Internal recruitment department

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As internal recruitment departments (in short: PVA) is defined as departments in companies or administrations whose central task is to workers who have lost their jobs due to operational reasons, to provide for vacancies within the company.

term

Internal recruitment departments aim to enable employees whose job is no longer due to operational reasons to change jobs within their company. They serve to avoid dismissal of the employees affected by job cuts to the external labor market . In many cases they are part of company agreements to protect against rationalization . Your operational task is to advise and qualify employees who lose their jobs and to find vacancies within the company's internal labor market. An essential feature is the identification as an independent department , which implies that it is a permanent organizational unit . Recruiting departments employed at least one person with the job of recruiting and coordinating job supply and demand within the company. Since the range of tasks of the recruiting departments can be compared in many respects with those of the Federal Employment Agency , they often refer to themselves as the “internal employment office ” of their company. They are usually introduced as part of a negotiation package by management and the works council and as a result of downsizing, whereby the design and form of the recruitment department depends on its bargaining power in the company and its financial and human resources.

General

A distinction is made between two organizational models in recruitment departments: the pool model and the agency model. In the pool model, the recruiting department takes on the role of an intermediate employer. After losing their job, the affected employees are formally transferred to the PVA and are considered to be employees of the PVA during the search for a new job . If the employees start a new position in the internal labor market , they are in turn transferred from the PVA to the new department. The right of direction and the disciplinary supervisory function over the employees is incumbent on the PVA. The agency model is used more frequently. The PVA acts as a placement agency in which the employees are not transferred to the PVA during the search and placement phase, but are formally considered employees in their old department until they start a new position. In this model, the right of direction and the disciplinary oversight function vary between the old department and the PVA. Often, however, mixed forms of the two organizational models are also used in companies, for example in that employees are temporarily transferred to the PVA and can return to the old department if the placement was not successful. Internal recruitment departments are an instrument of operational flexibility and are used to counter job cuts and the dismissal of employees on the external labor market. However, they are considered to be a subject of research that has not yet been well studied, both in a national and an international context. Although this instrument of operational flexibility is widespread in large companies and large public administrations and this topic is closely linked to the complex of issues of downsizing, it has so far only found its way into the literature and labor market research as a marginal phenomenon. This research gap can be explained by the fact that internal recruitment departments did not emerge until the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s, making them a relatively new instrument compared to other instruments and forms of personal flexibility.

history

Departments for recruitment in the internal labor market are a relatively young instrument for making operational flexibility and job security . Their emergence is closely linked to the development of social and employment plans and the associated discussion about “qualifying instead of firing”. So-called employment plans, which arose at the end of the 1980s as a further development of social plans , are a preliminary stage of PVA . Employment plans, like social plans, are initially an agreement between the works council and the employer . In addition to social plans, they contain operational measures to avoid job cuts in the event of operational changes and regulations to support internal job changes . In contrast to PVA agreements, employment plans do not contain a labor market concept with placement or advisory services, but mainly contain a bundle of placement-promoting instruments that are used in various forms in operational practice, paired with measures to diversify the company in order to cope with the development of new Business areas to create new employment opportunities in the internal labor market.

However, employment plans failed to meet the expectations placed in them. Today's modern PVA was developed on the basis of the experience gained with employment plans. An important stage of development is the inplacement approach, which was developed in the early 1990s. The focus is on a so-called inplacement center, which consists of various project managers and aims to keep employees in the organization who are unable to continue their jobs due to operational restructuring . It is supported and coordinated by a secretariat and includes rooms for consultations with those affected, who are supported there with the help of discussions, analyzes of strengths and weaknesses and training in skills and competencies. However, this concept has the conceptual weakness that it is assumed that there is extensive self-regulation of job changes, since the employees are not accompanied by the inplacement center when looking for a new position or applying. Another approach from 2001 includes detailed requirements for job placement in the internal labor market, with the focus on the company's personnel development department. The human resource development is the place where all important information about the qualification structure are collected new positions and changes and is endorsed and supported by appropriate deals and support the coordination of job offers and demands in the internal labor market.

Through these approaches, the concept of the personnel placement department was able to develop and increasingly be established in practice. Nowadays, three decades after the introduction of the first employment plans, numerous companies and administrations have set up their own departments to promote and coordinate internal transfer processes, thus continuing the tradition of employment plans as an instrument for securing employment in companies , whereby the central weaknesses of employment plans have been eliminated.

