of knowledge, skill and ability were better at

performing their jobs.

It can be said that the trend of job analysis in hope of carrying out a successful recruitment

process has found little success. Thus, other factors such as like job design, job evaluation, job

security and job succession planning, job satisfaction and job retention need to be observed as

well.

Apart from surveys, there were some brief unstructured interviews conducted from the same

employees who completed the surveys. The purpose of brief interviews was to complement the

questionnaire so that the researcher can correlate the answers of the survey with some more

details.

The findings of the interviews were matching with the survey conducting. The interviewees were

of the opinion that there are hardly any job descriptions made in public sector. Furthermore, on

asking question directly to some employees on job description, it was found from the employees

that,

they even have to write letters which is job of cleric level. Moreover, it was also found that

employees

have to do personal work of their directors who is a 19th grade officer, under him are, deputy to

director (18th grade) and assistant to director (17th grade). The employees do the personal works

of

their seniors because director has to write Annual Confidential Report (ACR) of the employees

and
promotion is dependent on this, so employees helpless for the sake of growth have to do work

irrelevant to their job description. Furthermore, it was also found out that there is hardly any job

description in public sector, which is ultimately, impacts the performance of public sector. The

results of the

survey and interviews are harmonizing to each other; both clearly indicate the problem of job

analysis in public sector organizations in Pakistan.y organizations therefore carry a job re-design

as a component of the ongoing process of Job

They do not

make proper job descriptions and employees tasks to match with the given job

description, which ultimately effects the performance of the public sector organizations in

Pakistan.

CONCLUSION

The process includes the step like HR planning attaining applicant and screening them. It is very

important activity as it provides right place at right time. if suitable employees are selected which

are beneficial - safe side but if decision goes wrong it can be dangerous.
The aim for this study was to critically analyse how recruitment and selection in the public sector

compare to current practices and therefore if based on professionalism, to know if training serves

as a guideline for applying the selection processes, to access if the process is based on Federal

Character Principles and to establish the consequences of doing recruitment and selection like

this and what to change for future successes. The analysis confirmed that recruitment and

selection is not a new concept in organizations

Secondly, the findings reflect that the Federal Character Principle which serves as a guide for all

the geopolitical zones in pakistan has not been well blended. In the analysis, we can deduce that

there is a form of bias and discrimination during this process which shouldn’t be. In the analysis,

there is a wide gap between the percentages of respondents that agreed that the Principle serves

as a guideline to those that did not agree.

The HR managers and recruiters still have so much work to do so as to ensure

that recruitment and selection stays effective. Another issue also has to do with the HR

management who is supposed to deal with the recruitment and selection

process. From the analysis, we could see that the number of respondents from

the HR department were very few. This means that the HR system is weak in

the first place and therefore do not have positive effect on its process. Another

issue that was denoted in the study was also on the issue of managers being

biased minded when recruiting and selecting candidates. They tend to select
people whom they know or are from the same region.

RECOMMENDATIONS and IMPLICATION

HR department is needed in every organization in order to function effectively in the area of

recruiting and selecting people into the organization.

• Candidate’s selection criteria must be modified in selection process.

• It is better to clearly mentioned job related aspects in the advertisement.

• The interview method must consist of more of situational exercises like overcoming

stress, risk taking ability, maintaining interpersonal relations etc.

• Active employee referrals must be rewarded.

• Aptitude tests must be used as a major selection tool for selecting fresh candidates.

• Recruiting yield pyramid can be used so as to calculate the number of applicants to

be generated to hire the required number of new employees.

• In order to generate more responses, Web being a cost-effective way to publicize.

The criteria for promotion should be specified at the time of interview.

• The right person will make contribution to your company productivity and

profitability and the wrong person can cost you a lot.

• Make sure selection process are fair open and transparent. Take a more structured

approach possible.

SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH/LIMITATIONS

The results of this research had provided a ground for further study. It was deducted during the

cause of the research that this depart is not as active as it should be. Hence, a research

should be done on HR department, why is it not active. Future studies should be carried out on

the labour market and why many are not qualified, claimed to have been spent on education,

training etc. Further studies need to be done to find out why workers are still not recruited and

also why people are been manipulated to positions instead of going through due recruitment and

selection process. Other topics of recruitment and selection such as job analysis, job description,

internal and external recruitment methods, shortlisting, planning and setting up interview can

also be included in future researches.

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Cherrington, D. (1995). The management of human resources

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