Background and Rationale

Background

The recruitment practice is one of the key, functions of the human resource department that primarily entails conducting a job analysis, identifying and attracting potential candidates through networking, screening the candidates using various tests and developing a person specification, matching the candidates to the job requirements. It also involves conducting induction and onboarding of new employees and lastly assessing motivational aspects of the candidates and how they fit in the organizational requirements (Kumari, 2012, pp.36). Kumari, 2012) argues that it is essential for the human resource department to put into consideration the scope of the job in question, the corporate culture of the concerned organization and the need of diversity before deciding on whether to recruit either internally or externally (Kumari, 2012, pp.38).

Shafique (2012), suggests that there exists a consensus that strategic human resource management practice within any given organization requires to put more emphasizes on the importance of formulating effective organizational strategies and objectives that are aimed improving the performance of the concerned firm (Shafique, 2012, pp.888). According to Schweyer (2010), the ability of a company to meet the strategic objectives and business planning needs both at the business unit, and corporate levels are significantly influenced by the recruitment decisions made by top managers and the human resource department of the company (Schweyer, 2010, pp.53). Internal recruitment helps in identifying the right people for the right job and who will steer the organization to prosperity. Internal recruitment is one of the best ways of ensuring that high caliber staff exists in the firm (Schweyer, 2010, pp.55).

Various advantages emanate from internal recruitment practice within a firm. For instance, internal recruitment helps an organization in reducing the total amount of time it spends in the hiring process thus facilitating faster achievement of short and long term objectives (Shafique, 2012, pp.889). Secondly, this practice is relatively cost-effective than external recruitment since it helps in reducing the expenses incurred in an advertisement on social media platforms. Thirdly, internal recruitment helps in strengthening the level of employee engagement within the firm thus acting as a motivational method for the existing employees (Jones et al. 2012, pp.269). Moreover, it significantly shortens the onboarding time of the employees since the hired workers are already familiar with the workplace environment.

On the other hand, internal recruitment comes along with several disadvantages (Jones et al. 2012, pp.269). For example, it limits the pool of applicants that the company has access to thus reducing its ability to extensively exploit diverse talents in the external labor market who may be more qualified than those existing internally (Panaccio and Waxin, 2010, pp,53). Secondly, internal recruitments are results in the creation of another gap within the firm in the sense that an employee leaves an open position after being promoted (Panaccio and Waxin, 2010, pp,53). Thirdly, internal recruitment contributes to continued stagnation of the available culture in the sense no new ideas are brought into the company from outside human resources (Simula and Vuori, M., 2012, pp.1240013). Furthermore, this practice increases the potential of animosity emerging within the workplace as a result of promoting one person over another and even reduce the level of commitment of the employees who have not been promoted but were looking forward to getting such promotions (Simula and Vuori, M., 2012, pp.1240013).

Some of the critical legal issues that emerge from the internal recruitment practice in a company include privacy whereby any confidential information that is provided by the candidate during the internal recruitment process is not supposed to access to any unauthorized individuals both within and from outside the company (Van Biezen and Piccio, 2013, pp.29). Moreover, as required by the BC Human Rights Code, the company is not supposed to supposed to publish any job posting that is designed to give preference to a group of employees within the company on the basis of color, race, religious background, sex or age as this results to discrimination during the internal recruitment process (Weiss, 2014, pp.49). Additionally, legal implications also arise during the interview process of internal recruitment thus it is a legal requirement to ensure that none of the questions asked is discriminatory in any way (Weiss, 2014, pp.53).

Today, the job market is offering a lot of job opportunities in Human Resources, and I believe this topic is relevant to my work experience and Sociology degree. Sociology as a discipline helps in facilitating broad and detailed examination of the human social interaction and the various rules and regulations that tend to either separate or guide a group of people or institutions (Buettner, 2015, pp.4610). Thus, given the nature of my career and job which involves facilitating effective project planning and development, this study topic is increasingly important for study as it will contribute to the existing knowledge on how projects can expertly be planned, developed and implemented within a company through the help of excellent taskforce (Buettner, 2015, pp.4610).

Sociology as a field has in the past two decades received a lot of concerns from the managers who still question its contributions in facilitating active recruitment of the employees from the existing labor market (Buettner, 2015, pp.4610). However, most of the recent findings have provided significant evidence on its contribution towards the development of high-quality human resources or talents that are capable of assisting the company in achieving its organizational goals and objectives (Buettner, 2015, pp.4610).

Research Question

The study will primarily focus on the below questions:

General Question

What are the main advantages and disadvantages of internal recruitment in a company and the possible legal issues that are likely to emanate from this practice?

Specific Questions

Which are the benefits of implementing internal recruitment as the primary strategic human resource plan of sourcing the best candidates to fit in the vacant positions available in the company?

What are the shortcomings that emerge as a result of internally recruiting the candidates meant to fill the vacant job positions in the firm?

Which are some of the legal issues that are likely to arise as a result of internal recruitment in an organization?

An in-depth analysis and exploration of these questions will help in increasing the limited available knowledge about internal recruitment practice within the organizations. Moreover, detailed and comprehensive discussion of these research questions will assist in setting an excellent foundation for theory building on how internal recruitment can help a company gain a competitive advantage over its rivals in the ever competitive business environment both locally and internationally. Moreover, these research questions will assist in identifying some of the critical legal issues that a company which opts to use internal recruitment may face in the long run. These issues are fundamental and worth critically being explored in the effort of increasing the organization’s ability to achieve its goals and objectives through the help of the best human resources that it can manage to get in the labor market (Wilton, 2016, pp.69).

Research Methodology

Some of the theoretical resources that I will use to draw more evidence on my study topic include empirical scholarly works such as case studies, research articles and company reports from human resource departments that have relevant information about some of the most reliable theories that can help critically discuss the topic about internal recruitment and the some of the possible legal issues that arise from this practice (Verkerk and Lindemann, 2011, pp.94). The Matching Theory or Model which helps in illustrating the importance of maintaining and aligning the organizational structures and employees with the existing organizational goals and strategies will form the primary theoretical framework of this study (Reina and Vera, 2015, pp.155011).

I will use the phenomenological method as one of the qualitative research methods in which I will conduct cross-sectional survey and interviews in the effort of making inferences about the population of interest which in this case are the internal employees who go through the internal recruitments process. This research method is the most fit for this study due to its numerous benefits such as it helps researcher get a deeper understanding of issue being researched on, allows the researcher easily notice the existing trends in the data being collected, gather enough evidence that may result to development of new theories and help in effectively identifying the current misconceptions about the topic being studied (Fisher Jr and Stenner, 2011, pp.93).

Plan of Work and Time Schedule

The below table shows the work and time schedule the is intended for this study which will start of March 2019 and end in February 2020.