SELECTING PEOPLE

Selecting right people for jobs and positioning them in right places plays an important function in deciding whether they are giving their best performance to the organization. Selection strategies perform a vital role in new organizations and in fast expanding organizations. The proper selection of the new entrants ensures to build a desirable culture and establish norms in the organization. If the organization has had a fairly long history, and it has smaller intake, it may be a complex task to influence the organizational culture. However, the culture y prevalent in the organization would influence the new entrants’ orientation in spite of very careful selection

A efficient and effective system of selection and placement assists to achieve the following objectives:

• The employees feel satisfaction that the organization is properly utilizing their capabilities. This feeling raise the morale among employees result in higher levels of commitment and 
  productivity.
• The department or units within an organization get supply of the right type of people in a short period of time. Such prompt action boosts up the morale of the departments as the needs of the 
  units or department are being heeded to more promptly. 
• Minimizes the wastage of human talent, through providing opportunities for people to apply their capabilities.
• This provides existing employees opportunities to work on jobs that they prefer and are capable of performing and minimizes the wastage of human talent. This also encourages the 
  commitment of employees to a high level.
• The proper system of selection makes available data about all employees and their capabilities to facilitate human resource administration.         

One inappropriate person chosen for a given job or one improper placement can create a number of issues in an organization. The significance of selection and placement enhances as one move up the managerial ladder. An inappropriate person selected to conduct a higher managerial position can hinder the functioning of other departments and managers. If he is not fit to discharge the responsibilities assigned, he may become a drag on the organization and a source of frustration for his colleagues, and once a feeling of frustration sets in, it is likely to cause problems later. An organization should, therefore, ensure that suitable people are recruited even if it involves some investment.

Making a match between the man and his job involves the following:   

•    The person occupying a particular role, job or position has the technical, managerial and other capabilities needed to perform the functions connected with that job
• If he does not possess some of them, he has at least the potential to develop them within a reasonable period and the organization is willing to invest in his development.
• The person has an opportunity to acquire new capabilities and also apply his capabilities in performing the functions assigned to him and does not have feeling of his talents being wasted i.e., the organization is capable of absorbing the development of capabilities of its members through its own growth and change.

This consist the following activities on the part of the organization:

• Prepare an exhaustive list of jobs and job linkages.
• Prepare an exhaustive list of functions or operation associated with each job.
• Listing the capabilities (knowledge, skills, attitudes or values) needed to perform each function in mutually exclusive categories as far as possible. These capabilities may be certain
• Make a list of the indicators for each of these capabilities in the form of degree earned, courses attended, training programs attended, work experience, performance in tests, observed behaviour, previous job records, accomplishments etc
• Determining the ways of assessing the capabilities through the indicators generated.
• Actual selection beginning with making the job opportunities known to all potential applicants, shortlist candidates  by screening the applications, determining their potential through test and other similar selection procedures.
• Final selection and placement.

An efficient and effective selection system generates enough of information about a candidate. Such information pertains not merely to his capabilities to perform functions associated with the immediate job but also with his potential to perform higher level functions in future. This needs some understanding of career ladders for different roles/role occupants. However, most selection systems handle immediate needs of an organization Because of lack of foresight and planning, organizations create issues of stagnation and frustration among employees which could be reduced by a carefully planned and executed selection system.