Exploring Job Design, Staffing, and Christian Worldview
Exploring Job Design, Staffing, and Christian Worldview
Tina S. Gaffey
School of Business, Liberty University
Author Note
Tina S. Gaffey
I have no known conflict of interest to disclose.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Tina S. Gaffey,
Hardy’s Connection of Vocation to Job Design and Employee Engagement/Retention
Society today, looks at vocation as a job not a calling in life. Hardy explains that vocation incorporates everything humans are including work roles, personal roles, responsibilities, and religion, which are all part of the calling God gives and asks to practice in his name (Hardy, 1990). Hardy’s explanation of why people take a job such as money or status motivation or why people leave a job possibly too many hours or no job satisfaction aligns well with human resource issues of job design and employee engagement/retention.Hardy highlights that while God gives all of the necessary abilities and aptitudes for whole vocation, humans then should encourage and explore those not based on what society says to do with work or personal life, but the spirit inside (Hardy, 1990). According to Hardy (1990) “people nowadays go through four or five career changes in the course of a lifetime” (p.87). This means that, not everyone finds their job vocation early on, they may find it through trial and error, listening to their inner vocation, or understanding how their job fits in the larger vocation of their life.
Human resource departments should look at job design as well as employee engagement and retention with an open mind. While Hardy emphasizes the idea that often employees, young or old,may not understand their abilities, strengths, weaknesses, or aptitudes, God and others may see this more clearly (Hardy, 1990). Person-job fit is crucial to an organization and ensures the people with the right skills, knowledge, and abilities are in the right position, many times employees may not understand why they are being moved to a different position or responsibilities are being added or removed, but HR professionals have a responsibility to employees and the organization to assist both (Valentine et al., 2020). Similarly, job rotation may be an opportunity for employees to find their strength and job calling. HR departments often do this to develop an employee’s skillset, create flexibility for the company, and have employees with diverse capabilities which is ultimately an opportunity to retain employees (Valentine et al., 2020). Salient research from Nelson and Duxbury (2021) suggests that looking at generational employees is important. Generation x is looking for a flexible work environment while generation y is looking for more balance to their daily workload, but both identified the importance of opportunities to grow and learn, at their companies, as a major factor stay factor (Nelson & Duxbury, 2021). Employee retention takes more than employee lunches and a paid vacation day, it is about the entire work experience. Retaining employees requires training and developing them for further positions within a company, HR can encourage this process by helping employees create a strategic plan for success (Valentine et al., 2020). Employer policies and practices must also be ethical and fair, with legality being implied, for employees to feel safe, treated equitably, and look forward to a long career with a company. With career or job being just a small piece of human vocation, HR professionals must make sure they and the organization are working with employees, who are not machines,to understand they have further lifecomponents to their vocation that must also be tended to.
HR Implications on Recruiting and Selecting Employees
Gone are the days of newspaper recruiting, now employee recruitment is dynamic, varied, and strategic. HR professionals must plan for employee recruiting and company needs while spreading the word about the positive brand of their company, which makes a big impact on hiring (Valentine et al., 2020). Understanding diverse employee groups, the labor market, and where to find employees are valuable and important to organizational needs (Valentine et al., 2020). Also, matching a potential employee’s skills, knowledge, and abilities or SKAs to that of the job or company position posting would be highly beneficial for HR departments to ensure best fit recruitment and hopefully long-term employment. Many companies are using technology, to their advantage, for recruitment efforts such as online job boards, website postings, and social media sites where not only can they portray their brand image more easily and effectively, but it is also a much cheaper and flexible opportunity (Intindola et al., 2019). Applicants, however, find online efforts for recruitment, to be diluted with unnecessary information that may deter or distract them from the actual requirements of the job (Intindola et al., 2019).
Secondary hiring steps, to recruitment, is the selection process where many federal regulations and guidelines impact proper hiring practices (Valentine et al., 2020). Selection should include fair application/resume review, standardized interview questions, tests, and background checks so there is consistent and equal selection for all applicants (Valentine et al., 2020). HR departments should have a selection process, that works for their organization, when filling job positions as well as a strategy as often hiring takes weeks to months (Valentine et al., 2020).
References
Hardy, L. (1990). The fabric of this world: Inquiries intocalling, career choice, and the design of human work. William B. Erdmans.
Intindola, M. L., Lewis, G., Flinchbaugh, C., & Rogers, S. E. (2019). Web-based recruiting’s impact on organizational image and familiarity: Too much of a good thing? International Journal of Human Resource Management, 30(19), 2732-2753. https://doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2017.1332672
Nelson, S., & Duxbury, L. (2021). Breaking the mold: Retention strategies for generations X and Y in a prototypical accounting firm. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 32(2), 155-178. https://doi.org/10.1002/hrdq.21414
Valentine, S.R., Meglich, P.A., Mathis, R.L., & Jackson, J.H. (2020). Human resource management (16th ed.). Cengage.
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