Diffusion and effectiveness

Internal recruitment departments can be found both in companies and in public administrations as an instrument for managing job cuts and restructuring measures. However, there are only a few well-known individual examples, such as Vivento from Deutsche Telekom or DB JobService GmbH from Deutsche Bahn. A quantitative study by the IAQ of the University of Duisburg-Essen has shown that 55% of PVA can be found in companies in the private sector, 45% in companies in the public sector or in public administration. The study identified various sectors in which PVA is increasingly to be found, such as the public core administration, university clinics / universities and companies in the energy industry . An important parameter for the existence of PVA and in order to be able to estimate its importance is the size of the company, as the establishment of such a department becomes probable from a number of approx. 1000 employees. Another study by the IAQ has shown that internal recruitment departments absorbed more than half of the involuntary loss of jobs in 2006, thus preventing a large number of redundancies . PVA also helps ensure that the employees concerned have greater chances of advancement when changing jobs internally than on the external labor market. Companies can use PVA as an instrument to increase flexibility in order to counteract downsizing and restructuring measures and to optimize the filling of positions within the company. The extent to which recruitment departments can enable staff to be reduced to the external labor market without layoffs is shown by the share of recruitment agencies in downsizing in companies and administrations, which was determined as part of the IAQ's WEGA project . This study shows that in the companies and administrations surveyed, 2.8% of employees lose their job in the course of a year, 55% of which are placed in a new position by the PVA and 45% leave the company. Recruitment departments can thus absorb job losses and form an important flexibility tool. This form of flexibility enables companies to cope with restructuring and offer their employees a relatively high level of social security .

Benefits and risks of recruiting departments

Studies of recruitment departments identify various advantages and risks that recruitment departments bring with them both for the respective company and for the employees concerned.

advantages

From the company's point of view, internal recruitment departments make it possible to place employees within the company and thus to optimally fill positions based on their skills. The internal recruitment of employees is also less risky for the company, as more information is already available about the working methods and skills of internal company applicants from other departments than about applicants from the external labor market. Internal applicants already know the internal structures , procedures and processes and do not need to be trained in these points. From the employee's point of view, PVA have the main advantages that they can expand their skills and knowledge through new positions and associated new tasks, they have the chance of advancement within the company, dissatisfaction in the job can be avoided and they discover new sides of the company get to know. Another advantage of the company-internal job change is the changed positive perception with regard to career expectation. The accompaniment of the job change through measures of the recruitment department means that employees express a higher subjective job security and higher career expectations after being transferred to a new department.

The job security argument

In essence, PVA were set up to remedy frictional unemployment by supporting the employees affected by downsizing in their search for a new internal position and, ideally, finding a job. In addition to the advantages just mentioned, the argument of safeguarding jobs and avoiding dismissals is particularly important. Studies have shown that PVA can make a significant contribution within a company to guaranteeing job security in times of restructuring and downsizing and to guaranteeing social security and protection against the risks of the external labor market. However, it must be noted that the establishment of a PVA in a company is the result of internal company negotiations, which move in the area of ​​tension between downsizing and maintaining social security.

Risks and Disadvantages

Internal recruitment departments are an important element of job security and make an important contribution to the social security of the employees concerned. In addition to the positive properties and advantages that they bring with them, negative aspects and risks can also be found. From the point of view of the company or the administration, there is above all the risk that they will only have access to a limited pool of applicants when filling a position in the event of an internal placement, as the search is limited to the internal job market. Although PVA generally claim to place all employees in new positions, they cannot guarantee placement, which means that they also have to deal with the phenomenon of unemployment among employees within the company. In-house placement is made more difficult, for example, if the importance of certain occupational profiles and positions within the company diminishes or they disappear completely. The PVA is also faced with a challenge due to a falling demand for simple jobs and an increased demand for more highly qualified jobs, as this creates surplus staff and jobs that are difficult to reconcile with the vacancies in the internal labor market. In addition to these structural barriers to placement, personal characteristics of affected employees, such as health restrictions or placement barriers, can make placement more difficult or impossible. It is important for recruitment departments to overcome these difficulties and to find solutions that make a successful placement of employees possible. Affected employees perceive a clear difference between the perceived and the actual "hardship" associated with a personnel placement. Although company or service agreements usually protect them from a loss of income or a deterioration in working conditions, the loss of a job and thus the transition to (temporary) unemployment is nevertheless perceived as harsh. For this reason, high expectations are placed on the PVA: employees of the PVA must be sensitive to those affected and perform trust-based mediation work in order to make the internal transition to a new job as uncomplicated as possible for the employees concerned.

