HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE

Health and Social Care

Health and Social Care

Assessment Criterion 1.1

Recruitment is no doubt one of the most important functions of MHR and planning of it requires the consideration of many factors. Two of those factors that influence the kind of recruitment plan a health and social care organization enacts are organizational policies regarding recruiting and budget and time frames.

Organisational recruitment policies may vary from internal recruitment to external. Some organisations have a policy of developing their human resource by providing opportunities for growth to the existing employees and spend on training and development programs to prepare employees for higher level jobs while others would prefer external recruiting and recruit new people to bring in diversity and new ideas.

Budget and time frames also affect the recruitment plans of a health and social care organisation. For example, an organisation having restricted budget and less time for recruiting will not consider advertising openings and waiting for applicants to submit applications. They would rather go for employee referrals or public employment agencies which refer applicants at no cost to expedite the process.

Assessment Criterion 1.2

Selection, recruitment and employment of individuals are clearly defined by the legislative and policy frameworks of the country and organisations have to follow them in the process. In UK, equal opportunity to all regardless of their caste, creed, sex or religion is a governing law and thus this is to be guaranteed at every stage of the recruitment and selection process. The country's Equality and Diversity Policy and Race Equality Scheme and the relevant Equal Opportunities legislation influence the entire recruitment process.

Assessment Criterion 1.3

There are many approaches that are used to ensure the selection of the best individual to work in health and social care. Shortlisting applicants and interviewing are two of the common approaches used for the selection of candidates (Foot & Hook, 1999). Shortlisting requires the selection of those candidates that possess those essential and desirable criteria of the organisation and eliminating those who do not match the essential criteria. The strength of this approach lies in saving time to call each and every applicant for further consideration and selection. The problem in this approach lies that a candidate that may have a potential to succeed may be rejected on the basis of lack of opportunities that he/she might have got in the past. Also it is problematic to shortlist when there are either too many applicants or not enough (Thomas, 1998 pp. 179-181)

Interviews are regarded as the most traditional selection method which provide the interviewers to judge the candidates and have a look at them but sometimes the experience of an interview is stressful for the candidates and they are not able to keep and their confidence and are then not selected for the position. Also in terms of health and social care, interviews do not provide an opportunity to test the ability of a person to handle a critical situation which may arise especially for ...