HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT STRATEGY IN PRISON ORGANISATION -AN APPRAISAL

Introduction:

Human resource management (HRM) is the creation, development and maintenance of an effective workforce, matching the requirement of the organization and responding to the environment (Naylor, 2004). It is in this context, as a part of HR practices, it is rightly pointed out that, Effective recruitment and selection strategy are the keys to the success of any organization. Recruitment consists of activities intended to identify sources of talent to meet the needs and then to attract the right number and kind of people for the right jobs at the time and places. The most important challenges in the recruitment and selection is finding and keeping the right people.

            ‘Right person approach’, ‘Culture fit model’ and ‘flexible person approach’ is the recruitment strategies followed in any organization (Price, 2004). When people are selected with required capabilities, they can perform the job without any training. Hence organizations prefer the right person, who has the capabilities, to do their job. For example, if the senior management recruits people who are already Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) qualified, they no need to give personality development training. This will reduce the training cost of the organization. Hence every organization will recruit the right person for the right job.

      Large organizations have multiple jobs. If they recruit people with multi capabilities it can help them to switch over their jobs. Many organizations have multiple jobs. For example in prisons, they need people who are CIPD qualified to train the managers and team members. They are also needed people who are National Vocational Qualified to train prisoners with arithmetic’s and basic qualifications which will enable the prisoners to get job when they go out of the prisoners. Hence if they recruit people who are both CIPD and NVQ qualified personnel, it will help them to switch their jobs when there is a demand in certain places. Culture fit model will enable people to recruit people with multiple capabilities.

        Flexible person approach is the most competitive advantage for any association. It will enable organization to recruit people to adapt even for the future changes. This will be most suitable for prison recruitment and selection strategy because senior management of ‘Cell Block’ is to restructure their organization in the future. If they selected flexible employees, they can adapt better even for the future changes. Moreover, they also need people to be flexible with prisoners because some of the prisoners will be mentally retarded, affected and drug addicts. Hence senior management need employees to be flexible with those prisoners to get work done form them and also need to train them so that they can get job outside when they go out of the prison. This reflects a long – term strategy, geared towards realizing talent for tomorrow’s requirements. Organization should identify a range of individuals required for the future. They will require training and development.

There are numerous ways in which we can recruit employees to fill the job vacancy. However, if we use the wrong type of media, we can end up spending a lot of time re-advertising, re-interviewing or employing the wrong person. Advertising job vacancies is the right type of selecting employees because it clearly describes the responsibilities involved for the job (Graham and Bennett, 1998). Interview is another important parameter to recruit right person for the right job because it is the two way selection device; applicant learns about the job and the manager learns about the applicant.

           Recruitment agencies and job centre will recruit and generally keep an up-to-date database of experience potential employees. They take the time out of advertising, interviewing and selecting candidates, and can hand you a ready made employee to fit your job specification. They offer part full-time candidates. If a specialist candidate is required, a job agency has the expertise to attract the right person. Newspaper or specialist magazine, this is an method as it reaches a large audience in a short space of time, often resulting in a significant amount of interest.

            One can also target an area or specialist profession as there are multitudes of magazines and newspapers on offer to choose from. However, you may find that the more specialized or selective you become, the more you have to pay to the advertisement, so it can work our quire expensive. Additionally, if you want to attract the right candidate, you need to have some publishing skills to produce an attractive advertisement. You can of course use a specialist publishing company to design the right ad, but this will again cost you money.

            In the recruitment process the candidates who either charted institute of personality and development (CIPD) qualified or prepared to undertake the training are to be recruited. Because, these candidates can easily understand the prisoners since they have the direct impact on the work while undergoing the training. Person recruited to the organization should purely be on the basis of personal qualifications that suit the nature of job and not directing towards their genders, ethnic, age and other relative factors .

            Selection completes the stage of creation of the workforce. The prison managers have to select the staffs and other employees from among the pool recruited. The HR manager has to short list the candidates for the selection process. Selection is a process of ensuring that the candidate has a precise picture of what the organization is offering, so that applicant can make a sensible choice, and that the organization effectively evaluates and appoints the best possible candidate for the particular position (Voss et al, 1992).

            Selection is a decision making activity, if the recruitment process is open, selection decision making normally take place (Townley, 1994). Right person approach is entirely concerned with the individual. The person chosen is the one who fits. Organizational selection strategy implies the need for particular kinds of work to be done with the right kind of people. Selection is the process of searching for and then identifying an appropriate match between the individual, the job, the work group, and organization.

It is clear from the discussion that, Recruitment and selection are thus separate but related efforts. Attention must be paid to all the internal elements of the selection system. Identification and approval of new positions, for example, must be well – coordinated, streamlined, and expedient, yet sensitive to budgetary limitations. The interviewing process and methods need to be determined. Their conformance to federal and state legal requirements is extremely important.