The basic conflict

The main problem of internal recruitment is known as the basic conflict and consists in the divergence of interests in recruiting . Although recruitment departments are an important instrument for counteracting downsizing in the context of restructuring measures, their introduction and the establishment of such an organizational unit is also associated with considerable internal organizational conflicts. These conflicts arise from different interests between the actors within the company and the actors involved in the PVA. The result is a power play of interests which is reflected in the selection criteria when making decisions about hiring and reducing employees. Various actors are involved in recruiting who make decisions based on various criteria:

  • HR managers of the departments that hand over staff;
  • HR decision-makers in the receiving departments;
  • Personnel of the recruitment department who is responsible for the placement

Personnel selection in the event of job cuts is based on the criteria of performance . Recruiters tend to keep high-performing employees in their department and transfer those who are less powerful to the recruiting department. Employees who, for example, have fewer opportunities due to a lack of professional qualifications or health restrictions are considered to be less efficient and therefore difficult to place. In departments that have vacancies to fill, personnel are also selected according to the criterion of performance, but according to performance criteria to the contrary; the vacancies should be filled with employees who are as capable as possible. When filling vacancies, a distinction is made between two options: the search for the ideal candidate with the right skills for a position and the filling of an open position with high-performing employees from your own department in order to motivate them by recognizing their achievements and thus to the Tie department.

Consequences of the introduction of a recruitment department for the organizational structure

If it is usually one of the tasks of lower managers to fill positions in the respective department, this power of action and decision-making is largely transferred to them if a PVA exists. The lower executives want to compensate for the resulting loss of power by, for example, referring hard-to-place employees from their department to the PVA and, in return, demanding new employees with a higher level of productivity. Recruiting departments are heavily dependent on the decisions of other actors within the organization. Good candidates and vacancies determine the success and the ability to act of the PVA: If HR managers have already made a selection based on their interests, PVA are faced with the problem that vacancies are blocked by HR managers for their personnel selection or the employees are difficult to place because HR managers have already selected the employees. The results of personnel selection and decisions made by various actors are the greatest challenge that the recruitment departments face. With the introduction of PVA, HR managers have to accept that they do not have sole decision-making power and autonomy in HR decisions , which is a major problem.

Overcoming the basic conflict

In order to be able to overcome the basic conflict and to be able to carry out the placement of employees successfully, PVAs need a strong position within the company and on the internal labor market in the form of sufficient power, money and human resources. Power resources are of central importance for PVA: Within the company they need support and the backing of the company management in order to be able to expect acceptance from HR managers when making HR decisions. The transfer of internal advertising for vacancies to the recruiting department and the prohibition of hiring employees from the external labor market can also be measures on the part of the company to support the successful work of the PVA. Financial and human resources can also make an important contribution. For example, PVA need financial support to support affected employees with qualification measures for the internal labor market or to make them more attractive for vacancies in other departments. In order to support the affected employees with high-quality advisory measures, the PVA also has to have adequate staffing levels.

The "Lemons" effect

A so-called “Lemons” effect arises from this conflict and the associated selection of the best among employees. It describes the fact that employees who lose their jobs due to downsizing are associated with poor performance and are stigmatized on the external labor market with the term “Lemons”, in the sense of “ Monday cars ”. If this term is transferred to the internal labor market, it can be seen that employees who are looked after by the PVA are negatively typed within the organization, are less taken into account when making recruitment decisions and are thus systematically disadvantaged because they are associated with poor performance. Overcoming this aspect of the basic conflict is another challenge that recruitment departments and companies have to face if internal recruitment is to be implemented successfully.

