Flexibility and Recruitment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Flexibility and Recruitment - Essay Example 8). To understand the concept of flexibility Atkinson's model of flexibility is very useful and of paramount importance. He explains four kinds of flexibility, which firms may achieve, namely functional flexibility, numerical flexibility, pay flexibility and distancing flexibility. Functional flexibility is identified as a qualitative approach to work, and talks about management's ability to organize and reorganize particular segments of the labor force on a broad variety of tasks in reply to market demand when needed (Sparrow 1998 cited in Teicher & Holland 2006 p. 241-242). The workers are given proper training in a broad number of skills in order to make its achievement certain. The unpredictable nature of consumer demands of the products makes this type of flexibility to continue in the market. And similarly with the changes in consumer demands the technology used by the labor would also have to change making this type of flexibility to come handy for the employers (Mathews 1989 cit ed in Teicher & Holland 2006 p. 242). Numerical flexibility is identified as a quantitative approach to labor consumption. To achieve this type of flexibility the size of labor force is amended to the levels of economic activity at short notes (Atkinson 1984 cited in Teicher & Holland 2006 p. 242). Management has a choice to amend or reorganize its human resources according to the workload rise and fall. Casual, part-time service providers and sub-contractors usually offer this type of flexibility (Morehead et al. 1995; Burgess 1997 cited in Teicher & Holland 2006 p. 242). Distancing is graded as a secondary type of numerical flexibility, which involves the outsourcing of certain activities that may consist of core and non-core activities. The process of associating the non-core processes to the subcontractors is well instituted (for example, cleaning, food preparation and safety) and the improved outsourcing of usual core actions, principally in the human resources part (Herriot 19 98; Fisher et al. 2002 cited in Teicher & Holland 2006 p. 242), helps the diminution of the core or permanent staff. Financial flexibility is a payment structure which is supposedly designed to make the progress of numerical and functional flexibility possible. It allows the market forces to state their pay rates for the external workforce and gives the opportunity of increasing the nature of skills which the core labor has (Teicher & Holland 2006, p. 242). With the increasing demand of flexible workers through out, the hiring process has proved to be very difficult for the Human Resource professionals. Different strategies are being sought by the professionals to overcome the difficulties during the process of recruitment. Temporary workers are hired through the process of either formal or informal recruitment. However nowadays it is being hard for the hr professionals to hire these temporary workers. Formal Recruitment is one form through which hiring is done by these professionals. In this kind of process the nature and the requirements of the jobs are posted over different forms of media inviting the individuals who are deeply interested in the job. Thus an intermediary is selected by the formal recruitment team and this role of intermediary can be played either by the media or an agency (Marsden and Campbell 1990). The date and the location are usually set up by the company who is recruiting and both these factors are kept