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Human resource management generally accounts for around 50% of total company expenses. Despite this cost, the process is often overlooked. Making sure to find the right employee-organization and employee-job fit will save both sides a lot of time and money. The cost of turnover for a company often reaches 200% of the positions salary, which demonstrates an obvious need for care in this process, as it is something a company does not want to have to do often. The following graph, from workforce.com, demonstrates the cost of human resource functions based on employee turnover.

To improve this process, I have developed two main recommendations to better the recruitment and selection processes.

Create a complete list of KSAO’s and TDR’s necessary necessary for the position in order to attract the best candidates.

One of the most common reasons for turnover is unforeseen job tasks, duties, and responsibilities. A company obviously wants qualified candidates, so the description given of main responsibilities may be accurate, but they tend to sugar coat the more mundane aspects of the job. This leads to the employee being surprised with things that they did not know they would be doing, and often times become upset. Being completely transparent with these responsibilities will lead to attraction of only the candidates that believe they are fit for all aspects of the position and will result in no surprises once they begin working for the company.

Develop a reliable and valid initial assessment process in order to select the best candidate.

Even when companies devote a substantial amount of money to the selection process, they do not take the time to assess the reliability (extent to which it is consistent) and validity (extent to which it is accurate) of their process. Some of the most used selection criteria include level of education, reference checks, and the initial interview. Although these may be some of the easiest methods, they all have low to moderate reliability and validity. It has been shown that the low use method of biographical data has high reliability, and validity, as well as utility. These questions regarding background, interests, values, and needs work well because it is thought that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.

Final thoughts

The selection process is not only something that is important to the immediate success of the company due to the performance of the individual selected, but is also something that can save the company a substantial amount of money in the long run, in the form of decreased turnover, if the right person is chosen.

Please feel free to comment on this post if you have any questions or comments about employee selection, as I will be glad to further assist you in this process.

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