See also

literature

  • Gerhard Bosch: Qualifying instead of firing. Employment plans in practice . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften (socially compatible technology design, 9), Opladen 1990, ISBN 978-3-322-97009-1
  • Brian R. Dineen, Juan Ling, Scott M. Soltis: Manager responses to internal transfer attempts: Managerial orientation, social capital, and perceived benefits as predictors of assisting, hindering, or refraining . In: Organizational Psychology Review . No. 1 (4), 2011, pp. 293-315.
  • Jens Finkemeier: What potential do internal labor markets have? In: Codetermination . No. 12, 2003, pp. 60-63.
  • Joachim Freimuth: Inplacement. A contribution to an anti-cyclical strategy in company employment crises . In: Zeitschrift für Personalforschung , 1994, pp. 75-88.
  • Hans Böckler Foundation: Internal job market cushions downsizing . In: Böckler Impulse. No. 4, 2011, pp. 6–7 ( PDF file )
  • Robert Gibbons, Lawrence F. Katz: Layoffs and Lemons . In: Journal of Labor Economics . No. 9 (4), 1991, pp. 351–380 ( PDF file)
  • Ines Herrwig: Personnel development and internal labor market . In: Bertelsmann Foundation, Faulth-Herkner & Partner and Walter A. Oechsler (ed .): Guide to Systematic Employment Management. Assistance for modern personnel management . Bertelsmann Stiftung publishing house, Gütersloh 2001, ISBN 3-89204-558-5 , pp. 213-286.
  • Gernot Mühge: Company employment security through internal recruitment . In: WSI communications . No. 64 (2), 2011, pp. 69–75 ( PDF file )
  • Gernot Mühge: Company employment security through internal personnel placement departments. The "Lemon Dilemma ". In: praeview . No. 5, 2011, pp. 22–23 ( PDF file )
  • Claudia Niewerth, Gernot Mühge: Departments for internal recruitment. Effective job security and a challenge for personnel management . In: IAQ report. Current research results from the Labor and Qualification Institute. No. 02, Duisburg 2012, pp. 1-17 ( PDF file )
  • Johannes Kirsch, Gernot Mühge: The organization of job placement in internal job markets. Models - practice - design recommendations . edition Hans Böckler Foundation, Düsseldorf 2010, ISBN 978-3-86593-151-1 ( PDF file )
  • Rainer Marr, Karin Steiner: Downsizing in German companies. Empirical results on causes, instruments and consequences . Deutscher Universitätsverlag, Wiesbaden 2003, ISBN 978-3-322-97833-2 .
  • Gernot Mühge, Johannes Kirsch: Effectiveness of job placement on internal job markets in Germany . 1st edition, Rainer Hampp Verlag, Augsburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-86618-698-9
  • Gernot Mühge: Micropolitics in personnel placement in the internal labor market . In: helex institut (ed.): Series of publications on labor market and operational personnel policy (Volume 2), Rainer Hampp Verlag, Augsburg 2018, ISBN 978-3-95710-214-0 .
  • Dieter Wagner, Gudrun Rinninsland: Social plan vs. Employment plan and internal labor market . In: Journal for Personnel Research. No. 4 (2), 1990, pp. 133-145.
  • Paul Windolf: Recruitment, Selection, and Internal Labor Markets in Britain and Germany . In: Organization Studies . No. 7, 1986, pp. 235–254 ( PDF file )
  • Carsten Wirth: Securing employment through job placement in the internal labor market: results of an exploratory study . In: Dorothea Voss-Dahm, Gernot Mühge, Klaus Schmierl and Olaf Struck (eds.): Qualified specialist work in the field of tension between flexibility and stability . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2011, ISBN 978-3-531-17859-2 , pp. 123-149.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Hans Böckler Foundation: Internal job market cushions staff cuts . In: Böckler Impulse . No. 4, 2011, p. 6.
  2. ↑ Gernot Mühge: In-house job security through internal personnel placement departments. The "Lemon Dilemma" . In: praeview . No. 5, 2011, p. 22.
  3. ↑ Gernot Mühge, Johannes Kirsch: effectiveness of job placement on internal labor markets in Germany . Rainer Hampp Verlag, Augsburg 2012, p. 13.
  4. ↑ Gernot Mühge, Johannes Kirsch: effectiveness of job placement on internal labor markets in Germany . Rainer Hampp Verlag, Augsburg 2012, p. 15.
  5. ↑ Gernot Mühge: In-house job security through internal recruitment . In: WSI communications . No. 64 (2), 2011, p. 69.
  6. ↑ Gernot Mühge: Micropolitics in personnel placement in the internal job market . In: helex institut (ed.): Series of publications on the labor market and operational personnel policy (volume 2) , Rainer Hampp Verlag, Augsburg 2018, p. 27
