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I will look Into the current employment legislation that organizations are faced with in regards to recruitment, 1 OFF (HOC) adopts, considering how I can make appropriate recommendations to improve the process as a whole as well as keeping the process compliant with the legislation. Investigate personnel requirements and undertake a Job analysis for an identified post. The importance of recruiting the right caliber of people for an organization is essential for many reasons, decreasing staff turnover, organizational costs, morale in existing workforce and the overall added value to organizational strategy and goals.
Whilst I was researching which potential vacancy to use as the basis for completing this assignment, I immediately thought of a vacancy within the HRS department that would be described as business critical to the HOC, the position is HRS Pensions Administrator. The Requirements of the HRS Pensions Administrator The post is the only resource allocated to pensions administration in the HOC, with a responsibility for compliance with legislative requirements, HUMOR regulations and for compliance with the requirements of the Pensions Regulator.
It is a standalone post, with day to day responsibility for the administration of the pension agreements for over 1500 members, as well as liaising with the local Government Pension Schemes which we have inherited. They are also responsible for providing first line support to the Secretary of the Trustees, including day to day management of scofflaws, investment arrangements and liaison with the Scheme Actuary and other professional advisors. The peashooter is responsible for processing HOC Scheme joiners and leavers and is first point of contact for scheme members in relation to all pension enquiries.
They are also responsible for ensuring that all Scheme benefits (normal, retirements, Ill health retirements, death in service and other early retirements) are calculated accurately and paid in a timely manner. Taking the findings from the Job analysis and the information gathered by the different techniques used, I concluded that the reasons above explain why this specific post is equines critical to the organization and that the post holder requires specific technical skills and experience needed to fulfill the entirety of the Job successfully.
To investigate exactly what this post entails and to complete my Job analysis, I exercised a few different techniques to obtain the information required; Interview – I set up an informal interview with the post holder to capture a good background of the Jobs expectancies, who the main stakeholders/customers are and how stressful a job it is. This technique was the most helpful when putting together my Job Description and Personal Specification, as I was able to establish the main pinch points, as well as the most important requirements needed for this particular post.
Observation – I thought shadowing the post holder would be way of attaining the Job from a practical aspect. I found this to be an particularly worthwhile technique to gain more information I require for my Job analysis, you really get a feel of the day to day tasks involved, the conversation’s you have with customers/stakeholder, the pressures of the Job and how this post fits in with the other departments within the organization.
Diaries, Logs and Journals – This post requires an extremely organized proactive person, there are a number of ‘pinch’ points that are critical to the post and flow chart as an example of the type of tasks involved. (Please refer to Appendix 1). Job Description for HRS Pensions Administrator and Personal Specification – Please refer to Appendix 2 For the Personal Specification I chose to use a well-known system known as ‘Rogers Seven Point Plan (1970)’ as well as Hack’s competencies to outline what the ideal person for the Job would be.
Personal specifications have to be prepared and used carefully. In particular, it is important to ensure that the essential or desired competencies do not lead to unlawful discrimination against potential applicants. Examine Employment legislation with regards to recruitment Evaluate current employment legislation as it affects recruitment and selection of personnel The Equality Act came into play on 1 October 2010, its main aim was to make the framework more efficient, simpler and more consistent at how employers can prevent discrimination.
There have been recent changes to the act to make it much more streamlined and to strengthen the law on equality overall. The Equality Act covers the following groups of legislation * age * disability * gender reassignment * race * religion or belief * sex * sexual orientation * marriage and civil partnership * pregnancy and maternity The list of groups above are now known as the ‘Protected Characteristics’ I will now chose a selection of the groups above and explain how they impact the recruitment and selection in my organization.
Disability “Disability in employment terms refers to physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse affect on a person’s ability to carry out normal ay-to-day activities. ” (CUPID Recruitment & Selection) As the HOC is a public sector body, we as a HRS department or even on a wider scale, the organization as a whole has a duty of care to be as compliant with all forms of law and legislation. If we are found that we are not compliant we would have to answer to the Unions as well as the Government itself.
It would also leave us open for grievances and tribunals that can destroy an organizations reputation as an employer. The HOC are members of the ‘Two Ticks’ Positive about Disabled People Scheme, this is where a disabled errors is guaranteed an interview if they meet the minimum criteria for the Job. Its main aim it to stop the recruiting managers/employers using disability as a disadvantage to potential candidates. In our process we incorporate into the short- listing stage so that the recruiting managers are aware of which applicants have with a note at the bottom to advising or should I say reminding them of best practice.
If they do meet the minim criteria and therefore invited to interview, we then ask the candidate if there are any reasonable adjustments we need to make to accommodate hem at the interview stage so no one is disadvantaged in any way. For example, we had a candidate who was dyslexic, met the essential criteria and invited for interview. As it was quite a high profile Job, they we required to attend an assessment day. In order to make it a fair assessment we made reasonable adjustments to give the candidate more time when reading and completing certain tasks.
I do think that HOC as an employer adheres to the scheme and certainly takes it very seriously. Although, I would go a step further and suggest that we (HRS) keep the copy of the highlighted arm and send the recruiting manager a short-listing form without the disabled candidates highlighted (if any). That way there will be no way the recruiting manager can indirectly discriminate or think they have a duty to short-list the disabled candidates even if the criteria has not been met.
Age Discrimination The Age Discrimination Act is there to protect people of all ages. When advertising as an employer we have to take age discrimination into account, we make sure we avoid words such as young and dynamic’ as this may indicate that we are looking for someone of a certain age. Even the placement of an advert needs to be Justified, if you place an advert in a publication or website that only a certain age group look at that may be seen as indirect discrimination.
Therefore, when writing Job adverts for the HOC we focus on the skills attributes needed to fulfill the Job. We use the same methodology through to the selection process, at no point to we ask the candidate their age or D. O. B or direct any question or reference to the subject. This is to ensure that all candidates are treated fairly as possible and to give every candidate equal opportunity for being selected. Pregnancy & Maternity This protects women during pregnancy and throughout her Maternity and to any statutory Maternity leave she is entitled to.
An employer is not allowed to discriminate against you if pregnant or on maternity leave, examples of this type of discrimination are; * For asking to take time off to attend ante-natal classes * because you are unable to do your Job during your pregnancy for health and safety reasons * because you asked to take maternity leave or you are on maternity leave. * By not giving you what you are entitled to whilst pregnant or on maternity leave If n employee feels they have been treated unfairly because of being pregnant or on maternity leave they could raise a grievance or submit a claim too tribunal.