            The main aim of recruitment strategy is not to focus on whether a particular candidate is selected but to concentrate on whether a particular set of selection procedures will generate revenues.  The utility model enables the organization to select high performing applicants with good attributes.  Selection utility model can be viewed in three dimensions namely quantity, quality and costs.  Quantity refers to the number of staffs to be recruited.  Quality refers to the resources utilized for the selection procedures.  Benefit/cost ratio can be determined based on the number of vacancies filled.  More the number of vacancies filled and longer the employee stays in a prison more the benefit/cost ratio.  More the number of vacancies in prison more the quality of applicants selected.  Costs need to be subtracted from the gains to calculate the net gain of selection procedures (Cooper et al., 2003).  Hence when the numbers of applicants required are more, company can benefit much both in cost and quality.

          Price (2006) argues that cognitive schema as a selection strategy to select the right candidate for the right job in which the psychological aspect of beliefs and attitudes are rightly measured.  Cognitive schema measures the intellectual ability of a person, which is used to perform the day-to-day tasks (Cooper et al., 2003).  For example, prison employees organizing a working event for prisoners, managers’ interacting with field based teams to solve a problem requires intellectual ability.  Hence it is necessary to test the intellectual ability of a person. The various ways of measuring the intellectual ability are discussed below.

          The human resource manager can adopt various selection strategies such as psychometric tests, interviewing, and assessment centres according to the position they are selected.  Before the candidates are interviewed for selection they have to pass a fitness test which is based on the functional capabilities for the work of a prison officer. The standards for the fitness test have to be set by the HR department.  The HR department can conduct more than one interview to identify the right candidate.

           Training is essential to successfully handle the employees.  Staff training programmes should pay particular attention to international standards on human rights and treatment of prisoners, and aim at developing the skills necessary to respect these standards in daily practice. 

Rees and Mcbain (2004) argues that the employees must be trained in such a way that they understand the issue and the reality (the prison environment they supposed to work), the choices available to them and the commitment they should show towards the work in training and mentoring the prisoners. 

          In this regard, it is expressed that, great interest in the manual on human rights training for prison staff.  Development training for specialist and senior staff need to be given training about the core business of the prison as well as in their own interest.  Such staffs also need to be given regular training about the developments in their own specialist field so that they do not lose touch with new thinking in their field.  As public servants, prison staffs are entitled to expect an appropriate level of salary, reasonable working conditions and recognition of the public service which they provide.

            The prison employees have to work as a team and focus on the end result.  The aim was achieved by training and gaining CIPD qualification.  The Chartered Institute of Personal and Development (CIPD) is the professional body for those involved in the management and development of people .There are about 127,000 members in the CIPD; the aim of the CIPD qualification should undergo a training to achieve the qualification in the prison this increases professional HR service in prison.

          With such a study on ways of improving the human resource and organizational development activities keeping in mind about its past and current activities and security issues, the prison in the case-study could promote an efficient and reliant work force and a preferring work environment; there by enabling the HR managers and organizational development managers to meet their objectives.  All this could be done more effectively only with an indigenous Human Resource Management team.  To make it brief, the management should follow an effective human resource strategy to meet the prison objectives.  The selectors while selecting candidates should ensure appropriate selection methods and should avoid discrimination based on sex, race, disability or criminal history.  Competition among applicants for employability in prison should be fair and open.  All regional and ethnic groups should be made aware of the vacant posts.  Care needs to be taken while interviewing candidates.  For example, selectors should not ask the female candidate about childcare arrangements, plans to start a family etc.  Care needs to be taken to monitor the induction period and ensure any abuse action should not take place.

           Human mistake is a reason in many accidents.  Mistake can only meaningfully be applied to planned actions that fail to achieve required things.  It is commonly believed that effective training is an essential in successful health management in prison.  One of the complexities of health and safety training is difficult to separate the effects of training from the other factors that influence safe behaviour.  There are many other influences that can affect an individual’s performance.  Behaviours learned during formal periods of training must be practiced.  A health promotion policy based on self-determination and the development of self value faces clear problems.  For example prisoners attempted suicide and violence, all of which can be seen to be indicators of basic mental health problems (Bird et al, 1999).  The qualified employees will meet the objectives of the prison organization.

REFERENCE:

Bird, L, Hayton, P, Caraher, M, McGough, H, Tobutt, C (1999), “Mental health promotion and prison health-care staff in young offenders’ institutions in England”, The International Journal of Mental Health Promotion, Vol. 1 No.4.

 Business bureau (Online):

www.businessbureauuk.co.uk/growing busness/recruitment/recruitment methods.m(Accessed on 06.08.07)

 Chartered Institute of Personal and Development (CIPD) (2007) (Online) www.cipd.co.uk (Accessed on 08.08.07)