  7. ^ A b Brian R. Dineen, Juan Ling, Scott M. Soltis: Manager responses to internal transfer attempts: Managerial orientation, social capital, and perceived benefits as predictors of assisting, hindering, or refraining. In: Organizational Psychology Review. No. 1 (4), 2011, p. 295.
  8. ^ Rainer Marr, Karin Steiner: Downsizing in German companies. Empirical results on causes, instruments and consequences. Deutscher Universitätsverlag, Wiesbaden 2003, p. 6.
  9. ^ Gerhard Bosch: Qualifying instead of firing. Employment plans in practice. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften (socially compatible technology design, 9), Opladen 1990.
  10. ↑ Joachim Freimuth: Inplacement. A contribution to an anti-cyclical strategy in company employment crises. In: Zeitschrift für Personalforschung, 1994, p. 85.
  11. ↑ Gernot Mühge: Micropolitics in personnel placement in the internal job market . In: helex institut (ed.): Series of publications on the labor market and operational personnel policy (volume 2), Rainer Hampp Verlag, Augsburg 2018, p. 20.
  12. ↑ Ines Herrwig: Personnel Development and Internal Labor Market. In: Bertelsmann Foundation, Faulth-Herkner & Partner and Walter A. Oechsler (ed.): Guide to Systematic Employment Management. Assistance for modern personnel management. Bertelsmann Stiftung publishing house, Gütersloh 2001, p. 247.
  13. ↑ Gernot Mühge: Micropolitics in personnel placement in the internal job market. In: helex institut (ed.): Series of publications on the labor market and company personnel policy (Volume 2), Rainer Hampp Verlag, Augsburg 2018, p. 11.
  14. ↑ Gernot Mühge: In-house job security through internal recruitment. In: WSI communications . No. 64 (2), 2011, p. 70.
  15. ↑ Claudia Niewerth, Gernot Mühge: Departments for internal personnel placement. Effective job security and a challenge for personnel management. In: IAQ report. Current research results from the Labor and Qualification Institute. No. 02, Duisburg 2012, p. 14.
  16. ↑ Gernot Mühge: Micropolitics in personnel placement in the internal job market. In: helex institut (ed.): Series of publications on the labor market and company personnel policy (Volume 2) , Rainer Hampp Verlag, Augsburg 2018, p. 19.
  17. ↑ Gernot Mühge, Johannes Kirsch: effectiveness of job placement on internal labor markets in Germany. Rainer Hampp Verlag, Augsburg 2012, p. 71.
  18. ^ Marjorie Armstrong-Stassen: Job Transfer during Organizational Downsizing. A Comparison of Promotion and Lateral Transfers. In: Group & Organization Management. No. 28 (3), 2003, p. 410
  19. ↑ a b c Gernot Mühge: Company employment security through internal personnel placement . In: WSI communications. No. 64 (2), 2011, p. 74.
  20. ↑ Gernot Mühge: Micropolitics in personnel placement in the internal job market. In: helex institut (ed.): Series of publications on the labor market and operational personnel policy (Volume 2) , Rainer Hampp Verlag, Augsburg 2018, p. 110.
  21. ↑ Gernot Mühge: In-house job security through internal recruitment. In: WSI communications. No. 64 (2), 2011, p. 72.
  22. ↑ Gernot Mühge: Micropolitics in personnel placement in the internal job market. In: helex institut (ed.): Series of publications on the labor market and operational personnel policy (Volume 2), Rainer Hampp Verlag, Augsburg 2018, p. 13.
  23. ↑ Gernot Mühge: In-house job security through internal recruitment. In: WSI communications. No. 64 (2), 2011, p. 72.
  24. ↑ Johannes Kirsch, Gernot Mühge: The organization of job placement on internal job markets. Models - practice - design recommendations. edition Hans Böckler Foundation, Düsseldorf 2010, p. 26.
  25. ^ Paul Windolf: Recruitment, Selection, and Internal Labor Markets in Britain and Germany . In: Organization Studies. No. 7, 1986, p. 237.
  26. ^ Hans Böckler Foundation: Internal job market cushions downsizing . In: Böckler Impulse . No. 4, 2011, p. 7.
  27. ↑ a b Gernot Mühge: Company employment security through internal recruitment. In: WSI communications. No. 64 (2), 2011, p. 73.
    Carsten Wirth: Securing employment through job placement in the internal labor market: results of an exploratory study. In: Dorothea Voss-Dahm, Gernot Mühge, Klaus Schmierl and Olaf Struck (eds.): Qualified specialist work in the field of tension between flexibility and stability. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2011, p. 137.
  28. ^ Robert Gibbons, Lawrence F. Katz: Layoffs and Lemons . In: Journal of Labor Economics. No. 9 (4), 1991, p. 352.