Challenge and Practice in Recruitment and Selection

1.0 INTRODUCTION

JSI is a public health international humanitarian organization. It was established before 40 years as a management consulting firm named in honor of Dr. John Snow, the "father of modern epidemiology." Based in Boston, with 4 U.S. and 22 international offices, JSI and JSI Research and Training Institute - its non-profit affiliate - are dedicated to provide quality technical and managerial assistance to health, family planning and environmental programs around the world.

Currently JSI is implementing a ten year project named, the Last Ten Kilometers Project (JSI L10K Project) since January 2008. The project currently has seventy employees, both in the main office and in the field offices.

The Last Ten Kilometers Project (L10K Project) has been awarded to JSI Research & Training Institute, Inc. (JSI) to achieve sustainable reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health (RMNCH) improvements in Ethiopia. The Project is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This project is being implemented in four regions in Ethiopia namely Amhara, Southern Nations and Nationalities People, Tigray and Oromia regions.

1.1 Statement of the problem

Based on the student researchers' team informal discussion, additional scheduled meeting and planned interview with the HR manager and operations director, it is found out that the current recruitment and selection process in the project have the following problems:

 Existence of relatively high turnover in low skilled employees.

 Use of local news paper as a means to advertise the vacant positions for high skilled employees.

 Absence of written policy for internal recruitment.

 Use of only unstructured interviews for selection of candidates.

 Absence of timely orientation for new employee.

 Poor hiring practice using employee referrals.

1.2 Objective of the study

General Objective of the study: -

 To assess and evaluate the organization's recruitment and selection process.

Specific Objectives:-

 To highlight the recruitment and selection trends of the organization.

 To assess the different methods of recruitment and selection in the organization.

 To make constructive recommendations for the improvement of the organization's recruitment and selection process.

1.3 Significance of the study

The significance of this study paper is:

 To indicate the seriousness of the impact of recruitment and selection process in productivity.

 To assess the problems and challenges of current recruitment and selection practice.

 To enable the organization in designing better recruitment and selection procedure.

1.4 Scope of the study

This research project covers two main areas of the organization's strategy i.e. recruitment and selection. It would have been a deeper and an extensive one if it could have covered all the projects of JSI in Ethiopia. But due to shortage of resources and lack of enough time to cover all of them, the researchers are compelled themselves to focus on only one project, JSI/L10K project.

1.5 Limitation of the study

We, the student researchers' team, have encountered limitations to fully indicate the practices and challenges of recruitment and selection in the specific project. This is mainly because although we have used both interviews and questionnaire for head office staffs, we have only used questionnaires as a means of collecting information from regional office staffs. It was not possible to conduct interviews with these regional staffs due to geographical limitation. Furthermore, this study is prepared during a limited time period due to a lot of factors that affect the smooth running of the paper work. However, we have tried our best to get as much information as possible to do this research paper.

1.6 Research methodology and design

Different data collection methods which could be suitable for the successful accomplishment of the research design are used so that they could provide the necessary information for the proper performance of the research. The design includes quantitative and qualitative data which is simple for analyzing and interpretation.

1.7 Sampling Methods and Sample Size

The sampling method that has been applied in survey of data was simple random sampling technique. The sample size of respondent group is listed below. We select the respondent from head office and field office staff.

Samples No

Operations Director 1

HR Manager 1

Assistance HR Manager 1

Regional office Manager 2

Admin and account officer 2

Office Assistance 3

Grant Manager 3

Other (Guards and liaison officers) 7

Total 20

Table 1.Sample size

1.8 Data Collection

Both primary and secondary data relevant to the study are considered. Interview and questionnaire are used as primary source of information gathering method, and the organization operation manual is used as secondary data gathering method for our research paper.

1.9 Method of Data Analysis

The data is collected and analyzed through different methods using tables, mathematical calculations and appropriate explanations of the corresponding tables supporting them with ratio analysis.

1.10 Structure of the Study

The paper will be comprised of four chapters. The first chapter is the introduction part which includes background of the study, statement of the problem, objectives of the study, significance of the study, scope and limitation of the study, and research methodology. The second chapter will comprise relevant literature review. The third