1 THE STRATEGIC HRM IN RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION PROCESS ON LOCAL NGOS IN CRISIS CONTEXT (NORTHEAST SYRIA) Student’s Name Institution Instructor Course Date 2 Table of Contents Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………. Background of the Problem………………………………………………………………… Problem Statement………………………………………………………………………….. Literature Review…………………………………………………………………………… Literature Gaps……………………………………………………………………………… Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………. References 3 THE STRATEGIC HRM IN RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION PROCESS ON LOCAL NGOS IN CRISIS CONTEXT (NORTHEAST SYRIA) Introduction Given the current issues facing non-Governmental humanitarian organisations in crisis in northeast Syria, various aspects need to be controlled. This work seeks to strategically deliberate the significance of Human Resource Management in humanitarian business. Therefore, issues affecting people, in this instance, Human Resource Management issues, would require precise human resource process interventions to suit the Non-Governmental Organisations' needs. A very vital and particular element is the strategic recruitment and selection process in NonGovernmental Organisations. Hence, this study critically focuses on the importance of strategic recruitment and selection processes and practices in Local Non-Governmental Organisations in Northeast Syria (NES). There is a lack of sufficient studies that look at the effect and application of hiring candidates in the organisations that fit the dimension in the recruitment and selection function, specifically in NES Local Non-Governmental Organisations. The study used an analytical methodology to describe and define the strategic effects of human resource management to handle this issue; moreover, the study focused on the significance of human capital and organisational culture and approaches as mediator variables relevant for this assessment. Sampling for this work considered the enormous numbers of people working with the international and local Non-Governmental Organisations in Northeast Syria. The study assessed the present challenges and restrictions associated with the recruitment process. This work provided critical analysis, some significant outcomes, and offered conclusions that might aid the efforts of the NGOs to manage the hiring process. Background 4 The future of northeast Syria (NES) remains unsettled after ten years of crisis and the international coalition led by the United States intervention to combat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). It also faces the various divergent interests of powerful external actors, including the presence of Russia and Turkey. Many factors contributed to the region's instability, especially after the Turkish invasion in October 2019, which led to vast numbers of displaced people (Barry, Breese and Hriesh, 2021). Additionally, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has complicated the living conditions due to closure of markets, lack of supplies, and instability of the Syrian Pound against the United States dollar. According to Barry, Breese and Hriesh (2021), the Deir Ez-Zor and Raqqa provinces have experienced massive urban destruction more than other areas in North-Eastern Syria due to Islamic State in Iraq and Syria control in 2014. Even before the conflict in Syria, a local civil society environment did not fully exist independently and openly on the ground (Barry, Breese and Hriesh, 2021). Due to the historical lack of locally-led civil society organisations (CSOs), there remain critical gaps in organisational capacity across the region (Barry, Breese and Hriesh, 2021). According to Barry, Breese and Hriesh (2021), despite the significantly increased reliance on civil society efforts to protect, serve, and support civilians on the ground with programmatic funding from international donors, North-Eastern Syria has remained separated mainly from the rest of the country. As the local context continues to change and evolve, international donors are increasingly important to integrate more comprehensive monitoring and evaluation considerations across local programming to track impacts, achievements, and challenges accurately. Additionally, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact the region and cause most project activities to transition online, skills around digital security, online marketing, and distance-based online coordination are more important than ever. With these needs in mind, strategically designed 5 capacity-building initiatives can help CSOs adapt and evolve themselves in ways that enable them to better support and protect the local communities they work to serve. Problem Statement According to the views of Ekwoaba, Ikeije and Ufoma (2015), recruitment and selection are the two phases of the hiring process, but there is a difference between both. The first is looking for the candidates to fill identified vacant and attracting them to apply for jobs in the organisation. The recruitment procedures include some steps to choose suitable people for open positions. The main goal of recruitment is to attract and collect talented candidates to support selecting the most qualified candidates to fill vacancies in the organisation (Ekwoaba et al., 2015). Then the selection process aims to choose the right and the best candidate for the organisation. In other words, the right person is in the right place."The more effectively organisations recruit and select candidates, the more likely they will hire and retain satisfied employees. In addition, the effectiveness of an organisation's selection system can influence bottom-line business outcomes, such as productivity and financial performance" (Ekwoaba et al., 2015). In order to avoid some problems from the beginning as it is starting from the recruitment process. The ideal recruitment effort will attract many qualified applicants as stated by Ekwoaba et al. (2015). It should also provide information so that unqualified applicants can self-select