INEVRSIÓN BRUTA ESTIMADA EN %

One of the important management practices in volunteer management is the recruitment process in volunteer organisations. Literature shows that organisations face innumerable problems created due to the fast movement of volunteers and their short warranty. To

33

overcome this problem, different methods of recruitment need to be considered by the management of volunteer organisations (Sozanska et al. 2004). In fact recruitment is argued to be an important management skill. As a concept recruitment has been shown to play a leading role in managing volunteers in a number of ways including selection of volunteers, providing accessibility to volunteering institutions (McBride & Lough, 2008), replacing those who leave (Smith, 1998), seeking to employ skilled and enough volunteers (Brewis et al. 2010) and creating personal recruitment environment to attract and retain individuals who would otherwise shy away from volunteering (Handy & Cnaan, 2007). As a concept recruitment means the inclusion of a new individual as an addition to a population (Carr & Syms, 2006). Breaugh and Starke (2000) define recruitment as those practices and activities of an organisation that leads to identifying and attracting potential employees. These definitions indicate that recruitment is an important activity of an organisation which determines what kind of employees are brought into an organisation and such an activity could reflect on the management practices of an organisation. This implies that the quality of employees employed in an organisation could simply be dependent on the best practices followed by management in recruitment. These arguments apply to volunteering also.

There are a number of aspects that could impact an organisation if the management practices adopted by an organisation in the recruitment of volunteers are not appropriate. For instance, if the number of volunteers to be recruited is not properly estimated then it could result in either surplus recruitment of employees or under recruitment. In case there is a surplus then the employees will not have any job to do and in case there is under recruitment then the employees could be over worked due to multitasking. In both the cases it is possible that the employees are affected. This problem could be even more severe in the case of volunteering because in the case of volunteers there is a specific purpose behind recruiting them and such recruitment has the voluntary participation of people who do not anticipate anything in return. If there is an overemployment of volunteers then such volunteers who do not have any work to do could quit and if there is underemployment of volunteers then those volunteers could be over worked resulting in their dissatisfaction. In either case retaining volunteers could be a major problem.

34

Similarly if recruitment process is not systematized then where a large number of employees or volunteers are to be recruited then there could be chaos in the organisation. For instance if volunteers are to be recruited for mega events such as Olympics, then the number of volunteers required could run in their thousands and if computerized systems are not employed as part of the management practice then there could be many problems that could arise including selection, screening and orientation of the volunteers as well as assigning appropriate jobs for the volunteers. In such cases there could be lack of motivation and dissatisfaction in volunteers leading eventually to problems in their retention. In these examples it can be seen that management practices play an important role and such practices affect the recruitment process.

Although the concept of recruitment has been well discussed in the literature still there seems to be a gap in the literature in terms of lack of theories that could explain specific recruitment phenomenon. For instance Avery and McKay (2006) claim that there is still very little information in the literature related to fundamental practical recruitment challenges that have bearing on the best way to recruit diverse workforce using targeted recruiting. Similarly Faberman (2011) argues that economic theories do not address the complexities and informalities associated with the process of recruitment and are not able to completely formalize the concept of recruitment in a theoretical framework, thus making it difficult to predict how aggregate hiring could behave over time. These arguments are also relevant in the process of hiring volunteers. Although researchers point out that it is possible to apply some of the existing theories including economic theory and behavioural theory to explain the concept of recruitment (Faberman, 2011), one of the most widely suggested theories that could be applied to volunteer recruitment appears to the human resource management theory (Coyle-Shapiro et al. 2013). This theory is able to explain many aspects of recruitment which includes recruitment and selection techniques, the rules and regulations that affect the employment of volunteers and policies and procedures on volunteer separation (that is when and whether a volunteer should be allowed to go and under what circumstances (Coyle-Shapiro et al. 2013)). Example of application of HRM theory to volunteering could be seen in the research work of Cuskelly et al. (2006). However the research work of Cukelly et al.

35

(2006) was specific to sports in Australia and not in a context-free environment leading to one of the possible inferences that in volunteer research context-free concept has not been widely used although much of the volunteering takes place using multitasking volunteers.

Galindo-Kuhn and Guzley (2002) claims that recruitment practices have significant correlation to volunteer satisfaction (Galindo-Kuhn & Guzley, 2002). However Peterson (2004) argues that recruitment practices have direct bearing on the motivation of volunteers (Peterson, 2004). Contradicting both Galindo-Kuhn and Guzley (2002) and Peterson (2004), Wymer and Starnes (2001) argue that recruitment practices have direct bearing on retention which is in line with the research outcomes of Cuskelly et al. (2006). It is reasonable to conclude that researchers are not agreeing on a common conclusion on whether recruitment is linked to retention directly or to satisfaction and motivation. In the absence of a consensus amongst researchers, it is necessary to investigate the relationship between recruitment and retention on the one hand, and, recruitment and, motivation and satisfaction on the other. However considering prior arguments posited in this review, if satisfaction and motivation are linked to retention and these two constructs are related to recruitment, it is possible to think of a relationship between recruitment and retention with satisfaction and motivation playing the mediating role. This concept needs further investigation. Other important aspects that need to be considered while establishing the linkage between recruitment and different constructs are the type of volunteering needed such as part-time or full time, sources of volunteers, identification of skill-set of volunteers, method of recruitment and other challenges faced by organisations in the recruitment of volunteers. These aspects can affect the linkages between recruitment and other constructs.