themselves out of job candidacy. A good quality recruiting program advert should catch the attention of the qualified and not the unqualified through practical job specifications and explanations (Ekwoaba et al., 2015). Recruitment follows selection procedures that are divided into two categories at the end of every selection process: selected and not selected. In contrast, the selected group will move ahead for an official appointment. According to Kumari and 6 Malhotra (2013), efficient recruitment and selection strategies enhance organisational outcomes. Hence, selection errors and factors such as the halo effect, nepotism, and favouritism must be avoided. The main problem is that with the existence of policies and procedures, the human resources department suffers from the problem of applying policies correctly and objectively. In other words, the selection of employees is not based on the competencies and personal capabilities of the candidates or the work requirements as written in the job description. It is affecting the business widely and from many sides, starting from choosing not right persons for the suitable places and will affect the quality of work and will need more training for them to learn and be able to do the job or also will not adapt the work environment which will lead to replacing them and will cost the organisation time and energy and also financially. It ends with affecting the organisation's reputation locally and internationally with their agreement and working with international donors and organisations that provide funds for them that will not accept problems with their partners. They are not following any straightforward approach in their work; it is mixing between best fit or contingency approach and best practice approach. The HR department plays a marginal role in the organisation. HR management is only doing administration part of their function within organisation strategy rather than having HR strategy to intervention with business strategy to lead the organisation to achieve the goals."SHRM aims to provide a sense of direction in an often turbulent environment so that organisational needs can be translated into coherent and practical policies" (Armstrong, 2006). According to Armstrong (2006), human resources depend on the business strategy to prepare their administration function for the auditing purpose regardless of the result. It is 7 affected by the environment, leading the Human Resource Department to find a contingency solution that mitigates the risk of affection for the whole business. Choo (2001) maintains that environmental Scanning is about "the acquisition and use of information about events, trends and relationships in an organisation's external environment, the knowledge of which would assist management in planning the organisation's future course of action." Scanning can be as simple as reading the business press right through to undertaking market research. The more uncertain the environment, the greater need to scan. Choo (2001) maintains that Scanning tends to improve organisational performance. Theoretical and critically advise Human Resource to prepare more Human Resource formative and policies that will match the environment and culture, following the Best Practice approach. According to the Best Practice model Guest (1989), there is one approach to HR strategy incorporating high-performance workplace cultures that is suitable in nearly all organisational and environmental settings. Literature Review Conditions for people in Northeast parts of Syria continue to deteriorate years into an external conflict that resulted into killing of thousands of Syrian population, particularly children and teenagers. According to Smidt, conflicting parties continue to breach United Nations Security Council resolutions and international humanitarian laws by targeting innocent civilians and civilian infrastructures, including houses, marketplaces, schools, and hospitals, with lethal unexploded ordnance (2020, p. 352). According to Kew and Stredwick (2016), the widespread loss of documents obstructs residents' ability to move freely inside the area in northeast Syria, making it more difficult for them to reach safe locations, get help, and eventually seek refuge. Meanwhile, as there is demand for basic employment and other services like health and educational needs, and as livelihoods 8 grow, the availability of employment for more than the existing 4.6 million northeastern Syrians seeking employment in the regions is dwindling. Access to residency and work is limited due to human resource management issues within Non-Governmental organisations, and poverty rates are at an all-time high due to a lack of employment occasioned by human resource procedures that continue to hit northeastern Syria. To make matters worse, human resource management has made more northeastern Syrians to deplete their financial gains and resources and are still sinking immensely deeper into debts. As noted by Barry, Breese and Hriesh (2021), this is forcing the northeastern Syrians to accept being exploited at their working stations and also forcing those impoverished parents across the region to children into labour conditions that are exploitative in addition to forcing desperate mothers and young girls into engaging in early marriage. This also forces men, adults and young women, including children across northeastern Syria, to attempt to cross over and reach Europe, including other third world countries, by using various illegal channels, which put their personal lives in great danger. As already repeatedly stated that as northeastern Syrians, Syrian nationals, and all the various international non-governmental institutionss in the extraordinary processes of providing all the necessary employment assistance to a majority of the northeastern Syrians affected by the severe northeastern Syria crisis, only political solutions and an termination of the conflict in the region can spare the Syrian civilians suffering from further violence, misery and trauma. However, as the Vienna course, which began in the month of October 2015, may result in such results, Syrians' immediate humanitarian, health, protection, educational, and livelihood requirements may not be put on wait while national or regional leaders, including the international leaders attempt to resolve their disagreements. 9 A generation faces extinction in employment status since six million youngsters commonly affected by the violence require immediate employment intervention and humanitarian aid. Additionally, more than half of northeastern Syrian refugee children do not attend school due employment statuses of their parents that are because of the human resource crisis facing the region. Furthermore, 30% of crisis-hit northeast Syria refugees have special needs. Almost one northeastern Syrian refugee in every five has either physical, cognitive disability or sensory disability, necessitating urgent and long-term efforts for everyone to gain access to resources. Furthermore, the development of the community's capacity to actively engage and equip itself, and empower a crucial generation of youth capable of rebuilding their communities in the future, societies, and economies is vital to the region's current and future stability. It is dependent on the human resource structures that affect employment status in the whole region. According to Smidt (2020), the United Nations' Humanitarian Response Plan for Syria and the 3RP Regional Refugee & Resilience Plan, 2016-2017, must be adequately supported across all sectors and for all host countries in order to meet the needs of northeastern Syrians who are living in war through increasing access to employment despite the challenges facing the region(p, 358). The study urges the global community to be significantly ambitious in its international goals and commit itself to deliver 'compacts' that aim to improve the protection of northeastern Syrians in their employment quest, educational empowerment to increase employment terms through bargains for better employment, and economic possibilities which can be achieved through better employment opportunities which can be achieved through increased employment terms. 10 The environment will see several stakeholders playing a pivotal role in the NGOs' culture and strategies in northeast Syria. A stakeholder is "any group or individual who can affect or is affected by achieving the firm's objectives" (Freeman, 2010). According to Freeman (2010), stakeholders can be internal, whose interest in an organisation comes through a direct relationship with employees and donors. Or External stakeholders, who are those who do not directly work with an organisation but are affected somehow by the actions and outcomes of the business, for example, beneficiaries and local community and local authorities(Johnson and Scholes, 1997).. However, not all stakeholders are equal. Some are much more important to the organisation than others. The relative importance of stakeholders can be analysed using Stakeholder Mapping (Johnson and Scholes, 1997). In the views of Johnson and Scholes (1997), donors and employees are internal stakeholders who are significantly impacted by the associated concern and its performance since they have a direct relation with business, donors' interest to survive and develop business for future, and employees have the interest to continue the work and get salaries with developing the business which will improve his competencies as well. Beneficiaries and local community / local authorities are external stakeholders. They are usually a person or organisation affected by the business's operations. They do not have a direct relationship with the business, and they are interested in receiving benefits from continuing the operations and improving their economic and community situation. Sometimes they directly impact the organisation, for example, the local community and authorities, which affect the organisation by their rules and regulations, which will affect their level of working and intervention styles. Organisations have many challenges against their stakeholders' interests. For instance, the organisation needs to adopt policies and work styles with local authorities (external stakeholder) rules and regulations. 11 Both stakeholders are essential, and organisations should take responsibility for them by continuing business operations since it relies on their abilities to achieve goals and keep motivating them in business not to change dealing with it and save them for a long-term relationship. Especially some stakeholders have a massive effect on business, affecting Human Resource Management and organisation strategy, local community and authorities are controlling the community which will be able to stop or improve organisation business which will need a high level of taking care of their relationship to be in top of consideration. In all, organisations will need to manage the interests and expectations of all their stakeholders successfully. 12 References: Armstrong, M., 2006. A handbook of human resource management practice. Kogan Page Publishers. Barry, S., Breese, T. and Hriesh, M., 2021. Institutional development in North-Eastern Syria: Lessons from Iraqi Kurdistan and Kosovo. Ekwoaba, J.O., Ikeije, U.U. and Ufoma, N., 2015. The Impact of Recruitment and Selection Criteria on Organisational Performance. Freeman, R.E., 2010. Strategic management: A stakeholder approach. Cambridge university press. Guest, D. (1989) Personnel and HRM: can you tell the difference? Personnel Management. Johnson, G. and Scholes, K., 1997. Exploring Corporate Strategy, Fourth Edition. Kew, J. and Stredwick, J., 2016. Human resource management in a business context. Kumari, N. and Malhotra, R., 2013. A Study of the Recruitment and Selection process: SMC Global. Zenith International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, 3(2), pp.244-254. Smidt, H.M., 2020. United Nations peacekeeping locally: enabling conflict resolution, reducing communal violence. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 64(2-3), pp.344-372.
